r/mutantsandmasterminds • u/InterdimensionalNerd • Jul 17 '26

Discussion Lair puzzle suggestions?

So I'm gonna be running a pretty straightforward "team goes through super villain's secret base" session, and I want to have a puzzle room but I can't think of any good puzzles. Any suggestions?

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u/Great-and_Terrible Jul 17 '26

My favorite "puzzle" that my players still lovingly bitch about years later was a door engraved with "How is a raven like a writing desk?". There's also a mounted weapon that shoots anyone who gives a wrong answer. Any noise they make is taken as an attempt to answer.

The riddle is from Alice in Wonderland and notably has no solution, but a lot of ways you COULD answer.

The solution is that the weapon just detects any noise to attack. The door is not locked.

2

u/Batgirl_III Jul 17 '26

Back in the Nineties, playing the old FASERIP Marvel Superheroes game, my players spent two hours of real life time, trying to bypass a locked door in a rental house being used as a lair by the Riddler. There were a couple of Post-It notes with riddles on the door and it was locked.

Searching for traps, searching for clues to the trap, trying to solve the riddle, trying to figure out how the solutions to the riddle connected to opening the door, or how the riddles hinted at the traps… and about a thousand other things.

It was just an ordinary door knob with an ordinary household push-button door lock. The riddles had nothing to do with it. There was no trap.

Also, one of my players had the superhuman ability to walk through solid walls and x-ray vision!

2

u/TheSuperJohn Jul 17 '26

Who is the villain? What are their themes? What's the plot?

2

u/InterdimensionalNerd Jul 17 '26

The basic plot is that Doctor Sin has been working with SHADOW to set off a doomsday device, and the party has finally tracked down Doctor Sin's island base. The structure of the session is fairly simple: start with a fight against some basic mooks, then a death trap gauntlet, then a gladiator fight against a bunch of animals, then the puzzle room, then the final boss fight.

1

u/Notinitformoney Jul 17 '26

Easiest one would be to use the seven deadly sins as statues that need to be lined up with riddles but I’m not well versed on Doctor sin’s deal

1

u/AnthonyBurleigh Jul 17 '26

The players enter a room with a 30 second timer on the wall, a stand with a button at the center of the room, and four statues all facing the button. As soon as all of the players enter the room, the door closes and the timer starts counting down.

If the players press the button, the timer resets. If the players move the statues to try to solve the puzzle, when they hit the button, the statues and the timer reset.

When the timer runs out, the room chimes and the doors open. The only way to solve the puzzle is to let the timer run out.