Help requested in making a door puzzle

[Aotrs Commander]

I am looking for a bit of brainstorming/ ideas for a puzzle for a door.

Here's the situation. System: Rolemaster.

I'm not even goign to bother with the full party/situation backstory (because it would take FORVER), suffice it to say this is part two of a four-part arc that will wrap up over the next couple of years, a scifi/fantasy party we have had running for about 22 years or real time.

In the immediate situation in question, the PCs are faced with a room which they must cross (which is teleport warded) so they can proceed to the next bit of the adventure. The room is filled with a sort of Bad Time Memory Fog which is going to start incarnating (some of!) The Monsters And NPCS They've Fought And Killed Over The Last Twenty Years. The stream of monsters will be steady (not event-triggered, rather than timed), and the PCs should be getting very worried, as some of the things they fought, they did so with help or only escaped due to happenstance. This won't stop until they are out the door the other side.

Anyway, the door is sealed, by mechanism and by magic. The PCs, while fighting off Imperial Stormtroopers, Ninja Monks, Spear Demons and spider-like robot archmages and hoping that the really high level bad guys they peeved off once don't show up to slaughter them, need to get the doors open.

They can do this by

a) Shooting the door down with the guns (while take a while)

b) The Jedi does really well with his telekinesis roll.

c) They solve the door puzzle.



It is the last one that I am looking for ideas on. I had this great idea of rather than just some dull skill check, to have a puzzle the players could try to solve in real time (wherein they basically get an attempt for ten seconds only on their character's go.) My first idea one those lines was a simple "trace the shape without taking your finger off the paper" using Tyme's holy symbol.

Spoiler: top right

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That seemed ideal - the sort of thing that having to do it in ten seconds and if you make a mistake, that's the end of your (character's) attempt this round... That wouldn't take too many rounds to do. (And of course, if they do it right the frist time, they have to do it in reverse next round!)

Just one problem.

I realised I have used that EXACT SAME puzzle in another adventure that one of the players will be playing (I hadn't realised until that moment I spotted it in my CAD files that I had used the same symbol but just rotated 90º believe it or not the reason I'd arrived at that specific shape were independant! (That puzzle was low-balled a bit as the player and their group are much younger than the group in question, but said common player isn't daft enough not to remember a repeated puzzle...!)



So, I need to either change tack or, since I haven't run the aforemention younger adventure, change that to a simple puzzle to something similar.



In the former case, I need something that will take the PCs (or more correctly, the players) a couple of attempts on a ten-second timer to be able to solve (I want the time pressure because it's a) unusual and b) will heighten their concern that one of those foes beyond them might show up next...!) Something that is not just a "roll skill" since I've done that before and it'd be nice to do something different. It needs to be not too easy, but not too hard, since (with this being Rolemaster!) I don't want the combat to drag on and on for many rounds, but nor do I want them to get out of it without three or fours round's worth.

Edit: As per the first post suggestions made me realised: Language-based puzzles are out (unless they are amazingly good), since the creators of the door (et al) would be using a forgotten ten thousand year old runic script (barely - if any - more than heiroglyphs) that no-one could possibly know how to prounounce.

The puzzle also needs to be something that makes sense in-universe: the idea is to create a puzzle that has a solution that requires more player involvement than "I roll dice" but still would make sense to have been put on the door.


Any suggestions will be welcome (if, as is often the case, all they do is rigidly define my areas of doubt and uncertainty).

[Lapak]

I usually try to avoid player challenges (as opposed to character challenges), but:

- Set up a target at the far end of the table - a cup or small bowl. On their turn, each player must attempt to toss dice into it. Successfully putting X in the target within the time limit opens the door. (X to be set depending on size of target and size of table to get the right level of difficulty; you may need to playtest this.)

- The password to open the door is a tongue-twister of moderate length that the player must read through without slipping.

- Set up layout of playing cards a la Memory. Each match is removed from the board; when all matches are made the door opens. Players can flip pairs of cards over to attempt to make a match, but must return all cards to facedown before trying again.

[Aotrs Commander]

I usually try to avoid player challenges (as opposed to character challenges), but:

- Set up a target at the far end of the table - a cup or small bowl. On their turn, each player must attempt to toss dice into it. Successfully putting X in the target within the time limit opens the door. (X to be set depending on size of target and size of table to get the right level of difficulty; you may need to playtest this.)

- The password to open the door is a tongue-twister of moderate length that the player must read through without slipping.

- Set up layout of playing cards a la Memory. Each match is removed from the board; when all matches are made the door opens. Players can flip pairs of cards over to attempt to make a match, but must return all cards to facedown before trying again.

The first and last wouldn't really fit into something you'd put on a door-seal though. The idea is to make a challenge that is in-universe, but where the solution to the puzzle requires more player involvement to solve than "make a succesful skill check." (Because "I roll a dexterity check" (or more correctly, "I make a Hard (-10) AG/QU-based static maneuver") is not a particularly satisfying or flavourful result.)

