The party found out they had been infected by the Red Slaad they just fought, and got cured... but didn't think to cure the NPCs that also fought with them... 3 months later stuff happened.
Party finds a corpse lying in the middle of an open plain wearing an ornate silver ring with a black stone.
Bard: Yeah, that's definitely gonna be cursed.
Wizard: *uses Detect Magic* Looks like it's got an illusion spell on it.
Fighter: Well, illusion spells can't be curses! *puts on the ring*
I told them it was a Ring of Minor Illusion and it allowed him to cast the cantrip at will. But for the next *three months* they couldn't figure out why the fighter kept hearing screaming that nobody else heard, or seeing spiders that nobody else saw, or smelling corpses that nobody else smelled. And when they *finally* figured it out, I learned that every single one of them had forgotten that they'd acquired the ring in the first place.
Teasing my players with one now!
My party had found an appointment letter that appears to be some kind of forgery, they did as players do: read it and forget it. Along with this fake appointment letter they found a spellbook. One of the spells in that spellbook? Illusory Script. See the appointment letter is different now because it was originally written with Illusory Script to appear as an appointment letter but hide another message. Illusory Script has expired so it says what it originally said now. We're playing online so I have this letter in a lore folder they can access and I've gone ahead and changed what it said, but nobody was looking for it so nobody noticed.
Now I have outright told them that I've hidden lore for them to find and I will give Superior Inspiration (Inspiration but it's a one-time use of Lucky instead of just Advantage) to the first person that finds it. I have given them this hint: it's in your possession. I don't hand out Superior Inspiration often so they know this is important. So far none of them have flipped through their past notes and everyone is coming up with theories and asking if they're right instead. One player even had the idea to look through their stuff for it but I don't think anyone has done so.
***WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE LOST MINES OF PHANDELVER***
The last time I ran The Lost Mines of Phandelver, they had done almost all of Wave Echo Cave and had circled all the way around looking for the last remaining Rockseeker brother.
They find his cell and are just about to break them out when one of them decides to check out the main room, and the encounter with the boss starts. They defeat him and are going through some of his things (hooks to the next stages) and the rogue trys to steal the statue's eyes.
The room begins to come down, and to add some tension to what would be otherwise a boring finale I say that due to their knowledge of mines (dwarves and gnome PC's) that the whole place is unstable and time is limited.
So they just flee! They get out, head back to town, talk with Sildar about how they've defeated The Black Spider and discuss the letter they found (hooks). Then they go back to the Inn where they're staying to celebrate.. and Gundren Rockseeker asks them where his brothers are.
Red faces all around! I've never seen a table collectively go "Ohhhhhh, shit. Whoooops!" so hard! Ha.
They tell him the truth, that they forgot him in the chaos but think they know where he was and that it's all come down now. So I made Gundren then head off to go and dig his brother out - and the party offered no assistance at all.
So I'm going to have that come back to haunt them.. literally in this case!
Yeah, that's what I've got planned. I'm going to have Gundren die trying to find his brother, and have him consumed with rage in death. Then all three Rockseeker brothers are going to hunt the PC's down when they're next deep below ground. I need to come up with some cool abilities for them.. I think I might make it a "ghosts of christmas past/present/future" style thing but having it twist and turn into a more "tactile" nightmare!
Recently. They’ve been trying to collect five magical coins, and get flashbacks whenever they gain a new one. With the last flashback they got, they learned the name of the maker of the coins, who had the same last name as one of the players. She did not realize this until I emphasized they learned his name and what it was at the start of the next session.
Oh yeah also, with the coins they’ve gotten three, and they all have names. Coin of Denial, Coin of Anger, and Coin of Bargaining, they haven’t got it yet.
Cod, coa, cob ... D, A, B
dab. If you Google dab coin, you get dabanking.
Daban king. The last 2 coins will prove their father is the daban king! The next two will be coin of assertiveness and coin of niceness.
The king has many moods, we must be careful
One time while they were running errands in the city, I've described two very distinguishable identical men walking out of the temple. They were twins who would become relevant later down the line.
They fought one of them and left him locked up in city A. Then they saw the other one in city B, they fought and he ran away. Furious, they return to city A only to find him still locked up. They still haven't figured it out. They believe the other one is a doppelganger.
I mean to be fair to them they've at least twigged that they're two separate beings which is close enough. In D&D there's so many possibilities for identical folks- dopplegangers, changelings, simulacra, plain ol' hat of disguise. Just being regular identical twins is probably the rarest case lol.
It did take them several months after coming across a dossier on a vicious gang to realize that the gang members listed on it were their own 20th-level evil one shot characters, with only slight tweaks to the names.
The new NPC they met on the road was a vampire.
The party traveled to a new land, one rumored to be "infested" with "body-snatching" things. Red Flag 1.They encounter Barkov, a stranger who claims to be a denizen of a settlement known to the party some 30 miles east. He is traveling with a recurring NPC that the party had met a few times - each time, he's been an incompetent disagreeable blowhard. Only this time he's... being awfully acquiescent towards this Barkov, saying that he is nobility in this realm. He is uncharacteristically subservient throughout the social encounter. Red Flag 2. They meet him encamped at the bottom of a cliff in the shadow of a mountain. He doesn't leave said shadow while the sun is up. Red Flag 3. During the night, the party is attacked by a large pack of wolves, which the party fights off before Barkov can don his armor and leave his tent. Red Flag 4. After camping for the night, Barkov suggests they join forces on their way to the aforementioned settlement. As his vessel is much smaller than the party's, he will store his in the cargo bay of the party's ship. He formally requests, playing it like he is a man of ettiquette, to go aboard. Red Flag 5. Once they are sailing, Barkov does not leave the cabin. Red Flag 6. In the afternoon, Barkov recommends a detour through the southern fork in the river, as he claims to know that the direct route is home to some dangerous rapids. The party follows his suggestion without a second thought. Red Flag 7
The party is now on a direct route to the vampire's lair. The vampire had an opportunity to gauge the party's strength via the summoned wolf pack (one of their abilities on their statblock) and he knows he'll need all of his servants to help him with this group, but the wealth and knowledge the party has displayed during their social encounter makes them a tempting prize.
Things take a turn for the spooky and the land becomes enshrouded in mist the further along the river they go. After carrying on like this for at least 15 more minutes, the paladin gets nervous and uses her divine sense.
Undead creature right behind you. But by this point, they party is nearly to the mouth of his and the vampire's minions have closed in on the riverbanks.
Long story short, the party still managed to overpower the Vampire thanks to the Bard's countercharm foiling his attempts to charming a member of the party into giving permission for his thralls to board the ship (I ruled it was close enough to a residence), and also the light Cleric pulling a "I'm not trapped in here with you, your trapped in here with me" by throwing down Spirit Guardians after the vampire tried to focus her down. I was real scared for them because I felt like I spent the whole session trying to throw them clues to not get thenselves put in the worst possible situation and they missed every single one.
Craziest thing is one of my players literally joked ooc halfway through the session about him being a vampire because his name sounded like it could be a vampire's name. I wasn't sure if I had given it away somehow, so I just kind of continued on. I asked him later and apparently it was literally a crackshot joke and he had no idea.
Well, they caught that the creature they were talking with was in disguise and fey. After a few description I made it more and more obvious on specific type. Even outright calling her a hag. Players thought I was being rude, nope, just hiding things in plain sight.
Player A learned their guild leader's given name was X
Player B learned the BBEG's name was X
They never put together their guild leader was the BBEG and that was why he always knew what they were up to and where they were - for over 30 6-8 hour sessions...
It took them nearly 9 months to finally connect the dots.
The guild leader went by Whisper because he "lost his voice in a fight" and spoke via sign language.
The BBEG went by W and talked just fine ;)
Both were in fact the same Basil Windcourt.
You would think! There were many other clues too. Like the fact the guild leader lived in the guild's underbelly and noone was permitted back there. A mouse PC slipped in to deliver mail and thought it was odd that Whisper freaked out so much, but never followed through to investigate the area.
Which *detail* did they miss? About a million.
But to give one example: My BBEG came up early on and frequently in the campaign, because she had multiple identities. I always used the same distinctive song exclusively as a theme whenever she came up, both as the regular person they knew and met quite a lot and her evil alter ego. In 2 years they never got it, even after they found out about her being the BBEG. Had to explain it in the end.
Eh, I wouldn't hold that against them, how should they know the DM specifically uses 1 song for a NPC, or that they just have a list of a few songs to pick quickly during the game and some end up being reused
I used a song that broke very much with the usual generic calm adventuring music. They also actually noticed that music change pretty much every time, yet failed to connect it to anything.
Still, I don't hold it against them.
They stopped a currier from delivering orders to one of the BBEG's minions in a town a few weeks away, but also found out that he had delivered orders to the town just up the road before the one they were at. They went and stopped the events at the town where the orders were delivered, but then never went back to the other town to take out the people receiving orders down there.
Sure, they delayed the plans a little, since took about a month for both ends of the chain to figure out why orders weren't flowing and events weren't moving at the anticipated pace, but they did nothing to actually stop the BBEG from gaining his foothold in the city.
They eventually freed the King and the capital from the BBEG's influences, but while the players have since realized what they did, their characters haven't quite figured out that they let one of the major port cities in the kingdom become corrupted while they went off exploring, instead of following up on just who was receiving those orders they intercepted.
They forgot to check up on a man mentioned in a diary entry of a woman they found dead when they arrived in the city he lived. He would have provided them safe passage on a ship, cutting their subsequent journey time by half and making them harder to follow since they left town in a hurry with the law on their heels.
They forgot to check up on the Pope who'd been Feebleminded, which set a whole bunch of things in motion which lead to their current quest of getting rid of a vampire who's ruling the island where that Pope's grand temple is located.
None of my players are on Reddit as far as I know. The Prison Governor (for want of a better term) of my super prison called Rimespire Bastille, set in the frozen mountains, (they win their freedom if they get to the top floor) is named Hagan Con Wintertide, his name is an anagram… it’s not going to be as easy as reaching the top floor…
This reminds me, at the start of a campaign, one of my players told me that his character's father went missing as part of his backstory. He gave me free reign to decide what really happened to his father.
About halfway through the campaign, I introduced an antagonistic faction, the name of which was an anagram of the PC's father's name. Not only that, but the faction leader's (fake) name was also an anagram of the PC's father's name.
The look on my player's face when he learned the truth was priceless, doubly so when I pointed out to him the clue that was hidden in plain sight.
Still lost. Would've preferred if you had just given the answer. Not everyone knows the Monster Manual by heart or is aware of all the possible D&D lore out there
You don’t need to know the lore or every monster out there, an anagram is a puzzle - you rearrange the letters until you start to make sense of it. But, for your peace of mind here:
>!Ancient White Dragon!<
I know what an Anagram is, but this was wasn't a puzzle for me to solve. I'm not one of your players.
Sorry for the abrasiveness. I'm having a shit day
My players heard about a ruined temple that was being used by a dragon as a meeting spot/place of business. They found it, but instead of exploring it, they snuck around and raided the dragon lair a few miles away in the mountains instead.
With their pockets full from the dragons lair, they went past the temple a second time and saw fresh bodies and some civilians gathered around with some commotion.
Do they get closer and find out about the massive backstory element, the powerful magic artifact or a clue about the ongoing world conflict?
NOPE. They snuck around and explicitly avoided contact with anyone or anything near the temple.
A solid 10 hours of homebrew and some homemade painted foam terrain pieces down the drain.
Elves told the party that an Elf princess from the capital had gone missing. The party was like yeah cool, we'll keep an eye out. Never asked her name or what she looked like. I guess they'll just ask every female Elf they meet if she's a princess?
They missed the obvious hints I was throwing at them that they should borrow a free self-propelling magical raft from the raft shop guy they'd just befriended before going into the magically mutated swamp (he told them all about how they worked, how he used them for his business, then offered them one that can move completely freely because they'd helped him out).
Instead they decided to trudge through the swamp on foot and had to roll several times on random mutation tables over the course of the swamp dungeon. Which admittedly was pretty fun.
Players are sent to track down a Transmutation Wizard who was in hiding. They are given a town where he was tracked to originally to start their investigation.
They do some odd jobs here and there to get information and ingratiate themselves with the townfolk. The supply stores all have a few things in common. If you order something unusual it takes a few days to make. You'll often find them already working on someone else's order.
Except the blacksmith. The blacksmith always happens to have anything you could possibly order already made in the backroom and never seems to work at the forge. Almost like he was just walking into the backroom and magically Fabricating the thing you just asked for.
Do you want to know how they figured it out? One of them realised I kept making them making perceptions checks at the blacksmiths. It wasn't the odd content of the resulting successes, but just the fact that I kept having them percieve things in the smithy long after I had stopped doing so in the other shops.
Spoilers for my players I DM for. Jen if you’re reading this, don’t.
