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Episode 22: Interview with DMJeremy of Oldmenrollingdice
24 Plays6 months ago
I got the chance to sit down with DM Jeremy from Oldmenrollingdice and we had some fun! We discuss a whole lot of different TTRPGs and how some of the puzzles work for them. He brought some fun tactile puzzles... that sadly you won't get to see...
You can find him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/oldmenrollingdice/
Or on twitch at
https://www.twitch.tv/dm_jeremy
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:11
Speaker
Sure amounts and never grows and wins 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 dungeon problems solved alone. Dungeon zoo, problem zoo, puzzle zoo.
00:00:41
Speaker
So.
Jeremy's Podcast and Rebranding
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of the Dungeon Problems podcast. This is Earthos Creations. If you're just joining us for the first time.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hello, it's nice to see ya. If you've been here for however many episodes, I think I'm at 22 now, welcome back. It's great to see you again. Today I am joined by actually, fun fact, the man who was my very first test subject way back when when I was first visiting if I could do this or not and we went on Instagram Live for an unboxing. Today I am joined by Old Men Rolling Dice or DM Jeremy. Jeremy, how you doing today?
00:01:48
Speaker
Not bad. I didn't know that was sort of your test run when we did that unboxing. I remember that. I think we were unboxing miniatures, weren't you? Yep. I just picked up a whole box, a whole crate of miniatures, but I was testing to see if I could record the audio from the live well enough.
00:02:08
Speaker
And I did two episodes like that one with Barbarian Barbie and one with all father games The audio was not both great people by the way Yes, great people. I'm I'm planning on revisiting the old guests and seeing how they're doing puzzle wise But that will probably be like after the 50th episode although technically now I'm revisiting you The original the OG
00:02:37
Speaker
So tell the fans where they can find you. What
The Role of Puzzles in D&D
00:02:41
Speaker
should you do? So you can find me on my podcast, Old Men Rolling Dice, which is, you know, maybe doesn't have, we've kind of restarted our number there. So I don't have, I certainly don't have 22 episodes, but you can find the podcast pretty much anywhere you download your podcast from. But probably the best place to find me and sort of chat with me is on Instagram at Old Men Rolling Dice.
00:03:07
Speaker
Uh, or on my Twitch channel, which is DM underscore Jeremy. I should probably change the Twitch channel to old Ben rolling dice, but I, maybe. Yeah. I, I, I love your Twitch channel the most just because I think you run so many great games on there. So thanks check out all of his content, but I recommend the Twitch channel the most.
00:03:31
Speaker
because you're running a whole bunch of different games. Humblewood right now, right? Yeah, we switch it up. We switch it up. We're running Humblewood on Tuesdays right now. And Humblewood is almost over. And I think when Humblewood wraps, we're going to be trying a game called Deadlands, which is sort of zombies and cowboys in the Wild West. And then the other game we run is Castles and Crusades on Sunday night. We just started that campaign. We just did session four. So yeah.
00:04:02
Speaker
So you heard it here. This is a good point to jump in on that campaign. That's right. Fresh is still new. Come say hi and bother us. That would be great. Channel point redemptions. Oh, that's right. So now time to ask the question that everyone loves hates and or maybe is blasรฉ about but what are your thoughts on puzzles? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Are you blasรฉ about them?
00:04:27
Speaker
I wouldn't say I'm blasรฉ, but it's a difficult relationship. Let's say that. I DM a lot. I don't get an opportunity to play as much. And I'm fine with that. I really enjoyed being the DM or the GM, depending on the system. So I would say that I like being the DM behind because I know the solution. And I like watching players struggle with that or delight in coming up with an answer or a solution.
00:04:56
Speaker
to whatever puzzle's been posed to them. As a player, maybe not as much, like being in the dark and having to try to figure that out. Maybe not my favorite thing to do in Dungeons and Dragons or role-playing games, but yeah, so I sort of have a love-hate relationship depending on what side of the screen I'm at, but I do believe regardless of what side of the screen I'm on, puzzles is like,
00:05:24
Speaker
a key to the great Dungeons and Dragons sort of Trinity, like puzzles. If you've got combat and you've got role playing, the third piece of that puzzle is the puzzles. Yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Well, let me ask you a question right now, based on what you just said. You like being the DM and having the puzzles because you know the answer and you like watching them solve it.
Balancing Player Preferences
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah. And you don't like trying to solve it on your own eventually. So the very first question, well, second question is, when you have these puzzles, do you typically just find puzzles other people have created? Or do you create your own puzzles as a DM? So very commonly, I
00:06:09
Speaker
find other people's puzzles and then twist or add things to them for my own game. Sometimes I'll just rip them right off and not make any changes but I always find like if I if I witness a puzzle being done to a group of players like let's say I'm watching a stream on Twitch or you know I'm at a convention and listening in on the table sometimes I'll be like
00:06:36
Speaker
Okay, I like this puzzle, but I don't like how it's being presented. If it was mine to present, I would do it this way or that way. So yeah, a little bit of tweaking, maybe. And generally speaking, I would look for puzzles, probably not in a role-playing game.
00:07:02
Speaker
setting like, you know, maybe my kids bring something home from school, a puzzle that they're working on for one of their classes or something, maybe a math puzzle or, or something in science or even art. I'll and then and then take that use that as inspiration to turn it into something that's relevant for a role playing game.
00:07:24
Speaker
I just had a thought of a puzzle that's just a paint by numbers kind of thing. That would be I don't know why but he said art art in like school I was like I don't know why I went to paint by numbers.
00:07:37
Speaker
One of them is I typically make my own puzzles. So the reason why I don't mind them as a player, because when I make my own puzzles, it's like me trying to solve it myself when I'm coming up with a current set. So that's one of the reasons as a player myself, I like puzzles. Sometimes, like most people, I do get frustrated. But I notice that oftentimes when people don't really make their own puzzles and just
00:08:06
Speaker
tweak and gain inspiration. They tend to not like them so much as a player because they aren't practiced in the design of puzzles. I feel like good puzzles take a bit of thought. Like it's not so if I'm prepping for a game like I enjoy drawing maps and I enjoy coming up with ideas
00:08:29
Speaker
uh for a new monster or a variant of some monster that's already out there so those things and those things don't take a lot of you know brain power i think i think the thing that puzzles my experience with puzzles is some players arrive at the table they've had a very long week of work they maybe have a family and they just want to sit down and roll dice so sometimes the puzzle doesn't hit i think because they're like look
00:08:59
Speaker
I'm frustrated in every other stream of my life. Like I've got a lot going on. I don't want to solve your puzzle right here, but I do not like, clearly know your audience because there's certainly players that enjoy them and the game is not the same without them for them.
00:09:18
Speaker
That just hit me in the feels so bad, because tomorrow I'm running Descent Into Avernus for some friends. And I'm just thinking, I don't want to, I just want it there to be a combat. Because I've had such a long week at work, I'm just like, as the DM, even I just want combat. And I just realized that that's so true right there where
00:09:42
Speaker
It would be interesting to see before you actually run a game, what type of space your players are in. Yeah. Maybe do a check in before the game and be like, Hey, what type of head space are you guys in before we play this game? That way, if they're like, we're really tired and exhausted, you don't throw a puzzle
Innovative Puzzle Solutions
00:10:01
Speaker
at them. Yeah. Yeah. And I think knowing your audience, I mean, you'll, if you, if you start out a new campaign with a group of players you're with, it's not long before you realize, Oh,
00:10:11
Speaker
John likes combat. Jim prefers like exploration type stories and Amanda, she likes puzzles. So of course you got to sprinkle it all in for all those three different players. But maybe you don't have a table like that. Maybe you're like all of my tables are John's and they all like combat or all of my my entire table is Jim's and he wants to explore and meet NPCs like the whole tables like that or
00:10:39
Speaker
I've never had this table, but maybe they're all Amanda's and they all want puzzles. I've never had a group like, usually my puzzles are for a specific player at the table. I'm like, I know they like puzzles. So I'm going to do a puzzle for them, but I've never had a whole table of puzzle people. That would be interesting. That would be a lot of work in my opinion. As you said, making maps and tweaking monsters, like that comes pretty easily, but coming up with puzzles is very difficult.
