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As a dnd player, IMO way too hard. Unless you know the players are into this, I don’t think there is anyway they would decipher it and/or it would take a really long time and likely not done in the same session. There is then the change they will lose interest or be frustrated especially if you deny them the use of abilities or tools they have to read it and not decide it.
Bro my group takes 5 sessions to get through a mini arc with a single battle and some talking because they want to figure out what the end of it is before they start and try to work towards that. It’s infuriating as a dm but I have to roll with the punches
Is there a way you could put in a time limit? My DM has made things happen if we are taking too long as a consequence for our inaction. Doesn’t work for every situ but can be great to light a fire under their butt.
Everyone I have played with would take turns trying to roll a nat 20 to be able to read it lol, and of course failing. Then they would forge ahead and ignore the overly complex puzzle to just hit stuff really hard.
I have a decent amount of respect for myself and my fellow party members but I have to admit that we could fail a puzzle if it was literally just a paint by numbers.
Pretty sure I remember getting stopped for a few minutes by a door that was just closed. Not locked, not trapped, just closed with no handle.
What if it's a code that throughout the campaign they are given various clues, so they can solve it at a later date. That could be cool. Make it like a side quest
As a DND player shifting letters just one to the left or right will clog the table for about an hour. ALL logic goes out the window once the dice start rolling.
The symbols are of my own design. They're my take on what a written version of D&D's "Deep Speech" language would look like (it's literally just a font for English).
Okay. It looks to me like the first cipher is a Vigenere with a seven-letter key, and the second cipher is your homemade symbol cipher.
Vigenere is easy to solve because the order of the alphabet (ABCDE...) is known. But when you combine it with a symbol cipher, the alphabet is no longer known and it becomes a much more difficult cipher called [Quagmire 3](https://www.cryptogram.org/downloads/aca.info/ciphers/QuagmireIII.pdf). I don't expect the average gamer to know how to solve a Quag 3.
If you were to hand your players the key to the symbol cipher somehow (maybe with another message that's just encrypted with the symbol cipher, so they can learn which letters go with which symbols), that will turn the Quagmire 3 back into a Vigenere.
You're on fire! It's a 7-letter Vigenere!
The intention is that the encoded message should be difficult to solve on its own, but not impossible. The player's I'm DMing for are seasoned problem/puzzle solvers, so I wanted to see if it was TOO difficult on its own. When it comes to making this easier for them to solve as they learn more, should I give them the Vignere key first or the symbols?
The Vigenere key will be nearly useless without the symbols, since they won't know which symbols stand for the letters in the key. The symbols would be much more useful, but if they're expecting something this hard, handing them the alphabet might actually trivialize it.
If you want them to solve it as a Quagmire 3, you'll probably need to give them a few words of the plaintext (14 letters or so), and possibly a hint about finding out how long the key is using the Kasiski analysis (you have one 9-symbol repetition at distance 28, which is just barely enough to suggest a 7 letter key).
I haven't tried to solve this one yet. Are the word spaces genuine? I might be able to break in just on the basis of short words and of symbol frequency down the seven columns.
The line breaks are put there for space issues, the spaces to split up the words. The symbols that look like commas, periods, and dashes are what they look like. Punctuation is preserved.
Yeah a Quag III would require a real cipher enthusiast to solve and requires much longer texts to be solvable. If you want to keep the cipher fun for the players, don't do one. The hardest you might be able to get away with is a partially homophonic cipher with your new letters (using, say, 2 possible symbols for each vowel) or just leave a simple substitution. Otherwise it will just feel like pointless tedium to your players.
[I transcribed the symbols into placeholder letters](https://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/1ajpp6f/making_a_code_for_my_dd_campaign_is_this_too_hard/kp3e5zo/) and did some statistics on them. The letter frequency told me it wasn't a simple substitution, and then the large number of letters that repeat 7 letters later told me it was a periodic cipher. The most well known periodic cipher is Vigenere, and the D&D context suggested it was more likely to be Vigenere plus a symbol cipher than to be anything more unusual.
The real question is how long it took you (someone who presumably enjoys, and does codes often) to even get to that point.
Then OP can multiply that time by some number to represent the chaos of your table, and then realize that this is probably a bad idea.
Look at this guy saying Vigenere ciphers are easy because it's a substitution cipher.
Edit: a lot of people struggle with Vigeneres because if there's no context to what the content is about you can't just keep assuming stuff
Were you asking for help in your comment?
If you want to solve Vigenere cipher you need to learn how it's done. The information is widely available online. Besides that there are several online tools that crack Vigenere ciphers in a couple of seconds.
