the golden golem puzzle is BS

[Icedfate]

i mean, reslly, it's so vague and there's not even a hint or a clue!
i'm not asking for the solution (i already spioiled it , i completed the entire area and never even guess that there was a puzzle there and only found out later when i googled one of the items in my inventory that i couldn't figure out what to do with)
so. . how the frig are we supposed to know this? like we walk into a room with a non hostile golem in it and ifmi talk to it ,it's like "who TF are you? GTFO of here!" and there are 3 storage containers next to it.
and i guess you're supposed to guess that something goes in them? but not only that, the 3 items have to be placed in a specific ordeer and even if you thought to try that, if you put them in wrong, and nothing happens you might conclude that there's nothing there after all. .
at least give the player a hint as to what to put there the order that the items are to be place, like have the golem recite some poetry or a rhyme or something.

and then the golem asks you some questions that you can't possibly know the answer to because nowhere in the game does it give you this information!
so i guess you just sit there and keep guessing until you stumble on the correct answer?
what kind of puzzle is that?!
whatever, i solved it, with a guide, spoiled again

[Wraith_Magus]

It's the same as the "place herbs in the druid's chest" thing. The only hint is that there are extremely few chests that let you actually put something into them, rather than just take them out, and except for the Oleg/Barony storage chest ,they all are related to this kind of "puzzle".

[Icedfate]

yeah, that one angered me too. and there was that rotten fish as well.
at least drop a hint? they don't need to tell me the answer it just feels like playing with a ♥♥♥♥ dm . .


DM : "you see a box"
Me : "do i see anything else?"
DM : "no"
Me : "whats in the box?"
dm : "nothing"
me : "i put something in the box(i pick something random from my character sheet)"
dm : "nothing happens"
me : "i put something else in the box(pick something different)"
dm : "nothing happens"
me : "are there any clues? anything written on the walls"
dm : "nope, just a message . it says 'eff you'. . "
me : "oh, well i found these random items in the other room, i'll put these in. . "
dm : "nothing happens"
me : "sigh, i guess i'll move on then. ."
.
.
.
later
me : "hey, dm, what was i supposed to do there?"
dm : "you were supposed to put those items from the other room in the box"
me : "but i tried that!"
dm : " yeah, but you put them in the wrong order. ."
me : "but you didn't even provide a clue.. or a hint of any kind"
dm : "because you were supposed to use your brain! you don't want me to just hold your hand though the whole game , do you?"

[Wraith_Magus]

Actually, I got the rotten fish one myself right away. I mean, there's a fish item that can't be used for anything obvious, and then I get to a pile of rotten fish that can be "opened" and I can put things in there. I mean, yeah, I'm going to try putting a fish in there. And then a super high-level wyvern appears right in the middle of my level 6 party and instantly full-attacks Octavia to gibblets.

But yeah, the other puzzles are definitely point-and-click adventure game logic puzzles...

[Icedfate]

with the box at that house in ch1, i didn't even think to put anything in it.
I mean i did think it was odd that all the other loot was in containers that disappear after you loot them and i was like "huh, why does this 1 container open up like my stash back at home . . .and there's nothing in it?" and never in a million years would it occur to me to try to put something in it and leave it there, much less that one specific innocuous, non quest marked item that it wants.

I'll admit, that the rotten fish thing does have a sort of super vague clue in that there's a magnifying glass to click next to it and it says something and I did pick up the rotten fish and i figured it had some usage, but when i passed by the pile to put it in there. .again i thought i was just looting a container and was like. ."yeah, why is this one empty?"

when i loot, i loot with the intent to keep items, not thinking to leave them behind.
i wasn't expecting a "puzzle container" to look like a regular lootable container. I thought it would be like, some pedestal that you interact with that says "hmm something needs to be place here" instead of it just looking like just another lootable container.

maybe that joke scenario i said previous, i dunno, at least in that one, the player ought to at least assume that it has some meaning, otherwise the DM wouldn't have put an empty box in the room unless it had some meaning. . .and usually in tabletop, there are multiple players at the table so their swarm intelligence comes into play and they can solve these puzzles more easily.
but this game has lootable containers all over the place so i wouldn't have thought that some are "reverse lootable" i.e. that you're expected to leave something in them. . .

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

maybe that joke scenario i said previous, i dunno, at least in that one, the player ought to at least assume that it has some meaning, otherwise the DM wouldn't have put an empty box in the room unless it had some meaning. . .and usually in tabletop, there are multiple players at the table so their swarm intelligence comes into play and they can solve these puzzles more easily.
but this game has lootable containers all over the place so i wouldn't have thought that some are "reverse lootable" i.e. that you're expected to leave something in them. . .

You'd be surprised how often it turns the other way around, and a player on the wrong track convinces everyone of something that's false and cuts off other forms of thought. The Internet is full of stories of players ignoring the most seemingly obvious of clues and going off on random tangents the DM never put the slightest thought into.

https://imgur.com/gallery/2440caB

I am trying to revise a module to make it more interesting for the players. I hate just having straight "DC 20 perception check silently when the player gets near instantly reveals the 'secret door'" checks. Those don't involve the player, and since they ALL have perception, they're going to get it, anyway, so there's no point in me even pretending it was hidden at all. So I make this layout where it's a totally symmetric warehouse and lift... except one of the side-passages has a bunch of crates stacked up in front of the door, and I set up one of the "walls" (blocks line of sight in the virtual tabletop) so that it comes behind the crates. I figured that would be an in-person visual clue, since most crates do not block line of sight. To add a little flair and a penalty for futzing about, I also have an empty owlbear nest just at the entrance, on the other side of the gate, and if the players take too long, the owlbear comes back as a pre-planned "random encounter" to punish wasting time.

Players focus entirely on the owlbear nest, don't put the slightest thought into the stacks of crates in the warehouse. Also, I set up the magicpunk lift so that there is a podium with a glowing green button on it. It even is a light source in the virtual tabletop. It takes the party like 15 minutes of fiddling around to understand the SINGLE button that is GLOWING is the one to make the elevator move.

[Icedfate]

lol, players will lock on to any detail you put in there, even if it's just flavor text, they will assume it's an important clue

and i always hate when a DM or an adventure module hides important progression related things behind a skill check and if you fail the skill check then your forward progression becomes severely hindered.

like if they have a boss that is invulnerable to many formsmif attack, like a wererat and then hide the only silver weapon that the boss is vulnerable to behind a passive perception check that the DM rolls behind the screen and if the players fail then they have to fight the wererat with no silver. .

or a really stubborn NPC that won't give the info the players need and they fail the persuasion check and now they don't have the info and end up sitting around the table for hours trying to figure it out because that crucial piece of info was held back from them. .