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Episode 21: Interview with Chaos_den
24 Plays6 months ago
I interview one of the players from my Dungeons of Quandary series, Chaotic Chris! He is the DM of the Chaosden Podcast and was great to chat with!
At the end of his puzzle solving he threw me for a little twist! Its very rare that I have to solve puzzles myself!
He can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/the_chaos_den_podcast/
The themesong was composed by the Dungeonmaestro on tiktok and Instagram!
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme Setting
00:00:11
Speaker
Sure, a mountain never grows and winds a toothless spider. Darkness fills up the deep holes and turns an endless spider. What we're here for is mysteries, but puzzles yet unsolved. So I set secrets lost to history, as aren't your problems solved alone? Don't you know?
00:00:44
Speaker
Don't
Welcome and Guest Introduction
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Dungeon Problems, the podcast that hopefully you've been listening to a bunch already. But if you're jumping in on this episode, thanks for stopping by. I, EarthosCreations, invite
00:01:14
Speaker
you
00:01:28
Speaker
guests, friends, other content creators, DMs, players, random people that I find on the street to talk about the state of puzzles and TTRPGs, the way they handle them, their thoughts about them, and all that jazz.
00:01:46
Speaker
Today, I have a very special guest that you've probably already heard before, maybe possibly if you've listened to past episodes. Today, I'm joined by Chaotic Chris. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be on your show once again.
00:02:03
Speaker
And not as a player this time, but as a, as a. Interviewed guest. I feel special. I didn't, I didn't completely scare him away with all the puzzles that he had to face before. Well, uh, Chris, tell, tell the people where they can find you, what you do in life. Well, in life, I I'm a dad, so that's exciting. Uh, other than that, I am the host and game master for the chaos den podcast, a D&D five V actual play.
00:02:31
Speaker
We have two campaigns running right now, The Rise of the Ancient King, which has been going on for about a year now. And then our newest one, Shattered Memories, which is, ooh, it's so good, so good. If you have a chance, go listen to it. It's, ugh. Yes, Waddles the Duck. He's a mystery in himself, an enigma. Oh, you have no idea. The future episode's coming out. He gets, he gets special.
Role of Puzzles in TTRPGs
00:02:58
Speaker
Spoilers, spoilers. Spoilers, ooh.
00:03:00
Speaker
yeah we got waddles the dog we got gizmo the warforged tree we've got yurick the changeling bard which we found out last episode and we have ty which is a typical basic fighter who might be an artificer we don't know yet
00:03:22
Speaker
And you presented the ultimate puzzle to us with your intro. Where do babies come from? They come from mummies and daddies when they love each other a lot and they get alone time and then they have babies and then they don't have alone time anymore.
00:03:42
Speaker
Alright, well, go check out chaotic Chris the Chaos Den podcast. It's very fun. So epic music comes in. I won't lie, I always get in the car and forget how loud my music is turned up to. So when your episode starts, I near I near void my bowels the second I get into that car. Yeah. So go listen to the Chaos Den podcast, but turn the volume down.
00:04:08
Speaker
I'll make a mention to my sound editor, then maybe tweak it down a little bit. Oh no, I love it personally. I'm a deaf son of a bitch, so I'm all for it. You can also find me... Sorry, I forgot to mention this, but I now also run a live stream over on Twitch called The World Forge.
00:04:28
Speaker
where me and another GM, Eric of her Abridian Tales, are building an entire world from the ground up, starting from the cosmos. So if you have any interest in world building, homebrew world building from the ground up, and you want to see how two psychopathic DMs do it, come hit us up at the World Forge on Twitch every Monday at 8 o'clock Eastern Standard Time. Two psychopathic DMs. Love it. Yes. If you listen, you'll find out why.
00:05:00
Speaker
So to start off, let's ask the very basic question. Bring it on. Do you like puzzles? Do you hate puzzles? Are you blasรฉ about puzzles? How do you feel about puzzles? I personally, as a human being, love puzzles. I've been delving in video games that are very puzzle based, such as the Legend of Zelda series. All of them are very puzzle oriented games.
00:05:27
Speaker
On top of that, me and my wife, we are very big into escape games, puzzle games
Approaches to Puzzle Design
00:05:33
Speaker
at their cores. We're actually playing the Wizards of the Coast Bedlam and Neverwinter, which is a puzzle board game. Literally, you're solving puzzles in order to push your way through to the next stage of the game.
00:05:50
Speaker
I've never heard of that. Well, I'm a horrible dungeon problem. Then you can check out the third show on my podcast, which is the after dark show where we play this game and you can actually hear us play it in life. OK, but I I personally love puzzles. I think they are a focal point on life. I think without puzzles in your life, it's boring, it's bland.
00:06:18
Speaker
in a D&D concept or in a TTRPG concept, puzzles make the game. They make your players think, they make your players wonder, and they make your players do things outside of the box that they normally wouldn't do in say a combat encounter or a social encounter. They're just, they're the core of what I think a TTRPG should be.
00:06:43
Speaker
I'm sensing a but, though, because you started this off with as a person. I love I love puzzles. It seems like as a little game master. It is a pain in the ass to make a puzzle that your players will be able to play and not just get stumped and stuck on. And you have to throw them crumbs because they're just like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing because players overthink everything.
00:07:14
Speaker
You give them a grade one puzzle that should be solved within seconds. And they're sitting there trying to solve it for three days. You give them a closed door and they think it's a puzzle. And it's like, no, it's just a door. Go open it. I did just post a puzzle on my Friday posts that I put in the comments in the, uh, like, I don't know what you call it. Like the, who knows who knows what social media is. Yeah. This wasn't quite the comment, but like the,
00:07:45
Speaker
the text of the post. I was like, hey, this is a great puzzle that I think is really easy, kind of good introductory. And it was, you know, I was like, hey, you have a mouth of a dragon that's open. The you see at the back of the mouth of the dragon, a circular hole. There's some items in front of it, a square, a circle and an oval picture or something. I don't remember. And I was like, dumbass responded with the oval picture.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I think when I was first writing that one, I was thinking of that that meme that was like, that was like, OK, where does the the square go in the square hole? Where does the circle go in this? No, the square. It's the whole concept of trying to putting a square in a round hole.
