Perplexing Puzzles #1: A Crystal Puzzle is Forever (2012)

From publisher blurb:

Kill! Loot! LEVEL!
Repeat as necessary.

It is a fact that we as gamers must face; a gaming campaign, at its heart, is an incredibly long corridor with monsters and shinies strewn throughout at regular intervals. GMs, DMs, Storytellers, and their ilk exist to mix this basic premise with interesting plothooks, puzzles, and homebrew mechanics. The end result, if done well, is a memorable bit of gaming whose highlights are talked about for years to come.

The primary issue with producing this memorable content is that pushing the concept of, "Kill! Loot! Level!" into the background is a ridiculously difficult feat to pull. Players are hardwired for it, some more than others. This means that anything that is meant to pull the player away from this concept must be designed to engage the player in an intriguing fashion and fire upon a part of the mind that is not satisfied by, "Kill! Loot! Level!" In other words, one must design in such a way that the player pushes, "Kill! Loot! Level!" away on his own because this new idea is THAT cool.

It is the author's opinion that puzzles are a fantastic method to accomplish this.

Perplexing Puzzles is a series of playtested, highly modular puzzles laid out in a logical fashion so that they may be read quickly and implanted into almost any campaign. Care has been taken to make these puzzles as system neutral as possible, but certain references to rules interactions in Dungeons and Dragons is unavoidable at times.

In this issue of Perplexing Puzzles

Chromatic Crystals

an extension of the classic “Lights Out” puzzles, featuring 4 colors rather than simply on/off and three modes of input

• five pre-solved puzzles
• three sets of variant rules, including a D&D 3.5 / The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game boss
• a printout playmat with all the accoutrements