What to do when your PC's have just lost the plot

[Celebrim]

So, in general I feel I've been running a pretty successful campaign.

My only problem has been that frequently what I consider obvious investigative techniques are not at all obvious to the players. It's not so much that they miss clues - that's not unexpected - it's that when they have clues they never seem to know how to follow up on them.

This is now coming to something of a crisis. The players are stuck and I don't know how to nudge them gracefully.

Some examples:

a) For months now, the players have had a copy of a letter from the BBEG to an underling where he mentions one employee is unreliable and may need to be executed at some future point. He identifies this employee only by a rare trade that the employee has. The players have read the letter many times, but not only have never thought, "If this person could be found, he might be a reliable mole or informant within the BBEG's organization", but not even, "Maybe we should look for this guy because he might know something." Finding the guy is scarcely harder than going to any merchant or tradesman on the street and saying, "Where would I find a ______?", yet the players have never attempted this. The first NPC the players encountered in the city was a local guide that offered to take them anywhere they wanted, but they never utilized this resource and continually complain of their own lack of local knowledge. Similarly, they've been prone to say things like, "I wish I was a bard.", and not, "I wonder where I could hire a bard/sage/scholar/local guide."

b) The players managed to learn that the BBEG desired a very valuable item, and they have realized that getting the item before the BBEG would give them a big win in their quest to thwart the BBEG. At no point has it occurred to the party to ask anyone where they might find someone who knows something about items of that general class, or where they might buy items of that general class. Simply seeking out the leading merchant in items of the class desired by the BBEG would put them on the trail of some valuable clues. Such a leading merchant could be discovered as easily as asking an NPC, "Where could I buy a _____?"

c) The players at one point were told a story they immediately found fishy concerning the failing health of an NPC and a closed off building. But they've since forgotten the story, and never followed up on it.

d) The players have located a person who confessed to being close friends of a known underling of the BBEG, and who panicked when they discovered the PC's true identities yet they have also never attempted to investigate this person or their dwelling.

e) The players have repeated found that BBEG's minions use a special token to identify each other, and have acquired several of these tokens, but have never attempted to track down who is making the token nor used it to try and trick members of the BBEG's organization into revealing themselves. Simply asking, "Who makes ______?" could lead to valuable clues.

f) The players know that the BBEG was sitting close to them at a banquet, and that a certain scholar recognized the BBEG shortly before being murdered, but they've have never attempted to investigate the backgrounds of any of the likely suspects. For that matter, at the same party they were given clues as to what the personality and background of the BBEG would have to be - independently wealthy, highly intelligent but humble and unassuming, able to be away from town for long periods without raising questions, and not someone who is not recognized as a wizard by his peers. They in character even remarked on the humility of the BBEG during the party, and the same character said he knew no magic. Any casual investigation of the NPC's background should raise huge red flags in other ways as well. And keep in mind also that they have several samples of the BBEG's hand writing, but have never attempted to match it to any likely suspect. Even better, the NPC's real name appears on a list which is in the player's possession of people known to have interest in an item that they know the BBEG stole. Additionally, though they've forgotten this, the date on the list next to the name corresponds exactly to the time frame when a certain disaster they later had to stop began, proving the character was in the area at the time the disaster happened.

And this is just a sample of the more obvious things that have been dangling around for multiple sessions.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. My players are increasingly stuck and the excitement of my sessions is beginning to drain off. What would you do in this case?

 

[Derren]

What would you do in this case?

Nothing. When the players fail to stop the BBEG for whatever reason he moves his plot forward. Likewise the world is not static and stuff happens in reaction to the BBEG plot, side plots or predetermined events.
This of course only works with proactive players who do not sit around waiting for you to dangle a plot hook in front of their faces, a type of player which I sadly found out to be rather rare.

 

[innerdude]

Celebrim --

I like the overall tone of your campaign; it sounds very similar to the Pathfinder campaign I ran in 2011.

Like you, I was also trying to string along a "trail of breadcrumbs" to the BBEG's plot. Luckily my group had a couple of players that were VERY tuned in to the kinds of clues and intrigue I was trying to build, so for the most part it went seamlessly . . .

However, as you've described the situation, it sounds like your group is in need of some good, 'ol fashioned Deus Ex Machina. It's time for the serendipitous hand of the gods to come down out of the ether of space and plop an unmistakable plot hook into their lap.

One easy way to do this is to have a rival to the BBEG with a competing agenda straight-up go to the party and say, "Look, this guy's getting into my craw. Talk to Persons X and Y and let's figure out how to take them down." There's also the classic "NPC approaches PCs with a seemingly unrelated task, but in reality it's dead center to the real problem at hand."

