Not everything a DM tries works out as intended. Sometimes a story arc falls flat, or a little extra description causes the party to halt for a few hours to fiddle with a rock…. it happens.
I was in a Lovecraftian GURPS campaign set in UK in the 1980s that ground to a halt for a solid hour because one of the players was adamant that we calculate the exact cost of plane tickets for our team.
Truly, rules lawyers are an eldritch abomination.
lifehack if the players are obsessed with something give it to them. Often a small interesting answer will make them stop faster than a hundred boring ones.
once my players rifled through some dead goblins’ clothes and i didnt expect that (dumb, i know) so i put a “very smooth pebble” in a pocket and the players were so interested in it they almost started a fight over it
i was one of the players and we were valid
very early in my campaign – like, 2 or 3 sessions in – the party went to explore a shipwreck. among the loot in the wreck was a black marble statue of a goddess called Blibdoolpoolp. I found her name in a list of d&d deities and thought she sounded cool. her domain is crustaceans and madness, which fit with the overall tone of my bullshit campaign, so I threw her in for a bit of ~flavor~
the party got… attached.
they lugged that statue back with them when they left the shipwreck, even though they were being chased by a sea serpent. they brought it back to the inn where they were staying. in-character, they started seeking out all the information they could about this silly throwaway goddess.
out of character, they started flooding the group chat with lobster memes.
eventually – and I mean, like, several months later – I just gave in and let them have a whole adventure fighting a cult that worked for Blibdoolpoolp, defeating the cult, and letting them take over as Blibdoolpoolp’s primary worshippers. she’s their patron deity now and showers them with crustacean-themed blessings.
