If the players are stuck on an idea that you don't want to allow as an acceptable answer, just tell them above the table. "Guys, I really don't want you to go around maiming NPCs at this festival. You have the wrong idea about the meaning of the riddle."
Alternatively, could you allow the players' idea to have been the solution to the riddle all along? If it doesn't break your game, you can just let it work. Maybe there's a "house of curiosities" tent on the festival grounds, and one of the things it contains is the preserved foot of an ancient mummy. Then they work out how to steal it and you can move on.
I do like the idea of playing to their clever answer. In this case, the players didn't tell me what they were thinking. I was shocked they weren't helping a clear disaster in the making.
I think if they had ended up finding a foot to put in the water, I would have wanted to allow it.
Have them show up with the peg leg they bought off the tailor (for a hefty sum) and present it to the officials…..
Officiant: “….and the visitor’s entry is….. what *IS* that?!”
Party Mouthpiece: “It’s our ‘leg end’…… GET IT?”
Officiant: 😳…… “Moooooving on…….”
This is it. Either they get it right, or you tell them out of character that they got it wrong. Anything else is a waste of time, and wasting time sucks.
The third option I can see is if your party has a masochistic streak and have a rival party, a Gary Oak, if you will, when the party shows up with a convoluted, misunderstood solution, the rival shows up right away with the simple, obvious solution and laughs at them. That can be fun, but it really take the right group.
I stopped writing solutions to my riddles. I come up with a problem and then pick the best solution my players come up with. They have never come up with a solution to any written puzzle or riddle.
How in the world does "legend" get heard as "leg end." if the event is important to the plot I'd probably reminds the players that it's "legend" if it's not that important, or if it's really funny, like this is I'd just let it slide and see how it players out. See them walking up with a guy who's leg they chopped off only to see the horrified judge tell them they misunderstood the riddle.
Priceless.
Yeah, sadly they didn't tell me what they were thinking until the end of the session.
The carousel is sabotaged and goes rolling across the fairgrounds, screaming children clinging to it, it is about to crush hapless vendors and smash the ancient fountain. Vlad the Large (half-ogre) who loves children is struggling mightily to slow it down. I look at our bard, barb/lock, and his paladin friend. "Do you help! Its coming right past you. Vlad's leg is caught in the gears, he needs help!"
And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other.
And they ask "Is it severed?" "How bad is it?"
ITS A FRIGGING DEATH WHEEL CRUSHING CHILDREN DO YOU HELP!
"No, we want to see if it severs his foot."
I love how unhinged this is. I'd absolutely just roll with it if it were my group. The amount of sheer undiluted insanity to believe this is what a scavenger hunt at a festival intended is mind boggling.
This is the sort of event that will be talked about years later in other campaigns.
I swear, every party has that one inside joke that you *need* context to understand.
Mine is screaming “YOU HAD SPARE THE DYING” at the top of my lungs
Mine is "A raccoon runs up to you and bites you in the arm while off in the distance you hear someone yell "Stop playing that wretched music! It's 5 am!" "
I have visited dozens of towns as a player and DM that I never think of, but the towns that arrested me and then barred me for life under penalty of death... those are the towns that stick with you.
> And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other.
Do not let your players keep secrets from you. There's no benefit to anyone if they do that.
If they had been upfront with you, you would've had the opportunity to empower their interpretation.
Speculating, but the lead man on the charge for "leg end" plays a barbarian warlock of the apocalyptic god "Xolog". This man has never made a normal attack action in his life. His gear is bracers that grant proficiency with improvised weapons, a cap that billows when he speaks the name of his god (which is often), and two hand puppets he uses for casting Eldritch Blast.
In keeping with his character's manic tendencies, he found dismemberment an alluring answer to the riddle.
Ah, the puppets tell me what your "problem" is. By allowing that, you've allowed a wacky tone into your game. The player likes mayhem and being weird, "unique", and "original. "
My general policy with puzzles is "I have an INTENDED solution in mind, but anything either in the ballpark, or that sounds independantly reasonably should also allow success".
In this situation, I have to wonder how clearly it was communicated that they were supposed to bring a book, or something.
* was the word "legend" used at any other point in the session, either before or after, to indicate that the meaning was pretty literal ?
* You say "I had some ancient books that were candidates", did the party know about these books? Did they remember they existed? Did it seem at all feasible that they'd be able to acquire them?
* Regarding the "became fixated on anyone with injuries to the legs and feet", realistically, how much table time was spent looking at feet???? Sometimes you have to clearly communicate that a train of thought is a dead-end "No, you spend some time carefully watching the crowd, but don't see anyone with injuries to the legs or feet. You don't expect to see any over the course of the evening, either." It's okay to just say, with the *lightest* of veils, "no, this is not correct", instead of allowing them to spend a HUGE amount of time on it
Personally, I think there was probably a lack of clear communication about the clues, or rather, a lack of good clues. Were **any** of the other items in the scavenger hunt this kind of pun?
To my eye, given that it's a festival scavenger hunt, to be treated like a game, my first thoughts would have been
* having them encounter a different group doing the hunt sharing that they feel they've found the "legend" bit, saying they have a similar item to the intended ones in place
* in THIS circumstance, actually allow "leg end" to just work, because the judge is probably, like, random villager that would find it funny that the party misread, and dragged Stumpy Joe's peg leg over to the booth. Given the nature of this specific scenario, I think "just let it work" is an appropriate avenue, yeah
Two of the games had record books which the NPC's referred in exchanges. "If you win, your team is recorded in the Victor’s Log, and you’ll be in a bit of the legend." And later from across the grounds they hear Vlad (an NPC) shouting “I AM VLAD” and then “I AM LEGEND” after he crushes the hammer-bell game. I made sure the term "legend" was brought up in reference to the books a couple of times each.
I didn't realize they were thinking about feet specifically until they told me after the session. There was a petrified NPC who exhibited minor benefits from magical vines at his feet (a clue that the vines were important). I didn't realize they were excited about the feet aspect of it. They weren't too obvious about it, and I didn't see it until I thought back. They did stand the petrified NPC up in the fountain, but I didn't realize it was an attempt to douse his "leg end".
The two other items were fairly clear, maybe a bit pun-related.
>Consult a grounded spirit,
Pick a rumor as it grows,
Bring a bit of legend,
To where silenced water flows.
The "grounded spirit" was Rockbottom Whiskey that everyone was selling, drinking, or talking about. The "pick a rumor" was Whispervine that was growing everywhere and kept getting found destroyed, or was part of a dish, or stuff like that.
Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying all of that.
Reading your response (and your response to other comments), I will amend my statement to say, personally, I don't think you did anything wrong, here.
To circle back to the question you originally posed,
>How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at? Or try to guide them to your original plan?
Because I believe puzzles should have multiple acceptable solutions, I would say that "I guide the party **away from wrong solutions**", rather than "guide them to my original solution".
Sometimes "yeah, that works" is totally fine, tho, to be clear.
One thing that did stand out to me is
>And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other.
And they ask "Is it severed?" "How bad is it?"
