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What do you do when your players are gunshy?
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6786412" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>You've pretty much described my players in the OP. My sandbox has a lot of moving parts and pieces in it, including some major threats (dragons, invading hobgoblin armies, etc.) and the players have spent most of the campaign avoiding those threats instead of dealing with them, and looking for easy money in dungeons <em>or</em> taking on ridiculously hard fights for no reason. (E.g. ramming and boarding the neogi deathspider they meet in outer space.) I can't quite figure out the pattern, but suffice to say that they never engage with any foe that I expect them to engage with, except for once (high-level fighter challenged them to single combat).</p><p></p><p>So, agreeing with the good advice you've already been given, I'd hypothesize that your players are looking for something easier and more relaxing. Build them an adventure that's suitable for level 5 characters instead of level 10 characters and run them through that, so they can feel cool and powerful instead of vulnerable and stressed*.</p><p></p><p>* The thing is, feeling vulnerable and stressed is an entirely realistic state of mind for PCs who are constantly facing deadly threats. That's PTSD for you. But if your players don't want to experience that same state of mind, they, unlike the PCs, have the option of simply stopping the game. And so do you.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6786412, member: 6787650"] You've pretty much described my players in the OP. My sandbox has a lot of moving parts and pieces in it, including some major threats (dragons, invading hobgoblin armies, etc.) and the players have spent most of the campaign avoiding those threats instead of dealing with them, and looking for easy money in dungeons [I]or[/I] taking on ridiculously hard fights for no reason. (E.g. ramming and boarding the neogi deathspider they meet in outer space.) I can't quite figure out the pattern, but suffice to say that they never engage with any foe that I expect them to engage with, except for once (high-level fighter challenged them to single combat). So, agreeing with the good advice you've already been given, I'd hypothesize that your players are looking for something easier and more relaxing. Build them an adventure that's suitable for level 5 characters instead of level 10 characters and run them through that, so they can feel cool and powerful instead of vulnerable and stressed*. * The thing is, feeling vulnerable and stressed is an entirely realistic state of mind for PCs who are constantly facing deadly threats. That's PTSD for you. But if your players don't want to experience that same state of mind, they, unlike the PCs, have the option of simply stopping the game. And so do you. [/QUOTE]
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What do you do when your players are gunshy?
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