00:08:42
Speaker
So what do you think is the toughest thing for you as a DM when you're trying to design a puzzle? What really do you try and get into the mindset of your players a little bit? Do you say, no, you don't ever try to get into the mind of your players. You will go mental when I'm personally what I'm trying to build a puzzle. There's two ways that you can do it personally for me. So the first way that I would try to or that I've tried in the past
00:09:11
Speaker
was building an encounter and then inserting a puzzle into it. So you would have your scenario first, you would have, say, your encounter that you're dealing with, like your players walk into a room and you have your room built out. And then from there, you would create the puzzle within the room to solve whatever needs to be solved to move on to the next location.
Creating Multifaceted Puzzles
00:09:35
Speaker
Lately, I've been reverse engineering that.
00:09:39
Speaker
Now I've found it easier to build the puzzle first on what I want them to accomplish and then build the room around it to accomplish the puzzle itself. Okay. So it sounds like you're kind of like, if you're like, okay, they need to open this door. I need to build them. Yeah. And then you work backwards from that. So like, okay, the door is locked. Why is the door locked?
00:10:03
Speaker
the door is locked because there's an enchantment on the door. Okay, so how do we find out the enchantments on the door? Okay, well they have to go to a certain location in the room to get a magical item that shows and reveals the
00:10:19
Speaker
the magic on the door so that it opens. Okay, well, how do I make it so getting that magic item isn't like, oh, look, there's an item that's gonna give it to you. What do I need to put in between to make them think and to make them wonder how to get it or what steps do they need to do in order to accomplish this? And that's kind of the puzzle aspect of it that I've personally been running with.
00:10:50
Speaker
Does sound a little bit like you are getting in the heads of the players a little bit. Yeah, I guess so. And I, when you word it that way, unfortunately, I don't like to agree to that, but you're not wrong.
00:11:03
Speaker
I think that's a very important part about making a puzzle. You know, it's very weird for me to say that though, because I've been making a bunch of puzzles for, you know, my interviewee guests, you know, but I haven't been like, huh, so chaotic Chris is going to be on my podcast, you know, next week. So I think
00:11:27
Speaker
But I do think it is kind of fundamentally important when you're running a game, if it's going to be a long campaign or something like that, really realizing how your players think a little bit, you know, find out what makes them tick when they're looking at a puzzle.
00:11:45
Speaker
so i i always recommend you know running puzzles you know get start off with simple simple basic heavy quotation uh... marks uh... and then using those puzzles to really figure out how your players think uh... cuz even this game one of these spot campaigns you've been running now has gone on for five episodes uh... so that's five whole games uh... i haven't really heard a puzzle in there yet unless i've missed it but
00:12:14
Speaker
that happens to me ever so often. Have there been any puzzles in there or are you gonna start introducing puzzles? There was one in the very beginning. So the very first episode we did have a very small puzzle that I actually, I think I pulled it out of Tasha's cauldron. Just to kind of see, cause like I've never played with any of these players before. I know them all, they're all very close friends. One of them is actually my brother, Waddles.
00:12:42
Speaker
So I know how his brain works, kind of. So I did throw one puzzle at them just to kind of see where they would go with it, where their mindset would be, what they would think about in regards to the puzzle. They solved it very, very quickly. I was quite impressed with how fast that they did it. And the puzzle was they were in that first chamber, the rejuvenation chamber.
00:13:09
Speaker
And the professor, the little rock woman told them, you guys have to get out of here. But the door is locked. The key is how did I word it? I can look up the puzzle. I have it written here somewhere. But essentially, the the puzzle was about them finding the key and the key was hidden in one of their noses.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So they had to essentially say nose in order for the key to launch out of their, their nose. And I think disgusting. It was, it was so gross. It was so funny though. The looks on their faces when they realized that a key was up their nose and they're like, how did it get here? Why is it in my nose? And was it, was it only in my nose? Was it in everybody's nose? And like, well that's information I'm not going to give you.
00:14:00
Speaker
I'm just going to make you think I'm going to make you wonder. Okay. So what do you think you kind of discovered about their puzzle habits with that puzzle, that very first puzzle? Uh, I figured out that they were very creative. Uh, they definitely look and eat at the words that I'm saying. So they will take every word I say literally.
00:14:26
Speaker
So if I tell them something, they will go, okay, so that's what he's saying. That's what he means. I can play that on them later in such a way that I will say things that I don't entirely mean that exact wording, but something that is around the same concept of it.
00:14:44
Speaker
So I'll be able to play on my words in order to kind of throw off their minds in the future on word puzzles, not so much mechanical puzzles. So I do have a mechanical puzzle coming up in the future episodes that I'm curious to see how they solve. That one is more so they know exactly, they're going to know exactly what they have to do to solve the puzzle. I'm curious to see how they do it.
00:15:11
Speaker
they're gonna have a bajillion ways of doing it. It's just a matter of the resources that they have at hand, how they use them to proceed forward.
DM Responsibilities in Puzzle Design
00:15:20
Speaker
I like that bajillion ways that they can solve it. I think that that is really great for some players because some players really do need a bajillion ways. I agree. And that's one of the biggest going back to your one of your first questions is like why wire puzzles kind of hard to make. I made that comment.
00:15:40
Speaker
And that's probably because there are so many ways to solve a puzzle.
