Dealing with paranoid players

[Leatherhead]

The issue seems to be that he is role player with a capital R and that in his mind he assumes that the world is more like a real world where you often face things that you can't handle.

I figured it was something like that. The behavior wasn't so much "paranoid" as it was "terrified."

The heroic fantasy genre doesn't work when the players are trying to play weak peasants. Heck, hack and slash doesn't work when you are playing weak peasants. Sounds to me like they are looking for a horror/thriller type game.

 

[Elf Witch]

I'm having a hard time making sense of the logic behind this situation.

An adventure being hard shouldn't have much to do with taking an hour or so out of a day (in game time) to fetch your armor/gear and buy some quick supplies. Maybe even take a moment to tell the crafter that you will be late picking up the items. Even if the adventure is hard, I'd at least try. If you wanted to metagame, then the DM is not a killer DM, so there should be an assumption that you could do this without getting ambushed.

If what these players are doing is a big enough deal to cause your DM to react this way, and to cause you to post online about it, then I also don't understand why your PC wouldn't simply make time to do those things before leaving town. It's one thing to not want to force anyone to do something (that's understandable), it's another thing to let them force you into doing something. You are letting their "roleplaying" dictate how you are roleplaying your character and it is bothering you, the other player, and the DM.

You can't really complain if you going to let them run all over you guys like this.

Things just got out of hand really quickly. We followed them out of town when they took off. I was hoping that they would calm down. We pointed out that we didn't have supplies and the paladin didn't have his plate just his chain.

When the paladin said he would go back for his armor they said they wouldn't wait. That they were taking off over country not by the road. I know I was worried about how we would find them again.

I looked over and saw how upset my roommate was and I didn't push. I didn't want to do anything to make matters worse for her and she ended the session there.

While they have done paranoid things before never anything this bad.

I literally was paralyzed in tying to figure out how to handle this. I was tired it was late and I couldn't believe what was happening.

Could we have handled it better yes but we didn't. That is why I am bring it up now trying to find away to fix this before Sunday.

These two players are not just gaming buddies they are real life friends so I just don't want say get out of the game.

I am hoping that we can find away to fix this before just giving up.

 

[Oryan77]

in his mind he assumes that the world is more like a real world where you often face things that you can't handle.

Yes, having PCs face things on occasion that they can't handle can be a good thing to do. But how can you know if you can handle it if you are running away from every single thing? He didn't even try to do your tavern recon idea. So based on his actions, everything is too hard for him to handle?

He pointed out that though we are tenth level in game time we have been adventuring four months and he says his character does not have that much experience to realize he no longer as weak as he was four months ago.

Four months is pretty quick for a person to gain the experience of a 10th level adventurer (not a critique on your game, I mean based on real life assumptions), but if that is how the campaign works, then I can understand his logic. But I don't agree. He's full of it. He's making an excuse for his behavior and gaming style. I'm pretty sure that despite it being four months, his PC would recognize the difference he had fighting kobolds four months ago and fighting them now. He's not going to run from a kobold is he?

To him metagaming is a dirty word. And I think he is having issues playing a way that seems very foreign to him.

It's not like you are telling him to read the adventure and use that knowledge in game. You aren't even really telling him to metagame. You're asking him to trust the DM and let loose.

Right now he is overreacting and is thinking he and the other player are being blamed and called bad players. His feeling are hurt. I am hoping that when he calms down he sees that is not what she was saying to him at all.

Well, let's be honest, you guys are saying that to him. You aren't saying anything bad though. He's being unnecessarily cowardly and sucking all of the adventure out of the game. If he wants NPCs to do all of the recon, if he wants to run out of town to escape unknown threats, and he is forcing you to not have fun because of these cowardly actions, then yes, he's being a bad player.

It's totally understandable to be a cautious player. But he's just flat out being cowardly; which causes the game to be very boring. You and your DM have nothing to feel ashamed about. If he is overreacting, it's because he knows what he is doing and he doesn't want to actually hear about how it negatively impacts the game.

Don't let him play the victim here. That's what it sounds like he is trying to do. Either you stand your ground and try to explain things to him so the DM will enjoy DMing, or you guys can let him control everything in and out of the game, and the DM stops running the game. Tell your DM not to worry and that she hasn't said anything bad or untrue. She only said something that a problem player doesn't want to hear. I'm sorry to hear she came to tears over it. Nobody should be getting this emotional over their D&D game. It's supposed to be fun! Don't let her get discouraged from DMing again.

 

[Oryan77]

I literally was paralyzed in tying to figure out how to handle this. I was tired it was late and I couldn't believe what was happening.

Sounds like a rough situation. If the game ended there, maybe you still have a chance to roleplay with him and tell him that you need your gear. If you don't have it, you may not be able to help defend against things during the trip that may be worse than what you might face back in town. I would think someone that paranoid would want to be as prepared & well equipped as possible, and have as much backup as he can get (you).

Them being good friends should make it easier to work out though. I think something like this is what needs to be said to them:

"I understand you're trying to roleplay what you think a person would do. I am willing to downplay my roleplaying in order to keep the game going and not cause unnecessary work on the DM. If you left my PC while I tried to get my gear, or if I left you because I need to adventure with companions that take risks, then we will be splitting up the group and causing problems on the DM.

