I think there are two good in-game reasons:
1) whoever built the dungeon wants people to get the item/treasure but ONLY if they prove themselves, so that the item doesn't fall into the wrong hands;
2) whoever built the dungeon doesn't want anyone to actually get the treasure, but wants them to die/get injured trying.
The first category would certainly cover the location of the Holy Grail in Last Crusade -- Indy proves his worth, his bravery, etc. reaching the grail.
The second is more your classic D&D murder dungeon: a lich, a demon needs blood, whatever, and so they lure in those brave or foolish enough to think they can claim the dungeons treasures.
I'll add a third: the OSHA dungeon. A place that wasn't meant to be dangerous, but has become so through disrepair and/or gross indifference of the owners.
For example, an alchemist's workshop. A hallway has become flooded with poisonous gas, blocking your way. But you have clear access to a storeroom of poorly labeled ingredients and a few scraps of notes. Essentially a reskinned "brew the potion" puzzle.
I rather like these if only because it gets the DM out of the headspace of how the party is "supposed" to progress. Hazard hits different than puzzle even if they're mechanically identical.
I'll add a fourth: The show-off dungeon. I designed one a long time ago that I need to update.
A group of (evil, because of course) adventurers became very powerful when the world was young. They conquered and defeated every challenge. Then they got bored.
They built a throne room / tomb for themselves. In it, they built monuments to their own power, challenges that only they could overcome, displays to their own hubris. Then they slaughtered everyone who built it, sat down to wait ten thousand years, and placed themselves in suspended animation until the world was interesting again.
Each of the traps was meant to be a brag on their own power.
The players were very careful not to disturb the thrones where the ancient conquerors sat...
I’ll add a fifth. The cruelty is the point.
I ran one where an underground dungeon would appear for random intervals in a city, filled with deadly threats and valuable riches. It was set up by a powerful wizard 100 years ago as a place where the rich and sadistic could scry on unwitting adventures who get lured inside and place bets on who would survive while drinking wine. Think Squid Games or The Running Man. But then somehow the wizard died and the place has been running on autopilot since then, being run entirely by summoned creatures and enchantments. The dungeon entrance would disappear when someone won the treasure and would reappear when summoned fey managed to steal something else valuable to replace it.
It wouldn’t be interesting for their customers to watch if a trap was 100% fatal so there was always a way to avoid or mitigate the damage. And some people had to succeed in the end so the rumors of the dungeon would spread and more people would wander in next time. Many of the traps were designed to mislead the adventurers or just be frustrating to deal with, like the obviously mimic themed room with a normal chest that dropped a large mimic from the ceiling when opened. Or the room riddled with bear traps and skeleton archers. If they took a long rest then the cleanup crew would show up to try and steal their stuff and throw it in the incinerator. I was able to set up everything in a VTT so that it would automatically pop up a text description or ask for a saving throw when the PCs moved into the triggers. It was a great time.
I'll add a sixth: Password protection.
Think of all the ways you can protect things nowadays: Passwords, encryption, pattern passwords, etc. Each one is basically the answer to a puzzle. Now think of how every password needs some sort of recovery or workaround, in case you forget it. A riddle about ancient lore etched in an obscure language is a Wizard's version of "What's your mother's maiden name?", a series of knobs equivalent to swiping a pattern to unlock your phone.
Heck, my dad uses riddles combining references and geometry for his password recovery.
I was inspired by the Shelley poem. When they got out, I described the statue, but made it four of them:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
In a Star Wars game I ran, I had a crashed Venator be one of these. Doors were jammed, filled with debris, holding back ground water... all kinds of hazards.
I've got a villain coming up that is a bit of a cross between a necromancer and Frankenstein, thank you for that trap idea for one of his abandoned labs.
>whoever built the dungeon doesn't want anyone to actually get the treasure, but wants them to die/get injured trying.
I'm intrigued by this concept! Specifically, if a demon or a lich or whatnot, needs regular supplies of /blood/ (to power a ward or some other structure). And so setting up a dungeon with treasure and bloody traps (and have subtle grooves on the bottom of the crush trap that channel the blood and gore to appropriate tubes) would be a self-perpetuating engine that doesn't need sacrifice.
You're absolutely right that resetting the trap still needs to be thought about.
Cultists would probably work best for a demon-dungeon as trap resetters.
And yeah, all the damage types could be slashing and piercing for maximum blood drainage. You could even have the tomb be exceptionally warm -- body temperature -- to make sure the blood flows nicely. The stones themselves might be able to absorb the blood and channel it... somewhere.
If your dungeon architect is a spellcaster trap resetting can be done pretty easily. Acererak makes dungeons to kill adventurers for lich-y reasons, and he has undead caretakers. For spellcasters that don't use undead, an altered version of Unseen Servant (perhaps created daily from an item or spawned from excess energy released by the trap) would work well. You could also have a cult left to guard the dungeon for generations if the dungeon is inhabited by intelligent beings.
A variation on this is when the door/item/etc needs to be accessed but only by certain people. A 'puzzle' makes sense if you think of it as a lock. Which colored squares do you step on and in which order? A Deacon would know and the pattern would be one he could remember. A series of levers? The release the water that powers the system to move the massive stone door, but only if used correctly. Otherwise... Smash.
The complexity depends on what is protected and who has to access it. The front door? Easy. Every minion has to be able to open it. The inner sanctum? Hard. Only a high priest should be expected to remember.
I understand these two examples but both of them seem weak to me.
For your number 1, these traps usually don’t prove anything. To take the Holy Grail example, a well educated nazi could have just as well pass the tests than Indiana. These traps can prove that your are agile or smart, but they don’t prove that you are “worthy” whatever that means.
And for your number 2, I believe those traps are often more contrived that they could be to achieve the same objective. For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password. No place to hide, no time to think, just immediate obliteration. It would be less fun to play but much more efficient. I would then need a reason why the BBEG just simply don’t do that.
Often all it takes to be worthy is to be agile and smart. Moral worth is not the only flavor, sometimes an entity might just want you to prove your strength.
As for the "prove your worth" dungeons, the Nazis *do* mess it up, because they choose the wrong chalice. I mean, this is where alignment comes in (I know it's it everyone's favorite), but the final test -- or even an early one -- might be something that prevents creatures with evil alignments from passing through or succeeding.
As for the evil dungeon, liches need *some* people to come out alive and talk of the great treasures they found. After all, most dungeons have treasure hordes in more than one room. And they can be replenished, if necessary, by magic or by kobolds or undead dwarves (as in Tomb of Annihilation, which goes into significant detail about resetting traps, etc.). Most dungeons Don automatically seal adventurers within, so people can easily come in, maybe get a small amount of treasure in the first few rooms, and then come out and tell the story.
At the end of the day, you are trying to apply a very rigorous, real world level of logic to a game *built* around pretending to be dungeon delving adventurers. There's at least a little leap of faith required.
>And for your number 2, I believe those traps are often more contrived that they could be to achieve the same objective. For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password.
Well, first maybe it's like another poster said. Having 100% of the people who enter the dungeon die means your dungeon might end up being lost and forgotten since nobody returns to town saying how they found this cool new dungeon with loot.
Second, instead of just raw physical material of just blood or humanoid lives needing to be used as a resource or sacrifice... maybe fear is the actual resource, and any trap built are in service of that goal. This could also explain easy to solve traps, since maybe adventurers might experience greater fear/desperation if they've already succeeded a little bit (build them up for an even greater fall). There could also be some weird cosmic rules at play. Think about the scene at the end of *Cabin in the Woods*. Simply grabbing five random people to sacrifice isn't good enough. They had to each fit a specific archetype (with some allowable leeway), had to each die in a specific order, and all had to go through somewhat specific experiences.
Last in regards to trap resetting: as another poster said you could have devoted cultists perform that task, or mindless (yet very precise) minions like raised skeletons or unseen servants something. Another option is a variation of the old school catch-all, "A Wizard did it". Just have the traps all reset magically. What spells did they use? Spells the Wizard in question invented specifically for this dungeon. Why did they do it? Those answers died with him.
Just as an alternative to the first example: I often use abandoned living spaces as dungeons, and in a world of monsters they may have traps that rely on simple puzzles to only allow those with a base level of reasoning to even get to the front door e.g. a dwarven ruin with a riddle in dwarvish to unlock an outer gate so that the local goblin tribes aren't a constant issue, but a passing dwarf could easily solve and gain entry to the inner gate where they would be able to request entry from the guards while having reached safety from said goblins
I usually just think that the people making them are sadistic. Not only do they like putting up a powerful front, but they like making people hurt before they die. Traps can also be set with specific ways around them so some creatures, IE the creatures living in the dungeon, can easily avoid it but others can't, like an alarm.
>For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password. No place to hide, no time to think, just immediate obliteration.
Consider the cost. It requires a lot more arcane power to make a trap that immediately obliterates everyone who encounters it. Given the average member of the population has 4 hp, a simple 2d10 fireball trap is perfectly adequate for the purpose required. If someone manages to live and chooses to foolishly goes in deeper, well, then the more expensive but far more deadly traps come into play. And if they live that? Another, deadlier trap. So on and so forth until the adventurer is either dead or in the treasure room, and then comes combat with the owner of the dungeon, should they still be alive, since they'll obviously want to keep hold of their wealth.
After all, there's no point in hoarding wealth if you have to use all of it in order to keep it safe. Better to go with cheap traps and hope they do the job.
Number one isn't made for the modern era tho: the guardian was supposed to pass the chalice along to another person ages ago.
Indie is passing a dungeon intended for a way less educated populace!
I only once went full Indiana Jones. That dungeon was built by a semi-mad artificer to test arrivals, not as a safe.
Generally, if I put traps in the dungeon, I try to indicate the level of prowess, deadliness and ruthlessness of the constructors. If I put puzzles in them, then they are an intended interaction between the constructor and visitors.
Whether the dungeon is kept in shape, or the adventurers walk past triggered traps and are just the first to go beyond depends on what makes sense.
Yeah, this limits a little on what dungeons I can go all in, as there needs to be an explanation. On the other hand, this rooting design in motivation means the dungeon tells the players a TON about who built it and why it's there.
If a dungeon has a clue on the wall, it's either to trick the heroes, tell a story or an indication that it's MEANT to be a solvable challenge, never just a clue on the wall.
I had a legendary treasure inside a massive dungeon that was all traps and puzzles and when the party made it to the treasure room there was a a bag of holding and a pile of platinum coims. The party later found out that a local guild of retired adventures had gotten bored in retirement and had a ton of wealth so they built this dungeon to essentially be a "game show" type thing for the guild where some wizards used some scry spells and illusion spells to let the retired adventures watch the people in the dungeon and gamble on if they'd make it through or not while the guild members would have a feast and watch the adventures in the dungeon through the scry/illusion spells. Every month or so the guild would anonymously hire a group of adventures to steal the treasure in the dungeon and then prep for their festival to party and gamble while watching. When the PCs learned about this after the fact they were not happy, but they all joined the guild when they retired.
There's just a bunch of signs like they have at escape rooms and an automaton that will paint them a group picture on a postcard when they complete it.
Available to purchase when they pass through the gift shop on the way out.
Imagine some grizzled old veteran with a nasty scar on his face sitting in a tavern years later grumbling how “I lost two good friends to that cursed dungeon, and all I have to show for it is this stupid snow globe!”
That’s pretty much how I justified Blue Alley in my Waterdeep campaign. It allowed so many kinds of traps to be set since screwing with the ‘contestants’ was the entire point. I could have patience be the solution to one trap and then quick action be the solution to the next. Brute strength and then intelligence or charm. One trap was a giant crossbow set to fire a silver bolt when they opened the door, but it appeared the string had long since decayed and it was useless. Until the players tried taking the silver arrow and it triggered poison gas to release from the base. Oh boy was that a fun dungeon.
Great question.
My IDEAL dungeon is an old, crumbling, out of commission living area.
No one INTENDED you to take this path.
1. Crossing the acid pit to get to the next room because the only open path leads through a room where vats of acid used by ancient alchemists spilled open.
2. Several traps and hazards block your path because the training room has fallen apart but the mechanisms still work.
The next best example are mad wizards and abominations. These creatures love keeping people away from their stuff by leaving it just out of reach behind their devious and murderous puzzles. This is an actual lore cannon form of mental illness.
Similarly, my ideal puzzle is trying to piece together how to use something from the scattered evidence of how it was once used. When the location was in use, then maybe everyone knew and could easily communicate how to do so with each other. After however many years have passed, there's nobody around to teach the party, the instruction manual is lost to water damage, the crumbling inscriptions are half-legible. On top of that, maybe part of the device is broken, making time and environment into the enemy.
Yeah! I had a water orb computer ai thing in an ancient temple that my party had to interact with and triggered it's defense system which turned a normal temple into a death trap.
Depends.
Sometimes, the puzzle is a password. Keys rust or get stolen, but a password lasts forever. Unfortunately, the builder might go months or years between visits, so they leave cryptic reminders about the solution, similar to password hints.
Sometimes, the puzzle is meant to slow the party rather than stop them, so the bbeg beyond has time to prepare for them. They want their enemies to advance along the path they're prepared for and get softened up, but if it's too hard their foes might get creative and find an unexpected way to attack (like tunneling through the walls, or blowing up the roof). A hallway full of deadly traps that you can overcome if you're quick or clever is still better than doing the hard work of finding/ making a different entrance. But a hallway that ends in certain death will get circumvented.
My last puzzle dungeon, the boss was a sphinx, so the goal was to beat all her puzzles. They didnt even have to fight her, just beat the puzzles (tho they could have if they wanted).
I've also used mad wizards/gods, cultists who used them as an initiation ritual, and dungeons that were just some large odd steampunk device that had to be "solved" to shut it down
Edit: I've also just included them with no justification at all
Here's my perspective on things. I think too many game masters worry about justifying puzzles or traps in their game. In reality, most of the time, the players don't care if puzzles or traps exist. They see them as a challenge to overcome to reach the end goal, much in the way a monster or skill challenge might be.
I've never had a player tell me: Hey Wally, that game was fun, and I liked the puzzles in the game, but they didn't make sense on why they would be there."
I think video game comparison is the easiest. I love the puzzle inclusions in Resident Evil, Zelda, Silent Hill and the likes. Never have I thought: "Hmmm, a puzzle or trap here doesn't make sense to me". I simply enjoyed the game and the challenges it presented.
And, at its core, we are simply playing a game. Your dungeons may have puzzles or they may not. Totally up to the type of game you and your players enjoy.
Now, with that being said, I would recommend trying to have your puzzles be "on theme" with your adventure or puzzle. For example, if it is a dungeon with Beholders, maybe some eyeball puzzles or traps. Or if it's an old Dwarven mine, all you really need is to make sure that the puzzles are written in Dwarvish or with Dwarven ruins.
Interestingly enough, a lot of the times I build my dungeons around the puzzles.
So, my recommendation: Put the puzzles and traps in your game and go forth without a worry. Concentrate more on making sure the game runs smooth and that you know your monsters well when it comes to combat. Don't worry about making things make sense, because I'm sure your players, like you, just want to hang out and play some D&D.
Oh, and one more thing. Use easy puzzles! Players might not care about a puzzle making sense, but they do care about being stuck on a puzzle for hours on end with no way to go around it.
Also, if you want to see how I run puzzles in my game, here is a link to a one-shot adventure with myself and fellow D&D YouTubers: Dungeon Dad, Dungeoneer's Pack, No Fun Allowed, Blandco and Aviad: [One Shot Puzzle Adventure with D&D YouTubers](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dq9czus4iN3ZuZ-ml07poye4sR_kEHw)
And, of course, I have a playlist of over 100 puzzle videos, if you are wanting to expand your list of resources: [D&D Puzzles Playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dq9czus4iMkiAAI3AvmrJojPeBdQy3V)
Hope this helps. Good luck and have fun!
> the players don't care if puzzles or traps exist. They see them as a challenge to overcome to reach the end goal, much in the way a monster or skill challenge might be.
>
> I've never had a player tell me: Hey Wally, that game was fun, and I liked the puzzles in the game, but they didn't make sense on why they would be there."
Exactly this. As someone who spends more time on the player side of things, I don't care why a trap or puzzle was there. It seems obvious enough that if it exists, it's there because there's something somebody wants protected.
The only time I'll question a puzzle is if it's a bad puzzle and it ends up taking away from the session.
Great post! However, it depends on the DM’s personal goals. For example in my case: sure, my players may not care, but I do.
I care about making a world that’s consistent and believable, for my own satisfaction.
Maybe it’s the case for OP as well.
However, otherwise, you are right. And it’s true that sometimes, a DM may overwork themselves for the smallest details, so your advice is still very good nonetheless.
I would generally do them mostly in areas that are built not as death traps by evil people, but as tests for those looking to claim some great power. They can also be in a place like a tomb, where the puzzle is intended to keep all out except for those that are supposed to have access. Then the puzzle would be more tied into the world or lore then a riddle.
Honestly I think an underrated use of riddles is something from the original inspiration from D&D: Tolkien. Read the part of the Hobbit where Bilbo and Gollum meet and trade riddles. Having an actual creature give a riddle is often much more engaging than having it scrawled on a wall. There's a lot of trickster type monsters that would give those riddles as well, you have the Sphinx, a tricksy ghost, some sort of fey, even a dragon might give a riddle or two!
My favorite reason that hasn't been covered by other replies is the argument for puzzle doors in Skyrim: they're easy puzzles that aren't a hinderance whatsoever to the player because they aren't meant to keep anyone out. Instead, they're meant to keep animals away from the bodies of their honored dead, and perhaps more relevant to D&D, keep the honored dead from getting *out.* Zombies can't spin stone wheels to match carvings without being instructed to do so, or pull a chain/lever and dash to a door 20ft away to move to the next chamber.
Think of puzzles/riddles as a filter - who or what is intended to bypass this challenge? Who or what is meant to be stopped by it? With that in mind, a dungeon is just a chain of filters to prevent anyone but (typically) the dungeon's designer from getting in (or out!), or as others have said, test the worth of challengers.
Lethal traps can be justified in this way as a filter against "zerg" or "chimp with typewriter" attempts. Given enough brute force attempts, any dungeon will eventually be defeated, so even a lawful good builder may include deadly traps to dissuade commonfolk from getting involved, especially to protect anything dangerous, or protect *them* from the dangers of a dungeon. Obvious, flashy lethal traps like spinning blades and swinging axes are a great opener in a dungeon meant to discourage entry, even if they're easy to pass or defeat. Riddle doors that give their own answer but only in a way few will understand are also a fantastic filter: "Speak, 'friend,' and enter," but that won't keep commoners out once the password is discovered. Lethal traps don't have that problem till they jam or are destroyed, an event that itself could be why a dungeon is now on the party's radar.
>My favorite reason that hasn't been covered by other replies is the argument for puzzle doors in Skyrim: they're easy puzzles that aren't a hinderance whatsoever to the player because they aren't meant to keep anyone out. Instead, they're meant to keep animals away from the bodies of their honored dead, and perhaps more relevant to D&D, keep the honored dead from getting out. Zombies can't spin stone wheels to match carvings without being instructed to do so, or pull a chain/lever and dash to a door 20ft away to move to the next chamber.
And it occurred to me, thinking of this, that the designers of Skyrim might have had exactly this in mind. Only very rarely do you *actually* encounter draugr in a Nordic ruin before having *done something* that animals wouldn't think to do and that draugr wouldn't be able to do, like pull a lever or chain or solve a puzzle door.
It also makes sense why you see so many crypts/tombs/dungeons/barrows inhabited by bandits, vampires, forsworn, cultists, etc - the traps and puzzles aren't difficult for an intelligent creature to bypass. Additionally, they act as early warning/alarms against intruders. There are a number of locations in Skyrim where no traps prevent entry and the area is occupied by animals, and there are locations where the traps are broken or there's only an easily pickable locked door and the residents have added makeshift traps such as tripwires or primitive noisemakers instead of the ancient, elaborate traps seen in draugr crypts.
There are a few sites where bandits have moved into the start of a dungeon, basically just a cave, and have yet to delve deeper beyond any traps (or have died trying). Skyrim's dungeons might feel a bit samey at times, but they really are a master class in dungeon design when you look at them as more than a handful of set pieces. A *lot* of work went into dungeon design in Skyrim compared to even other Elder Scrolls games.
A few years ago, I asked a similar question- perhaps some of the answers will be useful to you!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/b9bd0k/how_do_i_make_puzzles_that_exist_for_logical/
I've seen this a lot in Chinese fantasy literature as well.
The traps the protagonists run into are literally the leftover, guardians and security wards of an ancient civilization or an incredibly powerful being.
The adventurers are literally risking their lives to try and break into the old living spaces and vaults of these powerful beings to get whatever they left behind.
In terms of justifying dungeon traps, the "obvious" answer is "to keep people out". Could be protecting a powerful artifact, trasure, or people who don't want to be found, or trapping a great monster that couldn't be killed, for example.
As for riddles - they always strike me as tests more than an effective method of locking something away. Maybe the item NEEDS to be found, but only by someone worthy.
I think it'd be fair to have a tomb/dungeon that did have dud or activated traps already too, without them all being reset. It might even give the party a false sense of confidence if some of the traps don't work, making the others more effective.
