A classic hook of storytelling is difficult to do effectively in this game

[tchntm43]

"The door breaks open and a bloodied man steps in, stumbling. A guard catches him just as he collapses. He gestures at you to come close. 'Don't trust her, that was my mistake, I...' and his eyes roll back as he dies."

Now the party is left wondering what he meant. Who is "her"? What mistake did he make? They'll have to unravel the mystery!

The cleric: "Um, I cast Cure Wounds on him just before he dies so we can get all the information we need from him."

Ugh.

The "incomplete message from a dying messenger" trope is a classic hook of storytelling. It's a way to create drama and a sense of urgency while leaving in a need to unravel the mystery. It's a way to propel the story towards a destination without revealing plot twists. But I've struggled with using it in this game, because of the existence of magic that easily prevents people from dying. Any advice here? Has anyone found a reliable way to make this trope work? Or just don't use it at all?

[Amnestic]

There are ways around it - the healing doesn't work. Why not? Poison, perhaps, or a curse. The party tries to save his life, only for him to die anyway.

The real problem crops up when the Cleric goes "I cast Speak With Dead". There's ways around that too (eg. a spell that makes the body explodes on death, a spell that turns them undead when they die), but they're harder to justify aesthetically in the case of this trope in question.

[MonochromeTiger]

Well, for one, if your party consistently refuses to engage with it that should really be your sign that they aren't interested in it. You could be the only one at your table who likes the trope, your party could just find it pointless to not use resources specifically meant to prevent that kind of thing in an effort to save a bunch of time and effort later, or it could be you and your party are just invested in different things.

I've known plenty of parties that would look at a plot hook like that, having something dangled in front of them then being denied any actually useful information with a vague "you're too late, there's nothing you can do", and react very badly. Either they walk away from the situation because it reeks of the DM just wanting to show off their amazing mystery and not giving an opportunity to actually choose or outright tell the DM that they aren't interested if their intro is going to be nothing but helplessly watching with the knowledge that the plot was just pushed on them. Plenty of groups I've seen were also fully willing to just pick up whatever the DM put in front of them and run with it but that's a key part of the issue, if you and your group aren't on the same page it's only a matter of time until you throw out something that they just don't care about, or worse something that they're annoyed by.

If you truly need to do that plot point for some reason instead of seeing it failed and moving on then there's two easy points to discuss. First, talk to your players about it. Actually gauge their interest and, if they have any, discuss the matter enough to establish that they aren't just going to cast a spell and invalidate what you prepared. That said, still prepare alternatives because there's plenty of ways to invalidate "oh, they died after giving mysterious last words" aside from just a cure spell. Second, remember that you are the DM. If they're on the other side of the room, only close enough to hear the last words, and you say the person speaking died then they died. That doesn't mean "oh they're conveniently alive long enough for you to heal them", that means "they're dead, you'd be wasting your spell." The way you describe the situation you were hyping yourself up to use that trick then the moment they tried something you gave up. If they really don't care that's probably the right move, don't fight a losing battle for no reason, but you are the one controlling the NPC side of things and you are their bridge to connect with the game, unless you made a genuine mistake or something really isn't working you have no reason to go from saying something happens to "oh, well I guess it doesn't after all, alright them."

[Segev]

The messenger is actually dying of poison, an illness, a curse, or old age. Mechanically, either he's failed his last save, or his max hp are dwindling. Or he's about to take on a sixth level of Exhaustion.

The messenger collapses, dead, as he bursts into the room. The cleric casts speak with dead and gets a few questions out of him, possibly answered cryptically.

The messenger is a panicked page-boy begging for help for his master (the actual bearer of the information). His maker is already dead by the time the party find him, and the page only remembers scraps and fragments of what his master hastilly tried to tell him while the boy was more concerned with his master's impending demise.

The messenger, himself, only knows so much. "She" is, unbeknownst to him, a shapechanger, so all his specifics are wrong and/or muddled.

The messenger bursts in after the party has retired from a day of exhausting adventuring, and the cleric is out of spell slots. Admittedly, this one takes some orchestration and timing on the DM's part, but you can keep flinging reasons to cast spells at the party until it happens.

The messenger is a haunt, bursting into the room at the same time every night when the full moon is obscured by a thunderstorm to deliver his cryptic warning to a figure not shown in the haunt's replay.

The messenger is murdered by a group of thugs, goblins, or other monsters who were chasing him down, wreak some havock in a short battle, and either are wiped out or flee cackling into the night.

The messenger's red-hot armor bakes him alive in too much pain to get all the info out before it kills him.

