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Episode 9: Interview with Team Drew's Basement
14 Plays1 year ago
An interview between Erthos Creations and Team Drew's Basement.
My dear friend and I talk about his experiences DMing for so long; how he comes up with puzzles, and also his upcoming project!
Drew can be found at https://www.instagram.com/team_drews_basement/ drop him a follow to keep up to date with his WOSDEC Project!
The theme song was done by The DungeonMaestro on all social media
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Transcript
Introduction to Mysteries and Puzzles
00:00:11
Speaker
Sure a mountain never grows and winds a toothless spider Darkness fills up empty pools and turns an endless spider What we're here for is mysteries, but puzzles yet unsolved Such that secrets last to history has not your problem solved alone Attention!
00:00:37
Speaker
problem zoo, puzzle zoo, solve them all dungeon zoo, problem zoo, puzzle zoo, solve them all
Meet Drew: Passion for Puzzles
00:01:12
Speaker
My friends, I'm EarthosCreations, and today I'm here with my good friend Drew from Team Drew's Basement, who I've talked a lot about. God, no, that sounds, I see this, I hate, I hate. Oh God, my brain just- Don't edit any of this, it's totally creepy, but it's incredible. Team Drew's Basement, thank you so much for hopping on with me today. How are you today?
00:01:41
Speaker
I am delightful and I'm very excited to be here. I love the things you do, so be part of it. It's really exciting for me personally. Thank you. Thank you. Are you ready to talk puzzles, problems, and the hell that it is? I am ready to fail your quest with great... I don't know the word I'm thinking of, but I'm going to let you down real good.
00:02:05
Speaker
But I'm here for it. So let's do it. That's that's what it's all about, though. I mean, I want to do this originally because I love that everyone is kind of bad at puzzles. That's why people hate them, because quite frankly, the majority of people are horrible at them or at least not very good. So I want to I want to showcase that everyone's not great, but it is possible to overcome it and start this off with the question that I always start off with.
00:02:31
Speaker
Do you love puzzles? Hate puzzles? Are you blase about puzzles?
Evolution of Puzzles in D&D
00:02:36
Speaker
What's your feelings about puzzles, problems, and everything in between? I mean, that's an easy one. Puzzles, I don't love them, but I don't hate them. I think for certain player groups and everything, like as being a DM, as long as I've been a DM, some player groups really gravitate towards them. So I try to throw them in more regularly than otherwise.
00:02:59
Speaker
If it's like a normal group and it's up to me, I keep them pretty sparse. Because I also feel like if you do too many, it's like how many times, you know, with like Strad or some, or like Vecna, be like, oh, I see Strad has a puzzle involving three torches. Make me one that has four. You know what I mean? Like you can't use them in every single dungeon. It just becomes just too much at that point, I think. But I think
00:03:26
Speaker
I think using them smartly and sporadically I think really enhances the story and adventure. So yeah, you're in the middle ground. You're like, I don't love them. I don't hate them. But you do think they are kind of a necessary part of TTRPGs. Now, so far, I think you have the distinction of being the longest player slash DM that I've interviewed so far. I don't know how that makes you feel, but
00:03:54
Speaker
I feel old. Stay a while and listen. Because it's been my impression that D&D has changed a lot over the years, obviously. Tremendously. How long have you been playing D&D? What was your first edition? First edition was second edition. I've been dungeon mastering for 26 years. Never a player in a campaign.
00:04:24
Speaker
It's on your face. I didn't know you didn't know that. I had no idea that you've never been a player in a campaign. Yeah, dude, like, legit forever DM, like, is me. 26 years, if only DMed. Now, I can't say 100% purist, because when fourth edition came out, which is when I really expanded out beyond, like, my group of close friends,
00:04:47
Speaker
They were doing like these little adventure modules weekly. I forget what they were called, but it was like D&D adventures or something. I don't know. Adventures Guild or something like that. I don't remember. It was like in-store events are every Wednesday you could go and play like an hour and a half, like little. And that's when I start to venture out and really play outside my player group that I had come up with for 26 years.
00:05:11
Speaker
What do you remember about a D&D puzzles like did you back then? Did you use official modules?
Creating Interactive Combat Puzzles
00:05:17
Speaker
Did you make up your own modules back then? So back then, I mean, I started DMing when I was 14. So back in like second edition, like I use pre can ones or
00:05:30
Speaker
really did myself now when the internet became a thing and you could Yahoo search things um I would Yahoo search puzzles could um for anyone under the age of 23 right now used to use Yahoo for a search engine and the ever-popular ask Jeeves calm
00:05:51
Speaker
Oh my god ass jeeps. That's a man you really thrown back. But yeah, Yahoo was your only there was no such thing as Google. It was Yahoo or AOL and that was it. Excuse me, but I would make my own at times. But mine became less of like, I don't know if this is just the way I consider it. Like mine were less. Okay. What?
