You and your party see an old beggar sitting in the middle of town

It is possible to get a bad batch of Players.

My home town group is all 100% shit.

I always knew they was shit, but then I spent a few years playing with different groups, and wow wee! Did I learn how truly shit my group was. My groups Best doesn't even compair to the worst of the other groups I played with.

Some people can not role play, and some people can not be not shit.

Just try you best as a DM to learn em good. Learn how to react and try to put them in situations where they can learn to role play or learn to not be shit.

If you mention someone explicitly the players will inevitably suspect that he's important somehow and will make sure that he isn't the "wrong" type of important. It can't be helped, just try to discourage it IC with people giving the party odd looks and not trusting them right back.

The hobo was at the end of me describing the small generic town that lacks a black smithy but had a pub.
Will try these ideas, thanks lads.

ah your put it at the end of the list. that tends to be the item that draws the most attention. if you had put the pub there I'd bet they would have gone straight to it instead of bothering with the begger.

Aw fuck whoops. Again first time GM, I'll remember to put story stuff last in descriptions then since the hobo was just a side thing.

you're gonna have to earn their trust, they're probably paranoid from some past campaign/DM

when players do this kind of thing to me I'm just like, "...seriously? yeah okay you detect nothing. congrats."

Try to shame them out of their bad behavior.

Don't see what the hullabaloo is here: the PCs are only taking necessary precautions.

>stopped to help an old man fix his wagon wheel
>assassin TPK
These experiences can make players very wary.

>beggar gets magical cancer from all the spells cast at him

>meet hobo in town
>he starts reciting poems
>after few words you understand he's an old badass monk

>play a system in which these tools exist
>players use them in the way that makes the most sense
Stop playing DND.

Vancian Magic curbs this.
After a few instances of the party burning every spell slot and/or detect magic scroll on the harmless hobo, instead of when they truly need it, they'll come around.

When my group walks into a tavern we immediately detect evil and detect poison every drink we have. We all share a room and pay handsomely to have it located at the nearest exit. Our DM loves to fuck with us with surprise attacks so we try and beat him at his own game.

Not in shitfinder where cantirps are infinite and detect magic is one of them. Honestly divination magic is too goddamn powerful. Detect magic should be a 1st level spell. Enough of infinite cantirps too it just leads to players spamming dumb shit.

Don't see anything wrong with this. I'm surprised there was no detect poison. If you're living in this kind of world it only makes sense to be cautious of everything. All my characters start with a bell and string, then they rig their room with some impromptu alarm until they can afford the spell / an alarm stone. Sleeping under the bed and etc as well.

>Wahh players have a defence against the kind of bullshit I want to do that encourages this very behavior.

>All shots landed on the hostage
This is why you don't send a girl to do a man's job.

I was thinking more along d&d 2e where cantrips used slots/memory/whatever and had to be recouped by 8+ hours of study.
Infinite spell casting was a mistake.

Although, you could run a campaign where magic use is scarce and will get you executed for witchcraft... No more overt detect spells.

the hostage was a nigger

>have potentially useful abilities that have no serious downsides
>expect them not to use them

In Ultimate Intrigue it gives guidelines on how to deal with divination for people who are idiots and don't ever bother to read the descriptions of the spells that they complain about so often.

Each of those spells takes six seconds to cast. Most of those Detect X spells take 18 seconds to come to full effect while your glowing eyes are fixed on the area you're studying. I'm sorry, but what ordinary person is going to not run screaming as a man who is clearly and audibly speaking magical spells and staring at them with glowing eyes for 18 seconds is not going to run the fuck away screaming because some casting is using magical spells on him?

Your stupidity is not the game designs fault.

In 2e Cantrip is its own first-level spell.

It's been a while.

>what ordinary person is going to not run screaming as a man who is clearly and audibly speaking magical spells and staring at them with glowing eyes for 18 seconds is not going to run the fuck away screaming because some casting is using magical spells on him?
If the game world treats magic as a run-of-the-mill thing, I would assume an ordinary person wouldn't give two shits about the bearded man with glowy eyes. The same thing goes for a world that doesn't give two shits about armed peasants, or a group of gore-soaked adventurers stopping into a tavern for the night.

If they're pointing glowing eyes at you, and you had no magic expertise, you might be worried that they're casting something harmful on you. Especially in a world where adventurers do random shit.

You need to give your players more headpats, hugs, and kisses on the forehead so they start trusting you; it seems they've all been hurt before and you need to teach them to love again.

Please don't touch my head.

It doesn't make sense for the characters in this setting to blow a bunch of spells detecting the fuck out of some random beggar. That's OoC unless they're all paranoid idiots in character.