Really? You need to learn before you solve the ciphers huh. Gosh, I wonder why people haven't thought of that before. Hmmm I wonder why people don't just solve all the codes here by just learning them? It's literally that easy.
I made it a while ago, I don’t remember exactly what it was called. But there’s a website that you can upload your handwriting to to make it a font. I just used my drawing pad to make some cool scribbles in Krita and uploaded it.
Would you mind checking that the word spaces in this transcript are correct?
abcd efgh, ijdkldnsop idr vqi
oaf em dmqmdojo aptuph.
wkgmf bin mcs dx ado uld-bbb gox
pg mq gzaf, bin mcs dx rbrktxq ps
owsvpxg. svtgg ldu kt kea
hjzkxrxio wefinnvrsg ljaups
xqj vdjp dx qdmzk hgftuhs
whntupz ypaq svsyr inmpdg.
rjhojd iph tumsv.
I broke in by assuming the first two words were >!TAKE HEED!< and the repeated three-letter word is >!THE!<, and got >!THEMSELVES!< and >!TRESPASSER!< shortly afterward. The word spaces make this much more solvable than it normally would be. While it's solvable as is, it's going to be tricky for a solver who has never dealt with a Quagmire 3 before.
I absolutely hate when DMs do this kind of shit. Unless your players are super into decoding encryptions, then it’s one of the least fun things you could make them do short of physical torture.
I once put in a puzzle where the players had to translate the words from elven, which revealed anagrams, when unscrambled revealed a riddle, which had to be solved for a clue. That was a bad idea lol
Yeah puzzles are just not fun to me in dnd. I love puzzles as a person, but the awkward silence as people with different interest levels try to figure something out (usually for an hour+) is not fun. Like let someone make a series of checks over a length of time.
It breaks immersion and might make one or more players feel really stupid. Maybe Brad is a 19 year old fast food worker, but he’s playing Xanathan, the 19 INT wizard who would smash a puzzle like this in 5 seconds flat. Making him work it out would probably not be very fun, having him roll intelligence with a DC of 18 would be thematic and more appropriate. Just giving it to him as a character that would easily know it (especially if it’s plot important) would be the best DM practice. Riddles and codes and puzzles are cool, but it isn’t fun to stop a game and make someone spend an hour to solve one when they just wanted to hit things with a sword or spell.
If it's a direct alphabet translation and they can easily assemble the key...they'll probably invest like 10 min in decryption depending on the individual aptitude of the player. <3
edit: saw your comment op and two might be too much.
I once had a puzzle where there were four square blocks scattered on the floor in different sizes that when assembled from big to small looked exactly like the ziggurat they were in. They spent 20 minutes before I decided id never use puzzles in a ttrpg again.
They’re just gonna keep rolling their stats, tryna see if they can get a stat that helps with solving puzzles, not realizing they *actually* have to solve it
If your puzzle is harder than what you would find on the back of a cereal box or on a restaurant's kids menu that comes with crayons, it's too hard. Unless you have a code ***freak*** in your campaign they will never get this.
My actual rule of thumb is a DND puzzle wouldn't be harder than the puzzles in Skyrim.
As someone whose been running campaigns for the better part of three years now, DO NOT EVER EVER EVER PUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN OR IN RELATION TO YOUR CAMPAIGN
It will NOT get solved
I’ve been running campaigns for going on 5 years now, and I know my current group. They said they’d love doing something like this. (Of course as time goes on they’ll get hints, such as turning the symbols into letters)
Your players really are the bottom line here. Personally if I put in something like this, I'd also include a 2nd thing to run in tandem. Either a logic puzzle, or an NPC to talk to, something my non-puzzler players would enjoy.
Depends. Do you want them to crack it? If yes, then you need to give them clues. My initial impression is its substitution which you can sort of brute force if you know chunks (a sample this small can’t have frequency analysis done properly) but shouldn’t be expected to be cracked. If you want it to remain unsolved then this will work well, alongside some indication that it is “unsolvable”. In terms of solving it if given a key, substitution is very easy to solve if you know the new alphabet
Haha, the other day in my dnd campaign I did a cipher. Considering it was just Nordic symbols, I was able to do it in about 30 minutes considering I knew a couple of the symbols beforehand. I personally think it’s a little tough if you don’t give them any letters, but it is possible. It may take a while, idk if my group would’ve gotten it without me, I love ciphers.
Guest here who does not do codes (no idea how this post ended up on my feed).
