Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do deal with players who don't search?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="ichabod" data-source="post: 9170374" data-attributes="member: 1257"><p>The thread about the player who loves evil characters reminded me of my problem players. I've been playing with them since I got back into D&D at the start of the pandemic. But they are oblivious. The first thing we did was go through the Yawning Portal adventures in a home brew world I threw together in a weekend, and I didn't really notice the problem. By the time that was done, I had redone my home brew world from 3.5E, and we started a home brew campaign in that. In that one they drove me up the wall. They wouldn't search for secret doors most of the time, and often wouldn't open obvious containers. I started being more obvious and they would walk right past treasure. One time I said "You see a skeleton covered in the webbing, and you see something shiny on it." They didn't clear out the webs or search the skeleton or anything. Another time I said "The room has a sarcophagus and a shield hanging on the wall." The did not look at the shield, which was a +1 shield.</p><p></p><p>They also were horrible with clues. The plan was that some ancient kings always buried themselves at the site of their first victory in battle. They could figure that out, do some research on the kings and the battles, and find all the tombs. They never researched anything. One of them was a warlock, and I had his patron wake him up in the middle of the night and do some of the research, and the character never did anything with it, much less tell the other characters about it. There was another plot about a professor of alchemy at their university sending them out to find magical spiders, which he used to concoct potions to kill off other professors and become the head of the university. They never noticed that the deaths were related to the spiders they were collecting, they never searched for clues in the murders (which would have pointed at the professor), they swallowed whole the professor's story of a former student being the killer, they ignored evidence contrary to this theory, and they killed the former student.</p><p></p><p>I ended that campaign in frustration after the villain became head of the university. I like running campaigns were you get a bunch of clues and piece them together to figure things out. And I'm aware of the general rules about not hiding clues and giving out multiple clues. I'm currently running them through the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which is working because I house ruled PF2-style exploration activities so I can automatically roll search checks for them. But they seem to be tiring of the endless dungeon. Any ideas on a more interesting campaign I could create that wouldn't run foul of their searching and puzzling out clues?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ichabod, post: 9170374, member: 1257"] The thread about the player who loves evil characters reminded me of my problem players. I've been playing with them since I got back into D&D at the start of the pandemic. But they are oblivious. The first thing we did was go through the Yawning Portal adventures in a home brew world I threw together in a weekend, and I didn't really notice the problem. By the time that was done, I had redone my home brew world from 3.5E, and we started a home brew campaign in that. In that one they drove me up the wall. They wouldn't search for secret doors most of the time, and often wouldn't open obvious containers. I started being more obvious and they would walk right past treasure. One time I said "You see a skeleton covered in the webbing, and you see something shiny on it." They didn't clear out the webs or search the skeleton or anything. Another time I said "The room has a sarcophagus and a shield hanging on the wall." The did not look at the shield, which was a +1 shield. They also were horrible with clues. The plan was that some ancient kings always buried themselves at the site of their first victory in battle. They could figure that out, do some research on the kings and the battles, and find all the tombs. They never researched anything. One of them was a warlock, and I had his patron wake him up in the middle of the night and do some of the research, and the character never did anything with it, much less tell the other characters about it. There was another plot about a professor of alchemy at their university sending them out to find magical spiders, which he used to concoct potions to kill off other professors and become the head of the university. They never noticed that the deaths were related to the spiders they were collecting, they never searched for clues in the murders (which would have pointed at the professor), they swallowed whole the professor's story of a former student being the killer, they ignored evidence contrary to this theory, and they killed the former student. I ended that campaign in frustration after the villain became head of the university. I like running campaigns were you get a bunch of clues and piece them together to figure things out. And I'm aware of the general rules about not hiding clues and giving out multiple clues. I'm currently running them through the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which is working because I house ruled PF2-style exploration activities so I can automatically roll search checks for them. But they seem to be tiring of the endless dungeon. Any ideas on a more interesting campaign I could create that wouldn't run foul of their searching and puzzling out clues? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do deal with players who don't search?
Top