Shhh, user, it's okay, it's not your fault

EYEBITE SPELL.
BURNING GAZE.
DOMINATE.
CHARM PERSON.
BALEFUL POLYMORPH.
FIMGER OF DEATH.
LIGHTNING BOLT.
FIREBALL.

All excellent reasons that someone with glowing eyes casting spells at you is a reason to run the fuck away.

"Oh, it's just a harmless detection spell."
"FUCK YOU WIZARD I AIN'T STICKIN' AROUND FOR THAT SHITE!"

I dislike people touching my hair without warning so much.

That's one way to solve a hostage crisis

>what hostage?

No, that's why you don't send a psychopath to do a soldier's job.

I take it neither of you reads (not watches) Shirow's work.

No, user, listen to me, it's not your fault

Start putting runes in certain areas that explode if scrutinized too hard. That'll teach them to stop being so fucking paranoid.

or just ban faggoty abilities like the detect spells because they are practically cheating in an intrigue setting

...

>running intrigue in D&D

>Hating fun

Why are you here?

Imma pat that hair, imma kiss that hair, imma snuggle with you at night and whisper what a wonderful person you are into your hair; because user, it's not your fault

Anime isn't real.

DON'T TOUCH

Casting spells until the mystery is solved isn't very fun.

so ban the intrigue ruining spells. Wow, so hard.

It's not your fault

Don't explain the joke, dummy.

Uh, that's gonna feel hokey as fuck to your players.
>"Hey know these common spells you use often? Okay for the duration of this scenario you just can't use them, because I say so."

LOL if you think I make every burglar a backstabbing cunt. No, I'm just sick of players throwing spells at things as a substitute for problem solving. Kill yourself, nigger.

>implying law enforcement isn't on their side
The "Lol eveyone hates magic" angle only works so long before every NPC starts to look comically ignorant.
Also again I am talking about shitfinder which implies a high fantasy society.
Oh and what exactly is preventing the caster from chasing the person and easily passing concentration checks to maintain a spell while running? And it is never said how loudly you have to cast a spell, merely that it is spoken aloud. Could easily be done in a crowd.
Also: if a GM has to significantly alter the content of a campaign because of magic spell, that spell is overpowered, I don't care how pleb tier you think I and others are at DMing.

Works fine in OSR games. Works better in OSR than in systems dedicated to intrigue, a lot of the time. There's a reason why that is, but most of Veeky Forums is too fucking stupid to figure that out.

It's a description issue. Don't just describe the things that it occurs to you that they may want to interact with, describe the whole place as a tableau that happens to include an old beggar.

>Sasuke Uchiha kills Karin, 2011

>Bad GMs breed paranoid players.
Bad GM:s? What kind of shit GM do you have to be not to have paranoid players? If you're a *good* GM, your players will always be at least a bit paranoid.

>for the duration of this scenario
No, you should ideally ban them at the beginning of the campaign, before they make characters.

>Spells
>Detect evil and detect magic

:^)

> no sense thoughts
> obvious amateurs

Ah, the old "dual-mug-wielding half-beggar half-demon-simulacrum melee sorceror" dmpc build

>spell slots are a high-value resource when you're in some city
>a single early spell slots each (or like two to three on one) is going to massively chanfe the tide and isn't worth it for the certainty
>ignoring the fact that detecting evil is kind of what paladins are meant to do
If you dislike what DnD is: stop playing it. I did and I'm much happier for it.

That's not what D&D is though, and being a blight bugger and arguing it is just makes it clear this argument is mostly about people with poor communication skills hoping to put blame on a system when it's just [fictional] people abusing expectations.

Thanks for coming out and saying it though. I wish'd you'd put on a trip though so we could ignore you in the future.

>but they're using the system WRONG that's why it's bad
>despite the tact that it doesn't take much resources at all and this class can literally do it for free as many times as they like
>you're only meant to actually do it when you know the object would ping positive!
>ignoring the setting that naturally comes from the ruleset is good roleplaying
Just stop

>all these implications

I get it. You're a dumb argumentative cunt who doesn't understand pretty basic things about roleplaying games, including that "at will" isn't the same thing as "without any cost", it just means without mechanical impact for the sake of ease of use and less notekeeping.

This is an old argument, and it all comes down to just you acting dumber and dumber, trying to blame a system for not putting hard limits on every ability, when the real fault lies in the GM not explaining what the system explains or the basic conventions of a world, where the time and effort used for these spells and skills (with the latter actually taking a considerate amount of time) making constant paranoid detection rather costly and really only appropriate for high danger scenarios like a dungeon. Taking two hours to walk down a simple street is ridiculous, and its up to the GM to explain that to the players, not for the system to enforce it.