00:11:08
Speaker
I think there's a different part of the brain for that. Like I think that I think that being creative and creating monsters and maps and that like I find that very relaxing. But having to think out a puzzle. Oh, that's tricky. What do you kind of when you are tweaking puzzles, seeing puzzles, what type of puzzles catch your eyes?
00:11:29
Speaker
Um, so I brought, I brought some examples because these are my favorite, uh, because if, if I'm playing at the table, I don't, I really like tactile puzzles, like something that I can give over to the players, um, to like, to like play around with. So like we talked, I showed you before we came on this, uh, what did you call it? A DaVinci? It's a DaVinci Cryptex. I believe he's the one who originally.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, so it's got like these spinner wheels and letters all over it. And you can go through and pick a word and set it up so that it opens on that word. Right now the word for mine is cobold and it opens. And then inside, the nice thing about this, I picked this up off of Amazon. There's a place you can put a note. $0.99. You can put a little note inside and everything. So you can really like lean into, and I love props at the table. If you're gonna sit down at a table, I think props are great.
00:12:26
Speaker
Um, and then off of that, off of that puzzle, I, I came up with this block puzzle. My kids had a bunch of old toy blocks that they weren't using anymore. I put letters and symbols on all six sides so that, you know, I had a couple of different combinations for different words than that.
00:12:46
Speaker
And so again, they can find I, you know, put the blocks all over the dungeon. I maybe describe them made out of like a strange stone or metal, but they still get the block in their hand to work with. I find that puzzles like that. My experience has been puzzles like that hit better because they're not they're not only. Like you could you could mess up a description and one player
00:13:13
Speaker
thinks they're dealing with one thing and another player thinks they're dealing with another in in how the puzzles working. But if you actually like hand over the physical puzzle, whether it be these blocks or the Da Vinci, the Da Vinci lock or, or, you know, I'm trying to think of what else there could be as a map. Yeah, exactly. Anything like that. Something that you have to piece together like different parts of a map and you're not sure how they all fit.
00:13:41
Speaker
Um, like literally a jigsaw puzzle. I find that that's, that's very helpful at the table. The problem is in this day and age, and I don't know how many games you're involved in, but like most of my games are played online. So the tactile, here's your blocks or, you know, here's your, I'm going to give you a box and it's got a lock on it. And, you know, you have to figure out the combination for the lock, like all these things.
00:14:11
Speaker
Um, there's not really space for it because you're online. So I this came up once a couple, maybe like 10 episodes ago, but I had a thought of I was going to be running a just a one shot game with some tactile stuff that I wanted
00:14:29
Speaker
So I was thinking about just mailing it to all the players. Oh, I love that idea. I've never, I didn't even think of that. Then the costs would just be maybe insane. But, you know, who knows? Maybe your players would be like, cool. Yeah, let me send you $10. Let me send you, you know, $20 for the shipping. Yeah, maybe for a great chips in.
00:14:49
Speaker
I think the thing that I just had the idea, so for those of you listening at home, which is everyone, although I could turn this into the social promo for the episode, you held up those blocks. Yeah. And those are pretty common blocks that you can find out of Michaels, Hobby Lobby. Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:08
Speaker
whatever stores you have around you and you can get blank ones. So the amount of puzzles you can come up with with those alone could be like you have letters on them right now. I was just thinking instead of letters, I could put, you know, specific lines on it. So they have to piece together a word or something like that and figure out how to do it. There's so much you could do with it.
00:15:35
Speaker
And, oh, based on how they put the word together, depending on what they get a certain thing happen. So and then after I had done that for a while, we had used these blocks a couple times with the letters and I just took like a permanent magic marker on and wrote the letters on each side.
00:15:53
Speaker
Then I went a step further, I got a stamp that would stamp a couple little stars on the side. And on a couple of the sides, I started putting the stamp up in the corners. So now not only not only did they have to assemble letters, but sometimes it had to be all letters with stars on them. Like they could if the if the letter didn't have a star on it, that obviously wasn't the right one.
00:16:19
Speaker
and just make it a little extra tricky. But yeah, kids blocks, I mean, in my case, they were just, my kids had outgrown them and they were just sitting around the house doing nothing. So I was like, I'm gonna repurpose them.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, oftentimes in the TTRPG space, they joke that, you know, you never want to give a puzzle to your players that like a kindergartener couldn't solve because they can't figure it out. So I mean, why stop there? Just find kids toys and give that to them. I agree.
Exploring Diverse RPG Systems
00:16:54
Speaker
I agree. I think there's some truth in that the whole like
00:16:59
Speaker
I've given some really simple puzzles before. Uh, I've even tried the whole, when they talked, I've seen that meme and it's like, this came off of a kid's mat at, you know, whatever, whatever fast food restaurant, exactly. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to use that. Like I'll just use that. And sure enough, um, players inevitably overthink it. Like it's, it's the simple answer. Impossible, impossible. Like they have to go further and further and further.
00:17:28
Speaker
And then you're like, you left a simple answer back there and that was the right one. Players will always, sometimes they'll sound you and really get a puzzle. I one time forgot that my, one of my players remembered a cipher that I used once before and I put it in front of them and she just went, Oh shit, I know this. Give it to me. And I was like, Oh crap. Oh, well, there goes the next 20 minutes of the game that I had planned. Exactly.
00:17:58
Speaker
Um, so, uh, the, who we talked about, uh, over at the Vocter is very good at word riddles. Like, you know, when you're like, you're like, I'm going to give you a riddle and the answer is a mountain or a river or whatever the case is. Um, she's very good at those. So I gave up trying to beat her with riddles like that. I need to write notes cause she's on next take notes. She's very good at word puzzles. Very good. I.
00:18:27
Speaker
I need to start categorizing.
00:18:44
Speaker
puzzles because we've mentioned a whole bunch like Team Drew's basement a friend of ours likes to do combat puzzles where you have to figure out the puzzle inside the combat you know we've talked about just like riddles stuff like that closed door puzzles but you mentioned you really like maps
00:19:05
Speaker
it would be interesting to build a puzzle within your map. Because on your streams, you use maps in a beautiful way. And I'll be honest, I don't see a lot of streams who use maps anymore. I feel like maybe I'm just watching all the wrong ones. Maybe. But you always put your map up there. So it would be really cool to see if you could embed a puzzle into the map.
00:19:30
Speaker
That would be a cool idea. That would be a cool idea. Maybe in the, maybe an overland map and there's some sort of puzzle hidden within the names of the places and the towns. That could be something that could be used in a game for sure, for sure. When I was, now that you've mentioned that, when I was really younger, and I'm old, there was this thing you could order, I feel like it was in the back of comic books,
00:19:59
Speaker
where you could get an invisible ink pen. And then with a little bit of heat from a candle, it would bring it out, bring the writing out. I totally forgot about that. That would probably, that would be a very cool idea. And you could do that with a map. And I think it's very Lord of the Rings, because I think that's how like the moon runes or whatever on one of the,
00:20:25
Speaker
The map the dwarves have for Lonely Mountain or whatever uses moon rooms. That's kind of... I work in an escape room.
