A Dungeon Master from Dungeons & Dragons has been making his players live with a lie for years, withholding important information from them. And this seems to please not only them.
How is the Dungeon Master deceiving his players? Reddit user ASpookyShadeOfGray confesses to the community on Reddit that he has been designing puzzles for his players for 5 years that have no solutions. He himself is quite bad at designing them, and they tend to be too easy for his groups.
When he started making the puzzles more challenging, he noticed that the players often had better solutions than he did and often accepted their creations if they were better than his original. At some point, he had trouble creating a puzzle with a proper solution and thought that his players probably wouldn’t notice if there was no solution, as long as he didn’t tell them.
So he let them continue to find their own solutions, but without having a suitable one in hand himself. He opened the thread because he “just wanted to tell someone who won’t turn around and tell his players that he has been deceiving them for five years.”
But the community celebrates his approach and supports him in his decision.
It often depends on the group
How does the community find his idea? In the community on the thread, his actions are well received. Many users celebrate the freedom he gives his players and the creativity that is fostered because there is no clear line they have to follow.
Many other Dungeon Masters join the conversation and explain that they would do it similarly and have had very good experiences with it – as long as they don’t tell their players. Because then it often happens that motivation decreases and the puzzles no longer appeal to the players, as the contemplation of the supposedly “right” solution is important.
Others argue that puzzles without a prior solution cannot be good puzzles. Because how could one design a good one if there is no solution to hold onto and demonstrate that it is a good puzzle? Again, other users find this approach especially good for players who struggle with seemingly easier puzzles.
Is the concept of the Dungeon Master advisable? In this case, the concept of the Dungeon Master seems to work well because the players enjoy his puzzles, even though there is no official solution for them. However, for other groups, it might be too open and lead to confusion or frustration, as there is no guidance or a nudge in the right direction.
As is often the case with Dungeons & Dragons, it primarily depends on the group composition. It primarily lies with the Dungeon Master to assess what type of puzzles suit their players, how much assistance they need, and how well they can design puzzles themselves or seek inspiration online.
The community discussion also shows: Many Dungeon Masters trust that their players will become creative and find clever solutions. In one case, a Dungeon Master presented his party with a seemingly impossible quest that his players solved in a way he absolutely did not expect: Players in Dungeons & Dragons get an impossible task, take revenge with a nasty trap
