Taking action! How to handle party paralysis

[Badwe]

Last night, as is often a horror story of campaigns. Our group slowed to a crawl, unable to decide what to do. Allow me to provide some background on the story:

The party is a warlock, a 2weapon ranger, a bow ranger, a wizard, and a cleric. More importantly: the warlock is very focused on knowledge and overturning secrets, the 2weapon ranger is meant to be young and overconfident/brash, the bow ranger is aloof, the wizard is a reformed tiefling with a strong desire to be good, and the cleric is a warpriest of kord with a penchant for jumping into action.

So there is some dichotomy of the group going on. The brash cleric and 2weapon ranger had to quickly cover for themselves when they jumped a table to shake down a group of black market dealers, since the rest of the party made a hasty retreat and feigned ignorance of even knowing them.

However, the DM has also set out to try and make the game very open ended, making nearly every encounter an opportunity to resolve it in any way we choose. In a castle overrun by wild and (possibly) demonic magic, we encountered a group of shadar-kai who attacked us without hesitating, a librarian who mysteriously never sleeps and has evaded the wrath of everything wandering the castle, a group of honor guard (the party is also part of the honor guard) who have strict instructions to watch a gem and have no idea why, a demon+animated armor that seemed to think we were servants, and satyrs sitting around the dining hall acting like they owned the place.

So, other than the shadar-kai who attacked us, we had a choice on how to handle each encounter, but we dilly-dallied on each of them not really sure what to do each time, sitting and arguing with the NPCs but not really convincing them, and just generally being indecisive. The result was a somewhat unpleasant session that left a bad taste in our mouth.

What can be changed to help smooth things out? Is the DM being too open-ended? Is the party being too wishy-washy? Does the party perhaps need a leader figure who pulls the party in a certain direction? I guess the general thing to take away is that on paper, everyone liked the concept of being able to approach encounters in many ways, but in practice we were paralyzed by choice and it ended up somewhat unfun. Any suggestions welcome.

 

[justanobody]

Be decisive in your own actions. Attack something if you want to attack, and the others will follow.

Many groups find this problem when a DM doesn't really guide them, and the group eneds to take it on itself to set out a way to determine what to do.

Vote on a party leader, and have the party vote on things when there is time. The majority rule will be what the party does.

 

[Irda Ranger]

"Sandbox play" should never be a code-word for "directionless." Just because the DM doesn't have railroad to force you down doesn't mean that you (the players) shouldn't have an agenda.

From how you describe it I would love to play in your DM's game, but I'd definitely have a goal and make it explicit to the rest of the group. Somehow you need to reach a group decision on "the reason" for being here and then seek out that reason. If you have no reason, and can't think of one, leave. And then go seek the Holy Grail or something.

 

[Badwe]

Definitely some good points. Having an overall goal is a start. However, once we find ourselves in an indecisive situation, with half the party wanting to do one thing and the other half wanting to do another, how can quickly come to a consensus? Also, when interacting with NPCs begins to drag and crawl, how can you move forward without giving the DM the impression that you're frustrated with his campaign? Example: if the guards aren't giving us useful clues, and we don't want to fight them, we eventually just give up and leave. What are some more angles of attack (figuratively) for drilling down into what the DM is hiding with these NPCs.

 

[Storminator]

If you can't reach a consensus on an individual encounter, perhaps you could institute a rolling "decision role." Start with one PC, and if the group can't agree, he decides what the group does. Then he hands the decision role to the next PC.

"I have the conch!"

PS

 

[Lacyon]

Definitely some good points. Having an overall goal is a start. However, once we find ourselves in an indecisive situation, with half the party wanting to do one thing and the other half wanting to do another, how can quickly come to a consensus?

I can't find the link anymore, but before 4E came out one of the WotC guys had been posting some rules for a homebrew campaign he'd been running.

One thing he posted was the idea of "story points", which each player having one at the start of the campaign and refreshing periodically. Whenever the group is haggling over a decision, if the roleplay starts to drift into this kind of indecision, a player can spend his story point to dictate which decision the group will follow. These were totally metagame conceits, so a player could decide that the group chose the opposite choice from what his character wanted (because the player may not want the same things the character does, or to avoid more out-of-character argumentations, or whatever). This ensures that everyone gets to have their way on occasion, while letting the game move forward.

You might suggest something similar to your group.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Speak to your DM and ask them to provide a bit more direction to the game - it sounds a lot like you're looking for plot and not finding any.

Possibly the DM is trying to avoid 'railroading' you - but you can go to far in the other direction. If you want to push the DM a bit, make full use of your Knowledge based skills and get some more background info on the location - see if that helps.

In terms of a party that can't agree what to do, I'd suggest that you need to hold an actual, straight-up vote, with everyone agreeing to abide by it. If you have an even number of players, then maybe you could just roll a die to settle the issue in a tie?

