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MonkeySage
2018-08-26, 10:39 AM
An informant sent a riddle to the local guard captain, in the hopes the captain would send someone to meet with them. The captain, stumped by the riddle, instead gave the message to the players. The riddle was meant to lead them to a brothel near the castle.

But they held more onto the "in the shadow of the old kings" line, which refers to the castle, and figured it meant a cemetery instead- where the "old kings" are interred. This city doesn't have an actual surface cemetery, though, and certainly not "in the shadow of the old kings". It has the crypts beneath the Temple of Bruna, and the catacombs which run under the city. I didn't speak up last sesh, because I figure this could be interesting to see where t hey're going with this, but they are now looking for a Priestess of Bruna from the temple to lead them through the labyrinthine catacombs.

Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

What should I do?


EDIT: I am, at this time, not prepared for them to explore the catacombs- they run for miles, deep under the city.

Yora
2018-08-26, 10:52 AM
One option would be that the informant is screwed because his plan to get help failed. Alternatively you can have a messenger waiting in the place they go looking who tells them exactly where they need to go next. Maybe they still believe they solved the puzzle succesfully and that it was intended that way.

DeTess
2018-08-26, 10:56 AM
First, remember this for future reference. Players are highly unlikely to get a riddle correct unless the answer is blindingly obvious and they can immediately confirm wether their interpretation is correct (ie; say the magic door's password, answer the sphinx's riddle, etc.)

What information is this informant supposed to give them? Is the informant someone they know?

If they know the informant is someone they know, and the information can be passed in a written form, have the informant murdered in a public way, so the players learn about it and go investigate.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 10:59 AM
Alternatively, as soon as they come up with a sufficiently clever answer, figure out a reason why the informant is there instead. They don't need to get it right to what you planned beforehand, just to have come to a solution that tested them.

MonkeySage
2018-08-26, 11:08 AM
A priestess of bruna would know most of the halls, and about some of the sewer accesses, but the catacombs are so big that some areas go unvisited for years.

There's a specific sewer access within the catacombs that can lead them to a hidden base, one of many that the thieves guild uses. That's what the informant could have provided, so the players didn't have to navigate the dark labyrinth blindly.

The players don't know them, but they're expecting the captain. Since they're staying at a brothel, there are plenty of workers there who would have gotten used to their company.

Tanarii
2018-08-26, 11:09 AM
Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

What should I do?The informant gets brutally murdered and the body is disposed of. Whatever plan(s) he was going to inform on are successful instead of stymied by murderheroes.

Actions should have consequences, and in this case it's pretty clearly failure to stop the plots of the thieves guild.

Alternately if you just can't handle that, the informant disappears but someone saw him get killed or carted off. They can investigate after they finally find the brothel.. They should get a big hint once the Priestess of Bruna they finally find points out there are no kings casting shadows in the catacombs, so could they please explain what the heck are they on about?

Minty
2018-08-26, 11:28 AM
Have the informant meet them in the crypts instead. Then don't give an ambiguous riddle as a clue in future.

sakuuya
2018-08-26, 11:29 AM
While the party is looking for the priestess, they stumble upon some members of the thieves guild plotting to abduct and murder the informant later that evening. Make sure the PCs overhear enough details to figure out that it's the guy they're looking for (and where he can be found), so whether they choose to engage the would-be assassins in combat, hurry to the brothel to warn/protect the informant, or whatever, they know where they're supposed to find him. Their failure to solve the riddle just results in the extra challenge that they now have to fight the assassins, or at least sneak off unnoticed and get to the brothel first.

Yuki Akuma
2018-08-26, 11:33 AM
If the player characters haven't seen something with their own eyes, it doesn't exist yet. The informant doesn't have to be at the brothel. You can change things.

Kami2awa
2018-08-26, 11:41 AM
One thing that's often advised with mystery adventures is to have more than one way to get each piece of information. In a written story you can depend on your protagonist finding the critical clue, but in an RPG you can't. Therefore there need to be multiple clues or possible paths that lead to the next stage of the adventure.

There could be an alternative way to get the information without needing the informant. Who else would know it? Might they be at the temple for some reason?

Jay R
2018-08-26, 12:09 PM
The purpose of a riddle is not to screw up the adventure; it is to make the players feel clever. Don't build one to screw up the adventure, and more importantly, don't build one to make them feel stupid.

Their interpretation is a valid one, so it should work. Figure out how to put the Priestess of Bruna in the graveyard.

That way, and that way only, the riddle will serve its primary purpose to make the players feel clever.

MonkeySage
2018-08-26, 12:29 PM
There is no graveyard, though. There's the catacombs beneath the city, and the crypts under the temple.

Yuki Akuma
2018-08-26, 12:40 PM
There is no graveyard, though. There's the catacombs beneath the city, and the crypts under the temple.

Do the players know this? If not, then it's not actually true until you tell them.

MonkeySage
2018-08-26, 12:42 PM
The entire reason they're looking for the Priestess is so that she can help them navigate the catacombs. They were never headed to t he non existent cemetery... thus there's no reason to add one. Besides that, I don't actually like changing the setting once I've written it, not unless its absolutely necessary. There are a few details about this city I hammered out in advance, and my players will be spending a lot of time here- I'm aiming for consistency.

Deophaun
2018-08-26, 12:48 PM
The one rule to keep in mind about riddles is the one you come up with is not nearly as good as you think it is. For every thousand people who think they're great at it, there's only one who actually is. You are not that person.

If you're using one for your games, you must be flexible and basically let the players create the answer.

There is no graveyard, though.
And this is where you went wrong. The proper response was "there was no graveyard, but there's one now."

In fact there was, long ago. On a hill, where the kings used to be buried before the castle was built and the bodies were re-interred elsewhere. That area has long ago developed and fell into disrepute. It's now a den for thieves, drunks, and gamblers. The history of the area is known and played up by the locals. A popular whorehouse goes by the name "The Kings' Chambers."

Darth Ultron
2018-08-26, 01:02 PM
It should be easy enough. Have them find a priestess and have her tell them "there are no old kings in the catacombs" or maybe explain ''the catacombs have no shadows and are always dark" and "The shadows of the kings must be on the surface where there is a sun"

Or even "no informant in their right mind would 'hide' in the catacombs ".


Or, you could have the characters go down to the catacombs...find lots of dust, and nothing else.

Even if you had pre set a ticking clock and ''the informant is going to die in just one hour!", you can just take a breath and say ''ok, they will die in 48 hours" or any other time.

If you want to have ''wacky consequences" then sure have the characters search the catacombs, the informant die and the planet hurl into the sun. Or you can extend the deadline.

If you really, really feel you ''must'' do both (like if, er, something is forcing you ), maybe have the informant killers grab the informant...but then hang out at the brothel for a bit.

LordEntrails
2018-08-26, 01:07 PM
This is a perfect example of why relying on Player Knowledge and Abilities is fraught with problems when playing a Character RPG.

Quertus
2018-08-26, 01:23 PM
The informant gets brutally murdered and the body is disposed of. Whatever plan(s) he was going to inform on are successful instead of stymied by murderheroes.

Actions should have consequences, and in this case it's pretty clearly failure to stop the plots of the thieves guild.


One thing that's often advised with mystery adventures is to have more than one way to get each piece of information.... there need to be multiple clues or possible paths that lead to the next stage of the adventure.

Pretty much this. The informant was an idiot for relying on riddles, and will reap what he sows. The party didn't get the complex riddle any more than the town guard, and will go have their own adventure. You will learn to follow The Rule of Three. Wins all around.


This is a perfect example of why relying on Player Knowledge and Abilities is fraught with problems when playing a Character RPG.

I would say that this is a perfect example of the GM needing an adventure to go a certain way being fraught with problems, personally. I have no problems with the PCs failing.

Coventry
2018-08-26, 01:37 PM
Lets twist that development to the point where everyone should be rolling their eyes:

The priests at the temple send the players to go see their "expert" on the cemeteries in town ... a priestess that happens to live at the brothel. When asked why the priestess lives there, they find out that the brothel and several other businesses in the area were built on top of the old cemetery, and every once in a while they have an undead problem that needs to be taken care of.

War_lord
2018-08-26, 01:38 PM
The informant gets brutally murdered and the body is disposed of. Whatever plan(s) he was going to inform on are successful instead of stymied by murderheroes.

Actions should have consequences, and in this case it's pretty clearly failure to stop the plots of the thieves guild.

That's terrible advice. The players didn't take any action here. The DM used a plot device that they got from fiction (the riddle leading to the next part the story) that doesn't work in a non-liner environment (because most players aren't good at riddles and unless you construct your riddle very carefully it's going to be as open ended as saying "guess") and their quest progression was entirely dependent on one outcome. The players didn't fail, the DM failed DMing 101, never make the entire game hinge on the players doing what you tell them to do.

To OP: Just put the informant in the Catacombs, problem solved, in future follow the three clues rule when you want the players to solve a mystery.