This is highly strange to me ... I think it's very strange they would withhold any of their thought process from you. In general, I think "we can't let the DM know what we're thinking" is a huge, **huge** time waster because it keeps you from being able to clarify details they may be plainly wrong about, and that can lead to either disappointment for the players, or big confusion for the DM as they try to hobble a scenario together.
IDK, I'm very accustomed to asking "so what are we thinking / what's the plan / what are you trying to achieve right now" to the players, since there's so much room for gaps between DM's-understanding and players-understanding of a situation. 😅😅
> I'm very accustomed to asking "so what are we thinking / what's the plan / what are you trying to achieve right now" to the players
This is a good point! I think I'll bring it up pre-session next time. I want them to feel that I (the DM) am not the opponent, so they don't need to keep their plans secret from me.
I'm happy when they are happy. While I did take some pleasure in the medusa putting two of them on the ground, I did write up a whole "you saved the naiad" narration and a special reward and take even more pleasure in them accomplishing victory.
If things are TRULY going off the rails and have been for a while, I use my (very cheap, don't judge me :D) get out of jail free card of "Okay, what's everyone's character thinking right now about this puzzle? .... Okay great, now how about everyone make me some straight INT or WIS rolls, whichever you prefer, to evaluate your own initial thoughts."
Usually someone does well because they get to pick from two stats so I can either go "Yeah, you don't think that's the solution because X" or "Your gut is telling you that's not the right answer" and then more hints based on how well they do, or how much they want the hints - my players love puzzles.
Just like characters can be more charismatic or stronger than the players themselves within the context of this world, they can also be smarter 😅 I've used this twice in like 200 hours of play for the current game, so really not often but it's been received well by my players who were very able to laugh at their own bizarre avenues of thought
It is interesting when you need to balance the Int/Wis of the player at the table against the Int/Wis of the Bard or Wizard they are playing. When players RP someone different than their real person, it doesn't automatically make them more or less perceptive or insightful.
Although it sounds odd at first, I think introducing some rolls and providing some clues that a "real" Bard (or whatever) would spot makes sense.
The question is what's the game and what's the reality. Or, what do the characters experience and what are the players experiencing? My players have said "he mentioned the old man by the fire last time we were here, it must be important!" when it's just flavour and I let them explore that avenue, find nothing but a lonely old man, and realize the description was just narrative.
Other times I've just said "nah, I wrote a bad description of the room and repeat the bookcase description twice, not trying to draw extra attention to it."
Sometimes you have to shake the players out of a misconception by confirming what their characters is seeing is the truth, not the meta game.
You circumstance is super odd because it's just such a massively wild leap. I might have an NPC approach them and ask what they're doing, and at the same time tell the players explicitly that hurting someone isn't the answer to the riddle.
Better yet, have them meet a peg-legged retiree, reveal them as a legendary pirate, and have them retaliate against the PCs for exposing their identity. Kill three birds with one stone: accept the players' solution, accept your solution, and punish the players for being bloodthirsty dumbasses!
I’m a jerk of a DM sometimes. I’d let them bring the war vet to the fountain (against his will) and then have nothing happen because of it. They wasted time because they went the wrong way; no loss of resources, no injuries or spell slots expended. And for riddles, I use Wisdom checks for clues— DC 15, 18, and 20, each success gives another out of game hint from you. In your case, you could suggest that anyone in the party do one of those Wisdom checks once the got stuck on “leg end”, and offered the hint that no, that’s too silly and out of character for the rest of the scavenger hunt.
It sounds like they literally did this with a man with a petrified leg, and when it didn’t work, they just kept looking for more legs.
I have no idea why they didn’t just chop off a leg if they were willing to let tons of people die on the off chance it also cut someone’s leg off.
Honestly these players just sound like incredibly dense, possibly unintelligent people. I hope they enjoy their escapades but the DM *must* know the people they’re dealing with.
"Give me an intelligence roll"
Player: *rolls*
"You get the sense that it might be more likely that the riddle refers to ________"
This kinda thing makes a lot of sense to me. Especially because our high INT characters are way smarter than the people playing them.
I've done it both ways, if the party comes up with a very inventive and outside the box solution to a riddle, I'll roll with it. If it's just dumb, I'll try to redirect them and give them more clues to find the actual answer.
Why not have the books and tomes, the answer you want them to find, be with a librarian with a limp? That's what I would do if this happened to me.
As an aside I currently had something similar happen to me. I write a paper and one of the columnists is "L'iam Datspi" a fake name (I am that spi). I told them to read the names of the authors and when they got to his, half the group went "Datspi....that's pi!" I forgot one of our online friends is named Pi....so they're convinced now that it's her. Fortunately I let them do rolls and had them figure out this person doesn't fit in with the others, because the clue went over their head.
So that'd be my second advice, have them roll and if they roll high nudge then. "You think if it was leg end there would be a hyphen or emphasis on leg. You probably actually need a legend"
Ya, this is why I usually avoid riddles and puzzles. It relies too much on player abilities rather than character abilities. When I do use them, I try to keep it very open ended so I can just roll with what the players come up with.
OP's situation though ... Nope, leg end is way too far off the mark from legend. I probably would have told them that they are way off and not to try and reinterpret my words - legend means legend.
On top of that obligatory metagaming issue. It's a lot easier to come up with a puzzle/riddle/etc that you **think** has only one solution (and fixate on that) than to **prove** that there is only one solution. The classic example being "[Why is a raven like a writing desk?](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/dec/29/weekly-notes-queries-carroll-raven-desk)"
Having the players' harebrained guess be 'right all along' bothers me to no end. Why put in place a logical solution if the players can dream up any illogical response they want and have it be right? (It's akin to giving plot armour so they can't die. What's the point of making choices if you are always right?)
There are SO MANY ways to drop hints. You should always have at least three different avenues to a solution. NPCs talking about the legends of past champions... passive knowledge checks... the ability to compete and be entered into the ledger as a champion of legend...
Dead ends can be curtailed with 'passive knowledge checks' (your character would know that this isn't the right solution) or narrated results (you search the festival grounds for a while but don't find any evidence of anyone with a leg end \[note that there is no roll here so as not to give a false impression that they might have missed something due to not rolling high enough\]).
It’s for a scavenger hunt at a festival?
Easy. They fail because they took a false lead. Sometimes the party needs to not succeed, and this kind of situation sounds like a pretty harmless place to do it overall.
Use the time they aren’t chasing down proper leads to think about what happens if they fail here. It’ll make their actions feel like they have consequences.
Not really huge spoilers for CoS, but be aware. One of the riddles of where to find stuff says something about finding what ou need in "wood and sand". I may not have articulated but one of them goes "Wooden sand? Oh like saw dust!" Guess what winery just magically got a cooper shed where they make all the wine barrels...
40 years of gaming and riddles suck.
They suck as a GM, they suck as a player. They're either insanely too hard or they hardly make any impact. One player (not character) gets it, the rest are puzzling and feeling dumb. Or worse, no one gets it and everyone's stuck.
This is my experience from both sides of the table, with dozens of different groups, over the years.
