Handling overly cautious players

[Bulhakov]

- drop them on a planet with very limited resources at their disposal ("if you take these 3 fighters, the only outpost in the area is left undefended, gets raided/burned")
- pain in the ass command that does not tolerate failure, especially on time-sensitive quests ("if you can't manage the fight with what resources you have on-site then a new guys is coming in to replace you! you're demoted sent off to the eastern front!" roll another character or just give a direct order to carry out the mission as is)
- what motivates the player? just self survival? curb-stomping enemies? helping the innocent? raising through the ranks? find out and adjust accordingly

For the goblin party equivalent - maybe he sees three hogtied children being carried into the camp and a big spit roast being readied over the bonfire. If he lets the kids die, it's on him (with full consequences - getting demoted for cowardice, getting spit at by the kids' family, etc.)

[JellyPooga]

Start demonstrating the consequences of his paranoia. Time-sensitive missions are one way to do it, but aren't the only way. The key is letting the players know the price of their hesitancy and/or failure.

- players fail to stop the ritual? Show them the wasteland that used to be the city when they return tooled up with their "better plan".

- players commandeer the local governors personal guard to take out the threat? They return to find the governor dead and a coup in motion.

- the bad-guy gets away? He's not just stronger when they next meet him, but he took out one of their allies or contacts in his escape.

- they don't investigate the suspiciously well defended ruins? Oops, a new threat is on the horizon and, oh dear, that guy that was smuggling in weapons for them? What a shame, he's found a better buyer and won't sell to the players anymore.

If all else fails...give them an invoice for everything they've requisitioned to date and an Inquisitorial demand that they actually earn their keep, otherwise banishment to the rear end of a death world will feel like a favourable punishment for their failures and overspending.

[Xuc Xac]

If he wants overwhelming force so he didn't have any casualties, let him have it and deal with the consequences.

"Congratulations! You stopped that little cult and destroyed the chaos beasty that they summoned. You easily wiped them out with that entire Imperial Guard company. Unfortunately, the entire company must be cleansed with fire because they can't be allowed to live after having witnessed raw chaos. They are all tainted and it's only a matter of time until there are tentacles everywhere. This is why we try to keep personnel to a minimum."

[The Fury]

As the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

Let's face it, if this is WH40K setting, being "overly cautious" is the only sane way to be both in-universe and ouy of it. Don't fight your player for playing it smart.

I admit that I'm not super familiar with 40K, so I may be putting my foot in my mouth on this but I don't agree. My understanding from the outset is that the setting is not just dark, but absurdly bleak. If that's wrong, blame the memes I suppose. Though if 40K's setting really is grim, morose and shows no signs that things can ever get better, characters that no longer see a downside to death or serious injury start to make sense. With that in mind, crazier risks start to seem less crazy and less risky.

Three person party, the other two players are pretty content to do what Bob asks. Possibly moreso in-fact, after last session where one of them BREAKING from Bob's plan, ended up costing them a Fate Point.

My suggestion would be to offer incentive for other players to come up with ideas. If you want to steer the party away from being overly cautious they need to see that less cautious plans can actually work.

[Bulhakov]

Another idea is to give other players individual secret missions that they should not reveal (on suspicion that others may have conflicting subquests), but actually serve to drive the plot in your desired direction.

E.g. from my campaign - the characters were ordered to babysit an unlikeable NPC with a prize on his head, but additionally individually - the party leader was made personally responsible if any harm was to come to the NPC, another PC was ordered to spy on said NPC and to try to get a sample of his blood and a third had a personal vendetta against one of the potential assassins coming to take out the NPC. It all worked out nicely, with all players having separate motivations to guard the same guy (but maybe not too well).

[Max_Killjoy]

Sometimes paranoid players are that way for a reason. Perhaps another GM wore them down with repeated failures anytime they failed to be anything less than perfect (in the subject evaluation of said GM), and it eroded their willingness to take risks of any kind.

[Florian]

I admit that I'm not super familiar with 40K, so I may be putting my foot in my mouth on this but I don't agree. My understanding from the outset is that the setting is not just dark, but absurdly bleak. If that's wrong, blame the memes I suppose. Though if 40K's setting really is grim, morose and shows no signs that things can ever get better, characters that no longer see a downside to death or serious injury start to make sense. With that in mind, crazier risks start to seem less crazy and less risky.