Tanarii
2018-08-26, 01:38 PM
It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.

Pex
2018-08-26, 01:51 PM
Pretty much this. The informant was an idiot for relying on riddles, and will reap what he sows. The party didn't get the complex riddle any more than the town guard, and will go have their own adventure. You will learn to follow The Rule of Three. Wins all around.



I would say that this is a perfect example of the GM needing an adventure to go a certain way being fraught with problems, personally. I have no problems with the PCs failing.

The PCs didn't fail. They came up with an answer the DM wasn't thinking of, but they didn't fail. The DM failed. Rather, the informant failed. The informant made the riddle too vague trying to thwart the bad guys. The bad guys may succeed before the PCs can do anything about it, but it is not the PCs' fault. There's a difference.


It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.

It's fine the informant gets caught and is killed, but don't make it out to be the players' fault for failing to save him. The players did not do anything wrong.

Minty
2018-08-26, 02:04 PM
It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.

It's not a quantum ogre, though, because the players are trying to follow the clue. The clue is just bad. They have the agency to ignore the riddle and avoid the encounter by choice.

Tanarii
2018-08-26, 02:13 PM
It's fine the informant gets caught and is killed, but don't make it out to be the players' fault for failing to save him. The players did not do anything wrong.Yah, true that. Correction to my initial post:
The heroes didn't fail to stop the thieves guilds nefarious plan. The idiot informant got himself killed before he could inform.

And it definitely should be a lesson learned on riddles.


It's not a quantum ogre, though, because the players are trying to follow the clue. The clue is just bad. They have the agency to ignore the riddle and avoid the encounter by choice.This is removing player agency with a quantum ogre non-combat encounter:

Have the informant meet them in the crypts instead.

Knaight
2018-08-26, 02:23 PM
First things first - this is a great example of why riddles are generally not the most usable GMing tool, so take that to heart.


The informant gets brutally murdered and the body is disposed of. Whatever plan(s) he was going to inform on are successful instead of stymied by murderheroes.
I'd agree with the first part of that - but the second half presumes that the plans don't have any later exploitable points of failure. That's generally not a safe assumption. The plans will probably get further than they otherwise would, but that doesn't mean they'll actually be successful overall.


It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.
The extent to which player agency is here in the context of solving a riddle is already dubious - this isn't really a decision made (beyond going to the expected site at all), it's a problem solved incorrectly because the problem is inherently poorly defined.

Nifft
2018-08-26, 02:27 PM
Something completely different is happening in the catacombs, and the PCs interrupt a meeting / ceremony / ritual of ill intent, leading to an entirely different plot-hook chain.

At this completely different catacomb thing, there's also another clue leading them to whatever it was they were supposed to find in the first place. This clue is obviously a coincidence -- maybe someone else was trying to work out the riddle and has a note which lists three guesses, one of which is correct.



under shadow of old king

under shadow = below; catacombs? just cultists
under shadow = north; brothel?
under shadow = recent conquest; duchy?

Minty
2018-08-26, 02:30 PM
This is removing player agency with a quantum ogre non-combat encounter:

No it isn't. It would only be removing player agency if they were trying to avoid the encounter. They are literally trying to follow the clue to the encounter. If they ignored the riddle and did something else, the encounter would not happen.

Tanarii
2018-08-26, 02:31 PM
The extent to which player agency is here in the context of solving a riddle is already dubious - this isn't really a decision made (beyond going to the expected site at all), it's a problem solved incorrectly because the problem is inherently poorly defined.
The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency. That include decisions made based on bad info. As long as the info given accurately communicates what is going on in the game. Which this did. A stupid informant used a bad riddle, and the players (unsurprisingly) made a 'bad' assumption based on that, and therefore made a 'bad' decision based on it.

It's about as clear a case of removing player agency as you can get.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 02:33 PM
It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.

To defend my own point - the players get every bit as satisfying an experience out of solving the riddle with the answer "catacombs" as the answer "brothel". Probably more than they would wandering the city looking under statues and whatnot until they get told "nope, you actually failed ages ago, the informer is dead".

Lacco
2018-08-26, 02:35 PM
Let them find the priestess. Give them a short "tour" of the catacombs.

And then they stumble upon the party of thieves who plan to use the catacombs to hide a body in a bag. Body that still kicks.

Coincidence? Yeah. Unthinkable? Well, where would you go to torture a traitor? In a brothel? Naw. It's quiet down in the catacombs and nobody really goes there. Also: a dead body in catacombs is not really a problem - a dead body on the street/in a brothel is.

Oh, and the thieves will first check who comes and then try to murder him.

Minty
2018-08-26, 02:43 PM
The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency.

The players didn't decide to do the wrong thing. They decided to do what they thought was the right thing. Being wrong was not their intention. Giving them the outcome that they intended with their decision, i.e. finding the place referred to in the riddle, is not removing their agency.

Keltest
2018-08-26, 02:49 PM
The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency. That include decisions made based on bad info. As long as the info given accurately communicates what is going on in the game. Which this did. A stupid informant used a bad riddle, and the players (unsurprisingly) made a 'bad' assumption based on that, and therefore made a 'bad' decision based on it.

It's about as clear a case of removing player agency as you can get.

Obviously not, since you have so many people disagreeing with you. They've been misled by the DM, however inadvertently. Their understanding of cause and effect is sufficiently skewed by that, that they cant be said to have agency here in the first place. At this point, the options are either punish them for a DM mistake or change the scenario so that they aren't screwed by events beyond their ability to influence.

Calthropstu
2018-08-26, 02:50 PM
I love the suggestio above about finding the guy being tortured in the catacombs.

Alternatives:

There could be secret doors in the catacombs. In fact, it's almost certain. The most likely places? To the castle (escape route) and to the brothel close to the castle (because kings and princes do that sort of thing.)

Draw up a quick tunnel map and hey, the guild could be planning something horrific using the catacombs to raise undead and unleash them into the palace via secret doors causing enough distraction to rob the castle vaults.

If you really want to go deeper, the vault contains something dangerous and, if the thieves succeed it can initiate a grander quest.

War_lord
2018-08-26, 02:53 PM
The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency.

They didn't decide to do the wrong thing, because there wasn't a decision here, it was either answer the riddle "correctly" (which, because the riddle was poorly written was essentially a guess) or fail, there wasn't a decision to be made. In fiction the riddle device is used to inform the audience of the hero's competence. Making your players look incompetent because you made a basic mistake in planning the adventure is not a good move, it causes frustration that can damage the group.

Moving the informant to the catacombs is not the ideal solution, the ideal solution would have been not leaving it up to a riddle in the first place. But since that ship has sailed, the intent of the adventure needs to be salvaged. Making the players feel stupid because of mistakes you made is never never a good move. And all other rules should be broken to avoid it.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 02:53 PM
See, I think the "guy being tortured in the catacombs" answer is much worse. As a player, the way I would interpret that would be "you got it wrong, but don't worry, i've changed it so you can get that information anyway" - I would find that far more annoying.

Deophaun
2018-08-26, 02:55 PM
As long as the info given accurately communicates what is going on in the game.
Miscommunications are frequent. Structuring a campaign to survive those instances is sound design.

Which this did.
Upon what are you basing this? Players, at best, experience the game world at arm's reach. They have no senses of their own with which to experience it. Everything is based on the DM's perception, and what the DM thinks is important, not the players. If the DM forgets to describe the smell of rotten eggs in the house, it's not the player's fault when there's a TPK after his character strikes a match.

Being that this is a riddle and that 99.9% of riddles are utter garbage, it's highly unlikely.

A stupid informant used a bad riddle,
No. The DM used a bad riddle. A stupid informant using a bad riddle is bad quest design if the point of it was to move the plot forward, which this obviously was.

War_lord
2018-08-26, 02:55 PM
See, I think the "guy being tortured in the catacombs" answer is much worse. As a player, the way I would interpret that would be "you got it wrong, but don't worry, i've changed it so you can get that information anyway" - I would find that far more annoying.

Agreed.

What is the purpose of the riddle in say, Batman?

To show off how clever Batman is.

If you're going to use that trope in game you need to follow through with it.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 03:01 PM
Thats a good way to think of it. If the player knew they were stuck on the riddle then you could start dropping hints, but as it is they think they've solved it: if you want to enact a consequence for not solving it I think you need to make sure they're aware their first guess was wrong.

Darth Ultron
2018-08-26, 03:12 PM
It's kind of disturbing how many people are suggesting that this just be a quantum ogre. Removing player agency should never be recommended.

You can't remove something that does not exist.


The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency. That include decisions made based on bad info. As long as the info given accurately communicates what is going on in the game. Which this did. A stupid informant used a bad riddle, and the players (unsurprisingly) made a 'bad' assumption based on that, and therefore made a 'bad' decision based on it.

It's about as clear a case of removing player agency as you can get.