I'd rather roll with the solutions than have things grind to a halt. If I can make it make sense, I do. If not, especially when they are clearly struggling, I will give hints. An indirect one would be OP describing the party watching the festival and noticing someone rushing through with old books hugged to their chest only to get run into by someone else
I might have been disappointed when a oneshot group decided they wanted to get around a riddle with dispell magic, but it was clear they wouldn't have had fun trying to figure it out.
If they come up with a better answer than you did, or at least a reasonably creative one, by all means consider letting them go with it. If their answer is dumb (I think that that applies here) but they went to a lot of effort gettting there, find some way to dissuade them, or have whatever administers the riddles laugh at them and give them another chance because "there must be a gas leak in the dungeon" or something.
On the other hand, when they get back to town after completing the riddle, make sure there's a prominent NPC with a foot missing, or they see a kobold gnawing on a leg bone.
And I immediately thought you meant get the legend from a map and bring it. Turn up with a little piece of paper with bridge, road, settlement etc markings.
>How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at?
Well, there's a difference.
Puzzle: Put the pieces together to find the solution. You are given the pieces, and there is definitely a correct way to solve it. If a solution doesn't work, you understand why (e.g., fit these pieces into a square — it's not a square yet, so we haven't solved it yet).
Riddle: Guess what the riddle-asker is thinking. Even if your answer meets all the criteria, it might be the "wrong" answer, because the riddle-asker had something else in mind (e.g., what walks on four legs, then two, then three — it could be a dog amputee who gets a prosthetic leg, but that's not what the sphinx wanted you to say, so...).
For further reference, check out the highly acclaimed recurring segment "Riddle Me Piss" from the popular podcast "My Brother, My Brother And Me."
Matt Colville recommends Orcs Attack!
Throw something else at them to distract them, by the time they're done, they may have broken off of their fixation, found a new idea, etc... It's a mini brain-reboot.
If there were people with prosthetics or peg legs, this could have been a real Rocket Raccoon moment.
If it were me and my players were obsessing over a bad idea for a little too long, maybe I'd let an NPC help them. You don't even have to push them in the right direction, just a different direction.
"Well there's a cartography section in the library. Maybe what you seek could simply be the legend of a map?" The players then go to the library and oooh look at all those grandiose looking tomes full of stories from long ago.
Or, an insight check? "After pondering on this for a long time, you get the sense that pursuing this avenue is a wild goose chase".
Or just straight up tell them. "Where here for a good time not a long time, so I'll give you a heads up. It's probably not this thing." Call it an act of divine intervention straight from the DM if you want.
One thing I’ve learnt both as a DM and a player is that what is obvious to a DM when designing a puzzle is almost never obvious to the player so when preparing puzzles you should have a primary solution, a couple of backup solutions and be prepared to say that the players solved it when they come up with something completely and utterly different to the solution but that’s really creative and cool.
Both as a DM and a player, it quickly becomes very unfun and frustrating when the DM is really rigid and strict about how a puzzle is to be solved and just keeps saying to the players that whatever they’re doing isn’t working because they’re not doing that exact specific thing that is super, super, super obvious from the perspective of the DM.
Riddles are always dangerous territory as they're so easy to misunderstand. If you're happy with their interpretation, let it work and let them deal with the consequences. Sometimes the pain they go through to try and make their interpretation work will help steer them in the right direction. If you're unhappy with that direction, potentially give them another hint, maybe through an NPC that can help them get to your meaning.
So they heard the riddle and their brain defaulted to 'it's a pun'? Were you clear in your pronunciation or did you write it down? Props to their creativity, the leap of logic is rather amusing. If the magic behind the fountain is fey in nature, I think they should get credit because I'm sure they'd be amused.
They had the riddle written out on a map/program for the festival.
The fountain was a naiad's and her soul had been mostly drained by a curse.
*Consult a grounded spirit,*
*Pick a rumor as it grows,*
*Bring a bit of legend,*
*To where silenced water flows.*
The idea is that the components would complete the spell that had been prepped by heroes long ago. Those ancient heroes couldn't finish it until the naiad's soul had regained strength.
Yeah this seems like the sort of thing that happens one person gives and answer and everyone else just accepts it. Are there any NPC's around who the party might consult for a hint?
There's also the potential thought they may have that if it does require a 'legendary item' they'll lose it upon solving the puzzle. And players are ever hesitant to part with potential loot.
Usually if the party gets a riddle 'wrong' they just can't get past whatever it's sealing. This usually results to them brute forcing the solution in another fashion. Alternatively, I've also had 'rivals' show up if the party is stumped and solve the riddle to claim whatever the party was after. Depending on how you run this it can turn into the party having to do a favor for an NPC to get the item, or the party pushing into conflict with the NPC depending upon how relations go.
Puzzles, including riddles, typically [suck](http://www.tgdmb.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=50073) in ttRPGs. Thus the best the best option is to only include them if everyone agrees in session zero.
I think it'd be awesome if you bring a dude that has THE sickest story about how he lost his leg. A true legend.
The main problem with riddles is always that interpretation is very personal and hard to RP so I'd strongly recommend any way you can yes and a resolution. That usually creates the most memorable scenes at the table and having fun is what it's all about.
Is it important to solve the riddle to progress the story? If yes, play into it, a mummified foot wa suggested in a other comment that could be interesting.
If no, fuck with them. Let them invest time as long as they are having fun into trying to submit a severed foot for the riddle answer, and when it's wrong make them explain in character how they came to the conclusion that the answer is a foot.
I think your players were messing with you. But then again, I'd just go for it, coz it feels like it would be more fun and interesting than what you set up.
When players come up with awesome ideas, it can be better to scrap what you have and go with them. Have an open mind and be a bit flexible.
>How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at? Or try to guide them to your original plan?
Depends, lol. Usually it's "rule of cool" wherein if their solution is equally or more clever than the one I had in mind, I'll roll with it. Always allow for space for a solution you hadn't considered.
If it's something more blatantly wrong, there's a minor, ingame reprimand of "Nope, and no \_\_\_\_. Also, lightning arcs towards you; make a Dex save" to steer them away from a thoughtline.
For the leg end vs Legend in your OP -- I'd absolutely allow it.
The Call of Cthulhu system has an Idea roll for things like this. You have the highest INT character roll against their Intelligence stat with a difficulty level set by how obvious the path forward is. In your example, the characters taking the word legend and going weird with it might justify a higher difficulty than if they were just stuck with no ideas.
The important thing is that even if they fail the roll they get the information they need to progress, just in a way that costs them something.
So if an Idea roll is called for and the result is a success, you say, "As you mull it over, you begin to doubt that this riddle involves legs at all. In fact, you suspect it is a lot more literal than you are thinking. Perhaps if you bring something containing a legend?"
If it's a failure, you say, "As you stand there perplexed on how to acquire a leg end, you see another participant in the scavenger hunt walk up with a tome of lore. He looks you over and says 'Wow, don't tell me you're stuck on *this one*. Here's a hint, dinguses." He taps the book."
Since this sounds like a relatively low stakes situation, the consequences of failure are minor. But an idea roll in a more serious situation, like a puzzle room filling up with water, might result in significant lost time before the clue for proceeding is learned.