00:06:19
Speaker
is born with three legs, has two legs midway through life, and then four, or whatever, you know, whatever that, because us, whatever, you're born with four legs, two legs, three legs, it's man. Like, I did less of those and more of like, I would set up a room where there'd be statues, you'd have to like slide the statues around to activate certain things, and then if you got all three correct, you'd open the door, because, I mean, back in the day, like Zelda linked to the past, stuff like that, that's all stuff that I learned from. So,
00:06:49
Speaker
Me personally, I would use some of my own, but when I really first started in AD&D, it was really, look it up or read it from the book. I wasn't that clever. Do you remember any, I mean, this is what, 20, 30 years ago? I don't know if you remember any of the puzzles from back then in the official modules. Do you, what were they kind of like? Do you remember anything about them? One thing I remember was,
00:07:19
Speaker
some of them and i remember talking about my friends too at the time where some of them were so ridiculously easy and some of them were so
Community Feedback and Adaptation
00:07:27
Speaker
insanely hard and there was no middle ground not a bunch of them it was either your characters were fighting for their life trying to get this puzzle solved or it was oh yeah the answer was uh a gold coin and like he just carried on interesting no no middle ground that's that's how it felt at the time
00:07:46
Speaker
I feel like that's, that's, uh, that's true about so many puzzles. And I, you mentioned, you know, you started off with a little bit of a riddle there. Uh, and I feel that riddles are the quintessential puzzles that a lot of people think about. Uh, and they are the epitome of no middle ground of easy or hard, you know, like they're really easy riddle or really, um, a really hard riddle that no one has a chance of understanding unless you're Tolkien himself, you know,
00:08:16
Speaker
a hundred percent have you have you kind of seen puzzles evolve over the years or Do you think they're very similar to what they used to be? I know you do mostly homebrew now I don't know if you ever read any of the adventure modules at all. Oh, no, I I own every Dungeons and Dragons book with addition so I have the adventure modules too, but uh, I
00:08:40
Speaker
Because listen, you know, when you're DMing for a long time, even when you do homebrew, I draw from inspiration from them, so... It's a really tough question to answer because I'm having a brain fart right now. Oh, but in terms of evolution of it...
00:08:58
Speaker
I don't know, they still have that same feel. You can tell like they've become like a little more, they have a little more flair to them compared to what they used to be. It was like, this was the straight up puzzle, sell it how you want. Now they kind of give you a little more flavor to it. So if you are reading it from the adventure book or something, it feels a little more narrative as opposed to just, okay, here's the puzzle, figure it out and we can move on. But for me personally, I mean, my evolution for 26 years of being a dungeon master,
00:09:28
Speaker
is one of the things that I've done in my home campaign is I've put, I guess you would say a puzzle, like a puzzle into like a big boss fight.
Improvisation in Dungeon Mastering
00:09:39
Speaker
So while the people are fighting the boss, like one of the things that they do when they fought Panzuzu was they had to figure out that when they got hit by her, they were getting teleported based on a certain pattern.
00:09:50
Speaker
So as they were finding her, they're able to figure out that pattern and then use it to their advantage to like, you know, this person's gonna run up and stab her and taunt her, that they know that they're gonna be sent to the tower over here, and then they can manipulate the crystal because they're more aligned with that crystal, you know, like it's a whole... So for me, evolving them, I've made them more interactive as to just, you know, just solving them.
00:10:12
Speaker
I like I like that a lot having a puzzle with in combat that that gives everyone involved in it something to do because there's always the idea that you know like the barbarians never gonna be the one to go oh I'm gonna solve this puzzle you know but during if you have it mixed in with combat if you have a puzzle mixed into combat
00:10:37
Speaker
I feel like the players won't even think that they're trying to solve a puzzle at the same time. They're just like, oh, this is combat. What do we do in combat? We do this fighting thing. Oh, here's a part of the terrain when it's like, oh, you just solved a puzzle. You just. Right.
00:10:53
Speaker
I love that is a great idea right there. And that's something I'm definitely going to explore. One of my one of my hopes and dreams for this podcast is that, you know, I always want more different people to interview stuff like that. But I also want to bring back people from the beginning and kind of touch base with them on the ideas that they presented and show kind of how I've used it. So I'm definitely definitely stealing that copyright. I love you.
00:11:23
Speaker
I love you as a human being, so anytime you want me back, you tell me.
Playtesting and Player Engagement
00:11:28
Speaker
Shucks.
00:11:32
Speaker
So I really like that idea of a combat with the puzzle built into the combat. So one thing I did one time in a in a puzzle battle was everyone was fighting it's funny that you specifically mentioned a barbarian where they were fighting this creature that thrived on just slaughter like it was just this complete rage demon I was trying to
00:11:55
Speaker
it basically didn't care what it killed. If it killed its own kind, if it killed the adventurers, if it killed NPCs, it didn't care, it just wanted to kill. So one thing that they kind of figured out is there were some magical glyphs on the ground and one of them was like red and painted in blood and it was glowing and what wound up happening was the barbarian stepped onto it and I don't remember exactly where the check was but they made the check and they passed the check and they discovered that
00:12:25
Speaker
Every time that they spent or raged out, it actually stunned the creature. And the creature had to tell when it had this specific attack that would recharge that it would have a tell that it was going to use this attack. So when it went to use the attack, the barbarian knew he had to get to that glyph and rage and spend a rage.
00:12:49
Speaker
And that would actually stun it from being able to use that attack. So it would have to reset the attack again and recharge it. So it's little puzzles like that. I definitely can see where you maybe got inspiration for that from. That seems like very much a video game kind of mechanic right there. 100%. Is that stolen?