The other way to do it is to get the party to focus on a place or an NPC to which they are sympathetic. For my group, one of their overriding motivations was to protect specific NPCs and their city. Maybe it's time for the BBEG to take a more active role in actively thwarting the players.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Anyway, don't be discouraged, I really really like the situations you've already described. You're a smart fellow, you'll come up with good stuff.

Also, [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION]'s suggestion isn't all that bad either---is it really so bad if the BBEG succeeds up to a point . . . and then the players have to deal with the fallout?

 

[Umbran]

Recognize that the players don't have your perspective, and may not be used to clues at one level of remove. It seems that while they may be able to follow a lead, what you're asking them to do is *develop* a lead, or *create* a new contact, which is not something they may have much experience with.

Some folks (like Derren, I think) will say, "if the player doesn't get it, too bad - the game is a test of player skill". That's fine, except that you have to remember that player skills are learned, not spontaneous generated from their value as people. If you want them to use a set of skills, you need to be prepared to teach them. Don't punish the players for not having skills that haven't been taught.

What to do? Here are some possibilities:

1) Remember that characters can be brighter than players - hubris aside, most of your players probably don't posses the 18 Intelligence their wizard might have, and the characters live in the world when the players do not. So, institute a "clue check" when players have missed something that the characters might get. Pick the characters with the highest Intelligence or Wisdom, set a DC, and allow them to roll.

2) It may be that they are mistaking your clues for flavor text. Take a cue from Gumshoe - the game steps away from the Gygaxian, "if you don't explicitly tell me you're checking the bedposts for hollows, you won't find the gemstones". Instead, if a character is in the right place, and has the right skill to use, they get the clue automatically, and they *know* it is a clue. So, when they get a clue, tell them they have a clue in hand! Once they know it is specifically a clue, they will likely know what to do with it.

2a) Alternatively, use the Three Clue Rule - if you expect players to act on a piece of information, present it several times, in different ways. When they hear the same name more than once in relation to the BBEG, they may get the hint.

3) If your game uses Action Points or something similar as a mechanic, institute a "you may spend an action point to get a clue".

 

[Penthau]

Maybe you are assuming that your players like investigative campaigns. It seems to me that they don't really have an aptitude and/or a desire. Maybe you should step back and think about what kind of players you have and what kind of campaign style might be more suitable. Maybe they just want the BBEG to be obvious so they can kick down his door and confront him.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

You might also try supplying some of the information in the OP to the players, or a portion of it, along with, maybe, "You guys have a bunch of clues that you could be following up on, which of these is the most interesting to you?"

 

[Nellisir]

A couple of thoughts:
a) My experience is that "investigating" in D&D is often frustrating and boring. That is not true for your games, of course, which are scintillating and brilliant, but the kneejerk reaction might still be there for your players. Make sure that when you do get them investigating, it's exciting and rewarding for -everyone- not just the clever player or the rogue. The barbarian ought to have fun too.
b) A variant on Michael Silverbane's suggestion: have them make a list of clues & "stuff" that they know. Watch as they do this, and it will be clear what they know and don't know, and what they think of different pieces of information. You could do this through an NPC.
c) Make the characters suggestions (or orders) through a mastermind NPC. You want them to be Sherlock Holmes? Introduce Mycroft to give them direction.
d) You can do nothing and allow the plot to advance, but this risks sidelining the players & characters, at which point...what's the point of playing the game?

e) Remember that your job is not to tell a story; it's to have fun and make sure the players have fun. Is there something else they'd rather do?

 

[Jhaelen]

Do your players keep a journal? If the don't it's quite likely they simply forget about all of these (potential) clues from one session to the next. Our group even keeps track of plot hooks in a separate list.
There's also a chance they aren't that much into investigation-style adventures - but that's something you'd probably know, right?
Derren, uncharacteristically, also has a good point. Sometimes it's better to move on and let the pcs know they missed an opportunity, e.g. they could stumble over the corpse of the underling you mentioned in a) or hear about his death from a second party. I've had good experience with introducing a 'rival party' of npcs that crosses the paths of the pcs from time to time and solve some of the things the players failed at. Competition can work wonders as an incentive to try harder.

 

[Celebrim]

Nothing. When the players fail to stop the BBEG for whatever reason he moves his plot forward. Likewise the world is not static and stuff happens in reaction to the BBEG plot, side plots or predetermined events.

