1,001 Times The Players Missed The Clue


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So talking to a friend last night about such things, it hit me that I'm sure we all have stories of the times when our players not only missed the obvious, blatant clue, but actively seemed to avoid them outright.

I thought I'd start a thread with some examples and see what everyone else had to share.

Let's begin...

The "What Do You Mean, We Have To Think?" Bit...

So I ran an X-Files/Fringe/Alias type game, which was full of conspiracies and double-dealings, and aliens and weird demonic possessions and crazy ancient life forms kept suspended in fossilized eggs found buried in Pre-Mesopotamian tablets that shouldn't have existed in Utah but did... all that junk.

At the end of one of the sessions, the PC's were all sent a series of coordinates (Point A, Point B), times, and dates. Seven of these were the trajectories and points of incidence of various "meteors" and "debris objects" that had transited over the North American continent in the last 50 years. The eighth, which had a time and date only 12 hours prior to when they got the emails, was an undocumented transit that - had they followed it - would have led them to a downed UFO.

I ended the session with them getting these emails, and told them that they had two weeks (until our next session) to figure out what to do with them.

Two weeks pass.

Not one of them had bothered to look up the data. Not one of them bothered to check out the coordinates. There had been literally no traction on their part. When I asked why, the unanimous answer was "Well, we didn't know what you wanted us to do with them!" The thought of plugging any of those numbers into a quick google search had evaded all of them.

The game died shortly after that, but not for reasons related to that.

The "Captain Amazing Doesn't Wear Glasses" Bit...

In my Inter Planar Acquisitions Game, in which the PC's were operating out of Sigil as specialized Contracted Artefact Retrieval Experts, they at one point resurrected a previously known NPC, one Ben-I-Amin Ibn Al Farud (he had a longer name he would recite when he wanted to impress people), affectionately known as "Benny." Think Beni from The Mummy and you're not far off. Benny had been left behind on a jungle planet inhabited by giants and their crazed Serpent God fifty years prior by another group of PC's for selling them out. This group of PC's knew why he'd been left behind, but they needed him for information.

So they resurrect him. He swears he's learned his lesson, and goes on to become a model citizen.

So later they find some correspondence between a Dustman who's gotten a little too happy with Death and Misery, and his conspirator. The letter opens "Benjamin..."

The PC's decided that this couldn't be Benny, because his name is Ben-I-Amin. If it was Benny, the Dustman would have spelled the name correctly, right?

So for several sessions, they were talking to Benny about this Benjamin character and how they had to find him to shut down his illegal corpse trade.

"Oh, no, my friends, once again the lair of the evil Benjamin has been vacated just before we arrived. If only we knew who was tipping him and his vile compatriots to our plans!"

The "I've Seen Her Naked, She Can't Be Evil" Bit...

The game is Champions, the years are the mid-90's, and my players are helping an NPC they know only as "Traveler" to defeat the evil immortal magician who lives on the moon who once fought alongside the Nazi's and has apparently been secretly manipulating super human lineages in order to bring about the "correct" future. Super shady stuff to be sure.

As they learn to trust her more, they find that more and more of their former foes are now showing up wearing gold and green symbols and swearing their allegiance to "The True Lady Of Camelot." The death and rebirth of King Arthur is a common theme in this game, and so they start figuring out that maybe, just maybe, Morgana Le Fay is out there somewhere.

Traveler, who is Elfin and uses a magical sword and very, very potent spells, has a lot of knowledge about Morgana Le Fay, and reveals that she was a member of the Fairy Court of Avalon, and knew Arthur quite well, and that he "wasn't as nice a person as he's made out to be." The party Magician, who uses Arthurian Magic, knows pretty much everything there is to know about Arthur (including his reincarnation in the early 20th century and eventual death during WW2), continually refuses to make Knowledge Skill checks to ensure that what she's saying is correct, the player saying "He believes her implicitly, because of their relationship."

So, blinded by love and the fact that the character and NPC were romantically involved, the PC never once bothered to check up on what she was saying. When the shoe dropped and she was revealed to be Morgana Le Fay, come to finally kill Merlin and end Arthur's cycle of heroism, the Player lost a head gasket and demanded to know how I slipped all this past him. Ah, well.

Who's next?

Silver Crusade

The first two would probably earn some swats from a rolled up newspaper but the third... I'd probably be in the player's shoes...


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Okay this happened to some one I knew....

I can't even think of a title for it...

So a GM was running a game where the PCs all inherited a house...the game centered around the town and the house. The GM put a incredible amount of detail into both. The library was filled with books that would provide clues and such for later in the game. The very first session the player playing a monk decided to take all the books from the library and just burn them...no reason...just because. Needless to say the game ended at that point.

