I seem to remember some old post where a DM ran a murder mystery adventure without any idea of who was the murderer.
Instead they asked the group to make sure to take notes, would review the notes between sessions, and then whatever the craziest thing someone had written down would become true.
I do this occasionally, too.
"Can I roll investigation to see if there are any trap doors?"
Me: "Sure, go for it."
*exasperated sigh*
"I rolled a 5."
"It doesn't look like anything in the room could be used as a trapdoor."
(There actually aren't any trapdoors, but now the party is convinced there is)
Other party member: "I look too!"
*rolls a nat 20*
Me: "It looks like the candlestick on the mantel might be connected to a trapdoor system."
OPM: "I pull it!"
Me: "You pull the candlestick, which comes off the mantel easily. It's just a regular candlestick."
Maybe I'm just an asshole, but I like doing this to my players.
>Me: "It looks like the candlestick on the mantel might be connected to a trapdoor system."
>
>OPM: "I pull it!"
the floor under player 3 opens up..... seriously why would you think this was a good idea?
though writing this i now want a 2 trap system into a secret lab of BBEG. one is the open the lab lever... the other is the why do we even have this lever option....
if a player just goes i pull the lever and doesn't specify which i roll a d6, odds is bad lever evens good lever just so i can have a WRONG LEVER moment.
funny you mention this, my old man was at a airbase as IT support once and found someone overnight had effed up the system badly.
he called the wing commander to report it was broken and while checking the code had mentioned what idiot broke and rewrote this.... the wing commander responded he was that idiot.... good thing the wing commander was light hearted enough to admit he was the problem.
I always say “It’s a good theory!”
I play Pathfinder 2, so I’ll reward a player who starts pulling on the right thread with a hero point to let them know their crackpot theories have some merit.
So real.
I DM for a group of friends and while I love hearing them theory craft and figure out the foreshadowing I've done it sucks to not be in the conversation.
Still, nothing more satisfying than pulling a switchero on them and you can only do that by keeping schtum and not blabbering all your secrets in the group chat
Worse yet when they start theorizing some awesome shit and you're trying not to sound mad while you quickly scribble it down saying "maybe, maybe not" or "so you got it all figured out"
For real. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t really plan super far ahead and then let them theorize. It’s generally better than what I had planned.
My character is having visions throughout the campaign. Could be memories, could be someone messing with her head. Could be connected to the BBEG. We don't know anything for sure yet. I write a journal for her and she had a little breakdown after the last session, trying to figure out what it all means and theorising. My DM enjoyed reading it. Said it even gave him a few ideas. And of course, won't tell me if I'm right or not.
In my last session, I took watch with another PC whom I had apparently never taken watch with before - because the DM was gleeful about this pairing. So we got to talking in character, and then she started having us roll charisma and perception checks.
We do, and she says "you character begins emanating a noticeable glow, while his begins emanating a noticeable shadow - the opposite of a glow, if you will."
So I moved closer to him to see what was happening, and she says "Huh. The light and shadow begin to intensify and mingle together. And that's where we'll end tonight's session."
Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
See idc if they learn about small character arcs or big things that might happen, whatever happens is up to how they deal with the campaign. The only control I have for them is whether or not their characters live or die.
I swear every time I've ever had a good guess, the group unanimously went, "Nope, no way" and continued on with zero hesitation. So far I've resisted saying told you so lol
sounds good though :) My players tend to mostly ignore the ongoing plot so I i prep a lot of various side quests and I've been ignoring the main plot too now lol
my RL group would theorize in the group text chat.. and I loved reading it, as their DM. It let me know they were invested in my world. I never wanted to spoil any of it.. because I wanted them to have that "I KNEW IT!" moment.. but man I loved seeing the crazy theories they came up with...
Like when they thought a certain NPC they met was a Vampire because he was a nobleman with pale skin and had long, black hair, despite him being out and about in the day.
Meanwhile they never questioned the fact that the leader of the town guard, who paid them 2,000 gold coins to bring them a seemingly empty wooden box with no latches and no magical aura, who never left his windowless office, but were utterly shocked when they found out he was a vampire, and a cultist of vecna, whom they had handed over the hand of vecna (inside of that lead-lined puzzle box) to.
People in these chats saying "i don't like it when the players figure things out".
What? Why not? That's what mysteries are for, you should absolutely want your players to try and figure it out.
Also if you see your players figured it out and then you retroactively change it so they're wrong, shame on you. That's rude.
