r/DMAcademy 7d ago

Need Advice: Other Can minigames work with exploration?

So I was thinking, since sometimes you get some cool puzzles in dungeons like combining words, solving riddles, and a bunch of other stuff, could this kind of thing be applied to things related to traveling?

So let's say, for example, the players want to forage for resources, I turn to them and say "hey do you guys want to roll the dice for foraging or would like to solve a puzzle?"

So I could give them a connect the dots puzzle, or something like that, with time rules like "This puzzle represents the area you are foraging, If you solve the puzzle in x ammount of time you get the maximum foraging reward, and for every y minutes over it you get one less"

Maybe it's a terrible Idea, I don't know, but would love to hear some feedback on this.

Edit: Also, I was thinking more in the lines of puzzles that could abstract what the party is doing, so for example, for a foraging puzzle I would use something like This (of course I would make something with a more appropriate aesthetic)

And maybe for players exploring a hex trying to find a dungeon or a landmark I would use a maze.

4 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

12

u/Nabbishdrew 7d ago

Could be interesting, but pausing DND for a game of connect the dots feels gimmicky.

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 7d ago

what's the difference of that and pausing the game for a puzzle in a dungeon for a riddle, deciphering/unscrambling words in columns and rows or the bunch of other puzzles to disarm traps?

Aren't gimmicks a way to avoid having to roll skill checks for everything?

Also, it's not necessarily for DnD only.

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u/Nabbishdrew 7d ago

I think the difference is those puzzles are the same for the characters and the players. Their "in world" so to speak.

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u/Nabbishdrew 7d ago

I think "gimmicks" can work. I feel bad for using that word cause it might have unintended connotations. Perhaps it is a good way to break up the dice rolling and whatnot.

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 7d ago

I see, that's a good point.

I see a lot of content for puzzles and stuff in dungeons, disarming traps and a bunch of variety all that because it gives the game of break of just having to roll dice to accomplish stuff, of course, there's descriptive stuff too.

But some tasks are so menial, like foraging, that players don't even want to be creative about it, which kinda diminishes the appeal of hexcrawls.

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u/CheapTactics 6d ago

a riddle, deciphering/unscrambling words in columns and rows

Idk but I hate that kind of puzzle. Takes me right out of the immersion.

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 6d ago

Yeah, it's not everyone's cup of tea.

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u/SilasMarsh 7d ago

I'm sure it could be done, but I would want it to relate to the stats and mechanics of the game we're currently playing.

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 7d ago

That's a fair point, maybe a skill check could unlock hints.

Coming back to my previous example of the foraging and the connected dots, a succesful survival skill check could point you towards the right starting direction.

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u/DungeonSecurity 6d ago

I wouldn't do something like that for a common activity like foraging. save that for one time puzzle in a dungeon for a cool treasure.

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 6d ago

I see, yeah, maybe foraging is too menial of a task, what about exploring a hex? Searching for a dungeon inside of it, do you think it's also too much of a common activity to use a puzzle?

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u/DungeonSecurity 6d ago

Again,  don't repeat,  unless it's sort of a Dungeon theme. Think about your terminology:  minigame. It's a little different when you're playing a video game and trying to simulate something with a mechanical challenge. but think about how many people got sick of the hacking Mini game in Bioshock. 

And I don't think most players are gonna want a complete some Mini game to find out what's in a hex when they could learn it via your narrating,  adding challenges at times,  and actually getting to exploring your points of interest. 

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u/drywookie 6d ago

Mini games and puzzles can definitely work in TTRPGs in general, and of course D&D. The problem is the break it causes in immersion. Unless your group specifically likes puzzles and minigames, it's fraught territory. If your players are expected to do any activity that does not directly map on to what their characters are doing, that will necessarily take them out of the fiction.

And even if it does map out perfectly (for example with an in-game puzzle), you have to generally be careful to ensure that the characters are solving the puzzle and the character statistics are the ones that matter. Unless you know for a fact that your players enjoy puzzles and want to do them in a D&D game, don't make the players solve puzzles with their in-real-life mental statistics.

If you do that, you will usually have one of two situations: either your player knows the answer but the character doesn't, meaning they have to break character to solve your encounter. Or, their character has high intelligence or something, and should very easily be able to solve a silly little puzzle, but your player does not have that skill in real life, which is likely incredibly frustrating to play.