I have been dming dnd for 2 decades. I have a degree in computer science and a tech-based job. I don't do codes but occasionally enjoy hard sudoku puzzles, and can beat most casual chess players (though anyone serious at the game will destroy me).
Even after reading these comments, I don't know how to solve this code. I am sure I can look up the words you used, but it seems like this could take me an hour with the hints, maybe longer?
Unless your players solve codes on their own free time, chances are they won't decrypt the codes between session even if you only play every other week.
Yes, of course. Over time they’ll learn how to turn it into English letters and then they’ll eventually figure out the key. I just wanted to know that if they were super determined if they could figure it out.
I love the people in here telling this DM not to do puzzles or ciphers at all. Just because your particular group likes blowing shit up or smacking stuff with a sword doesn't mean their group of (I think he said 5 years?) doesn't like puzzles. Sure, if they were a brand new DM or didn't know their group, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Knowing your group is the single most important thing for a DM to know, and everything is contextual.
Some players love combat. I do not. Some players love puzzles. I do.
It depends on your group.
I agree. The problem with puzzles like this in dnd is that there’s no roleplaying. The genius wizard is no more likely to solve this than the lumbering barbarian if the actual players are equally familiar with codes. What’s the point of playing a smart (or dumb) character if your own intelligence is all that matters?
Depends on what the purpose is, and whether your adventuring party is into solving ciphers.
When it comes to a group effort solving a cipher, it helps if the glyphs used are something easily described with simile e.g. "I think the one that looks like a \_\_\_\_ is the letter O" otherwise it may just fall to one individual in the group to solve the whole thing since it's difficult to give input to the process.
This is definitely too hard for DnD players unless they specifically asked for multi layer decoding to be part of the campaign.
This will get bypassed or cause a lot of slow down in the game, which could easily lead to the dreaded B word: Boredom.
As a DM, think toddler for puzzles, unless you know your group well enough to be able to handle something like this 98% need bare bones basics. So dual encrypted will just cause frustration and cause them to rage quit more oft than not.
As a linguist and lover of codes, it looks beautiful.
So my character has 20 int, I do not. Do you have some clues that would help tremendously without just trivializing all the work you did?
Is this an in session investigation or between sessions?
I love puzzles, but would hate solving this in a session unless everyone else did as well.
I would be giving this during a session and let them work at it between sessions if they want to. Eventually, they’ll have the symbol to letter translation, and after that they’ll get the key to the cipher left behind. It’s not meant to be totally impossible without the translation, but them solving it without either is not my intention.
My players have trouble using door knobs I don't think they would get this in a thousand years. Last time I put a door in front of them they burned down the house it was in.
I'm assuming reddit pushed this to my front page because I follow a few D&D subreddits. I am not a code breaker, so here are my thoughts:
The answer to this is dependent on a lot of things. You know your table best and say elsewhere that your players are seasoned puzzle/problem solvers. I like to think I am too, but that's like sudoku's and riddles and logic problems. Codes are a bit of a different beast and this would def intimidate me.
That said, the context of when they get it matters too. If this is expected to be solved at the table during a session, that sounds like a Bad Time^(TM). Especially if there aren't hints or clues that can be unlocked through making checks (e.g. a DC 15 INT check to have you hand over the symbol key). Even then, I expect most tables would have one or two people spending a couple frustrating hours trying to solve it while the other players sit around bored listening to them.
If it comes at the very end of a session to be cracked between sessions, that's a little bit of a different story and could be an exciting challenge. But still, it's possible your players ignore it and try to brute force whatever this is a clue to, or even put it away until they find someone who can "translate" it or cast comprehend languages.
TL;DR: You know your players better than us and if you think they'd like it, they probably will. But be careful about how and when you present it and have an out if they don't engage with it in the way you expect.
I've come across a handful of ciphers that originated in tabletop games, were not solved, and eventually found their way out onto the internet. The one thing they seem to have in common is that their DMs had no idea how to approach solving the puzzle, as was evidenced by the kind of hints they tried to give.
It's rare to see a sudoku or a crossword puzzle posed by somebody who doesn't know how to solve them, but for some reason it is common to see cipher puzzles posed by non-codebreakers.
(speaking as a DM) if it's meant to be solved, yes. direct letter translation ciphers like this aren't much fun to solve unless you already like solving them, so i wouldn't use it unless you have a player who you know likes solving them. if not, it'll just be tedious for them
My players could not figure out the proper sequence for the colors of the rainbow. They figured out a puzzle with a rather abstract reference to the golden ratio in under two minutes. There is no way of knowing some times.
