Stop being so paranoid

[billd91]

One thing that might help is established rules to cover such things. ie Every door you open, you listen, check for traps, then unlock, then let the fighter step through. I'll tell you if anything comes up before the fighter steps through. Similarly with walking down a hall, camping and setting watch for the night (and you should probably get a default night watch list in advance), etc. That said, some groups just like being paranoid, others like pushing buttons to see what happens.

This has been very helpful in the Shackled City campaign I've been running. Three of the 7 PCs are originally from a small mercenary company (one's a scout, one a paladin, one a swashbuckler) and they established, early on, a certain military-style procedure when it came to hunting for traps and opening doors.

The scout, specifically, said that he would be searching for traps wherever we were going in a dungeon and would be taking 10 to do so. It means they don't move that fast, but it also means I can adjudicate it very fast. Knowing his Search mod and the DCs of the traps, I simply reveal any that his search can match and trigger any that he can't.

 

[pvc]

I wonder if someone actually like traps.
To me, they are just boring annoyances, and i like to play rogues as hell. Rogues are cool when you face an incredible mechanism built to protect an artifact. Then you can enjoy your wise skills selection.
But doortraps! Simply useless, boring and time consuming things.

Aside from that, there are many reasons to be paranoid, one overly underestimated is the scarce perception that player have of the world, the DM know always what's happening, but players can only wonder and hope to get it right from DM's mouth. Often they feel that a description is not enough. Sometime is not fear that prevent good roleplaiyng, its just a poor perception of the events, "this window is wide enough?", "its me, or it was a poor description?", a more often "Why he used this voice tone?"
There are many difficulties to overcome as a player, and masters cannot feel all of the, cause its all obvious in their eyes.

 

[El Mahdi]

What the hell are you talking about?

Have you actually read the DMG? Have you read any of the columns going up at Wizards? Hell, in the last column by Shelly, the Wizards people flat out said it was just the job of the DM to kill the PCs.

It is all about doing anything, everything and whatever it takes to torment and kill the PCs. If the players are not deeply paranoid, then they deserve it when their characters die.

Further, in a game where they player begin to get a visceral sense of how the DM operates, then this kind of paranoid does not come out of the blue and it is not undeserved – it comes as a response to how the DM runs the game.

Stop whining to us, kill the PCs and be done with it.

Wow! Really living up to your namesake today, Eh?!


Just Devils Advocate here, but maybe he doesn't play 4E, have the 4E DMG, or read articles at WoTC? Just a possibility.

 

[El Mahdi]

. . . 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."

That's awesome advice. DM's are the unstoppable asassin or special operations soldier of RPG's (or just the all-powerful master of the universe). Let the players know they are only alive due to your indulgence. Sweet.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This is inspired by another thread, but is really about a larger issue-- Player paranoia. I'm sick and tired of dealing with it. It's a tradition that gets carrie over to every DnD edition and other RPGs.

In the inspiring thread, the players wouldn't open a door that could provide an escape and save their lives because something might jump out at them. Every square inch of a dungeon has to be meticulously searched for traps or secret doors. Every door is potentially trapped, every goblet of wine is poisoned..

In that scenario the doors in question had not been opened. It would be a bad tactical decision to flee into unexplored territory if there were other options,not mention that doors and walls are useless against incorporeal creatures.

If the fight looked so hopeless the thing to do early on was pick a direction (hopefully they were familliar with at least one unless they teleported to the area) and flee. Yeah there might be a couple of opportunity attacks but you can retreat, and come back and fight when the odds are more in your favor.

As a rules related question can you avoid AOO's by doing nothing but moving away from an opponent? It used to be the case and if that has changed then I don't blame the group for fighting to the death.

How do other DMs deal with this legacy of arbitrary death? I can't always blame the players. Sometimes there is a trap or a monster waiting in ambush, but most of the time they're just slowing things down or acting paranoid because there's too many stories or past experiences that say death is a giggle and a die roll away. Another related aspect is when a fight does occur, retreat is almost nonexistent. A party will fight to nearly the last man rather than retreat and regroup.

It depends somewhat on the group and somewhat on the rules. If the rules make retreating too costly or difficult then why do it? Because there is sometimes a monster or trap in dangerous dungeons its not really paranoia, its just caution to one degree or another.

