QQ&A: Pitching puzzles

Puzzle design is hard.

It’s even harder in tabletop games. Want to create a video game, puzzle book or fun riddle? Good news – you get to test it. There’s only one puzzle I’ve been able to test in D&D, though, and that’s because I love it so much that I keep reusing it.

(No, I won’t tell you what it is. It’s a trade secret.)

You could craft an elaborate puzzle, only to have the party figure it out in four seconds. Or you could put one in as a speed bump, only for it to stump them for a session.

Then there are the puzzles with unexpected answers – Gordian knot problems where, because of how you designed it, are far easier than you intended.

What to do, what to do?

It’s easy enough, really:

Make the puzzle hard, but give them the chance to brute-force their way past it.

I first used this in a minotaur wizard’s tower. She wanted to keep boring and common folks out, so each level of her tower had a brawn path and a brain path. Tough enough to defeat her minions? Smart enough to solve her puzzles? Either way, she wanted to talk to you.

The puzzle was hard. The players spent hours on it. That was okay because it was their choice. They knew they could take the fight instead, but they wanted to solve it.

Not every party will be so patient, and that’s okay.

I used this in a one-shot I ran recently. There was a riddle above a combination lock, five letters long. There were also five potions nearby. Any character could drink a potion, earning a permanent debuff in exchange for revealing one of the letters at random.

The party could solve the puzzle with just their wits, skip it by guzzling poison or by doing both – taking a small penalty in exchange for a hint.

It doesn’t have to be so elaborate (or contrived). Solving the puzzle opens a door quietly. Or they could smash the door down, but give up all stealth and surprise.

Hard but optional is winning game design that works for any party. If you’re nervous about using puzzles because some people don’t like them and they can soft-lock your game, keep this approach in mind.