Props & Puzzles

[Morgoth]

I love to incorporate puzzles and riddles into my games. It's a lot more fun and meaningful to have the players wracking their brains as opposed to just having them roll a die and say they succeed. It's gets the players into the spirit of roleplaying.

Yes, it's testing player knowledge rather than character knowledge. But your characters always have an aspect of yourself in them. Also, the more similar your character is to you, the easier he/she will be to roleplay. (Don't agree? Just look at the times you've had a gender-bending character in your campaign and forgot they were playing the opposite sex).

But I usually will allow a roll to help out. The party was challenged to a game of riddles and a successful riddle check gave them a small clue to the riddle. I might tell them that a certain word could have more than one meaning, or that a certain part of the word might be metaphorical while another is probably literal.

[JoeArcher]

When I do use puzzles, riddles etc. I always create them in levels of difficulty or with different levels of hints. That way, when the players roll for their skill they get a challenge appropriate to their success. If they have a great success they get more clues and have an easier time solving it. If they fail their check, they may still be able to solve it, but not easily. I use such challenges sparingly though, as I find they can sometimes hurt immersion more that adding to it, because it's a player activity rather than a character activity.