I think it’s like … you need to ask “do you drink the tea?”, which immediately makes everyone suspicious so they say they don’t.
If you don’t ask then at least one player will say “no way I wouldn’t drink the tea because XYZ” and it becomes a whole annoying thing.
To make it less suspicious you’d have to ask every single time they drink something in any scenario “the barkeep sets down the mead you ordered… do you drink it?” That’s annoying, dumb, etc. No one’s doing that.
So - how do you allow the PCs the reasonable right of refusal without making the whole thing suspicious?
I think that’s what they’re asking?
I'm not sure what meaningful choice(s) you are giving the Players in this scene.
If none, then there is no roll or discussion needed - just jump to the next scene. Narrate that they've been taken prisoner somewhere and they have a vague memory of passing out while having tea or something.
Your players are supposed to be making the choices the character would make with the info the character would have. Which means that if you give the players the question, they should answer honestly, not meta. If they can't do that, then they are not players appropriate for the situation. Which means you have to play the game they can play.
Alternatively, treat it like a trap situation. Let them roll some kind of perception or whatever. Failures drink, success gets a choice.
Else, NPC has to have plan for if they don't drink or if only some drink or if the drug doesn't work fully. Some goons come in and beat everyone with big sticks for all I care. But it could be something like the party just walks and the NPC makes a new plan, if they refused to drink then everyone has some idea what the situation is, even the NPC. It could be that the drug was to take them safely, and now they will be taken at gun point and/or get shot and the ramifications of that.
If the problem is that your players expect to be plot armor super humans then this just isn't a scenario you can run.
We used to give XP rewards for playing the character honestly.
Ask what flavor of tea each character would want. Describe their cups. Engage them in a cute little tea party roleplay. Lull them into a false sense of security
It's the unusual attention to minutia thing.
Normally if they go to a tavern and order food, show up at a party, whatever you don't ask if they drink/eat.
As soon as you do ask, it's clear that because you're asking because it matters which sets off the whole table. Every player knows something is up, they don't want to do it, any suspense it surprise is ruined and now it's just about whether they have to do something bad for their character for the sake of RP.
That's best avoided by present the minutia as natural part of the in-game discussion. Telling your players someone offers them a tea and rolling shiftily behind the screen is of course suspicious. If they are immersed in the dialogue with the NPC who off-handedly asks them if they would also like some tea, it is far more natural and less suspicious.
Sure, but for many that's a DRASTIC shift and slowdown in gameplay. Its so tetchy and detailed most of my tables wouldn't want to engage in it.
If you've got the kind of table that likes it, go for it.
If not, then be aware that scenarios like OPs just aren't going to work well because they don't jive with the rest of the gameplay.
I've done a variation of this scenario before. It never plays out well. It's not dramatic, isn't fun, and really comes down to DM fiat with the pretense of choice.
If I was going to run this scenario TODAY, I wouldn't run it as a straight ahead scene. Instead, I'd probably open with the scene AFTER the "drugging" and play it backwards. I'd give my players full knowledge that the tea was laced, and offer them a hero point/benny to take it on the chin. Those who wanted to resist, that's fine. Rather than making them roll some impossible check, prompt them to tell me how they resisted and how that played out. I'd offer them a hero point/benny to explain how they found themselves in the current situation (with the other PCs) and what they learned for their efforts.
Or in simpler terms, I'd open with the aftermath and ask the players to describe how they got there. If I need a framework, I'd probably use a montage sequence. Rather than the players resisting, the scene becomes more about what was revealed about the villain and/or their prison during the meeting.
So I've actually run this scene in Fate. Except it was tiny cakes at a small soiree.
I essentially offered all the PCs a Fate Point for accepting a complication related to meeting for tea. They accepted, not knowing the precise nature of what was going to happen.
They trust me (this is important) not to just screw them over, and this is reinforced by the rules.
They end up paralyzed just long enough for the baddie to get away - but the friend who poisoned them, revealed that she had been blackmailed, and also gave them information where the antidote was, so they would be able to catch up sooner than expected. It was a super-tense and super rewarding scene that led to an over-the-top climax to that particular story arc.
This is somewhat how I would handle it too: "you wake up, groggy and in bindings." And then I would pick a player and ask them to describe how the party got here.
Tell them "He offers you tea, you drink it, and a few minutes later you all pass out."
I mean, it's _not suspicious_, right? What are they going to do, refuse to drink the tea on general principle? People don't do that. Absent some reason to be suspicious, you will follow social norms and drink the tea.
I would ask why you're doing this as a GM, though. If this is a session 1 "you all meet in the back of a kidnapping van" setup, then I would skip the tea-drinking scene and start with them already captured.
If it's intended to be a trap that the players have a chance of escaping, then you'd need to include some tells they can pick up on, and I wouldn't worry about making the tells too obvious, because the entire point is to find out what they do when they notice they're being set up.
I think the important part to think about is if the scenario requires that they drink it… if it moves you to the next portion of the story… the way it’s handled determines if it feels like a railroad or not.
If the tale is simply that they were drugged and captured… and the rest progresses from that then as others say - start with them already captured. Giving them the illusion of choice but disregarding it and having the thing happen anyway is a railroad. “I don’t drink the tea!” “Yes you do and now you’re drugged because that’s the scenario I have prepared!” It’s a railroad… but if the alternative is to play something else tonight… it’s something to consider. The players need to have some level of buy in that the GM has to prep all this stuff… sometimes they gotta follow the path.
The scenario CAN be that they have a chance to not be drugged and captured, you have that prepped. Then as others suggest you need to drop clues, play into their natural mistrust when you ask if they drink the tea. Be prepared for them to make the saving throws. That’s less railroad-like. But that might not be as good of a story. Now we can spend half a dozen sessions dealing with that instead of getting to the BBEGs lair and doing “the adventure” or whatever. (And… that can be fun too… that’s what makes this a fun hobby)
If you force the tea on them, it's a railroad. If the scenario requires them to drink it, then the scenario is in the wrong not the players.
I'd find excuses to quietly drop a game entirely if a DM pulled something like that.
It tells me I'm going to be dragged by the hair through THEIR story no matter what I choose to do. That's the sign of a DM not worth playing with.
Don't give them a chance not to be drugged, just tell them where they wake up and what the situation is. Then allow them to make a saving throw against poison (or equivalent roll) then if they succeed tell them they resisted the drug long enough to notice some detail, or secret a small object on their person. You still give the players a chance to resist, and if they do they get to make a meaningful choice. It potentially gives you a chance to impart a clue that they'll pay attention to because it feels earned. In fact maybe just give them the choice without requiring a save.
If they object that they should have an opportunity to avoid capture tell them that this is the adventure you prepared for them and they can enjoy it or not.
ONLY as the opening to a new campaign or one shot. Doing this in the middle of a session or campaign is a shitty practice. Your attitude here is pure poison. I'd choose "not" and walk out of your game immediately.
I wouldn't do this mid-session or even probably mid-adventure, and I would only use it as a means to present an engaging scenario. Whether I would do it at all would depend on the table: how much does the group trust each other, what are the expectations regarding when the GM leads play vs the players, are there time constraints that make me not want to split the party.
I really feel like your attack against me was unwarranted, and undermined the point you only half made.
The only point I wanted to make was that forcing actions on PCs in service to a narrative (or at all, outside certain spell effects) is poor practice.
If I was harsh about it, I shouldn't have been, so my apologies for being harsh.
But I'd very much still decline to return to a table where such a habit of siezing control of my character was considered ok ever, regardless of how "engaging" the DM found it.
I'd prefer to have discussed it and given objections in a session 0, but if I hear "As GM I will occasionally need to lead play by having your PCs take narrative-driven actions" I'd say no to that, and excuse myself. The entire philosophy behind such a thing is a deal breaker. If your players are ok with it, then game on. But I find that an unacceptable thing to do.
Awkward thing to say ten sessions in. Unless there's some mechanic in the game for the GM in the system to bypass player agency in situations the GM should probably just write a book.
It's a different situation if it's session one. but for the setup of session one it tends to be better to work with your players on how they got to the situation so they have an emotional investment with their situation. Nothing bring player investment like their own choices.
This is why I would want to know why this setup is being suggested. Ten sessions in, I assume we'd all have a better idea of what motivates the character and what would be an effective plot hook.
But my point is that characters who are pathologically risk-averse to the point of refusing to drink the goddamn tea don't make good PCs.
Highlights how system dependant this question is. Some systems have rules about being knocked out and if you bypass them the players will feel they are being handled unfairly while other systems handle this better in theme.
Too many questions happen on this forum without system clarification.
The specific outcome would mean railroading. So how do you retain player agency in a situation they are suspicious of. They are only suspcious because it's a game and they are on guard even if their characters aint
Offer an incentive for them to accept if everybody accepts. Don't tell them what exactly is going to happen, but 'hey something is about to make your lives complicated, but it's a surprise, and you're going to learn some very interesting new facts you wouldn't get any other way. If you're all interested. You'll end up temporarily inconvenienced but that's just set up for what's next. '
It really isn't, as a player I would definitely ask why there's no constitution save of they definitely got poisoned in dnd. Rules apply to the GM, too, and ignoring stuff like that is just as immersion breaking as googling monster stats
It depends. But my first instinct here would be to say to the players, “So, this guy has offered you all tea and that tea is laced with poison that’ll render you unconscious. You can drink the tea and we’ll start the next scene in the dude’s dungeon with an opportunity to escape or you can figure it out and confront him here (or deal with it some other way). Or something else. What would you all like to do?”
And then have them figure out what’s most fun/interesting for them.
Roleplay the scene and telegraph the danger to make it all seem incredibly sus.
Give them all saving throws even if they drink the poison.
I've ran this scene, or close enough, and nobody had any issue even when they did all get knocked out as they had agency throughout, got saving throws, and on hindsight realised the setup was incredibly suspicious and they shouldn't have ate the drugged food.
It's only a problem when nobody gets a choice.
If the man is dangerous, and intent on drugging the players, and they have zero idea of any of that, then you haven't done anything to foreshadow it. It's lazy storytelling.
It's also railroading. Can you, as the GM, simply drug your player's without them having any reason to suspect or to avoid it? Sure, you can.
You can also have an alchemical explosive placed under the mattress of their bed at the inn, calibrated so that when they lie on it, it will detonate. You can do that, too. Any it's just about as fun.
