Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brimshack" data-source="post: 3455108" data-attributes="member: 34694">I don't see much point in taking sides on an event that the rest of us had no roll in. I could as easily see the DM providing hint after hint until he is virtually telling them what to do and the players don't get it as I could the DM sitting there waiting for the players to come up with some complex solution that he only alluded to in an obscure comment three games back. I've been there on both sides, and I've seen it done right and done badly, done it right and done it badly myself from both angles. Whether the hints were enough depends to me an awful lot on the particulars.In general I do prefer multiple solutions to one solution scenarios. As a player, I feel less subservient to the GM that way, but the occassional riddle or complex puzzle can be fun.As a DM I do find that my players are consistently slow to recognize the hints I provide. This combined with the fact that I know my players are damned smart people suggests that there is a kind of cognitive bias at work. What seems like enough information to me may not be to them, ...frequently isn't. I've also been in situations where I am practically telling the players what to do; it's as though they aren't even trying to puzzle it out. Often I think that happens when players have had little success in solving problems or played so many hack and slash games they've gotten locked into a thoughtless mode of game play ...just give me an ogre to kill! You have to establish a pattern in qhich problem solving helps them accomplish things, or they may very well sit and blink while you tear out your hair waiting for them to use their brains.I think the real questions are how to avoid the problems:1) Start easy. In the first few games give the players solveable problems. Things they can clearly do. This builds confidence, not only in their abilities but in your willingness as a DM to put a viable solution on the table.2) Double check context. When I as a player fail to get the hint, it's often because I didn't have enough background information to appreciate the hints I was given. You have to imagine each fact in the context of a larger world, and I think one of the most common mistakes GMs make in giving hints is they imagine the significance of a certain fact will be obvious when in fact players can think of several different ways to take a single fact. So, it ends up as a wash. So, you take a little extra time to build up the extraneous info. especially stuff that seems relevant to the hints you will provide later. Take a little extra time for background narratives. Through in some decoy information as well, but be sure that the players hear enough about the situation to be able to grasp the siginifance of the hints when they come. 3) Two stage hinting. One way to avoid the dilemma of too obvious or too obscure (gee which do I choose) is to provide a hint that seems mundane, but give an additional piece of information that makes its relevance clear in a later moment. In this case, perhaps a story about a servant who got in serious trouble for moving a chair once. Present this as a story about the cruelty of the master; everyone remembers how he reacted to that simple thing. What a tyrrant! Since its presented in a different context, you can play it up a great deal without making its significance as a hint obvious. Then as people search the room, they see scratch marks on the floor as though the chair had been regularly moved from point A to point B. That's not the best example I can come up with, but the point is that gives the players two opportunities to grasp the basic idea that moving the furniture is important. When seeing that the chair which must not be moved IS in fact moved, or has been moved many times, they should get from 2 ad 2 to 4. Then you can leave one or two more hints about the room in cae they blow that one.</blockquote>

Verification