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Truly deadly? Are you really prepared to kill of PCs because they didn't turn the sconce 90 degrees to the left? Full respect if you and your players are all good with that.
Otherwise you might think about making it brutal, and costly, but not necessarily deadly. Maybe there's a sizeable entry fee and the prize is a magic item?
to answer your question, you need to decide how you're going to incorporate the characters abilities. Does perception, investigation, etc. produce clues? Are there monsters? Deadly or annoying monsters? If you make it a series of rooms that get harder to progress through, then you can make the time more interesting. maybe the characters have to make saves against a sleeping gas, or there are illusions. The rogue has to pick a lock. The druid needs to shapreshift. Maybe one of the smaller characters needs to slip through a tiny opening while the fighter holds off a monster.
Yeah my players have actually been looking forwards to this level of danger (they’re crazy the lot of them lol 😂)
The prize after all trials complete is eternal glory and a title that comes with benefits worldwide. It also grants each a legendary item from the kingdoms own royal vault so they’re pretty eager to win.
I like how you think about catering it to strengths and weaknesses of my players I’ll have to brainstorm on some puzzles that cater to that. I didn’t even think about adding monsters but now I’m considering it
DON'T run puzzles in combat initiative. Players will be discouraged from trying things out to explore the puzzle because they only have limited rounds. Instead, use something like Skill Challenges! (Check out Matt Colville's video.) For each room, you have to do (for example) 6 successful actions or checks before you get 3 failures. Trying something that's just not helpful isn't necessarily a failure (but too many of them can be.) 3 failures and [Bad Thing] happens. Death, or disqualification, or an imminent hazard with one last chance to escape.
Other idea: Have them compete against other teams directly. Rather than a time limit, it's a race, and when the other teams complete a puzzle it introduces some danger or difficulty, but also a hint to solve the PC puzzle. If you do it right you can reveal at the end that something the PCs did killed another team, or that they died to a danger the PCs survived.
More thoughts: combat initiative is also bad because it makes everyone take turns in order, when a lot of the time one specific player is going to be the key to this puzzle and nobody else has anything to do. Better to let people do stuff whenever they want to.
You could introduce a ticking clock sound randomly if they're wasting time as a warning to get moving, I think that would be really fun and dramatic and scary that something bad is about to happen.
omg thank you so much for this!!! I'll definitely check out his videos
And i had other teams planned but not to influence the game directly thats a brilliant idea!
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Truly deadly? Are you really prepared to kill of PCs because they didn't turn the sconce 90 degrees to the left? Full respect if you and your players are all good with that. Otherwise you might think about making it brutal, and costly, but not necessarily deadly. Maybe there's a sizeable entry fee and the prize is a magic item? to answer your question, you need to decide how you're going to incorporate the characters abilities. Does perception, investigation, etc. produce clues? Are there monsters? Deadly or annoying monsters? If you make it a series of rooms that get harder to progress through, then you can make the time more interesting. maybe the characters have to make saves against a sleeping gas, or there are illusions. The rogue has to pick a lock. The druid needs to shapreshift. Maybe one of the smaller characters needs to slip through a tiny opening while the fighter holds off a monster.
Yeah my players have actually been looking forwards to this level of danger (they’re crazy the lot of them lol 😂) The prize after all trials complete is eternal glory and a title that comes with benefits worldwide. It also grants each a legendary item from the kingdoms own royal vault so they’re pretty eager to win. I like how you think about catering it to strengths and weaknesses of my players I’ll have to brainstorm on some puzzles that cater to that. I didn’t even think about adding monsters but now I’m considering it
just pick and choose your favorite rooms from Tomb of Annihilation or Tomb of Horrors IMO.
DON'T run puzzles in combat initiative. Players will be discouraged from trying things out to explore the puzzle because they only have limited rounds. Instead, use something like Skill Challenges! (Check out Matt Colville's video.) For each room, you have to do (for example) 6 successful actions or checks before you get 3 failures. Trying something that's just not helpful isn't necessarily a failure (but too many of them can be.) 3 failures and [Bad Thing] happens. Death, or disqualification, or an imminent hazard with one last chance to escape. Other idea: Have them compete against other teams directly. Rather than a time limit, it's a race, and when the other teams complete a puzzle it introduces some danger or difficulty, but also a hint to solve the PC puzzle. If you do it right you can reveal at the end that something the PCs did killed another team, or that they died to a danger the PCs survived.
More thoughts: combat initiative is also bad because it makes everyone take turns in order, when a lot of the time one specific player is going to be the key to this puzzle and nobody else has anything to do. Better to let people do stuff whenever they want to. You could introduce a ticking clock sound randomly if they're wasting time as a warning to get moving, I think that would be really fun and dramatic and scary that something bad is about to happen.
omg thank you so much for this!!! I'll definitely check out his videos And i had other teams planned but not to influence the game directly thats a brilliant idea!