So, Telecanter comes up with this neat, simple flowchart thingy for dealing with locks and mechanisms.
Zak adds his own take on the system.
I have but three things to add. One is an observation that with a lock, you succeed by getting it to work and fail by jamming it. With a trap, you succeed by jamming it and fail by getting it to work. So, you can use the same procedures for the two, but with different desirable outcomes.
Two is a variation. Roll on the list of 36 text-adventure-style action words from the "black die 1" column of Table D in my Endless Bag of Tricks pdf. Do this once for each of the action words you're using to solve the mechanism. It's then on you to come up with a trap/trick/lock description that uses them all. I just rolled up "Move," "Turn," "Sit on," and "Push" which suggests a nasty-looking rotating door with a built-in seat.
Three: could you use an actual puzzle in-game? Having played a fair number of the Big Fish hidden object computer games, I am excruciatingly familiar with the kind of old mansion whose exploration requires completing Towers of Hanoi, 15/16 slider puzzles, pipelaying games, and the like. I am pleased to say that the recent Mansions of Madness board game from Fantasy Flight includes this kind of mini-puzzle in a way that doesn't feel overly forced or corny. At least after one play. So perhaps that can be useful, every once in a while.
Oh yeah, and speaking of mechanisms, this, if you ever wondered what a DC 35 lock looked like.
Great stuff. That chest lock at the end is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI like how you generated those action words from your list to flesh out the moves related to the trap.
ReplyDeleteA hammer and chisel will beat most locks in less then an hour. The trick is not getting eaten by a grue during that hour.
ReplyDeleteI just spent something like 2hrs at that GROW site.. very cool :)
ReplyDeleteI did up a little table that generates the names and materials of locks, as well as assigning BURP values to up to 6 pins.
ReplyDeletehttp://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-roll-all-dice-table-locks.html
As far as another game to use in-game to simulate lockpicking or trap disarming, the perfect choice would be Mastermind. However, that would take too much table time. I'm not sure what to do with this realisation.. I will try to come up with something :)
ReplyDeleteMy original version/revision of zak's idea was mastermind, but then it occurred to me with the way locks are set up, that you could *always* guess the lock in 3 guesses.
ReplyDelete