Ran a Numenera on Sunday, which included a pure puzzle section (the first time I’ve done that, IIRC). It went reasonably well; I messed up on a couple details and had to quietly rework the puzzle logic in my head to make sure it was consistent. The altered version was a bit less intuitive than what I had originally planned. I think in the future I should find someone to help playtest puzzles before I give them to the players. It would be very frustrating to spend an hour in a session on what’s supposed to be a quick puzzle.
I’m rethinking the second puzzle, which involves some numeric manipulation that probably won’t be very interesting/accessible to some members of the group. One of the things I think the first puzzle did an OK job at was involving everyone in the party.
SRPG, of course, already has playtesting in the works, but this experience has gotten me thinking about the different types of minds that will be approaching the game, and how I can expose aspects of the puzzle to make the experience satisfying for them.
There are, of course, people out there who just hate puzzles, but I don’t think they’re my target demographic.