[5e] Newbie DM Questions about Information Given

I'm a newish DM who's run a few oneshots but recently started his first campaign, and I ended up with a couple things that came up in my first session and my planning for my second that I wasn't exactly sure what information to give my players. My current players are a lot more investigative than the ones I've had before, and I want to let them explore a bit without outright giving away answers but also without being misleading.

1) During my first session, the players met a dwarf merchant on the road whose cart had been attacked and broken by a beast, and gave a poor description of the beast. My players wanted to roll a Nature check to see if they could get more information about the beast, and with a roll of 16, I gave them more information without telling them exactly what it was, in part because the dwarf describing the beast didn't have much knowledge of what it was. (It was an Auroch). How much should the quality of the NPC's description weigh into the information gained from a nature roll?

2) My players stumbled across a clearing where a Green Hag and some Pixies had been the previous day, and my party's Warlock cast detect magic. I described the magic residue he found as being arcane magic, but I'm not entirely sure how to determine which type of magic to tell the party when they cast detect magic on an area. Is there a helpful summary somewhere of the different possible results of a detect magic ritual and how to easily distinguish what information I should give my players?

3) With the point our first session ended, our party is about to stumble onto a battle-scene where the battle has already ended several days ago, and one side in the battle had ogre zombies and elf zombies, among other things. When my party inspects the battle scene, should they be able to tell that these had been zombies, or should they simply see ogre corpses and elf corpses?

theelkspeaks said:

How much should the quality of the NPC's description weigh into the information gained from a nature roll?

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That is entirely up to you. How well is the NPC able to describe the creature, and is that enough for the players to know what creature he is talking about?

theelkspeaks said:

Is there a helpful summary somewhere of the different possible results of a detect magic ritual and how to easily distinguish what information I should give my players?

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Depending on how long the players study the area, I would start by telling them the school of magic, and the level of the spell used.

theelkspeaks said:

When my party inspects the battle scene, should they be able to tell that these had been zombies, or should they simply see ogre corpses and elf corpses?

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I don't think zombies look any different from corpses. They are walking corpses after all.

theelkspeaks said:

1) During my first session, the players met a dwarf merchant on the road whose cart had been attacked and broken by a beast, and gave a poor description of the beast. My players wanted to roll a Nature check to see if they could get more information about the beast, and with a roll of 16, I gave them more information without telling them exactly what it was, in part because the dwarf describing the beast didn't have much knowledge of what it was. (It was an Auroch). How much should the quality of the NPC's description weigh into the information gained from a nature roll?

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"Knowledge checks" are a nebulous area of the game that DMs handle in a variety of ways. IME players often lean on them as a crutch to passively gain as much info as possible with minimal investment. It's up to the DM to help guide players away from that habit.

In this case, I would have the dwarven merchant mention glimpsing a fearsome creature that reminded him a bit of the guttar (cave oxen) his brother used for an Underdark prospecting venture. Then, when a player says "I want to make a Nature check to learn more about this mystery monster", I'd respond with "ok, where/how/from whom did your PC pick up his/her knowledge of beasts?" or possibly "are you examining a particular part of the scene or trying to recall something specific?"

If it really was essential that I not give away "auroch" (and to me that doesn't seem like a big deal to just let the players know – but I don't know your whole story), I'd probably mention cloven hoof tracks of a very large four-legged animal. Then have fun seeding false rumors (e.g. a gorgon!) that the PCs can rule out with some investigative footwork.

2) My players stumbled across a clearing where a Green Hag and some Pixies had been the previous day, and my party's Warlock cast detect magic. I described the magic residue he found as being arcane magic, but I'm not entirely sure how to determine which type of magic to tell the party when they cast detect magic on an area. Is there a helpful summary somewhere of the different possible results of a detect magic ritual and how to easily distinguish what information I should give my players?

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While I often use detect magic in homebrew ways (e.g. to detect "elven magic"), RAW is that detect magic determines which school of magic is in effect on a creature or object. The link describes each school of magic.

Magical auras, in my game, appear as a faint shimmering in the air around something... with coloration according to origin. For example fiendish magic is red, black light, or shadowy flame; whereas fey magic is verdant or like moon through the leaves; and "general" arcane magic is vaguely bluish to violet.