00:15:45
Speaker
you can have in your head one way for the puzzle to be solved and your players are going to come up with 10 different ways to do it and you have to decide whether you want to just throw your entire idea out the window and let them solve it their own way or if you want to be a hard-ass and you know you have to do it the way I said. I think the latter to that is the wrong way. Giving your players freedom to solve it in their own methods with their own creativity is definitely
00:16:11
Speaker
key to any game master creating a puzzle expect your players to think outside of the box and break your puzzle the same way they break every single encounter the same way they break your stories in the same way they most definitely break your NPCs and break your heart at the same time but you still love oh my heart can't be broken it was shattered long time ago when I started this campaign I
00:16:39
Speaker
You remind me of one of the best things I love because you said your players are they take your words very literal. Yeah. And I love throwing little word puzzles at my players. The thing that I really love is one of my puzzles I'll do is the English language has so many words that
00:17:00
Speaker
mean different things sound the same and are spelled very differently. Oh my god. There, there and there. It's so many. No one, no one, the English language makes no sense. But so if they find something, I'll read it first. I'll, I'll just like, they'll be like, Oh, we examine the pedestal. And I'm like, you see an inscription, it reads,
00:17:21
Speaker
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll give them a piece of paper after they hear that they think about it for not very long, maybe like five, 10 seconds. I'll give them a piece of paper with the actual inscription. Because as I've said many times on this podcast, get ready for your players to ask you 10 billion times to repeat it. So I love giving them what the inscription actually says and seeing if they can notice that it's, it's just a slightly different one way.
00:17:51
Speaker
But it sounds it's completely different. Or then they'll see that certain words are capitalized stuff like that. Yeah, having that physical reference for a puzzle definitely is key. And like between doing the two podcasts, one is a virtual podcast, one is a at the table. Writing puzzles for the two are so vastly different because you can add an IRL table, hand your table
00:18:22
Speaker
items, trinkets, things that make the puzzle more interactive. Whereas with a, a virtual table, you don't have quite that capability unless you're, you know, sending document, sorry, documents through like Google docs or something like that. So they can look at it. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I.
00:18:45
Speaker
I'm only running two in-person games right now. I was running a virtual game and I'll be going back to that virtual game probably by the end of the summer. But I definitely love just handing stuff to the players as opposed to a PDF. It is nice. I did that to my Rise of the Ancient King. I gave them a dial that had a bunch of spinners on it and they were trying to essentially code break.
00:19:08
Speaker
So I gave them the clues that it was based on the waning of the moon, like the styles of the moon based on the locations of it around the planet. And the little bastards figured it out so freaking fast. I was mind blown because when me and my wife did this puzzle for an escape game, it took us almost 15 minutes.
00:19:32
Speaker
literally took a puzzle from an escape game, ripped it out of the escape game and threw it into my D&D game. Like word for word exactly the way it was. I was just like, ah, okay, me and my wife, we struggled with this. My tables got to struggle with this as well. And my sister solved it in four seconds. Like you. That's got to... This just reminded me. What's that?
00:19:55
Speaker
I have so many locks that I have access to because I manage an Escaper. So I should be using real locks when I run D&D. I'm going to pose a thought that I don't think a lot of DMs would agree with. And I don't know if I fully agree with it, because you mentioned, hey, one of the things you like to do for puzzles is have a gazillion ways of solving them.
00:20:25
Speaker
what happens when your players come up with something and you just have to tell them now it would not work no matter like I
00:20:37
Speaker
I find that in D&D we get told so much like, you should allow the players free agency, you should. Within reason. So yes, you need to allow your D&D players, Pathfinder players, whatever system that you're running, the capability of freedom of speech and freedom of exploring and doing things how their players want to do it. Yes. When it comes down to encounters,
00:21:06
Speaker
and puzzles and riddles, sometimes you have to say no to your players. You have to. It is your job as the game master to not railroad them, but to make the story plausible. Sometimes you will have to say no to your players. I do it all the frickin' time. And I do not feel bad saying no to my players because you have to. Otherwise, they will get away with ever-loving murder.
00:21:38
Speaker
That's true. I think one of the things that's coming to my mind right now with this is, I think as a DM, you should be prepared to have a reason why you're saying no. Yes. An example that I can think of right now is riddles. He mentioned riddles. I've discovered when I've written my own riddles, my players have come up with answers that I did not think of.
00:22:06
Speaker
And they'll be like, hey, no, like this works. Look at this. Solves that, solves that, solves that. It's the answer. And I'll be like, uh... But it's the wrong answer. I think a simple thing I could do is just be like, hey, yeah, that does work as an answer, but the magic mouth that you're trying to convince of the answer...
00:22:26
Speaker
is not programmed with that answer. You have to figure out what answer this, the wizard who casts a spell came up. Well, it goes back to your comment about the, the English language. There are so many different ways of saying the exact same word or saying the exact same word and it meeting multiple things. Same thing with puzzles and riddles. There may be a hundred different ways of solving a puzzle or a riddle, but there might only be a handful of actually correct answers for that specific puzzle or riddle.
00:22:58
Speaker
This just gave me a great idea for a puzzle like a spanglish puzzle kind of not really spanglish but like have it be like they can read certain parts of it and they have to guess the words they don't understand unless they speak a certain language with context clues it would be like the dog goes and then it would be like elvish like
00:23:23
Speaker
and they would have to figure out, oh, the dog went outside because the next sentence says the dog peed on a tree. Well, the tree wasn't inside.
00:23:34
Speaker
that that would be fun. That would be very fun. I might have to steal that idea. Hey, I mean, I do this podcast so everyone can see new ideas. I think that would have to be one that it would be written out to so they could really puzzle it. Yeah, you can even do that with an online as well, like have a written document out and then send the document and how you would write Elvis in a document. Oh, no, there's there ways.
00:24:02
Speaker
You know what, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Yeah. There you can get different. I hate technology. I hate technology and D&D. Sometimes I really do gripe about it. I really do want to run a game that is just books. Be like, you're sitting down, no computers, no phones, have your character sheet. Here's a pencil. Here's a book. Switch the player's handbook around, stuff like that. Let's go back to the 80s.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But then at the same time, there's so much cool stuff you can do with technology, even with puzzles too. And just like, I want to make a maze like the old I think it was windows like the windows screensaver that just had you going through the stone. Oh my god, I do remember that I remember having that as a kid, and just sitting there and doing it for hours.
