As to why he left: he might have legitimate reasons for doing so, he might just be really salty about the death. You can't really do anything about either; he's being a grown up and setting priorities in the former case and failing to do so in the latter.
so 1 of my players asked a really good question to me today. so druids get their magic from nature, clerics from their gods, warlocks from demon pacts, sorcerers from themselves. what about bards? yes they use their voice but thats like a staff or religious symbol, its a focus, where is the magic itself from? is it similar to sorcerers?
I always interpreted bard as being able to tap into raw emotion Through the power of verse.
He could have disengaged easily being, well, a Monk.
With PC deaths very rarely is the answer to "Did you try to retreat" anything other than No.
... because, generally, it never works anyway.
Yea, by the time you know you should retreat it is often way too late to save your party mates and then it becomes a really uncool thing to do.
13th Age had a solid rule on this where PCs could choose to "lose" a fight at any time which means everybody alive lives but the DM gets to give them a "campaign loss" which is license for some very bad event that will make the PCs disappointed happening. The bonus of course, is that they chose that.
He could have disengaged easily being, well, a Monk.
With PC deaths very rarely is the answer to "Did you try to retreat" anything other than No.
... because, generally, it never works anyway.
... unless you're a Monk and can outrun near everything and anything.
Like it depends on what level we're talking here and what HP the Monk has after the previous battle, but I think you can Dash spending a ki as a Bonus action at level 2, and then you get the speed boosts.
So getting out shouldn't have been a problem.
.. if he wasn't low on HP and then surprised due to kicking down doors.
He could have disengaged easily being, well, a Monk.
With PC deaths very rarely is the answer to "Did you try to retreat" anything other than No.
... because, generally, it never works anyway.
Yea, by the time you know you should retreat it is often way too late to save your party mates and then it becomes a really uncool thing to do.
13th Age had a solid rule on this where PCs could choose to "lose" a fight at any time which means everybody alive lives but the DM gets to give them a "campaign loss" which is license for some very bad event that will make the PCs disappointed happening. The bonus of course, is that they chose that.
Sort of depends on if the evil guy had any real reason to not finish the Monk off, for instance: other party members in the room.
If so, it's sort of a bad move for the DM to have the enemies finish off downed player characters whilst combat is still in progress.
But if that hasted PC didn't get there in time, then that's the Monk's fault.
He could have disengaged easily being, well, a Monk.
At that point the Druid was up there and the rest of us were desperately scrambling up the ladder. He could have left the Monk to go for the Druid but he was in another room and actively engaged with the enemy's partner. I think he didn't want to disengage because there was a helpless NPC being beaten by the guy when the Monk burst in. As it was, the rest of us got up there the next round after he'd died and I threw out a Banishment so we could kill the other guy, grab the bodies, and leap out of the tree to where the Sorcerer was prepped with a Feather Fall to prevent a near-TPK.
In a couple of weeks i DM my first "real player" game. I've DMd twice before, to people who never played before, so it was easy to be confident about it. The group i am about to DM to has been playing (individually, i don't mean as a group) since the 80s. Hell i only started as a player in 5e, with them!
We are doing Curse of Strahd. One of the players has read the book an expressed concern about the Death House (where i said i would take them) being too deadly for lvl 1s, asked me to do something else first. So i figured I'd alter the start a bit of how they get to Barovia and instead of using the 3 suggested methods do a sort of meld. The plan is:
- PCs are hanging out in the evening at a roadside in, sheltering from the on and off rain that's been going on all day
- vistani guy runs in, in apparent panic, and says something like "help, someone, some... Thing took them!" And runs back out.
- Most of the NPC patrons go outside to see wtf is happening (and hopefully the PCs) and see a cart pulled over to the inn haphazardly, with a big tear in the tarp cover. The guy is running into the woods on the other side of the road as fast as he can.
- innkeep sends one NPC down the road to look for the sheriff. Three other NPCs accompany the characters to the woods, two locals and another adventurer type.
- there are two sets of footprints in the mud, boots and summer sort of large wolf paw, both bipedal
- following them leads to a cave, a scream comes out of the cave. The local yokels get scared and run away, promising to lead the sheriff here
- inside the characters run into 3 giant rats (easy), 2 worg (medium), 2 worg (medium). Can also run into a bat swarm (easy), and 4 zombies (hard) if they don't beeline for the screaming sounds. At the end of the cave is a Lucretia (CR3, deadly) who has been mimicing the screams and child calls for help. Then on the way out they run into a few more zombies (medium) and a dire wolf (medium) that hadn't been there before. Along the way they can find a hidden bag stuffed with clothes and some coins with Strahd crest on the coins, and in another room a campfire and sleeping bag under which is hidden the boots from Xanathars that let you leave footprints of your choice. Also a tunnel that lets then bypass one dire wolf encounter if they find it and spend some time clearing away rocks.
- the idea is that the other adventurer NPC "tanks" the Leucretia for them, since this thing has bite 8 and kick 11 dmg, then dies from the messed up saliva
- when they leave the cave they are in Svalich woods and close to road. Taking road in either direction brings them to Gates of Barovia.
Thoughts?
My concerns:
- the PCs are 3 min/maxers, 1 "standard" player that loves to RP, and 1 person barely paying attention most of the time. Is this in general too deadly for them? Too easy? I have no idea.
- how do i make the adventurer NPC not take the spotlight on way in but make it step up to tank the Lucretia?
- what if the PCs don't come outside or don't go in the woods? Is it time to say "ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so"?
- what if they clear the cave and don't bother taking a long rest for the trip out? Do i just not run random encounters until they do? I expect they'll be pretty spent.
Also, a repeat request for advice on initiatice tracker:
Any recommendations for a initiative tracker that can run on a laptop and doesn't need the internet? I should be able to enter in the participants (preferably with saved player initiatives and then saved encounters i prep ahead of time), and do things like suprise rounds or advantage.
Also, would like it to reroll each round instead of only at combat start.
Don't need to track PC hp, we trust each other with stuff like that.
I don't have the experience to judge the balance of the encounters you listed above because I'm just about to DM my first 5e game this week, but I have been playing Strahd as a player once a month for the last year or so.
My thoughts on Curse of Strahd as a player so far, I'm only level 5 in it so we've got some room to grow, and I haven't read the book.
Strahd is a deadly campaign, I think clearly by design. Death House being too hard is a common criticism and I have to say its probably fair. We had a lot of close calls and lost a character in the final encounter and we are all pretty experienced players.
