Dead ends in a campaign

[Ruined]

Hello all. I've got a question about something that occurs in my games that I'm never quite sure how to handle. The Dead End.

I have plots ongoing, and sometimes the characters are searching for someone in particular or certain information. They come up with an idea towards finding the information, but it's not the right approach or they're completely off-track. Searching out things like this never seems to be fun to me, and I'm sure the players don't enjoy the frustration. At times the red herrings that stem from these have proven interesting, but that's the rare occurance.

For example, in a recent game the party is looking for a mysterious wizard who lives somewhere North of their current location. The warrior is moving through a new city. He stops in a bar and asks the barkeep if he's heard of this wizard, and he hasn't (rolled a Lore: Local check, very slim chance); then he goes to a library within town and seeks information there. I'm not really looking for advice on this situation, as it's resolved, but it's a good example.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to handle these situations. Should I abbreviate such endeavors, saying 'you look for X hours and find nothing relevant. Next?'. Or should I bend in situations where I wouldn't normally think they shouldn't find info, and have something fall into their laps? It seems fairly contrived, but these are the heroes of the story - should their pursuits be much easier than I'm making them?

Any suggestions from those who've faced this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Drawmack]

I am running a mystery style adventure right now and here is how I've handeled it.

Each place I point the PCs to holds 4 = 8 clues. About 50% of those clues are false. Sometimes though all but one of them are false. Of the false leads I try to make at least one completely rediculous, for some comedic relief. Maybe a woman will be claiming that the murders are a plot to make her sell her child into slavery but she offers no proof of this and she doesn't even have a child.

I will always give the PCs a pointer. For example the guy at the bar never heard of the wizard, but he knows someone who might be able to help.

As far as dead ends go I make them quick. For example person A says see person B and person B says see person A. You need the dead ends for reality's sake but make them brief. Although sometimes a false lead is acctually an adventure seed this is a great plot device.

As far as the guy looking for information at a library. I would have it be a search check. Take 10 or take 20 allowed and each added number represents 1 hour of checking.

Hope that helps.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't really have that problem. I rarely let PCs go down dead ends -- if I really don't think their approach has any merit, I'll do something drastic to wrentch them off of it, but that rarely happens. Usually what they try is a fairly sound idea, so I make sure they make at least a little progress. In fact, I'm more likely to go to far the other way and drop the whole campaign mystery on them too early.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Just make new paths up on the fly that the PCs might explore. Throw in some new clues. Don't be afraid to change the adventure to fit your players.

If it wasn't the PCs fault that they missed the clues, then all is well. If it was their own fault, make something bad happen somewhere - perhaps an entire village gets slaughtered by unknown forces. When they investigate, then that's their new clue - but at some point, they should learn that they could have prevented this tragedy if they had paid more attention or asked the right questions...

Be flexible when GMing. Don't feel straightkacked by the adventure outline - add in things to make the adventure more interesting.

 

[AdamDray]

Rerouting dead ends

Have an NPC find out the same information and figure out where to go from there, but not have the guts or ability to follow up. In the course of investigating the information, the NPC learns that the PCs were doing the same thing, and he or she approaches the party with the solution.

There can be a price to the solution being handed to them. If the solution points to a treasure, the NPC might demand a flat payment for the information, or a cut of the treasure. There's no need to give the party free solutions to problems they failed to solve.

 

[fusangite]

My advice: restructure the conspiracy they're unmasking so that the tangent becomes relevant. My characters, if they look hard enough, always find somethig.

Any good solid evil scheme can be revised. Imagine yourself as a script-writer for a TV show. You can't change what happened last episode. All you can do is make what has gone before relevant to tonight's episode.

 

[Snoweel]

The trick is to make your event-based adventures (including your overplots) resemble the site-based adventures that are so easy to DM.

Of course I refer to structure. You have to define the "walls" and "locked doors" of your event-based adventure. I mean, really spell out for them what's possible and what would be a complete waste of time.

If the PC's become lost, it's because they couldn't see one of the "walls" and are now wandering around in the "dirt surrounding the dungeon".

Of course you want to avoid obvious railroading, but the PC's need to always have one or more objectives even if you have to clarify it for them with a knowledge or ability check (Int or Wis).

Remember, you probably know what the PC's would assume about the gameworld better than the players do.

And sometimes you've gotta put bells and whistles on the important clues (whether true or false) and gloss over the irrelevant stuff.

The players will still have a wealth of decisions to make and red herrings to follow, but you want them to follow your red-herrings, not ones of their own device.

 

[Ruined]

Thanks for the replies, all. Things to consider and work upon.