00:25:02
Speaker
Right. Just imagine that is like the thing you put before your players be like, Hey, good luck. I'd have to find a way to end it. No, just let it go on forever. They're just stuck in an endless maze. That's the entire campaign. You're just stuck in a maze. Oh my God. That my players hate me, but Hey, you know what? I didn't get into DMing to be liked by my players. Yeah. Now that's exactly why I got into DM. So.
00:25:31
Speaker
I had another question on the top of my head and now I can't think of it. Oh my god, ADHD. It's the worst thing ever. And yet most most GM's have it. Yeah, that's true. Most GM's have ADHD because that's what gives us our creative capabilities. Exactly. You mentioned that you you're running an online and a in person game. Correct.
00:25:57
Speaker
I think it would be interesting to see if you could present the same puzzle to both games. Have it be a little different because they are virtual and in person. I did. I did exactly that thing and I did it with you.
00:26:12
Speaker
Oh, that's true. Yeah. I did it with you guys. I'm just like, Oh my God. All right. Let's, let's talk about that. What, explain it to me. What kind of, what happened with that? So that was the, the village of it. Um, as a one shot that I did for the Halloween one shot back in 2023. And the, the puzzle that I presented to everybody, um, was essentially a locked door that had a keypad.
00:26:37
Speaker
you had to type in a certain word in order to open the door. And the riddle to open the door was essentially home is where the heart is. And then there were pictures on the walls that had the name of a ship that with the ship underneath of it. And then it had a picture of the family and behind the family was the picture of the house that you guys were venturing into and across the top of it had the name of the family.
00:27:08
Speaker
you guys pretty much solved it almost identical to each other. The only difference was was with my in person table, they vocalized with each other a bit more because it was easier to talk over one another and converse. Whereas speaking over one another and an online aspect, it gets a little muddled in the ear earbuds or in your headsets when you're talking so you don't get the same chatter back and forth as you would at an
00:27:38
Speaker
at an in-person table. So that was the only difference that I really saw with that puzzle in comparison to IRL to virtual. That's interesting. That's a really interesting knowledge of the fact that the audio is really what made it. It was, because in my IRL, like my table,
00:28:08
Speaker
They bickered back and forth for about a solid five minutes in regards to what the answer was until one of them just said, okay, everybody shut up. This is what I'm doing. Whereas with the virtual table with you with yourself and I believe it was Ghibli Jam that was with us as well. Ghibli Jam, Nausicaa, and D'Astrai. No, Mr. Baca. What's Nausicaa with? It was Nausicaa, Mr. Baca.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, sorry. He's the ass. Oh, okay. And we were playing at the same time. Uh, I think he solved it. Didn't he? He was just like, Oh yeah, it's that. I think so. I think it was either himself or it was a Ghibli that solved it. And again, the exact same puzzle and I presented it in the exact same way with no added, like I didn't give my IRL table any extra tidbits or any extra content in person because I wanted it to be.
00:29:04
Speaker
equal. I wanted everybody to have the same opportunity, the same chance to solve the puzzle on the same playing field. So you guys did solve it just as efficiently as the other table. But again, it was the time spent solving it that was slightly different because of the communication between players.
00:29:25
Speaker
That's now my brain's kind of thinking of this of like puzzles that would be very like interesting to solve. So back to the escape room idea of having an escape room because I have all these locks. They're locks that take directions. I've never seen them before. And it's very cool. So my thought that I just had is having a puzzle.
00:29:47
Speaker
that has statues each pointing a certain way. And then having this lock, then the answer is, you know, like, oh, statue number one has, you know, that's the first, like, it's pointing north. So you have to go up and then east and all that. If I were to run that in person, I think they would get it kind of quickly because I'd have a directional lock for them to see. You would have an object.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, they'd be like, oh, we have to see the direction. The problem being. I love battle maps and stuff like that. It would be kind of small to see the statues on them because it's it's kind of you can't zoom in really too much. Well, you can. It depends on the quality of the map that you're making. I get it. Anytime that I make my maps for. Yeah. Anytime that I make my maps for.
00:30:42
Speaker
Either table, whether it's my virtual or my in-person, because I used VTTs for both, I do it in 4K. So you can literally zoom right in, and the picture can be full screen and not pixelated. So if you want to look at the statue to see which way it's pointing, you can. The only difference, I guess, between a virtual table and an IRL table at that point in time would be having that lock in your hand.
00:31:12
Speaker
but at the same time, describing that lock would be the key factor. If you're describing that lock in the same depth and detail to a virtual table, or even having an image of the lock that you could present to them so that they can still visualize what it looks like with an image, you'd probably be able to get the same quality of information across in both aspects. I kind of like the idea of
00:31:42
Speaker
not quite describing the lock right off the bat because I like when players explore and stuff like that. I try not to panhand information to my players. If you want the information, you have to ask for it. You have to be searching for it. You don't get it. You don't just get it. No, you have to look for it. I want you to roll some dice.
00:32:07
Speaker
I think one of the strengths though for the VTT people is they can zoom in and zoom out on their own. Yes they can. Whereas if I'm running a VTT on my TV screen that's 32 inches wide and only has 170K resolution, I don't speak TV. But I would have to manually zoom in for them. Yes. And I would kind of give it away in some ways.
00:32:33
Speaker
I think it also is how you describe the puzzle when they first get into the room as well. It would still be very interesting. It's nice to know that we weren't that different from the others. You can always go back and listen to it if you want. It is live. It is on the podcast reel.
00:32:56
Speaker
But I think, I think that's the mark of a great puzzle. When it can transcend, tran, tran, transcend, transcend, transcend all medias, the greatest puzzle, speaking English, that is the hardest. Well, no, it all comes back to English. She's a horrible, the hardest puzzle of all scheduling. Yeah. Trust me. Yeah.
