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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kaomera" data-source="post: 5203750" data-attributes="member: 38357">I'll admit that I may have played the curse as too close to "intelligent", which it wasn't. But it definitely was a malignant force. It didn't act on any source of information or make choices or lay plans, it just acted against those that fell within it's parameters.Yes, exactly. And I admit that I screwed up - it would have been better to change the facts behind the screen and let the players get away with their supposed cleverness. But the other side of players wasting time on questions is players who never ask anything, except maybe "What happens next?" There was more information available, it just never got to the players.I think I could have spun this up as something where I would have gotten responses bemoaning how awful my players where, but that's not actually how it happened. I would have had to bring up a lot of stuff that, since the players didn't know it, was basically irrelevant. Information I keep behind the screen and don't get to share isn't really even much fun for me.What I'd like to figure out (if there even really is a solution that would allow for it) is how I could have passed that information along without ruining it's import in the process. I gave a brief description of the "compass" when it was found, from which the player in question reasonably decided that, yes, this was a magic item that could be described that way. It was a crystal on a short chain with a small mote of light spinning rapidly around it (it had appeared to be blinking because lying on the floor of the chamber the light had passed behind the crystal as it spun). He didn't realize (or didn't think it important) that the spinning light indicated that the item was active. No-one decided that this "needle" was spinning wildly because it was pointing at itself...Failing that, how do I spot instances where it's going to be better to sidestep possible consequences and just let the PCs win? I don't mind giving them stuff so much (oh, I might have still grumbled a little to myself) but I absolutely don't want it to feel to the players like a handout. I didn't want the players to realize what had happened afterwords and feel robbed of the significance of their actions.If I had stopped the fighter's player when he had his character grab for the compass, and insisted that he sit through a detailed description of the "compass" and the "blinking light", just the fact that I was busting out "boxed text" would have given him pause. I really don't think he would have grabbed it at that point, regardless. Maybe that would have been better than just letting min grab it, but I think probably not. Having the compass activate on it's own was probably just too "clever" for my own good.But the players already knew the compass was a fabulous treasure - they came up with that idea themselves. They thought themselves very clever to have figured out how to get the fabulous treasure without activating the curse... And that just (still) strikes me as the height of hubris. Pretty much every story I've read / seen regarding a curse, someone tries to sidestep it and ends up walking right into it.And the players should have had a chance to get rid of the curse before anyone died. Like I said, they shouldn't have even been able to get into a situation where the curse could activate. But being PCs they of course did exactly that... The one thing that I can point to as being really, seriously, messed up about this was that I just don't know how the PCs would have gotten the compass if they had realized the danger and dropped it. It's led them to itself at that point, and they know it - how do the work themselves out from under that? Maybe that's the "clue" I'm looking for, the hint that I should just shut the whole thing down and hand them what they want.</blockquote>

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