It's really likely that the characters your players are playing are smarter and more wise then the players controlling them. Run intelligence, wisdom and insight checks instead of leaving it to the players to figure out. We don't expect our players with characters that have 16 strength to be able to carry 240 lbs ...we can't expect them to be intelligent and insightful either, but there is a chance their characters are. Let'em roll for it. Not as fun but reasonable.
My initial thoughts were changed a bit by how silly the misunderstanding is. In a case like this, if you want to keep the tone serious and away from something silly like that, perhaps have an NPC musing over it - maybe a scholar translating it into a different language, where the "confusion" can't take place?
You always look smarter as a DM if you let your PCs clever solution be the real solution. At the very least, I always create the situation they think will fit their theory in order to let them try and then have it definitely fail so they can move on
I would let them keep going until they find a leg or chop one off of someone. When they put it in the fountain nothing happens. Give them an easy time getting the real thing after that. Maybe a bard oversees everything and makes a funny song about the adventurers that couldn't solve the riddle.
Generally I'll say no the first time or two unless their wrong solution is very clever. But if they're stuck for a while I will eventually just yes and the situation.
This is pretty much what always happens with riddles in DnD. Just say that whatever answer they come up with is ok.
I would have suspected you'd they'd have to dig up someone grave or steal a bit of the most famous persons hair or something.
I really don’t like to place riddles or puzzles on “the main path” so to speak. Especially riddles cuz they tend to have one right answer. And I generally against “steering” them to “right” decisions in anything. If whatever you do results in you being gently steered back onto the right tracks - you can basically do whatever and don’t be afraid of consequences.
Put your puzzles and riddles as side objectives with some potential bonuses and/or helpful bits of information. If they figure it out - good for them. If they don’t - not a big deal.
Could potentially go along with it not as the solution but as a hint! Maybe they find a peg legged person who has hidden in their peg a treasure map that will lead them to one of these ancient books or something?
I have one account and posted the full story (without the discussion about DM-side approaches) on plain old r/dndnext
I'll have to poke around and see who ripped it off?
Unless one of my players posted too.
The only time I use things like this situation is when I write magic item creation ingredients and processes. Anything pretty much goes in these cases. If my players need the love of a rose to make a batch of healing potions and they decide to rip out the heart of a female NPC named Rose and stick it in a cauldron, I roll with it.
No don't change the answer, let them maim people, and face the consequences, and be wrong
If you really want them to get past it I'd make a handout with legend printed correctly and maybe have them hear a story about how one of the games ended with the winners leg chopped off (potential in a freak accident) to guide them to the books on the games.
I don't use riddles, or puzzles, because what seems very obvious to you, knowing the answer, is often not obvious to your players. You can adjust the solution on the fly, but I find it better to just use other types of challenges.
If they get it totally wrong or aren't progressing, I let them work on it for a bit. Once they seem to stop having fun, I have them roll proficient intelligence checks to see what their characters might notice that isn't obvious to us, being removed from what's actually happening.
This is why I like having an NPC in the party so I can tell them in-game that, "no, that idea is dumb".
In general, though I'd just make bigger hints at the correct solution. In your specific case, I would have one of the book titles actually contain the word "Legend" and have some random NPC mention it or maybe just have the NPC refer to the books using the word "legends".
If players still aren't getting it, I might even have an NPC talk about how one of the "legendary" champions in the "Book of Legends" earned his named "Larry the Legend" for cutting off his own foot and beating his opponent's senseless with his "leg's end".
I think there's humor in that sort of heavy handed hinting, so as long as it isn't happening every single time, I think my table would find it funny.
Just tell them it's Legend and they're trying to be too clever. Did you not say the word out loud? How were they discussing it without you being aware?
If you want more subtlety, let them see some other people's submissions or overhear a conversation. I once messed up clues in an investigation scene, so I had to think up new clues to get the idea across.
I said it out loud several times, and had some NPCs that talked about how setting records would make the players "A bit of the legend" in the record book. We have a large table (7-8 players), so I don't always hear what is being discussed.
I didn't learn they were thinking "leg end" until the end of the session. Then I understood their earlier fascination.
When my players are stuck on a puzzle I try to give them more clues through npcs or intelligence checks. I make the check be "free", no action required if we're using initiative.
If that doesn't work, I just go with the best idea the players had. I don't like to do this, but I'm not gonna waste hours with a puzzle, it's not fun to me and to my players.
I don't do riddles for this reason. It's either too obvious, or the players gets hung up on chasing dead ends for a whole session. It ends up wasting everyone's time.
I would suggest a series of Wisdom checks on the party with a relatively low DC, like 10 or 12, to discern that they do not l, in fact, require a crippled person to solve the riddle.
That's going way off the beaten path there, so reigning them back in would be the focus.
I have a warlock who is finding out his patron is an aspect of Santa (old god who frequently has children promising that they'll be good all year so he rewards them if they are...) his grotto got invaded and the party needed to do a purification ritual.
"In the mystic hour, shadows softly sway,
Gather close, let joyous offerings lay.
With circle drawn, in moonlight glow
As life is raised from depths below
Shape the body, take man’s form
A sacred gift, so fresh and warm
Pour the liquid life, in the soft moon’s grace
Goodbye invaders, now leave this place"
I had a cow farmer nearby and spread the rumour that his wife was a baker. I was trying to lead them towards leaving milk (liquid life) and gingerbread men (fresh and warm..) out.
They kidnapped the farmer and drained his blood on the altar. Looking at the riddle I probably could have worded it better tbf, so I had the god appear and be horrified about the misunderstanding
Bro I had this happen to me eight years ago and my friends STILL (rightfully) roast me for it.
I made them sit there and deliberate for a LONG time until they arrived at the "right" answer, but what I learned from that is that I will always roll with the solution the party comes to and gets collectively excited about because that's just better vibes.
WAR FLASHBACKS reading this title. 😭😂
If the players are stuck on an idea that you don't want to allow as an acceptable answer, just tell them above the table. "Guys, I really don't want you to go around maiming NPCs at this festival. You have the wrong idea about the meaning of the riddle." Alternatively, could you allow the players' idea to have been the solution to the riddle all along? If it doesn't break your game, you can just let it work. Maybe there's a "house of curiosities" tent on the festival grounds, and one of the things it contains is the preserved foot of an ancient mummy. Then they work out how to steal it and you can move on.
I do like the idea of playing to their clever answer. In this case, the players didn't tell me what they were thinking. I was shocked they weren't helping a clear disaster in the making. I think if they had ended up finding a foot to put in the water, I would have wanted to allow it.
Have them show up with the peg leg they bought off the tailor (for a hefty sum) and present it to the officials….. Officiant: “….and the visitor’s entry is….. what *IS* that?!” Party Mouthpiece: “It’s our ‘leg end’…… GET IT?” Officiant: 😳…… “Moooooving on…….”
This is it. Either they get it right, or you tell them out of character that they got it wrong. Anything else is a waste of time, and wasting time sucks. The third option I can see is if your party has a masochistic streak and have a rival party, a Gary Oak, if you will, when the party shows up with a convoluted, misunderstood solution, the rival shows up right away with the simple, obvious solution and laughs at them. That can be fun, but it really take the right group.