00:33:25
Speaker
uh all right well i think it might be time to see if you can solve some dungeon problems yourself oh let's do it
Live Puzzle-Solving Session
00:33:49
Speaker
Today, we have two puzzles for you. I'm going to throw the caveat out there for the listeners. The official written puzzle that I found isn't officially really a puzzle. It's from a campaign, an official campaign, that it seemed to me like a puzzle. It's just missing the puzzle, like two things. It's just missing the puzzle. But would you like to tackle
00:34:19
Speaker
the official quote unquote puzzle or the puzzle that came from the madness of my own mind. Oh, I want the madness of your mind. All right. The madness of my mind. Let's get out my little puzzle book and I've got all my dice here ready for rolling. Sure. We're going to need. Yeah. Uh, I need to always ask this, but
00:34:46
Speaker
Do you have a character as well, created? Pull up a random character that you'd like. I can pull one up. All right. Who do I have here? Who do I have here? You know what? I have a level four Drow Dark Elf fighter side warrior. Damn. Yeah, he's a Jedi. I like it. I like it.
00:35:16
Speaker
Let's go for it. All right, let's do it. All right. So you've come to a very simple square chamber. As you enter through this door, you and your party, sometimes I like to say there's a party, you walk through this door. And as you cross the threshold, the door behind you disappears.
00:35:43
Speaker
leaving you in this small square chamber with a pedestal right in front of you with a glass chamber glass cube on top of it. Just beyond this glass cube is a mirror and you can see around the wood frame of this oval mirror to a door.
00:36:13
Speaker
Okay, and I'm I'm guessing my objective is to get to the door. Sure. Okay, so I've got a pedestal directly in front of me. On top of the pedestal is a sorry, you said a crystal. A glass cube. A glass cube. And then behind that is
00:36:39
Speaker
a mirror mirror. How big is the mirror and how big is the cube? The cube is probably about the size of a small annoying yapping dog in the backyard. It was about five feet.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's about five feet. Five feet furry got some legs on it. And the the five feet by five feet. Okay, and the okay, no, that's that's giant. That's actually pretty big. Let's go two feet by two feet by two. Okay. And then the mirror itself is a just like a standing mirror. Yeah, it's a standing mirror in the shape of an oval. It has wooden legs holding it up.
00:37:26
Speaker
And it's directly behind the pedestal. Yes. If I look into. And then directly behind that is the door. Okay. If I look into the mirror, what reflection do I see? You see yourself as you look into the mirror, you see the pedestal and you see the glass cube on top of it. Okay. So nothing strange. Uh, and if I go up and I inspect the door, does anything funny and anything stand out about the door itself?
00:37:57
Speaker
No, it's just a pretty solid stone door that's cut into the wall with a lever that you can push down and it seems to open. So if I push down the lever, the door opens. Well, if you push down the lever, you activate the trash. Oh, shit.
00:38:22
Speaker
And suddenly water begins to rise up from the ground, starting to fill up. And it seems to fill up one eighth of this chamber. So right now it's probably about at your ankles. Okay. So I'm going to run back to the, to the glass cube. And I would like to give it a quick inspection. Does it look magical? Does it seem, give me an investigation check.
00:38:53
Speaker
That's a nine on the die with an investigation of 10. An investigation of 10. You're looking at it and you're not sensing any heebie jeebie magic from it or anything like that. Uh, but as you peer into it, you see that there's a small layer of water in it. Small layer of water in it. I would like to pick it up. You pick it up. And as you pick it up,
00:39:22
Speaker
the water begins to rise a little bit and now it's about two eighths and you pick it up and the cube becomes a little bit heavier. Okay. And glass cube in a mirror. I'm going to take the glass cube to the mirror and I would like to shatter the mirror. Okay. Uh,
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, what type of weapon do you have? I have a scimitar. All right, you shattered the mirror, and as you shattered the mirror, the top of this cube breaks and crinkles. The top of the cube breaks and crinkles? Yes. Okay. I'm gonna shatter the cube.
00:40:20
Speaker
You shattered the cube. Okay. Well, you shattered the cube. And as the water pours out of the cube, the water in this room completely disappears. And you have set off the shatter spell. Give me a constitution saving throw. Con save. That will be a 11.
00:40:47
Speaker
All right, you unfortunately fail and you're going to take 3d8 damage and you take seven damage. I'm not actually going to roll for damage. But as this shatter spell goes off, the door across from where the mirror once stood swings open and you have solved the I don't actually have a name for it. The water cube puzzle. And I run to the door cheering.
00:41:18
Speaker
Woo, your whole party's like, wow, breaking it was the answer all along. All right. When did you start picking up on what you might want to do? What was- As soon as you gave me the indication that there was water within the cube itself, it made me think that one of two things, either the mirror was going to absorb the water. So if I shattered the mirror and the mirror was a portal, it would suck up all the water.
00:41:49
Speaker
If that wasn't the case, then I figured shattering the cube would do the exact same thing. If that didn't happen, then I was at an extreme loss for words. So one of the things when I first decided to design this puzzle was thinking about what I wanted the mirror to do. Part of me was like, okay, maybe I'll just have the water and the cube be only visible in the mirror.
00:42:19
Speaker
Uh, or, but then I kind of was just like, you know what? I think the mirror's only purpose is to show a mirror, like, Hey, not quite a distraction, but a little bit more cerebral, I guess would be a way of putting it. The, you were in a square cube like room and there was a cube in front of you. The cube mirrored the room.
00:42:45
Speaker
So whatever you do to the cube is what would happen in the room. I did not pick that up. But you still solved it. Still solved it. Though you ended up taking damage from a Shatter spell. I mean, little victories, right? Little victories. Yeah. I mean, depending on where you're at in the dungeon and all that, maybe you are completely fine.
00:43:13
Speaker
Maybe your level like 20 and Shatter at first level did absolutely nothing to you. Well, even as my level four character had 33 HP, so it's still... Oh yeah, you would have been fine. It tickled. I wasn't happy about it. Alrighty day. Well, that's one for one so far. Now, we're going to see if you can solve this semi-quasi puzzle that I found.
00:43:42
Speaker
Bring it on, come on. This is from Princes of Apocalypse. Princes of THE Apocalypse, not of Apocalypse. Phew, gotta get it right. For those of you who don't know, my knowledge of this campaign is not, I know it's viewed as one of the crappier campaigns that Wizards of the Coast put out. And quite frankly, reading the very limited parts, I can understand why.