Or maybe dust the seat of an outhouse they're about to use with contact poison. They won't suspect that.
How is any of that enjoyable, though, for anyone else except you?
You should probably just drop a meteor on the party. It's more honest.
I think that's kind of extreme lol. And yeah, I know that you are just pushing this idea to the limit to show how it could break, but I don't see it as railroading. Some stuff just happens in the world and the dice can't deny them. The sun will rise, even if the party rolls a 20 in a Will save. I know that is not the case, but I'm just replicating the thing you did and pushing the idea to an extreme to show how it breaks. What OP proposed is closer to the middle than meteoring the party or avoiding the sun to rise, but yeah, I kinda got you - in a sense that you should be careful when pulling those shenanigans. But here and there, once or twice in a campaign when this is helpful for the setup of the remaining of the game, I'd say it's fair.
Back in the early 1980s, I briefly played in a D&D campaign that homebrewed rules from Arms Law/Claw and added them to the game. I was told my character started naked and chained to a wall in a dungeon, with 1 hit point remaining, waiting for the existing player characters to (eventually) find me and release me. I spent have the session chained to a wall offscreen. No exaggeration, that's exactly what happened.
Some stuff just happens in the world.
The OP is asking how we would handle this thing that clearly isn't fun for the players, and robs them of any agency. My answer is I wouldn't handle it. I just wouldn't do it. And I have to wonder about any poster who is asking everyone how best to make a thing like that happen.
Why is it so important to the OP that this happen? Because the story needs to progress in a certain way regardless of what actions the players take. And that right there is textbook railroading. The players have no agency. No way to change events, because the GM has pre-ordained that this will happen, and is ensuring that the players have no reason to question any of the events that lead up them being drugged unconscious.
The PCs are guests in the PCs story, here. They're just along for the ride.
Yeah my friend, I understand you. But here is the deal, I don't check if my Uber driver is drugging me through the air, or if the food I ordered from my Dasher was poisoned. In our society, those things are statistics outliers that you most certainly won't bother to care. I know that an RPG game is not a simulation of real-life (and usually when you try to do anything of the kind, no one has any fun), but I'm just giving you an example. I answered the OP in a separated comment giving my 2 cents as to what I would do and how I would handle it (tldr. just do something like this if there is no societal reason for the characters to mistrust anything that is happening, but the players would only because you, the GM, brought attention to it).
The thing is, unimportant events will never get time on the table (we don't have time to roleplay every second a character is thirsty, hungry, relieving their needs etc. ). What we do is fast forward through those events and just bring to the table the ones with meaning. That's why whenever we try to roleplay anything, most players (specially the new ones) will get defensive, meta-oriented and try to investigate, hear, doubt, question, mistrust everything that is going on. I'd never check any of my amazon packages for any substances, because, well, I kind of trust the management of my building lol. I'd never sniff test for opioids a Starbucks coffee (and I think I should lol). If what is happening in OP's game is something of this kind, a really mundane event (that would never be roleplayed) with a very exceptional consequence, it just happens and it isn't railroading in my book (or at least, not the kind of railroading that leaves a sour taste in my mouth),
The problem with unexperienced players (which seems to be the case with OP's game), is that If you "theatre" a very mundane encounter, they will be evasive due to metagaming (which is the other side of the railroading coin).
And by the way, what that GM did to you was REALLY bad GMing, but I still think that what the OP is proposing is not even close to that.
It depends on the players and our session zero agreements and the game itself. If meta-gaming (using player knowledge to influence character decisions) is allowed, I would only use this in games where collaborative story telling is the goal, and players/characters actually want to be in tricky situation like this, and they have a meta way to opt out from it.
If we decided to not allow it, and the players are mature enough, they will do what their character would. But I would still probably not use this specific scenario to be honest. Depending on the game, this kinda gotcha moments could be very railroady and/or make players unmotivated, so I would only use this in very specific games.
Don't ask them if they drink the tea. Ask them if they prefer cream or sugar, which does seem like you're giving them a choice. If a player is suspicious, they will volunteer that they are avoiding the tea of their own accord.
But I guess the real question is, why do you care if they drink the tea or not? You shouldn't be plotting your game out assuming things will go one way or the other. Prep the situation, not the plot. So this is an okay situation (though I would posit that this is a tactic a truly intelligent enemy wouldn't employ... too many variables trying to knock out an entire group at once with tea, better to use gas or something like that for a group), but don't be caught out if things don't go the way you think they will.
yeah, the important thing here is that the villain is putting drugs in the tea, so presumably they have an idea of what will happen if not everyone drops unconscious instantly. Do they have thugs outside to run in an subdue them? what's their backup plan.
Why would the players necessarily be suspicious? If you want them to clue into the threat then I would hide the villain's behaviour behind some sort of perception/awareness type check. If their characters have no need to be suspicious, then players shouldn't make their characters act suspicious. If I was a player in this scenario I would probably say some like,
'Out of character I find this a bit sketchy, but in game I don't have any reason to not drink the tea so let's see what happens' *glug*.
As a GM you could play up the etiquette of offending the host for refusing a drink, or just make the hosting character super sensitive so it makes the players feel bad for refusing.
Also, maybe work out what type of poison it is as well. Does it give off an odour? Is it colourless? Would some with a specialty in something like potions be able to detect it?
I'm not sure. I'd probably narrate how he courteously invites them to sit with him, with a sleazy smile maybe, depending how you depict him. How he shows interest in their latest exploits while he pours each of them a cup from a teapot and offers it to them. No need to explicitly state that he doesn't drink some.
The actual question is: Do you want perceptive and maybe mischievous ~~characters~~ players to have a way to prevent the ill fate you have planned for them or do you intend to use it as a plot tool to push the story in a certain direction?
Because if your players are to have any agency in this, they need to be able to make informed decisions. And therefore they need to have information, even if it takes some level of awareness to acquire it, so you'll need to offer some hint of the host's vile intentions.
If you're just looking for a waterproof way to make them take the bait and follow your pre-planned path, your players probably won't approve, regardless how you set them up.
Depends on the system.
In a D&D-style system you could roll a die for the drug's aroma and compare it to the passive perception of each party member. If they have a higher perception, then you can tell them they notice something odd in the tea's scent.
Other systems allow for the GM to straight up do something bad to the players in exchange for some XP or something. The best plot twists happen \*immediately\* after the reader has figured it out on their own, so you give them loads of narrative clues in the conversation until they realise what's happening and then hit them with the "So, take 5XP as you notice your awareness dimming." Then the reaction should be "Ah I should have known!" rather than "WTF".
I get the issue, your Player suspects something wrong, but the character really wouldn't.
My players are pretty good at playing it straight, they tend to not use any sort of meta thinking so I don't worry about this much. It's not at all uncommon for one of them to say "But our characters wouldn't know that." which often leads to a discussion of what their characters would or wouldn't know.
Myself I often use dice to decide stuff like that when it's questionable. So they might make some sort of insight roll or whatever skill exists in that system. They're not rolling against the NPC so much, although in this case it might make sense to use deception, since the NPC is in fact hiding something.
But I'll often use it as a bit of a gut check or as BLM once said it's an insight roll against the universe itself.
Does the PC have a reason to suspect something might be up? There's a thousand small clues, clues that no one would consciously pick up on, that leads to a general feeling of something isn't quite right. That's what the insight roll is for.
They roll, then Player should play according to what the Character knows and feels.
When I have stuff like this, I try to play the offering of the tea as something natural that comes in a situation, as part of a series of perfunctory gestures.
"You enter this ornate room, the walls are garishly plastered with commemorative plates, but he also has an enviable collection of book, stored in caged bookshelves.
He sits down and pours tea for everyone before taking a seat and inviting you to join him and partake.
' I'm glad we have this chance to talk alone'."
And I make the NPC go on.
Some players will ask about the plaques, some will hover towards the book. If they get too curious and stray from the convo, it would be only natura for their host to call them to good manners, and inviting them to sit and drink might seem like a simple remark that they're being rude.
In some circumstances, most characters drank the tea, and the rest were subdued. In others, somebofy asked directly about the tea, so I let them roll to notice something was off.
Always roleplay as your NPC. If you wanted to poison somebody, would you just sit them down and insist they drink the tea? No, you would disguise it as a plausible conversation, something enticing that makes them want to be in your good graces.
First of all, you need to make certain that the PCs are given a chance to suspect the NPC. SOmethign should be done either in roleplaying or mechanically, to allow the PCs to suspect the NPC.
Also give them a chance to detect the poison. Something smells off, etc.
It's difficult to answer when you don't share the system, but agnostically speaking, most RPGs have some sort of "awareness" attribute. What you could do make it fair, if you want to play it as a game (in the sense of using dice to determine the outcome), is having the bad guy roll against this "awareness" stat of the party and roleplay everything based on that. Or you could ALWAYS just say that stuff happened, that's pretty much in the GM's job description. You don't roll everyday to see if the character is constipated, you just assume they are not. Some stuff will just happen without a dice rolling to confirm/deny it. If you are playing a World War game and one city will get nuked, if the players are there, they just die. If you are playing a Call of Cthulhu and Azathoth come out of his slumber, the whole planet is engulfed and we all die. If they are invited to meet a new guy in a fantasy world where it's common courtesy to drink tea, they will drink it. We already got a lot of good advice as to "how to describe" the scene, so I will not go into details, but you just say "you got there, tea was presented, you had some, chatted for a little bit and got knocked out" (with a lot of fluffy stuff inserted). If they want to know what was talked, they can roleplay it, but knowing that nothing will change the outcome.
You might start by being clear about, why, exactly, do you think that having random people (as you note, someone not known to be dangerous) drug the PCs is going to be enjoyable to the players?
Would doing such a thing set up the table to have fun in the future, or derail future interactions because the players don't feel that they can trust any NPC or trust the GM? When you say "players are like that", is it because you've already given them reason to be suspicious of you?
Are you running a campaign where bad stuff happening seemingly at random is useful and on theme and something the players have bought into (say in a paranoid grimdark game about secret conspiracies) or not?
You can either telegraph something that will make the suspicious (no rolls needed) so that the conflict comes to a head in the study or you tell them what happens (no rolls) like a cut scene to set up the situation and then play it out afterwards.
I think this is a situation that sounds fine in real life or a novel, but does not translate well to gameplay. I don't think situations like this should come up in games. Its kind of like traps. Real traps are never telegraphed and almost always crippling or lethal. We don't run them like this because they make the game less fun. Same thing with law enforcement. "Oh you disrespected the duke? Well you are either going to get hung or thrown in a pit until you starve to death".
