Giving hints

[wedgeski]

This problem can be taken to an extreme with multiple PC's, all roleplaying their characters different and effectively, trying to avoid metagaming, in an investigative campaign heavy with innuendo and clue-dropping.

The way I deal with the problem? Session journals. If you take the time to write up the details of the last session, you can often repeat the subtler clues, and otherwise generally steer the reader - i.e. your players - in the 'right' direction. Obviously, though, you shouldn't be writing a work of fiction, so the journal *must* accurately reflect what went on.

Sometimes a clue just doesn't come out right, or the players are distracted by another priority, or they have no in-game reason to believe anything they're told by that NPC, or whatever. When they come to read the journal, they may have a clearer head and see something they missed.

Plus you get to stretch your writing muscles and create a good record of the campaign in the process.

 

[Numion]

When I DM published adventures it's pretty funny when the adventures instruct you to "not to give too strong hints at this point", because my players rarely get any of the hints. So my line generally is to give pretty obvious hints, in hope that some get noticed, understood and acted upon.

If I DMed adventures as written, most of the Dungeon adventures would leave my players clueless as to why the adventure happened, if the adventure had some kind of plot to begin with. Sometimes I also use the cinematic break combined with monologing (just before the final battle time stops and the BBEG has a need to explain his nefarious plans).

But mostly my case has to do with the plot, not with gaining some kind of tactical advantage. Despite their lacking skills in clue-tracking, my players show sometimes uncanny tactical prowess. Maybe they're hack'n'slashers at heart

 

[fusangite]

I have a single PC campaign, and the player has not yet caught on to the little "hints" in descriptions that are made to let a clever character get an advantage. I generally get more and more obvious about the hint until they catch on, trying to get them to recognize this thing next time. Do you think this is a bad idea? It can be good because it teaches them to catch on, but it can be bad because they may depend on you and not feel any adverse effect from not catching on. I'd like to year people's opinions.

My views when it comes to hinting. We, as GMs, always underestimate how many hints players need, no matter how experienced we are. I therefore design adventures so that whatever hint I want to give appears about ten times as often as I figure it would need to. Hints are just lying around everywhere in my worlds, signifying away.

I do not favour the escalating obviousness, however. Plots should never depend on players getting hints and the perception that the GM is hinting more and more aggressively towards something often gives players a sense they are being railroaded.

 

[fusangite]

IME, it's mostly a problem with there being one player. I may be a smart player....but I sure as heck aren't all the time. As I always tell my students: brainstorming a problem out-loud, with several others, practically always reveals a solution to the problem.

Hear hear! It's a shame people often choose to label this "metagaming."

 

[Dragonbait]

I think that some players simply NEED hints.

And sometimes it needs to be really, REALLY BIG hints...

And sometimes that still doesn't help..

I ran a published adventure for a group. They found a number of written sources that referred to an attack on a temple (a temple they were on excellent terms with), and even a map of the temple with the equivalent of "Attack Here" on it. They even knew that the attack would happen that night.
What do they do? Go shopping then go to sleep that night. Did they do that just to torture me? I doubt it. The group never worked like that before, and has never worked like that since. So what happens? The baddies attack, burn the temple, and killed most of the NPCs that they had come to know.

I normally don't give players blatant hints unless it's appropriate to the game. I typically just give them multiple sources to learn things from. So if they miss something at one source, they could get it at one or two other sources. It can become cumberson while writing the adventure, but the players will almost always get all the key information.

 

[Frozen DM]

I've experienced both types of hint-catchers as a DM. The group I normally DM for, not always the most focused on the game, would tend to miss even blatant hints. So I would tend to give much more specific hints, usually tied to the character in question. I find that some players just have a hard job getting into the mindset of their character, and sometimes even have trouble "seeing" the campaign world and the normal hints found within.

I try to make the hints appropriate to the characters, focusing on areas the characters would be experts in, but not the player. For example, when fighting an undead guardian I would describe his armour as ancient and rusted, while his sword sends up a shower of rust-chips with every blow. I would then turn to the warriors and mention, more specifically, that they realize that sundering such a weapon would likely be easier, due to its deterioration.

On the other hand, I've had players that take a hint and practically unravel my entire adventure plot. At one point I had the players tracking down a missing group of young adventurers. The party came to a bridge where they find the bodies of all but one adventurer (a cleric). They also find marks leading out of the water on the far bank. The bridge iteself, is almost 50 feet in height.

Based only on this, one player guesses that the other adventurers were ambushed and killed. The cleric fell off the bridge, into the river and died, only to rise from the dead to track down the creatures responsible for the death of himself and his friends. I was pretty shocked, since this was exactly what had happened. I was pretty impressed at how closely he got to the truth.

 

[howandwhy99]

My advice would be to always allow multiple options.

I wouldn't start off in any particular situation giving hints. Just give a strong description of what is readily seen and heard and then let the players Q&A until they discover or invent their own solution. Yes, there are times when subtle clues are needed, but I would be sparing in these. You would never say "Use the rope, stupid", so nor, I suggest, should you ever give blatant hints. These will only make the players feel dumb too.

Actually, if you can keep the players thinking up their own solutions / discovering the hidden clues, then they will actually feel *smart* and have a far more enjoyable time.


I suggest mulltiple options above, because not every challenge or mystery you present is going to be solved. (Doing so is the same as allowing the PCs to win every combat.)

From your description above it sounds like you already have several ways into the cave. So let the player take the difficult route, if they don't figure out any others. If this really is an ongoing problem though, maybe they actually need advice not a different style of DMing.

 

[Herobizkit]

Having been a single player and DM'd a single player in turn, I have found the easiest way to give and receive hints is through NPCs.

Usually, what we've do when we're stuck is talk out loud with the NPC's (ie the DM) in a conversation that would normally happen between PC's. This can best be accompished when the DM effectively role-plays his NPCs. Some would have great ideas, some would have bad ones, and some just wouldn't know.

For example, when I have trouble determining the most effective battle plan for my group, I consult the Mage (who is the expert on magic and its effects, as well as having maxed out skills in Demonology and Knowledge-The Planes) and the Ranger (who is the groups dual-wielding battle monster). For morality issues, I ask our Cleric and Paladin. When confronted with a challenge, I ask for suggestions, and the NPCs offer several possible solutions. It works well, at least for us.