00:20:33
Speaker
and we have blacklight markers and flashlights. And I mentioned a while ago that it would be really, I wanna say to my players, like, hey, you have free access to anything in this game room. When you find stuff, when you, you know, if you fight a monster or something like that, you know, or if you're going up against a monster, you can use these books to like,
00:20:58
Speaker
trying to figure out how to fight it, consider this your library, and then also just have like a little black like flashlight and then just ever so often like scan the handouts that I give them. That would be very cool. So you work at a escape room?
00:21:15
Speaker
oh yeah oh my gosh no wonder you like puzzles my man i was actually going to say some of my inspiration came from we took uh we took the family to a couple escape rooms and there was this uh lock there it was like a padlock but instead of numbers or anything it was just directional like left right up down and i thought to myself geez that would be great if you had a
00:21:38
Speaker
like a box or something, because again, I love the I love the putting something down on the table like that, put down a box with one of those locks on it. And if the party can figure out the sequence of up, down, left, right, whatever it might be, it would open and maybe there's maybe there's a map inside there, who knows. But yeah, those locks, there's all sorts of things out there on the market that you can get for a pretty good, you know, without breaking the bank that you can then utilize as a puzzle in your game, for sure.
00:22:06
Speaker
the amount of locks that are actually in creation, like you don't think about it until you actually like work, go to an escape room, work in an escape room. Because like growing up, the only locks I'd ever been exposed to was maybe a padlock key lock. And one of those locks for your locker where it's three times to the right, two times to the left.
00:22:29
Speaker
But then we have directional locks. I've heard about locks that you sound like you have to play a specific sound to unlock it with the buttons or something like that. So there's some weird stuff out there.
00:22:48
Speaker
So I want to ask you about you. I mentioned this earlier about your Twitch stream. You run a lot of different games. Correct me if I'm wrong. Humblewood is based off 5e, correct? Humblewood does use 5e. Yeah. And it puts your 5e game into the world of Humblewood. And I'm not the expert here. Ryan runs that for me on my stream.
00:23:12
Speaker
uh Ryan of Canadian dice but um but Humblewood is basically yeah I love Canadian dice too I mean hey what can I say uh that's he Ryan and I met a little while ago and now we literally do everything together he comes over we play board games we go to conventions together like we play video games together it's crazy um but Humblewood is like D&D 5e it uses the D&D 5e rules
00:23:38
Speaker
where it's really different is it changes up the races it gets rid of your standard sort of Tolkien dwarf elf hobbit halfling whatever you want to say and replaces it with animals and there's two types of animals types there's like
00:23:54
Speaker
bird folk and then humble folk and humble folk are things like mice and deer and you know i think there's fox and raccoon and and anyways so it's very animal kind of friendly and i had my reservations about playing that because i was like oh man oh like what the and then i you know then of course i just got ridiculous and i'm like okay then i'm playing a rooster
00:24:23
Speaker
And I just went with it. His name is Woody Morning Glory. He's a rooster. He follows the goddess of, you know, the dawn because he's again a rooster. Yeah. And and just really leaned into that. But I have had fun in that campaign, like. My reservations about like, is this just going to be a silly animal cartoon?
00:24:49
Speaker
No, and we're running the actual adventure from the box set and it has been relatively well written too. So it's been fun. Humblewood's been good. Now you also play Castles and Crusaders. Castles and Crusades. Did you just get into that recently? Yeah, Castles and Crusades. So, I mean, the long story is I have been unhappy with D&D 5E for about two or three years now. And I started looking at alternatives.
00:25:19
Speaker
I still play, just for the record, I say I say I was unhappy with I still unhappy I guess with the indivivi, but I still play it I still DM it. So I was unhappy with it and I started looking at other other games that I could
00:25:39
Speaker
I wanted a fantasy game that wasn't Dungeons and Dragons, basically. Yeah. So I looked at dungeon crawl classics. I played that for a while. That was fun. Which led me to mutant crawl classics, which is also very fun, both by Goodman games. I tried to pick that up actually at PAX East mutant crawl classics or dungeon, dungeon crawl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you love random tables, if you're willing to just throw all
00:26:06
Speaker
all inhibitions to the wind and say, I could roll that and a table will tell me I'm dead. I think Dungeon Crawl Classics is maybe for you. It was a little too random for me. I still love it as a one shot. I don't think there's a better one shot than a Dungeon Crawl Classics one shot. Anyways, it eventually led me to this exploration of old school games and getting to know the OSR community, which is sort of the old school revival or old school Renaissance community.
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, that led me to Castles and Crusades, which if you're not familiar with it is like if if we went back in time to second edition Dungeons and Dragons and before third edition came out, we said, you know, we inserted Castles and Crusades because it's kind of like it feels very familiar to second edition Dungeons and Dragons just with a lot of things cleaned up to make it easier and
00:27:04
Speaker
you know, dare I say the dreaded word Thacko, which, which no one- A shutter just went through everyone's spine. Yeah. I'm going to tell you something. I'm not, I'm not a Thacko hater. I get it. I grew up on it. So it's like, it's like, it is what it is. But ascending armor class does make a lot of sense and Castles and Crusades uses that among some other things to make life easier. And I have just, that game has brought back
00:27:34
Speaker
So many great memories of being a kid playing D&D, sort of being a teenager. Late teens, I guess, was when second edition was around
Integrating Puzzles in Campaigns
00:27:43
Speaker
for me. So I've shown it to all my friends that I played with back then, trying to get them to come back and play a game with me. I think they're going to do that.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I'm trying to convert anybody that will allow me to I know there's a lot of diehard D&D 5e or just D&D generally, but I just love games and any game with new mechanics that You know like a 5e game can't do
00:28:12
Speaker
the low magic sort of swords and wizardry story because everybody has in 5e everybody has magic to some extent or at least it feels that way to me and so if you want a story with low magic you can't really do that but then along comes my castles and crusades and i'm like oh i can tell these stories that i want to tell by using the system and it just makes more sense here so yeah i i mean
00:28:37
Speaker
If you come to my Instagram, I post role-playing games there all the time. Those are all role-playing games off my shelf. I have a problem. I buy far too many. When I came home from Gary... I think you just posted something about that to your life. Yes, I literally just... Well, I posted something about that not too long ago because my wife and I had had a conversation and she was like, I have a lot of games down there. You have never played. You know that. And I'm like, yeah, I know that. I know that. I have a problem.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah. So what puzzles in castles and crusades be very similar to like D&D puzzles? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like that. Absolutely. I think that I think that any any sort of puzzle that you use in Dungeons and Dragons could easily be transported in to castles and crusades, especially and I you tell me because you're you're a bigger puzzle fan than I am. But the puzzles that I use rarely require
00:29:30
Speaker
Like a skill check or anything. It's usually I'm looking for the players to solve it. Like, like that's the fun of puzzles to me is it's not, you're not now playing with, Oh, well, my character would know how to solve this puzzle. You're like, you're giving the player the ability to solve the puzzle. And, you know, that's how Dungeons and Dragons used to be for me. So from that standpoint, I really like it, but, um,
00:29:56
Speaker
So I feel like there aren't a lot of rules built into my puzzles. My puzzles are more like just figuring out a riddle or piecing together my blocks in such a way or whatever puzzle I put in front. I don't know that it's mechanically embedded in Dungeons and Dragons. I think you could use it in any system. You tell me, would you say yours could probably be transported into any setting?