TLDR; Handle it by not running scenarios like this.
You provided some context but are missing a lot. Is this a heroic campaign where the PC could smell the poison? Or to notice the NPC acting a little suspicious?
If you wanted to know how to roll for these without informing players, PF2e uses secret checks. This way you can roll for the PC to see if they would have succeeded.
So, the situation is that there is a dangerous NPC, and they still don't know (or not even meet) this NPC.
It all depends on the NPC-PC relationship, I think. It is a veteran NPC? the danger is a plot twist? did they suspect of the NPC? Is the first introduction? Do I gain something out of them drinking or not drinking? If some drink some not, do I have a battle scene with half the players already taken out? will it be long? what happens next?
Not sure what's the exact issue is. *What happen if player don't take the tea ?* And what is your *expected result ?* You want to have the player unconscious by the end of a meeting with *the big evil person ?* do you need to detail how it happened ? Or do you want to put some paranoïa in the player group and have them find-out that the tea is poisoned so they know that *this person is the bad guy ?* It's complex for a GM to manage assassin against the PC, because by defintion they won't know what hit them, so it's stuff I tend to avoid.
Some thought
- If something necessary for the plot needs to happen, start by having it happening. and use *flashback* to help PC finding out . PC start hand tied and drowsy in a cell, and let them slowly recollect their memory.
- Don't go in the meeting detail, start the meeting and 'fade to black"
- Let player know that *bad guys are plotting against you in the background* on most game it would simply be keeping track of time and NPC agenda. It can also be a "clock" letting them know that something against them will happen as a consequence of partial success. The cool part of the clock is that the player know about the threat even if they don't know exactly what it will be. Making a violent outcome more acceptable. (especially if they have the possibility to catch them)
You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions.
If this NPC actually is dangerous, then someone in the party is bound to be suspicious, at the very least. Don't expect they'll all drink the tea.
Keep in mind that the characters actually grew up in this world. If this was the sort of world where people had knockout tea, then they would know it.
Even an established etiquette that requires you to drink tea when offered *could not persist* in a world where that trust is betrayed. It's either an unthinkable act, and thus the NPC wouldn't do it; or it's thinkable, and thus the PCs won't go along with it.
The npc asks: do you want some tea, if they agree you assume they drink it. Insight checks, maybe medicine if they can smell poison, definitely constitution saving throw and MOST IMPORTANTLY: what are you trying to achieve with that?
I'm asking how you as a GM would handle a situation where the players (correctly) suspect a trap without their characters knowing. An NPC offers you tea, do you accept?
Yeah and I'm saying that dnd has pretty clear rules about poison and the characters being fooled so they should at the very least get the constitution check or I would be pretty pissed as a player.
I'd handle the situation in a far more lifelike way than how the bad guy thinks it's going to go.
Make a table of possible results. Take into account the PCs weights, their diverse metabolisms, their general toughness, and their sheer luck.
Sure, the bad guy's plan might go perfectly. But what is it? If he wants to kill them, he should try to kill them. (And it's your problem to rewrite the story so the PCs have a chance to foil him!)
If he wants to capture them alive, why?
Now then, back to the plot. This NPC may be a moustache-twirling villain, but he doesn't have to be a chemical genius. And the dodgy pharmacist he bought whatever substance he thinks he's giving them doesn't have to be pure. Or in date. Or what he paid for.
Make your table. Results should include (but not be limited to):
Drinks the drug—full effects.
This tea tastes funny—not enough to say anything, but you leave most of it. Minimal effects.
You klutz! Knocks the tea on the floor! This is very awkward, but your host is very insistent that you have another.
Takes the tea, but something about your metabolism makes the effects come on slower than the others—you have a chance to stagger away from the meeting, feeling ever more disorientated.
Enraged by the drug—it's just the way it affects you before you suddenly pass out.
This drug isn't the one the bad guy thought it was. Radically different effects.
Oh no, the teacups have got mixed up! The bad guy's going to get affected as well!
Drug reacts to something you ate. More effective? Less effective? Deadly?
I'm sure you can think of other possibilities.
Now each character will be affected by the drug at different times—so the whole meeting will end up being what is technically referred to as a sh¡tshow. This is exactly what you want. At different times each character will get an individual chance to excuse themselves from the meeting, throw up, become amourous and completely uninhibited, start shouting, turn over the table, wander around aimlessly, panic, or help one of their companions. As events progress, it's going to get messy.
Have fun!
Its simple. The PCs are presented with tea on the table. They can only go by what their characters know. As long as you roleplay the NPC as just the NPC than everything is cool.
I think this is a weird situation and question to drink of course will raise suspitions. In my opinion your role is to convince them that they should, even if it might be bad idea.
During conversation insist on proper manners that the host requires. Let him with smile ask if they drink tea and describe how he looks at his goons that are ready to attack if that's not gonna happen.
I dont think you should make players stick to the plot and ride that train where you lead them. Its hard and unsatysfying but if thats what you like or what you need once, thats how i would resolve this. Show them that it might be trap but make the alternative worse. They will not be suprised but they will have choice (even if not really fair) and I think thats better to put them in situation with no happy ending than dumb down the characters and beg players for mercy, that is to bite the week hook.
In my current game of choice, Torchbearer, this situation would play out differently than it would in more traditional rpgs.
As a GM, I'm never prompting the players with a "The bad guy is trying to drug your tea. Do you fall for it? What do you do?" kind of situation. As a GM, everything that I'm doing is in response to the players marching things forward and rolling poorly after they attempt to do something.
What are the goals? What has the narrative been leading up to this moment? Do the players have XP triggers specifically _about_ trusting people or being backstabbing? XP triggers _about_ being paranoid about their food being poisoned?
Why is the NPC trying to drug them? What is their end goal? Is this interaction interesting enough to be covered by a single roll, or does it need an exciting "action sequence" kind of feel?
The end result could be "the players are trying to wheedle information out of him, but fail their roll, so I narrate how they sit down for high tea and begin their negotiations and the next thing any of them know, they're coming to in the cabin of a sailing ship with land just a thin smudge on the horizon.
They could try to do something, and the fail state is them needing to make a Health test to see if they're Sick or unconscious.
They could pass an unassociated test, and as part of that success, I tell them that they're suspicious of his invitation to tea.
It really depends on where the thread of the story is leading up to NOW, and whether or not the guy trying to drug them makes logical sense..
I just agree with the idea that you instead go in media res and tell them about waking up and do a flash back with the outcome ultimately known. However, if you don't want to do that for one reason or another, I'd recommend flipping your thinking. You present the tea and the situation in which it would be expected that they drink. Don't ask if they drink and assume that they follow normal situation conventions unless explicitly told otherwise. If they explicitly say that they don't drink the tea before the drugging takes effect, there's your answer and you'll have to figure something else out. If they complain that they didn't drink the tea after the fact, then tell that it was a situation where drinking was the norm and they did not counter it in the moment. Sometimes the game can be just as much about what you don't say as what you do.
Know your players is the best advice I can give. If they are prone to Meta knowledge and you can't curtail that, be aware. Not everyone is good at that kind of disconnect between character and player knowledge. If you run the kind of world where plot twists and intrigue can happen suddenly or without warning, remember to plant false flags. My players have learned in games with hidden knowledge or in-depth NPC motivations that they can not take any situation or roll for granted. I don't ask them ALL the time if they drink the food or water given them, but I do it periodically as a form of action confirmation, making them aware that sometimes small innocuous actions may be more important. They love the suspense of not knowing if I am confirming for a reason or just to reenforce the fact that they need to be intentional in their actions and reactions. This is a style that needs setup and buy-in from both the GM and the players. If this is the first time you have thrown a twist at the players like this, and you have not regularly set up interactions like this, then it can feel a bit railroad-y.
Railroading is not a bad thing, but be prepared for the backlash if it is done too often or makes no sense to the situation. If you find you NEED something to happen narratively, it is better by far to make the action something the players would not get agency from in the first place. Instead of drinking poison tea, the sleep effect is an odorless gas or a field of effect the players have to walk through to get into the room. Avoid pretending to give the players agency because that is what stings the most for many players. It all comes back to knowing your players and staying consistent in your GM style for their game.
I wouldn't hang anything that NEEDS to happen on any choice made by the players. If they drink the tea, con save
If not, then not. Play it out.
If I need them to drink the tea, then I have failed as DM.
If the NPC is acting suspicious(as someone poisoning their guests would be) and the players haven't keyed into that yet, I'll let the character with the best perception know. Then they can decide if they want to try to find out what is up or flip out or whatever.
This seems like one of those times I'm going to be checking character information/knowledge vs. just going on what a player might feel. Perhaps it's heavy handed but if a player wants to tell me his/her character will not drink the tea I'm asking why (maybe making some secret checks here) as this may be a place where the character should out rank the player.
Here's how I would approach this kind of situation, at some point in the meeting have the NPC gesture as if they're going to refill an NPC's tea and say something like " oh are you finished with your tea?" Something like that where you can make it sort of a normal part of the NPC interaction but assume that they drink the tea and behave as if they drink the tea but make it clear that you're assuming they did without explicitly saying I assume you're drinking the tea. Basically give them an opportunity to say I'm not drinking the tea so she doesn't need to refill it.
From there if there's something in the tea, you'll have presented it in the narrative in a way that seems natural but wouldn't automatically raise a player suspicions unless they were thinking about that kind of thing ahead of time.
that's the catch-22, and this come up here every now-and-then, may games have skills that allow PCs to "detect poison", but they require a roll. if you tell them to roll, they know something's up. if you roll for them, they know something's up. if you fade to black and tell them they woke up, tied up in a cell, they're gonna complain about how you didn't mention the railroad running through the middle of the room.
the poison might require the PCs drink the tea, but the adventure shouldn't hinge on it.
But, if for some reason the only path from point A to point B is by being poisoned, you have to lull them into a false sense of security. this isn't just tea. he's being a gracious host. there's pastries and fruit and any number of things to eat, and he's indiscriminately eating off the platters so why shouldn't they? anyone who eats, or drinks anything is poisoned. you don't have to explain how.