I almost feel like we should have been level 2 entering the house and level 3 when we found our way into the secret basement instead of 1 and 2 respectively. Our only player death was absolutely on the player, he decided to throw a pouch of oil and some flame at the breathing mound of trash instead of just leaving the room like we absolutely could have. We sacrificed a rat to the altar and we were pretty sure we could leave safely and suddenly we had a deadly encounter going on where the offending player was killed in basically one turn.
That encounter was clearly too hard for a party of four level 2s but it served as a wake-up call and now we knew we could die for any wrong choices. Since then we've had two more deaths purely from being too curious, which is a shame because the region is so interesting but we're terrified of exploring because poking the wrong box in a merchants shop could lead to an easy tpk.
As a player I find the general refusal of the locals to do business with us extremely frustrating, and when we do find someone who will do business they have an extremely terrible inventory and charge 10x rates. We've got plenty of treasure we have no use for because who is going to buy gems from us in this place? Being able to stock up on arrows or buy just some freaking Studded Leather Armor would go a long way at this point, but I don't see it happening.
I find the Strahd campaign to be extremely challenging because I don't have a clear way of knowing whether a choice that would be insignificant in almost any other context could lead to my death before I even get to my initiative turn, combined with a lack of resources such as trustworthy contacts or merchants.
If you're DMing, having a player who has read the book will probably tone down the horror a lot, since he can keep them from wandering into the wrong places. Which could be good or bad depending on how much horror you're looking for.
In a couple of weeks i DM my first "real player" game. I've DMd twice before, to people who never played before, so it was easy to be confident about it. The group i am about to DM to has been playing (individually, i don't mean as a group) since the 80s. Hell i only started as a player in 5e, with them!
We are doing Curse of Strahd. One of the players has read the book an expressed concern about the Death House (where i said i would take them) being too deadly for lvl 1s, asked me to do something else first. So i figured I'd alter the start a bit of how they get to Barovia and instead of using the 3 suggested methods do a sort of meld. The plan is:
- PCs are hanging out in the evening at a roadside in, sheltering from the on and off rain that's been going on all day
- vistani guy runs in, in apparent panic, and says something like "help, someone, some... Thing took them!" And runs back out.
- Most of the NPC patrons go outside to see wtf is happening (and hopefully the PCs) and see a cart pulled over to the inn haphazardly, with a big tear in the tarp cover. The guy is running into the woods on the other side of the road as fast as he can.
- innkeep sends one NPC down the road to look for the sheriff. Three other NPCs accompany the characters to the woods, two locals and another adventurer type.
- there are two sets of footprints in the mud, boots and summer sort of large wolf paw, both bipedal
- following them leads to a cave, a scream comes out of the cave. The local yokels get scared and run away, promising to lead the sheriff here
- inside the characters run into 3 giant rats (easy), 2 worg (medium), 2 worg (medium). Can also run into a bat swarm (easy), and 4 zombies (hard) if they don't beeline for the screaming sounds. At the end of the cave is a Lucretia (CR3, deadly) who has been mimicing the screams and child calls for help. Then on the way out they run into a few more zombies (medium) and a dire wolf (medium) that hadn't been there before. Along the way they can find a hidden bag stuffed with clothes and some coins with Strahd crest on the coins, and in another room a campfire and sleeping bag under which is hidden the boots from Xanathars that let you leave footprints of your choice. Also a tunnel that lets then bypass one dire wolf encounter if they find it and spend some time clearing away rocks.
- the idea is that the other adventurer NPC "tanks" the Leucretia for them, since this thing has bite 8 and kick 11 dmg, then dies from the messed up saliva
- when they leave the cave they are in Svalich woods and close to road. Taking road in either direction brings them to Gates of Barovia.
Thoughts?
My concerns:
- the PCs are 3 min/maxers, 1 "standard" player that loves to RP, and 1 person barely paying attention most of the time. Is this in general too deadly for them? Too easy? I have no idea.
- how do i make the adventurer NPC not take the spotlight on way in but make it step up to tank the Lucretia?
- what if the PCs don't come outside or don't go in the woods? Is it time to say "ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so"?
- what if they clear the cave and don't bother taking a long rest for the trip out? Do i just not run random encounters until they do? I expect they'll be pretty spent.
Also, a repeat request for advice on initiatice tracker:
Any recommendations for a initiative tracker that can run on a laptop and doesn't need the internet? I should be able to enter in the participants (preferably with saved player initiatives and then saved encounters i prep ahead of time), and do things like suprise rounds or advantage.
Also, would like it to reroll each round instead of only at combat start.
Don't need to track PC hp, we trust each other with stuff like that.
Death House is hard by design. It's supposed to teach the players that yes you can find yourself in situations you can't handle and need to run.
Curse of Strahd will cause more player deaths if they don't figure that out quick.
My concerns:
- the PCs are 3 min/maxers, 1 "standard" player that loves to RP, and 1 person barely paying attention most of the time. Is this in general too deadly for them? Too easy? I have no idea.
- how do i make the adventurer NPC not take the spotlight on way in but make it step up to tank the Lucretia?
- what if the PCs don't come outside or don't go in the woods? Is it time to say "ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so"?
- what if they clear the cave and don't bother taking a long rest for the trip out? Do i just not run random encounters until they do? I expect they'll be pretty spent.
The PCs are level 1 and those worg can one shot someone. I'd make liberal use of the adventurer NPCs to give them a hp buffer. The Lucretia (no idea what that is) is going to be a boring fight; it's a deadly sack of HP that'll swing at two people per round. Your narration is going to be key here to keep people excited. With regards to making your PCs feel special and not shining too much of a spotlight on the NPCs: Wrong module my friend! CoS is at its best when the PCs are constantly fearing for their lives and feeling inferior to the monsters lurking in the shadows. I advise running death house because not only is it a tightly packed dungeon, it also teaches your players early on that you're going to die if you pick fights at every opportunity.
If your players don't do "your" introductory adventure, so what?
"ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so" makes me think you're going to be a tyrant, that won't end well for anyone.
Just narrate that during their next day of travel, a thick fog makes further travel impossible; they make camp for the night and wake up in Barovia the next day.
Honestly while the entire party deciding not to engage with an adventure and just deciding to stay in the tavern for eternity is a DMs nightmare, I personally, as a player, have never seen a party do that. I think the players come to the table understanding that they'll receive a call to action and they will pursue it because why the hell would you even sit down at the table if you didn't want to roll dice, fight monsters, and have adventures?