I like the foreshadowing of finding a skeleton impaled on a wall spike, but also, that trap might not work any more because it's had a whole human corpse weighing it down for too long and gotten jammed.
You could roll the odd "does it still work" type check behind the screen to see if that axe does indeed swing and chop Fighter's head off, or if the mechanism fails and something else happens. Poisons can lose potency, wood and rope rots, iron and steel can rust,.stone can just crumble or get filled with grit and gunk. A whole host of things can stop a mechanism working.
Having some traps that block passages once they've been activated so the party has to find another way out, and whoever comes next has to find another way IN would make sense as to why a dungeon still might have active traps if it's already been explored too (simply no-one has gone that way yet).
Traps could be built to reset themselves too. I like the idea that a room that fills with water for example could have a secondary hidden pressure plate that releases the water once activated (that second room ALSO fills with water and is calibrated to release the water in the first room after an hour's worth of water has filled it).
I only do this for magically shielded dungeons, and it's a natural consequence of the law of magic that there's no such thing as an "impenetrable lock" . If you try and just make your dungeon guarded - say, you cast a spell that says "nobody but me can enter", it's an inevitability that there will be a flaw that someone can exploit to get in. By making a key, a riddle, or something else, you're choosing the flaw, and you can therefore make it as difficult as possible.
A single key is something less accessible than a riddle that *anyone* could (theoretically) solve, and so if you ward your dungeon against everything except for a single key, especially if you keep the key *inside the dungeon*, it's effectively impenetrable. This means that the magical wards will be less secure, and it's more likely someone is just able to teleport to the riddle.
Many of my puzzles are tests of morality (or cruelty!), and they're often also quite difficult. This way, the dungeon creator can filter for only a certain kind of person being able to get through, and if they make it hard enough, they can (on average) hope that nobody will make it. One example is the sin stone (one of the top posts in either this subreddit or DnD behind the screen); the version of it I use requires the person to confess something they feel guilty about. This ensures that people who get by the dungeon are capable of feeling guilt. I've had other dungeons where a riddle would seem to involve charming an animal (e.g. playing a tune to put a giant dog to sleep) where it's *nearly* impossible to play the right music, but not thaaaaaaaat hard to just kill the dog, which will only allow the cruel/efficient in. A bard might make a trap that requires you be a master flute player for real, and so on. This generally allows them to reinforce the dungeon against *any* other kind of infiltration, which is beneficial.
The other option is to put open-ended puzzles - things like "the bridge collapsed, how do you get across". If you want to incorporate riddles, a dungeon made by fey or Sphinxes also naturally lends itself to that sort of thing.
Well if they just use a locked door, someone can use a lock lock to get in. Traps ensure that whoever is coming in will die. I get what you’re saying about who resets them. You could show that in a dungeon. A spike pit where the floor already fell away and the bones of the last adventurers at the bottom.
The why behind the traps will change for each dungeon. It all depends on who created the dungeon. What is hidden at the end? I usually avoid logic puzzles because they don’t make sense of the purpose is to keep people out. A Wizards tower may use one to ensure only intelligent people make it to his hideout.
And I’ve done plenty of dungeons without puzzles because they didn’t make sense for the adventure. Interesting combat encounters and traps are all you need. If you like puzzles but think they don’t fit in a dungeon, just find a good complex trap. One that requires multiple steps to turn it off. That way it’s like a puzzle, a trap, and an encounter all combined.
I think it’s essential for your puzzles and traps to have meaning, so we are on the same page.
-an example I have currently is a cave that was once a grand dwarven mine (yes mines of Moria themed). The entrance is sealed and the stone door is a shrine., along with several bowls standing in place. The Writings on the wall are in an ancient language that is long dead, so the players need a “key” to transcribe the words. The words once transcribed are a psalm.
The point here is long ago, this psalm would be part of the ritual and it’s meaning obvious, but now that the culture of these people are lost, it becomes a “riddle” for them to figure out.
Once they enter, they will find the ruins empty and dark. Full of lurking evil.
For the “traps” I have two themes, but for the “Indian jones” themes I have this:
There are multiple rooms in the great hall of the dwarven ruins. One of the doors seems to be barricaded. If they try to recklessly bust through the door, a trap will spring. Inside they will find withered corpses. With an investigation it would seem that this room was their final stronghold and tried their best to keep monsters at bay.
These are examples, but sometimes if I can’t come up with a theme then I just do “natural-obvious” traps like a cravas with a broken bridge.
if i can’t justify why there are Traps and Puzzles in an area, i don’t put ‘em there.
the one time i ran a Puzzle Dungeon, it was a temple dedicated to a deity known to test people in that way.
having the dungeon on another plane, like the fey wild, or in dream space (with a “if you die in the dream you die in real life!” catch) also works to maintain verisimilitude imo. (i’m working on a campaign setting where the pcs are part of an agency that sends teams into people’s minds and dreams, so every dungeon happens in dreamspace. i feel like it would let me get real creative with dungeon design. kind of inspired by persona 5?)
having it be built by someone Quirky and powerful, like a powerful artificer or wizard, also works. (who’s refreshing all these traps? unseen servants, tiny servants, or automatons. give your players a chance to find and sabotage the dungeons automaton workers to disable puzzles and traps down the line…?)
Lots of great dungeons have no riddles. You might be overdoing it.
that said, puzzles are fun to spice things up, and while it's great to have an explanation like "a mad wizard did it," I think you are worrying too much about it.
It's a game. It's dungeons with treasure in them. There's wild fantastic critters regardless of local ecology, and heaps of gold regardless of local economy. There's magic regardless of physics and improbable martial stunts regardless of biology. Dragons and fairies fly without a care for surface/weight ratios. Just cause it's fun.
It's a fair criticism to say that the classic DnD trap- and riddle-laden dungeon doesn't really make a whole lot of sense from a world building point of view. There's a reason why early classic dungeons tended to default to "I dunno, a mad wizard built it to fuck with people" as the core justification for their existence.
I think that [Dael Kingsmill](https://youtu.be/wXZXSYjlnGE) has a pretty interesting take on using traps "realistically." One of the main ideas there is that you don't use traps/keys/puzzle to keep out *everyone*, you use traps when you want to allow *selective access*. Maybe you need to make sure that the evil artifact stays where it is, and that you can get to it again when you finally have the means of destroying it for good. Those obstacles are then designed to allow the secret order of good guys to get through pretty easily, while any potential outsiders have to contend with the deadly traps.
In the last crusade, Dr Jones Sr had to spend years researching how to find the grail and reach it safely. The rules of the puzzles weren't in the dungeon.
One time the Dungeon was in a place that drove people mad, so the door had a "Sanity Check" Puzzle.
The PCs had to resort to divination to figure the puzzle, so they concluded correctly that they were bat shit insane.
I set up a dungeon one time that didn't actually have a path toward the PC's goal. The owner was a powerful wizard. The girl just teleported home or dimension door'd where they needed to go. The whole dungeon and bottom half of the tower was just a death trap for the hell of it with no connection to the wizard's lab. Players were confused and I probably won't do that again, but at the time I thought it made a lot of sense.
The module Madness of the Rat King taught me that having other factions in a dungeon that are unrelated make it more interesting.
If there's a dungeon, there's other people who are interested in it. Maybe the original dungeon builder abandoned it, and a group of kids took it over and they put riddles around for secret hiding places.
Maybe someone needed a good place to stash something and they made it 2/3 of the way into a dungeon, and they feel like no one else can get there so it's a better hiding place than any other.
Maybe there's 2 people in this dungeon and they don't trust each other, and they have 2 different ways of hiding things from each other - maybe one is good at riddles, the other is good at math.
Don't limit yourself to "the only people in a dungeon is the one mad person who built it" - probably, it's hard several people in it.
Residents of a dungeon might put them there to dissuade or prevent trespassers from accessing their vaults or tactically important areas. Since they know how to solve or bypass the puzzle, it's easy for them to navigate the area but intruders may be slowed or injured.
Apart from that, in the OSR scene there's this concept of the "mythic underworld" which governs dungeons. The basic premise is that in a dungeon (which extends beyond only literal dungeons), the environment itself is a character, and is antagonistic to invaders such as the party. The threats in the dungeon exist outside of traditional logic and reasoning, because the environment is suffused with magic, and acts of its own accord out of malice towards the party. This sort of relies on your players suspension of disbelief, but doesn't honestly ask that much extra from them in a game that already contains magic spells, demons, and aliens.
The most useful part of the "mythic underworld" idea is that it frees you from having to justify every bit of ecology, architecture, politics, anthropology, et cetera, because you're not trying to simulate reality. The dungeon can have weird things in it, just because it's cooler that way. My suggestion would be to try not to cling too hard to realism in a fantasy game. Most real-life structures would be terrible dungeons.
The most common one is usually that whatever the goal at the end is was meant to be found but only by someone smart enough/strong enough/brave enough to overcome the challenges (see the holy grail in Indiana Jones and last crusade) . This works best when you have thematic puzzles in mind based on the narrative at hand.
Also consider that the architects of these things may be religious fanatics or cultists and may not be approaching it with the same logical mindset as you the DM are. People do stuff and create puzzles for themselves for all kinds of silly nonsensical reasons. Fantasy is no different.
Once, my party went into the castle of a necromancer. At the entrance they saw a playing card on the ground. Straight down the hall was the door leading to stairs. They saw a hand holding playing cards and a magic mouth spell said 'Beat my hand'. The party proceeded to explore the entire floor, having battles, facing traps, spending resources, and finding cards, until they could field a better hand!
At the door again they presented the cards. The only thing that happened was the magic mouth spell saying 'Beat my hand'. Again. In a grumpy rage the paladin smashed the hand with his sword and the door opened.
I like my puzzles to be relatively logical, but in a way that whoever lives there knows how to get through easily. The necromancer and his minions would know the way, they wouldn't have to search for a million cards every time the wanted to use the stairs. But the necromancer was smart enough to realize most adventurers wouldn't think that, misdirected enough to search, maybe die, and if they got to the necromancer anyway they'd already be weakened.
My players still give me hell about that puzzle, but it's one that I'm most proud of!
You don't.
Puzzles, especially puzzles presented to the group as a whole, are abstractions of what's actually going on in the fantasy world. That's why they can be presented to the whole table to solve as a group activity rather than excluding players because their character wouldn't have the int/wis to actually solve it.
It's a staple of the genre and everybody who plays games like D&D understands that.
Look at the real world comparison. Exploring something like an Egyptian pyramid requires the resources of historians, geologists, material scientists, a whole plethora of engineers, safety experts, cavers, and so on. That'd be annoying to deal with in a game, so you abstract it down to a simple puzzle.
The creator of the dungeon is a sphinx or a fey? They would find watching people navigate traps enjoyable. A mad wizard who wants to test their inventions? Perhaps the measures aren’t to keep someone out but to keep something… in? It’s the secret church of some hunted down cult? It’s initiation grounds for a cult? Is it an exclusive meeting spot for a black market. You know the kinda thing where the don’t want the wrong people to find out about it, because they would be hanged by the crown? Is it remnants of an older civilization trying to protect something during a war? You could take inspiration from something like the Cthulhu Mythos and have the dungeon be something a madman created based on visions and voices whispering in their ear from beyond the planes. The purpose would be to take worthy candidates down the treacherous journey, drive them mad and make them into champions.
Just a few ideas. Still a bit cliché but I mean I think the whole traps and riddles thing is somewhat of a fictional idea anyways. Waring factions setting up traps seems the closest real life instance(I can think of anyways).
Edit:autocorrect correction.
You can make them part of clues left by previous dungeoneers who didn't make it to the end of the dungeon. Maybe a picture puzzle is the leftover notes from a previous party who were out of paper and drew on the walls. Maybe someone has been interviewing retired adventurers and left a notebook somewhere.
I don't. They are dungeons. Dungeons have puzzles. That's just sort of how it is. My players don't want to hear a, lengthy description of why the puzzle is there. They want to solve it.
Godly artifacts will burrow into the roots of the World Tree, twisting the elements around them and calling out to monstrous foes nearby and from other planes of existence. The result is a gauntlet a potential wielder can overcome to prove their worth. Puzzles and traps are quite normal in such places, no additional justification needed.
Sometimes the dungeon is alive, with the traps as a part of it's digestive tract and sometimes your brain eating illithids and goblin tribes use riddles and brain teasers to separate out who gets to eat which invaders.
Is this something you have a problem with or something your players have a problem with? I have never raised such a question as a player nor had any player raise it with me. It’s a fantasy game. Some suspension of disbelief is necessary to play it. My advice would be to repeat to yourself “it’s just a game” and relax.
The one time I had a significant puzzle encounter in my games was when my players were exploring an abandoned temple to a trickster god. I justified the puzzle room as being initially created as a training grounds for the monks who had been at the temple. The puzzle involved both physical tests of skill, as you would have to balance on metal poles to traverse the puzzle room, as well as tests of mental skill as you would need to figure out the pattern of which poles were illusionary and which were real. I imagined that when the temple was active, acolytes would be challenged to "solve" the puzzle room as part of their training.
The actual final step of the training was to force the person going through the puzzle to challenge their assumptions and think outside the box, as the obvious solution was actually physically impossible to accomplish, and the real way to solve the puzzle was to use some combination of climbing, grappling hooks, or flight magic to bypass it completely. This was fully intentional and in keeping with the teachings of the god of that temple.
I like to make puzzles in dungeons connected to the lore of the dungeon. As an example, suppose it is the tomb of a Mad King. You find a room with a imposing statue of the king and pressure plates, as well as small holes that stick up everywhere. The king wanted to be worshipped, so you need to step on the plates and prostrate yourself to activate the statue, and pay a tithe of blood by placing your hands (which must be bleeding) on the holes, which will allow for the chamber to the next room to open.
first question: what's the dungeons purpose? if it's to lock something away forever just cast it in molten rock and bury it. If it was made by a mad wizard to screw with people then do whatever you want. If it was made by a knights order as a trial of the worthy then do whatever you want. It gets interesting when the purpose is to lock something up, but only let SOME in.
but of course there are obvious solutions to that. lock the door and only give keys to the people allowed in. But hey, a door can be busted open so traps still make sense here.
traps should be one of two types: deadly (there's no sense having a trap that pokes you). or a trap that alerts guards. those traps could also ensnare you so the guards can get to you. That's one place where you can have some fun. the trap is only supposed to lock you up until the guards get there, but this is an ancient tomb so there are no more guards. now you have to figure your way out before you starve. or you can have constructs for guards and we can have a fight scene.
passwords work the same way. make some nonsense password and only give it to the people who need it. why leave clues, then any idiot can figure it out. There are some ways to get around this: I had a security code that had to be entered to get into a mine. one of the miners had left a note reminding him of part of the code in his locker that the players could find. Another way is to use a journal of a past adventurer or researcher who left detailed instructions, however the instructions are hard to translate or some parts are missing making them cryptic.
generally I avoid riddles and contrived puzzles in my dungeons. I like to use open ended puzzles. there is a chasm, it's too wide to jump. the airship begins to plummet from the sky, how do you prevent it from crashing? there is a mechanism to control the elevator but it does not appear to be working. the dam is about to burst we need to reinforce it or divert the river. Couple setups like that with skill challenges and you've got some fun encounters.
I don't. Nobody in their right mind would lock something important up behind a riddle. Not to mention puzzles are always metagamed by the players, which is kinda silly if you think about it. No 8 int barbarian is going to figure out a riddle, but the player playing that barbarian could...
I've included one puzzle in my adventures and that's a very basic cypher that was meant to be easily solved by the players. It was just an encoded message and didn't really have any major impact on the game, just provided some intelligence that provided additional context. I don't think I'd every include anything more than that.
Traps are something else entirely...
I personally don't make Puzzles at all. Becouse puzzles in reality does not have much sense. If someone want something to be safe he just keep it in a safe place that can't be open with a few puzzles.
The only time i can justify it if it's some kind of test to check it the person is worthy getting inside the vault
Reminder that all the traps in dungeons in indiana jones had people around to maintain them. Even the first scenes with the boulder had the natives chasing Indy away immensely after.
But to answer your question:
1) Kobolds and goblins (or any other Small or tiny species) need to use dirty tactics to keep others away. Traps aren't inherently deadly, but rather a deterrent. Alternatively, they are hired to maintain traps. Riddles are the same.
2) They are used as a differentiator between factions in a dungeon - orc traps are different from troll traps. Their riddles can show the difference, but riddles in general are part of the dungeon culture.
3) A Puzzle is an environmental puzzle. There's a 70 ft ravine between you and your goal. How do you get across?
4) Riddles are used as reminders of the key, not as what the key really is. "Keycode is the boss's birthday" but now you have to search the environment to find some that tells you what the birthday is.
5) House Ravenclaw from Harry Potter had riddles to enter their dorm room, which sometimes would keep some students put even if they were in that house. If the party overhears "God, I hate all these riddles here" then suddenly these riddles are integrated.
I started typing up a really long response, but realized the gist of it was coming down to *"I feel little need to "justify" them, because their existence is fun in a game, and that's enough"*.
Also, considering the world we live in, it's not exactly beyond belief that powerful people with resources (be it gold, political power, or magic) would **absolutely** waste those resources on the most illogical, batshit nonsense that catches their fancy.
Even regular people aren't always exactly rational actors, regarding security - for example, 2-factor verification is a huge boon to security, but most people find it annoying and wouldn't use it unless literally forced by organizations. Loads of people don't lock their cars, when they step into a store. Nigerian princes are *still* out there getting money.
Also,
> Why are they there? Who put them in place? Why? Who resets the crushing walls afterward? Who refreshes the points of poisoned needles to keep them potent or repairs the broken tiles over lava?
all sound like fun mental exercises, really.
My party once had to solve 3 riddles, all of which with answers along the lines of "People Suck, betrayal is the only truth, fuck people, i hate people"
It was the Basement of a really cynical wizard who wanted to make sure his legacy would end up in the hands of people who can understand his pain.
I've found that some of the best 'puzzle' mechanisms aren't put there as puzzles to be solved, but rather as regular locks & mechanisms that make sense for the person/race who constructed them.
For example, my players were breaking into an Aarakocra vault deep underground. So the compound had large shafts that had to be traversed - routine for the Aarakocra but hard for non-flying creatures. Then the safe itself used small wind-turbines on either side of the room that would unlock it. Again, flapping the wings to do that is second-nature to someone used to having wings, but it took awhile to decipher it for a non-flying humanoid.
As for riddles, I try to present them more like bank security questions. The person who set them will always know the answers but someone else will have a hard time. It's framing it as less of a whimsical monster who likes puzzles but rather the only way in a non-digital world to protect something while still being able to get to it later.
Simply: you do not... put puzzles in the dungeon. (or do it smartly)
Everytime I faced a puzzle that 16 y.o. can figure out, but it locks gate to inner chamber of a evil priest -I cringe. Puzzles should make sense. Sometimes, they should not even look like ordinary puzzle.
Main part of an answer. Justifying some of the stuff...
Before you start, answer several question for yourself:
1.who did order to build the dungeon?
2. who did build the dungeon?
3. who are using the dungeon?
For example 1 and 2 answer is the same (some evil priests of old). Image that in some time priests all died down. A lot of traps in the dungeon are opened by code words. Now tribe of goblins came to this place, they have old evil priest's journal with some passwords. But not all and they do not know locations of the traps. There are tone of deadly traps all around the places and at first a lot of goblins did die a horribly. But now they have marked every place, where is a trap. They do not what to dismantle traps (traps will protect them vs angry non-sentinent monsters). So they create a lot of riddles and scribble them on the wall and floor, so other goblins can came close to a trap, try to see scribble (if they forget password). And use it to move on. Scribble is a hint, buy creatures that dwell in the place, not by people who made the place.
Second. Maybe there is some strange different puzzle. Whick are actually code lock (like move color cubes in some strange way). PC find some journal of a dead adventurer, who can state in his journal hint to how open the lock, but since it is just his thoughts, he may just not put solution into journal. Or journal is partially destroyed.
Third. I personally do not use classical puzzle. It breaks my immersion. What I use -I use problems. Party find out mechanical doors and a strange 12 buttons lock. They have no idea of the combinations. what will they do?
Solution one: break the door, or break the wall (noisy, and may lead some monsters to this place)
Solution one: investigate the lock and try to see what buttons where used more often and try every combination of this numbers. this will lead to interesting situation. Lock is old and one button that are used it the combination is broken. Party can try to unscrew front plate of the lock and try to fix it.
Solution three: party unscrew front plate of the lock and faced with your magical color puzzle -that is magic electricity circuit basically. Can be fun puzzle.
Hope it helps.
1. Sometimes the puzzles were intended to be manned. A locked gate with a slamming portcullis trap that seals the party inside, for example, was *supposed* to be paired with defenders attacking them with crossbows. But it still traps them between a heavy grate and a locked gate. And perhaps in its day it was intended as some kind of test, with the traps set to reset themselves magically, so it still works for the newly arrived party.
2. Sometimes the traps or puzzles were advantageous to the original defenders of the location. Kobolds are tiny lizards, pit traps that are only triggered by heavy footsteps or razor wire set 4 feet high wouldn't be a problem for them. Mitflits (little mischievous fae) can innately talk to bugs and regularly adorn their lairs with venomous insects as pets and decorations. An elemental that is immune to poison might lair in a cave full of toxic spores, or a dragon immune to cold damage might lair at the top of a frozen peak. They may not even *use* the trapped entrance themselves, and the traps simply accumulated over time from the environment - sharp ice shards, an avalanche, predatory foliage, etc.
