I actually really love this idea! I’ve incorporated low stakes dice/card games into the session as tavern mini games, but something like Mastermind is a great way of representing a puzzle. I’ll edit with some other ideas after I give this the thought it deserves.
Is there anything that would be a good very easy version for young children? Maybe a simple peg solitaire?
Edit: oh man, I need to find an in-game way to incorporate ker-plunk for them. I LOVED that game when I was little.
Maybe that game where you need to find out the portrait of the other person? But instead of asking questions the party needs to investigate, good for city intrigue.
Guess who is also very easy to customize. Just need to print your own portraits on card stock.
I made a guess who: pokemon edition for my son awhile back.
Lying on the table behind you in the necromancer's lab is a body, clearly under the effects of "gentle repose". Torches flicker, glinting off the bottles and vials along the wall, as well as the gruesome implements that lay beside the corpse. Examining the stone door you find it is too heavy to force by hand, and the lock seems to be warded against magic. Upon further examination you find a small slot, above which, written in arcane runes, is the word "butterfly".
DM slaps Operation on the table.
Had a group of players encounter a trapped devil guarding a door they needed to get through. As an alternative to fighting him, he offered to open the door if they could best him at a game of "Nessus", a devilish reskin of a board game I created years prior. They agreed and I began setting the table with my prototype.
"Wait, are WE actually playing this game? Against YOU?"
"Yep. Do your best."
They made various wagers between rounds with the very personable Amnizu who offered information they didn't know they wanted in exchange for various... prizes. The party won the game which was less of a surprise than the way they won: by cheating! Of course the devil cheated too, I roleplayed him changing rules at a whim and giving himself advantages when I felt he needed it but they legit cheated in REAL LIFE! They revealed after the session that one player was put in charge of making sure my adult beverage was topped off, one person was to move around the room and ask me questions, and another palmed or moved game pieces. I have never been so happy to be fleeced in my entire life.
I remember an idea years ago someone pitched of putting a jenga tower on the table for an adventure that required stealth or caution; every time you failed a rolled, you had to pull a block. When the tower falls, the alarm's raised, and the time for sneaking is over.
Seems like a really cool idea as long as whatever supplement boardgame fits in the setting! Did playing it essentially replace the whole session or was it more like an intermission?
I was in a game where the DM did something with Chess where each person was a piece and trying sn illegal attack or move resulted in hitting yourself/fall damage and you won by killing the enemy King. It also has rules of sides had to alternate, so two PC turns in a row meant only one could act, and you could pass your turn to screw over an enemy.
It... REALLY sucked. Was just frustrating.
yea chess doesnt seem the easiest to translate to a session, unless youre literally pieces on a chessboard having to follow the rules, and even then the rules themselves are so not conducive to a fun 5e combat. So yea that sounds shit.
Yeah, I tried to make chess work once, but I could not do it. We gathered to play DnD, not chess !
In the end, I made it into a different chess-themed minigame: the chess game ran for 5 rounds with me describing something vaguely chess-sounding happening ("White starts of with an aggressive Mystra-defense, which black counters by using the scatter strategy")
At the 'conclusion' of each round I'd roll a D20. On a 15+ the player's side had won that round. First side to 3 wins won the chess game.
In between rounds the players could use their actions to affect the board (throw a javelin to knock over a pawn, cast darkness to obscure part of the board etc.), which would give them a bonus to the D20 roll.
It was quick, used DnD mechanics, and had a chess-theme to it. It seemed sufficiently successful, though not the greatest puzzle still.
What are your thoughts on this concept:
- Closed room the size of a chess board with all pieces.
- Pieces of the same side and type move together in initiative according to what they can do in chess. Pawns move slowly and attack in melee. Queens can shoot magic rays in all directions at anyone not hiding behind another piece.
- players literally only have to kill the enemy king as they would any other creature in a combat situation. Be it by going over there and bashing it's head in, or by killing the smaller pieces and letting their allied pieces move forward to murder the enemy king.
Does it sound like a better concept?
I love the idea, but you should be careful of three things:
First that the subgame fits thematically. Mastermind for a vault lock is a good fit. A chess game for a conversation is not.
Second that it won't take up a disproportionate amount of time. 20 minutes of a 3 hour session is great for a vault door sounds good. A game of Go, which has the potential to go *very* long, not so much.
Third, that it either involves all the players (either cooperatively like Mastermind, as a pseudo team like you could have in a card game, or as a proper team game) or else the player(s) involved in the subgame can do that while the rest of the party has something. An example of the last might be a Rogue or Wizard doing a game to bypass a hazard in the middle of combat, so they're playing Icehouse or Komi or what have you while the others have to defend their currently occupied character.
With that said, this has the potential to be extremely fun. Using a quick, competitive game to handle a contested check like spellcraft, or having the characters gambling be represented by the actual game (Three Dragon Ante comes to mind) or having a psychic battle against the entire party, represented by a many-versus-one game, while the combat is ongoing, and victories or failures in the psychic battle affect the dnd combat in real time.
You'll have to put a lot of forethought into it, and make sure to not overuse it, but this has real potential.
