[d&d4e] Puzzles in RPGs
Callan S.:
Hi Azalin,
Sounds nifty. I guess I was asking in terms of any sort of resistance on the matter, which it doesn't sound like you have. For example I was talking with a friend who was GM'ing, after the game, and he was basically saying he would fudge deaths because 'it wouldn't be very fun to die'. So I said why not have it as a rule that you can't die, just get your butt kicked to a corner and you crawl away into cover, or such? He wouldn't go that way either, yet he wanted to maintain the idea you could die (which was obviously an illusion).
Hi Chronoplasm,
Ack, just read that thread you linked to! It's almost a condensation of all gamer shit responces to challenge, from over three decades! Working outside the box is great, but when you can actually solve the puzzle within the box but can't figure out how to do it, you aught to admit you've failed at doing that before resorting to outside the box/knocking out the gnolls/etc moves. But do they? This is precisely how fiction typically destroys challenge, because "Oh, I knock them all out" - wow, that was hard to think of! What a challenge it must have been to figure that one out!
Working outside the box often leads to just really limp solutions. Not to mention the very first responce post, which just rejects it overall - if someone's into gamism, why are they identifying a puzzle/challenge, and rejecting it? Because they aren't into gamism. Or their into some sort of bitterest gamer gamism, where the fiction has gnawed away challenge so much all they have left with is something that's solved by knocking out all the gnolls/something completely weak ass. A thousand times better to have a fox and geese problem (which defies some options the fiction insists are there) than to just default to that.
Anyway, I think the key issue there is that you try and solve the puzzle while staying withing the puzzles 'box'. And if you can't, you admit it (a key element of gamism) and then go on to a solution that solves it from outside the box. I'll post that in that thread - watch for the alergic responces (for people who don't want to do gamism and are alergic to it, fair enough - but you'll see other alergic reactions from people not in that situation).
Callan S.:
I'll just clarify, I'm refering to the responces to your initial challenge idea, Chrono. Your puzzle situation is good, but I'm looking at my sentence structure and it could be read the wrong way, so just clarifying just in case!
Kevin Vito:
I got it. :)
I think I have a possible solution:
Dangle a shiny special prize in front of the players. This is their reward if they play the game by its seemingly arbitrary rules. If they sidestep the parameters of the challenge, but succeed, they are still rewarded but it will be a lesser reward.
A good way to explain these arbitrary rules might be with a bit of simple magical handwavium. Perhaps the reason the gnolls fear and refuse to swim the river is because it is enchanted somehow?
Callan S.:
I was thinking basically the same thing, though in terms of XP. The most XP for solving it in the box, and perhaps a third or a quater (or some such reduction) of that if you solve it by a means outside the box. Or in terms of explicit esteem, solving it in the box gets the most, while solving it outside gets some approval (it's good, but not as hard to do). Trying to go outside the box without admitting it was too tough and they give in, no esteem....actually, as I write that, I realise the XP thing from above gives the wrong message for that (and indeed so does your prize idea, if it was going for that). Because they could shift to the lesser XP solution without having admitted the in the box puzzle was too tough. It's like they get esteem without having to admit their prior failure. Which I think bypasses the point of even giving an in the box challenge, as I'm thinking about it at the moment - it's basically being ignored, in that case.
Quote
A good way to explain these arbitrary rules might be with a bit of simple magical handwavium. Perhaps the reason the gnolls fear and refuse to swim the river is because it is enchanted somehow?
I'm inclined to think anyone who wants gamism and some reasonbly solid fiction as a side dish, with apply polyfiller to any gaps in the fiction, so to speak. Hell, I do that with TV when they do something that doesn't quite make sense. And you did say blood river after all...sounds nasty to me! I wouldn't go in! (see, I'm doing it even as we speak!)
While I think people who don't want to fill in those gaps, either don't want gamism to begin with or don't realise that a few tears and gaps in the fiction is better than flawless fiction that, as in the bitterest gamer, presents challenge rarely/on a monkeys might fly out of my butt basis.
I'm actually thinking you don't need arbitrary rules, just explicit notification of the puzzles boundry line "Knock the gnolls out you say - well, that's something that seems like it'd work, but it's an action that's outside of the puzzles boundries. I assure you, it is possible to solve the puzzle without doing that. *slight teasing in voice* But if ya wanna say you give up then we can look into that...."
FredGarber:
Just an FYI, before you try this:
With four gnolls and four guards, and a two person canoe ? There is no "In the box" solution.
And the "standard" puzzle of 3x3 requires (at more than one point) two gnolls to row alone, and one to return alone to the guards with the canoe: not likely. There's even one point where all three gnolls are on the far side, and all three guards will be on the starting side.
I agree with the poster in the other thread that if my GM gave me a "standard" puzzle like this I would just roll an INT, and then go Google the answer.
-Fred
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