>Dungeon has a riddle
>Asshole player looks up the awswer between sessions
Or even worse
>Asshole player looks up the awswer mid session
How to avoid this?
Be original?
Make up a riddle on the fly
>Asshole player looks up the awswer between sessions
Come up with a unique riddle, or at least flair it to where it can't be Googled easily. Or tell the guy to stop being a metagaming cunt.
>Asshole player looks up the awswer mid session
No phones allowed at table, or at least during this situation.
>>46818793
>Cellphones off policy
>Pulling out a phone causes save vs random spell policy
>sit down with your layers and talk to them policy
>sit down with your players and hit them policy
>>46818793
Tell them to bugger off?
Inform them that if they intend to act against the spirit of the game, or allow others to do so, you will too and then shit will get bad for them?
Make sure they know that you will give them an out if they cant answer it and will accept logical answers?
>>46818793
Don't use riddles.
They pull players out of character, they are often roadblocks that stall the game arbitrarily, and they don't add much.
In fantasy narrative, riddles are used to show the protagonist's intellect in comparison with other characters; the trope of the riddle exists primarily for that purpose. By making players solve a riddle, as opposed to running it off character ability, you effectively fail this.
Riddles that players solve are in most cases bad ideas.
Change the solution so that the old, vanilla solution will horribly fuck you up. Of course, the solution still has to make sense, but fiddling with premade riddles shouldn't be that hard.
The player who's metagaming will be punished, and he either stays quiet and stews or he cries foul and reveals eveyone that he's doing that shit. If nobody's metagaming, nobody will even notice.
>>46818907
What if the point is to challenge the players rather than their characters?
>>46818930
Arm wrestle them.
>>46818930
Give them a math problem.
>>46818930
Riddles, although a fantasy staple, don't usually end well. It's a lot harder than most people give credit to craft a good riddle. Either you end up with something that's already been done (and someone can just look up online), is stupidly easy, or is horribly obtuse (and will just stall your game).
>>46818930
At that point you're no longer role-playing as someone else
That's fine, and if you have knowledgeable player stuff like that can be fun, but you've turned the RPG into a trivia board game at that point
I can't do trig in my head, damn right the 23 int wizard I'm playing can
You need an all or nothing attitude when it comes to characters using player knowledge
You can absolutely do a game where there's no knowledge skill checks and you expect people to learn it, but that's not very fair since they don't actually live in that world like the character does
Also a hundred times out of a hundred you're not as clever as you think you are and your riddle is shit
>>46818793
best answer is to not make it a riddle, make it an obstacle instead.
my go-to example is a stone plug.
I.E.: "The hallway is blocked by a stone block that is at least 10' tall and 10' wide, same dimensions as the hallway itself, you are not sure how deep the block is as you cannot see around it."
That's it. it may not seem like a terribly hard riddle since the solution is obvious, to continue on into the deeper sections of the dungeon, you need to move the block. But the trick comes when they have to figure out 'how'. Depending on what level they are and the composition of the party, they may not have access to spells to move it, or perhaps the tunnel is unstable and they have to be careful about what spells they DO try and use because it might cause the tunnel to collapse, turning what on the surface appears to be a dirt-simple riddle into an adventure unto itself. The best part is that there is no right or wrong answer to this 'riddle' so there's nothing to look up, they will have to work this one out on their own.
>>46818907
I let PCs with high int and wis do a skill check to get clues.
Don't play with assholes. Alternatively don't use riddles.
Preferably both.
>>46818793
Don't accept the answer, make them roll wisdom for it.
>>46818930
Do it outside an environment where the core principle is "getting into any headspace but their own".
Roleplaying is about getting into the mind of a character, engaging the player explicitly works against this.
If you're looking to engage the players intellect, then I suggest that instead of bringing a tabletop roleplaying game, you just bring pic related.
>>46819117
I'm not a good riddle-crafter myself, so I tend to use puzzles. But my puzzles tend to be more along the lines of getting the players engaged in creative problem solving.
>"You come across a riddle."
>"I try to solve it."
>"Make an Intelligence check."
It's not like you ask your players to actually disarm traps IRL.
>>46819209
If the clues don't more or less solve the riddle for them, it's a break in immersion when a 25 INT/WIS character with a scholarly background can't solve it.
If the character has all the pieces to the puzzle, they will solve it; it's what defines them as a high INT/WIS character.
If they don't have all the pieces to the puzzle, then making the player solve it with OOC knowledge begs the question: "How does your character know this?", which in turn just leads to more dissonance and drops the roleplay aspect.
Riddles are naturally obtrusive in roleplay.
>>46819316
Cool, I guess riddles don't exist in my setting now, with the in-setting justification of "go fuck yourself" I guess.
>>46819264
I don't generally use riddles for the reasons outlined above, but I tend to run more old school dungeon crawls adventures and treat it more like a non-linear, cooperative wargame. It's more along the lines of a philosophy where, generally, there isn't a segregation between character knowledge and player knowledge.
This is just what I find works in my games.
>>46818793
>Join Roll20 campaign
>solo session
>gm gives me a riddle
>figure it out in a few mins and give him my answer
>Awkward silence
>"Uh... brb let me check on facebook"
>Takes him longer to find the answer to his own riddle
>Make up an excuse and leave the campaign
>It's not like you ask your players to actually disarm traps IRL.
Fucking pleb
>>46818907
/thread
>>46818793
My cousin doesn't do this, but I did catch him looking up monsters during combat. Didn't even try to hide it. Since we game with my uncle and his friends who are all a good 15-25 years older than us and have been roleplaying since the 80s together, they frowned upon it.
It doesn't help he's min maxing to the extreme and throwing balance out of whack, forcing me to up monster difficulty.
When I call him on shit he makes it seem like I'm picking on him. Since there's family involved I'm not sure how to deal with it at this point. He can be extremely obstinate.
Unless you make the fighter's player prove he is strong, don't make the players of intelligent characters prove they're smart. The dice decide if they figure it out, but you can tell only the one who figures it out the answer, so they still get the satisfaction of saying it.
i remember one campaign i had with nothing but fresh players.