Just take the event: the Assassins will find the informant. There are three ways to do it:

1.Pre Plan. The DM says, and sets in stone that the assassins will find the informant at 9 PM on Monday. Unless the PCs do something to change that.

2.The DM pre-palns randomness. The DM pre-plans, in stone, a time frame. So the DM sets ''1 to 20 hours" and then rolls a d20 to get a (not so) random time the Assassins will find the informant. This gives the illusion of free will.

3.DM Whim. Assassins will find the informant, whenever the DM wants it to happen.

So for one and two the Dm has decided that they ''can't'' do anything: they have set what will happen in stone, and it must and will happen (unless the PCs do something). The third DM can do anything.

So guess it would be said one and two are ''games of great player agency" and three is "a railroad", right?

Knaight
2018-08-26, 03:28 PM
The freedom to decide to do the wrong thing is a huge part of player agency. That include decisions made based on bad info. As long as the info given accurately communicates what is going on in the game. Which this did. A stupid informant used a bad riddle, and the players (unsurprisingly) made a 'bad' assumption based on that, and therefore made a 'bad' decision based on it.

I'm all for the informant getting killed because they tried to communicate their location by riddle, but this isn't a matter of deciding to do the wrong thing - it's a matter of being given a blind guess (which is how riddles just fundamentally work a lot of the time), and guessing wrong. Agency was no more involved here than when in rolling a die and happening to get a bad result. Does that mean the result should be changed? No. But it does mean that changing the result wouldn't remove player agency.


Obviously not, since you have so many people disagreeing with you. They've been misled by the DM, however inadvertently. Their understanding of cause and effect is sufficiently skewed by that, that they cant be said to have agency here in the first place. At this point, the options are either punish them for a DM mistake or change the scenario so that they aren't screwed by events beyond their ability to influence.
I'm with you on the agency removal, but I wouldn't characterize any outcome as a punishment. A misfortune, in character, but fundamentally what happens if the change isn't made is that an informant failed to get information out because they made a bad decision, and now the PCs get to clean up their mess.

Keltest
2018-08-26, 03:32 PM
I'm with you on the agency removal, but I wouldn't characterize any outcome as a punishment. A misfortune, in character, but fundamentally what happens if the change isn't made is that an informant failed to get information out because they made a bad decision, and now the PCs get to clean up their mess.

It really depends on how much you consider failing an objective to be a punishment. In this case, it sounds like they don't have a huge amount of other stuff to go off of, so they would need to spend time running around aimlessly until they trip over the next plot hook, so I would call that a punishment.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-08-26, 03:36 PM
Informant dies, they find something else interesting in the catacombs instead. Either related to the informant plot, or not, depending on how comfortable you are spinning multiple plates as a GM.

Tanarii
2018-08-26, 03:43 PM
I'm all for the informant getting killed because they tried to communicate their location by riddle, but this isn't a matter of deciding to do the wrong thing - it's a matter of being given a blind guess (which is how riddles just fundamentally work a lot of the time), and guessing wrong. Agency was no more involved here than when in rolling a die and happening to get a bad result. Does that mean the result should be changed? No. But it does mean that changing the result wouldn't remove player agency.
The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 03:47 PM
The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

Player agency is but one of the things that makes the game fun. Sacrificing all else to it - especially when the players won't know they lost anything - seems silly to me.

Grog Logs
2018-08-26, 03:59 PM
The entire reason they're looking for the Priestess is so that she can help them navigate the catacombs. They were never headed to t he non existent cemetery... thus there's no reason to add one. Besides that, I don't actually like changing the setting once I've written it, not unless its absolutely necessary. There are a few details about this city I hammered out in advance, and my players will be spending a lot of time here- I'm aiming for consistency.

These are excellent reasons for NOT creating a cemetery and for NOT changing the answer to your riddle.

The PCs do not have to succeed at every mission if you have the TRUST of the real life players. If you have that trust, the informant may die or you may have an NPC inform them that there is no cemetery. You should decide based on what makes a better STORY rather than quantum-ogreing the informant.

This makes DMing more interesting: Playing out the consequences of PC choices via the physical environment and NPCs' personalities.

(I have nothing against quantum-ogres for those who like that style, but to insist on a DM implementing that based on a Table that you don't know is short sighted.)

Lacco
2018-08-26, 04:00 PM
See, I think the "guy being tortured in the catacombs" answer is much worse. As a player, the way I would interpret that would be "you got it wrong, but don't worry, i've changed it so you can get that information anyway" - I would find that far more annoying.

Thanks for the insight - haven't played since the one weekend 10 years ago, so my "player view" gets a bit distorted.

I agree - it's not the best way to handle this. It's mostly to salvage the situation the OP was talking about within his parameters.

Normally I would handle it by the players getting only the body - in the catacombs (which would be again - a normal place where the thieves would hide bodies (after all, the caretaker is bribed already) - and maybe even a fight with the thieves who would drop it there. But it seemed that the OP wants them to talk to the guy... :smallbiggrin:
...wait, do they have "Speak with Dead" in their arsenal/do they know someone who can cast it?

Because if they do, they would get only the body.

Pelle
2018-08-26, 04:16 PM
Player agency is but one of the things that makes the game fun. Sacrificing all else to it - especially when the players won't know they lost anything - seems silly to me.

Illusionism is ok when the players don't notice? I guess it depends on the state of the game in this case. If it will make for less boring sessions in the future, or prevent the campaign from ending, then the lesser evil is maybe preferable. But if it's just going to be a different experience, i.e. adventures in the catacombs instead of as planned, does it really matter that the characters 'failed'? It's completely ok to 'fail', even at impossible riddles. Then the characters did B instead of A, both fine.

If you introduce a riddle as a GM, player/character failure should be a possibility, otherwise, what's the point? If the players can't handle failing to solve it, don't introduce it. If the GM mess up and introduce a riddle harder than intended, then the players faced a difficult riddle and maybe the GM makes an easier next time. Both can be cool though, there's no need to regulate the difficulty level of riddles.

Bohandas
2018-08-26, 04:18 PM
Perhaps you could roll an int or wisdom checj to realize that that's not the right place, and failing that they could possibly encounter a group interring someone who's died of syphilis and have an encounter that leads them to the brothel.

Darth Ultron
2018-08-26, 04:28 PM
The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

So in your version of playing D&D, the DM must make up the plot, actions and events all pre game...and stick to them and never change anything?


Illusionism is ok when the players don't notice?

It's also ok when the players notice...as it is an illusion.

Samzat
2018-08-26, 04:35 PM
Have them find the informant dead in the catacombs, his boddy hidden there. However, make sure there is a thread to follow from there. For example, maybe he hid a message in his boot before they got him. Maybe there is a trail that the party can track from there. Maybe his killers are still nearby and can be captured. If the party has access to abilities that allow them to speak with dead or resurrect, then that might work

Edit: added some examples

Edit again: In addition, this would convey the bonus of having consequences, but not causing the entire thing to fall apart, because now the guy is dead, and thus cant be relied upon for help in the future

Minty
2018-08-26, 04:36 PM
The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

The players did not choose to misinterpret the clue. The only thing the players chose was to try and find the place hinted at in the clue. Allowing them to find that place is not a removal of their agency. If they chose not to follow the clue, left town, and then ran into the informant on the road anyway, that would be a removal of their agency. The intent of the players is important when determining how something impacts their agency.

Their agency is violated more by giving them an ambiguous clue that reduces their choice to a blind guess, like some anti-player Gygaxian death trap. If anything, changing the location of the informant restores rather than removes their agency.

Keltest
2018-08-26, 04:36 PM
The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

Changing the universe based on a player's actions is the definition of player agency. What would be taking that agency away is making it so that their decisions don't impact the world at all. In this case, theyre choosing to pursue this case. Making it so their actions don't affect anything means they didn't have any agency.

Having said that, OOC concerns like DM resources trump player agency every time. If you don't have catacombs to go into, then it sounds like its time for a message from the guard captain indicating that the brothel is worth investigating, and maybe an OOC admission that you goofed up, they went off in a direction that needs more prep work done, and that youre willing to let them go down there anyway if they really want to, but you cant guarantee it will be particularly satisfying if they do so before you prepare it more.

LeSwordfish
2018-08-26, 04:41 PM
Illusionism is ok when the players don't notice? I guess it depends on the state of the game in this case. If it will make for less boring sessions in the future, or prevent the campaign from ending, then the lesser evil is maybe preferable. But if it's just going to be a different experience, i.e. adventures in the catacombs instead of as planned, does it really matter that the characters 'failed'? It's completely ok to 'fail', even at impossible riddles. Then the characters did B instead of A, both fine.

If you introduce a riddle as a GM, player/character failure should be a possibility, otherwise, what's the point? If the players can't handle failing to solve it, don't introduce it. If the GM mess up and introduce a riddle harder than intended, then the players faced a difficult riddle and maybe the GM makes an easier next time. Both can be cool though, there's no need to regulate the difficulty level of riddles.

