If anyone has a good resource for this type of thing, I would be very grateful if you could post it for me. Also, if any of you DMs have some good non-combat challenges like this that your players have agonized over, feel free to share!
As for resources.. there's actually a D&D released book called Traps and Challenges or something such. I have it, courtesy of my buddy Tim, and it's plenty helpful for ideas. Using it directly though, means people will read it and know the outcomes.
Other than that, bits and pieces from random places on the web combined with imagination will be your best bet.
In Suikoden, when you go into the vault of the Dwarves, there's a simple puzzle involving two buttons on the ground, with eight lights. If you press the right button, one of the lights on its side light's up. If you press the wrong button, you have to start over. It's as simple as figuring out a pattern such as left, left, right, right, left, right, left, right. I put the same puzzle on a wall instead of a floor and my PCs spent over an hour trying to figure out it's complexities that didn't exist, heh.
And yeah Bajah, I've gotten much better as both a player and as a DM. I am pretty good at finding ways to keep my players entertained and interested, and I also don't have the "the DM must kill the players as much as possible" mentality that several of our past DMs have had. My biggest problem, though, is coming up with puzzles and stuff.
I do remenisce about that night of D&D at Fae's house though. That was great. "I'm uh...Death?" Densetsu fucked around with this message on 07-25-2006 at 02:42 PM.
Dens: Er, wasn't me!
Barkeep: You're the only one here! GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY INN!
Dens: Okay. So can I get that breakfast then?
quote:
Katrinity had this to say about Duck Tales:
Mathimatic Puzzles for DnDThe Traps Collection Part 1
The Traps Collection Part 2
...I love you. 
Seems they don't like directly linking to the zip file. 
quote:
Densetsu got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
...I love you.
Hope those help. 
quote:
Katrinity stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
Hope those help.
Immensely. That was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much!
