Stop being so paranoid

[Pierson_Lowgal]

Player paranoia is a terrible descendant of a sort of game that I think isn't any fun. It comes from an approach to the game as a giant puzzle without regard for character or story, which I feel are the two most important elements in a game.

Anyway,

Since the second edition days, I've been saying, "If you're not going to open that door, then quit adventuring and go home!"

 

[Edgewood]

Although my group did suffer from the "never retreat, never surrender" mind set that has been mentioned before, my group were not exactly paranoid. They suffered from that well known PC obsession known as Iknowtheressomethingthereitis. If you're not familiar with Iknowtheressomethingthereitis (or IKTST) it's basically a malady of the brain. It makes the player believe that although they have come to a passage with a dead end they will continue to look for a secret door for however long it takes. Here is a transcript from a session recording such an occurance.

DM: Okay so as you all slowly make your way down the downward sloping tunnel you come to what appears to be a dead end.

Player: What do ya mean?

DM: (Stares blankly) It's a dead end.

Player: Okay everyone, start looking for a secret door, an illusory wall, anything.

DM: (Starts rolling for the players knowing full well there is nothing there) Okay, after searching for a few minutes you find nothing.

Player: We check again. Elm, cast detect secret doors.

DM: Okay, the spell is cast and you detect nothing. Again your search turns up with nothing, it's just a dead end.

Player: Okay that doesn't make sense. No one would go through the trouble of building this tunnel without it going anywhere. We take 10.

DM: *sigh*. Seriously, you could take 20. You find nothing.

Player: Hmmmm have we checked the floor and ceiling.

DM: (Takes map from behind screen and shows player) Look, there's nothing there. Seriously, there's nothing.

Player: But still...

DM: No. You have to stop searching. You're wasting time.

Player: Fine...we'll come back to this later!

 

[Delta]

Wandering monsters are the solution to this problem. Make the players balance more-search-time vs. avoid-the-wandering-monsters.

 

[Kurotowa]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're aren't out to get you.

By that I mean that IME, that kind of really crippling player paranoia is the result of being traumatized by an abusively adversarial GM. The game is designed to have a certain amount of adversarial challenge to it, but it must at all times remain fair in the adversity. Every time the PCs come to grief they should, in retrospect, be able to clearly see how their own choices and mistakes brought them there.

The trouble is that not all GMs are fair. Be it because they lack to skill in presentation or because they enjoy the power trip, often times it can seem as if there's never a right answer. Death, pain, and humiliation wait around every corner and behind every door, while the GM smirks and waits to spring the latest nasty surprise. This causes the players to resort to ever increasing heights of caution and hesitation, which eventually gets shaped into the sort of paranoia that makes them spend an hour staring at an innocent unlocked door.

It's the same thing for why players would rather fight to the death than surrender. After enough times being humiliated in captivity and forced to sit around twiddling their thumbs until the GM sees sit to allow an escape, spending a bit of time rolling up a new character looks preferable. After some of the experiences I've had, I can hardly blame them.

The only way to really get around this is to win their trust back. Sit down with them as friends, tell them you're not going to spring surprises on them without fair hints in game, and then stick to it. If you burn them again they'll never relax their guard.

 

[EricNoah]

It sort of depends on what the DM (and the game system) consistently rewards. If caution means avoiding traps and unnecessary resource drains, while boldness means getting ambushed, then yeah, PCs will be cautious.

I would like to see more "traps" that are sprung, then take some time to play out (and give the PCs a chance to use their skills to get out of it or lessen the impact), and then have the effect (or spread the effect out over time), than a simple "you failed your search check and your save and now you lost 90% of your hit points" or whatever. As I understand that, 4E supposedly supports this type of situation better than 3.5 does.

 

[mmadsen]

One option, which might not be ideal for D&D but is for Call of Cthulhu, is to have characters who act paranoid become paranoid. Every overly paranoid action forces a sanity check. "They're everywhere. They're out to get me!"