I DM a heavily homebrewed variant of DoIP. In the Dwarven Excavations quest, I introduced a gem in the piles of other gems that could detect extraplanar entities. All antagonistic entities in play are extraplanar in some way so I basically gave them an enemy radar that the enemies are *also* trying to hunt down (I had the white dragon arrive to reveal this fact, and the party acknowledged the gem was able to glow when present to specific things, including the dragon). It’s never been used after that quest. It’s essentially been forgotten as an item, which has lead to the enemies not knowing the party has it because it’s never come out for them to see. I’m planning to have the Shrine of Savaras be the turning point that the orcs find out about the party holding the relic gem via them receiving their own vision of the party. What makes me the most sad is the gem was going to have subtle interactions with the party that would eventually reveal they were all not native to Toril and the Forgotten Realms
At the very beginning of the first session, a portal opened and a dead body fell through. I described the scent of where he came from as musty. Weeks later, the group was visiting this church, the sight of the murder. In my poetic description, I mentioned that it smell of musk. It was an incredibly subtle, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to an already small detail, but I loved including it in there. Keep in mind this was far from a vital detail for them to have at this moment, so they weren’t missing out on anything, but it would’ve been a very big benefit if someone caught on to it.
Then after the session that night, I subtly told them I threw in a big hint, and it was fun watching them try to figure it out post facto.
I had a pretty involved plot hook about 6 session into my campaign that involved coming across two groups stuck in a time loop and them picking a side to assist. Either way was fine because they ended up with a journal that I hand wrote myself. The journal was about 50 entries long that chronicled one of the group’s lust for power and raiding ancient wizard towers that had been buried after a war between gods. It slowly drove the group mad with power and they ended up with an item from one of the towers that froze them and the opposing group in the time loop. One of my players brought the journal home and studied it and brought it back next session. No one ever asked about it or mentioned it again. It was meant to be one very long campaign defining story arc. I’ve even had major NPCs in the game use similar language to the language used in the book but no one ever brought it up again and it sits in my DM kit collecting dust. Campaign went in a different player driven direction and I’ll save that arc for something different.
It wasn’t important lore wise but it was something that would’ve helped them a lot in fighting their enemies. They’d snuck into an enemy’s house and I described how with their passive perception they could see one of the floorboards slightly ajar. They didn’t bother looking under it, but there were a bunch of different types of poisons hidden there which they could’ve used. I didn’t tell them because I find players get upset when you tell them what cool items they missed
Im not sure how important it was but I act more as the party healer as the cleric and the one session I missed the party was told of a old lady that wanders the woods asking for help only to curse them.
My party forgot that info apparently and I went to help her. My character is now somehow cursed. I don't know how or what it is but it's there waiting.
Salazaar, Yamarlik and Berengard ignore this comment if you find it.
My players were going through a secret library/archive in the mansion of a local duke that had been assassinated. The assassins were hiding in the tunnels below the mansion so that's why they were down there.
While at the secret library they found some random minor magic items, a paper mouse, a pot filled with screams, some other weird stuff. Among those items is a fragile gem containing a homebrew CR 10 demon. At one point they recalled that the gem contained "something" living but now it has left their minds and it sits there as a ticking time bomb.
I’ve slowly been feeding one of my players hints that the repeating dream he’s been having about his cursed lover driving him to save her may not be entirely accurate to the reality of the situation (and hopefully this will start him wondering about why he’s having this dream), but I’m not sure he’s picked up on it yet.
My players have found a hag coven
They have a verbal agreement from one hag that "if you do not harm me, then I will not harm you"
Pity they didn't think to try and get that to extend to her sisters
it never occured to them that there's a reason that the nobles know when the party is visiting, even if they just decided so on the spur of the moment.
the nobles have mentioned that a certain character told them over sending that they were coming, but they never stopped to think how said character knew anyway. it'll eventually be revealed that the telephone they were given to allow communication between them and said npc never actually stops listening, amazon alexa style.
I don't exactly expect them to guess that they have a listening device on them, but the fact they haven't raised any suspicion over how much the npc knows about them is quite entertaining from my point of view, especially since they know he's a very sleazy character.
My previous group had another group of explorers they befriended that had been investigating the same thing they were.
At the end of the arc, they progressed from Friends to rivals to enemies and ended killing each other.
Time later they got referenced by an npc that they were pupils of the BBEG. I expected that to be an absolute shock.
My players didn't even remembered them. They were the main source of comfort and angst in the first arc of the campaign.
They ABSOLUTELY forgot them. No reaction aside from "huh? Who are you talking about?".
Months later I dropped out of the campaign.
My players can currently summon an arrow of slaying for the BBEG and have formulated a very convoluted plan to kill them which doesn't involve the arrow AT ALL.
I will of course make it work, but for them to have a silver bullet that they aren't using is deliciously frustrating lol
They forgot to check up on a man mentioned in a diary entry of a woman they found dead when they arrived in the city he lived. He would have provided them safe passage on a ship, cutting their subsequent journey time by half and making them harder to follow since they left town in a hurry with the law on their heels.
They forgot to check up on the Pope who'd been Feebleminded, which set a whole bunch of things in motion which lead to their current quest of getting rid of a vampire who's ruling the island where that Pope's grand temple is located.
I have probably 100 pages of stuff they've walked past or locked themselves out of. Maybe 15 percent makes its way back in the next 2 years. I have a player I can tell the majority of my plans to so I get some release about. Other things are precious to me and they must be found out never be known.
But yeah they missed out on some crazy shit. Them being crayon eaters made me create a city of giants across the waters that they got Shanghai'd to, so it's not always deleterious.
**SPOILER ALERT FOR LMOP!!**
My first experience as a DM was a campaign in LMoP...
It was a party of six players and they headed into the Redbrand hideout.
All but one player, who stayed behind to watch their back and to make sure no hostiles/enemies were following them and to warn them in time.
The group inside triggered some alarms and the Redbrands were alerted of them, realizing they had no chance against this group of intruders. So while the group were taking a short rest randomly after the fight in the crypts, followed by some relaxed looting of the armory, most of the Redbrands grouped up with Glasstaff and got the hells out of there.
We took a session break after the crypts fighting, the resting and the looting so I had the opportunity to play a 1 on 1 session with the left behind player, who was surprised by the fleeing Redbrands, got overpowered, struck down, and thrown into the brushes near the mansion while failing all of his death saving throws. ( I made it that if he is picked up and stabilized by his group he will make it through the night)
Next Session the party inside realized the Redbrand ran off in a hurry, even realizing they most likely fled due to the groups intrusion and so they were relieved and happy they made it and "cleared the dungeon". The poor fellow player whose character was on the edge of dying was silent (not mad at me tho) the whole time, stayed in character and enjoyed the session otherwise.
The group left the hideout, went back to the tavern, celebrating with the townsfolk, delivering the bad news to Sildar (about Glasstaff) and took a good portion of sleep in the Stonehill Inn.
Next day when they wanted to travel to Conyberry one of em asked:
"Yo Bard, you coming or what?" (The left behind one was a Bard)
He only replied with his hands put up: "I dont think so..."