A travelling bard read off an excerpt from the poem "to a waterfowl" by william cullen bryant to the PCs as they were camping.
and every player actually gave startlingly in-character answers. The barbarian said "oh you made that poem for a woman you lost" and the cleric thought it was about the bard's mother who he surely misses. the ranger asked if it were about a blooming flower, and the 18-wisdom monk plainly said "you just sang about a random bird you saw on a lake, didn't you?"
the best part is that they never actually read the poem. they just guessed by context clues.
>>46819388
They can exist in your setting, they just should be solved in setting by in-character attributes. They should be used in a glossed over way, or in specific ways tied to character attributes. Two useful ways:
1. To show character intellect. A challenge requires overcoming an area riddle, and you arbitrarily decide that the player with the highest mental scores is the one to do it. This is useful in both character introductions, to cement that a character is an intellectual, and as a reason to make people stay in place ("Your wizard ponders the problem as the enemy patrol closes in. The rogue needs to distract the enemy patrol long enough for the wizard to piece together the arcane riddle")
2. Is cultural, which is great for foreshadowing. By having riddles that are inherently incomprehensible to people outside a culture, you can "out" a character as associated with that culture, especially if the culture is secretive. If an Orc tribe requires you answer bizarre and nonsensical riddles, it makes a great way to hint towards that armor-clad ally of yours being a half-orc by having him be the only one who has the answers.
>>46819393
On the other hand, if you're playing the game like a wargame with little to no roleplay focus, then riddles are absolutely fine; it's why half of games like Pathfinder and DnD focus on problem solving via combat "puzzles"; they have a pedigree in wargaming.
Riddles make interesting additions to such games as they fit the theme of challenging player intellect.
>>46819388
That's a stupid answer. Every medium has limitations. Books and movies can't allow the audience to make decisions in the place of the characters, RPGs can't use riddles.
Riddles almost always stop the game without adding anything to it. Where you put that riddle you could have put a material challenge like >>46819159 , it would probably be funnier, and it would be easier to think about it without getting out of character. Actually, it would incite players to think about it without getting out of character because it would be easier to solve by thinking about what their character could use in their surroundings, backpack or in one of the rooms they've been through previously.
Alternatively, make it so your players can get around the riddle in some other way. Preferably a fun way. Try to bash the sphinx on the head or sneak past it. Go on a quest to find the wizard who knows the answer, or retrieve the book containing it. Go fetch a pickaxe and destroy the magical stone door.
Or make it totally optionnal.
But honestly, I think it's better just to not use riddles.
>>46819795
>On the other hand, if you're playing the game like a wargame with little to no roleplay focus, then riddles are absolutely fine
You still have the problems of finding a middle ground between incomprehensible and google-able.
What sort of mood do you normally like to have around your table?
>>46818793
Riddles are, by their nature, contextual.
When presenting a dungeon riddle, it should be solvable based on the content of that dungeon.
To avoid looking shit up on the internet, the riddle could be otherwise unsolvable.
If possible, give the riddle, then give the party other things to do should they not immediately guess it.
While they continue to explore, they can come accross hints.
>>46818930
Then you're not, by definition, playing a role-playing game.
>>46819567
I have had GMs hand us wooden puzzles and say, "There is a locked door. You see this in front of you," and then we have to solve it to proceed (of course, the door is always ultra-reinforced and immune to magic).
Frankly this is just as stupid as asking the players to solve a riddle.
>>46820061
Fully in-character after a discussion of the narrative we're trying to build and mindfulness focused on that.
Out of character thought is only used for the introduction of things like hero points and complications, which come in the form of bargains and reminders such as:
"Your character concept included gambling addition as a complication, and the villain just offered you a gamble to solve your dispute; I'll give you a hero point if you agree in exchange for the complications that arise from this."
Then they accept or pass on it and we continue.
On the rare occasions my games feature riddles or puzzles (my players like to kill and plunder, so I don't go out of my way to add too much fluff), I usually give my players a few minutes to try and figure them out on their own, then give out a couple clues and/or let them roll for it (Fantasy Craft has a skill that addresses this specifically, so all the better). Gives them the satisfaction of finding solutions themselves when they do, without stopping the game too long.
Last time, they got the logic right after a few attempts but made a math mistake, so I just gave them the answer so we could keep going.
>>46820189
I see. I've played Fate a little bit. I think it's narrative games done right, especially compared to White Wolf
>>46820565
I actually play d20 games primarily.
>>46818793
>Asshole player
>still playing with assholes
Pic related is what you should have done the moment you learned he was an asshole
>>46818793
Is it possible the player isn't an asshole for trying to skip past something they clearly don't like, but rather, the GM is an asshole for constantly using riddles when it isn't to the taste of the group?
Riddles in tabletop games are fucking stupid anyway. Either the party gets it in 10 seconds, or they don't get it at all and just sit around until they get enough hints to get it immediately. The kind of riddle where the party sits down and discusses it for minutes or more and logically deduces the answer doesn't exist. I have literally never seen that work, ever, in over a decade of tabletop gaming.
>>46819283
>getting the players engaged in creative problem solving.
I don't know if creative problem solving should count as a riddle or puzzle - not if the point is for the party to come up with a creative solution. Puzzles are more about logical deduction than creative solution. Creative problem solving invites good roleplaying.
>>46819159
That's no longer a riddle, which is the point I guess, but you could say it a lot simpler by just saying
>How do you make a good riddle in a tabletop RPG?
>You don't.
>>46821922
>Is it possible the player isn't an asshole for trying to skip past something they clearly don't like, but rather, the GM is an asshole for constantly using riddles when it isn't to the taste of the group?
Literally the first time I used a riddle. Everyone liked it, even the asshole.
>>46819476
>>"Uh... brb let me check on facebook"
Honestly if a GM brb'd to check facebook it better be that someone just died. That shit's just disrespectful.
I mean, yes, I know he was lying, but even if he wasn't I wouldn't game with him again.
>>46820137
>of course, the door is always ultra-reinforced and immune to magic
This is always the worst part of riddle-locked doors and entrances. It's blatant railroading. If you're going to give the party a challenging door at least be open to exploring alternatives to using the door.
>post yfw the 8 int barbarian solves the riddle instead of the wizard
>>46819656
When I was new, I didn't know this was considered rude. My childhood friend who got me into TTRPGs didn't stop me because I was new and still learning. First time I played with a different group instead I sincerely had no idea it was rude and considered myself still learning and was really surprised when everyone got on me about it.