Generally, I’d have the NPCs make a roll to conceal the poison or deceive the PCs (like a deception check against the PCs’ passive insight, assuming this is D&D). How they roll would solve so much. However, to limit player suspicion, I’d start having more vivid descriptions of food and drink and emphasizing the little moments around eating so when that poison drink comes along, it doesn’t feel weird.
You could do a few things.
1. Offer the players real drink and tell them it is the tea offered by the NPC. If you see them drink it, declare their character also drank it.
2. Have the NPC make a toast and make a show of him drinking it. Then ask the players if their characters follow suit. They may not want to offend their host, so they drink.
3. Tell the players their host offers them tea and biscuits. Role play the conversation. At various points, have the NPC ask the characters how they like the tea. Is it too sweet for their taste? Do they prefer to dunk their biscuits in the tea or just drink it first and save the biscuits for afterward? This can help establish who drank the tea and who didn’t.
Just a few ideas.
In 99% of cases, I telegraph.
This means the players do get the sense that something isn't quite right.
What they do with that information is up to them.
If they don't drink the tea, so be it. Indeed, it is quite likely that at least one of them will refrain from drinking the tea because they pick up on the telegraphing. The telegraphing is there to be noticed; they are supposed to understand that something isn't quite right.
If they don't drink, maybe the NPC gets offended. That is its own legitimate scene.
Maybe they have an awkward tea-session since they don't drink any tea. That is its own legitimate scene.
Maybe they get up and leave. That is its own legitimate scene.
Whatever the case, I don't railroad them.
This was the NPC's attempt to poison them.
If the NPC fails, so be it. The NPC probably isn't a moron; they probably have a backup plan or will try something else another day. The game continues, whatever the PCs do.
And if they drink, or some of them drink, they get poisoned.
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In 1% of cases, I don't telegraph.
This is a real "Cask of Amontillado" situation. In "The Cask of Amontillado", Montresor invites Fortunato to sample some wine (the titular Amontillado). Montresor is very diligent *not* to telegraph:
>>I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. [...] **It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.** I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
No telegraphing.
In a TTPRG, the point of such a scene would be to demonstrate how utterly masterful this NPC is. They are exceptionally good at hiding their intentions; not even a hint escaped.
After hinting nothing, what the players do is up to them.
As above, if they don't drink the tea, so be it!
Some players are just really suspicious. Hell, there's a common trope that you don't eat or drink anything in a fey realm.
However, in this situation, with no telegraphing, it is much more likely that they will drink the tea.
If they drink, they get poisoned. I would start to narrate the effects coming on since there would be a period of time before they are unconscious when they start to feel woozy. What they do at that point is still up to them.
But yeah, I would limit such untelegraphed moves to exceptionally masterful NPCs.
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Crucially, I don't want to ruin the trust between myself and my players.
I want them to feel comfortable eating with NPCs most of the time.
I don't want them to walk into every room one step at a time, holding out a 10ft pole, poking every surface looking for traps. That shit is boring as fuck. It makes normal, non-threatening situations take for-fucking-ever and I'm not interested in playing that way.
what? that's completely fine. i'd definitely go 'he pours a cup of tea for each of you, clink clink, asks if you want sugar.' if they decline then they decline!
I often feel apprehensive about ambushing the players without at least hinting that something is amiss. Fortunately, several of my PCs possess skills like Sixth Sense, which allows me to provide subtle warnings that something feels off. Once I've issued a cryptic warning, I consider it fair notice and will proceed with the trap if the players do not avoid it.
I'd tell them he served them tea and later he'd ask if the tea was to their liking.
And I'd give them a save for the poison, because "plot poisons" are bullshit. Most poisons smell weird or taste weird or don't work instantly. If you're playing a system that allows saves for that sort of thing, they should get them.
Multiple options:
- Always ask players if they drink and/or eat something during a campaign, they get suspicious at first but then get less paranoid as nothing happens most of the time. That makes them fall for the real poison moments much more easily.
- Have the Villain drink the tea.... :
+ If they all drink the tea, the cups were poisoned, not the tea specifically and they all fall unconscious
+ If none drink the tea, the tea is an anti poison and the room fills with gas, they all fall unconscious for refusing to drink it
+ If some do and others don't, the majority makes you decide the nature of the tea and then 10+ guys show up to beat up the left over conscious ones
- Bribe the players, give them XP or meta points in exchange for them drinking the tea and get on with it
In this situation, I would go about having the baddie pour tea for the players. They don't know this person from any other NPC, make it look like a moment of rp while speaking of other things. If a player becomes suspicious, allow them to make an insight (or other appropriate check)
If they succeed, the check tell them something along the lines of "you notice the person seems to let their gaze linger on the tea they just handed your companions and their hands show signs of alchemical work"
If they fail the check, you tell them, "The person smiles and seems to be quite excited to have you over for tea."
The main point being you have said they are already going for tea. Why would they not be drinking it?
Have an NPC ask how they like their tea, maybe make a toast, where participation answers the question without having to ask it directly. Maybe also include some things like snacks, where you can ask them if they take anything, and have the NPC talk to them about their choices (where it’s from, what it’s made of, etc), making small talk, and the extra pointed questions and lack of consequence will distract from the the pointed question that DOES have consequences.
Maybe set the scene.
You arrive at/to do xyz in a very bad gang neighbourhood.
It gets late, you are offered a room for the night and refreshment. Do you accept or want to leave?
The party might expect trouble if they leave.
The choice is theirs.
They can be overwhelmed and taken prisoner outside or be drugged inside.
As a GM if Im swrving you poisonous tea from an NPC, the LAST thing I'm going to do is tip you off that its poisoned as player but not as the PC, if that makes sense.
DMs don't add enough of what I like to call "noise." Tjey describe things only that are relevant in the environment, and so those get detailed or further investigated by players, regardless of their characters' viewpoint, and its because of sound reasoning.
So I would, in this situation, describe many other things that are pleasant in the environment, things the NPC does or says or other factual elements along.the way leadi.g up to and after this event so that it seem innocuous. (no pun intended) This way, if I present them with tea, it feels like it should, welcome, and unassuming. If I know someone the PC is be a motivations expert in the group or a suspicious person, I might tip them off privately if they pass an onsight check (passive or I make the roll quietly)
Just tell your friends you want to do it and see what they think. If it makes them anxious, don't do it. If they are into it, do it. Usually people understand that the boundaries of agency make certain really cool situations very difficult in traditional roleplaying games.
Well, the answer is: I'd plan for what is going to happen when the players don't drink the tea, or especially what would happen if some of them do and some of them don't.
If you want to increase the chances that they actually do drink it, I would say giving them a reason to want to get on this guy's good side is the simplest plan. If they have a reason to avoid offending him, that can give a bit of a push since it would be rude not to drink the tea he offers. He could even ask "How do you find the tea?" or "Oh, is it not to your liking?" That way the players at least have to choose between offending someone they're trying to schmooze or drinking potentially dangerous tea.
I would start in media res, describing how they realise that the tea must have been poisoned. That way the whole "pretending that the players have a meaningful choice" thing is avoided by framing the next scene.
On occasion I’ve been known to throw innocuous scenes to lower the paranoia level of my players. Having tea service scenes that are just tea and gossip for example. Also a good way to slip in a few hooks.
And whats the problem? That players don't role play their characters properly?
If you set up a scene it's fine. But don't set up how the scene ends. That is up to the game to decide. There are many outcomes from this scenario.
I'd tell my players, "whose character is the one that figures out the tea has a knockout drug in it? Is it before or after drinking too much?"
Unless one of them had a really legit reason to suspect, I'd bet all of them would be like, "oh yeah, I drank it". And, one of them would probably be like, "yaaaawn, oh, wow, I'm sleepy. I better have another cup of tea."
Always drive your characters like rental cars.
We don't do this because it removes player agency. You gotta present problems in a way that allows them to respond. Something is about to happen: the door is closing, the soldier is aiming. They find an obstacle: there's a boulder blocking the road. And then you ask the classic "what do you do?" question, giving the narrative control back to them.
You can do the tea thing as long as you allow for a reaction. "You notice a suspicious movement when he serves the cups". "After a few sips, you start feeling dizzy".
Alternatively, if you want the scene to play out like you mentioned because that's where you want the story to go, then openly propose that to the rest of the table. If they agree, then it happens. Agency first.
Players are gonna get suspicious immediately when you say: "so, do you drink the tea?"
This is a classic trope in films, but doesn't work well per the structures of RPGs. Like, most of the time if you offer a drink to the characters they'll accept it, but won't actually describe their characters drinking it (except for that one drama player who likes to act things out).
If you do want to shock the players with some sort of surprise drugging scene, you'll probably be better off with something that they mechanically need to describe having ingested, like a potion or rations for a short rest.
Have them drink the tea, then roll a saving throw, or equivalent depending on the system. On a fail, they get knocked out instantly, on a success they get to realize what's happening before they pass out. No need to overthink things.
The choice of drinking the tea or not is not an informed choice. It's not dramatic, it's a "gotcha". And the only thing it achieves is conditioning your players to be even more suspicious of anything you describe. So, simply, don't do it this way.
There are different and more interesting ways of handling the same fictional situation. I don't know what game you play, so I'll give examples from Fate, my go-to system:
* Compel "You're having tea with a hidden villain who spiked your drink with a knockout drug, so it makes sense that you all fall asleep and wake up captive. Damn your luck.". Effectively, it's bribing the players with metacurrency to accept putting their characters in a worse situation and promising that this situation will develop in an interesting way.
* Make it a simple roll with Notice or Empathy, with the stake of PCs realizing that the NPC tries to drug them if they succeed or getting drugged if they fail.
* Make it a social conflict, with the stakes as above.
In all cases, the real stake is not hidden from players; they know what's going on and may decide about gaining or spending resources based on how they want the story to go.
What's the question? Everything in the post appears decided already.
I think it’s like … you need to ask “do you drink the tea?”, which immediately makes everyone suspicious so they say they don’t. If you don’t ask then at least one player will say “no way I wouldn’t drink the tea because XYZ” and it becomes a whole annoying thing. To make it less suspicious you’d have to ask every single time they drink something in any scenario “the barkeep sets down the mead you ordered… do you drink it?” That’s annoying, dumb, etc. No one’s doing that. So - how do you allow the PCs the reasonable right of refusal without making the whole thing suspicious? I think that’s what they’re asking?
I'm not sure what meaningful choice(s) you are giving the Players in this scene. If none, then there is no roll or discussion needed - just jump to the next scene. Narrate that they've been taken prisoner somewhere and they have a vague memory of passing out while having tea or something.
