Puzzles, Riddles, and other Egnimas
[Floor]
One thing I really love in role play is puzzles. Things like deciphering a secret code or finding out the password to a computer. The feeling of achievement you get after solving a tough puzzle is really awesome, and if it is a team effort it can be a great bonding experience for the whole group.
When DM-ing my own campaign I like to put in puzzles now and then because I know how much I like them myself but creating a good enigma for the characters is hard. Of course I could just Google some riddles or puzzles but if I can find it, so can the players and on top of that it also feels like a cop out to give them a premade puzzle.
The biggest problem I run into when creating a puzzle is finding the right difficulty. A puzzle always seems easy while making it but retracing my labyrinthine thought process is very difficult to my players for some reason ;-p. This was made perfectly clear to me by the last rather flawed puzzle I introduced into my game.
The puzzle was a chessboard that had a couple of pieces on it in a rather bizarre formation that even allowed for two pieces to occupy the same square. The idea was that the algebraic notation of the pieces made up words in leet using both the letter and number of the notation. The puzzle turned out to have way to many variables for the players to deal with. I ended up letting them roll a lot to give them the hints they needed to eliminate variables to a point where this puzzle actually made sense to someone outside my brain. I’ll keep things a lot simpler on my next attempt!
I’d love to hear about your encounters with riddles in the campaings you play or run and if you have any tips for creating them.
Here are some great sources for riddles and puzzles and also some tips for creating your own:
http://savagelegend.com/misc-resources/classic-riddles-1-100/
http://www.adnddownloads.com/riddles_traps.php
http://www.catb.org/esr/riddle-poems.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson169/WriteARiddle.pdf
http://askthedm.com/2012/05/08/puzzles-and-traps-in-roleplaying-games/