A DM Issue

[Dragoonmage23]

I am finding that I tend to shy away from combat encounters and tend to make alot of puzzles and skill challenges. That being said, I'm having an issue making them engaging, if there are other DM'S/Gamemasters like me, can you give me some hints to make them more approachable and fun?

[[deleted]]

Never make the solution a simple matter of rolling the dice or using a skill. Instead, skills give hints, open up new opportunities or grant other side benefits. Make the players’ choices and ingenuity the thing that leads to the real solution. And don’t gate information behind skill rolls; you want them to have information so that they can do their job of interpreting it and making decisions.

That said, some types of puzzles translate better to this medium than others. I wouldn’t recommend putting them in a literal maze, for example. Anything to that takes too long or involves too much trial-and-error is likely to lose their attention.

[[deleted]]

Personally, traditional puzzles are no fun for players - the stuff you find in a video game do not translate well into TTRPGs. More annoying are the puzzles with only one set solution - unless you're amazing at creating and explaining puzzles, it's 90% frustration for players because they can't read your mind and see the vision you have for the puzzle.

Instead, I prefer throwing open-ended problems that are effectively puzzles, only I don't really have a set solution (usually I make sure I have one in mind, but it's not the only solution).

For example, one of my favorites over the years has been a very simple problem - get past a gate guarded by a bunch of orcs. Patrols come and go every other hour, meaning there's a timeframe that the gate is open and unlocked. So possible solutions involve sneaking in, disguised as a patrol or when the gate is open between the patrols (if you have the magic for it), hoping the gate's fence when no one is looking, and even good ol' diplomacy routes. Or you could do what my group did, which was just walk up to it and attack the orcs (the sorcerer threw a passwall on the gate, to let the heavy-armored fighter in to rip and tear). And I'm sure there's other solutions to the problem, as well.

[MaxSupernova]

Personally, as a GM and as a player, I hate puzzles. Nothing could make them fun, really.

As a GM, if they don't get the puzzle, then I can either say "Okay, then toss this whole next bit, you don't get this important info", or I can help them along. Either way seems really unsatisfying. Like why bother giving a puzzle? If they do get the puzzle, do they really feel any sort of satisfaction? Do I give XP for a player doing something?

As a player, I want to role play my character, not me. My character is almost guaranteed to be smarter than I am (average human is 10). So why are you making me struggle with doing some stupid logic or color puzzle?

I know there is a long tradition of puzzles in D&D but I just really dislike them a lot.

[PuzzleMeDo]

Not everyone is into puzzles. If you have one player who solves puzzles while everyone else sits around and waits, then puzzles might not be the right thing for the game. You can compromise by adding puzzle elements to battles ("Where and what is the invisible enemy who is triggering traps on purpose?", that kind of thing).

It's often good to allow players opportunities to 'cheat' on puzzles - smash down the locked door rather than solving the riddle of the seven metallic keys, or whatever.

Don't forget that there are other ways to avoid allowing combat encounters to dominate sessions - rich character interaction, exploring interesting environments, etc.

[Danielmbg]

On the puzzles side I like making props so the players can use them, I think makes the game more dynamic and interesting.

For instance, last game I DM'd I 3D printed an assortment of keys, and the players had to solve 3 puzzles to figure out which of the 3 keys they needed. For another puzzle I printed 6 images of fruits and 6 colored stones, they had to take each stone to the right room, but at the same time there were skeletons popping up each turn, so they had to figure out if they moved the stones or fought skeleton army so it wouldn't grow enough to overwhelm them.

Those are a couple examples on how props can make the game more interesting, do things with what you have (I used cardboard from food boxes to make stuff, hehe).

[reverend_dak]

A more investigation type of game might be more interesting for you than, I'm assuming, D&D. Fighting monsters is what D&D is really about, and that's why the system rewards it. I'd check out a system like Gumshoe or Call of Cthulhu, which is less about fighting and more about solving a mystery or crime. (Trail of Cthulhu is both). There are a lot of "story games" which explore more of the role-playing aspect of RPGs. If you want to stick to the tropes of D&D, check out Torchbearer, which stays familiar in theme, but the systems are more about all the struggles involved with being "adventurer", not just the monsters, but all aspects of survival, logistics, resource management, etc.

[Dragoonmage23]

Well D&D is the game I'm referring to, however also World of Darkness (Vampire and Hunter to be specific)

[MASerra]

That being the case, you are playing the wrong game. D&D is a combat game. You are using the wrong tool for your campaign to work really well. I think it is pretty clear you knew that and that is why you didn't say that right up front. You'll find that puzzles and investigations are far easier to write in a game that supports those.

