Dealing with paranoid players

[Black Omega]

He loves role playing and he stays in character more than any one I ever seen. He feels that four months would not change a person that much.

I would humbly suggest he watch the D-Day opening of Saving Private Ryan and imagine a character going through that. 48 hours can have profound character altering changes, let alone 4 months of fighting/running away from big bad nasties.

She was giving him a way to adjust his role playing in a way that made sense to him. He is a freaking method actor and needs his motivation.

I suppose it would be a bad idea to use the old 'It's called acting, dear boy.' line?

 

[kitsune9]

Hi Elf Witch,

Your DM sounds like she needs a break, but she could also assess what she can do to deal with the paranoia that her players must contend with. Here's some of my ideas and I may inadventently copy some others' posts as I hadn't a chance to read the pages through (sorry in advance!).

1. Make the penalties for not being heroes painful. The thieves guild example is kind of gold. Not only do the players don't get XP for handling the investigation themselves, but the thieves they hired were in league with the bad guys and the bad guys get tipped off. Well, I'm sure that your paranoid players told the thieves they hired to meet them at Such and Such Inn. That night, they get ambushed and attacked. After the encounter, they party should be able to put two and two together. Of course, having NPC's do your work for you means 0 XP and 0 gold--for everyone.

2. Make the efforts pan out to be nothing. The PC's hire the thieves guild, pay a huge sum, and get nothing. Or they get completely false information like, "We checked it out, only a couple of dogs guarding the place." (the rogues didn't bother to check it out, and don't care).

3. Bring the encounters to them. Whenever the players get paranoid and don't want to go to X, bring X to them. Make it unavoidable and better yet, unexpected. Make the paranoid PC's hunted. Adventure sometimes comes looking for you whether you want it to or not. In the example you provided, when the paranoid players are arguing that they don't want to stay at the murder scene and argue with the rest of the group about fleeing, that's when the city watch showed up.

4. When they argue or plan, that's when they are burning time for others to react. The DM should be thinking while the party is involved in a debate quagmire as to what the NPCs could be doing at this moment, particularly if you're in a dungeon complex with hostiles all around.

5. Trap them. When the paranoid players want to flee or go somewhere else, they find the way they came blocked--literally. A giant block covers the only entrance. Now they got to go find another way out by exploring.

Another observation is that some players tend to react better with assurances from the DM than from other players. In your Spellcraft example, as DM, I would have made the two paranoid players roll Knowledge (local) with low DCs to realize that a lot of people carry magic items, but something like a gem of true seeing is beyond the means of most people (and organizations). If the DM makes this presentation based off these player's roll for information, it's stronger than another player just making the case.

Some of these suggestions sound like railroading, but analysis paralysis needs to be addressed by having the situations come to the players and force their hand or flee.

It sounds like you're playing in Age of Worms AP from the descriptions of a few encounters. I'd be paranoid too if I was playing that. It was an awesome AP.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, Kitsune, I don't think those solutions are going to help. If you start having plans fail, the players are simply going to become even more paranoid. If you start punishing behavior, it often means that the behavior becomes even more pronounced and entrenched.

You have to show that there is a valid alternative. Simply whacking them with a stick won't do it because they've been trained to expect the stick. That's the whole point behind the analysis paralysis and over paranoia.

For example, if you use #5, "Trap them", then you will be guaranteed that every single time from that point forward, they will never go anywhere without massive amounts of checking every single pointless detail. You've shown them exactly what they believed to be true - the world is out to get them. It's feeding their paranoia, not punishing it.

In other words, the 2 and 2 they will put together will simply reinforce their behavior, not channel it into other directions.

Probably the fastest way to get past this is to just say yes. The players start discussing how to handle something and the DM says, "Ok, that works."

Player: What do you mean? We didn't actually do anything.
DM: Really? Oh, I thought that was your plan. Great plan. It works perfectly.
Player: ... umm? Really?
DM: Yeah it was exactly right. Now you are in this situation, ((Begins describing the next situation))

Do that a couple of times and you break the habit of needing to endlessly debate every little detail. Show that you, as the DM, are willing to be fair about things, but you're not going to airmchair quarterback their ideas. If it's reasonably plausible, it's good enough.

Heck, that works for 99% of genre fiction, it's more than good enough for your gaming table.

 

[Elf Witch]

kitsune9 I think some of your suggestions are great and I printed them out for the DM along with Hussar counterpoints.

I think she is right to do what she did with the thieves guild that really bit us in the butt. I think it should have, it was a bad plan.