My thinking is like... okay, they failed to solve the riddle. But they failed in an unsatisfying way, partially because the riddle was unclear. If they were desperately mulling over it until time ran out, then that would feel like a meaningful failure to me as a player, but they've patted themselves on the back and ridden off to do something. Bad ways to resolve this would be "actually you've failed and he's dead" or "actually you've failed but he's just by coincidence here anyway so its alright" - one is a surprise "**** you", one is a patronising railroad.

If you want to keep the integrity of your riddle puzzle intact, I would suggest establishing very quickly that they have the wrong answer - but I don't know how - and also establishing that they're low on time. That will hopefully send them back to the drawing board with a ticking clock over their heads, and make it so failure, if it comes, isn't an unfair surprise.

My suggestion of changing the correct answer is based on the idea that getting maximum satisfaction out of the riddle isn't possible any more, and that you want to move relatively smoothly through this situation without either raising two middle fingers at your players and then needing to find another way to get them what they need, or declaring the whole riddle and the work they did on solving it null and void to their faces.

Quertus
2018-08-26, 04:43 PM
The PCs didn't fail. They came up with an answer the DM wasn't thinking of, but they didn't fail. The DM failed. Rather, the informant failed. The informant made the riddle too vague trying to thwart the bad guys. The bad guys may succeed before the PCs can do anything about it, but it is not the PCs' fault. There's a difference.

It's fine the informant gets caught and is killed, but don't make it out to be the players' fault for failing to save him. The players did not do anything wrong.

Agreed. The informant failed. So the informant dies. Find a way to let the players have fun regardless.


The players didn't decide to do the wrong thing. They decided to do what they thought was the right thing. Being wrong was not their intention. Giving them the outcome that they intended with their decision, i.e. finding the place referred to in the riddle, is not removing their agency.


Obviously not, since you have so many people disagreeing with you. They've been misled by the DM, however inadvertently. Their understanding of cause and effect is sufficiently skewed by that, that they cant be said to have agency here in the first place. At this point, the options are either punish them for a DM mistake or change the scenario so that they aren't screwed by events beyond their ability to influence.

Well, sadly, you're right that it isn't obvious, by dent of the amount of disagreement. Personally, I'm on the side of it being a removal of agency for the GM to force their plot regardless of the players' actions, or the amount of retcon / quantum ogre / changing the rules and reality necessary.


See, I think the "guy being tortured in the catacombs" answer is much worse. As a player, the way I would interpret that would be "you got it wrong, but don't worry, i've changed it so you can get that information anyway" - I would find that far more annoying.

Agreed - that would be bad, in my book. Knowing that you have no agency to affect the world, intentionally or otherwise, makes the game pointless storytime.

Another example of bad would be to have the guard who passed them the note figure it out in retrospect, and accuse the PCs of the murder.

Darth Ultron
2018-08-26, 04:51 PM
Their agency is violated more by giving them an ambiguous clue that reduces their choice to a blind guess, like some anti-player Gygaxian death trap. If anything, changing the location of the informant restores rather than removes their agency.

But how is it not just players being whiny cry babies no matter what happens if they just don't ''like it".

Game 1-The DM, on high, says ''the informant will stay in room 3, until the assassins find and kill him at 9 pm on Monday, I have spoken!". The DM carves that in stone, and that is what happens.

Game 2-The DM says: I can do anything. So, at any time, the DM can have the informant do (or ''try") anything and can have anything happen in the game world. So the informant can 'suddenly' at 7 pm, move to another location and the assassins won't find him on Monday.

So, both are ways to run a game. But now toss in the players misread the clue.

1.At 9pm on Monday the PCs are in the catacombs and the informant dies.

2.At 9pm on Monday the PCs are in the catacombs and the informant lives.

So...the players in 2, whine and cry that they had their ''player agency" taken away?

Or is the answer here the wacky ''why the DM did it" and IF the Hostile Players "agree with the DM"? Like the players stop the game, interrogate the DM and demand to know WHY things happened in the game. If the DM can tell a good story as to ''why" something happened to convince the players they will be happy.....but if the DM did a ''thing" for a reason the players don't like, then, then it's the cries of player agency and sad unicorns.

Minty
2018-08-26, 04:55 PM
Personally, I'm on the side of it being a removal of agency for the GM to force their plot regardless of the players' actions, or the amount of retcon / quantum ogre / changing the rules and reality necessary.

The GM is not forcing their plot, though. It's only forcing the plot if the players are trying to do something else. In this case, the players are trying to follow the plot.

Insisting the NPC is at the brothel is forcing the plot. Instead of allowing the players' alternative (and, as far as I can see, perfectly reasonable) solution to be correct and adjusting accordingly, the GM insists on sticking to his notes come what may, even if it results in an anti-climax.

Minty
2018-08-26, 04:58 PM
But how is it not just players being whiny cry babies no matter what happens if they just don't ''like it".

The players haven't done any whining. They aren't even aware of the problem. This is about the GM fixing his mistake.

Quertus
2018-08-26, 05:10 PM
The GM is not forcing their plot, though. It's only forcing the plot if the players are trying to do something else. In this case, the players are trying to follow the plot.

Insisting the NPC is at the brothel is forcing the plot. Instead of allowing the players' alternative (and, as far as I can see, perfectly reasonable) solution to be correct and adjusting accordingly, the GM insists on sticking to his notes come what may, even if it results in an anti-climax.

DM: there's a dragon in the mountains...
Player: cool. I slaughter my horse, and read its entails to divine the dragon's weaknesses.

But the PC doesn't have any abilities to read entrails. Further, the smell of horse blood should, logically, likely attract the attention of the Griffins in Griffin Canyon. So, by game physics, the player should see a plot (attacked by griffins) completely different from the plot that they were trying for (kill the dragon) emerge from their actions.

And you're saying that ignoring game physics and following misguided intent allows agency, whereas following physics and ignoring intent denies agency?

Keltest
2018-08-26, 05:15 PM
DM: there's a dragon in the mountains...
Player: cool. I slaughter my horse, and read its entails to divine the dragon's weaknesses.

But the PC doesn't have any abilities to read entrails. Further, the smell of horse blood should, logically, likely attract the attention of the Griffins in Griffin Canyon. So, by game physics, the player should see a plot (attacked by griffins) completely different from the plot that they were trying for (kill the dragon) emerge from their actions.

And you're saying that ignoring game physics and following misguided intent allows agency, whereas following physics and ignoring intent denies agency?

Only if the DM put "entrails reading" on the player's character sheet.

Darth Ultron
2018-08-26, 05:15 PM
The players haven't done any whining. They aren't even aware of the problem. This is about the GM fixing his mistake.

I must have missed the part of the post where the DM made a mistake. It looks to me like the players made the mistake.




And you're saying that ignoring game physics and following misguided intent allows agency, whereas following physics and ignoring intent denies agency?

If anything, this proves my point that ''player agency" is just a myth.

Nifft
2018-08-26, 05:17 PM
Only if the DM put "entrails reading" on the player's character sheet.

"Eww, why did you throw chicken guts on my character sheet!?"

"I'm giving you bonuses. You just need to read the entrails correctly to get access to them."

jayem
2018-08-26, 05:21 PM
The players haven't done any whining. They aren't even aware of the problem. This is about the GM fixing his mistake.
Silly thought, if the GM needs to fix his mistake. Can the informant in universe? Is he aware that the party are running asking questions and decidedly not camping out in the brothel. Does he walk through the graveyard in the shadow of the ... and then think 'crap'.
(or failing that is there a hint you can drop to say this is the clue. Can someone else talk about the shadow of the castle and the kings of the past looking down on them)

Minty
2018-08-26, 05:22 PM
DM: there's a dragon in the mountains...
Player: cool. I slaughter my horse, and read its entails to divine the dragon's weaknesses.

But the PC doesn't have any abilities to read entrails. Further, the smell of horse blood should, logically, likely attract the attention of the Griffins in Griffin Canyon. So, by game physics, the player should see a plot (attacked by griffins) completely different from the plot that they were trying for (kill the dragon) emerge from their actions.

This scenario isn't equivalent. If the PC has no ability to read entrails, then the player knows this, and it's entirely their own fault if they try it anyway and fail at it.

Furthermore, if the players are aware of the existence of Griffin Canyon, then it's within reason for them to expect an encounter with Griffins. If the GM has not revealed that information, then it's entirely up to the GM whether that happens or not, because nothing actually exists in world until the players have been made aware of it. If something only exists in the GM's notes, it can be changed at any time without being a retcon.

In the OP's scenario, the players do not have the same information, because the clue is ambiguous. The only thing keeping their solution from being the correct one is the GM's stubbornness in sticking to his notes instead of adapting on the fly.

Obviously, established reality should trump player agency - players can only do the things their characters are capable of - but in the OP's scenario, the information that will be changed has not been established in game, and therefore the GM is free to change it.

Minty
2018-08-26, 05:27 PM
I must have missed the part of the post where the DM made a mistake. It looks to me like the players made the mistake.

The GM's mistake was to make the payoff of the plot the players were following hinge on their correctly solving a badly written riddle. It's not a mistake on the players' part if the riddle is ambiguous. It wouldn't be a mistake on the GM's part if the riddle was intended to be ambiguous, and misleading the players was an acceptable outcome, but the existence of this thread suggests otherwise.

Insisting there can only be one solution, and the NPC must be at the brothel even though there is nothing in game to definitively establish his presence there, is just inflexible GMing and a brittle game.

Keltest
2018-08-26, 05:34 PM
The GM's mistake was to make the payoff of the plot the players were following hinge on their correctly solving a badly written riddle. It's not a mistake on the players' part if the riddle is ambiguous. It wouldn't be a mistake on the GM's part if the riddle was intended to be ambiguous, and misleading the players was an acceptable outcome, but the existence of this thread suggests otherwise.

Insisting there can only be one solution, and the NPC must be at the brothel even though there is nothing in game to definitively establish his presence there, is just inflexible GMing and a brittle game.

In fairness, dungeons and labyrinths are hard to make, especially on the fly. I can totally understand why somebody would want to redirect their players from going into one that they had not already prepared in advance.

Rynjin
2018-08-26, 05:36 PM
Miscommunications are frequent. Structuring a campaign to survive those instances is sound design.

This. Part of being a GM is rolling with the punches. It's obvious, OP, that you do not like the solution of "the informant dies and my plot is derailed", else-wise you wouldn't have posted this threa din the first place; you just would have done it.

Taking the solution that makes you happy and does not have any effect whatsoever on the players is a net good thing. Everybody is happy.


The players made a decision for their characters based on available in-universe information. That's exactly what player agency is. If you change what's going to happen in-universe based on that, its a clear cut case of removal of player agency. Removal of player agency doesn't just mean changing things in-universe to a players detriment. Or doing it because of decisions made on hard to piece together or indecipherable or hard to understand in-universe clues.

The answer to this is:


Illusionism is ok when the players don't notice?

But without the question mark.

Player agency is important, as the ability to make your own choices is a fundamental cool thing about TRPGs.

But TRPGs are still games, and in any game, any kind of RPG, video, board, or tabletop, the ILLUSION of choice is just as important as the actuality of it.

People just want to have a good time when playing a game. That's really what any RPG session boils down to, 5-6 people (including the GM) having fun together. Sometimes as a GM the most fun thing is letting players do what they want and acting out the consequences (a player in the game I ran Friday killed some dudes last session, got arrested, and due to the services of a really good lawyer and his excruciatingly low Int score as a mitigating circumstance got sentenced to 6 months hard labor in the salt mines). Everybody had fun.

Sometimes the most fun thing is letting the players FEEL like they're in control when really you are at every step. IME people don't really like sandbox games. They like a game where they can have just enough guidance to get them from point A to B to C while still feeling like it was their own logical choices that got them there.

In this case, the PCs were given a riddle to solve. They did not pick an obviously wrong answer; it makes a ton of sense (more than the actual answer IMO). So you're left with two options:

A.) Make the PCs feel stupid for missing the solution to an "obvious" riddle and taking a failure which will, make no mistake, ironically make them feel like you railroaded them into failing this quest. They have no fun. You have no fun. route: bad end.

B.) Take their logical answer, spend the 5-ish minutes it takes to replan whatever encounter you wanted to have wherever they were first going, and make the PCs feel clever for correctly guessing your riddle, and you get to continue with the plot you had originally planned to take place. The players are happy, you're happy, everyone wins.\

I know which one i'd prefer. On any side of the GM screen.

Minty
2018-08-26, 05:43 PM
In fairness, dungeons and labyrinths are hard to make, especially on the fly. I can totally understand why somebody would want to redirect their players from going into one that they had not already prepared in advance.

Although, if the only thing that happens in the crypts is the players finding and meeting the informant, then they don't need much planning. They don't need to be a dungeon crawl, or even have a defined layout.

Knaight
2018-08-26, 05:44 PM
Insisting there can only be one solution, and the NPC must be at the brothel even though there is nothing in game to definitively establish his presence there, is just inflexible GMing and a brittle game.

Similarly if the game can't handle them going to the wrong place, the informant getting killed, and moving from there it's similarly brittle.

Minty
2018-08-26, 05:55 PM
Similarly if the game can't handle them going to the wrong place, the informant getting killed, and moving from there it's similarly brittle.

I think if you're going to do that, you need either a better riddle, or in-character acknowledgement of the badness of the riddle. The players shouldn't fail on an ambiguous puzzle unless it's meant to be ambiguous and clear to the players that it was the NPC that screwed up and not them.

Although, it's not clear to me why the informant has to be killed anyway. Maybe he escapes unharmed, realises riddles are dumb, and finds a better way to contact the PCs the next day.

Bohandas
2018-08-26, 06:08 PM
What if there's a secret entrance to the brothel through the catacombs? Or they come across a knockoff of the guy from the cask of amontillado trapped in the walls and he gets them to come to the brothel with him.

Knaight
2018-08-26, 06:14 PM
I think if you're going to do that, you need either a better riddle, or in-character acknowledgement of the badness of the riddle. The players shouldn't fail on an ambiguous puzzle unless it's meant to be ambiguous and clear to the players that it was the NPC that screwed up and not them.

I'm not sure the acknowledgement needs to be in character at all, but there is a mechanism for that - the guard captain who couldn't crack the riddle in the first place is pretty likely to have opinions on the whole concept of riddle based information, particularly after the informant turns up dead.

Mr Beer
2018-08-26, 06:28 PM
they are now looking for a Priestess of Bruna from the temple to lead them through the labyrinthine catacombs.

Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

I haven't read the other replies to this thread but I have a general rule when DM-ing now, which is:

Any time the players use a reasonably intelligent plan to attempt to advance the plot, it works.

Why? Because it's more fun for everyone when your DM runs an adventure rather than an attempt to guess the DMs mind. I would let them find a priestess or at least someone at the temple to do the leading. I'd probably let the informant survive and maybe use them as cominc relief later by having them turn up looking dishevelled later to berate the party for 'abandoning him'.

Recent example, I was running Queen of Spiders. I tried to get the party to hook up with the Eilserv drow faction, so that the Elder Elemental God could give them some divine help to kill Lloth. Reason being, I feel like a demon lord should be nearly impossible to beat on their home plane.

Various shenanigans ensured but the players didn't want to ally with evil drow, even if they were the enemy of their enemy etc.

Later on, the party killed some monsters and got hold of a Mirror Of Opposition. One of the players was 'hey would this work on a demon lord?'. I jumped at this life-raft and said 'no reason why not'. Hence they beat Lloth with Lloth's Evil Twin, albino elf angel lady.

Samzat
2018-08-26, 06:44 PM
Sometimes the most fun thing is letting the players FEEL like they're in control when really you are at every step. IME people don't really like sandbox games. They like a game where they can have just enough guidance to get them from point A to B to C while still feeling like it was their own logical choices that got them there.

In this case, the PCs were given a riddle to solve. They did not pick an obviously wrong answer; it makes a ton of sense (more than the actual answer IMO). So you're left with two options:

A.) Make the PCs feel stupid for missing the solution to an "obvious" riddle and taking a failure which will, make no mistake, ironically make them feel like you railroaded them into failing this quest. They have no fun. You have no fun. route: bad end.

B.) Take their logical answer, spend the 5-ish minutes it takes to replan whatever encounter you wanted to have wherever they were first going, and make the PCs feel clever for correctly guessing your riddle, and you get to continue with the plot you had originally planned to take place. The players are happy, you're happy, everyone wins.\

I know which one i'd prefer. On any side of the GM screen.

Yeah I gotta say I really dont get the “but its not muh freedom if you dont cause the entire thing to fall flat” faction

Ironically, causing the entire plot to derail because the players misinterpreted the riddle feels even more like railroading, because it feels like you are forcing them to abide by your script or fail.it also feels like railroading if you just turn them around and say “nope you screwed up the riddle go to the brothel now”.

You could, however (since the OP indicated that the catacombs are expansive and the players shouldnt explore it yet) let them go a short way in before finding what they need, then bring them back there later when you are ready. Before they find their objective, find a way of showing them just how expansive and intriguing the catacombs are, to make the players excited to go there again and see the rest

MonkeySage
2018-08-26, 06:44 PM
Had I known this would lead to a huge debate...

I think I have my solution now, and it may be a combination of suggestions. The players came to an inaccurate, but not wholly incorrect conclusion. At some point, someone in the group did suggest that the second line of the riddle, following "under the shadow of the old kings" could be a brothel. Then later dismissed it because they found the remains of an old family crest in the catacombs earlier- specifically, that of the old royal family, who's family crest now serves as the mark of the castle guards. That is why they decided "catacombs is where we need to go".