Warhammer is a refreshingly honest and realistic setting, it just cuts too close to home for most people to stomach it, even with the grim humor that's a fundamental part of it.

The universe will be destroyed, no matter what, no hope to evade that and no change to flee it. The only thing that can be done is pushing the inevitable back each day, for just one more day, by sacrificing countless people for the meat grinder that is the Imperium. Each and everyone will suffer and die, with the only hope that the sacrifice and death will not be in vain, but help delay the final doom.

That said, all of that make playing a truly heroic character in WH40K immensely enjoyable. Knowing the risks to body, mind and soul and still being victories is a great feeling - I'm a fan of chainswords and the humble las-pistol (or ripper gun ;) ).

All in all, being overly paranoid might be understandable, but also kills the fun at playing the game.
Next time, have the Inquisitor bring in an Imperial Commissar to provide some motivation to act in all due haste....

[Segev]

Resource scarcity isn't about saying, "No, there aren't enough fighters to recruit," but rather about saying, "If you take them, they won't be over here."

If Bob's character has the level of resource acquisition you're describing, then you're not really challenging him, anyway. You're trying to induce artificial challenge by making smaller-time threats bigger by denying him resources at his disposal.

To simplify things a bit, let's consider an example of a 10th level rogue with an arsenal of wands and a high UMD. You're trying to tell him he can't use his wand of fireball to take out the cluster of 1st level orcs. What you really should be doing is making it so that wasting his charges on those orcs means he doesn't have the wand when he faces the white dragon and its howdah full of kobold archers later on.

Give him numerous problems that are his responsibility to solve. Make him account for resources expended. It won't matter how high ranking he is if the garrison he wants is all that defends the outpost from monsters while he takes all of them to go hunt the deranged cultists. If he takes all of them, the outpost won't be there when he gets back. It's just a choice of resource deployment.

Tell him how many resources he has, and let him research the limits of resources available he might be able to finagle. Let him make an adventure out of winning control (or at least the loan) of those he doesn't have, if he wants. Give him a number of problems to solve, and make him have to figure out how to allocate resources. His own presence, and that of his party, is one such resource.

When you do that, he can't complain that you're denying him resources. It's all there. He just has to figure out where to expend them. Now the challenge arises from optimal deployment, and from taking risks in some areas for certainty in others.

[PopeLinus1]

Take an NPC that's important to the character(backstory, association or friendship), have them captured, give them time to rescue them, when they don't, execute the NPC.

[BrainFreeze]

Like many other people have stated, it is a big universe and there are threats everywhere. Paranoia is good, it keeps Inquisition members alive to face those other threats, but at the same time everyone has jobs to do and they cannot afford to be pulled around all over the place just because someone wants an extra gun for something that does not really need it. There are ways you can drive this point home though some of which have been suggested.

-Something happens in the area the requisitioned troop was supposed to be responsible for, this leads to an inquisitorial investigation into the character and their motivations, potentially uncovering any misdeeds that occurred as part of the requisition.

-Time sensitive requirements, this has been hit multiple times already.

-A second example, perhaps due to the larger resource requirements in this Inquisitor’s area of responsibility, command chooses to send a second Inquisitor to the sector to take care of issues. This Inquisitor handles things differently using small focused strikes to handle problems efficiently. Command would take notice of the costs comparison between the new guy and the Character and wonder…why it costs so much more to fund the Character’s operations. In the end any large organization comes down to money.

-Someone complains, this could be the commander of the forces that were requisitioned. Having an Inquisitor pull your forces from where you placed them to provide “unnecessary” fire support to an operation has a tendency to make people upset. Especially if some of those forces become casualties and that commander is not responsible for notifications to their families. This can easily lead to calls to those higher up the Inquisitorial chain than the character, perhaps people that this commander knew while they in school/grew up in the same social circle as.

One note though, do not deny them using the skills their character should have, you just need to work on the character’s threat estimation techniques and the amount of resources they decide to commit to each problem. This is essential to command when you have multiple threats and it should be something that would be drilled into the character before they are raised into a new position. This is a great character building opportunity.

