Shenanigans
So no shit, there I was. Big, mean, counts-as-size-large and in charge. I was bringing a martial artist monk / brutal pugilist barbarian half-giant to the table, and I was going for maximum brutality. It was an evil campaign, and my dude had cannibalized the kindly monks that took him in. Then he’d gone back to his tribe to cannibalize all the treacherous uncles who’d left him with the monks. Then he set out to join a secret society of evil weirdos (because this was a Way of the Wicked campaign, and it don’t work unless you do).
Point is that I was all set up to be a savage sumbitch when I joined the campaign. But there was nothing left to savage.
My evil coworkers had cleared the dungeon, and they were at the ends of their ropes. They’d looked everywhere for their missing McGuffin, but the fabled orb of opening the next section of dungeon was nowhere to be found. The rooms of the sacked keep contained nothing but a bunch of dead elves, a few blood smears, and one “very realistic statue with a cloth sack hanging at its belt.”
“Da monks told stories ’bout snake women,” I said, trying desperately to justify this mess in character. “Dey was so ugly the could turn ya to stone!”
Gears clicked. The stone salve the group had looted from the next room was applied, and we continued on our merry. I often wonder what that GM would have done if I hadn’t joined the game.
Look at it from a player’s standpoint. There you are, down in the dungeon. You’ve checked every room. You’ve taken 20 looking for secret passages. You’ve even formed your very own synchronized glaive team to try and break down walls. At that point in the day, progressing your descent into the depths is no longer an option. All you can do is muck about until the GM gets frustrated enough to send another encounter to you. And with any luck, this one will have a convenient treasure map in its pocket.
So for today’s discussion, why don’t we brainstorm a few ways out of this trap? When your players don’t know where to go or what to do, how do you nudge them along? Should you nudge them along? Or is it better to wait for them to come up with some clever plan of their own? Let’s hear all those opinionated opinions down in the comments!
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I’m partial to the old Spirit of the Century answer to this conundrum: When in doubt, have ninjas attack the party. Ninjas require no explaination in any setting, provide a nice, low-risk combat encounter (unless there’s only one of them) and their leader is always carrying a useful clue to get you back on track.
…which can very easily teach the players that when they are stuck even the slightest, they just need to wait for the ninjas.
I can certainly think of worse adventures than a string of ninja fights. I mean, hey, it worked for Bad Dudes, right?
I appreciate that they used this one in the Speed Racer movie.
My group has a running gag about the extremely dangerous and even-more-extremely-stealthy ogre ninjas who, as quantum ogres, may or may not be anywhere at any time. Perfect for this sort of thing.
Sounds like the legendary ork snipers from warhammer 40k. Which are definitely not a euphemism for inquisitorial hit-squads.
It could contain vampiric apocalypse candy!
…of course, that’s assuming that ancient vampires had means to make candy that fit their feeding requirements and palates that were also capable of ushering in an apocalypse, but I’m not sure Swash and Buckle have thought that far ahead.
I wouldn’t put it past the Cybervamps (who knows what dread sorceries one can conjure with enough xanthan gum and locally-harvested carrageenan,) but it does make me wonder if any candy that *would* be found in an ancient vampire city would be remotely edible to non-vampires. Swash might be able to see the appeal in sweetened congealed blood, but I doubt Buckle would enjoy it.
Ok. I’ma need some names for cyber vampire candy bars.
Byte Bite
Dystopia Dark
Augmented Blood-Almond
Granny Bar
Not all of these fit the “cyber” aspect, but decided to take my shot at this anyway (modern-style corporate brands are cyber enough, right?):
Nougat-feratu Lite
All-Natural Midday Snacks
B or Not To B, Elf Flavor
Rhesus Pieces
Cadbury Hemo-globules
Carmillardelli Select Reserve
A&B’s
Plasma Duds
Baby Renfield
Enthusiastic Walk-chamacallits
LifeTakers
Arter-ring Pop
Bloodyfangers
Kars Bars
Dio-blerone
THE WORLD-Wide Bars
What We Dox In The Mallows
Oh man. Kars Bars fucking slayed me. XD
The story must flow.
