Puzzles have to fulfill at least one of three pre-requisites:
1 - Be either braindead-simple, or solvable through trial and error. Think round-peg-in-round-hole toddler toys, or the switch puzzles in Duke Nukem 3D and other games of that era. You've got 4 on-off switches and no matter the correct solution you have only a grand total of 16 possible combinations. No matter how dense the players are, there's only so long they can get stuck on it.
2 - Be completely optional. That way if the players do solve it they can feel clever about it. Whatever prize is behind it, it won't be vital for the story or the rest of the adventure/dungeon. Either way, these can be as obtuse and Myst-like as you'd like.
3 - Have an alternate, usually brute-force solution that comes with a cost. The puzzle is the mechanical equivalent to a trap, a dangerous situation you can disarm with the right kind of knowledge. @Ghostse already gave a couple examples, but here's a classic: a sphinx blocks the path and presents a riddle. It's a powerful monster and a dangerous foe to the party, but it's beatable. The party can choose to bash their heads against the riddle, or try to force their passage. The sphinx fights them for a while, then leaves when the party has bled enough resources to "pay" for the puzzle (or just gets killed if the party is strong enough).
(The puzzle might even have recurring consequences until it's solved. Many years ago we had a dungeon where the central "hub" room was protected by a smoke wall that wasn't solid, but dealt 1d6 damage to anyone crossing it. So every time we went through that room to get to another wing of the dungeon everybody took 2d6 damage. The puzzle was actually dead simple (all we had to do was put out the eerily-glowing brazier in the center of the room), but it took us at least three crossings to figure it out.)
Either way, puzzles should be either speedbumps, or just extra content for the players. Any puzzle that grinds the game to a halt or makes it impossible for the party to complete their objective because the players couldn't read the GM's mind is just poorly designed.
I think there's just this strange mental barrier to puzzles in our sessions. Maybe I'm too buzzed mid-session to focus, or the descriptions aren't strong enough to really build a mental image of what needs to be solved (or the actual art isn't working) or Christ, maybe I'm just retarded, but all I know is that the amount of times there's been what I could say a Good Puzzle™ in our campaigns cant be counted on one hand. The multi-solution thing is aces and I need to just keep it in the back of my head.
They're going after some low hanging fruit. Just look at the poor bastards' online profile, it's a cemetery:
This is all WotC's fault because they opened the fucking floodgates with their kowtowing to vociferous fags, troons, and nogs when they started pandering to them. Combine it with actually surrendering and giving up when an actual psychotic twitter mob comes at you... for space monkeys you've done gone goofed and there's no coming back until you fire the danger hairs and DIE consultants and just stop fucking caring what 12 psychos on twitter think.
I think there's just this strange mental barrier to puzzles in our sessions. Maybe I'm too buzzed mid-session to focus, or the descriptions aren't strong enough to really build a mental image of what needs to be solved (or the actual art isn't working) or Christ, maybe I'm just retarded, but all I know is that the amount of times there's been what I could say a Good Puzzle™ in our campaigns cant be counted on one hand. The multi-solution thing is aces and I need to just keep it in the back of my head.
I'll give you another example of the three-level solution.
Party was in a crypt
there had been an orcus cult near a High-elf city area a few millenia before. The cult had started turning a partly-completed crypt into an Orcus temple, but had been stopped before they got too, too far. (Cult started by taking advantage of a local leader's grief over death of their lover) To hide this shame, the local elves turned the orcus temple back into a crypt and sentenced the ringleaders to having their spirits be crypt guardians - being removed from the cycle of death/rebirth being the worst punishment possible.
The ring leader was left to starve in the inner crypt, but became an undead and had over millenia both gone completely insane and managed to tune his powers enough he could psychically contact a tribe of goblins who were doing his bidding.
The party's mission was to enter the crypt and stop this undead asshole; the party had already done the leg work to find out where the tomb was, that the undead asshole from long ago was likely behind everything, and he and his goblins were acting in the aid of an even Bigger big-bad and so he had to be stopped.
To justify the puzzle, the story was that the Elves confined the spirits to their coffins, but had to keep them sealed to complete construction work. There was also some hallowed dead in side crypts that they couldn't move, so they needed to have a mechanism to allow the spirits to be sealed so veneration rituals for the hallowed dead could be performed.