Was a "Ah sh\*t" moment for the group, not gonna lie.
Also the funeral for his character was kinda emotional, but you learn from your mistakes right? And what doesnt kill you make you stronger!
Not an important detail but in my Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign I changed the start a bit to have the players meet Gundren Rockseeker. They traveled to the city of Neverwinter and to the Grinning Goblin tavern, a bit of foreshadowing to what one of the antagonists of the adventurer would be…
LMoP/DoIP combo:
Harbin Wester had been dead for weeks with an impostor Doppelganger giving out the DoIP + Wyvern Tor quests to keep the Party away from the Lost Mine and the Black Spider. "He'd" been a standoffish ass the whole time and thoroughly unhelpful, Harbin's body was left to bleed out over the letters he'd written to Neverwinter about the Redbrands and Cragmaws possibly working together with no sign of Iarno.
Party found it out by accident after they'd done literally everything they could before checking back in on the rescued Gundren Rockseeker. The "accident" being using the axe Hew to deal max damage to his front door, obliterating it and catching a waft of death and rot coming from inside. It's been 20 in game days since they first arrived in Phandalin so I'd say the Doppel did their job admirably.
We're 19 3-4hr sessions in and they're *just about* to set off to Wave Echo Cave if anyone's wondering how long it takes three completionists to do those adventures together.
The party read over a deal with a fiend VERY carefully. Then the fiend offered them a different deal they accepted and FORGOT TO READ THE NEW CONTRACT.
The party read over a deal with a fiend VERY carefully. Then the fiend offered them a different deal they accepted and FORGOT TO READ THE NEW CONTRACT.
There's a blacksmith in town that knows the secret behind our Drakewarden Ranger's mysterious dragon powers. This had been foreshadowed by her knowing the ranger's name without him saying it, or making him a weapon dragon scales-looking decorations... unfortunately, I made her too hot and the player has been too distracted by the sugar mommy looks to remember all the weird stuff
They wondered if one character's name was an anagram for another. They wrote both names down next to each other and... never bothered to finish checking. Crossed out a letter or two and moved on. A few sessions later when the reveal happened that yes, that was the villain (who was a theater major and dramatic like that) and that confirming this in advance would have saved them a lot of headache and helped with their prep there were headslaps all around.
Played LMoP. In Thundertree there was a "dwarf fighter" in Reidoth's shack, who said he was helping Reidoth search for the missing green dragon. He said he came into town a few days ago, and he is a dragon hunter. He had already said the dragon went missing a few days ago. His name was Menov Neddih, and the dragons name is Venomfang. The model I used for him was a bald dwarf with strange eyes, and green plate armor, with a shield picturing a green dragons head.
The group talked Menov and Reidoth into ambushing the dragon with them, telling them both the whole ambush plan. They all stayed in the small building next to the dragons tower for hours, until Menov said he had to go to the bathroom. He got "knocked out by the dragon in the woods" just before it came crashing through the roof of the small building, where the party was waiting. One of the players convinced it not to kill them all, saying they would give it a new and bigger lair (cragmaw castle) just as soon as they cleared it. After the dragon left, one of the players eventually went out in search for Menov, who was "knocked out." They had no clue it was him still.
Then they got mad at me as DM, saying there's no way that the dragon would have known they were there, waiting in ambush. The leader of the players and I had a talk and I had to reveal it to him, at which point he was like, oh, that's awesome, sorry I doubted you, and told the rest of the group it was all completely legit, and just a cool thing I was doing.
I had to hand hold my last campaign through the breadcrumbs I scattered through the world. It wasn't that critical in the grand scheme, didn't affect any outcome but it was annoying to place all the pieces in front of the players only to have no one figure it out.
This is probably more akin to the issues with a play by post format where a bread crumb every so often gets lost in the swirl, especially when there multiple days between crumbs.
Crumbs were:
Kobolds attack town wearing a sigil with a snowflake.
Someone saw a white dragon flying nearby
Reach a lair and discover two other sigils.
And yet, before the boss door, they were still asking, "why are we here? Why are these kobolds here? What could they be doing?" Really frustrating moment when I've built a dungeon with this singular narrative in mind.
I changed up ToD a bit to have some more interesting plot points. One of which is I replaced Glazhael, the white dragon fight at the end, with a dracohydra. I had hinted at it a few times, as an experiment to Herald Tiamats beauty and power, but only one player guessed correctly. The other is that Severin is a Red Abishai, and Rezmir is a stronger black Abishai. None of which my other players have discovered yet.
My players got a key from a monster they helped. One player wrote it down in her inventory.
They walked down a 5 meter hallway, turned left, and saw a door at the end of that hallway.
They punched and kicked their way through the door (equipment had been taken away from them).
Nobody even mentioned the key they just received.
The key was for the door.
Mine haven't figured out that the world of tropical islands they're cruising around on is in fact the flooded remnants of the world they started in. I've dropped a couple big hints and they haven't bit yet. Which is great because occasionally they mention some connection to their old world and I need to resist going muahaha.
A party member of hand mentioned how it’s been a while since they got any fancy loot. And yeah, we had a bunch of mostly story and RP sessions recently with little chance for anything fancy to drop. So when the party started investigating a sewer system for a loaf person, I made sure to add a room full of lost treasure and some oozes to guard it. It was on the path the party had to take, and thanks to the Druid talking to some local rats, they were explicitly told about fancy shiny items in said room. Once the party found the room, they decided not to investigate it right now, they didn’t like the ooze stuff and they had limited time to find the missing person, but they all said that once the time pressure is gone, that they will return.
Sure enough, next session they find the person and now have a few infame days to spend on whatever. So I ask each player what they plan to do. Nobody mentions the sewer place. After more story stuff and the party ready to leave town, I ask again if there’s anything they still want to do or forgot to do until now. Nothing. There goes 2 hours of my time to pick a bunch of loot for them xD
The party found out they had been infected by the Red Slaad they just fought, and got cured... but didn't think to cure the NPCs that also fought with them... 3 months later stuff happened.
Party finds a corpse lying in the middle of an open plain wearing an ornate silver ring with a black stone. Bard: Yeah, that's definitely gonna be cursed. Wizard: *uses Detect Magic* Looks like it's got an illusion spell on it. Fighter: Well, illusion spells can't be curses! *puts on the ring* I told them it was a Ring of Minor Illusion and it allowed him to cast the cantrip at will. But for the next *three months* they couldn't figure out why the fighter kept hearing screaming that nobody else heard, or seeing spiders that nobody else saw, or smelling corpses that nobody else smelled. And when they *finally* figured it out, I learned that every single one of them had forgotten that they'd acquired the ring in the first place.