If all else fails, roll dice constantly behind the screen until someone ‘makes’ their ‘find secret passage’ check.
I’d almost prefer that to a convenient wandering monster blundering into the room who just happens to have what you’re looking for, although that works too 🙂
Beats the “you all die of starvation and old age trapped in this dungeon forever” except the elf cleric who can cast ‘create food and water’, they’re going to have a long wait.
It’s not railroading if you bought your own ticket 😉
It’d be delightful irony if Artificer strung up those two chuckleheads and beat them like piñatas… 😀
This was meant to be a new post, not a reply. 😐
But delightful for who? 🙁
Me. 😀
Sleight of hand, eh?
Prophetic visions might also fall in this field.
Use the Three Clues Rule. And if that doesn’t help, who’s to say they can’t go back to the nearest village to ask for help?
I really like the idea of “sage for hire” back in the village. I have used this a couple of times myself, and I always make sure the info is useful. That way the coin that they pay to ye olde scholar still feels like they earned it.
Right? And it doesn’t even have to be just a sage who gives them the solution, it could also just be used to give them more information to solve it – a local legend that leads to the solution, or straight up a library with books on the subject, or anything the players might try to gain more information.
I used to have a foam “GET A CLUE” brick that got bounced off the players when they were being totally obtuse. Usually when the answer was right in front of them and they kept going off on tangents. Sometimes they just needed something to redirect their attention.
That said, if they need to get somewhere and can’t for the life of them get there, then I will happily plop a flashing neon sign (not literally) in front of them to help.
I need that brick. :/
Is there a SUBTLE flashing neon sign that you’ve used?
I’m a big fan of the World of Darkness merit, Common Sense where the GM is required to tell you “you’re being dumbasses” or “this idea is ‘get you killed’ stupid”
Laurel calls that one the “new player” merit. I can think of a few old players that need it too. 😛
I’ve literally had a character lean against the wall and have the secret door pop open and dump them on their butt, so yeah I’m not subtle 🙂
Oh man. Yeah, that’s good stuff. You wind up excusing the heavy-handedness through comedy. Rock friggin’ solid. 😀
Have them take a long rest and it comes to someone in a dream;
perception roll to get a hint;
cleric prays for revelation;
pass a note to the thief and while everyone else is asleep the thief moves forward in the dungeon leaving the door open so they can follow;
someone rolls a nat 1 (which also happens when you “take 20”?) and literally stumbles over the right answer
See up-thread where I mentioned “prophetic visions.” Seems like we’re on the same wavelength with the dream.
Really dig that thief angle though. It’s a classic trope that NEVER HAPPENS because everyone already knows the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ
Downtime Action: Sleep on It
When you’re really stumped, spend a Downtime Action (or a long rest) letting the situation simmer on the back burner of your brain, and have a sudden epiphany.
on a 20+/complete success/dc 15 intelligence check, you know exactly what to do, and look suitably impressive for figuring it out
On a 10-19/mixed success/dc 10 intelligence check, you know where you need to look and what the problem is, but solving it may require you to locate help or a specific item you don’t have
On a 9-/failure/less than 10 intelligence check, choose one:
• you know exactly what you need to to… and also why it’s going to be a huge pain
• you can pinpoint the problem, but have no idea what the solution is
• you figure it out, but you look really stupid doing it, and nobody can believe the group didn’t think of the solution earlier
Do I detect some Blades in the Dark?
The worst example of this I’ve ever encountered was a thing where the boss to an area was carrying a magic key that could open up the portal in the next room. We defeated the boss, declared the session over and as we were packing up, the GM told us about this neat weapon that the boss had.
Next session starts and we have not looted the boss and acquired the key, but because of that weapon discussion *both the GM and the players think we have.* Cue like 20 minutes of us trying to figure out how to turn the portal on while the GM gives increasingly unsubtle hints to use a thing that we don’t actually have and don’t know about. Mama mia.