Silver Crusade

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Uh, yeah... that's not missing any clues, that's just being a disruptive a!!@~~~ to the DM and the other players.

Liberty's Edge

I have to blame this one on the GM.

Back in the 1980s. I was in high school. Playing with other people my age and early 20s at my FLGS. The store owner who was in his 50s was running call of cthulu. The game was set in the 20s or 30s.

At one point we noticed some green tanks that could hold a gas. I think it was in a hospital. The GM assumed all the players knew it was ogegen tanks werr green.

The characters should know, but the players did'nt.


CapeCodRPGer wrote:

I have to blame this one on the GM.

Back in the 1980s. I was in high school. Playing with other people my age and early 20s at my FLGS. The store owner who was in his 50s was running call of cthulu. The game was set in the 20s or 30s.

At one point we noticed some green tanks that could hold a gas. I think it was in a hospital. The GM assumed all the players knew it was ogegen tanks werr green.

The characters should know, but the players did'nt.

Were O2 tanks color coded in the 20's and 30's, though?

I seem to recall seeing some period films that had them clearly labeled "Oxygen," regardless of whether or not there were color codes on them. BIG RED LETTERS: OXYGEN.

Could you be blamed for not knowing what the tanks were, if they weren't clearly labeled?

Liberty's Edge

Thats The thing. The GM said they were plain green tanks. We asked if there were any labels or anything on them. The GM assumed since they were green we would know what they were.


CapeCodRPGer wrote:
Thats The thing. The GM said they were plain green tanks. We asked if there were any labels or anything on them. The GM assumed since they were green we would know what they were.

I will, as a GM and as a Player, go on the record as saying that is not enough, and that the GM should have provided you with more information.

I don't care that this thread is about players missing clues. For the clue to be worth ANYTHING, it has to be something that doesn't rely on assumptions of PLAYER knowledge. Even in my own examples, I provided plenty of options for the characters to figure things out. With Traveler, the PC who was her lover could have checked anything she said against his vast library and knowledge skills could have been made. For the Benny situation, I would have allowed them to pick up on linguistic drift. For the conspiracy game, I DID give them in-character knowledge checks to pick up on things.

The GM's job is to describe things as the characters see it and then fill in the blanks through providing them the details they're missing if they should know about it in character.

You not knowing about it in character doesn't mean you missed the clue. It means the clue wasn't properly presented.


CapeCodRPGer wrote:

I have to blame this one on the GM.

A lot of these could probably be blamed on the GM...clue are always obvious to the person who created them after all.


John Kretzer wrote:
CapeCodRPGer wrote:

I have to blame this one on the GM.

A lot of these could probably be blamed on the GM...clue are always obvious to the person who created them after all.

I'll give you that one. That's why I *always* ask my players if they want to further investigate things. The examples from my games above were all very well presented, and I gave them ample opportunity to figure out what was going on. Lots of offers to make their rolls, do their research, anything they needed. All were refused.

The "Traveler" example - Every single time she would bring something up about Arthurian Legend I'd give the player the option to make his skill checks. He actively refused. When it all came to light, he was upset because I never outright told him. Maybe I am a bad GM, but from where I'm sitting, I can't tell him something that he doesn't do the research on.


Rysky wrote:
Uh, yeah... that's not missing any clues, that's just being a disruptive a%**#&~ to the DM and the other players.

No that's just great roleplaying, monks are totally known for arson and pointless destruction of property *rolls eyes*. The GM never attacked the group with a book golem at any point did he?


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jemstone wrote:
John Kretzer wrote:
CapeCodRPGer wrote:

I have to blame this one on the GM.

A lot of these could probably be blamed on the GM...clue are always obvious to the person who created them after all.

I'll give you that one. That's why I *always* ask my players if they want to further investigate things. The examples from my games above were all very well presented, and I gave them ample opportunity to figure out what was going on. Lots of offers to make their rolls, do their research, anything they needed. All were refused.

The "Traveler" example - Every single time she would bring something up about Arthurian Legend I'd give the player the option to make his skill checks. He actively refused. When it all came to light, he was upset because I never outright told him. Maybe I am a bad GM, but from where I'm sitting, I can't tell him something that he doesn't do the research on.

I should have been more clearer I was talking about yours or any ones in particular. Just a more general observation and the pitfalls that GMs can fall into when it come to clues.

Also I would have been totally like your player in the Champions game...I just would not have been angry at you after the reveal...


HeHateMe wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Uh, yeah... that's not missing any clues, that's just being a disruptive a%**#&~ to the DM and the other players.
No that's just great roleplaying, monks are totally known for arson and pointless destruction of property *rolls eyes*. The GM never attacked the group with a book golem at any point did he?

No...no book golems.


