gamegoblin

This an example of a puzzle that a CK can use to stump his players. It can be placed anywhere you need it, usually securing a door or chest from intrusion. This puzzle should be considered easy to medium in difficulty.

Read the following out aloud to the players:

“You see before you a closed door.  In front of the door is a pedestal with twenty numbered buttons on it. Below the buttons an inscription reads:

Nine Prime
All the Pairs
Two Sets of Three.”

The solution to the puzzle is three distinct steps, each described by the lines in the inscription. As each of the buttons is pressed, they remain in place unless a mistake is made, in which case the buttons all reset themselves.

Nine Prime: Press the prime numbers (1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19)

All the Pairs: The remaining buttons that are multiples of two (4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20)

Two Sets of Three: the final two buttons are 9 and 15 (both are divisible by three, hence sets of three)

This puzzle should not be too hard to solve through trial and error or process of elimination.  If you feel the PCs need a little extra pressure, then you can set a consequence for them if an incorrect button is pushed.  For example, maybe the person pushing the wrong button is shocked for an appropriate amount of damage.

I first started playing Dungeons & Dragons around the age of five.  Initially, my dad was the Dm and my mom played with my brother and me. Our first forays were less than impressive, as we played pretty much by the rules at the time.  Character mortality was high, but we were loving it nonetheless. As time went on we also had a few characters continue to survive, and they continued to rack up small amounts of XPs.

Then, one day, something magic happened. One of them became 2nd level. It was my
brother’s veteran character, a fighter named Spider (he was 7- cut him some slack).  He
got more hit points and everything, and I was amazed and a little jealous (little brothers
are like that).  It also became clear to me why we had been writing down those XPs at
the end of each night- until then I had just that was how we kept score.  I thought, “You
mean our characters actually get better?”  The game that I already loved had just
hooked me even deeper.

It wasn’t much later that I finally had a 2nd level character. I was so happy, I felt like I
had just passed some sort of milestone. His name was Fruit Fly the Elf. Not only was he
the first character of mine that survived to 2nd, but he was the first character to own a
magic sword, too.  These were old-school low-level games, so we had 3 or 4 magic items in the entire party.  A magic sword, even a +1, was a pretty big deal.

It completely changed the scope of the game, and the concepts of campaign and character development and ongoing stories worked their ways into my young brain.  Each of the characters began to develop their own stories, and experiences.  We began to
make up stories for them, and tie them together in various ways.  One of my other early
success stories was Fruit Fly’s younger brother, Strawberry.  Strawberry was special
because he had died while at first level, but had been restored to life through a ring of
wishes, after which he survived to second level.

We continued to play, and I remember that Spider, followed by Fruit Fly, went on to become our first 3rd level characters.  This marked another milestone, because that was
when Dad decided to bring home the Expert OD&D boxed set. The original boxed set only gave details for characters up to 3rd level, so Steve and I had rather felt like we had “won” the game.  The Expert rules allowed our characters to advance to 14th level, and even mentioned that the maximum level possible was 36th.  It was truly engrossing, to think back on all of the adventures that we had undergone, and to think about what adventures lay ahead of us. It was exciting, and even a little intimidating to think about
the length of time it would take to get there.
That facet of the game, ongoing character development, was certainly the primary feature that made the game so special to me.  The characters that survived were the ones that you grew to love and appreciate, and they seemed more real with time. You had history with them, and could refer back to that for their thoughts and opinions on
things.  It was a whole lot more fun than Monopoly.

Who else remembers their first character to survive to 2nd level?  Post a reply and let us
hear your story, too!

One of the main struggles of any Castle Keeper or Dungeon Master is to come up with original and challenging puzzles to challenge your players. These puzzles can represent a myriad of obstacles to the adventurers, two of the most common being the locked chest or the locked door. While in most circumstances its perfectly okay to make it a simple lock, whereupon the rogue whips out his lockpicks, or the wizard trundles out his knock spell. However, sometimes the CK wants to present something a little more interesting, and that’s the sort of challenge presented here.

Read the following passage to the players. While the situation presumed here is a locked door, it can just as easily be a chest, or any other obstacle that fits your dungeon. The idea is to give the group something to figure out without them resorting to the dice.