The spirits were also supposed discourage grave robbers and explorers - not to be immediately leathal face eaters.
The puzzle:
The party needed to solve an intentionally disabled teleportation circle. There were 6 missing runes in the teleportation circle.
There were 6 sarcophagi near by. Each houses a mummy that acts as a quasi-phalactery.
Once a living creature entered the chamber, after 1d4+4 turns and every 1d4 turns after, one of the mummies at random would spawn a Ghost (This was 4e so they were minions. Basically anything that'd go down quickly). If that mummy had spawned a ghost that was still active, or the mummy's ability to spawn ghosts was disabled, nothing would happen. I.e. the more of the puzzle the party solved, the easier it got to solve the rest.
The sarcophagi were in little mini-chapels detailing their lives via bas relief murals. There was a trader, an architect, a warrior, etc. There was also an inscription which was a riddle with solutions like a lantern, a coin, a knife, etc. The inscriptions could be detected to give off arcane and divine energies. There was also an indentation on the slab with the inscription (noticed with a low DC perception, or auto-noticed by anyone trained in perception who looked at the inscription).
If an item that the riddle indicated was placed in the indentation, the sarcophagi would stop spawning ghosts and an arcane specter would appear of the missing rune that needed to be carried to the teleportation circle.
The solution:
Correct solution: Solve the riddles, place the items on the coffins to stop ghosts from spawning. 3 of the items were in the room, 1 of them was a gold coin which the party had plenty of. One of the items (a quartz crystal) could be obtained by the party before entering the crypt, and there was a ' back up' copy in one of the adjacent rooms with the hallowed dead, but it was hidden behind another, more abstract riddle (the answer was "silence" - they had to do that and figure out it wanted them stop a fountain from flowing in a magically silenced room). 6th item was in the other room of Hallowed dead and was just there to grab.
The items also weren't random assignment: The trader's solution was a gold coin. The Warrior's was a blade. etc.
Lesser solutions:
The party could roll for INT checks to get hints on the riddles; only check per riddle per character, but there were three levels depending on how good they rolled.
Easy & medium, get a vague or a decent hint. Very hard, you just get the solution.
They could also channel divine energy with a medium difficulty to offline a coffin's ability to spawn more ghosts for a while. No penalty for failure. (The party never did this, and I didn't have a solid disable timer worked out, just a vague "should be turned off as long as they keep making process. Turn back on if they stall out or try to edge-case the puzzle" in my notes)
They could also do a very hard channeling of Arcane energy to try to make the ensorcellment on the inscription act as though the riddle had been solved. Failure causes an arcane backlash for damage and that coffin (or another coffin) to immediately spawn a ghost.
Brute Force/Mulligan:
The party, with a medium and then a very difficult Arcane check, could fudge one of the missing runes, potentially reducing the number of puzzles needing solved from 6 to 4 (or mummies being fought). None of the riddles were exactly brain boilers, but the idea is if the party has one riddle they are just not getting, they have a bypass.
The party could also smash open the sarcophagi - this would free the mummy which would then fight the party; defeating the mummy also released the rune. Mummies were difficult opponents than the ghosts (and could inflict mummyrot). This would make the Raven Queen and the Nature Gods a little miffed, as well really reduce the warm fuzzies the elves felt for the party.
But if you were stuck, its a way to proceed.
As a final back up, there was a returning goblin patrol that party could fight that had a scroll that would complete the circle. But unlike fixing the circle that would give them the option to come and go as they desired, using the scroll would be a one-way ticket. Better hope the boss has a way out and you can take him on.
Wrap up:
The party had the option of releasing the imprisoned cult leaders' souls (to face judgement in the afterlife), or leaving them to their fate. Releasing the souls got them points with the naturey gods for restoring them to the cycle. Keeping them imprisoned go you points with the more justicey gods for uploading the law. To make the choice harder, freeing them required depowering a unique magic weapon (and yes, coming back later was an option). I was a little surprised when they opted to free them.
Really it was more about seeing how their characters would respond (i.e. trolley problem) than anything mechanical.
Their message is standard insufferable leftism and as subtle as Steely Dan from Yokohama being shoved in your eye, but ideas are at least a step above 'communism is real and actually works, you'd be utopia if we'd listen to the unemployed sadbrain workshy faggots like me'. China turned imperial again, Africa is some sort post-communist cult of personality, and Europe is "ecofascist".