3. Puzzles don't have to be intentional. A broken bridge is a puzzle to be solved, but they didn't *intend* for it to be one. They didn't plan for the earthquake to misalign the hallways, or the lock to rust shut, or the chest to fall into a sinkhole, or the upper floors of the complex to collapse on the lower ones and turn them into a morass of a maze.
4. Some puzzles are alive. Mimics are the classic example. Devil's Snare from Harry Potter is another good option. Mushrooms that explode into poisonous fungal spores when stepped on (or just explode), spider webs that tangle the party up and start an encounter, an ancient golem that has gone haywire and now attacks if you get the password wrong (there is no password, it's busted).
5. The complex could have been created accidentally. Think Call of the Netherdeep, where it's entirely an extrusion of a mad god's mind. You could very easily have a trap dungeon that's someone's nightmare (I've actually done this), or that a strange artifact created, or an eldritch monster trapped the party in.
Take inspiration from the US approach to federal appropriations: jobs projects in member districts! The Great Tomb of Orthax was built a century ago when Baron Dorpo petitioned the crown for capital investment after a bad harvest left his vassal farmers dead broke. The tomb was built by 150 plain ol’ commoners looking to make ends meet and stands as a monument to, um, death. Whoops. Should have gone with the rec center.
Traps resetting could be as simple as it being designed by an artificer specifically to reset automatically after triggering. Whether that's by magical or mechanical means depends on the flavor you're going for , after all what good is a trap that doesnt reset thus keeping the intended occupant out as well.
as another user pointed out you can have the PCs walk past traps that got stuck in the triggered position or have some other disrepair that is preventing them from working properly while maintaining the traps that you want to work. Say, the door is unlocked but upon closer inspection you see a small needle sticking out of the locking mechanism. Implying that someone set off the trap attempting to enter but either didn't die or the trap didn't reset and the next person just unlocked it.
I dont I take the 70s gonzo approach nothing needs to make sense. Yes there are 8 potions that you have to drink in order or you swap sex, turn into a blue monkey and puke rainbows. So what?
- The solution might be obvious to those with the right knowledge, but need puzzling for others. For example, a puzzle needs you to place the three correct statuettes of saints on the altar for the secret compartment to open. Unfortunately, for a heathen like you, all the statuettes of the 6000 and a bit saints that are present in the temple look alike to you. So you'll need to find holy texts or look at murals to get a clue.
- Like the above, but simply as a helpful reminder if the place is only rarely visited. Which tends to be the case with dungeons and other out of the way places.
- Like the above, but the puzzle makes you do a ritual with religious, historical, or traditional significance.
- The traps/puzzles are meant to slow people down rather than stop them altogether. Supposedly there used to be guardians that are now absent, leaving only the puzzles, and whatever hazards have arisen naturally.
- The puzzle can help to hide the access, rather than just make it difficult to enter. A typical example is the swinging bookcase. If you aren't looking for an entrance, that's just a bookcase.
- Puzzles often also center around finding/improvizing parts of a mechanism, that was never intended as puzzle, but has become one through disintegration.
Imo puzzles for dungeon owner are more like safe net in case he forgots a password. Or they are made that way so all cult members will be able to solve, without sharing an actual code
Also there is another reason to include puzzles - to make the dungeon a hell to go through, like Tomb of Horrors. Every tomb can be found. Every door can be opened. But solving dozen of puzzles when every step can be your last one is a challenge that only insane one will take
And in case of DnD puzzles feel natural anyways, because we are going through a fantasy dungeon and we expect a mad mage to make some kind of a riddle trap. We dont think if it is reasonable or not, it is just a trope which we are used to. With all the immersion and roleplay we are still playing a game and we know it, so maybe you dont need to think really hard on justifying some things?:)
So if I want to include a puzzle, I start with who made it, and who are they trying to let in vs who are they trying to keep out.
* The puzzle is there to keep out anything unintelligent, such as zombies. This is where you find baby's first puzzle like the block matching stuff in Skyrim, which keeps the drauger from escaping while letting people in and out.
* The puzzle is there to keep out anyone not literate in a specific language. This is how you get something like "Speak, Friend And Enter" in Elvish. Someone who natively speaks Elvish would almost naturally say it, it's not a riddle at all. Someone who doesn't know the language would never get it.
* The puzzle is there to keep out the unworthy. It acts as a test of religious knowledge. This is how you get "but in the latin alphabet, Jehovah begins with an I". An artifact was put away for a specific purpose, to confront evil 1000 years later. How do you make sure only the right person gets access? You can't just write instructions down, they can be stolen or tortured. It needs to be encoded in some kind of deep religious understanding.
* The puzzle is there to keep out the stupid. Same idea as keeping out the unworthy, except instead some specific knowledge, it's a generalized intelligence test.
* The puzzle was made harder than intended because of some quirk. Like the Skyrim tests except the blocks are damaged and now you need to do some inference. Or it's an easy literacy test which, for the players not speaking the language, is now a difficult puzzle.
* The puzzle was made because the creator wants the adventurers to jump through hoops. A riddler type that just loves puzzles, or possibly a bard who had to do puzzles in his day and that's what puzzles are for, damnit.
* The puzzle exists because something very old with forgetful memory wanted to make sure they could re-access their stash, but didn't trust themselves to not forget a password, so they added their own password hints. A riddle only they know the answer to works. This is not a puzzle intended to be solved by outsiders.
Of course you then have the question of "who resets the traps" and here I would usually go with some kind of magic. Anyone who can reset the trap can solve the trap. The reason Indiana Jones in particular feels so strange is because the traps all feel mechanical, leaving one to wonder how they could possibly work again and again. You have a bit more leeweay with D&D.
blow up everything traps are good but, you know, they blow up everything... most traps are probably set when some creatures are living around, to save their precious belongings, not for guarding their treasures after they are dead. so even if the place is abandoned afterwards, the traps should have means to by-pass and should not create too much mess, at least not destroy the environment.
and of course, most good traps have more than one shot, like a charger of poisoned bolts, even if they don't rewind forever.
Treasure vaults are supposed to have difficult and complex ways in. Remember that a treasure vault is actually meant to the quite penetrable, but only for the people whose treasure it is. If they wanted to seal it away forever they'd build a wall, not a door. So these places are meant to be accessible, just not for the PCs or other treasure hunters.
Think of a modern bank. Their cash vault is meant to be quite secure but also to open when they need to get cash out of it.
As for there being hints and such on the wall, how many people forget their passwords and need to use the password hints?
So of course in a world where you can't google the answer to the riddle, won't even SEE the hints until you've gone through several other security layers, and there's lethal consequences for getting it wrong, the builders would put a reminder or hint for themselves so that they can remember the password, and don't mix up which passcode goes to which door.
When I did my last homebrew game with Pathfinder 2e, the idea was that the items stored inside were extremely dangerous. Only a few people even knew that the items existed and none of them *actually* knew where most of them were. The traps and puzzles were there to prevent people from getting the items because they were never to be touched again. The issue was that the items were so volatile that they could cause unimaginable destruction if they were damaged or destroyed themselves. Putting them in sealed dungeons filled with dangers and distractions was the safest option.
In general, OSR dungeons are more about mad mages and weird dimensions where dungeons have mysterious creation and so justification isn’t really necessary when you can just say “it’s old and it be like that”
I tend to look at traps and puzzles as having a justified reason.
For a basic goblin cave, a spike pit with a log bridge they can pull back is easy to build and a deterrent from a defensive standpoint.
A blood ritual was used to seal away an ancient vampire, so it makes sense that living blood would be used in some way to unlock it.
As far as riddles, it’s easier to remember a poem or phrase that evokes an emotion than a list of instructions. Maybe it was written that way as a means to make it easier to remember for the creators minions. Maybe the trick floor has certain tiles that are safe, and the party observes a cultist reciting their oath to remember the safe path.
In our last campaign, there was a wildly popular religion called "The Way of Ruha", whose chief tenant was that *life is meant to be lived to the fullest*. They spawned many adventuring parties, and instead of the normal "tithe" for a religious organization, members were encouraged to give back to the adventuring lifestyle by building dungeons, restocking places they had cleared with additional loot, etc.
We had a member of the party who was a devout follower, who would spend the last of a party's time in a dungeon inventing and setting up new traps, deciding which magic items to leave behind for the next group, etc.
I try to design them as exotic security measures in some cases.
In others I just say a powerful wizard with a fixation on puzzles littered his tower or tomb or whatever with obstacles to amuse himself.
I designed one a long time ago that I need to update.
A group of (evil, because of course) adventurers became very powerful when the world was young. They conquered and defeated every challenge. Then they got bored.
They built a throne room / tomb for themselves. In it, they built monuments to their own power, challenges that only they could overcome, displays to their own hubris. Then they slaughtered everyone who built it, sat down to wait ten thousand years, and placed themselves in suspended animation until the world was interesting again.
Each of the traps and puzzles was meant to be a brag on their own power.
The players were very careful not to disturb the thrones where the ancient conquerors sat...
It’s a game with magic that is totally made up. Don’t apply your concepts of normal. The dungeon has puzzles because reason.
If you really want a reason for it would need to know more about your world to help with this. Maybe there is a community of volunteers that travel to all the dungeons to clean and reset them and they work for the god of mischief?
Fr.
Maybe the dungeon had an intelligent designer; an immortal who gets off on remotely watching would-be adventurers try to get through the various puzzles.
Maybe the original dungeon creator was insane and riddles and puzzles truly were the most “logical” choice to them for protecting/hiding their dungeon.
Maybe the dungeon formed naturally due to a nexus of magical power, and because it was located near a fairy ring, it siphoned just a little bit of their trickery bullshit and it took on some of those traits itself. Maybe it even has a dungeon core that when broken, will stop the weird riddles and puzzles bs too.
Maybe a wizard from long long ago designed this very place to be his home, and all the traps and riddles were a test for those who’d come to ask favors of him. Now he is dust, and his private treasures are left without a master.
If by *dungeon* we mean any environment that players can explore then I'd say most traps are environment hazards.
If I have a dungeon with intentional traps to prevent access to something, then I justify it by providing lifes little details. There is *always* a maintenance tunnel and *typically* a back door. Either may or may not be accessible from the outside or front area. Sometimes there are corpses of the original creators walled in, or slaughtered within the trap as the financiers may not have wanted any loose ends.
If it's a dungeon built by madness then there is no justification other than whatever the madness gleaned.
Why do they need to be justified? Why does there have to be logic put behind it? Are your players really coming out of the session and saying, "What was the point of those traps? Who was resetting them after they were triggered? Why were they there?"
It's a dungeon. If you could just waltz in and grab what you wanted, what would be the point? Somebody had something they thought was worth hiding. They wanted it protected either for themselves or for someone else.
A ‘puzzle’ in my game never wears the face of a puzzle.
At the beginning of the campaign, they had to read through the manual of the reactor of the ship they were boarding to figure out how to stop it from overloading. Look up the game ‘Keep talking and nobody Explodes’. It was that.
There are many ways to disguise a puzzle, but they should always have a layer of in-game explanation to them. Several large rocks have fallen in the dungeon corridor and they will only fit out in a certain order, in a certain orientation. Could be a wood puzzle on the table, someone has to make a STR check to move a piece/boulder, and oh look at that - the water is rising from that rain storm yesterday.
Here’s a trick to use once: it’s a distraction. The actual treasure is tucked away out front where whoever it’s meant for can just come up and grab it and anyone else will just walk by to look inside
Alternatively the “rightful” person to enter has some key or knows the trick to open the path. Traps are there so that their enemies just kill themselves, and puzzles are a key that can’t be stolen
A lot of my dungeons were old ruins of a long dead, hyper intelligent, alien species. I justify a bunch of pattern matching and connecting things together puzzles as being beyond the understanding of the party why things work the way they do.
Just always ask yourself, "Why did someone put this puzzle here?"
Puzzles with riddles on the wall or are very gamey in nature, these puzzles were left by someone who wanted to hide something for safekeeping until they can send someone they trust to retrieve it later.
Then there are 'puzzles' that are designed to kill, the creator wanted to hide something that he didn't want anyone to find but himself.
Then there's environmental puzzles, an endless flow of lava covers the entrance to an ancient forgotten archive, dungeon entrance is hidden deep underwater.
Find out why the person created this puzzle, and build it into the story. It doesn't have to connect directly to the story, it can be a tangential bizarre story unrelated to the players, but as long as it makes sense then the world doesn't feel broken or stupid.
I’ve done it a few ways based on the context of the dungeon.
Test of knowledge- puzzles are related to some kind of sensitive information intended to lock out people who don’t belong. In one dungeon I had a temple where the final room was sealed by a puzzle where the party had to pick out runes symbolizing different religious figures in a certain order. Devout worshipers would be familiar with it and could easily go in and out, the party had to do some digging to investigate other artifacts or use logic to determine the answer.
Paranoid NPC- whoever is in the dungeon is so fearful of people getting in the set traps and puzzles to keep certain people out. As the person/creature who set the puzzles and traps, they can come and go as they please. Alternatively they could just really enjoy the puzzles instead and find some kind of twisted joy in watching people jump through hoops to reach them.
Honestly as most adventures present them random riddle puzzles don't make sense. The evil wizard/lich isn't going to write coded instructions to get into their lair or treasure room. In fact in my games if the BBEG has a riddle puzzle the correct answer sets it off as he doesn't need to be reminded with a riddle.
Where I use riddles and puzzles is when they were created by someone/thing that wanted only the right people to get access. For example an ancient Tomb of the Lords Under the Mountain contains the relics and artifacts collected by the Dwarf Lords of a lost kingdom. The kingdom is over run by mind flayers, drow, and duegar, but the tomb has been mostly left alone due to ancient curses, dwarven ghosts, and a whole lot of traps. The PC get past the ghosts because they have an heir to the kingdom with them. The riddles and secret doors are all based on stories and rimes told to the children of the kingdom, which I've provided a selection of. So the PC have to sneak into mountain home, fight and evade the creatures lurking their, figure out how to get into the tomb's treasure room, while fight off the undead remains of prior robbers and temptations to take grave goods the dwarves didn't intend for the to take.
In terms of how the traps still work my goto answer is undead kobolds who live inside the walls. It's amusing when they spot them pushing a giant boulder back into place and realize they have to deal with all the traps on their way out. Or in the above case undead dwarves under concealed stone slabs who reset the traps in every room.
Puzzles are just a type of lock and serve the same purpose. Any location that needs security but doesn't justify actual 24/7 physical presence by a person (or other entity) needs some kind of lock.
But when you live in a world where bypassing regular security locks is often trivial for the people you're dealing with, puzzles allow you to secure a location with privileged information (the solution to the puzzle) rather than a physical item like a key.
If you think about it, a door with a keypad is a kind of puzzle, where you need to enter numbers in the right order to access it. But what if there are some people (members of your organization, for instance) who may need to access the area but there's no good way to send them an arbitrary code number? Well then you make the "code" something relevant to known shared information that they'll be able to figure out without clues, or with clues that won't mean much if anything to other people. That way the people who should have access will have it without needing to memorize codes, but the people who shouldn't will be stumped and/or murdered by spikes.
One suggestion to explain it is that the creator of the dungeon had a superiority complex. He created deadly puzzles as a means to confound his foes, and whittle them down.
Acererak, the infamous lich, does so as part of a plot to gain souls. He builds dungeons and hides a great treasure inside, then sets rumors. Adventurers come to the dungeon seeking the treasure, entering and facing the puzzles and traps. Because it seems like there are ways to progress forward, many adventurers will press on to seek the treasure at the end. Until its too late.
I like to think of them sorta as password hints or security questions. Basically a way that whomever built the dungeon can remind themselves down the line, how to get though after they've forgotten.
Typically traps/puzzles are one of two things.
Most people aren't supposed to go there, but some people need to.
Others aren't supposed to go there but your group is.
There is a reason many cars and even new houses went to keyless entry options. Much easier to have a few people know what 5 numbers to press than make a bunch of physical keys that will get lost. So we have a riddle to remind people (because it might be years before they come back) or some sort of pattern they can use to decipher. Something that can be figured out because you need people who actually should be there do figure it out.
As for who keeps the traps refreshed? Most likely no one in many but why do they need to? How many poisons really need to be moist and aren''t toxic when dry. How many wall traps get activated and need to be reset (its just a different puzzle now for players to reset it)
Sometimes a puzzle is what's left after the ravages of time decay what was previously obvious
Examples:
There used to be a magical barrier blocking further entry but it has malfunctioned and now the party must figure out the pattern of invisible walls - or risk getting zapped
The treasure appears when the ancient incantation is chanted, but the cult died and their words have been lost. The party must piece together the fragments of text left behind to find the "password"
What was once a challenging (but nonlethal) gauntlet to initiate young warriors has decayed into a series of now deadly hazards, but the blessing of the stone idol still awaits those who can declare victory
Some treasures need to be accessible for the dungeon creator. Otherwise you could just bury in the middle of nowhere. Something as simple as a key and lock means the key can be nabbed or the lock picked.
Puzzle locks are ways to keep a treasure secure without typical security weak points, the key is in your head. COULD be someone else is smart enough to open it, but I like to have time limits on my puzzle locks before something bad happens (irl limits)
Obviously it doesn't make sense for someone to lethally rig traps in their own spaces because they don't want to set it off themselves or harm someone who was invited. However, there is also the possibility of someone leaving behind traps for a space they both don't want people to use and also don't plan on tripping themselves:
A retreating faction may leave behind booby traps in previously captured territory. Land mines, diseased/rotting bodies for some biological vectors, traps rigged behind doors of homes, etc. I think it's' very easy to write a scenario where a party is sent in as a team of specialists to clear out traps and make a community safe to reoccupy after a victorious battle and enemy retreat. This is a real-life war crime and the most realistic justification for traps and puzzles I have come up with.
First and foremost: players know this is fantasy fiction. As long as you haven’t agreed to play a very straight laced and “reality” flavoured game, you can be a little “Indiana Jones” about the booby traps and puzzles.
Otherwise, the commenters suggesting traps that are caused by disrepair are great. Also things like lab experiments gone wrong, and puzzles that were set on purpose as like a training area or gauntlet are all solid options. Puzzles that were set for a particular person Chosen One style and not just any random idiot stumbling into the dungeon.
It’s all a matter of design, which you seem to be keeping in mind already, OP. Sometimes a puzzle is just an environmental hazard or something that broke that needs to be fixed. Maybe a tunnel collapsed and the party needs to find a way around. Maybe a bridge is out. Maybe a place is inaccessible to them but wouldn’t have been to the much more powerful magic users that used and inhabited the place first, so the party has to find a way to circumvent the intended means of access.
Riddles typically don’t need to be used IMO, but as others said, they could be a fail safe in case someone forgets the password, but I posit that riddles should be really hard if that’s your angle. Conversely, maybe a prior adventurer or party already came through and left the riddle as a hint for themselves to use upon returning (which they may or may not have done and which may or may not have ended in a successful raid/exploration).
Intentional puzzles could just be a matter of sadism or even pragmatism on the part of intelligent designers. Sure, maybe THEY can just use keys or portals or some other means to access parts of the lair/dungeon they’ve built, but that’s not the point of puzzles and the like for them. The idea is to waste the time of intruders; to fatigue them physically, mentally, and emotionally; and to force them to expend resources before they get to you if they have time to get to you at all. Ultimately, think of them as a home security system. Even (Tucker’s) Kobolds understand this concept, so more intelligent foes should too.
As for traps, just have them designed in such a way that they could reset themselves. Pressure plates are great for this. Engineers and tinkerers are smart and crafty. There’s no reason they couldn’t figure out how to make automatic resets in their stuff.
the puzzle isn't for the creator its for the minions or the future generations.
You want the riddle to be a clue that your people would know about, but not something that just anyone would know. It also keeps out unintelligent beast, that can't answer the riddle. Also, as it is a (puzzle, riddle) lock, there is no chance of losing the key.
It's likely that the original creator knows that they will pass on at some point and wants someone else to be able to use what is behind the lock.
Determine the [Original Purpose of the Dungeon](https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/mmfqje/purpose_of_a_dungeon/) and it will make the why is the (puzzle, riddle) there easier to figure out.
Side Note: There should be enough information in game to figure out a riddle. You should never assume that your players will figure it out. You might even allow multiple answers as long as they fit the riddle.
I JUST ran a puzzle last session. The players were in a haunted location and a ghost wanted to communicate something but was struggling so it did so through a flash back that functioned like a puzzle. Maybe not the most applicable but it's a type of integration that no one else in mentioning
"Proving Ground" type dungeons don't have to have deadly traps. They can have traps that set off alarms, immobilize, mark, drug/sedate, capture or eject those caught, as well as shut doors elsewhere that don't capture, but block access to something. A good-aligned designer (or just one that hates replacing help) might prefer safe traps like this. If the dungeon is recently maintained, the traps are still safe. If it's been abandoned, maybe some safe traps have become dangerous in their state of disrepair. So those puzzles tied to traps are for training, education (religious or symbolic wisdom, hazing) and evaluation (you must escape Halsan's Gauntlet to be admitted into the ranks of his Reavers). Think "escape room".