The messenger is already dead, his determination keeping his zombie-like corpse moving until he can deliver his message, but he falls apart, jaw shattering on the ground, having managed to get the broken message out once.

The messenger struggles around a stiff jaw to choke out his words, turning to stone halfway through the last word you want him to say.

The party saves the messenger and gets more information about the quest. As long as the messenger wouldn't know the plot twists, this can let them feel accomplished for using their powers and prepare better for the adventure.

[KorvinStarmast]

"The door breaks open and a bloodied man steps in, stumbling. A guard catches him just as he collapses. He gestures at you to come close. 'Don't trust her, that was my mistake, I...' and his eyes roll back as he dies."

Now the party is left wondering what he meant. Who is "her"? What mistake did he make? They'll have to unravel the mystery!

The cleric: "Um, I cast Cure Wounds on him just before he dies so we can get all the information we need from him."

No, they don't. The NPC isn't a PC. If you check into chapter 9, once a creature that is not a PC drops to 0 hit points they are dead unless the DM chooses to apply the death saves/stable dying tool that is used by PCs. In other words, if the NPC dies, they are dead unless the DM chooses to make the exception - so your complaint isn't really a problem.

Going past that: speak with dead at level 5 / spell level 3 gets around this somewhat (I use it a lot with my warlock, as a ritual, and it has its moments of success and failure).

Another way around this is: cleric casts gentle repose (immediately cast, or within a minute, after eyes roll and NPC dies) and then revivify within ten days. Right now, the PCs need to go and find that 100 GP diamond they need for revivify. Once they get that, 10 days ought to be enough time, they can begin to unravel the mystery ... but there may be other time pressure. That's on you DM: what's the time pressure on this adventure that you have in mind?

Both of those points assume (1) GR prepared and (2) level 5 cleric minimum.
If the PCs aren't clever enough to figure this out (or had not prepared those spells) then we are back to the original mystery that you presented.

Also: what Segev said. (Nice options!)

[Catullus64]

I'm somewhat leery of the various suggestions which boil down to "contrive circumstances of death that specifically prevent Cure Wounds." Players can often smell when the DM is trying to specifically counter their abilities, and it often smacks of the kid on the playground who always invented new powers so he never had to lose.

The simplest solution, surely, would be to have this happen wherever the PCs aren't, and having another NPC tell them about it afterwards. With sufficiently dramatic narration from that second NPC, the difference in drama may be negligible.

[KorvinStarmast]

The simplest solution, surely, would be to have this happen wherever the PCs aren't, and having another NPC tell them about it afterwards. With sufficiently dramatic narration from that second NPC, the difference in drama may be negligible.

The guard's sister is the bartender at the tavern, and she tells them what just happened with her brother out there by the well, they go and interview the guard ... something like that?

[clash]

Ooh a personal favorite of mine. Didn't happen exactly like this but the messenger is cursed with a zombie curse where healing him damages him and when they try to cure his wounds it kills him.

[LudicSavant]

"The door breaks open and a bloodied man steps in, stumbling. A guard catches him just as he collapses. He gestures at you to come close. 'Don't trust her, that was my mistake, I...' and his eyes roll back as he dies."

Now the party is left wondering what he meant. Who is "her"? What mistake did he make? They'll have to unravel the mystery!

The cleric: "Um, I cast Cure Wounds on him just before he dies so we can get all the information we need from him."

Ugh.

The "incomplete message from a dying messenger" trope is a classic hook of storytelling. It's a way to create drama and a sense of urgency while leaving in a need to unravel the mystery. It's a way to propel the story towards a destination without revealing plot twists. But I've struggled with using it in this game, because of the existence of magic that easily prevents people from dying. Any advice here? Has anyone found a reliable way to make this trope work? Or just don't use it at all?

Not only can magic prevent people from dying, it can speak to them after they're dead. This doesn't actually stop you from using any of these tropes, you just have to take such capabilities into consideration.

For example, the messenger doesn't even need to be physically present; there are spells to communicate over long distances, for instance.

[Segev]

The word-limit on sending can be a great reason for cryptic abbreviation, or for an absent-minded spellcaster to discount and leave crucial details off the end of what is transmitted.

[earthseawizard]

Others have done a good job at giving nuanced response to this. But my initial thought is much simpler. Dungeons & Dragons is a game that is traditionally gamey. It is not a full-bread storytelling game. I think the original booklets in the 1970's presented it in a way that still rings true today (though the game has certainly evolved in every way since then, mostly for the better):

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures."