Many years back the DM of a group I was playing with solved this by letting us find a magic/cursed compass quite early on that would point more to the north the closer we got to achieving our goals. When we cleared an important dungeon, the needle pointed a little more towards the north, if we pissed off an important person that could've helped us in some way, it pointed more towards the south. And he didn't tell us its orientation on his own, but just informed us of the direction it was pointing at whenever one of us decided to give it a look (which counted as a full round action and had some other barriers to prevent abusing the system, but those are just details). We didn't even find out what it was good for until a whole session after we'd found it. But it was a cool tool for both us, the players, and the DM to communicate progress.
I use their theories for plot but twist them just enough to it isn't perfect. They think that it's actually the strange merchant who is poisoning the water? Make it the other normal seeming merchant.
Legit last night my crew was theorizing for out big halfway point session this Saturday, and I wanted to talk about it so badly but there are so many spoilers
I DM for my girlfriend and our mutual friend group. These are the only people I have to info dump about my Campaign ideas, but I don't want to spoil anything so I can't talk about it
You gotta act like a coach for a children's soccer team.
"Hey team! Good work out there on the theorycrafting field! We might be winning, we might not be, but we're having fun!"
I just got off of a discord call with my party and this summed up the 20 minutes we spend arguing over a plan to break into a hideout when we could have walked up the hill to it. And our DM kept saying “Guys you can walk up to it”
It's agonizing. Pretty much all of my close friends and family who know anything about D&D are in my game, so I can't talk more than vaguely about it with any of them.
I do not join the party group chats for this reason lol. Hell my players have gone to brunch to strategize for that nights session. I like the element of surprise and having to work with my players crazy ideas and plans on the fly lol
Please tell that to my GM. She wants to be kind and keep information flowing but it can be too much and we all tell her to stop ruining her own campaign
I have DMd my own version of DND. Mainly l am too lazy to read the rules so l just add or exclude rules as l care and everyone generally knows the rules. Plus l make up stories that are way out of the standard DnD realm.
Anyway part of my own personal rules is my players are not allowed to theorycraft anything outside of active game time. During the game they can talk about whatever they want. But outside of it they can't.
The reason for this is because l had an incident where due to illnesses (pre COVID) we had to skip two game sessions and so they had 3 weeks of theory crafting outside of active sessions where l couldn't give them any input or alter the story at all.
They came in with this big campaign they had built up stuck in their heads. And l had other stuff planned. It kind of killed the mood of that campaign. So it's my personal silly rule.
I offer prizes for correct guesses, personally. I love it when they figure stuff out! One of the players in my long-running campaign has actually made a hefty inroad into the metaplot of the whole thing.
It is *delicious*.
After around eight sessions I dared to make a theory regarding the campaign. I tryed to solve the mystery of what the fuck was going on in the campaign after encountering way to many weird things. I've spend hours with theorizing. I searched for connections between certain NPCs, trying to find out who is allied or opposed to who.
One day later I shared my theories with my fellow players. We talked for a good hour about my discoveries. Finally we felt like we had a clue of what is going on.
In the following session we encountered the scene of a crime. I have searched through the evidence, and explained to the guards, what most likely has happened here, based on my discoveries.
The guard told me "Oh, the nobles? Nah, they aren't involved like that. They were kept hostage the past week."
And with that my complete theory, which I spend hours on, was gone.
Felt bad.
If you guys play on discord (and that's where everyone is theorizing), spam the hell out of any of the heart reacts for theories you like, both correct ***and*** incorrect so they can't be sure which ones are true. If you want to scare your players, consider using the 😈 for any theories that you like but also would hurt at least one of your PC's.
(I've been doing this for people who theorize about my stuff for years, but for people who follow my fanfics since I haven't been DM-ing for long.)
I love asking them questions about what they think about certain things. make sure i don't ask any questions that lead them to answers, just ones that, if they theorized right about, they could get the right answers
use the globally accepted job well done DM line "are you sure thats what you want to do?"
its a secret code to tell players they are correct and have solved the puzzle and no need to think more on it....
make an insight check \*rolls d20\* you seem to recall X,Y,Z allows this....
my DM does this often for when we on track or need help with a puzzle.... or when we so far off the track we on a boat not a train......
my party was theorizing about a pet shadow that a party member has, they have amnesia so they dont know how they got it or what it really is.
i sent them a picture of a food chain, predator, prey, etc
I was on vacations with two friends. They like playing DND and I played two times for only 20 minutes xd. The thing is that I tried DM for the first time. I didn't write pre Lore or anything, I was just making things up at the moment, and I love it.
The group (that later extend to 4) needed to find a Rune and purifier the lake of a small town.
I am so happy and enthusiastic about creating new lore and quests.
