• TacticsConsort@yiffit.net
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    3 months ago

    On the contrary, puzzles can be half the fun, especially if your players are idiots

    There is a Young Black Dragon in my world who was literally never meant to be a major issue for any players but currently has EIGHT player character deaths attributed to him, because the first (level 8) party TPKd when they tried to move deeper into his territory to ambush him after he stole one of their bags, and they all drowned in a bog (trying to help each other and the ones who went to help also getting into trouble). Then there was a oneshot where a second (level 5) party went to his lair to avenge the first one and they also TPK’d because he got a surprise round against them.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    3 months ago

    Also ITT: “You enter the room. A series of eight mirrors on the walls of the octagonal chamber, surround an elaborate fountain in the center of the room with an inscrip–”

    “I break all the mirrors to see if anything is behind them.”

    “… … fuck you.”

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      “the mirrors seem to be made out of a material you’ve never seen before, they don’t budge” < do the puzzle you fuck approach

      “the mirrors seem to be enchanted in some way, hitting them doesn’t do anything” < i hope at least the wizard will want to do the fucking puzzle approach

      “ok you do that :) the building around you begins shaking, you can see debris falling off the ceiling. The tales of the legendary “cool axe for murder sprees and hitting random objects” hidden in this area will need to be forgotten if you want to live, roll how much damage you took running away.” < breaking weird objects in weird places will get you fucking killed, aka. fuck around and find out approach

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        3 months ago

        Eh. I dislike the “dungeon only works the way I want it to” solution, like the mirrors are unbreakable because that’s not what I wanted you to do with them.

        In the other hand, having the players suddenly finding themselves in a boss fight with what was imprisoned in the mirror prison as soon as there’s an existing mirror isn’t facing another intact mirror? And then if they start winning or run away and get back to town, they get a surprise as soon as they go near a mirror? Until they figure out what was the special property that kept the beast in place in the chamber, how it was tricked into it in the first place and how to repeat the process? Fuckin a man. I had planned that you have to have one party member watching in the mirror guiding someone else to find the alcove in the opposite wall that can only be seen through one of the mirrors, but I like this way better; let’s rock.

  • Jaderick@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    It’s a rite of passage to waste an hour of game time on a puzzle involving a locked door and a “thinking outside of the box” solution.