Questions tagged [clues]
For questions about using clues and foreshadowing in games. See also the [gm-techniques] tag.
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How to properly foreshadow NPCs
I am new to DMing. I have done two sessions as of now (two one-shots).
The world is a homebrew of mine.
The idea is to make a one-shot and see if the players (3 friends) are interested in it, and ...
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In the final act, how to drop clues without causing players to feel "cheated" they didn't find them sooner?
I'm a bit of an "on the fly" GM: in terms of writing a story, I prefer to sketch out the skeleton, and add flesh as the players move along the limbs. The quest to find the Plot Device, at ...
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Trying not to make a twist too obvious [closed]
Me and my friend are making a campaign for the friend group and a twist which we are planning is that an important lore NPC will turn out to have been killed early in the story and impersonated by the ...
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How can I drop hints that a seemingly innocuous gnome village is secretly evil?
In the D&D 4e game I run, I am planning on soon having my players go to the Feywild on an adventure. Something I'd like to try to pull off during this is to have a subversion of expectations. ...
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How do I clearly foreshadow a potential out-of-combat death?
Let me first set the scene
The group I DM for is in a position where they are at the mercy of a group of people who are contemplating what to do with the party.
I have decided on a game of chance to ...
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How do I reveal the Big Bad only by foreshadowing, without the reveal being too early or late?
What I plan for my campaign is to drop hints about some greater evil, and whenever my players reach the natural point of realization, have them go off on a search to stop it. I wanna do it naturally, ...
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How can I foreshadow the identity of a villain without making it too obvious?
I am currently running a campaign where, in one of the main story arcs, the villain is a rogue(assassin) with the charlatan background. He a very charismatic man who already commands a fair amount of ...
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How effective are foreshadowing cutscenes that PCs would be unaware of?
In most story mediums, you will get "cutscenes" that the characters are unaware of - a figure in shadow gives an order to do something, you see the swat team enter the building but the characters don'...
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How can I effectively drop clues of corruption in my campaigns?
In many games I GM, corruption plays a big role. Either in my fantasy games with a church with a firm hand on the king or dystopian future like Shadowrun. Almost every time in my games, corruption is ...
user4000
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How can I model cutaway prep scenes?
Many crime stories feature a particular kind of foreshadowing and plot twist: Early in the story, you see a character doing something significant, but the scene cuts away before you find out what it ...
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How can I help my PCs remember clues that they found?
I'm a new DM running my first adventure in D&D 4e. I've heard of the "three clue rule", that there should be at least three independent pointers to any plot element you want the PCs to take note ...
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How can DMs effectively telegraph specific dangers in D&D?
There are some play-styles of D&D in which the spectre of player-character death is considered a feature of the game rather than a bug. For my own reasons (which aren't the point of the question), ...
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