Rant - What was the GM thinking?

[der_kluge]

As a DM, I found myself relying too heavily on Spot and Listen checks.

I would catch myself doing stupid things like (just as an example):
me: "Everyone give me a spot check."
everyone rolls, someone gets something over a 10.
me: "You're standing in the field, and you see a castle in the distance". Well, duh.

Or
me: "Everyone give me a listen check."
everyone rolles, someone gets something over a 10.
me: "You're in a dark cavern, and suddenly you hear the roar of a dragon!"

Well, duh again. Fortunately, I haven't been that lame with those rolls, but I have required rolls for things that obviously everyone would be able to see or hear without much strain. So, I've really tried to curb my use of these rolls.

It's also dumb, because when you have 4 or 5 people all make the roll, someone is *bound* to get a hit on it, so you might as well just tell them.

All this GM had to do was to move this pit so that it wasn't close to where the party dug previously. That would have solved that problem.

 

[diaglo]

yeah, sounds like a rookie DM mistake.

which means he was frustrated and couldn't think of a way to make it work at the time. and afterwards he was taking out his frustration by boasting.

 

[BSF]

I'm the DM.

<snip>

DMs sometimes get . . . disappointed.

<Snip>

I hear you!

But, since it has been brought up...

Was it a Spot or a Search that needed to be done? I mean, was it well hidden or something like the dirt was disturbed in an area from the previous digging?

And if the group had been searching each previous room that thoroughly, why not the room with the BBEG? I know that I sometimes try to play off mental slips, so is it more likely that a group that just achieved victory over the BBEG will miss details in their excitement?

In Piratecat's story hour, he made the comment that the group left a powerful weapon behind after defeating the White Kingdom. It wasn't that they didn't find the weapon, they knew where it was. They just seemed to have forgotten it while dealing with everything else. It should be noted that Wulf disagrees. He seemed to think that they picked it up. (I'm not sure who was determined to be correct, and that isn't the point here.) So, is it possible that little details get glossed over at the end of a scenario? And if so, what should we do about it from both the player and the GM side of things? Is this a bad thing?

Hmm...

 

[Chroma]

It was just the way I was expected this particular party to find it, based on their previous actions -- searching each cavern.

Ah, one of the most come DM's Achilles's Heels... I've suffered from it many times: assume the players will do the same thing, in the same type of situation, that they've done every time before. When designing a scenario, as soon as a DM thinks, "They'll do this to solve it, because they always do that." they know that they might as well not even bother to finish... because the players won't... *laugh*

 

[Numion]

Reminds me of the ole 'fake hoard' trick in a dragons lair. 'Look, the loot is here, no need to search the cavern'. While the real loot is in a secret chamber nearby.

 

[Ferret]

He's boasting is all if you had a time machine and went back in time, the orb would have been somewhere else.

Ever see the dork tower where the DM has a trap on the right door but the party goes through the left? He switches it round.

 

[Numion]

He's boasting is all if you had a time machine and went back in time, the orb would have been somewhere else.

Ever see the dork tower where the DM has a trap on the right door but the party goes through the left? He switches it round.

Is there any situation in which it would be appropriate for an NPC find something the PCs missed?

 

[Trainz]

[Bob Ross] There are no mistakes, only happy little mishaps[/Bob Ross]

That's an instantaneous plot device if I ever saw one. Make the item important to the campaign, and have the PC's seek it out. Tracking is obvious, because the culprits had to drag it out of there to *somewhere*. Gather Information in the nearby towns can also help.

I dunno... HTH and all that.

 

[BSF]

Is there any situation in which it would be appropriate for an NPC find something the PCs missed?

Sure, why not? I can think of several instances in my games. For some of the situations it would make less sense that somebody else didn't find something the PC's might have missed. Of course, there are also situations where it wouldn't make much sense as well. It's all situational.

 

[Quasqueton]

When designing a scenario, as soon as a DM thinks, "They'll do this to solve it, because they always do that." they know that they might as well not even bother to finish... because the players won't... *laugh*

Well, in this case, the "situation" was set up before the PCs started setting their pattern, so I didn't intentionally put the secret in a place where I knew they'd find it. (I put it in a place that made sense for the BBEG.) I was excited when they started their pattern, though, because I knew it would lead to the eventual discovery.

Was it a Spot or a Search that needed to be done?

Needed to be an active search. I guess we could have a debate about the difference between a Search check and a Spot check, but that's for a different thread (in the Rules Forum).

Quasqueton