So, there's still a brothel involved in this. Of all the solutions I've seen so far, the one I personally appreciated the most was that of a since abandoned cemetery, where the oldest kings were buried before the castle and city were built (making it even older than the already very old catacombs), which no longer serves in the capacity of a cemetery. That there's a brothel there, now.

I still do not like changing my setting through any means other than in-game events, be they caused by npcs or pcs- player choice matters, but the ingame reality of the setting does not change because of their whims. They can be wrong, or partially wrong. If the cemetery is not located in the city, however, it would be part of unplotted territory.

I also liked the solution where the Priestess simply says there are no kings casting shadows in the catacombs.

LordEntrails
2018-08-26, 07:34 PM
I would say that this is a perfect example of the GM needing an adventure to go a certain way being fraught with problems, personally. I have no problems with the PCs failing.
Agreed.


That's terrible advice. The players didn't take any action here. The DM used a plot device that they got from fiction (the riddle leading to the next part the story) that doesn't work in a non-liner environment (because most players aren't good at riddles and unless you construct your riddle very carefully it's going to be as open ended as saying "guess") and their quest progression was entirely dependent on one outcome. The players didn't fail, the DM failed DMing 101, never make the entire game hinge on the players doing what you tell them to do....
Absolutely.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-08-26, 07:44 PM
The GM's mistake was to make the payoff of the plot the players were following hinge on their correctly solving a badly written riddle. It's not a mistake on the players' part if the riddle is ambiguous. It wouldn't be a mistake on the GM's part if the riddle was intended to be ambiguous, and misleading the players was an acceptable outcome, but the existence of this thread suggests otherwise.

Insisting there can only be one solution, and the NPC must be at the brothel even though there is nothing in game to definitively establish his presence there, is just inflexible GMing and a brittle game.

This is how I see it. It's not a denial of agency because the players didn't have enough valid information to make a meaningful decision. They gave a correct (as in it validly answers the riddle to the best of their knowledge), but unforseen answer.

"You didn't read my mind" isn't a fair comeback, nor is it a fun one. It's a tactic used by evil riddlers to try to weasel out of valid answers.

denthor
2018-08-27, 10:47 AM
Can we see the riddle rather then just one line?

1st. Remember no matter how well you made things clear.


Players will alway focus on the wrong thing. You should be happy they stayed in the city.

If the villian is in section A they will intupert all the evidence to that he is in section Zz -25 since A is just 756 miles to the right of it.

If the riddle had no sex or clear indication of female involvement.

MonkeySage
2018-08-27, 11:38 AM
Think it went "Under shadow of the old King's abode, where guests may seek friendly company".

Old King's abode was meant to refer to the Azure Castle, originally built hundreds of years ago by the first kings of this land- no king resides there now, only a duchess.

I could have made the second line a little more explicit than "Friendly company"- it could refer to a bar, a brothel, a temple, etc. However, the first suggestion posed by my players after reading that line was "Sounds like a brothel".

denthor
2018-08-27, 12:48 PM
Think it went "Under shadow of the old King's abode, where guests may seek friendly company".

Old King's abode was meant to refer to the Azure Castle, originally built hundreds of years ago by the first kings of this land- no king resides there now, only a duchess.

I could have made the second line a little more explicit than "Friendly company"- it could refer to a bar, a brothel, a temple, etc. However, the first suggestion posed by my players after reading that line was "Sounds like a brothel".

Ok "abode" is very clear. Reside might have been more clear. .

Question does the newest king use the same castle? Is the king old?

Friendly company does not sound like a graveyard to me or crypts.

Nifft
2018-08-27, 02:04 PM
Friendly company does not sound like a graveyard to me or crypts.

Yeah that's a real head-scratcher.

Unless it's a burial ground for Quakers or something similarly unintuitive.

DeTess
2018-08-27, 02:36 PM
Yeah that's a real head-scratcher.

Unless it's a burial ground for Quakers or something similarly unintuitive.

I could see that being interpreted as 'buried heroes', but its a bit of a stretch.

MonkeySage
2018-08-27, 03:17 PM
Newest king doesn't even live in the same duchy- the Azure castle was actually used by the previous dynasty, now extinct. It's now used by a ducal cadet branch of the old royal family.

zlefin
2018-08-27, 04:09 PM
An informant sent a riddle to the local guard captain, in the hopes the captain would send someone to meet with them. The captain, stumped by the riddle, instead gave the message to the players. The riddle was meant to lead them to a brothel near the castle.

But they held more onto the "in the shadow of the old kings" line, which refers to the castle, and figured it meant a cemetery instead- where the "old kings" are interred. This city doesn't have an actual surface cemetery, though, and certainly not "in the shadow of the old kings". It has the crypts beneath the Temple of Bruna, and the catacombs which run under the city. I didn't speak up last sesh, because I figure this could be interesting to see where t hey're going with this, but they are now looking for a Priestess of Bruna from the temple to lead them through the labyrinthine catacombs.

Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

What should I do?


EDIT: I am, at this time, not prepared for them to explore the catacombs- they run for miles, deep under the city.

tell the players you screwed up and explain the situation to them; it happens, dm'ing is hard.
Then work with them on how to go forward from there.

Also, why is an informant sending messages in riddles? that sounds like a good way for people to ignore/not get your message. informants should be carefuly and discrete, but clear. There's no way to send a riddle which the people you're talkin gto will get, that others who might read the message wouldn't get, unless you have inside knowledge/close connection to those people.
i.e. unless the informant knows the guard captain very well (or has a secret code); anyone who intercepted the message would be just as likely to figure out the riddle.

HighWater
2018-08-28, 05:26 AM
i.e. unless the informant knows the guard captain very well (or has a secret code); anyone who intercepted the message would be just as likely to figure out the riddle.
This is important as a side-note.

Sane people only use riddles to communicate when their intended recipient, and only their intended recipient, has information that is the key to solving it.
(Of course, their intended recipient could still fail to understand a riddle keyed to them and someone who has successfully extracted the required information from the intended recipient could still solve it. It's just that random dude #15 or enemy #6 who just walked in the door really shouldn't be able to crack the case.) Try to use riddles when they make sense and finding additional clues is part of a natural exploration of the riddle.

@OP
It will happen more often than you'd like that players will come VERY close to the answer you (thought you) were broadcasting at max volume and then find something minor (or nonexistent) to convince them that something quite different is the correct answer. I had a puzzle a few sessions ago that involved mixing paints: a player objected to the correct mixture saying that "if you use these colors you'd usually get a dark brown, not black, unless they are of a particular quality", but in no way checked if the colors were of such quality. Even when the second clue (a letter-puzzle that contained explicit mixing instructions) suggested the very same answer he struggled to admit it might work. That black was also extremely thematic in this situation (clue#3) and that there seemed to be no other way of mixing anything close, was what eventually tipped the scales back to the "correct" solution. As the discussion progressed I was very glad I also had two fail-safes next to the 3-clue system: the owner of the room would eventually return, so the PCs could have just waited and negotiated, they also could've just tried stuff, with increasing 'painful failure' discouraging complete random guessing... I also would've accepted any other answer that would've fit clue #2 though (as that one was the hardest to bend to an otherwise plausible NPC solution).

On another instance, I dropped the first hint of the existence of a dungeon I intended them to go "somewhere in the future" to advance the main plot. It was only mentioned to make it resonate more strongly when I'd start dropping real hints (I had a few future quests in mind that would also have a callback to this place). They homed in on that dungeon immediately and without any instruction by any NPC... A bunch of sessions later, trapped in weird tunnels and knee-deep in slain undead, one of them asks the others: "Wait, why did we go here anyway?" and nobody could answer... Then they asked me and I answered "You had no particular reason to, but it suited me just fine so who am I to object?" :smallbiggrin:

Tanarii
2018-08-28, 10:00 AM
I also liked the solution where the Priestess simply says there are no kings casting shadows in the catacombs.
No reason not to, assuming he players probably mention it to the priestess.

If they mention the entire riddle, she could also point out that the catacombs are hardly a place to seek friendly company.

Make sure she does it in a tone that implies the PCs are kinda dim-witted. :smallamused:

Calthropstu
2018-08-28, 10:05 AM
No reason not to, assuming he players probably mention it to the priestess.

If they mention the entire riddle, she could also point out that the catacombs are hardly a place to seek friendly company.

Make sure she does it in a tone that implies the PCs are kinda dim-witted. :smallamused:

Yes. She could also mention the brothel or a tavern.

Tanarii
2018-08-28, 10:08 AM
Yes. She could also mention the brothel or a tavern.
The priestess who is an experts on the catacombs has been moonlighting?

Calthropstu
2018-08-28, 10:20 AM
The priestess who is an experts on the catacombs has been moonlighting?

For that, I refer you to my previous post of there being a secret entrance into the brothel once used by royalty.

SpoonR
2018-08-28, 03:25 PM
"It's a blatant clue, isn't it? Blatant! If you didn't get that you must have been playing like puddings!"
-- Red Dwarf :smallcool:

Ignore discussion of "player agency" and "illusionism". That's all white room theorycrafting. You should do what's most fun for everyone at the table.

