Treasure Hunt Rules of Play

What to do when you’re stuck

Several puzzles simply require thinking outside of usual patterns. Other puzzles actually require items from earlier in the quest or from other quests. Don’t forget that there are three quests, and if you can’t figure out what to do next in your current quest, drop it for a while and pursue another quest.

If you’ve gone positively as far as you can in each of the three quests and have spent at least a half hour stymied in your current position, you may appeal to the game master for an additional clue.

Following the leader

You are free to split up as you see fit. Before embarking on each step in your quest, choose one of your party to be leader. The leader chooses which clue to pursue next (there may be more than one path available), and the leader gets to read the next clue when it is found.

This does not mean that the leader has to be the one to find the clue or that the leader walks ahead of everybody else.

Once a person has had a turn as leader, he/she cannot be leader again until everyone has taken a turn as leader and the matter is reset. To simplify the selection, you might choose to go in rotation of alphabetical order or any other order you like.

Holding one’s tongue

When a clue is discovered, naturally you want to riddle it out. Any eligible player may speak, but in order to prevent any one of the party from dominating the riddles, a player becomes ineligible once he/she has correctly answered any riddle. He/she becomes eligible again after every member of the party has had a turn at giving a successful answer and the matter is reset. He/she may answer even with ineligible status if every eligible member of the party expresses a desire to open up the clue to the entire party.

Riddling out a single clue may take more than one step. It’s up to the party to decide whether the multiple steps for a given clue amount to separate clues (i.e. the player who gave the answer to the first step may not be free to also answer the second step unless bidden to do so by all of the free members of the party).

Danger is everyone’s middle name

There are opportunities to (we hope only slightly) harm oneself, others, or property while completing certain of the quest’s tasks. Exercise prudence and care with materials.

Contents could be fragile

It might have gone without saying, but until you know what you’re holding, don’t treat it roughly. An unknown item might come to harm if dropped, struck, shaken, or upended.

On to the Quest for the Altar, then.

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