Evil Puzzles

[SuperBlue]

I'm designing a module for the future (I have 3-4 planned ahead), and the Super Villain of the day is "The Puzzle Master!" Basically, he's a slight ripoff/combination of Marvel's "Arcade" and DC's "Riddler." He's got a public ID and a Dist Feat - Looks like Beethoven (I was in a silly mood, but I'm keeping it).

Basically he's a guy with waaaaay too much time and money, and spent his life obsessing over puzzles. He goes around, either stealing rare, ancient puzzles so he can solve them, or he does the whole "Terrorism with a puzzle disarming device", or possibly even a scavenger hunt accross the city so the heroes can stop something really really bad from happening (did I mention he's criminally insane?)

Anyway, for his first encounter with my PC's, I'm having so he abducts them for the soul purpose of running them through a series of interactive riddles, puzzles, and games (with a sick twist). The games are as follows:

1) A Labrinth for All the heroes, where the walls are constantly changing, and security Drones are hunting them while they have to avoid traps (My plan is to roll a pair of d6 and match the combination up with an encounter, after all encounters have been done (repeats will be treated as empty corridors), they escape from the maze).

2) A pool of acid that is slowly rising (to swallow the whole room) with 4 pillers evenly spaced (in a 2x2 format). 4 heroes have to cross with just the help of 2 planks of wood long enough to connect 2 pillars, or a pillar and a ledge. Movement powers are penalized (cannons emerge from the walls and the acid pool rises faster).

3) 3 Players play a giant game of dots, they take 1d6 NND apiece for each square completed by the the computer. Any who are left alive concious are allowed to continue - those who pass out have to start over, and the damage increases 1 DC.

4)A giant game of chess for 4 players, but the team has to fight a Rook, Knight, Queen, and Bishop. The peices heal extremely quick - the trick is to knock the king over - but for each square the players move, the king gets to move one.

5) A giant game of memory for 3 players. Every mismatched tile deals 1d6 NND damage. The penalty results are just like the dots game.

Any other evil puzzles or riddles? I have 7 PC's (a real nightmare, I know - thank god avg spd is 3-4).

A note on the Dots and Memory game: Each line drawn or pair of tiles flipped is counted as one combat phase, so players WILL be allowed recover (or they can take recovery), but there is a time limit: 5 Turns

hehehehehe!

[Agent Escafarc]

How about using the Minesweeper Game found on most computers.

[SuperBlue]

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
How about using the Minesweeper Game found on most computers.

You are a sick, sick man. Not even I'm THAT evil...

[TheEmerged]

Yep, I've done that one before. Quite fun, especially when the one person in the group obsessed with it suddenly realizes he can only move through adjacent squares

[Karma]

Bwhahahaha
Before I kill you Mr Bond....
(Just getting in the mood)

"The charaters find themselves in a room with bazillions of Drain (all their powers similatiously) and a locked door on the other side. In the middle of the room is a chessboard with a black and white bag on either side of it. A booming voice annonces "One of these bags holds a bomb set to detonate in 15 minutes that will easily kill you all. It will also detonate if you even touch the bag. The other bag contains the key to the door. You could try to work out which is which or, then again, you could play a game of chess with me, your move".

The chess pieces are set out (which pieces doesn't matter, although you should put them in so it sounds like they do):
Black: B1, A2, D3, B4, A5, G6
White: C1, A2, C3,H4, E5
(Each one is counted from the side their playing on)

The bomb is in the Black bag, the Key is in the White.
You could also do it the other way (if you think they'll go for the white bag because 'White=Good).
Note: If they move any pieces their gonna have a bad time of it. If they do, have the 'booming voice' laugh at them and say 'bad move'.

[death tribble]

You could have them play battleships against the computer or themselves so asto eliminate members;

There are also alternatives to Chess, like the Japanese version Go and another Black/White game Othello.

[Crimson Arrow]

I think a good starting point is deciding certain approaches to this character. I have one called the Gamesman who is a bit like this.

1. Is he into puzzles, games or both? If both, you'll have much more variety, but in a way that could make it difficult to concentrate on a theme. My character liked games and had supervillain henchmen with powers based on games. At a wild guess, you one should perhaps be more puzzle-based, but with some games too.

