What do you do when players over-analyze random encounters?

[MonkeySage]

So, you need a bit of time to prepare for the players' arrival in plot destination, and you throw a random encounter at them to slow them down a bit, and net them a bit of exp so they're strong enough to deal.

You didn't put any thought into the encounter other than whether or not it would be a good fight. But the players see much more in that. They believe that you planned this carefully and that the encounter is absolutely part of some sort of side quest.

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

[Esprit15]

Ad lib and make something up. Segway toward plot. Run with it and see what happens. Random encounters can sometimes be extremely memorable. I've had party members get other factions involved in the plot because of random encounters, used them to introduce new characters in the story, or as ways of dragging the plot forward. Heck, I had one random encounter where I intended to follow it up with a planned encounter, and the dice rolled the encounter I had planned instead.

At the risk of revealing too much, what is the plot point you want to lead them to, and what is the random encounter that is distracting them.

[BWR]

I see two main approaches with two subsets each:

1. Roll with the flow
a) let them waste time on it, find out in play that there is nothing of interest in pursuing the RE any further, get back to the real story, possibly with consequences for wasting time
b) take them up on their delusion and make something real out of it

2. Tell them it is of no importance
a) Say straight up OOC that it was a meaningless RE, and can they please get back to the real story
b) railroad them: "you waste a lot of time checking X out before coming to the conclusion there is nothing more to find. you get back to your original quest"

[MonkeySage]

Basically, the plot of the story involves them learning the nature of the emperor's relationship to a conspiracy. But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

The conspiracy is simple: The Emperor is using a goblin horde, with the cooperation of the goblin leader, to scare neighboring kingdoms into vassalization. This way, he can impose imperial laws for his own purposes. The conspiracy is hidden deep, the general public doesn't know anything about the agreement.

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

[JAL_1138]

So, you need a bit of time to prepare for the players' arrival in plot destination, and you throw a random encounter at them to slow them down a bit, and net them a bit of exp so they're strong enough to deal.

You didn't put any thought into the encounter other than whether or not it would be a good fight. But the players see much more in that. They believe that you planned this carefully and that the encounter is absolutely part of some sort of side quest.

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

Run with it. I got my last campaign this way. I had a couple-three factions and a bunch of plot hooks and they skipped the lot of it to go looking for other members of a cult they uncovered (and wiped out) in a filler location I lifted from an Adventurers' League module. Granted, their logic was totally sound--if there were more cultists elsewhere, they could easily represent a bigger threat than the other factions, so I really couldn't blame them for latching onto it. Running with it worked out to be much easier to DM for me and much more engaging for them than what I had originally intended.

Then again, I don't work the story out very far in advance when starting a campaign. I loosely set up the region and set up factions with motivations, and see how they react to player actions as the game goes along, a session or two at a time. So I'm never out more than a couple sessions' prep and some time figuring out the major factions' motivations. And I could still have those factions move in the background as they would have without player involvement and affect the setting.

[MonkeySage]

The way I set up my own games, there are events that will take place whether or not the players do anything; it's what the players do that determine how the events play out, just like in our reality. So for instance, if there's some powerful empire swallowing kingdom after kingdom, and the players don't do anything, the empire will grow until it either rules the world, or burns out. If the players intervene, the empire might stop growing, and might even be defeated.

[Knaight]

I'd go with improvisation involving figuring it out. Yeah, it was a random encounter, but presumably the things involved did have lives they lived up until the point they died on the PCs blades. If the party looks into it, they might find something. Odds are it won't be of interest, but it will be there.

[Quertus]

Roll with it.

You had the party encounter a group of slavers. The party wants to know more.

There is more.

Flesh out the slavers. Where are they based, who else works there, who are their contacts. Heck, there's a whole campaign worth of potential fun here. And it's fun that the players obviously voted for. My first campaign was run off something I just included for flavor (the party completely ignored the "actual" adventure I had planned... and finally remembered, and asked about the original plot 2-3 sessions in).

Are they in any way connected to your main plot line? They don't have to be, but if they are, you could leave bread crumbs here. Remember the whole "at least 3 hints" thing.

