Dealing with paranoid players

[carmachu]

Sounds like they have been burned by social/urban encounters in the past.

Maybe they play non-nuanced dungeon crawling without as much reservations.

I remember my time in the RPGA. After the third adventure that started with "your going shopping, plan spells accordingly, armor and weapons too" that ended up facing a greater demon or undead monstrosity, Any time afterwards from that point folward, anytime we went shopping my mage memorized the most destructive spells in his arsenal.

DM's tried to complain, but you cant argue against "last time I went shopping I ended up facing a greater demon" logic. Hell one DM agreed with it when explained.

Past instances can cause current issues.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

While I haven't seen paranoia much, I've been in several campaigns where PCs wimp out. Often because the PCs wanted to make money in-game rather than adventure -- I've seen that concept only work once, but it worked very well.

What is their motivation for adventuring? It sounds like they don't care for it, and those characters should retire.

 

[Kzach]

Ugh.

This is quite seriously one of my biggest, all time, pet peeves about players. If you don't want to adventure, then why are you playing an adventurer? What's that saying? It's Dungeons & Dragons, not Pitchforks & Ploughshares?

The problem with players like this is that they're PEOPLE like this. Trying to change how they play is seriously problematic. I find that it's more about the personality of the person which makes it an ingrained attitude rather than simply a play-style that can be tweaked or altered. I've come up with numerous attempts at solutions to this problem and sadly to say, the most effective solution has been to stop gaming with them.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

One possible fix, PCs that show up for the encounters (or at the very least play through the encounter!) should be the ones to get the xp. You flee before the fur flies, SOL.

Your character entered the stench filled room, investigated, found clues, reported the findings to the authorities. Not the weak-kneed partner. Your character should get all the xp rewards (if the DM was granting any).

Seriously.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I think it was Monte Cooke who wrote a great piece of DM advice in some Dungeon mag. It went something like "It's not your job to reel the PCs along every step of the way. If a player can't think of a reason for his PC to go adventuring, the correct response is "See ya when we get back.""

I agree with Oryan: the DM, the other uncowardly player and you should start following Monte's advice.

My solution would be similar to Oryan's but I'd go a step further. Make up (or have the DM make up) a few NPC characters that will fill in the gaps of the party that the two players are leaving when they refuse to do something.

Then, every time they won't do something they should agree to do, or which you and the other player WANT to do, just have the NPCs go along. Let the paranoid players sit out. Have your character and the paladin commiserate with them about their fears, and then go have fun. Leave them sitting. When they complain, explain that you thought they were playing the way they wanted to play. You're adventurers, they're scared wanna-be's. And that's how it will be from now on.

That might be a little harsh. I'd make those two fill-in characters PC-loaners. So when the wanna-be PCs stay behind, their players can play the NPCs so long as they adhere to the large-print:

Alignment: Tactical Brave

 

[AeroDm]

I find some of the advice in this thread to be passive aggressive approaches to solving the problem. They might work, but they might also reinforce the paranoid player's fears since it was probably passive aggressive hints in the past that made them so cautious. I'd go a very different route.

Have a 10 minute talk about the style of play you all want for the campaign. Be open, clear, and sincere. Tell them that you want the drama to revolve around significant cinematic elements, fast paced combats, and to feel like the heroes can try anything with a reasonable risk following. Maybe they aren't being jerks and just have different expectations. I find that honesty almost always is a purer path to your goals that anything passive aggressive.

As an aside, many years ago when I was a teenager I almost always built up NPCs just to have them betray the party many session later. There were no clues other than the fact that a NPC was significant. Years later, I decided I wanted a more nuanced game, and for some reason players simply would not trust my NPCs. I had trained them to mistrust me and to expect that anything I said was a trap waiting to be sprung.

I paid the 'GM tax.' Years of running NPCs with their motives on their sleeve and proving time and time again that they could be trusted and were worth trusting. It was a hard tax to pay, but when the dept was paid in full, and that first NPC got to betray them once again (this time with proper clues in place) it made it all worthwhile. Have the conversation, pay the tax for a few campaigns, and then get back to the best gaming of your life.

 

[Elf Witch]

I'm surprised that you guys caved in to these two so easily. I would never have expected a player to let their PC leave without their magic items they paid for and their armor or gear. Wow.

Why did you do that?

It sounds like you are letting them have their way and doing that just encourages them to be paranoid.

Why wouldn't your PC tell them to suck it up and stop being cowards? Obviously that is what you are thinking, so why wouldn't your PC be thinking the same thing?

I'm sure you don't mean to, but you're contributing to the DMs frustration by allowing them to push and pull your PC in their paranoid direction.

Maybe you should tell them that this is bothersome. You can tell them that you either won't play if this continues (which is what will happen if the DM quits), or if they do this, then they will have nothing to do the entire game while you and the other player adventure.

You could even ask the DM if she would be able to adjust encounters for times when it would be just you & the other player; in case the 2 paranoid players hide in the closet while you do recon in taverns and such.

I went along with it because I didn't want to make things harder for the DM by splitting the party and since both of us the paladin and I are new ,not player, but character wise and they have issues trusting us we didn't want to make it worse.

I have been struggling with this from day one. It is kind of hard going off on your own in Age of Worms is a quick way to die.

I don't want to force them anymore than I nt to be forced.

 

[Elf Witch]

The DM was on the phone with one of the players trying to work this out. She decided to handle it privately instead of at the table.

When she got off the phone she was literally in tears from frustration.

She explained the issue and wanted to know what she could do to facilitate fixing it. Like reassuring him she was not a killer DM. He got angry over that accusing her of putting words in his mouth and that she had no right to assume that he thought any such thing. So she spent a great while trying to smooth that over.

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. It is one of the flaws of a level based game. Sometimes you just have to metagame a little an accept that this is a game and that one of the constraints is balanced CR threats.

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. From a role playing point that makes sense but it makes it hard to play the game. I don't know how to fix this aspect of it.

He is used to playing in homebrew games where the world is more organic and there are things you are meant to run from. In an adventure path everything is calculated per level so you don't face threats to hard to handle or over your pay grade.

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

This DM is a newbie which is why she choose an adventure path to run. She does add things to make it more personal and he says he is having fun and didn't realize there was an issue.

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.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

He is used to playing in homebrew games where the world is more organic and there are things you are meant to run from.

Capital "B" Baggage.

The problem is that you and the DM are playing a different game than the paranoiacs are playing but you are all at the same table. You and the DM are playing a high adventure fantasy game, but it sounds like the paranoiacs are playing fantasy papers and paychecks in the Warhammer FRPG world.

 

[Oryan77]

I went along with it because I didn't want to make things harder for the DM by splitting the party and since both of us the paladin and I are new ,not player, but character wise and they have issues trusting us we didn't want to make it worse.

I have been struggling with this from day one. It is kind of hard going off on your own in Age of Worms is a quick way to die.

I don't want to force them anymore than I nt to be forced.

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.