Fear: A Party's Worst Enemy?

[Cloudgatherer]

I had a strange session last night. Prior to last night's session, the party managed to escape from the (3 month) domination control of an evil wizard, then proceed to kill a lich-cleric and keep him from summoning a horrible evil back into the world. The party killed the lich in a set of tunnels under a city, and being completely drained hid in the city.

So the session starts, the party is hiding in the basement of a house (owned by friendly organization), and discussing their next course of action. Doing some recon, the party's bard discovers the evil wizard who had controlled them is organizing the search himself (he knows the lich they slew, and the party's rogue even shot him with an arrow just before they killed the lich). The party, concluding they are in danger, flee from the city using the cleric's wind walk spell.

Now the trouble starts. The party reaches another city just fine and proceeds to discuss their options. They know about phylacteries (in character) and debate going back to the first city to find and destroy it before the cleric-lich returns versus going after the evil wizard who had dominated them. The party decided to "check out" if they can go after the lich using the clerics scry ability. The cleric scrys for a while, it is noticed by a beholder, then by another beholder, and finally a spellcaster starts to do something about it (detect scrying against the cleric).

Obviously, there is tighter security in the city where they killed the lich, and going after wizards is always dangerous, but the party concludes it is much too dangerous (either course of action) and ends up getting items identified, crafting an item or two, and selling some loot from the last adventure. At the end of the night, they track down a couple of old enemies of theirs and end up beating them up (they knew these enemies were "lower level" and not a real challenge to them).

After all this, it just seems to me the party was afraid. "It's too dangerous" or "we'll all be killed" were mentioned a couple times.

How do you handle "party fear"? It kept the party in a state of inactivity for most of the evening, and in the end the party went after a couple of villains at least in part because they knew they could easily win the battle. It didn't seem very heroic to me, and I think I could use some advice to entice the party to "take a chance" or "fight the good fight".

Thanks!

 

[Crothian]

I envy you. I have the opposite problem. My guys think they are invicible. They take stupid chances and fight things they aren't supposed to. Sure, some die and they face the consequences, but they don't care. I tried a horror game with these guys, and they so did not get it.

I'd let them pick their own battles for a while. Let them build up their confidence for a while.

 

[Horacio]

I've mostly found only the two extreme cases you've told, the "coward" party and the "reckless" party...

I would love a party with common sense and the just dose of courage

 

[Cloudgatherer]

I would have figured sheer anger might make them go after the "evil wizard" (called the Dark Wizard in my story hour). Considering he has done horrible things in front of the party, served as their primary antagonist, and recently used and abused three of the party members for 3 months (domination magic). To top it all off, he took one of the party's artifact pieces, so he now has 2 of 6 artifact pieces the party is trying to assemble. Given all of this, the party waited till the end of the night to even start going after his "underlings"....

I think next I'll have him pop in, fireball them, then stick his tongue out at them...maybe that will get them mad? (that was sarcasm, btw)

 

[Cyronax]

Maybe you could use their fear to your advantage. Have one of these two powerful enemies kidnap someone important to the party (a low level damsel in distress or maybecohort if you can swing it). They'd be completely scared about going back and fighting the enemy, but they'll be forced into some sort of action. The fact that they're scared will make them take their sweet time in strategizing, but in the end it'll add more to their enjoyment once they defeat the enemy.

Maybe, in character, they seek out an ally. In past campaigns I've run, I usually don't see a problem with having aid from an NPC, just as long as the PCs realistically roleplayed things out and didn't rely to heavily on the NPC. I probably would never make the NPC more than a level or two higher than the party, and often their help would have serious strings attached.

Hope that helps,
C.I.D.

 

[Humanophile]

Just serve the party up with the consequences of their actions. As it stands, their epic battle against the lich will soon be for naught, and they're letting their main antagonist play the game on his terms. All in all, an unwise idea.

If you want to get them active, it might be wise to show them that indecisiveness only allows the baddies time to prosper, and from there see how they want to go. If they work hard at undermining the resources of the evil wizard, more power to them, and that's a very wise way to whittle him down for a final confrontation. Just remember to show the achievements he makes while they wait, the damage done by their guerilla attacks, and his responses to shore up security and minimize damage.

If, on the other hand, they just want to get out of the way and plunk off goblins and such, show off how the darkness spreads outwards, let them be captured and have to escape, and put them under time constraints before (dire event X) happens. Basically, let them realize that the longer they sit there twiddling their thumbs, the harder it will be to finally achieve their objectives. (Again with the caveat: undermining the wizard with guerilla assults against his holdings is not sitting there twiddling their thumbs. Just realize that they have to be tactically sound or else go after progressively bigger targets. Killing the door guard and running away just means bigger guards next time.)

 

[James McMurray]

How prevelent is resurection magic in your campaign? A lack of easily findable raising can often paralyze higher level parties with fear, as they know they'll likely die during high-level battles.

Also, in my Return to the Tomb of Horrors campaign (link's in the sig ) the group is very afraid of their nemesis. She has battled them all and killed one of them before leaving because she was out of spells. But they'll still be fighting her in an arena battle because she has found leverage to force them to come to her (a kidnapped brother and follower).

Of course, I doubt your villain will bewanting to challenge your heroes to an arena duel, that was only made necessary by the fact that both sides in my campaign are protected from scrying, but the party always seems to manage to hunt the villain down anyway (unbeknownst to her it is through sheer luck).

A little leverage can go a long way though. Also, be sure to let your players know out of game that you aren't the type to make scenarios that aren't balanced. Be sure they know it won't be a cakewalk, but also that it won't be a massacre.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Ressurection magic isn't that common. However, the party cleric is 12th level (as is rest of party). So he can cast raise dead and ressurection next level. I have yet to have an NPC bring a PC back from the dead, but I have killed 2 PCs.

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep them coming!

 

[Cloudgatherer]

ceremonial bump....

 

[Quidam]

GREEEEEEEEED

I'm playing a PC in a campaign that's got a similar problem- no one has faith in the NPC's that are sending us on these missions (they're students at a university- they got sent to clean up a house bequeathed to the university for 'detention' and ended up facing a whole mess of undead) and so whenever the DM tries to give us a story hook, the PC's react with incredulity. "You want us to do WHAT?"

So they need motivation. Maybe it's that I'm playing a rogue, but I know Spark would be much more inclined to run these little errands if there were some sort of compensation- the loot meter's sadly been in the red so far.

So... maybe if you gave them something they STRONGLY desire to draw them into the fray... And not just the Quest Item- something that'd really make the PLAYERS drool...

Just a thought. Bribe 'em.