Instead I feel like its much more common for players to take random descriptions as a call to action and rush off in a direction you never even considered because you described the Innkeeper arguing with his lazy employee about not gathering enough firewood and now the party is wandering the forest looking for recently felled trees to cut up!
I'm not concerned about the entire party not going, I'm concerned about over or two (out of 5) PCs not going. Then what? Split the party and have those that go do the cave and the other two twiddle their thumbs the rest of the night because i didn't prep anything for them to do in the tavern? Then oh look next they they are swept into the road to Barovia anyway? Send like that destroys the narrative of Strahd looking for "are you a bad enough dude to ..." and is even more railroady.
Anything goes tbh. We are all old farts that mostly talk shit when we play but its always fun when you can compair things that happen to movies and so on. Still both these settings sound pretty cool. I think I'll just ask them what they think sounds most fun.
I'm not concerned about the entire party not going, I'm concerned about over or two (out of 5) PCs not going. Then what? Split the party and have those that go do the cave and the other two twiddle their thumbs the rest of the night because i didn't prep anything for them to do in the tavern? Then oh look next they they are swept into the road to Barovia anyway? Send like that destroys the narrative of Strahd looking for "are you a bad enough dude to ..." and is even more railroady.
The other players will set them straight, don't bother with content for players who purposefully avoid the content you prepared. And don't worry, what kind of weirdo would not want to play dnd during a dnd session.
D&D has the implicit assumption that the characters are insane looking for adventure. If players get waved a big flag of ADVENTURE! in their face and decide they'd rather just sit back with a mug of cider and maybe take up farming they're violating the implicit social contract of the game. I'm gonna note that this is very different from something like "I do not wish to help the Church kill all those heretics" or "The mayor who just taxed the shit out of us? Kobolds can keep him." or anything where the rejection is actually character driven. For a first session though, you kinda need to put on your "yes and.." pants and go with it to not be a jerk to the person running your game.
If they're new to D&D and might not understand that idea then either break character and say as much or just make it super boring if they'll take a hint. If they take the hint be super generous bringing them back in and strain the hell out of credulity to get them into the adventure parts just as quickly as possible.
Curse of Strahd's whole appeal is it's inversion of dungeons and dragon's tropes; in pretty much every other setting the players should be getting a sense of empowerment as larger then life heroes overcoming everything in their path.
Ravenloft is the polar opposite; players should be afraid of encounters and made to understand that nothing is free or easy their; when I ran CoS at my local shop the players ran into 5 dire wolves in session 1, got the piss whipped out of them, and then (after having fled the encounter) began the second one having to decide whether to do a long rest in the middle of a road or press on in hopes of finding a safe place to rest without having another hostile encounter, less then 20 hp's between the 5 of them, and no spell slots left.
And that's as it should be, since the one thing that your players should be wrapped in at all times when you're running ravenloft campaigns is fear and uncertainty.
@Hexmage-PA At least according to all the races in the books... Every long lived race reaches physical maturity at about the same rate as humans do. They just aren't considered adults by society until a later time.
Which ain't right, IMO. Elves should be children until they're, like, 20. And not being able to biologically procreate until they're in their 50's or something. If you are from an arguably hedonistic race, and young, and hot, and physically mature and able to leave your parents basements for weeks at a time... How are you NOT hooking up wherever you go and having babies? Is Elf contraception that good?
That idea never sat well with me. Children until 20? Even assuming the body just grows that slowly (which I also don't like), do they just not know how to process the things around them? Are they slow learners to keep them in a child like state for so long?
I much prefer all of them aging and maturing around the same time frame but dwarves and elves going full stop after they reach that age, with their community not seeing them as an adult until they've experienced more of life, which makes a little bit of sense, I think. 20 year old me who was considered an adult in our society didn't know jack shit compared to 30 year old me. And then five more years later at 35, and I just see the world and myself differently. That's not to say 20 year old me shouldn't have a voice at the table, but more than I understand that age can lead to more wisdom (of course age can also make people THINK they're wiser than they really are, with a 20 year old actually having a better understanding than a sixty year old).
As for the whole children thing, I think it's just a matter of fertility
I once ran a game at my community college for a party of three or four people or something. There was a particular player who was begging me to run something (literally pestering me two to three times per week) and I finally was like "alright I'll prep something and run a game."
I started it off with the group approaching a town, I told them it was the next destination on their adventures and they'd heard there were some strange rumors adventurers might be inclined to investigate. The first thing was them encountering a town guard at the gates who asked them their name and business. I figured it'd be a good way for them to introduce themselves.
The Particular Player then told me "I turn around and head the other direction." When I said I didn't really have anything prepared outside of the leads in the down he literally pointed his finger at me and shouted "RAILROADING"
I looked at the other players, who looked back at me in utter bafflement. I then picked up my things then and there, said "okay we're done here," and never played with that person again, because honestly that's asshole behavior and I don't need that in my groups.
We played without him in a different group later and everything pretty much went fine.
Which is all to say, if you see a player who sees an obvious story lead and purposefully avoids it, especially in the face of the rest of the group picking it up, you are probably dealing with an asshole. And if you told me you kicked him out of the group on the spot, I'd give you a high five.
I once ran a game at my community college for a party of three or four people or something. There was a particular player who was begging me to run something (literally pestering me two to three times per week) and I finally was like "alright I'll prep something and run a game."
I started it off with the group approaching a town, I told them it was the next destination on their adventures and they'd heard there were some strange rumors adventurers might be inclined to investigate. The first thing was them encountering a town guard at the gates who asked them their name and business. I figured it'd be a good way for them to introduce themselves.
The Particular Player then told me "I turn around and head the other direction." When I said I didn't really have anything prepared outside of the leads in the down he literally pointed his finger at me and shouted "RAILROADING"
I looked at the other players, who looked back at me in utter bafflement. I then picked up my things then and there, said "okay we're done here," and never played with that person again, because honestly that's asshole behavior and I don't need that in my groups.
We played without him in a different group later and everything pretty much went fine.
Which is all to say, if you see a player who sees an obvious story lead and purposefully avoids it, especially in the face of the rest of the group picking it up, you are probably dealing with an asshole. And if you told me you kicked him out of the group on the spot, I'd give you a high five.
Shit I sometimes have trouble if i leave things too open ended for the players, and don't seemingly have an adventure for them.
