I’m a big fan of (good) puzzles in TTRPGs, so I’m always trying to come up with interesting puzzles for my players. Particularly, it can be challenging to create puzzles that work well with VTTs and online play. In this newsletter I’ll share one I made recently.
This puzzle allows the players to gain some information in a way that feels earned. This information might be a letter, treasure map, clue, piece of lore, or anything else you can think of.
- Type the information in a word processor and take a screenshot (feel free to use fancy backgrounds / fonts for a more fantasy feel). If the information is already an image (such as a map), you don't need to do anything else.
- Use a free image splitter tool (such as this one) to split the image in a 4x4 grid (or however many pieces you'd like).
- Place the images in your VTT, scatter them about randomly, change the orientations, and make sure your players can move the pieces around.
- Reveal the puzzle at the appropriate time and watch them go!
Final result:
Let me know what other creative puzzle ideas you've come up with.
