Sometimes the owner of a dungeon doesn't want to kill its intruders, just detain and embarrass them a bit.

A series of traps and puzzles that are sure to cause pause in your players without killing them..... maybe.

'This is a clean room environment. So we will have to pass through decontamination before we can enter.' Researcher Gorgron Rogbutt, an Orc.

'Here lies a peasant child scarred by the heat of battle.
Fighting not for glory but because he just wanted to live,
His despairation led him to victory.'

~ Carved on the ornate stone doors leading to the large tomb.

A very difficult puzzle which requires knowledge in simple leet speak to solve. It might take a while to figure out as you have to rearrange letters and numbers to form a sentence.

A puzzle that requires knowledge of the PGP Word List to complete. It is impossible without knowing this information. VERY COMPLEX! NOT FOR BEGINNERS!

This is a system of classification that admittedly I shamelessly copied from TES (The Elder Scrolls). It sorts traps and puzzles into four categories known in TES as The Four Tests. Examples of each that I made myself are included.

A graph theory based puzzle for a Shadowrun Setting.

This consists of a trap and encounter as the puzzle. There will be ten PCs for this example but this will work with any even number of PCs.

30 Prisons, some of which are dreadful places in which to be, whilst others can be surprisingly pleasant, as far as somewhere can be pleasant when you are not allowed to leave it. Some are short term places of confinement, others are where you will spend the rest of your life unless you manage to escape.

A simple addition to the riddles often used to open doors or paths in a dungeon. The party are presented with a riddle and then have to draw the answer in the sand box.

The virtual battlefields of the of the Cosmic Era

You, a wizard, have a secret wizard base. Pesky adventurers and who knows what else would simply love to find it and loot all of your precious stuff. Here are some things to consider during construction.

That looks interesting, I make a search check for loot.

Wait... what comes at me?

An underwater dungeon whose lore is heavily inspired by Lovecraft's The Temple, and whose design is inspired by Ocarina of Time's water temple. Contains interconnected water-level puzzles and is an example of a dungeon which requires a profile-view map.

A geometric cut puzzle that can be inserted into any dungeon/door/treasure chest.

A desert-themed astrological puzzle inspired by a 2000 year-old analog computer, an ancient supernova, and the Ziggurat of Ur.

Wonder World LLC is the largest operator of virtual theme parks, amusement parks, and other non-sport, non-mmo virtual environments.

Worn runes on ancient ruins, scrawled annotations on old maps, scribbles in the margins of arcane tomes – cryptic text is a central part of the adventuring experience. Basic encryption schemes are an excellent way to embellish your campaign with a consistent textual theme while allowing for the inclusion of messages hidden in plain sight. This post describes a simple connected cipher, named Crypt, perfect for arcane languages and alien text.

Can you beat the swamp witch at her own game? Voodoo Reinforcement Learning is an interactive puzzle that will set your party on edge.