I'm not concerned about the entire party not going, I'm concerned about over or two (out of 5) PCs not going. Then what? Split the party and have those that go do the cave and the other two twiddle their thumbs the rest of the night because i didn't prep anything for them to do in the tavern? Then oh look next they they are swept into the road to Barovia anyway? Send like that destroys the narrative of Strahd looking for "are you a bad enough dude to ..." and is even more railroady.
"Okay, you one or two people who have opted not to join the adventure, you spend the next two or three weeks getting black out drunk in a quiet tavern.
Now, onto the actual game..."
Or
"The X brave adventurers leave to meet their destiny, the others retire to a quiet and safe life of potato farming, they hang their swords and armor in places of honor above their mantle and grow old and fat in a loving marriage entertaining generations with their ever growing tale of that one time they did something cool. Eventually you die and are buried in a shallow grave on your farm, mourned by a handful of children, a double handful of grandchildren and one goat that escaped the pen"
I mean, if the people don't want to play the game, then they don't have to play the game, but you shouldn't have to stress out giving them something else to do. Playing everything free form and fast and loose is great if you don't have a destination in mind and you just want to go where the dice take you.
But if you do have a destination, then sometimes a bit of railroading is necessary to get you there.
- what if the PCs don't come outside or don't go in the woods? Is it time to say "ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so"?
Why give them a choice?
"A bone-rattling roar erupts from the cave and the villagers who led you here scream and drop their torches.
"'They took him!' said the carter, desperately pleading for someone to follow him from the warmth and safety of the inn, and you all came, and saw the wreckage, and followed the pawprints the size of feet down the trail torn through the forest.
"But even as most of this unruly mob flees back, to a flickering light behind thick stone walls, you're going to keep going inside. So how about we go around the table and everyone introduce themselves and say why they're running toward danger? (If you have secret reasons here are some secret notecards.)"
As long as you're sufficiently enthusiastic about the whole affair, people probably won't even notice. I mean, if you want to wring your hands about railroading, this is adventure step 0, there is necessarily some railroading. "You all meet in a tavern and-" "RAILROADING! My character concept is someone who lived and died five centuries ago on a different continent! Your move, smart guy. 8-)"
The trick is to get people to come up with reasons why they are adventuring instead of reasons why they aren't. That moves it away from the type of railroading where you want everyone to shut up and look out the window and toward the type of railroading where you look around the dining car and you wonder, who are all these other people on this train and what is their deal?
I've been having a problem with my players and my current campaign regarding railroading or more specifically my lack thereof.
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
So part of this involves letting the players figure things out for themselves and show some initiative with what they're supposed to do, talk to people and figure this shit out.
The problem is, they're not really doing this. I've been presenting them with opportunities to gather information or learn things and theyve kind of just ignored them left right and center, putting more emphasis on their own mini goals which are important to them personally but not to the other players in any meaningful way.
I've been having a problem with my players and my current campaign regarding railroading or more specifically my lack thereof.
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
So part of this involves letting the players figure things out for themselves and show some initiative with what they're supposed to do, talk to people and figure this shit out.
The problem is, they're not really doing this. I've been presenting them with opportunities to gather information or learn things and theyve kind of just ignored them left right and center, putting more emphasis on their own mini goals which are important to them personally but not to the other players in any meaningful way.
I'm really not sure what to do at this point.
My initial reaction is let them fail but make the failure do something that pisses them off. Give like one more round of pretty strong hints that Something Is Up and if it is continued to be ignored then the situation changes. The family deposes their sponsor, frame a beloved NPC, or just take control of something a PC wanted.
I've been having a problem with my players and my current campaign regarding railroading or more specifically my lack thereof.
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
So part of this involves letting the players figure things out for themselves and show some initiative with what they're supposed to do, talk to people and figure this shit out.
The problem is, they're not really doing this. I've been presenting them with opportunities to gather information or learn things and theyve kind of just ignored them left right and center, putting more emphasis on their own mini goals which are important to them personally but not to the other players in any meaningful way.
I'm really not sure what to do at this point.
My initial reaction is let them fail but make the failure do something that pisses them off. Give like one more round of pretty strong hints that Something Is Up and if it is continued to be ignored then the situation changes. The family deposes their sponsor, frame a beloved NPC, or just take control of something a PC wanted.
I've been having a problem with my players and my current campaign regarding railroading or more specifically my lack thereof.
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
So part of this involves letting the players figure things out for themselves and show some initiative with what they're supposed to do, talk to people and figure this shit out.
The problem is, they're not really doing this. I've been presenting them with opportunities to gather information or learn things and theyve kind of just ignored them left right and center, putting more emphasis on their own mini goals which are important to them personally but not to the other players in any meaningful way.
I'm really not sure what to do at this point.
My initial reaction is let them fail but make the failure do something that pisses them off. Give like one more round of pretty strong hints that Something Is Up and if it is continued to be ignored then the situation changes. The family deposes their sponsor, frame a beloved NPC, or just take control of something a PC wanted.
I actually took steps to give the players both dire warnings (I gave each of the players a mini dream sequence that revealed both warnings and clues to them) and provided an opportunity for them to attend a masquerade ball (that would be attended by numerous nobles and afford them entrance to a castle owned by the head of the family but for the most part the players haven't really responded to these things (two of my players are more concened with their own character's subplots (one of which involves a group of sheep murdered by a noble via a fireball spell and the player's desire to find them, which I'd be fine with but it seems to be the only thing they actually care about) then they are with actually investigating the matter at hand) and in the case of the masquerade only responded to the most blatent events.
I'm at the point where I'm worried that I'm going to have to ask whether I should be more direct with what's going on.
And to be clear, it's not like I'm expecting them to figure out what some obscure phrases mean or what the numbers 14 8 34 mean, this is what they have so far.
1. a noblemen who was a potential suitor to the unmarried queen was killed via fireball spell during an attack by gnolls.
2. The killer was a war wizard of cormyr, but examination of him by other war wizards revealed that the wand he used to cast the spell was one that effectively allowed some other wizard to remotely cast spells through it.
3. Attempts to question the murderer post death were curtailled by them having no actual memories in their head at all.
4. The noblemen was the second to last living member of his family.
5. Said family was suspected of having had under the table dealings with a hostile neighbor.
6. Said family was nominally vassals to the wyvernspur family.
7. The wyverspur's have come out of the sundering/spell plague/war as one of the most powerful families in cormyr due to good governance of their lands and that the invasion forces of the netherese and sembia missed their holdings.