1. Does the informant need to survive for the adventure to continue (eg "informant" is the princess they are supposed to be rescuing"? Y/N
2. Is there a way to get the info even if the informant dies (eg letter on the body)? Y/N
3. Are the players & GM okay with dropping or failing this adventure and switching to one centered around the catacombs? Y/N

If the informant needs to survive, then you want a way to direct the PCs back to the brothel. "That's no riddle, it's a space station!".

Very straightforward answer - it kinda isn't a riddle because it relies on info the PCs don't have. Either thieve's cant or the slang specific to one neighborhood of the city uses "Under shadow of the old King's abode" to refer to a neighborhood (which has at most 3 locations that could satisfy part 2 of the riddle". Real world equivalents include "Geordie" meaning a person from Newcastle or Cockney meaning "born within hearing distance of St Marys". Someone at the temple was born in that neighborhood so knows the reference, or someone in the temple is a ex-thief who "got religion", became a servant at the temple and is within earshot when the PCs talk to the priestess.
Alternately, the phrase comes from a poem or epic. The PCs never read it, but someone at the temple has.

Since they were trying to follow the riddle, and the informant needs to survive, the only penalty I'd give is that right before PCs reach the brothel, the assassins attack. But a fire breaks out slowing the assassins down. Then the players arrive, and have to deal with assassins and fire. (vs arriving before assassins and either making a clean getaway or running into a couple of the ass as the PCs leave the area.)

If you don't need the informant alive, they die, But they wrote down the info and the guards found it while examining the body and the body's room.

jayem
2018-08-28, 05:36 PM
Newest king doesn't even live in the same duchy- the Azure castle was actually used by the previous dynasty, now extinct. It's now used by a ducal cadet branch of the old royal family.

Have the players been told any of this? It does sound the sort of thing that would be much less prominent on paper than when it's literally towering (and casting a shadow) over you.

MonkeySage
2018-08-28, 06:56 PM
Actually, there was a bit of exposition provided by the guard captain: The Azure Guard (the castle guards of the city) uses the sigil of the old royal dynasty, which no longer exists. That royal family ruled from the Azure Castle, but since then the kingdom's capital, where the new dynasty is based, has been moved to a new location.

Pex
2018-08-28, 11:36 PM
Going to the catacombs the party has to fight tortles and a giant crab. They find coins hidden in the walls and a potion of Enlarge Person. At the end they are told the princess is in another castle.

Calthropstu
2018-08-29, 12:00 AM
Going to the catacombs the party has to fight tortles and a giant crab. They find coins hidden in the walls and a potion of Enlarge Person. At the end they are told the princess is in another castle.

This is gold.

Knaight
2018-08-29, 01:26 AM
Going to the catacombs the party has to fight tortles and a giant crab. They find coins hidden in the walls and a potion of Enlarge Person. At the end they are told the princess is in another castle.

I'll be honest. When I read this the crab threw me at first - specifically the way it wasn't a dire rat, and not a TMNT reference.

Mystral
2018-08-29, 02:26 AM
An informant sent a riddle to the local guard captain, in the hopes the captain would send someone to meet with them. The captain, stumped by the riddle, instead gave the message to the players. The riddle was meant to lead them to a brothel near the castle.

But they held more onto the "in the shadow of the old kings" line, which refers to the castle, and figured it meant a cemetery instead- where the "old kings" are interred. This city doesn't have an actual surface cemetery, though, and certainly not "in the shadow of the old kings". It has the crypts beneath the Temple of Bruna, and the catacombs which run under the city. I didn't speak up last sesh, because I figure this could be interesting to see where t hey're going with this, but they are now looking for a Priestess of Bruna from the temple to lead them through the labyrinthine catacombs.

Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

What should I do?


EDIT: I am, at this time, not prepared for them to explore the catacombs- they run for miles, deep under the city.

Have the priestess of Bruna inform them that royaltiy has their own mausoleum inside of the castle.

DeTess
2018-08-29, 03:01 AM
Have the priestess of Bruna inform them that royaltiy has their own mausoleum inside of the castle.

Right, and the castle is also a decent place to make new friends, so off to the castle they go :P.

Mystral
2018-08-29, 07:06 AM
Right, and the castle is also a decent place to make new friends, so off to the castle they go :P.

And where else to accompany their new friends than the nearby brothel after a hard day of running around in circles on a wild goose chase?

Thinker
2018-08-29, 08:20 AM
If it were me, I'd have the informant be murdered and their story never told - at least not in life. Now, the captain needs help getting to the bottom of this murder and the players can find some of the details the informant would have told them based on that. During that time, the thieves guild would progress its plans.

Tanarii
2018-08-29, 09:39 AM
If it were me, I'd have the informant be murdered and their story never told - at least not in life. Now, the captain needs help getting to the bottom of this murder and the players can find some of the details the informant would have told them based on that. During that time, the thieves guild would progress its plans.
Yeah, IMO definitely the best way to handle it. Consequences occur, and the world goes on without the PCs.

They shouldn't be central to some kind of story, where events bend around and ignore their actions, invalidating the decisions they make in the process.

It doesn't mean that the PCs can't get involved with interfering in the thieves guild plans at a later date though, when they've progressed further. (That was an error in my original post, where I said the tg should 'succeed'. That's by no means a natural consequence of this situation.)

Thinker
2018-08-29, 02:33 PM
Yeah, IMO definitely the best way to handle it. Consequences occur, and the world goes on without the PCs.

They shouldn't be central to some kind of story, where events bend around and ignore their actions, invalidating the decisions they make in the process.

It doesn't mean that the PCs can't get involved with interfering in the thieves guild plans at a later date though, when they've progressed further. (That was an error in my original post, where I said the tg should 'succeed'. That's by no means a natural consequence of this situation.)

Yeah. Half the fun of being the GM is playing out the consequences of the party's successes and failures.

icefractal
2018-08-29, 06:25 PM
Yeah, IMO definitely the best way to handle it. Consequences occur, and the world goes on without the PCs.Realistically yes, but realistically the informant shouldn't have used a riddle in the first place, unless that riddle relied on specific shared knowledge between him and the captain. If the PCs were able to solve it with no inside knowledge, then so could the other thieves, making it pointless.

It's like if the PCs find a dying man with a map, he tells them "get there first ..." with his last breath, they follow it, and ... there's nothing there. The map was incorrect, the man had received it from a third party and never checked it himself, and whatever was supposed to be there was looted long ago if it even existed. Realistic? Yes. Satisfying? Probably not. People have a limited time to spend playing, it doesn't make sense to waste too much of it on dead ends.

Nifft
2018-08-29, 07:31 PM
Realistically yes, but realistically the informant shouldn't have used a riddle in the first place

Meh, these aren't highly trained Navy SEAL operatives.

These are former peasants who had beer for breakfast.

Keltest
2018-08-29, 08:01 PM
Meh, these aren't highly trained Navy SEAL operatives.

These are former peasants who had beer for breakfast.

Ok, but if he's a member of some clandestine organization, he should at least have a very basic understanding of how to communicate with people covertly and effectively.

Tanarii
2018-08-29, 09:10 PM
Realistic? Yes. Satisfying? Probably not. People have a limited time to spend playing, it doesn't make sense to waste too much of it on dead ends.Dunno about that. My players chase red herrings into dead ends all the time, and show all the signs of thoroughly enjoying the experience.

In this particular case, I'm sure if the OP/DM had had time to prep for the catacombs, or at least sufficiently to where he could wing it, they'd probably have a blast.

Hell from that perspective the best advice we can probably give is "go spend a few bucks on online adventures and hack content from it". I've done that more than a few times when players suddenly went off the rails so hard I had no idea what they were going to have to deal with.


Meh, these aren't highly trained Navy SEAL operatives.I always think of PCs past the lowest levels as seal squads. :smallamused: (I assume this comment was in regards to the guild though.)

Nifft
2018-08-30, 12:51 AM
Ok, but if he's a member of some clandestine organization, he should at least have a very basic understanding of how to communicate with people covertly and effectively. If he were well-trained, you'd be right. But maybe he was an idiot who joined because he wanted to do cool stuff like communicate using riddles, and he was not trained at all.

Then for the sake of realism he'd swiftly end up dead -- and that appears to be exactly what transpired, so verisimilitude is conserved.


I always think of PCs past the lowest levels as seal squads. :smallamused: (I assume this comment was in regards to the guild though.) Yeah I did mean the guy who dropped the riddle.

Regarding the PCs though: they may be a low-level SEAL squad, or they may be a thuggish gang of punk-rockers who just refuse to get off the dragon's lawn until the dragon comes over there and then they murder & rob him. I've seen way too many people try to act like they're playing the former while actually playing a lot more like the latter.