00:30:20
Speaker
I think mine personally that I make for the most part, yes. And most fantasy settings and stuff like that.
00:30:30
Speaker
I wanna touch base a little bit in about Vampire and the Masquerade, which I know you also were into as well. Yeah, yeah, I have a big love for Vampire as well. That's very different, in my opinion. I don't think my puzzles could make it into that, but maybe, maybe. I will say that it's one of also the conundrums of D&D 5e and the puzzles that I see a lot of in the books that I read where, you know, they're like, oh, you could make an arcana check.
00:30:57
Speaker
to see what this is. Or you can use detect magic stuff like that. So I'm finding that nowadays, yes, they are building puzzles like that. I don't mind that. I don't mind that if the game if like, there's a there's a puzzle from one of the modules I have here with me, the Sword of the Dales, which is like second edition Dungeons and Dragons
00:31:25
Speaker
There was a puzzle in there where you have to match up schools of magic and you have to put one pot, each pot in this chamber represents a school of magic and then you have to put them back in old school D&D.
00:31:39
Speaker
They actually said like, not only are the schools of magic, but there are opposing schools of magic. So you have to put the opposing school of magic pot on either side. Now, if someone used it to detect a detect magic spell to figure out which pot was which school of magic, there are some other hints in the puzzle itself. But I like that idea. Like I love when
00:31:59
Speaker
the puzzle makes sense in the world it's being played in. Like if you can use your spells in that, that's great. I don't like puzzles, though, when it just comes down to roll the arcana check and I'll tell you the answer. That's not a puzzle to me. That's just a skill check. A puzzle is where you're, in my opinion, you're stepping away from the character and you're posing a challenge to the player rather than the character.
00:32:26
Speaker
And I feel like when skill checks can be used to solve puzzles, you. Like it's it's a skill check now, it's not really a. It becomes more of a video game kind of that it does. Well, and you're leaving it like that. Yeah, you're leaving it to like basically a random number generator, your dice, in this case, to decide whether your character and I, you know.
00:32:51
Speaker
I was DMing in Pathfinder many years ago and my wizard, the girl who played the wizard in my campaign, we had a puzzle and she's like, well, I can't figure this out. I don't know the answer. The table was getting a little frustrated.
00:33:07
Speaker
And I was not being particularly a helpful DM. I was being a bit of a stick in the mud and going, no, you figure it out or else. Uh, and she's like, well, my wizard has a like an 18 or 20 intelligence. Clearly my wizard is a smarter person than I in real life are. So why can't I have some kind of a dice roll to see if my wizard figures it out? And there is some validity in that, in that like other things we do in the game. Like I don't ask you to lift.
00:33:38
Speaker
to lift a boulder, right? Your fighter or your strong character just rolls and sees if they lift the boulder. So her argument was, well, why can't I just see if my wizard knows the answer? Because they're much smarter than me. But I'm like, that kind of takes away the fun of the puzzle though, right? I think it really would depend on what type of puzzle it is. Maybe like a riddle, it would be like, if you can't figure out a riddle,
00:34:07
Speaker
You're not going to be able to figure out a riddle. Your wizard might be able to, but if it's like a puzzle, like, Oh, you have to, as you were saying with these pots, you know, figure out where to put the pots, you know, I think, you know, most of the time players could figure that out. Um, you know, maybe just, I don't mind a dice roll to give them a hint. Like, Hey, okay. I'll give you a hint or something.
00:34:30
Speaker
But a dice roll to solve it sort of, to me, defeats the purpose of the puzzle. Now, this is my advice. I know I'm by no means some kind of a guru here, but this is my advice to DMs that do puzzles, though. Don't make your puzzle an all or nothing doorway. In other words,
00:34:49
Speaker
Don't make your puzzle. It's like if you don't answer this puzzle, you cannot advance in my story any further. You cannot advance in the dungeon. You cannot find the plot point elsewhere. Like the puzzle is all good and fine. It's like you never want to put your McGuffin behind a secret door because the party will inevitably not roll well enough to find that secret door. And then you as a DM have to do my biggest pet peeve, which is just go like
00:35:19
Speaker
Oh, roll for the secret door. Oh, I only got a four. Oh, no, that's high enough. It's like because you're like, they've got to find it. It's like if they have to find it. Don't like if they have to find something, don't put it, but the puzzle should be something they get a bonus from maybe or they get a shortcut because they solve the puzzle. Yeah, that would be my advice is that don't use puzzles like like don't put your McGuffins behind secret doors.
00:35:45
Speaker
Don't put your plot behind a puzzle, like make sure the puzzle, the puzzle might give an advantage or lend a shortcut, but it shouldn't be. Exactly. They don't need it, but it will make their life easier. That's great. That's perfect. But yeah, if it's like they don't get through to the final boss, if they don't solve this puzzle, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen to them. They're not going to solve the puzzle. They're not going to get through to your final boss and you're going to end up having just give over the answer to get them to.
00:36:15
Speaker
You also just sparked an idea in me, a little inspiration. You use the word, give them a little bit of clue. I work at an escape room, and part of my job is giving clues when people get stuck on these things. And one thing I've never really done when I write my puzzles out is think about what clues I would give. Now, this adds work to you as a DM if you end up listening to this and decide, I'm going to start making puzzles.
00:36:43
Speaker
I think a good piece of advice is think of what clues you would give. How you would help the party get where they need to get to. And build that into the puzzle. Have that written down. You know, if you're that type of planner. I know certain people, cough cough, Team Drew's basement, when he talked with me, he was like, I don't plan anything. I just, boom. I'm driving in my car and I think of the puzzle. You know.
00:37:12
Speaker
I think if you end up becoming a planner, your idea of making sure you know how to give clues, to have clues, that's very important. Don't just think about the puzzle. I am not crapping on Drew's parade.
00:37:26
Speaker
But I think if you're a DM, if I think you're, I think if you're a DM running sort of by the, by the seat of your pants and everything is ad-libbed on the spot. Good for you. I played like that too. That can be very rewarding, but I don't think it's a good place to put a puzzle in.
00:37:46
Speaker
Like, unless it's a puzzle that you've used before and you sort of already know the mechanics of it, I don't think you should be figuring out a puzzle on the fly. I think you risk- I've tried that. I think you really risk infuriating your players or frustrating them. I think if you're gonna put a puzzle in your game, you have to sit down and plan it out a little bit ahead of time. Like you said, know the answer and know some hints you can give. And, but, you know, that also brings me to this.
00:38:16
Speaker
So the other puzzle I wanted to talk to you about was it's in, it's in White Plume Mountain, which is a really old school. It is a big, and it's not like a puzzle like with blocks or figuring out numbers or figuring out passwords or riddles. It's a room with boiling mud across the bottom of it. And it has two geysers in the room that shoot mud, really hot mud up that will burn you. And the closer you are to the geyser, the more damage you take.
00:38:47
Speaker
and then hanging from the ceiling are chains with discs attached to them. So the idea is you have to maybe jump from chain to chain and cross the room that way. But the real point here is there is no answer, there is no proper answer to the puzzle. Like you're just putting that in front of the players. And as a DM, I have done that before where I come up with an idea for a room or something
00:39:15
Speaker
and I don't necessarily know how they're going to get across it.
00:39:20
Speaker
but I just wait and see what they come up with. Like maybe they throw a rope to pull a chain over, they can grab it. Maybe they cast the spell jump. Maybe they cast the spell fly. Maybe they have a magic item that they just pull out of nowhere and decide, I'm gonna flood the room with water so it cools all the mud and then we're gonna
Vampire: The Masquerade and RPG Comparisons
00:39:39
Speaker
walk around. Like I don't know what they're going to do. Alchemy jug. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what they're gonna do.