I describe the school as a felt sense the caster receives. So, an abjuration spell on a chest might feel like hairs rising on the back of one's neck, a hypervigilance, and a feeling of compression over the chest. I also flat-out say "abjuration magic" when relaying this.

3) With the point our first session ended, our party is about to stumble onto a battle-scene where the battle has already ended several days ago, and one side in the battle had ogre zombies and elf zombies, among other things. When my party inspects the battle scene, should they be able to tell that these had been zombies, or should they simply see ogre corpses and elf corpses?

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Is it critical for the adventure to progress that the players learn that one side had zombies? If "yes", then simply tell them in your initial scene description OR when a player first shows interest in examining a corpse (no roll necessary). If "no", you might tie that deduction (i.e. "hey, these corpses look too old and are all desiccated and warped") to an Investigation or Medicine check (used forensically).

It should be pretty easy for anyone who knows what to look for to tell the difference between a corpse of someone that's been killed in battle and a zombie that's been destroyed in combat. The lack of bleeding from any fresh wounds on the zombie is just one thing that would be noticeable.

I’d say that it’s be quite easy to spot the zombies as their bodies would be much further along in decomposition than the other corpses on the battlefield. You could simply describe the dead bodies and leave it up to them to work it out. If they feel rewarded for investigation then by all means ask for a check roll, but I’d personally set the DC at 5. Anyone proficient in nature in the party I would auto succeed and tell them directly that their character notices the disparity without making a check.

On the Detect Magic front... [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] is right that the standard results of the spell are to give the player the school of magic. Which is a perfectly resonable way to play it.

For me personally... I don't give that result when someone casts Detect Magic for a number of reasons. First, because I find it to be a waste of game time for me to have to pull out the Player's Handbook to look up the school in the spell section every time it occurs. Second, because many situations (like your hag/pixie thing) have no obvious spell equivalency, so there's nothing to "look up" anyway, so what kind of school of magic are you going to just make up for it?

And most importantly, third... I find the schools of magic to be one of the least useful bits of information to give a player. It means almost nothing. Most players have never concerned themselves to learn what the eight schools are, even more probably couldn't name what spells go into what schools anyway, and the effects you can find in each school are so varied (between positive and negative for instance) that knowing the school gives you no meaningful information to use.

For instance, a treasure chest has detect magic cast on it. It radiates Abjuration. What does that tell us? It could mean it could have Arcane Lock on it (which basically only means its just going to be much harder to pick), or it could have a Glyph of Warding on it (which means the glyph will explode when you try and pick it). The casting of the detection spell literally does not give you any information or clue as to what you should do with this chest that wouldn't have done otherwise had you not cast it.

Now yes... some DMs might give additional information like saying the Glyphed chest radiated a stronger Abjuration (since its a 3rd level spell) compared to the Arcane Locked chest (which is only 1st). But again, you're asking your players to not only remember which spells are in which school, but then also the levels of these spells and then try and divine what the DM is implying by his use of different adjectives they're using to describe the school. To me... the whole enterprise is a whole lot of nothing. Especially for needing to waste a 1st level spell to cast Detect Magic in the first place.

So for me... I just use descriptions of the types of magic, the essences of magic, the story of the magic they find. I don't need to say precisely what it is... but if they're going to spend a 1st level spell to find it out, there is no harm to give them a pretty solid idea of what they find. Because even if they know what the magic is... they still have to deal with it.

So with regards to your example... I personally would tell the player they get a sense of very strong and potentially malevolent Fey essence. Because why not? Why not let them know that there's some nasty fey in the area? Because at the end of the day its going to generate action on the part of the players-- they will either become intrigued and go searching for the fey (which is great, new adventure!) or they will high-tail it out of there (which tells you as a DM that they aren't interested in that kind of adventure.) As opposed to just saying "You get a sense of Enchantment in the area", which can mean practically anything and the Warlock will have gained no information to act on.

I always default to the idea that more information for the players is better than less. Because then they can make actual choices and decisions, rather than just blindly go forward, stumbling into anything or everything.

Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.

theelkspeaks said:

I'm a newish DM who's run a few oneshots but recently started his first campaign, and I ended up with a couple things that came up in my first session and my planning for my second that I wasn't exactly sure what information to give my players. My current players are a lot more investigative than the ones I've had before, and I want to let them explore a bit without outright giving away answers but also without being misleading.

1) During my first session, the players met a dwarf merchant on the road whose cart had been attacked and broken by a beast, and gave a poor description of the beast. My players wanted to roll a Nature check to see if they could get more information about the beast, and with a roll of 16, I gave them more information without telling them exactly what it was, in part because the dwarf describing the beast didn't have much knowledge of what it was. (It was an Auroch). How much should the quality of the NPC's description weigh into the information gained from a nature roll?

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So, first, players describe what they want to do and making an ability check isn't something they should be asking for in my view. They should be describing a goal and approach for the character. In this case, it's about recalling lore about the beast (goal) by drawing upon the NPC's description and possibly the character's race, class, or background (approach). It sounds like you left the dwarf's description as vague or inaccurate which suggests the outcome of recalling lore may be uncertain at which point you (not the player) calls for an Intelligence (Nature) check. The difficulty of this effort is translated into a DC for the check. It sounds like you made the dwarf's description vague or inaccurate which reasonably translates into a higher DC, but you might mitigate that a bit given the character's race, class, or background. A character that has familiarity with orcs because his or her village was razed by one as a child, for example, might reasonably know a thing or two about aurochs.

Once the roll is made, you have to give them some kind of result. Generally, I recommend that you give the player something useful if the check succeeds and something interesting if the check fails. "Useful" here might be up to and including "It's an auroch" plus some actionable information from the monster entry. "Interesting" might just be some information from the creature's stat block, such as its charge or gore attack being particularly deadly and worth avoiding, but perhaps you leave off the name of the beast or its association with orcs.

In general, I recommend being quite generous with information because the players need information in order to make informed decisions to move the adventure forward. Don't rely too much on keeping information hidden in order to increase difficulty in the challenge. There are other ways to keep difficulty high without shortchanging players on information that will keep things moving. Informed decisions are meaningful decisions - otherwise, they're just guesses and that doesn't require skill.

theelkspeaks said:

2) My players stumbled across a clearing where a Green Hag and some Pixies had been the previous day, and my party's Warlock cast detect magic. I described the magic residue he found as being arcane magic, but I'm not entirely sure how to determine which type of magic to tell the party when they cast detect magic on an area. Is there a helpful summary somewhere of the different possible results of a detect magic ritual and how to easily distinguish what information I should give my players?

Click to expand...

The different schools of magic are in the Wizard class section. If they are detecting a specific spell, you can look up the spell and it will tell you what school it is. If it's not a specific spell but rather an effect, you'll have to make a judgment call on what that may be based on what effect it is or perhaps even the nature of the monster in question. Hags and pixies are known to use magic that confounds and befuddles others, for example, so you might say that the PCs detect magic of the school of illusion.

theelkspeaks said:

3) With the point our first session ended, our party is about to stumble onto a battle-scene where the battle has already ended several days ago, and one side in the battle had ogre zombies and elf zombies, among other things. When my party inspects the battle scene, should they be able to tell that these had been zombies, or should they simply see ogre corpses and elf corpses?

Click to expand...

Again, this depends on how much information you want to give at the outset and what goal and approach the players use to make that determination. You might describe the environment and just say that they have the look of ambulatory dead that have been dispatched in the battle. Or you might simply describe them as corpses and then reveal, after some reasonable statement of goal and approach by the players and maybe an appropriate ability check, that they were zombies before being put down. In general, if you need the players to know something, then don't hide that information behind an ability check. Just put it out there. And, as I stated already, you'll want to be quite generous with information so the players can make informed decisions.

These are all good questions and you'll get into a particular groove with this given some experience with your group. Good luck!

Skill checks in general are left quite open to the DM. In general, it really depends if I want to reveal the information and if I think it makes sense. If I want to give people a hint of what's going on I'll have multiple clues and allow multiple ways of finding the information.

For the beast attack I'd probably call for multiple rolls. While the merchant didn't give them enough to go on a survival check to find tracks and a nature check to identify what caused the tracks. Under some circumstances I might ask for a perception check if I think the tracks would be particularly difficult to find or an investigation check if there were multiple tracks.

