TOPIC: Golembane - First Puzzle and Final Puzzle thoughts

I may have been your DM for that run. At least I had precisely one group get zero switches correct on their first try. It took about a minute of discussion but they agreed that they needed to reverse every switch to get the correct solution fairly quick.

Seth Murray wrote: Not much to add about the first room. The final room, however, did have a clue that I missed on my first run through but essentially gives you the answer. In room 6, when you defeat the monster, there's something in the audio cue about a self destruct sequence, and I believe there might even be an audio cue that says "3,2,1". Essentially, you just have to figure out that if the countdown never gets to zero, the tower can't self destruct. 3-2-1-1-1.

This brings me to a recurring issue with the NPC audio. Audio volume and quality seems to vary wildly from room to room. That in itself wouldn't be a huge problem, but if you are going to use that audio to relay vital information to the party, I think it's imperative that it's assured that the information is able to be reliably received by the party. For this reason, I prefer that the dialogue be read by the GM, even if it does break down the 4th wall a little bit.

On a related note, I helped with install this year, and it's a cramped window to build a dungeon and ensure it works in, but during the audio testing, I'd like to see us do more to ensure that you can hear the audio in less than ideal conditions, such as when half of your party is having a conversation about the dealer hall, other groups are cheering, and chatter is coming from the other areas in general.

+1 to this. Audio was great since I happened to be standing by the speakers every time, but I got lucky and was the only one who heard it all.

Although I recall one or two rooms where the audio was almost unfairly overrun by other sounds, in the majority of cases the players talked over it or simply ignored it as background flavor. All well and good. Such things are an appropriate test of player skill, I feel.

On the other hand, not being able to hear the audio despite everyone being quiet and straining to hear is quite another thing.

I believe this was the first year that we didn't have any trouble hearing the recorded messages - of course, we're also experienced and as soon as a recording starts, we shut up and move towards the speaker location...

I'm absolute with you, Neil, the final room of puzzle Golembane was a poor puzzle. Having to brute force it is bogus. Apparently missing out on a valuable clue because the NPC never showed up for us is bogus. Our experience was even worse, since our GM was awful. Instead of being strictly neutral or empathizing, he decided to be smug at our mistakes, which really grated. And when we were absolutely confident we had a solution that met the requirements on the wall, and furthermore that there had to be multiple solutions, he insisted that there was a single solution. Apparently there was a single solution, but not limited to the rules we were provided. Puzzle Golembane was definitely the highlight this year, and ending on such a low note took a lot of the shine off.

I'm with others that the slowness of the first room was frustrating. When we were slow doing the river and boards puzzle or the rope puzzle it was exciting as we scrambled to finish in time. When we were running against the clock first the first puzzle Golembane room, nothing we could do would speed the mechanics up. Given the general rule of "do nothing until you're reasonably sure how to proceed, least you punish the entire group," this hurt us badly. Again, a shame because once we figured out what we needed to do, it was a fun introductory puzzle.

There have always been time constraints in the rooms, especially the 12 minutes. I observed a number of parties in Golembane 1, and a couple had to be "gently" coerced into pushing the activate button so they could start on the puzzle.

Alan56 wrote: Given the general rule of "do nothing until you're reasonably sure how to proceed, least you punish the entire group," this hurt us badly.

I've never understood this "rule". Sure, take a minute to investigate the room, but when there's nothing else to do and a big red button labeled "Activate", I say press that sucker and let's see what happens! Gotta give those healers something to do, right?

That's my response to the last puzzle issues, too. There were multiple solutions to the clues as given, but only one right combination. So unless you were very lucky (or picked up on the more subtle clue in the previous room) you had to take some damage to solve it. My group did that puzzle twice. On our Nightmare run, most of us flipped switches, but our cleric and bard stood next to the DM with their spells, potions, and scrolls and made sure that everyone stayed above 8 HP. It was pretty effective.

Matt Sheehe wrote: There were multiple solutions to the clues as given, but only one right combination. So unless you were very lucky (or picked up on the more subtle clue in the previous room) you had to take some damage to solve it. My group did that puzzle twice.

So on that second run, we looked for the clue and never found it. Where was it?

Matt Sheehe wrote: I've never understood this "rule".

The "rule" is basic game theory and human psychology. You will be punished for making a mistake. Frequently the entire group will be punished. Therefore, people will tend to be more cautious. Doubly so early in the game when you don't know how badly you'll need hit points and healing later. And, at least for us, this rule works well! It's reliably gotten teams with a large number of new players to the last room with at least some healing in reserve to maximize our chances at the final puzzle.

Matt Sheehe wrote: There were multiple solutions to the clues as given, but only one right combination. So unless you were very lucky (or picked up on the more subtle clue in the previous room) you had to take some damage to solve it.