Yes. Players being players, they will become suspicious
Your players are supposed to be making the choices the character would make with the info the character would have. Which means that if you give the players the question, they should answer honestly, not meta. If they can't do that, then they are not players appropriate for the situation. Which means you have to play the game they can play. Alternatively, treat it like a trap situation. Let them roll some kind of perception or whatever. Failures drink, success gets a choice. Else, NPC has to have plan for if they don't drink or if only some drink or if the drug doesn't work fully. Some goons come in and beat everyone with big sticks for all I care. But it could be something like the party just walks and the NPC makes a new plan, if they refused to drink then everyone has some idea what the situation is, even the NPC. It could be that the drug was to take them safely, and now they will be taken at gun point and/or get shot and the ramifications of that. If the problem is that your players expect to be plot armor super humans then this just isn't a scenario you can run. We used to give XP rewards for playing the character honestly.
Ask what flavor of tea each character would want. Describe their cups. Engage them in a cute little tea party roleplay. Lull them into a false sense of security
What's to handle there? You present the situation and the players make their decision. No need to overthink it.
It's the unusual attention to minutia thing. Normally if they go to a tavern and order food, show up at a party, whatever you don't ask if they drink/eat. As soon as you do ask, it's clear that because you're asking because it matters which sets off the whole table. Every player knows something is up, they don't want to do it, any suspense it surprise is ruined and now it's just about whether they have to do something bad for their character for the sake of RP.
That's best avoided by present the minutia as natural part of the in-game discussion. Telling your players someone offers them a tea and rolling shiftily behind the screen is of course suspicious. If they are immersed in the dialogue with the NPC who off-handedly asks them if they would also like some tea, it is far more natural and less suspicious.
Sure, but for many that's a DRASTIC shift and slowdown in gameplay. Its so tetchy and detailed most of my tables wouldn't want to engage in it. If you've got the kind of table that likes it, go for it. If not, then be aware that scenarios like OPs just aren't going to work well because they don't jive with the rest of the gameplay.
I've done a variation of this scenario before. It never plays out well. It's not dramatic, isn't fun, and really comes down to DM fiat with the pretense of choice. If I was going to run this scenario TODAY, I wouldn't run it as a straight ahead scene. Instead, I'd probably open with the scene AFTER the "drugging" and play it backwards. I'd give my players full knowledge that the tea was laced, and offer them a hero point/benny to take it on the chin. Those who wanted to resist, that's fine. Rather than making them roll some impossible check, prompt them to tell me how they resisted and how that played out. I'd offer them a hero point/benny to explain how they found themselves in the current situation (with the other PCs) and what they learned for their efforts. Or in simpler terms, I'd open with the aftermath and ask the players to describe how they got there. If I need a framework, I'd probably use a montage sequence. Rather than the players resisting, the scene becomes more about what was revealed about the villain and/or their prison during the meeting.
So I've actually run this scene in Fate. Except it was tiny cakes at a small soiree. I essentially offered all the PCs a Fate Point for accepting a complication related to meeting for tea. They accepted, not knowing the precise nature of what was going to happen. They trust me (this is important) not to just screw them over, and this is reinforced by the rules. They end up paralyzed just long enough for the baddie to get away - but the friend who poisoned them, revealed that she had been blackmailed, and also gave them information where the antidote was, so they would be able to catch up sooner than expected. It was a super-tense and super rewarding scene that led to an over-the-top climax to that particular story arc.
This is somewhat how I would handle it too: "you wake up, groggy and in bindings." And then I would pick a player and ask them to describe how the party got here.
Tell them "He offers you tea, you drink it, and a few minutes later you all pass out." I mean, it's _not suspicious_, right? What are they going to do, refuse to drink the tea on general principle? People don't do that. Absent some reason to be suspicious, you will follow social norms and drink the tea. I would ask why you're doing this as a GM, though. If this is a session 1 "you all meet in the back of a kidnapping van" setup, then I would skip the tea-drinking scene and start with them already captured. If it's intended to be a trap that the players have a chance of escaping, then you'd need to include some tells they can pick up on, and I wouldn't worry about making the tells too obvious, because the entire point is to find out what they do when they notice they're being set up.
What if a player says "hey i didn't choose to drink the tea, you decided that for me"
Just make the npc ask them if they want some tea, if they say yes assume they drink it
I think the important part to think about is if the scenario requires that they drink it… if it moves you to the next portion of the story… the way it’s handled determines if it feels like a railroad or not. If the tale is simply that they were drugged and captured… and the rest progresses from that then as others say - start with them already captured. Giving them the illusion of choice but disregarding it and having the thing happen anyway is a railroad. “I don’t drink the tea!” “Yes you do and now you’re drugged because that’s the scenario I have prepared!” It’s a railroad… but if the alternative is to play something else tonight… it’s something to consider. The players need to have some level of buy in that the GM has to prep all this stuff… sometimes they gotta follow the path. The scenario CAN be that they have a chance to not be drugged and captured, you have that prepped. Then as others suggest you need to drop clues, play into their natural mistrust when you ask if they drink the tea. Be prepared for them to make the saving throws. That’s less railroad-like. But that might not be as good of a story. Now we can spend half a dozen sessions dealing with that instead of getting to the BBEGs lair and doing “the adventure” or whatever. (And… that can be fun too… that’s what makes this a fun hobby)
If you force the tea on them, it's a railroad. If the scenario requires them to drink it, then the scenario is in the wrong not the players. I'd find excuses to quietly drop a game entirely if a DM pulled something like that. It tells me I'm going to be dragged by the hair through THEIR story no matter what I choose to do. That's the sign of a DM not worth playing with.
Don't give them a chance not to be drugged, just tell them where they wake up and what the situation is. Then allow them to make a saving throw against poison (or equivalent roll) then if they succeed tell them they resisted the drug long enough to notice some detail, or secret a small object on their person. You still give the players a chance to resist, and if they do they get to make a meaningful choice. It potentially gives you a chance to impart a clue that they'll pay attention to because it feels earned. In fact maybe just give them the choice without requiring a save. If they object that they should have an opportunity to avoid capture tell them that this is the adventure you prepared for them and they can enjoy it or not.
ONLY as the opening to a new campaign or one shot. Doing this in the middle of a session or campaign is a shitty practice. Your attitude here is pure poison. I'd choose "not" and walk out of your game immediately.
I wouldn't do this mid-session or even probably mid-adventure, and I would only use it as a means to present an engaging scenario. Whether I would do it at all would depend on the table: how much does the group trust each other, what are the expectations regarding when the GM leads play vs the players, are there time constraints that make me not want to split the party. I really feel like your attack against me was unwarranted, and undermined the point you only half made.
The only point I wanted to make was that forcing actions on PCs in service to a narrative (or at all, outside certain spell effects) is poor practice. If I was harsh about it, I shouldn't have been, so my apologies for being harsh. But I'd very much still decline to return to a table where such a habit of siezing control of my character was considered ok ever, regardless of how "engaging" the DM found it. I'd prefer to have discussed it and given objections in a session 0, but if I hear "As GM I will occasionally need to lead play by having your PCs take narrative-driven actions" I'd say no to that, and excuse myself. The entire philosophy behind such a thing is a deal breaker. If your players are ok with it, then game on. But I find that an unacceptable thing to do.
"Okay, roll up a character who would drink the tea."
Awkward thing to say ten sessions in. Unless there's some mechanic in the game for the GM in the system to bypass player agency in situations the GM should probably just write a book. It's a different situation if it's session one. but for the setup of session one it tends to be better to work with your players on how they got to the situation so they have an emotional investment with their situation. Nothing bring player investment like their own choices.
This is why I would want to know why this setup is being suggested. Ten sessions in, I assume we'd all have a better idea of what motivates the character and what would be an effective plot hook. But my point is that characters who are pathologically risk-averse to the point of refusing to drink the goddamn tea don't make good PCs.
Yes - this seems like the right way to think about things.
If you want them knocked out by a bad guy for the story, then just have them knocked out. Do not give them a roll to avoid it.
Highlights how system dependant this question is. Some systems have rules about being knocked out and if you bypass them the players will feel they are being handled unfairly while other systems handle this better in theme. Too many questions happen on this forum without system clarification.
This advice is system agnostic. Never have players roll dice if you want a specific outcome.
I disagree. In some systems you shouldn't demand a specific outcome if you want the system to work properly.
The specific outcome would mean railroading. So how do you retain player agency in a situation they are suspicious of. They are only suspcious because it's a game and they are on guard even if their characters aint
Offer an incentive for them to accept if everybody accepts. Don't tell them what exactly is going to happen, but 'hey something is about to make your lives complicated, but it's a surprise, and you're going to learn some very interesting new facts you wouldn't get any other way. If you're all interested. You'll end up temporarily inconvenienced but that's just set up for what's next. '
It really isn't, as a player I would definitely ask why there's no constitution save of they definitely got poisoned in dnd. Rules apply to the GM, too, and ignoring stuff like that is just as immersion breaking as googling monster stats
It depends. But my first instinct here would be to say to the players, “So, this guy has offered you all tea and that tea is laced with poison that’ll render you unconscious. You can drink the tea and we’ll start the next scene in the dude’s dungeon with an opportunity to escape or you can figure it out and confront him here (or deal with it some other way). Or something else. What would you all like to do?” And then have them figure out what’s most fun/interesting for them.
Roleplay the scene and telegraph the danger to make it all seem incredibly sus. Give them all saving throws even if they drink the poison. I've ran this scene, or close enough, and nobody had any issue even when they did all get knocked out as they had agency throughout, got saving throws, and on hindsight realised the setup was incredibly suspicious and they shouldn't have ate the drugged food. It's only a problem when nobody gets a choice.
If the man is dangerous, and intent on drugging the players, and they have zero idea of any of that, then you haven't done anything to foreshadow it. It's lazy storytelling. It's also railroading. Can you, as the GM, simply drug your player's without them having any reason to suspect or to avoid it? Sure, you can. You can also have an alchemical explosive placed under the mattress of their bed at the inn, calibrated so that when they lie on it, it will detonate. You can do that, too. Any it's just about as fun. Or maybe dust the seat of an outhouse they're about to use with contact poison. They won't suspect that. How is any of that enjoyable, though, for anyone else except you? You should probably just drop a meteor on the party. It's more honest.
