Dealing with Action & Drama Avoidance in PCs

[Altair_the_Vexed]

What do you do when your players are committed to their playing characters (good!), but so much so that they avoid conflict and shy away from drama and action (argh!)?

Like, we've all been playing for a long time, characters are getting to mid-level awesomeness. The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly.
You start a bar-room brawl, and the party all back off and leave.
You confront the party with a parallel universe alternate reality where they are mistaken for their own evil twins, and they put all their efforts into hiding and avoiding the conflict.

... Or whatever - you know: they avoid excitement, adventure, and the cool things you've thought of to entertain them and yourself.

Any tips?

(BTW I'm not looking for specific solutions to a particular problem here, just general insights into how other gamers have dealt with the same.)

[gijoemike]

Have those various plots play out. And make it obvious that the PCs could have discovered the cult much earlier when they were less powerful, stopped the thief, prevented the murder of a related npc, revealed the spy, etc. Hurt the PC's allies, base, town in some why. It may just be economic, it may be loss of limbs, or death to multiple important npcs.

Have terrible things happen. Make it obvious the PCs could have delayed or stopped it. Then present new plot hooks. Hindsight and bad lessons are an excellent teacher.

[BRC]

So, a lot of what this comes down to is kind of a group desire to make the "Correct" play, plus the natural roleplay inclination to do what a reasonable person would do, which is often try to keep themselves and their friends safe.

Part of the key is to make sure you understand the PC's Goals, and build your plot hooks around those goals. Don't just present "here is an interesting, Dangerous thing!" to the PC's and expect them to jump on it because it's interesting and dangerous. Start with "What are they trying to do", and then make doing that thing exciting and fun.

The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.


This is especially the case in a group game, because nobody wants to be the one person to ruin the game for everybody else.

If a barroom brawl starts, and one PC joins in, all the PCs will feel obligated to join in to help their friend, whether or not they wanted to do so. At the very least, the game will drag to a crawl while the combat resolves. Even if every player kind of wants to jump in, they might be unwilling to make that decision for the rest of the table.

While the PLAYERS might be here to see drama and action, they're playing characters, who are often trying to achieve their goals and keep themselves safe. Unless the PC's are explicitly adrenaline junkies,

[Bugbear]

This is a fairly common problem. Basically happens when the DM is running a game different then what the players like or want.

In most cases the players will say so, but you don't mention that...so maybe they have said nothing.

If the players really want to play the "hide game", they need to find a DM that wants to play that same game. If that is not you, then you need to have a talk.

[Telok]

Sorry, can't help you. My players always bite on hooks baited with bigger guns, better armor, or treasure piles. Their problem is more of a continual series of "Well we can never go back there again. What's the next city / country / planet / solar system on the list?

[Quertus]

This is… complicated.

Most of the OP, I look at, and respond with, "they're role-playing? That's awesome!"

There is one exception, though: "The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly."

At this point, you (probably) don't have a game. Even if you do, it's clear that a) your effort was wasted; and b) your players / their charters have different ideas about the game than you do. It doesn't matter how good a story could be if nobody wants to play it.

Now, let's be honest: a lot of the time, "what makes for a good game" and "what a remotely sane person would do" don't match up very well. "Being a D&D Adventurer" is generally on that list; "continuing to be a D&D Adventurer after you've earned enough to retire" definitely qualifies.

Some characters - like Bilbo - are a little more sane than others. They need a bit more of a push out the door. Which is just a special case of the general, "the adventurers hooks and rewards need to match the PCs".

So, if you don't know how to make adventures that hook the PCs, talk to the players. Explain the hooks you had set up, find out why they didn't bite, and what kind of hooks they *would* bite.

Maybe the hooks weren't right for the PCs. Maybe the players didn't notice them. Maybe they were metagaming, and thought that they were *supposed* to ignore those hooks. Maybe they were looking for a completely different type of game.

Maybe maybe maybe. Easy way to find out? Talk to your players.

[Lacco]

Had this happen to my group twice (noticeably):
1st was my "core" group. The game was Riddle of Steel - which means high lethality of combat, with good combination of system mastery and lots of options. City campaign, the players rolled a pair of assassins - and they played rather stealthy. At certain point, a full-fledged mob/assassin war started.

And I had this vision for a game session, where they run through the city, saving citizens, helping out their compatriots in combat, had various groups prepared.

They ran around the roofs, avoided all combat with stealth and cunning. They basically speedran the whole session, jumping right into final boss.

Interestingly, the original idea was to tire them out, spread them out a bit thin - this way the final battle was a rightful curbstomp. The boss stood no chance.

They enjoyed it immensely, especially after I have shown them what they avoided. They enjoyed it because that's the way they wanted to play.

---

2nd was a one-shot with a friend-of-a-friend group. I was asked to GM by one of the players. She requested an epic game - no "rags to riches", no "you start here and become epic heroes after some time", but "you are legends and you'll face legendary threats".

Only two players were able to handle the kind of game - because the others were too afraid their characters couldn't manage the threats (including the one who requested the game). They spent most of the time devising plans similar to those level 1 characters devise when facing superior foes, while they could plow right through them without any issues.

After the session, I took time to find out what happened. They couldn't break out of their usual mindset and thought the enemies were level-scaled. Which they were not - there were few actual threats, but they were properly signalled.

The two that immensely enjoyed the game were a total newb (a girlfriend of one of the players) who mainly used the reputation of her character for intimidation tactics and her crazy sneaking skills to basically disappear any time she wanted batman-style, and a guy who discussed their character with me a lot - a priest of ancient, lost race, wielding an artifact of power and capable of actual miracles. He went all-in and was the one who moved the story forward.

So the issues were twofold: failure in communication (both sides) and failure to recognize the power level (more on my side).

---

Now for the "successful" one: the core croup's original characters were highly compatible with the style of play I wanted to do. They were able to avoid some threats, but they always did it knowingly and enjoyed the actual game of cat & mouse (e.g. noticing patterns in game to see an ambush was coming => they flip the ambush and destroy the opponent) and sometimes walked in to the trap knowingly (the fact that party leaders played a proud barbarian and overconfident fencer helped a lot).

We usually held a feedback talks after each session, with them telling me what they enjoyed/missed and I informed them about some of the missed content I prepared - we also talked a lot about expectations, so I knew what was the game they wanted to play and they knew what I could deliver/wanted to GM.

In some cases, I had to resort to some not so popular GM tactics:
- OOC asking one of the players to hold the idiot ball for a moment to allow for epic content later (requires immense amount of player/GM trust)
- handing out bennies for actions that were more in line with the genre/story/character (RoS has this baked into rules, so it's actually a valid game mechanic to provide motivation; e.g. if the overconfident fencer just accepts the duel instead of trying to avoid it)
- just explaining what they were going to miss (minor spoiler alert) and discussing why their characters did what they did (I don't mind certain level of metagame, but prefer if they work within their character).

Once I was asked for some kind of tense, dread-filled dungeon. I presented one - and when I told them they feel like something inside does not want them to enter, they decided to turn their backs and leave. I warned them I had only the dungeon prepared and would have to wing the rest of the session. They did not mind - they were not ready for the dread and even in-character, their explanation matched their characters. So I went with it.

They retreated, swore to never talk about it ever and went to nearest town, I took some random encounters out of my unused preparations and we had lots of fun that evening.

[Sneak Dog]

Had this happen to my group twice (noticeably):

Excellent post.

As player I've encountered this when there was a perceived discrepancy of risk/reward. Big risk, low reward. Heck, if the risk is that big, why would we, as random chumps, be the ones to solve it? Why not have those that would actually be affected and have more resources than us go fix it?
Risking one's life is generally no small matter. It's a tricky thing to balance.

Alternatively, we, as chosen ones, aren't equipped to handle it. lacco36's post has this covered in the second example.

[Segev]

I think one of the keys is to make the consequences for withdrawing obvious and high. As has been mentioned, you need to know what the PCs' goals are, and what they value. What do they want to accomplish, and what do they want to protect?

Even if the only thing they care to protect is "themselves," you can demonstrate to them that their lives get harder to protect as they cede ground to the threat.

"Make it personal" isn't always good advice, but if the PCs are truly unmotivated by anything external to themselves, you need to make their sense of "self" be on the line. Don't have evil doppelganger twins be a distant threat: they're actively seeking to replace the heroes' lives. If that isn't enough, the doppelganger twins need to steal crucial pieces of gear from the PCs to achieve their goals. Whatever of those attempts succeed will motivate a lot of players and their PCs to go after the bad guys to get their stuff back.

When they back off from a barroom brawl, have rumors spread that they're cowards and have toughs look for excuses to intimidate them. It's IC for the thugs: they feel like big and powerful people by making others back down before them. And the PCs are "safe marks" for this, due to their rumored cowardice.

If Eragon had not decided rescuing the elf-girl and avenging his father were important to him, he could have taken his dragon into hiding and gone on the run from Galbatorix...and the plot still would have had him chased down by the bad guys. Things he values would be taken from him and he would be driven from hiding place to hiding place, because that's what the bad guys do.

Even if Aladdin hadn't crushed on Jasmine at first sight and gotten involved with rescuing her, Jafar's spell would have divined him to be "the diamond in the rough" and he would've sent the guards to capture him anyway.

If Starlord stopped his various jobs and grifts and explorations, and played it safe by trying to hide out on an empty planetoid, he'd eventually starve, freeze, or suffocate to death. He has to make a living somehow. And keep his ship running. Given GotG2, even if he'd retired to Earth and taken a very safe job running a gas station convenience store, and even if he'd just played it safe with all the threats that came to Earth and made sure his ship was never found, he'd have had his Dad show up to drag him to adventure.

In short, I think you're looking for the trope termed, "The Call Knows Where You Live."

[kyoryu]

This is why I don't like "plot hooks".

I define plot hook as something that looks innocuous or interesting, but, once bitten, will drag the players off in a given direction. Cagey players learn to distrust these things.

Also, why would these players get involved in a tavern brawl? What gain could they get? It's all downside, so of course they're going to dodge that.

The key is to figure out what the players/characters actually care about and then either give them that, if it's a thing they wanna do, or can impact it positively or negatively if it's a thing in the world. Preferably in a way that can't really be ignored.

[Sneak Dog]

I think one of the keys is to make the consequences for withdrawing obvious and high. As has been mentioned, you need to know what the PCs' goals are, and what they value. What do they want to accomplish, and what do they want to protect?

I don't like it as a default solution yet to this problem. It works wonders for setting the stakes, but does it motivate the PC's to actually answer the call? The players? Does it solve the underlying issue the OP is having?

Because just thugs and doppelgangers wrecking stuff you're trying to protect isn't very motivating to all players. To me that sounds like just a pain to deal with, lets get it over with so we might actually go do something fun and interesting.

As for PC's, it'd motivate them to deal with the punishment. They think we're easy marks because we didn't care about the barfight? Lets just arbitrarily maim the next thug bothering us, that's the punishment dealt with and the call doesn't matter. Oh, there's now a never-ending horde of thugs being sent at us by Badguy to steal this worthless MacGuffin keepsake and they're threatening to kill us over it? Just throw the Macguffin in a nearby volcano.

I'd suggest a reward. Show them a golden +4 flaming rust-immune flame-resistant anti-stick magical spatula, for the victor of the zero-to-meal cook competition. See what happens, don't force it. More importantly, talk to the players and see what they think the reason why they ignore the plot hooks is.

[Segev]

I don't like it as a default solution yet to this problem. It works wonders for setting the stakes, but does it motivate the PC's to actually answer the call? The players? Does it solve the underlying issue the OP is having?

Because just thugs and doppelgangers wrecking stuff you're trying to protect isn't very motivating to all players. To me that sounds like just a pain to deal with, lets get it over with so we might actually go do something fun and interesting.

As for PC's, it'd motivate them to deal with the punishment. They think we're easy marks because we didn't care about the barfight? Lets just arbitrarily maim the next thug bothering us, that's the punishment dealt with and the call doesn't matter. Oh, there's now a never-ending horde of thugs being sent at us by Badguy to steal this worthless MacGuffin keepsake and they're threatening to kill us over it? Just throw the Macguffin in a nearby volcano.

I'd suggest a reward. Show them a golden +4 flaming rust-immune flame-resistant anti-stick magical spatula, for the victor of the zero-to-meal cook competition. See what happens, don't force it. More importantly, talk to the players and see what they think the reason why they ignore the plot hooks is.

Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing. There's a fine line to tread, here: you don't want to railroad them. (If you do want to railroad them, then you should just come out and tell them that the premise of the game requires their PCs to be the kind of people who'd go do XYZ to get things started.) But some plots are aggressive. They will be doing things even if the PCs aren't responding. Make the things they're doing matter to the PCs.

A reward is a way to get people onto something, but with sufficiently paranoid players/PCs, the offered reward will seem like a trick and they'll avoid that, too.

Part of it needs some OOC discussion, as others have noted. The other part is to make sure that the Call to Adventure is going to reach them. Know their goals, and give incentives to fulfil them coupled with threats that may hamper them that need dealing with. If they don't deal with the threats, then their goals get hampered. If they don't take opportunities, they don't progress towards their goals.

[Frogreaver]

What do you do when your players are committed to their playing characters (good!), but so much so that they avoid conflict and shy away from drama and action (argh!)?

Like, we've all been playing for a long time, characters are getting to mid-level awesomeness. The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly.
You start a bar-room brawl, and the party all back off and leave.
You confront the party with a parallel universe alternate reality where they are mistaken for their own evil twins, and they put all their efforts into hiding and avoiding the conflict.

... Or whatever - you know: they avoid excitement, adventure, and the cool things you've thought of to entertain them and yourself.

Any tips?

(BTW I'm not looking for specific solutions to a particular problem here, just general insights into how other gamers have dealt with the same.)

In no particular order:

Bring the adventure to them.
Ask the players why they aren’t engaging with the plot hooks.
Ask the players if they are having fun.

Also out of curiosity what are the characters goals?

[Sneak Dog]

Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing. There's a fine line to tread, here: you don't want to railroad them. (If you do want to railroad them, then you should just come out and tell them that the premise of the game requires their PCs to be the kind of people who'd go do XYZ to get things started.) But some plots are aggressive. They will be doing things even if the PCs aren't responding. Make the things they're doing matter to the PCs.

A reward is a way to get people onto something, but with sufficiently paranoid players/PCs, the offered reward will seem like a trick and they'll avoid that, too.

Part of it needs some OOC discussion, as others have noted. The other part is to make sure that the Call to Adventure is going to reach them. Know their goals, and give incentives to fulfil them coupled with threats that may hamper them that need dealing with. If they don't deal with the threats, then their goals get hampered. If they don't take opportunities, they don't progress towards their goals.

Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment. The action here being deciding to not engage with/start the offered quest. The punishment being the negative consequences for your action as figured out by the GM, who runs the entire world save for the PC's.
This post doesn't really change how I see your previous post? Sorry. We're probably miscommunicating somewhere.

Mind, I am all for negative consequences and punishment in general. But for this issue I don't think it's the right starting point. I don't think it's a good way for the call to adventure to reach them because I'm not sure the OP knows the current goals to provide the rewards. Hence a chat with the players, figure stuff like that out. Or dangle some different rewards and see if they bite for any of them.

[Quertus]

This is why I don't like "plot hooks".

I define plot hook as something that looks innocuous or interesting, but, once bitten, will drag the players off in a given direction. Cagey players learn to distrust these things.

Also, why would these players get involved in a tavern brawl? What gain could they get? It's all downside, so of course they're going to dodge that.

The key is to figure out what the players/characters actually care about and then either give them that, if it's a thing they wanna do, or can impact it positively or negatively if it's a thing in the world. Preferably in a way that can't really be ignored.

Well, I can't say as I like hooks as you define them, either… but, despite the evocative visual, I don't *think* that that's the current common usage of the term.

What do you mean by, "in a way that can't really be ignored"?

[Segev]

Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment. The action here being deciding to not engage with/start the offered quest. The punishment being the negative consequences for your action as figured out by the GM, who runs the entire world save for the PC's.
This post doesn't really change how I see your previous post? Sorry. We're probably miscommunicating somewhere.

Mind, I am all for negative consequences and punishment in general. But for this issue I don't think it's the right starting point. I don't think it's a good way for the call to adventure to reach them because I'm not sure the OP knows the current goals to provide the rewards. Hence a chat with the players, figure stuff like that out. Or dangle some different rewards and see if they bite for any of them.

Fine, but it's not about punishment. It's about the players having the game happen in front of them, and following them to their hiding places. Maybe they back down from a barroom brawl and, as the only people not thrown in prison for it that night, the guards ask them for their version of what happened. Whatever was supposed to trigger because of getting involved in the brawl might trigger here, instead.

[kyoryu]

Well, I can't say as I like hooks as you define them, either… but, despite the evocative visual, I don't *think* that that's the current common usage of the term.

What do you mean by, "in a way that can't really be ignored"?

Can be ignored: "You're hearing rumors about orcs gathering in numbers on the frontier. Folks on the frontier are worried that they might attack!"
Can't be ignored: "Orcs have gathered and are marching on your town. They'll be here in three days."

"Can't be ignored" just means that, in some way, something is in fairly short order going to happen that the players care about, one way or the other. Like, in this case, they can respond to the orcs in any of a dozen ways, but "do nothing" isn't really an option.

The less tied the players are to the world, the more direct you need to be. As they've been playing a while in your world, the more subtle stuff can work as well or better.

[False God]

Kinda sounds like the wrong action and the wrong drama for the party.

Their solutions aren't illogical. A bar fight started that did not directly involve them, so they removed themselves from the situation. They found themselves in a parallel universe where their counterparts were evil, so they hid out.

The common thread in both of these situations is that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. In the former, if they get involved in the fight, they run the gamut from being arrested to being killed, or arrested and then killed, depending on the laws of the land. In the latter they run similar threats by being mistaken for their counterparts, and any redemption they do of their name ultimately stays with the counterpart and has no bearing when the party returns home.

If you want them to get involved, they need to have some kind of reward to balance out the risk. It doesn't always need to be gold or jewels, but your players clearly did a cost-benefit analysis of the situation and found out what I did by even the most casual glance: success is minor to meaningless and risk is high and dangerous.

Or maybe they're just not very "action" oriented. Have you considered more exploration and investigation-based hooks? Murder mysteries? Political intrigue? Ancient artifacts? Lost treasures in distant lands? Plot hooks where violence is more of a last resort, a failure (so to speak) of other angles of success?

I would look back on what your players HAVE hooked on, and give them more of that.

If they just avoid everything, even with fair rewards, don't forget to show them what they missed. Have the local tavern bards singing of the people who did stop the bar fight. Have the townsfolk talking about the heroes who did stop the "evil party". The renown those people gained. The titles they earned. The new quests they're off on now (that are of course, no longer available to the party) because they've proven themselves.

[NichG]

There's a gaming group composition thing here, which is that it's great to have cautious, thoughtful players but you need at least one person whose immediate reaction when faced with a big red button is the press it, not to talk with the others about what they should do or consider the consequences. I think you want exactly one of these players in any given gaming group. If you don't have someone who is naturally like that, you can discuss with the group having one player be the one to play a character like that in each campaign, the same way you'd discuss how to remedy an unbalanced party composition.

Also, beware the Abilene Paradox. It's not every group, but sometimes you'll have a group that is so conscious of involving each-other or making decisions as a group that people won't bite on personal plot hooks because it might force the other players to be involved in a plot that they're uninterested in - e.g. to get to a mindset where actually doing things feels subtractive like they're stealing time from someone else (even if the alternative is doing nothing), rather than additive where following personal lines creates things for others to become involved in or interested in.

[icefractal]

This is a situation where you're best off talking to the players OOC, because there are multiple reasons for this behavior that don't all have the same solution.

A) The players want to do it OOC, but they don't see a reason that makes sense IC.
In this case, "there'll be problems if you don't" works fine, as does "there could be rewards if you do".

B) The players don't want to do it.
In this case, causing problems for their inaction can feel more annoying than motivating, and threatening their family/friends as part of that will likely cause their next characters not to have family or friends.

C) The players individually want to do it, but are collectively unsure, as NichG mentions.
While you could solve this IC, simply making people aware of it OOC will work better and easier.

Also, different people enjoy different things, and not everyone likes playing "things are chaotic and you're in trouble!" scenarios. I notice both the ones listed in the OP fall into that category, so if people aren't biting maybe they don't want that type of action.

[Tanarii]

The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.

That seems back to front. Or at least, the hook is definitely the PC's solid reason to engage with something, the bait isn't necessarily "Danger".

Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing.

If you're intentionally targeting the player's soft spots with negative consequences for failing to engage without prior agreement, that stops being consequences and starts becoming punishment.

Which is what 5e Bonds are by the way. It's not as explicit as it should be in the PHB, but they are supposed to be "thing my DM can target to make my character care".

Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment.

Nope. Punishment requires intent on the part of an authority inflicting it, and its usually to elicit a change in behavior, although sometimes it's just to cause retributive pain and suffering. Naturally occurring negative consequences for your actions are consequences, not punishment.

However, in this case, explicit targeting by the DM of players or PCs soft spots in an attempt to motivate the players into to action, rapidly becomes intentionally inflicting negative consequences to elicit a change in behavior. Not naturally occurring negative consequences for actions taken.

How can you tell the difference? It's pretty easy in this case. Is the DM intentionally targeting the PCs specifically, and why is the DM having the negative consequences occur? If the answer is "to motivate the players to start engaging" then it's punishment.

[kyoryu]

So, a lot of what this comes down to is kind of a group desire to make the "Correct" play, plus the natural roleplay inclination to do what a reasonable person would do, which is often try to keep themselves and their friends safe.

Part of the key is to make sure you understand the PC's Goals, and build your plot hooks around those goals. Don't just present "here is an interesting, Dangerous thing!" to the PC's and expect them to jump on it because it's interesting and dangerous. Start with "What are they trying to do", and then make doing that thing exciting and fun.

The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.

Right.

People don't engage in dangerous activities unless there's a good reason for them to do so. Expecting them to do so "just because" is going to fail, every time.

Especially when you're going to "reveal" the cool story as a GM, you know how cool it is but the players don't and can't. So all they see is a bar fight, and they have nothing to gain from it, so they avoid the bar fight.

You see: "This bar fight will start off this SUPER COOL STORY with all these COOL THINGS! Why won't the players do the bar fight? Don't they want the SUPER COOL THINGS???"

They see: "This is a bar fight about nothing you care about. If you lose, you get beat up and thrown in jail. If you win, you get not beat up and maybe still thrown in jail. If you get involved in this, the best that you can hope for is to not lose anything. There's no upside."

It's basic empathy - seeing things from the POV of others. In this case, your players.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A lot of the time when I see this sort of thing it seems to be linked to paranoia-- in one way or another, the players are afraid you'll be the sort of killer GM who delights in screwing them over. When they think that one wrong choice could lead to death, they're going to do their very best to avoid danger, especially if it doesn't seem immediately related to what they see as their current goal. Even if that's just "staying alive."

And it's not necessarily the GM's fault--sometimes it's just a setting thing. I saw a lot more of this sort of behavior when I was running Curse of Strahd than, say, Out of the Abyss, even though I ran both games similarly. Other times its bad experiences with past GMs, or new players who have heard too many stories of Gygaxian GMs and expect that to be how all RPGs work. Hell, sometimes it's a system thing, where high-risk combat mechanics put even experienced players on the defensive.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to how the players feel like they fit into the setting. If NPCs treat them as powerful figures, if they get a steady trickle of easy encounters where they can just show off their big numbers and cool powers, they'll be more confident about kicking down doors and biting at plot hooks. If the setting emphasizes that they're little fish in a vast ocean, and that there are vast, sinister forces at work in the background, they'll be more inclined to put their heads down and over-analyze everything.

[Quertus]

Their solutions aren't illogical. A bar fight started that did not directly involve them, so they removed themselves from the situation. They found themselves in a parallel universe where their counterparts were evil, so they hid out.

The common thread in both of these situations is that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

+1 this.

As cool as it might be for the players, for the PCs, these are "all risk, no reward" scenarios.

you need at least one person whose immediate reaction when faced with a big red button is the press it, not to talk with the others about what they should do or consider the consequences. I think you want exactly one of these players in any given gaming group.

Not only do you really not *need* such a player, I've been in several groups where such a player would get kicked out as disruptive.

So what *do* you need? Hmmm… perhaps for the group's net "push shiny button" index to roughly match the GM's expectations / requirements?

I mean, I've been blessed with groups where, if I throw out a dozen threads, they'll follow 6 of them. All I really need is for them to follow at least 1, -or- make their own thread.

Also, beware the Abilene Paradox. It's not every group, but sometimes you'll have a group that is so conscious of involving each-other or making decisions as a group that people won't bite on personal plot hooks because it might force the other players to be involved in a plot that they're uninterested in - e.g. to get to a mindset where actually doing things feels subtractive like they're stealing time from someone else (even if the alternative is doing nothing), rather than additive where following personal lines creates things for others to become involved in or interested in.

Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?

If you're intentionally targeting the player's soft spots with negative consequences for failing to engage without prior agreement, that stops being consequences and starts becoming punishment.

Which is what 5e Bonds are by the way. It's not as explicit as it should be in the PHB, but they are supposed to be "thing my DM can target to make my character care".


Nope. Punishment requires intent on the part of an authority inflicting it, and its usually to elicit a change in behavior, although sometimes it's just to cause retributive pain and suffering. Naturally occurring negative consequences for your actions are consequences, not punishment.

However, in this case, explicit targeting by the DM of players or PCs soft spots in an attempt to motivate the players into to action, rapidly becomes intentionally inflicting negative consequences to elicit a change in behavior. Not naturally occurring negative consequences for actions taken.

How can you tell the difference? It's pretty easy in this case. Is the DM intentionally targeting the PCs specifically, and why is the DM having the negative consequences occur? If the answer is "to motivate the players to start engaging" then it's punishment.

I want to explore that more for a moment, because I'm curious.

So, suppose that the GM *is* intentionally targeting Bonds, and the objective *is* (in part) to get the players involved (but also because, while other things are *also* Simulationist logic being targeted, the GM figures that the PCs will notice and care about these things), but the *consequences* aren't *strictly* negative. Is it still punishment?

[Man_Over_Game]

Players actively pursue "success", even that means having less fun. If someone is playing a video game that's too easy, that player would rather not enjoy their time playing it than they would handicapping themselves (like wearing worse gear) in order to enjoy it more. Winning is more important than fun.

Players then avoid failure because they believe failure results in losing. So the trick is to associate "failure" with "winning".

This shifts with experience, as experienced players stop associating that character's success as their own personal success. A character is temporary; it's the time spent with the players, and how much fun you have doing it, that determines how "successful" it is. But you can't just expect a game to be good after everyone becomes a veteran.


FATE handles this well. Acting out something that's tactically stupid, but realistic for your character, rewards a bonus that you can use for a tactical benefit later. 5e tries this with Inspiration (but it's too vague, temporary, and inconsistent to be used).

There was another system (Can't remember the name) that made it so that those that supported others or leaned on their faults got more experience than those that performed well and hogged the spotlight (creating a negative feedback loop, where the ones doing well need less assistance).

That's it. Reward your players for recklessness and even failure.

[strangebloke]

• Everything can be fixed with a good session zero: If you say "This is going to be a heroic high fantasy thing" then you can rightfully chide your players for being greedy scumbags, because they're not following the agreed-upon premise. Similarly if you say "Swords and Sorcery Sandbox," then you'll know to plan for them doing... whatever they feel like doing.
• You should always plan for failure: If its impossible for the heroes to fail, there are no stakes. If its impossible for them to win, they'll hate you. So always plan for both. Maybe if they fail the investigation into the cult, the cult ambushes them with an extra-hard encounter while they're investigating. Maybe if they succeed extra well they find a coded book that informs them of the cult's plans and allows them to set an ambush instead.
• Be Very Clear with Your Hooks: If the random shadowy stranger in the bar is the last son of the king and they're supposed to talk to him, make it very very clear that they're supposed to do so, perhaps even offer separate hooks for them to get engaged.

[NichG]

Not only do you really not *need* such a player, I've been in several groups where such a player would get kicked out as disruptive.

So what *do* you need? Hmmm… perhaps for the group's net "push shiny button" index to roughly match the GM's expectations / requirements?

I mean, I've been blessed with groups where, if I throw out a dozen threads, they'll follow 6 of them. All I really need is for them to follow at least 1, -or- make their own thread.

The shiny button player is like a safety valve for getting stuck, because ultimately you only need one person to start moving for momentum to build.

Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?

I don't have a great answer for this unfortunately (other than finding a shiny button player to add to the mix...). I've tried discussing the issue with the group directly (but because it's a habit, people found it hard to suppress) things like 'everyone put what you personally want to do next session into a box whenever you come up with an idea, and we'll draw randomly' (sort of worked, but felt forced especially when it revealed that people did have preferences over what NOT to do), using systems that explicitly identify characters as having different personal needs/win conditions (current experiment, seems to be going alright so far actually), asking one player/the group to put forth at least one shiny buttoneer (also have this currently). The game system may make a lot of difference here too - the important thing I think is for lots of decisions to feel personal rather than things the group should have a say in.

One recent issue was that the party had accumulated a fair amount of raw cash for their level ($40kgp around Lv6 or so) but literally no no one took anything out of the party chest to gear themselves for three levels (this is a fairly low-combat campaign and it has a lot of shipboard stuff where they can use the ship's weapons, so the gear absence wasn't so strongly felt). So they ended up having a boss fight at Lv9 using their characters' starter gear, someone dropped in the first round, and that finally inspired a 'okay, let's actually talk about what our gear wishlists are' session.

I've been mostly having cash (well, sellable loot) and crafting component payouts in that campaign since one of the players is building towards a crafting-focused PC (and there's no XP cost for crafting in this system). But I didn't imagine that they'd not actually end up crafting because no one wanted to be the one to ask for fungible resources to be consumed or game time to be spent on that discussion.

Probably means I should have had more gear loot rather than cash loot, to prime the pump and get people thinking about what they could use.

[Tanarii]

So, suppose that the GM *is* intentionally targeting Bonds, and the objective *is* (in part) to get the players involved (but also because, while other things are *also* Simulationist logic being targeted, the GM figures that the PCs will notice and care about these things), but the *consequences* aren't *strictly* negative. Is it still punishment?

Probably not. There are different words for positive incentives.


But compare and contrast to the "lack of a reward is not a punishment" thread in my sig, where many people were incorrectly considering a natural negative consequence without intent to be a punishment. That was my real point. No intent = not a punishment.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?

Bind two character's plots together. Have more than one reason to pursue a plot point.

Maybe you find out that the mysterious entity that destroyed the barbarian's village and the culprit behind the theft of the monk's spirit blade are linked somehow when they find a familiar path of destruction that leads to a vault of magical items that's missing only a single item.

[Drascin]

I have a question:

What has happened before?

See, a thing I've noticed, is that very often, people running away from plot hooks is a trained reaction. If you try to do things and get your ass smacked down, you will be reluctant to do so again. I've personally had to use actual techniques I learned on my teaching degree on some oldschool gamers to get them to DO things, because years of playing with DMs that punished them for not being prepared for things caused them to approach everything with a degree of caution and paranoia that, plain and simply, made it impossible to play anything resembling a fun game.

So the first thing you need to do, when this happens, is look back on your own campaign from as detached a perspective as possible and ask yourself, "okay, what has been the ratio of positive gain to being screwed over, for taking daring action in my campaign?". Because it's often really easy to fall into "well, it's only logical consequences!", but the thing is, "logical consequences" can take a lot of shapes, and for some reason as GMs we often default to the shapes that more or less end up giving out the message of "it's stupid to do things". And once you give out that message to people, undoing it is going to take literal months of work.