The powergamer player was confused that it happened because he is a rogue and he felt that entitles him to be accepted and treated fairly by every thieves guild he meets. He views it as a class ability. And as the DM has pointed out to him he had never been to Greyhawk before he had no local knowledge of how the thieves guild works and he didn't do anything to role play out being accepted into it. He also thought knowledge local meant that he had knowledge of any area he was in.So he felt the DM cheated.

So they had a big disconnect there. She wanted more role playing and he felt that it shouldn't be necessary.

But I have to agree with Hussar that I think some of the other ideas might just make things worse.

The more we are talking both here and with each other the obvious issues is we have some very different playstyles going on. And we all need to find away to work with them.

I don't know if we are going to be able to do it but since we are friends we are willing to try.

And kitsune9 it is Age of Worms with some things added in like the freaking vampire.

 

[S'mon]

Some of these suggestions sound like railroading, but analysis paralysis needs to be addressed by having the situations come to the players and force their hand or flee.

IME your suggestions only work with rational players, and have the opposite effect on paranoid, turtling players.

 

[Virel]

The powergamer player was confused that it happened because he is a rogue and he felt that entitles him to be accepted and treated fairly by every thieves guild he meets. He views it as a class ability. And as the DM has pointed out to him he had never been to Greyhawk before he had no local knowledge of how the thieves guild works and he didn't do anything to role play out being accepted into it. He also thought knowledge local meant that he had knowledge of any area he was in.So he felt the DM cheated.

So they had a big disconnect there. She wanted more role playing and he felt that it shouldn't be necessary.

LOL - and he dares to call your behavior reckless? Well at least you can return the favor and call his reckless and stupid.

 

[Hussar]

He also thought knowledge local meant that he had knowledge of any area he was in.

In this, I believe he is right. Knowledge local is not limited to the place you were born in. But, then I'm going from the SRD and memory, so the PHB might be more clear.

In any case, learning about specific information about the local theives guild would be a Gather Information check, not Knowledge Local. Kn Local would tell you there is a theives guild, probably how big it is, and a general overview of its structure and quite possibly how open they are to non-members in the area. Gather Information would let you know how to contact it, what the right passwords/hand signals are, that sort of thing.

 

[Elf Witch]

In this, I believe he is right. Knowledge local is not limited to the place you were born in. But, then I'm going from the SRD and memory, so the PHB might be more clear.

In any case, learning about specific information about the local theives guild would be a Gather Information check, not Knowledge Local. Kn Local would tell you there is a theives guild, probably how big it is, and a general overview of its structure and quite possibly how open they are to non-members in the area. Gather Information would let you know how to contact it, what the right passwords/hand signals are, that sort of thing.

That makes no sense you just walk into a city you have never been in before and you can use knowledge local? That is so broken. If it is true add another nail in the I am getting sick of the way DnD is designed.

But the DM had already ruled that we had to choose where our local knowledge was for. For example my character had chosen Greyhawk so the time we spent in Diamond Lake I could not use it unless I took knowledge local Diamond Lake.

The Players handbook is not clear on it either. I am beginning to realize that DnD is not really made for role playing.

 

[Kzach]

That makes no sense you just walk into a city you have never been in before and you can use knowledge local? That is so broken. If it is true add another nail in the I am getting sick of the way DnD is designed.

I was sure it wasn't that way either. I distinctly recall seeing things like "Knowledge (Greyhawk)" in published material. It was one of the reasons why I never put ranks into it because I felt it was so highly situational that I'd never get to use it.

I am beginning to realize that DnD is not really made for role playing.

I'll make you EAT THOSE WORDS!

If you fly me to where you're at, put me up in a nice hotel, and let me DM for you and your group where I'll demonstrate how powergaming and roleplaying are a marriage made in Elysium

 

[Pentius]

That makes no sense you just walk into a city you have never been in before and you can use knowledge local? That is so broken. If it is true add another nail in the I am getting sick of the way DnD is designed.

But the DM had already ruled that we had to choose where our local knowledge was for. For example my character had chosen Greyhawk so the time we spent in Diamond Lake I could not use it unless I took knowledge local Diamond Lake.

The Players handbook is not clear on it either. I am beginning to realize that DnD is not really made for role playing.

Yeah, I always thought that was kinda weird. That and the inverse, that if I don't put points into Knowledge(Local) I don't get to know basic stuff about the place I grew up in.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that D&D(any and all editions) wasn't made for roleplaying, though. I'd say it clearly was made with roleplaying in mind. How well it works toward that goal, and how you'd measure that, are up for grabs.