Dealing with paranoid players

[Elf Witch]

Testing them is the most fun thing about unidentified magic items.

I think I probably fall somewhere on the "reckless" side of the scale huh?

I think it is kind of natural for lower level inexperienced adventurers to maybe just try things it is how you learn. When you first started playing and didn't know all the things you learn after you have been playing for years you would do things like this.

I sometimes think the game was more fun back then when everything was new and you didn't know what magic items did or what monsters were capable of.

 

[Elf Witch]

I'd say it was very poor play from the others if they were objecting to this.

If you come from the school of every NPC is out to screw you over then it is a natural reaction. I blame certain type of DMs for instilling this bad view.

 

[Pentius]

So, if I've got it right, you've got Paranoid Player A, who was talked to, but reacted badly, and Paranoid Player B, who was talked to and reacted well. In your shoes, I'd try to get Paranoid Player B to talk to Paranoid Player A. They've been on the same side before, it might work.

If it doesn't, well...this is a bit of a wolf's tactic, but you said your DM is ready to call it quits. If Paranoid Player A won't shape up, he needs to ship out. If it's him or the campaign, kick him and take the campaign.

 

[Elf Witch]

So, if I've got it right, you've got Paranoid Player A, who was talked to, but reacted badly, and Paranoid Player B, who was talked to and reacted well. In your shoes, I'd try to get Paranoid Player B to talk to Paranoid Player A. They've been on the same side before, it might work.

If it doesn't, well...this is a bit of a wolf's tactic, but you said your DM is ready to call it quits. If Paranoid Player A won't shape up, he needs to ship out. If it's him or the campaign, kick him and take the campaign.

Well we are playing tomorrow so we shall see what happens. The DM is going to make some changes like using an egg timer to stop the endless debates of what to do and speed things up.

Also I think she is going to start just letting the chips fall where they may. If we miss encounters because they are to paranoid to go then we lose the items that were in that part of the encounter.

Even though she is running an adventure path she is going to try and do less prep so she doesn't get so frustrated and just wing it.

She ran a game tonight with just her and me and it was a blast. It kind of renewed both our love of gaming. I got to take chances and be a hero and really explore the ruined castle. I got to use diplomacy to get out of killing everything. And I got to role play with some NPCs and make some alliances. And while combat was scary because right now there is just my character and an NPC cleric it was still a lot of fun.

 

[Pentius]

It's good that you can keep the DM's interest up. that makes a big difference in a campaign, ime.

 

[Kzach]

I blame certain type of DMs for instilling this bad view.

This reminded me of a session I ran a week ago for a few friends who stubbornly won't form a permanent group (children, work, family, commitments, blah, blah, blah).

Anyway, it was totally free-form and I was inventing NPC's left, right, centre, side-ways, up, down and everything in-between as we were going along. And I played them to the hilt in-between regular action and plot-development just to make the world feel lived in.

The reaction was hilarious. The players thought every NPC was some super-secret, assassin-ninja, sorcerer-king, evil envoy of super-evil that was out to get them. They turned over every rock, investigated every NPC with a wary eye, went "AHAH!" as a meta-reaction to some suddenly perceived plot device. I had an absolute ball with it, and so did they.

Funny thing was, when the super-secret, assassin-ninja, sorcerer-king, evil envoy of super-evil actually came along, it was kind-of an anti-climax

 

[Derren]

Their RP style simply does not work with D&D.

And while many people bash those two as paranoid, they are imop just overly cautionous in a game where, as Wednesday boy puts it, "requires the main characters to be especially curious (arguably wreckless and/or idiotic) for the story to progress."
"Chaerge!!!! in the name of loot and XP", thats the how most D&D adventures, bought or self made, play out.

The OP says it himself when he complains that

This has cost us XP and treasure so the DM is always scrambling with a way to make it up.

So i disagree witht he assumtion of on the 1st page that those two are being paranoid because of metagame reasons. Its rather that they role play their characters and the roles they have chosen goes against the default metagame of D&D.

How to "solve" (=make their rp more compatible with D&D)? It depends if they are really just play extremely cautionous characters rather well or if they just can't play any other time of character.

If it is the first, giving the PCs some form of authority (They are working for the curch, so give them the title of Inquisitor, that might strengthen their resolve). If that fails just ask them to make other characters which are a bit more adventrous.
If that doesn't help then there is no sense in continue to play D&D. They might be better of with a RPG with less focus on charging recklessly into danger to get loot and XP and is more supportive of a cautinous gameplay. Warhammer comes into mind.

 

[Alan Shutko]

It was, he killed a good necromancer and the authorities arrested him. To pay for the guys resurrection we had to under take a job a dangerous job at that.

You're still playing with that guy?

You've come twice in three months to find a way to salvage this campaign, because this guy is frustrating the DM and other players so much the campaign is on life support.

RPGs are supposed to be fun. They are not a social obligation. They shouldn't be a cause of frustration, a source of angst, an event to be dreaded.

If playing with this guy is causing your game to be unfun, you need to stop playing with him.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Their RP style simply does not work with D&D.

Its rather that they role play their characters and the roles they have chosen goes against the default metagame of D&D.

I strongly disagree with this. I don't believe there is a default gaming style for D&D; I think it's a broad and very flexible family of systems that has, IME, led to great variation in gaming styles. Which is part of the problem here; the other players' style would have been perfectly at home in many 1E campaigns.

That said, I think there's a happy medium. In the stories that I like, the heroes do try to have plans, but are so motivated to accomplish their goals that they do not simply give up and flee whenever circumstances forces them to act without a perfect plan. They have the courage to take risks, but they know those are risks -- they don't assume "Well, nothing bad can happen to me because I'm a main character/I have too many HP/they're just minions." Heroes take risks because they have to. When Sam and Frodo jump off the bridge in Mordor, they don't know how far down it is, but they hope they might survive; getting caught is certain death, and the situation is just that dire. Their leap of faith is rewarded, but they never begin thinking of themselves as invincible.

So on the one hand, I can totally see the paranoid players not wanting to play in the style of "Kick in the door and we know we'll stomp them because the DM wouldn't put us against anything we couldn't handle." That style, where PCs are metagame-aware of their invulnerability, usually holds little appeal for me. But on the other hand, taking 20 to Search every 5' square is boring. So I imagine one compromise might be if the players agree "We will make characters who can be compelled by the plot or by personal goals enough to take risks that they see as unwise but necessary." They can keep on acting as if things are risky as their PCs would perceive them, but be motivated enough to push on even if it isn't the perfectly pragmatic thing to do.

Or, as an alternative, give them a vague in-game understanding of their near-invulnerability (an 11th-level PC is legendary) so it is no longer meta-gaming, and make it a plot point as they try to cope with their overnight transformation into something freakishly powerful. How is it that they have mastered arcane powers in a few months that take most mortals a lifetime to understand? How is it that arrows and swords usually leave only scratches in their flesh? Is is demonic possession, reincarnation of a great hero, or divine/aberrant ancestry? If they know in-character they can kick in the door and slaughter normal people without any real risk, how they respond becomes character-defining.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Prove their paranoia correct by back-stabbing them. Don't permit them to make new characters.

Alternatively, research the spell Grow Cojones and cast it on their characters.