We were traveling through a goblin village (And murdering all of the goblins but thats okay because we were getting paid and wow looking back on I can't believe I was playing a neutral good cleric). We reached the final house and inside were goblins. We looked at the doors and started to bash them down. After we got them open the GM told us we could have done it quietly and crept in. And we said "How?". The GM said "I told you there was a gap between the doors. You could have lifted the bar up. And we all said "You never told us that". It turned out okay though, because our barbarian was the one who took the door down with his massive axe, and from a natural one with a fire spell earlier, (He's a dwarf, I figured I could shoot over his head.) his beard was on fire, and he was covered in goblin blood from earlier, and he was screaming because he was still in a rage. The circumstance bonus to intimidate was massive.

I don't know if this counts or not, but once I GMed a game where after the start when the town got attacked by goblins they walked into the street, fired at the goblins once and then went into the local restaurant and tried to order a meal. I motivated them by having the goblins steal all the food in the town and they spent the entire adventure trying to get free food and steel non-free food.


When ever we are playing a superhero game and someone mentions "Black-Dog Busing", people cringe in fear. Here is why.

Back in the 90's we were playing Champions and we had just gotten done with a fight. We were told where the main hide-out was but MOST of the group decided to wait until the next day when we were all rested up. What the characters didn't know was that one decided that he was going to go and scout out the place that night. Well he got caught. If we had all gone that night, hew would have been safe and the main bad guy wouldn't have had time to prepare for our arrival!
So, we show up and instead of ambushing him, he ambushes us! It basically turns into a TPK.

The reason it is called Black Dog Busing is because that is where the hide out was. Our group screwed up. Instead of going in immediately, we sat on our collective butts. I still love Champions though.

Scarab Sages

Years ago in a superhero campaign, our hero team found an alien spacecraft. There was no one on board, but the ship had a holographic recording of its extraterrestrial 'owner' that would play at us periodically, saying the same thing over and over. We were all pretty sure it was something important about the ship, or maybe a warning about an upcoming alien invasion, but we could never figure it out. Eventually what the alien recording said became kind of a catchphrase for our group.

After a couple of years the GM ran into some personal problems and had to drop that campaign. We never did find out what that alien recording was trying to tell us. We still play with that GM, and he still won't divulge what it was.

We still repeat that catchphrase whenever he's GMing and gives us a clue that we don't get right away.


Dire Elf wrote:

Years ago in a superhero campaign, our hero team found an alien spacecraft. There was no one on board, but the ship had a holographic recording of its extraterrestrial 'owner' that would play at us periodically, saying the same thing over and over. We were all pretty sure it was something important about the ship, or maybe a warning about an upcoming alien invasion, but we could never figure it out. Eventually what the alien recording said became kind of a catchphrase for our group.

After a couple of years the GM ran into some personal problems and had to drop that campaign. We never did find out what that alien recording was trying to tell us. We still play with that GM, and he still won't divulge what it was.

We still repeat that catchphrase whenever he's GMing and gives us a clue that we don't get right away.

So what is the catchphrase?

Scarab Sages

John Kretzer wrote:
Dire Elf wrote:

Years ago in a superhero campaign, our hero team found an alien spacecraft. There was no one on board, but the ship had a holographic recording of its extraterrestrial 'owner' that would play at us periodically, saying the same thing over and over. We were all pretty sure it was something important about the ship, or maybe a warning about an upcoming alien invasion, but we could never figure it out. Eventually what the alien recording said became kind of a catchphrase for our group.

After a couple of years the GM ran into some personal problems and had to drop that campaign. We never did find out what that alien recording was trying to tell us. We still play with that GM, and he still won't divulge what it was.

We still repeat that catchphrase whenever he's GMing and gives us a clue that we don't get right away.

So what is the catchphrase?

Whoops, I missed that there was a reply to this. It's in an alien language, which is why we could never figure out what it was. We never got any kind of 'universal translator', nor did we meet any other aliens.

It sounds a bit like "Klaatu barada nikto", but it isn't.


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In a Vampire game, the PCs (a Sabbat pack) were scouting a local Wal-Mart for improvised weapon ideas and chances for "fun" (after having "fun" elsewhere around town for a few nights and drawing attention).

One of them notices that a few associates are standing together nearby casually chatting, with one touching up her makeup using a compact. They decide this is their opportunity for some fun, so one approaches an associate and asks what's on special. The associate says there's a sale on pool cues (with extra accent on the last two words).

So of course the character follows the associate to the aisle, and gets promptly staked (being from the clan that doesn't cast a reflection and having been noticed by the hunter using the compact). A storewide brawl broke out.

Moral of the story: when you're a wolf among sheep, watch out for dogs. Or, when you're vulnerable to pointy wooden objects, stay away from strangers with pool cues.

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