2. Why does he do this? Is he compelled to show off how much cleverer he is than anyone, does he hate heroes and want to humiliate them, was he never allowed puzzles as a child, were puzzles his only companions? If the last, why? Was he an invalid, were his parents scientists in the arctic circle etc? Does he simply show off with his puzzles, does he like the thrill of matching wits, does he only like winning, is he compelled to give the heroes clues to his crimes, does he have a sense of honour about handing himself in if the heroes win?

3. How do you want the characters to react? Is it going to be like the Batman tv series, where the heroes only made it to the Riddler's latest robbery just too late to stop him, right up until the last crime? Do they have to play him at his own game (perhaps they have to run a gauntlet), or will they only catch him by thinking laterally?

4. How do you want the players to react? You mustn't have the players frustrated, even if their characters are. Do you want the players to try and do the puzzles (fun, if you have the right players), or are you going to roleplay it? Even one player who doesn't like puzzles might be bored with the former option. Try and accommodate everyone. Perhaps you can give characters clues based on appropriate skill rolls. Now's also the opportunity to make use of obscure knowledge skills. Obviously, you can make the games combat-based, to interest other players with no interest in problem-solving. Even puzzles can have physical elements, such as giant sliding block pictures or memory tiles.

[mattingly]

I recently ran my crew against a series of puzzles. One of the heroes (The Element) was a former villain working for a guy called The Alchemist, with classic elemental powers just like his protege eventually gained.

Four riddles appeared around the city, one written in fiery letters at a TV station, one sunken in the earth at Central Park, one formed out of smokestacks at the airport, and one formed from water puddles seeming to come to life and form into letters a la Terminator 2. The obvious culprit, from the powers, was The Alchmeist, who hasn't been seen in over forty years, and was believed dead. But riddles aren't his style at all.

The trick with riddles, for me, is to make them personal. The way that the riddles appeared immediately pointed to one of the PC's history. And one of the solutions was his own name! The riddles indicated that someone knew who he was, and was out to get him. I gave the players the riddles as the cliffhanger of one session, so that they had a week to figure them out. After hearing the mrun in circles, I was afraid I'd made them too hard, but they eventually figured them out.

What's worse, is that in the next session, while they were still mulling over the riddles, they uncovered a plot by Black Harlequin, who si known to be a riddle fiend as well as an evil toymaker. When they confronted him with the riddles -- which he had not written -- he mused them over. "Hmm... Who is this Eddy person that's in such trouble? That's certainly something to think about isn't it? Hee hee hee!"

So now, not only do they have one apprarently magical maniac after them, they've practically handed over a PC's secret identity to a technological maniac...

[Gary]

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
How about using the Minesweeper Game found on most computers.

124 seconds on expert level, baby!

[SuperBlue]

Originally posted by Crimson Arrow
1. Is he into puzzles, games or both? If both, you'll have much more variety, but in a way that could make it difficult to concentrate on a theme. My character liked games and had supervillain henchmen with powers based on games. At a wild guess, you one should perhaps be more puzzle-based, but with some games too.

He likes both games and puzzles. Anything that requires thinking and/or strategy.

2. Why does he do this? Is he compelled to show off how much cleverer he is than anyone, does he hate heroes and want to humiliate them, was he never allowed puzzles as a child, were puzzles his only companions? If the last, why? Was he an invalid, were his parents scientists in the arctic circle etc? Does he simply show off with his puzzles, does he like the thrill of matching wits, does he only like winning, is he compelled to give the heroes clues to his crimes, does he have a sense of honour about handing himself in if the heroes win?

He's obsessed with being able to outhink everyone, and uses Super Heroes in his ploys because he feels they are more challenging than Joe Average. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and was so smart, the only thing that interested him were puzzles and riddles. He became so obsessed over them that he had to start challenging other brain pans, but soon got bored with that as well. He then decided that it would be fun to put super-heroes in lethal forms of his favorite puzzles and mind games, to see if they could outhink even him (he's basically bored and looking for a challenge). While he has been foiled by some heroes, he's killed quite a few as well. He has been put in an assylum once, but he managed to escape by tricking the head of the institution into thinking he was cured (wasted 2 years doing it, but he pulled it off). As far as loosing goes, he's very graceful. He knows when he cannot win and actually looks forward to being out-thought.