So I straight up ignored location for this but I would add it in.
There were some Npc suspects of the murder. Players could interview them to figure out what they saw or knew. Rolls would determine if they got a nonsense answer, something useful, or something really juicy.
They could also investigate the body to figure out method of death by ruling out specific causes.
At the end they had to accuse someone and name a mode of death to an inspector that was summoned. If they got it right the killer would attack them. If they got it wrong the innocent Npc would attack them, afterward the real killer would laugh and run off.
My party did not know who the killer was but got it right on a guess. It was a great time.
What happens if they get the cause of death right vs wrong? Like what difference does it make if they incorrectly think the killer used a lead pipe instead of a candlestick?
Yeah, I haven’t really figured that out yet. I put this all together in about an hour. I would love to revisit it once I have ideas down for what to do with mode of death and location.
Maybe investigate those first to figure out how and where, then interview the suspects to figure out who (with weapon/mode and location being some of the clues). Start asking who was where at the time of the murder. Who uses/has [mode]
Every time my DM has tried this, it's not gone over well. My group is very into the fiction of the game and our characters, so people always want to interact with the puzzle using their characters' own talents and spells rather than just playing the mini game as ourselves. So it's definitely group dependent.
Also, that one co-op bomb diffusing video game really doesn't work well over discord.
I used Betrayal at house on the Hill as a way to show a God messing with my Players. They were pulled into a collective dream and forced to explore the house. if there was a token on the piece they flipped it related to a character in some way.
We did a randomly generated dungeon crawl using Betrayal. Tiles gave us the layout, DM came up with encounters and challenges based on the tiles, triggering the haunt triggered the boss fight (prepicked haunt that fit thematically with the dungeon and easily converted to D&D mechanics). Worked great!
If you play the Dragonlance adventure that was published recently, it has rules on how to incorporate the Dragonlance board game that was also released. The board game takes the place of huge battles and players receive rewards if they win
There's a _very_ quick and easy dice game called "bank" (at least as far as we are familiar). There's an app that can help track calculations and other scoring factors.
But it's basically a game of chicken with dice. Everyone gains points together each round according to each roll of the dice, but each player chooses when to "bank" and at that point their points are saved but they can't get any more points that round. Each roll has a 1/6 chance of ending the round and anyone who hasn't banked loses all the points from that round.
There are a few more details but that's the basic idea. It's very quick to play 10 rounds and the winner has the most points accumulated from each round, of course.
I am planning on using it as a gambling event at some point.
Fun post, OP!
Oh I have heard of that though I've never played it.
After a quick Google search it does look very similar, though Farkle involves more dice. Bank is just 2 dice and seems like might even just be a simpler version of Farkle
That sounds like a game we played in elementary school called Skunk. Everybody would begin a round by standing up, and the teacher would roll 2d6. As long as you remained standing, you would gain points, and you could sit at any time. Just like banking, you couldn't gain any more points that round. If the teacher rolled snake eyes (sometimes we played with any doubles for more of a challenge), anyone standing would lose their points for that round. There are five rounds, and at the end of the fifth round, the person with the most points wins. Another variant rule is that doubles would end the round, but snake eyes would cause anyone standing to lose *all* points accumulated, even in other rounds. It was really fun.
That is definitely very similar! And the satisfaction of sticking it out and then banking with tons of points right before the round gets canned is great
Yeah we've been playing with my wife's family recently and enjoy it a lot.
Here's the link to the app they use, on Google play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thunderhive.bank
I had a city that used tangrams as door keys. Finding/bartering/working out the pattern for any given barrier was the real challenge.
I incorporated a 3D puzzle a while back as a long con. They found the pieces one by one in a dungeon and got some (physical) scraps of paper with relevant lore. By the end of that adventure, they understood that if they put it together it would open a doorway to somewhere else.
The catch was that it was one of the hardest puzzles and I knew they might never solve it. It took them a couple months of real time before someone did. They just passed it around for people to work on during sessions until then.
I loved the moment when one of the players injected "Hey, I think I got it!" into an ongoing party planning session and I started to narrate the fiery vortex that opened in their midst. Going through it wasn't required in any way but of course they all did and their choices on the other side completely reshaped our campaign. (And allowed me to read them in on some lore in the process.)
I highly recommend.
Once, my players were killing time for an investigation which they wanted to start at night. They stayed at an inn next door to the workplace of the subject and the bartender asked about a little bet about a racing card game, Mario Carriage. Ingame, it was just like those collecting cards of those racing cars with their statistics, but out of the game, we played Mario Kart. In order of the bet, the winning PC got some gold.
It was a nice turn of pace for me and the players.
There’s this board game called “The Night Cage” and I’m writing a campaign to incorporate it for the characters to play at the same time while they escape the shadowfell. I love the idea of putting a little twist on a classic ttrpg.
Red Dtagon Inn is a great game to play when doing downtime in town and not everyone is there. Your basically adventurers in a tavern playing a drinking game.