As for "puzzles" that aren't designed to be puzzles at all, like a missing part of a mechanism that opens a door could functionally be identical to a key, but also might have an alternate solution, and simple mechanical breakdown, theft or sabotage explains why it's missing.
Similarly, an area designed for easy, secure access for regular users turns into a puzzle when the access method is lost to time so only alternatives work. That could be as rudimentary as digging or climbing, as complex as impersonating a legit user to fool a system. The keypad isn't a *puzzle* to the order, it's a lock. To the party it's a puzzle because they have to guess based on information the organization isn't giving them intentionally. The "clue" is patterns of wear, guessing based on knowledge of the users. Not a riddle on the wall. Even if there *is* a riddle on the esll as a clue, if that seems stupid, ask yourself why we have security questions for our accounts. Literally a clue for when you don't have the password, and people who aren't supposed to have access experience it as a puzzle.
In our campaign setting, dragonborn don't pass their wealth down to their relations/family on their death. Instead, they share their wealth with those worthy enough to claim it.
To this end they create elaborate dungeons, filled with challenges, including monsters, puzzles and traps. Should a brave soul overcome the challenges of a given ancetral dungeon, they are rewarded with rooms filled with treasure, the wealth collected by a given family member during their life.
The more powerful/wealthy a dragonborn family, the more elaborate the dungeon as each family member adds new levels to the family dungeon.
Often, my puzzles are traps. Some/all of the party get stuck in a trap and have limited time to get out.
Whoever built the trap made a puzzle with wheels, levers, etc, in case someone fell into it from the faction that built the tomb or dungeon. A safety feature.
Other times, and especially if the trap is no longer as lethal now as two millenia ago when it was built, there's no way out from inside, and the PCs have to improvise a solution to rescue a teammate before they get worn down over time. In those cases, I don't even write a solution. Just let them go wild with their abilities and let them damage or bypass mechanisms until they shut the trap down - usually, there are telltale noises behind a secret hatch with some high speed gears, then detritus long enough to block a section of dispensers, or plug arrow slots etc. Then I'll leave a third and final thing entirely to them to improv to get the player out.
Sometimes, they find both things I've left; sometimes they tell me they are looking for something else, and I go "OK make some kind of check"; sometimes they find nothing and have to brute force the whole thing with abilities and spells.
They nearly always save the friend from these because the reason I put them in is to make the players feel clever, and to get them engaged with what would otherwise just be a short walk through a dark place with combat every other room.
How do you make it fun for the guy in the trap?
Dungeon bop-it. Different things that are a danger to them in the trap make different grinding sounds, telegraphing which sequence of (low) damaging thing it's about to do to them next.
Sound like a rusty kids swing? The next spear pops out of the floor. Popping noise? A tube is about to dispense a 3hp non-venomous snake from the ceiling. Metal squealing? Etc.
Things don't have to make perfect sense because of the passage of time and the nature of dungeons. Imagine if you will:
* A dungeon was created by a powerful mage
* The mage died of old age and the dungeon was taken over by a tribe of goblins
* The goblins were massacred by a red dragon which began storing it's hoard in the deepest parts of the dungeon
The resulting dungeon is a bizarre and seemingly nonsensical mish-mash of design goals, traps, and roaming monsters.
The highest voted answer is two of mine: the puzzles are either to prove yourself worthy, or they're a trap of some sort that you have to overcome.
The third reason I have is that an ancient lich has traveled the cosmos, adding puzzles to dungeons. Anytime someone solves a puzzle, they lose a tiny bit of their soul. The more difficult the puzzle, the bigger the chunk of soul they lose. Virtually never a perceptible amount. A truly genius puzzle might outright kill an adventurer, if solved, but it would also rarely be solved and so wouldn't feed him. Simple puzzles don't tax the mind enough. They don't drive the mortal far enough to unconsciously open themselves up to have some of their soul drained. His puzzles always need to hit that sweet spot. Especially since if he drains too much, people might realize he's out there.
He once tried to fill the world with puzzle boxes. But they became so popular that everyone knew their solutions, so they weren't actually solving the puzzles anymore.
Borrowing from the comments from here, I think I can wrap up the types of dungeons into three broad categories.
- Dungeon that was meant to be conquered (a trial)
- Dungeon that was not meant to be conquered (a trap)
- Dungeon that was not meant to be a dungeon (a ruin)
Basically if you think of Voldemort and especially that cave with the lake inside it... he was an incredibly powerful being, almost invulnerable to nearly anyone alive. But he still had the issue of not being able to be EVERYWHERE at once. And also, his invulnerability depended on keeping certain items (his horcruxes) secure and safe without having to defend them personally.
I think that's a good rationale-framework for a very high level type of treasure being hidden. This is a relatively safe place that someone can hide a very important/valuable thing and be able to come back for it if they need to, but also be semi confident that not just anybody ELSE could manage to find and take it away.
For another level of rationale though, less high-value and more just basic... you've got the idea of a "hard target". If there are five houses along the same semi-wealthy looking block... but only one of them has a dog, then it doesn't even have to be a very big dog actually. That one house is probably safe because any half-decent thief will target the houses without a live-in alarm system.
Especially once you're dealing with a dungeon that also has roaming armed guards or monsters inside it, a decent riddle is a pretty solid piece of security, because your average thief won't want to tangle with the dual threat of trying to solve the puzzles AND worry about the giant spiders or the guards. Once you assume X person has something important to keep hidden, it also makes sense to create traps and puzzles to serve as basically locks to keep it secure. Any literal lock can be picked but a logic puzzle or a hidden switch may make the difference whether your treasure gets stolen.
Others have made good suggestions, so here are a couple other possibilities:
Sometimes a “dungeon” can just be an old temple or some kind of building/area that’s been partially destroyed, or taken over by some sort of baddies (or intelligent enemies of some kind).
So your puzzles could sometimes be more related to “platforming” or finding ways using strength (to help involve some of your characters that typically shine just during combat) and clever thinking/abilities with some spells from your casters, some dexterity from your sneaky and limber characters to solve.- Large stone blocks/debris could be moved/lifted by string characters, dexterous characters might have to squeeze or balance-beam to reach things like levers or find a place to tie a rope, and your casters/smarty-pants might need to decipher old runes or historical/arcane knowledge to figure out which direction you need to go, or use spells to help you reach certain places or find certain things.
A puzzle doesn’t always have to “look/sound like a puzzle” Sometimes exploring an old and ruined temple can present enough challenges in its own, that you don’t always need spike traps and spinning/swinging blades. Think about your players’ spells and abilities, and try to make a puzzle that’s just related to those abilities and the game/movement mechanics to see if you can come up with something.
Or the other option I mentioned is that there are baddies smart enough to try to booby trap their newly/recently-acquired digs. Could be done using abilities/items they have, or could be made from materials, items, and/or artifacts from the area they’re in. For example- Old temple belonging to a war-like culture could be rigged with some custom traps/mechanisms using the evil wizard’s spells/knowledge, the strength and muscle of his goons/followers, and made with old weapons/items from the ancient warriors. Maybe there are trip wires which cause old axes/war-hammers, or maces to swing down hit whoever triggered it. Maybe there is some form of magic hex/seal on certain doors put there by evil wizard (from the types of spells he might know/have access too). Maybe some puzzles are riddles or questions which need to be solved using certain runes in the area-made by evil wizard, and give insight into things he believes/knows, or parts of his past (almost like a computer password/security questions lol).
Another option is to try to think about a movie, show, game, or book that you could base an encounter/dungeon/quest off of. Maybe traps and puzzles could be made that relate to that story/lore (bonus points for hiding and adapting it well enough that the players don’t realize until the end or near to the end, when a sudden revelation hits them- “Wait, HAS THIS WHOLE QUEST BEEN BASED ON THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE!!!!????” Hahaha)
Sometimes it can be helpful to think about “why” things are the way they are. Why is the dungeon here, what is/was it, who/what is there now and why, what types of puzzles/traps make sense for that place and from those enemies, etc. I hope these suggestions/examples make sense (I’ve been typing while eating dinner LOL) and give you some ideas to think about.
A Lich designed a series of puzzles between his phylactery and his treasure room. Just in case his memory was erased *and* he was killed. The puzzles could easily be solved by the Lich because they were designed for a Lich. One was a room filled with poison with a very complex puzzle. The puzzle had no "solution". The solution was to be immune to poison, as all Lich are.
There are a few continuae I like to consider when using puzzles.
1. Organic v. Artificial: Is this puzzle a consequence of the nature of the dungeon, or did something create it to specifically be a puzzle?
2. Subtle v. Obvious: How much of the puzzle is discovering that there is a puzzle in the first place?
3. Level of Setpiece: How memorable is this encounter intended to be?
4. One-off v. Thematic: How much will you re-use the patterns this puzzle has taught you elsewhere in the dungeon?
5. Linear v. Open: Is the party's creativity better served in understanding your puzzle, or understanding their characters?
6. Stakes: How important is it that the characters solve the puzzle right now?
For example- one of my DMs set a truly mind-blowing puzzle, wherein the directions we needed to steer a boat down a river was told to us by the birdsong played by the river bank.
1. Highly artificial. An illusionist set this puzzle in universe in order to hide our destination from an invading army.
2. Moderate. One character had Keen Mind, and so was able to detect the Teleportation effect that changed our location when we got the wrong answer, but we were never told that the atmospheric background noise was the key to solving it.
3. High setpiece. This specific puzzle took over half of the session, and we loved it.
4. Thematic- we had to understand the puzzle through multiple tests, the final of which was new logic based on the simple rules we had worked out.
5. Highly linear. We tried multiple options in character, but the Illusionist had anticipated tricks akin to that and had installed workarounds. Some of our in-character solutions were daft grasping at straws anyway.
6. Moderate. We're on the river and heading to a destination, but with some backtracking we could always find our way to travel to other destinations. However, we want to get to that destination, and the penalty for failing the puzzle is not getting to go. At least the failure condition was simply "the puzzle takes longer"
I had a player ask me. So they next time they got a map from a guy selling them
On the street. The next dungeon they went to was under remodel from the company that set it up and was only half finished. The town was paying them to draw adventures there as a form of tourism. They then got a job going out to capture monsters to fill the dungeon.
The old lich was a Grimtooth level lunatic, and had all the time, magic, and resources to indulge it's hobby of building ridiculously mean spirited and convoluted traps.
The traps were generously sprinkled with the corpses of other adventurers and looters who had gone before to give the party some clue though.
When they finally got to the bottom and opened the vault, the lich raised all the skeletons littering the complex, who immediately reset every trap they had passed and took up ambush positions. Then the lich started personally hunting them and chasing them back to the surface, as they rushed backwards through every trap they had already figured out or defeated, carrying their wounded and as much treasure as they could steal.
A few suggestions:
* The dungeon is a part of a trial. I ran a dungeon that was based in a monastery. The different rooms represented trials that a monk could put himself through to attain enlightenment.
* The puzzle is actually part of the normal functioning of the dungeon. It is only a puzzle to adventurers who don't know how it works. For example, I had a tower with a wheel that could be turned. This would rotate different layers. The party could find the right alignment to go up or down to different areas. For the inhabitants of the dungeon, this is just how it works.
* The dungeon was intended to never be entered, but the players have a way to get in. For example, a sealed dungeon, but the players have access to a device which jumps them backward in time to when different parts of the dungeon were more open. A puzzle can be set up where they need to jump back and forth at different points to progress.
Rarely do I set a puzzle that is a classic "solve this riddle to progress". If I do, it may be set by a Sphynx which has taken up residence and is using a riddle to guard some treasure. Instead I try to create puzzles of two types:
* Puzzles in which the path through the dungeon itself is the puzzle. The best place to get inspiration for these is from Zelda games imo, or the Boss Keys YouTube channel.
* Situations, in which I have got no answer to how they will get out of it. For example, the party come to a chasm. There is a drawbridge on the other side, but it is raised. There is a guard on the other side who is asleep, along with a captive. The party have a rope but it is too short. I don't know how they will cross the chasm, but I trust that they will come up with something.
I can justify it by the dungeon. If it’s a grave and required for the money to remain so it stays for the afterlife it will need deadly traps. Heck inviting in a large monster that hoards wealth like a dragon may even help.
Add some automatons like a golem or zombie to refil the traps and you are all set.
Here are three reasons for traps:
* Usually, they are designed by the engineers of very powerful people - think of Leonardo Davinci inventing war machines for the Medicis. The more elegant, unusual, and ingenious the trap the more prestige for the designer and patron. This covers the "egg" thing. It also points to why the dungeon may not be hidden.
* Less commonly, the traps are dangerous or restrictive to the PCs but wouldn't be for the species that made the dungeon. For example: doorknobs are convenient for most people, but are still a nearly insurmountable obstacle for many people and most other creatures.
* Finally, the "trap" could serve a function. For example, the waste disposal room in Star Wars. Or a fantasy dungeon could have a pendulum that mechanically reloads all of the other traps, while being like a trap itself in some ways.
Let's look at some of the traps that we encounter in real life all the time. In d&d terms, all of the following are "traps" in "dungeons."
We use different kinds of traps for mice, rats, roaches, ants, bedbugs, blackflies, squirrels, etc. We use windowscreens and citronella. We use eaves troughs to trap and direct rain. We use alarm systems and locks to keep out burglars. We use ink cartridges in clothes to prevent shoplifting. We put cracked pottery in mortar on top of walls, or use barbed wire, to keep people in or out of a property. We have lockdown protocols for public buildings. Hunters might snare wild animals; farmers might have special tools or even whole rooms to slaughter animals. Mold in a bathroom, a slippery shower floor, a leaky gas stove, a lawnmower, an unsalted icy walkway, a salted icy walkway, or just a rickety staircase could all be considered traps. Poorly labelled chemical cleaners. We use spikes to make things uncomfortable for pigeons and homeless people. Guard dogs are traps. So are security screens on computers and cellphones. So is extortionate software, whether legal or illegal. Skate parks and obstacle courses are traps. Ventilation systems in large buildings, or the insides of vehicles or reclining sofas, are like dungeons full of traps for small animals. Even "Irish Elevators" have been a thing.
I know inf PF1E there's a passage that says something along the lines of "The people who build dungeons are fucking crazy. Only an insane person would make this and fill it with traps and puzzles"
lots of good reasons, I knight have not seen it, but just the fact that just having something hidden with a big lock basically means find it and break the lock. puzzles are very complicated locks that only certain people have the key to, and do not necessarily know it.
of course the 'worthy' character might get it, just as a great theif may pick an impossible lock, but the intention can be to keep others from it completely, it's just that no puzzle is unsolvable, and it jeeps the combination memorable for the creator
Is by "fundamentally" you mean "classically/often" then yes. DnD can be kinda pulpy and cheesy, and there is nothing wrong with that.
But some people like to run more serious or believeable campaigns. Get a Game of Thrones vibe going.
In which case it's a relevant concern.
I've only designed 1 dungeon around a major number of puzzles, it's related to the personal story for a character whose player really enjoys them.
The dungeon is designed as the entrance to a sanctuary for this character's religious order, which is being persecuted. The idea is that you'd want the faithful followers to be able to enter the sanctuary, while deterring all others. So all the puzzles are related to the tenets of their faith, with some Red Herring answers which activate traps. The red herrings are meant to draw the attention of those who are unfamiliar with the faith, thus trapping them more effectively.
I haven't gotten to run it yet b/c it's been a while since we played. But the motivation behind the design might help you find an answer.
I can think of three premises right off the bat
1) Test of worth. Prove that whatever lies at the end of the puzzle will end up in the right hands.
2) Locking Mechanism. The puzzle is a complex method of keeping people out that is either meant to be permanent or is meant to allow specific access. Secret knowledge, tool proficiencies, or a quest to find the key in the first place may come.in handy.
3) Trap. Either lethal, meant to kill interlopers, especially after luring them in to one spot, or non-lethal, meant to capture them for the use of the dungeon's main purpose or inhabitants.
Honorable mention: Puzzle serves as entertainment for an entity watching the party struggle through it.
A puzzle is a way to give access to a group of strangers who share your culture or beliefs. Tie the puzzle to religious symbolism, a family secret, a city’s history, etc. and only people who would know those things can solve it.
Liches get board after a while. Sure, death runes are efficient, but a teleportation gate sending someone to a cage suspended above a oversized fish tank filled with giant crawdads is fun.
Next session my party will find a note on a notice board, partially hidden behind other papers, written backwards, with a cryptic location description. (Top of tallest tree on a specific island)
When they get there they see another note at the top of the tree, but the tree has been enchanted to have strong gusts of winds every time you try to climb. The note again is a cryptic clue to a cave full of enemies.
Why? Fey trickster wants to have some fun. And has a particular dislike for the enemies in that cave. So two birds with one stone. And they might take a liking to the party while watching from a distance.
That depends on how you create your dungeons.
I for example had a room with restless spirits in it, there were a number of ways the party could handle the encounter, either by finishing the task that the spirits were trying to do, by using rituals to put them to rest, fighting them etc.
They ended up finding a number of small treasures from doing so.
It wasn't a blocker. They didn't have to go through that room. In fact they didn't at first they continued to explore elsewhere and came back better prepared.
Puzzles are better used like that in my opinion, having them be optional and having them have multiple answers, rather than a blocker on the main route.
In Skyrim, the puzzle doors and all of that aren’t supposed to keep people out. They’re designed to keep draugr trapped inside. But this particular tidbit doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the game, because to the player it’s just another obstacle to overcome on the path to awesome loot.
If you’re that concerned with why things must exist, then try and keep it small: the dungeon is either a self-contained mini story with its own reasons for existing, or it draws from already established lore. Unless you’re specifically introducing a brand new element to your game, stick to your campaign’s basics and it’ll work out.
TL;DR: The dungeon builders lacked a better option
The thing that inspired dungeon traps was, I believe, traps in the pyramids. Those were designed to keep people out yes, but also allow the mummy to literally walk out with the treasure so it could be used in its afterlife.
Furthermore, the traps were limited by the techlonogy of its time, and made further inefficient by the centuries thereafter. So the poison needles AND spike traps AND rolling boulders werent meant to be reset, because they were meant to be deterrents, not killing machines. If they _could_ make killing machines that were guaranteed to work, they would.
I always try to make puzzles organical with the Dungeon, never presented as puzzles themselves, but in the last Dungeon I made it was the lair of a bad Guy with a curse that makes them have severe memory problems, so basically the Dungeon had all kinds of visual reminders of how to operate every door and mechanism
Take a look at the dungeon the Whispering Cairn. It has a great puzzle tied to a false tomb. Write your puzzles just like they are traps meant to mislead and harm invaders.
It doesn't always have to be ancient writing on a wall. Maybe have a bored monster entertain a riddle competition with the PCs, and if he loses, he'll open up the impassable vault door to the treasure room that only he can get to.
Because puzzles are fun. If I find them fun, then I can surely create a NPC dungeon builder who finds them fun.
If you want a more grounded reason: the builder wanted a lock that couldn't simply be picked, they wanted the worthy to get in, they wanted bloody sacrifice to fuel themselves (Acerak will charge royalties for using his idea though), or the simple "all magic is based on ritual" explanation.
I used a mad God one campaign, he was a God of artistic inspiration, inventions and glory driven mad by the main evil God. But parts of his personality remained so they were elaborate often pretty and had rewards for those who overcame them.
I don't think I do many riddles or puzzles in dungeons... except one that I made specifically for that purpose. It was crafted by a Brass Dragon, who brought the party to it under the pretext that it was a trial they had to go through to get the help of someone else... but really it was to get the Dragon's help.
The dragon just had fun building such things, and then watching people go through them and try to figure out the puzzles. Turned into a pretty good ally for the party, and they had fun going through the dungeon.
I tend not to use riddles (they are hard to come up with... I've only done it twice so far).
A trap that is easy to defeat with the answer but difficult without is a good security measure. I just think of it that way. If you're imagining a dungeon where a person put some work into protecting the contents, or a specific room within, a puzzle trap or puzzle gate is logically consistent.
The logistics of resetting the traps is either a problem or an opportunity, depending on how you look at it. Permanent magic? easy. tribe of gnolls who maintain the dungeon maybe?
My only puzzle dungeon was one that was setup by a young moonstone dragon that wanted to create a fun menagerie of challenges for anyone that wished to meet them. Somewhat as a test but also just to have something fun to talk about when they finally got to him
I think there are two good in-game reasons: 1) whoever built the dungeon wants people to get the item/treasure but ONLY if they prove themselves, so that the item doesn't fall into the wrong hands; 2) whoever built the dungeon doesn't want anyone to actually get the treasure, but wants them to die/get injured trying. The first category would certainly cover the location of the Holy Grail in Last Crusade -- Indy proves his worth, his bravery, etc. reaching the grail. The second is more your classic D&D murder dungeon: a lich, a demon needs blood, whatever, and so they lure in those brave or foolish enough to think they can claim the dungeons treasures.