Is it possible he's fundamentally misunderstanding how to play an RPG, and trying too hard to "win" the game? A lot of newbies don't really get that and play to win too much. If, from his perspective, he's just rationally doing what it takes to win, that's probably why you're coming off (to his perspective) as picking on him. After all, the rest of your group has been playing for decades and probably don't need guides.
>>46819763
>Unless you make the fighter's player prove he is strong, don't make the players of social characters prove they're charismatic. The dice decide if they're persuasive or not, but you can tell only the one who rolls well what to say, so they can still get the satisfaction of saying it.
>>46820137
I made my rogue's player pick a series of padlocks once as a combat timer. I admit that only works if you have a rogue player who also happens to like lockpicking, but it ended up being pretty fun.
>>46822062
Then it was a fluke. If the asshole were engaged in these puzzles he wouldn't be Googling the answers and thus wouldn't be the asshole.
A lot of "that guy" player problems end up stemming from the GM insisting on an element one or more players just isn't interested in.
>>46822209
You greentext but it's true.
If a player who is not socially inclined is playing a high charisma character, they should be able to tell you what they're trying to gain from the use of the skill and if they can't roleplay it, that's okay:
Gloss over those specific interactions and start the scene at the end of the meeting.
>>46822169
>When I was new, I didn't know this was considered rude.
I've been playing for about 6 years, and I find this is a big cause of that-guy behavior. A lot of new players don't mean to cause harm, but nobody bothers to teach them basic RP etiquette until they've already settled into bad habits.
>>46819305
At that point, you should remove the riddle altogether.
>>46822209
Well, yeah.
>>46822421
It's an unusual social problem for TTRPGs. Unless you're playing with kids or something, most people play with peers who they aren't usually in a position to teach things like etiquette. It just gets awkward chiding a friend your own age about being rude, unless you're a dick. Most people have a hard time saying things like "Don't do that, it's rude" to a friend their own age.
>>46822488
Why?
D&D has always had stuck doors for fighters to ram open or for thieves to picklock.
What's wrong with having an obstacle for the wizard to overcome? You can have the same drawbacks (solving the riddle incorrectly springs a trap, taking too long calls for a wandering monster check, etc.).
>>46822605
>What's wrong for having an obstacle for the wizard to overcome?
>>46818793
Don't have riddles be a stopping point. Have riddles be the beginning. Make a setting, do a prelude game, end it with the riddle. Enter PCs.
>>46822605
Fair enough. It just seems kind of anticlimactic. A stuck door is common, as is a locked one, and not really deserving of any special attention. Reducing a riddle to a dice roll seems weird, though.
>>46818930
>>46818907
I would argue that good roleplayers can 'dumb' themselves down for a riddle.
I've seen Barbarian players ram into a door because he couldn't figure out how to get past it.
The door of course was magically enchanted, hence riddle.
He then solved the 'riddle' by going through the non magical walls around it.
Party wizard that wanted to solve the riddle shrugged and said:
"Well if the people who made it weren't smart enough to keep you out then I guess it wasn't a good riddle after all."
>>46822758
That's not a riddle in the context as it's most commonly used in Swords and Sorcery and general fantasy.
A riddle in a dungeon is almost always something insurmountable without the answer and designed as such.
If your "riddle" is a locked door with a passcode that is easily breached, that's no longer a focus on there being a riddle; that's a skill challenge.
>gm gives us puzzle
>time limited answers
>he times us out of game
Fuck puzzles
I'm going to throw the classic two doors thing at my players, but knowing that some of them have probably heard it, I'm making both doors tell lies.
>>46818793
Just make every puzzle the hard version of Towers of Hanoi. Then, they won't get it even if they do know the answer!
>>46822816
Regardless of intent of the riddle itself my original point is that smart players who play dumb characters can happily play their characters without metagaming.
Do all riddles need a way to be circumvented?
No.
Do DMs make perfect riddles that can't be circumvented?
Also no.
Does the way to get around it always need to be a skill challenge?
Not if the party has enough explosives it doesn't.
>>46822837
You mean the "one guard only tells truths, the other only lies" thing?
>the rules are explained by the one that they deduce is lying
>thus, he was lying about the rules, specifically about the other guy telling the truth
>>46819795
>Everyone rolls to solve everything, so me and my derptarded friends don't hurt our heads thinking
>>46822883
Usually in those cases you can only ask one question to determine the truth.
>>46822883
1. The rules are supposed to be explained by both doors. If that isn't true then the original puzzle is trivial because either the door who is telling the truth is the one who told you the rules, or the puzzle isn't a puzzle and your fucked anyway.
2. What question would you ask to deduce which one is lying?
>>46822905
Right. But it's traditional for someone present to explain the rules. Have that guy be the one the "answer" is he's lying.
While everyone is busy trying to remember the answer to that stock logic puzzle, see if anyone notices the one they deduce is the liar was the one who explained the rules to them - and thus, may have lied about the rules. That's the real puzzle.I still think puzzles in RPGs are a shitty thing to do but at least that's original and a little sneaky.
>>46818885
>Pulling out a phone causes save vs random spell policy
I have the perfect PDF for that.
>>46822880
Demolitions is a skill in some systems anon.
But I don't think we're in disagreement here; my problem lies in riddles that act as roadblocks to continuing the game and allow no other solution but the answer to the riddle. This is *surprisingly* common and often a major plot element in stories. Harry Potter along has more than three instances.
>>46822964
Yeah I hate when DMs use riddles as road blocks.
Also didn't someone once point out that Harry could've kept the flying broom from the earlier room (or maybe taken his own) and fly over the other challenges?
At the very least I remember a bunch of people brain storming ways to circumvent those three instances that the characters hadn't figured out so that the Author could show off the individual character's strengths at the climax.
>>46822949
>or the puzzle isn't a puzzle and your fucked anyway.
That's the idea.
>What question would you ask to deduce which one is lying?
"If I asked you if the door you're guarding leads to where I want to go, would you say 'yes'?"
Alternatively:
"If I had asked the other guard which door was the correct door, which door would he have pointed to?"
>>46822896
If you're looking for an intellectual challenge in a game about creating stories, you've made more of an even bigger mistake than misreading my intent.
Chess, Go, Wargames or even games with an explicit focus on dungeon-crawling make great thinking puzzles and games that can be enjoyed with a number of people.
