D&D 5E Foreshadowing Effectively

[Quickleaf]

I just couldn't stop reading your whole story. That sounds amazing. I love how you subverted the player's expectations of a lycantrope with the silver necklace, and managed to surprise the players regarding the true villain, and the nature of the curse. I also love how you turned the library investigation into a puzzle + combat encounter.

I think one of the most important things about a good mystery, is to second guess what your player's assumptions are going to be, so you can subvert those assumptions, while still guiding them towards the important revelation without them feeling they are being guided.

In the end all of the subtle clues do need to make sense. There has to be this moment where your players go "Oh, I get it!", and that is ultimately the most fulfilling moment of any mystery adventure.

The way I foreshadow things, is by making sure that at the start of a session there is an event or remark by a character, that is seemingly unimportant. But as the story unfolds, eventually it all builds up to a big revelation.

Yeah, when it comes to the subtle hints building on one another I've learned that presentation can be equally important as preparation; just ran a one shot (it's been a while since we did a face-to-face game) where my choice of language and intonation made all the difference in the world to the players recognizing that, yes, this is indeed a clue worth paying attention to.

 

[tardigrade]

Yeah, when it comes to the subtle hints building on one another I've learned that presentation can be equally important as preparation; just ran a one shot (it's been a while since we did a face-to-face game) where my choice of language and intonation made all the difference in the world to the players recognizing that, yes, this is indeed a clue worth paying attention to.

I thought it was pretty impressive too, for what it's worth. How did they remove the curse, out of interest?

Something not really mentioned above is that you need to resist the temptation to railroad; the subject of the foreshadowing may continue to do stuff, but the PCs don't necessarily find out what unless they follow it up (depending what it is).

 

[Quickleaf]

I thought it was pretty impressive too, for what it's worth. How did they remove the curse, out of interest?

Something not really mentioned above is that you need to resist the temptation to railroad; the subject of the foreshadowing may continue to do stuff, but the PCs don't necessarily find out what unless they follow it up (depending what it is).

I had a plan for how to remove the curse but of course the players did their own thing They confronted the evil prince’s henchman while performing the ritual to make princess’ striga curse permanent, had a big fight, and during the fight took control of the “control orb” being used to manipulate the princess’ perceptions. Basically the rest of the party fought henchman or tried to subdue princess-as-striga while the Bard undertook a “skill challenge” with the orb and broke the curse.

 

[Bawylie]

For foreshadowing enemy capabilities, I use a pretty easy formula. 1-2-1. Whatever that enemy is most notorious for, you’ll encounter it’s consequences before you run into the enemy itself. Poisoned arrowheads for the drow, perhaps. Desolation around a dragon’s lair. Graves pushed open from the inside/gnawed corpses for certain undead. These seem like big hints to me (since I’m writing the adventures) but the players feel smart when they guess correctly and that’s all to the good. It’s like what’s his face’s gun - if you see a gun in act one of a play, it damn well better fire sometime in act 2 or 3.

For plot foreshadowing I try to use 1-2-3-2-1. Event 1 is some micro-example of event 3. Event 2 is some kind of outgrowth of event 1 and event 3 is a climax event/crisis.

The trick to it is that events 1 and 2 are not always the exact same event. More like they rhyme if that makes sense. The first event 1 is LIKE the last event 1, but the last event 1 is a much bigger scale. The crisis point in event 3 is a clarification of the ultimate dangers and stakes as you proceed to the second event 2 and the second event 1. If that makes any damn sense at all.


-Brad