r/DnDPuzzlesAndTraps

I want to share a story of how it took a half hour to figure out how to open a door.

The party arrives at a great stone door with a circle carved in its face. A hole lies in its center. There are two sticks laying on the ground, one stick roughly the radius of the circle, the other half that. Earlier the party had solved a riddle to reveal a couple numbers: 7 and 22. The task was clear: make the clock on the door read 7:22.

One problem, they have to attach the sticks to the hole somehow. They spend several minutes debating how to do so until one of them takes a silver hammer they used in the most recent encounter and tied the sticks to it and jammed it in the hole such that the hands were pointing at 7 and between 4 and 5. Nothing.

What about 22:07? 10 and between 1 and 2. Nothing. What if the clock is upside down? They flipped the hands on the face. Still nothing.

We spent half an hour on this puzzle until they made a bargain with the werewolf they detained to help solve the puzzle in exchange for his freedom. He wasn’t nefarious, he just didn’t know how the heck the door wasn’t opening when they set the clock to 7:22.

They return to the door and show him their solution. He lowers his head in disappointment, grabs the hour hand, and moves it between 7 and 8 til it clicks and the door swings open.

The players flip the virtual table.

I liked this puzzle because on the surface it looks really straightforward, but requires an attention to detail with how the players engage with the world. “I set the clock to 7:22” would solve it if it took them forever to figure out how to make the hands work. But since they solve it quick, describe where the hands are pointing. And that’s when the fun begins. In today’s age, not a lot of folks regularly engage with analog clocks for the hour hand part to be a twist, but are familiar enough to understand the basics and still get an aha moment when the twist is revealed.

So basically I am a new player. My group has been playing for a couple of months now. I mentioned I might be interested in DMing at some point and my DM said that's fine, I could do a one shot for them.

So my idea is that our party is walking through some woods where other adventurers have gone missing. I want to kidnap them and throw them in a dungeon they have to escape- essentially an escape room. I need ideas for riddles/traps etc. where can i look for these ideas? What has or hasn't worked for you in the past? What sort of things might I need to be aware of while DMing? We do have a wild card chaotic wizard so I'm sure she'll keep me on my toes. (She's new as well) We also have a rogue and a seasoned paladin. Idk what the DM will be playing as.

I have some vague ideas -like making them start without their equipment, they'll have to unlock something to get it back- but i just don't know what works well with the game mechanics.