I am currently GMing a D&D Next game and, so far, we're having a blast. However, I noticed that I have a group of players who hope to have everything served to them, require several explanations in a row to make them understand how things work, and forget about their resources.
My players just don't want to think and they rarely even remember the objects they are carrying. In fact, sometimes they tell me they are using items they produced from nowhere or expect to light a campfire in the middle of a battle in just one round pretty much with just their hands.
My players are just the sort that will lose a battle in a horrible way even if the solution is obvious. A Gypsy gave them a wand with the Shatter spell and told them they would need it; then they face a knight with a suit of crystal armor that bounced most spells. Even though an elf told them "There's a spell that could work! If we could SHATTER the armor with it we could win!".
They still tried to use firecrackers for 2 rounds before I told the Druid, "Girl… you have a Shatter wand in your pocket…" 🙂
I have to reveal a lot of info to them in order to avoid them dying a horrible death; and most puzzles I make have made them paranoid since they just don't like to think.
Once, I told them they could open a door using an "Impure" item from a collection of random stuff hanging from a wall, yet they ignored a bloodied dagger and a BDSM toy in order to try and use a cucumber and an eggplant on it… We spent one hour with that puzzle.
So, how can I build campaigns around players that just roll dice to do damage?
Best Answer
You seem to be building a lot of your challenges as simple riddles with exactly one solution.
When I was a newbie DM I tried the same thing and it lead to really slow and tedious sessions where the players were trying to guess the solution. It was frustrating for me because they kept trying one pointless solution after another completely missing my clues and it was frustrating for them because whatever they tried didn't work. Or rather I didn't allowed it to work because no matter how creative it was, it wasn't what I had planned and allowing it would have meant I had to diverge from my carefully crafted plot.
But then I found a much better approach: Don't design puzzles, design challenges. Put an obstacle in the players way, but just don't think about a solution for it yourself. See what the players come up with to solve it and reward creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. When the players come up with an original solution you would have never imagined, just try to roll with it.
Let's take, for example, your door puzzle. A door magically warded against pureness is a possible obstacle. Confusing it by carrying a corrupted item would be one solution, but it is by far not the only one.
One idea most players would try is cracking it open by force. Boring and uncreative, but when they are amazingly strong it could still work. I would let them roll with a challenge rating which is so astronomical that their chance of success is practically zero, and punish them for failing by zapping them with magic damage, but when they win against all odds, good for them.
Another solution would be to dispel it with magic. Slightly more creative, but still boring. I would let them try with a high CR and when they fail, wasting the spell is punishment enough.
They could try to pass it mentally by trying to think corrupt thoughts while opening it. This could get interesting and might be an entertaining RP situation. Depending on what kind of thoughts they come up with and how much in-character it is, I might give each character a more or less easy roll.
Or they could come up with some other obscure solution I don't see and might never come up with myself.