00:13:16
Speaker
It's not stolen, no. No, no, no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I was going to say, it's not stolen per se, at least that I'm aware of. But things like that, I think of World of Warcraft raids, where you have to have the DPS doing this while the range is pulling this guy, while the tank's over here, while the healer's over here. And that's how I think about inserting the puzzles into the combat is,
00:13:37
Speaker
doing it away like you said where everyone's involved doing something based on you know what they specialize in and it just adds an extra layer of difficulty but fun to the to the battle and if you ever want to talk about it deep in depth for your home use let me know man i'm all about it i
Solving Elemental and Card Puzzles
00:13:56
Speaker
I wonder, do you, when you come up with that one, because you homebrew all that yourself, when you come up with that concept of the puzzle inside of the final battle, inside of a big battle, do you try and build it around the characters that are in the party? Or I imagine yes, so because it's homebrew. So it is about them. I mean, always. I mean, in everything I do in my games, it's
00:14:24
Speaker
everything it is based on the party and their characters
00:14:28
Speaker
One of the things that I hope to someday do knock on wood is have published adventures, stuff like that. So one of the challenges I'm going to face that hopefully you and I will work on this, you know, next episode where we do we're building a combat puzzle, but have it. So it is what's the word I'm looking for? You not uniform, but like where it doesn't matter who's actually playing that everyone can do in a lateral.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, unilateral. My English degree is going so well right now. I have an art degree so I'm useless in the English language. Universal. Yeah, that's universal for everyone because definitely with your style where you're home brewing everything and
00:15:22
Speaker
and just suiting it to your players is great. Everyone, if you run your own homebrew stuff, I really like that idea for them, because it also helps with planning it. One of the troubles with problems and puzzles for DMs, in my opinion, is coming up with them. It is hard to come up with puzzles. So, ooh, nah, okay. What's your kind of process? If you were to write a puzzle right now, what would you start with?
00:15:52
Speaker
Well, again, I base it on the group, the player group that I have. But I mean, I'm not even kidding when I tell you that there's, back when Sir Humphrey Drains was on the air, there would be episodes where I just made a puzzle in the spot. Interesting. Where we'd just be, they'd enter a dungeon, I'd be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, you come across this chest, and then they open the chest, and I'm like, okay, all this triggers, this happens, this happens. What do you wanna do? And then from there, we've entered now a puzzle I just made up off the top of my head.
00:16:21
Speaker
The planner in me is just breaking into a cold sweat right now. I do love, I do love a good, uh, uh, good, uh, God words are failing me today. I am so good for an audio podcast medium when words completely improv because I'm so beautiful. I keep making me stutter. It's okay.
00:16:43
Speaker
This is sunburned from today. That's really getting you. You look you look flush improvisation. I like most DMS and most creative people. I love a good improvisation, but I am at heart a planner. But you said, you know, you've had it where you just come up with it on the spot. What goes do you know what goes through your mind when that happens or is it kind of just random and sporadic? So. To answer that the long way.
00:17:13
Speaker
You had mentioned before that you didn't realize I was DMing for 26 years. I don't know if you're aware that 99% of my stream when I was running D&D was all improv on the spot. There was very little that I pre-planned.
00:17:28
Speaker
I think I did know that because you kind of talked about the fact that you're like, I just got off a 10 hour shift and my kid was crying all night and I have D&D tonight. Let's go. Here we go. I don't know what's going to happen, but we'll find out. But for you, it's just, you know, you've been doing it for such a long time. That's kind of you can do it second nature.
00:17:50
Speaker
You know what, it's just my imagination, which has not to get too dark on your podcast. Part of the reason that got me bullied from second grade to 12th grade. My imagination is just endless. And I just always thinking about different D&D adventures. Like when I drive to work in the morning, I'll put on like the Diablo soundtrack and I'll just think of a whole bunch of different story hooks and practice voices. And, you know, so it's not so much I've been doing it for so long. It's just that like,
00:18:21
Speaker
The gears are always going. I'm always thinking about running a game or D&D or Wozzeck or something like, how can I do this? How can I do that? So when it comes time for the game, maybe I've already pre-planned it in my brain, but I don't realize it. So when it comes out in the game, it's just me taking what I thought about like on the way to work or something or on the way home from work.
00:18:41
Speaker
and just being like, oh, okay, cool. Vasul, you know, is here. He's involved the great tree. All right, so let's do something with the great tree and the symbols of the great tree and his goddess, Asisa, and we'll, you know, rework that. And I just, you know, pluck it from the brain. I just go off of, I guess, either what I prethought of and just adapt it or just, it just kind of happens because I'm touched.
00:19:05
Speaker
I mean, uh, yeah, that's imagination is very key to it to be very creative, uh, in all things about D&D, but puzzles as well. And I think the biggest thing for me that I've been learning recently is kind of what you just said, uh, practice practice makes perfect. It's an old, an age old adage that a lot of people say, uh, constantly just thinking about it, practicing kind of what you're doing. You don't have to like sit down and do it. You can just do it on the drive to home.
00:19:34
Speaker
And since starting this, I've been trying to do two puzzles a week, make two puzzles a week. I haven't succeeded all the time. But frankly, with 10 other things that I'm doing, it's a little crazy. But that's, that's a great idea of just, you know, if you want to come become a little bit better at puzzles, if you want to improve on it, you know, listen to podcasts that, you know, have puzzles in them, pay attention, rewind it and like mark down, there's a puzzle if you want to practice it.