Any riddle or puzzle that bars the way forward from the rest of the game until OOC action is taken is horrible for a role-playing experience.
>>46818793
Hi Anon, looks like you've shit posted "Riddle in quest, wat do". I see we've already gone through the answers of "Don't", "Muh Player Challenge", "Roll for it duh", and "OP you're a faggot kill yourself".
So, let me give you the condensed consensus of the last dozen threads of this. If you must give riddles because you are either an insufferable cunt, or your players for some reason request them, don't make guessing the critical. Either make solving the riddle a bonus (like an easier way into the BBEGs lair) or have a short time to guess it for extra Role playing experience and then let people roll for it, or don't have riddles.
Making a challenge to the players as opposed to their characters that is a binary pass/fail is never a good plan. It will either bog down your game or get breezed through and like others have said it's not really in the vein or role playing. So once again, if you MUST then make it a fun bonus and not something critical.
>>46822949
>>46822957
Why not have the rules written on a plaque in front of the two guards?
>>46819316
I remember the last time I used a riddle the monk's immediate reaction was to see if the local knowledge he had might help him. Considering the man who set the passcode wasn't a terribly clever man and probably used the same riddle every time he could at the bar, so I gave enough of a clue for the players to solve it easily. While riddles are a great way to make your players feel smart, it's much better to let them use those precious points they sunk into setting knowledge for something useful. At the very least it's much better than people mulling over something for ten minutes and not progressing at all.
>>46822595
>Most people have a hard time saying things like "Don't do that, it's rude" to a friend their own age.
I've done pretty well with my group by approaching it the same way as teaching the game's rules. In a lot of ways that's what it is; the unwritten rules of how tabletop games are played.
I don't say "stop that, it's rude". I make sure to explain it in a reasonable level of detail. Usually it's more along the lines of "When you're playing a team-game like D&D, you usually don't want to do player-versus-player stuff because it's disruptive and can cause bad feelings in real life. There are tabletop games where that's appropriate, like Paranoia, but we aren't playing one of those right now". And I give it in the same tone as if I was reminding them how to calculate their attack bonus or how a rule works. Assuming the player's bad behavior hasn't yet solidified or been reinforced by others' amusement, it usually works after a few such reminders.
It's difference in how you think about bad behavior and how to deal with it. You can get better results when you think of it as teaching rather than policing. Do you call your players bad people for forgetting their attack bonus? No, you politely remind them how it works, and everyone moves on and has fun. You can do the same thing with roleplay etiquette. Your players (most of them, anyway) want to learn how to play and have fun, and you can work with that to help orient them toward positive behaviors.
>>46823062
I'm not being clear about this apparently. What I'm suggesting is that the entire "one guy lies, one guy tells the truth" puzzle is a red herring and the actual puzzle is to see if anyone noticed the rules were told by the one that they logically deduce is the liar.
>>46823028
There's actually a number of ways to cheat through the various challenges in Harry Potter, but at the very least the logic puzzle can't be cheated through with a broom.
>>46823073
Correct. That strikes a good balance between the use of a riddle and the allowance of characters to solve it (instead of players). Good work.
>>46822960
#1802 and #1803 are the same.
>>46823093
Oh neat, that's pretty cool now that you've explained it to me.
Turns out I need coffee.
>>46823078
>"When you're playing a team-game like D&D, you usually don't want to do player-versus-player stuff because it's disruptive and can cause bad feelings in real life. There are tabletop games where that's appropriate, like Paranoia, but we aren't playing one of those right now"
That's a perfectly fine rule for beginners. I'd add on that in some contexts it's okay, but that it's usually a pre-planned thing and don't worry about it for now.
And yeah, I agree learning the unwritten rules and etiquette is important - too important not to do. Just this is a common trap people fall into which they should be aware of.
>>46823062
Or any neutral source yeah, the point is that it shouldn't be one door or the other. I'm also going to be removing the one question thing, since I broke the riddle by making them both liars.
>>46823030
And if both doors are liars, they are both going to tell you the wrong answer. So the riddle punishes metagaming by punishing players who ask the question and move on.
>>46823028
>Harry could've kept the flying broom from the earlier room (or maybe taken his own) and fly over the other challenges
Rolled 14 (1d20)
>>46819567
>The unbreakable locked door in the magic-silenced room speaks to you a riddle
>Roll to solve!
>Don't forget, Steven, your character is proficient in riddles, so add your proficiency modifier
>rolls a 13, +4 (int mod), +3 (proficiency bonus)
>Alright, cool, you solve the riddle and the door opens. Good job, party.
>>46823028
>Harry could've kept the flying broom from the earlier room (or maybe taken his own) and fly over the other challenges?
>the characters hadn't figured out so that the Author could show off the individual character's strengths at the climax.
They were all eleven years old at the time, with no preparation, facing down a series of deadly perils that would have had grown adults quivering in their boots. The stress of their situation must have been unbearable. Anyone could have made that kind of oversight.
So I think I'll give Rowling a pass on that one.
>>46823306
Did the narrative actually say or even hint they weren't thinking clearly?
If not, then no matter how sensible it is, this is just a fan's headcanon patching a plot hole. It's fine to have plot holes, even the best works have plot holes. Everyone overlooks an obvious solution from time to time.
>>46823276
If you replaced "riddles" with any skill in any game, that would still be a shit encounter.
Skills are not meant as a binary pass-fail system for progression, this is one of the most common rookie GM mistakes I see.
Don't act like shit encounter design is the fault of making a specific action a skill.
>>46823387
this. Learning how to fail forward is one of the biggest skills a GM needs to have.
>>46823387
>>46823411
How could you include a riddle, based on skill checks, make the clues basically solve the riddle, and not make it come down to what he just described?
>>46823353
>Did the narrative actually say or even hint they weren't thinking clearly?
Haven't read the first book in ages, but I'm sure it came up. In the movie they were pretty obviously stressed out and scared the whole time.
Also
>11 years old
>thinking clearly
>>46823476
The same way I include any other obstacle checking any other skills you massive retard.
You have to go beyond the idea of these obstacles being a simple pass or fail - or at least, of failure being a flat denial. Just google 'fail forward' + RPG or something, I don't have the time to teach you how to GM.