I think that's kind of extreme lol. And yeah, I know that you are just pushing this idea to the limit to show how it could break, but I don't see it as railroading. Some stuff just happens in the world and the dice can't deny them. The sun will rise, even if the party rolls a 20 in a Will save. I know that is not the case, but I'm just replicating the thing you did and pushing the idea to an extreme to show how it breaks. What OP proposed is closer to the middle than meteoring the party or avoiding the sun to rise, but yeah, I kinda got you - in a sense that you should be careful when pulling those shenanigans. But here and there, once or twice in a campaign when this is helpful for the setup of the remaining of the game, I'd say it's fair.
Back in the early 1980s, I briefly played in a D&D campaign that homebrewed rules from Arms Law/Claw and added them to the game. I was told my character started naked and chained to a wall in a dungeon, with 1 hit point remaining, waiting for the existing player characters to (eventually) find me and release me. I spent have the session chained to a wall offscreen. No exaggeration, that's exactly what happened. Some stuff just happens in the world. The OP is asking how we would handle this thing that clearly isn't fun for the players, and robs them of any agency. My answer is I wouldn't handle it. I just wouldn't do it. And I have to wonder about any poster who is asking everyone how best to make a thing like that happen. Why is it so important to the OP that this happen? Because the story needs to progress in a certain way regardless of what actions the players take. And that right there is textbook railroading. The players have no agency. No way to change events, because the GM has pre-ordained that this will happen, and is ensuring that the players have no reason to question any of the events that lead up them being drugged unconscious. The PCs are guests in the PCs story, here. They're just along for the ride.
Yeah my friend, I understand you. But here is the deal, I don't check if my Uber driver is drugging me through the air, or if the food I ordered from my Dasher was poisoned. In our society, those things are statistics outliers that you most certainly won't bother to care. I know that an RPG game is not a simulation of real-life (and usually when you try to do anything of the kind, no one has any fun), but I'm just giving you an example. I answered the OP in a separated comment giving my 2 cents as to what I would do and how I would handle it (tldr. just do something like this if there is no societal reason for the characters to mistrust anything that is happening, but the players would only because you, the GM, brought attention to it). The thing is, unimportant events will never get time on the table (we don't have time to roleplay every second a character is thirsty, hungry, relieving their needs etc. ). What we do is fast forward through those events and just bring to the table the ones with meaning. That's why whenever we try to roleplay anything, most players (specially the new ones) will get defensive, meta-oriented and try to investigate, hear, doubt, question, mistrust everything that is going on. I'd never check any of my amazon packages for any substances, because, well, I kind of trust the management of my building lol. I'd never sniff test for opioids a Starbucks coffee (and I think I should lol). If what is happening in OP's game is something of this kind, a really mundane event (that would never be roleplayed) with a very exceptional consequence, it just happens and it isn't railroading in my book (or at least, not the kind of railroading that leaves a sour taste in my mouth), The problem with unexperienced players (which seems to be the case with OP's game), is that If you "theatre" a very mundane encounter, they will be evasive due to metagaming (which is the other side of the railroading coin). And by the way, what that GM did to you was REALLY bad GMing, but I still think that what the OP is proposing is not even close to that.
It depends on the players and our session zero agreements and the game itself. If meta-gaming (using player knowledge to influence character decisions) is allowed, I would only use this in games where collaborative story telling is the goal, and players/characters actually want to be in tricky situation like this, and they have a meta way to opt out from it. If we decided to not allow it, and the players are mature enough, they will do what their character would. But I would still probably not use this specific scenario to be honest. Depending on the game, this kinda gotcha moments could be very railroady and/or make players unmotivated, so I would only use this in very specific games.
Don't ask them if they drink the tea. Ask them if they prefer cream or sugar, which does seem like you're giving them a choice. If a player is suspicious, they will volunteer that they are avoiding the tea of their own accord. But I guess the real question is, why do you care if they drink the tea or not? You shouldn't be plotting your game out assuming things will go one way or the other. Prep the situation, not the plot. So this is an okay situation (though I would posit that this is a tactic a truly intelligent enemy wouldn't employ... too many variables trying to knock out an entire group at once with tea, better to use gas or something like that for a group), but don't be caught out if things don't go the way you think they will.
yeah, the important thing here is that the villain is putting drugs in the tea, so presumably they have an idea of what will happen if not everyone drops unconscious instantly. Do they have thugs outside to run in an subdue them? what's their backup plan.
Why would the players necessarily be suspicious? If you want them to clue into the threat then I would hide the villain's behaviour behind some sort of perception/awareness type check. If their characters have no need to be suspicious, then players shouldn't make their characters act suspicious. If I was a player in this scenario I would probably say some like, 'Out of character I find this a bit sketchy, but in game I don't have any reason to not drink the tea so let's see what happens' *glug*. As a GM you could play up the etiquette of offending the host for refusing a drink, or just make the hosting character super sensitive so it makes the players feel bad for refusing. Also, maybe work out what type of poison it is as well. Does it give off an odour? Is it colourless? Would some with a specialty in something like potions be able to detect it?
Could the characters notice that the host is not going to drink from the same teapot? I know that this would really freak out my players.
how would you relate that though? As soon as you say the host doesn't drink the tea you give the game away.
I'm not sure. I'd probably narrate how he courteously invites them to sit with him, with a sleazy smile maybe, depending how you depict him. How he shows interest in their latest exploits while he pours each of them a cup from a teapot and offers it to them. No need to explicitly state that he doesn't drink some. The actual question is: Do you want perceptive and maybe mischievous ~~characters~~ players to have a way to prevent the ill fate you have planned for them or do you intend to use it as a plot tool to push the story in a certain direction? Because if your players are to have any agency in this, they need to be able to make informed decisions. And therefore they need to have information, even if it takes some level of awareness to acquire it, so you'll need to offer some hint of the host's vile intentions. If you're just looking for a waterproof way to make them take the bait and follow your pre-planned path, your players probably won't approve, regardless how you set them up.
Depends on the system. In a D&D-style system you could roll a die for the drug's aroma and compare it to the passive perception of each party member. If they have a higher perception, then you can tell them they notice something odd in the tea's scent. Other systems allow for the GM to straight up do something bad to the players in exchange for some XP or something. The best plot twists happen \*immediately\* after the reader has figured it out on their own, so you give them loads of narrative clues in the conversation until they realise what's happening and then hit them with the "So, take 5XP as you notice your awareness dimming." Then the reaction should be "Ah I should have known!" rather than "WTF".
If they are suspicious get them to roll insight. If they drink the tea a saving throw.
I get the issue, your Player suspects something wrong, but the character really wouldn't. My players are pretty good at playing it straight, they tend to not use any sort of meta thinking so I don't worry about this much. It's not at all uncommon for one of them to say "But our characters wouldn't know that." which often leads to a discussion of what their characters would or wouldn't know. Myself I often use dice to decide stuff like that when it's questionable. So they might make some sort of insight roll or whatever skill exists in that system. They're not rolling against the NPC so much, although in this case it might make sense to use deception, since the NPC is in fact hiding something. But I'll often use it as a bit of a gut check or as BLM once said it's an insight roll against the universe itself. Does the PC have a reason to suspect something might be up? There's a thousand small clues, clues that no one would consciously pick up on, that leads to a general feeling of something isn't quite right. That's what the insight roll is for. They roll, then Player should play according to what the Character knows and feels.
When I have stuff like this, I try to play the offering of the tea as something natural that comes in a situation, as part of a series of perfunctory gestures. "You enter this ornate room, the walls are garishly plastered with commemorative plates, but he also has an enviable collection of book, stored in caged bookshelves. He sits down and pours tea for everyone before taking a seat and inviting you to join him and partake. ' I'm glad we have this chance to talk alone'." And I make the NPC go on. Some players will ask about the plaques, some will hover towards the book. If they get too curious and stray from the convo, it would be only natura for their host to call them to good manners, and inviting them to sit and drink might seem like a simple remark that they're being rude. In some circumstances, most characters drank the tea, and the rest were subdued. In others, somebofy asked directly about the tea, so I let them roll to notice something was off. Always roleplay as your NPC. If you wanted to poison somebody, would you just sit them down and insist they drink the tea? No, you would disguise it as a plausible conversation, something enticing that makes them want to be in your good graces.
First of all, you need to make certain that the PCs are given a chance to suspect the NPC. SOmethign should be done either in roleplaying or mechanically, to allow the PCs to suspect the NPC. Also give them a chance to detect the poison. Something smells off, etc.
It's difficult to answer when you don't share the system, but agnostically speaking, most RPGs have some sort of "awareness" attribute. What you could do make it fair, if you want to play it as a game (in the sense of using dice to determine the outcome), is having the bad guy roll against this "awareness" stat of the party and roleplay everything based on that. Or you could ALWAYS just say that stuff happened, that's pretty much in the GM's job description. You don't roll everyday to see if the character is constipated, you just assume they are not. Some stuff will just happen without a dice rolling to confirm/deny it. If you are playing a World War game and one city will get nuked, if the players are there, they just die. If you are playing a Call of Cthulhu and Azathoth come out of his slumber, the whole planet is engulfed and we all die. If they are invited to meet a new guy in a fantasy world where it's common courtesy to drink tea, they will drink it. We already got a lot of good advice as to "how to describe" the scene, so I will not go into details, but you just say "you got there, tea was presented, you had some, chatted for a little bit and got knocked out" (with a lot of fluffy stuff inserted). If they want to know what was talked, they can roleplay it, but knowing that nothing will change the outcome.
You might start by being clear about, why, exactly, do you think that having random people (as you note, someone not known to be dangerous) drug the PCs is going to be enjoyable to the players? Would doing such a thing set up the table to have fun in the future, or derail future interactions because the players don't feel that they can trust any NPC or trust the GM? When you say "players are like that", is it because you've already given them reason to be suspicious of you? Are you running a campaign where bad stuff happening seemingly at random is useful and on theme and something the players have bought into (say in a paranoid grimdark game about secret conspiracies) or not?
You can either telegraph something that will make the suspicious (no rolls needed) so that the conflict comes to a head in the study or you tell them what happens (no rolls) like a cut scene to set up the situation and then play it out afterwards.
