How should I handle players who make secret plans?
I am a first-time DM running Curse of Strahd for 6 new players. All of us are good friends. This week during our session, my players made a secret plan together they wanted to do that involved forging a copy of a journal and handing it to a major NPC. They made a deal to give this journal to the NPC but it contained magical information and they didn't trust her with it.
There were a few problems with this.
- They are new players so they don't have a good grasp on the rules or how hard something is to pull off. I don't think they did much research into how forging a document works in 5e and they didn't ask me about it ahead of time. None of them had a forgery kit or were proficient with using one.
I'm still a little sketchy on tool proficiencies myself but, I said that because they didn't have skill with this tool that the DC would be 25, it would take them a large chunk of the day to complete, and probably still wouldn't look that good if the NPC was familiar with the handwriting.
One player got frustrated with this and thought it should be easy to pull off. I disagreed and it made for an awkward moment.
- The session was all about a big event that we had been building up to. In-game, this event was about half a day away. I wanted to skip ahead and start right off the bat at this event for a strong opening and to save time (we only play for about two hours a week).
I think I made a mistake not checking in with them to see if there were any last-minute things they wanted to do, so when they brought up their forgery plan, it derailed me. I totally understand that adapting to them and changing my own plans is the whole game, but I still think it was smarter to just start at the festival, especially because their plan wasn't well thought out (they didn't really know what they wanted to forge or what they wanted to gain out of it). The whole forgery debate ended up wasting a lot of time imo.
My question is should players be encouraged to make plans like this? I feel like they think they have to keep it secret from me because I'm the DM and I can counterplan them if I know what they want to do.
I'm torn on it. On one hand, I definitely think that if your next session is a heist, for example, they should talk before the session to get a game plan. It would save a lot of time during the session.
On the other hand, they aren't good at planning yet, and when their plans aren't feasible it grounds the session to a halt while they figure out what to do, and I think it just makes them feel frustrated.
How should I handle this going forward?
Tl;dr: My players are inexperienced at making plans and I want them to talk to me about them and ask questions, but they seem to think they can't trust me. What should I do?
Best Answer
It sounds like you need to have a conversation with your players.
Let them know that this is not a DM vs player game. This joint storytelling, they should be including you for two reasons.
The most important is so you can prepare material, you need to be able to get maps and NPCs ready. They can't expect you to pull things out of your butt. If they don't fill you in on their plans the session is just you preparing material for two hours while they twiddle their thumbs.
You the DM are there to help them turn their ideas into parts of the story using the rules. Planning is great, you encourage it, by including you they can understand what they will need to implement these plans. You should not be telling whether it is a good idea or not, that is the thing you as the DM have to give up. It is their plans let them decide if it is a good idea or not (now if they ask an NPC then you can can chip in). What you can tell them is what possible outcomes their characters might predict, after all their characters live in this world the players do not. To player Bob, "Bosco the bard would know forging documents is tricky and requires skill, preparation, and the right materials, for Bob that means someone needs proficiency with a forgery kit, the kit itself, and ideally a sample or description of what you want to forge without the last it will be harder to forge but still possible." You can tell them what they need in order to do what they want instead of stumbling around blind.
It also sounds like you are under a time crunch, in which case instead of skipping time cover these time period off the table, between sessions, in texts, emails, conversations, etc. The players don't know what time in the story is important, you do, they don't know you intend to skip time so to them it feels like having the carpet pulled out from under them. They may have thought they had more prep time. this also gives you a chance to focus in on individuals and encourage RP and again to prepare things. This will also help with tedium, shopping or such can be done between session unless someone wants to RP a scene.
As last mention, generally not being proficient either means you can't do it at all or you roll without your proficiency bonus, that is why it is harder, not a higher DC.