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Beelzebub1111
2011-02-24, 10:30 AM
I swear, it really ruins encounters when the players are too smart for your plans.

"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"

(intention was to make the bridge look TOO safe and the skiff look a little risky...while have the bridge actually BE safe)

Any experiences to share?

LOTRfan
2011-02-24, 10:35 AM
I swear, it really ruins encounters when the players are too smart for your plans.

"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"

(intention was to make the bridge look TOO safe and the skiff look a little risky...while have the bridge actually BE safe)

Any experiences to share?

All this seems like non-metagaming, common sense. Does this happen often?

Vladislav
2011-02-24, 10:36 AM
If you have an amazing encounter planned for when they're crossing on a skiff, then, for crying out loud, don't put a bridge there! You can't give the players multiple options and then criticize them for choosing the right one...

Sipex
2011-02-24, 10:38 AM
I honestly never thought I'd see this thread.

I say, up the ante. Give them more intelligent enemies.

Kaww
2011-02-24, 10:39 AM
If you have an amazing encounter planned for when they're crossing on a skiff, then, for crying out loud, don't put a bridge there! You can't give the players multiple options and then criticize them for choosing the right logical and sane one...

Fixed it for you. :smallwink:

Asheram
2011-02-24, 10:42 AM
Congratulations. :smallsmile: You have a group of proper adventurers there with you.
I'm sure a lot of people would like to trade with you, so enjoy the feeling. Tell a proper epic tale about a group of competent heroes instead of the regular group of happy amateurs with horrible powers of destructions.

Gnoman
2011-02-24, 10:42 AM
Many respected military scholars suggest that one should always mine the obvious routes. Those of a more practical bent mine every route. If you wanted a deathtrap, why did you make either a correct choice.

Aemoh87
2011-02-24, 10:42 AM
I swear, it really ruins encounters when the players are too smart for your plans.

"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"

(intention was to make the bridge look TOO safe and the skiff look a little risky...while have the bridge actually BE safe)

Any experiences to share?

HEY, NO COMPLAINING!
just you wait until you have a party that everything is just a pool of blood they haven't spilled yet. Traps are just an annoyance, and preparation is for suckers. If their want of Cure light can't save them, they just give up.

Razgriez
2011-02-24, 10:44 AM
Did you have them make checks? Are they actually testing out these things them selves? In game RP, does that character have prior experience? Or are they just eye balling it, and using Modern day thinking and knowledge?

If yes to either 1, 2 or 3. then there is nothing you can do about it, except to try and out smart them

If yes to question 4. Then there is your problem. They are meta-gaming and you're letting them get away with it. Force things like "Craft: Carpentry" or "Profession: Ship Building" in order for players to determine just how safe a bridge or boat is.

Beelzebub1111
2011-02-24, 10:45 AM
If you have an amazing encounter planned for when they're crossing on a skiff, then, for crying out loud, don't put a bridge there! You can't give the players multiple options and then criticize them for choosing the right one...
That one, I'll give them credit for. It was more a test to see if they trusted me to tell the truth, or if they were the overthinking types.


All this seems like non-metagaming, common sense. Does this happen often?
A little more often than I'd like. I mean, Just once I'd like to pull one over on them.

Aharon
2011-02-24, 10:49 AM
Then why not confront them with situations where caution leads to desaster from time to time?

(Not necessarily for them, but for fulfilling the goal - timed adventures can't be approached with too much caution, or they will fail.)

Dimers
2011-02-24, 10:52 AM
Sounds to me like maybe the OP's players are reading him. Being cautious without obvious danger, and incautious when he's trying to fake them out? Unless these examples come from published adventures that they've read, I would guess that they've learned how the DM thinks.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-24, 10:59 AM
I swear, it really ruins encounters when the players are too smart for your plans.

Good. Players are supposed to ruin encounters. After they are done with them, they are no longer a challenge. That's called defeating them, and is worth xp. Details of how are mostly irrelevant, but doing so with intelligence and style should be lauded.


"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

Seems reasonable. Anything strange and unusual might be risky. Use caution.


"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

Again, unless there is a reason to the contrary, this is entirely logical. Why deal with something that might be problematic when it can be avoided entirely? No risk of accident.


what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"

(intention was to make the bridge look TOO safe and the skiff look a little risky...while have the bridge actually BE safe)

Any experiences to share?

That's quite logical. They took what looked safe, and it was safe. It's an easy decision, and they chose correctly.

If the difficulty level is too easy, give tougher choices. Choosing between "risk the strange creatures" or "don't risk the strange creatures" is easy. Choosing between "risk the strange creatures" or "take the unknown tunnel" is harder.

Sipex
2011-02-24, 11:12 AM
Did you have them make checks? Are they actually testing out these things them selves? In game RP, does that character have prior experience? Or are they just eye balling it, and using Modern day thinking and knowledge?

If yes to either 1, 2 or 3. then there is nothing you can do about it, except to try and out smart them

If yes to question 4. Then there is your problem. They are meta-gaming and you're letting them get away with it. Force things like "Craft: Carpentry" or "Profession: Ship Building" in order for players to determine just how safe a bridge or boat is.

I would have to disagree, nothing states that common sense is a modern day invention. Unless these characters were played from birth it's safe to assume they learned some things while growing up.

edit: I will also add that nothing states that D&D is an instance of our past, it usually takes place in it's own world with it's own rules.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2011-02-24, 11:14 AM
If you want them to have an encounter while crossing some water, and there's both a skiff and a bridge, then neither one is safe! Maybe they start to cross the bridge, but something isn't right.... everyone gets a Will save, and they realize that the 'safe bridge' is a Permanent Image cast on top of a ruined bridge that doesn't even go all the way across.

As for ignoring the monsters that will leave the PCs alone if they don't attack first, well do you walk through the woods throwing rocks at every hornet's nest? It's just downright foolish going around picking a fight with everything they meet. If you design 'opponents' to not fight them unless attacked, then in-character ignoring them is the right decision, while farming them for XP would be the metagame decision.