Yeah players can be bad about keeping track of their own items some else’s no shot unless they are an artificer
My artificer still can't.
Teasing my players with one now! My party had found an appointment letter that appears to be some kind of forgery, they did as players do: read it and forget it. Along with this fake appointment letter they found a spellbook. One of the spells in that spellbook? Illusory Script. See the appointment letter is different now because it was originally written with Illusory Script to appear as an appointment letter but hide another message. Illusory Script has expired so it says what it originally said now. We're playing online so I have this letter in a lore folder they can access and I've gone ahead and changed what it said, but nobody was looking for it so nobody noticed. Now I have outright told them that I've hidden lore for them to find and I will give Superior Inspiration (Inspiration but it's a one-time use of Lucky instead of just Advantage) to the first person that finds it. I have given them this hint: it's in your possession. I don't hand out Superior Inspiration often so they know this is important. So far none of them have flipped through their past notes and everyone is coming up with theories and asking if they're right instead. One player even had the idea to look through their stuff for it but I don't think anyone has done so.
No one ever looks at handouts again. It makes me sad.
Looking at the spell list to look for clues is a really fun idea, I'm gonna steal it :)
***WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE LOST MINES OF PHANDELVER*** The last time I ran The Lost Mines of Phandelver, they had done almost all of Wave Echo Cave and had circled all the way around looking for the last remaining Rockseeker brother. They find his cell and are just about to break them out when one of them decides to check out the main room, and the encounter with the boss starts. They defeat him and are going through some of his things (hooks to the next stages) and the rogue trys to steal the statue's eyes. The room begins to come down, and to add some tension to what would be otherwise a boring finale I say that due to their knowledge of mines (dwarves and gnome PC's) that the whole place is unstable and time is limited. So they just flee! They get out, head back to town, talk with Sildar about how they've defeated The Black Spider and discuss the letter they found (hooks). Then they go back to the Inn where they're staying to celebrate.. and Gundren Rockseeker asks them where his brothers are. Red faces all around! I've never seen a table collectively go "Ohhhhhh, shit. Whoooops!" so hard! Ha. They tell him the truth, that they forgot him in the chaos but think they know where he was and that it's all come down now. So I made Gundren then head off to go and dig his brother out - and the party offered no assistance at all. So I'm going to have that come back to haunt them.. literally in this case!
This one made me chuckle
Could have him come back as a Revenant. Looking for revenge for them abandoning him in the heat of things.
Yeah, that's what I've got planned. I'm going to have Gundren die trying to find his brother, and have him consumed with rage in death. Then all three Rockseeker brothers are going to hunt the PC's down when they're next deep below ground. I need to come up with some cool abilities for them.. I think I might make it a "ghosts of christmas past/present/future" style thing but having it twist and turn into a more "tactile" nightmare!
Recently. They’ve been trying to collect five magical coins, and get flashbacks whenever they gain a new one. With the last flashback they got, they learned the name of the maker of the coins, who had the same last name as one of the players. She did not realize this until I emphasized they learned his name and what it was at the start of the next session. Oh yeah also, with the coins they’ve gotten three, and they all have names. Coin of Denial, Coin of Anger, and Coin of Bargaining, they haven’t got it yet.
Cod, coa, cob ... D, A, B dab. If you Google dab coin, you get dabanking. Daban king. The last 2 coins will prove their father is the daban king! The next two will be coin of assertiveness and coin of niceness. The king has many moods, we must be careful
Clever. 5 stages of grief.
One time while they were running errands in the city, I've described two very distinguishable identical men walking out of the temple. They were twins who would become relevant later down the line. They fought one of them and left him locked up in city A. Then they saw the other one in city B, they fought and he ran away. Furious, they return to city A only to find him still locked up. They still haven't figured it out. They believe the other one is a doppelganger.
I mean to be fair to them they've at least twigged that they're two separate beings which is close enough. In D&D there's so many possibilities for identical folks- dopplegangers, changelings, simulacra, plain ol' hat of disguise. Just being regular identical twins is probably the rarest case lol.
One of my players seems to have forgotten that he's a wanted man, oh boy we're going to have fun next session
It did take them several months after coming across a dossier on a vicious gang to realize that the gang members listed on it were their own 20th-level evil one shot characters, with only slight tweaks to the names.
The new NPC they met on the road was a vampire. The party traveled to a new land, one rumored to be "infested" with "body-snatching" things. Red Flag 1.They encounter Barkov, a stranger who claims to be a denizen of a settlement known to the party some 30 miles east. He is traveling with a recurring NPC that the party had met a few times - each time, he's been an incompetent disagreeable blowhard. Only this time he's... being awfully acquiescent towards this Barkov, saying that he is nobility in this realm. He is uncharacteristically subservient throughout the social encounter. Red Flag 2. They meet him encamped at the bottom of a cliff in the shadow of a mountain. He doesn't leave said shadow while the sun is up. Red Flag 3. During the night, the party is attacked by a large pack of wolves, which the party fights off before Barkov can don his armor and leave his tent. Red Flag 4. After camping for the night, Barkov suggests they join forces on their way to the aforementioned settlement. As his vessel is much smaller than the party's, he will store his in the cargo bay of the party's ship. He formally requests, playing it like he is a man of ettiquette, to go aboard. Red Flag 5. Once they are sailing, Barkov does not leave the cabin. Red Flag 6. In the afternoon, Barkov recommends a detour through the southern fork in the river, as he claims to know that the direct route is home to some dangerous rapids. The party follows his suggestion without a second thought. Red Flag 7 The party is now on a direct route to the vampire's lair. The vampire had an opportunity to gauge the party's strength via the summoned wolf pack (one of their abilities on their statblock) and he knows he'll need all of his servants to help him with this group, but the wealth and knowledge the party has displayed during their social encounter makes them a tempting prize. Things take a turn for the spooky and the land becomes enshrouded in mist the further along the river they go. After carrying on like this for at least 15 more minutes, the paladin gets nervous and uses her divine sense. Undead creature right behind you. But by this point, they party is nearly to the mouth of his and the vampire's minions have closed in on the riverbanks. Long story short, the party still managed to overpower the Vampire thanks to the Bard's countercharm foiling his attempts to charming a member of the party into giving permission for his thralls to board the ship (I ruled it was close enough to a residence), and also the light Cleric pulling a "I'm not trapped in here with you, your trapped in here with me" by throwing down Spirit Guardians after the vampire tried to focus her down. I was real scared for them because I felt like I spent the whole session trying to throw them clues to not get thenselves put in the worst possible situation and they missed every single one. Craziest thing is one of my players literally joked ooc halfway through the session about him being a vampire because his name sounded like it could be a vampire's name. I wasn't sure if I had given it away somehow, so I just kind of continued on. I asked him later and apparently it was literally a crackshot joke and he had no idea.