[dps]

Time sensitive situations don't always mean "this goblin camp needs to be wiped out right now, or it will get stronger/do something horrible/get away". It can be a matter of "you have to get from point A to point B in X amount of time, and to do that you have to go through this pass where there's an enemy camp. You have no time to go around it or call up reinforcements; you have to just blow through them". In other words, eliminating this particular enemy isn't an actual objective, it's just something that needs to be done right now in order to meet your actual objective.

That's a bit railroady, but you probably need to be a bit railroady in this situation.

[denthor]

I am not sure what game you are playing but for your 10 goblin camp thing.

give him all the resources he wants let him them walk over the encounter 12 1st level fighters and the group.

Exp is next to nothing since it would be 250 divide at least 13 that is your exp for the night. After a bunch of play time the group may tell him to stop or he will.

[No-Kill Cleric]

How my DM handled it was giving me a boon in exchange for being more bold in combat. It was a custom magic item given by Queen Mab, who was interested in my druid character, but thought she was too much life and not enough death in her understanding of nature. It evolved as I did things, like getting a 1/day ability for being knocked unconscious from ice damage, better resistances for taking out X number of enemies. I got way more comfortable wading into combat, which made my experience more enjoyable.

[Alcore]

I can't keep reading. Despite what you, the DM, say it seems completely OOC problem to me. But I'll reply out of IC;


Do the redshirts comprehend the massive advantage they hold in battle?

Where would they be and what would they do otherwise? Would those situations be much worse without them there?

What do they tell their superiors?

What does their superiors say to your player's superior?

What does his superior think of him?


"Success is measured in blood, yours or your enemies" and he is unwilling to bleed for his emperor. Indeed, he seems to be a craven person at heart. He has blasphemed, disgraced and otherwise failed his emperor. Bless his heart he does not have me for his superior.

If you excuse me i have a campaign on Kronus to attend to.

[Jackalias]

Perhaps a visit from the Inquisitor is in order? Depending on what the inquisitor's like perceived waste of the imperium's time/resources could very quickly earn their ire.

[sabernoir]

To provide a D&D equivalent, I feel that Bob would look at a camp of ten goblins raiders, order the party to back off, and refuse to come back to deal with the camp unless he was backed by an entire team of third level fighters. And if I told him there were no third level fighters available to help out, he'd then try to "settle" for a dozen first level fighters instead, and so-on and so-forth, and overall refusing the enter a situation where there is any actual sense of challenge.

So I'm at a bit of a pinch where I do not know how to properly handle Bob's.... let's just say, "overestimation" of the threats I send his way, but don't want to just screw him and the party over with no agency to deal with it.

I'll confess I'm not a pro, and I can't tell you how to handle this, but I'll tell you what I'd do in your example situation, just to hopefully give you some ideas.

If I wanted my party to assault a goblin encampment, I'd have our characters hear screaming as they approached, upon finding a position from which to view the camp, I'd have them roll an absurdly easy spot check to see that the guards are at least partially distract harassing some kidnapped victims, in the hope that opportunistic PCs will attack now, seeing as they are at an advantage. If they held off, I'd have the camp be more developed and larger, the guards on alert, and the prisoners long dead, I'd even have the goblins hide their loot somewhere else.

I understand that may sound as if I'm abusing the party if they make the wrong choice, but if they do get help, it will still be a challenge, and hopefully at least other members of the party will realize that they outnumber the dissenter, and he will find himself either playing the "this sounds like a bad idea.." character who comes along anyway, or the "lone wanderer."

This, of course, won't always work, but see if any of these elements help you.

[sabernoir]

Now that I have read the entire thread, and realized I have done nothing but repeat what everyone else has said, I have a couple questions that I believe will help us determine a course of action.

1. I'm a little confused, when you tell the character there are no (resources), is he complaining out of character that you are being to hard, or is his character complaining to his superiors in-game?

2. Could you describe the core mechanics of the system you're using? I think that will help those of us unfamiliar with the system determine possible actions.

3. Why haven't you just killed off that character yet? It's as simple as letting them separate in an area of relative safety and then causing a gasleak, right?

