Puzzling

Our last session was pretty combat intense. I try to balance campaigns out between story line and the amount of combat because I want my players to get caught up in a story not just smashing things. The way it worked out though, was that last night it was mostly combat. There were two breaks from combat and the first of them was in the ruins of a warlock’s tower. The warlock was still there and offered to play them at a game of Loki’s dice, a game I was inspired to come up with. I’ll dedicate a blog post just to the game when I get a chance. Both of the PCs played until they won magical items. 5e is written to be low in magical items but with just Tyr and Hal playing I felt they could use the boost. They are playing well but let’s face it, magic weapons and items are just freaking cool. Then the PC’s got to try out their new gear as they fought their way through a crypt of undead, where they found a mysterious amulet.

We moved back onto the main track of the quest as Tyr and Hal proceeded to a set of watery ruins. They are on an island but the ruins they must investigate have sunken into a small lake. It is here that the boys encountered a medusa and Hal became turned to stone just before Tyr could deliver the deathblow to the Medusa. With only two players I allowed Tyr to transform Hal back to himself with the death of the Medusa.

Their tribulations for the night didn’t end there. After defeating the medusa the next door they needed to get through was a puzzle. There is a mural around the room and a door with a strange locking mechanism. The mural is done in 10 frames. They depict in order; a boar, an elk, a bear, a snake, a fungus, a blink dog, a kobold, a kenku, a medusa, a hydra. The first of the three dials on the door has a snake, a fungus, a kobold, a kenku, a hydra. The second has a blink dog, a snake, a boar, an elk. The third and inner most has a hydra, a bear, a medusa. Answer: snake, blink dog, hydra. It is simply that the animals follow the order on the mural. So the first animal on the mural that is on the first dial is the snake. The nextt animal on the mural on the second dial is the blink dog and the next animal on the mural on the third dial is the hydra.

This puzzle is where we get into some principles of DMing. I’ve talked to a lot of DM’s who say, “When I make a puzzle that I think is easy my players find it incredibly difficult. When I make one that I think is hard, they solve it in seconds.” I thought the door would be easy, especially since I was emphasizing the words “in order” but my players found it too difficult. Granted it was after midnight when they were trying to solve this. Which leads me into one of the principles of DMing that I learned early on; always give your players an out. Never give them something that is impassable and quest ending. With this puzzle I gave the players an out. Tyr started to play with the door and discovered that when he landed on a certain animal there was a “click.” He played with the door until he got the right combo and thus it unlocked. Did I want things to work out that way? No, but everyone was tired and I felt the best thing for the quest was to give my players an out.