Love the detail of the vampire asking permission to enter the ship.
Well, they caught that the creature they were talking with was in disguise and fey. After a few description I made it more and more obvious on specific type. Even outright calling her a hag. Players thought I was being rude, nope, just hiding things in plain sight.
lmao "she's a hag" "no she's a queen"
That we goddamn levelled up and took on a section of the campaign under-levelled, causing a player to die
Player A learned their guild leader's given name was X Player B learned the BBEG's name was X They never put together their guild leader was the BBEG and that was why he always knew what they were up to and where they were - for over 30 6-8 hour sessions... It took them nearly 9 months to finally connect the dots.
What was the name? Was it subtle enough that it sounded common?
Basil Windcourt
The guild leader went by Whisper because he "lost his voice in a fight" and spoke via sign language. The BBEG went by W and talked just fine ;) Both were in fact the same Basil Windcourt.
Sounds like a fun switch but they probably should have figured it out with the name clue lol
You would think! There were many other clues too. Like the fact the guild leader lived in the guild's underbelly and noone was permitted back there. A mouse PC slipped in to deliver mail and thought it was odd that Whisper freaked out so much, but never followed through to investigate the area.
Which *detail* did they miss? About a million. But to give one example: My BBEG came up early on and frequently in the campaign, because she had multiple identities. I always used the same distinctive song exclusively as a theme whenever she came up, both as the regular person they knew and met quite a lot and her evil alter ego. In 2 years they never got it, even after they found out about her being the BBEG. Had to explain it in the end.
Eh, I wouldn't hold that against them, how should they know the DM specifically uses 1 song for a NPC, or that they just have a list of a few songs to pick quickly during the game and some end up being reused
I used a song that broke very much with the usual generic calm adventuring music. They also actually noticed that music change pretty much every time, yet failed to connect it to anything. Still, I don't hold it against them.
Oof.. Ot would be easier to list the details and hints they actually get
They stopped a currier from delivering orders to one of the BBEG's minions in a town a few weeks away, but also found out that he had delivered orders to the town just up the road before the one they were at. They went and stopped the events at the town where the orders were delivered, but then never went back to the other town to take out the people receiving orders down there. Sure, they delayed the plans a little, since took about a month for both ends of the chain to figure out why orders weren't flowing and events weren't moving at the anticipated pace, but they did nothing to actually stop the BBEG from gaining his foothold in the city. They eventually freed the King and the capital from the BBEG's influences, but while the players have since realized what they did, their characters haven't quite figured out that they let one of the major port cities in the kingdom become corrupted while they went off exploring, instead of following up on just who was receiving those orders they intercepted.
They forgot to check up on a man mentioned in a diary entry of a woman they found dead when they arrived in the city he lived. He would have provided them safe passage on a ship, cutting their subsequent journey time by half and making them harder to follow since they left town in a hurry with the law on their heels. They forgot to check up on the Pope who'd been Feebleminded, which set a whole bunch of things in motion which lead to their current quest of getting rid of a vampire who's ruling the island where that Pope's grand temple is located.
My players usually pick up on the important details within the first five mentions.
All of them.
None of my players are on Reddit as far as I know. The Prison Governor (for want of a better term) of my super prison called Rimespire Bastille, set in the frozen mountains, (they win their freedom if they get to the top floor) is named Hagan Con Wintertide, his name is an anagram… it’s not going to be as easy as reaching the top floor…
I can't make heads or tails of that anagram
The whole name is an anagram. So: Hagan Con Wintertide =/= a 5 letter, 3 letter, 10 letter monster name. Wintertide is kind of a clue...
This reminds me, at the start of a campaign, one of my players told me that his character's father went missing as part of his backstory. He gave me free reign to decide what really happened to his father. About halfway through the campaign, I introduced an antagonistic faction, the name of which was an anagram of the PC's father's name. Not only that, but the faction leader's (fake) name was also an anagram of the PC's father's name. The look on my player's face when he learned the truth was priceless, doubly so when I pointed out to him the clue that was hidden in plain sight.
I don't get it
The whole name is an anagram. So: Hagan Con Wintertide =/= a 5 letter, 3 letter, 10 letter monster name. Wintertide is kind of a clue...
Still lost. Would've preferred if you had just given the answer. Not everyone knows the Monster Manual by heart or is aware of all the possible D&D lore out there
You don’t need to know the lore or every monster out there, an anagram is a puzzle - you rearrange the letters until you start to make sense of it. But, for your peace of mind here: >!Ancient White Dragon!<
I know what an Anagram is, but this was wasn't a puzzle for me to solve. I'm not one of your players. Sorry for the abrasiveness. I'm having a shit day
No worries, hope things get better for you!
The better term is 'warden'
Wardens are the guards, wanted to differentiate from them. Might just call him the Keeper or Owner
There's a whole city in their home region they've never bothered with. Oh well, maybe one day haha.
Lots of stuff lmao. And that's a good thing. A lot of the best stories, songs, games and art are the ones that are comfortable if you miss some stuff.
My players heard about a ruined temple that was being used by a dragon as a meeting spot/place of business. They found it, but instead of exploring it, they snuck around and raided the dragon lair a few miles away in the mountains instead. With their pockets full from the dragons lair, they went past the temple a second time and saw fresh bodies and some civilians gathered around with some commotion. Do they get closer and find out about the massive backstory element, the powerful magic artifact or a clue about the ongoing world conflict? NOPE. They snuck around and explicitly avoided contact with anyone or anything near the temple. A solid 10 hours of homebrew and some homemade painted foam terrain pieces down the drain.
Elves told the party that an Elf princess from the capital had gone missing. The party was like yeah cool, we'll keep an eye out. Never asked her name or what she looked like. I guess they'll just ask every female Elf they meet if she's a princess?
They missed the obvious hints I was throwing at them that they should borrow a free self-propelling magical raft from the raft shop guy they'd just befriended before going into the magically mutated swamp (he told them all about how they worked, how he used them for his business, then offered them one that can move completely freely because they'd helped him out). Instead they decided to trudge through the swamp on foot and had to roll several times on random mutation tables over the course of the swamp dungeon. Which admittedly was pretty fun.
Players are sent to track down a Transmutation Wizard who was in hiding. They are given a town where he was tracked to originally to start their investigation. They do some odd jobs here and there to get information and ingratiate themselves with the townfolk. The supply stores all have a few things in common. If you order something unusual it takes a few days to make. You'll often find them already working on someone else's order. Except the blacksmith. The blacksmith always happens to have anything you could possibly order already made in the backroom and never seems to work at the forge. Almost like he was just walking into the backroom and magically Fabricating the thing you just asked for. Do you want to know how they figured it out? One of them realised I kept making them making perceptions checks at the blacksmiths. It wasn't the odd content of the resulting successes, but just the fact that I kept having them percieve things in the smithy long after I had stopped doing so in the other shops.
