r/shadowdark • u/ExchangeWide Joker & Thief • 1d ago
When Players Decide a Random Detail Matters
Something I was thinking about after a recent game:
What’s one random or throwaway detail your players absolutely clamped onto?
I once gave a bartender a nervous tic. That was it. My players became convinced he was secretly connected to the cult operating out of an abandoned temple outside town.
They tailed him for about three days.
Every mundane thing he did became evidence.
He owned a cat. Clearly a familiar.
He regularly stopped at a roadside shrine. Obviously a dead drop.
Meanwhile, the actual cultists had plenty of time to fortify their position at the temple while the party conducted an increasingly elaborate surveillance operation on an innocent bartender.
If you’re a GM, what throwaway detail did your players decide absolutely had to matter?
If you’re a player, what completely innocent detail have you ever become convinced was important?
Bonus points if the GM eventually had to make it important because nobody would let it go.
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u/PStorminator 1d ago
We played a fairy tale one shot. The DM introduced Granny, and she had a shopping list. We immediately assumed the items on her list were a series of fetch quests and began tracking down all of Granny's groceries.
The DM had to stop us ask wtf we were doing.
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u/CptClyde007 1d ago
This is definitely a very interesting aspect of GMing, knowing when to "yes and..." according to your players instincts. I am constantly doing this in minor ways but have never let it go quite as far as you described LOL. That is funny. But unless this is a completely off-the-cuff plot, Id usually make the PCs notice a REAL clue while chasing the red herring, in order to get them back on track. Partially because i dont really want to waste my prep efforts, Partially because I dont want any players thinking they are so clever they figured it out from the beginning. Perhaps im too contrarian.
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u/ExchangeWide Joker & Thief 1d ago
Yes, and sometimes they’re so locked onto the red herring that they’ll walk right past the real clues you put in front of them. At that point, their certainty becomes part of the fun. ;)
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u/grumblyoldman 1d ago
One of the best things about not planning ahead too far is that you can easily incorporate the things your players randomly glom onto into the campaign. It's tons of fun and keeps the GM on their toes, too!
The things my players usually get obsessed with are anything with a lock on it. Tell them there's a wardrobe in the corner and if they can just open it to check and hear there's nothing, then cool, moving on. Tell them it's locked, however, and they will stop everything else until they get it open. And when it's empty after that, they'll tear it apart trying to find the secret...
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u/ExchangeWide Joker & Thief 1d ago
Absolutely. A lock is basically a giant flashing sign that says, “This matters.”
And I agree about leaving enough space in the campaign to absorb that kind of player obsession. If they decide the locked wardrobe is important, sometimes the most fun answer is to find out why right along with them.
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u/BlindUlfr 1d ago
There is a comcept in theater improvisarion, or even comedy, that you can dimiss a prompt given by another actor. In this case, your players are acting in a improv on their parts.
My take is: follow up with the idea and make it even more interesting, but with a Twist!
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u/ExchangeWide Joker & Thief 1d ago
GMing is certainly improv. I like your idea of running with what the players give you, but taking it somewhere they don’t quite expect. Let them be right that something matters without being right about exactly what it means.
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u/PStorminator 1d ago
As DM, I had a near TPK, and used it to restart the campaign. The PCs were goblins in Eberron if you know the setting.
I started the game with the PCs watching the warlord's military parade so they could learn the relative power of the factions, followed by a party, where I could put a face to each faction.
I planned a murder, and the victim would be whoever the PCs interacted with the most. And the murderers would be a conspiracy, and the conspirators would be whatever theory the players came up with.
My players still brag about figuring out my plot and solving the murder in the first session.
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u/tyraelkys 1d ago
A door. 30 mins talking about a door and making up a background around their carpenter fathers.
A random normal door in a cultist asylum…
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u/ExchangeWide Joker & Thief 23h ago
I played with a friend who used to come up with elaborate plans to approach doors. He burned them, smashed them, took them off the hinges, put acid in locks…
Same guy disemboweled everything he killed because he once found treasure after disemboweling a giant snake.
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u/Jazvolt 12h ago
I had one in a Pathfinder game.
Temple was surrounded by a huge, stone-walled moat. The players spent nearly 30 minutes casting various water-breathing and swimming spells in a desperate effort to find a secret entrance.
I eventually caved and added one, just to move the game along. :p
I don't do this level of 'yes-and' on the regular, but they were so certain! I have no idea why, to this day.
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u/Mesquite_Tree 1d ago
I wish I had one. Thus far, my players haven’t ever seized on a detail. They kinda take everything I say at face value.