My players plans are probably gonna fail
So my players are trying to clear a keep that is to their knowledge full of orcs and a few hostages. Typically my players just brute force their way to victory without planning anything, but this time they decided to plan. Their plan is to have the rogue sneak in and spread propaganda flyers all over the keep to create certain effects amongst the orcs. The orcs in my setting take heavy inspiration from the orcs in 40k, if enough orcs believe something then it becomes true, but it doesn't work on complex ideas just stuff like wearing red makes you run faster. they dont know this but in my setting if an invisible creature attacks an orc they wont be harmed because they dont believe in things they can not see. so seeing is believing for them. My players are aware of this ability and so are their characters.
So at the table at the end of our last session one of the players said something along the lines of spreading propaganda in orcish about orcs catching fire or exploding for whatever reason. i gave the "thats a good idea" face and said write up exactly what you want it to say and throw it in discord so i can prep for it. A few days later the player sends something completely different and posts essentially bio's/fear campaigns about each character, some of them being pretty long, no tangible effects, and things that dont make sense to orcs. I think its dope that he put effort in to them but and they sound great but its basically just asking the orcs to lay down their weapons. for example here is one of them
"The camps that welcome Theobold never know hunger. He walks with small feet and a laughing song, yet wagons follow in his wake. Empty fields become green. Dry wells flow sweet. Mothers who feared winter watch their children grow fat and strong. Even beasts calm when they hear his voice. Theobold gives freely to those who greet him as friend. Bread, ale, meat, medicine, music—his hands never empty as the cups of his companions runneth over. Orcs who stand beside him eat better than kings. But greedy raiders and charlatans earn only shame. Theobold remembers every villain. His songs turn tribes against cowards and gluttons until they starve alone in the hills. Choose wisely when the small bard arrives. Open your gates, and feast beside him. Raise your axe against him, and hear your own stomach cry louder than the war drums."
so i let him know that the dwarf that speaks orcish would know that the writings were too long for any orc to read and also some of the words and ideas are just too complex and dont exist in orcish with words like assume, prosperity and determination. the orcs do not have any form of nuance in their culture it is or it aint.
he then responded saying
"Yeah, but concepts along the lines of, "resist and die with your chief, lay down your arms and take his place" would be easy enough to grasp"
to which i responded with how they think and how the ability works with an example
"True but being afraid for the sake of being afraid cause it’s written on paper isn’t a concept that chaotic creatures understand. What is a theobold? No orc has seen a theobold, so it doesn’t exist. They don’t believe in things they can’t see. Now what you what you were saying at the table made sense, if a shaman says red make you run faster then puts the fastest orc in red against the slowest orc the fast one still won the race so red makes you go faster"
the conversation fizzled out from there in chat but basically they're running with what he sent. the problem is nothing in what he wrote is getting paired with them showing an example of that to the orcs. im not gonna tell them how to trivialize all of the prep i put in to this dungeon but if they did something like " the sorcerers flames turn orcs to ash" then had someone use an illusion on an orc that got hit by a fire attack making the orc look like ashes to the others then all the orcs would get one shot by fire attacks. but that would be me being creative for them and playing for them and im also not gonna make all the prep i did pointless lol
my hope is that one of the other players says something about the plan, cause right now thats not gonna work and the notes will probably get handed to the human wizard inside the dungeon because they didnt understand it. and when that plan fails its gonna create the idea that they shouldnt plan cause it wont work.