00:39:45
Speaker
I feel like I feel like White Plume Mountain this one particular I don't know I think it's a puzzle maybe it's not maybe it's just a barrier but I feel like it's an opportunity to just let the players run wild with their creativity and figure out a way to solve it a figure out a way to get across and whatever they come up with is fine but I don't know the in those cases I don't know the answer to that puzzle I just I just put it out there and see what they do with it
00:40:27
Speaker
a bunch of the older stuff, mostly the revamping of it, like in Tomb of Horrors a couple episodes ago. Ironically, the person who also plays Vampire of the Masquerade that I know, we did a puzzle that was really just like, the answer wasn't super given, it was just like, hey, check out what your players do and make your ruling based off that.
00:40:37
Speaker
I feel like there should be a different
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there should be a different name for that. Like not just puzzles. It should be. Yeah. I don't know. No, I don't know either. I have. I've done. I did. I was playing a really high level campaign and I just decided that the time, the one, the one tunnel into this, I think it was a tomb or something. I'm like, I'm just putting a massive stone block in the way. See how they do it. Yeah. I don't care how they move it. Like
00:41:22
Speaker
They could disintegrate it like they were high enough to have spells like that. They could levitate it They could use telekinesis like but it goes on and on but I think I think you as a GM just have to be willing to accept that they could come up with a crazy idea and You know you sort of use that age-old Rule of yes, and okay. Yes that works and this happens or yes, and this happens and
00:41:50
Speaker
I think a lot of good creativity. I've also had a puzzle all planned out and the players start to do the puzzle and go, wait, I see the answer. It's this. They're wrong. They're wrong from the standpoint of it was not the answer that I had thought out, but suddenly that answer made a huge amount of sense to me. So I just gave it to them.
00:42:16
Speaker
You do the DM fudge behind the screen. They'll never know that that wasn't the answer unless I do, unless I tell them, but I just let them go like, Oh, you guys figured it out because I don't know if this is something you've touched on on the show before, but like when players do figure out a puzzle, you, you inflate their ego to just immense level. Like it is a big source of pride to go. The DM put a puzzle in front of me. They thought they had outsmarted me.
00:42:45
Speaker
but I outsmarted them. Like there's some, there's bragging rights there. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things I haven't thought too much about of like,
00:42:57
Speaker
How can we make players like puzzles better? Part of this is to get people to think more about puzzles. And I think a big thing to get your players, if you like as a DM to do puzzles, make sure that your players feel adequately rewarded and hyped up. We have all these big moments of
00:43:16
Speaker
Oh, you killed the BBG. The dragon falls to your sword. But you need to also play up the puzzles. Oh, you placed the final urn on its pedestal. The smoke begins to rise and, you know, play it up just how you would defeating a monster. Yeah, I agree with you. I also just thought of a word that I think describes when you just are like, hey, here's a stone block in front of you. I would call it a challenge.
00:43:44
Speaker
I wouldn't call it necessarily. It would be a puzzle. It would be an offshoot of a puzzle, but it would be more of a challenge in my mind. A DM going, hey, there is no set solution to this. I challenge you to figure out how to get around it. Yeah, I think I think that's fair. That's not about it at all.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yes, coming up with new words. So the last thing I kind of want to touch upon is Vampire the Masquerade. One of my friends, Ghibli Jam, who's been on the show a couple times, she plays vampire masquerade. And we talked about some of the puzzles she encountered. Can you think of any puzzles that
00:44:32
Speaker
You mentioned earlier that you think, hey, a lot of D&D puzzles can go into castles and crusades. Yeah. Do you think it's the same with vampires and masquerades? Do you have kind of, is there a style of puzzles that they have in that game? That's a good question. My, like when I run vampire, my vampire games tend to be more social and
00:44:59
Speaker
dare i say political in that the players are constantly trying to negotiate deals to make their vampire life easier whether that be you know negotiating a lease for a club that they're going to be able to feed at regularly maybe it's to acquire more domain maybe it's to acquire the blood of another vampire so that they can
00:45:29
Speaker
There's a lot, there's a lot of stuff that goes on like that and I don't think I have used any puzzles. That being said, like I think of, have you seen the, oh, what's the movies? Have you seen the movies, the underworld movies?
00:45:55
Speaker
I'm trying to remember which underworld movie it is but one of the elders his his coffin or his resting place is sort of like down in the floor and they have to do these they have to undo these locks for to bring his like I think you could do a really cool puzzle like that where
00:46:15
Speaker
The group of vampires is trying to get to an elder, maybe to kill them, maybe to wake them up to warn them, like who knows. But there's some sort of lock mechanism to keep that elder safe from attacks and everything. So they're in like a sealed vault or something, and the only way in is to open their locks. I definitely think there's potential there. But I'll be honest with you,
00:46:44
Speaker
So my experience with vampire, I played back in like the days of first and second edition vampire at school. There was a inner goth inside me that was trying to get out. And so I played a little bit back then. I played a lot of werewolf, which also could use puzzles, by the way.
00:47:10
Speaker
And then I've only returned to vampire recently and I have run probably a couple dozen worth of vampire games and puzzles have just not really come up. But now that you've got me thinking about it, like the idea of a lock, there was a couple of places I could have used some sort of puzzle for a lock to be opened, that would have been cool. So yeah, maybe I need to re-examine that.
00:47:37
Speaker
You mentioned there's a lot of political and social sort of things that reminds me of those logic puzzles that are like jimmy likes
00:47:46
Speaker
type O blood and type A blood, but not type C blood. Marsha loves type C blood type and type A blood, you know, and you just like figure out who drank which blood or something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, well, and I love mystery and vampire too. So anything like that, that, that you could sort of try to piece the pieces together to figure out who did it, I think would be good.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah, vampire is a great game. Anybody who's like, take a group of D&D people that just think role-playing games is about fighting monsters and, you know, and maybe seducing the barmaid or seducing the bard or whatever the case might be. And they just think like, that's D&D. And then take them and put them into vampire where like,
00:48:40
Speaker
They are just little peons against like really big powerful entities. And it's a wake up call. It's a really it's a really different game. You know, I think it works. This is what I love about role playing games. Like I think vampire works really different muscles in your creativity and mind than say fantasy Dungeons and Dragons does versus maybe.
00:49:07
Speaker
I'm trying to think of another game, like Call of Cthulhu even goes to different places, the investigation and everything, and being a detective. Monster of the Week. Monster of the Week. I have never played Monster of the Week, by the way. I know that you've talked about it a couple times on your Instagram channel. I'm curious about Monster of the Week, but I've never played it.
00:49:26
Speaker
so i'm actually the next kind of mini series of actual play that i'm gonna do for this podcast is going to be a monster of the week game over with some friends just a one shot and it's very it's very much like this where the whole thing is a puzzle you're trying to figure out what the monster is and how to beat the monster um so i'm excited to run that it's so i played hunter hunter the reckoning and hunter the vigil very much like that
00:49:52
Speaker
like you're a mortal you're hunting some kind of monster or creature you don't know all its powers and there is a puzzle it is a puzzle in this in the sense that you have to figure out what you're up against and what its weaknesses are i'll have to check what was that called so there's hunter the reckoning which is which uses a very similar system to vampire the masquerade made by the same people
Maintaining RPG Atmosphere
00:50:16
Speaker
And then an earlier version of that is Hunter the Vigil, which Hunter the Recting, you have a little bit of power. You're not a supernatural creature, but you maybe have some abilities to help that help you out, whereas Hunter the Vigil is like, you are just a guy. Or just a girl, you're just a girl and you're fighting like supernatural creatures.
