when players simply wont take a hint

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Whenever players need that extra boost, its time to subtly drop a hint or clue, most of the time they don't get it and we all sigh internally.

What are some hints you gave to players that were never picked up?

Most recently was this, the paladin rolled a 20 on a STR check to escape a grapple from a water weird, "Hey, nice crit, you can toss him if you want."

[ShaneMRoth]

A player attempted to use Dimension Door to get from Point A to Point B.

I told him, "The spell doesn't work, which strikes your character as peculiar, because he didn't do anything wrong. It should have worked."

Instead of taking the hint that there was something interfering with the spell, the player took up the Player's Handbook, read the description of Dimension Door and then gave me a Disapproving Look.

A Spellcraft check would have revealed that there was some sort of arcane interference with the function of Dimension Door. Which would draw any experienced wizard to conclude that a Dimensional Lock might be in effect. (It was a Dimensional Lock hidden by a Screen spell.)

But the player lept to the conclusion that I was just using Rule Zero to jerk him around and he lost interest.

I was giving him clues about the environment based on what his character was able to perceive. Being something of a Rules Lawyer, he had trouble relating to that. Since I didn't divulge to the player what the character didn't know, the player had no frame of reference to call my ruling into question.

After the adventure was concluded, I told him all the information and he gave me another Disapproving Look.

I remain unrepentant to this day about how I adjudicated that encounter.

[VincentTakeda]

This kind of thing happens to me all the time.

One specific time a curse was delivered to one of my players in the form of a handshake (actually arm wrestling that the player chose to participate in). This player's character was of a race that for the most part avoided and distrusted magic and knew little of it. If I let him make his saving throw at the moment the curse was delivered, theres good odds he'd have murdered the guy on the spot without any in character evidence that something untoward had happened in that moment. If I'd have let him make the saving throw generally some time around the time he was cursed and told him it was a save against a curse he'd probably have destroyed the entire building and everyone in it in response to being slighted. Instead I waited to let him make the saving throw until he performed an action that was in opposition to the effects of the curse, which was a full day and several hundred miles later. I told him the manner in which his actions were being interfered with but still did not tell him it was a curse. He nearly tableflipped and ragequit.

[Keltest]

This kind of thing happens to me all the time.

One specific time a curse was delivered to one of my players in the form of a handshake (actually arm wrestling that the player chose to participate in). This player's character was of a race that for the most part avoided and distrusted magic and knew little of it. If I let him make his saving throw at the moment the curse was delivered, theres good odds he'd have murdered the guy on the spot without any in character evidence that something untoward had happened in that moment. If I'd have let him make the saving throw generally some time around the time he was cursed and told him it was a save against a curse he'd probably have destroyed the entire building and everyone in it in response to being slighted. Instead I waited to let him make the saving throw until he performed an action that was in opposition to the effects of the curse, which was a full day and several hundred miles later. I told him the manner in which his actions were being interfered with but still did not tell him it was a curse. He nearly tableflipped and ragequit.

That sounds a lot less like "Player misses a hint" and more like "GM doesn't trust player to separate OOC knowledge from IC knowledge." As far as I am aware, a character doesn't know they made a saving throw if there are no visible effects from having the spell cast on you.

The appropriate response when a player tries to metagame to that extreme is generally to ask them to explain their reasoning for the action.

[Grooke]

Also, I find "roll a save, take a penalty" to be a very subtle hint at "you got cursed while arm wrestling a few hundred miles back".

[Maglubiyet]

A Spellcraft check would have revealed that there was some sort of arcane interference with the function of Dimension Door. Which would draw any experienced wizard to conclude that a Dimensional Lock might be in effect. (It was a Dimensional Lock hidden by a Screen spell.)

In this case I probably would've had him roll the Spellcraft. The character might've been an "experienced wizard", but not necessarily the player.

[ShaneMRoth]

In this case I probably would've had him roll the Spellcraft. The character might've been an "experienced wizard", but not necessarily the player.