>>46823532
I know what failing forward is fucknard, I'm just saying that you can't have all the things you described, specifically you can't have the clues solve the puzzle. Otherwise you are just making a pass or fail check.
>>46818793
A friend of mine who I was in a game with ran into this once with our parties main munchkin. Little background, a RP heavy DnD 3.5/Pathfinder game. We used the DnD fluff and the Pathfinder rules. Our munchkin was a Halfling Thief, who put everything into combat. And got pissed off whenever he started getting smacked around by something.
Anyway our DM had this rule, solving things peacefully would grant both the combat XP and a little extra. Our Thief and another player hated this as it wasn't kill/loot/repeat then go to town and be told how awesome they are. God I can tell stories about that game and fights over alignment.
Anyway in this case our party was taking this "test" that had puzzles and riddles in one room. Then the next would be a fight. We could however say "We give up." and something would pop in for us to fight. However? if we solved the puzzle/riddle? We got loot for it.
Anyway we had this hard one pop up, and our munchkin (do people still use that term?) and our other munchkin are dead set that we have to solve this stuff as they want that loot! I forget what the riddle was but it was driving us nuts.
So after wracking our brains Thief munchkin had pulled out his brand new Blackberry, this was years ago. He claims he's "texting" a friend however one of the other players walks by and see's he's on the net looking up the riddle. DM, myself and another player are outside smoking and she comes out and tells us. DM knows "Yeah I knew he'd do that."
Munchkin Thief when we come back in gets asked "Looking the riddle up?" he shakes his head "No... By the way is it X?" grinning all proud of himself.
DM smiles, tells him yeah. Makes some roles and the loot comes out to us. Whatever this guy took? And for the rest of the quest was cursed. He also lost a level in the next room when one of the things we had to fight was I think a Wight that was screaming "Forbidden knowledge!" That went after him, and the DM well... "Rolled really well."
>>46823586
I didn't describe having clues solve the puzzle. That was someone else. You realize more than two people post on /tg/, right?
>>46823476
I'll actually take a go at giving you an example.
So you have "Expertise (Riddles)" as a skill, and it's possible for the character to solve the riddle by taking 10 on it.
The most basic way you can make encounters that include such skilltests fun for the group is to use the riddle as an escape from a hard combat, where routine (take10) checks are disallowed; the character needs to try different solutions while the party defends them. If the riddlemaster goes down in combat, that means the party needs to find another solution for escape.
So for example, you find a puzzle-locked door in a room that's filling up with water, and water-based enemy types as an example. The threat of the enemy makes taking 10 non-feasible, and there is a level of danger and thrill.
---
THAT ALL SAID:
Skills are not really something that should be rolled often in a game. Skills exist to show a character's proficiency in something and are almost always take10 or take20 affairs when used correctly.
It's not "roll for picking the lock", it's "the rogue can definitely pick this lock with his tools and a take 10" and then building around that.
"The rogue can definitely pick this lock with his tools" would become an interesting encounter if something is denying the rogue his tools and they have to deal with the challenge of the rogue either slowly picking the lock with take 20 or random rolls, or retrieving the tools themselves.
Skills differentiate your player's options, but those options should be consistent, not random; I blame DnD and Pathfinder for not emphasizing the importance of take 10 ENOUGH for people not getting this.
>>46818793
>people against riddles
>against anything that challenges player skill instead of character skill
When did the "game" part of roleplaying game get thrown away? RPG isn't just improv theater. It's not just pretend. it's a fucking game, it's perfectly acceptable to challenge the players. It's not like this is a video game where if you can't solve the riddle you're stuck. If you can't solve the riddle to open the door you force it open, or search for another entrance, and so on.
>>46823044
>a game about creating stories
You just fucking said it's a game. Failing to solve the riddle can be part of the story, there's literally no reason to say that a game about creating stories can't also include the players own intellect as part of it.
>>46823973
>If you can't solve the riddle to open the door you force it open, or search for another entrance, and so on.
The majority of this thread is speaking rather narrowly on the subject of riddles that bar the way forward and are the only means of progression. I'm addressing the rest of your post with that in mind.
>there's literally no reason to say that a game about creating stories can't also include the players own intellect as part of it.
Sure, if your story explicitly has characters interfacing with otherworldly beings that can help them solve puzzles.
Otherwise I'll ask you how your barbarian knows Bayes Theorem, and if you don't have a good answer that kinda pokes a gaping hole in your story.
If the riddle is something your characters *can* solve and *would* solve it's fine, but the fact of the matter is that in a vast number of cases, players will lose immersion the moment you force *them* to solve a riddle. It's a speedbump that can easily be avoided.
But I'll challenge your intellect if you're so much of a fan. Riddle me this:
What does the inclusion of a riddle which requires the players to think and generate a solution, and which bars progress until it's solved with a direct answer do for the game and it's enjoyment (that can't be emulated in at least one other way that won't break player immersion)?
If you can't answer that, then you should concede that while obviously you *can* include a riddle in an RPG (just as we can include shots of hemlock to simulate potions and player vs player duels to the death to simulate combat), it is probably *a pretty inefficient idea* and gets us little mileage.
>>46818793
The answer is to make your own riddles, or put unusual twists in time honoured ones.
Like for example, take the two doors riddle:
> At the end of the hallway, you find a small room with two doors in it. There is a pair of statues standing beside each door. As soon as you enter, they animate to speak!
"Greetings Traveler. One of us Always lies"
"And the other always tells the truth"
And then you diverge from there:
> "I will always lie! My door leads to certain death!"
> "I will always tell the truth! My door leads to certain death!"
Let them have fun. There's only two solutions to the riddle. Both doors kill you, or both doors are the correct path. I actually threw it at the party, and they ran with the ass-backwards assumption that both doorkeepers are actually opposites. They ended up dying, but such was the consequences of trying to look online for an answer.
The real solution is that either they're BOTH LYING, or they're BOTH TELLING THE TRUTH.
What is a seven-legged cat that rides a bicycle underwater on Thursdays?
You're not going anywhere until you solve this!
Generally, I tend to avoid riddles. I don't like them, and because I run games in what can only be described as an ultracasual enviroment (a community youth group) they don't wprk very well.
