D&D 5E What to do if a player keeps reading the adventures

[PnPgamer]

The guys shenanigans are so deep that even this thread turns semi-aggressive?
Sheesh.

 

[Celtavian]

What do you guys suggest when a player keeps reading the adventures before we play them. We're playing through the official adventures released by Wizards and the player reads ahead for each adventure so he knows what's coming.

We started playing published adventures as I don't really have the time to prepare my own however I have tweaked monsters etc.

I'd kill his character by tossing in monsters that aren't in the module. If he started to complain, I'd tell him straight up no one can cheat as well as the DM. If you don't want me to cheat, you best stop yourself.

I might even make a few comments like, "I read ahead. Your character dies quite often. I don't know. Some kind of death curse from the gods. Only one way to break it, you know what that way is."

 

[Uchawi]

I would discuss it with the player and ask why they feel the need to read the adventure ahead of time. It is much more exciting to discover things. If it interrupts fun at the table, I would discuss it with the entire table. He or she is jeopardizing the fun for everyone if the player always has the answers on what to expect or what to do next. After all that, and the table is dissatisfied and the player continues the behavior, then it may be time to ask them to leave the game.

Another suggestion is to allow the player to play a class that is more suited to their needs in regards to knowing things. They should play a wizard or something similar and specialize in knowledge spells. I would suggest a bard.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't know if it is possible in that adventure, but sometimes you can have a knowledgeable player be actually an NPC. Either a villain that disguises as an ally. Or an ally that travels with the group, but with a different goal than he claims. You can actually feed him information to dispose to the other characters.

Don't react to cheating with cheating yourself. That never ends well.

 

[JRedmond]

If a player did that in my game I would kick him out.

 

[wedgeski]

I really wouldn't have any interest in running a game for such a player. The mystery is not only ruined for him, but by his overly-informed actions, he's changing the outcome of the module for everyone else as well.

No. He'd be gone, sharpish.

 

[Morlock]

Regarding that lightning bolt: don't use an in-game solution for an out-of-game problem.

It's not exactly an out-of-game problem if the guy is using his "cheating" in-game.

I'd be sorely tempted to figure out his modus operandi and leave some especially nasty traps for him. Or cursed items in out-of-the-way spots where juicy treasure is present in the module-as-written. And change lots of stuff around, of course.

But I'd probably just tell him to find another game. He has earnestly signalled his wildly divergent playstyle.

 

[epithet]

I think the first thing I would do would be to start messing with the treasure. Anything that seemed to be earmarked for his character would be replaced with a cursed item, while the original item was changed to be ideal for another character. I would re-read through the module to find hidden things that the party was unlikely to locate, and prepare very nasty traps to spring if his character was the one to open the door.

Each time he had a trap blow up in his face, or had a cursed item put the whammy on him, I would calmly say "I knew that you had read the adventure, so I changed that part to keep it interesting for you." Like I was putting effort into doing him a favor.

He probably thinks of D&D as a sort of retro MMORPG. I've actually seen people get cranky in WoW when someone in a raid group was going into a dungeon for the first time and hadn't read up on the strategy for all the boss fights ahead of time. Someone should have a little talk with him and explain that real RPGs don't work like that, and that he is screwing up the game for everyone, himself included.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

My favorite solution for problems like this is not running published modules.

Just let 'em try to "read the module" when I'm running an unpublished never-before-seen Jack of All Tirades original adventure!

 

[Herobizkit]

Would it be too much effort to not-so-subtly switch the module just as you're settling in to play? I mean, surely there's enough of them at or around the same levels...

This tactic depends entirely on whether or not the players are tailoring new characters for each game. If you (the OP) is simply chaining together random modules and keeping the same PC's for each, you win twice - you still run an adventure, and Lookie Lou doesn't see it coming.

Of course, this also only works on the day you play it. I guess it's not the _best_ plan.