Beginning at the beginning

[moritheil]

This scene is all too common for me: I populate my fantasy world with things and proceed logically to decide certain occurrences, and then ask myself what clues would be left lying around. The players come along and try to make sense of it and quit in frustration because they don't want to assemble a jigsaw puzzle.

Take my latest example: I wanted to orient players with each other and with the city they are based in. So I made up a plot about kidnapping. And now they're fighting zombies and there are kobolds involved and they can't figure out how the hell this is all related. I now have a player bowing out because the game isn't what he expected.

And yet it still seems to me that there is no better way to introduce players to my worlds than with a short side quest. I don't want to throw my players into the overarching story right off the bat, because usually A) it would kill them, and B) somehow I don't want to be introducing the context of the story, and the story, at the same time.

Does this make sense? Do any other DMs have this problem?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not sure I entirely follow. It seems you're mostly having a problem with the players not being able to piece together the mystery you've laid out for them, and then everyone at the game (including you) getting frustrated because of that.

Right?

My guess would be the best way to amend this would be to have the bad guys screw up more often. Have them make some wrong moves, give them some weak links, have someone betray the ranks, and otherwise give the PC's an easy "way in" that they don't have to piece together.

That is, if I'm right about the problem. If you'd like to talk more about a specific situation, that could enlighten a little bit.

 

[Cadfan]

Make sure the sub plot is clearly followable. Leave the additional puzzle pieces that relate to the main plot as tangential issues that the players won't mind not understanding.

Alternately, make sure that there is some overarching plot that the PCs already know about. It can turn out to be a false front for what's REALLY happening, but if they start with a sense that they understand the world around them, they'll be happy, and they'll be even more unnerved when they find out that everything they believed was a lie.

 

[moritheil]

Hmm. Okay, you're right about one thing: evil tends to be pretty competent in the games I run. So as a general tip, I probably ought to keep that in mind.

However, in this particular case that I have mentioned above, there's not really anything that I can put my finger on except that the party just hasn't gone far enough to pick up the clues they need.

The setting is a story where arcane magic users are oppressed, and there is one last city protected by epic magic where they hide away from the world. The party members are all level 1 and are adventuring in the area around this city. They took a job for the city rescuing some women and children who disappeared. Acting on a tip, they found a cave, cleared out some rats, and fought some zombies.

That is all that has happened so far. They don't have the clues to understand how the zombies relate to the disappearances because the zombies are kobolds and the women/children who disappeared were not. However I don't really think that two fights in, it's reasonable to expect everything to be revealed, so that probably isn't the main problem.

What could be?

(This campaign is The City Arcana, in my sig.)

 

[Piratecat]

I think it's important for players to regularly feel like competent heroes. It's fine for them to occasionally be short of information or resources, but for me the game shouldn't always be "figure out what the DM is thinking." Instead, it should be a collaborative process where both sides are having fun.

So what to do? Have bad guys who regularly screw up. Make some plot lines easier and more obvious than others. Focus on consequences instead of plots.

I'm particularly a fan of the latter. For instance, don't have the PCs walk on stage after the bad guys' plot is in motion; instead, have something they do (beating up a local thug, killing a monster) set other plot elements in motion that they then have to deal with. It makes them feel intimately involved, instead of just a visitor, because their actions create visible change in the world.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The setting is a story where arcane magic users are oppressed, and there is one last city protected by epic magic where they hide away from the world. The party members are all level 1 and are adventuring in the area around this city. They took a job for the city rescuing some women and children who disappeared. Acting on a tip, they found a cave, cleared out some rats, and fought some zombies.

That is all that has happened so far. They don't have the clues to understand how the zombies relate to the disappearances because the zombies are kobolds and the women/children who disappeared were not. However I don't really think that two fights in, it's reasonable to expect everything to be revealed, so that probably isn't the main problem.

What could be?

I don't know your specific game, so I don't know what else it could be, but it could be this. Like Piratecat sagely observed, PC's want to feel like heroes, so giving them two fights that don't seem to resolve anything right off the bat starts them off feeling like the DM led them to a dead end, and that their future will just be full of dead ends.

Let them accomplish something, even if it's only vaguely related to the main evil you have planned out for later levels. Let them win, let them solve a problem, save a kid, or uncover a clue. The idea is a "trail of breadcrumbs" -- each clue should lead to another clue, and each little bit should, when assembled, reveal something bigger.

Think of something like The X-Files. Big conspiracy with insanely clever villains, but each episode would resolve SOMETHING, even if it wasn't really related to the conspiracy per se. Someone would be saved, some monster would be chased. Alternate "conspiracy" sessions with "monster of the week" sessions.

It could be other things, too, but if you think it might be that, thinking along these lines might help you alleviate that (which could at least narrow it down to something else).

And yes, generally speaking, you want even the cleverest of enemies to have at least one weak link the PC's can exploit. You've gotta bait the hook. Once the PC's bite, reeling them in becomes easier.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I'm totally with PC and KM here. I always try to resolve something every game session. It doesn't have to be the big story arc, but it needs to be something substantial, like catching a villain (even if he's only #12 in the command chain), or discovering a map with a secret entrance to the palace, or finding a letter from the king to his mistress that no one knows about, or something.