Engine
2011-02-24, 11:24 AM
If yes to question 4. Then there is your problem. They are meta-gaming and you're letting them get away with it. Force things like "Craft: Carpentry" or "Profession: Ship Building" in order for players to determine just how safe a bridge or boat is.

Well, you know, you could figure out on your own if a bridge is safe or not. Without being an engineer. Maybe it's made of stone, not ruined, with a quiet river behind it. I would bet it's safe, and I really doubt I'm metagaming, at least if my character has an Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 10.

(Maybe it's booby-trapped, so you should use Search for that)

Lapak
2011-02-24, 11:48 AM
This thread (both the fact that this is seen as unusual, and the response from some of 'make every option available dangerous') is why the primary source of XP in old-fashioned D&D was treasure, not monsters: to reward this kind of behavior! Realizing this is the thing that has made me actually considering re-introducing that rule. Are the players clever enough to bypass all the traps without even seeing them, evade half the monsters without ever meeting them, talk down some of the others, and achieve their goal / get their loot after just one fight? Great, well done!

(It suddenly occurs to me that tying treasure to XP in a 3.x setting would also enforce Weath By Level in a way few others things can. :smalltongue:)

Ravens_cry
2011-02-24, 11:49 AM
If you are tired of them choosing the best answer, make problems where with option will hurt, just more or less, or in different ways. But honestly, you have a smart group, I don't see anything to complain about. Better that then a bunch of dullards who couldn't find their butts with both hands and an ever burning torch, if you take my meaning.

Longcat
2011-02-24, 12:02 PM
Ever heard of the Kobayashi Maru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru)? It's a great tool.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-24, 12:05 PM
the primary source of XP in old-fashioned D&D was treasure, not monsters: to reward this kind of behavior! Realizing this is the thing that has made me actually considering re-introducing that rule.

That thought keeps coming back to me as well. Sure, I'd need to revamp the magic item creation system somewhat, but it would be pretty awesome.

Aemoh87
2011-02-24, 12:12 PM
A little more often than I'd like. I mean, Just once I'd like to pull one over on them.

There is a simple fix to this. Put them in situations where risk = reward. If they go the path of least resistance they have the least to gain. Whiles the more dangerous route may have a greater reward at the end.

valadil
2011-02-24, 12:30 PM
Abuse them with their own fears. Every time they make up a hypothetical threat, take a note. Use it against them later. Now you don't have to spend so much time prepping.

I set a game in a thieves guild several years ago. Every mission was a heist. The players spent a lot of time planning. Eventually I stopped pre-game planning entirely. During their planning they'd come up with threats and how to defeat them. I simply used the threats they forgot to address or the ones they addressed poorly (and sometimes the well planned ones just so they'd feel good).

The other option is to make everything scary. Whenever they come up with a plan, but something threatening there. Like, there are no safe paths. They either have to deal with a danger or flee the adventure. Eventually they'll pick entertainment over caution.

Darth Stabber
2011-02-24, 01:18 PM
A) your party sounds awesome you should be pleased

I have played with some bloodthirsty fools who think that peasants are little chunks of xp that hang out in fields, and whine like babies when they actually get no xp for being a 12th lvl fighter indescriminately slaughtering the innocent lvl 1 commoners, which "doesn't make him evil because some of them might be bad, he's just really chaotic like that. besides their probably lawful" (almost a direct quote)

B) Work on your pokerface, sunglasses help. You may have a tell that is clueing the players into your otherwise nefariously brilliant schemes.

C) Don't give them a safe/unsafe binary, even if they don't know which is which. You want to give them a choice of damnations. Fight one Umber Hulk or a horde of goblins.

D) Try Horrifying them with some grisly scene in hopes of triggering them into an emotional response, as emotion driven individuals will take a more direct less logical approach. If they see an orphanage half destroyed and crawling with small (Child) zombies, you might motivate them into a more primal level of action as they search for a fiend vile enough to do such things.

E) The aforementioned timed quests will give the players a sense of urgency in their actions that might prompt mistakes they would likely avoid.

Vladislav
2011-02-24, 02:38 PM
Hey Beelzebub1111, you know what you should do? You should find one of those DMs from the many "my players are stupid" threads, and offer them to trade groups. :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2011-02-24, 02:40 PM
There's also the possibility of running Tomb of Horrors.

A smart, cautious group is absolutely perfect for it.

Yukitsu
2011-02-24, 02:52 PM
Ever heard of the Kobayashi Maru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru)? It's a great tool.

Only if you allow cheating with the justification of "I'm too awsome for this bull****."

Dalek-K
2011-02-24, 03:06 PM
Seriously...

I had some players in college that went through hell and high water (the latter literally) before coming to an area that had a nest. This nest was a bit of sunken earth with as they saw "What appears to be a rock about the size of your core body"... I was going to go on with the description but the party ranger... "It must be a monster curled up! I shoot it with my bow! ! CHARGE"

After putting a ton of energy and time into this whole session... The ranger destroyed the egg... Big brother came right in time to see the ranger's strike... They defeated big brother (who originally was going to bribe them to leave..) and got back down to the bottom of the mountain... Where mother was waiting ;) ... I think they were around level 10 fighting a level 30 Dragon... Guess how long it took for them to die? As long as mother dragon fricken wanted it to take.

No this wasn't a rip from OoTS ... I didn't even know web comics existed at the time (well not D&D web comics)

I would love to have had players like yours... All that time and planning could have been productive.... and appreciated....

JaronK
2011-02-24, 03:57 PM
My playing group is WAY too smart and cautious, which probably comes from playing too much Shadowrun. They'd have looked at that bridge and skiff scenario and said "they're likely both trapped", then one would have pulled out a Lyre of Building and just made a new bridge nearby, just in case.