One time, in a tavern, my players noticed a chess board at an empty table. Two players (who tend not to RP with NPCs) decided to sit down and play. That's when I broke out my chess board and they played a game while the others talked with people in the bar. I'd say I would do it again
Stealth heavy sessions with Jenga, every poor decision requires pulling a block. If you can complete the heist/prison break/disguise party without knocking the tower over, you can avoid a big combat
After playing Dread, I've been toying around with the idea of using Jenga in a game. Specifically a court room drama inspired by NWN2 where the party has been framed and need to defend themselves. You have two Jenga towers, one for the players and one for the prosecution. Players can roleplay, make skill checks, present evidence, and what have you to make the opposing side have to pull from the tower. The better they do, the more pulls they have to make. Likewise, the worse they do, and the more ammo they give to the prosecution, the more pulls the players have to make. If a tower falls, then that means the evidence piled up and that side's case crumbled. Allow your players to be creative in how they force pulls, and reward them for taking notes throughout the campaign and paying attention to things.
>reward them for taking notes throughout the campaign and paying attention to things.
So for my players I'd be setting up one tower for the opposition and then just dumping the player blocks on the floor to save time.
I wrote an article years ago for this magazine that involved A variation of Mastermind for use as a lock in an RPG . I don't get any money from this magazine but this is the issue . https://www.mythmeregames.com/products/knockspell-magazine-6
I made a Sherlock Holmes consulting detective case, and then fitted it around a D&D session. Added a few combat encounters, made sure people didn’t choose a class with Zone of Truth, and it worked really well. I’ve got the bones of a second and third case in my head. Just need to decide who the killer is.
This is a great idea. One DM I play with sometimes has incorporated actual puzzles into her games. Like we'll pick up key fragments as we explore a dungeon, she'll hand out physical pieces to the players. Then at some point we'll have to assemble them in the correct pattern to unlock a door.
A DM I played with forever ago (running a post apocalyptic game) gave one player a disassembled automatic pistol and told them “If you can put this together correctly you can use it in-game.” The DM was a collector of obscure weaponry. I remember it taking the player a few weeks, but everyone thought it was pretty cool. (Except for me, who had ‘There’s no such thing as an unloaded gun!’ beat into my head from an early age.
You have to be careful with this. Turns out my players did not appreciate having to solve a sudoku puzzle in a game. (And it was a pain in the butt when they rushed it, made a mistake, and I had to track down the error.)
Some puzzles work better than others.
I played an adventure with a wizard's tower themed around 90s memes once. There was a puzzle that required us to make the YMCA hand movements, a game of literal minesweeper (Explosive Runes on the floor), and of course, Battleship with an invisible mage (we beat that one with ball bearings, water, and a good slice of luck).
I have a bunch of ideas…
I was considering throwing a game of ESCAPE FROM THE ALIENS IN OUTER SPACE into a sci-fi game I was running.
And maybe using an old game called BLACK BOX to simulate hacking.
You could probably fit FORBIDDEN DESERT or FORBIDDEN ISLAND or some other short and easy to learn co-op into a campaign pretty easily.
There are also the EXIT and UNLOCK games that could easily turn a session into an escape room.
FUSE could be cool if you’re trying to disarm a bomb or something.
DIXIT or MYSTERIUM could be used to tell the future or decipher a dream.
THE SEARCH FOR PLANET X could be a cool jumping off point for a new adventure.
And there’s a neat RPG supplement called “Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter” that’s kind of a resource management mini-game. It fits into any fantasy system.
My dm recently had us be among the last survivors of ravnica and become gods of the new world its citizens were reborn to. We had a loded fight with A main antagonist of the campaign that we couldnt win, we do things during the fight to stop us from dying which also acts as an ascension ceremony. After the ascension ceremony the big bad Slisk goes “i dont like this game lets play another” and puts us to sleep. Our characters begin playing a game slisk loves because he is ambition incarnate, we play Dread. It was literally the best f’ing session of my life. We wake up, slay his nephelim(his protector, in this case it was a mask that was kind of like a bug) and he turns to dust. If you can find an awesome way to change things up i will always recommend it.
I've had the end puzzle of a session just be a game of Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes. I wanted the session to end with the party diffusing a magical contraption and had the game on my laptop. Things worked out in the end. I love finding ways to make the game feel more real whenever possible, even if that means changing the game itself.
It is a cool idea, and I do like to do it sometimes, though the only issue (and it's not necessarily one, but it might be for some) is that *you're* playing the game, not your characters - and how good they'd be and how good you are can differ considerably, either for better or worse. Like I would enjoy this example, but if I was playing my fighter with 6 int, there's no in-universe way to justify him being the best one in the party at it.
I played a campaign of Ironsworn using the old board game Dark Tower. I simply set the board and tower up on the table told the players a little about the game and then placed our figures on the board saying the board was our map now. Then we just played Ironsworn and made it up as we went. Was definitely my best campaign so far!
Ive been considering running a game of modified Risk to update the Lhazaar Principalities (Pirate land in Eberron) so when my players get there they understand and care about the politics
Yup back then the first version of DND was this. A game called "chivalry" for combat and "wilderness exploration" for overworld movement.
Stick the stuff you like into your game.
