Crucial clue missed (by a mile and a half) - What will you do?

[Jon_Dahl]

I'm running an adventure that has the following element:
At some point PCs will (hopefully) defeat a BBEG. In his cell there's a secret compartment that will lead to many other adventures. This BBEG is just the beginning of a campaign and there's much more to come. However, all the clues are in the secret compartment. Miss it and miss everything.

So what will you do?

My players like to run through adventures. Sometimes they don't even bother to loot enemies. I have a feeling that they will never look for any secret doors anywhere and they have no desire to do that stuff even though they are aware of such game-mechanism. It's simply not in them.

 

[delericho]

I'm running an adventure that has the following element:
At some point PCs will (hopefully) defeat a BBEG. In his cell there's a secret compartment that will lead to many other adventures. This BBEG is just the beginning of a campaign and there's much more to come. However, all the clues are in the secret compartment. Miss it and miss everything.

Never, ever have a single crucial clue. Ever.

For every conclusion that you wish the players to draw, you need at least three clues. In general, they'll miss one entirely, they'll misinterpret one, but with the third they'll finally get it.

(I should give thanks here to the Alexandrian for his Three-clue Rule.)

Even if you do give the players adequate clues, there's still a risk that they'll just miss all of them or not bother to follow them up, or... So you shouldn't have a single secret vault containing everything anyway - have several smaller caches of information for them to find (or not), and have a back-up plan for when that fails, too.

Finally, if you absolutely, positively have to have the PCs find a clue, then don't leave it to chance. Just give them the clue - no Search checks, no hidden caches, no tricks. Don't even leave the clue sitting on the BBEG's desk for if and when the PCs glance at it - as the BBEG dies, have him shout out, "here's what you need to know...!" (Or do something equally heavy-handed.)

So what do you?

Live and learn. Replot the campaign based on the PCs not taking the corrective actions that had been hoped for - instead of them wiping out the bad guys early on, they get to see what happens when those bad guys steal a march on them.

If nothing else, it would be a salutory lesson for them to learn that they should be looking out for clues.

 

[Crothian]

The plot continues on without them knowing about. The PCs will do things there is always things out there and maybe they will learn what is going on later. But I don't force things and I always have a plan for if the PCs don't find something or do what I expect.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

This BBEG is just the beginning of a campaign and there's much more to come. However, all the clues are in the secret compartment. Miss it and miss everything.

Does "Miss it and miss everything." mean if they miss it the campaign folds? If it's anywhere near that dire I'd plainly tell them they spot a secret compartment and ensure that you could play the campaign.

 

[Gilladian]

My question is, WHY are you setting things up so they won't find the clues?

You know they don't bother to search or loot (?!), so WHY ever would you hide clues? As others have said, put the clues in plain sight. Have the treasure map tacked up to the wall hanging in front of the PCs. Put the letters from the NSBBG (not so big bad guy)'s boss out on top of the desk in plain sight, with a half-written letter reply from NSBBG to BBEG that describes the PCs as a real upcoming menace!

Have prisoners TELL the PCs things. Or people they rescue report what they overheard. Or someone mistakes them for a minion of the BBEG and drops a secret message in their lap. When PCs zig, it is up to the DM to zag and keep up with them.

Your PCs do seem particularly oblivious, so maybe you need to start doing small things to prompt them to learn to search.

"You are standing over the villain's body, having just slain him. You see the wand he used to charm your buddy sticking out of his belt. Do you grab it? When you look up, you see his desk. You remember how, as you entered the room, he shoved something into one of the drawers and closed it. But now you see the desk has no drawers. Are you going to search it?"

 

[Umbran]

So what will you do?

I spend a few moments wondering what the adventure's author was smoking, to have multiple plots hinge on a single point of failure? If I wrote it, I beat myself soundly about the head and shoulders with a wet noodle for my folly.

I will then rewrite things such that the same information is available through other avenues in-game. They may miss the clues there as well, but as Naeser's Law states, you can make a thing foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. The "Three clue rule" that delericho mentions is a good one to follow.

 

[Nyeshet]

Why would you have all of your eggs in one basket (ie: clues in one drawer)?

I might have had one in the drawer and placed the others elsewhere. Also, why only have one encounter with the clues? There should be multiple possible encounters - including renewed encounters in which they encounter the same clue again. Perhaps a minion defeated was a courier en route with a message. They may need to decipher the message (or not, or perhaps merely know the obscure language, or find someone who can speak it to read the message for them). The more obvious or important clues, the ones dealing with major situations that will have to have multiple agents / foes working together, will likely involve multiple messages travelling to different places perhaps by different means.

If they miss one message, that is their loss, but if you have only arranged one such meeting - especially for all such clues - then that is your loss. With one missed clue, the PCs are surprised and at a disadvantage later. The extra challenge is a learning experience. If they somehow miss everything, then eventually they learn about the plot when the kingdom they are in is suddenly overthrown. They can then become agents of the resistance instead of agents to prevent the overthrow. Perhaps in time they will make up for their earlier mistake.

But if there was only one opportunity then that was the DM's mistake. As others have already said, there should be multiple times when one or more of the clues should be available for discovery or interception.

 

[Mark CMG]

However, all the clues are in the secret compartment. Miss it and miss everything.

So what will you do?

If they might miss something they cannot miss? Well, first off, there's always more than one place to hide something, or someone else who can find something and bring it to someone . . . for a cut (a cut they wouldn't have to give up if they find something themselves). Nevertheless, who says the last person to close something, in haste, didn't wind up leaving a thread or the corner of a parchment sticking out?

My players like to run through adventures. Sometimes they don't even bother to loot enemies. I have a feeling that they will never look for any secret doors (. . .)

You cannot miss a draft coming across your neck or noticing how the dust in a certain place is disturbed . . . or hit them with a hammer and point directly at it. That works, too.

 

[fba827]

* you could just let the plot continue without the information at this time and see where it goes

* retcon and tell the players "oh, i forgot about the box you found PC X's keen eye sight had noticed it when you were in that other room last session"

* find other ways to pepper in that same information (overhearing someone else talk about it, prophetic dreams, an NPC who is de fector from the BBEG's side tells them directly in exchange for protection, etc)

* you could scrap it all and try a different game if the campaign/plot truly is a failure as a result of the item not being found

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Other: Running some amount of mystery nearly all the time, I've grown adept at avoiding "crucial" clues altogether. Anything even remotely that crucial, I'll break down into several, somewhat redundant parts (at least five, often more). Some parts will be subtle; some will be overt. Some parts will be practically in plain sight; others will be very hard to find.

Gathering about 1/4 to a 1/3 of the clue parts will be sufficient for a clever or "in a groove" player to intuit an answer. Half will often be enough to get the full answer, barring everyone being distinctly dull or not in any kind of groove. It happens. But even one part will even be enough for the players to intuit the possibility of more, related parts. (Player experience with my style helps a lot here, too, though it isn't strictly necessary.)

If the overall clue is as starkly crucial as stated in the OP, then I'll break it into three major, different parts--and then break each of those parts down as described above. Compilation or guessing of any one major part will be sufficient to get on with the adventure.

If I happen to be running a published adventure which I have insufficiently studied, such that the crucial nature of the clue doesn't become obvious until the players encounter it, I'll take a couple minutes break and divide the clue up as described previously. This won't be as organic, since I prefer that such parts start showing up almost at the start of the adventure, but it is good enough for that relatively rare occurance.

Edit: The Three Clue rule is a lot older than the Alexandrian. It is adapted to roleplaying from a similar technique that mystery writers use.