Scenario: An adjacent kingdom to our players' homeland is preparing for war, and to avoid sending humanoid spies who can be caught, they're sending humanoid creatures on the supposition they'll be dismissed as thuggish raiders and not the spies they actually are. So, goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs are turning up in places they normally wouldn't. Of course, the party doesn't know this, yet, and are being sent on the typical 1st-level clear-the-goblins-out type adventures, accompanied by a NPC fighter-type (who is actually a disgraced paladin on the run after being condemned as a heretic... more on that later.)
Part of my plan here is that the party, perhaps with the paladin's help, realize that the baddies are using more advanced military tactics than they should, and discover they're actually trained soldiers and not highway robbers. Thus, the mystery.
In the first encounter, the party continued down a forest road through a passage obscured in darkness from overhanging foliage, because of course they did. A single hobgoblin with a scroll of Magic Missile fired off a single salvo from the right side of the road. When the party turned to face the threat, they were swarmed by goblins from the opposite side of the road while the lone gunman vanished into the brush.
Some party members complained that this is unfair, because "goblins don't do that." They weren't very receptive when I offered, "That's right, they don't. Wonder how and why this bunch thought it up?" The NPC paladin is putting A-plus effort into explaining that the party needs to investigate this out-of-place use of military tactics, with dubious success.
I thought this might be a subtle adventure hook, yet it seems the players aren't seeing it the same way. Am I expecting too much?
Sounds like your party is doing exactly what the realm using these goblins as proxies expect: not expecting "sophistication" in goblin ambush tactics.
Whether goblins need to be coerced or incentivized to engage in a sophisticated low intensity proxy war with the target realm, or could simply conceive of guerrilla warfare/ambush tactics on their own aside, a DM needs to remember subtle clues are problematic. Since this is a thread I believe you want your characters to pull, you need to lay it on thick. Rather than "Wonder how and why this bunch thought it up" make the Palladin actually explicitly state "In my years of military experience I've never seen goblins employ these tactics." From there, maybe have the characters receive more reports of goblinoid unclear aggression (actually probing attacks) and have the characters explicitly assigned as a task force to get at the nature or reasons of this goblinoid incursion. Are you thinking the next major beat on the trail after tracking some of these goblinoid war bands is to find an "advisor" or "A Team" of "advisors" who may have been sure to erase any trace to their home realm, but are clearly not from around here?
Adventurers aren't going to want to pull a loose thread. However, while contrary to normal logic, adventurers when they hear a rattle snake will grab and tug on that. And really when proxy wars start, it becomes readily apparent real quick who the conflict's orchestrators really are. "Secret Wars" are really only plausible deniability and political shields. So yeah, keep stepping up the goblins' game until the PCs are compelled to get to the bottom of it.
All that said, it's your game so I'm just thinking out loud, but I wouldn't focus so much on the "advanced tactics" since what you're describing seems basic ambush type stuff (distract, and hit them from the back) and more on the "why are they raiding?" thing. Basically have the intensity of goblin harassment make no sense to the targeted land. And during the investigation, maybe you'll find factions or chiefs among the goblins who don't really like being the other realms pawns and have designs to end this involvement in "what's not our war" ... if they had a patron's resources to contest those beholden to the real enemy. That way the goblins become something of a wild card when the "real war" starts.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I thought this might be a subtle adventure hook, yet it seems the players aren't seeing it the same way. Am I expecting too much?
Depends on your players? If I were a player in a game where something like that happened I probably wouldn't think "advanced military tactics", I'd think "DM built a monster with class levels", but I certainly wouldn't complain about "goblins don't do that".
Some party members complained that this is unfair, because "goblins don't do that." They weren't very receptive when I offered, "That's right, they don't. Wonder how and why this bunch thought it up?" The NPC paladin is putting A-plus effort into explaining that the party needs to investigate this out-of-place use of military tactics, with dubious success.