8. The wyvernspurs have a proud tradition of loyalty to the royal family.
9. This loyalty is in question since they sent a paltry number of troops to oppose the invasion and are subject to loss of lands as a potential result.
10. The players have met with 2 members of the family; a paladin named lorien who took up an oath of humility and travelled abroad in service to Illmater and a noble women named Dahlia who seem skilled in "the game".
11. The paladin competed in a tournament where someone was deliberately rigging his matches in his favor and managed to win.
12. When asked what reward he would have wanted from the queen of cormyr he only stammered something along the lines of "a consideration at a later time".
13. Dahlia seems to think her father is angling for Lorien to become king by way of marriage to the queen.
14. There is a strong probability that the gnolls from the initial attack were brought in and used as cover by some third party.
15. The person who was interfering in the tournament had a pendant under their cloak resembling a burning dagger.
This isn't even going into all of the dream clues/warnings they have to work with.
Clearly, you need to make it explicit somehow that Mystery Fireball Assassin needed to practice their remote-fireball-wand setup. Several times. Using things like say flocks of sheep as surrogates for the covering melee between hired gnolls and noble men-at-arms.
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
Did the players explicitly agree to an investigation/intrigue campaign at the outset? Maybe your players aren't interacting with the investigation plot because they're not really interested in that type of game.
edit to add: as a person who is not especially interested in intrigue type play: I'm looking at your 15 point list, and after about point 3 I think I would say "oh well, guess there's nothing more to this."
I do not see myself piecing together all 15 of those points, especially when they're spread out across multiple sessions. Points 4-9 all seem like background info stuff that I'm not sure how you would relate to the players, and seems like the kind of thing where I would say "hmm" at the table and then forget about. Points 10-15 are more interesting and potentially noteworthy enough for me to try to jot down into my personal campaign notes, but I'm not sure they suggest a course of action to me.
Following Fry's line of reasoning: let the players help out a Detective EXTRAORDINAIRE who travelled to town, figured out point 1 to 15 by the power of DEDUCTION and who sends the party straight to the right hidden alleyway to continue the plot to a point where they know which way to point the business end of their swords and go from there.
I would love to play a deduction game, but I know most of my group would not really care, or rather, would get so caught up in what-ifs that we'd never get anywhere.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited March 2018
There’s always the oldest trick in the DM book.
Steal something from the party they would want back. That’ll put them on the track.
You could also make the true perpetrators of these acts send assassins specifically against the party so now they’re involved because its THEIR lives the baddies are threatening.
Certainly would help me give a damn even a little in Storm King’s Thunder. Stupid giant caste system.
Edit: I think that list is too big. It might be easier to lead them on this adventure with maybe 5 really important points.
And to be clear, it's not like I'm expecting them to figure out what some obscure phrases mean or what the numbers 14 8 34 mean, this is what they have so far.
That may be what you've given them, but I doubt it's what they have.
Step one: ask them what they have. Step two: ask them where it's taking them.
Because I mean, yeah, Bioshock Infinite started with this flash vision where the seed of the Prophet took the throne and drowned in flame the mountains of man, but it also had the twin impulses of "bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" and "also you might be recognized as the False Shepherd and then it's kill on sight". What do they think is actually in front of them, right now, to do, and what are they just cooling their heels on and trusting that circumstances will provide a path forward as the ridiculously circuitous plan gets more towards, like, three-quarters complete?
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
How can the nobleman be the second to last loving family member if we have paladin, dahlia, and dahlia's father
I agree with fry and glazious. I don't know that you've told us about any time pressure or any obvious next steps. Maybe they're sitting there without any ideas of what to do next. At the point that they went to the masquerade ball they seem like they're doing their part of participating and trying to get to the bottom of things
Have you read that DM advice thing about the three clues?
- A nobleman from a family of vassals to the Wyvernspurs that was also a suitor to the Queen has died mysteriously.
- Lorien Wyvernspur won a tournament that was rigged in his favor and asked for "a consideration at a later time" from the Queen.
- Dahlia Wyvernspur believes her father wants Lorien to marry the Queen.
So the Wyvernspur patriarch was behind the vassal's death, then? After a quick Google search, I'm seeing there is an organization in the Forgotten Realms setting called the Burning Daggers. Is Pappy Wyvernspur a member, or is there a greater conspiracy?
Something that TechNoir and Mechnoir do really well is structure mystery stories.
It sounds like what you've done is said "what happened was A did B to C, in special way D, for reason E" and you've dropped clues for the players to figure it out.
In my experience a better way to do it is to lead the players immediately into a red herring. Continue dropping clues as to the actual culprit, but instead of just letting them figure it out, have each lead generate 2-3 more leads. Make sure every lead goes somewhere relevant (NO DEAD ENDS!) so that the players can choose to follow whichever path they think is the most likely to be correct. If they suspect one lead is right but they decide to go for a second one "just to make sure" then decide on the spot whether to have the secondary lead actually move them forward, or whether to confirm your players' suspicions and have the secondary lead point toward the first lead again.
Always make sure the players have at least one, preferably 2-3 DIRECT leads that they can follow. Add concrete information to the mystery as it goes, and make sure the leads actually take you to the end of the mystery eventually.
The players' reward for figuring it out is that they get to skip ahead, and you can facilitate that easily enough.
1) players always need a concrete next step. Even if that next step might not get them to solve the mystery it has to be there and obvious.
If “investigate the scene” is a step then succeeding there must give another concrete next step. Not necessarily something that is right (say if you fail) but something to do
2) at each junction where it seems like players might be aimless ask them OOC what they want to do.
3) concrete tasks are better than mysteries. If you have a purpose for solving the mystery players can actively do the concrete task (and plan) when immediately the mystery doesn’t seem obvious.
As an example: our characters started out like so
Mystery: what is up with this dude who bought us?
Plan: Get out of dodge
Then after we got out of dodge not finding much out we had
Mystery: what is up with this thing we found and what do the baddies want with it
Plan: depose the baddies
When the macguffin search doesn’t go well we get to fall back on active measures.
————
What your game seems to be lacking is a purpose. Why do characters care about this situation?
Do they want to prob up the nobility for money and glory and favors? Let them root out dissidents maybe unconnected with the plot. Do they want to take downs the family? Maybe let them help and so get involved with the plot...
Posts
As to why he left: he might have legitimate reasons for doing so, he might just be really salty about the death. You can't really do anything about either; he's being a grown up and setting priorities in the former case and failing to do so in the latter.