00:20:02
Speaker
or if you're DM and you're making it, just go through it, you know, try thinking about on the way to work when your brain is kind of just not empty. But you know, when we're just sitting here planning a bunch of D&D stuff, or, you know, dealing with family dealing with work, you can't honestly put all your attention on it. But when you're driving to work, and you're just like, doo doo doo doo, I've driven this road for
00:20:26
Speaker
every day for 10 years. So practice makes perfect. And that's, that's a very good thing to think about. You can't just make puzzles one day, you know, hone that thing. So if you're DM, get ready to make a bunch of puzzles. Most of mine are absolute garbage. My best advice to you, talking about how you're planning on doing these puzzles and to any DM who struggles to make puzzles,
Creativity and Learning in DMing
00:20:55
Speaker
Don't plan on making a puzzle is the best advice I can give to you like don't say okay My session's Wednesday. It's Monday. I want to put a puzzle here. Let's do it Just I think that's one of my biggest secrets as a DM to give out to anyone listening and obviously to you as well talking about puzzles is Don't ever sit down saying I specifically want this thing just constantly randomly think about it and
00:21:25
Speaker
Again, you're like, oh, I gotta do two puzzles next week. But if you're just constantly randomly thinking about puzzles or different conversations you're gonna have in the game, I find that when it comes time to sit down and put that on paper, put it together, it just flows out. For me personally, because I'm neurotic when it comes to some things like when I'm trying to plan that out, is if I sit down Tuesday for my Thursday session and say, I don't wanna put a puzzle in here, I can't create one. It can't happen.
00:21:55
Speaker
If I'm there Thursday, throwing back a couple beers for playing the game, rolling some dice, and I just shoot one off at the top of my head because I've been thinking about them previously, I find that they flow out. So even for you, too, I would say, just relax, have fun with it, think about it, and then when it comes time, it'll come right out. Dude, you're as smart as anything and you make great content. I can't imagine you not being able to just let it flow out if you're just randomly slash constantly thinking about it. You know what I'm talking about?
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. That's I think that will be helpful for a lot of people will be helpful for me, too. You know, because at the end of the day, you know, sometimes the best puzzles are the ones that just come during the game. You know, they have a they have a door that they can't get past. They have to find their way through. And you're just like, oh, shit, I didn't even think that this door was going to be locked. And here it is. Yeah. So I will definitely be trying that.
00:22:48
Speaker
It will be interesting to overcome my already wired pre planning. But that's, you know, that's what D&D is. That's what TTRPG is evolving and learning new styles and trying new things. And that's one of the reasons I'm hosting this podcast to try listen.
00:23:05
Speaker
It won't work for everybody and it may not even work for you because if you're a preplanner and that's your mindset and that's how you do your games, then it may not work for you. I'm just saying for me, that's how I found a lot of success with coming up with them on the spot and not being like, okay, I have to make this. Shnikes, I can't think of anything. You know what I mean? That's just for me. Let's shift gears a little bit because I want to talk about
00:23:32
Speaker
other TTRPGs, other games. Super Dungeon Explore. Now I- It wasn't the portion of Super Dungeon Excited or something, it says something. Yeah. The sad thing is you told me the name of it, what, half an hour ago? So I'm still, whoop. And this is why I pre-plan my dungeons, because nothing stays in my head. So tell me about this
Engaging the Gaming Community
00:24:00
Speaker
game a little bit.
00:24:03
Speaker
It's a chibi dungeon crawler, man. It's cute as hell. You got heroes. You got all these different monsters that you populate the dungeon with. You set down the tiles, set up the dungeon, and you just go through and you fight these monsters. You fight a boss at the end, and everyone's happy. It's just a fun game.
00:24:23
Speaker
You said the magic word right there because it's in the name of this podcast. Dungeon. Are there puzzles in this game? Like, already pre-done puzzles, stuff like that? So it depends. There's currently three versions of the game, so to speak. There's traditional mode, which is basically... There's a console, which is basically the Dungeon Master. And they're playing against the players.
00:24:52
Speaker
I'm not overly familiar with that version of play because it's not my favorite way to play it Because I I'm a dungeon master every other day. I want to play against the players. Yeah There are little things in that that are puzzle s but not that I can say for certain the version that I play mainly is 2n3 so to speak or 2 is arcade mode, which is It's every player versus an AI version of the game Okay
00:25:18
Speaker
And in that, there's something called the arcade plot that happens every single time you play the game. It's after you kill the first spawn point, the plot spawns.
Wrap-up: Value of Puzzles in TTRPGs
00:25:27
Speaker
And from there, it's usually not an overly difficult puzzle. It might be like, you know, place a crystal token next to these three doors. And in order to stop taking damage per turn, you have to each player has to collect a crystal. Like, it's not like a super difficult puzzle, but it's puzzle-esque.
00:25:45
Speaker
So I'm imagining that they tell you kind of what to do in this. They're like, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like it's, it's more of a challenge as opposed to, I would say a puzzle. Yep.
00:25:58
Speaker
My version of the game, which is the third way to play, is called Wozdek. And that is, it's not an alteration of the arcade rules, but an expansion to the arcade rules, where you can campaign in stuff. And in some of the content I have, I have narrative dungeons, which have puzzles in them. I have raid bosses, which have puzzle fights in them. Like there are things,
00:26:25
Speaker
that you're building into it. Yeah, exactly. So you're putting the puzzles in there. Yes. Hallelujah. So I mean, one example, I'll tell you what, I'll give you some information that I haven't even released to the public yet. I heard it here first. You heard it here first. So the first raid is called the Elemental Temple of Jorgumo, which if you're not familiar with Mr. Monster of the Week, Jorgumo those like email half
00:26:56
Speaker
half Asian female, half spider demons. Yep. Kind of like a strider. So there's also a Yu-Gi-Oh! card called that just because I'm binging Yu-Gi-Oh! right now. Oh my goodness. Or back to my childhood. So Jorgumo is that and in my version of the game. Oh snap. Oh, it is a foil too.