Resolving something every session goes a long way toward making the PCs feel like heroes. There's also something to be said for a single session experience vs. an extended one (Poe talked about this when he wrote about short stories and poems vs. novels; there's something perfect about finishing in one session).

Also, like PC says, character actions need to have consequences. Don't feel like you've plotted everything out - or need to plot everything out - before the session. Throw something at the PCs (zombies break into a tavern, an orphan escapes and runs toward the PCs with kobolds chasing him, etc.). Then see what they do. If they knock over a tomato stand during the process, then now the tomato vendor hates them, and he just happens to be the brother of the tax man who's secretly in charge of kidnapping orphans using a kobold necromancy ring working out of the tomato farms around the city.


Another rule that comes to mind after reading your post. You say you don't want to throw players into the overarching story right off the bat. I say, do it. The rule is: use the good stuff first. Always lead with your best stuff.

Another rule that might help is: give the players tangible plot-based feedback. Make the treasure relate to the plot. It's not just a spellbook, it's the taxman's spellbook that contains a Zombie spell with a twist: any zombie raised with it has a hollow space in its chest that can hold a kobold pilot or sniper. It's not just gold, it's the deed to the tomato farm and the bulette eggs that have been gestating under the tree for the past two years.

 

[Piratecat]

Another rule that might help is: give the players tangible plot-based feedback. Make the treasure relate to the plot. It's not just a spellbook, it's the taxman's spellbook that contains a Zombie spell with a twist: any zombie raised with it has a hollow space in its chest that can hold a kobold pilot or sniper. It's not just gold, it's the deed to the tomato farm and the bulette eggs that have been gestating under the tree for the past two years.

Frank, very nice. I'm going to start doing this myself.

 

[Inyssius]

Justin Alexander wrote a long and good essay on this, called the Three Clue Rule. I'll post the opening section here:

Mystery scenarios for roleplaying games have earned a reputation for turning into unmitigated disasters: The PCs will end up veering wildly off-course or failing to find a particular clue and the entire scenario will grind to a screeching halt or go careening off the nearest cliff. The players will become unsure of what they should be doing. The GM will feel as if they've done something wrong. And the whole evening will probably end in either boredom or frustration or both.


Here's a typical example: When the PCs approached a murder scene they don't search outside the house, so they never find the wolf tracks which transform into the tracks of a human. They fail the Search check to find the hidden love letters, so they never realize that both women were being courted by the same man. They find the broken crate reading DANNER'S MEATS, but rather than going back to check on the local butcher they spoke to earlier they decide to go stake out the nearest meat processing plant instead.


As a result of problems like these, many people reach an erroneous conclusion: Mystery scenarios in RPGs are a bad idea. In a typical murder mystery, for example, the protagonist is a brilliant detective. The players are probably not brilliant detectives. Therefore, mysteries are impossible.

Or, as someone else once put it to me: "The players are not Sherlock Holmes."

Although the conclusion is incorrect, there's an element of truth in this. For example, in A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes is investigating the scene of a murder. He discovers a small pile of ashes in the corner of the room. He studies them carefully and is able to conclude that the ashes have come from a Trichinopoly cigar.


Now, let's analyze how this relatively minor example of Holmesian deduction would play out at the game table:


(1) The players would need to successfully search the room.


(2) They would need to care enough about the ashes to examine them.


(3) They would need to succeed at a skill check to identify them.


(4) They would need to use that knowledge to reach the correct conclusion.


That's four potential points of failure: The PCs could fail to search the room (either because the players don't think to do it or because their skill checks were poor). The PCs could fail to examine the ashes (because they don't think them important). The PCs could fail the skill check to identify them. The PCs could fail to make the correct deduction.


If correctly understanding this clue is, in fact, essential to the adventure proceeding -- if, for example, the PCs need to go to the nearest specialty cigar shop and start asking questions -- then the clue serves as a chokepoint: Either the PCs understand the clue or the PCs slam into a wall.


Chokepoints in adventure design are always a big problem and need to be avoided, but we can see that when it comes to a mystery scenario the problem is much worse: Each clue is not just one chokepoint, it's actually multiple chokepoints.


So the solution here is simple: Remove the chokepoints.

 

[moritheil]

Chokepoints in adventure design are always a big problem and need to be avoided, but we can see that when it comes to a mystery scenario the problem is much worse: Each clue is not just one chokepoint, it's actually multiple chokepoints.


So the solution here is simple: Remove the chokepoints.

That's all good and well, but then when I just feed them details, the players may remark that they hear the distinct sound of a railroad train.

That is, suppose I toss the clue right at them: "While you were searching the rat's nest, you found this holy symbol, which the cleric identifies as the symbol of Tiamat. Tiamat is the evil draconic deity worshipped by kobolds."

Even though that's totally within the rules (I rolled Knowledge for the priest) my players probably want to feel like they were clever and did it themselves.

I am perfectly capable of doing this in a more nuanced fashion. However, when I spit out Fact A, Fact B, and Fact C, and then expect them to have a discussion that ties these things together and gets them Plot ABC, they sometimes instead just sit and wait for a prompt. Is it gauche to say, "Now I expect the PCs to sit around and talk about what they've just learned?"

I don't have the problem of them thinking the plot is something other than what it really is and acting accordingly, which is the disaster detailed at the beginning of your post.