Do you ever have the party just miss what is going on?
My party was investigating some mines that were supposedly haunted. They're all level three, so I'm not about to throw anything hard at them. When they first entered the place, there was a casting of Magic Mouth that warned people off. Further in, there were other signs of illusion spells. When they get to the main chamber, there is an ancient silver dragon waiting for them. It does only two things: 1. Roar at them, and 2. Tell them to leave. So clearly, an illusion. Instead, they spend half an hour trying to talk to it, and give it tribute and such. It just keeps repeating that they should leave, with the same exact wording every time. They approach it, and it doesn't react. They cast a spell on it, and it seems completely unfazed, like it didn't even notice it. Each member of the party at one point or another makes some kind of reference to it being an illusion, and that it keeps parroting lines. And then they just leave, and decide to look somewhere else. GODDAMMIT PEOPLE, THE DRAGON IS NOT REAL!
Have you guys also had the party just kind of miss the boat? How did you resolve it?
>>46622288
Should've asked for will saves to disbelieve once they started interacting with it
>>46622452
This. This is where you failed as a DM.
Hell you could have even just rolled a die behind the screen and regardless of the outcome picked a player and told him his character saved against the illusion and is now aware of what it was.
A good DM knows when to bullshit.
>>46622452
I did forget to mention that. I did, and they all did terribly. No one rolled higher than a 10. And they then proceeded to forget that I made them make a wisdom save.
>>46622585
I wanted to, but they were having a lot of fun trying to figure it out And it was more of a side quest thing, so I was willing to let them fail.
>>46622590
You realize, as the DM, you could have just arbitrarily decided one of them passed, right? And just bullshitted it with "oh he got a circumstance bonus because of bluhblahblah" if someone asked, right?
You're the goddamn DM, act like it.
>>46622585
>>46622637
All these people telling you to fudge rolls and shit. Don't fudge rolls for the sake of narrative, if the players fail they fail. A good DM knows how to pick them back up again from a failure and carry on the story from there.
>>46622288
It happened all the time years ago with one of my two groups... Then I just stopped including such "challenges" for them.
>>46622585
Then where is the fucking point of having an illusion?
I say op did nothing wrong. He gave enough clues and the players had enough time to figuring out.
It's not like the illusion tried to attack them so they were forced immediately.
>>46622590
Then you have them make more disbelief saves with increasingly positive modifiers as time goes on while it becomes obvious that, holy shit, this is an illusion.
You are a garbage DM.
Your players are great, though. They don't use out of character knowledge.
>>46622590
Illusions in 5e go against Intelligence (Investigation), not Wisdom.
>>46625744
>They don't use out of character knowledge.
Because they had no ooc knowledge.
>DM lets the party do his thing and lets the dice decide
>BAD DM YOU SHOULD HAVE USED FIAT
>DM applies feat to move the game along
>WAAH WAAH RAILROAD
Never change /tg/, never change.
OP you did nothing wrong - some times players just don't get it. I'm running an investigative horror game (Hunter the vigil) and we had a six-session streak of accomplishing nothing, as the party didn't think to check for clues about what's going on in the places where there were obvious signs. I had to send them a list of the things they knew (that had come up in game but nobody bothered to take note) and nudge them through NPCs. But you have to be subtle, spoonfeeding them too much kinda ruins the point of such games.
Sorry, I went to sleep.
>>46624677
I wasn't worried about story, because this was just a side quest to gather loot, and wasn't directly related to the story in any way. Which is why I also did not force their success like so many others have suggested.
But also, the most frustrating part is, each member of the party said something during the long encounter OOC along the lines of "Oh, I bet it's just an illusion", so I didn't want to bullshit it because they were so close to solving it themselves. I even said to one of them after they said that "Do you want to make an investigation check", and then someone else interrupted them with a different plan.
>>46625767
You're right. But by RAW, they have to actively spend an action to make that check. And they never tried, despite knowing they were in a place with numerous illusions and having found their way around several before, including by just making that check.