If you're not getting useful clues from the NPC's, and you're feeling lost and like it doesn't matter what you do - then you must communicate this with the DM. Make sure you sprinkle it with lots of praise for the imagination that they've shown in coming up with all this stuff, but just request that the NPC's actually get on and do stuff to. After all, if you're in a castle full of people that are effectively in stasis (all of the encounters you describe seem to be static and unchanging) then you've got no reason to push anything.

 

[Badwe]

Great suggestions in here.

Tallaran, you hit the nail on the head. The DM is trying very hard not to make us feel railroaded. Prior to this campaign, I was the DM, and while I provided a lot of situations divergent from your standard dungeon, it all progressed very linearly. I suggested after the game that night that the guards should say something like "the only way you're getting passed us is with the right keyword or over our dead body", but we both realized that was essentially constraining the choices to only 2 paths.

Some background on our DM. He is what I like to call an "in-character DM", he is very particular about not doing things that might temporarily suspend the illusion of D&D. To give an example, when I DMd I would use glass beads in place of actual miniatures in order to symbolize minions. We have a only a hodge-podge of miniatures so this was an easy way for me to quickly signify that these are homogenous, and clearly the weakest of the bunch. He will just use all regular miniatures. Similarly, to borrow an idea from the Legend of Zelda, even if there was a "Big key hole" that needed a "Big key", he would never actually refer to that situation as such, perhaps he considers it metagaming. More likely, he would describe the features, shapes, and general size of a keyhole, and leave it to us to conclude that it needs a large key. I am wondering if his commitment to a cohesive and consistent fantasy world is also making it hard to drop "gamist" clues about solving the overall "puzzle" of "what is going on in this castle?", or if we as PCs are simply too dependant on said gamist clues from me, a very symbolic and loose DM.

 

[Irda Ranger]

However, once we find ourselves in an indecisive situation, with half the party wanting to do one thing and the other half wanting to do another, how can quickly come to a consensus?

Have a procedure everyone agrees on. Up/down vote; roll high on a d6; whatever. You want something that (in order of importance) is unambiguously decisive, fast and reasonably fair.

Also, when interacting with NPCs begins to drag and crawl, how can you move forward without giving the DM the impression that you're frustrated with his campaign?

If you are frustrated, and reasonably so, the DM needs to know that. You'll never get a better game without feedback. Just be honest and fair. For you know he's frustrated with you players for some reason; dialog is good.

Example: if the guards aren't giving us useful clues, and we don't want to fight them, we eventually just give up and leave. What are some more angles of attack (figuratively) for drilling down into what the DM is hiding with these NPCs.

You may be playing the game at the wrong "zoom level." Zoom out a bit and abstract some stuff away. It's possible that these guards really don't have anything for you, but you don't want to roleplay out 50 conversations either. So just tell your GM "We're going to trawl the docks and bazaars, buy drinks and ask questions until we learn something. We'll spend 10 gp per day on buying drinks for thirsty caravan guards and sailors until we get what we need." Roll a couple Gather Info checks, mark off 300 gp and let a month slip by; the DM can just narrate to you what happens.

 

[howandwhy99]

What can be changed to help smooth things out? Is the DM being too open-ended? Is the party being too wishy-washy? Does the party perhaps need a leader figure who pulls the party in a certain direction? I guess the general thing to take away is that on paper, everyone liked the concept of being able to approach encounters in many ways, but in practice we were paralyzed by choice and it ended up somewhat unfun. Any suggestions welcome.

Agree as players on what to do and then do that. It's as simple as that. If you really, really, really, cannot decide for yourselves, ask an NPC for a job to fulfill. Suggest to your DM OOG you need something open ended like, "defend the Nentir Vale" or something. If you get to the next step and are unable to answer questions like, "How are we supposed to do that?", then I don't really know what to suggest. I don't know how D&D could not have even the littlest bit of problem solving.

Honestly, I think you simply need to decide on a direction and get about going in that direction. If you're world isn't pushing back when your party merely sits day after day, then tell your DM to run an dynamic world. D&D worlds aren't pictures. Not to mention, why are you and your fellow players playing this game? Presumably, you do have dreams and desires about taking certain actions as the characters your playing, right? Go make those happen.

By contrast, our group is constantly having to figure out what to focus on next as a group based upon each of our own priorities. This isn't a rule-based list, it's simply basic human desires that come about from playing in the world.

I want to kill those orcs who attacked us.
I want to get rich so I can start a thieves' guild.
I want to find alchemical reagents so I can make spells.
I want to find out who that woman was who lied to us about McGregor's Farm.
I want to hit things and make them cry!
I want to make a new weapon with this lead ball and metal chain.
I want to dump so much gold into this tiny podunk town riots start from the inflation alone.
I want to find a way I can live underwater without breathing, who can help me for finding that?
I want find out just what the hell that librarian really was, his story did not make sense at all!
I wonder what would happen if I stole that gem?
I wonder if that demon armor could make me stronger, or if I can get XP for destroying it?

One last forewarning. After you've decided on a plan of action, be prepared for it not working out. It's just like life, you have to stay flexible instead of cursing the Gods for not letting you succeed.