They also go to 'fortune points' instead of hit points; it a decent system in concept, fucking up at talkies hurts just as bad as battle, and is one of the better ways to model gunplay (every shot misses but the "hits" just degrade your ability to dodge. When you run out of fortune points you get shot.) but sounds like they are over-extending trying to be everything so its probably complete shit.
Creator is also joining the artists sobbing about AI taking our jerbs, so lol.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
There's a post-apocalyptic game called The End. It's had two releases, one back in the mid 90s, and then a D20 version. It's post-apocalyptic in the biblical sense... The Rapture happened, the Saved vanished, and what was left behind were the Meek.
Anyways, one of the setting elements is a phenomenon called The Blues. Anything that isn't actively owned, used, and maintained decays at an accelerated rate. An abandoned city will be completely overgrown and returned to more-or-less nature in two or three generations. Lesser structures and equipment that much faster.
It's kind of a shame the game never really got a following at all. I totally get it, "A post-apocalyptic game of theological horror" is a hard tag-line to sell, particularly to gamers who have a higher-than-normal aversion to religious stuff, but it was actually a pretty neat game, and the production values on the D20 version were great - they literally printed it to look like a bible. Trade paperback sized, faux-leather cover with embossed gold text, pastel yellow pages with two-column text.
Sorry... I'm not affiliated in any way, I just always like to plug this game when I get a chance. It's just... charming, to me.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
I actually dig the idea! Reminds me of a more fleshed out version of "Until the End of the Earth" setting for All Flesh Must Be Eaten (Rapture happens, Christ raises the dead to judge the living).
There's a post-apocalyptic game called The End. It's had two releases, one back in the mid 90s, and then a D20 version. It's post-apocalyptic in the biblical sense... The Rapture happened, the Saved vanished, and what was left behind were the Meek.
Anyways, one of the setting elements is a phenomenon called The Blues. Anything that isn't actively owned, used, and maintained decays at an accelerated rate. An abandoned city will be completely overgrown and returned to more-or-less nature in two or three generations. Lesser structures and equipment that much faster.
It's kind of a shame the game never really got a following at all. I totally get it, "A post-apocalyptic game of theological horror" is a hard tag-line to sell, particularly to gamers who have a higher-than-normal aversion to religious stuff, but it was actually a pretty neat game, and the production values on the D20 version were great - they literally printed it to look like a bible. Trade paperback sized, faux-leather cover with embossed gold text, pastel yellow pages with two-column text.
This is gorgeous. Making lovely books for TTRPGs is something that never goes out of style and a guaranteed way to give your game some lasting appeal beyond its contents.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
I read the novels first, and tbh I always took that as a "good/neutral/bad" kinda way. but then I'm not a fan of the whole 3x3 matrix, smells too much like defining subgenres of metal or EDM. "see, I'm not an asshole, I'm a NEUTRAL asshole!".
There was some advice I saw that rings true which is "You shouldn't try to red-herring or obfuscate the truth on mysteries. Your players will do that for you." This doesn't mean giving out the solution at the outset. But they should automatically get the needed clues to unravel what's going on as long as they got to the right place and did the needed legwork - but that doesn't mean the party should just get them. Better rolls/better plans should just make it easier & less costly to get those clues.
I want a rpg where all the natural shit just overtaken the world. No hippie shit, no kumbaya it's a utopia, and no other bullshit. Just survivors trying to survive in urban ruins and overgrown areas.
So another RPG where you'd rather play as a Corporation character, just gunning down hippies and injuns in what remains of the Amazon. Spare me the "lungs of the earth" bullshit, WE NEED THAT MANGANESE!
Makes me wonder what they bought with that million dollars. I imagine the art was expensive because there's a lot of it. Probably gave themselves a "paycheck" too. Even after that though, I know there was a good chunk of it spent on something nice and retarded.
Makes me wonder what they bought with that million dollars. I imagine the art was expensive because there's a lot of it. Probably gave themselves a "paycheck" too. Even after that though, I know there was a good chunk of it spent on something nice and retarded.
It's been about a year and four months since the funding phase ended. With 22 "official" members for the project plus however many non-listed people to pay, plus a hard copy option that a good amount of people seem to have gone for, I could see them going through all that money legit.
If that's the case, ggwp you idiots. You broke even and made no profit. Welcome to living hand-to-mouth.
