“you feel the spell take hold, but for some reason the crown remains rusty”
Then you pivot that the rust is a powerful illusion or some kind of curse cast on the crown by someone related to that backstory to keep it hidden. Then while your players try to figure out why simply cleaning the rust didn’t work, you try to figure out how to weave in that backstory sooner than later.
If you’re really not ready for it to happen, make sure they have some other quest to do that has a pressing time limit.
you’re definitely right about the time limit. at that point you are about 5 minutes away from every spell in the party’s arsenal being cast on that crown, followed by the main quest getting derailed by the mystery of the plot armored artifact.
I’m extremely naive when it comes to tabletop RPGs
Is there any kind of “plot says no” response to magic? Something like the doors in oblivion where you need a key to unlock
We don’t do that here. The GM provides the model of physics the players accept and expect. If the GM just says “nah” when stuff is inconvenient, players don’t know what to expect, and the world becomes inconsistent.
A big part of the GM’s fun in TTRPGs is improving off that. Players always ruin my plans, but that’s part of the game.
Really, what the DM says goes. So if you want to be boring you can just say it doesn’t work for some reason. The answer above re: pivoting to it being a powerful illusion spell or something so there is a reason the spell didn’t work is a lot more compelling and interesting imo
That makes sense! I’ve always wanted to run a campaign (even though I’ve never really played) so I try to take guidance from stories like these
Thank you!
Retconing things to protect muh precious twists is not compelling, though, it’s just base metagaming. The unwavering plot is the GM equivalent of the 8 page main character syndrome PC backstory. If I found out my GM was doing that, they wouldn’t be my GM anymore.
there’s two answers to this question, one is mechanical and one is social. you as the DM can tell the players no not now, and they can’t do anything about it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to do something about it, which depending on the group could be an issue.
so in this scenario a good DM could whip up some misdirection, for example set up a traveling artificer who just passed through town a couple weeks back and who the players could track down as a lead - conveniently in the direction of the main quest objective.
this is hard to do on the spot.
IMO this is kinda one of the problems with DnD 5e, at least if you want to do certain kinds of stories.
The players just have so many tools at their disposal to do anything and everything that its hard to put them into a challenging situation that:
A) Doesn’t involve combat
and
B) Isn’t a completely artificial-feeling scenario that’s been engineered specifically to negate all of the “I don’t have to care about this” buttons that players have on their sheets.
“You can certainly try”
Technically there could be. After all, the GM has final say. But players will want to search for a reason, because they expect consistency. Spells don’t typically fail without reason. That reason can be a low die roll if the spell description calls for it, but many spells (like Prestidigitation) don’t require a roll.
So having the spell fail “because the plot says no” is inconsistent. It would immediately throw up a giant red flag in the players’ minds, and make them think the item is much more important than they initially realized. After all, if the plot says the spell doesn’t work, then that means something in the world is preventing it from working.
It makes more sense to have the item be cursed, or haunted, or protected by a god, or any other number of things that would give the players some sort of explanation to latch onto. If you keep it vague, the players will inevitably spend a lot of time trying to figure out why it can’t be cleaned. Because they expect consistency, and will keep throwing things at it until they find a reason. So it’s better to just give them a reason (even if you just came up with it in a panic) because that at least gives them some resolution, and they can file it away in their quest list for later.
The crown completely disintegrates, as it was rust all the way through
Sorry, Mario, the real crown is in another dungeon.
the real crown was the XP we collected along the way
The real mario is the rust we collected along the XP
Having your complex plot get fast forwarded because of a cantrip, priceless 😆😆😆😆😆
I once fast-forwarded a complex plot through a GM-sanctioned bit of fluff.
The party had been invited by their uncle who turned out to be recently murdered when they arrived. Of course they investigated. At one point I had my character wrote a letter to the rest of the family to inform them of what was going on. I actually produced the letter as a handout. Since I had no idea about the date I asked the GM and he told me to pick anything in summer.
The GM s happy with the handout and it was deemed canonical.
A few sessions later he noticed that I had picked something ahead the end of the summer and the bad guys’ plot was about to kick off at a specific date right after summer ends. So suddenly the adventure went from “careful slow-burn investigation” to “mad rush to the location of the finale”.
Oops.
Thats DnD, though. You’re not the narrator, you’re the benevolent god allowing the story to unfold.
I played recently with a newer DM who had written this complex story and kept trying to weave in obvious set pieces for us. At first, I played along, but when we started to go off track, he introduced an omnipotent NPC to help keep us on his path. I was done at that point. I’m not here to listen to a story.
If I find a clue early, I understand it might not make sense until later.
DM: Scribbles a note “Without the rust it seems like a serviceable crown, but not too fancy.”
Note to lost heir: “You see the crown and you think as it… looks at you. This should be your crown. You wants it. They shouldn’t keep it from you. Steals it, hides it, it came here for you”.
DM: “Probably worth some gold.”
The player: GUYS! I’M A KING NOW!!! BOW TO MEEEEEEEE!!!
improv intensifies
What metal is the crown made of?
The spell only works on iron and iron-heavy alloys. An advanced version of the spell exists but the players don’t have it yet.
The rust is removed, but there’s significant chunks missing due to the rust settling in. It is still unrecognisable and needs restoration.
Or something magical based on what the artifact does
Twist: You think this is the legendary lost crown of Foo? Some rotten trash you grabbed in a dungeon just happens to be the thing you’ve been looking for all this time? Pull the other one! It’s been so ravaged by time that none of the markings or engravings are clearly visible. Best you can hope for is that some merchant will buy it off you for scrap.
Even if the PCs think this is the lost crown of Foo, only the kingdom’s last grandmaster artificer can conduct a conclusive test. Assuming you even find them, it’s not like they take appointments from any dirty old adventurers off the street.
It’s artifact level - a cantrip simply doesn’t work on it. When the players ask why, you just tell them they don’t know - neither does anyone in the town/city whatever they’re in.
the rust scales begin to fall and as the entire party squints to see the results, ROLL FOR INITIATIVE AT DISADVANTAGE (fuck a few dragons will get me out of this shit)
Easy. He needs to roll 100 on a single d20 or the spell fails and creates a big neon sign above the player characters head that follows them everywhere and reads “annoying little shit”
How tf do I pronounce that*
I don’t know if you’re joking, but just for fun: Press-T-digi-tay-shun
