Real Puzzles in RPGs - Don't Do It! (with some caveats)

Puzzle from Mansions of Madness board game - 1st Ed

Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly and when he woke, he wondered if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

So, does adding real puzzles in a RPG add to immersion?

In the board game The Mansions of Madness, there are various puzzles that must be solved to unlock clues, rooms, or objects, depending on the scenario's goals. Most are trivial to solve, but require some number of moves to solve them. The goal is to solve them within a set number of moves dictated by a PC's stat. These puzzles are marginally interesting and adds some color to the game.

In some RPGs, there are some real puzzles. Some are physical such as bent metal puzzles or wooden cube puzzles. These are sometimes used in face-to-face table top RPGs or in LARPs.

Wire Puzzles

Wooden Block Puzzle

More commonly, in online TTRPGs or face-to-face, a word puzzle (riddles and anagrams are common) is handed out or something in code that needs to be cracked.

The problem is that these puzzles rely on the abilities and knowledge of the Player, not the PC. And they are either trivial (so why bother) or really, really hard. In the hard case, what you'll see is that at one point, everyone at the table will give up except for that one person who will continue trying.

In one LARP, the GMs took two puzzles, disassembled them, and removed a few parts, to make solving it impossible. About half hour into the LARP, the GM took aside the poor guy who was trying to solve the puzzle and told him to give up.

In another game, we were given a substitution cypher to figure out. This is common in games where the clue is in another language or strange symbols and you need to translate it. I actually took a graduate course in cryptography, so most of this is grunge work for me and not that interesting. After most of the other Players decided they weren't interested, I think I solved it in a under a minute. Yeah, most times, your run of the mill RPG Player will give up and ask the GM if they can just roll dice to figure it out.

So, if you are going to put a puzzle in, be prepared to have a easy solve backup plan, such as a die roll that will solve the puzzle. When that happens, just hand them the solved clue.

If you are going to use a puzzle, the most effective thing is maybe a treasure hunt that unlocks a box, so no special skill is needed to solve the puzzle.

Either parts of a combination lock code (R23-L12-R10) is handed out as clues or possible keys are handed out. In one game, the GM taped clues to opening the box under various items in our room. And inside the box was an item of interest. The only problem with a combination lock, is that some people can open them without the combination. We found the first 2 parts, then we brute forced the last code. Note: Don't give out parts of the code in solve order.

So, then it's a question of if you lockpick a lock in a RPG, did you lockpick the lock or did your PC? Did you dream you were a safe cracker or did the safe cracker dream he was in a RPG?

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p.s. I just ran 7th Sea and there was a riddle contest. Yep, Players couldn't figure out the riddles and it was obvious they had started to Google the solutions (we were playing online). I should have told them before the riddle contest started, if they can't figure out the riddle to roll Wits with a 15 raise requirement which would allow them to Google the solution (or I would private message them with the solution).

Riddles fall into this category too. Various fantasy movies and fairy tales have riddles; it works well in that medium, but not in a RPG.

Avast, ye Matey! Thoughts on Pirate RPGs.

Recently, there's been renewed interest in Pirate themed RPGs. 

What do you want in a Pirate RPG? Pirates, Ships, Flintlocks, Treasure Maps, Swashbuckling Adventure!

7th Sea (1999 / 2016)

I have the 7th Sea (2nd edition, 2e) redesigned by John Wick (no, not the character Keanu Reeves plays in the John Wick movies) in 2016, but a game designer with a high reputation. Original 1st edition (1e) was released in 1999. There was great excitement for the 2e KickStarter which raised more than $1.3M. A very good amount, but like all successfully raised KS by a KS-newbie, it ran into trouble and Chaosium took over the production of the line in 2019.

1e criticisms was that it was too crunchy, too traditional with loads of rules for everything. 2e is narrative with not enough rules. 2e is really a completely different system.

I love the art in 7th Sea (2e), but since the game is more narrative, the source books are heavy in narrative descriptions and light on stats. The world building is impressive. So, you're mainly paying for art and lots of narrative text.