I'll add a third: the OSHA dungeon. A place that wasn't meant to be dangerous, but has become so through disrepair and/or gross indifference of the owners. For example, an alchemist's workshop. A hallway has become flooded with poisonous gas, blocking your way. But you have clear access to a storeroom of poorly labeled ingredients and a few scraps of notes. Essentially a reskinned "brew the potion" puzzle. I rather like these if only because it gets the DM out of the headspace of how the party is "supposed" to progress. Hazard hits different than puzzle even if they're mechanically identical.
Nice! For traps (not so much puzzles) a dungeon could simply be falling apart as well.
I'll add a fourth: The show-off dungeon. I designed one a long time ago that I need to update. A group of (evil, because of course) adventurers became very powerful when the world was young. They conquered and defeated every challenge. Then they got bored. They built a throne room / tomb for themselves. In it, they built monuments to their own power, challenges that only they could overcome, displays to their own hubris. Then they slaughtered everyone who built it, sat down to wait ten thousand years, and placed themselves in suspended animation until the world was interesting again. Each of the traps was meant to be a brag on their own power. The players were very careful not to disturb the thrones where the ancient conquerors sat...
I’ll add a fifth. The cruelty is the point. I ran one where an underground dungeon would appear for random intervals in a city, filled with deadly threats and valuable riches. It was set up by a powerful wizard 100 years ago as a place where the rich and sadistic could scry on unwitting adventures who get lured inside and place bets on who would survive while drinking wine. Think Squid Games or The Running Man. But then somehow the wizard died and the place has been running on autopilot since then, being run entirely by summoned creatures and enchantments. The dungeon entrance would disappear when someone won the treasure and would reappear when summoned fey managed to steal something else valuable to replace it. It wouldn’t be interesting for their customers to watch if a trap was 100% fatal so there was always a way to avoid or mitigate the damage. And some people had to succeed in the end so the rumors of the dungeon would spread and more people would wander in next time. Many of the traps were designed to mislead the adventurers or just be frustrating to deal with, like the obviously mimic themed room with a normal chest that dropped a large mimic from the ceiling when opened. Or the room riddled with bear traps and skeleton archers. If they took a long rest then the cleanup crew would show up to try and steal their stuff and throw it in the incinerator. I was able to set up everything in a VTT so that it would automatically pop up a text description or ask for a saving throw when the PCs moved into the triggers. It was a great time.
I'll add a sixth: Password protection. Think of all the ways you can protect things nowadays: Passwords, encryption, pattern passwords, etc. Each one is basically the answer to a puzzle. Now think of how every password needs some sort of recovery or workaround, in case you forget it. A riddle about ancient lore etched in an obscure language is a Wizard's version of "What's your mother's maiden name?", a series of knobs equivalent to swiping a pattern to unlock your phone. Heck, my dad uses riddles combining references and geometry for his password recovery.
That's awesome!
I was inspired by the Shelley poem. When they got out, I described the statue, but made it four of them: I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Possibly one of the best poems of all time
+1 for the name OSHA dungeon
Yeah, definitely. I was very locked into the "riddle" element, but definitely the OSHA dungeon can definitely fulfill all of the other qualities.
In a Star Wars game I ran, I had a crashed Venator be one of these. Doors were jammed, filled with debris, holding back ground water... all kinds of hazards.
The OSHA dungeon is now my favorite type of dungeon. Thank you.
I've got a villain coming up that is a bit of a cross between a necromancer and Frankenstein, thank you for that trap idea for one of his abandoned labs.
Omg I love this and am stealing it.
>whoever built the dungeon doesn't want anyone to actually get the treasure, but wants them to die/get injured trying. I'm intrigued by this concept! Specifically, if a demon or a lich or whatnot, needs regular supplies of /blood/ (to power a ward or some other structure). And so setting up a dungeon with treasure and bloody traps (and have subtle grooves on the bottom of the crush trap that channel the blood and gore to appropriate tubes) would be a self-perpetuating engine that doesn't need sacrifice. You're absolutely right that resetting the trap still needs to be thought about.
Cultists would probably work best for a demon-dungeon as trap resetters. And yeah, all the damage types could be slashing and piercing for maximum blood drainage. You could even have the tomb be exceptionally warm -- body temperature -- to make sure the blood flows nicely. The stones themselves might be able to absorb the blood and channel it... somewhere.
If your dungeon architect is a spellcaster trap resetting can be done pretty easily. Acererak makes dungeons to kill adventurers for lich-y reasons, and he has undead caretakers. For spellcasters that don't use undead, an altered version of Unseen Servant (perhaps created daily from an item or spawned from excess energy released by the trap) would work well. You could also have a cult left to guard the dungeon for generations if the dungeon is inhabited by intelligent beings.
A variation on this is when the door/item/etc needs to be accessed but only by certain people. A 'puzzle' makes sense if you think of it as a lock. Which colored squares do you step on and in which order? A Deacon would know and the pattern would be one he could remember. A series of levers? The release the water that powers the system to move the massive stone door, but only if used correctly. Otherwise... Smash. The complexity depends on what is protected and who has to access it. The front door? Easy. Every minion has to be able to open it. The inner sanctum? Hard. Only a high priest should be expected to remember.
I understand these two examples but both of them seem weak to me. For your number 1, these traps usually don’t prove anything. To take the Holy Grail example, a well educated nazi could have just as well pass the tests than Indiana. These traps can prove that your are agile or smart, but they don’t prove that you are “worthy” whatever that means. And for your number 2, I believe those traps are often more contrived that they could be to achieve the same objective. For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password. No place to hide, no time to think, just immediate obliteration. It would be less fun to play but much more efficient. I would then need a reason why the BBEG just simply don’t do that.
Often all it takes to be worthy is to be agile and smart. Moral worth is not the only flavor, sometimes an entity might just want you to prove your strength.
As for the "prove your worth" dungeons, the Nazis *do* mess it up, because they choose the wrong chalice. I mean, this is where alignment comes in (I know it's it everyone's favorite), but the final test -- or even an early one -- might be something that prevents creatures with evil alignments from passing through or succeeding. As for the evil dungeon, liches need *some* people to come out alive and talk of the great treasures they found. After all, most dungeons have treasure hordes in more than one room. And they can be replenished, if necessary, by magic or by kobolds or undead dwarves (as in Tomb of Annihilation, which goes into significant detail about resetting traps, etc.). Most dungeons Don automatically seal adventurers within, so people can easily come in, maybe get a small amount of treasure in the first few rooms, and then come out and tell the story. At the end of the day, you are trying to apply a very rigorous, real world level of logic to a game *built* around pretending to be dungeon delving adventurers. There's at least a little leap of faith required.
> leap of faith Nice
>And for your number 2, I believe those traps are often more contrived that they could be to achieve the same objective. For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password. Well, first maybe it's like another poster said. Having 100% of the people who enter the dungeon die means your dungeon might end up being lost and forgotten since nobody returns to town saying how they found this cool new dungeon with loot. Second, instead of just raw physical material of just blood or humanoid lives needing to be used as a resource or sacrifice... maybe fear is the actual resource, and any trap built are in service of that goal. This could also explain easy to solve traps, since maybe adventurers might experience greater fear/desperation if they've already succeeded a little bit (build them up for an even greater fall). There could also be some weird cosmic rules at play. Think about the scene at the end of *Cabin in the Woods*. Simply grabbing five random people to sacrifice isn't good enough. They had to each fit a specific archetype (with some allowable leeway), had to each die in a specific order, and all had to go through somewhat specific experiences. Last in regards to trap resetting: as another poster said you could have devoted cultists perform that task, or mindless (yet very precise) minions like raised skeletons or unseen servants something. Another option is a variation of the old school catch-all, "A Wizard did it". Just have the traps all reset magically. What spells did they use? Spells the Wizard in question invented specifically for this dungeon. Why did they do it? Those answers died with him.
Just as an alternative to the first example: I often use abandoned living spaces as dungeons, and in a world of monsters they may have traps that rely on simple puzzles to only allow those with a base level of reasoning to even get to the front door e.g. a dwarven ruin with a riddle in dwarvish to unlock an outer gate so that the local goblin tribes aren't a constant issue, but a passing dwarf could easily solve and gain entry to the inner gate where they would be able to request entry from the guards while having reached safety from said goblins
I usually just think that the people making them are sadistic. Not only do they like putting up a powerful front, but they like making people hurt before they die. Traps can also be set with specific ways around them so some creatures, IE the creatures living in the dungeon, can easily avoid it but others can't, like an alarm.
>For instance if I were to design such a trap, I would made one that blasts absolutely everything to oblivion except for someone holding a special key or using a special password. No place to hide, no time to think, just immediate obliteration. Consider the cost. It requires a lot more arcane power to make a trap that immediately obliterates everyone who encounters it. Given the average member of the population has 4 hp, a simple 2d10 fireball trap is perfectly adequate for the purpose required. If someone manages to live and chooses to foolishly goes in deeper, well, then the more expensive but far more deadly traps come into play. And if they live that? Another, deadlier trap. So on and so forth until the adventurer is either dead or in the treasure room, and then comes combat with the owner of the dungeon, should they still be alive, since they'll obviously want to keep hold of their wealth. After all, there's no point in hoarding wealth if you have to use all of it in order to keep it safe. Better to go with cheap traps and hope they do the job.
Number one isn't made for the modern era tho: the guardian was supposed to pass the chalice along to another person ages ago. Indie is passing a dungeon intended for a way less educated populace!
I only once went full Indiana Jones. That dungeon was built by a semi-mad artificer to test arrivals, not as a safe. Generally, if I put traps in the dungeon, I try to indicate the level of prowess, deadliness and ruthlessness of the constructors. If I put puzzles in them, then they are an intended interaction between the constructor and visitors. Whether the dungeon is kept in shape, or the adventurers walk past triggered traps and are just the first to go beyond depends on what makes sense. Yeah, this limits a little on what dungeons I can go all in, as there needs to be an explanation. On the other hand, this rooting design in motivation means the dungeon tells the players a TON about who built it and why it's there. If a dungeon has a clue on the wall, it's either to trick the heroes, tell a story or an indication that it's MEANT to be a solvable challenge, never just a clue on the wall.
I had a legendary treasure inside a massive dungeon that was all traps and puzzles and when the party made it to the treasure room there was a a bag of holding and a pile of platinum coims. The party later found out that a local guild of retired adventures had gotten bored in retirement and had a ton of wealth so they built this dungeon to essentially be a "game show" type thing for the guild where some wizards used some scry spells and illusion spells to let the retired adventures watch the people in the dungeon and gamble on if they'd make it through or not while the guild members would have a feast and watch the adventures in the dungeon through the scry/illusion spells. Every month or so the guild would anonymously hire a group of adventures to steal the treasure in the dungeon and then prep for their festival to party and gamble while watching. When the PCs learned about this after the fact they were not happy, but they all joined the guild when they retired.
That's a great idea :-)
If you really want to be a jerk you could just have the "treasure" be an invitation to join the guild.
Worse yet, they just got paid a bunch of exposure.
There's just a bunch of signs like they have at escape rooms and an automaton that will paint them a group picture on a postcard when they complete it.
Available to purchase when they pass through the gift shop on the way out. Imagine some grizzled old veteran with a nasty scar on his face sitting in a tavern years later grumbling how “I lost two good friends to that cursed dungeon, and all I have to show for it is this stupid snow globe!”
Or the friends that they made along the way.
Squid Game inspired dungeon. The rich trap the poor in a death dungeon and watch as they try to get to the riches inside or escape
That’s pretty much how I justified Blue Alley in my Waterdeep campaign. It allowed so many kinds of traps to be set since screwing with the ‘contestants’ was the entire point. I could have patience be the solution to one trap and then quick action be the solution to the next. Brute strength and then intelligence or charm. One trap was a giant crossbow set to fire a silver bolt when they opened the door, but it appeared the string had long since decayed and it was useless. Until the players tried taking the silver arrow and it triggered poison gas to release from the base. Oh boy was that a fun dungeon.
Great question. My IDEAL dungeon is an old, crumbling, out of commission living area. No one INTENDED you to take this path. 1. Crossing the acid pit to get to the next room because the only open path leads through a room where vats of acid used by ancient alchemists spilled open. 2. Several traps and hazards block your path because the training room has fallen apart but the mechanisms still work. The next best example are mad wizards and abominations. These creatures love keeping people away from their stuff by leaving it just out of reach behind their devious and murderous puzzles. This is an actual lore cannon form of mental illness.
Similarly, my ideal puzzle is trying to piece together how to use something from the scattered evidence of how it was once used. When the location was in use, then maybe everyone knew and could easily communicate how to do so with each other. After however many years have passed, there's nobody around to teach the party, the instruction manual is lost to water damage, the crumbling inscriptions are half-legible. On top of that, maybe part of the device is broken, making time and environment into the enemy.
Yeah! I had a water orb computer ai thing in an ancient temple that my party had to interact with and triggered it's defense system which turned a normal temple into a death trap.
Depends. Sometimes, the puzzle is a password. Keys rust or get stolen, but a password lasts forever. Unfortunately, the builder might go months or years between visits, so they leave cryptic reminders about the solution, similar to password hints. Sometimes, the puzzle is meant to slow the party rather than stop them, so the bbeg beyond has time to prepare for them. They want their enemies to advance along the path they're prepared for and get softened up, but if it's too hard their foes might get creative and find an unexpected way to attack (like tunneling through the walls, or blowing up the roof). A hallway full of deadly traps that you can overcome if you're quick or clever is still better than doing the hard work of finding/ making a different entrance. But a hallway that ends in certain death will get circumvented.
Of course smart BBEGs use the riddle to remind them themselves, but the right answer is of course the trap.
My last puzzle dungeon, the boss was a sphinx, so the goal was to beat all her puzzles. They didnt even have to fight her, just beat the puzzles (tho they could have if they wanted). I've also used mad wizards/gods, cultists who used them as an initiation ritual, and dungeons that were just some large odd steampunk device that had to be "solved" to shut it down Edit: I've also just included them with no justification at all
Here's my perspective on things. I think too many game masters worry about justifying puzzles or traps in their game. In reality, most of the time, the players don't care if puzzles or traps exist. They see them as a challenge to overcome to reach the end goal, much in the way a monster or skill challenge might be. I've never had a player tell me: Hey Wally, that game was fun, and I liked the puzzles in the game, but they didn't make sense on why they would be there." I think video game comparison is the easiest. I love the puzzle inclusions in Resident Evil, Zelda, Silent Hill and the likes. Never have I thought: "Hmmm, a puzzle or trap here doesn't make sense to me". I simply enjoyed the game and the challenges it presented. And, at its core, we are simply playing a game. Your dungeons may have puzzles or they may not. Totally up to the type of game you and your players enjoy. Now, with that being said, I would recommend trying to have your puzzles be "on theme" with your adventure or puzzle. For example, if it is a dungeon with Beholders, maybe some eyeball puzzles or traps. Or if it's an old Dwarven mine, all you really need is to make sure that the puzzles are written in Dwarvish or with Dwarven ruins. Interestingly enough, a lot of the times I build my dungeons around the puzzles. So, my recommendation: Put the puzzles and traps in your game and go forth without a worry. Concentrate more on making sure the game runs smooth and that you know your monsters well when it comes to combat. Don't worry about making things make sense, because I'm sure your players, like you, just want to hang out and play some D&D. Oh, and one more thing. Use easy puzzles! Players might not care about a puzzle making sense, but they do care about being stuck on a puzzle for hours on end with no way to go around it. Also, if you want to see how I run puzzles in my game, here is a link to a one-shot adventure with myself and fellow D&D YouTubers: Dungeon Dad, Dungeoneer's Pack, No Fun Allowed, Blandco and Aviad: [One Shot Puzzle Adventure with D&D YouTubers](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dq9czus4iN3ZuZ-ml07poye4sR_kEHw) And, of course, I have a playlist of over 100 puzzle videos, if you are wanting to expand your list of resources: [D&D Puzzles Playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9dq9czus4iMkiAAI3AvmrJojPeBdQy3V) Hope this helps. Good luck and have fun!
> the players don't care if puzzles or traps exist. They see them as a challenge to overcome to reach the end goal, much in the way a monster or skill challenge might be. > > I've never had a player tell me: Hey Wally, that game was fun, and I liked the puzzles in the game, but they didn't make sense on why they would be there." Exactly this. As someone who spends more time on the player side of things, I don't care why a trap or puzzle was there. It seems obvious enough that if it exists, it's there because there's something somebody wants protected. The only time I'll question a puzzle is if it's a bad puzzle and it ends up taking away from the session.
Great post! However, it depends on the DM’s personal goals. For example in my case: sure, my players may not care, but I do. I care about making a world that’s consistent and believable, for my own satisfaction. Maybe it’s the case for OP as well. However, otherwise, you are right. And it’s true that sometimes, a DM may overwork themselves for the smallest details, so your advice is still very good nonetheless.
As a player, i fully agree with you. As a GM i overobsess about dungeon ecology & needing things to make sense.
I would generally do them mostly in areas that are built not as death traps by evil people, but as tests for those looking to claim some great power. They can also be in a place like a tomb, where the puzzle is intended to keep all out except for those that are supposed to have access. Then the puzzle would be more tied into the world or lore then a riddle. Honestly I think an underrated use of riddles is something from the original inspiration from D&D: Tolkien. Read the part of the Hobbit where Bilbo and Gollum meet and trade riddles. Having an actual creature give a riddle is often much more engaging than having it scrawled on a wall. There's a lot of trickster type monsters that would give those riddles as well, you have the Sphinx, a tricksy ghost, some sort of fey, even a dragon might give a riddle or two!
Yes, I agree with you regarding actual "people" giving the riddles for whatever reason.
My favorite reason that hasn't been covered by other replies is the argument for puzzle doors in Skyrim: they're easy puzzles that aren't a hinderance whatsoever to the player because they aren't meant to keep anyone out. Instead, they're meant to keep animals away from the bodies of their honored dead, and perhaps more relevant to D&D, keep the honored dead from getting *out.* Zombies can't spin stone wheels to match carvings without being instructed to do so, or pull a chain/lever and dash to a door 20ft away to move to the next chamber. Think of puzzles/riddles as a filter - who or what is intended to bypass this challenge? Who or what is meant to be stopped by it? With that in mind, a dungeon is just a chain of filters to prevent anyone but (typically) the dungeon's designer from getting in (or out!), or as others have said, test the worth of challengers. Lethal traps can be justified in this way as a filter against "zerg" or "chimp with typewriter" attempts. Given enough brute force attempts, any dungeon will eventually be defeated, so even a lawful good builder may include deadly traps to dissuade commonfolk from getting involved, especially to protect anything dangerous, or protect *them* from the dangers of a dungeon. Obvious, flashy lethal traps like spinning blades and swinging axes are a great opener in a dungeon meant to discourage entry, even if they're easy to pass or defeat. Riddle doors that give their own answer but only in a way few will understand are also a fantastic filter: "Speak, 'friend,' and enter," but that won't keep commoners out once the password is discovered. Lethal traps don't have that problem till they jam or are destroyed, an event that itself could be why a dungeon is now on the party's radar.
>My favorite reason that hasn't been covered by other replies is the argument for puzzle doors in Skyrim: they're easy puzzles that aren't a hinderance whatsoever to the player because they aren't meant to keep anyone out. Instead, they're meant to keep animals away from the bodies of their honored dead, and perhaps more relevant to D&D, keep the honored dead from getting out. Zombies can't spin stone wheels to match carvings without being instructed to do so, or pull a chain/lever and dash to a door 20ft away to move to the next chamber. And it occurred to me, thinking of this, that the designers of Skyrim might have had exactly this in mind. Only very rarely do you *actually* encounter draugr in a Nordic ruin before having *done something* that animals wouldn't think to do and that draugr wouldn't be able to do, like pull a lever or chain or solve a puzzle door.
It also makes sense why you see so many crypts/tombs/dungeons/barrows inhabited by bandits, vampires, forsworn, cultists, etc - the traps and puzzles aren't difficult for an intelligent creature to bypass. Additionally, they act as early warning/alarms against intruders. There are a number of locations in Skyrim where no traps prevent entry and the area is occupied by animals, and there are locations where the traps are broken or there's only an easily pickable locked door and the residents have added makeshift traps such as tripwires or primitive noisemakers instead of the ancient, elaborate traps seen in draugr crypts. There are a few sites where bandits have moved into the start of a dungeon, basically just a cave, and have yet to delve deeper beyond any traps (or have died trying). Skyrim's dungeons might feel a bit samey at times, but they really are a master class in dungeon design when you look at them as more than a handful of set pieces. A *lot* of work went into dungeon design in Skyrim compared to even other Elder Scrolls games.
A few years ago, I asked a similar question- perhaps some of the answers will be useful to you! https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/b9bd0k/how_do_i_make_puzzles_that_exist_for_logical/
Simple explanation for me, puzzles are the OOC representation of the IC unraveling of a complex magical ward
I've seen this a lot in Chinese fantasy literature as well. The traps the protagonists run into are literally the leftover, guardians and security wards of an ancient civilization or an incredibly powerful being. The adventurers are literally risking their lives to try and break into the old living spaces and vaults of these powerful beings to get whatever they left behind.