In recent decades games have come out that focus much less on crunch, tactics and general gamey-ness to put an emphasis on storytelling mechanics. D&D, by nature, can't be a catch-all for one type of table top role playing and it can't be particularly strong at any one thing, and so examples like yours will always pop up as long as D&D is D&D. It has to cater to hack and slash, miniatures tactics, theatre of the mind, mapping, high fantasy, low fantasy, crunch, ease of play and everything in between. And to me its not a flaw of the system.

I feel like the advent of commercial-ized and monetized podcasts and streams in the hobby in the last 5-10 years have created a pretty big identity crisis for our trusty old D&D.

OP, seems like you've been playing a handful of years and you likely know all this, but perhaps its time to really consider what you want out of your RPG system. If its D&D, you might consider older editions in which not as much can be solved so easily with magic.

[Mastikator]

The players interact with scenarios, they might think it's their job to save the guy. If you want them to not be able to save the guy then make sure he's dead before they enter. He could've written the "don't trust her etc" on a note or scribbled it on the ground.

And if they have means of getting information from a dead person then he shouldn't know anything that they aren't supposed to know at this stage. However their job at this stage is to gather clues, and casting speak with dead is a means of gathering information. They ask for her name then he gives them her criminal pseudonym, if they ask what she looks like he gives them a generic answer "brown hair, brown eyes, pointy ears", if they ask who killed him then maybe he doesn't know (besides from knowing she didn't do it personally). If they find him with a dagger in the back then he might not have seen the assailant. They can get some answers with speak with dead or pay for raise dead (he can't reimburse them for it, but he can give them his life savings of 93 gold and 17 silver).

My point is that the situation is still salvageable even if they save the messenger, just make sure he doesn't have all the answers.

I absolutely sympathize with you OP, writing a story hook is more difficult and more time consuming than writing a book. So I guess my other point is to roll with the punches and remember that you're not writing a book, no pre-planned story line survives the initial impact with the players and that's ok because there will still be a story.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I suppose Speak With Dead and Cure Wounds are both resource expenditures, and if mysterious dying guy's message creates a ticking clock, that's one less resource they have when the action starts to kick off.
So, making one part of the adventure slightly easier makes another part slightly harder.

[TurboGhast]

You should be able to get a similar feel to this using other ways for a message to reach the PCs by such a slim margin that the entire message doesn’t make it.

[Brookshw]

"The door breaks open and a bloodied man steps in, stumbling. A guard catches him just as he collapses. He gestures at you to come close. 'Don't trust her, that was my mistake, I...' and his eyes roll back as he dies."

Now the party is left wondering what he meant. Who is "her"? What mistake did he make? They'll have to unravel the mystery!

The cleric: "Um, I cast Cure Wounds on him just before he dies so we can get all the information we need from him."

Ugh.

The "incomplete message from a dying messenger" trope is a classic hook of storytelling. It's a way to create drama and a sense of urgency while leaving in a need to unravel the mystery. It's a way to propel the story towards a destination without revealing plot twists. But I've struggled with using it in this game, because of the existence of magic that easily prevents people from dying. Any advice here? Has anyone found a reliable way to make this trope work? Or just don't use it at all?

The party opens the door to head out, only to find a corpse sprawled across the ground a few feet from the door, in the dirt near it, in what must have been it's last moments, it staryed to scrawl message but it's strength must have given out before it completed it....

[Rukelnikov]

Haven't read the answers, but the simplest thing would be to change the dying man to a note.

[rel]

D&D characters (well the magical ones at least) have a great deal of personal power. Enough to flat out bypass a lot of classic stories, from divining the secret identity of the traitor, to rezzing the dead king, to teleporting the ring of power directly into mount doom.

Nature of the game. Short of running said stories before the PC's get access to such world shaking power or convincing everyone to play muggles, the best approach is to accept that the PC's (at least those with sufficiently pointed hats and shoes) will have access to unusual powers and factor that into the adventure.

Make the challenges harder. So hard that the only way the PC's can even hope to solve them is by using all those cool tricks they have. Don't present the PC's with a dying messenger, give them a dead guard and no witnesses.
Speak with dead / raise dead isn't a way to bypass the adventure, it's part of the cost of entry.

[Rynjin]

This is, indeed, a classic plot hook.

For stories that don't take place in worlds where magic is a thing. You're basically complaining that you can't do the classic "my warp engine is malfunctioning" trope in your fantasy game. Not every plot, or plot hook, is suitable for every genre.