JaronK

Kaww
2011-02-24, 04:00 PM
My playing group is WAY too smart and cautious, which probably comes from playing too much Shadowrun. They'd have looked at that bridge and skiff scenario and said "they're likely both trapped", then one would have pulled out a Lyre of Building and just made a new bridge nearby, just in case.

JaronK

I like your group. How do you feel DMing?

Kaun
2011-02-24, 04:04 PM
Start using this list for your BBEG

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList

Calmar
2011-02-24, 04:07 PM
So, the actual problem is that the players (unintentionally) avoid adventure hooks and nullify your preparations, isn't it?
I believe adventures have one fixed starting point where their plot begins and from which on one event leads to another; unless the PCs for some reason decide to quit. That is not railroading, but the course of events. However, this fixed starting point is not the same as the adventure hook: It does not matter, whether the heroes investigate rumours of old treasure in the old tower, are caught in a terrible thunderstorm while passing near the place, or chase the warlock's minions back to Tower Hill - the actual adventure starts as soon as they enter the building and start their exploration. It does not matter when they don't care about treasure, or if they think they can comfortably camp outside the tower, because then they are attacked by evil henchmen. This also applies to more complex adventures. If adventure wants you, adventure will get you. :smallwink:

No DM should feel s/he has to throw away a prepared adventure, because players seem to miss it, for I don't think good players deliberately spoil a session by avoiding adventures.

Darth Stabber
2011-02-24, 04:10 PM
My playing group is WAY too smart and cautious, which probably comes from playing too much Shadowrun. They'd have looked at that bridge and skiff scenario and said "they're likely both trapped", then one would have pulled out a Lyre of Building and just made a new bridge nearby, just in case.

JaronK

Unfortunately the bridge troll union attacks because you built a new bridge without a sactioned troll on site to act as TTIC(temporary troll in charge) until a permanent one could be elected.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-24, 04:12 PM
Oh, you don't STAY at the bridge. The trolls can do whatever they like to it.

Yes, trusting no scenery is always wise. This includes the floor. Yup, I've made characters that walked everywhere by laying one ladder down after another on the floor.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-24, 04:51 PM
The obvious solution is to put them through a couple of adventures where being smart or cautious won't help them. Or, to put it another way, adventurers where smartness isn't caution, and caution isn't smart. :smallbiggrin:

How to pull this off is a bit tricky, of course. Two easy ways are "all good options" or "all bad options" - preferably if you start with one and then turn it on its head later!

Theory is this: if your players are really smart, putting them through a string of situations where caution just creates a needless delay makes them relax - this makes it easier to spring a trap or two on them.

Alternatively, if you go with "all bad" first, your players will be driven to what I call "paranoid survival mode" - if you then put them in a string of unobviously safe situations, you'll have great fun watching as they wrack their brains with imagined threats, which too can be used to make them swallow a bait or prod them in the right direction.

Clepto
2011-02-24, 07:10 PM
Alternatively, if you go with "all bad" first, your players will be driven to what I call "Paranoia survival mode" - if you then put them in a string of unobviously safe situations, you'll have great fun watching as they wrack their brains with imagined threats, which too can be used to make them swallow a bait or prod them in the right direction.

Fixed that for you. That state of mind is sort of the default setting for players in that game.

That does work in D&D though. On the rare occasion that I get to DM something, Paranoia mode is the default setting of my players. I tend to run either dystopian settings and adventures where there aren't really any good choices, just less bad.

JaronK
2011-02-25, 04:50 AM
I like your group. How do you feel DMing?

It's tough, but the end result is a FAR more realistic setting. It's amazing how their generally logical behavior effects the world. At one point a DM had a trap room where if you looked in any part of the mirrored room a duplicate of you manifested and attacked you... so the group immediately blindfolded themselves and set about to trying to take the mirrors off the walls and use them as shields for the remainder of the campaign.

Makes you think much more carefully about what you throw at the players.

JaronK

Demonweave
2011-02-25, 05:23 AM
It's tough, but the end result is a FAR more realistic setting. It's amazing how their generally logical behavior effects the world. At one point a DM had a trap room where if you looked in any part of the mirrored room a duplicate of you manifested and attacked you... so the group immediately blindfolded themselves and set about to trying to take the mirrors off the walls and use them as shields for the remainder of the campaign.

Makes you think much more carefully about what you throw at the players.

JaronK

That is genius, and is totally what my players would do. They are always looking for ways of turning everything I throw at them into something to throw back at me later. It's a nice challenging tradition now.

As reply to the original post. It's simple enough to (how should I put this?) reposition your encounters. I used to have the same problem, with a group that were mostly more experienced than me. They used to manage to foil all my plans, but then it clicked one day. "Hey the players have no ideas what I've actually statted up for them, why not just put the encounters in no matter what they do?" It works every time and they are non the wiser.

Like with the two bridges issue, what ever encounter you had prepared would have worked on either bridge. Maybe the monster came to the same conclusion as the PCs, that it was the safer option, so he/she would use that bridge too.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-25, 05:34 AM
Oh, DM lack-of-foresight; I summoned a Balor in one campaign, which prompted (in the interest of keeping that encounter challenging) a houseruling that Balor take massive amounts of constitution damage if their flames are extinguished. So my Balor is slain by water, and we face a very difficult encounter. Later, we face an army of demons led by dozens of Balor; the DM remembers the rule, but doesn't really think we can make enough water to put out all their fires, especially being guarded by other demons and such. The DM doesn't remember that Control Weather can cause torrential rain.

Really, the only thing you can do when the players just simply outfox you is let them have it, and come up with something trixier next time; maybe the city has patrols, so resting outside of it is unwise, since they'll be surprised in their sleep.

BobVosh
2011-02-25, 05:46 AM
It's tough, but the end result is a FAR more realistic setting. It's amazing how their generally logical behavior effects the world. At one point a DM had a trap room where if you looked in any part of the mirrored room a duplicate of you manifested and attacked you... so the group immediately blindfolded themselves and set about to trying to take the mirrors off the walls and use them as shields for the remainder of the campaign.

