TOPIC: E3 Puzzle Room Question

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Fiddy wrote: Posting the lines on the wall (along with who was speaking) is probably the only sure-fire way to avoid technical failure.

Unfortunately some clues get a lot easier when posted in writing.

I'm not sure there is a perfect balance unfortunately.

Agreed. I've been pondering this, and I think the ideal first line of defense would be to have a separate small screen next to each skull which displays whatever text that particular skull is saying/singing at any given moment, but it goes away after a second or two (like karaoke lyrics, or TV closed-captioning).

This works around the general noise floor being too loud, and also works around any individual players' hearing challenges, while still preserving the puzzle elements of needing to have different party members paying attention to each skull in real-time and working together to figure out the overall solution.

This idea obviously would not help the technical failure scenario (some sort of printed backup is still necessary in this case, and should be offered proactively by the DM -- perhaps with a "be warned that reading this might make the puzzle too easy, but it's your choice"); however, I think it would greatly improve the experience in the case when the technology is working as intended but it's still hard to hear.

All of that said, I really liked having singing skulls, and I greatly enjoyed their song from a thematic perspective!

There was at least one extra Easter egg in the audio for those that paid attention... One of the skulls starts humming a very familiar tune... The song from last year's feast hall! At which point another skull yells at him to stop

In that room, I caught two of the four and figured out the clues including the mace (potato masher) but we had difficulty hearing the voices clearly. As the rogue, I had successfully completed the challenge, but because of the difficulty hearing clearly, I had to choose the clue. As a group, we did not complete the room.....