I think a lot of us believe that to be a good puzzle it should be possible to reliably solve in a single attempt limited to reasonably available information. Experimentation to learn information is fine, so long as it doesn't come with punishment. The NPC doesn't count as many of us never saw them. The countdown is tenuous at best; I'd accept it as a bonus clue, but it doesn't seem reasonable as a primary clue. And even if you got one of those clues, you still had a 50-50 chance of failure depending on which end you decided was the start.

Alan56 wrote: I'm absolute with you, Neil, the final room of puzzle Golembane was a poor puzzle. Having to brute force it is bogus. Apparently missing out on a valuable clue because the NPC never showed up for us is bogus. Our experience was even worse, since our GM was awful. Instead of being strictly neutral or empathizing, he decided to be smug at our mistakes, which really grated. And when we were absolutely confident we had a solution that met the requirements on the wall, and furthermore that there had to be multiple solutions, he insisted that there was a single solution. Apparently there was a single solution, but not limited to the rules we were provided. Puzzle Golembane was definitely the highlight this year, and ending on such a low note took a lot of the shine off.

I'm with others that the slowness of the first room was frustrating. When we were slow doing the river and boards puzzle or the rope puzzle it was exciting as we scrambled to finish in time. When we were running against the clock first the first puzzle Golembane room, nothing we could do would speed the mechanics up. Given the general rule of "do nothing until you're reasonably sure how to proceed, least you punish the entire group," this hurt us badly. Again, a shame because once we figured out what we needed to do, it was a fun introductory puzzle.

We were one of the groups that did several minutes of investigating in the first room before hitting the button, and we quickly figured out what we needed to do but ran out of time. It was still a fun room though, and fortunately that was the Dungeon we did a second time, and on the repeat time the DM said we accomplished it in record time (I think we were done before the halfway point)

Alan56 wrote:

Matt Sheehe wrote: I've never understood this "rule".

The "rule" is basic game theory and human psychology. You will be punished for making a mistake. Frequently the entire group will be punished. Therefore, people will tend to be more cautious. Doubly so early in the game when you don't know how badly you'll need hit points and healing later. And, at least for us, this rule works well! It's reliably gotten teams with a large number of new players to the last room with at least some healing in reserve to maximize our chances at the final puzzle.

Matt Sheehe wrote: There were multiple solutions to the clues as given, but only one right combination. So unless you were very lucky (or picked up on the more subtle clue in the previous room) you had to take some damage to solve it.

I think a lot of us believe that to be a good puzzle it should be possible to reliably solve in a single attempt limited to reasonably available information. Experimentation to learn information is fine, so long as it doesn't come with punishment. The NPC doesn't count as many of us never saw them. The countdown is tenuous at best; I'd accept it as a bonus clue, but it doesn't seem reasonable as a primary clue. And even if you got one of those clues, you still had a 50-50 chance of failure depending on which end you decided was the start.

This is pretty much what I was trying to get at in the OP. I'm ok taking damage to learn the mechanics of a puzzle, but when I'm making a guess at a puzzle's solution not based on context clues within the dungeon that I can't figure out, but instead because mathematically my guess is ONE of the MANY possible solutions, it really breaks the immersion for me.

I understand that it's easy for me to say now, but had we guessed the correct solution to the puzzle, my group and I would still feel that it was a poor puzzle, especially as the final room. I like the idea of having to figure out a combination of levers to get away on the airship, but not when it comes down to

1) who can mathematically figure out the next logical guess
2) who can manage to convince, in a time-based stressful setting, the majority of their group to just sit back and a fraction of the group work on a puzzle

As far as the first puzzle goes, I actually REALLY liked the idea of the puzzle. The frustration came in that we didn't push the button right away like others and then, mathematically speaking, it was impossible to finish the puzzle due to the time penalty imposed by waiting for the balls. If the sound effect took 1/2 the time, I think I'd have no issue with it.

To further fan the flames... Many previous puzzles have "only allowed 3 attempts" with no seemingly good reason to do so other than to prevent grinding out the solution. Often this was only pointed out after the 3rd attempt was made and then you sit around in the room for another 5mins or however long is left annoyed you can't try again.

I can see the potential fustrations with these 2 rooms even though I didn't encounter them. Puzzles with multiple solutions that only have 1 correct answer could have been handled slightly differently. Picture this
the DM speaks "while that IS a correct patter than seems to match the clues given it appares its NOT the patter the devious gnome set" "for your failed attempt you take X damage and feel you could keep trying if you can take the pain. Also you learn that X of your switches are set correctly as indicated by the lights here"

Same net effect but when you explain it, it might soften the blow and will certainly save time from the party wondering why their "correct" answer wasn't accepted. It also clearly indicated they can keep trying as many times as they have HPs for.

For room 1 I can certainly see the reluctance to push a big red button and how you might waste a lot of time looking about before you come to the realization. What might have been a better setup was a "re-activate" button and just have it automatically activate as part of your entry description. Sure this way is more likely to cause damage to a party but they will have a better likely hood of having enough time to actually solve it. AND/OR if it hits the ground still allow it to be placed so they don't take damage AND lose time having to do it all again.