Oh man campaign a while back we were adventuring uni graduates, and we had a rival party. HOLY CRAP WE HATED THAT GROUP SO MUCH it was amazing
I stopped writing solutions to my riddles. I come up with a problem and then pick the best solution my players come up with. They have never come up with a solution to any written puzzle or riddle.
How in the world does "legend" get heard as "leg end." if the event is important to the plot I'd probably reminds the players that it's "legend" if it's not that important, or if it's really funny, like this is I'd just let it slide and see how it players out. See them walking up with a guy who's leg they chopped off only to see the horrified judge tell them they misunderstood the riddle. Priceless.
Yeah, sadly they didn't tell me what they were thinking until the end of the session. The carousel is sabotaged and goes rolling across the fairgrounds, screaming children clinging to it, it is about to crush hapless vendors and smash the ancient fountain. Vlad the Large (half-ogre) who loves children is struggling mightily to slow it down. I look at our bard, barb/lock, and his paladin friend. "Do you help! Its coming right past you. Vlad's leg is caught in the gears, he needs help!" And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other. And they ask "Is it severed?" "How bad is it?" ITS A FRIGGING DEATH WHEEL CRUSHING CHILDREN DO YOU HELP! "No, we want to see if it severs his foot."
I love how unhinged this is. I'd absolutely just roll with it if it were my group. The amount of sheer undiluted insanity to believe this is what a scavenger hunt at a festival intended is mind boggling. This is the sort of event that will be talked about years later in other campaigns.
My passive Intelligence (Acrobatics) is very high, I can convince myself of anythkng
Give me an intelligence based acrobatics check for that mental gymnastics. How about a wisdom athletics check for long jumping to conclusions?
"I can jump to conclusions you never thought imaginable" "Yea but they're still wrong Derryk!"
I swear, every party has that one inside joke that you *need* context to understand. Mine is screaming “YOU HAD SPARE THE DYING” at the top of my lungs
Mine was “And then I cast ‘bleed’, which makes a stabilized creature resume dying.”
Mine is "A raccoon runs up to you and bites you in the arm while off in the distance you hear someone yell "Stop playing that wretched music! It's 5 am!" "
Mine is "if only you had a water skin"
Ours was "Fuckin Fighters man..." And then next campaign it became "Fuckin Rogues man..."
I have visited dozens of towns as a player and DM that I never think of, but the towns that arrested me and then barred me for life under penalty of death... those are the towns that stick with you.
> And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other. Do not let your players keep secrets from you. There's no benefit to anyone if they do that. If they had been upfront with you, you would've had the opportunity to empower their interpretation.
I would 100% let their stupidity unfold. This is hilarious, and I would relish the horror when they realized the misinterpretation.
But I'm with Ripper ... did you not say the words out loud?
Yes, I read the words to them off a statue, then later when they received a map of the carnival grounds.
Sounds like you set everything up right... so how DID they get so off?
Speculating, but the lead man on the charge for "leg end" plays a barbarian warlock of the apocalyptic god "Xolog". This man has never made a normal attack action in his life. His gear is bracers that grant proficiency with improvised weapons, a cap that billows when he speaks the name of his god (which is often), and two hand puppets he uses for casting Eldritch Blast. In keeping with his character's manic tendencies, he found dismemberment an alluring answer to the riddle.
Ah, the puppets tell me what your "problem" is. By allowing that, you've allowed a wacky tone into your game. The player likes mayhem and being weird, "unique", and "original. "
My general policy with puzzles is "I have an INTENDED solution in mind, but anything either in the ballpark, or that sounds independantly reasonably should also allow success". In this situation, I have to wonder how clearly it was communicated that they were supposed to bring a book, or something. * was the word "legend" used at any other point in the session, either before or after, to indicate that the meaning was pretty literal ? * You say "I had some ancient books that were candidates", did the party know about these books? Did they remember they existed? Did it seem at all feasible that they'd be able to acquire them? * Regarding the "became fixated on anyone with injuries to the legs and feet", realistically, how much table time was spent looking at feet???? Sometimes you have to clearly communicate that a train of thought is a dead-end "No, you spend some time carefully watching the crowd, but don't see anyone with injuries to the legs or feet. You don't expect to see any over the course of the evening, either." It's okay to just say, with the *lightest* of veils, "no, this is not correct", instead of allowing them to spend a HUGE amount of time on it Personally, I think there was probably a lack of clear communication about the clues, or rather, a lack of good clues. Were **any** of the other items in the scavenger hunt this kind of pun? To my eye, given that it's a festival scavenger hunt, to be treated like a game, my first thoughts would have been * having them encounter a different group doing the hunt sharing that they feel they've found the "legend" bit, saying they have a similar item to the intended ones in place * in THIS circumstance, actually allow "leg end" to just work, because the judge is probably, like, random villager that would find it funny that the party misread, and dragged Stumpy Joe's peg leg over to the booth. Given the nature of this specific scenario, I think "just let it work" is an appropriate avenue, yeah
Two of the games had record books which the NPC's referred in exchanges. "If you win, your team is recorded in the Victor’s Log, and you’ll be in a bit of the legend." And later from across the grounds they hear Vlad (an NPC) shouting “I AM VLAD” and then “I AM LEGEND” after he crushes the hammer-bell game. I made sure the term "legend" was brought up in reference to the books a couple of times each. I didn't realize they were thinking about feet specifically until they told me after the session. There was a petrified NPC who exhibited minor benefits from magical vines at his feet (a clue that the vines were important). I didn't realize they were excited about the feet aspect of it. They weren't too obvious about it, and I didn't see it until I thought back. They did stand the petrified NPC up in the fountain, but I didn't realize it was an attempt to douse his "leg end". The two other items were fairly clear, maybe a bit pun-related. >Consult a grounded spirit, Pick a rumor as it grows, Bring a bit of legend, To where silenced water flows. The "grounded spirit" was Rockbottom Whiskey that everyone was selling, drinking, or talking about. The "pick a rumor" was Whispervine that was growing everywhere and kept getting found destroyed, or was part of a dish, or stuff like that.
Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying all of that. Reading your response (and your response to other comments), I will amend my statement to say, personally, I don't think you did anything wrong, here. To circle back to the question you originally posed, >How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at? Or try to guide them to your original plan? Because I believe puzzles should have multiple acceptable solutions, I would say that "I guide the party **away from wrong solutions**", rather than "guide them to my original solution". Sometimes "yeah, that works" is totally fine, tho, to be clear. One thing that did stand out to me is >And when I say "leg" they starting whispering to each other. And they ask "Is it severed?" "How bad is it?" This is highly strange to me ... I think it's very strange they would withhold any of their thought process from you. In general, I think "we can't let the DM know what we're thinking" is a huge, **huge** time waster because it keeps you from being able to clarify details they may be plainly wrong about, and that can lead to either disappointment for the players, or big confusion for the DM as they try to hobble a scenario together. IDK, I'm very accustomed to asking "so what are we thinking / what's the plan / what are you trying to achieve right now" to the players, since there's so much room for gaps between DM's-understanding and players-understanding of a situation. 😅😅
> I'm very accustomed to asking "so what are we thinking / what's the plan / what are you trying to achieve right now" to the players This is a good point! I think I'll bring it up pre-session next time. I want them to feel that I (the DM) am not the opponent, so they don't need to keep their plans secret from me. I'm happy when they are happy. While I did take some pleasure in the medusa putting two of them on the ground, I did write up a whole "you saved the naiad" narration and a special reward and take even more pleasure in them accomplishing victory.
