Flavoring Puzzles for Better Realism

A common criticism of puzzles is that they don't feel natural or realistic for the situation. For example, why would a wealthy noble protect their vaults with simple math or tile puzzles that anyone could solve? Surely they would have access to more secure methods of safeguarding their treasures.

To address these issues, we should lean on the location’s flavor– inhabitants, history, environmental factors, etc. These elements can be used as hooks that allow us to creatively integrate puzzles into the location. By doing so, our puzzles feel much more natural and realistic for the situation.

For example, imagine the party is exploring an old magic workshop and they find a deactivated construct that shows signs of malevolent tampering. There are hints (perhaps the original creator’s notes) explaining that the construct could be willing to fight alongside the party if they were able to restore it to its original configuration. 

In this situation, a math or tile puzzle doesn’t feel so far-fetched. The puzzle can abstractly represent the construct’s configuration, which is scrambled due to tampering. Notes from the creator act as a realistic way to convey hints or other useful information. 

Integrating puzzles in this fashion takes some time and creativity, but I believe the results are well worth it. By using this technique, our puzzles feel like they have a good reason for being there, leading to a much more engaging and immersive encounter.

Challenges as opportunities for clever play

I’ve written a lot about different ways to place traps and challenges in front of the party. But I think the advice can be distilled into a single mantra: we shouldn’t place obstacles just to wear down the characters or their resources. Instead, we should see them as an opportunity to encourage clever play.

Over the decades and editions, Dnd has shifted from a gritty, deadly dungeon-delving game to character-driven heroic fantasy. In light of this shift, it makes sense to reexamine how we think about challenges within our dungeons:

• Are we excited when players find clever solutions, or are we disappointed when the characters emerge unscathed?
• Are we predetermining what the solution must be, or are we allowing players a fair chance to come up with their own ideas? (Not to say we have to allow every crazy idea to work.)
• Are we including objects to interact with and environmental factors that enable players to come up with these clever solutions?
• Are we providing visual clues for traps to encourage and enable clever play?
• Are we incorporating environmental challenges that allow for clever solutions?

Thinking about obstacles this way helps reinforce a cooperate play style: it’s the characters vs. the environment, not the characters vs. the DM. As DMs, we should be fans of the characters give them the opportunity to be heroes (if the dice allow!)