Makes you think much more carefully about what you throw at the players.

JaronK

I wish my players did this kind of thing. :(

Axolotl
2011-02-25, 05:49 AM
If the players are being too smart for any of the challenges to be a threat then simply up the complexity of the challenges. And if they're simply avoiding them then simply bait them with better treasure. But check out thig like the Tomb of Horrors, the old Grimtooth's traps series, Tucker's Kobolds and other things along similar lines, there are plenty of things on the internet that can provide you very devious traps and encounters.

Beelzebub1111
2011-02-25, 05:52 AM
Oh, DM lack-of-foresight; I summoned a Balor in one campaign, which prompted (in the interest of keeping that encounter challenging) a houseruling that Balor take massive amounts of constitution damage if their flames are extinguished. So my Balor is slain by water, and we face a very difficult encounter. Later, we face an army of demons led by dozens of Balor; the DM remembers the rule, but doesn't really think we can make enough water to put out all their fires, especially being guarded by other demons and such. The DM doesn't remember that Control Weather can cause torrential rain.
I feel a lot better now...because I am picturing a league of balor with WAR UMBRELLAS and BATTLE GALOSHES and SKIRMISH PONCHOS!

Kaww
2011-02-25, 05:53 AM
Oh, DM lack-of-foresight; I summoned a Balor in one campaign, which prompted (in the interest of keeping that encounter challenging) a houseruling that Balor take massive amounts of constitution damage if their flames are extinguished. So my Balor is slain by water, and we face a very difficult encounter. Later, we face an army of demons led by dozens of Balor; the DM remembers the rule, but doesn't really think we can make enough water to put out all their fires, especially being guarded by other demons and such. The DM doesn't remember that Control Weather can cause torrential rain.

Really, the only thing you can do when the players just simply outfox you is let them have it, and come up with something trixier next time; maybe the city has patrols, so resting outside of it is unwise, since they'll be surprised in their sleep.

I would've given the Balors BIG umbrellas. As for the mirrors I would most likely do the same.

@Demonweave: Psst! You don't say things like that. If the players ever find out you do this they might just go through, without planning, and you lose ninety minutes of pure comedy of them preparing to enter an empty, unlocked fort.

Beelzebub1111
2011-02-25, 06:01 AM
Huh, I just got a text from one of my group members.

"game went well. It did not feel forced or too linear."

Well that's good. Because it totally was. No way in hell you were going to Q'barra for no damn reason other than you thought it said Obama

"Keep challenging us with crit proof, energy risistant, damage reduction creatures. I liked the eyes in the river encounter."
That was the encounter over the bridge, I had the monster that WOULD have attacked them (A steel kraken) shrouded in fog and all they could see were its eyes.

So as long as everybody else had a great time, I think we have a success.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-25, 06:16 AM
It's tough, but the end result is a FAR more realistic setting. It's amazing how their generally logical behavior effects the world. At one point a DM had a trap room where if you looked in any part of the mirrored room a duplicate of you manifested and attacked you... so the group immediately blindfolded themselves and set about to trying to take the mirrors off the walls and use them as shields for the remainder of the campaign.

Makes you think much more carefully about what you throw at the players.

JaronK

Yup. I would do that in a heartbeat. Custom items like that are things I routinely try to reuse for myself, and my usual group thinks like that as well. High fiving generally ensues if any such way is found. If the DM looks especially sad, we might engage in chest bumps.

Greater complexity is the key. When your players run through Tomb of Horrors and say "That was great, have anything like that, but tougher?", then I'll have sympathy for you. Incidentally, if anyone has an answer to that question, I would be very, very happy.

Axolotl
2011-02-25, 06:29 AM
Greater complexity is the key. When your players run through Tomb of Horrors and say "That was great, have anything like that, but tougher?", then I'll have sympathy for you. Incidentally, if anyone has an answer to that question, I would be very, very happy.Things that are like Tomb of Horrors but tougher? There aren't many things like that but the Grimtooth's Traps series would probably qualify. And I think Necromancer games did a 3rd edition ubdate for them.

JaronK
2011-02-25, 06:43 AM
I think it was Shadowrun that really got our group going. We had a medic/electronics type in the party as well as a rigger and would happily strip cyberware out of dead enemies, steal drones sent against us, and so on. It surprised the first DM to run that game, who was originally saying "hey, this isn't D&D guys!" But at the same time, when we're running missions for $5000 but facing security guards with $500,000 worth of cyberware in them, it makes logical sense to say "screw the McGuffin, let's steal the security!" Though of course in the end the group got the McGuffin just to have another gig in the future. By the end the group was planning out missions against recent targets specifically to target the security... in one case (a prepublished mission in fact) the security forces during shift change (28 guards, all with very expensive gear) would all drive up in an armored vehicle, then they'd all get out and change shifts, and the old shift would get on the bus to go home. After the mission, the group immediately started planning a new run to steal the bus (a very ingenious idea in fact, involving planing gas bombs inside the bus, then using a combination of illusion magic, jammers, spoofed ID transmitters, and so on) while it was on the highway headed home.

It's a little shocking for my DMs at first, but if you let go and let the players go nuts, it works wonders. They love running their own missions and feeling in control. And as a DM, you have to start thinking a lot more carefully about security in realistic ways. No longer can you just throw ridiculously overpriced security at the players defending tiny McGuffins. Suddenly you have to make security that's clever and makes do with the resources they have. Instead of overgeared cyberzombies we started using cheap grenades and misdirection... until it got to the point where the scariest challenge the PCs had was an unsupported single agent who just kept tricking them (and the players loved it in the end).