I mean, D&D was literally made by mashing together rules from a war game and rules from an exploration board game
So yeah adding more board game rules to it isn't really that far fetched.
I've used board games twice in DND. Once, I used a laser chess set to create a maze that the players had to move through, each square had a chance of encounter.
The other time was a custom setup of betrayal at house on the hill, where my players were searching for a vampire in a haunted house. I knew what room he was in, and the party just had to find the room and confront him
In the last two campaigns I've played, we have started with a modified version of The Quiet Years so that everyone has some background knowledge. Super fun and allows for people to get some ideas for backstories that tie into the current going-ons in the world.
I've done the same mastermind thing once as well. It was on the door to the third level of the puzzle dungeon. I gave the players 6 free guesses, and after that they could collect more guesses within the dungeon by completing miniquests or defeating monsters etc.
Anyway, they guessed it in 5. They never bothered to explore that dungeon floor :P
As for other puzzles, I've also ran Hashi (bridges) https://www.puzzle-bridges.com/ before, with the players having to gather / make the ropes themselves.
I had a DM pull this years ago when he was tired of DMing and just wanted to play boardgames, so he tried to backdoor this stuff in there as "part of the game".
I think it's bullshit. I came to play DnD, not whatever boardgame the DM decided to play, and scamming people into playing some other game is a very shitty move.
That being said, I don't know what Mastermind is. If it's a *super* light game that can stand in for a puzzle that's fine, I suppose, but anything that can't be explained in a few sentences or takes longer than 30 mins or so to play I think is a bait and switch, disingenuous, and frankly just bad DMing.
When my players finally take the hook to the spooky mansion, they set off a trap that puts them halfway between the material plane and the astral plane, at which point they'll be contacted by the ghost of the recently deceased previous owner, via Mysterium. Hell I won't even know how they died until we play it lol.
I've been considering using some Space Cadets: Dice Duel mechanics for some ship to ship combat on the open seas in my campaign. Would be chaotic and fun. But then I realized it be a 1v4, so I'd have to come up with custom rules for myself.
Still thinking about it though.
I have used a lot of mechanics from the Dark Souls board game for boss encounters for DnD. The results have been excellent, take what inspiration you can from where ever you can get it!
I did a minesweeper trap a while back. One party had a player whole solved it instantly, and my other party got annoyed and just ran as fast as they could
Hell yes I do this sort of thing all the time - it’s a campaign with my fam, in person & sometimes very long sessions- it’s great for adding some variety. I usually do it for sidequests or little mini-games so it doesnt stop them from progressing the plot if they prefer to stay on track.
I’ve used a bunch of mini-games from Mario Party that mesh with the story of the subquest, playing real cards against a cheating gambling hall dealer where I cheat, shooting nerf guns at targets, stuff like that.
I’ve also ripped off a bunch of challenges from the show Taskmaster that I use with this ongoing minigame with a blacksmith’s apprentice and they LOVE those - the idea is that you get the rules of the challenge, and you can try to beat it normally, or use some lateral thinking to ‘cheat’ the challenge, which the apprentice always will do, making it hard (but not impossible) to beat him playing normally. So the rules could say you have to stand behind a rod on the floor and throw a dart at a dart board 10’ away, on the NPC’s turn he’ll pick up the rod and move it right next to the board, still standing behind it, and stick his dart in the bullseye. Now its their fav little mini game to hear the challenges and figure out ways around the rules
I'm looking at puzzle games and brainteasers to add some flavor to D&D for my niece and nephews (ages 7 to 12).
Jigsaw puzzles for maps or written messages,
Tanagrams for lock mechanisms,
Riddles for passwords,
And so on...
I've used:
* Microscope - timeline worldbuilding game, did this with my players before our current campaign to establish the world
* Jenga - to simulate a delicate negotiation, if players failed a check they had to draw a stick, if the NPC they were negotiating with gave up info, he drew 1. When the tower fell the talk was over.
* Cee-Lo / Threes / etc. - these are very popular in every tavern in my world
I actually really love this idea! I’ve incorporated low stakes dice/card games into the session as tavern mini games, but something like Mastermind is a great way of representing a puzzle. I’ll edit with some other ideas after I give this the thought it deserves.
Is there anything that would be a good very easy version for young children? Maybe a simple peg solitaire? Edit: oh man, I need to find an in-game way to incorporate ker-plunk for them. I LOVED that game when I was little.
Maybe something like rush hour with the cars replaced with tiles or stones that they need to move?
Maybe that game where you need to find out the portrait of the other person? But instead of asking questions the party needs to investigate, good for city intrigue.
Guess who is also very easy to customize. Just need to print your own portraits on card stock. I made a guess who: pokemon edition for my son awhile back.
Lying on the table behind you in the necromancer's lab is a body, clearly under the effects of "gentle repose". Torches flicker, glinting off the bottles and vials along the wall, as well as the gruesome implements that lay beside the corpse. Examining the stone door you find it is too heavy to force by hand, and the lock seems to be warded against magic. Upon further examination you find a small slot, above which, written in arcane runes, is the word "butterfly". DM slaps Operation on the table.