00:27:24
Speaker
It's her and her two sisters. And the puzzle of it is, it's like that raid battle where each one has their own threat token. And as you play through, basically you have to have your tanks taking care of the sisters and doing a dance where they go back and forth.
00:27:42
Speaker
And the main boss, Dora Grumel, has to constantly be tanked by either a spellcaster or a ranged attack to constantly hold her threat so she's not attacking anybody else. And the more threat that the two tanks take, the more damage they take. So they have to keep switching back and forth to dump the threat of the one that they're holding to the one that the other one's holding.
00:28:05
Speaker
And it's not, I wouldn't say it's an extremely difficult puzzle, but it is something that the player group is gonna have to figure out how they're gonna shift their player group, how they're gonna move the healers, who's healing who, who's gonna tank what, when are they gonna switch. So it's a little bit of like a puzzle, but it's an end game raid fight too at the same time.
00:28:23
Speaker
Well, you kind of just ruined my next question where I was going to ask if the players are going to have to realize this themselves or if there's going to be kind of just like what's in the other way of playing where it's like, here's your objective. This is what you have to do. But you're building it in that the players have to discover this on their own. Are they going to discover it in the fight or are they going to discover it throughout the dungeon?
00:28:49
Speaker
So because of the way the game is set up, there will be a page in the end because the raid bosses have their own page of rules that essentially what they're going to do is they're going to read how to set up the fight and how the fight works. But while they're doing the fight, they're going to have to figure out, oh, OK.
00:29:09
Speaker
Alright, here's a little bit of spoiler. Oh, when this tank gets the fourth threat from the purple threat marker, that's when everyone has to switch because now they're gonna start taking too much damage. So now if they switch, it'll reset. So four is like the magic number where you wanna switch. So they're gonna have to discover that on their own, but how it's gonna be set up will be laid out for them. I'm gonna have to insert a little audio clip in between that part where I'm just like, if you're currently play testing, would you please do not listen to the next 30 seconds?
00:29:51
Speaker
how spoiled it is.
00:30:04
Speaker
not gonna get on the first try like that's not gonna go I saw this on YouTube I heard it on Earthosis podcast I know how to defeat this boss
00:30:13
Speaker
Someday I definitely want to, uh, I want a community or be part of a community where there's just, you know, where we play test puzzles against one another. That's, that's my hope for this podcast that, uh, I'm lucky enough to have people that you listen to it, uh, join a community based off of it and do exactly that. Cause you got to practice them. All the, all the thinking about the puzzles, writing down puzzles, coming up with them yourself until you actually experienced them and see how other people will do it.
00:30:44
Speaker
It's just, it's impossible to know if it's actually good or not. 100% because you'll figure out because when you create a puzzle, you know the answer, the puzzle you're creating. So you might say, this is how they'll do it. And I'll tell you, nine times out of 10, my playgroup always surprises me. And you think they're going to go right and they go left and then they figure it out a different way. And you're like,
00:31:07
Speaker
Amen. All good, but did not see that coming. Do you, do you think there's going to be anything, can you envision anything you would change about your plans for that right now? Or you, you don't even think like that. You just wait to see what the players do. In terms of Wozdek or dungeon master? Wozdek, Wozdek for the most part. Wozdek, I mean, I've got my loyal playtest group that I play with and
00:31:33
Speaker
I mean, they give me feedback if something's too hard, something's too easy, something's kind of boring, or something's kind of fun. I mean, they're pretty brutally honest. Brutally honest. I mean, that's what you need. But that's what exactly. But listen, I mean, as I get closer to the end of it, there are going to be certain things that I do want to hand out and have people play test.
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, and listen, you've got minis and you've got mats. I could send you just like, hey, here's how it's laid out. You know, you can substitute minis, whatever. Here's the base size that you need. Keep track however you want. Here's the cards. Give it a test. Let me know what you think. You know what I mean? I think I think one of the big things that I'm drawing a parallel with what you just said and problems and puzzles and stuff like that play testing is I've never played super super dungeon explorer.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yes, I can learn. I just said, you want to test it out on people, see how they respond to it. I think it's important that you get many different opinions.
00:32:41
Speaker
I do also have a group that I play with a lot. We play almost every Monday, and some of them are used to my style. I had a dungeon puzzle that I tried on them, and one of my players was like, oh yeah, he used this cipher. I already know this cipher. I'm like,
00:33:01
Speaker
Damn it. So always get back of what ciphers and puzzles you use so you don't reuse them on the same player. So yeah, definitely it would be it would be awesome for me to test that and see kind of the different the way that that works. Because, you know, I'm used to D&D. I play mostly D&D. I play some Monster of the Week. And when you're a creator, when you're working on stuff, always try and draw a different inspiration and learn from new things. Because that's how you grow.
