This is why I make my party roll int/wis checks to “get a feeling” when they are missing very obvious hints. E.g. roll to beat 10, and on success “you have a strong feeling that this dragon will easily kill your entire party and you should probably find a diplomatic solution”
My own approach in the almost year long campaign I ran was just to let my players do whatever the fuck they want.
I’m good at improvising and my sessions were never really meticulously planned so I’d just let things unfold as I thought they should.
But I kept notes. Always. And every single stupid decision they made had disastrous consequences, either directly or weeks or months down the road.
I once tempted my players with god-like evil power and only one of them took the bait. The rest of the party couldn’t abide so they just murdered that player in cold blood. Which I REALLY didn’t expect but was kind of awesome.
This is why I make my party roll int/wis checks to “get a feeling” when they are missing very obvious hints. E.g. roll to beat 10, and on success “you have a strong feeling that this dragon will easily kill your entire party and you should probably find a diplomatic solution”
My own approach in the almost year long campaign I ran was just to let my players do whatever the fuck they want.
I’m good at improvising and my sessions were never really meticulously planned so I’d just let things unfold as I thought they should.
But I kept notes. Always. And every single stupid decision they made had disastrous consequences, either directly or weeks or months down the road.
I once tempted my players with god-like evil power and only one of them took the bait. The rest of the party couldn’t abide so they just murdered that player in cold blood. Which I REALLY didn’t expect but was kind of awesome.