I am a GM for a group of 10 year olds -- including my kids. They love the game (particularly the combat) but struggle with some of the RP stuff.
I try to guide them through the interactions with NPCs as best I can, but my bigger concern is the exploration. They seem to go to the extremes. They either go into a room and want to do 100 perception checks over every square foot of ground to be certain there is nothing of interest or they will run through a room without even a second glance -- sometimes tripping a trap in the process or missing out on treasure.
Sometimes I swear their interest in an area is inversely proportional to the amount of time I have spent prepping it and the amount of stuff there is to be found. :-)
So my question is, how can I provide some clues that they might want to spend a little time in a room without coming out and saying that. And on the other side, how best to tell them there is nothing more to see?
I should add that they are fairly new to the game and I am pretty new to GMing. We are also mostly sticking to published adventures.
Any thoughts on how to do some hand-holding without railroading?
Thanks,
John S.
|
My group that includes two 50+ and two mid 30s does exactly the same thing. They investigate the crap out of some areas and then set off the traps almost without fail in other areas and walked past awesome treasure.
In the published adventure paths and modules, Paizo seems to like to add a fair amount of red herrings with totally empty rooms that scream pay attention to me and really are totally empty.
For my players when they seem to get stuck on an area, I flatly tell them that there really is nothing there and no matter how hard they look they won't find anything.
Another idea is to describe everything they find with repeated perception checks. "3 twigs, half a pink stone, one dung beetle(normal), 3 slivers of filed iron, a leaf, about an ounce of dust if swept up and weighed, and 17 blades of grass that look like it might have fallen out of your armor as you spent so much time searching this room." Do this a couple of times and they should get the picture that there isn't anything of value in the room.
Maybe make it easy(er) for now.
In 3.5 you had spot checks, sometimes they where made without a player asking about it. If there is something you really want them to find you could say "throw a d20" and pick the player how has the highest result and tell him/her what they see (even if it's below the DC, but not to much of course). Use elaborate description to draw their attention.
You could rooms with nothing of importance inside them emptier, keep your description shorter. Or after the first few rolls say that their characters don't think there is any thing. (Especially if they rolled well.)
I hope I helped!
Another idea is to describe everything they find with repeated perception checks. "3 twigs, half a pink stone, one dung beetle(normal), 3 slivers of filed iron, a leaf, about an ounce of dust if swept up and weighed, and 17 blades of grass that look like it might have fallen out of your armor as you spent so much time searching this room." Do this a couple of times and they should get the picture that there isn't anything of value in the room.
When I was young my father used this technique on me and my brother once. He stopped because we had so much fun with it that we wouldn't stop searching just to see what kind or rubbish we found.
It might work on other kids though, just a good memory I wanted to share.
I guess maybe this is not limited to just 10 years old then. :-)
I like the idea of describing every mundane detail if they start to linger. I think they would probably get the hint. Although I could see them picking up the blades of grass and inspecting them further and then questioning whether the dung beetle is actually a spy of the underworld.
A spot check as they enter each area just to provide some initial clues might work as well.
Thanks for the feedback.