On a more mundane level, real-life people simply can't check everything without losing their ability to notice what they're looking for -- unless they regularly find something. They "tune out" remarkably quickly if their searches yield nothing. Thus, you can apply a cumulative -1 penalty for each unsuccessful check for traps. Then they'll only check when they think it matters.

 

[GlaziusF]

It's actually a symptom of a greater desire, to be a) contrarian and b) right.

Here is the simplest illustration of this desire. At character creation, the GM says "Okay, you're all in a castle split between two factions. There's the King, who supports order, and the Queen, who favors chaos, and everyone backs one or the other. Pick your faction."

How many players did _not_ write down, under faction, "backs the King but secretly favors chaos" or "backs the Queen but secretly favors order"? If you guessed "zero", congratulations.

If you want to try to nip player paranoia in the bud, you can say "guys, I'm the DM. I control the world. If I really wanted to kill you, you couldn't stop me."

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Player paranoia is the result of playing an RPG and not just the remnant of older versions. It isn't even bad DMing. It is just common sense by players based on modern culture. Just about every movie or TV show relies on having a surprise or twist somewhere. As a result we look at things and wonder if someone is telling the trueth or whether this is just another setup to missdirect us. We watch horror movies and know that you never open a closet door or anything else without the possibuility that the monster is in there hiding.

All it takes is one DM action to make make the players paranoid because to not be paranoid could be suicidal. It takes just 1 NPC to betray the characters for them to never truely trust an NPC again, or just one door trap that goes off for all doors to be suspicious. As a GM you may only think you are using this "surpise" only once but the player doesn't know this. To them it is a learning experience. As a player they look at this "surprise" as confirmation that the game plays out just like movies and TV shows. To not learn and take precausions is just stupid. In real life if if even 1 out of 1000 doors we opened could blow up and injure us we would be checking all doors as well.

As a DM you just have to accept a certain amount of player paranoia if you want to run a campaign that has any sense of surprise to it. The only real problems I have seen is when a DM allows player vs. player paranoia. I was part of one such campaign and it took 2 more campaigns before the players started trusting each other again.

 

[Darkthorne]

I understand the creation of the paranoia when DM cheese is involved "You didn't say you were checking this side of the door/next 5ft etc". I would just tell the DM when we are here in this setting this is what I'll be doing (had trap finding abilities) for my standard operating procedure, so either I or he could roll if it was needed. I did have to ask a DM do you want me to roll for every 5ft step I take? Do you really want your game to slow down to that much of a crawl? When I dm I ask for perceptions rolls when they aren't needed and when they are. That way they don't have to be right on top of a trap to possibly notice it. (same token if someone goes screaming down a hallway then yeah, no real perception check based on the dc of the trap) I like the passive perception rule it can remove dm cheese alot and the players don't feel screwed when a trap hits them

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Anyone who's been playing since Ye Olde Days (1st Ed or earlier) undoubtedly has good reason to be paranoid. Articles in The Dragon made it clear all too often that the GM was supposed to have an advarserial relationship with the players. Yes, he was 'out to get them'! (Not all, thank goodness, but many were.) And this was reinforced by a number of modules. (Temple of Elemental Evil, forex.) And even when the GM wasn't out to get them, characters often died for no good (story) reason. (Poison traps and wandering monsters were 'good' for this.)

As for fighting to the bitter end? Why not? There were, and are, no ill effects from being wounded until you drop. Given the amount of luck involved with a modifier of 1-20 on every roll with any fight, it is entirely possible turn turn a sure death fight into a glowing triumph if your dice get hot.

To the poster who was annoyed that his players were sure that there had to be a secret door at the end of a ramp leading to a blank wall? I'm with them, there isn't any good reason for it to be there. This also goes hand in hand with the roll/role playing debate. Here's a situation where roleplaying informs the characters that there has to be something there, vs. rollplaying (or, in this case, metagaming) that tells them that there isn't. So, which do you want? If its roleplaying, make the world consistant. If its metagaming, let them know ahead of time.