Hysterical Impasse

[benma]

My party -- two Dwarves, two Tieflings, and an Aasimar* -- are still in the opening section of "The Whispering Cairn" after two sessions. They're having a hard time getting past the screaming face trap, because, so proud of themselves for all having Darkvision and therefore never needing to give themselves away with visible light, they brought no light sources whatsoever. No torches, no candles, no lamp oil.

Of course, never mind getting the lanterns actually *lit* -- just viewing the big painting and working out which lantern to put where is difficult when you can only see in black and white, particularly if you start taking lanterns down off their hooks where it's possible to mix them up.

*The roleplaying, fortunately, has been a lot of fun, even so. One of the Dwarves is a Monk of (per script) Xan Yae, while the other is a traditionalist Cleric who has Significant Issues with Dwarves who don't wear heavy armor, swing axes, and worship proper Dwarf gods -- shades of Terry Pratchett. The Tieflings and Aasimar are (half-)brothers, and each has a different, highly improbable story regarding how that works out, and indeed which is the shared parent, and they argue frequently, over every facet of their shared past. Their background/intro has it that they were run out of their hometown, and came to Diamond Lake because their (adoptive/step/biological/delete as applicable) father was old man Fant, who owned the mine adjuct to the Cairn. But each pair blames the other for having caused this exile to happen on a rotating basis. The argument will eventually be ended when one of them inevitably dies, and the other two can blame him without fear of contradiction.

[Sean Mahoney]

If any of them have skill in Knowledge (The Planes), you might use that to drop the hint that the air dukes likely would have had darkvision as well, and it seems interesting that they would then have lanterns in their architecture. Hopefully that would make it clear that lighting them has some other significance besides just being able to see better.

If I recall correctly (been a while since I read it) the lanterns were in 'rainbow' order and it would not be uncalled for to have some or all of them make a Int check vs. DC 15 or something to remember which spot the green one was in when they first came in (and maybe even a lower DC if appropriate).

I guess the point is to give them the chance to work out the puzzles as they will feel accomplishment, but don't give away the answer. On the other hand the game becomes boring if they are just beating their head against a riddle. Fine line to walk.

Sean Mahoney

[benma]

Thanks; I'll be doing something akin to that, if they ever get tired of arguing in the dark. Which looks like it could easily continue to occupy them for at least one more session.

[magdalena thiriet]

You did remember that one of the lanterns (green one, IIRC) was lit?

Otherwise the group sounds rather adorable :)

[Deimodius]

The group don't sound adorable, they sound a little dense.

A lantern, any lantern, only fulfills it's purpose when it is lit. Failing everything else, how is it no one has thought of lighting lanterns... which are lanterns... and lanterns are meant to be lit?

No means of lighting a lantern? (How do they make camp fires?) Go back to town and buy some lamp oil (if needed) and a flint & tinder.

If your players can not realize on their own that lanterns _want_ to be lit (really, that's all they are usually expected to do), then maybe you need to make a Knowledge: Common Sense check for each of them. The first PC to succeed at the check suddenly "realizes" (the DM suggests) that maybe they could see something different if they lit one or more of the lanterns.

M.

[magdalena thiriet]

Well, they haven't figured out yet that lanterns have any other function except to give light (and probably have not noticed that they are indeed different colours...). They are just decorations.
Makes sense to me that the people haven't gone to light every lantern, candle, torch etc just because they can.

And anybody who has moved houses (or helped somebody to move) might have noticed how easy it is to ignore lamps as long as you don't need them...

[Callum]

Interestingly, my group never thought to light the lanterns physically, even though they had the resources to do so. Instead, they got the cleric to prepare six light spells to do the job! I suspect this may have been because the green lantern was magically lit to start off with. It did mean they were a little low on clerical magic when they went through the face, of course...