00:50:44
Speaker
Listeners, we've now mentioned like 12 different TTRPGs. Good luck. Go play them all. Yeah. I mean, kids on bikes. Have you played kids on bikes? I've listened to kids on bikes. That's originally what got me thinking about Monster of the Week. I feel like kids on bikes is very like figure out what you're up against. You maybe aren't quite sure. And you're trying to get all the pieces and put it together so that it works. Yeah.
00:51:11
Speaker
I have this random. I don't I haven't even really opened it at all. It's like a revolutionary war Game where like they're supernatural things so you're serving in the army and you're also what's it called natural? It's like flames of freedom or flames. Okay revolution I'll send you I'll send you a picture later on Yeah, have you played have you played polka-thulu?
00:51:39
Speaker
I have not. I play the video game. Yeah, it has the same kind of monster hunting vibe. Yeah. It's definitely ukier and spookier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Vampire can be very uki and spooky. I try to do my best at that and really lean into the the the horror aspect of that game and being a monster and stuff. But yeah. Yeah. I find that that's
00:52:10
Speaker
Everybody has to be on board to be like that. Like you can't have people halfway through breaking character and telling jokes or you kind of lose your mood. Yeah. Yeah. Which is hard when you're a group of people just getting together to play a game. I get that. The biggest, the biggest puzzle in D and D scheduling the second. Oh, yes. The mood, the mood at the table consistent. Yeah. Scheduling is horrible. Scheduling is horrible. And, and keeping a mood at a table is also a challenge. I agree.
Puzzle Challenges for Jeremy
00:52:39
Speaker
all right my friend well i think it's time that for maybe what you've been dreading and the listeners have been waiting for can you solve my dungeon problem let's see let's see
00:53:04
Speaker
Alright, so we have two as always we have two puzzles for you We have one that I made myself and one that is I found in some source whether it be a module Which is becoming increasingly hard because as you have said, you know, like you're a little disillusioned with 5e right now I'm a little annoyed that there are no freaking puzzles in 5e anymore although I will say I've
00:53:29
Speaker
As I browse older things, I do need to start buying older ones. A lot of them, the older ones were challenges, in my opinion, now that we have a word. I agree with you. I agree with you. There were lots like that. The newest book coming out, I don't know if you've seen it yet, it's redoing, it's sort of in the vein of the, it's redoing like six old school modules and compiling them into a book like, what was the one, what was the one that they did like that already?
00:54:01
Speaker
Uh, they did a yawning tales of the, thank you. That's the one. Yeah. Tales of the yawning portal. So they have another one coming out that, uh, that does similar stuff to that. And, uh, it's all, it's all, um, old school stuff. I think there might be some puzzles in there for you. That's what I'm getting at. I will definitely be checking that out because I need more puzzles because I run more of these things. So would you like to solve the one that I've created first or the one that I've found first?
00:54:29
Speaker
I don't care you throw whichever one you'd like it. I think I'm gonna fail them both. I'll preface this Everyone says that and then they do I know but I'm gonna prove you wrong cuz I know I'm not good at these I know I'm not good at these Let's do let's do let's do the book one first. Let's do the book one first. All right, so I'll describe kind of the scene that you have come up I typically will say you have a party with you and
00:54:56
Speaker
Alright. So if we need a wizard who can cast a spell, if you want to try casting a spell, you probably have a wizard who can do it. Stuff like that. So you've come to this chamber and the entire floor of the room is covered in a layer of sand.
00:55:15
Speaker
that feels comfortably warm around your feet. For some reason, your entire party is barefoot. Near the northern wall of the room is an empty four foot high stone pedestal decorated with script engraved along its base. That's all you see in this chamber. So let me just recap here. Warm sand.
00:55:45
Speaker
and a pedestal on the far side of the room with strange with strange writing on it yep can i there's also apparently a door across the way as well they just mentioned that halfway through the freaking thing can i tell if there's anything in on the pedestal uh from where you're standing no you don't see anything except for there appears to be a script
00:56:13
Speaker
And too far away to read from this distance, I assume. Yeah. Okay, so somebody's got to go. So, so we of course sacrifice our rogue and send him across him or her across the room to check the pedestal out.
00:56:31
Speaker
all right um i'll say you you're sending the rogue cross uh leaving the cleric to watch his way and your cleric has a very high passive perception okay so he is starting to cross and he crosses to the pedestal and your cleric notices that as he steps into the uh sand and moves it appears as if
00:57:03
Speaker
There's sand, there's steps being left, and as he moves farther away, the sand covers it once again. It takes a little bit of time, but his footprints are disappearing in the sand. And he gets to the pedestal.
00:57:21
Speaker
Can he just say are burning slightly as he kind of are they getting hotter as he goes that or it's just Well, it doesn't say that right here But I would say if you want to as a player as a DM if you want to throw a little bit of danger in yeah, maybe Okay, it is starting to get hotter in the room Can you read the script? He can cuz he's a rogue and It says in elvish
00:57:51
Speaker
Take these and leave your name. Take these and leave your name. Oh boy. There's nothing on the pedestal though. There's nothing on the pedestal. Anything special about the door while he's over here? He walks a little bit towards the door and it appears to be locked, but not with any mundane lock. Okay.
00:58:21
Speaker
Hmm, take these and leave your name. Well, for safety's sake, he's going to come back to the party. He as he gets back, he's hopping up and down on his feet as his little toes are getting burned. And his footprints continue to disappear. Yep, they they are there for a little bit. And then the sand seems like swallow them, not like, you know, like
00:58:48
Speaker
No, but covers them over. Yeah, covers them over. Well, let's... Is my wizard able to cast Sea Invisibility? Could he see around the room? Look around the room and see if there's anything hidden? I would say yes, he's not seeing anything hidden. Okay. Take these and leave your name.
00:59:21
Speaker
Okay. Let's have the party move as a group towards the pedestal. I never thought to do this while the road was there. Can someone's gonna like run their hand across the top of the pedestal to see if there's something on it that we just can't see? You do that and you don't feel anything. Trying to figure out what these are.
00:59:54
Speaker
We'll try writing our names in the sand. OK. Do those. How do you do that? Just with our finger. So you write your name in the sand with your finger. Roll me a D20 investigation check. Cool. I get to roll a D20. This is very exciting, by the way.
01:00:22
Speaker
Oh, maybe not the best, a 12. A 12? Well, your DM, I would say your intelligence is probably at least a plus two, with a various character. So you notice something very odd. As you are writing your name with your fingers, the lettering almost gets immediately swallowed up, much quicker than the footsteps disappear. Hmm.
01:00:57
Speaker
Interesting. Can we move the pedestal? No, unfortunately not. It doesn't move. OK. Can we dig in the sand to see how deep that goes? It's about five feet. Sorry, five inches. Not five inches. Five feet. We do some serious digging. Five inches. It is very, very, it's just a thin layer of sand.
01:01:27
Speaker
And there's a stone floor underneath it. Okay. Take these and leave your name. Can we pick up the sand and try to like
01:01:54
Speaker
write our names with the sand on top of the pedestal. So you do that and it's incredibly difficult but you notice that the sand instantly like flows back to the ground. Like just drifts off the pedestal and goes down. Yep. Oh dude I'm gonna be the first guy to to fail this because I'm coming up with nothing. Take these and leave your name.