To be honest I wouldn't view this behavior as "advanced military tactics" but at a more basic level, I wouldn't complain that "Goblins don't do that". Goblins are intelligent humanoids, wolves and other predatory animals can coordinate enough to hunt in packs, so why should creatures who have opposable thumbs and the ability to use tools be unable able to? If you wanted to sell the subtle advanced theme I might focus more on the scroll, maybe include some equipment you wouldn't normally find on such creatures, foreign currency something like that to suggest maybe they've been provisioned by another force.
Personally it sounds like your players are whining a little bit that they got roughed up by some goblins, but as the DM its part of your job to make challenging and fun combat encounters. The question this raises for me is - do you normally just have whatever monster they're facing rush in and fight to the death? If the answer is yes, then you probably need to switch up your combat encounters in the future so your players don't expect you to just Leeroy Jenkins in with x monster for them to gang up on.
I think the OP is asking why the party is following up on the plot hook. The answer is because it is a bit subtle as presented, and on a meta level the players are looking at their reduced hit points instead of clues. After Action Reports are hard if you're licking wounds, So what I would do is translate their upset into a description of outrage and then from there get them more "yeah, this doesn't make sense" thinking to follow.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think it's kind of sad that your players complained that "goblins don't do that". Personally I think it would be great to be challenged by a group of goblins rather than have the same easy fight that most groups have at low levels. However, that may be indicative of what sort of game your players want to play. They may just want easy wins, and that's a good thing to find out early on. At the very least it's worth discussing with the group. You don't have to give away the plot you've built up but you could tell them that you are hoping to run a challenging campaign, and make sure they are on board with that.
As far as the plot hook. Clearly it was too subtle for this particular group of players. What I would do in this case, is come up with some other reason for them to go to the place you wanted them to go next. Something that seems like another unrelated quest, but drop another clue, maybe some sort of emblem from the other country, or something like that. At some point your characters will catch on, and if it takes lots of dropped clues when they finally get it, they will both think they are really smart for putting all the threads together, and they will also be really impressed that you were clearly planning this from the beginning
The party don't seem to be role-playing their characters.
If this is a group of level 1 characters, then they only have "rumour" as to how goblins normally fight; and the PCs should go home and start telling people that the "rumours" are wrong, and goblins are dangerous!
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Scenario: An adjacent kingdom to our players' homeland is preparing for war, and to avoid sending humanoid spies who can be caught, they're sending humanoid creatures on the supposition they'll be dismissed as thuggish raiders and not the spies they actually are. So, goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs are turning up in places they normally wouldn't. Of course, the party doesn't know this, yet, and are being sent on the typical 1st-level clear-the-goblins-out type adventures, accompanied by a NPC fighter-type (who is actually a disgraced paladin on the run after being condemned as a heretic... more on that later.)
Part of my plan here is that the party, perhaps with the paladin's help, realize that the baddies are using more advanced military tactics than they should, and discover they're actually trained soldiers and not highway robbers. Thus, the mystery.
In the first encounter, the party continued down a forest road through a passage obscured in darkness from overhanging foliage, because of course they did. A single hobgoblin with a scroll of Magic Missile fired off a single salvo from the right side of the road. When the party turned to face the threat, they were swarmed by goblins from the opposite side of the road while the lone gunman vanished into the brush.
Some party members complained that this is unfair, because "goblins don't do that." They weren't very receptive when I offered, "That's right, they don't. Wonder how and why this bunch thought it up?" The NPC paladin is putting A-plus effort into explaining that the party needs to investigate this out-of-place use of military tactics, with dubious success.
I thought this might be a subtle adventure hook, yet it seems the players aren't seeing it the same way. Am I expecting too much?
Sounds like your party is doing exactly what the realm using these goblins as proxies expect: not expecting "sophistication" in goblin ambush tactics.