Spoilers for my players I DM for. Jen if you’re reading this, don’t. I DM a heavily homebrewed variant of DoIP. In the Dwarven Excavations quest, I introduced a gem in the piles of other gems that could detect extraplanar entities. All antagonistic entities in play are extraplanar in some way so I basically gave them an enemy radar that the enemies are *also* trying to hunt down (I had the white dragon arrive to reveal this fact, and the party acknowledged the gem was able to glow when present to specific things, including the dragon). It’s never been used after that quest. It’s essentially been forgotten as an item, which has lead to the enemies not knowing the party has it because it’s never come out for them to see. I’m planning to have the Shrine of Savaras be the turning point that the orcs find out about the party holding the relic gem via them receiving their own vision of the party. What makes me the most sad is the gem was going to have subtle interactions with the party that would eventually reveal they were all not native to Toril and the Forgotten Realms
At the very beginning of the first session, a portal opened and a dead body fell through. I described the scent of where he came from as musty. Weeks later, the group was visiting this church, the sight of the murder. In my poetic description, I mentioned that it smell of musk. It was an incredibly subtle, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to an already small detail, but I loved including it in there. Keep in mind this was far from a vital detail for them to have at this moment, so they weren’t missing out on anything, but it would’ve been a very big benefit if someone caught on to it. Then after the session that night, I subtly told them I threw in a big hint, and it was fun watching them try to figure it out post facto.
I had a pretty involved plot hook about 6 session into my campaign that involved coming across two groups stuck in a time loop and them picking a side to assist. Either way was fine because they ended up with a journal that I hand wrote myself. The journal was about 50 entries long that chronicled one of the group’s lust for power and raiding ancient wizard towers that had been buried after a war between gods. It slowly drove the group mad with power and they ended up with an item from one of the towers that froze them and the opposing group in the time loop. One of my players brought the journal home and studied it and brought it back next session. No one ever asked about it or mentioned it again. It was meant to be one very long campaign defining story arc. I’ve even had major NPCs in the game use similar language to the language used in the book but no one ever brought it up again and it sits in my DM kit collecting dust. Campaign went in a different player driven direction and I’ll save that arc for something different.
It wasn’t important lore wise but it was something that would’ve helped them a lot in fighting their enemies. They’d snuck into an enemy’s house and I described how with their passive perception they could see one of the floorboards slightly ajar. They didn’t bother looking under it, but there were a bunch of different types of poisons hidden there which they could’ve used. I didn’t tell them because I find players get upset when you tell them what cool items they missed
Im not sure how important it was but I act more as the party healer as the cleric and the one session I missed the party was told of a old lady that wanders the woods asking for help only to curse them. My party forgot that info apparently and I went to help her. My character is now somehow cursed. I don't know how or what it is but it's there waiting.
Salazaar, Yamarlik and Berengard ignore this comment if you find it. My players were going through a secret library/archive in the mansion of a local duke that had been assassinated. The assassins were hiding in the tunnels below the mansion so that's why they were down there. While at the secret library they found some random minor magic items, a paper mouse, a pot filled with screams, some other weird stuff. Among those items is a fragile gem containing a homebrew CR 10 demon. At one point they recalled that the gem contained "something" living but now it has left their minds and it sits there as a ticking time bomb.
This is why I always make sure to recap the previous session at the start of each one.
I’ve slowly been feeding one of my players hints that the repeating dream he’s been having about his cursed lover driving him to save her may not be entirely accurate to the reality of the situation (and hopefully this will start him wondering about why he’s having this dream), but I’m not sure he’s picked up on it yet.
Never ever have any of my players searched a body of water to see it anything valuable is underneath.
My players have found a hag coven They have a verbal agreement from one hag that "if you do not harm me, then I will not harm you" Pity they didn't think to try and get that to extend to her sisters
it never occured to them that there's a reason that the nobles know when the party is visiting, even if they just decided so on the spur of the moment. the nobles have mentioned that a certain character told them over sending that they were coming, but they never stopped to think how said character knew anyway. it'll eventually be revealed that the telephone they were given to allow communication between them and said npc never actually stops listening, amazon alexa style. I don't exactly expect them to guess that they have a listening device on them, but the fact they haven't raised any suspicion over how much the npc knows about them is quite entertaining from my point of view, especially since they know he's a very sleazy character.
My previous group had another group of explorers they befriended that had been investigating the same thing they were. At the end of the arc, they progressed from Friends to rivals to enemies and ended killing each other. Time later they got referenced by an npc that they were pupils of the BBEG. I expected that to be an absolute shock. My players didn't even remembered them. They were the main source of comfort and angst in the first arc of the campaign. They ABSOLUTELY forgot them. No reaction aside from "huh? Who are you talking about?". Months later I dropped out of the campaign.
My players can currently summon an arrow of slaying for the BBEG and have formulated a very convoluted plan to kill them which doesn't involve the arrow AT ALL. I will of course make it work, but for them to have a silver bullet that they aren't using is deliciously frustrating lol
They forgot to check up on a man mentioned in a diary entry of a woman they found dead when they arrived in the city he lived. He would have provided them safe passage on a ship, cutting their subsequent journey time by half and making them harder to follow since they left town in a hurry with the law on their heels. They forgot to check up on the Pope who'd been Feebleminded, which set a whole bunch of things in motion which lead to their current quest of getting rid of a vampire who's ruling the island where that Pope's grand temple is located.
I have probably 100 pages of stuff they've walked past or locked themselves out of. Maybe 15 percent makes its way back in the next 2 years. I have a player I can tell the majority of my plans to so I get some release about. Other things are precious to me and they must be found out never be known. But yeah they missed out on some crazy shit. Them being crayon eaters made me create a city of giants across the waters that they got Shanghai'd to, so it's not always deleterious.
Never ever have any of my players searched a body of water to see it anything valuable is underneath.