If it were a Spot check, that would be one thing. I consider a Spellcraft check to fall clearly within the discretion of the player.

[Maglubiyet]

If it were a Spot check, that would be one thing. I consider a Spellcraft check to fall clearly within the discretion of the player.

Yeah, well you don't know what you don't know -- the skills are on the character sheet, not in the player's head. I'm pretty lenient with throwing out info that I figure the CHARACTERS would know.

Plus, ya know, it can be fun. That's the truest measure of value for any given rule, imo. Your player's disapproving looks suggest that he was having less than.

[Grooke]

It really boils down to knowing the players. Perhaps a simple "there is a legitimate reason why" would have cleared the air and got him looking, without giving away the source.

[Mastikator]

I never hint. I tell blatantly. I've never had this problem and I've never had anyone tell me they think I am too blatant.

Don't be a mysterious DM, it's not helpful and I doubt your players appreciate it, it doesn't add to the immersion. Telling, blatantly and colorfully does.

[Rainbownaga]

If it were a Spot check, that would be one thing. I consider a Spellcraft check to fall clearly within the discretion of the player.

If the player is reading through the spell section of the PHB to figure it out. He's effectively pantomimed a spellcraft check anyway.

[ShaneMRoth]

It really boils down to knowing the players. Perhaps a simple "there is a legitimate reason why" would have cleared the air and got him looking, without giving away the source.

Have you ever dealt with a Rules Lawyer?

Speaking as a reformed Rules Lawyer myself, I assure you that they tend not to go for "there's a legitimate reason why".

They need to know what the reason is, so that they can decide for themselves if the reason is legitimate.

If the player is reading through the spell section of the PHB to figure it out. He's effectively pantomimed a spellcraft check anyway.

Another DM could make such a ruling. I am not one of those DMs.

The player was making a classic Rules Lawyer mistake. He was so busy playing the rules, that he forgot to play the game.

At some point, if a game session is to proceed, the players have to take a break from winning an argument and get to the business of solving a problem. Even the Rules Lawyers.

[Elbeyon]

Yeah, well you don't know what you don't know -- the skills are on the character sheet, not in the player's head. I'm pretty lenient with throwing out info that I figure the CHARACTERS would know.

Plus, ya know, it can be fun. That's the truest measure of value for any given rule, imo. Your player's disapproving looks suggest that he was having less than.

Maglubiyet is right. You should have asked for a spellcraft roll. Hiding what rolls a player needs to make when he is indicating he wants to know what is going on is a horrible idea. Obviously, hiding things hasn't helped heal the trust issues in the group, but if you just asked him to roll a spellcraft to figure things out then things probably would have resolved in a more satisfactory way.

I never hint. I tell blatantly. I've never had this problem and I've never had anyone tell me they think I am too blatant.

Don't be a mysterious DM, it's not helpful and I doubt your players appreciate it, it doesn't add to the immersion. Telling, blatantly and colorfully does.

Awesome. Proper communication can go a long way towards improving so many things including social games.

[Yukitsu]

I never hint. I tell blatantly. I've never had this problem and I've never had anyone tell me they think I am too blatant.

Don't be a mysterious DM, it's not helpful and I doubt your players appreciate it, it doesn't add to the immersion. Telling, blatantly and colorfully does.

I really like this. I've told my DM outright I refuse to solve any riddles, I'm never going to listen to ambiguous seer crap and if you ever tell me I need to actively use a skill that detects things, I'm going to bother him that I'm using it every round of the game for the rest of his life just in case he's not telling me I need to use it.