JaronK

Kaww
2011-02-25, 07:05 AM
I think it was Shadowrun that really got our group going. We had a medic/electronics type in the party as well as a rigger and would happily strip cyberware out of dead enemies, steal drones sent against us, and so on. It surprised the first DM to run that game, who was originally saying "hey, this isn't D&D guys!" But at the same time, when we're running missions for $5000 but facing security guards with $500,000 worth of cyberware in them, it makes logical sense to say "screw the McGuffin, let's steal the security!" Though of course in the end the group got the McGuffin just to have another gig in the future. By the end the group was planning out missions against recent targets specifically to target the security... in one case (a prepublished mission in fact) the security forces during shift change (28 guards, all with very expensive gear) would all drive up in an armored vehicle, then they'd all get out and change shifts, and the old shift would get on the bus to go home. After the mission, the group immediately started planning a new run to steal the bus (a very ingenious idea in fact, involving planing gas bombs inside the bus, then using a combination of illusion magic, jammers, spoofed ID transmitters, and so on) while it was on the highway headed home.

It's a little shocking for my DMs at first, but if you let go and let the players go nuts, it works wonders. They love running their own missions and feeling in control. And as a DM, you have to start thinking a lot more carefully about security in realistic ways. No longer can you just throw ridiculously overpriced security at the players defending tiny McGuffins. Suddenly you have to make security that's clever and makes do with the resources they have. Instead of overgeared cyberzombies we started using cheap grenades and misdirection... until it got to the point where the scariest challenge the PCs had was an unsupported single agent who just kept tricking them (and the players loved it in the end).

JaronK

You made my day! I wish I could teach my players to be like this. When we were in a powerful mage's tower, (we own a ship with 50 crew members, I'm a PC in this campaign) the rest of the party just took what they could. I went back for the dwarves (the crew) and when we got there we collected everything, including the wooden shelves from the library.

EDIT: I thought of sniping this, but I like it too much.

Darth Stabber
2011-02-25, 10:30 AM
I tend to apply something similar to the Elderscrolls model, I give them a fairly open world, and have a batch of adventures and throw out random plot hooks, seeing what they bite at. As long as you can alter the difficulty on the fly it works well, and sometimes they surprise you and make their own plot. Sometimes they want to overthrow the lord mayor instead of investigating the creapy tomb, hey, my job is to facilitate.

Current campain: the characters have been exiled from their home country after a coup. Are they going to try to overthrow the new leader, or follow the trail of other adventures. I don't know, but I have multiple full scenarios set up, and several additional basic plots (need fleshing out, but can be quickly adapted to anything on the fly) should they go in a way I didn't expect.

If you let them the players will make their own adventure, you just have to know how to facilitate.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-25, 10:34 AM
That's an excellent model. I have a great deal of material ready to go, so I literally just keep tossing hooks until they bite. Not every decision they can make is a bad one...but unless they are just really, really trying to hide and avoid all trouble, they'll find adventure.

And if you don't want adventure at all, D&D is probably the wrong game.

Alpha0010
2011-03-18, 10:11 AM
I was running a wild-west D20 modern game. A displacer beast had been summoned by the villan to kill various people around the town. One of the PC's was a sherriff who was called from another town to help. Whthin a few minutes of when he arrived:
Me: You meet the town pastor, Solomon Wolfe
PC:I kill him
Me:What?
PC: His name is "Wolfe", he is obviously the bad guy, I kill him
Me: A) Metagaming, B)You are the sheriff, Due process?
PC: I kill him anyway, and then prove he is a werewolf who killed the people

He was right about who the villan was, but not the killer.

Cartigan
2011-03-18, 10:20 AM
Did you have them make checks? Are they actually testing out these things them selves? In game RP, does that character have prior experience? Or are they just eye balling it, and using Modern day thinking and knowledge?

"Well, I got a 5 on my intelligence check, apparently I'm a frakking moron and not allowed to use good sense."

gbprime
2011-03-18, 10:28 AM
That's the ting about PC's... given a choice between A, B, and C, they often choose Q.

To deal with it, I set up the episode something like this...

A - Obvious choice, leads to a planned combat, PC's have some "advantage" that makes them think they did something right.

B - Obvious choice, leads to the same planned combat, PC's have a completely different "advantage" that makes them think they did something right.

C - Unusual choice, avoids the combat altogether, but inconveniences them in some other way. (Dead lizardfolk are so much easier to deal with than the ones you just used Diplomacy on... now the local village has a bargain to uphold.)

Q - Players are way off script, and get a filler encounter from either my campaign notes or something completely random from my file of "I need an unscripted encounter NOW" encounters.

A, B, and C all advance the plot and the story of the game and give the players a choice in how they do it without creating too much work for me. Q gives the players that sense of "I'm not being railroaded" and can often make for memorable moments or new plot elements.

Cartigan
2011-03-18, 10:32 AM
There are two ways to deal with this without being an ass

1) You Xanatos Gambit the PCs. It's like rail-roading except except the opposite. Very difficult to do unless you know what the players will do backwards and forwards.
2) You recognize the PCs have overcome the challenge and get EXP.

TheCountAlucard
2011-03-18, 11:42 AM
JaronK's bit about Shadowrun...That reminds me of our Shadowrun game... we stole helicopters. :smallbiggrin: I mean, yeah, we did the missions, 'cuz that's just good PR, but really? Our characters were stripping so much loot on the side that the Johnson's pay was increasingly less-significant toward the end.


1) You Xanatos Gambit the PCs. It's like rail-roading except except the opposite. Very difficult to do unless you know what the players will do backwards and forwards.The Xanatos Gambit is a good option, but only if your players can't out-Xanatos you. :smallamused:

Cartigan
2011-03-18, 12:10 PM
The Xanatos Gambit is a good option, but only if your players can't out-Xanatos you. :smallamused:

Then it progresses to Xanatos Speed Chess and becomes basically impossible for the DM because they have to actually prepare stuff. So it's either Xanatos Gambit or bust.