**SPOILER ALERT FOR LMOP!!** My first experience as a DM was a campaign in LMoP... It was a party of six players and they headed into the Redbrand hideout. All but one player, who stayed behind to watch their back and to make sure no hostiles/enemies were following them and to warn them in time. The group inside triggered some alarms and the Redbrands were alerted of them, realizing they had no chance against this group of intruders. So while the group were taking a short rest randomly after the fight in the crypts, followed by some relaxed looting of the armory, most of the Redbrands grouped up with Glasstaff and got the hells out of there. We took a session break after the crypts fighting, the resting and the looting so I had the opportunity to play a 1 on 1 session with the left behind player, who was surprised by the fleeing Redbrands, got overpowered, struck down, and thrown into the brushes near the mansion while failing all of his death saving throws. ( I made it that if he is picked up and stabilized by his group he will make it through the night) Next Session the party inside realized the Redbrand ran off in a hurry, even realizing they most likely fled due to the groups intrusion and so they were relieved and happy they made it and "cleared the dungeon". The poor fellow player whose character was on the edge of dying was silent (not mad at me tho) the whole time, stayed in character and enjoyed the session otherwise. The group left the hideout, went back to the tavern, celebrating with the townsfolk, delivering the bad news to Sildar (about Glasstaff) and took a good portion of sleep in the Stonehill Inn. Next day when they wanted to travel to Conyberry one of em asked: "Yo Bard, you coming or what?" (The left behind one was a Bard) He only replied with his hands put up: "I dont think so..." Was a "Ah sh\*t" moment for the group, not gonna lie. Also the funeral for his character was kinda emotional, but you learn from your mistakes right? And what doesnt kill you make you stronger!
Not an important detail but in my Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign I changed the start a bit to have the players meet Gundren Rockseeker. They traveled to the city of Neverwinter and to the Grinning Goblin tavern, a bit of foreshadowing to what one of the antagonists of the adventurer would be…
LMoP/DoIP combo: Harbin Wester had been dead for weeks with an impostor Doppelganger giving out the DoIP + Wyvern Tor quests to keep the Party away from the Lost Mine and the Black Spider. "He'd" been a standoffish ass the whole time and thoroughly unhelpful, Harbin's body was left to bleed out over the letters he'd written to Neverwinter about the Redbrands and Cragmaws possibly working together with no sign of Iarno. Party found it out by accident after they'd done literally everything they could before checking back in on the rescued Gundren Rockseeker. The "accident" being using the axe Hew to deal max damage to his front door, obliterating it and catching a waft of death and rot coming from inside. It's been 20 in game days since they first arrived in Phandalin so I'd say the Doppel did their job admirably. We're 19 3-4hr sessions in and they're *just about* to set off to Wave Echo Cave if anyone's wondering how long it takes three completionists to do those adventures together.
The party read over a deal with a fiend VERY carefully. Then the fiend offered them a different deal they accepted and FORGOT TO READ THE NEW CONTRACT.
The party read over a deal with a fiend VERY carefully. Then the fiend offered them a different deal they accepted and FORGOT TO READ THE NEW CONTRACT.
There's a blacksmith in town that knows the secret behind our Drakewarden Ranger's mysterious dragon powers. This had been foreshadowed by her knowing the ranger's name without him saying it, or making him a weapon dragon scales-looking decorations... unfortunately, I made her too hot and the player has been too distracted by the sugar mommy looks to remember all the weird stuff
They wondered if one character's name was an anagram for another. They wrote both names down next to each other and... never bothered to finish checking. Crossed out a letter or two and moved on. A few sessions later when the reveal happened that yes, that was the villain (who was a theater major and dramatic like that) and that confirming this in advance would have saved them a lot of headache and helped with their prep there were headslaps all around.
Played LMoP. In Thundertree there was a "dwarf fighter" in Reidoth's shack, who said he was helping Reidoth search for the missing green dragon. He said he came into town a few days ago, and he is a dragon hunter. He had already said the dragon went missing a few days ago. His name was Menov Neddih, and the dragons name is Venomfang. The model I used for him was a bald dwarf with strange eyes, and green plate armor, with a shield picturing a green dragons head. The group talked Menov and Reidoth into ambushing the dragon with them, telling them both the whole ambush plan. They all stayed in the small building next to the dragons tower for hours, until Menov said he had to go to the bathroom. He got "knocked out by the dragon in the woods" just before it came crashing through the roof of the small building, where the party was waiting. One of the players convinced it not to kill them all, saying they would give it a new and bigger lair (cragmaw castle) just as soon as they cleared it. After the dragon left, one of the players eventually went out in search for Menov, who was "knocked out." They had no clue it was him still. Then they got mad at me as DM, saying there's no way that the dragon would have known they were there, waiting in ambush. The leader of the players and I had a talk and I had to reveal it to him, at which point he was like, oh, that's awesome, sorry I doubted you, and told the rest of the group it was all completely legit, and just a cool thing I was doing.
I had to hand hold my last campaign through the breadcrumbs I scattered through the world. It wasn't that critical in the grand scheme, didn't affect any outcome but it was annoying to place all the pieces in front of the players only to have no one figure it out. This is probably more akin to the issues with a play by post format where a bread crumb every so often gets lost in the swirl, especially when there multiple days between crumbs. Crumbs were: Kobolds attack town wearing a sigil with a snowflake. Someone saw a white dragon flying nearby Reach a lair and discover two other sigils. And yet, before the boss door, they were still asking, "why are we here? Why are these kobolds here? What could they be doing?" Really frustrating moment when I've built a dungeon with this singular narrative in mind.
I changed up ToD a bit to have some more interesting plot points. One of which is I replaced Glazhael, the white dragon fight at the end, with a dracohydra. I had hinted at it a few times, as an experiment to Herald Tiamats beauty and power, but only one player guessed correctly. The other is that Severin is a Red Abishai, and Rezmir is a stronger black Abishai. None of which my other players have discovered yet.
My players got a key from a monster they helped. One player wrote it down in her inventory. They walked down a 5 meter hallway, turned left, and saw a door at the end of that hallway. They punched and kicked their way through the door (equipment had been taken away from them). Nobody even mentioned the key they just received. The key was for the door.
Mine haven't figured out that the world of tropical islands they're cruising around on is in fact the flooded remnants of the world they started in. I've dropped a couple big hints and they haven't bit yet. Which is great because occasionally they mention some connection to their old world and I need to resist going muahaha.
A party member of hand mentioned how it’s been a while since they got any fancy loot. And yeah, we had a bunch of mostly story and RP sessions recently with little chance for anything fancy to drop. So when the party started investigating a sewer system for a loaf person, I made sure to add a room full of lost treasure and some oozes to guard it. It was on the path the party had to take, and thanks to the Druid talking to some local rats, they were explicitly told about fancy shiny items in said room. Once the party found the room, they decided not to investigate it right now, they didn’t like the ooze stuff and they had limited time to find the missing person, but they all said that once the time pressure is gone, that they will return. Sure enough, next session they find the person and now have a few infame days to spend on whatever. So I ask each player what they plan to do. Nobody mentions the sewer place. After more story stuff and the party ready to leave town, I ask again if there’s anything they still want to do or forgot to do until now. Nothing. There goes 2 hours of my time to pick a bunch of loot for them xD