Dropping hints for how to get an advantage in a battle

[TheNobleDrake]

Ended a session, the third to be exact, of my "Temple, Giants, and the Demon-spider Queen," (a DCC re-envisioned combination of Temple of Elemental Evil, Scourge of the Slavelords, and Queen of Spiders) campaign just a few hours ago... and I came to the realization that my players didn't seem to be understanding any of the in-character hints as to how to make things go easier for their characters.

A little setup: After a bit of bad strategy turned a possible win into a retreat deep in the moathouse dungeon, I elected to have the forces of evil launch a significant attack on the PCs village, timed just right so the PCs go out to the moathouse, realize the place is empty and get back to the village after most of it is already on fire so they can join the village's last stand.

The encounter was a party of 6 1st level PCs (1 wizard, 1 cleric, and 4 warriors) against 10 spearmen, a 3 hit-die lieutenant with a flail, and my re-write of Lareth the Beautiful.

I tried to use descriptions of the spearmen coming to the lieutenant's aid when he was wounded, then retreating back to form a spear hedge in front of Lareth, and then half of those remaining fleeing once the lieutenant was dispatched to hint to the players that taking down the pair of "leader" types would break the morale of the rank and file goons... but through the whole battle I had about half of my players just beating on the spearmen, dragging the fight on for pretty much all of time we had available to play and resulting in 3 characters being knocked out (1 of which died).

So, what do you guys do to drop hints to players as to what their characters might do to make a rough situation more bearable or otherwise even the odds or sway them in their favor? I'm thinking I need some new tricks in order to get my players thinking outside the box they seem stuck in.

[Rostranor]

Dungeon Crawl Darwinism. You learn or you die.

[smathis]

I would say that it isn't the PC's job to figure out hints. Generally, I will go with the 3-clue seeding structure explained on The Alexandrian's blog if I have some big mystery in the game. But if the characters are flat out barking up the wrong tree, I try to improvise ways to make it interesting.

First off, I tend to take things to 11. So the PCs wouldn't get to the village just in time. But rather they'd get there after the village had been burned to the ground. Aunt Beru style.

Moreover, that's a prime opportunity to scapegoat another NPC and get the characters back on track. Such that, the PC's plan would have worked if this NPC hadn't spilled the beans or outright betrayed them.

So there we have consequences, potentially a new villain who may or may not just be a victim himself, and the PCs don't feel de-protagonized.

This is all in hindsight though. So it's hard to say how it would go down at the table. Ideally, I'd like to think I'd run it like that though.

[SavageRobby]

If hints don't work and you really want them to notice, have the fighters in the group make Int checks and if any succeed just _tell_ them. After you do this once or twice, then they might get the hints.

[beermotor]

no mercy. kill a few of them. that'll get their attention.

[cjoepar]

I let them suffer the consequences, then point out their mistakes afterwards, so they can see where they went wrong. I have rarely had a situation where it takes more than one or two ass-kickings for the party to start to get the hang of how I'm thinking.

If I have a situation like an adventure where they have to figure out something for the adventure to happen at all, then after dropping a hint or two, I just have the guy with the highest intelligence figure part of it out and get the party moving. Sitting around the table for an hour trying to figure something out isn't much fun for anyone.

And sometimes, try as you might, the party will simply struggle with something. For example, I recently ran an adventure where the whole dungeon was behind a secret door. The party had found a key in the previous adventure along with very clear clues that there was a secret door in the stables of a large inn. None-the-less, they were standing right in front of the secret door with the key in their hands talking about how to get it open for 10 minutes. Eventually, I just explained that the character with 16 intelligence figured it out and got the adventure moving. I also informed the party that they probably lost out on a few xp's because they didn't figure it out so maybe they will try to think a little more next time.

Sometimes, the players simply aren't on the same wavelength as you are and you just have to move past the sticking point and get the adventure moving again.

[TheNobleDrake]

Hey smathis, you got a link to that blog? I don't google blog drops.

cjoepar... I had this group basically do the same thing, except the door wasn't secret at all (just magically locked) and the key was a sword they had recent found that had identical markings to the door.

Luckily, I'm not talking about situations where the adventure grinds to a halt because he players aren't picking up what I am putting down - those specifically do not happen at my table because I refuse to let them, usually by way of making sure there are at least half a dozen ways to keep things going.

I am just talking about when the party is up against a fight that will be extremely tough if they don't fight smart, and giving them some hints as to what counts as smart in a particular situation.

This battle that was a few landed attacks away from killing all of them and left half the party laying in the dirt waiting to have their body recovered could have been won faster either by taking a specific strategy of taking down the leaders and letting the goons flee, or simply by rolling better with the strategy they chose of smashing everyone in sight.

Trying to get my players more open to the style of DCC, ready to try things other than line up at the front of the wall of enemies and smash until one side loses, and the like. I've actually had one player specifically talk to me because he is having trouble figuring out how "quest for it" would really work out - like what if wants to quest for this one thing, and no one else in the party cares about it and what happens then (to which I said "then you hire some dudes to help you on your quest, which the other players get to play, and you go on your quest. Then we switch back to the party doing what they are doing and you might play a hireling too until all the main PCs are back together.' and saw that he really didn't get it until then because he hadn't even considered that option)

As for my general approach, no mercy all the way - a full party kill wouldn't cause my adventure to even skip a beat (detour to the underworld, a god-being that insists they are destined for something great and returning them to life, sudden debt to a necromancer being the ideas I have on tap currently).

[GnomeBoy]

I just happen to have that blog entry bookmarked: http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/111 ... -clue-rule

[TheNobleDrake]

Thanks for the link GnomeBoy... though I think I need to set up some better mental defenses because that blog post is hauntingly similar to my own thoughts on adventure design.

[GnomeBoy]

Thanks for the link GnomeBoy... though I think I need to set up some better mental defenses because that blog post is hauntingly similar to my own thoughts on adventure design.

Told you not to give up the tin foil hat.