I have a very organic approach to my role-playing games. As I run games for people and play in other people’s games I simply incorporate things that work into my style and eliminate things that don’t. One of the many options available to game masters that I have always ignored are puzzles. Really it wasn’t until a recent comment from a Critical Hit listener that I stopped to consider why this time-honored game mastering option never worked its way into my lexicon. And it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that I managed to put my finger on it: Puzzles discourage role-playing.