You see before you a door with an unusual device on the front of it. The device resembles the face of a clock with only one hand. The twelve hours are distinctly marked in gold, and the hand is a bright red arrow. At the moment, the hand is pointing to the number …(roll a d12)

On each side of the door is a pedestal with small levers on it. The left side has six levers, while the right has seven. The levers are uniform in appearance, as are the pedestals. The only difference between the two is the number of levers.

The PCs will, of course, be unable to open the door without figuring out the puzzle. Here’s how it’s done:

The key is addition. The levers on the left represent the numbers 1 through 6, from left to right respectively. The levers on the right, however, represent the numbers 0 through 6. In order to unlock the door, one lever must be pulled on each side, and the total of the numbers that the levers reflect must equal what the clockface is showing at the time. For example, if it is on a twelve, then the solution would be to pull the lever that is on the far right on both pedestals (6+6=12). Keep in mind that the first lever on the right hand side doesn’t equal 1, it equals 0.

There are also multiple solutions for most of the numbers that can come up. For example, 3 on the clockface could be arrived at by pulling the first switch on the left and the third switch on the right (1+2), or the second switch on both sides (2+1). For the ease of the CK, here are all the possible solutions:

Left Side Levers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (from left to right).

Right Side Levers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (from left to right).

Each time a wrong set of levers is pulled, the hand on the clock face will spin with a whir of clockwork noises, and randomly point to one of the numbers (roll d12). Only one lever can be pulled on each side at a time. If you pull a second lever on the same side, it causes all levers to reset and the hand to spin again (roll d12).

It is also completely possible that the PCs will randomly pull the correct set of switches the first time. This will allow them passage, but without knowing why it opened, the same puzzle can be used to foil them again and again until they figure it out. Simply make another door or chest that is guarded by the same type of lock. Perhaps they will need to get out the way they came, making it necessary to open that same door to escape. Be as nice or as mean to your PCs as you think their level and skill warrant.

This puzzle should be considered medium to hard, depending on the cleverness of your players. Because of the random factor it contains, it can prove very tough to solve through trial and error. Remember to dole out hints as you see fit if they get stuck- this will help prevent player frustration. One mechanism I like to use in C&C is the handy Wisdom save. I let anyone who has been actively trying to solve the puzzle make a save to get a “flash of intuition.” Here are a few hints you can use in this case.

• “The key is in addition.” You can also drop hints through pieces of paper with mathematical formulas, or perhaps the clockface lock is found in a library. This would be especially appropriate in wizard’s towers and lich’s lairs. You can give hints to this in advance by mentioning the Villain’s fascination with mathematical puzzles (great fodder for Bardic lore, if you have one in the party!).

• “Even though they’re unmarked, the levers must represent something.” As another way to give the PCs a hint covertly, you can have the levers marked in some way. For instance, using the Greek alphabet as an example, the levers on the left are marked Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, while the right are marked Omega, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta. This will tell the players that the first switch on the left and the second switch on the right are the same, and so on down the line, while the first lever on the right represents something different or special. The markings don’t even have to be obvious- perhaps a search roll is needed to find them

• “The clockface is important- it’s the focal point of the design.” Get them to think about the significance of the number that’s being pointed out to them. After a few tries, they will get the idea from your dice rolling that the number comes up random, which should indicate that what it is pointing at right now is important.

With these three key clues, the PCs should be able to puzzle it out. Remember though, that if they get stuck, provide an alternate solution- for instance, you could say that while the party has been sitting there trying to figure the darn thing out, the door opens from the other side, and an appropriately nasty monster comes through, possibly surprising them! This breaks the boredom and frustration with some action, and allows the party to bypass the lock, but not necessarily in a good way. In addition, don’t forget that they may need to get out the same way…

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It all started when I was about five.  One night, my parents brought home a boxed game called Dungeons and Dragons. I had always loved fantasy-themed things, even (or perhaps especially) at that age. One of my favorite movies of the time was Clash of the Titans , so this seemed right up my alley.  My brother was at least as enthused as me.