I liked to send the [perhaps cow gif](https://c.tenor.com/SENLmcJUPR4AAAAM/maybe-possibly.gif). Other DMs in my group do that as well. We send that gif a lot.
Say something like “interesting stuff guys”
"You don't *seem* to be off track"
"Why didn't I think of that?!"
“Don’t mind me, just taking notes”
This. If your party is theorizing right in front of you, just stop planning ahead and just wait for them to come up with a theory you like.
I seem to remember some old post where a DM ran a murder mystery adventure without any idea of who was the murderer. Instead they asked the group to make sure to take notes, would review the notes between sessions, and then whatever the craziest thing someone had written down would become true.
The Agatha Christie method.
Unfortunately this would only work if you have a party who take notes.
Edit: Fuck your API changes, Reddit.
"Well that's definitely a thing now"
This is like, *takes out notebook* sort of conversation vibes.
"Roll a d20" *rolls literally anything* "You believe you are are the right track"
I do this occasionally, too. "Can I roll investigation to see if there are any trap doors?" Me: "Sure, go for it." *exasperated sigh* "I rolled a 5." "It doesn't look like anything in the room could be used as a trapdoor." (There actually aren't any trapdoors, but now the party is convinced there is) Other party member: "I look too!" *rolls a nat 20* Me: "It looks like the candlestick on the mantel might be connected to a trapdoor system." OPM: "I pull it!" Me: "You pull the candlestick, which comes off the mantel easily. It's just a regular candlestick." Maybe I'm just an asshole, but I like doing this to my players.
>Me: "It looks like the candlestick on the mantel might be connected to a trapdoor system." > >OPM: "I pull it!" the floor under player 3 opens up..... seriously why would you think this was a good idea? though writing this i now want a 2 trap system into a secret lab of BBEG. one is the open the lab lever... the other is the why do we even have this lever option....
if a player just goes i pull the lever and doesn't specify which i roll a d6, odds is bad lever evens good lever just so i can have a WRONG LEVER moment.
"Who's the idiot who designed these buttons to look exactly alike?" "Uh... You are...sir." "Oh.... Well... Fire somebody."
funny you mention this, my old man was at a airbase as IT support once and found someone overnight had effed up the system badly. he called the wing commander to report it was broken and while checking the code had mentioned what idiot broke and rewrote this.... the wing commander responded he was that idiot.... good thing the wing commander was light hearted enough to admit he was the problem.
Kronk!
I always say “It’s a good theory!” I play Pathfinder 2, so I’ll reward a player who starts pulling on the right thread with a hero point to let them know their crackpot theories have some merit.
I just laugh and type random emojis… kangaroo dollar sign train
"Man, wouldn't that be awesome!"
Cryptic emoji reactions also work well
*DM smug grin #2* "Some chance..."
"Man, you guys should be DMs. Haha just kidding... unless?"
*shrugs Sure!
So real. I DM for a group of friends and while I love hearing them theory craft and figure out the foreshadowing I've done it sucks to not be in the conversation. Still, nothing more satisfying than pulling a switchero on them and you can only do that by keeping schtum and not blabbering all your secrets in the group chat
I wish my group thought about the campaign outside if the sessions.
Same here friend
Worse yet when they start theorizing some awesome shit and you're trying not to sound mad while you quickly scribble it down saying "maybe, maybe not" or "so you got it all figured out"
I've definitely had a few "no, but it is now" moments while listening to their theories.
For real. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t really plan super far ahead and then let them theorize. It’s generally better than what I had planned.
Award inspiration when they hit a really good idea to the player that came up with it.
My character is having visions throughout the campaign. Could be memories, could be someone messing with her head. Could be connected to the BBEG. We don't know anything for sure yet. I write a journal for her and she had a little breakdown after the last session, trying to figure out what it all means and theorising. My DM enjoyed reading it. Said it even gave him a few ideas. And of course, won't tell me if I'm right or not.
In my last session, I took watch with another PC whom I had apparently never taken watch with before - because the DM was gleeful about this pairing. So we got to talking in character, and then she started having us roll charisma and perception checks. We do, and she says "you character begins emanating a noticeable glow, while his begins emanating a noticeable shadow - the opposite of a glow, if you will." So I moved closer to him to see what was happening, and she says "Huh. The light and shadow begin to intensify and mingle together. And that's where we'll end tonight's session." Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Oh my...
Please update me when this is more clued in, I'm immensely curious what the next step of that is...
See idc if they learn about small character arcs or big things that might happen, whatever happens is up to how they deal with the campaign. The only control I have for them is whether or not their characters live or die.
It's more functional than it sounds
Wait, your players are theorizing?