[VincentTakeda]

Yep. The resolution in this case was that I had to remind him to solve in character problems in character.
I assured him that whatever had happened to him was not 'breaking the rules of the system but that I was not going to reveal what that thing is or how it happened or when.
If he was interested in pursuing it there are plenty of methods within the system to both discover and eliminate the trouble, but that it's an in character dilemma to be solved with in character actions.
So to the earlier post drawing the distinction that the player was raging to get out of character knowledge to meta with, and in not getting that information possibly presuming that I'm breaking the rules to bust him down, that is entirely true.
He then made efforts to diagnose and cure his characters curse, but in the moment of the reveal, we was livid at not having being handed meta knowledge on a silver platter.
But by the same token, he was even given metaknowledge at the reveal... Something bad started happening as a result of him having to make and fail a saving throw. Game mechanics were at work. Thats not very subtle of a hint.
The fact that the hint was given, in this case, was passionately overridden by the fact that I didnt give him knowledge his character shouldnt have in the moment he most would have preferred knowing it.
The possibility that he'd have tried everything in his power to use that metaknowledge to evoke a disproportionate response is very real. Nothing in the rules tacitly states that characters know they are 'making saving throws'.
I in fact made it easier for him to not abuse metaknowledge by not giving it to him. His character wouldnt know, so he didnt know. He only had to roll when it became relevant and even having to roll was still nothing more than informing him that 'something unknown was amiss for unknown reasons'
I don't think I was being unfair. To give him the information is putting the game on easy mode and the one thing I knew about the guy is that he likes things to be grim and perilous.
It interrupted the game for a short time and in the end he rolled with it. Took some doing though.

[goto124]

But the player lept to the conclusion that I was just using Rule Zero to jerk him around and he lost interest.

Looks like the main problem is Lack of Player-DM Trust.

Which, I suspect, is part of the reason players go Rules-lawyers mode.

[ShaneMRoth]

...
Hiding what rolls a player needs to make when he is indicating he wants to know what is going on is a horrible idea. Obviously, hiding things hasn't helped heal the trust issues in the group, but if you just asked him to roll a spellcraft to figure things out then things probably would have resolved in a more satisfactory way.
...

For the record, once I told this player that the spell didn't work, he just stopped listening.

He didn't want to know what was going on. He didn't care what was going on. He was so locked into the perceived injustice that attached to the DM saying "your spell isn't working" that he stopped responding to what I was saying.

The only person with trust issues in this group was this player. He'd had some really bad DMs in the past, and he was just not getting past it.

One time, between game sessions, I was chatting him up about the game. His trust issues came up and he went on about previous games and egregious DM rulings, and I said something like, "Look you had a couple of crap DMs. I get it. But you have to stop treating it like you did two tours of duty in Vietnam. This thing where you assume I'm trying to screw you over every time I sit behind a DM screen is getting old. Enough already."

Eventually, he came to understand that I wasn't an inherently adversarial DM, but he always struggled with trust issues.

[goto124]

The only person with trust issues in this group was this player. He'd had some really bad DMs in the past, and he was just not getting past it.

Eventually, he came to understand that I wasn't an inherently adversarial DM, but he always struggled with trust issues.

Ouch. I'm glad you do understand his issues, and controlled your own anger as well as helped him overcome his problems.

[ShaneMRoth]

I never hint. I tell blatantly. I've never had this problem and I've never had anyone tell me they think I am too blatant.

Don't be a mysterious DM, it's not helpful and I doubt your players appreciate it, it doesn't add to the immersion. Telling, blatantly and colorfully does.

How do I blatantly describe a magically hidden Dimensional Lock?

Be specific.

[Yukitsu]

How do I blatantly describe a magically hidden Dimensional Lock?

Be specific.

"Do you have knowledge arcana and/or an int of at least 10? You are aware that dimension lock is a spell which exists."

[Kane0]

"There is a dimensional lock effect in place hidden by another spell, your dude could figure it out with a good arcana roll"
?

[Mastikator]

How do I blatantly describe a magically hidden Dimensional Lock?

Be specific.

"As you cast the spell and blink into the astral plane a wall of magical energy crashes into you and bounces you back."