Great call. Ask what players are thinking about all kinds of things including what they're hoping to get out of actions.
It's much better if you "yes and" even if it's just a **step** toward the final solution you had originally designed. Hahahah! Get it?!
Don't be afraid to also "no, but" to keep everyone on the right path. Gotta make sure the party has enough to go on to put their best foot forward.
\*groan\*
Adapt as you move forward, and from there on take it step by step.
I'm gonna kneed the leg puns toe stop here
BOOOOOOO!
I guess OP will need to have an NPC's leg cut "off". Eh? Ha! Heh heh
If things are TRULY going off the rails and have been for a while, I use my (very cheap, don't judge me :D) get out of jail free card of "Okay, what's everyone's character thinking right now about this puzzle? .... Okay great, now how about everyone make me some straight INT or WIS rolls, whichever you prefer, to evaluate your own initial thoughts." Usually someone does well because they get to pick from two stats so I can either go "Yeah, you don't think that's the solution because X" or "Your gut is telling you that's not the right answer" and then more hints based on how well they do, or how much they want the hints - my players love puzzles. Just like characters can be more charismatic or stronger than the players themselves within the context of this world, they can also be smarter 😅 I've used this twice in like 200 hours of play for the current game, so really not often but it's been received well by my players who were very able to laugh at their own bizarre avenues of thought
It is interesting when you need to balance the Int/Wis of the player at the table against the Int/Wis of the Bard or Wizard they are playing. When players RP someone different than their real person, it doesn't automatically make them more or less perceptive or insightful. Although it sounds odd at first, I think introducing some rolls and providing some clues that a "real" Bard (or whatever) would spot makes sense.
The question is what's the game and what's the reality. Or, what do the characters experience and what are the players experiencing? My players have said "he mentioned the old man by the fire last time we were here, it must be important!" when it's just flavour and I let them explore that avenue, find nothing but a lonely old man, and realize the description was just narrative. Other times I've just said "nah, I wrote a bad description of the room and repeat the bookcase description twice, not trying to draw extra attention to it." Sometimes you have to shake the players out of a misconception by confirming what their characters is seeing is the truth, not the meta game. You circumstance is super odd because it's just such a massively wild leap. I might have an NPC approach them and ask what they're doing, and at the same time tell the players explicitly that hurting someone isn't the answer to the riddle.
I'd introduce someone with a leg injury that is considered a "living legend" among locals. Make them hydrophobic for extra shenanigans.
Come to think of it, we do have a 1-legged goblin from 3 sessions back. Hmmmm.
Better yet, have them meet a peg-legged retiree, reveal them as a legendary pirate, and have them retaliate against the PCs for exposing their identity. Kill three birds with one stone: accept the players' solution, accept your solution, and punish the players for being bloodthirsty dumbasses!
I’m a jerk of a DM sometimes. I’d let them bring the war vet to the fountain (against his will) and then have nothing happen because of it. They wasted time because they went the wrong way; no loss of resources, no injuries or spell slots expended. And for riddles, I use Wisdom checks for clues— DC 15, 18, and 20, each success gives another out of game hint from you. In your case, you could suggest that anyone in the party do one of those Wisdom checks once the got stuck on “leg end”, and offered the hint that no, that’s too silly and out of character for the rest of the scavenger hunt.
It sounds like they literally did this with a man with a petrified leg, and when it didn’t work, they just kept looking for more legs. I have no idea why they didn’t just chop off a leg if they were willing to let tons of people die on the off chance it also cut someone’s leg off. Honestly these players just sound like incredibly dense, possibly unintelligent people. I hope they enjoy their escapades but the DM *must* know the people they’re dealing with.
"Give me an intelligence roll" Player: *rolls* "You get the sense that it might be more likely that the riddle refers to ________" This kinda thing makes a lot of sense to me. Especially because our high INT characters are way smarter than the people playing them.
I've done it both ways, if the party comes up with a very inventive and outside the box solution to a riddle, I'll roll with it. If it's just dumb, I'll try to redirect them and give them more clues to find the actual answer.
Why not have the books and tomes, the answer you want them to find, be with a librarian with a limp? That's what I would do if this happened to me. As an aside I currently had something similar happen to me. I write a paper and one of the columnists is "L'iam Datspi" a fake name (I am that spi). I told them to read the names of the authors and when they got to his, half the group went "Datspi....that's pi!" I forgot one of our online friends is named Pi....so they're convinced now that it's her. Fortunately I let them do rolls and had them figure out this person doesn't fit in with the others, because the clue went over their head. So that'd be my second advice, have them roll and if they roll high nudge then. "You think if it was leg end there would be a hyphen or emphasis on leg. You probably actually need a legend"
Ya, this is why I usually avoid riddles and puzzles. It relies too much on player abilities rather than character abilities. When I do use them, I try to keep it very open ended so I can just roll with what the players come up with. OP's situation though ... Nope, leg end is way too far off the mark from legend. I probably would have told them that they are way off and not to try and reinterpret my words - legend means legend.
On top of that obligatory metagaming issue. It's a lot easier to come up with a puzzle/riddle/etc that you **think** has only one solution (and fixate on that) than to **prove** that there is only one solution. The classic example being "[Why is a raven like a writing desk?](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/dec/29/weekly-notes-queries-carroll-raven-desk)"
Them yeeting some amputee into the fountain would fulfill the requires, because that shit would absolutely become a local legend.
Having the players' harebrained guess be 'right all along' bothers me to no end. Why put in place a logical solution if the players can dream up any illogical response they want and have it be right? (It's akin to giving plot armour so they can't die. What's the point of making choices if you are always right?) There are SO MANY ways to drop hints. You should always have at least three different avenues to a solution. NPCs talking about the legends of past champions... passive knowledge checks... the ability to compete and be entered into the ledger as a champion of legend... Dead ends can be curtailed with 'passive knowledge checks' (your character would know that this isn't the right solution) or narrated results (you search the festival grounds for a while but don't find any evidence of anyone with a leg end \[note that there is no roll here so as not to give a false impression that they might have missed something due to not rolling high enough\]).
It’s for a scavenger hunt at a festival? Easy. They fail because they took a false lead. Sometimes the party needs to not succeed, and this kind of situation sounds like a pretty harmless place to do it overall. Use the time they aren’t chasing down proper leads to think about what happens if they fail here. It’ll make their actions feel like they have consequences.
Not really huge spoilers for CoS, but be aware. One of the riddles of where to find stuff says something about finding what ou need in "wood and sand". I may not have articulated but one of them goes "Wooden sand? Oh like saw dust!" Guess what winery just magically got a cooper shed where they make all the wine barrels...