I always interpreted bard as being able to tap into raw emotion Through the power of verse.
With PC deaths very rarely is the answer to "Did you try to retreat" anything other than No.
... because, generally, it never works anyway.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Yea, by the time you know you should retreat it is often way too late to save your party mates and then it becomes a really uncool thing to do.
13th Age had a solid rule on this where PCs could choose to "lose" a fight at any time which means everybody alive lives but the DM gets to give them a "campaign loss" which is license for some very bad event that will make the PCs disappointed happening. The bonus of course, is that they chose that.
... unless you're a Monk and can outrun near everything and anything.
Like it depends on what level we're talking here and what HP the Monk has after the previous battle, but I think you can Dash spending a ki as a Bonus action at level 2, and then you get the speed boosts.
So getting out shouldn't have been a problem.
.. if he wasn't low on HP and then surprised due to kicking down doors.
I love this rule in 13th Age.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
At that point the Druid was up there and the rest of us were desperately scrambling up the ladder. He could have left the Monk to go for the Druid but he was in another room and actively engaged with the enemy's partner. I think he didn't want to disengage because there was a helpless NPC being beaten by the guy when the Monk burst in. As it was, the rest of us got up there the next round after he'd died and I threw out a Banishment so we could kill the other guy, grab the bodies, and leap out of the tree to where the Sorcerer was prepped with a Feather Fall to prevent a near-TPK.
We are doing Curse of Strahd. One of the players has read the book an expressed concern about the Death House (where i said i would take them) being too deadly for lvl 1s, asked me to do something else first. So i figured I'd alter the start a bit of how they get to Barovia and instead of using the 3 suggested methods do a sort of meld. The plan is:
- PCs are hanging out in the evening at a roadside in, sheltering from the on and off rain that's been going on all day
- vistani guy runs in, in apparent panic, and says something like "help, someone, some... Thing took them!" And runs back out.
- Most of the NPC patrons go outside to see wtf is happening (and hopefully the PCs) and see a cart pulled over to the inn haphazardly, with a big tear in the tarp cover. The guy is running into the woods on the other side of the road as fast as he can.
- innkeep sends one NPC down the road to look for the sheriff. Three other NPCs accompany the characters to the woods, two locals and another adventurer type.
- there are two sets of footprints in the mud, boots and summer sort of large wolf paw, both bipedal
- following them leads to a cave, a scream comes out of the cave. The local yokels get scared and run away, promising to lead the sheriff here
- inside the characters run into 3 giant rats (easy), 2 worg (medium), 2 worg (medium). Can also run into a bat swarm (easy), and 4 zombies (hard) if they don't beeline for the screaming sounds. At the end of the cave is a Lucretia (CR3, deadly) who has been mimicing the screams and child calls for help. Then on the way out they run into a few more zombies (medium) and a dire wolf (medium) that hadn't been there before. Along the way they can find a hidden bag stuffed with clothes and some coins with Strahd crest on the coins, and in another room a campfire and sleeping bag under which is hidden the boots from Xanathars that let you leave footprints of your choice. Also a tunnel that lets then bypass one dire wolf encounter if they find it and spend some time clearing away rocks.
- the idea is that the other adventurer NPC "tanks" the Leucretia for them, since this thing has bite 8 and kick 11 dmg, then dies from the messed up saliva
- when they leave the cave they are in Svalich woods and close to road. Taking road in either direction brings them to Gates of Barovia.
Thoughts?
My concerns:
- the PCs are 3 min/maxers, 1 "standard" player that loves to RP, and 1 person barely paying attention most of the time. Is this in general too deadly for them? Too easy? I have no idea.
- how do i make the adventurer NPC not take the spotlight on way in but make it step up to tank the Lucretia?
- what if the PCs don't come outside or don't go in the woods? Is it time to say "ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so"?
- what if they clear the cave and don't bother taking a long rest for the trip out? Do i just not run random encounters until they do? I expect they'll be pretty spent.
Also, a repeat request for advice on initiatice tracker: Don't need to track PC hp, we trust each other with stuff like that.
My thoughts on Curse of Strahd as a player so far, I'm only level 5 in it so we've got some room to grow, and I haven't read the book.
I almost feel like we should have been level 2 entering the house and level 3 when we found our way into the secret basement instead of 1 and 2 respectively. Our only player death was absolutely on the player, he decided to throw a pouch of oil and some flame at the breathing mound of trash instead of just leaving the room like we absolutely could have. We sacrificed a rat to the altar and we were pretty sure we could leave safely and suddenly we had a deadly encounter going on where the offending player was killed in basically one turn.
That encounter was clearly too hard for a party of four level 2s but it served as a wake-up call and now we knew we could die for any wrong choices. Since then we've had two more deaths purely from being too curious, which is a shame because the region is so interesting but we're terrified of exploring because poking the wrong box in a merchants shop could lead to an easy tpk.
As a player I find the general refusal of the locals to do business with us extremely frustrating, and when we do find someone who will do business they have an extremely terrible inventory and charge 10x rates. We've got plenty of treasure we have no use for because who is going to buy gems from us in this place? Being able to stock up on arrows or buy just some freaking Studded Leather Armor would go a long way at this point, but I don't see it happening.
I find the Strahd campaign to be extremely challenging because I don't have a clear way of knowing whether a choice that would be insignificant in almost any other context could lead to my death before I even get to my initiative turn, combined with a lack of resources such as trustworthy contacts or merchants.
If you're DMing, having a player who has read the book will probably tone down the horror a lot, since he can keep them from wandering into the wrong places. Which could be good or bad depending on how much horror you're looking for.
Death House is hard by design. It's supposed to teach the players that yes you can find yourself in situations you can't handle and need to run.
Curse of Strahd will cause more player deaths if they don't figure that out quick.
The PCs are level 1 and those worg can one shot someone. I'd make liberal use of the adventurer NPCs to give them a hp buffer. The Lucretia (no idea what that is) is going to be a boring fight; it's a deadly sack of HP that'll swing at two people per round. Your narration is going to be key here to keep people excited. With regards to making your PCs feel special and not shining too much of a spotlight on the NPCs: Wrong module my friend! CoS is at its best when the PCs are constantly fearing for their lives and feeling inferior to the monsters lurking in the shadows. I advise running death house because not only is it a tightly packed dungeon, it also teaches your players early on that you're going to die if you pick fights at every opportunity.
If your players don't do "your" introductory adventure, so what?
