The “No Roll Puzzle” and Meta Immersion in Roleplaying
Anyone who has been subjected to a high school music class will solve this puzzle in the span of a few heartbeats. They’ll see what I’m doing with the free association that the mind slips into. Even still, they’ll feel clever, wise, and capable. Isn’t that why anyone plays these games? For my groups ages 7 to 11, the solution to the problem is hard won. The look on their faces when they solve it is priceless.
The Bard’s Riddle
You wander into an empty banquet hall with no windows and no doors except the ones you’ve entered from. The map clearly states that your objective is through this room, but you can’t see anywhere to go. A beautiful harp stands covered in dust, the elven inlay on its wood a work of breathtaking art. Something has been wedged between the sharp edges of the engraving… a scroll. Unfurling the moth-nibbled parchment, you begin to read over the words inked in a shaking hand:
“A bee will be in the key to see a minor mode of escaping.”
Should you pluck the chords A, B, B, C, and A Minor, as hinted in the poem, a secret door will open in the wall!
Simple stuff, but it touches on something I learned late in my work as a DM. A puzzle that can be solved by the player in addition to the character sends a shock of inspiration through your table. I’ve implemented this principle in games for all ages, not just those who are still learning the basics of trivia. I call it the “No Roll Puzzle,” and its helped me turn some disinterested players into active investigators of imagined realities. Characters can and ought to be capable agents of change, but they need someone to steer them. By breaking down the barriers between player and character, we can make someone feel a little less like their driving a self-steering cruise controlled Tesla and more like they are the machine they’re operating. Perhaps the version of this that I’ve used most is translating or deciphering text, which can be incredibly fun. Add in a ticking clock and some danger and you’ve got a perfect encounter. Here’s a rather low-stakes example:
Entrance to the Cairn of Chulainn
Walking up the road for some time, you eventually come to a hill especially covered in sun-bleached ancient stone. The bones of elder civilization lead all the way up to a massive stone mound, caved forward almost like the snout of dog’s head. The Cairn of Chulainn! Scaling a set of crumbling, mossy steps, you find yourself standing in front of a great, patterned stone. The pattern is near impossible to read, but it does remind you of the symbols on the scrap of parchment the old blacksmith gave you. It looks like the lined stick here.
The patterned stone won’t budge, though it’s clearly what functioned as a front door during the days of this tomb’s construction. The domed stones reach into a mountainous curve and sprawl around like a balcony about the cairn.
The cypher is written in Ogham, the real-world Pictish alphabet read bottom to top. It says “EnterBehind,” a valuable clue. Just behind the cairn, a portion of stone flickers in the clouded sunlight. You move through the back stones as if they were merely a liquid.
I’ve used the Ogham alphabet and the Elder Futhark rune alphabet many times throughout my campaigns, allowing the players to decode my meaning using a key. I aspire very much to invent my own constructed alphabets, but I have yet to reach that level of dedication. Using real world alphabets in my games echoes that age-old saying that fiction is best when it is pretending to teach you something.
While a player could roll a History check, a flat Intelligence check, or just demonstrate that their character would know how to read the language in question, it is immeasurably more fun to allow the players to have a real hand in their adventure. Give them a hand out, make their key missing a few letters, and always make them work for the prize!
In closing, the immersion of your players ties them to the dangers and rewards of their game. It seeks to de-alienate the player from their character, a process that is as much the responsibility of the Dungeon Master as it is that of the player. And though it may seem silly that learned wizards and well-traveled rangers would be standing stumped in front of a few arcane words, I’d like to call to the stand Gandalf at the Doors of Durin. Sometimes the characters have all the right answers in their heads, but it’s up to the players to parse them out. When they do, the purpose of this whole exercise becomes clear as day. We play these games to feel smart and strong, and having your players solve puzzles without a single skill check is just the way to give them a dose of confidence.
What do you think? Will you try stripping the skills out of your next skill-based puzzle? Or is it too time consuming to force players to think harder than their characters might? In any case, I’ll be posting more on this subject and others here. Subscribe below to make sure you don’t miss a post!