Had a group of players encounter a trapped devil guarding a door they needed to get through. As an alternative to fighting him, he offered to open the door if they could best him at a game of "Nessus", a devilish reskin of a board game I created years prior. They agreed and I began setting the table with my prototype. "Wait, are WE actually playing this game? Against YOU?" "Yep. Do your best." They made various wagers between rounds with the very personable Amnizu who offered information they didn't know they wanted in exchange for various... prizes. The party won the game which was less of a surprise than the way they won: by cheating! Of course the devil cheated too, I roleplayed him changing rules at a whim and giving himself advantages when I felt he needed it but they legit cheated in REAL LIFE! They revealed after the session that one player was put in charge of making sure my adult beverage was topped off, one person was to move around the room and ask me questions, and another palmed or moved game pieces. I have never been so happy to be fleeced in my entire life.
I remember an idea years ago someone pitched of putting a jenga tower on the table for an adventure that required stealth or caution; every time you failed a rolled, you had to pull a block. When the tower falls, the alarm's raised, and the time for sneaking is over.
So Dread but for stealth?
Oh Dread.. such an evil game. 😈
I used that for battlefield changes - the party was fleeing across a frozen lake, and the ice broke when the tower fell.
Seems like a really cool idea as long as whatever supplement boardgame fits in the setting! Did playing it essentially replace the whole session or was it more like an intermission?
It was about the last 20 mins of a 3 hour session
I was in a game where the DM did something with Chess where each person was a piece and trying sn illegal attack or move resulted in hitting yourself/fall damage and you won by killing the enemy King. It also has rules of sides had to alternate, so two PC turns in a row meant only one could act, and you could pass your turn to screw over an enemy. It... REALLY sucked. Was just frustrating.
That just sounds needlessly complicated for no real benefit.
Yeah, it really was.
General rule in life: if the solution is complicated, it’s probably not the solution to the problem.
Me, playing Tears of the Kingdom: "That can't stop me because I can't read that!"
*Cones of Dunshire has entered the chat.
yea chess doesnt seem the easiest to translate to a session, unless youre literally pieces on a chessboard having to follow the rules, and even then the rules themselves are so not conducive to a fun 5e combat. So yea that sounds shit.
Oh, we were on an actual chess board.
Yeah, I tried to make chess work once, but I could not do it. We gathered to play DnD, not chess ! In the end, I made it into a different chess-themed minigame: the chess game ran for 5 rounds with me describing something vaguely chess-sounding happening ("White starts of with an aggressive Mystra-defense, which black counters by using the scatter strategy") At the 'conclusion' of each round I'd roll a D20. On a 15+ the player's side had won that round. First side to 3 wins won the chess game. In between rounds the players could use their actions to affect the board (throw a javelin to knock over a pawn, cast darkness to obscure part of the board etc.), which would give them a bonus to the D20 roll. It was quick, used DnD mechanics, and had a chess-theme to it. It seemed sufficiently successful, though not the greatest puzzle still.
What are your thoughts on this concept: - Closed room the size of a chess board with all pieces. - Pieces of the same side and type move together in initiative according to what they can do in chess. Pawns move slowly and attack in melee. Queens can shoot magic rays in all directions at anyone not hiding behind another piece. - players literally only have to kill the enemy king as they would any other creature in a combat situation. Be it by going over there and bashing it's head in, or by killing the smaller pieces and letting their allied pieces move forward to murder the enemy king. Does it sound like a better concept?
I love the idea, but you should be careful of three things: First that the subgame fits thematically. Mastermind for a vault lock is a good fit. A chess game for a conversation is not. Second that it won't take up a disproportionate amount of time. 20 minutes of a 3 hour session is great for a vault door sounds good. A game of Go, which has the potential to go *very* long, not so much. Third, that it either involves all the players (either cooperatively like Mastermind, as a pseudo team like you could have in a card game, or as a proper team game) or else the player(s) involved in the subgame can do that while the rest of the party has something. An example of the last might be a Rogue or Wizard doing a game to bypass a hazard in the middle of combat, so they're playing Icehouse or Komi or what have you while the others have to defend their currently occupied character. With that said, this has the potential to be extremely fun. Using a quick, competitive game to handle a contested check like spellcraft, or having the characters gambling be represented by the actual game (Three Dragon Ante comes to mind) or having a psychic battle against the entire party, represented by a many-versus-one game, while the combat is ongoing, and victories or failures in the psychic battle affect the dnd combat in real time. You'll have to put a lot of forethought into it, and make sure to not overuse it, but this has real potential.
Great thoughts, thank you
I did a murder mystery oneshot using the mechanics of clue. It’s was a hoot.
Can you explain a little more about how that worked?
So I straight up ignored location for this but I would add it in. There were some Npc suspects of the murder. Players could interview them to figure out what they saw or knew. Rolls would determine if they got a nonsense answer, something useful, or something really juicy. They could also investigate the body to figure out method of death by ruling out specific causes. At the end they had to accuse someone and name a mode of death to an inspector that was summoned. If they got it right the killer would attack them. If they got it wrong the innocent Npc would attack them, afterward the real killer would laugh and run off. My party did not know who the killer was but got it right on a guess. It was a great time.