[Florian]

2. Could you describe the core mechanics of the system you're using? I think that will help those of us unfamiliar with the system determine possible actions.

In short, it´s a d100 roll under system, with task modifiers that range from +60% to -60% and permanent injuries, madness and corruption.

[Chijinda]

Now that I have read the entire thread, and realized I have done nothing but repeat what everyone else has said, I have a couple questions that I believe will help us determine a course of action.

1. I'm a little confused, when you tell the character there are no (resources), is he complaining out of character that you are being to hard, or is his character complaining to his superiors in-game?

2. Could you describe the core mechanics of the system you're using? I think that will help those of us unfamiliar with the system determine possible actions.

3. Why haven't you just killed off that character yet? It's as simple as letting them separate in an area of relative safety and then causing a gasleak, right?

1. Out of character

2.

In short, it´s a d100 roll under system, with task modifiers that range from +60% to -60% and permanent injuries, madness and corruption.

Basically this. Experience is awarded not through combat, though how it actually is awarded is largely up to the GM (the CRB recommends awarding a flat rate of XP on a session by session basis, while my group tends to award XP based on how well the Acolytes are pursuing their goals). Setting is Warhammer 40k, you are operating as agents of the Imperial Inquisition, rooting out and destroying Heresy wherever you go. Other real point of note is that due to the inherently lethal nature of the setting (characters have somewhere between 10-15 Hit points on average, while even low-level weapons tend to do around 1d10+3 damage), characters are awarded "Fate Points", which serve as extra "lives". A character, when dealt a fatal injury, can expend a fate point, to instead be simply rendered unconscious and at 0 wounds, at the GM's discretion with additional consequences based on the nature of the death (eg. Recently a character in my group died via blood loss after having his arm severed, so while his burning a Fate Point allowed him to survive, he is still missing the arm and will need to get a mechanical replacement).

3. Because I try to maintain a level of fairness. If I'm going to kill a character I would rather the death be reasonably be foreseeable. Besides, I'm not aiming to kill characters. If they get in over their heads and die, fine, but I want to make sure they're AWARE they're getting in over their heads, or at least. Having the character killed by a random gas leak seems to me to be the epitome of a GM "Gotcha", because there would be no way to foreseeably see it coming and avoid it. Note, that I am not trying to KILL his character I am trying to challenge the character. I'm trying to give the party reasonable challenge, that forces them to be put at risk. If they die, so be it, but the important thing I'm trying to do here is be fair. I've been on the receiving end of a GM shrugging his shoulders and killing off my character in what felt like unavoidable circumstances, that I couldn't have reasonably foreseen and avoided. It sucked, so I try NOT to do that to my players.

[LordCdrMilitant]

1. Out of character

2. Basically this. Experience is awarded not through combat, though how it actually is awarded is largely up to the GM (the CRB recommends awarding a flat rate of XP on a session by session basis, while my group tends to award XP based on how well the Acolytes are pursuing their goals). Setting is Warhammer 40k, you are operating as agents of the Imperial Inquisition, rooting out and destroying Heresy wherever you go. Other real point of note is that due to the inherently lethal nature of the setting (characters have somewhere between 10-15 Hit points on average, while even low-level weapons tend to do around 1d10+3 damage), characters are awarded "Fate Points", which serve as extra "lives". A character, when dealt a fatal injury, can expend a fate point, to instead be simply rendered unconscious and at 0 wounds, at the GM's discretion with additional consequences based on the nature of the death (eg. Recently a character in my group died via blood loss after having his arm severed, so while his burning a Fate Point allowed him to survive, he is still missing the arm and will need to get a mechanical replacement).

3. Because I try to maintain a level of fairness. If I'm going to kill a character I would rather the death be reasonably be foreseeable. Besides, I'm not aiming to kill characters. If they get in over their heads and die, fine, but I want to make sure they're AWARE they're getting in over their heads, or at least. Having the character killed by a random gas leak seems to me to be the epitome of a GM "Gotcha", because there would be no way to foreseeably see it coming and avoid it. Note, that I am not trying to KILL his character I am trying to challenge the character. I'm trying to give the party reasonable challenge, that forces them to be put at risk. If they die, so be it, but the important thing I'm trying to do here is be fair. I've been on the receiving end of a GM shrugging his shoulders and killing off my character in what felt like unavoidable circumstances, that I couldn't have reasonably foreseen and avoided. It sucked, so I try NOT to do that to my players.