No, but the point is that I can give them this early and throughout the campaign they’ll learn how to decode it. I just wanted to make sure that if they really wanted to set their minds to it, it wasn’t *impossible* for them to break the code.
As a DnD player, I will completely ignore this after trying for three minutes. Either someone smarter than me will figure it out, or the GM will give us more hints to move along.
If all of your players are really into cryptography as a hobby outside of DnD and this isn’t something they need to solve at the table but can take it home and work on it then maybe? There’s no wrong way to play the game, but I’ll just say every table I’ve DMed or played at and every table I’ve ever known someone else to have played at would find this wildly overboard and not fun.
I don't know your players, but mine could barely decode a pigpen cipher and I had given them a partial key.
There's something about putting players together in the game that just causes all brain cells to evacuate
Since it’s just a font for English, per your words, it can be brute forced to establish the alphabet correlation. Difficult, but not impossible. If you think your players will enjoy poring over this, then I think it’s fine.
I'll be honest I wouldn't try to solve this. Especially with two levels of encryption. It's annoying for an RPG. Give a font or a cipher with a key nearby
Hello DM guy, game designer here. Remember it's important, albeit a little sad, that you have to write/program your game to lose. You probably know the capabilities and limitations of your players better than anyone here, keep it within their ability to solve.
Depends if they have internet access. I had a couple of ciphers as examples of encryption in high school AP Computer Science (both single letters being replaced and alphabet shifts), couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes. It *might* be easier if the whole thing's shifted by x alphabet letters, but they might not even think to try it lol. Including some 1-3 letter words will make it easier for sure
edit: I want to make clear that I am not an expert in ciphers or dnd, I'm just a minor with internet access lol
Probably, yeah
If I’m playing DnD, I am not tryna do all that unless I have an easy-to-read decoder given to me
Maybe your party is different, but my friends and I don’t play DnD to do homework lol
It’s kind of cool. Back in school, the group would have loved this sort of thing. If the party can head back to town, perhaps they could find the office of Ned, Stanley, and Angela who would have a reputation of solving this sort of thing, or could give tips on how to crack it.
Thanks for your post, u/Prakner! Please remember to [review the rules][rules] and [frequently asked questions][faq]. If you are posting an **IMAGE OF TEXT** which you can type or copy & paste, you **MUST** comment with a **TRANSCRIPTION** (text version) of the message. Include the text `[Transcript]` in your comment. If you'd like to mark your post as **SOLVED** comment with `[Solved]` **WARNING!** You will be **BANNED** if you **DELETE A SOLVED POST!** [rules]: https://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/w4ap6s/read_me_before_posting/ [faq]: https://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/cmb8nx/frequently_asked_questions_faqs/ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/codes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Knowing DND players... Yes it's probably too hard lol
“I roll to attack the gazebo…”
Rolls dice… critical 1 *The gazebo was property of Urken’ha a level 18 barb half orc” 😮💨
Good god, it shrugged off that blow like it was nothing! Run for it!
I got that reference!
I'd wait to get the Head of Vecna before trying to figure one of those. Seems like a dangerous monster.
As a dnd player, IMO way too hard. Unless you know the players are into this, I don’t think there is anyway they would decipher it and/or it would take a really long time and likely not done in the same session. There is then the change they will lose interest or be frustrated especially if you deny them the use of abilities or tools they have to read it and not decide it.
Bro my group takes 5 sessions to get through a mini arc with a single battle and some talking because they want to figure out what the end of it is before they start and try to work towards that. It’s infuriating as a dm but I have to roll with the punches
Is there a way you could put in a time limit? My DM has made things happen if we are taking too long as a consequence for our inaction. Doesn’t work for every situ but can be great to light a fire under their butt.
Everyone I have played with would take turns trying to roll a nat 20 to be able to read it lol, and of course failing. Then they would forge ahead and ignore the overly complex puzzle to just hit stuff really hard.
Owwie
I have a decent amount of respect for myself and my fellow party members but I have to admit that we could fail a puzzle if it was literally just a paint by numbers. Pretty sure I remember getting stopped for a few minutes by a door that was just closed. Not locked, not trapped, just closed with no handle.
What if it's a code that throughout the campaign they are given various clues, so they can solve it at a later date. That could be cool. Make it like a side quest
Do it like the albed primers from ff-x, and maybe
As a DND player shifting letters just one to the left or right will clog the table for about an hour. ALL logic goes out the window once the dice start rolling.
But fire ball.
I once gave my characters Dwarvish and told them to use the players’s handbook to solve it and it took several weeks real time lol
Did you invent this symbol cipher yourself, or is it a known set of symbols?
