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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hippokrene" data-source="post: 5215822" data-attributes="member: 91517">Greetings all!  I’m DMing a PbP game (The Scales of War – Rescue at Riverroar) on another forum and running into two big issues.  I’ve decided to post this here so none of my players see it and because a friend of mine has mentioned this site previously.  I’ve highlighted the important parts so you don’t have to read through all of this.  Issue 1: Player assumptions about the setting I’ve told the players that I’m using a pre-made adventure *but* I’ve altered the setting. I’ve encouraged them to roll knowledge checks when spotting monsters or interacting with others, but only one of my players does this.  Example 1: The players are convinced that ogres are dumb.  I show them a picture of an ogre that isn’t from the players handbook. It’s large, blue, and has horns and armor. I say that an ogre is a feared creature as they’re fallen celestial guardians. I’ve had an ogre speak to them in Common in battle and an NPC has mentioned an ogre as leading bands of goblinoids.  In my setting, ogres are slightly more intelligent than humans are, but my players “know” ogres are stupid. Several of them have played DnD previously and it’s just a given in their mind. Again, they don’t roll monster knowledge checks, even when I suggest they do so in battle.  Example 2: The players are convinced that all drow are evil.  These PCs are all level 1. I had a drow approach them in broad daylight in a human city. She asked to speak with them privately, lead them to a temple of Lolth, and told them that she was the priestess and she would give them a map to a location they were looking for if they did her a favor.  Now, I previously had shown this drow sitting at the tavern with no problems, shown her talking to an elven huntress, and an elven priestess of Avandra told the PCs that young drow pass through the city every once in a while and she didn’t think this one was a problem.  No one rolled knowledge to see what they knew about the drow and one PC made a religion check, but did not share any information about Lolth with the other PCs. They did roll insight, and I told them the priestess was being truthful though she wasn’t telling them everything.  Everyone told me that they were suspicious and didn’t trust her, they constantly made insight and perception checks, and one half-elf PC was adamant he wouldn’t help because drow are evil and Lolth is evil. His attitude has nothing to do with anonymity between elves and drow as this half-elf was raised by humans and doesn’t even speak elven.  Alternatively, they’ve all been friendly and trusting of the half-orc PC despite the fact that two of them have had their families butchered by orcs.  How do I deal with this?  Issue 2: They avoid quests and combat I’ve told them this is a pre-made adventure. They’ve managed to fail skill challenges (A man asked them to recover holy relics of Erathis. During the ‘bargaining’ skill challenge, they agreed to a price and *then* the half-orc demanded more and said if he didn’t get it, he’d sell them all to priests of Gruumsh. This is the day after a horde of goblinoids has attacked the town and killed many people) and they turned down the quest the priestess offered them.  That’s 300 XP they didn’t get. Plus the sidequest she was going to offer, which would have been 500 xp.  As they didn’t get the map she was offering, I decided to throw a cave bear at them as they traveled to the location. I thought it would be funny if they found a bear cub going through their backpacks at camp and then a mother bear charged in.  Big mistake! They refuse to fight the bear because it’s just protecting its cub. I’ve told them that they don’t have to kill it and that I would never make them orphan a bear cub.  Instead of fighting the bear, they all want to sneak off and have the ranger use ‘nature’ to calm it.  If I let them do it, that’s 600 xp they won’t get. If I force the attack, they’re now scattered about and I’m railroading them into a fight.  How should I deal with this? </blockquote>

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