"Let's examine this apparently mundane rock."

[Fevil]

I had a party scrutinize every inch of a piece of mouldy cheese they found lying in a corridor of Undermountain.
They spent 4 hours REAL TIME doing this before they finally came to the conclusion it was harmless.

That's how paranoid I had made them running Undermountain

 

[Aeolius]

I had a party scrutinize every inch of a piece of mouldy cheese they found lying in a corridor of Undermountain. They spent 4 hours REAL TIME doing this before they finally came to the conclusion it was harmless.

Behold the power of cheese.

 

[Liolel]

Behold the power of cheese.

You know I was already laughing when I read about the cheese in the undermountain but you, you just had to go and make my laugh even louder.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I didn't witness it, but that is what I've been told:

The party is in a wood (not even a very big one), and the DM describes it. At some point he says "and you hear an owl hooting" - something he did just to make the whole thing a little more believable, since it was night. But the players got it in their heads that the damn owl was important and spent 3 hours REALTIME searching for that stupid bird.

 

[Uruush]

I cannot agree with others' suggestion to "make it important". Sometimes, if it ain't important, it ain't important. (Not saying it won't work for them, though - just that I, personally, find that idea to be entirely repugnant.)

Repugnant? Why repugnant? I agree that not every piece of scenery should be important. Nothing is important if everything is important. But if your players are obviously enthralled with a water pump or an owl, I think a little improvisation is preferable to letting them frustrate themselves for an hour or three.

It doesn't have to be a part of some complicated ongoing plot that you have to keep track of. But if the players were to find a note sometime later that indicated to pump the old water pump 'three times thrice' to reveal a secret compartment, I think the look on the rogue player's face as they exclaim, "I knew there was something about that pump!" would make the session more enjoyable for them. That's why I play. I subscribe to Robin Laws' school of the GM asking themselves, "What would be the most entertaining thing that could possibly happen, right now?"

That style is not for every group certainly - some approach D&D more like a wargame where there are tactically "right" and "wrong" choices and the success of the characters ultimately hinges on them making good choices. I find that following the module (or my notes) to the letter can bog down the story and make the overall experience less fun.

I like many different styles of games (I played Battletech for several years, for example), but I wouldn't consider any sincere gaming philosophy repugnant where the intent is to provide one's friends with a good time.

 

[frisbeet]

Wandering monsters.

The spice of dungeon life, almost always underused in the micromanaged adventure (IMO).

If that doesn't work as a permanent diversion, let the noise of battle attact a pack of dire ___, which promplty smash to bits the statue/fountain/empty chest in an effort to get at all PCs at once.

 

[Jolly Giant]

In the very first campaign I played in, we spent an awful lot of time pondering a perfectly mundane stone! We actually spent many hours, spread over several gaming nights, studying it...

It started with us being ambushed, hit-and-run-style. The ambushers was up on ledge in a rock wall, bombarding us with crossbow bolts for a couple of rounds, then disappearing as soon as we started to close in on them. When we reached the ledge, the ambushers where gone. "vanished without a trace", was the DMs intention...

However, the paladin rolled a natural 20 when searching the ledga for clues, so the DM figured he had to let him find something interesting...

"You find an amazingly cool pebble" the DM said. "It's shaped exactly like a tiny apple!"

Of course, we were certain this was important somehow! It had a disturbing lack of any magical properties what so ever, so we knew it had to be something really evil! Maybe it was a key to a portal? The paladin eventually decided it had to some sort of sign from his God; he just couldn't interpret it! He'd recently lost 3 points of INT to a Deck of Many Things, and blaimed the deck for his inability to interpret the "message".

After several weeks of gaming, during which debates over the stone derailed the game over and over, the DM finally broke down and told us the sad truth behind the thing: That he just threw out something utterly silly for the paladin to find, since he'd rolled a natural 20 on that cursed search check.

 

[Quickbeam]

Occasionally I will work the mundane items around which the party has focused its collective attention into the story (as DanMcS suggests), usually with positive and amusing results. But more often than not, I handle the situation by dropping subtle hints that the group is off-track, or I interrupt their obsessing with an encounter/event that draws them back into the story.

 

[ElerethBerantor]

My players have yet to get sidetracked by mundane details (that I remember, at least), but they have the incredible knack to either completely ignore certain plot details or not to remind each other. I don't like interfering with them so I usually let them go off on their tangent for a bit before stonewalling them with an NPC.

The worst example of this, though, was last night. (this is in FR)

The players have been tracking a shipment of blood (the blood of good-aligned clerics) and have made their way to Calimport. Originally they had been chasing after some followers of Shar, but, advancing through the plot it was made fairly obvious that the Shar-worshippers had either just been used or had, oddly enough, sold their services to someone else, as the blood was now in another group's hands.

However, the ranger seemed to have completely ignored this bit of information and was determined to find the (non-existant) Shar-worshippers in Calimshan at any cost. The other players didn't even mention to him that "um, they don't have the blood any more." He spent over an hour chatting with various NPCs before I got annoyed and had another player--the one who had gotten the clue directly--tell him that he was on COMPLETELY the wrong track.

 

[Arnwyn]

Repugnant? Why repugnant? I agree that not every piece of scenery should be important. Nothing is important if everything is important. But if your players are obviously enthralled with a water pump or an owl, I think a little improvisation is preferable to letting them frustrate themselves for an hour or three.

I suppose, then, that I am lucky that my players do not "frustrate themselves for an hour or three". My players especially enjoy the fact that the world and environment is well thought out. When they do find something interesting, play with it, and find out that it *is* important, they get a great feeling of accomplishment. This is lessened if they end up often finding that everything they take interest has become important. That won't fly with my group - already, we've achieved a very good balance. I find screwing around with that repugnant. (And, I guess I'll have to reiterate again - it may work quite well for other groups... just not mine.)

I like many different styles of games (I played Battletech for several years, for example), but I wouldn't consider any sincere gaming philosophy repugnant where the intent is to provide one's friends with a good time.

Of course. And in regards to my group (and my experience - which, in the end, is all I can speak from), I never said otherwise. [I obviously can't speak for anyone else.]