I just finished one of my weekly d&d games, and I could use advice on something
One of the players (I’ll call them H) snuck into a side room while nobody noticed, and stole a sword of plot. H then hid it (rolling really well), and hung around in there until two others noticed they were missing and searched for them.
Because we’re doing it over zoom, I privately messaged H to basically say “the party will notice if you attack or draw it or if something happens otherwise you’re fine”.
Now I’m wondering how I should have the party notice eventually that H stole something without calling for perception checks or using passive perception all the time.
What have other people done in similar situations and how did it work out?
I've never had good experiences with players keeping secrets from each other in games where we didn't agree ahead of time that would be part of the experience.
It's a whole different level of thing from GMs revealing planned surprises, because that's much more expected and the power dynamic is already known.
What kind of table environment have you established, for participants to talk about what they like and dislike in the game, what their hopes are for the campaign, etc?
'cause what you're able to do, and how you're able to do it, is gonna depend a LOT on how you've structured the social dynamics around the game.
I've played games where everyone is very much in on inter-character intrigue and people would enjoy figuring it out on their own, but I've also had games where it would have been a breach of the social contract to keep such things from the other players.
We have some clear guidelines and often talk about stuff as a group, but it’s run through the library so I, another gm for the library, and the librarian in charge have to agree on stuff.
However, the group gets final veto on anything
It’s just this has never come up before and somehow no option really feels right
Thinking back on my own D&D games where people kept secrets, I'd want to throw it to the group as a general question.
It stinks to have to do it when there's a thing one of the players is invested in that's getting debated, rather than earlier, but that's how I wished I'd handled it back in the day.
For what it’s worth, H messaged me first to say “I’m entering this room without people noticing, what do I see” and that’s how it started as private-ish
@BardicWizard Then...what's your feeling about how the players would react to it? Would they feel betrayed or would they feel fascinated when this is revealed to them after the fact?
I don’t even know; the group has a lot of players who drop in and out so the ones who come every week would probably find it fun and anyone who didn’t know the context would be confused.
It’s my first campaign with this group as a gm and I am only in one other with this group as a player
I briefly talked to the librarian about it; she thinks it’s probably fine and says she’ll back me up whatever I do about it if people start getting mad (we have a problem player)
And yeah, generally speaking we need to know that we're gonna make mistakes, and that we can't make everybody happy all the time even when we aren't making mistakes. Doesn't make us bad people, it's an opportunity to learn and to prove to people that we're trustworthy.
@ACuriousMind This, very much so. Players doing unexpected things is often a flag for some unstated issue that the player is trying to resolve single-handedly, or avoid, or force into the open, because they either don't think talking about it will go over well or it doesn't occur to them that they can talk about it at all--often they aren't able to articulate what the problem is even to themselves.
And even when there's not an unstated issue, GMs assuming they know why players are having their characters do things? Often a formula for confusion and resentment down the line.
I'm currently running a campaign with players that all said "we don't want to be all on one side this time". We're not keeping anything secret, and they all delight in seeing how the others intrigue against them (or, in the case of one character, bumble about thinking they're all one the same side). It's utterly delightful
Update on my gaming situation: emailed the librarian, H, and the other GM. The conclusion we came to is that I gave the group a perception check (don’t remember if I mentioned this), they didn’t make it, H was fine, and if people (AKA the problem player) get mad about it, then we’ll work something out later. I also ended up with a reminder from the other GM and the librarian that they’ll back me up if somebody bugs me about it. Hopefully, this’ll all be fine this time next week
When I said H was fine I meant they said they had been fine with the group finding out or not, but that didn’t come out right.
Oh gosh yes. Most of Jay Dragon's stuff itches me a bit in ways that make it hard to play, which is sad because their work is always so beautiful and thoughtful.
Every character sheet has a list of things the character can always do (without interacting with the token system). One of them has "you can always fidget." That's so. revolutionary? for so many people, and it's just quietly sitting there.
In D&D 5e, the harpy has the Luring Song action option:
Luring Song. The harpy sings a magical melody. Every humanoid and giant within 300 feet of the harpy that can hear the song must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed until the song ends. [...]
Would changing one (or more) s...
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Level 1 spells and higher level spell slots. Tell the player they can level up their abilities whenever they want up to a higher level. you recommend one at a time.
your level 9 wizard has 5th level slots and 1st level spells
if you feel like you've got it under control, then you can uptick it to 2nd level spells
$$..$$ is seperate line and works the same way on all sites AFAIK, some sites use $..$ for inline, others \$..\$. Those should be all your cases, I don't speak regex so can't really help you more than that
user435118
No, SE network-wide. I could adjust the regex depending on site but that wouldn’t be ideal
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@goodguy5 they define a character set, not a group
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In D&D 5e, the harpy has the Luring Song action option:
Luring Song. The harpy sings a magical melody. Every humanoid and giant within 300 feet of the harpy that can hear the song must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed until the song ends. [...]
Would changing one (or more) s...