01:02:26
Speaker
So one of the important things about puzzles, and this is why I'm excited for Affy and Artemis to be on, because they'll be able to work with one another to try and solve a puzzle. So I'll posit this to you as your other companion. You notice that there's a difference between when you leave footprints and when you just draw on the sand with your hand. That seems very weird that it differentiates the two.
01:03:00
Speaker
If we use our feet to sketch our names, does that seem to last longer? Maybe this is a foot fetish room. Well, ironically. It's the Quentin Tarantino room.
01:03:17
Speaker
You start writing the J with your feet and it stays and you write out the whole Jeremy and suddenly a pair of boots materialize on the pedestal and the doorway out opens up. And you have solved the name and footsteps puzzle. Really?
01:03:40
Speaker
Yes. Now, one of the things I would do with this, though, is it doesn't say anything about the treasure being on the pedestal. It, in fact, says the empty pedestal, which seems to suggest the use of some sort of object as an offering, is a red herring. OK. OK. I'm not a fan of that. So I wanted to reward you. The second thing that would be fun is, what if you, now that you've left this room,
01:04:10
Speaker
You've left your name. You don't remember your name anymore. Okay. I was thinking that. I'm like, you leave your name. Like maybe they're talking, you literally leave your name. Like you go unnamed from that point forward. That would be crazy. That'd be terrifying. That'd be terrifying. You just forget your name. Do you forget who you are?
01:04:36
Speaker
I do a lot. Does everyone else forget your name? Yeah, exactly.
Jeremy's Favorite Puzzle and Conclusion
01:04:40
Speaker
There's a lot to unpack there. There's a lot to unpack there. So this puzzle just got much darker. So the puzzle, the puzzle doesn't offer up the boots normally. That's in addition of your own. Yeah, that I just, I really just when the second you were so fixated on that, I think the reason why is because you, as you pointed out, take these and leave your name. Yeah. What do you take what these are?
01:05:05
Speaker
I think it, yeah, it doesn't say. It might be interesting if there were a pair of sandals or shoes and you had to write your name with specifically those on your feet. And then you could really mess with them. Comically large. Or cursed. Ooh. Maybe I'm being too vindictive. But I'm thinking like. Yeah, we're DMs. Yeah, I'm thinking if you had to write
01:05:33
Speaker
had to put the curse shoes on and then write your name. There you go. There you go. Okay, let's do yours. Because all right, here we go. Here we go. Be gentle when I will be gentle. I will be sharing something with you potentially in a little bit, but
01:05:56
Speaker
See, here's my only problem with puzzles, especially ones that I write and ones that I find, they always seem to start off with, at the center of the room. You need the bait. Exactly. Is a statue of a renowned thief. Just beyond it lays a chest of iron, sealed tight with no lock. You're standing at this door, this chamber before you.
01:06:26
Speaker
What do you do? Okay. So we have a statue. I always think this is good, by the way, players recap what you think you heard to your DM and watch the reactions carefully. So the center of the room, we have a statue of a renowned thief. Yes. You put your best poker face on for me now. Renowned thief. And then a iron chest is beyond that statue.
01:06:55
Speaker
And there's no, with no lock. No lock. Okay. I think we have to search the renowned thief, that statue. All right. Walk up to the statue. Yes, absolutely. Suddenly the statue is going to move and throw a stone dagger at you.
01:07:22
Speaker
Fortunately, you're just going to duck out of the way as you come up to the statue. And you find, now let me share it with you as well. I'm sending you this on Discord. You find this etched onto a small plaque. Danger is here. Only pay attention to the beginning. Nothing will harm.
01:07:51
Speaker
those what nothing will harm once you read those that pay attention make sure you read only the things that matter vibrations alert all even those made of stone okay
01:08:13
Speaker
the beginning uh is there anything written now that we're in the room if we look back at the doorway is there anything written at the doorway you're gonna look back at the doorway yeah all right you turn and look at the doorway and you don't see anything written okay i thought that was maybe the beginning but maybe not um only pay attention
01:08:46
Speaker
Okay. Okay. I think I see something in your writing here. So if we take the letter of each line, we have do not move. So we'll all try to stand perfectly still and see if that does anything.
01:09:15
Speaker
Give me a, I'm now, this I'm just throwing in there just for shits and games to see. Give me a constitution saving throw. Oh, just to remain still. I'm rolling right down the middle tonight. My last roll was a 12 and this one is a nine. So not great. Okay. Jimmy the fat dwarf obviously can't stand still. He's got ADHD or something. He's like, he's all over the room.
01:09:45
Speaker
You know what, one dagger pack is gonna, ooh, a Nat 20. In true, since you played two E and one E, a Nat 20 just, stone dagger goes right through Jimmy's head. Jimmy had that coming. Jimmy had that coming. He's not moving now though. He's being very small. Well, he does have a stone dagger bedded in his central nervous system. This is true. He is still twitching.
01:10:12
Speaker
Dammit, Jimmy. We wait for him to stop twitching. And I will say you all don't move, and the iron chest springs open, revealing a beautiful bounty of whatever your heart desires. But can we get to it? We don't take another dagger, do we, if we move across the room? That's a good question.
01:10:40
Speaker
That's a good question. I originally was about to say you solved my do not move puzzle, but this could be a two part puzzle right there. You did just. Yeah, do not move unlocks the chest, but yeah. Yeah, how do you get? I guess I guess we just move very quick to it. We use Jimmy as a shield. We use Jimmy as a shield.
01:11:08
Speaker
Jimmy's dead-twitching body. Oh, first dagger misses, second dagger thogs right into Jimmy's body as you run from the door. And you've solved the two puzzles tonight. There you go. Well, you know, Jimmy, we did have to sacrifice. We didn't make it through clean on the second one, but that's good. So part of that second one was, uh,
01:11:33
Speaker
last two episodes ago, I talked to tabletop misfits. Yeah. And he posed that he likes to when he does puzzles, or maybe this was got my brain is really starting to go with
01:11:50
Speaker
I might have like early onset dementia or something. But one of my recent guests, it might have been Chaotic Chris or Tabletop Misfits. I think it was Chaotic Chris. Yeah. God, I just edited this episode too. God.
01:12:07
Speaker
He likes to do his puzzles in actions as opposed to like, I'll sometimes use timers. So I tried that with you with this one. And that's why I asked, do you turn to the door? Because that's still moving. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. But if you'd just been like, no, I'm just going to like look over with my eyeballs. Maybe I would have just like, hey, you solved it. And then leaving you going, what did I do?
01:12:38
Speaker
So what'd you think of the two puzzles? Okay, I have used something similar to this before with the letters of the first letter of each sentence or the first letter of each word in something. Love those, because I feel like that's doable by anybody, right? Like that's achievable. I'm with you on the first one, the red herring of that there is no
01:13:07
Speaker
There is nothing on the pedestal. And there's an implication that you need to take something. But that's just a that's just to throw you off. I feel that. That's a bit of a stretch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I would rather there been a pair of sandals there, maybe. And the party would have had to realize they had to put the sandals on and then write their name in the sand with their foot.
01:13:37
Speaker
um yeah but uh the first the second one the one that you had where it's like where you walk in the room and have to stand still very old school i feel very old school uh the statue attacking you and uh and then having to read that and figure it out yes yeah
01:13:56
Speaker
I think I am going to edit that a little bit because I'm looking over and I say it says once you read, make sure you read. I think that was a little too on the nose. So that will be edited a little bit. Okay, that's not that's not what got me reading though. The I was just looking at the letters here and all the caps at the beginning of the sentences, the beginning of the lines.