00:44:09
Speaker
but the temple of elemental evil has been a big thing in D&D for a long time. Random question, when did you start playing D&D? 2020. Well, 2020, you're COVID baby? Not entirely true. So my first D&D session that I played was probably 2018. A friend introduced it to me, me and my wife and our couple friend.
00:44:34
Speaker
just decided to start running a campaign for me because I've been into Dungeons and Dragons since I was about eight. I've been reading the books, I've been playing the games. I never got the chance to play it as a TTRPG. So finally, I had a friend who was willing to run a little mini campaign. We ran the Minds of Phandelver. I think we only got about eight sessions through and then he just, you know, decided not to run it anymore. But the bug hit me.
00:45:03
Speaker
The bug hit me. And then you just mentioned you read the books. What books did you read? I have read every single one of the Dris Deward books. And then I've read every single one of the, uh, war of the spider queen. Uh, I started reading dragon Lance and I have read some of the, it's missing me now. They're all sitting on my shelf in my room.
00:45:32
Speaker
Did you read the Lady Penitent series? I have not, but it is on my list. So this, the Lady Penitent series, sorry, sidetracked all your listeners here, but hey, you already knew I had ADHD. The Lady Penitent series, I think is one of the quote unquote worst retcons I've ever seen in my life. And it personally angers me. Oh, so don't read it.
00:46:00
Speaker
No, no, no, I love it. I love it. And this is the reason. So, you know, D&D has become a more open and considerate to different cultures, different way. Some people would use the term, it's become more woke, which yes, no, who knows? I think it's very necessary. And one of the big things that came out of this was
00:46:26
Speaker
the idea that there should be no races that are definitively evil. In particular, the drow, you know, people were very much like, hey, this has some bad connotations to it.
00:46:40
Speaker
And so Wizards of the Ghost with Ari Salvatore has been changing it, retconning that a little bit. They've been like, oh, yeah, no, the Lorian drow or the the evil ones. But then here's, you know, Ari Salvatore's new book that has the Saladin drow, I think they're called. And the drow who live up in the glaciers who are all good. But spoiler, maybe I'll shut up right now. Do you want me to shut up right now if you ever read this book? Oh, no, go for it. I probably won't remember anyways.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah, so the Lady Penance series is the sequels to the War of the Spider Queen in a way. Okay. So if you remember, Hylistra, in the War of the Spider Queen, she betrayed Loth, started worshiping Elistri and went to the abyss to try and kill Loth with the crescent moon blade.
00:47:38
Speaker
uh they were like hey no you're in my domain it sucks to be you you're captured now uh and so waltz tortured her for eons and eternity and turned her into the lady penitent uh a demonic drow to go hunt the worshipers of elastri
00:47:56
Speaker
very great book story thing. But in the end of it, it's revealed that the reason why Hellistra was able to be like, oh no, I should worship Hellistra and not be evil like all the Loth people is because her family was from the ancient bloodline who when Loth first betrayed the elves and the Drow first betrayed, it was done through the use of the magic of a baelor.
00:48:24
Speaker
the drow had the baler's blood put into their blood. So Hylistra's family, her brother, cast this canonically, elves could not cast, drow could not cast High Elven Magic. But they were like, oh no, we can do it because we're not tainted by the baler blood. We're going to cast it and separate
00:48:48
Speaker
are kind of lineage from the Drow. So in the end of the series, they cast this big magic ritual, Holistra's redeemed, her, you know, like all the people who are from her kind of lineage, she's far apart, all become pretty much gray skinned.
00:49:05
Speaker
elves Know and they're welcome up above the light into the light world again So back when this book was written in 2000 whatever 2006 or something like that they had already put down the framework for this to have there to be good drought and Then they came out with all this stuff with ours after which I do love all the new stuff with the drought. I was just like You can't forget like you already did you already wrote half of this?
00:49:35
Speaker
And that is the biggest puzzle in D&D, making sure your lore is consistent. Continuity, man. Continuity. I've brought it all back to the puzzles. Phew. Worth it. Worth it. This is from Princes of the Apocalypse, which is about the temple of elemental evil.
00:49:57
Speaker
This originally starts off with a fight. You're supposed to enter this chamber and see enemies and fight the enemies. Fuck that. Not really, but two massive stone pillars thread holes in the floor and ceiling of this vast chamber. Stone cross beams pierce the pillars to form spokes, creating giant wheels.
00:50:24
Speaker
Two rogue figures whips five-starred looking humans pushing across meaning that the Western wheel with all their might. As the wheel turns slowly counterclockwise you hear the grinding of enormous spears hidden deep beneath the stone floor. You have a very successful fight against the evil people and you kick their ass and now you're standing in this room. Across from the door you enter, there's no other door. You just see a window that looks out into a farther chamber.
00:50:56
Speaker
OK. So I've got essentially spoke wheel mechanisms in the room. Yep. And that that's really it. And this window and then five star humans to push the spokes where you want them to push. OK, well, I'm going to tell the.
00:51:23
Speaker
I'm going to tell the sorry humans to start pushing it in a upwards direction. So is it which way is the wheel direction? Is it direction towards the window or parallel to the window? That's a great question. So.
00:51:51
Speaker
pushing them counterclockwise would push it towards the window. Okay, so the wheel is laying on on its side. Yeah, okay. That makes Yeah, they're gonna get them to start pushing the wheel towards the window, say, quarter turn. Okay. So there are two wheels, are you doing both wheels or just one wheel?
00:52:19
Speaker
one wheel at the moment and I'm gonna go stand by the window to see if anything changes. All right, give me a perception check. 18 on the die and perception will be a dirty 20.
00:52:42
Speaker
Okay, so you are looking at this window as they push, we're gonna say the left wheel, you said counterclockwise towards the window. So as you do that,
00:52:59
Speaker
You see outside this window, there is a massive chamber that you can overlook with a kind of several stone bridges going over these large moats of water. As the wheel and the stone grinds counterclockwise towards the window, you see the water level rise and start to overtake these bridges. I get them to push it back.
