Overlooked Dragon Hoards

[Bullgrit]

if players are missing the "obvious" then there is a possibility the descrption given the players by the facilitating GM could have more clear.

Yes. I agree with this.

But then there are also times when Players just don't pay attention to what a DM clearly describes and draws out on the battlemat.

Bullgrit

 

[Mark CMG]

But then there are also times when Players just don't pay attention to what a DM clearly describes and draws out on the battlemat.

That may be the case but in circumstances such as this, the message between the sender and receiver(s) is "clearly" not getting through. In such circumstances, when a sender wishes to ensure a message is being received, the sender has to either strengthen the message or convince the receivers to be more receptive. It is possible for either a sender or receiver to not be aware if a message is being transmitted clearly, but a receiver unaware of a message has no way to rectify the situation independently. Only the sender, if they are aware their message is not being received, can rectify such a situation.

 

[Bullgrit]

That may be the case but in circumstances such as this, the message between the sender and receiver(s) is "clearly" not getting through.

See, here is a problem. What is the message?

Is the message a description of the scene/setting/situation?

Or is the message instructions for the PCs to do something particular?

Sometimes Players can do terribly bone-headed things even with a perfect understanding of the scene.

Bullgrit

 

[Mark CMG]

See, here is a problem. What is the message?

That's up to the sender. If the sender doesn't know, the receiver is unlikely to "get it."


Sometimes it is a miscommunication between what the sender is likely to convey and what the receiver is expecting the sender to convey. There are times when the receiver has expectations of the sender in regard to the parameters of the messages the sender is responsible to convey. This, too, is up to the sender to make clear.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I would have to say that as a player, I wouldn't imagine that a large, wealth-hoarding, flying creature would rely on hiding it's treasure behind a building. For starters, his main competition is going to be other large, wealth hoarding, flying creatures. Secondly there's only a slim chance that those attempting to steal one's treasure on foot would arrive from the perfect direction to not be able to see it.

Same goes for the hoard of a dragon with an army being inside a roofless house guarded only by the dragon himself. In fact it would seem really bizarre that the leader of the conquering army just pops out to attack us as we pass by, and that killing him is a footnote of our crossing the city rather than a major plot event. I probably would have remained convinced that the enemy general was still alive, and that we'd killed one of his minions. Who again wouldn't store his loot in a busted building.

On other topics, I believe there was a 1st level eberron adventure that
1) Assumed that the PCs would buy normal torches and lanterns from a street-vendor so that later they would be able to defeat a swarm (we were all tooled out with magical light-source alternatives and ended up having to retreat to find a source of fire)
2) Included an encounter that involved opening a locked building and being jumped by 3 melee-only quadrupedal combatants. There was also a hole in the building's roof, which we investigated first, because hey, locked door (also see below). We ended up collecting rubble and killing them by throwing rocks at them until they died.
3) Said building's doors were made of solid adamantium. Or adamantite. Or adamantine. Whichever the D&D one is. The point is that they were worth more than all the rest of the treasure in the entire adventure series combined. We decided it wouldn't be great for the game if we started our careers with effectively unlimited money.

 

[prosfilaes]

to the point where I'm being called out to defend myself.

It seems inappropriate to discuss an issue between you and someone else (not present) and get annoyed when people infer that the others aren't 100% to blame.

For every one you can show me like this, I'll show you two that are not. In fact, both the dragon encounters I mentioned were taken, at least in spirit, from published classic D&D material.

I stand by my statement; dragons are intelligent and highly covetous creatures. I expect that they're going to keep their hoard in a highly secure location. I expect that if I go tromping through dragon territory, the dragon is going to attack me some distance from its lair, so it has some place to retreat to, and so it doesn't lead us straight to its lair.

Whether the Players/PCs or you think the scene wasn't a standard or logical "lair" doesn't matter.

Surely you don't want them searching for a lair everywhere, in every shop in Ptolus; you want them looking where there might reasonably be a lair.

The treasure *was* right there, around a corner or through a doorway, (with no impediments). If you think saying, "I'll walk over and look behind the structure," or "I'll walk over and look through the doorway," is silly in this scene, then don't worry about. You're probably not going to miss out on anything by not bothering.

Maybe they want to play high heroes, not characters whose whole focus is finding as much gold as possible. Maybe they just need a nudge to expand their searches or to state what they're doing more carefully and in more detail. Maybe you need to discuss what dragons are like in your campaigns. In any case, being sarcastic and defensive about it won't help.

 

[Mark CMG]

Maybe they just need a nudge to expand their searches or to state what they're doing more carefully and in more detail.

Perhaps. This added bit of facilitating might be in order in many cases.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Perhaps an insatiably curious NPC henchmen might be useful in future games.

"Where's Roderick got to now?"

 

[MarkB]

With my game group of a few years ago, I saw an unbelievable scenario happen twice. The PCs didn’t check for a hoard after killing a dragon. This was the same Players, but two different campaigns.

First scenario:
The PCs were in a swamp, looking for a structure to delve into. They found the structure. As they neared it, a dragon leaped up from behind it. The fight ended with the dragon dead.

The dragon’s nest and hoard were behind the structure, where the dragon leaped up from. It was not hidden. But the party didn’t bother investigating around the structure. (Just walking around it would have found the treasure.) They just went up to the front, opened the doors, and went in. They explored, came back out, and went home.

Now, me, if I were a player approaching the only significant structure in miles of trackless swamp and a dragon attacked me, I'd tend to assume that the dragon kept his hoard inside the building, rather than camping out against the back wall like a vagrant.