However... Did the party leave any of the slavers alive? Could the party track them back to their base? Are the slavers famous enough / is the party good enough at gather information to find out about them? If none of the above are true, then this is pretty much a dead end.

[nedz]

I decide if I want to make more of it: is it interesting basically ?

If not I move on; and the players will, eventually, discard their conspiracy theory.

If I can engineer a sub-plot around this; then I might.

I guess it mainly depends whether I want to reinforce conspiracy theories or not - which is campaign dependant.

[kieza]

So, you need a bit of time to prepare for the players' arrival in plot destination, and you throw a random encounter at them to slow them down a bit, and net them a bit of exp so they're strong enough to deal.

You didn't put any thought into the encounter other than whether or not it would be a good fight. But the players see much more in that. They believe that you planned this carefully and that the encounter is absolutely part of some sort of side quest.

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

The first time it happened in one of my campaigns, I worked it into the ongoing plot and got the group back on track. The second time, I couldn't come up with a way to do that, so I just explained it was a random encounter.

The third time, I stopped using random encounters, because the table kept producing encounters that resembled part of the plot. Now, if I need an encounter to kill time, I design one that's more obviously self-contained.

[Thrudd]

So, you need a bit of time to prepare for the players' arrival in plot destination, and you throw a random encounter at them to slow them down a bit, and net them a bit of exp so they're strong enough to deal.

You didn't put any thought into the encounter other than whether or not it would be a good fight. But the players see much more in that. They believe that you planned this carefully and that the encounter is absolutely part of some sort of side quest.

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

Depends how they go about "looking for a story". If they continue on to their destination, and just start looking for evidence of frost giant involvement or ask about giants, nobody has much to say. But they do uncover the rumors you planned for them to find. Maybe towards the end of the original plot, you can reuse something involving frost giants for another plot, so it will turn out to be a bit of unplanned foreshadowing.

If you're determined to have them engage with the one particular plot, then just point them back in that direction no matter what they do or where they go. If they hunt down the Frost Giants in their lair instead of getting to the place you meant them to go, maybe a Giant has heard that the Goblins are working for someone, or they rescue a slave that heard the Giants discussing how the Goblins "sold out", or whatever.

I would avoid going OOC to tell them it was random and don't bother with it. There are plenty of ways to steer them back toward what you want, if you're determined to do so, without breaking immersion and wasting a potential future plot hook. You want to avoid encouraging players to think "here's the plot, get on the tracks, everything else is irrelevant". They will start using meta-game information more and more, deciding "this looks like a random encounter. let's not use too many resources on this, the DM won't let us die here." and "this looks like an important plot battle, we can go nova on this one." You want to encourage them to think like their characters, as though they are the characters. So encourage and allow them to pursue whatever they want to, follow whatever line of thinking occurs naturally, and let them find out information about the world and the plot through their characters.

[grimsly]

Basically, the plot of the story involves them learning the nature of the emperor's relationship to a conspiracy. But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

The conspiracy is simple: The Emperor is using a goblin horde, with the cooperation of the goblin leader, to scare neighboring kingdoms into vassalization. This way, he can impose imperial laws for his own purposes. The conspiracy is hidden deep, the general public doesn't know anything about the agreement.

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

Where are they trying to look for this supposed plot? Could they find a clue leading to the conspirator? Could the conspirator be moved there realistically? Improvisation is all well and good, but try a detour before going in a completely different direction.

[OldTrees1]

What would the players expect you would do?

Are they the kind of players that would expect you to inform them that this was not related to the campaign?
Are they the kind of players that would expect you to generate content towards whatever they seek to look at deeper?
YY: Generate content but with details that inform that this is an unrelated incident.
YN: Tell them OOC this was just a random encounter
NY: Generate content and let the players independently discover this is unrelated to the rest of the campaign
NN: Huh. They search and find nothing. Then they continue on with the campaign.


What would the players expect you would expect the players would expect you would do?

[Darth Ultron]

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

Well, this is exactly why Railroading is part of RPGs.

You could of course wimp out and cry some tears and between sobs tell your players about that happened. Assuming they are good people they will just hug you and agree to ignore the side trek and go back to the main adventure.

You could also let the ''players run the game''. Just run the side trek to a conclusion. It does push the main adventure back, but it's still all part of the game.