Even though the spell doesn't describe the sensation of Dimension Door, there is a sensation. A wizard that teleports through dimensions will see said dimensions flash before him as he teleports as far as I am concerned. The wizard is privy to this sensation and so is the player.
Casting Dimension Door isn't like calling for a cab and then being transported, the wizard is the vessel that does the transporting, and if there is something physically stopping him he should at the very least get to know what it looked and felt like.

If there's something anchoring you and you try to move, you feel the anchor.

I'd even go so far as to tell him to do a Spellcraft check, just because the player can't figure it out doesn't mean the PC wouldn't know. A Spellcraft check to find out what spell is occurring is basically a knowledge check, the player shouldn't have to guess which knowledge check he should roll for. Because if he rolls and succeeds then he actually knew in advance and shouldn't get to choose to roll.

[Telok]

Sage: The thing you need is in the hands of a lich. His name was <whatever>, he was the head of the Imperial Necromancers Guild about 150 years ago. His lair is here on this map.
PCs: We head to the dungeon.
GM You travel three days to Formello, the city with the biggest library in the land.
PCs: We keep going.
GM: You travel two weeks to the Tower of the Magi, the school for arcane magic users in the kingdom.
PCs: We keep going.
GM: You travel ten days to Almaria where the retired-adventuring-wizard-sage-who-makes-maps lives.
PCs: We keep going.
GM: You travel five days to the Royal Castle where Rone, archmage of the kingdom, advises the king.
PCs: The king can't do anything for us. We keep going.
GM: You travel two days to Fort Emerald, there are a dozen mages here and they trade Fireballs with the enemy mages in the trenches every day. There is a very skilled bard here helping to keep morale up.
PCs: We keep going.
GM: You get to the mouth of the cave. There are no living plants or animals within three miles of here.
PCs: We go in.

The lich was a specalist transmuter or enchanter or something, not a necromancer, that was just a hobby. Golem bodyguards, succubus wife, custom spells to make templated undead, famously used body doubles to thwart assassins, in-setting the creator of the first living spells. There were a few specters and vampires hanging around too, fifty or so ghouls and ghasts, mostly as decoration.

No stops at the libraries, no divinations, no talking to sages, no checking history books, no buying undead-bane arrows or such, no way to fight incorporeal foes. It was a slaughter. There was one character from the original party left at the end of it. Some people had gone through three characters. There was a small consecrated graveyard outside the entrance filled with post-adventurers. By the end they were way over equipped just from the stuff off of their own dead adventurers.

They never did kill that vampire giant octopus in the black lake or recover all the loot.

[goto124]

Clash of playstyles. Players expected a simple hack-and-slash, GM expected players to prep themselves even before going into the dungeon the adventure supposedly takes place in.

Those players are clearly unused to the smart & cautious style. What did you, the GM, tell them about the game beforehand?

[ShaneMRoth]

"Do you have knowledge arcana and/or an int of at least 10? You are aware that dimension lock is a spell which exists."

"There is a dimensional lock effect in place hidden by another spell, your dude could figure it out with a good arcana roll"
?

"

I'd even go so far as to tell him to do a Spellcraft check, just because the player can't figure it out doesn't mean the PC wouldn't know. A Spellcraft check to find out what spell is occurring is basically a knowledge check, the player shouldn't have to guess which knowledge check he should roll for.
...

All of these points have merit.

But all of these points assume that the player is playing his character.

He stopped playing his character. He refused to take any actions, on principle.

He stonewalled me.

Because in 7th grade he suffered under a series of really really mean and immature Dungeon Masters.

And he was carrying that baggage to every game table since, until he sat down at mine.

It took a long time... literally years... to get him to drop any of that baggage.

And I never did get him to drop all of it.

He never did stop playing the rules.

But I did manage, over time, to get him to play the game.

And I didn't get him there by enabling his burn-victim mentality.

Or by internalizing what was clearly his baggage and his trust issues.

Or by keeping the game strictly inside of his personal comfort zone.

I ran a functional campaign.

The first one in which he'd ever played.