00:53:31
Speaker
All right. It pushes back and you see the water level sink beneath the, uh, bridge. I get them to go over to the other wheel and do the same motion. Okay. Go. So they're going to go towards the window again. Okay. Uh, so counterclockwise and you see the water level rise again. Okay. So that's the exact same thing. I get them to push it the other way.
00:54:00
Speaker
OK, it goes back to its original level. Now, are these walkways connected? Yep, they're connected, so it looks like kind of like you're like the current chamber you're in as you explore this dungeon, you're looking into a way that you haven't gone yet. OK, and now the way that I came in is the only way that I can leave. Yes. And if I if I look out the window and look down, how far down is it?
00:54:32
Speaker
So looking down, I will say with a history check, you know, you can think of, yeah, make a history check. That's a 10 on the die with a history of 13.
00:54:48
Speaker
All right, so you think you know how you could get to this chamber through the ways that you came. Looking down the window, you see that the bridges are probably about 10 feet lower than you right now. It does seem like you have to go down a little bit to get to them. And then the water is just at the bridge level right now. Does it look like the water itself is impeding any of the bridges? Not right now. Not right now.
00:55:21
Speaker
So I'm going to get them to take both gears and turn them clockwise a full turn each. Okay. So they actually only go one way each way, but as, as they do that and they turn them clockwise, the water level descends all the way down. And do I notice anything at the ground level of where the water has dissipated?
00:55:50
Speaker
Give me investigation check. That's a natural one. Well, with an investigation addition to it, that would give me two. All right.
00:56:11
Speaker
Well, actually, technically, it doesn't say anything about giving, you know, for the sake of the puzzle and the sake of all of our sandies and artlessness. What you see as...
00:56:22
Speaker
as you kind of look at, actually, yeah, no, you wouldn't really need to even make, that you would technically be a perception in my mind. This is why when you run a puzzle, everyone, you should really take a moment, take a deep breath before you answer questions. There's no harm with just taking, I'd say this to the people who I manage at my escape room. Sometimes they're like, you really wanna talk to the guest fast, make sure that you're helping them really quickly when they ask for a clue.
00:56:49
Speaker
No, take a breath. Think before you speak. As you look out this window after the water level is completely down, you see that this moat goes down for probably about, probably like 20 feet or so. And at the bottom, trudging along is a stone golem.
00:57:14
Speaker
who looks like he can't quite, he's reaching for the bridges and can't quite reach them now. Does he look like an enemy? He looks like he's actively grabbing for the bridges, but you can't reach them. I'm gonna leave his ass down there and I'm gonna go down to the bridges and walk across the bridges. And you have solved the moat puzzle.
00:57:42
Speaker
If you had left the water at its area, or even if they had both not gone down fully, he would have had just enough less to get you to grab something very nice. Very nice. So that so little view into the puzzle, if I can find again, Jesus, I should not have closed my book. That was a mistake.
00:58:08
Speaker
You know, the official puzzle, it doesn't even really give a, it just says lowering the two, two, two, eight, three, stone wheels operate turning. A wheel can't be turned more than one revolution in either direction. And then it says in the other chamber, A11.
00:58:31
Speaker
A stone golem shaped, blah, blah, blah. When the moat is full, the golem is hidden under the dark waters. As the moat drains, the golem is revealed. The golem never leaves the moat. Some random people know how to command it, but those words have been lost forever. So one of the biggest things with puzzles is gaining inspiration. This wasn't super a puzzle, but I made it into what could be a very good puzzle.
00:58:59
Speaker
Now I have a surprise for you, my friend.
Surprise Puzzle Challenge
00:59:04
Speaker
Well, let's see what the surprise is. You solved two of my puzzles. Now I'm scared. I have a puzzle for you. This is a puzzle that I created today at work. Just for you. Oh God. Just for you. Well, I, I can take what I give. Right. Let's do it. You walk into a room.
00:59:25
Speaker
the door slam shut behind you. There's no handles upon the door to open it again. The room is a square 30 foot by 30 foot room with an eight foot ceiling. Looking up, scorch marks can be seen on the ceiling and scorch husks can be seen scattered across the floor.
00:59:40
Speaker
In the center of the room is a pedestal sitting upon a one foot high, five foot by five foot raised platform. One other door sits opposite to you, closed and with no handles to allow it to open. Two mirrors hang off the walls to the left and right. The mirror to the right has a scorched remain holding onto the mirror. What do you do?
01:00:03
Speaker
I like how I went for water and you went for fire. I'm just putting that very interesting, how that's how this is turning out. Ooh, okay. So scorched remains is looking at the mirror on the right. Yes. Okay. Eight high ceilings, the pedestal in the center.
01:00:26
Speaker
All right, I'm gonna check out the pedestal first. So as you walk up onto the platform of the pedestal, you feel it sink down to be level with the floor. And on the pedestal itself, you see a small little rune inscribed onto it and the rune reads out. Only the worthy shall pass. May your reflection lead your way. Your reflection lead your way.
01:00:56
Speaker
Hmm. I want to approach the left mirror as you step off the platform, you immediately start to hear a clicking whirling mechanisms start to go. I'm I'm going to go back to the pedestal door. Does the clicking stop still hear it?
01:01:18
Speaker
All right. I'm going to rush to the left pedestal, the left mirror. What do I see? So you run up to the left mirror and it is a probably about three foot by two foot mirror hanging off the wall and you see your reflection. Okay. Nothing behind me. Okay. Ah, can I look at the ground in the mirror?
01:01:42
Speaker
You can't, you look at the ground in the mirror and it just looks exactly like the ground that you see. As you do this, you hear a click again and you see the pedestal raise up an inch. Okay. Uh, I'm going to run to the right mirror and see what I see in there. Exact same thing, identical to the one on the left, except that Jowz has the scorched remains hanging onto it.
01:02:08
Speaker
And as you get there, you hear another click and the pedestal raises another inch. Okay. This is where it would really benefit to have another person with, uh, as we always say in this podcast, what did the pedestal say again? Remind me. Only the worthy shall pass. May your reflection lead your way.