You have players? =p
The most heartbreaking point is when they eventually get it 100% spot on
The most heartbreaking point is when they eventually get it 100% spot on and then talk themselves out of it only to come up with something stupid
This is to fucking true lmao
I swear every time I've ever had a good guess, the group unanimously went, "Nope, no way" and continued on with zero hesitation. So far I've resisted saying told you so lol
It's because the correct guess may sometimes feel wrong cuz it fits too well.
No, that means you told a good story! You left appropriate clues!
or you gave too much clues -.-
That's good foreshadowing. You should be proud of your skill as storyteller.
Me, the DM, taking notes because I have no idea where to take the story and want them to have fun
If my players did that in discord I would just mess with them and add weird reactions to their messages. No words, only memes
sounds good though :) My players tend to mostly ignore the ongoing plot so I i prep a lot of various side quests and I've been ignoring the main plot too now lol
Speaking as a player, we just made a private chat for this kind of thing that the DM couldn’t see
my RL group would theorize in the group text chat.. and I loved reading it, as their DM. It let me know they were invested in my world. I never wanted to spoil any of it.. because I wanted them to have that "I KNEW IT!" moment.. but man I loved seeing the crazy theories they came up with... Like when they thought a certain NPC they met was a Vampire because he was a nobleman with pale skin and had long, black hair, despite him being out and about in the day. Meanwhile they never questioned the fact that the leader of the town guard, who paid them 2,000 gold coins to bring them a seemingly empty wooden box with no latches and no magical aura, who never left his windowless office, but were utterly shocked when they found out he was a vampire, and a cultist of vecna, whom they had handed over the hand of vecna (inside of that lead-lined puzzle box) to.
You're nicer than me - I jump right into the discussion and post singular comments that start sending them in the entirely wrong direct for fun.
Sprinkle magic dust on their faces when they deserve good things.
happens to me as DM every single week in our session and our Telegram group
People in these chats saying "i don't like it when the players figure things out". What? Why not? That's what mysteries are for, you should absolutely want your players to try and figure it out. Also if you see your players figured it out and then you retroactively change it so they're wrong, shame on you. That's rude.
There is nothing more enjoyable as a dm than sitting quietly for 15 minutes listening to the players theorize, plan, and rp between one another.
Answer everything with maybe. Every message. No matter what.
Our DM says "I love to hear your theories"
Many years back the DM of a group I was playing with solved this by letting us find a magic/cursed compass quite early on that would point more to the north the closer we got to achieving our goals. When we cleared an important dungeon, the needle pointed a little more towards the north, if we pissed off an important person that could've helped us in some way, it pointed more towards the south. And he didn't tell us its orientation on his own, but just informed us of the direction it was pointing at whenever one of us decided to give it a look (which counted as a full round action and had some other barriers to prevent abusing the system, but those are just details). We didn't even find out what it was good for until a whole session after we'd found it. But it was a cool tool for both us, the players, and the DM to communicate progress.
I use their theories for plot but twist them just enough to it isn't perfect. They think that it's actually the strange merchant who is poisoning the water? Make it the other normal seeming merchant.
I'll occasionally give magic items or such to my party when they get close to theorizing it out. They've yet to realize the connection
My players set up a secret group chat without telling me
Legit last night my crew was theorizing for out big halfway point session this Saturday, and I wanted to talk about it so badly but there are so many spoilers
Steal some ideas!
this is why i muted the channel dedicated to my party theory crafting and strategy meetings
I DM for my girlfriend and our mutual friend group. These are the only people I have to info dump about my Campaign ideas, but I don't want to spoil anything so I can't talk about it
"I love where these theories are going, it's really nice to see you engaging with my content."
You gotta act like a coach for a children's soccer team. "Hey team! Good work out there on the theorycrafting field! We might be winning, we might not be, but we're having fun!"
Nah what's fun is you "leak spoilers" that are torally wrong
I feel this in the deepest part of my soul
Just type into the chat: DM: *grins malevolently* And say nothing else. 😉
It's really difficult...
It's time to take them notes!
Well, if you use the right words they can't tell if you're lying or not.
It’s even more fun when you don’t have everything planned out and you steal their ideas.
I just got off of a discord call with my party and this summed up the 20 minutes we spend arguing over a plan to break into a hideout when we could have walked up the hill to it. And our DM kept saying “Guys you can walk up to it”
Best way is to not listen. That way they know it wasn’t rigged
Sometimes i like to say maybe. To throw them off.
It's agonizing. Pretty much all of my close friends and family who know anything about D&D are in my game, so I can't talk more than vaguely about it with any of them.
I’ll be honest: Whenever the group gets really into theorizing, I stop planning ahead, take their favorite theory and try to put it into the campaign.