Actually they tend to be cones that last for a bit of time if you read their rules. I mean, I get it, you're trying to do this ivory tower "I've seen idiots like you a thousand times look at me im so smart" thing but it helps if you know what you're talking about. Wouldn't take long to do at all. Spells don't take that long to cast either, so no. At will is entirely free unless you, as the dm, are going to say they can't stop for 6 seconds. DnD is not a system for questions that aren't riddles: the entire objective morality system was designed to stop questions. DnD is a system for dungeons (and often but not as often as they'd have you think; dragons). Using it for anything else is stupid.

Stopping for even just six seconds for every person you encounter adds up dramatically, and the basic assumption is that if the DM is describing a beggar, the players are supposed to interact with that beggar not as something special that the DM highlighted, but to interact with it as they would with any other beggar. To do otherwise would be metagaming.

Now, in the OP, we don't just have one spell, but several, as well as a skill that takes an entire minute (sense motive).

To argue that the players will be stopping for more than a minute for every person they encounter on the street is just being ridiculous. Even stopping six seconds adds up rather quickly.

And, I think you're done. This is an ancient argument, you've been called out, and I think we can put it to rest as you being purposefully stupid in hopes of complaining about a system.

Good night.

They take six seconds. That's a standard action. that's six seconds of waving your hand around in obvious gestures and nonspeaking a clear, understandable voice. That is neither a negligible amount of time, nor is it a subtle and undetectable use of magic. Casting a batch of spells to determine things like OP suggests takes two minutes. Detect Magic,. Detect Evil, Detect Undead, Detect Traps, and Detect Poison each take a further two rounds to gain useable information aside from "there is X in this 60' cone", meaning another 12 seconds of clearly studying something after you have already cast the spell.

If somethign alive is included in the studies area, they're probably going to react a fuckload sooner than that after seeing someone casting a spell or using magical powers at them (yes, spell like abilities like the paladin's Detect Evil can also be determined and interrupted, just like spells can).

The fact that GM's don't know the rules of the game is still not the fault of the system, and GMs who either use those rules hamfistedly, ignore them entirely, or abuse those rules take the fate of their games into their own hands.

If the hostage wasn't doing something bad, he wouldn't have a gun pointed at him, duh. He deserved it.

You're really not impresding anybody by putting on such pompous airs dude. "Good night", honestly. Who do you think you are? Particularly after declaring thar you've 'won' while alao failing to address the specifics of anything I have said. You sound ridiculous. But you're missing the point where there's more than one party member. It can really just take 6 seconds, all the while interaction can be taking place. You're also missing the "cone that lasts for a little while" as in: it doesn't even need to be cast for every single person. You're also fooling yourself if you think 6 seconds is going to add up in any contect apart from those where time matters. The system creates a setting in which, for adventurers, interactions like this make sense. DnD tells DnD stories.
You say that like the compenents need to be performed in the most boisterous possible. There's no reason why a paladin can't clutch his shit and pray quietly. I mean as amusing as the concept is: I dont think first level spells are honestly that flashy in terms of the ritual. These things can all be happening while interaction is also happening. It's not out of the question andsimply makes sense in the world with the 'rules' the adventurers live in considering their vocation. I mean, I'm with you on searching for traps but let us not pretend OP wasn't using hyperbole. Detection spells are annoying but they make sense in the framework.

They are. The rules for spellcasting include these words: You must speak in a clear and audible voice, and you must have your hand free and unrestrained to cast spells. The use of spell like abilities are obvious and detectable as well, though not as obvious - clutching your holy symbol and praying while focusing your attention on some area or person is clearly using magic on them and can be noticed and reacted to as such (which is why spell like abilities invoke attacks of opportunities, just like spells do).

I'm just pointing out a basic flaw in the reasoning that people will ignore spells being cast around them. It's obvious and can potentially be dangerous - educated people will realize it's a weak and not particularly dangerous spell, but everyone does hear about the not-so-harmless spells, and it's a safe bet that casting spells will get a reaction of some sort, every time.

Whoa, look at this troll go.

Here. Try this next time you're walking outside. Wave your hands and chant for six seconds within thirty feet of every person you encounter. Make sure you focus hard and intently on that person, and stare at them for those full six seconds. For every single person. I'm not even asking for the two minutes+ OP asked for.

Oh wait, you're a basement dwelling shithead who hasn't been outside in twenty years, my mistake, No wonder you don't understand basic human interaction ore expectations of people's behavior.

Now that I'm done making you look stupid, go and read what the two people you replied to wrote again, and realize that you didn't refute the key points of what was addressed. In fact, you didn't even attempt, you just went into a tizzy because you were called out and called an idiot.

You wonder why it's easy to dismiss you? Because you're just barking.