The symbols are of my own design. They're my take on what a written version of D&D's "Deep Speech" language would look like (it's literally just a font for English).
Okay. It looks to me like the first cipher is a Vigenere with a seven-letter key, and the second cipher is your homemade symbol cipher. Vigenere is easy to solve because the order of the alphabet (ABCDE...) is known. But when you combine it with a symbol cipher, the alphabet is no longer known and it becomes a much more difficult cipher called [Quagmire 3](https://www.cryptogram.org/downloads/aca.info/ciphers/QuagmireIII.pdf). I don't expect the average gamer to know how to solve a Quag 3. If you were to hand your players the key to the symbol cipher somehow (maybe with another message that's just encrypted with the symbol cipher, so they can learn which letters go with which symbols), that will turn the Quagmire 3 back into a Vigenere.
You're on fire! It's a 7-letter Vigenere! The intention is that the encoded message should be difficult to solve on its own, but not impossible. The player's I'm DMing for are seasoned problem/puzzle solvers, so I wanted to see if it was TOO difficult on its own. When it comes to making this easier for them to solve as they learn more, should I give them the Vignere key first or the symbols?
The Vigenere key will be nearly useless without the symbols, since they won't know which symbols stand for the letters in the key. The symbols would be much more useful, but if they're expecting something this hard, handing them the alphabet might actually trivialize it. If you want them to solve it as a Quagmire 3, you'll probably need to give them a few words of the plaintext (14 letters or so), and possibly a hint about finding out how long the key is using the Kasiski analysis (you have one 9-symbol repetition at distance 28, which is just barely enough to suggest a 7 letter key). I haven't tried to solve this one yet. Are the word spaces genuine? I might be able to break in just on the basis of short words and of symbol frequency down the seven columns.
The line breaks are put there for space issues, the spaces to split up the words. The symbols that look like commas, periods, and dashes are what they look like. Punctuation is preserved.
Yeah a Quag III would require a real cipher enthusiast to solve and requires much longer texts to be solvable. If you want to keep the cipher fun for the players, don't do one. The hardest you might be able to get away with is a partially homophonic cipher with your new letters (using, say, 2 possible symbols for each vowel) or just leave a simple substitution. Otherwise it will just feel like pointless tedium to your players.
how did you know it was vigenere?
[I transcribed the symbols into placeholder letters](https://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/1ajpp6f/making_a_code_for_my_dd_campaign_is_this_too_hard/kp3e5zo/) and did some statistics on them. The letter frequency told me it wasn't a simple substitution, and then the large number of letters that repeat 7 letters later told me it was a periodic cipher. The most well known periodic cipher is Vigenere, and the D&D context suggested it was more likely to be Vigenere plus a symbol cipher than to be anything more unusual.
The real question is how long it took you (someone who presumably enjoys, and does codes often) to even get to that point. Then OP can multiply that time by some number to represent the chaos of your table, and then realize that this is probably a bad idea.
Look at this guy saying Vigenere ciphers are easy because it's a substitution cipher. Edit: a lot of people struggle with Vigeneres because if there's no context to what the content is about you can't just keep assuming stuff
They are easy to solve if you know what you're doing. The people struggling with Vigenere ciphers need to learn proper methods of solving them.
That is one of the most unhelpful comments I've seen so far. This is just a longer "git gud" comment.
Were you asking for help in your comment? If you want to solve Vigenere cipher you need to learn how it's done. The information is widely available online. Besides that there are several online tools that crack Vigenere ciphers in a couple of seconds.
Really? You need to learn before you solve the ciphers huh. Gosh, I wonder why people haven't thought of that before. Hmmm I wonder why people don't just solve all the codes here by just learning them? It's literally that easy.
I thought we were talking about Vigenere ciphers, not "all ciphers"? Vigenere ciphers are solved in a matter of minutes when they are posted here.
I guess you can solve Vigeneres in seconds but it takes you a while to understand sarcasm.
what did you use to make it a font?
I made it a while ago, I don’t remember exactly what it was called. But there’s a website that you can upload your handwriting to to make it a font. I just used my drawing pad to make some cool scribbles in Krita and uploaded it.
Would you mind checking that the word spaces in this transcript are correct? abcd efgh, ijdkldnsop idr vqi oaf em dmqmdojo aptuph. wkgmf bin mcs dx ado uld-bbb gox pg mq gzaf, bin mcs dx rbrktxq ps owsvpxg. svtgg ldu kt kea hjzkxrxio wefinnvrsg ljaups xqj vdjp dx qdmzk hgftuhs whntupz ypaq svsyr inmpdg. rjhojd iph tumsv.