Whether goblins need to be coerced or incentivized to engage in a sophisticated low intensity proxy war with the target realm, or could simply conceive of guerrilla warfare/ambush tactics on their own aside, a DM needs to remember subtle clues are problematic. Since this is a thread I believe you want your characters to pull, you need to lay it on thick. Rather than "Wonder how and why this bunch thought it up" make the Palladin actually explicitly state "In my years of military experience I've never seen goblins employ these tactics." From there, maybe have the characters receive more reports of goblinoid unclear aggression (actually probing attacks) and have the characters explicitly assigned as a task force to get at the nature or reasons of this goblinoid incursion. Are you thinking the next major beat on the trail after tracking some of these goblinoid war bands is to find an "advisor" or "A Team" of "advisors" who may have been sure to erase any trace to their home realm, but are clearly not from around here?
Adventurers aren't going to want to pull a loose thread. However, while contrary to normal logic, adventurers when they hear a rattle snake will grab and tug on that. And really when proxy wars start, it becomes readily apparent real quick who the conflict's orchestrators really are. "Secret Wars" are really only plausible deniability and political shields. So yeah, keep stepping up the goblins' game until the PCs are compelled to get to the bottom of it.
All that said, it's your game so I'm just thinking out loud, but I wouldn't focus so much on the "advanced tactics" since what you're describing seems basic ambush type stuff (distract, and hit them from the back) and more on the "why are they raiding?" thing. Basically have the intensity of goblin harassment make no sense to the targeted land. And during the investigation, maybe you'll find factions or chiefs among the goblins who don't really like being the other realms pawns and have designs to end this involvement in "what's not our war" ... if they had a patron's resources to contest those beholden to the real enemy. That way the goblins become something of a wild card when the "real war" starts.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Depends on your players? If I were a player in a game where something like that happened I probably wouldn't think "advanced military tactics", I'd think "DM built a monster with class levels", but I certainly wouldn't complain about "goblins don't do that".
To be honest I wouldn't view this behavior as "advanced military tactics" but at a more basic level, I wouldn't complain that "Goblins don't do that". Goblins are intelligent humanoids, wolves and other predatory animals can coordinate enough to hunt in packs, so why should creatures who have opposable thumbs and the ability to use tools be unable able to? If you wanted to sell the subtle advanced theme I might focus more on the scroll, maybe include some equipment you wouldn't normally find on such creatures, foreign currency something like that to suggest maybe they've been provisioned by another force.
Personally it sounds like your players are whining a little bit that they got roughed up by some goblins, but as the DM its part of your job to make challenging and fun combat encounters. The question this raises for me is - do you normally just have whatever monster they're facing rush in and fight to the death? If the answer is yes, then you probably need to switch up your combat encounters in the future so your players don't expect you to just Leeroy Jenkins in with x monster for them to gang up on.
I think the OP is asking why the party is following up on the plot hook. The answer is because it is a bit subtle as presented, and on a meta level the players are looking at their reduced hit points instead of clues. After Action Reports are hard if you're licking wounds, So what I would do is translate their upset into a description of outrage and then from there get them more "yeah, this doesn't make sense" thinking to follow.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think it's kind of sad that your players complained that "goblins don't do that". Personally I think it would be great to be challenged by a group of goblins rather than have the same easy fight that most groups have at low levels. However, that may be indicative of what sort of game your players want to play. They may just want easy wins, and that's a good thing to find out early on. At the very least it's worth discussing with the group. You don't have to give away the plot you've built up but you could tell them that you are hoping to run a challenging campaign, and make sure they are on board with that.
As far as the plot hook. Clearly it was too subtle for this particular group of players. What I would do in this case, is come up with some other reason for them to go to the place you wanted them to go next. Something that seems like another unrelated quest, but drop another clue, maybe some sort of emblem from the other country, or something like that. At some point your characters will catch on, and if it takes lots of dropped clues when they finally get it, they will both think they are really smart for putting all the threads together, and they will also be really impressed that you were clearly planning this from the beginning
The party don't seem to be role-playing their characters.
If this is a group of level 1 characters, then they only have "rumour" as to how goblins normally fight; and the PCs should go home and start telling people that the "rumours" are wrong, and goblins are dangerous!