However, I do use situations that rely on the players having a massive knowledge across a multitude of subjects. There was one time where they needed to judge range. One of them panicked and rolled Knowledge, which resulted in me describing the following course of action: after scratching his head for a few days, the guy remembered in his old textbooks how some retard used trigonometry to find a distance. So the character waited until about 9:00 one day, when the sun was at a 45° angle to a mast and conviently the shadow was about where he needed it to be. I then looked at the player, a high school student in Honors Pre-calc, and told him the mast was sixty feet tall. He balked, hemmed, and hawed. I graduated on the technecality that my Archetecture and Engineering classes were maths, by the way, and I had that formula stone cold. After a full minute, he asked me if he could google the solution. I wrote him the formula, and he got through it to figure out that, hey, the gap was sixty feet (B/C the problem was 60tan45°, which is 60)
Not ten minutes later, when an eigth grader tried the same thing and specificly said "I'm rolling Knowledge on how to math this distamce" I did the exact same thing, only this time I wrote it as a proof.
Between the two incidents, however, the party decided to accept a side-quest in exchamge for a large chest of gold from a man named Van Owen. After fifteen minutes, Van Owen promptly atempted to stab them in the back, and got cut down by a hail of Thompson Gun fire from an unkown source. Inside the cheast which was supposed to contain gold and jewles was a radio with the name "Muhammed" scratched onto the bottom, while Van Owen's corpse had the now-preforated gold and jewels on it. FYI, these are both refrences to Warren Zevon songs.
>>46822960
That is cool as hell
>>46818793
It's actually a sound-activated trap. If they say anything it kills that person specifically (pretend it's random).
>>46822076
No no, He found the riddle on facebook.
Yes, it was quite pathetic and he ended up being unable to find it and instead let me autopass it despite me trying to explain how I got the answer.
>>46826557
Damn, that is pathetic. I thought you meant he was lying about checking facebook while looking up the answer.
>>46818793
It's GM 101: Always leave alternate ways for getting the answer. I'm doing this right now in a campaign:
Riddle:
>30 Gold horses on a red hill. First they Clomp, then they stomp. Then they stand still
None of my group's read The Hobbit, so I told them they can return to the riddle. One of the enemies They will face is a zombie with a golden grill. I leave a treasure trove around him, have a few notes from adventurers left for him. Really Simple.
TLDR: Always give alternate solutions
>>46824304
>Sure, if your story
game.
It's not a story, it's a game. We're playing a game.
>What does the inclusion of a riddle which requires the players to think and generate a solution, and which bars progress until it's solved with a direct answer do for the game and it's enjoyment (that can't be emulated in at least one other way that won't break player immersion)?
Riddles are interesting if you're not retarded. Simple as that. Also, they can add variety to dungeon crawling.
>immersion
Way overrated in every form of entertainment media ever.
>mfw this thread
Did the anti-riddle faggot infect /tg/ with his crippling autism?
>tfw you are bad at riddles and the DM keeps using them
>>46828135
>It's not a story, it's a game. We're playing a game.
Right okay, your game doesn't have any story and is no attempt to make a story, or your splitting hairs. I can see the inexperience showing.
>Riddles are interesting if you're not retarded
Not only is this wrong, but doesn't fit the criteria of "not emulated in another way". If all that were interesting about the game were riddles this would be true, but if that's the case you aren't a roleplaying game hobbyist, but a Batman villain.
>Immersion is overrated
Hot opinion. If you don't get immersion no one would give you shit for disliking focus on it, but it comes off as pretty childish when you throw an entire facet of the hobby on the ground and call it bad simply because you never could handle it.
>>46828135
>Riddles are interesting if you're not retarded
Now you're projecting. I know smart people that don't like sudoku or crosswords.
>>46823093
You don't actually deduce the liar in the original though.
>>46819316
>If the clues don't more or less solve the riddle for them, it's a break in immersion when a 25 INT/WIS character with a scholarly background can't solve it.
Where does this reasoning end? Riddles aren't the only thing that this 25 / 25 genius "should" be able to solve. Investigating a criminal case? Nope, genius instantly solves it. Engaging with the environment to explore a ruined temple or uncover a foe's weakness? Genius has already figured out the solution. Players aren't sure what to do next in any context, ever? The genius does.
This has to end somewhere, and the result is either "compromise on the player-character divide such that players still get to make choices and think about what to do" or "ban all high-mental-stat characters".
>>46829159
Geniuses aren't perfect, they're just extremely quick at putting things together.
Dungeon layout changing all of a sudden? They know you can expect new monsters and will be able to make up a theory to explain why there are two dungeons in one.
>>46818793
Source on the image?
>>46829159
You're conflating intelligence, which necessarily has to do with linguistics and spatial reasoning, with skills.
Stop that.
>>46829286
>They know you can expect new monsters
I don't think you need 25 Intelligence for that.
> and will be able to make up a theory to explain why there are two dungeons in one
And is this theory reasonable but false, or true? If it's even occasionally the former, all I'm doing is turning the reward for having a clever character into essentially random information that cannot be relied upon, like NetHack graffiti. If they're always true, then again I'm robbing the players of the most engaging part of the game, which is thinking about their environment and making choices.
The solution is to provide accurate but incomplete information that doesn't circumvent player agency by completely removing the obstacle or decision point but still steers them in the right direction and rewards their in-character intellect - in other words, a clue.
>>46829397
Rather depends on the system, and all you're doing is moving the problem to a different statistic.
>>46828835
>I can see the inexperience showing.
top fucking kek acting all elitist but can't even understand what I mean when I say "it's a game, not a story". And I love how you call "hot opinion" immediately after giving your own opinion on riddles. Yeah, I get it, you're too dumb for riddles. That's okay.
>call it bad
When did I say it's bad? Go look "overrated" on the dictionary.
Here, let me make this simple: A game can tell a story, but it doesn't stop being a game. It doesn't have to follow story conventions. You're not writing a story on your own, you're playing a game with (hopefully) friends. Challenging those friends on their own skill at the game, is not in any way a problem or even a big deal. Oldschool games did it all the time, doesn't mean they didn't tell cool stories either.
I'm not opposed to the idea of a heavily immersive story-focused game, it's you guys that seem to forget that there are more ways to play roleplaying games then that. Everyone is bitching at OP for using riddles just because he is not playing the same way they are.
