Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (
More info?)
Peridot wrote:
>>Sure, thats the intent.
>>
>>BUT the reality is, we've been playing NWN for three expansions, and
>>pulling levers to see what they do in order to figure out puzzles is an
>>inherant part of that (unless you read the solutions on a cheat site
>>first); now suddenly we hit a puzzle where if we happen to pull one of
>>those levers at the wrong time, it can't be fixed, we -have- to reload
>>from our previous save?
>>I'm not saying its not a good policy. I'm not saying its not a realistic
>>one. I'm just suggesting that its entirely out of sync with the way these
>>things worked for some 30+ levels of play by the same people, in the same
>>world.
>>
>>If I download a module and the author did this all the way thru, I'd have
>>no complaints... well, I might have some complaints, but at least it would
>>be a clear consistent stylistic decision.
>>
>>Lance
>
>
> That's why they call them puzzles. If it worked the same way all the time
> there wouldn't be a challenge.
>
No, I don't argue with the fact that its a different puzzle, of course
it is.
Its the fact that there are mistakes you can make that you can't take
back. And that there's no way to know or suspect that this will be true.
I mean, how do you find out that the level locks the statues in place?
You either read about it on a cheat site, or you find out by trying.
If, by pure luck, you happen to try it while you have a statue pointing
the right direction, then you can potentially complete the puzzle, IF
you realize what you've done before you lock the next one the wrong way.
But if you happen to lock any the wrong way, then you cannot succede...
unless you cheat by going back and reloading.
If there was a clue as to what you are doing beforehand, that would work
too; you had your clue, you did it wrong, you pay the price.
But really, the only way to solve this one is sheer dumb luck or
cheating... and thats inconstant with all the other puzzles they've
presented you with thru the OC, SOU, and HOTU.
Some people will note that this particular puzzle doesn't actually need
to be solved, that you can happily go on with the rest of the campaign
with this failure behind you. But again, there is no way of knowing
that without cheating; very often in all three campaigns you must solve
a puzzle in order to unlock the door to the next level.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, one idea I've had in designing a module is to deliberately
put puzzles like this in where you have to cheat to solve them... and
then have the rewards you get for solving them ultimately turn out to be
"bad things". Say you find a Cloak of Verasity, with stats or abilities
sufficiently good that you are almost certain to wear it. But half the
module later, you discover that when the king saw you with that cloak,
he decided to allow have his daughter marry her other suitor and simply
not tell you until you'd finished killing the dragon.
Or say said cloak seems to have all those positive stat effects, but
there's a check put into the script giving every bad guy you meet even
better advantages, say for example the color text of the cloak describes
it as glowing... and then they all get a plus to hit the wearer similar
to that which Faerie Fire used to give in PnP D&D.
Or if I was interested in teaching the lesson more tranparantly, I could
make something Bad happen every time you open one of those puzzles...
only flaw with that being that the "cheat" crowd would simply cheat
their way around the bad consequences. Thats why I like the idea of the
more subtle or delayed punishment; if they want to go back and do it
over after that, they have to redo half the module. Or maybe they never
do realize they were punished, the module was just harder for them,
rather than the easier they thought it would be by virtue of having the
on-the-surface "great" item.
If I built a module this way, though, with puzzles you can only solve by
cheating, I would want to be consistant with myself, and Never put any
real positive rewards behind one, and Never Ever make it so you must
solve one in order to progress. The situation would be the opposite of
that in HOTU, where you have every reason to believe that you Must solve
that puzzle.
I'd also make sure to put lore into the module in the forms of NPC's
saying things, henchmen saying things, books saying things; and I'd
include early puzzles where the negative effects are fairly obvious, so
the more subtle ones would seem fitting later when you find out about
them. From an authors standpoint, this is Foreshadowing. From a game
theory standpoint, its just being Fair.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is what I mean by a stylistic decision; its not the only reason to
include this sort of "gotcha" puzzle, but it is a possible one that I
think would be defensible.
Lance
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram