How ought a DM to discourage thoughtless paranoia?

[Trekkin]

I first noticed this in my Deadlands group, but now that I've noticed it I can't stop seeing it in all of my and my friends' campaigns: our players have gone beyond paranoia into having set, automatic responses to absolutely every stimulus we can present.

I get why they do it, of course, since it's a horror game and they've been surprised rather nastily in the past via ambush or betrayal. My problem is that they don't want to think about how to be safe, merely to be automatically safe; present them with a hallway lined with doors, and they'll say "we check them all. Assume X is scanning them with Y, Z is poking them from twenty feet away with a stick, etc" and you can watch their eyes glaze over as they do it because it's no longer engaging to rattle off their statistically ideal plans for making sure no one is ever inconvenienced in the slightest. Naturally, these plans have failed repeatedly, and they respond by either devoting more and more resources and character build choices to making them better, or simply incorporating new precautions until they have a very elaborate security blanket of rituals to spew at me whenever anything happens.

It's all very gamist in my view, which is something of a problem in and of itself, but it also breaks the mood even more effectively than a rules debate to have them just start spouting security measures as soon as I say a coyote howls in the night or something. (More accurately, "a coyote howls i-", as they never let me finish) It's even worse when they take, as a matter of standard operating procedure, anything they receive from anyone and run a massive battery of tests on it before use. Ideally, I'd like the players to appreciate that things going wrong occasionally make for a more entertaining story than the rote defense of their characters against anything before they possibly know even what it is, but that's tantamount to saying "play dumber so there can be drama associated with characters being damaged" and I know that won't go over well. As such, if there were a way to get them to take half a second to think before acting, to treat it as a game they can't "win" by playing by rote and actually engage in the story as something other than an obstacle, that would be almost as good.

[Saph]

I tend to deal with this by using active encounters rather than passive ones. A trapped door is a passive encounter - it doesn't do anything on its own and since the PCs can take as much time as they want, there's no incentive for them not to run through a laundry list of precautions.

An active encounter like a group of NPCs does things on its own. While the PCs are running tests on it, it'll be doing something too. So running through an over-detailed SOP doesn't help at all and actually is likely to make the situation worse. "No, the wizard does not appreciate being poked in the chest with a 10-foot pole."

When I do put passive encounters in an adventure (locked doors, trapped chests, etc) I don't consider them challenges - they're speedbumps and scenery, there to provide an interesting environment and some background colour. It's not a question of if the PCs will get through them, but how long it'll take.

[Tyndmyr]

If ambushes are common, and so are traps, adopting rote measures to prevent them is quite rational, and not at all "gamist".

Agreed on passive vs active. The booby-trap is only going to encourage this behavior, no matter how cleverly you hide it. In fact, hiding it cleverly only encourages them to think up a new step to detect it.

[valadil]

Let them establish standard operating procedure. After a couple sessions of checking all the doors, just assume it's what they do and narrate it away.

You might also have some luck with overwhelming them with things to be paranoid about. I had a Doppelganger in my last 4e game. He betrayed his family by deciding he didn't want to be an assassin for them, so he spent most of the gaming running from them.

Midway through the campaign he figured out how he was being tracked. As long as the NPCs knew his rough location they could use a level 1 Animal Messenger spell to have an animal deliver a message to him. So the NPCs would leash a dog or ride a horse, cast the spell, and tell it to deliver "woof" or "neigh" to the PC.

Once the players figured this out I pointed out every single instance of a small animal looking at them in odd ways. The signal to noise ratio was so bad they stopped caring and just played. That said, your group may have a better noise tolerance. It's hard to know at what point they'll decide to screw safety and just play the game.

[Tyndmyr]

Also, it really isn't paranoia. It's a horror campaign. It's not paranoia when there really are things out to get you. Responding in this way is normal and expected.

[Totally Guy]

This is interesting.

It seems like the problem is that the skill of the players is high and because of that the game has fewer avenues for you to use for legitimate challenges.

I think you're describing behaviour known as "turtling".

Turtling has become on "optimal choice" for your game. And an optimal choice is never really a choice at all. It's better than all other options.

Is this accurate?

[Rorrik]

I agree on the passive vs active as well, but would suggest that often a mix can make both elements more interesting. If they have an eager NPC they want to protect who insists on forging ahead without waiting for precautionary measures or a group of NPCs who are eminently threatening who are not willing to wait for them to check every door.

Interactive passive traps can also be a blast. Checking one door results in another door locking. The longer one door is open the more mysterious fog builds up behind the other doors. All in all, a real person would start to be routinely cautious if a trap got them every time they opened a door, but if they begin to find that there is no best choice every time and one action may preclude another, they may think twice about which order to do the laundry list at the very least.

[The_Admiral]

Thoughtless Paranoia? Thoughtless Paranoia? THIS IS HORROR! There is no such thing as thoughtless paranoia. Though if they are acting like this, dial back down on the traps. They act like that cause they are scared. Calm em down.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Another thing you could do is to keep track of how long it would actually take to do all of it. If it suddenly takes 3 hours to move down a corridor because they need to check every single square for traps they might not want to do it anymore. Especially if that's 3 hours more something has to track them, attack them or finish a ritual. "Yhea that cult managed to summon an Old One because you were creeping through the hallway at snail-pace."

It might not get them to stop, but it might make them more rational about the measures they take to get anywhere.

[Trekkin]

This is interesting.

It seems like the problem is that the skill of the players is high and because of that the game has fewer avenues for you to use for legitimate challenges.

I think you're describing behaviour known as "turtling".

Turtling has become on "optimal choice" for your game. And an optimal choice is never really a choice at all. It's better than all other options.

Is this accurate?

It is, in the players' minds.

My problem has never been with their paranoia itself. They should be paranoid, but they're not, really, because they never stop to think "how are we going to get out of this one" and then back to "what's going on here". Instead, they just go "okay, so this is what's going to happen so roll out plan A" and disengage entirely because, in their minds, they've done what has to happen. The rare few times they do think, it's wonderful-- they become imaginative and actually keep their paranoia in mind while not letting it hem them in. The players that do this tend to get slapped down by the group, because it either succeeds wildly or fails horribly, and they fear the second more than they want the first.

I've already tried to defeat this sort of attitude by being unconventional (Deadlands actually does that fairly well on its own), and all that happens is they enact plans A-Z simultaneously, so I don't know how to get people to abandon an optimal strategy after they've been shown that it doesn't work.

Really, I suppose the attitude that's at the heart of the problem is the one that, no matter what happens, a rote response is better than a considered one.

[valadil]

It seems like the problem is that the skill of the players is high and because of that the game has fewer avenues for you to use for legitimate challenges.

I think you're describing behaviour known as "turtling".

I agree with the player skill being high diagnosis, but I don't think turtling is the only problem. The players are familiar with the problems their PCs are encountering. They've solved these problems and are ready for something new.

Put a seasoned group of players on the road over night. At some point they'll camp. They'll set a watch. They may even already know the math for dividing up the watches but making sure everyone gets a good night's rest and they'll know to put the casters at the beginning or end of the watches so their rest is unbroken.

Or put them in a dungeon. They've just beaten the boss and discovered several tons of tin coins. Even though the players are level one, odds are someone at the table has solved this problem before.

After the players have been through enough games some situations just won't interest them anymore. In this case, the hallways full of doors problem is solved.

As GM, this problem has been solved too. When the PCs think they know all the answers, that's when you change the question. The obvious change to me is to attach a cost to inspecting everything. Since you're doing a horror game, I don't think it's unreasonable to include a chase scene. Send the PCs through the hallways while they're being chased. Now they don't have the option of checking all the doors. The other option is to put certain doom behind a number of doors. Make sure the players are certain of the doom too. Again, they can't inspect everything quite so methodically this way.

[horseboy]

The other option is to put certain doom behind a number of doors. Make sure the players are certain of the doom too. Again, they can't inspect everything quite so methodically this way.

Are you kidding? That's going to make them even MORE methodical as they try and solve which doors have doom behind them and which ones don't. They might not go in those rooms, but they're going to be breaking out stethoscopes or drinking glasses, start hammering in wedges to force the door to stay closed or warping it with magic.

I really don't see the problem with what they're doing. Being methodical in a horror story is the difference between being the hero/survivor and being zombie #138.

[Trekkin]

The problem is that whether or not it works -- and it usually doesn't -- they refuse to deviate from their existing strategies or even apply them intelligently, and as such never think enough to be truly scared. They're desperately and dogmatically applying old solutions to new problems, never appreciating the novelty of the situation, and then act bewildered when everything can't be taken down by holing up and shooting it.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Have you considered just changing game for a while? If you've done horror games maybe it's time to switch to adventure or sci-fi or something similar. I'm not saying you can't have horror elements in those (by gods, go a head, it's awesome!) but maybe giving them a game that isn't all about horror will make the horror element have more effect when it does come up. Not to mention when you go back to the horror game it will hopefully be with new and fresh eyes.

Still, I'd definitely put some pressure on them (ingame of course) to not waste their time. At the very least it'll mean they can run through plans A-Z but have to pick one and apply it intelligently.

[Trekkin]

Have you considered just changing game for a while? If you've done horror games maybe it's time to switch to adventure or sci-fi or something similar. I'm not saying you can't have horror elements in those (by gods, go ahead, it's awesome!) but maybe giving them a game that isn't all about horror will make the horror element have more effect when it does come up. Not to mention when you go back to the horror game it will hopefully be with new and fresh eyes.

Still, I'd definitely put some pressure on them (ingame of course) to not waste their time. At the very least it'll mean they can run through plans A-Z but have to pick one and apply it intelligently.

Changing games is good, and we just changed from Deadlands to Deadlands HoE, which I'm running very sci-fi. I'll de-emphasize the horror for a while, I suppose.

[Belril Duskwalk]

If the problem is your players have a time-consuming standard reaction to encountering empty hallways I think the best fix is to put some time constraints.

They have to rescue the damsel in distress before midnight, but they got to the place at 10:30 PM. They can cling to their Standard Corridor Search, but if they do they'll likely run out of time. Or, they can trim the Search Protocol to the bare minimums, allowing themselves enough time to rescue the girl, but run the risk that the Protocol they dumped could have saved them some trouble.

Another option is of course a pursuer, or a patrol. If they take forever on a hallway, they're sure to be caught, so they'd better get through fast or whatever is behind the door will be a preferred outcome to whatever is wandering the halls.

If your players have established a security blanket of search patterns and suspicion I say the best reaction is not to try and convince them that the blanket won't help. Not at all, the best reaction is to turn their security blanket into a Cloaker* that wants to eat them. Put them in situations where not only are their excessive security measures not helpful, but where following their security measures suddenly become a bigger threat than ignoring them.

*For anyone that doesn't know, a Cloaker is a D&D monster that appears to be a beneficial magical cloak, but when a person wears it, it tries to kill the person that put it on.

[erikun]

As others have mentioned, the problem is that you've conditioned your players to act in a certain way. They encounter a scenario, the scenario turns out to be dangerous, they implement countermeasures that will (sometimes) work.

The first thing you want to do is to stop using scenarios that their countermeasures ward against. They've won against those, so stop using them. Don't just use them "occasionally", and don't just tone up the difficulty to the point where it overcomes their defenses - doing so will only prove to the players that their precautions were right, and that they just need to focus more resources along the right track.

Rather, move the horror onto another track. If they are paranoid about doors and always take forever to check behind doors, then don't put anything dangerous behind doors anymore. If they always prod the floor with a 10-foot pole or scan everything given to them for malicious magic, then don't put traps on the floor or malicious magic on items given to them. Part of this can involve more action-oriented sessions: passive defenses for exploring hallways or analyzing items won't help against a known monster chasing them down.


And I'd call their actions very realistic. People tend to use solutions that work, or that have worked in past similar situations. Heck, you've pointed out that there is even good reason for them to do so. I'd actually say that not doing so would be very gamist, as voluntarily walking into a life-threatening risky place without taking some good-sense and effective precautions would be a very "gamist" attitude of wanting to challange the character.

[ClothedInVelvet]

First, I would thank your players. Not every DM has a group of players who can think through situations and do what you're describing. Sure, once they master it, I can see how it becomes something you need to get around. But they're playing in your world. They've taken the red pill and they're trying to survive inside the rabbit hole.

Second, I like the time idea. Give them a hole that descends into the earth. A staircase winds around the outside, and mist fills the hole such that they can only see for a few feet. They'll probably want to go down the stairwell, carefully checking doors and traps all the way down. But if you unleash some demons behind them, they're going to need to descend rapidly, even if that means jumping or rappelling . And when one falls through the razorwire mesh halfway down, they might learn that every team needs to make individual sacrifices.

I don't think you need to tone down what they're afraid of. Just give them situations where their accepted strategy doesn't work.

[tyckspoon]

And when one falls through the razorwire mesh halfway down, they might learn that every team needs to make individual sacrifices.

Or they can learn that holes are dangerous just like doors, statues, and seemingly-innocuous floor tiles, and they will never again jump down a hole without first throwing down a largish ball on a very long rope to see if it gets cut to pieces/burnt/covered in acid/eaten. If you're trying to convince the party it's ok to take an expedient risk every now and then, putting in a gotcha like that is not the way to do it.

[Autolykos]

You're using traps the wrong way. A wise man once said: "An obstacle not covered by fire is not an obstacle."
This is what makes Tucker's Kobolds so dangerous: They combine traps with combat and/or ambushes, so the players can't take their time. Same in the real world: Locks and alarm systems are rated in the time it takes to bypass them. If you want to use them effectively you need to make sure that patrols get there frequently enough.

[ClothedInVelvet]

Or they can learn that holes are dangerous just like doors, statues, and seemingly-innocuous floor tiles, and they will never again jump down a hole without first throwing down a largish ball on a very long rope to see if it gets cut to pieces/burnt/covered in acid/eaten. If you're trying to convince the party it's ok to take an expedient risk every now and then, putting in a gotcha like that is not the way to do it.

I wasn't trying to teach them that it's ok to take an expedient risk, I'm trying to teach them that a game can be more fun if we take risks and die sometimes. Death in D&D is hardly the enemy. It can be a ton of fun for the player and the party.

I once played a character who would run through every door bellowing obscenities and challenges to whatever dared face him. And he took hits from traps, archers (until another character would tackle him behind cover), and big monsters. When he finally died, he did so fighting an impossible battle while his companions fled behind him.

My point is, defeating every trap and turtling is fun, to a point. But it's also fun to hit a few traps and jump down a hole spread-eagled with only a bedsheet to serve as a parachute.

[Ravens_cry]

Death often means you have to sit out a session basically.
How is that fun?
The only way you are going to have the players start taking risks is to rebuild their trust. And that is going to be hard.

[Earthwalker]

I first got the problems the OP was having confused with my own problems and issues with role playing and SOP.

Some people have said that what is being described is perfectly normal paranoid behaviour and if the players are happy the just go with it. If when opening a door they always do X, just assume from now on say they don’t have to tell you, they always do X. If they like they can write it down for later.
Of course then you have situations where doing x is completely inappropriate.
e.g.
After two days riding the group eventually arrive at the small town of Solvers Rest. They head into the saloon where one of the male characters begins to flirt with one of the saloon girls getting more drunk as the night goes on. At one stage in the night she heads upstairs to her room. A few minutes after the door is closed the patrons of the saloon hear a scream.
Quickly the group dash up the stairs and get to the door. The doctor opens his bag and begins listening to the door with his stethoscope, the huckster casts some detection spell….. and so on. I am sure they wouldn’t do this, because time is important.

Also on the same note, the “You hear a coyote howl….”
Have them spend time with normal people. Sharing a trail with a wagon train or something. Normal people that are just going about their business.
Then when everyone is round a camp fire sharing tall tales. Have the
“you hear a Coyote howl…” if they start preparing and drawing weapons, running for riffles and what have you. Have the NPC there act like the people are crazy (well they are). Show them normality. Have problems that have mundane answers.

Not sure you are going to get people wanting to kill off their characters coz jumping down pits blindly is fun. You should at least show how their fall into paranoia effects how others see them.

[Roderick_BR]

Using the passive vs active argument, you could add timed scenarios. The PCs need to go from point A to point B. It's not something down to the second, but if they spend hours upon hours checking a room, they may miss an important meeting or something. Also, do have them describle everything they want to do, and describle how everything turns out (including things that doesn't happen because there's nothing there). Hurrying + boring tasks = PCs moving on quickly.

[Gunpowder]

I actually liked the progression of paranoia in Deadlands.

At the beginning of the game, we'd end up walking into every trap, and saying a few words over the dead after battle. At the end? We were making plans and following them, and putting a careful, measured shot into the head of every corpse we met. It really added to the feeling that we were being hardened by our campaign.

Then again... well, it never seemed to be slowing things down. Which is the main issue.

I guess you have three options. The first is to actually talk to your group, and ask them whether toning it down would preserve the fun. And maybe they think that you've thrown one too many traps and ambushes at them (we were trapped and ambushed, but it only happened very occasionally).

If you don't want to go down that route, there are two other ways you could do it. One is simply to add time constraints. If the party is trying to stealth their way in somewhere (and, given the they're playing Deadlands, I imagine they are), their precautions are going to take time and make noise. Gently remind them that the longer they loiter, the more likely that they'll be caught. Alternatively, throw in a few red herrings to make them let their guard down. You're playing a horror game, so all sorts of noises and shadows are just tricks of the mind.

[Jay R]

If time is free, then players will spend an infinite amount of it. This is perfectly rational behavior. To change the behavior, time must stop being free and infinitely available.

There are two solutions to this, dating back to original D&D in 1974. Both have been mentioned, but nobody has put them together - tracking time and wandering encounters.

First step: keep track of the time.
PC: "We measure the entire doorframe."
DM: "OK - nothing found; it's been five minutes."
PC: "What is the door made of?
DM: "Wood, mostly."
PC: "Mostly? We examine the door carefully."
DM: "It's wood, with iron hinges and a brass handle, and a spot that looks slightly different. It's been ten minutes now."

You will quickly discover that that level of detail will spend four hours examining a small room, and two days examining a large one. But up until now, everyone has assumed that it took only a few minutes. You need to be able to say, "OK, You've examined half the room; it's been a long day. Where are you sleeping?"

Very quickly, they will start limiting themselves, because they are exposing themselves to more dangers than they are preventing. What dangers?

That's the second tool - wandering monsters. If you check for a wandering encounter every hour, or every four hours, or whatever, then spending more time on searching is inherently dangerous.

Eventually, you can say, "OK - I know your standard drill. How much time will you spend searching this room if you don't find anything?" Then the game zips past the time-wasting back to the encounters.

The encounters should very rarely be life-threatening. A bat flies by, a starving dog comes in the room, a fly lands on a PC's nose while he is trying to lift something up carefully, two bandits are trying to hide, etc. If only one in 12 is an actual threat, they still have to care about them all. (Also, if a bat flies by every night or so, then when the vampire shows up, he'll get first initiative.)

A final possibility - even without wandering encounters, a deadline makes this behavior impossible - IF you keep track of the time realistically.

But the crucial fact is this - if time is free, then players will spend an infinite amount of it.

[TheCountAlucard]

First, I would thank your players. Not every DM has a group of players who can think through situations and do what you're describing.

You do realize that's explicitly stated by OP to not be the case, right?

They quite literally are making no effort to try and think things through beyond the paranoid rote they've established, even though it's failed a few times now.

They're not afraid, and they're not thinking; if they were either of those, I imagine it'd be a lot more forgivable by the OP.

[STsinderman]

In truth I think that you might just have to wean them off this attitude if it is staring to have a great impact on your game.

• Implent a time element to what they are doing, and so penalise them when they waste too much time testing for traps.
• Only use trpas sparingly, they should not be a huge sonstant unless that is the point of the area, also try to be less conventional about how they are set off and operate.

[SamBurke]

I'd take it as a compliment: it means you've created the proper edge of fear in a world in which it is deserved.

In Fallout, you're supposed to be scared of every flipping thing. There are mines, radiation, raiders, all sorts of things going on, all of which can and will kill you. If you're afraid and take things carefully, then the designers have taken the feel of the world and impressed it upon you well.

However, if they're doing that and it's annoying you, give them a reason NOT to be paranoid, or to have to not be paranoid. A good way is to keep a time deadline on them. This could be a boulder rolling behind them, the need to rush a heart cross-country for a surgery, or anything else; just something that means time is precious. They'll still do spot checks, and probably search, too.

Also, do they have unlimited resources to search and so on? Not just time, but lock picks and batteries for flashlights, and things like that.

[TheCountAlucard]

I'd take it as a compliment: it means you've created the proper edge of fear in a world in which it is deserved.

Except that they're not afraid. There's no fear in doing the actions by rote.