• hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
    84·
    2 months ago

    you’re definitely right about the time limit. at that point you are about 5 minutes away from every spell in the party’s arsenal being cast on that crown, followed by the main quest getting derailed by the mystery of the plot armored artifact.

    • BleatingZombie@lemmy.world
      22·
      2 months ago

      I’m extremely naive when it comes to tabletop RPGs

      Is there any kind of “plot says no” response to magic? Something like the doors in oblivion where you need a key to unlock

      • Cenotaph@mander.xyzEnglish
        25·
        2 months ago

        Really, what the DM says goes. So if you want to be boring you can just say it doesn’t work for some reason. The answer above re: pivoting to it being a powerful illusion spell or something so there is a reason the spell didn’t work is a lot more compelling and interesting imo

        • BleatingZombie@lemmy.world
          8·
          2 months ago

          That makes sense! I’ve always wanted to run a campaign (even though I’ve never really played) so I try to take guidance from stories like these

          Thank you!

          • Don_alForno@feddit.org
            12·
            2 months ago

            You could also just have it work and go with whatever follows from it though.

            I believe you should have a plot prepared but you also shouldn’t be afraid to adapt it if the players do something unexpected. It’s more work, but in my experience players can usually smell when you’re just trying to block them. And they will derive fun from having found out your plans early (which is totally ok to tell them).

        • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          Retconing things to protect muh precious twists is not compelling, though, it’s just base metagaming. The unwavering plot is the GM equivalent of the 8 page main character syndrome PC backstory. If I found out my GM was doing that, they wouldn’t be my GM anymore.

      • hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
        9·
        2 months ago

        there’s two answers to this question, one is mechanical and one is social. you as the DM can tell the players no not now, and they can’t do anything about it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to do something about it, which depending on the group could be an issue.

        so in this scenario a good DM could whip up some misdirection, for example set up a traveling artificer who just passed through town a couple weeks back and who the players could track down as a lead - conveniently in the direction of the main quest objective.

        this is hard to do on the spot.

        • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          IMO this is kinda one of the problems with DnD 5e, at least if you want to do certain kinds of stories.

          The players just have so many tools at their disposal to do anything and everything that its hard to put them into a challenging situation that:

          A) Doesn’t involve combat

          and

          B) Isn’t a completely artificial-feeling scenario that’s been engineered specifically to negate all of the “I don’t have to care about this” buttons that players have on their sheets.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        8·
        2 months ago

        Technically there could be. After all, the GM has final say. But players will want to search for a reason, because they expect consistency. Spells don’t typically fail without reason. That reason can be a low die roll if the spell description calls for it, but many spells (like Prestidigitation) don’t require a roll.

        So having the spell fail “because the plot says no” is inconsistent. It would immediately throw up a giant red flag in the players’ minds, and make them think the item is much more important than they initially realized. After all, if the plot says the spell doesn’t work, then that means something in the world is preventing it from working.

        It makes more sense to have the item be cursed, or haunted, or protected by a god, or any other number of things that would give the players some sort of explanation to latch onto. If you keep it vague, the players will inevitably spend a lot of time trying to figure out why it can’t be cleaned. Because they expect consistency, and will keep throwing things at it until they find a reason. So it’s better to just give them a reason (even if you just came up with it in a panic) because that at least gives them some resolution, and they can file it away in their quest list for later.