[XmonkTad]

I'm somewhat leery of the various suggestions which boil down to "contrive circumstances of death that specifically prevent Cure Wounds." Players can often smell when the DM is trying to specifically counter their abilities, and it often smacks of the kid on the playground who always invented new powers so he never had to lose.

1000x this. You can have the player roll I imitative to see if they can react fast enough in a startling situation to save him, but if they use an ability with a mechanical effect, and expend resources, it can feel really bad and unfair if it "just doesn't work". If you have a plot reason for why it didn't work then a medicine check should help reveal why like "there's a knife wound in the back with an oily residue around it that smells like nightshade" or something like that so they understand why the magic didn't work.

[Hurrashane]

The word-limit on sending can be a great reason for cryptic abbreviation, or for an absent-minded spellcaster to discount and leave crucial details off the end of what is transmitted.

I like this a lot, it works well if a caster's sending gets cut short because of the peril they're currently in, just like in the middle of it "Oh no, they're coming through the door!" or some such.

[Sorinth]

So as others have mentioned the NPC reduced to 0 HP is dead so it's too late to use healing magic, they'll need Revivify or Speak with Dead type magic. Now this trope is usually a low level one so they probably won't have access to those spells anyways but even if they do it doesn't actually solve anything. The person might not know the real truth nor are they automatically the innocent victim, suppose this dying NPC had a romantic interest in "her" but got rejected, when a magic plague starts spreading and because are NPC is jilted ex he spreads a rumor that she is a witch who brought the plague and eventually attacks "her". She defends herself with magic "proving" she's an evil witch. So even if the PCs have gotten more info the dead guy they still haven't solved the mystery since whoever actually started the plague is still at large.

Also slightly off topic, but there's no way I'd spend 300gp of diamonds to revivify some random NPC. So it's really Speak with Dead which means 5 questions several of which will probably not provide very useful information or will provide info that they could easily get shortly after starting to investigate the murder. For example if they ask where he was attacked yeah it's info, but they could have also done a tracking check to follow the blood trail and found it anyways.

[Segev]

I like this a lot, it works well if a caster's sending gets cut short because of the peril they're currently in, just like in the middle of it "Oh no, they're coming through the door!" or some such.

I saw a Dork Tower comic once where the DM handed tha players a printout of a letter they received from an old NPC friend. As they read it aloud, the text abruptly goes from a slightly worried request for help with a problem to, prior to the problem being specified, a seeming gibberish language of unpronounceable syllables.

As the players start panicking over the Cthulian plot they perceive developing,

Spoiler

Show

the DM winces as he realized he printed out the version that his cat walked once keyboard in the middle of him writing.

[Easy e]

How about at Session 0, you talk to them about what it means to "engage with the hooks" in your game.

I find that many folks who are newer to RPGs sometimes do not engage with hooks because they don't know it is a hook. More advanced players do not engage because they have learned to rail against hooks from previous game experiences and other GMs. Therefore, level setting at session 0 can help make such an opening scene work better, and they will know not to try to heal the guy.

You could also "sign-post" that the scene is a "cut-scene". I.e. it will play out and resolve and there is not much you can do about it. Once the cut scene is done, you are free to take actions.

Finally, one of the best ways to set-up the scene is take the players as partners in the scene, and ask them to play it out. Why they know this person? Why do you know your spell won't work in this case? Who does this guy work for, and why do you care about them? GMs don't always have to do the heavy-lifting, they can off-load some of the work to the players instead. If they are a partner in the action, they are less likely to throw bombs to try and blow-up the game you are laying out.

[DarknessEternal]

This is, indeed, a classic plot hook.

For stories that don't take place in worlds where magic is a thing. You're basically complaining that you can't do the classic "my warp engine is malfunctioning" trope in your fantasy game. Not every plot, or plot hook, is suitable for every genre.

Listen to this.

[Cheesegear]

A lot of D&D's world building completely shatters when you take magic into account. How are diseases and poisons even a thing when a friendly local Paladin can Lay on Hands and cure you right up? A handful of Druids can get together and cast Goodberry and feed a small village forever; "Goblins stole our livestock!?" Who cares? Get a Druid.
A decent Cleric can cast Speak with Dead and ask "Who murdered you?" and suddenly the judiciary system is a whole lot easier.

"The people are represented by two seperate, yet equally important groups: The Cleric, who casts Speak with Dead, and the Wizard, who casts Zone of Truth. These are their stories. ((DUN DUN))"

Ultimately tropes are made to be broken. D&D, at it's foundation, is a game, not a story. Pop-D&D has lied to you.