01:02:37
Speaker
I mean, your reflection leads your way. I feel like I should have checked up mirrors first. God damn it. Can I take the mirrors off? You can. And as you lift the mirror, you find it to be exceptionally light, easy to carry around. OK, I'm going to carry it to the door that's locked. I'm trying to get through. So as you carry it to the door that's locked, you hear another click and then gas starts to slowly fill the room.
01:03:07
Speaker
I am a lizard, folks, so I can hold my breath for fit now. Ah, OK. Is there anything in the reflection of this door? So as you turn and you hold the mirror to show the reflection of yourself and the door, the door itself lights up with rudic inscriptions on it with lines. With lines? Can I read it at all? They're just lines.
01:03:37
Speaker
Okay. I traced the lines with my fingers. And as you do, the door opens. Yes. Oh, I shouldn't have clapped that really sparked my audio. Yes.
01:03:52
Speaker
Oh, thank God. I won't lie. I was sweating there. I was starting to feel the heat right coming at me right now. So you would have had two more opportunities before the final gas fill. And then one last turn before a spark ignited and the room combusted. Now, were you doing that based on like when I take an action? Yeah. The Okay, smart. That's, I think a classic way of doing it. I used a timer.
01:04:20
Speaker
for your as good as if every minute and eighth filled. So I like to use actions for my puzzles to give my players time to think.
01:04:33
Speaker
Sometimes I do use timers just because it likes to really aggravate and give the anxiety. But I feel like that makes them kind of stumble on their things. I want to give them a solid opportunity to do it, where they can think of the actions that they can take, do the action, and then there's a repercussion. Do the action repercussion. I like it. That's that's important thing right there. I
01:05:00
Speaker
I have not done so many of the action, repercussion, action, repercussion, but that's a good way of doing the puzzle.
Favorite Puzzle Experiences
01:05:06
Speaker
All right, well, we solved three puzzles today. There we go. And that's the dungeon problems.
01:05:26
Speaker
Alright, well it is time for the final question which I accidentally did not prepper you for before hats I know what it is. I know what it is. I'm ready God What has been your favorite puzzle ever TV movies video games trying to figure out how you're gonna afford to take a pretty young girl on a date in high school and
01:05:52
Speaker
My, my, my, my favorite puzzle is trying to plan a family vacation.
01:06:04
Speaker
We've talked on this podcast of how you should always give the players a chance of solving it. That sounds like an impossible puzzle right there. My favorite puzzle that I've probably ever come across in a game was actually just recently, pardon me, in the Bedlam of Neverwinter of the board game that I just recently played.
01:06:26
Speaker
and the puzzle was essentially a arcane book with inscriptions on it and you had another arcane writing on the floor and you had to essentially
01:06:41
Speaker
piece together the parts that were missing in order to fill the missing inscriptions. So you had two lines with inscriptions on it and the very last three were missing. So you had pairs of inscriptions and the inscriptions were mimicked on the floor. So you had to be able to look at it and follow it in a cross line from the floor to match it to the book.
01:07:08
Speaker
I don't know why that puzzle stuck with me so hard, but just the concept of having a visual that you had to mimic in order to solve a arcane book that you just really, really wanted to get into because magic just makes everybody twitch for some reason. That one, that one was just so good to me because it was so simplistic, but it really made you think.
01:07:50
Speaker
Don't find me if, actually, if you listen to this podcast, you probably already know where I live. I only have like seven listeners. Oh God, this is gonna come back and bite me in the ass if I ever pop off on this podcast. Well, actually, you can just search me up online. But if you're ever in Massachusetts, come to my escape room, because there might be a puzzle in a little bit that has that kind of very similar stuff. Well, now I know where to plan my family vacation.
01:08:00
Speaker
And it just, it was a solid puzzle that I really, really enjoyed that I actually plan on using in future campaigns.
01:08:22
Speaker
I would do it in the fall. That's the best time to come to Massachusetts. I'll keep that in mind. Awesome. Well, that is it for us today, my friends. Today, I have been joined with Chaotic Chris. Chris, tell them where they can find you. Once again, what you doing? You can find me over on Instagram at the KSN podcast. I'm over on threads, doing all the thready things that thread people threads.
01:08:48
Speaker
You can find my podcast on Spotify Amazon music pretty much any podcast platform that your little heart desires Except Apple because they're being a bunch of butts and I haven't been able to get into them yet. I'm working on it Sorry to my Apple friends. I'll get there one day
01:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, you can you can find me in all those things. You can find me every Monday night at eight o'clock Eastern Standard Time. PM that is at the World Forge on Twitch and YouTube. If you don't catch the stream, don't worry about it. We also have it on Spotify and you can catch it on YouTube as well. And that's that that's me. Awesome. Thank you very much, Chris, for jumping on. I've been Earthos Creations. You can find me everywhere to everywhere.
01:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, except I really don't use threads. I you should. It's a great platform. It is. It is a nice social platform like. Everybody's so wholesome.
01:09:52
Speaker
I've looked at it. I've seen some cool stuff, but I, for some reason I have a hard time because I use a social, uh, thing that posts for me. So I just schedule it and it sends it to Tik TOK Instagram and YouTube. Uh, you can schedule through Instagram to post from Instagram to threads. So you can schedule a post to schedule post.
01:10:18
Speaker
Schedule posts, schedule posts. Oh God, puzzles. The theme song was done by the dungeon maestro on TikTok and Instagram. Go check him out. And yeah, that's pretty much it for us. And thank you all so much for listening. And thank you for having me on your show. It's been a blast and I hope everybody listens and I hope everybody continues to check you out because your stuff is amazing.
01:10:45
Speaker
I'm going to turn pink. I'm already it's it's quite easy because of how white I am. But yeah, you guys will see chaotic Chris again on here because I am always looking for people to play puzzles and we'll have some fun with that. So thank you all so much for listening. Have fun. Do your best. And remember, I believe in you.