The fan base for 7th Sea had hoped for a streamlined version of 1e, not a completely new system. Without the support of the old fan base, 7th Sea floundered.

One cool thing in 2e was the death spiral. As you get injured, your skills improve. A precursor to Alien RPG's stress dice which I love.

I've played 2e several times. The system didn't really wow me, but sometime in the future, I might run it.

Freeport (2000)

I grew up with hack and slash, murder hoboing, but didn't play D&D for years. Then I heard about Freeport trilogy, an award winning campaign for best adventure. I wanted to try this out and I had purchased a set of D&D 3.5 years ago and it just sat on my shelf in mint condition. So, what could go wrong?

There's various versions of Freeport for different systems. I ran it using D&D 3.5. Basically, it's D&D 3.5 with a pirate theme slapped on it. The adventure was OK, but there are flaws inherent in using D&D, a combat heavy based system. One of the things I couldn't forgive was when an assassin targets the party members, the clue as to who sent him is on the assassin's body. Seriously? What assassin carries on them the hit contract? Lame and stupid. And of course, the assassination attempt has to fail and the PCs MUST loot the body to find the next clue. WTF.

So, Freeport is OK if you want pirates in your D&D campaign. The city, its laws, and politics are well fleshed out.

50 Fathoms (2003)

I've never played this. Savage Worlds system. Interior art looks a little cartoonish/Disney-ized.

Blood Tide (2014)

I've never played this. BRP system. BRP is the base system for Call of Cthulhu.

Corsairs of Cthulhu (2021)

A KickStarter that isn't out yet. Call of Cthulhu system. The sample art on the KS looks pretty good. New Comet Games have produced other quality CoC books. No QS, so I can't comment on the contents.

Between the Devil & the Deep (2022)

A KickStarter that isn't out yet. It uses the GUMSHOE system. Publisher did the Journal d'Indochine and Sassoon Files which mainly had period photographs. The illustrator they hired for portraits does do quality work. The KS promised ship-to-ship combat rules and large fleet engagement rules. No QS, so I can't comment on the contents.

Cursed Captains of Cthulhu (2023)

A KickStarter with a free QuickStart (QS). Leveraging the popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, what could go wrong?

I'm glad most new KS RPGs come with a free QS for you to look over the rules and try them out.

I really like the art and the system was built to be a pirate game. I like the characteristics. They're more evocative of the pirate theme.

It uses a new 4d6 system. My issue with the system is that I feel the designers didn't model the probabilities fully.

You basically roll 4d6 + characteristic + bonuses, then compare it to: 4, 8, 13, 16, 20, 25, 30, 34+ for degrees of difficulty. WTF? If you look at the difference between each Target Number (TN), it's: 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4. Even if you're taking into account the bell-curve, it doesn't look right. On average 4d6 = 14, so on average without any modifiers, you'll beat the 13 TN which is the Easy difficulty level. To get to Medium difficulty (16 TN), you need at least a +2 for your average die roll of 14 to succeed.

Characteristics

In some cases you can nudge a die up one # and/or reroll up to 3 dice that haven't been nudged.

4 x 1's is a Critical Failure. Um, that's 1 in 1296 chance. WTF. In D&D it's 5% (1 in 20). In CoC it's 5% or 1% (1 in 100) depending on your skill level.

4 x 6's is a Critical Success. Still 1 in 1296, but with nudges and rerolls, it's more often.

The weapon damage table is wonky. Most weapons do set damage and some do die roll damage (vicious damage). I've seen systems that do set armor stoppage and set damage or you have to roll damage dice, but not both. In the QS, they don't explain the mechanical benefits of vicious damage.

The pirate ship and crew are abstracted, which is fine, as are ship ranges. The Pirate Ship rules seem pretty well fleshed out, allowing PCs to affect crew effectiveness.

At a glance, the art looks great and I think the game will play fine, but I have issues with some of the design choices.