>>46829423
That's when you roll an ability/skill check, its likely the highly intelligent character has a better chance of being correct, but sometimes he isn't. Knowledge checks shouldn't always be "pass, correct information; fail, no information" but also succeed for partial and fail for incorrect/
>>46829683
Sure. But partial information is essentially a clue, which according to >>46819316 shouldn't exist for a high-INT character unless it essentially gives a complete solution from scratch, and false information is a punishment for have that high score in the first place, which shouldn't happen and makes even true information useless when you know it can't be relied upon - unless of course that chance can be eliminated with a sufficiently high score, in which case the same agency problems as before arise.
Fuzziness between players and their characters is always going to arise, or else the players might as well not even be present beyond character creation. The best you can do is paper over the cracks as best you can while making sure a positive game experience as a whole takes priority.
>>46829757
As an aside, I'm reminded of the training-based skill leveling system present in the TES games.
Looked at in a vacuum, it seems like it would provide a much more immersive, realistic progression system in which rather than abstract game concepts like experience points you somehow "spend" on whatever skills you like, you simply get better at doing stuff as you do it more, like in real life.
However, in the context of a game, with all of the other game abstractions that ARE still present, what you actually get is a much stranger world where you spend hours crouch-walking into walls while channeling a cheap healing spell as a pack of level 1 bandits hits you, instead of just having the normal adventures the system presumably would rather encourage, spending some points on the skills you want, and not thinking any further on it. An ideal like "a character's stats defines their capacities, not who they're played by" is a good starting point for a design philosophy, but you have to consider each decision in the context of the effect it has on the game as a whole, rather than in a vacuum using it as the sole metric.
>>46818793
Do not run dungeons dependent on riddles.
What are you going to do if they don't solve it?
"gg, everybody go home"?
>>46822960
>not using the FATAL random magic fumble table
>>46829872
It's good advice not to run dungeons that /depend/ on riddles, but they can work as one solution to a problem among several, where maybe the party can answer a riddle, fight the golem who was asking it, disable its power source and sneak past, find some explosives and complete the tunnel that was being mined into the back of the dungeon, etc.
>>46829872
What's wrong with that? What exactly is wrong with including places in the campaign where the players can't go if they suck too much? As long as you allow them to do things like write the riddle down and take it to an NPC scholar or ask their deity via spellcasting or such, I don't see a problem. They lose absolutely nothing but time.
>>46829933
>What exactly is wrong with including places in the campaign where the players can't go if they suck too much?
Because if you lock something important behind a riddle the players can't work out, you've just broken your campaign with an obvious single-point-of-failure until you cave in and hand them the answer from a scholar or divine intervention.
Rolled 2422 (1d10000)
>>46822960
>8625: All living plants within 60 yards grow 1d4 feet
>8624: All living feet within 60 yards grow 1d4 plants
>8352: All ants within 1 mile are covered with chocolate
Okay that's it I gotta roll.
>I cast Mage Hand to bring my cup of water to me from across the room when a thunder clap causes me to fuck up
>>46830067
>2422: Caster's blood causes strange plants to grow from where it is spilt
Pretty cool for a hobby gardener.
>>46830006
Who says that they absolutely NEED whatever's behind the riddle? Maybe it just makes the next bit of the campaign easier. Who the hell makes their campaign depend on any singular thing that the players do?
>>46830115
>Who the hell makes their campaign depend on any singular thing that the players do?
Probably a similar person to the one who makes an entire dungeon depend upon a single riddle.
>>46819778
I'm impressed.
Maybe if you do insist on riddles or puzzles, you write a variant of the description to each member of the party. More description and hints for high WIS high INT characters. Pass these clues out as notes.
For a classic example from Tolkein
"speak friend, and enter"
Low wis gets "the inscription says something about only friends passing through"
Average gets "the inscription reads 'speak friend, and enter'"
High gets "the inscription reads 'speak friend, and enter'. Most likely refers to a password or code phrase. Most likely it's in Elvish, since Elves made the door?"
This represents low WIS characters not really paying attention beyond their first impression of the words.
Someone more intuitive will have a second glance and actually look at the exact phrasing, I.e. reading the fine print.
Max WIS would come up with a few interpretations on the spot, based on surrounding context.
It's a little effort to go to for not much improvement, sadly.
>>46822237
Handing your players physical puzzles seems kinda cool in a Tomb of Horrors, dungeon crawl, precon characters, players vs module thing. Maybe use characters that are all average wisdom or such, so your (presumably average) players are in the same boat at their half-orc Paladins and such.
Dangerously close to LARP territory there though.
>>46830131
Obviously not, though. And again, if there's nothing absolutely necessary on the other side of the riddle, then what's the problem with making it hard to pass?
>>46830305
Player frustration, wasting valuable session time, wasting preparation time that could have been spent on something the players will actually do.
>>46829426
When you're capable of differentiating between a game that is focused on roleplaying and has wargame elements, and a wargame with roleplaying elements, I'll bother with you.
Have fun playing your games of guessing the teacher's password and pretending that makes you smart.
Rolled 9550 (1d10000)
>>46822960
Let me try.
>>46831117
>Nearest Paladin fears he'll melt if immersed in water
WHAT THE FUCK
>character with immense amount of intelligence skills
>player himself is simple minded as fuck
>we just let him roll on everything
>guy decides to use his strategy skills to develop a clever plan to beat the enemy
>GMs face when he's the one who has to make up the plan
>>46822960
>8395 All birds within 1 mile scream like torture victims for 1 day
Terrifying.
>>46830585
>When you're capable of differentiating between a game that is focused on roleplaying and has wargame elements, and a wargame with roleplaying elements
It's not that there is not difference, it's that you think one is the right one to play RPGs and the other isn't. But I guess expecting that sort of understanding from someone who thinks riddles are just about guessing is too much. Riddles have always been a part of dungeon crawling in roleplaying games.
Wait.
>Have fun playing your games of guessing the teacher's password and pretending that makes you smart.
>guess
holy shit, you were the anti-riddle autist all along?
>>46830329
I guess I should just make every combat a cakewalk, every skill check and locked door an automatic success, and hey, might as well just skip the dungeon completely since hey, the players could fail! Why waste time preparing things that they might not see?
Are you for real right now?
>>46818793
Is it wrong if in between sessions you figure something out about the campaign that was looked over and solved the issue?