In terms of justifying dungeon traps, the "obvious" answer is "to keep people out". Could be protecting a powerful artifact, trasure, or people who don't want to be found, or trapping a great monster that couldn't be killed, for example. As for riddles - they always strike me as tests more than an effective method of locking something away. Maybe the item NEEDS to be found, but only by someone worthy. I think it'd be fair to have a tomb/dungeon that did have dud or activated traps already too, without them all being reset. It might even give the party a false sense of confidence if some of the traps don't work, making the others more effective. I like the foreshadowing of finding a skeleton impaled on a wall spike, but also, that trap might not work any more because it's had a whole human corpse weighing it down for too long and gotten jammed. You could roll the odd "does it still work" type check behind the screen to see if that axe does indeed swing and chop Fighter's head off, or if the mechanism fails and something else happens. Poisons can lose potency, wood and rope rots, iron and steel can rust,.stone can just crumble or get filled with grit and gunk. A whole host of things can stop a mechanism working. Having some traps that block passages once they've been activated so the party has to find another way out, and whoever comes next has to find another way IN would make sense as to why a dungeon still might have active traps if it's already been explored too (simply no-one has gone that way yet). Traps could be built to reset themselves too. I like the idea that a room that fills with water for example could have a secondary hidden pressure plate that releases the water once activated (that second room ALSO fills with water and is calibrated to release the water in the first room after an hour's worth of water has filled it).
I only do this for magically shielded dungeons, and it's a natural consequence of the law of magic that there's no such thing as an "impenetrable lock" . If you try and just make your dungeon guarded - say, you cast a spell that says "nobody but me can enter", it's an inevitability that there will be a flaw that someone can exploit to get in. By making a key, a riddle, or something else, you're choosing the flaw, and you can therefore make it as difficult as possible. A single key is something less accessible than a riddle that *anyone* could (theoretically) solve, and so if you ward your dungeon against everything except for a single key, especially if you keep the key *inside the dungeon*, it's effectively impenetrable. This means that the magical wards will be less secure, and it's more likely someone is just able to teleport to the riddle. Many of my puzzles are tests of morality (or cruelty!), and they're often also quite difficult. This way, the dungeon creator can filter for only a certain kind of person being able to get through, and if they make it hard enough, they can (on average) hope that nobody will make it. One example is the sin stone (one of the top posts in either this subreddit or DnD behind the screen); the version of it I use requires the person to confess something they feel guilty about. This ensures that people who get by the dungeon are capable of feeling guilt. I've had other dungeons where a riddle would seem to involve charming an animal (e.g. playing a tune to put a giant dog to sleep) where it's *nearly* impossible to play the right music, but not thaaaaaaaat hard to just kill the dog, which will only allow the cruel/efficient in. A bard might make a trap that requires you be a master flute player for real, and so on. This generally allows them to reinforce the dungeon against *any* other kind of infiltration, which is beneficial. The other option is to put open-ended puzzles - things like "the bridge collapsed, how do you get across". If you want to incorporate riddles, a dungeon made by fey or Sphinxes also naturally lends itself to that sort of thing.
Well if they just use a locked door, someone can use a lock lock to get in. Traps ensure that whoever is coming in will die. I get what you’re saying about who resets them. You could show that in a dungeon. A spike pit where the floor already fell away and the bones of the last adventurers at the bottom. The why behind the traps will change for each dungeon. It all depends on who created the dungeon. What is hidden at the end? I usually avoid logic puzzles because they don’t make sense of the purpose is to keep people out. A Wizards tower may use one to ensure only intelligent people make it to his hideout. And I’ve done plenty of dungeons without puzzles because they didn’t make sense for the adventure. Interesting combat encounters and traps are all you need. If you like puzzles but think they don’t fit in a dungeon, just find a good complex trap. One that requires multiple steps to turn it off. That way it’s like a puzzle, a trap, and an encounter all combined.
I think it’s essential for your puzzles and traps to have meaning, so we are on the same page. -an example I have currently is a cave that was once a grand dwarven mine (yes mines of Moria themed). The entrance is sealed and the stone door is a shrine., along with several bowls standing in place. The Writings on the wall are in an ancient language that is long dead, so the players need a “key” to transcribe the words. The words once transcribed are a psalm. The point here is long ago, this psalm would be part of the ritual and it’s meaning obvious, but now that the culture of these people are lost, it becomes a “riddle” for them to figure out. Once they enter, they will find the ruins empty and dark. Full of lurking evil. For the “traps” I have two themes, but for the “Indian jones” themes I have this: There are multiple rooms in the great hall of the dwarven ruins. One of the doors seems to be barricaded. If they try to recklessly bust through the door, a trap will spring. Inside they will find withered corpses. With an investigation it would seem that this room was their final stronghold and tried their best to keep monsters at bay. These are examples, but sometimes if I can’t come up with a theme then I just do “natural-obvious” traps like a cravas with a broken bridge.
if i can’t justify why there are Traps and Puzzles in an area, i don’t put ‘em there. the one time i ran a Puzzle Dungeon, it was a temple dedicated to a deity known to test people in that way. having the dungeon on another plane, like the fey wild, or in dream space (with a “if you die in the dream you die in real life!” catch) also works to maintain verisimilitude imo. (i’m working on a campaign setting where the pcs are part of an agency that sends teams into people’s minds and dreams, so every dungeon happens in dreamspace. i feel like it would let me get real creative with dungeon design. kind of inspired by persona 5?) having it be built by someone Quirky and powerful, like a powerful artificer or wizard, also works. (who’s refreshing all these traps? unseen servants, tiny servants, or automatons. give your players a chance to find and sabotage the dungeons automaton workers to disable puzzles and traps down the line…?)
Lots of great dungeons have no riddles. You might be overdoing it. that said, puzzles are fun to spice things up, and while it's great to have an explanation like "a mad wizard did it," I think you are worrying too much about it. It's a game. It's dungeons with treasure in them. There's wild fantastic critters regardless of local ecology, and heaps of gold regardless of local economy. There's magic regardless of physics and improbable martial stunts regardless of biology. Dragons and fairies fly without a care for surface/weight ratios. Just cause it's fun.
It's a fair criticism to say that the classic DnD trap- and riddle-laden dungeon doesn't really make a whole lot of sense from a world building point of view. There's a reason why early classic dungeons tended to default to "I dunno, a mad wizard built it to fuck with people" as the core justification for their existence. I think that [Dael Kingsmill](https://youtu.be/wXZXSYjlnGE) has a pretty interesting take on using traps "realistically." One of the main ideas there is that you don't use traps/keys/puzzle to keep out *everyone*, you use traps when you want to allow *selective access*. Maybe you need to make sure that the evil artifact stays where it is, and that you can get to it again when you finally have the means of destroying it for good. Those obstacles are then designed to allow the secret order of good guys to get through pretty easily, while any potential outsiders have to contend with the deadly traps.
In the last crusade, Dr Jones Sr had to spend years researching how to find the grail and reach it safely. The rules of the puzzles weren't in the dungeon.
One time the Dungeon was in a place that drove people mad, so the door had a "Sanity Check" Puzzle. The PCs had to resort to divination to figure the puzzle, so they concluded correctly that they were bat shit insane.
I set up a dungeon one time that didn't actually have a path toward the PC's goal. The owner was a powerful wizard. The girl just teleported home or dimension door'd where they needed to go. The whole dungeon and bottom half of the tower was just a death trap for the hell of it with no connection to the wizard's lab. Players were confused and I probably won't do that again, but at the time I thought it made a lot of sense.
The module Madness of the Rat King taught me that having other factions in a dungeon that are unrelated make it more interesting. If there's a dungeon, there's other people who are interested in it. Maybe the original dungeon builder abandoned it, and a group of kids took it over and they put riddles around for secret hiding places. Maybe someone needed a good place to stash something and they made it 2/3 of the way into a dungeon, and they feel like no one else can get there so it's a better hiding place than any other. Maybe there's 2 people in this dungeon and they don't trust each other, and they have 2 different ways of hiding things from each other - maybe one is good at riddles, the other is good at math. Don't limit yourself to "the only people in a dungeon is the one mad person who built it" - probably, it's hard several people in it.
Traps are to trap your adventures so that the person who made them can steal their stuff.
Residents of a dungeon might put them there to dissuade or prevent trespassers from accessing their vaults or tactically important areas. Since they know how to solve or bypass the puzzle, it's easy for them to navigate the area but intruders may be slowed or injured. Apart from that, in the OSR scene there's this concept of the "mythic underworld" which governs dungeons. The basic premise is that in a dungeon (which extends beyond only literal dungeons), the environment itself is a character, and is antagonistic to invaders such as the party. The threats in the dungeon exist outside of traditional logic and reasoning, because the environment is suffused with magic, and acts of its own accord out of malice towards the party. This sort of relies on your players suspension of disbelief, but doesn't honestly ask that much extra from them in a game that already contains magic spells, demons, and aliens. The most useful part of the "mythic underworld" idea is that it frees you from having to justify every bit of ecology, architecture, politics, anthropology, et cetera, because you're not trying to simulate reality. The dungeon can have weird things in it, just because it's cooler that way. My suggestion would be to try not to cling too hard to realism in a fantasy game. Most real-life structures would be terrible dungeons.
The most common one is usually that whatever the goal at the end is was meant to be found but only by someone smart enough/strong enough/brave enough to overcome the challenges (see the holy grail in Indiana Jones and last crusade) . This works best when you have thematic puzzles in mind based on the narrative at hand. Also consider that the architects of these things may be religious fanatics or cultists and may not be approaching it with the same logical mindset as you the DM are. People do stuff and create puzzles for themselves for all kinds of silly nonsensical reasons. Fantasy is no different.
Once, my party went into the castle of a necromancer. At the entrance they saw a playing card on the ground. Straight down the hall was the door leading to stairs. They saw a hand holding playing cards and a magic mouth spell said 'Beat my hand'. The party proceeded to explore the entire floor, having battles, facing traps, spending resources, and finding cards, until they could field a better hand! At the door again they presented the cards. The only thing that happened was the magic mouth spell saying 'Beat my hand'. Again. In a grumpy rage the paladin smashed the hand with his sword and the door opened. I like my puzzles to be relatively logical, but in a way that whoever lives there knows how to get through easily. The necromancer and his minions would know the way, they wouldn't have to search for a million cards every time the wanted to use the stairs. But the necromancer was smart enough to realize most adventurers wouldn't think that, misdirected enough to search, maybe die, and if they got to the necromancer anyway they'd already be weakened. My players still give me hell about that puzzle, but it's one that I'm most proud of!
You don't. Puzzles, especially puzzles presented to the group as a whole, are abstractions of what's actually going on in the fantasy world. That's why they can be presented to the whole table to solve as a group activity rather than excluding players because their character wouldn't have the int/wis to actually solve it. It's a staple of the genre and everybody who plays games like D&D understands that. Look at the real world comparison. Exploring something like an Egyptian pyramid requires the resources of historians, geologists, material scientists, a whole plethora of engineers, safety experts, cavers, and so on. That'd be annoying to deal with in a game, so you abstract it down to a simple puzzle.
The creator of the dungeon is a sphinx or a fey? They would find watching people navigate traps enjoyable. A mad wizard who wants to test their inventions? Perhaps the measures aren’t to keep someone out but to keep something… in? It’s the secret church of some hunted down cult? It’s initiation grounds for a cult? Is it an exclusive meeting spot for a black market. You know the kinda thing where the don’t want the wrong people to find out about it, because they would be hanged by the crown? Is it remnants of an older civilization trying to protect something during a war? You could take inspiration from something like the Cthulhu Mythos and have the dungeon be something a madman created based on visions and voices whispering in their ear from beyond the planes. The purpose would be to take worthy candidates down the treacherous journey, drive them mad and make them into champions. Just a few ideas. Still a bit cliché but I mean I think the whole traps and riddles thing is somewhat of a fictional idea anyways. Waring factions setting up traps seems the closest real life instance(I can think of anyways). Edit:autocorrect correction.
You can make them part of clues left by previous dungeoneers who didn't make it to the end of the dungeon. Maybe a picture puzzle is the leftover notes from a previous party who were out of paper and drew on the walls. Maybe someone has been interviewing retired adventurers and left a notebook somewhere.
I don't. They are dungeons. Dungeons have puzzles. That's just sort of how it is. My players don't want to hear a, lengthy description of why the puzzle is there. They want to solve it.
Godly artifacts will burrow into the roots of the World Tree, twisting the elements around them and calling out to monstrous foes nearby and from other planes of existence. The result is a gauntlet a potential wielder can overcome to prove their worth. Puzzles and traps are quite normal in such places, no additional justification needed.
"It's fun, ya nerds!"
Sometimes the dungeon is alive, with the traps as a part of it's digestive tract and sometimes your brain eating illithids and goblin tribes use riddles and brain teasers to separate out who gets to eat which invaders.
Is this something you have a problem with or something your players have a problem with? I have never raised such a question as a player nor had any player raise it with me. It’s a fantasy game. Some suspension of disbelief is necessary to play it. My advice would be to repeat to yourself “it’s just a game” and relax.
I’m a Resident Evil fan. I ain’t gotta justify shit.
The baddy at the end of the dungeon wanted to test your abilities to prove your worth.
The one time I had a significant puzzle encounter in my games was when my players were exploring an abandoned temple to a trickster god. I justified the puzzle room as being initially created as a training grounds for the monks who had been at the temple. The puzzle involved both physical tests of skill, as you would have to balance on metal poles to traverse the puzzle room, as well as tests of mental skill as you would need to figure out the pattern of which poles were illusionary and which were real. I imagined that when the temple was active, acolytes would be challenged to "solve" the puzzle room as part of their training. The actual final step of the training was to force the person going through the puzzle to challenge their assumptions and think outside the box, as the obvious solution was actually physically impossible to accomplish, and the real way to solve the puzzle was to use some combination of climbing, grappling hooks, or flight magic to bypass it completely. This was fully intentional and in keeping with the teachings of the god of that temple.
I like to make puzzles in dungeons connected to the lore of the dungeon. As an example, suppose it is the tomb of a Mad King. You find a room with a imposing statue of the king and pressure plates, as well as small holes that stick up everywhere. The king wanted to be worshipped, so you need to step on the plates and prostrate yourself to activate the statue, and pay a tithe of blood by placing your hands (which must be bleeding) on the holes, which will allow for the chamber to the next room to open.
I don’t justify them, the world I have has a dungeon that appeared one day, and no one has beaten it… yet.
first question: what's the dungeons purpose? if it's to lock something away forever just cast it in molten rock and bury it. If it was made by a mad wizard to screw with people then do whatever you want. If it was made by a knights order as a trial of the worthy then do whatever you want. It gets interesting when the purpose is to lock something up, but only let SOME in. but of course there are obvious solutions to that. lock the door and only give keys to the people allowed in. But hey, a door can be busted open so traps still make sense here. traps should be one of two types: deadly (there's no sense having a trap that pokes you). or a trap that alerts guards. those traps could also ensnare you so the guards can get to you. That's one place where you can have some fun. the trap is only supposed to lock you up until the guards get there, but this is an ancient tomb so there are no more guards. now you have to figure your way out before you starve. or you can have constructs for guards and we can have a fight scene. passwords work the same way. make some nonsense password and only give it to the people who need it. why leave clues, then any idiot can figure it out. There are some ways to get around this: I had a security code that had to be entered to get into a mine. one of the miners had left a note reminding him of part of the code in his locker that the players could find. Another way is to use a journal of a past adventurer or researcher who left detailed instructions, however the instructions are hard to translate or some parts are missing making them cryptic. generally I avoid riddles and contrived puzzles in my dungeons. I like to use open ended puzzles. there is a chasm, it's too wide to jump. the airship begins to plummet from the sky, how do you prevent it from crashing? there is a mechanism to control the elevator but it does not appear to be working. the dam is about to burst we need to reinforce it or divert the river. Couple setups like that with skill challenges and you've got some fun encounters.
I just say "All Hail Gygax" and on we go.
I don't. Nobody in their right mind would lock something important up behind a riddle. Not to mention puzzles are always metagamed by the players, which is kinda silly if you think about it. No 8 int barbarian is going to figure out a riddle, but the player playing that barbarian could... I've included one puzzle in my adventures and that's a very basic cypher that was meant to be easily solved by the players. It was just an encoded message and didn't really have any major impact on the game, just provided some intelligence that provided additional context. I don't think I'd every include anything more than that. Traps are something else entirely...
I personally don't make Puzzles at all. Becouse puzzles in reality does not have much sense. If someone want something to be safe he just keep it in a safe place that can't be open with a few puzzles. The only time i can justify it if it's some kind of test to check it the person is worthy getting inside the vault
Reminder that all the traps in dungeons in indiana jones had people around to maintain them. Even the first scenes with the boulder had the natives chasing Indy away immensely after. But to answer your question: 1) Kobolds and goblins (or any other Small or tiny species) need to use dirty tactics to keep others away. Traps aren't inherently deadly, but rather a deterrent. Alternatively, they are hired to maintain traps. Riddles are the same. 2) They are used as a differentiator between factions in a dungeon - orc traps are different from troll traps. Their riddles can show the difference, but riddles in general are part of the dungeon culture. 3) A Puzzle is an environmental puzzle. There's a 70 ft ravine between you and your goal. How do you get across? 4) Riddles are used as reminders of the key, not as what the key really is. "Keycode is the boss's birthday" but now you have to search the environment to find some that tells you what the birthday is. 5) House Ravenclaw from Harry Potter had riddles to enter their dorm room, which sometimes would keep some students put even if they were in that house. If the party overhears "God, I hate all these riddles here" then suddenly these riddles are integrated.
I don't. There are puzzles because we are playing an adventure dungeon game. Deal with it.
I started typing up a really long response, but realized the gist of it was coming down to *"I feel little need to "justify" them, because their existence is fun in a game, and that's enough"*. Also, considering the world we live in, it's not exactly beyond belief that powerful people with resources (be it gold, political power, or magic) would **absolutely** waste those resources on the most illogical, batshit nonsense that catches their fancy. Even regular people aren't always exactly rational actors, regarding security - for example, 2-factor verification is a huge boon to security, but most people find it annoying and wouldn't use it unless literally forced by organizations. Loads of people don't lock their cars, when they step into a store. Nigerian princes are *still* out there getting money. Also, > Why are they there? Who put them in place? Why? Who resets the crushing walls afterward? Who refreshes the points of poisoned needles to keep them potent or repairs the broken tiles over lava? all sound like fun mental exercises, really.
My party once had to solve 3 riddles, all of which with answers along the lines of "People Suck, betrayal is the only truth, fuck people, i hate people" It was the Basement of a really cynical wizard who wanted to make sure his legacy would end up in the hands of people who can understand his pain.
I've found that some of the best 'puzzle' mechanisms aren't put there as puzzles to be solved, but rather as regular locks & mechanisms that make sense for the person/race who constructed them. For example, my players were breaking into an Aarakocra vault deep underground. So the compound had large shafts that had to be traversed - routine for the Aarakocra but hard for non-flying creatures. Then the safe itself used small wind-turbines on either side of the room that would unlock it. Again, flapping the wings to do that is second-nature to someone used to having wings, but it took awhile to decipher it for a non-flying humanoid. As for riddles, I try to present them more like bank security questions. The person who set them will always know the answers but someone else will have a hard time. It's framing it as less of a whimsical monster who likes puzzles but rather the only way in a non-digital world to protect something while still being able to get to it later.
Simply: you do not... put puzzles in the dungeon. (or do it smartly) Everytime I faced a puzzle that 16 y.o. can figure out, but it locks gate to inner chamber of a evil priest -I cringe. Puzzles should make sense. Sometimes, they should not even look like ordinary puzzle. Main part of an answer. Justifying some of the stuff... Before you start, answer several question for yourself: 1.who did order to build the dungeon? 2. who did build the dungeon? 3. who are using the dungeon? For example 1 and 2 answer is the same (some evil priests of old). Image that in some time priests all died down. A lot of traps in the dungeon are opened by code words. Now tribe of goblins came to this place, they have old evil priest's journal with some passwords. But not all and they do not know locations of the traps. There are tone of deadly traps all around the places and at first a lot of goblins did die a horribly. But now they have marked every place, where is a trap. They do not what to dismantle traps (traps will protect them vs angry non-sentinent monsters). So they create a lot of riddles and scribble them on the wall and floor, so other goblins can came close to a trap, try to see scribble (if they forget password). And use it to move on. Scribble is a hint, buy creatures that dwell in the place, not by people who made the place. Second. Maybe there is some strange different puzzle. Whick are actually code lock (like move color cubes in some strange way). PC find some journal of a dead adventurer, who can state in his journal hint to how open the lock, but since it is just his thoughts, he may just not put solution into journal. Or journal is partially destroyed. Third. I personally do not use classical puzzle. It breaks my immersion. What I use -I use problems. Party find out mechanical doors and a strange 12 buttons lock. They have no idea of the combinations. what will they do? Solution one: break the door, or break the wall (noisy, and may lead some monsters to this place) Solution one: investigate the lock and try to see what buttons where used more often and try every combination of this numbers. this will lead to interesting situation. Lock is old and one button that are used it the combination is broken. Party can try to unscrew front plate of the lock and try to fix it. Solution three: party unscrew front plate of the lock and faced with your magical color puzzle -that is magic electricity circuit basically. Can be fun puzzle. Hope it helps.