The second might be maybe viable in other circumstances, but - and here's that rigidily defining that area of doubt and uncertainty - any language on the door would be in a ten-thousand year old runic script that would be essentially meaningless to the PCs (without many years of study!) (I'll add that to OP; lanugage-based things are out (unless they are really, really good where I might be tempted to bullcrap around that.))

[Pex]

Given the situation this could be a good place to do a dumb puzzle because they wouldn't be expecting it.

Have lots of various objects in the room. Make a list. Some may be useful against the enemies they have to face either by design and/or player ingenuity.

The door opens when someone opens the sesame seed or takes the lid off the jar.

[Lapak]

The first and last wouldn't really fit into something you'd put on a door-seal though. The idea is to make a challenge that is in-universe, but where the solution to the puzzle requires more player involvement to solve than "make a succesful skill check." (Because "I roll a dexterity check" (or more correctly, "I make a Hard (-10) AG/QU-based static maneuver") is not a particularly satisfying or flavourful result.)

Aha. I hadn't realized you were trying to literally represent something in-game, in part *because* that's something where (as a player) I might feel like my high-DEX character is being penalized for my real-life clumsiness if it's something she would be able to do; that's why I was going more abstract. That said, I have done something similar to the first thing to unlock a door in real life while playing at a Boda Borg (place that has a bunch of mini escape-the-room/puzzle solving/physical challenge rooms to solve.) But let's see what I can think of...

You probably don't want a challenge that literally involves people playing with fire, so my first thought is out.

Fewer people have physical board games in their houses these days, so 'get a spinner to land on the right number to unlock the door' won't work.

I'm having trouble thinking of things that don't involve props, because the next thought involves you having a piano and/or keyboard - the door plays a musical sequence and then they have to replicate it. Wait! There must be an online tool for that... and there is. How does that grab you?

[Dexam]

How about a Tower of Hanoi puzzle, represented in-game as a stack of runes of increasing size that can be slid between three columns on the door?

Assuming that they don't recognize it immediately, it'll probably take them a few turns to figure out the rules i.e. discs/runes have to be moved one at a time, bigger discs/runes can't be stacked on top of smaller, etc. I'd start with the minimum 3 discs (minimum of 7 moves to solve), but if think someone might already know it, you can increase the time taken to solve by adding an extra disc (minimum 15 moves to solve).

[Mutazoia]

What if the answer is to not attack the "ghosts". They won't actually attack the players, but move slowly toward the door. Each one touches the door and vanishes...unless the PC's gun them down first. The door only opens once each ghost has touched the door. If a ghost is gunned down, it respawns a short time later to try again. They, of course, fight back (and ignore the door) if the PC's do attack them.

The designers decided to try to break the PC's of their violent tendencies.....

[Aotrs Commander]

I'm having trouble thinking of things that don't involve props, because the next thought involves you having a piano and/or keyboard - the door plays a musical sequence and then they have to replicate it. Wait! There must be an online tool for that... and there is. How does that grab you?

Interesting... It's worth some condieration at least, that's not something I'd have thought of.

How about a Tower of Hanoi puzzle, represented in-game as a stack of runes of increasing size that can be slid between three columns on the door?

Assuming that they don't recognize it immediately, it'll probably take them a few turns to figure out the rules i.e. discs/runes have to be moved one at a time, bigger discs/runes can't be stacked on top of smaller, etc. I'd start with the minimum 3 discs (minimum of 7 moves to solve), but if think someone might already know it, you can increase the time taken to solve by adding an extra disc (minimum 15 moves to solve).

(Oh, hey Dexam, didn't recognise you without your normal Avatar... Casualty of Photobucket?)

Hmm... Again, a possibility - I could flavour it as concentrentric circles of lights (light up a circle instead of moving a disk, but with the same rules). Having access to five minutes and a 3D printer, it would not be beyond my wit to slap out a phys-rep with disks (painting them might be excessive, though!) - and had the added advantage that if I hold them strictly to the 10-second time limit to try, it doesn't matter if they have the rest of the round to think about it. (And again, if they do it too fast, there can always be the reverse sequence.

What if the answer is to not attack the "ghosts". They won't actually attack the players, but move slowly toward the door. Each one touches the door and vanishes...unless the PC's gun them down first. The door only opens once each ghost has touched the door. If a ghost is gunned down, it respawns a short time later to try again. They, of course, fight back (and ignore the door) if the PC's do attack them.

The designers decided to try to break the PC's of their violent tendencies.....

That sort of defeats the point of having them fight their old enemies again, though (which is specifically the point of this encounter, with this being roundabout the 20th/21st annivesary of this party...!)

[Mutazoia]

That sort of defeats the point of having them fight their old enemies again, though (which is specifically the point of this encounter, with this being roundabout the 20th/21st annivesary of this party...!)

Oh...they'll fight them. As soon as the ghost start popping up, your players will start fighting...and fighting, and fighting, until one ghost slips by and touches the door. THEN they might figure it out. But any player is going to shoot first and ask questions later.