Note: Datumancy, or “Divination using Dice” will be the heading under which I plan to post Tabletop RPG related posts. Typically things that you can use for your own games.
Also note: Mark Meredith inspired this entire post via a short Twitter conversation. Blame him 
Picture it:
“You stand before an ancient and weathered door carved from solid stone. Engraved on arch over the door are some markings. There is no handle or knob on the door and you see no hinges.”
“Knowledge check! 24!”
“You can tell the markings are in a language you’ve never seen before, they look something like this: ”
The DM reveals a sheet of paper with a flourish, covered in about 20 runes.
You and your companions spend about 20 minutes puzzling over the paper before coming up with an answer. The runes say: “Shout the word CLOSE and I shall open!” – somehow in perfect English!
There is a round of high-fives, and then the game continues…
How often have you played a tabletop RPG and had something like this thrown at you by your DM? Or maybe you’ve used something like it before? And, actually, quite a few Video Games have used a very similar puzzle. Well, quite frankly, this is one of my biggest pet-peeves in any kind of game! The idea that if you simply replace the letters in your puzzle with symbols, it will make in interesting and challenging puzzle.
So I’m here to say “you’re doing it wrong!” – and show you how to do it right