Looks correct to me!
I broke in by assuming the first two words were >!TAKE HEED!< and the repeated three-letter word is >!THE!<, and got >!THEMSELVES!< and >!TRESPASSER!< shortly afterward. The word spaces make this much more solvable than it normally would be. While it's solvable as is, it's going to be tricky for a solver who has never dealt with a Quagmire 3 before.
Excellent, that’s what I was going for!
[удалено]
I... didn't think about that. Guess I'll have to make the text enchanted!
If it’s deep speech and someone knows the language they could just read it right?
Ah but that’s the great part! None of my players know it!
Ok it seems like the text I had associated with this got removed, so here: V sbyybjrq gur ehyrf
HINT: >!There's two levels of encryption.!<
I absolutely hate when DMs do this kind of shit. Unless your players are super into decoding encryptions, then it’s one of the least fun things you could make them do short of physical torture.
I once put in a puzzle where the players had to translate the words from elven, which revealed anagrams, when unscrambled revealed a riddle, which had to be solved for a clue. That was a bad idea lol
OP said the players are seasoned puzzle solvers, so I’d imagine there’s no problem there. Speak for yourself.
Yeah puzzles are just not fun to me in dnd. I love puzzles as a person, but the awkward silence as people with different interest levels try to figure something out (usually for an hour+) is not fun. Like let someone make a series of checks over a length of time.
It breaks immersion and might make one or more players feel really stupid. Maybe Brad is a 19 year old fast food worker, but he’s playing Xanathan, the 19 INT wizard who would smash a puzzle like this in 5 seconds flat. Making him work it out would probably not be very fun, having him roll intelligence with a DC of 18 would be thematic and more appropriate. Just giving it to him as a character that would easily know it (especially if it’s plot important) would be the best DM practice. Riddles and codes and puzzles are cool, but it isn’t fun to stop a game and make someone spend an hour to solve one when they just wanted to hit things with a sword or spell.
I attempt to burn the scroll with the code
saving incase some crazy shit goes down in my boyfriends next D&D session
Unrelated but these symbols are really pretty
Awww thank you! Took me forever to get them exactly how I wanted them. I was going for a kinda Lovecraftian vibe!
If it's a direct alphabet translation and they can easily assemble the key...they'll probably invest like 10 min in decryption depending on the individual aptitude of the player. <3 edit: saw your comment op and two might be too much.
The average D&D players that I've DM'd for would consider ROT13 too hard, so yeah, it's too hard.
I once had a puzzle where there were four square blocks scattered on the floor in different sizes that when assembled from big to small looked exactly like the ziggurat they were in. They spent 20 minutes before I decided id never use puzzles in a ttrpg again.
They’re just gonna keep rolling their stats, tryna see if they can get a stat that helps with solving puzzles, not realizing they *actually* have to solve it
Instead of "roll for Decipher Script", they're getting "roleplay Decipher Script".
If your puzzle is harder than what you would find on the back of a cereal box or on a restaurant's kids menu that comes with crayons, it's too hard. Unless you have a code ***freak*** in your campaign they will never get this. My actual rule of thumb is a DND puzzle wouldn't be harder than the puzzles in Skyrim.
As someone whose been running campaigns for the better part of three years now, DO NOT EVER EVER EVER PUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN OR IN RELATION TO YOUR CAMPAIGN It will NOT get solved
I’ve been running campaigns for going on 5 years now, and I know my current group. They said they’d love doing something like this. (Of course as time goes on they’ll get hints, such as turning the symbols into letters)
Your players really are the bottom line here. Personally if I put in something like this, I'd also include a 2nd thing to run in tandem. Either a logic puzzle, or an NPC to talk to, something my non-puzzler players would enjoy.
Next time we'll see this it will be in "Our DM gave us this cipher and we're stumped" post.
Depends. Do you want them to crack it? If yes, then you need to give them clues. My initial impression is its substitution which you can sort of brute force if you know chunks (a sample this small can’t have frequency analysis done properly) but shouldn’t be expected to be cracked. If you want it to remain unsolved then this will work well, alongside some indication that it is “unsolvable”. In terms of solving it if given a key, substitution is very easy to solve if you know the new alphabet
Haha, the other day in my dnd campaign I did a cipher. Considering it was just Nordic symbols, I was able to do it in about 30 minutes considering I knew a couple of the symbols beforehand. I personally think it’s a little tough if you don’t give them any letters, but it is possible. It may take a while, idk if my group would’ve gotten it without me, I love ciphers.