And there is no reason the side trek can't be part of the main plot. You just need to connect them.

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

This does not seem to be much of a ''side trek''. Even if the players go all crazy to stop the slavers, that is just an encounter or two. You can wrap it up quickly enough when they attack the main slave base. This is just a couple hours of game play.

And you can tie this in nicely. The slavers need ''more slaves''. Why? Because the goblins need more slaves for ''something big''. See how that leads back to the main plot...

[SethoMarkus]

The first thought that came to my mind was that the goblins are subcontracting. Sure, they have an agreement with the Emporer to harry neighboring lands, but that's a lot of work. Why not hire someone else to help? The goblin leader (or one of his subordinates) approached the frost giants with a deal: poach along this given road, get paid to do so, and even keep any slaves they acquire. Of course, being mercenaries, the giants don't really have any reason to stay loyal to the goblins, and zero reason to respect any treaty or agreement between the goblins and the Emporer...

[Coventry]

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

and

But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

Okay - so why not have one of the slaver's recent captives be someone important to that major conspirator? Rescuing that person and escorting that person back home will bring the PCs directly into contact with the conspirator, and a small amount of gold as a reward.

[Jay R]

Whatever you do, the next time it happens you need to do something else.

1. Invent something that fits their speculation.
2. Invent something that disproves their speculation. (On their next adventure, my players are going to see a long-lost carving that disproves their current red herring theory.)
3. Have the encounter react to their speculation. "Wait - you're fleeing the emperor's legions too? So are we!"
4. Throw in another random encounter. The PCs are starting to threaten the benevolent NPC who's trying to give them a clue? Gnolls appear and attack them all.

But keep changing it. You can't keep using the same technique, or the players will find a way to abuse it. I have a DM right now who invents some small hidden treasure if you roll a natural 20 on a search, and there's really nothing there. He thinks we don't know about it, but I search a lot more often now.

[Joe the Rat]

Encounters? Hell, my players latch on to random description details as being highly relevant. They decided to stop hunting for the source of evil permeating the woods to follow an ancient road because one time they found a burial mound of similar vintage a few hundred miles away.

So next week I had ancient ruins, and an unrelated land shark attack.

Sometimes I let them spin conspiracies about random events, and sometimes I take their crazy and run with it. What they come up with tells me a lot about what sort of action they want to engage with. Even if that specific encounter isn't important, I will put together something on that theme.

[Segev]

Basically, the plot of the story involves them learning the nature of the emperor's relationship to a conspiracy. But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

The conspiracy is simple: The Emperor is using a goblin horde, with the cooperation of the goblin leader, to scare neighboring kingdoms into vassalization. This way, he can impose imperial laws for his own purposes. The conspiracy is hidden deep, the general public doesn't know anything about the agreement.

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

An easy enough way to tie it in would be to have them find some NPCs who dwell in the kingdom they're currently in. Have those NPCs talk about how proud they are of their kingdom's independence, or something like that. Yeah, the slavers are a problem, but they're proud of their ability to handle it themselves, unlike those OTHER, weaker kingdoms who are turning to the Empire to protect themselves against mere goblin bandits.

If it becomes potentially relevant later, the goblin horde can have finally started threatening this kingdom, and have those same NPCs be more beaten-down and afraid. They never realized how deadly the goblins really were! The goblins on top of the slavers... maybe they just can't manage without the Empire's help, after all.

[Honest Tiefling]

Initially, I was going to say run with it, but I think you need to think of why your players might be doing this.

1) They think this is the plot. This is a problem, because in your player's minds they are following the plot. Winter hags are cool, this plot sounds awesome! Yeah! Let's go investigate! In this case, I would follow the advice of tying it to the main plot, because there's no reason to punish them for trying to cooperate with you.

2) They hate rails and are trying to break them. If you think they're doing it because they are trying to avoid the plot and explore shinies along the way to avoid the rails, either due to irritation in the past, or because they're being doofuses and not really thinking. This requires an OoC chat.