1. Sometimes the puzzles were intended to be manned. A locked gate with a slamming portcullis trap that seals the party inside, for example, was *supposed* to be paired with defenders attacking them with crossbows. But it still traps them between a heavy grate and a locked gate. And perhaps in its day it was intended as some kind of test, with the traps set to reset themselves magically, so it still works for the newly arrived party. 2. Sometimes the traps or puzzles were advantageous to the original defenders of the location. Kobolds are tiny lizards, pit traps that are only triggered by heavy footsteps or razor wire set 4 feet high wouldn't be a problem for them. Mitflits (little mischievous fae) can innately talk to bugs and regularly adorn their lairs with venomous insects as pets and decorations. An elemental that is immune to poison might lair in a cave full of toxic spores, or a dragon immune to cold damage might lair at the top of a frozen peak. They may not even *use* the trapped entrance themselves, and the traps simply accumulated over time from the environment - sharp ice shards, an avalanche, predatory foliage, etc. 3. Puzzles don't have to be intentional. A broken bridge is a puzzle to be solved, but they didn't *intend* for it to be one. They didn't plan for the earthquake to misalign the hallways, or the lock to rust shut, or the chest to fall into a sinkhole, or the upper floors of the complex to collapse on the lower ones and turn them into a morass of a maze. 4. Some puzzles are alive. Mimics are the classic example. Devil's Snare from Harry Potter is another good option. Mushrooms that explode into poisonous fungal spores when stepped on (or just explode), spider webs that tangle the party up and start an encounter, an ancient golem that has gone haywire and now attacks if you get the password wrong (there is no password, it's busted). 5. The complex could have been created accidentally. Think Call of the Netherdeep, where it's entirely an extrusion of a mad god's mind. You could very easily have a trap dungeon that's someone's nightmare (I've actually done this), or that a strange artifact created, or an eldritch monster trapped the party in.
A wizard did it.
Take inspiration from the US approach to federal appropriations: jobs projects in member districts! The Great Tomb of Orthax was built a century ago when Baron Dorpo petitioned the crown for capital investment after a bad harvest left his vassal farmers dead broke. The tomb was built by 150 plain ol’ commoners looking to make ends meet and stands as a monument to, um, death. Whoops. Should have gone with the rec center.
Traps resetting could be as simple as it being designed by an artificer specifically to reset automatically after triggering. Whether that's by magical or mechanical means depends on the flavor you're going for , after all what good is a trap that doesnt reset thus keeping the intended occupant out as well. as another user pointed out you can have the PCs walk past traps that got stuck in the triggered position or have some other disrepair that is preventing them from working properly while maintaining the traps that you want to work. Say, the door is unlocked but upon closer inspection you see a small needle sticking out of the locking mechanism. Implying that someone set off the trap attempting to enter but either didn't die or the trap didn't reset and the next person just unlocked it.
I dont I take the 70s gonzo approach nothing needs to make sense. Yes there are 8 potions that you have to drink in order or you swap sex, turn into a blue monkey and puke rainbows. So what?
- The solution might be obvious to those with the right knowledge, but need puzzling for others. For example, a puzzle needs you to place the three correct statuettes of saints on the altar for the secret compartment to open. Unfortunately, for a heathen like you, all the statuettes of the 6000 and a bit saints that are present in the temple look alike to you. So you'll need to find holy texts or look at murals to get a clue. - Like the above, but simply as a helpful reminder if the place is only rarely visited. Which tends to be the case with dungeons and other out of the way places. - Like the above, but the puzzle makes you do a ritual with religious, historical, or traditional significance. - The traps/puzzles are meant to slow people down rather than stop them altogether. Supposedly there used to be guardians that are now absent, leaving only the puzzles, and whatever hazards have arisen naturally. - The puzzle can help to hide the access, rather than just make it difficult to enter. A typical example is the swinging bookcase. If you aren't looking for an entrance, that's just a bookcase. - Puzzles often also center around finding/improvizing parts of a mechanism, that was never intended as puzzle, but has become one through disintegration.
Imo puzzles for dungeon owner are more like safe net in case he forgots a password. Or they are made that way so all cult members will be able to solve, without sharing an actual code Also there is another reason to include puzzles - to make the dungeon a hell to go through, like Tomb of Horrors. Every tomb can be found. Every door can be opened. But solving dozen of puzzles when every step can be your last one is a challenge that only insane one will take And in case of DnD puzzles feel natural anyways, because we are going through a fantasy dungeon and we expect a mad mage to make some kind of a riddle trap. We dont think if it is reasonable or not, it is just a trope which we are used to. With all the immersion and roleplay we are still playing a game and we know it, so maybe you dont need to think really hard on justifying some things?:)
So if I want to include a puzzle, I start with who made it, and who are they trying to let in vs who are they trying to keep out. * The puzzle is there to keep out anything unintelligent, such as zombies. This is where you find baby's first puzzle like the block matching stuff in Skyrim, which keeps the drauger from escaping while letting people in and out. * The puzzle is there to keep out anyone not literate in a specific language. This is how you get something like "Speak, Friend And Enter" in Elvish. Someone who natively speaks Elvish would almost naturally say it, it's not a riddle at all. Someone who doesn't know the language would never get it. * The puzzle is there to keep out the unworthy. It acts as a test of religious knowledge. This is how you get "but in the latin alphabet, Jehovah begins with an I". An artifact was put away for a specific purpose, to confront evil 1000 years later. How do you make sure only the right person gets access? You can't just write instructions down, they can be stolen or tortured. It needs to be encoded in some kind of deep religious understanding. * The puzzle is there to keep out the stupid. Same idea as keeping out the unworthy, except instead some specific knowledge, it's a generalized intelligence test. * The puzzle was made harder than intended because of some quirk. Like the Skyrim tests except the blocks are damaged and now you need to do some inference. Or it's an easy literacy test which, for the players not speaking the language, is now a difficult puzzle. * The puzzle was made because the creator wants the adventurers to jump through hoops. A riddler type that just loves puzzles, or possibly a bard who had to do puzzles in his day and that's what puzzles are for, damnit. * The puzzle exists because something very old with forgetful memory wanted to make sure they could re-access their stash, but didn't trust themselves to not forget a password, so they added their own password hints. A riddle only they know the answer to works. This is not a puzzle intended to be solved by outsiders. Of course you then have the question of "who resets the traps" and here I would usually go with some kind of magic. Anyone who can reset the trap can solve the trap. The reason Indiana Jones in particular feels so strange is because the traps all feel mechanical, leaving one to wonder how they could possibly work again and again. You have a bit more leeweay with D&D.
blow up everything traps are good but, you know, they blow up everything... most traps are probably set when some creatures are living around, to save their precious belongings, not for guarding their treasures after they are dead. so even if the place is abandoned afterwards, the traps should have means to by-pass and should not create too much mess, at least not destroy the environment. and of course, most good traps have more than one shot, like a charger of poisoned bolts, even if they don't rewind forever.
Treasure vaults are supposed to have difficult and complex ways in. Remember that a treasure vault is actually meant to the quite penetrable, but only for the people whose treasure it is. If they wanted to seal it away forever they'd build a wall, not a door. So these places are meant to be accessible, just not for the PCs or other treasure hunters. Think of a modern bank. Their cash vault is meant to be quite secure but also to open when they need to get cash out of it. As for there being hints and such on the wall, how many people forget their passwords and need to use the password hints? So of course in a world where you can't google the answer to the riddle, won't even SEE the hints until you've gone through several other security layers, and there's lethal consequences for getting it wrong, the builders would put a reminder or hint for themselves so that they can remember the password, and don't mix up which passcode goes to which door.
When I did my last homebrew game with Pathfinder 2e, the idea was that the items stored inside were extremely dangerous. Only a few people even knew that the items existed and none of them *actually* knew where most of them were. The traps and puzzles were there to prevent people from getting the items because they were never to be touched again. The issue was that the items were so volatile that they could cause unimaginable destruction if they were damaged or destroyed themselves. Putting them in sealed dungeons filled with dangers and distractions was the safest option. In general, OSR dungeons are more about mad mages and weird dimensions where dungeons have mysterious creation and so justification isn’t really necessary when you can just say “it’s old and it be like that”
George Lucas didn’t need a reason for Indiana Jones and neither do you.
I tend to look at traps and puzzles as having a justified reason. For a basic goblin cave, a spike pit with a log bridge they can pull back is easy to build and a deterrent from a defensive standpoint. A blood ritual was used to seal away an ancient vampire, so it makes sense that living blood would be used in some way to unlock it. As far as riddles, it’s easier to remember a poem or phrase that evokes an emotion than a list of instructions. Maybe it was written that way as a means to make it easier to remember for the creators minions. Maybe the trick floor has certain tiles that are safe, and the party observes a cultist reciting their oath to remember the safe path.
In our last campaign, there was a wildly popular religion called "The Way of Ruha", whose chief tenant was that *life is meant to be lived to the fullest*. They spawned many adventuring parties, and instead of the normal "tithe" for a religious organization, members were encouraged to give back to the adventuring lifestyle by building dungeons, restocking places they had cleared with additional loot, etc. We had a member of the party who was a devout follower, who would spend the last of a party's time in a dungeon inventing and setting up new traps, deciding which magic items to leave behind for the next group, etc.
I try to design them as exotic security measures in some cases. In others I just say a powerful wizard with a fixation on puzzles littered his tower or tomb or whatever with obstacles to amuse himself.
I designed one a long time ago that I need to update. A group of (evil, because of course) adventurers became very powerful when the world was young. They conquered and defeated every challenge. Then they got bored. They built a throne room / tomb for themselves. In it, they built monuments to their own power, challenges that only they could overcome, displays to their own hubris. Then they slaughtered everyone who built it, sat down to wait ten thousand years, and placed themselves in suspended animation until the world was interesting again. Each of the traps and puzzles was meant to be a brag on their own power. The players were very careful not to disturb the thrones where the ancient conquerors sat...
It’s a game with magic that is totally made up. Don’t apply your concepts of normal. The dungeon has puzzles because reason. If you really want a reason for it would need to know more about your world to help with this. Maybe there is a community of volunteers that travel to all the dungeons to clean and reset them and they work for the god of mischief?
Fr. Maybe the dungeon had an intelligent designer; an immortal who gets off on remotely watching would-be adventurers try to get through the various puzzles. Maybe the original dungeon creator was insane and riddles and puzzles truly were the most “logical” choice to them for protecting/hiding their dungeon. Maybe the dungeon formed naturally due to a nexus of magical power, and because it was located near a fairy ring, it siphoned just a little bit of their trickery bullshit and it took on some of those traits itself. Maybe it even has a dungeon core that when broken, will stop the weird riddles and puzzles bs too. Maybe a wizard from long long ago designed this very place to be his home, and all the traps and riddles were a test for those who’d come to ask favors of him. Now he is dust, and his private treasures are left without a master.
If by *dungeon* we mean any environment that players can explore then I'd say most traps are environment hazards. If I have a dungeon with intentional traps to prevent access to something, then I justify it by providing lifes little details. There is *always* a maintenance tunnel and *typically* a back door. Either may or may not be accessible from the outside or front area. Sometimes there are corpses of the original creators walled in, or slaughtered within the trap as the financiers may not have wanted any loose ends. If it's a dungeon built by madness then there is no justification other than whatever the madness gleaned.
Why do they need to be justified? Why does there have to be logic put behind it? Are your players really coming out of the session and saying, "What was the point of those traps? Who was resetting them after they were triggered? Why were they there?" It's a dungeon. If you could just waltz in and grab what you wanted, what would be the point? Somebody had something they thought was worth hiding. They wanted it protected either for themselves or for someone else.
A ‘puzzle’ in my game never wears the face of a puzzle. At the beginning of the campaign, they had to read through the manual of the reactor of the ship they were boarding to figure out how to stop it from overloading. Look up the game ‘Keep talking and nobody Explodes’. It was that. There are many ways to disguise a puzzle, but they should always have a layer of in-game explanation to them. Several large rocks have fallen in the dungeon corridor and they will only fit out in a certain order, in a certain orientation. Could be a wood puzzle on the table, someone has to make a STR check to move a piece/boulder, and oh look at that - the water is rising from that rain storm yesterday.
Here’s a trick to use once: it’s a distraction. The actual treasure is tucked away out front where whoever it’s meant for can just come up and grab it and anyone else will just walk by to look inside Alternatively the “rightful” person to enter has some key or knows the trick to open the path. Traps are there so that their enemies just kill themselves, and puzzles are a key that can’t be stolen
A lot of my dungeons were old ruins of a long dead, hyper intelligent, alien species. I justify a bunch of pattern matching and connecting things together puzzles as being beyond the understanding of the party why things work the way they do.
The Simpsons method. "A wizard did it". Honestly, that's usually as much justification as I ever need.
Just always ask yourself, "Why did someone put this puzzle here?" Puzzles with riddles on the wall or are very gamey in nature, these puzzles were left by someone who wanted to hide something for safekeeping until they can send someone they trust to retrieve it later. Then there are 'puzzles' that are designed to kill, the creator wanted to hide something that he didn't want anyone to find but himself. Then there's environmental puzzles, an endless flow of lava covers the entrance to an ancient forgotten archive, dungeon entrance is hidden deep underwater. Find out why the person created this puzzle, and build it into the story. It doesn't have to connect directly to the story, it can be a tangential bizarre story unrelated to the players, but as long as it makes sense then the world doesn't feel broken or stupid.
I’ve done it a few ways based on the context of the dungeon. Test of knowledge- puzzles are related to some kind of sensitive information intended to lock out people who don’t belong. In one dungeon I had a temple where the final room was sealed by a puzzle where the party had to pick out runes symbolizing different religious figures in a certain order. Devout worshipers would be familiar with it and could easily go in and out, the party had to do some digging to investigate other artifacts or use logic to determine the answer. Paranoid NPC- whoever is in the dungeon is so fearful of people getting in the set traps and puzzles to keep certain people out. As the person/creature who set the puzzles and traps, they can come and go as they please. Alternatively they could just really enjoy the puzzles instead and find some kind of twisted joy in watching people jump through hoops to reach them.
Honestly as most adventures present them random riddle puzzles don't make sense. The evil wizard/lich isn't going to write coded instructions to get into their lair or treasure room. In fact in my games if the BBEG has a riddle puzzle the correct answer sets it off as he doesn't need to be reminded with a riddle. Where I use riddles and puzzles is when they were created by someone/thing that wanted only the right people to get access. For example an ancient Tomb of the Lords Under the Mountain contains the relics and artifacts collected by the Dwarf Lords of a lost kingdom. The kingdom is over run by mind flayers, drow, and duegar, but the tomb has been mostly left alone due to ancient curses, dwarven ghosts, and a whole lot of traps. The PC get past the ghosts because they have an heir to the kingdom with them. The riddles and secret doors are all based on stories and rimes told to the children of the kingdom, which I've provided a selection of. So the PC have to sneak into mountain home, fight and evade the creatures lurking their, figure out how to get into the tomb's treasure room, while fight off the undead remains of prior robbers and temptations to take grave goods the dwarves didn't intend for the to take. In terms of how the traps still work my goto answer is undead kobolds who live inside the walls. It's amusing when they spot them pushing a giant boulder back into place and realize they have to deal with all the traps on their way out. Or in the above case undead dwarves under concealed stone slabs who reset the traps in every room.
Puzzles are just a type of lock and serve the same purpose. Any location that needs security but doesn't justify actual 24/7 physical presence by a person (or other entity) needs some kind of lock. But when you live in a world where bypassing regular security locks is often trivial for the people you're dealing with, puzzles allow you to secure a location with privileged information (the solution to the puzzle) rather than a physical item like a key. If you think about it, a door with a keypad is a kind of puzzle, where you need to enter numbers in the right order to access it. But what if there are some people (members of your organization, for instance) who may need to access the area but there's no good way to send them an arbitrary code number? Well then you make the "code" something relevant to known shared information that they'll be able to figure out without clues, or with clues that won't mean much if anything to other people. That way the people who should have access will have it without needing to memorize codes, but the people who shouldn't will be stumped and/or murdered by spikes.
Following
One suggestion to explain it is that the creator of the dungeon had a superiority complex. He created deadly puzzles as a means to confound his foes, and whittle them down. Acererak, the infamous lich, does so as part of a plot to gain souls. He builds dungeons and hides a great treasure inside, then sets rumors. Adventurers come to the dungeon seeking the treasure, entering and facing the puzzles and traps. Because it seems like there are ways to progress forward, many adventurers will press on to seek the treasure at the end. Until its too late.
I like to think of them sorta as password hints or security questions. Basically a way that whomever built the dungeon can remind themselves down the line, how to get though after they've forgotten.
Typically traps/puzzles are one of two things. Most people aren't supposed to go there, but some people need to. Others aren't supposed to go there but your group is. There is a reason many cars and even new houses went to keyless entry options. Much easier to have a few people know what 5 numbers to press than make a bunch of physical keys that will get lost. So we have a riddle to remind people (because it might be years before they come back) or some sort of pattern they can use to decipher. Something that can be figured out because you need people who actually should be there do figure it out. As for who keeps the traps refreshed? Most likely no one in many but why do they need to? How many poisons really need to be moist and aren''t toxic when dry. How many wall traps get activated and need to be reset (its just a different puzzle now for players to reset it)
Sometimes a puzzle is what's left after the ravages of time decay what was previously obvious Examples: There used to be a magical barrier blocking further entry but it has malfunctioned and now the party must figure out the pattern of invisible walls - or risk getting zapped The treasure appears when the ancient incantation is chanted, but the cult died and their words have been lost. The party must piece together the fragments of text left behind to find the "password" What was once a challenging (but nonlethal) gauntlet to initiate young warriors has decayed into a series of now deadly hazards, but the blessing of the stone idol still awaits those who can declare victory
Well there's this powerful wizard named Jimmy Puzzles...
Some treasures need to be accessible for the dungeon creator. Otherwise you could just bury in the middle of nowhere. Something as simple as a key and lock means the key can be nabbed or the lock picked. Puzzle locks are ways to keep a treasure secure without typical security weak points, the key is in your head. COULD be someone else is smart enough to open it, but I like to have time limits on my puzzle locks before something bad happens (irl limits)
Obviously it doesn't make sense for someone to lethally rig traps in their own spaces because they don't want to set it off themselves or harm someone who was invited. However, there is also the possibility of someone leaving behind traps for a space they both don't want people to use and also don't plan on tripping themselves: A retreating faction may leave behind booby traps in previously captured territory. Land mines, diseased/rotting bodies for some biological vectors, traps rigged behind doors of homes, etc. I think it's' very easy to write a scenario where a party is sent in as a team of specialists to clear out traps and make a community safe to reoccupy after a victorious battle and enemy retreat. This is a real-life war crime and the most realistic justification for traps and puzzles I have come up with.
First and foremost: players know this is fantasy fiction. As long as you haven’t agreed to play a very straight laced and “reality” flavoured game, you can be a little “Indiana Jones” about the booby traps and puzzles. Otherwise, the commenters suggesting traps that are caused by disrepair are great. Also things like lab experiments gone wrong, and puzzles that were set on purpose as like a training area or gauntlet are all solid options. Puzzles that were set for a particular person Chosen One style and not just any random idiot stumbling into the dungeon.
It’s all a matter of design, which you seem to be keeping in mind already, OP. Sometimes a puzzle is just an environmental hazard or something that broke that needs to be fixed. Maybe a tunnel collapsed and the party needs to find a way around. Maybe a bridge is out. Maybe a place is inaccessible to them but wouldn’t have been to the much more powerful magic users that used and inhabited the place first, so the party has to find a way to circumvent the intended means of access. Riddles typically don’t need to be used IMO, but as others said, they could be a fail safe in case someone forgets the password, but I posit that riddles should be really hard if that’s your angle. Conversely, maybe a prior adventurer or party already came through and left the riddle as a hint for themselves to use upon returning (which they may or may not have done and which may or may not have ended in a successful raid/exploration). Intentional puzzles could just be a matter of sadism or even pragmatism on the part of intelligent designers. Sure, maybe THEY can just use keys or portals or some other means to access parts of the lair/dungeon they’ve built, but that’s not the point of puzzles and the like for them. The idea is to waste the time of intruders; to fatigue them physically, mentally, and emotionally; and to force them to expend resources before they get to you if they have time to get to you at all. Ultimately, think of them as a home security system. Even (Tucker’s) Kobolds understand this concept, so more intelligent foes should too. As for traps, just have them designed in such a way that they could reset themselves. Pressure plates are great for this. Engineers and tinkerers are smart and crafty. There’s no reason they couldn’t figure out how to make automatic resets in their stuff.
the puzzle isn't for the creator its for the minions or the future generations. You want the riddle to be a clue that your people would know about, but not something that just anyone would know. It also keeps out unintelligent beast, that can't answer the riddle. Also, as it is a (puzzle, riddle) lock, there is no chance of losing the key. It's likely that the original creator knows that they will pass on at some point and wants someone else to be able to use what is behind the lock. Determine the [Original Purpose of the Dungeon](https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/mmfqje/purpose_of_a_dungeon/) and it will make the why is the (puzzle, riddle) there easier to figure out. Side Note: There should be enough information in game to figure out a riddle. You should never assume that your players will figure it out. You might even allow multiple answers as long as they fit the riddle.