Unless there's an ongoing effect, or an effect that was quite recent, Detect Magic wouldn't tell anything. There could be some residual effects of magic depending on the type of hag. For example unusually wilted plants along certain plants if it were a night hag or flowers blooming out of season from the pixies. But I also reward the players so a Detect Magic might give advantage on an Arcana check for example.

For the zombies, as others said it's a question of whether they notice the different rates of decay and lack of blood spatter. That might require investigation or medicine checks.

I tend to be fairly liberal in what skills will be useful and try to switch things up on a regular basis so that it's not just that one guy with a super-high ___ skill doing all the checks. I even keep a list of skills (categorized by ability) handy as a reference so I remember to switch it up because I have a bad tendency to just call for one or two skills.

The final thought on this is that I try to make sure I keep everyone engaged. If Sue is always the only one doing checks and other people are getting bored, it's time to switch it up. Remember - there's not really a wrong answer as long as people are engaged and having fun. Good luck!

+ on much of what was said above.

#1 thing to keep in mind: you're creating a story together. When in doubt, go with your descriptive, narrative powers and not a die roll. For example, with the zombies, use this as a chance to create an air of mystery with investigation:

You examine the carnage and notice the carrion birds are avoiding some of the corpses.

Player wants a closer look.

"You find an elven body, completely hacked up, arm chopped off, leg missing. His hair is patchy and mostly gone as if he'd aged decades and torn it out. There's no blood, just a vile ooze and horrific stench coming from the body." And you can keep going till players get it.

It's more fun when a player puzzles their way through such an encounter rather than resolving it with a simple die roll. And, mystery is fun. With Detect Magic, I'm going to have a lot more fun telling players "There's a latent aura of magic permeating the very air and ground, the likes of which you have never seen. It is alien to you, and you're sure no routine wizard weaved a spell here."

Most players are going to have a lot more fun with that than "It's 3rd level charm." And, in the above description, you've told them a lot. A monster caster and they'd best beware (assuming a hag is a dangerous foe to your characters).

In any case, sounds like you did the right thing: made a call, kept the game going, and kept it interesting.

toucanbuzz said:

+ on much of what was said above.

#1 thing to keep in mind: you're creating a story together. When in doubt, go with your descriptive, narrative powers and not a die roll. For example, with the zombies, use this as a chance to create an air of mystery with investigation:

You examine the carnage and notice the carrion birds are avoiding some of the corpses.

Player wants a closer look.

"You find an elven body, completely hacked up, arm chopped off, leg missing. His hair is patchy and mostly gone as if he'd aged decades and torn it out. There's no blood, just a vile ooze and horrific stench coming from the body." And you can keep going till players get it.

It's more fun when a player puzzles their way through such an encounter rather than resolving it with a simple die roll. And, mystery is fun. With Detect Magic, I'm going to have a lot more fun telling players "There's a latent aura of magic permeating the very air and ground, the likes of which you have never seen. It is alien to you, and you're sure no routine wizard weaved a spell here."

Most players are going to have a lot more fun with that than "It's 3rd level charm." And, in the above description, you've told them a lot. A monster caster and they'd best beware (assuming a hag is a dangerous foe to your characters).

In any case, sounds like you did the right thing: made a call, kept the game going, and kept it interesting.

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I would add that in my view the DM needs to be very careful about making statements about how a character thinks or feels about something. The DM's role is to describe the environment and narrate the results of the adventurers' actions; however, this also has to jive with the player's role which is to determine what the character does, says, or thinks. So the DM needs to walk that fine line by stating the facts of the environment or the result of the action taken, but not establish anything other than that.

An easy way I have found to stay on track is to try to avoid starting off descriptions with "You..." in addition to making sure the player has performed his or her role adequately by stating a clear and reasonably specific goal and approach. In doing so, the DM doesn't have to fill in any blanks on what the character does, says, or thinks and can simply state the result of the action from the perspective of the environment rather than from the character.

This may seem like a minor point, but it really changes the nature of the game in my view when the DM oversteps his or her role. It's one of those small things that has a big effect on the play experience over time.