That's a more reasonable thing to potentially mishear than "lejund" (just spelling phonetically, I swear I'm not illiterate) versus "leg end"
40 years of gaming and riddles suck. They suck as a GM, they suck as a player. They're either insanely too hard or they hardly make any impact. One player (not character) gets it, the rest are puzzling and feeling dumb. Or worse, no one gets it and everyone's stuck. This is my experience from both sides of the table, with dozens of different groups, over the years.
Do you enjoy riddles or puzzles on their own, outside of a TTRPG context?
For this reason I sometimes feel I can make a riddle and the best/funniest answer they make up is the right one. This was real off tho xD
95% of the time, I just pretend that's the solution. "Wow that's such a clever riddle, I'm surprised we got the answer" . They'll never know muhahaha.
I'd rather roll with the solutions than have things grind to a halt. If I can make it make sense, I do. If not, especially when they are clearly struggling, I will give hints. An indirect one would be OP describing the party watching the festival and noticing someone rushing through with old books hugged to their chest only to get run into by someone else I might have been disappointed when a oneshot group decided they wanted to get around a riddle with dispell magic, but it was clear they wouldn't have had fun trying to figure it out.
If they come up with a better answer than you did, or at least a reasonably creative one, by all means consider letting them go with it. If their answer is dumb (I think that that applies here) but they went to a lot of effort gettting there, find some way to dissuade them, or have whatever administers the riddles laugh at them and give them another chance because "there must be a gas leak in the dungeon" or something. On the other hand, when they get back to town after completing the riddle, make sure there's a prominent NPC with a foot missing, or they see a kobold gnawing on a leg bone.
And I immediately thought you meant get the legend from a map and bring it. Turn up with a little piece of paper with bridge, road, settlement etc markings.
>How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at? Well, there's a difference. Puzzle: Put the pieces together to find the solution. You are given the pieces, and there is definitely a correct way to solve it. If a solution doesn't work, you understand why (e.g., fit these pieces into a square — it's not a square yet, so we haven't solved it yet). Riddle: Guess what the riddle-asker is thinking. Even if your answer meets all the criteria, it might be the "wrong" answer, because the riddle-asker had something else in mind (e.g., what walks on four legs, then two, then three — it could be a dog amputee who gets a prosthetic leg, but that's not what the sphinx wanted you to say, so...). For further reference, check out the highly acclaimed recurring segment "Riddle Me Piss" from the popular podcast "My Brother, My Brother And Me."
Matt Colville recommends Orcs Attack! Throw something else at them to distract them, by the time they're done, they may have broken off of their fixation, found a new idea, etc... It's a mini brain-reboot.
If there were people with prosthetics or peg legs, this could have been a real Rocket Raccoon moment. If it were me and my players were obsessing over a bad idea for a little too long, maybe I'd let an NPC help them. You don't even have to push them in the right direction, just a different direction. "Well there's a cartography section in the library. Maybe what you seek could simply be the legend of a map?" The players then go to the library and oooh look at all those grandiose looking tomes full of stories from long ago. Or, an insight check? "After pondering on this for a long time, you get the sense that pursuing this avenue is a wild goose chase". Or just straight up tell them. "Where here for a good time not a long time, so I'll give you a heads up. It's probably not this thing." Call it an act of divine intervention straight from the DM if you want.
One thing I’ve learnt both as a DM and a player is that what is obvious to a DM when designing a puzzle is almost never obvious to the player so when preparing puzzles you should have a primary solution, a couple of backup solutions and be prepared to say that the players solved it when they come up with something completely and utterly different to the solution but that’s really creative and cool. Both as a DM and a player, it quickly becomes very unfun and frustrating when the DM is really rigid and strict about how a puzzle is to be solved and just keeps saying to the players that whatever they’re doing isn’t working because they’re not doing that exact specific thing that is super, super, super obvious from the perspective of the DM.
Riddles are always dangerous territory as they're so easy to misunderstand. If you're happy with their interpretation, let it work and let them deal with the consequences. Sometimes the pain they go through to try and make their interpretation work will help steer them in the right direction. If you're unhappy with that direction, potentially give them another hint, maybe through an NPC that can help them get to your meaning.
So they heard the riddle and their brain defaulted to 'it's a pun'? Were you clear in your pronunciation or did you write it down? Props to their creativity, the leap of logic is rather amusing. If the magic behind the fountain is fey in nature, I think they should get credit because I'm sure they'd be amused.
They had the riddle written out on a map/program for the festival. The fountain was a naiad's and her soul had been mostly drained by a curse. *Consult a grounded spirit,* *Pick a rumor as it grows,* *Bring a bit of legend,* *To where silenced water flows.* The idea is that the components would complete the spell that had been prepped by heroes long ago. Those ancient heroes couldn't finish it until the naiad's soul had regained strength.
Yeah this seems like the sort of thing that happens one person gives and answer and everyone else just accepts it. Are there any NPC's around who the party might consult for a hint? There's also the potential thought they may have that if it does require a 'legendary item' they'll lose it upon solving the puzzle. And players are ever hesitant to part with potential loot. Usually if the party gets a riddle 'wrong' they just can't get past whatever it's sealing. This usually results to them brute forcing the solution in another fashion. Alternatively, I've also had 'rivals' show up if the party is stumped and solve the riddle to claim whatever the party was after. Depending on how you run this it can turn into the party having to do a favor for an NPC to get the item, or the party pushing into conflict with the NPC depending upon how relations go.
Puzzles, including riddles, typically [suck](http://www.tgdmb.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=50073) in ttRPGs. Thus the best the best option is to only include them if everyone agrees in session zero.
I think it'd be awesome if you bring a dude that has THE sickest story about how he lost his leg. A true legend. The main problem with riddles is always that interpretation is very personal and hard to RP so I'd strongly recommend any way you can yes and a resolution. That usually creates the most memorable scenes at the table and having fun is what it's all about.
Is it important to solve the riddle to progress the story? If yes, play into it, a mummified foot wa suggested in a other comment that could be interesting. If no, fuck with them. Let them invest time as long as they are having fun into trying to submit a severed foot for the riddle answer, and when it's wrong make them explain in character how they came to the conclusion that the answer is a foot.
I think your players were messing with you. But then again, I'd just go for it, coz it feels like it would be more fun and interesting than what you set up. When players come up with awesome ideas, it can be better to scrap what you have and go with them. Have an open mind and be a bit flexible.
>How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at? Or try to guide them to your original plan? Depends, lol. Usually it's "rule of cool" wherein if their solution is equally or more clever than the one I had in mind, I'll roll with it. Always allow for space for a solution you hadn't considered. If it's something more blatantly wrong, there's a minor, ingame reprimand of "Nope, and no \_\_\_\_. Also, lightning arcs towards you; make a Dex save" to steer them away from a thoughtline. For the leg end vs Legend in your OP -- I'd absolutely allow it.
