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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5695786" data-attributes="member: 2011">DMing 101 for mysteries.If the PCs absolutely have to find out about the bad guys at the old mine, don't hand the old mine to the players on a silver platter.Have clues to the old mine at the tavern, at the temple, at the mayor's house, and when the PCs fight the Orcs.Precisely.DMs are a diverse group of people. Some create a world and let their PCs explore and what the PCs find, the PCs find. No special hints. Other DMs design their worlds as a work of art. The players must see every tiny detail because the DM has spent tons of hours on this really cool masterpiece that he has put together and he wants to showcase every last part of it.Although both styles can be fun, I've always preferred the former because the latter seems like railroading to me. I've seen DMs go way out of their way to overtly or covertly force PCs in a given direction, just so that the players could see this cool thing that the DM created over here. Not my cup of tea.Having the PCs find every secret door or solve every riddle is just a subset of this approach.Interestingly enough, our one DM recently had a pictorial combination lock on a door riddle where the PCs had to push certain portions of the picture in a certain combination in order to open the door. Pushing the wrong combination resulted in damage. The way to solve the riddle was to explore the rest of the dungeon (fighting through some really nasty monsters) to find similar pictures that ended up giving the players clues as to how to open the door.This to me is vastly superior to more traditional riddles that players have to either figure out on their own, or they wait for skill check rolls to give them DM hints until they finally get it.</blockquote>

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