How do you incorporate riddles into your games without them either being completely trivial or grinding the game to a halt?
>>44313203
snoop into your players personal background, noting the kind of subjects of knowledge or experience they have, and find an answer they could figure out on their own
>>44313365
This. Plus, what I like to do is give them plenty of time to solve it and not make it an immediate "We gotta solve this RIGHT NOW" type of riddle. I make it something they can think on for a few sessions.
>>44313203
Make it an X of Y thing, so if one or two are complete hangups for some reason, it can still progress.
>>44313203
The solution is to stand still, right?
>>44313203
Roll Int / Wis.
>>44313203
Allow players to solve riddles via other means.
I mean, this could be an intelligence roll, or knowing PCs, a seduction roll.
And of course there's the Gordian Knot method.
>>44313445
What I like to do is get the riddle and the solution figured out, but then come up with all kinds of different clues that I leave all over the place.
>>44313203
>I roll Intelligence
>I roll Wisdom
There's not a single puzzle that a high INT/WIS character can't pass this way. Honestly I find puzzles pointless because of this so it's better to not have them at all.
>>44313785
>without being completely trivial
>>44313441
Get out.
>>44313800
But they always are.
And if your party is all low INT/WIS, when the players are solving the puzzle themselves then that's metagaming.
>>44313203
Don't make riddles. Make puzzles with a single, distinct, absolutely correct right answer.
The riddle you posted simply doesn't give enough information and leaves too many potentially correct answers. "If you go right or left you are dumb." Great, what a genius riddle!
Your players should be able to follow a clear and logical line of thinking and arrive at the answer.
If they can't solve the puzzle, make something happen in game that leads them away from the puzzle and on through the dungeon or encounter along a slightly more punishing route.
For example if they come across a door that has a puzzle lock and they are beginning to lose interest then just say they hit a trap combination in the puzzle and they fall down a trap door chute and have to take the long way around through some extra mini-dungeon.
>>44313365
combine this with an answer that made an appearance in the game earlier
>>44314098
>clear and logical line of thinking and arrive at the answer.
this is /tg/ not /sci/
>>44313851
Nah,
In Zork 2 (or was it 3?) you played for a time as a big, stupid brutish ogre.
At one point in the game, you came across a wooden cage holding a key attached to an elaborate chess-themed board game riddle puzzle thingy.
Problem was, your character is really, really stupid. Getting him to do anything thinky like "move piece X to location Y was pretty much impossible.
But you know what he could do?
SMASH.
while you *can* make the ogre solve the puzzle, it takes a fraction of the time to just have him smash the puzzle and grab the key.
>>44313203
I once had a monster who was a hybrid between a Manticore and a Sphinx (Mantisphinx). He had inherited the riddling attitude of a sphinx, and was also cruel from his manticore heritage.
I looked up riddles that were impossible to solve and had him give them to the players with the intent of pissing them off and making them hate the character, as he would mock and deride them for their failure and lack of intelligence, motivating them into killing him.
I suppose that doesn't answer your question, does it? Oh well, I wanted to share it.
>>44314186
holy shit this
setting up humorous gordian-knot type scenarios is the best
a god-tier player would find a way to fuck up the person who asked the riddle then whispering a better answer to the riddle than the assumed one
>>44314186
Yeah, the Gordian Knot way. It's the problem with stuff like >>44314098
If there's only one right answer, and the players don't know it, they're screwed. There needs to be other answers to the problem, whether force or stealth, or something else.
>>44314152
>combine this with an answer that made an appearance in the game earlier
This.
What I like to do is to have an early plot where the players have to help an NPC ally win a riddle competition so he can secure them some favour they need-- like, they know a duke who will give them some boon or use his influence on their behalf, but in exchange or even better, as part of making that happen, he wants their help with this riddle contest with his rival at court.
So to help this NPC, the party has to come up with good riddles for him to use against his opponent. Maybe they can do some stealth type stuff to steal or sneak peeks at the rivals riddle book, or they can do some research at the ducal archives for good riddles, or whatever. Having them make up their own riddles is best, but not every player can or wants to do that, so give them ample opportunities to find riddles you can provide them. Make sure you record all of the riddles they come up with or that you provide.
This plot should culminate with them at the riddle competition, doing some last minute bit of skullduggery in the background while they listen to their friend and his rival go at it. The friend will win the competition with their help, and with his assistance they can move on to whatever their goal is.
Now you wait a while, and don't mention riddles again for a good couple of sessions. Once they've mostly forgotten, and only have vague inklings of the riddles you used, you can start to introduce riddles as puzzle elements in dungeons. Use the riddles that they saw before, or ones very similar to them. The party might be able to remember some of them outright, which is great, or they might guess and get pretty close, which is fine too. And if their half-formed memories aren't quite there, you have a perfect excuse for them to roll Int or maybe Wis to remember in-character some hint or clue from the competition, or even the solution outright if a riddle is posing a particular problem.
>>44313203
Include a Necron Sphinx
>>44314098
http://www.paperspencils.com/2011/11/30/puzzling-obstructions/