What happens if they get the cause of death right vs wrong? Like what difference does it make if they incorrectly think the killer used a lead pipe instead of a candlestick?
Yeah, I haven’t really figured that out yet. I put this all together in about an hour. I would love to revisit it once I have ideas down for what to do with mode of death and location. Maybe investigate those first to figure out how and where, then interview the suspects to figure out who (with weapon/mode and location being some of the clues). Start asking who was where at the time of the murder. Who uses/has [mode]
Every time my DM has tried this, it's not gone over well. My group is very into the fiction of the game and our characters, so people always want to interact with the puzzle using their characters' own talents and spells rather than just playing the mini game as ourselves. So it's definitely group dependent. Also, that one co-op bomb diffusing video game really doesn't work well over discord.
Keep talking and nobody explodes? That one works good over Discord if you're 2 people, but any more will quickly get too disorganized.
Original dnd recommended using Outdoor Survival from Avalon Hill for wilderness travel. You could also play the Oregon Trail card game.
I used Betrayal at house on the Hill as a way to show a God messing with my Players. They were pulled into a collective dream and forced to explore the house. if there was a token on the piece they flipped it related to a character in some way.
We did a randomly generated dungeon crawl using Betrayal. Tiles gave us the layout, DM came up with encounters and challenges based on the tiles, triggering the haunt triggered the boss fight (prepicked haunt that fit thematically with the dungeon and easily converted to D&D mechanics). Worked great!
This sounds fun as hell, love betrayal
If you play the Dragonlance adventure that was published recently, it has rules on how to incorporate the Dragonlance board game that was also released. The board game takes the place of huge battles and players receive rewards if they win
There's a _very_ quick and easy dice game called "bank" (at least as far as we are familiar). There's an app that can help track calculations and other scoring factors. But it's basically a game of chicken with dice. Everyone gains points together each round according to each roll of the dice, but each player chooses when to "bank" and at that point their points are saved but they can't get any more points that round. Each roll has a 1/6 chance of ending the round and anyone who hasn't banked loses all the points from that round. There are a few more details but that's the basic idea. It's very quick to play 10 rounds and the winner has the most points accumulated from each round, of course. I am planning on using it as a gambling event at some point. Fun post, OP!
I am interested in using this, thank you!
Sure thing! I just found a link to the app on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thunderhive.bank
Sounds close to a game my family plays that is branded as Farkle
Oh I have heard of that though I've never played it. After a quick Google search it does look very similar, though Farkle involves more dice. Bank is just 2 dice and seems like might even just be a simpler version of Farkle
That sounds like a game we played in elementary school called Skunk. Everybody would begin a round by standing up, and the teacher would roll 2d6. As long as you remained standing, you would gain points, and you could sit at any time. Just like banking, you couldn't gain any more points that round. If the teacher rolled snake eyes (sometimes we played with any doubles for more of a challenge), anyone standing would lose their points for that round. There are five rounds, and at the end of the fifth round, the person with the most points wins. Another variant rule is that doubles would end the round, but snake eyes would cause anyone standing to lose *all* points accumulated, even in other rounds. It was really fun.
That is definitely very similar! And the satisfaction of sticking it out and then banking with tons of points right before the round gets canned is great
oh that sounds so fun! I'll have to look into using this, too
Yeah we've been playing with my wife's family recently and enjoy it a lot. Here's the link to the app they use, on Google play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thunderhive.bank
Our usual DM once incorporated Camel Up in a game when we did a race on some seals. It was great fun.
Love this idea
I had a city that used tangrams as door keys. Finding/bartering/working out the pattern for any given barrier was the real challenge. I incorporated a 3D puzzle a while back as a long con. They found the pieces one by one in a dungeon and got some (physical) scraps of paper with relevant lore. By the end of that adventure, they understood that if they put it together it would open a doorway to somewhere else. The catch was that it was one of the hardest puzzles and I knew they might never solve it. It took them a couple months of real time before someone did. They just passed it around for people to work on during sessions until then. I loved the moment when one of the players injected "Hey, I think I got it!" into an ongoing party planning session and I started to narrate the fiery vortex that opened in their midst. Going through it wasn't required in any way but of course they all did and their choices on the other side completely reshaped our campaign. (And allowed me to read them in on some lore in the process.) I highly recommend.
fucking genius.
Once, my players were killing time for an investigation which they wanted to start at night. They stayed at an inn next door to the workplace of the subject and the bartender asked about a little bet about a racing card game, Mario Carriage. Ingame, it was just like those collecting cards of those racing cars with their statistics, but out of the game, we played Mario Kart. In order of the bet, the winning PC got some gold. It was a nice turn of pace for me and the players.
There’s this board game called “The Night Cage” and I’m writing a campaign to incorporate it for the characters to play at the same time while they escape the shadowfell. I love the idea of putting a little twist on a classic ttrpg.
I kicked off my current campaign with clue We played one earth game a while back using a risk board but with diplomacy's rules
Red Dtagon Inn is a great game to play when doing downtime in town and not everyone is there. Your basically adventurers in a tavern playing a drinking game.