00:33:31
Speaker
100% and I'll tell you what the day you you think that you are The best DM or the best puzzle maker and that people should be listening to what you think for Like this is how you should make puzzles. This is how you should run a camp at that moment. You're never gonna grow. I
00:33:52
Speaker
like you have to always especially as a dungeon mess I mean as we discussed before and like as it shocked you I've been running games for 26 years people like oh man you must be incredible I'm like no you know I just kind of do my thing and like and that's a genuine response to like I don't think I'm anything fantastic as my player groups will tell you like I just tell a story and I have fun with it and I think staying humble and always listening to other people's
00:34:21
Speaker
games or podcasts or streams and watching things like Critical Role. You don't have to like Critical Role to learn from it. Just watch what these other people do. Watch these other puzzles. Watch these other conversations and interactions or little plot hooks. And just always keep your mind open and you're going to learn and be able to create so much better. Don't ever think you're too good to learn from even like
00:34:45
Speaker
If someone's starting out with a podcast brand new, they just started a podcast. It doesn't mean that they didn't come up with something cool. Like always be open to just learn something new in the game. And you'll, and you'll do some really cool like puzzles, encounters, story hooks and stuff like that. So that's how I feel about it.
00:35:02
Speaker
Awesome. Great, great advice. Always open your mind to learning. And that is a great segue into trying to solve your own puzzles. Open your mind. Get ready because you're gonna solve hopefully two puzzles today. Would you like to start out with the one that I made, which I will say I think is a little simple, but I think is a pretty standard puzzle? Or would you like to start off with one that I read from somewhere else?
00:35:33
Speaker
So let's start with yours so I can either be completely depressed that I failed it or have some self-confidence going into the harder one. Alright, so this puzzle I have named Elemental Cleanup.
00:35:45
Speaker
The basic idea, the trigger is that the party walks into a circular chamber, the door locks behind them, something like that, and there's one of those, the walls aren't closing on them, the ceiling's descending with barbed spikes and poison dripping off of them. And in the center of this chamber is four tablets.
00:36:13
Speaker
and there's a little pedestal behind them with a basin and an inscription on the basin. The walls are enclosing, the ceiling is descending, and your claustrophobia is going hardcore.
00:36:31
Speaker
What's the first thing? I picked a good one for me. I'm so sorry, I should have touched... I hate enclosed spaces because of my size, so yeah. If anyone doesn't follow Team Drew's Basement and doesn't know that he's a swole masterpiece of a man, go follow him right now. So what are you going to do? What's your character going to do? The first thing I would do is I would take a look in the basin and read the inscription.
00:36:58
Speaker
are right. So one of the things that you can do if you're running this is have it be in a language have it be in a language that only one party member knows maybe something like that. But then stripped the the inscription. Sometimes I speak for more you. The inscription just reads, eliminate the elements using one another until none are left. Okay, at that point, I would definitely have to look at the
00:37:28
Speaker
or tablets in the center. All right. So they're numbered one through four. The second one just has an etching of a ball of fire on it. The. Did I say the second one or the first?
00:37:43
Speaker
You said the second one. Yeah, the second one has an etching of a ball of... I don't know why I didn't start with the first one. That's stupid. The first one has what appears to be a boulder on it. The third one has kind of a cloud on it. And then the fourth one has a drop of water. Okay, does the basin have water in it? The basin has nothing in it.
00:38:11
Speaker
No access to nothing to really pour water in there. It's just a big basin, and I will say with a passive investigation of 55. Hold on. That's a 19 on the dice.
00:38:26
Speaker
19 on the dice. You're looking at this and being the master stone cutter that you are, you realize that this basin is roughly about the same size as these tablets. It has a little bit of space in them and it seems like the tablets can slide into them. Okay. So you have fire. I'm okay.
00:38:55
Speaker
I'm having a stroke. To fire air earth water. Yes. So I think I know what to do. I'm just not positive about the order. Okay. Okay. Let's kind of work through this. Okay. So. Fire is weak against water. So I put the fire tablet in first. Okay.
00:39:21
Speaker
put the as you put the fire tablet in there, it sinks into the basin and disappears leaving behind the small fire burning within noodles. I have air, water and earth. I would put the water tablet and next to destroy the fire with the water.
00:39:44
Speaker
The water goes in and douses the fire. And now there's just a pool of water at the base. Oh, hell yeah. I would put the Earth tablet in next so that they can turn to Earth and absorb that water.
00:40:02
Speaker
This boulder descends slowly with a grating, similar to the grating as the ceiling is descending slower and slower. And the water gets soaked into this. And unless I put the wind in to blow it all away. So this is an interesting thing.
00:40:26
Speaker
I will say yes. So you put the earth, the air in and it slowly erodes the earth and crumbles it. And the basin is empty and the ceiling begins to rise up. Now, when I originally wrote this, by the way, you've solved the puzzle. I got one. I don't feel so bad.
00:40:49
Speaker
When I originally wrote this, I wrote, my idea of the solution of it was air, fire, water, earth. Cause fire eats air away. Yeah. Uh, because it's a, it's a tough one. Cause you could say water also erodes earth and earth beats fire. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. If you just specifically said a boulder, I was like, I was like, that'll,
00:41:18
Speaker
I'm like, I don't even know if this is going to count against war. It's overdue interpretation, that puzzle. And that's one of the things I like about it. I think the whole. The whole time I'm trying to solve it, I'm thinking to my head, I got no fire. I got a fire. I quit smoking from fifth element. It's like I saw a good picture. I think that that's definitely why I like this puzzle.
00:41:41
Speaker
Cause I mean, you solve that puzzle in what, five minutes maybe? Maybe that, you know, and that's, I will say that's without embellishment really, you know, I didn't go into like, you slowly hear, you know, the chinking as spears drop from the ceiling. You know, I will say if you would put like the fire on the water, I probably would have been like, it ruffs into scalding steam and you take 1d6 damage, something like that.
00:42:11
Speaker
So my debate again was was what we just discussed was the was the air. Yeah, because it was either. So my head, when when you start telling me the puzzle, I'm like, OK, when I put all these together, going to eliminate each other, let me put the fire one in first, because my thought was I'd have to eliminate the fire first. Yeah. So I.
00:42:32
Speaker
So the way I was looking at it was not the way you presented it, if that makes sense. I was thinking like I had to put down the fire. I mean, it was the same, but I was expecting the fire to become a fire. Yeah. I was expecting the tablet to eliminate the tablet. Now that was, that was improvisation on the spot. Just thinking of how I want to make this puzzle a little bit better and a little bit more of an audio medium. Yeah. Just because just hearing, Oh, the tablet descends.
00:43:00
Speaker
isn't as invoking as it turns into fire. All right, so we are one puzzle down. This one was created by me. If you liked it, please, please, if you use it in your games, tag me on any social media. I use them all because I have no life. Now we are going into the second puzzle of the night. This one I've taken from the Game Master's book of Traps, Puzzles, and Dungeons by Jeff Ashworth.
00:43:29
Speaker
I've mentioned this a couple times on this podcast. It's a very good book. I would highly recommend buying it on Amazon. And this is from the section gateway puzzles. It's a very similar idea. You know, you go into a room, you have to solve the puzzle to get out, which I've discussed previously on this podcast isn't always a great idea. You never want to just lock players in a room and kill them. That's why escape rooms, the doors are never locked. So this puzzle is called
00:43:59
Speaker
Actually, I'm not going to say the name. I'm not going to say the name because that kind of ruins the puzzle, in my opinion. In the middle of this room is an unlit bronze brazier, not bra brazier. That's how you pronounce it. Brazier? Brazier sounds like French. It's the French.
00:44:23
Speaker
I know what it is. I know what we're going with. We all know where we're going with and this is the age-old debate in D&D. Is it Brazier? Brazier? It's Brazier. Millions different ways, please. You're taking the hold of fire. In the middle of the room is an unlit bronze thing that holds fire.
00:44:43
Speaker
No. That's it. As you look within it, you see the burnt black corpse of a cat. Under one of its paws is a small package about the size of your hand wrapped in leather and knotted with twine. You come into this room, what do you do? I'm going to answer this twice.
00:45:11
Speaker
First thing is, if that's what I see, I'm going to keep moving because I know touching anything is a terrible idea. However, for the sake of your podcast, I would grab the package that it's holding. Yes, players, please. Well, I understand the desire just to turn around and leave the puzzle room. For the sake of your DM, try. Just try. You know what?
00:45:40
Speaker
Here's my problem with the Dungeon Master. How long have I been adventuring? What level am I? Would I have known if I traveled the world or am I brand new to adventure? That would affect how it approaches, but I would say it approaches like I'm level three or four. I'm gonna go up, I'm gonna see what the cat's, actually I would do an investigation on the cat. All right, give me a nature check. 15 on the dice.
00:46:09
Speaker
15 on the dice, so you're examining this burnt corpse of a cat. You notice that this cat, the bones are old. This cat has lived and died after a very long life. Alright, I'll reach down and grab the leather package.
00:46:29
Speaker
Alright, you open up this leather package. Randomly assorted throughout it, there are 13 cards of each suit. Hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. As well as two Joker cards. All the faces cards reveal regal looking felines while the two Jokers are dogs. What's your, uh, give me an investigation check.
00:46:57
Speaker
That's a natural 20. Natural 20. As you're opening this, you see that in scrawled on this leather wrapping that you were about to throw away like everyone who unwrapped something. You notice that there's writing on this leather wrapping. Our small feline friends, their wits most distinguished.
00:47:21
Speaker
push to great, great ends, their chances extinguished. And like every single puzzle out there in the world, there's a riddle. Although I will say it's not really a riddle. This is more of a clue. This is not a riddle, in my opinion, though it has that kind of feel. It is a clue.
00:47:44
Speaker
Repeat it one more time.
00:48:03
Speaker
I'm going to be honest, my opinion of this puzzle is it's a little too vague still. But what else is in the room besides this cat, rosier, and the deck of cards I now hold? So, ah.
00:48:18
Speaker
Now, in this writing, there is nothing else in this room per se. Okay. Now, I will say I would throw in a flint and steel and a little bit of firewood, probably. I was gonna say, is there something I can use to put a fire in this bronze here?
00:48:38
Speaker
Yes, there's a flint and steel. You strike it a couple times because it's old and worn and a fire lights. Now, as you light the fire, you notice that the cat itself is not burning. Interesting. I would like to throw the two door cards in there. So.
00:49:08
Speaker
You throw two cards in there. And the flame lights this black and you take a little bit of necrotic damage. Now did the cards burn? The cards did burn. Okay.
00:49:36
Speaker
So now out of the cards remaining, you have 13 cards of each suit and no more dog joker cards. Can I take out that cat? I would say no, because now there's a fire burning. So if you want to take some fire damage, yeah. I'll take some fire damage to pull out the cat. All right, you pull the cat out.
00:50:03
Speaker
take all the fire damage it radiates with a little bit of magic I will say you're an arcane spellcaster so you you get the sense that there is a little bit of magic on this I would like to take out my dagger and open up its abdomen it is
00:50:24
Speaker
Well, it doesn't say that's only bone. So yeah, this horrid smell erupts as you cut open this ancient decaying abdom. Abomination? Yeah, I was going to say abdom. But abomination also works. I want to shove the deck of cards inside its body. You shove the deck of cards inside of its body. And then put it back in the fire.
00:50:56
Speaker
You know what? Okay, that does not say anything about that. Does not say anything about that. And then, in some way, I would like to extinguish the fire with the cards inside the cat. So I will say...
00:51:19
Speaker
As you throw those cards into its stomach and once again kind of splat it on the fire, the fire roars to life and the cat crawls out slowly.
00:51:34
Speaker
It's bony claws pushing itself out of the brazier. And you see as its flesh begins to meld and heal and suddenly before you is a living cat and it retches up a hairball with a key inside of it. Mr. Mittens, thank you.
00:52:01
Speaker
And take this cat on my journey. You now have a semi half dead potential cat. You've solved the puzzle. Did I really? This puzzle was called nine lives. The real way of solving it, the official kosher way of solving it is by taking cards one through nine for the nine lives of the cat and throwing them in order in the fire.
00:52:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I did not. I did not. You kind of did. It doesn't say it can't be all at once. It has nothing to do with being inside the cat, but. It was, it was unset, but I stacked them in order, you know. Yeah, hey, you know.
00:52:52
Speaker
You said it was 13 cards in suit. You know, I was like, all right, so it's it's a fresh deck of cards. Yeah. Let me shove them inside. And my whole thought process was put the cat in there and then extinguish the fire with all the cards in the cab because the cat doesn't burn. Yeah. Hey, you returned the nine lives to the cat right there. I figured getting rid of the door cards, doing that extinguish it based on what I read in the thing.
00:53:36
Speaker
that is complete though organized randomly. So I don't know if I said that or not. If you did, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't hear it, but this media didn't say it. Hey, I don't worry. I'll be listening to this podcast over and over and over and over and over and over and over again as I edit it. But at the end of the day, I say you solved it. We're two for two today. There we go.
00:53:46
Speaker
But yeah, apparently I just went completely weird.
00:54:02
Speaker
I'm going to start coming up with harder puzzles. You gave me that last one, but I'll take it. So the thing I changed two things about it. So when you threw the dog in there, technically the book says like if they throw the wrong card, if they throw the wrong cards in too many times or something, it summons rates like cat rates to attack the party.
00:54:28
Speaker
Uh, I obviously didn't want to start combat in the middle of our little podcast here. All right. So the final question that I wrap up every podcast with what has been your favorite puzzle or problem that you've seen in any form of media that just sticks with you as being great. And you talked about this before and I didn't have an answer then like, so I have an answer, but I have to clarify.
00:54:58
Speaker
The answer before I give it. Okay. So one of my favorite puzzles ever of all time was not necessarily the puzzle itself, but how it was handled by the players. That counts. I created a puzzle of, uh, it was the torso, uh, essentially of a woman chained to a door.
00:55:25
Speaker
no head, no arms, no legs. I don't remember the exact rules because I'm talking like this was like a decade ago, easily, maybe more. But they basically had to piece her back together magically so she could be torn apart so the doors could open. And I don't remember exactly how I set that all up, but what I specifically remember
00:55:51
Speaker
is the players just really coming up with incredible, incredible responses of, well, where's her leg? And then someone made one out of, it was a druid who basically nature crafted a leg and attached it to her. And there's really unique ways of solving the puzzle that I was like, no, I'm going to roll with this. This is great. So the puzzle itself may be not my favorite of all time, but the way the group handled it. Other than that, I'm a big fan of Scrabble.
00:56:21
Speaker
So I don't know if you can say that at Puzzle Game, but I really enjoy it. I think both are great answers because it's not always about the puzzle. It's about how the players solve it. It's about, you know, that's the most memorable thing about D&D. It's not, you know, like, yeah, the stories are memorable. The stuff that us, the DMs come up with are memorable. But at the end of the day, it's about the entire story. It's about, you know, how the players interact with the world. And then Scrabble. Oh, yeah. Scrabble is
00:56:51
Speaker
is a huge it is a puzzle it's a fun challenging it's that my least favorite puzzle game you ever played mastermind i have not oh i hate that game with a burning passion cannot stand it childhood trauma what a garbage game
00:57:12
Speaker
Oh, now all the Mastermind fans out there are gonna come for us. They're gonna be like, no! They can come for me all they want. It's my opinion if you love the game. Powers, bless you. I just, I can't. Anytime there was like, hey, look, they got Mastermind. I'm like, blah.
00:57:31
Speaker
Guys, this has been Arthos creation with Drew, or well, Drew from Teen Drew's Basement. If you don't follow him on Instagram, go check him out, because he does a lot of different fun variety. And if you like the sound of Super Dungeon Explorer. There it is. Yeah. Then go check out his page because he is making his his what do you call it? Your your version, your
00:58:02
Speaker
of campaign rule supplement for the game, I guess you could call it. Campaign rule supplement. So check out his journey on that. Drew, thank you so much for coming on with me today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you, my friend.
00:58:15
Speaker
Always, man. Thank you for having me. This was a blast. Awesome, guys. The theme song was recorded by the dungeon maestro on TikTok and Instagram. Go check them out. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok everywhere at earthoscreations.
00:58:30
Speaker
We'll be back in two weeks time with another interview, this one with Vince Perino or Jet the Boulder Chambers from the Cast Party podcast. Listeners, thank you so much for coming in today. Remember, have fun, do your best, and I believe you. Believe you. I believe you. I believe in you. I believe in you in your ability to solve puzzles. Until next time, when we solve more dungeon problems.