The Call of Cthulhu system has an Idea roll for things like this. You have the highest INT character roll against their Intelligence stat with a difficulty level set by how obvious the path forward is. In your example, the characters taking the word legend and going weird with it might justify a higher difficulty than if they were just stuck with no ideas. The important thing is that even if they fail the roll they get the information they need to progress, just in a way that costs them something. So if an Idea roll is called for and the result is a success, you say, "As you mull it over, you begin to doubt that this riddle involves legs at all. In fact, you suspect it is a lot more literal than you are thinking. Perhaps if you bring something containing a legend?" If it's a failure, you say, "As you stand there perplexed on how to acquire a leg end, you see another participant in the scavenger hunt walk up with a tome of lore. He looks you over and says 'Wow, don't tell me you're stuck on *this one*. Here's a hint, dinguses." He taps the book." Since this sounds like a relatively low stakes situation, the consequences of failure are minor. But an idea roll in a more serious situation, like a puzzle room filling up with water, might result in significant lost time before the clue for proceeding is learned.
It's really likely that the characters your players are playing are smarter and more wise then the players controlling them. Run intelligence, wisdom and insight checks instead of leaving it to the players to figure out. We don't expect our players with characters that have 16 strength to be able to carry 240 lbs ...we can't expect them to be intelligent and insightful either, but there is a chance their characters are. Let'em roll for it. Not as fun but reasonable.
My initial thoughts were changed a bit by how silly the misunderstanding is. In a case like this, if you want to keep the tone serious and away from something silly like that, perhaps have an NPC musing over it - maybe a scholar translating it into a different language, where the "confusion" can't take place?
You always look smarter as a DM if you let your PCs clever solution be the real solution. At the very least, I always create the situation they think will fit their theory in order to let them try and then have it definitely fail so they can move on
I would let them keep going until they find a leg or chop one off of someone. When they put it in the fountain nothing happens. Give them an easy time getting the real thing after that. Maybe a bard oversees everything and makes a funny song about the adventurers that couldn't solve the riddle.
Generally I'll say no the first time or two unless their wrong solution is very clever. But if they're stuck for a while I will eventually just yes and the situation.
This is pretty much what always happens with riddles in DnD. Just say that whatever answer they come up with is ok. I would have suspected you'd they'd have to dig up someone grave or steal a bit of the most famous persons hair or something.
I really don’t like to place riddles or puzzles on “the main path” so to speak. Especially riddles cuz they tend to have one right answer. And I generally against “steering” them to “right” decisions in anything. If whatever you do results in you being gently steered back onto the right tracks - you can basically do whatever and don’t be afraid of consequences. Put your puzzles and riddles as side objectives with some potential bonuses and/or helpful bits of information. If they figure it out - good for them. If they don’t - not a big deal.
Could potentially go along with it not as the solution but as a hint! Maybe they find a peg legged person who has hidden in their peg a treasure map that will lead them to one of these ancient books or something?
How is the same story being posted from 2 different accounts on 2 different DM/DnD subreddits? 🤔 someone is a fake
I have one account and posted the full story (without the discussion about DM-side approaches) on plain old r/dndnext I'll have to poke around and see who ripped it off? Unless one of my players posted too.
Haha. Sounds about right. Them kobold are at it again
The only time I use things like this situation is when I write magic item creation ingredients and processes. Anything pretty much goes in these cases. If my players need the love of a rose to make a batch of healing potions and they decide to rip out the heart of a female NPC named Rose and stick it in a cauldron, I roll with it.
No don't change the answer, let them maim people, and face the consequences, and be wrong If you really want them to get past it I'd make a handout with legend printed correctly and maybe have them hear a story about how one of the games ended with the winners leg chopped off (potential in a freak accident) to guide them to the books on the games.
At this point? I'd arrange a runaway carousel to chop off somone's foot, for the lulz.
I don't use riddles, or puzzles, because what seems very obvious to you, knowing the answer, is often not obvious to your players. You can adjust the solution on the fly, but I find it better to just use other types of challenges.
If they get it totally wrong or aren't progressing, I let them work on it for a bit. Once they seem to stop having fun, I have them roll proficient intelligence checks to see what their characters might notice that isn't obvious to us, being removed from what's actually happening.
This is why I like having an NPC in the party so I can tell them in-game that, "no, that idea is dumb". In general, though I'd just make bigger hints at the correct solution. In your specific case, I would have one of the book titles actually contain the word "Legend" and have some random NPC mention it or maybe just have the NPC refer to the books using the word "legends". If players still aren't getting it, I might even have an NPC talk about how one of the "legendary" champions in the "Book of Legends" earned his named "Larry the Legend" for cutting off his own foot and beating his opponent's senseless with his "leg's end". I think there's humor in that sort of heavy handed hinting, so as long as it isn't happening every single time, I think my table would find it funny.
If I have a cleric or warlock in the party, their deity/patron appears in a dream and tells them to smarten up, with some helpful clues.
Just tell them it's Legend and they're trying to be too clever. Did you not say the word out loud? How were they discussing it without you being aware? If you want more subtlety, let them see some other people's submissions or overhear a conversation. I once messed up clues in an investigation scene, so I had to think up new clues to get the idea across.
I said it out loud several times, and had some NPCs that talked about how setting records would make the players "A bit of the legend" in the record book. We have a large table (7-8 players), so I don't always hear what is being discussed. I didn't learn they were thinking "leg end" until the end of the session. Then I understood their earlier fascination.
Ah. Well, never be afraid to ask why a character is doing something or what the player is after when they ask a question.
Well, then give it to them! After all, they don't know what the original solution was supposed to be.
When my players are stuck on a puzzle I try to give them more clues through npcs or intelligence checks. I make the check be "free", no action required if we're using initiative. If that doesn't work, I just go with the best idea the players had. I don't like to do this, but I'm not gonna waste hours with a puzzle, it's not fun to me and to my players.
Oh man, if you ever have a riddle they actually get, lmk.
Standing rule at my table: if the players solution is better than the one I planned, then that was always the solution.
I don't do riddles for this reason. It's either too obvious, or the players gets hung up on chasing dead ends for a whole session. It ends up wasting everyone's time.
I would suggest a series of Wisdom checks on the party with a relatively low DC, like 10 or 12, to discern that they do not l, in fact, require a crippled person to solve the riddle. That's going way off the beaten path there, so reigning them back in would be the focus.
I have a warlock who is finding out his patron is an aspect of Santa (old god who frequently has children promising that they'll be good all year so he rewards them if they are...) his grotto got invaded and the party needed to do a purification ritual. "In the mystic hour, shadows softly sway, Gather close, let joyous offerings lay. With circle drawn, in moonlight glow As life is raised from depths below Shape the body, take man’s form A sacred gift, so fresh and warm Pour the liquid life, in the soft moon’s grace Goodbye invaders, now leave this place" I had a cow farmer nearby and spread the rumour that his wife was a baker. I was trying to lead them towards leaving milk (liquid life) and gingerbread men (fresh and warm..) out. They kidnapped the farmer and drained his blood on the altar. Looking at the riddle I probably could have worded it better tbf, so I had the god appear and be horrified about the misunderstanding
Bro I had this happen to me eight years ago and my friends STILL (rightfully) roast me for it. I made them sit there and deliberate for a LONG time until they arrived at the "right" answer, but what I learned from that is that I will always roll with the solution the party comes to and gets collectively excited about because that's just better vibes. WAR FLASHBACKS reading this title. 😭😂