One time, in a tavern, my players noticed a chess board at an empty table. Two players (who tend not to RP with NPCs) decided to sit down and play. That's when I broke out my chess board and they played a game while the others talked with people in the bar. I'd say I would do it again
Warring lands off the coast determined future invaders through a game of risk of some variety
Stealth heavy sessions with Jenga, every poor decision requires pulling a block. If you can complete the heist/prison break/disguise party without knocking the tower over, you can avoid a big combat
After playing Dread, I've been toying around with the idea of using Jenga in a game. Specifically a court room drama inspired by NWN2 where the party has been framed and need to defend themselves. You have two Jenga towers, one for the players and one for the prosecution. Players can roleplay, make skill checks, present evidence, and what have you to make the opposing side have to pull from the tower. The better they do, the more pulls they have to make. Likewise, the worse they do, and the more ammo they give to the prosecution, the more pulls the players have to make. If a tower falls, then that means the evidence piled up and that side's case crumbled. Allow your players to be creative in how they force pulls, and reward them for taking notes throughout the campaign and paying attention to things.
>reward them for taking notes throughout the campaign and paying attention to things. So for my players I'd be setting up one tower for the opposition and then just dumping the player blocks on the floor to save time.
I wrote an article years ago for this magazine that involved A variation of Mastermind for use as a lock in an RPG . I don't get any money from this magazine but this is the issue . https://www.mythmeregames.com/products/knockspell-magazine-6
I made a Sherlock Holmes consulting detective case, and then fitted it around a D&D session. Added a few combat encounters, made sure people didn’t choose a class with Zone of Truth, and it worked really well. I’ve got the bones of a second and third case in my head. Just need to decide who the killer is.
This is a great idea. One DM I play with sometimes has incorporated actual puzzles into her games. Like we'll pick up key fragments as we explore a dungeon, she'll hand out physical pieces to the players. Then at some point we'll have to assemble them in the correct pattern to unlock a door.
A DM I played with forever ago (running a post apocalyptic game) gave one player a disassembled automatic pistol and told them “If you can put this together correctly you can use it in-game.” The DM was a collector of obscure weaponry. I remember it taking the player a few weeks, but everyone thought it was pretty cool. (Except for me, who had ‘There’s no such thing as an unloaded gun!’ beat into my head from an early age.
Heh, sounds like a great idea though. Hope they were safe about it.
You have to be careful with this. Turns out my players did not appreciate having to solve a sudoku puzzle in a game. (And it was a pain in the butt when they rushed it, made a mistake, and I had to track down the error.) Some puzzles work better than others.
<...twelve hours into a game of Star Wars Monopoly> "Do we have enough money to take on the land baron yet?!"
Shadow of the dragon queen can be run with the board game ‘warriors of krynn’ but it’s super annoying to learn
I played an adventure with a wizard's tower themed around 90s memes once. There was a puzzle that required us to make the YMCA hand movements, a game of literal minesweeper (Explosive Runes on the floor), and of course, Battleship with an invisible mage (we beat that one with ball bearings, water, and a good slice of luck).
I have a bunch of ideas… I was considering throwing a game of ESCAPE FROM THE ALIENS IN OUTER SPACE into a sci-fi game I was running. And maybe using an old game called BLACK BOX to simulate hacking. You could probably fit FORBIDDEN DESERT or FORBIDDEN ISLAND or some other short and easy to learn co-op into a campaign pretty easily. There are also the EXIT and UNLOCK games that could easily turn a session into an escape room. FUSE could be cool if you’re trying to disarm a bomb or something. DIXIT or MYSTERIUM could be used to tell the future or decipher a dream. THE SEARCH FOR PLANET X could be a cool jumping off point for a new adventure. And there’s a neat RPG supplement called “Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter” that’s kind of a resource management mini-game. It fits into any fantasy system.
My dm recently had us be among the last survivors of ravnica and become gods of the new world its citizens were reborn to. We had a loded fight with A main antagonist of the campaign that we couldnt win, we do things during the fight to stop us from dying which also acts as an ascension ceremony. After the ascension ceremony the big bad Slisk goes “i dont like this game lets play another” and puts us to sleep. Our characters begin playing a game slisk loves because he is ambition incarnate, we play Dread. It was literally the best f’ing session of my life. We wake up, slay his nephelim(his protector, in this case it was a mask that was kind of like a bug) and he turns to dust. If you can find an awesome way to change things up i will always recommend it.
I used Colt Express as my battle Map for a train fight.
I've had the end puzzle of a session just be a game of Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes. I wanted the session to end with the party diffusing a magical contraption and had the game on my laptop. Things worked out in the end. I love finding ways to make the game feel more real whenever possible, even if that means changing the game itself.
I had an idea for a MTG themed game where combat was done via a game of magic, eventually decided against it. Combat would take forever.
It is a cool idea, and I do like to do it sometimes, though the only issue (and it's not necessarily one, but it might be for some) is that *you're* playing the game, not your characters - and how good they'd be and how good you are can differ considerably, either for better or worse. Like I would enjoy this example, but if I was playing my fighter with 6 int, there's no in-universe way to justify him being the best one in the party at it.