Thinker
2018-08-30, 09:43 AM
Realistically yes, but realistically the informant shouldn't have used a riddle in the first place, unless that riddle relied on specific shared knowledge between him and the captain. If the PCs were able to solve it with no inside knowledge, then so could the other thieves, making it pointless.
I agree that riddles are hard to use right. On the other hand, he could have thought he had a piece of shared information with the captain, but the captain is kind of slow and didn't get it. Either way, if you plan out for the party to find some piece of information and they don't find it, you should play through the consequences. It doesn't matter why they didn't get the information at that point. The riddle couldn't have been provided to the other thieves unless he had already shared it with them - it seemed like a one-time message.


It's like if the PCs find a dying man with a map, he tells them "get there first ..." with his last breath, they follow it, and ... there's nothing there. The map was incorrect, the man had received it from a third party and never checked it himself, and whatever was supposed to be there was looted long ago if it even existed. Realistic? Yes. Satisfying? Probably not. People have a limited time to spend playing, it doesn't make sense to waste too much of it on dead ends.
We're not talking about the PCs being provided wrong information. We're talking about the PCs not arriving on the scene to save the day at the right time because they decided to do something different. It is not satisfying as a player if my actions do not have consequences. If the PCs don't show up and follow the message, the informant dies. That's what happened. Now the players should be trying to find out what's next for the thieves' guild and how they can catch up to their evil plan.

MonkeySage
2018-08-30, 12:26 PM
Nothing has happened yet. No one has died yet beyond the Guild's usual victims. They just haven't found the traitor. The reason the captain feels a sense of urgency is that his guards have been clashing with thieves, and one of them let loose that they were looking for a traitor. They could find the traitor, if the players don't act fast, but the players still have time.

As for the use of a riddle: I'm a bad writer. I can justify this by saying that the traitor is an inexperienced level 1 rogue. The whole party is level 1 at this time.

Thinker
2018-08-30, 04:36 PM
Nothing has happened yet. No one has died yet beyond the Guild's usual victims. They just haven't found the traitor. The reason the captain feels a sense of urgency is that his guards have been clashing with thieves, and one of them let loose that they were looking for a traitor. They could find the traitor, if the players don't act fast, but the players still have time.

As for the use of a riddle: I'm a bad writer. I can justify this by saying that the traitor is an inexperienced level 1 rogue. The whole party is level 1 at this time.

Don't sweat the riddle. I'm bad at making them, too. But, it happened.

Just make sure that whatever consequences you do set up are commensurate with the stakes you have established.

Psyren
2018-08-31, 10:29 AM
What system/level of magic? This is precisely the kind of situation divinations are meant for.

As for what you do with the players - well, nothing. They went the wrong way. Make it abundantly clear that there is nothing interesting in the cemetery. I would probably not outright murder whoever they're meant to find though unless they screw up again or a couple more times.

Bohandas
2018-08-31, 10:41 AM
I still say to have a secret entrance to the brothel from the catacombs. It's the kind of place that would plaudibly have a secret entrance and more importantly it makes them right without actually changing what the solution is

Calthropstu
2018-08-31, 01:24 PM
I still say to have a secret entrance to the brothel from the catacombs. It's the kind of place that would plaudibly have a secret entrance and more importantly it makes them right without actually changing what the solution is

I suggested that a while back. It could also lead to the palace because kings and princes visit brothels and don't want it known.

Marcotix
2018-08-31, 09:18 PM
Have them find the informant dead in the catacombs, his boddy hidden there. However, make sure there is a thread to follow from there. For example, maybe he hid a message in his boot before they got him. Maybe there is a trail that the party can track from there. Maybe his killers are still nearby and can be captured. If the party has access to abilities that allow them to speak with dead or resurrect, then that might work

Edit: added some examples

Edit again: In addition, this would convey the bonus of having consequences, but not causing the entire thing to fall apart, because now the guy is dead, and thus cant be relied upon for help in the future

The informant could still be cooling in his house even, and the reward the PC's would have gotten from the catacombs would instead have to go to the cleric for some magic that will help (Speak with Dead on steroids).

Marcotix
2018-08-31, 09:36 PM
An informant sent a riddle to the local guard captain, in the hopes the captain would send someone to meet with them. The captain, stumped by the riddle, instead gave the message to the players. The riddle was meant to lead them to a brothel near the castle.

But they held more onto the "in the shadow of the old kings" line, which refers to the castle, and figured it meant a cemetery instead- where the "old kings" are interred. This city doesn't have an actual surface cemetery, though, and certainly not "in the shadow of the old kings". It has the crypts beneath the Temple of Bruna, and the catacombs which run under the city. I didn't speak up last sesh, because I figure this could be interesting to see where t hey're going with this, but they are now looking for a Priestess of Bruna from the temple to lead them through the labyrinthine catacombs.

Trouble is, the informant is at the brothel, and their life is currently in danger because they defected from a murderous thieves guild.

What should I do?


EDIT: I am, at this time, not prepared for them to explore the catacombs- they run for miles, deep under the city.

Do the PC's know this guys life is on the line? If so, have them waste precious hours hunting down this Priestess only for her to say -

"You know, I could use some adventurers to go through the catacombs with me -I have to do the once a decade cleansing ritual or zombies and stuff. I also seek guidance from my predispose and would wish to speak with them. It will take (insert however long you would expect it to take)"

The PC's would be all - "It doesn't make any sense for it to be the catacombs, Bobby Blabs would be dead by then..!"

SO they think some more and hopefully come up with the right answer. Toss in a few hints maybe. Depending on how seedy the town is, maybe one of the bad guys is doing his pre-murder prayers?

The PC's then have to trail the bad guy get to get to Bobby Blabs. Or they have to rush over there. Or its already too late. :( But hey maybe the Priestess can speak w/ dead! (Which she will, in exchange for help plunging the depths!

Marcotix
2018-08-31, 09:44 PM
Yeah I gotta say I really dont get the “but its not muh freedom if you dont cause the entire thing to fall flat” faction

Ironically, causing the entire plot to derail because the players misinterpreted the riddle feels even more like railroading, because it feels like you are forcing them to abide by your script or fail.it also feels like railroading if you just turn them around and say “nope you screwed up the riddle go to the brothel now”.



Well put! I'll add to that adding in the "failure" is OK too, it depends on whether the riddle was too hard/ not enough info or if it was actually pretty obvious - Did we get the full riddle?

If you look at it honestly,and it was not a good riddle, then low ball the consequences, or better just make what they came up with the answer. No one knows = no one cares.
If it was an very getable riddle then make it obvious they failed, make it an adventure in and of itself to get the info.

What if- while they are in the catacombs they see the bad guy ditching the body. Bobby Blabs is super dead- the bad guy's the only lead! (It really does make a lot of sense for the bad guy to dump the body there. Especially if the brothel is on the thieves guild take)

Chase through the undead invested corridors of the ancient catacombs!

Metahuman1
2018-09-02, 03:45 AM
Never give PC's Riddles. Far too few of them are any good at it and it just makes a mess.


Beyond that, have him waiting at the temple when they come out, chastise them verbally a bit for making a mess of it, and then tell them what's up.

Maybe let them find a random necromancer raising zombies of old knights or something, so they can get a fight, some XP and a spot of loot in before this so it doesn't feel like a total wash and wasn't a waste of a lot of set up work.

Bohandas
2018-09-02, 10:06 AM
Never give PC's Riddles. Far too few of them are any good at it and it just makes a mess.

Or if you do, let them solve it with an Int/Wis check

Metahuman1
2018-09-02, 10:11 PM
Or if you do, let them solve it with an Int/Wis check

If you do this, make it like a DC 5 check. Seriously a +4 modifier is suppose to be the smartest human that's ever lived, if not smarter. A +3 modifier is suppose to be at the level of some of the greatest minds in history. +2 should be some of the top experts in any given field today.

These sorts of people should NOT be getting stumped but exceedingly rarely, if at all.

Deophaun
2018-09-02, 11:58 PM
If you do this, make it like a DC 5 check. Seriously a +4 modifier is suppose to be the smartest human that's ever lived, if not smarter. A +3 modifier is suppose to be at the level of some of the greatest minds in history. +2 should be some of the top experts in any given field today.

These sorts of people should NOT be getting stumped but exceedingly rarely, if at all.
You can Take 10 on Ability Checks. That means DC 14.

Bohandas
2018-09-03, 12:18 AM
If you do this, make it like a DC 5 check. Seriously a +4 modifier is suppose to be the smartest human that's ever lived, if not smarter.

More like 3 in every 10000. Using dice roll probabilities and the sample town on page 139 of the DMG, and assuming that only NPCs with PC classes or more than one level get ability scores that aren't straight 10s, we find that about 7% of people will have generated ability scores and the chance of rolling an 18 is 1 in 216. 7% divided by 216 is about 0.0324%, or about 3 in every 10000

EDIT:
If we change it to assuming that only characters with multiple levels AND PC classes get rolled scores it becomes closer to 1 in 50000

Marcotix
2018-09-03, 01:26 AM
The OP had better come back and let us know what happened.