"You see a dying NPC."
Most players in a game, will be under the impression that the solution to the scenario is to prevent the NPC from dying. Players have agency and they're going to use it. Players usually want to intervene. They've been trained to.

Ever had an NPC start dumping exposition and then your players say "On second thought, we don't care about the backstory. Let's just kill him."

You enter a bedroom-study and on the desk is a book. On the cover is "Why I'm a bad guy." written by the bad guy.
We burn the book.
But I- ((...Looks down at two pages of notes, crumples them up and throws them in the bin)) I guess... Okay you set the exposition on fire. I guess there's a Mimic in the room as well.
Dope. Sooo...Roll Initiative?
...Yes.

[KorvinStarmast]

A lot of D&D's world building completely shatters when you take magic into account. How are diseases and poisons even a thing when a friendly local Paladin can Lay on Hands and cure you right up?

Your assumption that there is always a local paladin is invalid. (How many NPC paladins are there in the MM? In Volo's?)
Note that there are 12 playable classes but not usually 12 players in a group. A paladin is not necessarily a choice one of the players makes.

A handful of Druids can get together and cast Goodberry and feed a small village forever; "Goblins stole our livestock!?" Who cares? Get a Druid.

Assumption of a local druid grove having that many druids is invalid. A DM may do so, world building wise, but it's not a valid general assumption.

A decent Cleric can cast Speak with Dead and ask "Who murdered you?" and suddenly the judiciary system is a whole lot easier.

Unless the corpse doesn't know who killed them. (But I'll give you half credit on this one).

D&D, at it's foundation, is a game, not a story. Pop-D&D has lied to you.

+1

"You see a dying NPC."
Most players in a game, will be under the impression that the solution to the scenario is to prevent the NPC from dying.
Players have agency and they're going to use it. Players usually want to intervene. They've been trained to.

Good point.

Ever had an NPC start dumping exposition and then your players say "On second thought, we don't care about the backstory. Let's just kill him."

Not recently. Who do you play with?

You enter a bedroom-study and on the desk is a book. On the cover is "Why I'm a bad guy." written by the bad guy.
We burn the book.

I've run into stuff like this in the past 6 or so years. They just destroyed their own plot hook, and made life harder on themselves. So it goes. (But most of my players would not have done that)

[Slipjig]

Have the NPC die off-screen, and then have someone who witnessed his last words tell the PCs about it. Problem solved.

[elyktsorb]

I feel like the obvious solution to this would just be that the guy is dying, and he does get healed. But either he doesn't have the whole message memorized/never knew it in the first place, so he takes out the message, and maybe his blood smeared it so part of it is unreadable, or the message was physically torn because the arrow that hit the guy went through it.

Or maybe whomever attacked him stole the message and he tells the party who stole it from him.

I mean, the real contrivance is that, in these settings, if a message is really that important, are you actually sending it via person? Even if we assume most mail is handled like, with birds or something, if it's so important that it gets sent via a person instead, then wouldn't that importance mean it should be sent via magic? If it's low/no magic, then wouldn't they just ask for the party to visit them instead for the message?

I dunno, feels like there's tons of ways of doing things.

[Rukelnikov]

I think many of the answers being given here are assuming a given style of DMing that is not universal.

If I want the PCs to exclusively only get part of a message I'll leave a note(and if the PC's somehow manage to get the missing part, more power to them)

If I decide to put a dying person, and somehow, doing something I haven't considered when designing the scene, the PC's manage to keep him alive, I will not* rearrange reality so that he only can tell the part the PCs "were supposed" to learn.

I'm not saying that's bad, but I do consider that to be an answer to a different question altogether.

*EDITED: I had wrongfully put two "not"s here, which completely changed the meaning of the sentence (also some other grammar mistakes :P).

[Cheesegear]

I think many of the answers being given here are assuming a given style of DMing that is not universal.

DM: I want to tell a story.
Players: ...That's cool. We have agency.

DM: I want to create a scenario.
Players: ...Did you forget that my class has an ability that specifically counters that kind of scenario?

DMs that don't take players of a game into account when making their "story", often get a few shocks. It's part of the process of learning what D&D is, and - more importantly - what it isn't.

I will not not rearrange reality...

This. If the players have an ability that you didn't remember or didn't consider; That's rough buddy.

The only real solution to the issue is to well...Consider your players' abilities before you create a scenario, and maybe provide counters (i.e; Justification) for why the one or two most obvious solutions wont work.
But it kinda sucks after the fact when the DM thinks they're being clever and the players find the solution right away.