Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Wallace]

It's not that so much as they're paranoid about absolutely everything. If I describe an empty hallway with an empty bucket, they'll spend 30 minutes discussing what to do about the bucket, 15 minutes throwing rocks at it and prodding it with sticks, 5 minutes asking if they can roll religion to see if they recall any faith that has some kind of bucket based ritual. And then another 10 minutes discussing what order they should walk past the bucket in case anything dangerous leaps out.

-And then they'll walk up to a group of hostile kobolds and hand them their weapons as a piece offering and then make a surprised Pikachu face when they get stabbed.

I'm not sure if I should lean into that paranoia, or just keep playing as written and hope it sorts itself out. Especially them trying to make friends with every monsters they come across before fighting it.

Time pressure is your friend. They want to stand around for half an hour arguing? Okay, the rest of the monsters in the dungeon can escape out the back with their loot, set up a whole bunch of traps or defensive fortifications, or maneuver their way into a better attack to jump them from both sides.

Don't treat your monsters as punching bags that sit around and wait to be beaten up. Make them smarter. The reason the first encounter in LMoP is so dangerous is because the goblins are using the terrain to their advantage. If you were an orc and heard a group of adventurers arguing down the hall, wouldn't you get ready to fight them on your terms too?

Of course, I would also not rule out the possibility that your players are retarded.

 

[AnOminous]

But we're talking about characters being too paranoid. You don't want to validate their paranoia.

That depends on the game and the scenario. Obviously you do in the game literally called Paranoia.

Tomb of Horrors in particular is a "normal" AD&D scenario that definitely justifies paranoia, along with the other S-series scenarios like White Plume Mountain. I also designed a couple monstrosities along a similar line. What I would do with these is give the players a choice. They could play it straight and get to keep the treasure (as well as any deaths or permanent negative consequences), or we could just clone the party, and whatever happened, from TPK to total victory, would be non-canon and wouldn't carry over to the main campaign.

I always did this with ToH (or with a pre-created party specific for the scenario) because that is just a savage meatgrinder nobody should throw treasured characters into.

My least favorite trap death (and it was against a treasured character) was one of the Chaosium scenarios for CoC and it involved a cannibal family house with a refrigerator with a double-barreled shotgun trap in it, and someone opened it. Instagib. Should have been more paranoid. I would usually not let something that cheap stand in AD&D, or at the very least would give more ominous flavor text to suggest opening it might not be a good idea but it's CoC, it's a cannibal den, and seriously you should have considered that their refrigerator might contain something less than wholesome.

You could literally just do what the Japanese and Warhammer Fantasy do and call them Dark Elves. Same difference.

And for short, you could call them darkies.

If you were an orc and heard a group of adventurers arguing down the hall, wouldn't you get ready to fight them on your terms too?

I generally treated orcs as mindless rabble that just immediately attacked with no regard for their own safety or anything else, unless they were led by Uruk-Hai or some more intelligent creature. It sort of obviated when parties would try to do the whole "we come in peace" thing.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

@AnOminous

My least favorite trap death (and it was against a treasured character) was one of the Chaosium scenarios for CoC and it involved a cannibal family house with a refrigerator with a double-barreled shotgun trap in it, and someone opened it. Instagib. Should have been more paranoid. I would usually not let something that cheap stand in AD&D, or at the very least would give more ominous flavor text to suggest opening it might not be a good idea but it's CoC, it's a cannibal den, and seriously you should have considered that their refrigerator might contain something less than wholesome.

Unfortunately that sounds like someone trying to do a "realistic" trap. Like a bomb linked to a light switch which is almost guaranteed to be set off by the players because they need to use that to see so they can search traps.

In a Paranoia game (for those who don't know players get respawns) it's not awful but in most others it's basically easy dead PCs.

 

[King Dead]

It's good adventuring practice to be cautious when you think there might be something dangerous around. Hell, it's not bad to be a little wary even if everything seems to be alright. But if your players are taking a ridiculous amount of time deliberating over every action just because that janitor's mop and bucket could actually be a mimic, that gets pretty old, especially if you've done nothing to justify that level of paranoia.

It might break immersion, but I'd personally say it wouldn't be a bad idea to just sit down with them and explain that you're really not trying to kill them every five minutes, since I'm assuming that's not the kind of campaign you're running. There may be traps or other surprises along the way, but 9 times out of 10 (or more), a bucket is just a bucket, so calm down and move along. I agree with others' suggestions too that their in-game time should match their time at the table, and spending a long time deliberating will only give the monsters time to fortify their defenses.

Although I do like the idea of their constantly attempting to befriend enemies, but that's probably because I'm a fan of Black Clover whose MC is literally always trying to make friends before fighting. Remember, monsters have needs too, and there could be ways for your party to resolve a conflict peacefully; TCE has rules for parleying with monsters (p. 14. It could also lead to some interesting outcomes, like new plot hooks, special treasures, or even a last-minute rescue if the party's situation is looking dire. I mean, I wouldn't say throwing down their weapons was a smart move, but if they offered those kobolds some jewelry instead, they might have made some new friends.

---

Our ToA run is going better, things are smoothing out a little as we go. I'm pretty sure my DM is already getting tired of the survival mechanics; he's already told us he's looking to tweak the rules on weather interrupting long rests, and I wouldn't be surprised if he gives up keeping track of everything else, especially now that we have an alchemy jug to take care of most of our water needs. Besides, weather won't be an issue anyway once we hit level 5 and we can just Leomund's our way through the night. He's still keeping tabs on how many days it's been because that determines if we succeed or fail before our patron bites the dust, but beyond that, I'm guessing it'll just end up being a standard hex crawl. We're only level 3 still, but I'm thinking we'll probably hit 4 in the next session, so we're making progress.

We also got charms from a naga and two new adventuring buddies after our initial guides died quickly. I got Nine Lives, so that'll be helpful in keeping myself up as long as I don't burn through them all. I wish I'd gotten Many Tongues like the ranger did, that would've been much more useful as a bard. The wizard got Greater Conscription, so he'll be able to pull a horned devil out for nine days when he needs it, though he's constantly attracting flies now which is funny. And our druid got Hellish Rebuke, which is ridiculous since it's cast as a 9th level spell. 10d10 fire damage on a failed save, half on a success, and he can use it nine times before it goes away? Hoo boy.

 

[AnOminous]

In a Paranoia game (for those who don't know players get respawns) it's not awful but in most others it's basically easy dead PCs.

I might have mentioned this before, but one of my favorite achievements running Paranoia was killing the entire party twice just during the mission briefing. One of them was they got a grenade-shaped device from R&D with a big red button on it which I even described as grenade-shaped. Guess what someone did and guess what it was?

Although I do like the idea of their constantly attempting to befriend enemies, but that's probably because I'm a fan of Black Clover whose MC is literally always trying to make friends before fighting.

I'd encourage this to some extent but I always usually treated your generic orcs/kobolds/goblins/whatever as more or less interchangeable mooks, inimically hostile to the party and usually pretty stupid on top of that.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

I might have mentioned this before, but one of my favorite achievements running Paranoia was killing the entire party twice just during the mission briefing. One of them was they got a grenade-shaped device from R&D with a big red button on it which I even described as grenade-shaped. Guess what someone did and guess what it was?

I'd encourage this to some extent but I always usually treated your generic orcs/kobolds/goblins/whatever as more or less interchangeable mooks, inimically hostile to the party and usually pretty stupid on top of that.

The worst thing to do in a Paranoia is to run player interaction before they reach the mission briefing. They can potentially wipe before getting there.

Also I might need to shift my read of old Shadowrun supplements to old Paranoia ones instead. I need something lighter and less real world relatable.

 

[AnOminous]

The worst thing to do in a Paranoia is to run player interaction before they reach the mission briefing. They can potentially wipe before getting there.

That definitely happened too. I'd usually just have the Computer assemble the party and direct them to the mission briefing. So the first they'd meet each other would be there. The only time I didn't, there were unfortunate results (they all immediately figured out each other's mutant/secret society status and killed each other obviously).

 

[Corn Flakes]

I can't stand traps that are basically designed to kill the people or creatures that set them up. In that fridge example, how the hell are the cannibals themselves going to get to their own food?

If you're putting up traps in inhabited locations, you need to think how the inhabitants are going to deal with them.
- The kobolds trapped the only corridor leading to their den to hell and back? Cool. Make it so they at least have a hidden, small side tunnel they can use to bypass the traps altogether, or they have shit like rope loops on the ceiling or railings on the walls of the corridor that only creatures their size can use to get across without triggering the traps.
- The goblin's treasure chest sprays acid on anyone trying to open it? Cool, the actual chest that the goblins keep their valuables in is hidden under the trapped chest, or inside a concealed alcove in the wall somewhere else in the room.
- The Dark Wizard Assholius has an invisible disintegration ward on the door to his study? Cool, the wizard and his closest assistants have signet rings that allow them to touch the door without being zapped. Shit like that.

It's not hard, it just takes a moment's thought, it makes the traps feel a lot less cheap, gives smart players the ability to bypass traps without having to rely on disarm trap rolls, and as a side effect the world makes more sense.

 

[AnOminous]

I can't stand traps that are basically designed to kill the people or creatures that set them up. In that fridge example, how the hell are the cannibals themselves going to get to their own food?

They pretty much just ravenously devoured their food immediately, or at least these did. There was a raw human torso on the dining room table, devoid of flesh, with visible teeth marks on it. They weren't big on hygiene.

 

[Ghostse]

The worst thing to do in a Paranoia is to run player interaction before they reach the mission briefing. They can potentially wipe before getting there.

I believe you mean the BEST thing to do.
If the party makes it to the brief without a death, Friend Computer isn't doing his job.

I can't stand traps that are basically designed to kill the people or creatures that set them up. In that fridge example, how the hell are the cannibals themselves going to get to their own food?

in the case of the fridge I'll potentially give that one to the cannibals being that you wouldn't keep cannibal parts in a fridge you'd use a chest freezer.

But as you said, there should be a way other than "roll reflex save" or "Roll high on theivery" to disarm the trap.

One of my favorite dungeons I made was a raid on the ancient vault of Dwarven Banking concern in some ancient ruins. This was 4e, and dwarves get pushed 1sq (5ft) less than other creatures, and saves to avoid prone, so there were a lot of push and prone traps that didn't do any damage but would then push you into something that WOULD do damage. And lots of "Save Ends" poison traps. So the dwarf fighter made it through with full HP while the rest of the party were trailing behind leaking all over the floor.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Remember, monsters have needs too, and there could be ways for your party to resolve a conflict peacefully;

This was a big part of dungeon-delving in AD&D. For instance, you might think that the "le quirky mimic that the party befriends" is a modern invention of freakshit, but back in the day most mimics were non-hostile by default, and could be good sources of information if the party didn't panic and attack them.

 

[2LtMashengo]

But we're talking about characters being too paranoid. You don't want to validate their paranoia.

Jej, in the main campaign I'm in the GM trapped every single door in the first real dungeon crawl, I assume to instill a sense of paranoia.
I think we've encountered maybe 3 or 4 traps since then, and that was something like 40 sessions ago.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Jej, in the main campaign I'm in the GM trapped every single door in the first real dungeon crawl, I assume to instill a sense of paranoia.
I think we've encountered maybe 3 or 4 traps since then, and that was something like 40 sessions ago.

See, there's no reason to do that if that's going to be your game. Setting a trap every so often, to keep the group on their toes, is one thing. But if this isn't a death game, and you know its not, then there's no reason to put that many traps in a dungeon crawl.

It's good adventuring practice to be cautious when you think there might be something dangerous around. Hell, it's not bad to be a little wary even if everything seems to be alright. But if your players are taking a ridiculous amount of time deliberating over every action just because that janitor's mop and bucket could actually be a mimic, that gets pretty old, especially if you've done nothing to justify that level of paranoia.

It might break immersion, but I'd personally say it wouldn't be a bad idea to just sit down with them and explain that you're really not trying to kill them every five minutes, since I'm assuming that's not the kind of campaign you're running. There may be traps or other surprises along the way, but 9 times out of 10 (or more), a bucket is just a bucket, so calm down and move along. I agree with others' suggestions too that their in-game time should match their time at the table, and spending a long time deliberating will only give the monsters time to fortify their defenses.

I think at some point, the DM/GM has to sit down and tell his group that, "Hey, this isn't a death game, this isn't Paranoia, this isn't Tomb of Horrors. I'm not going to try to kill you every five feet of every dungeon, okay. I'm not a killer DM/GM. Use best judgement, but don't over think it."

 

[AnOminous]

But as you said, there should be a way other than "roll reflex save" or "Roll high on theivery" to disarm the trap.

In this case, really, saying they were doing anything other than standing right in front of it while opening it would have been sufficient to avoid it. If they didn't manage to disarm it somehow, though, the gunshot was still going to alert the cannibals. They'd already encountered and disarmed a couple crude perimeter alarms like a string of bells, so really should have known traps were a high possibility.

This was one of the vanilla campaigns, I believe, though I had slightly changed it to make them more like the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes.

I think at some point, the DM/GM has to sit down and tell his group that, "Hey, this isn't a death game, this isn't Paranoia, this isn't Tomb of Horrors. I'm not going to try to kill you every five feet of every dungeon, okay. I'm not a killer DM/GM. Use best judgement, but don't over think it."

I had a habit of using bottlenecks in the map to force the party down a passage where there was a trap, so they caught on pretty quickly to be on their toes whenever a bunch of passages came together with only one way to proceed.

 

[ZMOT]

I can't stand traps that are basically designed to kill the people or creatures that set them up. In that fridge example, how the hell are the cannibals themselves going to get to their own food?

by disarming the trap before they open the fridge. it's a trap, it's supposed to be hidden and unexpected, if they even use the fridge in the first place and it isn't just a decoy for some sucker to open it.
same way you'd have to walk around and over all the pressure plates and tripwires if you wanna go down your own hallway.

but in general some kind of foreshadowing helps, there are good surprises and bad ones. a charred corpse in the middle of a hallway should tell anyone with a minimum of attention something's off...

 

[AnOminous]

it's a trap, it's supposed to be hidden and unexpected, if they even use the fridge in the first place and it isn't just a decoy for some sucker to open it.

They didn't. It was exactly that.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Anybody know where I can download the adventure modules for AD&D 1st edition?

Like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth?

 

[Ghostse]

Anybody know where I can download the adventure modules for AD&D 1st edition?

Like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth?

DTRPG has them. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17065/S3-Expedition-to-the-Barrier-Peaks-1e?term=barrier+peaks
IF you want piracy, there's been links/directions to torrents of big collections posted around this thread.

I hate giving WOTC money, but for $5 that they have to split with DTRPG, and for their older unwoke content. I'm likely to just accept that paying $5 is worth saving me the effort of hunting torrents and PDF collections for a good copy. And that while Wizards is getting $2.50 off me the fact their sales numbers will show yet another sale of unwoke White CisHet Male product makes that less galling.

I generally treated orcs as mindless rabble that just immediately attacked with no regard for their own safety or anything else, unless they were led by Uruk-Hai or some more intelligent creature. It sort of obviated when parties would try to do the whole "we come in peace" thing.

'd encourage this to some extent but I always usually treated your generic orcs/kobolds/goblins/whatever as more or less interchangeable mooks, inimically hostile to the party and usually pretty stupid on top of that.

Sometimes a monster is just a monster. While dungeons should be 'living', not every part of the eco system needs to respond to diplomatic overtures.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

See, there's no reason to do that if that's going to be your game. Setting a trap every so often, to keep the group on their toes, is one thing. But if this isn't a death game, and you know its not, then there's no reason to put that many traps in a dungeon crawl.


I think at some point, the DM/GM has to sit down and tell his group that, "Hey, this isn't a death game, this isn't Paranoia, this isn't Tomb of Horrors. I'm not going to try to kill you every five feet of every dungeon, okay. I'm not a killer DM/GM. Use best judgement, but don't over think it."

While it has its flaws I do think AGC nailed this with a comic run starting here that also includes the DM losing their patience and retaliating multiple times...which in turn kind of justifies the player behaviour.

https://www.demonac.com/anothergamingcomic/agc041

(for anyone that actually enjoys that and reads on the comic does not properly end and is very unlikely to continue. Still some worthwhile reading).

 

[King Dead]

Sometimes a monster is just a monster. While dungeons should be 'living', not every part of the eco system needs to respond to diplomatic overtures.

Yeah, it really should come down to DM discretion. If you don't want to ever allow your players the diplomatic option, whether it's because you think it's boring or you want to play through the combat encounters you've created, then you should probably explicitly make that known if the players try to do it. If you do allow it and you get tired of it because they're slowing down the game by attempting to talk first every time, that's something you should communicate as well.

However, I do think it's worth rewarding creativity if a player comes up with an unexpected way to resolve a standard conflict, and at worst it'll be a couple more dice rolls as they attempt to talk it out. It's good to encourage your players to think outside the box, especially if they're used to playing games that only have one option. There's no right answer, you've just got to get a feel for what you're willing to do.