GM Thoughts: Thinking in Puzzles
One of my favorite Conan stories is The Thing in the Crypt by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. It’s a simple story: Conan, escaping from Hyperborean slavers and hunted by starving wolves, finds shelter in a cave that is also the tomb of an ancient warrior chieftain. He lights a fire with scraps he finds in the cave, and later uses that same fire to defeat the undead chieftain.
It’s short, sharp and pure Conan. If someone asked me for a quick introduction to the character and his world, I’d point them to this story. But it’s also a story about puzzles.
What Is a Puzzle?
I think most of us hear the word “puzzle” and immediately think of a riddle or complicated contraption. But a puzzle can be any obstacle that demands clever thinking.
Convincing a reluctant halfling to join your party is a puzzle. Stopping a hydra from growing two new heads every time you cut one off is a puzzle. It’s not about locks or levers, it’s about challenges that make players stop and think.
In The Thing in the Crypt, Conan faces several such challenges:
In captivity, he gradually weakens a single chain link over time, then uses the chain as a weapon.
Unarmed and pursued by wolves, he looks for high ground where he can’t be surrounded.
In the tomb, he improvises a fire from scraps. First to see, then to face an undead foe.
These aren’t just dice rolls. They’re problems he solves with wits and clever thinking.
Thinking in Puzzles
It’s easy to think of adventures in terms of locations, monsters and treasures. There’s a dungeon with four rooms, a goblin ambush on the road, and a magic sword at the end. NPCs provide equipment and rumors and occasionally serve as quest-givers.
Viewing these things as puzzles shifts our focus. A merchant NPC may have the quest info, but they aren’t interested in sharing it. Suddenly the characters have a challenge that can’t be overcome by rolling initiative. Solving the merchant puzzle adds variety to the adventure.
It also helps with adventure pacing. Instead of thinking about how many combat encounters to include in your adventure, you’re thinking about how many challenges. And those challenges can be much greater than what you would normally have your characters face. The goal is for them to find a clever solution rather than roll a high number.
Problems, Not Solutions
It’s tempting to think ahead of time how a problem “should” be solved, but be careful to avoid forcing a single path. I remember a video game (either one of the X-Men: Legends or Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games) where I couldn’t cross canyons without first creating a bridge. In a game where several characters can fly. It was frustrating and broke immersion.
Be flexible and let the players work out how to solve their problems. Maybe they don’t light a fire to see in the cave, maybe they find a way to reflect the fading sunlight from the entrance. Maybe they force the undead chieftain out of the tomb to break the spell. If it makes sense and it’s fun, let it work.
Bringing It to the Table
When you design a puzzle for your game, think in simple terms:
A goal: what the characters want.
An obstacle: what stands in their way.
A complication or advantage (optional): Something that tips the balance, either eliminating or enabling a solution.
If I was prepping The Thing in the Crypt for my next session, I would break it down like this:
Captivity by Slavers
Goal: Escape.
Obstacle: Chains, guards and taskmasters.
Advantage: A fierce thunderstorm causes chaos in the work camp.
Hunted by Wolves
Goal: Survive.
Obstacle: A desperate wolf pack.
Complication: The wolves are starving and relentless. The characters are unarmed and exhausted.
The Cave Crypt
Goal: Be able to see.
Obstacle: The crypt is pitch black.
Advantage: The crypt is full of burial treasures that offer potential tools.
The Thing in the Crypt
Goal: Survive.
Obstacle: The undead warrior chieftain.
Advantage: Among the burial treasures are weapons and equipment.
By boiling scenes down like this, you aren’t scripting outcomes. You’re giving players clear stakes and letting their creativity shape the solution.
Other Thoughts
Clayton Notestine suggests using puzzle thinking to make a dragon encounter more than a game of reducing hit points: The 1 HP Dragon
The Holy Roller describes the similar example of running monsters in 24xx, using risks and obstacles to encourage creativity:
The ADHDM discusses the difference between “traditional” puzzles and puzzles as challenge encounters:
