No Quest Too Small
You guys ever hear of the Three Clue Rule? I first read about it over on The Alexandrian, and it’s most associated with mystery adventures. If you’re not familiar then you’ll want to take out your pencil and jot it down, because this one is worth adding to your GMing repertoire. Here she be in all her concise glory:
For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.
Simple as that! As I found out to my chagrin, the principle holds true in non-mystery scenarios as well. You see, players aren’t mind readers. They don’t have the same plot armor as Sherlock Holmes or Harry Dresden. Even when you think you’re bludgeoning them over the head with “this is important” type details, they may not figure it out until it’s too late.
Here’s where I’m coming from. You guys remember my heroic ranger pal from “Send in the Clones?” He’d challenged a badass troll cleric to single combat, and managed to win fair and square. When the last blow was struck and the troll went into negative hp, this ranger booted his nemesis into a conveniently placed bonfire, thus assuring that trollish regeneration wouldn’t work. What he missed was my repeated warnings about the troll’s armor. Let’s rewind to the beginning of the fight.
“The two of you face one another amidst a ring of jeering orcs and ogres and other monstrous humanoids. Your allies, disguised as members of the Bestial Host, stand at the edge of the combat. They cannot help without giving themselves away. The flare of torchlight glitters green and red from of the Priest King’s armor. You stare at one another, coiled like spring steel to make the first move. Roll initiative.”
A few rounds of combat passed.
“The priest king staggers, rocked by your blows. He glares at you, hatred seething from his body, his armor glowing green and red with the fire of his vitriol.”
And as the “victorious” ranger kicked Priest King Scrall into the bonfire: “Sparks explode into the night sky, the same green and red as the defeated war chief’s armor.”
If you’re anything like you me, you might be thinking that the repeated description was a solid hint. This was magical armor, and it negated fire and acid damage. The troll’s regeneration was still operational! I was rooting for my buddy the ranger at this point, desperately hoping that he’d realize the threat before my too-subtle-clues killed him. By the time he’d finished making his victory speech however, the troll had healed up despite the bonfire. He struck the ranger from behind, “His green and red armor pulsing with horrid vitality.”
“Oh shit!” cried my mage buddy from ringside. He’d finally figured it out, but by then it was far too late. The other party members managed to finish off the fire-resistant troll and scatter the horde, but I continue to feel guilty about the “obvious” clues I’d left for my perma-dead ranger pal.
It’s easy to think of your players as Magus types: unwitting goofs that miss important details to their own detriment. But the dude piloting that robbed-of-victory ranger was a smart player. Chances are that yours are too. That’s why I encourage you to learn from my experience. As a GM, you’ve got to remember that the solutions to riddles are only obvious when you already know them. When it comes to clues, it’s better to error on the side of “obvious” rather than “subtle.”
What do you the rest of you think? Have you ever missed vital information in an encounter? Did you manage to overcome your oversight, or like the unfortunate catgirl in today’s comic, were you strangled by the metaphorical hair of your own ignorance? Let’s hear all about those minor details that turned out to be majorly important down in the comments!
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For those unfamiliar with Pathfinder (I don’t judge. Ok, that’s a lie, I do. I very much do.), a Witch’s familiar serves primarily as her spellbook. All that time and money Witch spent on making magic scroll slushies and setting up spell dates with other familiars are currently going down Magus’ gullet. I’d say her reaction is very much justified.
Also, in defense of your players, I probably wouldn’t have registered what your meant by the “red and green armor” either. Even reading the post and remembering the story of that fight, it didn’t immediately “click”.
For those of you unfamiliar with pets, it sucks when they die.
Yeah man. It was a shitty clue. Worse, it was the only clue I gave. Repeating it multiple times didn’t help. That’s what I was getting at with the three clue rule. As I found out to my chagrin, having one clue and repeating it three times isn’t the same thing.
I mean, she can bring him back, it’ll just take a week and is a little expensive. Getting the spells she just lost back is probably going to cost more, both in time and gold. Though I suppose some personal bias of mine is showing: as much as I love real life pets, I hate familiars, especially of the spell-granting type. Something about having my class features rely on a well-being of a glorified ferret to function offends me at a fundamental level.
That’s why Wyrmwitch is the best archetype. Instead of a familiar you get a pile of treasure you sleep on
Had a sorcerer buddy once upon a time who RP’d sleeping on her share of the treasure. I think she would approve.
Magnus might want to run. Or hope that she also knows Updo.
I’m not sure I’m ready for this comic to feature an Uzumaki scenario….
Well. That was an unenlightening and mildly disturbing google image search. :/
With Uzumaki, you were lucky if it was only midly disturbing.
I’m thinking of the early ‘Medusa’ storyline, where these things happen, and then it gets worse.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/8d/94/a38d940bb51ce5aaf957d8dba3b6a538–junji-ito-manga-games.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/ad/2d/33ad2d478c5051ddbbe2c04fbe8be692.jpg
https://66.media.tumblr.com/286b5a3c990a586977958f92336e334a/tumblr_o400wjAqZd1u6lh5to1_1280.jpg
(summary; the hair is in charge at that point, and their respective coiffes fight)
Uzumaki, the only manga where two characters engage in a hair-off to the death.
I don’t get the reference. I was talking about a previous comic in Handbook where Witch was attacking Necromancer and Necromancer was trying to reach her spellbook with the spell Updo.
At one point, my players were fighting some homebrew monsters that had a sort of inverted magic field. Spells would fail to work or even backfire, and magical weapons had their “to hit” values reversed. I wasn’t worried though because the party paladin was carrying a magical sword with a nasty -5 to hit in exchange for a crap ton of extra damage and other effects whenever they successfully hit something (which weren’t reversed). But throughout the fight, he tries to use his regular “I want to actually hit things” sword, and he is flummoxed by his inability to hit these silly things. I went so far as to describe the feeling that his sword is actively being repelled by these things, and he still didn’t switch weapons!
This was especially baffling because he helped me design the darn things in the first place, and I knew he wasn’t just trying to avoid metagaming because I talked to him after the session, and he was just legitimately having a major brainfart moment.
I’ve watched too many let’s plays of dudes getting lost in open world games to question it. And that’s after NPCs have just done the full quest giver thing telling them exactly what to do:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unworthy-quest
I suspect that we as GMs overestimate the enjoyment players get from solving puzzles.
I‘ll gladly conform that as a player I positively hate the game of „wtf did the campaign designer think when he designed this shit“
Guybrush Threepwood is not my favorite designer. :/
I myself have played in one too many games where the GM gives hints that lead to Red Herrings. But I also think that in the scenario you gave, the hints you gave might’ve been a bit subtle. I dont immediately think red = fire resist and green = acid resist. Simply adding another descriptor would’ve helped dramatically. For example, instead of saying the armor glowed red and green, you could have said that the armor was emblazoned with red and green flames that glowed in the bonfire’s presence.
Yup. A more obviously magical effect would have worked well. I also could have had minions in the crowd whispering, given my players a chance to inspect the Priest King beforehand, or called for an appraise check. Basically, there should have been multiple vectors by which they could have received this information.
I think Witch might be getting her hackles up over nothing, that dead hedgehog’s ears aren’t as big as in the picture.
Of course, what Magus doesn’t know is that Druid is about to turn a corner behind her, in a mood because apparently Arcane Archer doesn’t understand the concept of letting the vole population replenish itself between dates….
Every time a animal dies, Druid feels a disturbance in the Force. Mayhaps we’ll get her reaction to the events of today’s comic in future (nod hint wink).
The ears are different and also, Witch’s hedgehog is 50 feet tall
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/distress-signal#comments
(Unless she just has a bunch of different hedgehogs, which is possible)
…Actually, that hedgehog IS Druid.
She really needs to stop trying to use Wild Shape to spy on evildoers.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/suss-puss
Ain’t no braid on that hedgehog! Homegirl has a tell.
So, lesson learned, green and red sparkles are only one clue. What other clues could you have given here?
I am thinking that anyone in close combat with the troll could notice magical runes engraved into the armor, which, with the right check, could read as fire and acid.
I’m kinda stumped on a third clue but I’m sure someone here can suggest one.
I said it a little down below, but it would have been fun to have the minions in the ringside crowd mention it. That could have set up an interesting “surreptitiously let the ranger know what you found out” bit of RP.
I was thinking about this, too.
And my first follow-up question was, should there only have been three clues? I think “the armor is magical” and “the troll has a way to resist fire” should have been treated as different conclusions, and the first conclusion should take priority since it can lead to the second with an Arcana check. Otherwise, the red and green colors could be taken as some sort of holy heraldic colors for flavor.
For clues about the magical armor, the runes are a great hint. As an alternative, maybe throw on some conspicuously pretty gemstones that would risk damage on mundane armor. Once you make the armor look distinctively magical, the other hints can be more roundabout — like establishing that magical items aren’t a rare sight at the combat ring by including lesser magical items in the crowd. Or you could even plant the NPC who made the armor somewhere before the party reaches the fighting ring.
As for the second conclusion, the only thing I can think of would be to add in a sign that the troll has already been burned and survived, like scorch marks. Except not straight-up identifying them as scorch marks. Maybe a sash or cape that’s short, dark, and fraying wildly.
When the ranger booted the troll into the bonfire, he could have gotten a Perception check to notice that the fire didn’t seem to actually be hurting the troll.
You throw the large troll into the bonfire. The whole place should immediately smell like a huge barbecue with rotten meat. You notice an ominous lack thereof.
Remember that story I posted two-three comics ago, regarding Vampires dominating my fellow Gloomblade figther? Well… I never figured out there were vampires involved until AFTER the fight was over.
When the battle started, we saw a bunch of Derro (permanently insane evil fey), who we’ve seen before in earlier adventures, as well as a ghostly, incorporeal snake-lady. DM tells us to roll nature and religion to identify them. I identify her as a Lamia Matriarch, but rolled poorly on the religion. Of course, it was still, fairly obvious she was a ghost of some sort, so it wasn’t a big deal….
What I didn’t realize was that the religion roll was meant for the Derro – who were in fact undead vampires! Thus I went through the battle, not realizing they could dominate us until they started spamming it on everyone, and ended the battle thinking they were high-level Derro with strong magic abilities (like CL12 dominate person, and gaseous form), rather than realizing they were in fact undead.
I also tend to have a horrible memory when it comes to NPC names or misremember events. Without journals, me and my party would flub every social encounter that requires names of NPCs, or recent plot points.
Did you not get any context clues in the Derro description? I mean… red eyes and pointy teeth are kind of par for the course in the Underdark, but you’d think there would be some kind of visibly vampiric hint.
I wonder what were the last things the Witch sensed through her familiar’s empathic link, as the Magus was on the prowl.
Also, Magus is brave to be holding a ball of spikes with her mouth.
My extensive studies of hedgehog behavior leads me to conclude that Brutus was most likely thinking about either chili dogs or gold rings.
Fun fact regarding familiars in D&D 5th, for those stuck in inhospitable areas: Assuming you have the ‘Find familiar’ spell and a least 10gp worth of spell components, you can summon a familiar every day as an emergency ration! Just make sure it doesn’t die/fall to 0 hp whilst being ‘harvested’, as that makes it poof out of existence.
So how exactly do you have your raven and eat it too?
You get a chicken and have drumsticks when your done adventuring with it for the day!
Without…without killing the chicken?
I feel like just eating eggs would require less… um… amputating limbs from a living creature that trusts you.
Brutus!!! NNNNNOOOO!!! Magus, you monster, you killed Brutus!!!
And that is not defense at all 🙁
Once in a game we were doing based on a game called Doomlord, while the party was doing some downtime chores a Nightspawn attacked the place. So what do the party, continue his downtime chores after all someone else will fight the monster. After that, the party did realice they could go on an adventure to see where a map they have got would take them, meanwhile the Nightspawn was still attacking. When they come back with better equipment and see that the monster is still attacking and terrorizing the people they can’t tolerate this no more. So they we choose to go to the nearest clan fortress to tell them of the problem. And we did skipping the monster, and we did skipping the monster and you get an idea. That Nightspawn surely is still terrorizing people while nobody checks on him to defeat it. In our defense we didn’t think even for a moment that was a combat encounter 🙂
Magus is a professional bounty hunter, just like the other members of Team Bounty Hunter. She’s just doing her job, man!
I’ve got to know… How did your GM present “a monster is attacking” in such a way as to make it NOT sound like a combat quest hook?
He said that a monster was attacking, sucking the souls out of people, killing the lands were it stepped and howling like the horrible otherworldly abomination it is.
Which in the Doomlord world is as much of an interesting sight as a dog on the streets in out world. It not our fault that kind of things is not the big deal at all 🙁
But on a second thought maybe our characters where just waiting for it to get fat on souls and then kill it and get all that soul energy for our pc. Kinda like we forgot of that plan o_O
There were signs, but I noticed them retroactively due to focusing on the big nasty lamia ghost . We just had the regular derro tokens visually (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqVduAIWsAAw5Ec.jpg) no real special description of the enemies themselves (since we knew them already), probably a DM oversight / he assumed (incorrectly) most of us would figure it out. And those guys look like pale creepy dudes by default. Didn’t help that one of their abilities was literally ‘permanent insanity’ and they didn’t do any vampiric things that can’t be replaced with ‘has sorcerer levels’. I guess this is a situation where meta-knowledge didn’t help me out!
I think this is one of those situations where a GM’s mental image acts against the players’ understanding of the situation. A knowledge check represents your character’s understanding of a creature, but I always prefer a bit of a hint in my descriptions. It’s tough with derro since they’re already creepy and insane, but you’d think that some mention of vampiric qualities could help.
On the other hand your characters noticing the subtle hints showing that this member of the pale creepy dude species was a special type of pale creepy dude might very well be one of those things represented by the knowledge religion check.
Naw man. I’m talking about the other side of the ludo/narrative divide. There ought to be something in the verbal description that raises suspicions. The PC should have a chance to figure things out, but I also appreciate it when there’s enough context clues going on for players to figure it out too. For example, Zarhon thought that dominate person was happening via sorcerer levels, right? Adding something like, “And then, without the aid of vocal or somatic components, you feel a wash of awful willpower assaulting your minds,” could go a long way towards tipping off the player. Mentioning the absence of vocal or somatic components is a bit gamey, but it does give the players the chance to notice the sort of thing that their characters naturally would, even if they’d biffed the knowledge check.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by the other side of the ludo/narrative divide? Which side of it is it you feel you are talking about?
Mentioning the absence of hand-movements, magical words and those glowing symbols/coulds-of-energy/whatever that spell-casting has but a hypnotic gaze doesn’t, does seem fair enough. I’m not really sure why that feels gamey to you, it just seems like part of the DM’s role of providing the sensory input of the characters, same as mentioning what smells or sights might be in a room.
I’ll admit right now through that I misread Zarhon pretty badly through, I thought they only noticed the vampires when they started dominating not when the battle was over.
I’m basically saying that the solution lies in the verbal description, not the game mechanics. I’m zeroing in on this part of Zarhon’s post:
In other words, I’m advocating for a storytelling solution in addition to the game mechanics solution of the knowledge check. If you make sure to include both, it helps ensure that players cue into the idea that “something is weird here,” and might even draw appropriate conclusions based on player reasoning rather than character knowledge. I’ll admit that, for some players, that move breaks the simulation metaphor of RPGs (read: metagaming). Speaking for myself, I like having the opportunity to engage on both levels.
Here’s another way to think about it. Imagine that the scene was staged in a film. There would be some visual cue — an eye flash, long fangs, or visible veins beneath the skin — that indicate something’s up with the derro. We don’t have the advantages of the visual medium, but can still reflect those details through description. When I said that my example felt “gamey” (mentioning a lack of components) it’s because that particular solution dips into the realm of game mechanics when you could instead rely purely on literary-style description (e.g. calling out the aforementioned long fangs and flashing eyes in narration).
Funnily enough, my group had at least three clues that their new drow friend I mentioned last comic was actually a doppelganger:
-“Drow” has darkvision, but it doesn’t seem noticeably better than the rest of your party (almost made that one more significant by accident — I’d forgotten that doppelgangers have darkvision and mentioned her sticking closer to a light source than she should have)
-“Drow” is apparently totally okay with sunlight
-“Drow” sleeps at night instead of trancing
-“Drow” gets freaked out by spiders
-“Drow” does not appear to be actively plotting to betray you
All that and they still didn’t really pick up on it until I told them “hey, she’s bleeding a funny color” and they just straight-up asked her what was up with that (to be fair, all of them are fairly new to D&D and might not have known about some stuff like the sunlight thing or the lack of treachery).
It’s really a good thing for them that she actually wants to be friends (it makes a nice change of pace from hanging out with treacherous-type people).
I believe your doppelganger pal shares a lot in common with Succubus. 😛
Well, I guess the evil twin of an already-evil character would be a good twin, right?
While I can’t judge you buddy, to me “the troll is wearing armor” would have been enough of a clue. Since a regenerating monster normally isn’t going to bother with armor.
And also because I tend to loot the bodies.
While I’m absolutely sure I’ve missed the “obvious” once or hundreth, I can’t recall any specific examples off the top of my head.
I do recall being annoyed at something in Hoard of the Dragon Queen that would have saved us from an almost TPK (by which I mean my character was the only one to survive because I was in the back being super cautious because I was down to almost no HP already). Said thing was another exit from a location that required us going into and searching around a building we were trying to get people to flee out of while enemies broke in. I still at this point have no idea how anyone is supposed to find it given the set up of the scenario.
I had a couple of puzzles in a recent session, and I kind-of-sort-of handed my players the answers. I might write up the experience in a future comic, but the relevant thing here is that I talked to my buddies about it after session.
“Cheapen the experience? Are you kidding me? We get frustrated, you nudge us along, and we get on with the session instead of bogging down for an hour. Remember synchronized glaive team?”
My point is that GMs giving hints is probably how people are supposed to get past that scenario.
“Synchronized glaive team”
Is that 4 polearm wielders with combat reflexes standing in a 2×2 formation?
Naw man. It’s a group of frustrated players in a trap level using adamantine glaives to hack through literally every 5′ square in the dungeon in order to find the next secret passage. It was a long session.
The biggest thing that I find helps with these sorts of situations is either you as the GM or they as the players having alternative solutions.
I’m a fan of setting up encounters that, at a glance, are literally unwinnable. The BBEG is literally immune to all damage because an effect is making him immune, his saves are ridiculous, etc. The most recent time I did this, I had a powerful cleric standing inside of a null field that was cascading down from above. He basically lived in a complex, multi layered death trap that included indestructible construct knights and tiles that would glow and then burst for damage.
Now THE PLAN was for the players to go around the room, put out his three holy torches, and the barrier would shut down and then they could just gut him like a trout ‘cuz he’s just a priest, but one of them noticed the INDESTRUCTIBLE BARRIER was flowing DOWN, like water, and noticed that the Knight constructs also had unbreakable weapons… so he put an unbreakable weapon into the flow of the impenetrable barrier, which, while risky, was my ‘not according to plan’ solution for them.
I won’t go into detail, it was kind’ve messy, but think tiddly winks… with blades, in a confined area.
And upon reading the Three Clue Rule, it’s exactly that… multiple paths to success. Interesting essay, thanks for the linke!
The Alexandrian kicks a considerable amount of ass. I recommend reading through the backlog. 🙂
You’ll occasionally see this advice thrown out: “Don’t plan the solution to your encounters.” What that really means is, “Don’t get so tied to the way you think the encounter should be solved that you don’t allow players to come up with alternate solutions.” I think it’s a good idea to include at least one way that the encounter COULD be passed, so long as you keep it firmly in mind that players are allowed to find alternative solutions.
I think it helps in my case that I learned the art of GMing in a truly unstable realm where the bounds of reality were ill defined and the power of players could sometimes be quite literally anywhere between a guy with his fists and the shirt on his back to god tier and beyond. IN THE SAME PARTY.
I started GMing pick up games online for Rifts.
The Alexandrian says “For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.” I usually say if you want your players to notice something, it should be in flashing neon lights, and you should hit them over the head with a frying pan embossed with it for good measure.
Mithral frying pan or regular type?
adamantine, like the synchronized glaive team’s, to bypass all player skull DR.
I’m making my next suit of armor out of player skulls. That mess is thicker than Rouge the eidolon!
My rogue was posing as a high ranking general (that we had earlier killed) of a tiamat cult when we got surrounded by some bullywugs who were presumably working for them. The DM described the leader of the group looking over my character’s armor (that had been looted from the general) and then raising a hand, with all 4 digits extended.
For a brief moment, I was absolutely confused; was this a spell attack he was about to unleash? The DM asked me what I wanted to do.
For some reason it was the fact that he mentioned 4 digits that allowed me to flash back several sessions earlier where we learned the salute of tiamat; I extended my own hand, all 5 fingers splayed, and threw in a bit extra; “You’re missing a head”
DM didn’t even have me roll. Between the fact that I successfully picked up on the signal that I needed to do the salute, and that I threw in a subtle threat of “you’re missing a head” possibly implying “you’re GOING to be missing a head if you keep wasting my time” he just declared that the entire band surrounding us dispersed, no further questions asked.