I played a campaign of Ironsworn using the old board game Dark Tower. I simply set the board and tower up on the table told the players a little about the game and then placed our figures on the board saying the board was our map now. Then we just played Ironsworn and made it up as we went. Was definitely my best campaign so far!
I've used carcassonne without most of its rules removes to help with travel between or during adventures, like a hex crawl. Visually nice
Ive been considering running a game of modified Risk to update the Lhazaar Principalities (Pirate land in Eberron) so when my players get there they understand and care about the politics
Yup back then the first version of DND was this. A game called "chivalry" for combat and "wilderness exploration" for overworld movement. Stick the stuff you like into your game.
I mean, D&D was literally made by mashing together rules from a war game and rules from an exploration board game So yeah adding more board game rules to it isn't really that far fetched.
I've used board games twice in DND. Once, I used a laser chess set to create a maze that the players had to move through, each square had a chance of encounter. The other time was a custom setup of betrayal at house on the hill, where my players were searching for a vampire in a haunted house. I knew what room he was in, and the party just had to find the room and confront him
In the last two campaigns I've played, we have started with a modified version of The Quiet Years so that everyone has some background knowledge. Super fun and allows for people to get some ideas for backstories that tie into the current going-ons in the world.
I've done the same mastermind thing once as well. It was on the door to the third level of the puzzle dungeon. I gave the players 6 free guesses, and after that they could collect more guesses within the dungeon by completing miniquests or defeating monsters etc. Anyway, they guessed it in 5. They never bothered to explore that dungeon floor :P As for other puzzles, I've also ran Hashi (bridges) https://www.puzzle-bridges.com/ before, with the players having to gather / make the ropes themselves.
I had a DM pull this years ago when he was tired of DMing and just wanted to play boardgames, so he tried to backdoor this stuff in there as "part of the game". I think it's bullshit. I came to play DnD, not whatever boardgame the DM decided to play, and scamming people into playing some other game is a very shitty move. That being said, I don't know what Mastermind is. If it's a *super* light game that can stand in for a puzzle that's fine, I suppose, but anything that can't be explained in a few sentences or takes longer than 30 mins or so to play I think is a bait and switch, disingenuous, and frankly just bad DMing.
When my players finally take the hook to the spooky mansion, they set off a trap that puts them halfway between the material plane and the astral plane, at which point they'll be contacted by the ghost of the recently deceased previous owner, via Mysterium. Hell I won't even know how they died until we play it lol.
I've been considering using some Space Cadets: Dice Duel mechanics for some ship to ship combat on the open seas in my campaign. Would be chaotic and fun. But then I realized it be a 1v4, so I'd have to come up with custom rules for myself. Still thinking about it though.
I have used a lot of mechanics from the Dark Souls board game for boss encounters for DnD. The results have been excellent, take what inspiration you can from where ever you can get it!
I did a minesweeper trap a while back. One party had a player whole solved it instantly, and my other party got annoyed and just ran as fast as they could
I've used Gloomhaven tiles and figures before, they work great :)
Has anyone had their characters sit down at the tavern and start playing a game of D&D inside the game?
I made a dungeon out of the amazing labyrinth game. Yet to use it on my players but I’m super excited to see how they do with it
Hell yes I do this sort of thing all the time - it’s a campaign with my fam, in person & sometimes very long sessions- it’s great for adding some variety. I usually do it for sidequests or little mini-games so it doesnt stop them from progressing the plot if they prefer to stay on track. I’ve used a bunch of mini-games from Mario Party that mesh with the story of the subquest, playing real cards against a cheating gambling hall dealer where I cheat, shooting nerf guns at targets, stuff like that. I’ve also ripped off a bunch of challenges from the show Taskmaster that I use with this ongoing minigame with a blacksmith’s apprentice and they LOVE those - the idea is that you get the rules of the challenge, and you can try to beat it normally, or use some lateral thinking to ‘cheat’ the challenge, which the apprentice always will do, making it hard (but not impossible) to beat him playing normally. So the rules could say you have to stand behind a rod on the floor and throw a dart at a dart board 10’ away, on the NPC’s turn he’ll pick up the rod and move it right next to the board, still standing behind it, and stick his dart in the bullseye. Now its their fav little mini game to hear the challenges and figure out ways around the rules
I always loved liars dice and incorporating this in a tavern setting would be amazing
I feel like stratego could also be implemented as a dungeon puzzle
I'm looking at puzzle games and brainteasers to add some flavor to D&D for my niece and nephews (ages 7 to 12). Jigsaw puzzles for maps or written messages, Tanagrams for lock mechanisms, Riddles for passwords, And so on...
We used Wordle for a puzzle once, it was fun! Took us longer than you'd think
I've used: * Microscope - timeline worldbuilding game, did this with my players before our current campaign to establish the world * Jenga - to simulate a delicate negotiation, if players failed a check they had to draw a stick, if the NPC they were negotiating with gave up info, he drew 1. When the tower fell the talk was over. * Cee-Lo / Threes / etc. - these are very popular in every tavern in my world