Went to an 'escape room' with my gaming crew last night. Good fun, and they really seemed to enjoy the challenge of figuring out the clues. Always been wary of putting puzzles or riddles in games, but on that evidence it might be a nice change of pace from the usual character driven plots they prefer.

So, any good examples of dungeons with puzzles in them that you can point me towards?

Hmm. Interesting. I've been to plenty of escape rooms and have thought along similar lines.
I've had a friend who said he did something like this, but I believe it was all his own invention. You may want to think about wether you want a few props for this or not.
A physical thing can go a long way in communicating things (or even just pictures of the puzzles).

No strong published puzzle dungeons spring to mind, but I homebrew a lot.

I suspect where issues will arise (unfortunately) is that in an escape room, the participants can rely on their own senses without filtering through a gatekeeper. If they miss a vital clue and stall out, it's on them. If I run an escape room style dungeon, I become the bad guy when things are too hard/easy.  Also, people who go to an escape room know what they are getting when they go. Players in a RPG might not. Finally, an Escape Room can fine tune its challenges based on the experience of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of participants. Most of us GMs get one shot at it (unless you are building a hip pocket con event for pick up games).

That's not saying it isn't a worthy challenge, for both GMs and Players. There is probably a lot we can learn from deconstructing Escape Room challenges.  But unless you already have a group who love these sorts of challenges, I'd be careful about throwing their characters into one.

Tom

My guys hate puzzles in dungeons for some of the reaons Blusponge has cited. But as a group we watch a fecking MENSA-level UK quiz/puzzle show and love trying to put together the clues and references that professional puzzley-quiz-people have made. So I think the quality of puzzles in dungeons leave a lot to be desired.

Some puzzle dungeon suggestions to consider running or mining for ideas:

- "Blocks of Quox" by Tony Rosten in Fight On#6 (Summer 2009)
- Prisoners of the Maze by Rob Kuntz (Creations Unlimited, 1987)
- The Abduction of Good King Despot by Will & Shar Niebling (New Infinities, 1987)
- The old Riddle Rooms generic FRPG series of books from Cloud Kingdoms may also have some useful material in them (I've not used them, can't say:  https://www.cloudkingdom.com/Products/Cloud-Kingdom-roleplaying-sourcebooks.aspx)

The old TSR modules C1, C2, S1, and S2 include a number of puzzles, too, as does the Grimtooth's Traps series of books (recently reprinted by Goodman Games, with some new adventures written too:  http://goodman-games.com/grimtooth/).  

Allan.

Escape Rooms are dumb.

grodog's suggestions are solid.

I would also suggest releases by The Scribes of Sparn: The Tomb of the Sea Kings, The Oddbox of Zoforon, The Mystic Cup of Gygax (this one's free!), and the recently released Castle That Fell From the Sky (haven't read this one yet). These modules all have an emphasis on puzzles and player skill. They are imaginative, tricky, although not terribly serious about themselves - I reviewed Sea Kings on my blog, and provided some examples of what you can expect from it.

Thanks Allan, exactly the sort of thing I was after.

And Melan too, although I don't have any of the ones you list.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1066062Escape Rooms are dumb.

FFS...

We loved this one.  Or really anything by Johnathan M. Richards.

Quote from: Derabar;1066123FFS...

Well, tastes may vary.