3) They hate the CURRENT rails and are trying to break them. It could very well be that the group is uninterested or feels ill-suited (characters aren't made that way, someone doesn't like the playstyle, meets infrequently, etc.) to a diplomatic style game, and are trying to lead it into a direction that would involve game play that they or others can enjoy. Much like above, an OoC chat is in order.

4) They believe their character would have very strong reasons to do it. I don't think many paladins are going to ignore winter hag slavers, especially given what hags tend to worship. In this case, I'd tie it back into the main plot with one of the suggestions above. No point in punishing a player trying to play their character. Consider throwing in personal hooks for each PC in the main plot if this is the case for one or more of your players, they'll probably appreciate it in the long run.

5) There is confusion about the type of game. Maybe they think it is a sandbox, so if they poke at something, it'll lead somewhere? Some DMs are great at this. I, personally, am quite terrible with it. If this wasn't what you intended, maybe an OoC chat about expectations is in order. And then tie it back in to get the characters back on track to what you DO have prepared.

6) They like investigating. As much as I love videogames, they just can't appeal to those who want to poke at things and formulate theories. (or well, most are bad at it.) Maybe they really like your world. In this case, they are not guilty of anything other then playing the dang game. I would just tie it back to the material you have prepared, as this is precisely what they want. Remember later on to sprinkle in some red herrings, so there's a challenge to the investigation.

[Red Fel]

So now not only are they not going to get to your plot destination and uncover those exciting twists you worked so hard on, but they're looking for a story you didn't even write.

What do you do?

As a lot of people have said: Roll with it. There is now a second story in the works, running in parallel to the first. What is it? It's a mystery! (Because I'm writing it as we go.)

Basically, the plot of the story involves them learning the nature of the emperor's relationship to a conspiracy. But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

*SNIP*

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

The way I set up my own games, there are events that will take place whether or not the players do anything; it's what the players do that determine how the events play out, just like in our reality. So for instance, if there's some powerful empire swallowing kingdom after kingdom, and the players don't do anything, the empire will grow until it either rules the world, or burns out. If the players intervene, the empire might stop growing, and might even be defeated.

Right. But both of these statements are irrelevant. Here's why.

Yes, there are events that will happen whether the players act or not. Yes, the major plot is happening at Plot Destination A.

But you know what? Unless your PCs live in a magical static world where nothing else happens except this one story, there is nothing stopping this RE from being the hint of an entirely separate story - or even a connection to the main story! You can come up with how the frost giants and winter hags are from a northern tribe that's been stirred up by this whole conspiracy - it in no way limits your current story, it doesn't need to be revealed right now, and when it is eventually revealed, the players will go, "Aha! That's why we fought them so early! Brilliant!"

I get that you've written your story. But that doesn't mean you can't add to it.

As a general rule, if your players fixate on a thing, tying that thing into your story doesn't cost you all that much. Coming up with a side plot for that thing doesn't cost you all that much, either (unless you need them to focus).

[Tanarii]

Basically, the plot of the story involves them learning the nature of the emperor's relationship to a conspiracy. But they won't learn anything until they actually reach plot destination A, where a major conspirator is holed up.

The conspiracy is simple: The Emperor is using a goblin horde, with the cooperation of the goblin leader, to scare neighboring kingdoms into vassalization. This way, he can impose imperial laws for his own purposes. The conspiracy is hidden deep, the general public doesn't know anything about the agreement.

Most recently, the party had a random encounter with three frost giants and a winter hag- slavers. They aren't even in imperial borders yet.

The way I set up my own games, there are events that will take place whether or not the players do anything; it's what the players do that determine how the events play out, just like in our reality. So for instance, if there's some powerful empire swallowing kingdom after kingdom, and the players don't do anything, the empire will grow until it either rules the world, or burns out. If the players intervene, the empire might stop growing, and might even be defeated.

Given your campaign style, this sounds like a situation to roll with it, but show them consequences. Eventually, they'll probably decide they need to do something about the Goblin Horde and/or the Emperor. Give them another chance later to uncover the conspiracy ... and find out they missed an earlier chance to nip it in the bud while it was small.

Or, y'know, just never let them find out they missed that chance. 'cause characters, or even players (ie meta-knowledge), don't always need to know the details of their missed opportunities and that the in-game world will move on without them. Just so long as they're generally aware of the concept.