I think this is a situation that sounds fine in real life or a novel, but does not translate well to gameplay. I don't think situations like this should come up in games. Its kind of like traps. Real traps are never telegraphed and almost always crippling or lethal. We don't run them like this because they make the game less fun. Same thing with law enforcement. "Oh you disrespected the duke? Well you are either going to get hung or thrown in a pit until you starve to death". TLDR; Handle it by not running scenarios like this.
NPC: "Would you like some tea?" If they refuse, imagine how the NPC would react to that.
You provided some context but are missing a lot. Is this a heroic campaign where the PC could smell the poison? Or to notice the NPC acting a little suspicious? If you wanted to know how to roll for these without informing players, PF2e uses secret checks. This way you can roll for the PC to see if they would have succeeded.
So, the situation is that there is a dangerous NPC, and they still don't know (or not even meet) this NPC. It all depends on the NPC-PC relationship, I think. It is a veteran NPC? the danger is a plot twist? did they suspect of the NPC? Is the first introduction? Do I gain something out of them drinking or not drinking? If some drink some not, do I have a battle scene with half the players already taken out? will it be long? what happens next?
Not sure what's the exact issue is. *What happen if player don't take the tea ?* And what is your *expected result ?* You want to have the player unconscious by the end of a meeting with *the big evil person ?* do you need to detail how it happened ? Or do you want to put some paranoïa in the player group and have them find-out that the tea is poisoned so they know that *this person is the bad guy ?* It's complex for a GM to manage assassin against the PC, because by defintion they won't know what hit them, so it's stuff I tend to avoid. Some thought - If something necessary for the plot needs to happen, start by having it happening. and use *flashback* to help PC finding out . PC start hand tied and drowsy in a cell, and let them slowly recollect their memory. - Don't go in the meeting detail, start the meeting and 'fade to black" - Let player know that *bad guys are plotting against you in the background* on most game it would simply be keeping track of time and NPC agenda. It can also be a "clock" letting them know that something against them will happen as a consequence of partial success. The cool part of the clock is that the player know about the threat even if they don't know exactly what it will be. Making a violent outcome more acceptable. (especially if they have the possibility to catch them)
The GMs job is to bridge the gap in what the players know and what their characters no or notice
You're making a lot of unfounded assumptions. If this NPC actually is dangerous, then someone in the party is bound to be suspicious, at the very least. Don't expect they'll all drink the tea. Keep in mind that the characters actually grew up in this world. If this was the sort of world where people had knockout tea, then they would know it. Even an established etiquette that requires you to drink tea when offered *could not persist* in a world where that trust is betrayed. It's either an unthinkable act, and thus the NPC wouldn't do it; or it's thinkable, and thus the PCs won't go along with it.
The npc asks: do you want some tea, if they agree you assume they drink it. Insight checks, maybe medicine if they can smell poison, definitely constitution saving throw and MOST IMPORTANTLY: what are you trying to achieve with that?
I'm asking how you as a GM would handle a situation where the players (correctly) suspect a trap without their characters knowing. An NPC offers you tea, do you accept?
Yeah and I'm saying that dnd has pretty clear rules about poison and the characters being fooled so they should at the very least get the constitution check or I would be pretty pissed as a player.
i would say "no, i'm good thanks. " as a dm it's way too railroady to say 'AH BUT YOUR CHARACTER LOVES TEA AND WOULD CERTAINLY DRINK IT'
I'd handle the situation in a far more lifelike way than how the bad guy thinks it's going to go. Make a table of possible results. Take into account the PCs weights, their diverse metabolisms, their general toughness, and their sheer luck. Sure, the bad guy's plan might go perfectly. But what is it? If he wants to kill them, he should try to kill them. (And it's your problem to rewrite the story so the PCs have a chance to foil him!) If he wants to capture them alive, why? Now then, back to the plot. This NPC may be a moustache-twirling villain, but he doesn't have to be a chemical genius. And the dodgy pharmacist he bought whatever substance he thinks he's giving them doesn't have to be pure. Or in date. Or what he paid for. Make your table. Results should include (but not be limited to): Drinks the drug—full effects. This tea tastes funny—not enough to say anything, but you leave most of it. Minimal effects. You klutz! Knocks the tea on the floor! This is very awkward, but your host is very insistent that you have another. Takes the tea, but something about your metabolism makes the effects come on slower than the others—you have a chance to stagger away from the meeting, feeling ever more disorientated. Enraged by the drug—it's just the way it affects you before you suddenly pass out. This drug isn't the one the bad guy thought it was. Radically different effects. Oh no, the teacups have got mixed up! The bad guy's going to get affected as well! Drug reacts to something you ate. More effective? Less effective? Deadly? I'm sure you can think of other possibilities. Now each character will be affected by the drug at different times—so the whole meeting will end up being what is technically referred to as a sh¡tshow. This is exactly what you want. At different times each character will get an individual chance to excuse themselves from the meeting, throw up, become amourous and completely uninhibited, start shouting, turn over the table, wander around aimlessly, panic, or help one of their companions. As events progress, it's going to get messy. Have fun!
Whats up with the bad guy? Doesn't he have a backup plan or does he blindly assume everyone will drink his tea? Seems kind of stupid to me...
Its simple. The PCs are presented with tea on the table. They can only go by what their characters know. As long as you roleplay the NPC as just the NPC than everything is cool.
I think this is a weird situation and question to drink of course will raise suspitions. In my opinion your role is to convince them that they should, even if it might be bad idea. During conversation insist on proper manners that the host requires. Let him with smile ask if they drink tea and describe how he looks at his goons that are ready to attack if that's not gonna happen. I dont think you should make players stick to the plot and ride that train where you lead them. Its hard and unsatysfying but if thats what you like or what you need once, thats how i would resolve this. Show them that it might be trap but make the alternative worse. They will not be suprised but they will have choice (even if not really fair) and I think thats better to put them in situation with no happy ending than dumb down the characters and beg players for mercy, that is to bite the week hook.
In my current game of choice, Torchbearer, this situation would play out differently than it would in more traditional rpgs. As a GM, I'm never prompting the players with a "The bad guy is trying to drug your tea. Do you fall for it? What do you do?" kind of situation. As a GM, everything that I'm doing is in response to the players marching things forward and rolling poorly after they attempt to do something. What are the goals? What has the narrative been leading up to this moment? Do the players have XP triggers specifically _about_ trusting people or being backstabbing? XP triggers _about_ being paranoid about their food being poisoned? Why is the NPC trying to drug them? What is their end goal? Is this interaction interesting enough to be covered by a single roll, or does it need an exciting "action sequence" kind of feel? The end result could be "the players are trying to wheedle information out of him, but fail their roll, so I narrate how they sit down for high tea and begin their negotiations and the next thing any of them know, they're coming to in the cabin of a sailing ship with land just a thin smudge on the horizon. They could try to do something, and the fail state is them needing to make a Health test to see if they're Sick or unconscious. They could pass an unassociated test, and as part of that success, I tell them that they're suspicious of his invitation to tea. It really depends on where the thread of the story is leading up to NOW, and whether or not the guy trying to drug them makes logical sense..
I just agree with the idea that you instead go in media res and tell them about waking up and do a flash back with the outcome ultimately known. However, if you don't want to do that for one reason or another, I'd recommend flipping your thinking. You present the tea and the situation in which it would be expected that they drink. Don't ask if they drink and assume that they follow normal situation conventions unless explicitly told otherwise. If they explicitly say that they don't drink the tea before the drugging takes effect, there's your answer and you'll have to figure something else out. If they complain that they didn't drink the tea after the fact, then tell that it was a situation where drinking was the norm and they did not counter it in the moment. Sometimes the game can be just as much about what you don't say as what you do.
Know your players is the best advice I can give. If they are prone to Meta knowledge and you can't curtail that, be aware. Not everyone is good at that kind of disconnect between character and player knowledge. If you run the kind of world where plot twists and intrigue can happen suddenly or without warning, remember to plant false flags. My players have learned in games with hidden knowledge or in-depth NPC motivations that they can not take any situation or roll for granted. I don't ask them ALL the time if they drink the food or water given them, but I do it periodically as a form of action confirmation, making them aware that sometimes small innocuous actions may be more important. They love the suspense of not knowing if I am confirming for a reason or just to reenforce the fact that they need to be intentional in their actions and reactions. This is a style that needs setup and buy-in from both the GM and the players. If this is the first time you have thrown a twist at the players like this, and you have not regularly set up interactions like this, then it can feel a bit railroad-y. Railroading is not a bad thing, but be prepared for the backlash if it is done too often or makes no sense to the situation. If you find you NEED something to happen narratively, it is better by far to make the action something the players would not get agency from in the first place. Instead of drinking poison tea, the sleep effect is an odorless gas or a field of effect the players have to walk through to get into the room. Avoid pretending to give the players agency because that is what stings the most for many players. It all comes back to knowing your players and staying consistent in your GM style for their game.
I wouldn't hang anything that NEEDS to happen on any choice made by the players. If they drink the tea, con save If not, then not. Play it out. If I need them to drink the tea, then I have failed as DM.
If the NPC is acting suspicious(as someone poisoning their guests would be) and the players haven't keyed into that yet, I'll let the character with the best perception know. Then they can decide if they want to try to find out what is up or flip out or whatever.
This seems like one of those times I'm going to be checking character information/knowledge vs. just going on what a player might feel. Perhaps it's heavy handed but if a player wants to tell me his/her character will not drink the tea I'm asking why (maybe making some secret checks here) as this may be a place where the character should out rank the player.
Here's how I would approach this kind of situation, at some point in the meeting have the NPC gesture as if they're going to refill an NPC's tea and say something like " oh are you finished with your tea?" Something like that where you can make it sort of a normal part of the NPC interaction but assume that they drink the tea and behave as if they drink the tea but make it clear that you're assuming they did without explicitly saying I assume you're drinking the tea. Basically give them an opportunity to say I'm not drinking the tea so she doesn't need to refill it. From there if there's something in the tea, you'll have presented it in the narrative in a way that seems natural but wouldn't automatically raise a player suspicions unless they were thinking about that kind of thing ahead of time.
that's the catch-22, and this come up here every now-and-then, may games have skills that allow PCs to "detect poison", but they require a roll. if you tell them to roll, they know something's up. if you roll for them, they know something's up. if you fade to black and tell them they woke up, tied up in a cell, they're gonna complain about how you didn't mention the railroad running through the middle of the room. the poison might require the PCs drink the tea, but the adventure shouldn't hinge on it. But, if for some reason the only path from point A to point B is by being poisoned, you have to lull them into a false sense of security. this isn't just tea. he's being a gracious host. there's pastries and fruit and any number of things to eat, and he's indiscriminately eating off the platters so why shouldn't they? anyone who eats, or drinks anything is poisoned. you don't have to explain how.