In order to keep the game going, can you please just play along and go with the flow? You can distrust my PC, but you don't have to suck all of the adventure out of the game in the process. If my characters actions get us into trouble, then grill me about it & roleplay it out. But don't take all of the fun out of the game before I even get a chance to take a risk. If you stick to your guns and roleplay in that manner, then we may not have a game to roleplay in."

 

[Agamon]

We have been playing Age of Worms which is known as being a meat grinder, we are level 10 we have only had one PC death. The DM is not out to get the PCs. She does not go out of her way to punish players. For example say you forget something your player would do like put his dodge on the person attacking him. She will ask do you want your dodge on him.

1 death halfway through AoW??? Yeah, I'll say she's not a Killer DM.

I wish I had some good advise for you, but my players tend towards the opposite. They take a lot of risks without much forethought and take a lot of bumps as a result. But those two are certainly taking caution too far. PCs are supposed to be heroes, running away from uncertainty isn't very heroic, especially considering the circumstances (1 death, wow...I owe my players an apology, I think )

 

[Kzach]

I am hoping that we can find away to fix this before just giving up.

As you've seen, trying to deal with this has led to a defensive reaction and hurt feelings. So again I'd like to point out that in most cases where I've had to deal with this problem, most of the time it has been unresolvable because it isn't simply a matter of play-style, it's a matter of inherent personality. In essence you're not trying to change how a person plays a game, but rather you're trying to change the person.

There are other issues with people and play-styles that can be addressed and can be changed. This, however, is one of the few things with which I've never had any success in changing.

I know you don't want to break up the group but at the same time, and again IME, it's the best thing for everyone, ESPECIALLY if you're friends outside of gaming. I no longer game at all with my best friend of twenty-years because I can't stand him as a DM or a player (actually, that's not true, he's actually an excellent player... when he bothers to turn up... and remember his character sheet... and... you get the picture).

But then nobody listens to me. I hope you can figure out a solution and prove me wrong, but I'm going to bet that everyone pushes each other to the point where the group breaks up anyway, but with the added consequence of hurt feelings all around. Some things you just can't fix.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not sure I can offer anything except sympathy. Your account is very familiar to me. About 6-7 years ago I had a campaign ruined by the paranoia of a player, who was also charismatic enough to get the rest of the group seeing the game-world through his twisted vision, rather than what I was presenting. The result was that the group was constantly doing things very similar to your description, effectively sabotaging themselves. Where a swift strike was needed against an unaware opponent, they would keep scouting until the enemy eventually noticed them & started taking precautions. They would retreat from battle after 1 fight then camp 1/4 mile off, so the enemy would locate and near-TPK them. The paranoid player played a 3e Wizard, whenever disaster occurred he'd D-door or teleport away while the non-casters got massacred. It was a miserable experience.

Things didn't get better until the group pretty much disintegrated and the parnoid player left. One other player carried through into the next campaign, which went much better.

 

[S'mon]

Right now he is overreacting and is thinking he and the other player are being blamed and called bad players. His feeling are hurt. I am hoping that when he calms down he sees that is not what she was saying to him at all.

They are bad players. I know it's hard, but I think you and the DM need to accept that.

 

[Tuft]

In the "main" campaign where I play, two players, of which I am one, came from another campaign that made us very paranoid (yes, also Shadowrun) a few years ago.

Our new DM wants his players to be active and do things. He also dislikes resurrection, because of how it influences the world, and dislikes losing PC:s, since he wants to tie long-lasting story plots to them.

His solution is simple, but I don't think it will sit well with several others here .

He said upfront "Your characters are not going to die. If you lose HP so that you would have died, you will have an old serial-style cliffhanger escape instead. You will lose out on the rest of the encounter, you may limp back injured and it may leave its marks. You can get defeated, but you are not going to die."

That made wonders for our paranoia, as you can imagine.

And the cliffhanger escapes led to several real cool events in the campaigns (we are into our third with the same DM and group):

Once, when my character would have died to a giant shrimp (don't ask), she escaped miraculously and inexplicably. When we got back to town, we learned that a magic item she had commissioned, an intricate bone carving, had crumbled and turned to dust in the artisan's hands at the same moment.

Another of my characters would have died on top of Olidammara's altar, on his holy day, which was a carnival, at the stroke of midnight, which was the climax of the carnival. This was not contrived, but something we realized when it had just happened. She was rescued by divine intervention, and with some changes...

Another time we had would have been a TPK. Instead we woke up in the dungeons of a Hag, who wanted to use us as ingredients for a nasty ceremony. It was real fun breaking out of that one...

As for deterrent against doing too stupid things, losing face by getting defeated in a stupid way is quite enough, thank you.

 

[Asmo]

Are they playing their characters, or are they playing as they (the players) would have?
I´m asking, because I can relate a little bit to this situation; when I play, I´m always playing very carefully, no matter what I got on the sheet.
It´s quite frustrating, but I really don´t know how to change my style of play.
Perhaps it´s the same with these players?

Asmo