Thanks so much for the feature, and glad people are enjoying our puzzles book! :D Also, by popular demand, there is now a discounted bundle available that includes all three volumes!

One of my favourite puzzles is the Goblins guarding some sort of passage way and they just make up a nonsense riddle on the spot because "isn't that what we are supposed to do?" except they never came up with an answer, so they accept any answer as correct. Since the players don't know this and the riddle makes no sense, they often spend a hilarious amount of roleplay trying to figure out wtf is going on.

I think the solution to a puzzle that surprised me the most was politely asking the gargoyle blocking the door to move aside.

when your character is intelligence 20 but irl you're struggling with 8

If you want a puzzle that will keep your players busy try this 1. You enter a room with a door. From my experience they will discuss the door for a good 20+ mins checking for traps, listening at the door examining the door, hitting/casting a spell on the door. If your rogue immediately trys to lock pick the door allow them and on a success the door clicks (the rogue just locked the door) the door was never locked to begin with. It was just a door they had to open and walk through. In my experience its the best door puzzle.

Her players: "It could be a biblical allegory"
Mine: "Maybe if we hit it a 5th time..."

If I were a player with that puzzle I would be like "We need 118 more keys??"

I made the boat crossing puzzle into a social encounter and the player at my table who “hates puzzles” didn’t even notice it was one until another player pointed it out to them afterwards.

"When players encounter a door with key holes they know they are looking for keys"  Roguish laughter intensifies

I once asked my players, "what kind of corn grows on trees and is not yellow." 20 minutes later, my players were frustrated and started naming parts of a tree until they got an acorn.

every so often between sessions our dm gives us art pieces that relate to the next plot point/character arc/etc that she calls “teasers” and they always have codes or ciphers that we have to get together to solve. it’s so cool and one of the best times i’ve ever had solving dnd puzzles

0:20 That deep sigh is all too relatable...

The part about being open to alternate solutions is one I learned the hard way.

Long story short, I had a character in my game who was supposed to be a master of military strategy, and the player running said character is really good at puzzles, and plays chess, so I found a brain teaser thing online about creating a mini chessboard with only queens on it, and the challenge was to lay the queens out on the board such that none was in a position to kill another. I set it up so the number of queens matched the number of factions currently locked in a looming war in the game world, and posed it to the character as essentially finding a way to create balance and peace.

He went in a totally different direction, placed the queens and told me he'd solved it. It looked nothing like the couple possible solutions I had printed up, so I told him nothing happened. He was surprised and filled me in on his thinking: "They're in positions so that EVERY queen is threatened by at least one other, so if one of them starts the war, they all end of up dead. It's mutually assured destruction."

I thought about it for a second and went "Ya know.... you're right. I didn't think of that. Congratulations." 😆

If your characters don't have a way to fly/spideclimb
- Consider having them play jenga to work on a scaffold to reach an area too high or sheer to climb. Magically enchanted logs that will move to the highest stack, as if moved by invisible hands.

Ginny this is a life saver. I'm literally having my players climbing a tower that is based in a mix of encounters and puzzles and this video gives me so much to think about and possibly rework. Thank you so much!

I created an enigmatologist NPC, if the party doesn't want to deal with puzzles they bring a sketch/detailed description to him and he helps them solve it. He can also secretly be the BBEG who is waiting for them to lead him to the door that his cult is trying to open.

The best advice I ever got was “don’t solve your own puzzles”. When the players suggest something cool or creative that’s the solution.

My favorite simple puzzle.  As you enter the door shuts behind you.  In the center of the room is a pedestal with a big red button.   An ominous clicking noise rhythmically clicks from somewhere in the pedestal.

The door will automatically open if nobody pushes the button after 5 minutes,  but if they do,  the timer resets.  I've had groups use over an hour debating how to get past this obstacle and it's so great.

The way you promote the DMs Guild materials is great. It's the perfect balance between not giving away the contents of the books for free, but they're also never annoyingly vague in a 'you just have to buy the book if you want to know more' kind of way. You have a great video as usual with solid advice and nice examples that can stand on its own, and also give a clear indication of what to expect and how to use it if you do invest in the sponsored materials if you want to go more indepth. Done with respect to both creators and viewers!

All I can think of now is Sam going, “If there is a key, then there must be a lock.” 😂