"ok well then roll another character who would be inclined to do so" makes me think you're going to be a tyrant, that won't end well for anyone.
Just narrate that during their next day of travel, a thick fog makes further travel impossible; they make camp for the night and wake up in Barovia the next day.
Instead I feel like its much more common for players to take random descriptions as a call to action and rush off in a direction you never even considered because you described the Innkeeper arguing with his lazy employee about not gathering enough firewood and now the party is wandering the forest looking for recently felled trees to cut up!
The Lucretia is from Volo's. Also, i just realized i misspelled it. It's: http://chisaipete.github.io/bestiary/creatures/leucrotta
Perhaps give them so The other players will set them straight, don't bother with content for players who purposefully avoid the content you prepared. And don't worry, what kind of weirdo would not want to play dnd during a dnd session.
If they're new to D&D and might not understand that idea then either break character and say as much or just make it super boring if they'll take a hint. If they take the hint be super generous bringing them back in and strain the hell out of credulity to get them into the adventure parts just as quickly as possible.
Ravenloft is the polar opposite; players should be afraid of encounters and made to understand that nothing is free or easy their; when I ran CoS at my local shop the players ran into 5 dire wolves in session 1, got the piss whipped out of them, and then (after having fled the encounter) began the second one having to decide whether to do a long rest in the middle of a road or press on in hopes of finding a safe place to rest without having another hostile encounter, less then 20 hp's between the 5 of them, and no spell slots left.
And that's as it should be, since the one thing that your players should be wrapped in at all times when you're running ravenloft campaigns is fear and uncertainty.
That idea never sat well with me. Children until 20? Even assuming the body just grows that slowly (which I also don't like), do they just not know how to process the things around them? Are they slow learners to keep them in a child like state for so long?
I much prefer all of them aging and maturing around the same time frame but dwarves and elves going full stop after they reach that age, with their community not seeing them as an adult until they've experienced more of life, which makes a little bit of sense, I think. 20 year old me who was considered an adult in our society didn't know jack shit compared to 30 year old me. And then five more years later at 35, and I just see the world and myself differently. That's not to say 20 year old me shouldn't have a voice at the table, but more than I understand that age can lead to more wisdom (of course age can also make people THINK they're wiser than they really are, with a 20 year old actually having a better understanding than a sixty year old).
As for the whole children thing, I think it's just a matter of fertility
I started it off with the group approaching a town, I told them it was the next destination on their adventures and they'd heard there were some strange rumors adventurers might be inclined to investigate. The first thing was them encountering a town guard at the gates who asked them their name and business. I figured it'd be a good way for them to introduce themselves.
The Particular Player then told me "I turn around and head the other direction." When I said I didn't really have anything prepared outside of the leads in the down he literally pointed his finger at me and shouted "RAILROADING"
I looked at the other players, who looked back at me in utter bafflement. I then picked up my things then and there, said "okay we're done here," and never played with that person again, because honestly that's asshole behavior and I don't need that in my groups.
We played without him in a different group later and everything pretty much went fine.
Which is all to say, if you see a player who sees an obvious story lead and purposefully avoids it, especially in the face of the rest of the group picking it up, you are probably dealing with an asshole. And if you told me you kicked him out of the group on the spot, I'd give you a high five.
Shit I sometimes have trouble if i leave things too open ended for the players, and don't seemingly have an adventure for them.
"Okay, you one or two people who have opted not to join the adventure, you spend the next two or three weeks getting black out drunk in a quiet tavern.
Now, onto the actual game..."
Or
"The X brave adventurers leave to meet their destiny, the others retire to a quiet and safe life of potato farming, they hang their swords and armor in places of honor above their mantle and grow old and fat in a loving marriage entertaining generations with their ever growing tale of that one time they did something cool. Eventually you die and are buried in a shallow grave on your farm, mourned by a handful of children, a double handful of grandchildren and one goat that escaped the pen"
I mean, if the people don't want to play the game, then they don't have to play the game, but you shouldn't have to stress out giving them something else to do. Playing everything free form and fast and loose is great if you don't have a destination in mind and you just want to go where the dice take you.
But if you do have a destination, then sometimes a bit of railroading is necessary to get you there.
Why give them a choice?
"A bone-rattling roar erupts from the cave and the villagers who led you here scream and drop their torches.
"'They took him!' said the carter, desperately pleading for someone to follow him from the warmth and safety of the inn, and you all came, and saw the wreckage, and followed the pawprints the size of feet down the trail torn through the forest.
"But even as most of this unruly mob flees back, to a flickering light behind thick stone walls, you're going to keep going inside. So how about we go around the table and everyone introduce themselves and say why they're running toward danger? (If you have secret reasons here are some secret notecards.)"
As long as you're sufficiently enthusiastic about the whole affair, people probably won't even notice. I mean, if you want to wring your hands about railroading, this is adventure step 0, there is necessarily some railroading. "You all meet in a tavern and-" "RAILROADING! My character concept is someone who lived and died five centuries ago on a different continent! Your move, smart guy. 8-)"
The trick is to get people to come up with reasons why they are adventuring instead of reasons why they aren't. That moves it away from the type of railroading where you want everyone to shut up and look out the window and toward the type of railroading where you look around the dining car and you wonder, who are all these other people on this train and what is their deal?
The Jist of the campaign in broad strokes is that the players are supposed to investigate a noble family to determine whether or not they're conspiring against the crown and the campaign places is more about investigation and courtly intrigue then tactical combat or such.
So part of this involves letting the players figure things out for themselves and show some initiative with what they're supposed to do, talk to people and figure this shit out.
The problem is, they're not really doing this. I've been presenting them with opportunities to gather information or learn things and theyve kind of just ignored them left right and center, putting more emphasis on their own mini goals which are important to them personally but not to the other players in any meaningful way.
I'm really not sure what to do at this point.
My initial reaction is let them fail but make the failure do something that pisses them off. Give like one more round of pretty strong hints that Something Is Up and if it is continued to be ignored then the situation changes. The family deposes their sponsor, frame a beloved NPC, or just take control of something a PC wanted.
Every clap begets a clapback
I actually took steps to give the players both dire warnings (I gave each of the players a mini dream sequence that revealed both warnings and clues to them) and provided an opportunity for them to attend a masquerade ball (that would be attended by numerous nobles and afford them entrance to a castle owned by the head of the family but for the most part the players haven't really responded to these things (two of my players are more concened with their own character's subplots (one of which involves a group of sheep murdered by a noble via a fireball spell and the player's desire to find them, which I'd be fine with but it seems to be the only thing they actually care about) then they are with actually investigating the matter at hand) and in the case of the masquerade only responded to the most blatent events.