I suppose they're all artifacts of the game. It is a game after all. There's supposed to be challenges and pitfalls, but also some story and drama. Is it just a particular style of adventure design? I'm currently running KotS, but have been playing for years and always see the same issues. Are there any adventure design tips to avoid this?

It also depends if one or more of the players has had the experience of playing with a killer DM before. As far as artifacts go, the early game rules made a fighting withdrawl a very attractive choice in some situations.

Do other groups have this paranoia problem? And what have you tired to keep it from interfering with the game? I often just chuckle and tell them the door is fine before they can even finish asking about traps. I like the passive perception idea, but it's not enough to keep the party from searching everything. I've promised not to punish creative movement in a combat area. Still, if it has an element of the unknown, it's avoided.

Over-cautious players will progress through areas more slowly. If the DM is keeping track of exploration time, then taking more time could mean more wandering monsters or a failure to meet a goal with a deadline. There should be consequences for being over-cautious as well as the opposite.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

I'm pretty sure the passive checks in 4e, in part, address these concerns. You don't need players to state they're checking every door, hallway, NPC, etc. You simply use their passive perception/insight/whatever and inform them if something is "off" about the situation. Sure, you can still allow active checks - but those should be triggered by in-game events that make the players feel a certain door, hall, or NPC is different than the norm.

Similarly, you can have an established approach, document it (if needed), and then the players can just do the "standard" whenever they want to check out a door for traps, listen, look for cracks, etc. Speeds up gameplay enormously.

I'm still not comfortable with the passive checks, and I don't think I use them correctly, but I do think they are a step in the right direction.

WP

 

[Serendipity]

All of that paranoia takes time. All of those additional little fiddlybits just eat time.
Behold, wandering monsters.
Hells, if that doesn't work, the next time they go on a dungeon crawl - make it timed. Give them an in game reason to hurry. This puts it on them to decide between paranoia and expediency (hopefully, leading to a happy medium betwixt the two, IMO.)

 

[ProfessorCirno]

This thread confuses and frightens me.

Players are SUPPOSED to be paranoid. I mean, come on, dungeons are supposed to be horrifying death traps. Sure, paranoia can easily go too far, but dammit all, those ten foot poles are there for a REASON!

If your players aren't afraid of dying, it's time to start the slaughter.

 

[brunswick]

When I started DMing one of my AD&D groups in the early 90s (Temple of Elemental Evil) the players didnt seem to even comprehend the concept of resting (they were just starting out). They blundered into the main Temple, and continued to venture deeper and deeper into the ground level complex with lots of evil NPC guards(despite the fact that they had caused the alarm to be raised). The entire party eventually succumbed to the evil forces but they then repeated the "trick" with a second party with the same result. I suggested "You do know you can rest or retreat at times?", which was met with a general "Ooooh!!" by the players. This experience (in addition to their experience with "killer DMs" at some Conventions and such in the 90s - there did seem to be a perception among some players/DMs that the DM was their adversary) I think slowly turned some of these players Paranoid in the extreme and the players would go to elaborate lengths to search for traps along every 10' of corridor and they practically refuse (in our 3.5 games) to engage almost any NPC without ALL of the appropriate buffing spells to make sure. Its disappointing because the players determination to see their characters survive completely overrides their roleplaying experience I think. The thing is though that many of the players I have had play in my games over the years (with the exception of this group) say to me at Conventions/get-togethers and such that I'm a "soft touch" as a GM/DM, and they (if they were DMing) would be far more heavy handed so I dont see why the current group feel the need to go to such lengths...

 

[Remathilis]

This thread confuses and frightens me.

Players are SUPPOSED to be paranoid. I mean, come on, dungeons are supposed to be horrifying death traps. Sure, paranoia can easily go too far, but dammit all, those ten foot poles are there for a REASON!

If your players aren't afraid of dying, it's time to start the slaughter.

As a couple posters have pointed out, there is a difference between caution and paranoia. The former is wise; it allows you to avoid deathtraps and ambushes and such. The latter makes your game slow to a crawl by searching every 10' area and detecting evil on every innkeeper.

The "magic middleground" is a wise caution, not overt boldness or paralyzing fear. Alas, its a difficult middle to find, and its not the same for everyone.