I don't think I ever indicated that the world is static. If the players fail to stop the BBEG, his plot goes forward with all its consequences. NPCs will try and fail to stop the BBEG on their own, and various events will occur according to the logic of the setting.

But, at some point if I just let that happen it means the PCs are moved from protagonist status to observer status, and are left behind by the story to engage in comparatively meaningless tasks not involving saving the world.

This of course only works with proactive players who do not sit around waiting for you to dangle a plot hook in front of their faces, a type of player which I sadly found out to be rather rare.

That's the problem here. I try hard to utilize the three clue rule. At this point, despite missing a few clues, I think that the players have tons of options for tracking down the BBEG. If it was merely a matter of them being out of clues, I could use an event to dangle another clue in their faces... which I may have to do anyway. But the problem has not been the lack of information, but the lack of follow up. At this point, the players have been in my game for literally hundreds of hours. Yet they are still playing with very little finesse or comfort.

Early on I presented linear adventures in small worlds - in essence giving the players little or no choice and railroading them onto the plot. This was because I knew they were inexperienced and because there wasn't yet time for them to have accumulated information about the setting - I had to give them an initial set of three clues.

I then added the twist of having a linear path and a red herring (a dead end). At that level of complexity, they've never been able to go forward. They get stuck, unable to choose between the two approaches. Worse, they literally prefer to attempt 'brute force' solutions to any sort of branching problem. They persistently investigate all dungeons using the right hand rule. I've thought of metagaming that behavior, but they have a knack of getting into the dungeon from the most round about direction. They have a knack of picking the right door last. The closest I've ever come to a TPK is in a dungeon they early on realized that they could track the BBEG by following the path of the open doors (and disabled traps) he'd left behind him in his exploration. After having been very successful with that, they suddenly decided to open a door and walk into a telescoped death trap that practically had a neon sign on it. They've recently suggested the equivalent of searching the entire world systematically for a volcano that fits a description they've been given, despite being in a city famous for its knowledgeable scholars. Worse, they've suggested buying a map and searching 'all remote areas'. If presented with a list of suspects, they basically assault each suspect on the list until they find the one that seems both evil and capable of defending themselves. Because there are very few high level characters in my campaign world, this generally 'works' for detecting a foe - if they can fight back when a group of PC's rough them up, chances are they are indeed the bad guys. The are generally never able to understand why the clues pointed to this person. I of course could easily thwart this behavior and cause it to work against the players, but if I do so it would probably be campaign wrecking.

And the thing is, these are not unintelligent people. Some of them are downright brilliant. I'm at a loss to explain it, but it's getting frustrating. I feel reduced to putting '!' marks over the heads of quest givers and giving them a map with 'go here' marked with a big yellow target.

 

[Celebrim]

Maybe you are assuming that your players like investigative campaigns.

No, I at this point assume that they don't. But even in a non-investigation based campaign, there are clues that link locations and events together. These can be as direct as an NPC telling the players what to do. But at some level, no matter how direct it is, it's still a 'breadcrumb' that gets the PC's from one place to another in every adventure or story.

The problem I've having feels from my perspective less like the well known problem of the players not picking up the breadcrumbs, but having the breadcrumb and not doing anything with it. Letters from the BBEG to his minions don't have to be labeled 'clues' IMO, as they are probably too trope and trite methods of leaving clues as it is (why don't good minions just burn the stupid letters like they are supposed to?). I'm reduced to having my BBEG act like a stereotypical movie bad guy, making stupid mistakes and putting signs over his head saying, "Bad guy over here."

Nonetheless, I have told the players out of character that the letter mentioning the unreliable employee is an important clue and have encouraged them to read it. So far, no luck.

Maybe you should step back and think about what kind of players you have and what kind of campaign style might be more suitable. Maybe they just want the BBEG to be obvious so they can kick down his door and confront him.

Maybe. I honestly don't know what sort of players I have, but I know what sort of DM I am and there is a certain point where I will feel that I've dumbed this down to where I'm not going to enjoy it. My players aren't great Thespians, but there still has to be some RP in the game for my sake. My players aren't great tacticians, but there will still have to be some tactical problems presented the players for my sake (although I don't mind that their solution to most problems is Nelson's 'engage the enemy more closely'). My players aren't investigators, but I can't enjoy running a game where the gamist tropes are as blatant as World of Warcraft and the plot and party is on rails.

I guess at this point that I'm going to have to invent some more puzzle pieces and drop them in the players lap. But my problem is beginning to feel like, you can give players puzzle pieces, but you can't actually make them put them together. I could have NPCs put the puzzle pieces together, but that would risk deprotagonizing the players.