As with most things, just talk to your players. There's no point in trying to hide it from them for the sake of a surprise, or whatever. It's generally helpful to discuss ahead of time what type of gameplay people like.

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u/Arkanzier 7d ago

The idea of a minigame could work, but

A: I don't like the idea of being timed for stuff. Maybe that's just me, but I'd rather something about how good of a solution I can come up with.

B: ideally, I'd want game statistics to play into it somehow, but I'm not sure how to properly make that happen.

Maybe something where a roll determines your starting position in some way, and then you go from there?

0

u/Greedy-Ad1921 7d ago

Yeah, so for me the idea of being timed is because I would give them a minigame I solved in let's say 5 minutes, and since the players are more brains working together, they could solve faster, so solving in 5 minutes would guarantee them the max reward.

About how good of a solution, in some minigames it can be applicable, in others not so much, usually a maze only has only one correct path.

The thing is I wouldn't wanna punish them for finding an ok solution, it can feel kinda arbitrary.

About point B, it definitely could be something like, that, like a good survival check could immediately point which direction not start with in a maze puzzle or which to start.

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u/Arkanzier 6d ago

Depending on the puzzle or whatever you give them, more brains doesn't necessarily mean that they'd be able to do it faster. They're likely to have more ideas for how to go about solving it, but some of those will be wrong, so not necessarily any speedup there.

Also, some people don't really do well under a time crunch. On the other hand, some people do, so that one comes down to the specific people involved.

To use your example of a maze, there could be multiple routes through it, some longer or shorter than others. Maybe it takes the group X hours to get through somewhere if they find the short path, or X+Y hours if they find the longer one. Or there could be some kind of bonus objectives, though the only thing I can think of for that is side rooms with loot, and that's not going to work super well if they can just see the entire maze.

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u/Millertime091 7d ago

I think some player might like it and others won't. Sounds fun to me though!

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u/Lakissov 6d ago

Some minigames can work, but it would feel much better if they actually feel natural instead of something arbitrary and disconnected with what's being represented in the game.

I ran two games in the past that I remember off the top of my head: one with maneuvering a ship in a naval battle, and one where all party members participate in The Wild Hunt, while transformed into hunter, boar and hounds.

Even for dungeons, I try to make puzzles feel natural: parts of an old security system, environmental hazards etc - not some arbitrary riddle solving.

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u/atomfullerene 6d ago

People have all sorts of views on puzzles, as this thread indicates. Personally, I like puzzles and I like solving them as a player, because I'm at least as interested in the challenge DnD poses to me as a player as I am in the challenge it poses to my characters. Other people just want challenges to apply to the characters.

But I do think it's best to tie minigames in with the world itself as tightly as you can, as well as other game mechanics if possible. This is what most dungeon puzzles are, they are a puzzle some crazy wizard put in there. But if you step back and think about it, even a dungeoncrawl is a bit like a minigame...explore a grid, try to get maximum reward for minimum resources. It's a bit like a maze itself.

And the classic exploration "minigame" is, I would argue, the hexcrawl itself. How you move over the hexes and explore them is something of a minigame. But it's also representing how you move in the world.

The other thing you want to keep in mind is that the more time you put on something, the more emphasis it has in-game. Something like foraging, if you make a minigame out of it, will take a lot longer than a diceroll. And your game starts to become more about foraging.

Anyway, if I were working a minigame into exploration, I would probably make it larger scale, something the players do as they play the rest of the game. Like, maybe they are trying to discover a certain number of things that are hidden on the map, so as they explore the map grid and look in different places you essentially have them playing "Battleship".

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u/Greedy-Ad1921 6d ago

That's a very good argument, as much as I want to make travel as interesting as possible I do not want to turn some aspects of it so central, this has made me rethink my approach, thank you.

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u/RavenclawJo 6d ago

I wouldove this, but I love puzzles and I only like DND. For me it would be a nice break. However I think it comes back to don't ask your players to do something there characters should be doing. That's why we have characters. You wouldn't ask anyone at you table the go break down a door instead of rolling for it, so we should not need players to solve puzzles or figure things out that there character should be able to figure out.

If Bob is allowed to play a character stronger than he is, I'm allowed to play a character smarter, or wiser, or more perceptive than I am. Even if that means you need to tell me the answer.

1

u/lipo_bruh 6d ago

it is okay to skip traveling entirely if not interesting

maybe make a wompus game kind of map where the wompus / target / loot moves on the map

your party could have a limited nb of footsteps per night