3. How do you want the characters to react? Is it going to be like the Batman tv series, where the heroes only made it to the Riddler's latest robbery just too late to stop him, right up until the last crime? Do they have to play him at his own game (perhaps they have to run a gauntlet), or will they only catch him by thinking laterally?

Later adventures would turn out like this, but the first adventure is that Puzzle Master Captures the heroes and subjects them to his twisted challenges. Later on, he might come back looking for a re-match by placing Puzzles or Riddles at the scene of intricately thought out crimes. EAch puzzle would carry 2 clues: The first would indicate where he was going to strike next, and the second would give a clue as to where his current base of operations is located.

4. How do you want the players to react? You mustn't have the players frustrated, even if their characters are. Do you want the players to try and do the puzzles (fun, if you have the right players), or are you going to roleplay it? Even one player who doesn't like puzzles might be bored with the former option. Try and accommodate everyone. Perhaps you can give characters clues based on appropriate skill rolls. Now's also the opportunity to make use of obscure knowledge skills. Obviously, you can make the games combat-based, to interest other players with no interest in problem-solving. Even puzzles can have physical elements, such as giant sliding block pictures or memory tiles.

I want the players to do the puzzle solving, as it is a means of getting them to think out of the box and improve their own reasoning - pretty much a way of making them better role-players as well, as they're new to Champions.

"The charaters find themselves in a room with bazillions of Drain (all their powers similatiously) and a locked door on the other side. In the middle of the room is a chessboard with a black and white bag on either side of it. A booming voice annonces "One of these bags holds a bomb set to detonate in 15 minutes that will easily kill you all. It will also detonate if you even touch the bag. The other bag contains the key to the door. You could try to work out which is which or, then again, you could play a game of chess with me, your move".

Ooh... I like this one... but is seems familiar... like it came out of Challenge of Champions #4 (Dungeon Magazine, forget which issue)

[Crimson Arrow]

Thanks for the information about Puzzle Master.

One problem you might have is neutralizing the heroes' abilities. As you have quite a large group, they might "cover all the bases". You could Drain everything, but it seems a bit over the top. It would be much more in keeping with this character to make their powers useless. Super-tough materials stop characters from ploughing through the maze walls, etc. Their powers might be useful in other ways, though.

I've had a think about this and have some suggestions, but these are generic, so you can tailor them to your group.

1. Word games and puzzles. Anagrams, crosswords, acrostics, word searches are all options. Perhaps the highlighted letters of a crossword form an anagram, the solution to which will open the next door. You might need to put some time pressure on them (flooding room, lava, moving walls, you know the drill).

2. Mathematical problems. This might be a chance for the villain to really show off, but it's probably best to keep this as "what number is next in the series". Make sure there are penalties for mistakes.

3. Logic tests. Finding the missing shape or colour, or working out which door is safe by following clues.

4. Children's games. I think adapting these is a bit more sinister than just using a computer game. How about "hunt the thimble" in a room full of junk? The heroes might regret never buying microscopic vision.

If you can black out their sight entirely, you could have them play a game in the dark. Perhaps they have to identify the next object in a series, only by touch. You might even be able to arrange it so the players themselves have to do this.

You could have a deadly game of musical chairs, where one chair each time is trapped (got this idea from a very old Dr Who story). One hero has to sit down on the chairs and each time, the chances of getting a dangerous one increase.

Another idea is "statues", with guns linked to motion detectors. If anyone moves, they get shot.

Jack Straws, where the characters have to move certain sticks (perhaps for heroes they are telegraph poles), without disturbing others. Maybe a bomb will trigger if the stack collapses (got this one from the Avengers comic book mini series - the Britsh tv series, not the Marvel characters).

You can buy greetings cards which are like blank jigsaws for messages. The characters might get one piece for every task they complete (target practice, perhaps, or maybe just completing the other puzzles and games). When the puzzle is complete, the picture reveals a major clue, such as that the exit is in the floor, or something like that. Perhaps the completed puzzle forms a key which will open an exit.