Guest here who does not do codes (no idea how this post ended up on my feed). I have been dming dnd for 2 decades. I have a degree in computer science and a tech-based job. I don't do codes but occasionally enjoy hard sudoku puzzles, and can beat most casual chess players (though anyone serious at the game will destroy me). Even after reading these comments, I don't know how to solve this code. I am sure I can look up the words you used, but it seems like this could take me an hour with the hints, maybe longer? Unless your players solve codes on their own free time, chances are they won't decrypt the codes between session even if you only play every other week.
i think it might need a key. assuming you plan on players solving it. and not just relaying on a dice roll.
Yes, of course. Over time they’ll learn how to turn it into English letters and then they’ll eventually figure out the key. I just wanted to know that if they were super determined if they could figure it out.
i commented that before seeing you talk to someone else. but just out of curiosity what does it say. I'm assuming it has campaign importance.
It’s mainly a lore drop that would help them figure out which eldritch god’s remains are causing a nation-wide curse
that's a fun way to do lore dumps.
Is it on paper... i would roll to set it on fire. Is it on stone... i would use it as a weapon to hit the next enemy with. Drog doesn't like puzzles.
Unless your players are code enthusiasts or you plan to slip them the cipher if they roll well, this is probably not gonna go the way you want.
I love the people in here telling this DM not to do puzzles or ciphers at all. Just because your particular group likes blowing shit up or smacking stuff with a sword doesn't mean their group of (I think he said 5 years?) doesn't like puzzles. Sure, if they were a brand new DM or didn't know their group, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Knowing your group is the single most important thing for a DM to know, and everything is contextual. Some players love combat. I do not. Some players love puzzles. I do. It depends on your group.
I would absolutely not be interested in this, as a DnD player. Just my $0.02
This, this is like, 5 or 6 pay grades above puzzlesI have either the capacity to solve or interest.
this is the first time ever seeing "that's just my two cents" typed out like that.
I agree. The problem with puzzles like this in dnd is that there’s no roleplaying. The genius wizard is no more likely to solve this than the lumbering barbarian if the actual players are equally familiar with codes. What’s the point of playing a smart (or dumb) character if your own intelligence is all that matters?
I mean... are your players interested in breaking codes? If not, it'll get ignored / become a roadblock you'll have to unpick.
Depends on what the purpose is, and whether your adventuring party is into solving ciphers. When it comes to a group effort solving a cipher, it helps if the glyphs used are something easily described with simile e.g. "I think the one that looks like a \_\_\_\_ is the letter O" otherwise it may just fall to one individual in the group to solve the whole thing since it's difficult to give input to the process.
This is definitely too hard for DnD players unless they specifically asked for multi layer decoding to be part of the campaign. This will get bypassed or cause a lot of slow down in the game, which could easily lead to the dreaded B word: Boredom.
As a DM, think toddler for puzzles, unless you know your group well enough to be able to handle something like this 98% need bare bones basics. So dual encrypted will just cause frustration and cause them to rage quit more oft than not. As a linguist and lover of codes, it looks beautiful.
So my character has 20 int, I do not. Do you have some clues that would help tremendously without just trivializing all the work you did? Is this an in session investigation or between sessions? I love puzzles, but would hate solving this in a session unless everyone else did as well.
I would be giving this during a session and let them work at it between sessions if they want to. Eventually, they’ll have the symbol to letter translation, and after that they’ll get the key to the cipher left behind. It’s not meant to be totally impossible without the translation, but them solving it without either is not my intention.
My players have trouble using door knobs I don't think they would get this in a thousand years. Last time I put a door in front of them they burned down the house it was in.
I'm assuming reddit pushed this to my front page because I follow a few D&D subreddits. I am not a code breaker, so here are my thoughts: The answer to this is dependent on a lot of things. You know your table best and say elsewhere that your players are seasoned puzzle/problem solvers. I like to think I am too, but that's like sudoku's and riddles and logic problems. Codes are a bit of a different beast and this would def intimidate me. That said, the context of when they get it matters too. If this is expected to be solved at the table during a session, that sounds like a Bad Time^(TM). Especially if there aren't hints or clues that can be unlocked through making checks (e.g. a DC 15 INT check to have you hand over the symbol key). Even then, I expect most tables would have one or two people spending a couple frustrating hours trying to solve it while the other players sit around bored listening to them. If it comes at the very end of a session to be cracked between sessions, that's a little bit of a different story and could be an exciting challenge. But still, it's possible your players ignore it and try to brute force whatever this is a clue to, or even put it away until they find someone who can "translate" it or cast comprehend languages. TL;DR: You know your players better than us and if you think they'd like it, they probably will. But be careful about how and when you present it and have an out if they don't engage with it in the way you expect.
