The army of the Unseen Evil hide on the other side of a sealed doorway. As soon as the foolish adventurers solve the final ward, the army will be unleashed at last to wreak havoc upon the world. The army has waited millennia to be unleashed...and freedom shall be theirs in the next five minutes. An hour later, the excitement of the army has worn off, and chatter has broken out amongst the troops. The Event Holder walks up and apologizes to the Unseen Evil’s general. “Sorry about the wait...it should only be a few more minutes. I think they almost have the puzzle solved. I forgot how stupid PCs can be.” The general looks up and asks “What is the puzzle they have to solve anyway?” The event holder just sighs and responds “It’s only a Rubik’s Cube...can you believe nobody there knows how to solve a rubiks cube?” Upon hearing this news, the general settles down for a nap. It’s going to be a few more hours.
PCs are stupid. This statement has been bandied about over the years whenever NPCs and Staff start to get bored waiting for the PCs to overcome an obstacle. While on occasion the PCs may be having an off day, more often it is simply because the PCs don’t know how the the event is planned and are working off of partial information which may or may not be correct. Today’s article will provide a series of tips and tricks to avoid having your PCs feel lost.
We will start with simple puzzles and encounters in which the PCs need to figure something out, rather than simply killing creatures on the way to a location. These encounters, when designed with minimal effort, usually look something like “go to the location, say the magic words, and the door will open.” So, lets take a look at how to improve it. For each part of the encounter, ask yourself, “How will the PCs know to do this, or even where to go?” Always question this, even if you feel you already know the answer, and keep asking it over and over again until you feel satisfied with all of those answers. For example, how do the PC’s know to “go to the location from where they currently are”? Perhaps it is because a guide is leading them to the sacred grove. How will they know to find the guide? Perhaps the guide will need to be rescued. How will they know to rescue him? Perhaps, the guide’s wife comes to ask the PCs to save her husband. That is a good starting point. Now, there is another question of why the guide would lead them to the sacred grove/why will the PCs follow him? Well...perhaps the Unseen Evil’s forces have kidnapped the guide so nobody could find the grove, and now knowing this, the guide will lead the PCs to stop the forces there. This line of questioning turned “go to the location” into “The guide’s wife will ask the heroes to save her husband, the PCs find the guide, and then follow him at his prompting to find the forces of the Unseen Evil at the sacred grove.”
The second half of the encounter was “and say the magic words to open the door.” How will the PCs know the magic words? How will they know to speak them? Is there a puzzle on the door that clues the PCs into what the magic words are? How can they solve the puzzle? How do they know to speak the words aloud? Until all of these are answered, the places the PCs can get lost still exist. As an event holder it looks trivial, but as a PC, they do not already know the solution, and can get lost pursuing an incorrect assumption.
Once everything is designed, playtest the puzzle or encounter if you can. It may point out where there may be issues you didn’t expect. Not only playtest it, but playtest it with multiple people. This will give you a rough guideline on the minimum amount of time something can take, as well if it might take too long. Don’t rely just on this for a maximum timeframe, because PCs are under a lot of stress at an event. They are working on figuring out what is happening, while trying to stay alive, and quite possibly sleep deprived, up later than they normally are, while not having eaten properly throughout the day. These factors can make thinking rather difficult, and sometimes a simple anagram can take a long time to solve.
When using riddles, be careful. If you are using pre-made riddles, people will have already heard them, which makes them barely a speed bump. If nobody has heard that particular riddle, it may take forever to solve. Riddles are often an “all or nothing” kind of puzzle, and plan for PCs being unable to solve one or two of them. On that note, plan for PC’s being unable to solve a puzzle. See my article on PC Failure to figure out how this can be handled.
An interesting concept to incorporate into puzzles is feedback. Having some IC mechanism to tell the PCs they are on the right path can lead to a cleaner solution overall. Having clicks or dings or buzzers or something else to help the PCs can lead to a more enjoyable and less frustrating experience overall. Think of the game “Mastermind” where rather than blind luck, you get feedback to help your next attempt at solving the pattern.
Be careful designing anything which requires knowledge of previous events. The more your PCs are invested in the plot, the more you can use previous knowledge (and the PCs will know the information), but early on in the plot people will not remember everything from a year ago. If you want to do this, there are two different ways to handle it. First, you can re-release the information. This will help the PCs remember it, and guarantee the information is available. The other way is to design something which requires previous knowledge, but make it optional. Perhaps a chance to meet or gain an ally, weapon, or magic item that isn’t absolutely mandatory for completion of the quest.
Finally, as a general tip, take PC communication into account. When PCs communicate, sometimes a game of telephone occurs, and as the information spreads outwards, it changes to become something useless or even harmful to the plot. If you need information to be on the quest, be sure to give it to the PCs either in writing or from multiple sources so multiple people can get the untarnished information before it changes.
How have you handled PC’s being “Stupid” at your events? Did I miss any methods you use to avoid the problem? Do you disagree with these approaches? Leave a message in the comments.