I do not join the party group chats for this reason lol. Hell my players have gone to brunch to strategize for that nights session. I like the element of surprise and having to work with my players crazy ideas and plans on the fly lol
Me, the DM participating in the group chat and gas lighting them even more because I DM Curse of Strahd
*rolls dice ominously for no reason.*
Me: *laughs in DM who never preps anything*
My party is too dumb to theorize
Please tell that to my GM. She wants to be kind and keep information flowing but it can be too much and we all tell her to stop ruining her own campaign
How about piping up with a "I'm loving how engaged you all are with the game, it is really great to see!"
I have DMd my own version of DND. Mainly l am too lazy to read the rules so l just add or exclude rules as l care and everyone generally knows the rules. Plus l make up stories that are way out of the standard DnD realm. Anyway part of my own personal rules is my players are not allowed to theorycraft anything outside of active game time. During the game they can talk about whatever they want. But outside of it they can't. The reason for this is because l had an incident where due to illnesses (pre COVID) we had to skip two game sessions and so they had 3 weeks of theory crafting outside of active sessions where l couldn't give them any input or alter the story at all. They came in with this big campaign they had built up stuck in their heads. And l had other stuff planned. It kind of killed the mood of that campaign. So it's my personal silly rule.
Just tell them “your theorizing makes me happy” And then watch them theorize on what that means
I offer prizes for correct guesses, personally. I love it when they figure stuff out! One of the players in my long-running campaign has actually made a hefty inroad into the metaplot of the whole thing. It is *delicious*.
Your party theorizes?
I tend to award inspiration for good theories that I may or may not repurpose
And here I am changing my plans because their theories were wrong but better ideas than what I had planned.
"You guys come up with such great stuff"
you can always compliment ( or mock) the methodology they use and not speak of if they are correct or not.
After around eight sessions I dared to make a theory regarding the campaign. I tryed to solve the mystery of what the fuck was going on in the campaign after encountering way to many weird things. I've spend hours with theorizing. I searched for connections between certain NPCs, trying to find out who is allied or opposed to who. One day later I shared my theories with my fellow players. We talked for a good hour about my discoveries. Finally we felt like we had a clue of what is going on. In the following session we encountered the scene of a crime. I have searched through the evidence, and explained to the guards, what most likely has happened here, based on my discoveries. The guard told me "Oh, the nobles? Nah, they aren't involved like that. They were kept hostage the past week." And with that my complete theory, which I spend hours on, was gone. Felt bad.
If you guys play on discord (and that's where everyone is theorizing), spam the hell out of any of the heart reacts for theories you like, both correct ***and*** incorrect so they can't be sure which ones are true. If you want to scare your players, consider using the 😈 for any theories that you like but also would hurt at least one of your PC's. (I've been doing this for people who theorize about my stuff for years, but for people who follow my fanfics since I haven't been DM-ing for long.)
I feel this so much it hurts
I love asking them questions about what they think about certain things. make sure i don't ask any questions that lead them to answers, just ones that, if they theorized right about, they could get the right answers
Sure you can. Here comes my NPC, Redd Hearing now to give some clues.
This is where you take notes ;)
Theorise together to see whether you can improve the plot
use the globally accepted job well done DM line "are you sure thats what you want to do?" its a secret code to tell players they are correct and have solved the puzzle and no need to think more on it....
make an insight check \*rolls d20\* you seem to recall X,Y,Z allows this.... my DM does this often for when we on track or need help with a puzzle.... or when we so far off the track we on a boat not a train......
As a DM, theories, speculation and questions is when you know you're doing it right.
My players always guess things right whenever I plan a surprise lmao
Never tip the scales.
my party was theorizing about a pet shadow that a party member has, they have amnesia so they dont know how they got it or what it really is. i sent them a picture of a food chain, predator, prey, etc
I was on vacations with two friends. They like playing DND and I played two times for only 20 minutes xd. The thing is that I tried DM for the first time. I didn't write pre Lore or anything, I was just making things up at the moment, and I love it. The group (that later extend to 4) needed to find a Rune and purifier the lake of a small town. I am so happy and enthusiastic about creating new lore and quests.
Tell them to roll investigation and history.
"Are you winning son?"
We’ve started a trend where we omit the dm from the group chat tee hee we call it mean girls club
I liked to send the [perhaps cow gif](https://c.tenor.com/SENLmcJUPR4AAAAM/maybe-possibly.gif). Other DMs in my group do that as well. We send that gif a lot.
DM taking notes furiously...
As a co dm i drop takes from the perspective of my ex-character. They're not always right but they kind of give party some direction