Another time, we got stuck because we cleared out a floor, but didn’t find the secret passage down. It took a while of running around in circles and considering rappelling out a window (this dungeon was on a stone spire sticking up out of the ocean) before I miraculously realized “Why did they have all this digging equipment in here?” and got us back on track.
I think this is why I tend not to use secret passage bottlenecks in my dungeons.
> Cue like 20 minutes of us trying to figure out how to turn the portal on while the GM gives increasingly unsubtle hints to use a thing that we don’t actually have and don’t know about. Mama mia.
My heartfelt sympathy to everyone in this situation. XD
I did a write-up about riddles once upon a time for AAW Games. I love them for flavor, but not for “gate and key” dungeon design. The same thinking applies. This mess is better used for secrets, bonus treasure, or shortcuts.
I feel like in D&D a vampire apocalypse would quickly stabilize itself. Too many vampires means not enough blood to go around, and vampires are intelligent creatures that would know this and control their own numbers.
But I mean, like… The insatiable bloodlust!
We have to get the vampires really into asceticism—sure, they might start getting monk abilities, but if we can get them to do a millennia-long fast we might be able to make it work
What’s everybody’s persuasion modifier? I feel like this can work. Why’s everyone so pale and staring at my neck. Guys?
Oh *MY* insatiable bloodlust is fine; the mortal population is large enough to bounce back from just me.
It’s *YOUR* insatiable bloodlust that’s the problem. And that’s why I need to dip you in garlic oil and throw you out into the sunlight to fry.
Bro, I sound delicious.
It’s a fine balance. It doesn’t feel good for anyone if you just hand the party the solution, but it’s worse if the game/story can’t progress if they’re stuck.
Ideally, you can just wait for them to figure it out, but sometimes you haven’t actually been as clear with how to solve the problem as you should have been so the party missed or didn’t get a key detail and are floundering. At this point I like to engage with the players and try to determine where they’re getting stuck and clear up any misconceptions. How explicit this is on a case by case basis. If I truly cannot understand how they got to a particular conclusion, I may have to be more explicit and open on it.
Yeah… Stopping to open up the fiction and inspect it for faulty wiring kills the mood, but sometimes you gotta do what you’ve gotta do.
On the other hand, it can be hilarious when you try to figure out how they managed to get SO far off base as to be no where near the right answer.
Heh. You remember the story about the Nordic love interest?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/self-perception
I *just* had this problem with a group: it never occurred to me that with all the brick-sized hints that “these runes look unusual,” no one would think to say to the DM some variation on “Cool. I copy them down in case they should be important later.”
I finally resorted to having a will-o-wisp bounce around and all but write them a memo. (I’d included them in this encounter in case the PCs weren’t sure where to go next or got too timid to continue.)
Literal sing-along bouncing ball.
But you know what? If it’s good enough for Legend of Zelda, it’s good enough for me. 😀
ok. more a replay to the monk\barb story then the question asked.
had a game with my players that found the note talking about a secret passage after the 6th door.
they go in and start counting doors. look after the 6th and nothing. taking 20 and nothing.
eventually one of my better minded players, who in this case just happened to play the big dumb barbarian with actual fear of books, go up and say:
“them double doorz at the entrance, them count as one or two doorz?”
party go back and count actual doors instead of doorways and glory be after the 6th DOOR a secret chamber was found…
Never forget that Gandalf isn’t the one who solved the “speak friend and enter” riddle. 😀
Generally I start having my players roll Int and Wis (insight) checks when they’re all stumped so I can give them a “flash of insight” or other IC bonus when the OOC *player* is stumped.
Your CHARACTER has access to more information in the scene and I may not have said something you needed to know; letting them roll their stats for insight that their CHARACTERS might have that the PLAYERS do not is a reasonable compromise and, IMO, less meta-gamey.