Seerow
2011-03-18, 12:41 PM
@JaronK


I'm forwarding your post to my groups' GM, who has serious problems with players trying to loot things he doesn't intend. Like to the point where we had a vehicle blow up once when we declared our intention to try and steal it. (and since then it's been a running joke that looting anything will make it explode. Sadly this has been ruled to not work on still living enemies when you try to loot them)

erikun
2011-03-18, 02:33 PM
Well, my first suggestion is to not think of everything as combat (or life-and-death situations). The reason I specify this is because if you make the party fight the same monster regardless of choices made, or place them in two different life-risking situations, they'll realize that the decision they make really doesn't matter and you will throw whatever at them regardless of what they choose.

Now, on to your specific examples.


"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"
Camping outside the ruined city full of ghosts? Then while on watch throughout the night, the characters hear voices filtering from within the town. Torchlight appears and seems to be moving about from within the city. Around midnight, anyone on watch can hear (and see) the light from a bonfire in the center of the ruins, complete with smoke that lasts until sunrise. Upon inspecting the ruins again, there are no signs of anyone having been there (including no signs of a bonfire). It makes the ruins "interesting" but doesn't get them attacked.

Avoiding strange things you aren't familiar with? This is just common sense. If you wanted to mix things up, make the detour dangerous - say, assassin vines hiding in the much of a swamp they need to drudge through - and make the strange, phantom lights nothing more than a bunch of strange lights.

As for the bridge, if it leads to someplace important and is obviously well-maintained, then it would likely be guarded, correct? And as someone else mentioned, knowledge skills can be good in determining if, say, the river rapids or the cliff wall is the more dangerous path to follow.

Darth Stabber
2011-03-18, 03:00 PM
Then it progresses to Xanatos Speed Chess and becomes basically impossible for the DM because they have to actually prepare stuff. So it's either Xanatos Gambit or bust.

Xanatos Speed Chess is doable, if you are willing to throw away any plan on 2 rounds notice, rule things on the fly, know every monster, spell, feat, race, ect in every book you are using. Peerless rules knowledge is the key. And by peerless i mean it literally, you have the best rules knowledge at the table. If you are the most knowledgable, and you improvise well, it is doable (also being very fiction savvy and knowing the evil overlord list is important). The real key is either averting or controlling the thirty xanatos pile-up. The players are ideally 1 but possilbly up to 4 factions (more if they have schemy pets/cohorts), but you can control multiple factions, and you should use that to your advantage. You still could be outgambited, but you reduce the chances. If well executed your players will talk about it for years to come.

if you ever play the D&D2e setting Birthright and the game does not end in a 30 Xanatos pileup, your doing it wrong.

Yukitsu
2011-03-18, 03:04 PM
if you ever play the D&D2e setting Birthright and the game does not end in a 30 Xanatos pileup, your doing it wrong.

Now I wanna play a game of that. D:

Tyndmyr
2011-03-18, 03:07 PM
I had the same reaction. It sounds fantastic.

Beelzebub1111
2011-03-18, 03:43 PM
Caution has turned to outright paranoia. The "trick" to their supposed smartness is that they believe that everyone and everything is out to get them and never trust anyone. This is VERY problematic when there are people that they CAN trust. It's very...annoying.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-18, 03:49 PM
It's a natural reaction if tricks are too frequent.

If you tend to get in trouble most of the time by trusting people...why take the risk? Are those few times a guy actually turns out decent worth the times when they are not?

The "ally betrays the party" trope needs to be used fairly seldom for this reason. If it's expected, there's really no point to it, and if they stop interacting with the rest of the world, it hurts the campaign.

Kallisti
2011-03-18, 03:53 PM
There are many DMs, Ourself included, who would kill to have this problem. Intelligent, sane, logical players with a modicum of common sense? Just enjoy it--you can run a game that actually makes sense.

That said, if they're getting paranoid, either ease up on the tricks (to calm them down) or start playing with their heads (because it is hilarious). Your call.

nedz
2011-03-18, 09:23 PM
It sounds to me like you may have used the same tricks too many times, and now your players can see everything coming.

Several ideas spring to mind:

Create a situation where they have to trust an NPC. I would say have the NPC do things that would cause the PCs to not trust them. You might think that would seem to be unneccesary since you appear to do that routinely but its really just lampshading. This NPC is, of course, trustworthy; and also this trust is required for the plot.

Throw some left-field stuff at them. I dunno really: maybe someone has animated the bridge ?

You have to start suprising them.

Cartigan
2011-03-18, 10:11 PM
Create a situation where they have to trust an NPC. I would say have the NPC do things that would cause the PCs to not trust them. You might think that would seem to be unneccesary since you appear to do that routinely but its really just lampshading. This NPC is, of course, trustworthy; and also this trust is required for the plot.

Expect the plot to stall like an old lemon.

nedz
2011-03-19, 06:29 AM
Expect the plot to stall like an old lemon.

Maybe - but you have to challange their expectations somehow.
I think I could run this, if I had to, without it stalling; but YMMV.

The Big Dice
2011-03-19, 06:43 AM
The first thing you do is, block TV Tropes from your computer. If you know them, odds are your players will too. And they complicate what should be simple anyway.

If your players are cautious all the time, put a time pressure on them. "It's a three day journey to the castle, but we have to be there by the full moon or the cult summon the demon. And that's in two days. We have to hustle and we can't delay of a moment."

Remember the Mythbusters credo too. Failure is always an option. Sometimes, being cautious seems like the right thing to do. BUt really, all it's doing is slowing you down and giving the edge to the person taking calculated risks.

Something else to try is, they decide to camp outside the ruined city because it looks too good to be true as a safe camp. But the reason it's a good place to camp is, the local bears don't go in there. Instead, they get into the PC camp, chow down on their supplies and wreck a bunch of expensive scrolls.

That bridge that looks safe to cross, while the skiff looks all beat up? The bridge is maintained by bandits who charge a hefty toll to cross it. Those bandits are badass enough to be able to hold the bridge if they need to and might even have the means to make the bridge impassible to those who give them trouble.

Learn to use caution against the players. Not all the time, mind you. Just enough to make things interesting and give them a moral dilemma every now and then.