01:14:25
Speaker
is what is what set me off. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. These letters are standing out to me now. And oh, do not move. Interesting. Yeah. So but I but what I like about that is like I sometimes play with young people like my I'll run adventures for my teens and stuff. And even my nine year old daughter, I could give them that puzzle and they have a chance to figure it out. Yeah.
01:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the crux of making good puzzle. You want to make sure everyone can figure it out. Yeah, or has a chance. And like I said earlier, like if everybody's had a rough week at work, and they're tired, and it says, you could still hand this sheet of paper across from them, go ahead, you know, take a break at that moment, go, Hey, I'm just gonna leave that out there. You take a look at that. Let's go get I'll go grab everybody a you know, a pop or
01:15:23
Speaker
soda if you're in America, I guess, or beer or whatever. Okay, let's have it. Let me go refill the snack bowls. Have a look at that. Yeah. And I feel like that's not nearly as stressful, but it's still a puzzle. Take a shot and take a shot and see if you can figure that out. No, take another shot. We're playing D&D the drinking game. I
01:15:49
Speaker
Think I talked about this the last time but I used to drink and smoke a lot of weed And I won't lie. I am so happy that I don't do that anymore teen D just came so much better Yeah, I wish I could I wish I like part I would never do this to my friends and my players But part of me really wishes I could enforce like a no drinking no smoking at my table Yeah
01:16:17
Speaker
I would never do that. I would never do that because it is about having fun and not minding. I hear you. But it would be but you know what I've heard of I've heard of people who enforce like.
01:16:29
Speaker
fine with everybody having a drink or, you know, you want, you want to, you want to smoke. You want to go smoke a bit. No problem. But let's, let's agree that we're not all going to be like rip-roaring, like fall down drunk or like so high that we forget where we are. Tavern episode. Exactly. Exactly. I think there's, I think enjoying moderation, enjoying moderation. Now I just sound like a stick in the mud, but I like DMing drunk, by the way.
01:17:00
Speaker
Some people can, I could not do it. My games get significantly weirder, but like, sometimes it's nice just to have a couple drinks and go, you guys are in for it tonight. Like, here we go. Are we having tequila or are we having vodka? Which one is it? If it's my table, it's tequila. I'm a tequila guy. Yeah, absolutely. I was everything. There's a reason I don't drink anymore. I was everything.
01:17:40
Speaker
Now it is time to wrap this up with my, this is my favorite question. It really is because I think it's very important to see, and we've gotten so many crazy answers. For example, I did not think about how much Pokemon is a puzzle game.
01:17:58
Speaker
Pokemon is a giant puzzle game. So what has been your favorite puzzle ever? And what has like, what can you remember as being one of your favorite things? Okay. It was relatively recently. There was a YouTube show. I think it was like D&D with puppets. Did you see any of that? I think that's
01:18:27
Speaker
I think that's what I was watching. And there was a puzzle where the party finds a laboratory, like an alchemist laboratory. And there are all these beakers and bottles of liquids bubbling and popping all around the room. And they're all different colors. And then there are bowls.
01:18:53
Speaker
And, you know, let's, I don't remember the exact colors of the bowls, but let's just say one was, there was a blue bowl. There was a red bowl and then there was like an orange bowl. Okay. So they go and they get the blue liquid and they put it in the blue bowl and it goes down the pedestal and a little blue line goes over the wall and a secret door opens.
01:19:22
Speaker
And then they put something in the red bowl and the same thing happens. So they're like, well, there's an orange bowl, but there's no orange liquid in the room. So what do they do? So suspense. Okay. So the reason I like this so much is because my wife is an art teacher and I have had the, like, I know my color wheel.
01:19:53
Speaker
very well so that what they had to do was they had to start mixing to get orange so they had to get in this case red and yellow put it together orange put the orange in the bowl but there was a lot of i don't know i did i didn't see exactly how the entire puzzle worked but like you could do something where like if they mix the wrong colors together maybe there's an explosion like there's a consequence yeah
01:20:19
Speaker
but they're trying to get the orange color. And you would be surprised how many adults don't know their color wheel and don't know that if you mix yellow and red, you get orange. So you could like, it's a real stumper that way. It's simple.
01:20:37
Speaker
But I just appreciated it because of my wife being an art teacher, because of learning my color wheel. I was like, man, such a, you know, really a good idea. And in this case, it was all contained in one room. But I thought, you know, if you were running a dungeon that was sort of like a mad alchemist layer, the whole dungeon, you don't even need the colors in the room like they have to go and find.
01:21:02
Speaker
the red potion, and the yellow potion to make the orange to get through the secret door. So there's all kinds of other things they have to maybe do to get just the red color and the yellow color. And I thought there was a lot of potential there in that in that puzzle. And I mean, at first, the party like, Oh, blue, oh, there's blue right here and add it and boom, and it works. Yeah. And then suddenly like, well, give me the orange. And they're like, there is no orange.
01:21:30
Speaker
And, um, you know, I think, I don't think it's so hard that they couldn't figure out the mixing, but, uh, but I appreciated that. I like, liked the mixing idea and, and the more I thought about them, like you could put the colors and diverse the dungeon and yeah. So of recent that I can remember that has been my favorite. I have not used it yet in a adventure, but, um, maybe I like that. Cause there's maybe I'll put into a vampire one. That would be cool.
01:22:00
Speaker
Different colors of blood. Oh, maybe maybe you have to add dye to blood and yeah, you have to work some sort of some sort of uh What's what's the there's a there's a there's a new type of vampire There's like generations and then they get oh a thin blood There's like a thin blood alchemy that you have to do with different colors. That would be cool. Yeah, i'm here for that
01:22:23
Speaker
I'm here for that. That's what I love about puzzles. You can see something that can spark so many ideas. Yeah, I agree. You know, I think you just said, you know, like your wife, she does art, so you know all your color wheels. So it would be really interesting to just, you know, connect with different people who are different walks of life and figure out what puzzles you can gain from them.
01:22:47
Speaker
Obviously don't talk to like a, like a particle physicist or something like that. They're crazy. Secret like the elementary school teachers. Take to the easy stuff for sure. All right. Well, my friends, that is the end of another great episode of the dungeon problems podcast. Thank you all so much for listening.
01:23:10
Speaker
Today, I've been joined by Old Men Rolling Dice, DM Jeremy. Where can they find you, Jeremy? So probably the best places are on Instagram at OldMenRollingDice. On Twitch, you can find me at DM underscore Jeremy. And you can find the Old Men Rolling Dice, the Old Men Rolling Dice podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. Definitely go check out
01:23:40
Speaker
The Humblewood campaign is wrapping up soon, you said? Yeah, I think so. I think there's probably about, there might be about four or five episodes left of that.
01:23:49
Speaker
So binge that quickly so you can make it to the finale and be caught up. And you just started the Castle and Crusades campaign recently, so that's a great place. Now, are your Twitch streams also on your podcast or? No, but you get the most I should maybe I'm on YouTube as well. So YouTube, Old Man Rolling Dice has all the back catalogs of the games we've run on Twitch. Awesome. Well.
01:24:15
Speaker
Go check it out my friends, listen, and hopefully you'll hear some more puzzles in there. I've been EarthosCreations. You can find me everywhere as well as EarthosCreations, except for Twitch. I don't go on Twitch anymore, but who knows, maybe someday. The theme song was done by the dungeon maestro on TikTok and Instagram. Go check him out.
01:24:38
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening, and thank you, Jeremy, for joining us this evening. Oh, my pleasure. This has been blessed. And everyone, just remember, have fun, do your best, and remember, I believe in you. Goodbye.