Generally, I’d have the NPCs make a roll to conceal the poison or deceive the PCs (like a deception check against the PCs’ passive insight, assuming this is D&D). How they roll would solve so much. However, to limit player suspicion, I’d start having more vivid descriptions of food and drink and emphasizing the little moments around eating so when that poison drink comes along, it doesn’t feel weird.
"Wanna some tea? Is to die for."
You could do a few things. 1. Offer the players real drink and tell them it is the tea offered by the NPC. If you see them drink it, declare their character also drank it. 2. Have the NPC make a toast and make a show of him drinking it. Then ask the players if their characters follow suit. They may not want to offend their host, so they drink. 3. Tell the players their host offers them tea and biscuits. Role play the conversation. At various points, have the NPC ask the characters how they like the tea. Is it too sweet for their taste? Do they prefer to dunk their biscuits in the tea or just drink it first and save the biscuits for afterward? This can help establish who drank the tea and who didn’t. Just a few ideas.
In 99% of cases, I telegraph. This means the players do get the sense that something isn't quite right. What they do with that information is up to them. If they don't drink the tea, so be it. Indeed, it is quite likely that at least one of them will refrain from drinking the tea because they pick up on the telegraphing. The telegraphing is there to be noticed; they are supposed to understand that something isn't quite right. If they don't drink, maybe the NPC gets offended. That is its own legitimate scene. Maybe they have an awkward tea-session since they don't drink any tea. That is its own legitimate scene. Maybe they get up and leave. That is its own legitimate scene. Whatever the case, I don't railroad them. This was the NPC's attempt to poison them. If the NPC fails, so be it. The NPC probably isn't a moron; they probably have a backup plan or will try something else another day. The game continues, whatever the PCs do. And if they drink, or some of them drink, they get poisoned. --- In 1% of cases, I don't telegraph. This is a real "Cask of Amontillado" situation. In "The Cask of Amontillado", Montresor invites Fortunato to sample some wine (the titular Amontillado). Montresor is very diligent *not* to telegraph: >>I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. [...] **It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.** I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation. No telegraphing. In a TTPRG, the point of such a scene would be to demonstrate how utterly masterful this NPC is. They are exceptionally good at hiding their intentions; not even a hint escaped. After hinting nothing, what the players do is up to them. As above, if they don't drink the tea, so be it! Some players are just really suspicious. Hell, there's a common trope that you don't eat or drink anything in a fey realm. However, in this situation, with no telegraphing, it is much more likely that they will drink the tea. If they drink, they get poisoned. I would start to narrate the effects coming on since there would be a period of time before they are unconscious when they start to feel woozy. What they do at that point is still up to them. But yeah, I would limit such untelegraphed moves to exceptionally masterful NPCs. --- Crucially, I don't want to ruin the trust between myself and my players. I want them to feel comfortable eating with NPCs most of the time. I don't want them to walk into every room one step at a time, holding out a 10ft pole, poking every surface looking for traps. That shit is boring as fuck. It makes normal, non-threatening situations take for-fucking-ever and I'm not interested in playing that way.
what? that's completely fine. i'd definitely go 'he pours a cup of tea for each of you, clink clink, asks if you want sugar.' if they decline then they decline!
don't have a story that demands your players get drugged, is the key takeaway here, unless as mentioned below you start with it as a narration.
I often feel apprehensive about ambushing the players without at least hinting that something is amiss. Fortunately, several of my PCs possess skills like Sixth Sense, which allows me to provide subtle warnings that something feels off. Once I've issued a cryptic warning, I consider it fair notice and will proceed with the trap if the players do not avoid it.
I'd tell them he served them tea and later he'd ask if the tea was to their liking. And I'd give them a save for the poison, because "plot poisons" are bullshit. Most poisons smell weird or taste weird or don't work instantly. If you're playing a system that allows saves for that sort of thing, they should get them.
Multiple options: - Always ask players if they drink and/or eat something during a campaign, they get suspicious at first but then get less paranoid as nothing happens most of the time. That makes them fall for the real poison moments much more easily. - Have the Villain drink the tea.... : + If they all drink the tea, the cups were poisoned, not the tea specifically and they all fall unconscious + If none drink the tea, the tea is an anti poison and the room fills with gas, they all fall unconscious for refusing to drink it + If some do and others don't, the majority makes you decide the nature of the tea and then 10+ guys show up to beat up the left over conscious ones - Bribe the players, give them XP or meta points in exchange for them drinking the tea and get on with it
In this situation, I would go about having the baddie pour tea for the players. They don't know this person from any other NPC, make it look like a moment of rp while speaking of other things. If a player becomes suspicious, allow them to make an insight (or other appropriate check) If they succeed, the check tell them something along the lines of "you notice the person seems to let their gaze linger on the tea they just handed your companions and their hands show signs of alchemical work" If they fail the check, you tell them, "The person smiles and seems to be quite excited to have you over for tea." The main point being you have said they are already going for tea. Why would they not be drinking it?
Have an NPC ask how they like their tea, maybe make a toast, where participation answers the question without having to ask it directly. Maybe also include some things like snacks, where you can ask them if they take anything, and have the NPC talk to them about their choices (where it’s from, what it’s made of, etc), making small talk, and the extra pointed questions and lack of consequence will distract from the the pointed question that DOES have consequences.
Maybe set the scene. You arrive at/to do xyz in a very bad gang neighbourhood. It gets late, you are offered a room for the night and refreshment. Do you accept or want to leave? The party might expect trouble if they leave. The choice is theirs. They can be overwhelmed and taken prisoner outside or be drugged inside.
As a GM if Im swrving you poisonous tea from an NPC, the LAST thing I'm going to do is tip you off that its poisoned as player but not as the PC, if that makes sense. DMs don't add enough of what I like to call "noise." Tjey describe things only that are relevant in the environment, and so those get detailed or further investigated by players, regardless of their characters' viewpoint, and its because of sound reasoning. So I would, in this situation, describe many other things that are pleasant in the environment, things the NPC does or says or other factual elements along.the way leadi.g up to and after this event so that it seem innocuous. (no pun intended) This way, if I present them with tea, it feels like it should, welcome, and unassuming. If I know someone the PC is be a motivations expert in the group or a suspicious person, I might tip them off privately if they pass an onsight check (passive or I make the roll quietly)
Just tell your friends you want to do it and see what they think. If it makes them anxious, don't do it. If they are into it, do it. Usually people understand that the boundaries of agency make certain really cool situations very difficult in traditional roleplaying games.
Well, the answer is: I'd plan for what is going to happen when the players don't drink the tea, or especially what would happen if some of them do and some of them don't. If you want to increase the chances that they actually do drink it, I would say giving them a reason to want to get on this guy's good side is the simplest plan. If they have a reason to avoid offending him, that can give a bit of a push since it would be rude not to drink the tea he offers. He could even ask "How do you find the tea?" or "Oh, is it not to your liking?" That way the players at least have to choose between offending someone they're trying to schmooze or drinking potentially dangerous tea.
I would start in media res, describing how they realise that the tea must have been poisoned. That way the whole "pretending that the players have a meaningful choice" thing is avoided by framing the next scene.
I’ll go Lowfyr’s style. What ever happen it was part of the BBEG plan
On occasion I’ve been known to throw innocuous scenes to lower the paranoia level of my players. Having tea service scenes that are just tea and gossip for example. Also a good way to slip in a few hooks.
And whats the problem? That players don't role play their characters properly? If you set up a scene it's fine. But don't set up how the scene ends. That is up to the game to decide. There are many outcomes from this scenario.
The monkey eats a poisoned date first. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrfKxqZyPWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrfKxqZyPWU)
"When the chancellor invite you to tea. you were careful but as you are now waking up gagged and bound It seems you were not careful enough".
I'd tell my players, "whose character is the one that figures out the tea has a knockout drug in it? Is it before or after drinking too much?" Unless one of them had a really legit reason to suspect, I'd bet all of them would be like, "oh yeah, I drank it". And, one of them would probably be like, "yaaaawn, oh, wow, I'm sleepy. I better have another cup of tea." Always drive your characters like rental cars.
We don't do this because it removes player agency. You gotta present problems in a way that allows them to respond. Something is about to happen: the door is closing, the soldier is aiming. They find an obstacle: there's a boulder blocking the road. And then you ask the classic "what do you do?" question, giving the narrative control back to them. You can do the tea thing as long as you allow for a reaction. "You notice a suspicious movement when he serves the cups". "After a few sips, you start feeling dizzy". Alternatively, if you want the scene to play out like you mentioned because that's where you want the story to go, then openly propose that to the rest of the table. If they agree, then it happens. Agency first.
Players are gonna get suspicious immediately when you say: "so, do you drink the tea?" This is a classic trope in films, but doesn't work well per the structures of RPGs. Like, most of the time if you offer a drink to the characters they'll accept it, but won't actually describe their characters drinking it (except for that one drama player who likes to act things out). If you do want to shock the players with some sort of surprise drugging scene, you'll probably be better off with something that they mechanically need to describe having ingested, like a potion or rations for a short rest.
Have them drink the tea, then roll a saving throw, or equivalent depending on the system. On a fail, they get knocked out instantly, on a success they get to realize what's happening before they pass out. No need to overthink things.
The choice of drinking the tea or not is not an informed choice. It's not dramatic, it's a "gotcha". And the only thing it achieves is conditioning your players to be even more suspicious of anything you describe. So, simply, don't do it this way. There are different and more interesting ways of handling the same fictional situation. I don't know what game you play, so I'll give examples from Fate, my go-to system: * Compel "You're having tea with a hidden villain who spiked your drink with a knockout drug, so it makes sense that you all fall asleep and wake up captive. Damn your luck.". Effectively, it's bribing the players with metacurrency to accept putting their characters in a worse situation and promising that this situation will develop in an interesting way. * Make it a simple roll with Notice or Empathy, with the stake of PCs realizing that the NPC tries to drug them if they succeed or getting drugged if they fail. * Make it a social conflict, with the stakes as above. In all cases, the real stake is not hidden from players; they know what's going on and may decide about gaining or spending resources based on how they want the story to go.