Yahzi
2011-03-19, 07:33 AM
That thought keeps coming back to me as well. Sure, I'd need to revamp the magic item creation system somewhat, but it would be pretty awesome.
You really should check out my World of Prime worldbook. :smallbiggrin:

You don't have to revamp anything. That's why the DMG says 1 Xp = 5 gp.

Well, except the XP tables. Currently it's a million gp to get from 0 to level 20. That's way too low in a world where farmers make ~ 100 gp a year, unless you go with a really small population, or decide to have a Tippyverse with high-level casters wandering around everywhere. I made the XP curve double at every level, which makes 9th levels 1 in 10,000 or so.

HuntedWalrus
2011-03-19, 11:55 AM
Here's a revelation that helped me: Your players won't know the difference.
Let's use the bridge as an example: it looked safe, and was safe, as you planned. Now, when they're halfway across the bridge, chuck the plan. Say rust monsters have eaten the supports, and the bridge, which any local knows not to cross more than one at a time, starts to buckle and crack and collapse under the weight of the party and all of their gear. Now, it's a series of skill checks.
Once they know you'll use their caution against them, they'll be looking for double-crosses. Also, ticking clocks work wonders. (Safe way = long way; dangerous way = they'll reach the captured princess before she's flayed alive.)
Or, rig up a kind of danger that will hit them no matter what they do. maybe don't do this often, but enough to keep them on their toes.
Long story short, make your players more cautious of you than of the campaign world.

Hope this helps.

Firechanter
2011-03-19, 06:24 PM
Alright, let's remember the lesson: don't throw anything at your players that you absolutely do not want them to be able to make use of themselves. In D&D, that includes complete creatures with SLAs, because once they learn what it can do, they might summon it or make a copy of it by means of Simulacrum.

That's actually a nice turnaround on the old bromide "Anything the PCs use, the opposition can use, too", which usually results in a Gentlemen's Agreement of sorts.

That said, I love it when players come up with clever ideas. In our group we kinda rotate GMs (and systems), and one of them is very good at not-railroading and going with the flow. The kind of unexpected things we pulled off:

* when plundering a tomb guarded by animated statues. We discovered the statues do not leave the tomb and can only attack melee. The first reaction was to ranged attack them from outside, but their hardness was too high. Then my Barbarian caught one of them with a lariat, and pulled it out of the tomb. Actually I just wanted to separate it from its comrades so we could zerg it, but once outside, its magic was dispelled and it cumpled. The GM accepted that we could rinse and repeat, and wiped the remaining minis off the board in one motion to save time.

* another time we had to conquer a fort, and he had expected us to rally the surrounding tribes (hostile to the fort's occupants) over the course of weeks, and then stage a siege, but we acted very quickly and decisively (would be too long story now) and had the damn fortress liberated on the same day we arrived. We were rolling in XP, too.

Note that our successes in the Conan game came not by playing cautious, but by brash advances and quick decisive strikes. Basically we didn't give the GM time to make up counters to our spontaneous plans.

Swordguy
2011-03-19, 07:19 PM
I'll echo the echo chamber here and say that cautious players are fine and probably preferable to balls-to-the-wall types who go through a character every 2 sessions...right up till the point the cautious players say they're bored and don't get hooks.

At some point, for the players to get to adventure, they HAVE to bite on a quest hook. A good example would be somebody coming into town with a Monkey's Paw to sell (this happened in a game I played in several years ago). Now, the player totally knows that getting anywhere near a Monkey's Paw in a game universe where magic and curses exist is a horrific idea...but he also knows that something interesting and "adventure-some" will happen if he picks the thing up. So he bites on the hook, and gets a cool side-quest that all for him, because he took the chance.

There's a shared expectation when playing most adventure-oriented RPGs that the main characters will put themselves in dangerous situations and, through perseverence, skill, clever plans, or dumb luck will come out on top. That's how heroes prevail in the literature that started the entire fantasy genres. We don't read about Bob the Impaler, who sat at home and had somebody summon tiny monsters for him to kill to gain experience. That's the "smart" way to do it...but it's a boring story. We read about Bob the Impaler, who at terrible risk to life and limb set out to kill the Ravening Bugbladder Beast of Traal and bested it only after luring it into a cave and dropping a half-dozen stalactites upon it before knocking it into a chasm. THAT'S a story...even though going after the high-CR Beast wasn't the smartest way to get XP. It makes for a better story.

tl;dr: Being a hero means taking risks sometimes. Absence of any risk at all doesn't mean you're a hero, it just means you survive a little longer. The name of the game isn't about surviving a bit longer, it's about being a damn hero. Act like it.

Firechanter
2011-03-20, 02:47 AM
tl;dr: Being a hero means taking risks sometimes. Absence of any risk at all doesn't mean you're a hero, it just means you survive a little longer. The name of the game isn't about surviving a bit longer, it's about being a damn hero. Act like it.

Word!
Actually that reminds me unpleasantly of one former player in our previous D&D group, playing a Ranger. He was cautious but _not_ smart, or I might also say, a coward. Really, no matter what kind of situation was revealed, he'd always go "Oh that's dangerous". If it were for him, we wouldn't have gone on a single quest. Horrible.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-20, 11:04 AM
The first thing you do is, block TV Tropes from your computer. If you know them, odds are your players will too. And they complicate what should be simple anyway.

I wish more people would do this really. TV Tropes is fine as an amusement, but if you expect anything more from it that a way to kill a bunch of hours, you'll be disappointed.

Warlawk
2011-03-20, 06:19 PM
As a part time DM for a group of adults that are all educated, intelligent and long time gamers I share the OP's situation and revel in every moment of it. It's a lot of work to DM for a group like that, but amazingly rewarding at the same time.

Here's the approach that works for our group.

Do NOT create an "adventure", it will never work if you group tends to go off the rails and approach things from odd directions. Just get that whole idea right out of your head from the very start.

