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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harmon" data-source="post: 3624245" data-attributes="member: 24357">Every GM I know has this one moment that the Players aren’t doing what they need to do while they are working their way through the campaign (I am not talking about rail roading), whether it be pass on information to other PCs or just talk to the NPCs about what they might know.An example- The PCs are traveling with a caravan of merchants, working as guards, while they get from A to B.  To the Players it looks like just an excuse to get from here to there, the GM doesn’t have any random encounters cause the caravan is in a semi civilized area.  However, the GM hesitates here- “is there anything you want to do or say?” he asks, and asks a few more times over the course of an hour that this takes.The Players each line out a few things they want to do, most of which have little to do with the campaign- buy supplies, talk to the ladies that are traveling with the caravan, shoot the “dung” with people in the caravan, keep a vigilant eye out, scout ahead for water supplies, and possible problems on the road.Again, the GM asks if there is anything else.  The Players are uncertain, but know that the GM is hinting at something and so they ask- “is there something we are suppose to be doing or saying?”The GM is thinking that they characters are only doing what their Players say they are doing, no one mentioned that their characters are sitting about the camp fire at night singing songs, and telling tails of adventure, or listening to them.  There was no mention that the characters would introduce themselves to all of the people they are traveling with for more then a month.  Yet the GM seems insistent that the PCs should be doing something here.Many a time I have found myself in a situation where the GM expects me to do something and I am at a lose for what to do.  It almost seems that the future of the campaign sometimes hinges on me doing exactly what I do not know, yet should be doing.To explain a mite more- my wife and I have driven from California to Idaho a few times in the past, oh fourteen years.  We talk, about everything and anything just to pass the time.  Now if we were character in a campaign my wife would have missed a few vital facts about me, things that she did not know (we have known each other for more then twenty years), and I have learned a few things myself.  Should a GM assume that while ‘shooting the dung with my fellow travelers,’ might dreg up some clues that one of the merchants happens to know some hints about the dungeon these adventurers seek?  Or, should the Players need to mention it?  (Like looking up when your Searching a room.)</blockquote>

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