He adapted.

I was his Dungeon Master, folks, not his therapist.

[Mastikator]

All of these points have merit.

But all of these points assume that the player is playing his character.
[snip]
I was his Dungeon Master, folks, not his therapist.

You're blaming the player for not getting your hint. It doesn't matter what kind of player you're dealing with here, do not drop hints just tell him. If he's a complete newb, just tell him, if he's a vet, just tell him, if he's a time traveling android from the future come to take over the human race, even then just tell him.

You hinted when you should've told him, that is your fault. All you're doing when you drop hints instead of just telling him everything is taking away from the immersion and leaving him with less to work with. You're stealing his floor and complaining that he can't stand.

The only time it's even remotely OK to drop hints is when you're playing a murder mystery, and even then it's just remotely OK, not preferable. I don't care if he has some bad experience or not, none of that matters. You're the DM, you tell the players what happens, you describe the world and you tell them all the information they need. Don't hint at the information, bombard them with it. Tell them the smell and taste of a dimensional lock if you have to.

[The Evil DM]

- snip - You're the DM, you tell the players what happens, you describe the world and you tell them all the information they need.

I disagree with this statement in one way.

it should end with "tell them all the information they perceive." - something they need may only be perceivable if they use a particular effect like true seeing. Sometimes a player needs to infer something they need and maybe the dimensional lock is a suboptimal example.

Don't hint at the information, bombard them with it. Tell them the smell and taste of a dimensional lock if you have to.

If a dimensional lock has a smell and taste, by all means describe it because it is something they can perceive. Again - suboptimal example because it directly interacts with the player an maybe there is something there to perceive.

To that end I do believe there is both passive perception and active perception. Passive is always active and the DM should give all data points that result from passive perception. But if Shane has established that using Knowledge skills requires some active thought then its not passive perception.

In my world if the BBEG is running around polymorphed into a beggar checking out a city and the players have nothing to passively perceive the polymorph effect then I am not going to be giving any clues. At the same time if the players trigger up a True Seeing all of a sudden a whole lot more falls under passive perception.

[Amphetryon]

Several of these "Players simply won't take a hint" examples read, to me, more like "Players simply won't correctly read the GM's mind." What seems an obvious hint with complete knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes is often less so when one's information is less complete.

[The Glyphstone]

Agreed. I still can't figure out what the OP's example is 'hinting' at.

[Red Fel]

Several of these "Players simply won't take a hint" examples read, to me, more like "Players simply won't correctly read the GM's mind." What seems an obvious hint with complete knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes is often less so when one's information is less complete.

Agreed.

Never, ever rely on players to "take a hint." They won't. That's not how most players work. Some marvelous, cunning, creative players, certainly, but the vast majority rely on what the DM explicitly describes. "You see an X." "You feel the wind in what should be a sealed room." "You hear murmuring behind the walls." "Give me a Spot check." "Roll Listen, if you would." And so on.

The reason is simple. The game universe exists primarily in the DM's mind; it is only through his statements that the players are able to interact with it. The less you tell your players, the fewer their options, simply because they don't know what's in your head.

I've seen threads like this, where DMs complain that the players don't seem to get the hint, when in reality it's quite often a case of the DM not giving the players enough information to go on. I've seen others, where DMs complain that the players seem to go off in weird directions, when in reality it's quite often a case of the PCs, lacking enough information, grasping at straws. The two boil down to the same point.

Talk to your players. Get to know their abilities and limits. Do they like decoding your brainwaves? Some players do, and that's fine. In my experience, however, most need something a little bit more direct. Advise them to roll a skill check. Suggest that they ponder what might have caused something to happen. Point out something they have on their character sheet which might be of use. (You don't have to tell them how to use it, but give them the start.) Remember the three clue rule - for any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues. Heck, if in doubt, give your players "common sense chips," which they can cash in for a common sense check - as in, a tip on what skill or ability might be particularly useful right about then.