Create a living breathing world that exists outside of the PCs and will advance no matter what they do. That isn't to say that they cannot effect the world, but rather that things are going to keep happening while they decide to take 2 weeks off to create just the right magic item for the next challenge. Maybe there was a neat plot hook for another adventure that got dropped and they just snapped it up and immediately went to take care of it. Everyone will tell you to keep the BBEG advancing and gaining ground for his plans when they do this, but what about the good guys? What about the church/noble/whatever that your characters are working for or on behalf of? You've just left them hanging, they've not heard back from you in weeks or months and can only assume you're dead, deserted or just MIA. Even if you get the McGuffin back to them, will they still trust you, or will they consider you too unreliable for future important missions?

Things like that. The world needs to keep moving around them. You need to be aware of not just the BBEG, but the other major players in the area, as well as potential issues or acts of importance like major holidays the peasants may be holding, or seasonal flooding.

Once you have a good grip on the world, it becomes a lot easier to make your adventures modular. Instead of determining that your group will meet Bob Smith at the tavern and be hired to go get ITEMX and fight Ted Jones in the abandoned temple only to find out that Ted works for ZOMGBBEG in secret you want to just be aware that Ted will be in the temple for X days recovering ITEMX. Try to find a way to put Bob Smith in the path of the players in an organic way instead of just dictating he is at The Tavern and forcing a way for the players to get there.

Come into the session with the approach of:
I want to give the players INFORMATION A
I want to have the players fight ENCOUNTER Y
I want to give the players REWARD Z

Instead of a strong mapped out adventure, just make notes for key points and drop them into the game in places and ways that are organic to the world instead of following a predetermined forced path and remember that the rest of the world is still going to be doing things even though your players just turned a 1 week journey into a 3 week journey because they're being paranoid and overcautious. Having a rival adventuring group beat them to the punch and get the reward/glory a couple times because they're dawdling can always be a good motivator.

Dire Moose
2011-03-20, 06:27 PM
This was a problem for my players, too. About half the time in dungeon crawls was spent hiding in the entryway to the next room while agonizingly searching for anything that could possibly be dangerous. This took so long that even the players got frustrated with it after enough times. The reckless, "i-kick-in-the-door-come-what-may" guy got a lot of respect from me in that case.

Of course, the best example of said attitude came when they were in the Tomb of Horrors, so the paranoia was justified. Still, I'd like to know how to discourage this sort of attitude so it doesn't slow the game to a crawl.

EDIT: Oh, yes, a rival group of adventurers (as mentioned above) might be a good idea and would have worked well in the campaign.

Gamgee
2011-03-20, 07:03 PM
I swear, it really ruins encounters when the players are too smart for your plans.

"We'll camp outside the ruined city that we passed through"

"These things have shown themselves to be harmless if you ignore them, but lets avoid them all anyways."

what really gets me is when they get the ones that are supposed to be double bluffs

"There's a skiff or we can take the bridge. The skiff looks unsafe while the bridge is sturdy...Let's go with the bridge!"

(intention was to make the bridge look TOO safe and the skiff look a little risky...while have the bridge actually BE safe)

Any experiences to share?
You've certainly succeeded in out smarting yourself at least.

Sebastrd
2011-03-22, 08:11 AM
Caution has turned to outright paranoia. The "trick" to their supposed smartness is that they believe that everyone and everything is out to get them and never trust anyone. This is VERY problematic when there are people that they CAN trust. It's very...annoying.

You need to turn their paranoia against them. Instead of trying to get the drop on them, be completely open and honest. Adjust so that suddenly everything they run across should be taken at face value.


The homeless urchin really does just lead them to the inn for a few coppers.

Not a single person they meet has ulterior motives.

The guy with the black cloak who always keeps his face hidden is just a Strider clone.

All villains have an evil cackle, are monsters, or open every coversation with, "Hi. My name is Bob, and I'll be your villain for this adventure."


Then, introduce real consequences if they trust or distrust the wrong people. If they don't trust the street urchin, they end up at the fleabag inn. If they don't trust the kindly old priest, he gets killed and they lose access to healing. If they don't go after the obvious villain, he murders one NPC every day until they figure it out.

Then again, you may have a group of players who don't want to play D&D the role-playing game; they may want to play D&D the outsmart-the-DM-and-his-world game. In that case just make the puzzles and riddles more and more intricate and complicated until eventually you're asking what you've got in your pocketses and they quit the game in disgust.

Otherworld Odd
2011-03-22, 08:30 AM
Well, give them choices but make none of them the right choice. Put a different, equally challenging encounter on each option so they'll get some action no matters what they pick.


But yeah, never had any experience with this. My play group are a bunch of ruthless... well... O.o... They're still good-aligned at least.

grimbold
2011-03-23, 10:39 AM
i would recommend using tucker's kobolds, if they play intelligently you need to outmatch them

FreelanceAngel
2011-03-26, 09:30 AM
If the players are using common sense, then you simply adjust to put what you want them to encounter in their path. The joy of being a DM is the fact that what happens to the PCs is in your control. Bridge looks safe? Pity there's a dire spider that uses it as a spot to catch prey!

I tend to make a list of random events or encounters that have no use in the current plot and refer to it when the players take a path that doesn't lead them to the next section of plot.

In truth, players are SUPPOSED to throw the DM for a loop. If the players are finding new and creative ways to get around obstacles or use the encounter against the monsters/NPCs, then they're thinking. And thinking players are a bonus!

Hatchet91
2011-03-28, 04:54 PM
An idea you may want to include is add a time line, let them know they need to get to point A from point C with a side stop at point B, or risk the consequences, give them multiple choices of paths which may be faster but not always safer.

or you can simply give them no "right" answer but i prefer the, hey if you take the bridge that wonders of in a slightly wrong direction but according toyour map you know it forks back. the bridge will take 12 hours to travel where the skiff will take you 6 hours.?

also you might want to add side attractions yes these may take more time from the story line but if you add a time limit chars who lose focus may find themselves rushed from having spent so much time at the casino ;)