Stop being so paranoid

[Delta]

(alternatively, if they think that these people have been paid by the orcs, they would have to assume that the orcs still kept some treasure for themselves, and proceed deeper into the dungeon. And then, of course, they would find all those killed orcs and triggered/disabled traps)...

So what do they do now? Confess their crimes, try to make some sort of penance in secret, or just shrug and proceed to spend their spoils?

Any of these responses will tell me something about their characters... which in turn gives me further hooks for role-playing opportunities. Which is part of what role-playing games are supposed to be about.

But what if that throws the DM's story off-track? Dammit, what about my plot? It's almost like you're treating this like just some sort of game.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I am the one who brought up ambushing the other party so let me explain my reasoning. This scenario was brought up in response to a DMs feeling that the PC party was taking too long because they were being cautious (from their perspective) or paranoid (from the DMs perspective). It was brought forward that the way to deal with this paranoia was to force the players to react faster and one way was to have the PCs show up at the dungeon only to find out that they were to slow getting there because they see another party already leaving with the loot.

I was pointing out the player reaction to this happening. All of a sudden it is turned into an indication of a party turning evil and wanting to play an evil campaign. I will give an alternate viewpoint. The players are probably not thinking they are being evil, they are thinking, hey the DM has been dropping hooks that we are supposed to go to this Dungeon and we are supposed to do something there. Seeing that the Dungeon has been already looted there must be another reason they are there and that other adventuring party certainly seems like it is that reason.

Lets consider the effects of all of this on paranoia. The DM is punishing the PCs for not acting fast enough, but if they act fast here they are further punished for their rashness by being made into criminals so it is better to slow down and act cautiously in the future. If they don't act fast and follow and stalk the other party they are following the same cautious/paranoid slow play style that was originally being critizied. If it ever gets out that the reason the players were denied the dungeon is because they were being punished for being too slow then that puts into the players head that this is not a cooperative between players and DM but rather a competition between players and DM where in order to succeed at the game they need to be able to corectly guess what the DM wants they to do or they will be punished. This then leads to more paranoia as they players spend more time trying to figure out what the DM is up to so that they won't be punished for making a wrong call.

Sure this may also be an indication of a sociopathic and evil bent to the party, but it may not be as well. To start overreacting by punishing the party for one action (it would be different if this was an already established pattern) by turning them into hunted criminals is not the party turning evil but the DM choosing to turn the tenor of the campaign from one of heroic characters to one of hunted fugitives. The players arn't making this decision, it is the DM. It is the DM who took away thier heroic defeat of the dungeon, it is the DM who set them up by putting a trap for them to fall into by placing the other adventures in front of them, it is the DM who chooses to turn them into fugitives for falling into the trap, and it is the DM who will further install paranoia in a bunch of players who only wanted to heroicly kill monsters in a dungeon.

 

[Delta]

Lets consider the effects of all of this on paranoia. The DM is punishing the PCs for not acting fast enough, but if they act fast here they are further punished for their rashness by being made into criminals so it is better to slow down and act cautiously in the future.

Yes, there is a decision to be made with consequences.

It's like in poker, when you have a choice to bet (and maybe lose that money) or fold (and lose the money you already put in).

That's what makes it a game.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

But what if that throws the DM's story off-track? Dammit, what about my plot? It's almost like you're treating this like just some sort of game.

For me, as the DM, "story" and "plot" mean looking over my notes from the previous session and thinking to myself:

"OK, that's what the PCs did last time. Now, what could happen next as the consequence of their actions?"

I do have some larger "background plots" in my campaigns - villains trying to achieve some nefarious goal, nations going to war with each other, monstrous hordes invading civilization, and so forth. But don't bother with working out the specifics - including game stats - until I think that they would be appropriate to show up in any given session. Thus, I rarely bother to write down the specifics more than one or two sessions in advance - the actions of the PCs are widely unpredictable, and thus it's hard to predict how any given villain would react to them. Why should I work harder than necessary for the game?

Besides, the actions of the PCs tend to give me the coolest ideas for adventures anyway. Silly, silly PCs...

 

[Hussar]

It is not an "artifact of the game"... it is a problem with new-school D&D play, the utterly ridiculous fear of fictional character (PC) death. If you spring a trap and die, so what? Death of a PC can be among the most fun and memorable aspects of gaming. Search for traps when reasonable to do so, but don't be so afraid. Traps are gonna' happen, and so should death, even pointless death. This is part of what makes it all worthwhile.

And that's perfectly fine, if that' the kind of game you are running. I've run this style and it's a blast. But, you should be up front with your players about it as well. I find that a lot of players get a trifle annoyed after the third time you've whacked their lovingly crafted PC that they wrote three page backgrounds for and spent several hours creating. The fourth one tends to be a bit quicker to build.

OTOH, in my current campaign, the characters are pretty tightly integrated into a larger story. There are numerous plots and subplots going on. Thus, the death of a character does have a very large effect on the campaign. Which means that random, pointless death becomes very annoying, particularly if its frequent.

So, the players become so incredibly paranoid that they will spend ten minutes out of character discussing how to open the damn door.

I've been pretty up front with them now that they don't need to do that. There won't be a Grimtooth's Trap on the door. It doesn't fit with the campaign that I'm running, which is meant to be faster paced and higher adventure.

It all comes down to what you want in the campaign really.