I am sort of a story driven, slow paced player, the main reason I don't like puzzle is due to my trauma with math class, puzzles remind me of that. There are many other players that like puzzle probably won't mind.
You can lure me into doing puzzles as a player by NOT telling me it's a puzzle, and as long as the puzzle design is one problem at a time I should be okay, then providing hints on each step and reward me after solving it with a mini story or something light hearted, even a light hearted sound would help.
Two puzzle games in this jam tortured me but I enjoyed them, they were sliding hero and so to speak, So to speak I wasn't even aware its a puzzle game until the dev mentioned it, because I enjoyed learning about the information so much, and the whole "vacation trip" aspect covered that up, and of course the famous zelda series with its puzzle dungeons are all good references of games that got me into doing puzzles and by passed my fear.
As for my habitual clicking on characters, maybe just make it partial screen instead of a full screen open that I have to click back from, that might work better visually? Then again disabling that would be easier. lol