Help my players are smarter then me!!

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

There's a concept known as Schrödinger's Gun. It's kind of an amalgam of Chekov's Gun and Schrödinger's Cat.

The idea is that, until such time as you tell the players what happens, anything can be changed.

An example: In a Savage Worlds game I ran, I had a mysterious villain who was a dragon. The dragon was also an influential noble, whom the players met at a party. They immediately guessed that he was the dragon... so I changed it so that a different character, an artist I'd introduced earlier, was the dragon.

The players never knew--could never have had any way of knowing--what my original intent was. As far as they knew, the artist had always been the dragon, and they guessed wrong about the noble.

I've done things like that before too. It is strictly DM-fiat for him/her to change things that the players think they know into something they don't with none the wiser. Definitely makes things more interesting and gives the players a bit of a surprise when they "think" the villain is someone or something else.

 

[Corathon]

Put in "red herring" NPCs. If too many NPCs that you introduce ahead of time turn out to be villains, the PCs will supect your NPCs. If you introduce a lot of NPCs, most of whom are not villains, it may be harder for the PCs to be suspicous of the right one.

D'oh! RedTonic beat me to it! I should've read the whole thread before posting.

 

[GSHamster]

Consider playing it straight for a while, and not trying to fool your players.

Maybe you're using "secret" villains a bit too much if your players are always guessing the correct answer. Play it straight for a while, have the bad guys be obvious and don't try to throw "twists" at your players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sounds like you are maybe being too heavy handed with clues and probably should throw in more red herrings.

Try reading a bunch of murder mystery novels. That might help.

And like someone else said, you don't always have to surprise your players.

 

[S'mon]

There's a concept known as Schrödinger's Gun. It's kind of an amalgam of Chekov's Gun and Schrödinger's Cat.

The idea is that, until such time as you tell the players what happens, anything can be changed.

An example: In a Savage Worlds game I ran, I had a mysterious villain who was a dragon. The dragon was also an influential noble, whom the players met at a party. They immediately guessed that he was the dragon... so I changed it so that a different character, an artist I'd introduced earlier, was the dragon.

The players never knew--could never have had any way of knowing--what my original intent was. As far as they knew, the artist had always been the dragon, and they guessed wrong about the noble.

Given that this is an important plot point, you are negating player achievement here to preserve your plot/villain. As DM I would never do this. As a player if I discovered a DM had done this I'd walk.

 

[Agamon]

I go with the flow. The idea isn't to outsmart the players, it's to provide a fun game for everyone. If the players figure things out before they're supposed to, work with it. The most fun games, IMO, are the ones where the GM and players play off each other, each reacting to that the other does. That way, the players can influence the game and don't feel like you're trying to shoehorn them into your story, and you can get some great ideas from the things the players have their PCs do.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I go with the flow. The idea isn't to outsmart the players, it's to provide a fun game for everyone. If the players figure things out before they're supposed to, work with it. The most fun games, IMO, are the ones where the GM and players play off each other, each reacting to that the other does. That way, the players can influence the game and don't feel like you're trying to shoehorn them into your story, and you can get some great ideas from the things the players have their PCs do.

I have to totally agree with this post. My very best games have all come from playing off each other rather than shoe-horning. That's where you get the best dialogue and the best role playing in my opinion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Given that this is an important plot point, you are negating player achievement here to preserve your plot/villain. As DM I would never do this. As a player if I discovered a DM had done this I'd walk.

I agree. I also think players eventually pick up on this stuff

 

[Hand of Evil]

You know, it is sometimes the road travelled. So, what that the players know the plot, the bad guy...the question is how are they going to stop them! That is all that matters.

Reason for this, bad is powerful or more important...in the right or on has the law on their side. An example: The tax man, yep he is hated, yes he is evil (demanding more or taking payment in differnt ways) but what are you going to do about him?

 

[haakon1]

My answer is: have more than one villain.

In my campaign, there's a lot going on.
-- Foreign country that's at war
-- Bandit guild with its fingers in a lot pies
-- Other thieves who don't like the guild
-- Still other bandits
-- A goblin king
-- Another goblin army
-- An evil secret organization with several quite different leaders
-- An evil empire ruled by a demon king

And that's not even mentioning stuff further away (it's Greyhawk, so a sprawling, complicated setting)

What's fun is, all these NPC organizations are allying with or fighting with each other, and some (like the bandit guild) are kinda of playing all sides against each other.

So the PC's will solve one incident, and maybe even tie it back to whose behind it, but they've never quite get all of the puzzle solved. It's super fun when they discover a connection and want to unravel more. "Wait, the person making silver weapons at the secret mine is the same wizard who betrayed the party back at 1st level in the Caves of Chaos and slunk off with the bandits? Wait, is her silver mine the reason the werewolves were attacking the village in the first place? And now the Cleric of Asmodeus says the wizard was working for her? No way, has she been messing with us all along, did she have something to do with the bandits in the Caves of Chaos? Or is she lying to us now?"

Wheel within wheels, I believe Nitescreed called it, in describing Greyhawk's intricit fun.

I agree with Simon, BTW, on never changing who did what just to mess with the PC's. My campaign is too complicated for me to remember what's going on if I started doing that!