This is a very good point, especially when applied to peasantry and the arcane. I could see that causing a guss but a cleric or paladin? (As in your main people who'd be interested in detect eviling) Why would an ignorant peasant want to cayse a fuss over the blessings of a holy man? Even outside of that it comes down to just how common magic is in the setting. If it's massively commonplace then there's no reason for anybody to get confused as Xanax the Wise casts detect magic on his daily bazaar hunt for curiosities. Even if it's a question of "there's a local wizard, he's uh... 'eccentric' like you too."
There's no way to say this without sounding like I'm being sarcastic or whatever but I'm not. You're genuinely brilliant. Well done.

We have this issue at my local LARP. Any NPC is instantly recognized as an NPC because they are wearing garb from the NPC Hut and are then instantly regarded as potential threats instead of traveling merchants or townspeople. They get interrogated by Paladins using special powers that detect lies and bombarded with charms spells to force them to reveal their intentions for being there. It's disgusting. Self aware players do their best to chill the fuck out and not-meta game so hard, but the Plot Committee is entirely at fault in my opinion.

The root of the problem is that 99% of the time when an NPC is sent to town they have a secret sinister motive. That monk with a vow of silence? He's actually a Revenent Death Lord Necromancer with a glammer cast on him to look like a normal human. That merchant selling alchemy? He's actually selling potions tainted with demon blood and anyone who drinks it will turn into a demon. That town guard looking for help with a patrol? He's actually an assassin in a stolen uniform trying to get people to go out alone with him so he can rob them. And then when they reveal their true identity they cackle and say "Haha! You fools! You were tricked by my perfectly executed plan."

If every single NPC you interact with ends up trying to harm you in some way, then yea, after a while you're going to just treat every single stranger you meet like a potential threat and generally just start acting like a paranoid cunt.

>If you're a *good* GM, your players will always be at least a bit paranoid.
Only bad GM feel the need to make EVERY situation some kind of twist or trick just to fuck the players and thus make the players paranoid.

>you order food in town
>the food is poisoned
>you sleep in an inn
>the staff are all vampires
>someone asks for help with some thugs
>hes secret evil and trying to trick you
>a begger asks for a coin in the street
>hes secretly some kind of super enity that will place a curse on you if you dont give it to him

Have some creature/cult/spy ring put a torch to the town and flee in the chaos because they detected a massive number of divination spells going off and thought their cover was blown

Tranforms into arcane beast and rapes the party.

And why is that?

Because there aren't any rules for intrigue. The game rules cover only things that player skill cannot (combat and some adventuring aspects).

Make objectives time sensitive, they need to clear the dungeon by sundown. Hopefully they'll reevaluate their playstyles when they fail to get the mcguffin after 70 detect traps checks resulting in nothing

>the entire first game was them inspecting every fucking tile for a trap
This why I, at character creation, explain that I largely do not use hidden traps and in the rare times that I do, I will announce it, as in "You all enter the ruins that you were warned was a 'heavily warded and booby-trapped' temple."
And then I use player actions and passive perception to determine whether traps are detected or triggered.
If your players are paranoid of something that you 100% are not going to hit them with, break the fourth wall, metagame, and fucking tell them it is fine and won't happen.
Or be prepared to let their justified paranoia slow the game down to a crawl.

If you tell them and they don't believe you, you have bigger issues.

>treated every NPC with white-deviltry levels of suspicion.
This happens in my games, but I don't mind.
I just play with and against tropes and their fears back and forth so they have no idea what expect or what conclusions to jump to.
I try to get them to land on a place of "assume nothing, trust but verify".
We have mixed results and a lot of fun.

Number one rule of thumb is that if something isn't fun and is keeping the group from doing things that would be fun, skip the thing dragging down the game.
This is true of overly complex grappling rules, rules arguments, or being frozen in paranoia.

Now, some groups LOVE a paranoid, inch by inch death crawl through a dungeon that takes several whole sessions to get through.
For myself personally, I'd recommend a different GM, but it's your group.
Just get on the same page.

For some reason I remembered the copypasta about orcs dying and going to Valinor because they used to be elves.

>Be town guard
>group of openly armed individuals wander into town looking like they've escaped from the murder circus
>What the fuck is that dude with the tentacle growing out of his stomach seriously what the fuck
>They wander past crazy old Johnny nolegs in the centre of town
>Suddenly half of them start muttering incantations as the space around them lights up with the magical glow of spells being cast
>Whole market panics at the intimidating group suddenly casting magic in unison
>Stampede
>The smiths boy was trampled in the hysteria, neck snapped
>Have to gather up the rest of the guard to decide whether or not we are going to try and arrest this group of murderwizards for reckless behaviour resulting in the death of a child

Most games are pretty clear that using magic is not at all silent or invisible. this should really bite the party in the ass if they try this stupid shit.
When you are just trying to run your store, and someone walks up to you and their eyes light up and sparks shoot from their hands as they yell "DETECT EVIL" in your fucking face you have every right to be offended and tell them to get the fuck off of your property. so the NPCs should be doing this.