Trouble PCs

[Razanir]

The scenario: They were sacrificed by orcs to a giant spider. In the cave, there's a giant spider web covering a pit with stairs going down. They all have amnesia.

What I hoped they would do: Oh look, stairs! Let's go down them!

What they did: Grab the spider's string, have the wilder hold the end then use Crystal Shard to mimic Spiderman's powers and get up to the pretty light (the orcs' campfire)

My solution: You climb up the rope and find a torch. There is another pretty light above you.

Repeat a few times

My new solution: You reach the cieling and are forced to go down the stairs.

Their reaction: Let's throw the (gnome) cleric into the pit to see how deep it his. The cleric wound up with negative hit points. After a rest and some healing, the game went on (mostly) like normal.

Was my reaction fair?

[HunterOfJello]

Fair? DMs don't have to be fair.

Are you worried that you were railroading? Yes, you were, but that isn't a big deal. Since the characters are in a weird situation while all having amnesia, i assume that this is some sort of first campaign session. The beginning of any campaign is supposed to be somewhat scripted and railroaded. That sets up a plot for the characters and the tone for the campaign. Once everyone is past the generally scripted event, you can give them a general objective and then let them run around willy nilly. Making them first be forced into befriending a CG Drider who tells them about an ancient and powerful artifact in the underdark that they must retrieve in order to thwart the evil objectives of the spider goddess isn't a big deal.

[Savannah]

It was railroad-y. Whether that's fair or not is up to you. However, what is unfair is to label them "trouble PCs" when they came up with a clever solution you hadn't anticipated. Sure, maybe there's no way for their idea to work with your adventure, but remember they aren't mind readers! They have no idea what they're "supposed" to do and did what they thought made sense (which is not at all unreasonable, by the way -- would you rather go down a dark, spider web-y staircase or to a light that might indicate people are there, if you've lost your memory?).

[NekoJoker]

I believe they acted in a pretty standard way, the poster above is right... Pretty light beats dark ominous stair any day of the week.

besides, they did not set anything on fire, or murdered innocents... or tryed to do nasty things to young barmaids...

I don't think you have troublesome PCs just slightly confused PCs. Have a few more sessions, have them explore what they can do, try and find their memories back... that sort of thing

and THEN when they go around town torching everything on their path, come back here and we will discuss how much of a problem they are and how to work it out... until then, just have fun and go with the flow, they¡ll fall in line eventually.

[Howler Dagger]

Trouble PCs? More like: CTAHPCs(cant take a hint pcs). It is unfair to lable the as trouble PCs, when I saw the thread title I assumed something much worse than a few PCs unknowingly refusing a railroad.