Friday, October 14, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons Puzzle Box

Brian Stone brings us an intricate puzzle box created as a prop for a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons adventure.  While the woodworking required to pull this off is rather intricate the mechanism at the heart of the box is a basic, off the shelf combination lock. I'm a big advocate for using physical puzzles in games

1 comment:

CoastConFan said...

That’s exceedingly clever – Bravo! I always enjoy seeing what Propnomicon has turned up with his fishing expeditions at the digital version of Devil’s Reef.

This box reminds be a bit of Japanese puzzle boxes from my youth. They got rather scarce by the 1960s, but I am pleased to find that there is a renaissance of interest and there are a couple of artisans who are now producing them, but they are not cheap. I understand that they are not very old, only dating to the late Meiji Era and were an offshoot of earlier hidden compartments in Tansu cabinets and furniture (another interest of mine).

One of these Japanese boxes would make a good prop for a CoC RPG. Below are a few links for new boxes, but they turn up occasionally at garage sales and at flea markets for just a few dollars. Most of the cheaper ones are fairly simple but there are some very complex boxes that were produced.

http://www.cleverwood.com/about1.htm

http://www.hakonemaruyama.co.jp/japanese-puzzle-box-e.htm

http://yosegi.com/