For those of you who may not know, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a role playing game where the players of the game take on the parts of characters, as they act out the parts of those characters to varying degrees.  One person becomes the narrator and referee of the proceedings, and is responsible for creating the setting that the characters’ adventures will take place in, as well as playing the parts of every other character in the game world (ranging from the background characters to the epic villains).  In D&D, this is called the Dungeon Master.  That was my Dad.

It took him about three days to read and figure out the rules before we could play. I couldn’t wait. Then, the magical night came.

We sat down around the kitchen table. My Dad was the DM (Dungeon Master), while the players were my mom, my brother and myself.  Dad first guided us through the character creation process. We each made three characters, equipped them, and were then ready to be turned loose.  Let the forces of evil beware!

Or so I thought at the time.

The story went something like this:  We were a band of adventurers, in search of fame and fortune, who had just arrived at the infamous Keep on the Borderlands.  While acclimating ourselves  at the local tavern, we overheard rumors of what adventures lay ahead. Locals talked fearfully about the Caves of Chaos,that lay hidden somewhere nearby; in the forest, in the hills… nobody really knew. We also heard that the Mad Hermit lived in the woods, and was dangerous. We should beware of his pet, too, said the local rumormongers.

With that much encouragement, we promptly suited up, got provisions and set off into the wilderness in search of glory.  We wandered aimlessly for a few days, traversing the edge of the forest north of the keep. We didn’t so much as come across a rabbit.

Then, somewhere around the fourth day, we had all the action we could handle.  Suddenly, a giant cat of some kind launched itself from the branches and assaulted the party.  It was a big cat, a puma to be exact. He was tough and battle-scarred. But we had him outnumbered.  We thought we had him for sure.

We were wrong.  Pete Puma (as we affectionately named him afterward) proceeded to methodically tear the party to shreds one victim at a time.  In what seemed no time at all, our hardy group of nine adventurers was a pile of corpses littering the forest, our blood glistening on the muzzle of a puma.

Despite such an inauspicious beginning, I was hooked.  It fired my imagination like nothing else before it. I could hardly sleep that night with excitement over this wonderful little dreamscape I had been introduced to. It also had structure and rules- you told the story, using your own imagination and creativity, but at the same time, luck could be against you, and you might fail in your objective (that’s what all the funny dice are for- they tell us whether the character succeeded at the action he was performing).

We played again the next night.  The arrangement was the same: Dad as DM, the rest of us playing.  We had rolled up a new batch of characters.  We didn’t bother with the  tavern this time, we just headed straight for the woods.  After a day or two of travel we found what we were looking for- the puma.

Once again he leaped from the tree, and we met him with weapons raised and battlecries on our lips.   Our warriors clashed with him.  The wizard tossed his only spell. The thief tried to skulk about the fight, looking for an opening to attack by surprise. It was titanic and bloody, and we lost some of our comrades to the beast’s claws, but in the end we prevaile.  We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we stood triumphantly pver the puma’s body.

Then his owner arrived.  You know, the Mad Hermit.

Yeah, the one we had been warned about.

In what seemed like no time at all,  the Mad Hermit cut our party to ribbons. One by one, we fell before him.  Soon, the Hermit was standing triumphantly over our bodies.

“Hmm,” I thought. “This is trickier than I imagined.”  Or something like that.

That was about thirty years ago.  I’ve been playing these games ever since, not just Dungeons and Dragons, but role playing games of all types and varieties.  My goal with this blog is to share my love for the hobby, to encourage new players, and to open a forum for experienced players to discuss the finer points of role playing.

RPGs are games, designed for entertainment, to be sure.  But role playing is much deeper than that.  It has an artistic merit all its own, rather like improvisational theater (this can be especially true of Live Action RPGs).  There is even a growing view in psychology that role playing can be an effective therapy tool.  I hope to explore these aspects ofrole playing, and by increasing awareness, create a deeper appreciation for the hobby, both amongst its participants and in the public eye.

I also want to share some of the great stories we’ve had along the way.  The story of the Mad Hermit and his Puma is one example.

Thanks for joining us today.  May your dice roll your way.