>>46818793
Let him roll the dice. If he fails, his character doesn't know the answer. Of course, he'll keep looking up answers and then pretend he hasn't and make a few faulty guesses before getting it right.
The real answer is not to end sessions with riddles.
>>46822960
dice+1d10000
I always loved this table
>>46818946
>players are a bunch of noodle-arms who keep turning down my invitations to go to the gym
>institute arm-wrestling checks
>my arms when
>>46832678
Losing in combat or to another challenge feels like a loss to recover from. Hitting a wall with an obtuse puzzle just feels like being stuck in place, and the whole session being stuck with it, especially given that a skill failure is likely evident immediately rather than after half an hour of heads banging on walls on both sides of the screen. Similarly, locked doors and skill checks generally allow for multiple solutions, and if your dungeons do rely upon a single good roll determining whether the players get to play it, then yes, you're wasting your time and producing a worse game than if you had directed it somewhere useful.
>>46818793
Don't rely on things that can be looked up, unless you're willing to roll with that. If someone's going to use metaknowledge to solve something their character wouldn't have, then that's either a way it's supposed to be solved or you fucked up.
I have only introduced riddles as comic relief before, usually to present an antagonist as a conplete moron.
Usually Orks or Ogres, but the odd lowlife human isn't unheard of either.
And then there were the snarky dwarf where half of his riddles could be answered with a degrading word, follow by "human" or "elf".
Rolled 9556 (1d10000)
>>46833652
Lemme get that for ya
>>46833786
thanks anon sama
>>46833838
>Nearest Paladin has map tattooed somewhere embarassing
kek
>>46833786
>earliest paladin has a map tatooed somewhere embarassing
WHAT
>>46818885
>cellphones off policy
What if you're using a dice-roller app? If you're the only one allowed to have your phone that makes you look like a twat.
Also
>using riddles at all
>>46824787
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen.
>>46818793
Depends on the characters int and wis really id allow some help to them if theyre role playing someone thats smart and or wise.
You could always reverse the situation
for example, in Kings Quest 6, you could get the answer to a riddle you only get asked at almost the end of the game.
So giving the players a seemingly useless word as a prize for doing something could be a good twist.
>>46829859
Well, yeah, if you treat video games like the worst kind of min-maxer.
>>46834025
If your system rewards people more for actions it doesn't want to encourage than those it does, especially when those actions are part of its core gameplay loop, it is a poorly designed system. The example I gave is an obvious extreme case, but in making a game with this kind of "realistic" system, but without all of the other factors that real life learning-by-doing has to take into account, you inevitably end up with weird, counterintuitively unrealistic behaviour not created by the simpler abstract model. The alternative is simply hoping players ignore the reward system entirely and only interact with it in passing, which is unrealistic for the majority of players as well as also failing to encourage the desired patterns of play.
>>46822960
1/10000 chance to cause the sun to supernova
>>46830585
>differentiating between a game that is focused on roleplaying and has wargame elements, and a wargame with roleplaying elements
Haha oh boy I would love to see you come up with a functional definition distinguishing between the two. Face it faggot your arguement boils down to badwrongfun and you know it.
>>46818793
>grow a pair and a spine
>tell asshole in no uncertain terms to cease or leave
Rolled 8751 (1d10000)
>>46822960
Gonna call it
>When caster dies, his corpse giggles on touch
>>46819305
>A group of enemies appear
>I roll to know where to positionate myself.
>>46835240
>All nitrogen slowly bleeds away from a 60-foot radius
Are there any entities in a cliched game of D&D that rely on nitrogen or does this just mean all flames in the area are slightly larger?
>>46818955
"The wall says 6 + 5 * 8"
>Cue 50 hours of arguing when they don't get the fact that PEMDAS is not a thing in the Forgotten Realms
>>46835309
Nitrogen is a key part of DNA and proteins. Those ATGC bits are "nitrogenous bases", meaning they all contain nitrogen.
So uh, I guess organic life in a 60 foot radius would die because everything about them would stop working?
Rolled 8922 (1d10000)
>>46822960
This can't possibly end badly
>>46823668
You realize that you didn't give any indication that you were a different anon when interjecting yourself into a conversation right?
>>46835267
>what is tactics
>what is knowledge skills
>>46823738
This is still just succeeding or failing based on a roll. The fact that it isn't vital to the progress of the party is meaningless. It's still boring. The dc 10 check should give the player a clue, and a skill for it is stupid because straight int would be fine. Who the fuck takes riddle solving as a skill anyway? I always took use rope, but only because I thought it was funny.
>>46829159
25 int is superhumanly smart. So, assuming they have the necessary information, it's not at all unreasonable for them to come up with a solution to a riddle or the like with no check necessary.
Rolled 7469 (1d10000)
>>46822960
>>46818793
I actually had an idea that seemed kinda novel, I'd love to be pushed in the direction of more like it.
Basically, tournament tough OD&D filled with riddles and puzzles that refrence real life. Not in a pop culture way, but you might have to identify a fresco of Jesus or a particular obscure 18th century composer. Basically, the cell phone would be the dice, with you as the guardian angel over your character scouring wikipedia to try to help them however you can.
Would love input on this.
>>46837570
>oops you rolled low Timmy that means you HAVE to leave your flank open to attack
>in this game you cant think unless the dice say so!
>>46839581
>you arrive in an inn
>innkeeper asks what you want
>roll 1d6
>>46823738
But your take 10 stance is only valid for actions that need to occur for the game to move forward, and even then you are very limited in your mindset. For instance, the "rogue can pick this lock with his tools" is fine for a simple door blocking the path, but what if the door is more than just a simple lock? What if the rogue failing the skill check is not the end all be all of progression, and instead now the team must either bust down the door with brute force (alerting guards), find the key (by stealing or killing a guard), or find an alternate entrance (climbing to a window or finding an underground entrance). There are also times when it is perfectly fine to simply fail a check: failure to find the hidden treasure room, failure to save a person that was a secondary objective, failure of a person to swim while in full plate who doesn't know how.
Really, the only time the always succeed check should be used is if you NEED to have that check succeed and there are no alternate ways around it, and at that point it shouldn't even be a check as a check implies the chance of failure.
>>46839369
Perhaps having some kind of stats determining the limits of your own power? You can only look up this many pages, you only have this many seconds to do so, stuff like that.