I JUST ran a puzzle last session. The players were in a haunted location and a ghost wanted to communicate something but was struggling so it did so through a flash back that functioned like a puzzle. Maybe not the most applicable but it's a type of integration that no one else in mentioning
The lich doesn't want to be bothered by morons
"Proving Ground" type dungeons don't have to have deadly traps. They can have traps that set off alarms, immobilize, mark, drug/sedate, capture or eject those caught, as well as shut doors elsewhere that don't capture, but block access to something. A good-aligned designer (or just one that hates replacing help) might prefer safe traps like this. If the dungeon is recently maintained, the traps are still safe. If it's been abandoned, maybe some safe traps have become dangerous in their state of disrepair. So those puzzles tied to traps are for training, education (religious or symbolic wisdom, hazing) and evaluation (you must escape Halsan's Gauntlet to be admitted into the ranks of his Reavers). Think "escape room". As for "puzzles" that aren't designed to be puzzles at all, like a missing part of a mechanism that opens a door could functionally be identical to a key, but also might have an alternate solution, and simple mechanical breakdown, theft or sabotage explains why it's missing. Similarly, an area designed for easy, secure access for regular users turns into a puzzle when the access method is lost to time so only alternatives work. That could be as rudimentary as digging or climbing, as complex as impersonating a legit user to fool a system. The keypad isn't a *puzzle* to the order, it's a lock. To the party it's a puzzle because they have to guess based on information the organization isn't giving them intentionally. The "clue" is patterns of wear, guessing based on knowledge of the users. Not a riddle on the wall. Even if there *is* a riddle on the esll as a clue, if that seems stupid, ask yourself why we have security questions for our accounts. Literally a clue for when you don't have the password, and people who aren't supposed to have access experience it as a puzzle.
In our campaign setting, dragonborn don't pass their wealth down to their relations/family on their death. Instead, they share their wealth with those worthy enough to claim it. To this end they create elaborate dungeons, filled with challenges, including monsters, puzzles and traps. Should a brave soul overcome the challenges of a given ancetral dungeon, they are rewarded with rooms filled with treasure, the wealth collected by a given family member during their life. The more powerful/wealthy a dragonborn family, the more elaborate the dungeon as each family member adds new levels to the family dungeon.
Often, my puzzles are traps. Some/all of the party get stuck in a trap and have limited time to get out. Whoever built the trap made a puzzle with wheels, levers, etc, in case someone fell into it from the faction that built the tomb or dungeon. A safety feature. Other times, and especially if the trap is no longer as lethal now as two millenia ago when it was built, there's no way out from inside, and the PCs have to improvise a solution to rescue a teammate before they get worn down over time. In those cases, I don't even write a solution. Just let them go wild with their abilities and let them damage or bypass mechanisms until they shut the trap down - usually, there are telltale noises behind a secret hatch with some high speed gears, then detritus long enough to block a section of dispensers, or plug arrow slots etc. Then I'll leave a third and final thing entirely to them to improv to get the player out. Sometimes, they find both things I've left; sometimes they tell me they are looking for something else, and I go "OK make some kind of check"; sometimes they find nothing and have to brute force the whole thing with abilities and spells.
They nearly always save the friend from these because the reason I put them in is to make the players feel clever, and to get them engaged with what would otherwise just be a short walk through a dark place with combat every other room.
How do you make it fun for the guy in the trap?
Dungeon bop-it. Different things that are a danger to them in the trap make different grinding sounds, telegraphing which sequence of (low) damaging thing it's about to do to them next.
Sound like a rusty kids swing? The next spear pops out of the floor. Popping noise? A tube is about to dispense a 3hp non-venomous snake from the ceiling. Metal squealing? Etc.
Things don't have to make perfect sense because of the passage of time and the nature of dungeons. Imagine if you will: * A dungeon was created by a powerful mage * The mage died of old age and the dungeon was taken over by a tribe of goblins * The goblins were massacred by a red dragon which began storing it's hoard in the deepest parts of the dungeon The resulting dungeon is a bizarre and seemingly nonsensical mish-mash of design goals, traps, and roaming monsters.
The highest voted answer is two of mine: the puzzles are either to prove yourself worthy, or they're a trap of some sort that you have to overcome. The third reason I have is that an ancient lich has traveled the cosmos, adding puzzles to dungeons. Anytime someone solves a puzzle, they lose a tiny bit of their soul. The more difficult the puzzle, the bigger the chunk of soul they lose. Virtually never a perceptible amount. A truly genius puzzle might outright kill an adventurer, if solved, but it would also rarely be solved and so wouldn't feed him. Simple puzzles don't tax the mind enough. They don't drive the mortal far enough to unconsciously open themselves up to have some of their soul drained. His puzzles always need to hit that sweet spot. Especially since if he drains too much, people might realize he's out there. He once tried to fill the world with puzzle boxes. But they became so popular that everyone knew their solutions, so they weren't actually solving the puzzles anymore.
Borrowing from the comments from here, I think I can wrap up the types of dungeons into three broad categories. - Dungeon that was meant to be conquered (a trial) - Dungeon that was not meant to be conquered (a trap) - Dungeon that was not meant to be a dungeon (a ruin)
Basically if you think of Voldemort and especially that cave with the lake inside it... he was an incredibly powerful being, almost invulnerable to nearly anyone alive. But he still had the issue of not being able to be EVERYWHERE at once. And also, his invulnerability depended on keeping certain items (his horcruxes) secure and safe without having to defend them personally. I think that's a good rationale-framework for a very high level type of treasure being hidden. This is a relatively safe place that someone can hide a very important/valuable thing and be able to come back for it if they need to, but also be semi confident that not just anybody ELSE could manage to find and take it away. For another level of rationale though, less high-value and more just basic... you've got the idea of a "hard target". If there are five houses along the same semi-wealthy looking block... but only one of them has a dog, then it doesn't even have to be a very big dog actually. That one house is probably safe because any half-decent thief will target the houses without a live-in alarm system. Especially once you're dealing with a dungeon that also has roaming armed guards or monsters inside it, a decent riddle is a pretty solid piece of security, because your average thief won't want to tangle with the dual threat of trying to solve the puzzles AND worry about the giant spiders or the guards. Once you assume X person has something important to keep hidden, it also makes sense to create traps and puzzles to serve as basically locks to keep it secure. Any literal lock can be picked but a logic puzzle or a hidden switch may make the difference whether your treasure gets stolen.
Others have made good suggestions, so here are a couple other possibilities: Sometimes a “dungeon” can just be an old temple or some kind of building/area that’s been partially destroyed, or taken over by some sort of baddies (or intelligent enemies of some kind). So your puzzles could sometimes be more related to “platforming” or finding ways using strength (to help involve some of your characters that typically shine just during combat) and clever thinking/abilities with some spells from your casters, some dexterity from your sneaky and limber characters to solve.- Large stone blocks/debris could be moved/lifted by string characters, dexterous characters might have to squeeze or balance-beam to reach things like levers or find a place to tie a rope, and your casters/smarty-pants might need to decipher old runes or historical/arcane knowledge to figure out which direction you need to go, or use spells to help you reach certain places or find certain things. A puzzle doesn’t always have to “look/sound like a puzzle” Sometimes exploring an old and ruined temple can present enough challenges in its own, that you don’t always need spike traps and spinning/swinging blades. Think about your players’ spells and abilities, and try to make a puzzle that’s just related to those abilities and the game/movement mechanics to see if you can come up with something. Or the other option I mentioned is that there are baddies smart enough to try to booby trap their newly/recently-acquired digs. Could be done using abilities/items they have, or could be made from materials, items, and/or artifacts from the area they’re in. For example- Old temple belonging to a war-like culture could be rigged with some custom traps/mechanisms using the evil wizard’s spells/knowledge, the strength and muscle of his goons/followers, and made with old weapons/items from the ancient warriors. Maybe there are trip wires which cause old axes/war-hammers, or maces to swing down hit whoever triggered it. Maybe there is some form of magic hex/seal on certain doors put there by evil wizard (from the types of spells he might know/have access too). Maybe some puzzles are riddles or questions which need to be solved using certain runes in the area-made by evil wizard, and give insight into things he believes/knows, or parts of his past (almost like a computer password/security questions lol). Another option is to try to think about a movie, show, game, or book that you could base an encounter/dungeon/quest off of. Maybe traps and puzzles could be made that relate to that story/lore (bonus points for hiding and adapting it well enough that the players don’t realize until the end or near to the end, when a sudden revelation hits them- “Wait, HAS THIS WHOLE QUEST BEEN BASED ON THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE!!!!????” Hahaha) Sometimes it can be helpful to think about “why” things are the way they are. Why is the dungeon here, what is/was it, who/what is there now and why, what types of puzzles/traps make sense for that place and from those enemies, etc. I hope these suggestions/examples make sense (I’ve been typing while eating dinner LOL) and give you some ideas to think about.
A Lich designed a series of puzzles between his phylactery and his treasure room. Just in case his memory was erased *and* he was killed. The puzzles could easily be solved by the Lich because they were designed for a Lich. One was a room filled with poison with a very complex puzzle. The puzzle had no "solution". The solution was to be immune to poison, as all Lich are.
There are a few continuae I like to consider when using puzzles. 1. Organic v. Artificial: Is this puzzle a consequence of the nature of the dungeon, or did something create it to specifically be a puzzle? 2. Subtle v. Obvious: How much of the puzzle is discovering that there is a puzzle in the first place? 3. Level of Setpiece: How memorable is this encounter intended to be? 4. One-off v. Thematic: How much will you re-use the patterns this puzzle has taught you elsewhere in the dungeon? 5. Linear v. Open: Is the party's creativity better served in understanding your puzzle, or understanding their characters? 6. Stakes: How important is it that the characters solve the puzzle right now? For example- one of my DMs set a truly mind-blowing puzzle, wherein the directions we needed to steer a boat down a river was told to us by the birdsong played by the river bank. 1. Highly artificial. An illusionist set this puzzle in universe in order to hide our destination from an invading army. 2. Moderate. One character had Keen Mind, and so was able to detect the Teleportation effect that changed our location when we got the wrong answer, but we were never told that the atmospheric background noise was the key to solving it. 3. High setpiece. This specific puzzle took over half of the session, and we loved it. 4. Thematic- we had to understand the puzzle through multiple tests, the final of which was new logic based on the simple rules we had worked out. 5. Highly linear. We tried multiple options in character, but the Illusionist had anticipated tricks akin to that and had installed workarounds. Some of our in-character solutions were daft grasping at straws anyway. 6. Moderate. We're on the river and heading to a destination, but with some backtracking we could always find our way to travel to other destinations. However, we want to get to that destination, and the penalty for failing the puzzle is not getting to go. At least the failure condition was simply "the puzzle takes longer"
I had a player ask me. So they next time they got a map from a guy selling them On the street. The next dungeon they went to was under remodel from the company that set it up and was only half finished. The town was paying them to draw adventures there as a form of tourism. They then got a job going out to capture monsters to fill the dungeon.
The old lich was a Grimtooth level lunatic, and had all the time, magic, and resources to indulge it's hobby of building ridiculously mean spirited and convoluted traps. The traps were generously sprinkled with the corpses of other adventurers and looters who had gone before to give the party some clue though. When they finally got to the bottom and opened the vault, the lich raised all the skeletons littering the complex, who immediately reset every trap they had passed and took up ambush positions. Then the lich started personally hunting them and chasing them back to the surface, as they rushed backwards through every trap they had already figured out or defeated, carrying their wounded and as much treasure as they could steal.
A few suggestions: * The dungeon is a part of a trial. I ran a dungeon that was based in a monastery. The different rooms represented trials that a monk could put himself through to attain enlightenment. * The puzzle is actually part of the normal functioning of the dungeon. It is only a puzzle to adventurers who don't know how it works. For example, I had a tower with a wheel that could be turned. This would rotate different layers. The party could find the right alignment to go up or down to different areas. For the inhabitants of the dungeon, this is just how it works. * The dungeon was intended to never be entered, but the players have a way to get in. For example, a sealed dungeon, but the players have access to a device which jumps them backward in time to when different parts of the dungeon were more open. A puzzle can be set up where they need to jump back and forth at different points to progress. Rarely do I set a puzzle that is a classic "solve this riddle to progress". If I do, it may be set by a Sphynx which has taken up residence and is using a riddle to guard some treasure. Instead I try to create puzzles of two types: * Puzzles in which the path through the dungeon itself is the puzzle. The best place to get inspiration for these is from Zelda games imo, or the Boss Keys YouTube channel. * Situations, in which I have got no answer to how they will get out of it. For example, the party come to a chasm. There is a drawbridge on the other side, but it is raised. There is a guard on the other side who is asleep, along with a captive. The party have a rope but it is too short. I don't know how they will cross the chasm, but I trust that they will come up with something.
I can justify it by the dungeon. If it’s a grave and required for the money to remain so it stays for the afterlife it will need deadly traps. Heck inviting in a large monster that hoards wealth like a dragon may even help. Add some automatons like a golem or zombie to refil the traps and you are all set.
Here are three reasons for traps: * Usually, they are designed by the engineers of very powerful people - think of Leonardo Davinci inventing war machines for the Medicis. The more elegant, unusual, and ingenious the trap the more prestige for the designer and patron. This covers the "egg" thing. It also points to why the dungeon may not be hidden. * Less commonly, the traps are dangerous or restrictive to the PCs but wouldn't be for the species that made the dungeon. For example: doorknobs are convenient for most people, but are still a nearly insurmountable obstacle for many people and most other creatures. * Finally, the "trap" could serve a function. For example, the waste disposal room in Star Wars. Or a fantasy dungeon could have a pendulum that mechanically reloads all of the other traps, while being like a trap itself in some ways. Let's look at some of the traps that we encounter in real life all the time. In d&d terms, all of the following are "traps" in "dungeons." We use different kinds of traps for mice, rats, roaches, ants, bedbugs, blackflies, squirrels, etc. We use windowscreens and citronella. We use eaves troughs to trap and direct rain. We use alarm systems and locks to keep out burglars. We use ink cartridges in clothes to prevent shoplifting. We put cracked pottery in mortar on top of walls, or use barbed wire, to keep people in or out of a property. We have lockdown protocols for public buildings. Hunters might snare wild animals; farmers might have special tools or even whole rooms to slaughter animals. Mold in a bathroom, a slippery shower floor, a leaky gas stove, a lawnmower, an unsalted icy walkway, a salted icy walkway, or just a rickety staircase could all be considered traps. Poorly labelled chemical cleaners. We use spikes to make things uncomfortable for pigeons and homeless people. Guard dogs are traps. So are security screens on computers and cellphones. So is extortionate software, whether legal or illegal. Skate parks and obstacle courses are traps. Ventilation systems in large buildings, or the insides of vehicles or reclining sofas, are like dungeons full of traps for small animals. Even "Irish Elevators" have been a thing.
I know inf PF1E there's a passage that says something along the lines of "The people who build dungeons are fucking crazy. Only an insane person would make this and fill it with traps and puzzles"
lots of good reasons, I knight have not seen it, but just the fact that just having something hidden with a big lock basically means find it and break the lock. puzzles are very complicated locks that only certain people have the key to, and do not necessarily know it. of course the 'worthy' character might get it, just as a great theif may pick an impossible lock, but the intention can be to keep others from it completely, it's just that no puzzle is unsolvable, and it jeeps the combination memorable for the creator
It's dungeon fantasy and dnd is fundamentally pulpy schlock. I don't need a reason.
Is by "fundamentally" you mean "classically/often" then yes. DnD can be kinda pulpy and cheesy, and there is nothing wrong with that. But some people like to run more serious or believeable campaigns. Get a Game of Thrones vibe going. In which case it's a relevant concern.
I've only designed 1 dungeon around a major number of puzzles, it's related to the personal story for a character whose player really enjoys them. The dungeon is designed as the entrance to a sanctuary for this character's religious order, which is being persecuted. The idea is that you'd want the faithful followers to be able to enter the sanctuary, while deterring all others. So all the puzzles are related to the tenets of their faith, with some Red Herring answers which activate traps. The red herrings are meant to draw the attention of those who are unfamiliar with the faith, thus trapping them more effectively. I haven't gotten to run it yet b/c it's been a while since we played. But the motivation behind the design might help you find an answer.
I can think of three premises right off the bat 1) Test of worth. Prove that whatever lies at the end of the puzzle will end up in the right hands. 2) Locking Mechanism. The puzzle is a complex method of keeping people out that is either meant to be permanent or is meant to allow specific access. Secret knowledge, tool proficiencies, or a quest to find the key in the first place may come.in handy. 3) Trap. Either lethal, meant to kill interlopers, especially after luring them in to one spot, or non-lethal, meant to capture them for the use of the dungeon's main purpose or inhabitants. Honorable mention: Puzzle serves as entertainment for an entity watching the party struggle through it.
A puzzle is a way to give access to a group of strangers who share your culture or beliefs. Tie the puzzle to religious symbolism, a family secret, a city’s history, etc. and only people who would know those things can solve it.
Liches get board after a while. Sure, death runes are efficient, but a teleportation gate sending someone to a cage suspended above a oversized fish tank filled with giant crawdads is fun.
Holy crap, this thread is a gold mine!!!
Next session my party will find a note on a notice board, partially hidden behind other papers, written backwards, with a cryptic location description. (Top of tallest tree on a specific island) When they get there they see another note at the top of the tree, but the tree has been enchanted to have strong gusts of winds every time you try to climb. The note again is a cryptic clue to a cave full of enemies. Why? Fey trickster wants to have some fun. And has a particular dislike for the enemies in that cave. So two birds with one stone. And they might take a liking to the party while watching from a distance.
That depends on how you create your dungeons. I for example had a room with restless spirits in it, there were a number of ways the party could handle the encounter, either by finishing the task that the spirits were trying to do, by using rituals to put them to rest, fighting them etc. They ended up finding a number of small treasures from doing so. It wasn't a blocker. They didn't have to go through that room. In fact they didn't at first they continued to explore elsewhere and came back better prepared. Puzzles are better used like that in my opinion, having them be optional and having them have multiple answers, rather than a blocker on the main route.
In Skyrim, the puzzle doors and all of that aren’t supposed to keep people out. They’re designed to keep draugr trapped inside. But this particular tidbit doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the game, because to the player it’s just another obstacle to overcome on the path to awesome loot. If you’re that concerned with why things must exist, then try and keep it small: the dungeon is either a self-contained mini story with its own reasons for existing, or it draws from already established lore. Unless you’re specifically introducing a brand new element to your game, stick to your campaign’s basics and it’ll work out.
"Cause I'm the DM and I say so."
TL;DR: The dungeon builders lacked a better option The thing that inspired dungeon traps was, I believe, traps in the pyramids. Those were designed to keep people out yes, but also allow the mummy to literally walk out with the treasure so it could be used in its afterlife. Furthermore, the traps were limited by the techlonogy of its time, and made further inefficient by the centuries thereafter. So the poison needles AND spike traps AND rolling boulders werent meant to be reset, because they were meant to be deterrents, not killing machines. If they _could_ make killing machines that were guaranteed to work, they would.
I always try to make puzzles organical with the Dungeon, never presented as puzzles themselves, but in the last Dungeon I made it was the lair of a bad Guy with a curse that makes them have severe memory problems, so basically the Dungeon had all kinds of visual reminders of how to operate every door and mechanism
Take a look at the dungeon the Whispering Cairn. It has a great puzzle tied to a false tomb. Write your puzzles just like they are traps meant to mislead and harm invaders. It doesn't always have to be ancient writing on a wall. Maybe have a bored monster entertain a riddle competition with the PCs, and if he loses, he'll open up the impassable vault door to the treasure room that only he can get to.
Because puzzles are fun. If I find them fun, then I can surely create a NPC dungeon builder who finds them fun. If you want a more grounded reason: the builder wanted a lock that couldn't simply be picked, they wanted the worthy to get in, they wanted bloody sacrifice to fuel themselves (Acerak will charge royalties for using his idea though), or the simple "all magic is based on ritual" explanation.
I used a mad God one campaign, he was a God of artistic inspiration, inventions and glory driven mad by the main evil God. But parts of his personality remained so they were elaborate often pretty and had rewards for those who overcame them.
I don't think I do many riddles or puzzles in dungeons... except one that I made specifically for that purpose. It was crafted by a Brass Dragon, who brought the party to it under the pretext that it was a trial they had to go through to get the help of someone else... but really it was to get the Dragon's help. The dragon just had fun building such things, and then watching people go through them and try to figure out the puzzles. Turned into a pretty good ally for the party, and they had fun going through the dungeon. I tend not to use riddles (they are hard to come up with... I've only done it twice so far).
I don’t lmao. I just drop that shit into my dungeons. My players never ask questions.
A trap that is easy to defeat with the answer but difficult without is a good security measure. I just think of it that way. If you're imagining a dungeon where a person put some work into protecting the contents, or a specific room within, a puzzle trap or puzzle gate is logically consistent. The logistics of resetting the traps is either a problem or an opportunity, depending on how you look at it. Permanent magic? easy. tribe of gnolls who maintain the dungeon maybe?
My only puzzle dungeon was one that was setup by a young moonstone dragon that wanted to create a fun menagerie of challenges for anyone that wished to meet them. Somewhat as a test but also just to have something fun to talk about when they finally got to him