I'm at the point where I'm worried that I'm going to have to ask whether I should be more direct with what's going on.
1. a noblemen who was a potential suitor to the unmarried queen was killed via fireball spell during an attack by gnolls.
2. The killer was a war wizard of cormyr, but examination of him by other war wizards revealed that the wand he used to cast the spell was one that effectively allowed some other wizard to remotely cast spells through it.
3. Attempts to question the murderer post death were curtailled by them having no actual memories in their head at all.
4. The noblemen was the second to last living member of his family.
5. Said family was suspected of having had under the table dealings with a hostile neighbor.
6. Said family was nominally vassals to the wyvernspur family.
7. The wyverspur's have come out of the sundering/spell plague/war as one of the most powerful families in cormyr due to good governance of their lands and that the invasion forces of the netherese and sembia missed their holdings.
8. The wyvernspurs have a proud tradition of loyalty to the royal family.
9. This loyalty is in question since they sent a paltry number of troops to oppose the invasion and are subject to loss of lands as a potential result.
10. The players have met with 2 members of the family; a paladin named lorien who took up an oath of humility and travelled abroad in service to Illmater and a noble women named Dahlia who seem skilled in "the game".
11. The paladin competed in a tournament where someone was deliberately rigging his matches in his favor and managed to win.
12. When asked what reward he would have wanted from the queen of cormyr he only stammered something along the lines of "a consideration at a later time".
13. Dahlia seems to think her father is angling for Lorien to become king by way of marriage to the queen.
14. There is a strong probability that the gnolls from the initial attack were brought in and used as cover by some third party.
15. The person who was interfering in the tournament had a pendant under their cloak resembling a burning dagger.
This isn't even going into all of the dream clues/warnings they have to work with.
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Did the players explicitly agree to an investigation/intrigue campaign at the outset? Maybe your players aren't interacting with the investigation plot because they're not really interested in that type of game.
edit to add: as a person who is not especially interested in intrigue type play: I'm looking at your 15 point list, and after about point 3 I think I would say "oh well, guess there's nothing more to this."
I do not see myself piecing together all 15 of those points, especially when they're spread out across multiple sessions. Points 4-9 all seem like background info stuff that I'm not sure how you would relate to the players, and seems like the kind of thing where I would say "hmm" at the table and then forget about. Points 10-15 are more interesting and potentially noteworthy enough for me to try to jot down into my personal campaign notes, but I'm not sure they suggest a course of action to me.
I would love to play a deduction game, but I know most of my group would not really care, or rather, would get so caught up in what-ifs that we'd never get anywhere.
Steal something from the party they would want back. That’ll put them on the track.
You could also make the true perpetrators of these acts send assassins specifically against the party so now they’re involved because its THEIR lives the baddies are threatening.
Certainly would help me give a damn even a little in Storm King’s Thunder. Stupid giant caste system.
Edit: I think that list is too big. It might be easier to lead them on this adventure with maybe 5 really important points.
That may be what you've given them, but I doubt it's what they have.
Step one: ask them what they have. Step two: ask them where it's taking them.
Because I mean, yeah, Bioshock Infinite started with this flash vision where the seed of the Prophet took the throne and drowned in flame the mountains of man, but it also had the twin impulses of "bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" and "also you might be recognized as the False Shepherd and then it's kill on sight". What do they think is actually in front of them, right now, to do, and what are they just cooling their heels on and trusting that circumstances will provide a path forward as the ridiculously circuitous plan gets more towards, like, three-quarters complete?
I agree with fry and glazious. I don't know that you've told us about any time pressure or any obvious next steps. Maybe they're sitting there without any ideas of what to do next. At the point that they went to the masquerade ball they seem like they're doing their part of participating and trying to get to the bottom of things
Have you read that DM advice thing about the three clues?
- A nobleman from a family of vassals to the Wyvernspurs that was also a suitor to the Queen has died mysteriously.
- Lorien Wyvernspur won a tournament that was rigged in his favor and asked for "a consideration at a later time" from the Queen.
- Dahlia Wyvernspur believes her father wants Lorien to marry the Queen.
So the Wyvernspur patriarch was behind the vassal's death, then? After a quick Google search, I'm seeing there is an organization in the Forgotten Realms setting called the Burning Daggers. Is Pappy Wyvernspur a member, or is there a greater conspiracy?
It sounds like what you've done is said "what happened was A did B to C, in special way D, for reason E" and you've dropped clues for the players to figure it out.
In my experience a better way to do it is to lead the players immediately into a red herring. Continue dropping clues as to the actual culprit, but instead of just letting them figure it out, have each lead generate 2-3 more leads. Make sure every lead goes somewhere relevant (NO DEAD ENDS!) so that the players can choose to follow whichever path they think is the most likely to be correct. If they suspect one lead is right but they decide to go for a second one "just to make sure" then decide on the spot whether to have the secondary lead actually move them forward, or whether to confirm your players' suspicions and have the secondary lead point toward the first lead again.
Always make sure the players have at least one, preferably 2-3 DIRECT leads that they can follow. Add concrete information to the mystery as it goes, and make sure the leads actually take you to the end of the mystery eventually.
The players' reward for figuring it out is that they get to skip ahead, and you can facilitate that easily enough.
1) players always need a concrete next step. Even if that next step might not get them to solve the mystery it has to be there and obvious.
If “investigate the scene” is a step then succeeding there must give another concrete next step. Not necessarily something that is right (say if you fail) but something to do
2) at each junction where it seems like players might be aimless ask them OOC what they want to do.
3) concrete tasks are better than mysteries. If you have a purpose for solving the mystery players can actively do the concrete task (and plan) when immediately the mystery doesn’t seem obvious.
As an example: our characters started out like so
Mystery: what is up with this dude who bought us?
Plan: Get out of dodge
Then after we got out of dodge not finding much out we had
Mystery: what is up with this thing we found and what do the baddies want with it
Plan: depose the baddies
When the macguffin search doesn’t go well we get to fall back on active measures.
————
What your game seems to be lacking is a purpose. Why do characters care about this situation?
Do they want to prob up the nobility for money and glory and favors? Let them root out dissidents maybe unconnected with the plot. Do they want to take downs the family? Maybe let them help and so get involved with the plot...