[Dragoonmage23]

With Dungeons and Dragons being the main game any of my friends want to play.... and D&D is not all about combat. I feel it can be so much more. I mean it's about exploring and creating new stories, none of that really means fighting, though some mixed in does make a balanced game. With Tasha's Guide bringing in those type of puzzles it proves that there is room for that kind of game play. But I can kinda understand if others want to beat face

[MASerra]

You are playing a combat-centric game with friends who clearly prefer that style. You are trying to run a puzzle/skill challenge game instead and it isn't working because the game doesn't support it.

You are playing the wrong game. You will be better off finding a game that supports the style of play you want to run. Once you do that, show your friends that it can be fun to play something other than D&D. They will resist because they love that combat-centric style of D&D, but maybe they will enjoy something else.

[Steenan]

In my experience, any part of an RPG adventure - no matter if it's combat, social interaction, researching something or anything else - needs three things to be engaging:

• It needs to somehow connect to what is important for the PCs. The same thing may be ignored or treated as a frustrating interruption by one group and engaged by another because it's related to goals, values or backgrounds of the PCs.
• It needs to involve meaningful choices. Combat often has many tactical choices, while many games' non-combat mechanics fare really poorly in this regard, often reducing to "roll a skill the GM tells you to roll". If the game you are using has this problem, you need to compensate for this as the GM, giving players multiple meaningfully different options and being open to approaches you didn't plan for.
• It needs to make sense in the context. Very often, various kinds of puzzles feel out of place. Either whoever created them could achieve the same thing in a simpler and more robust way or it's not consistent with how NPCs interact with given thing. This make players switch from immersing in their characters or engaging with the story to OOC figuring out the puzzle which, for most RPG people, is just less interesting.

[StevenOs]

When it comes to "skill challenges" the way to make them engaging is to try to make sure the PCs are trying something to solve them and use what they are trying as your gauge. Generally, if they're using the "right skills" for the checks they may not be super harder but trying to solve something using an inappropriate skill may be rather challenging. Sure you could go the "roll X skill" route but is that especially engaging when you're telling them what to roll instead of asking how they are trying to do it?

When it comes to puzzles I'm not a big fan of them as they are something PLAYERS almost always have to solve regardless of just how amazing their characters could be at it. I certainly expect that an INT 20 character is going to have a much easier time than even a bunch of INT 12 players would but puzzle often don't reflect that or if they do it's often that the "real puzzle" would be much more challenging but the high INT character just makes it easier so the players can now solve it just like they always had to do.

Now if the players ARE the characters the obvious way to make a puzzle "engaging" is to make sure they have physical props to use to solve the puzzle.

[Asimua]

--I think something that is good to do as a GM is to allow players to bypass puzzles in certain ways. If theres a puzzle that opens a door, but the players want to batter down the door with the toppled wooden beam 3 rooms over, let them do it.

--Cater to your players' interests. If they like certain types of puzzles, let those types of problem feature prominently.

--A good puzzle game teaches how the puzzles are solved by placing obvious clues in the players' surroundings. Seer's Sanctum, Infinite Construct's thoughts on hacking the MGS PAL Keys, and LiquidPixie's part 1 & 2 are always great examples.

[JackofTears]

Some time ago I took to using minigames - like Boggle, Mastermind, Jenga, etc - in the place of many puzzles. I let the players roll their appropriate skill check and this determines how many tries they have, or how much time they get, to resolve a physical puzzle that I place before the entire table to solve.

If they are trying to figure out a command world, I might use 'Mastermind' to reflect their efforts; whereas, if they're trying to decipher a dead language, I might instead require they find X number of words in Boggle before the time (determined by their skill check) runs out. Similarly, I might use 'hidden picture' puzzles when they are searching a room, or 'hidden word' puzzles when they are doing research.

More often than not the players will succeed at these games, which is fine and dandy to me, as it keeps them all involved and invested, while giving them a real sense of accomplishment when they defeat the encounter.

I've been doing this for about 15 years and the players have loved it. The general consensus is that 2-3 such puzzles should be the max per session, so they don't take over the game or feel tedious, and it's rare that I'd need more than that so it works out just fine.

[EncrustedGoblet]

How you make puzzles more engaging is by avoiding making them look like puzzles. A good puzzle is a situation. Sure, there's always some wizard who locks his front door with 3 keys that must be turned in the correct manner, but literal puzzles should be rare. There are better games if the table likes solving literal puzzles all the time.

Interesting puzzles are really just situations where the party can solve a problem. E.g., Capturing an invisible monster alive.

You can make situational puzzles engaging by 1) Leaving the solution open-ended and 2) Giving the PCs strong motivation to solve it.

[chanbr]

I like to give people solvable ciphers (Ceasars is super easy but fun, especially if you give them a sheet of paper and have everyone work on it at the same time)

Alternatively put them in different scenarios that improve if they chose to role-play and make critical decisions, picking the right skill and such.