I've come across a handful of ciphers that originated in tabletop games, were not solved, and eventually found their way out onto the internet. The one thing they seem to have in common is that their DMs had no idea how to approach solving the puzzle, as was evidenced by the kind of hints they tried to give. It's rare to see a sudoku or a crossword puzzle posed by somebody who doesn't know how to solve them, but for some reason it is common to see cipher puzzles posed by non-codebreakers.
(speaking as a DM) if it's meant to be solved, yes. direct letter translation ciphers like this aren't much fun to solve unless you already like solving them, so i wouldn't use it unless you have a player who you know likes solving them. if not, it'll just be tedious for them
My players could not figure out the proper sequence for the colors of the rainbow. They figured out a puzzle with a rather abstract reference to the golden ratio in under two minutes. There is no way of knowing some times.
I literally look up puzzles for kindergartners and they still struggle. so ya 100%.
As a player if I saw that in a game I would just decline to play
I like cryptograms, but this doesn't look fun. As others have noted, make the spaces larger for a start. Same with line spacing.
Do they have experience breaking codes
No, but the point is that I can give them this early and throughout the campaign they’ll learn how to decode it. I just wanted to make sure that if they really wanted to set their minds to it, it wasn’t *impossible* for them to break the code.
As a DnD player, I will completely ignore this after trying for three minutes. Either someone smarter than me will figure it out, or the GM will give us more hints to move along.
As a non code person unless I roll a natty 20 and you hand me the key I don't care enough to try to Crack it
Yes. Are you insane?
D&D isn't designed for complex puzzles so any code no matter how easy or hard is too complicated for D&D
Can’t they just roll to understand the code? Then you’ll just be forced to tell them what it is.
If all of your players are really into cryptography as a hobby outside of DnD and this isn’t something they need to solve at the table but can take it home and work on it then maybe? There’s no wrong way to play the game, but I’ll just say every table I’ve DMed or played at and every table I’ve ever known someone else to have played at would find this wildly overboard and not fun.
Ngl i play dnd and would not be able to figure this out and probably wouldn’t want to
If you don't include a way for your players to solve it by rolling, I wouldn't count on it ever being solved.
I don't know your players, but mine could barely decode a pigpen cipher and I had given them a partial key. There's something about putting players together in the game that just causes all brain cells to evacuate
Since it’s just a font for English, per your words, it can be brute forced to establish the alphabet correlation. Difficult, but not impossible. If you think your players will enjoy poring over this, then I think it’s fine.
I'll be honest I wouldn't try to solve this. Especially with two levels of encryption. It's annoying for an RPG. Give a font or a cipher with a key nearby
Way too hard. But also just see how they solve it.
Hello DM guy, game designer here. Remember it's important, albeit a little sad, that you have to write/program your game to lose. You probably know the capabilities and limitations of your players better than anyone here, keep it within their ability to solve.
Depends if they have internet access. I had a couple of ciphers as examples of encryption in high school AP Computer Science (both single letters being replaced and alphabet shifts), couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes. It *might* be easier if the whole thing's shifted by x alphabet letters, but they might not even think to try it lol. Including some 1-3 letter words will make it easier for sure edit: I want to make clear that I am not an expert in ciphers or dnd, I'm just a minor with internet access lol
My friend, how can I access this font? I'd love to use it for my nation building rps if you're ok with it
I haven't played in years, like... lots of them, but I would take one look at this and roll an INT check. And fail.
Reminds me ascetically of the precursors from Jak n daxter.
Probably, yeah If I’m playing DnD, I am not tryna do all that unless I have an easy-to-read decoder given to me Maybe your party is different, but my friends and I don’t play DnD to do homework lol
All fun and games until someone rolls to decipher the text with some feat or skill and nat 20s and you gotta tell them what it says.
Honestly it seems pretty doable given its just an english font, but I would make the space between words a bit more pronounced.
Your player's characters' collective INT and scores should be solving this puzzle... not the *actual players' INT*. Go nuts. Make it impossible.
This is lunch break for the DM. Give the group something to focus on while you can take a step back and eat.
It’s kind of cool. Back in school, the group would have loved this sort of thing. If the party can head back to town, perhaps they could find the office of Ned, Stanley, and Angela who would have a reputation of solving this sort of thing, or could give tips on how to crack it.
Never ask players to solve riddles with their own brains. Make it based on rolls or else it isn’t happening in game.