They're not that squishy. Yeah, they have about a dozen wounds, but they also have between 6 and 9 points of Damage Reduction, only about half of which is negated by armor penetration. I have seen a character with 14 DR on the chest.

Also, when you die, you don't spend a Fate point, you permanently reduce your Fate maximum. You can spend a Fate point to re-roll a d100, and your Fate refills to it's maximum at the beginning of each session. Typically, the average character has 3 Max Fate at the start. At the end of my campaigns, which last about half a year, most characters either have 1 or 0 remaining, and have quite a few replacement parts.


If the party's doing good recon and being fairly subtle, they should never be in over their heads. However, if they approach all matter face-first driving a Leman Russ Battle Tank, they're probably going to wind up outmaneuvered at some point. The key is to know what the enemies are up to at all times, and what the enemies know about the acolytes. The enemy's course of action should then be logical and clear, and you shouldn't have any dilemmas about the party requisitioning a battery of Manticores and 250 Imperial Guardsmen as support. As a rule of thumb, a column of Imperial Guardsmen is the opposite of sneaky [especially without explicit orders to be so], and enemies will probably elect to flee from the superior force, destroying evidence. Once this happens once or twice, the party will very quickly learn that sometimes "Artillery Strike" isn't the solution to all your problems. In addition, the enemy can bring in reinforcements of their own if the party isn't careful.

[sabernoir]

1. Out of character

2. Basically this. Experience is awarded not through combat, though how it actually is awarded is largely up to the GM (the CRB recommends awarding a flat rate of XP on a session by session basis, while my group tends to award XP based on how well the Acolytes are pursuing their goals). Setting is Warhammer 40k, you are operating as agents of the Imperial Inquisition, rooting out and destroying Heresy wherever you go. Other real point of note is that due to the inherently lethal nature of the setting (characters have somewhere between 10-15 Hit points on average, while even low-level weapons tend to do around 1d10+3 damage), characters are awarded "Fate Points", which serve as extra "lives". A character, when dealt a fatal injury, can expend a fate point, to instead be simply rendered unconscious and at 0 wounds, at the GM's discretion with additional consequences based on the nature of the death (eg. Recently a character in my group died via blood loss after having his arm severed, so while his burning a Fate Point allowed him to survive, he is still missing the arm and will need to get a mechanical replacement).

3. Because I try to maintain a level of fairness. If I'm going to kill a character I would rather the death be reasonably be foreseeable. Besides, I'm not aiming to kill characters. If they get in over their heads and die, fine, but I want to make sure they're AWARE they're getting in over their heads, or at least. Having the character killed by a random gas leak seems to me to be the epitome of a GM "Gotcha", because there would be no way to foreseeably see it coming and avoid it. Note, that I am not trying to KILL his character I am trying to challenge the character. I'm trying to give the party reasonable challenge, that forces them to be put at risk. If they die, so be it, but the important thing I'm trying to do here is be fair. I've been on the receiving end of a GM shrugging his shoulders and killing off my character in what felt like unavoidable circumstances, that I couldn't have reasonably foreseen and avoided. It sucked, so I try NOT to do that to my players.

Alright, first, if a player is complaining out of character about his chances of success, you trump the dice. You tell him he can succeed and if he fails it's because he did something dumb. The dm is always right, even if he is an idiot (like myself).

Second, I'm not saying so much "kill him off with something dumb," the gas leak line was a bad joke. I'm saying "kill him off with a well prepared surprise encounter designed to make his character look awesome as he dies." I speak as a member of a group that had grown cancerous indeed, our experienced DM threw a dragon at us and we restarted with better prepared characters and an attitude of cooperation. However, DON'T kill his character. If he is complaining out-of-game, it's not his characters fault, and his next one will be just as bad.

If I were you, I'd take him aside either before or after a session and speak with him as calmly as possible about the problem he's causing through his behavior, explain about how his party isn't facing any challenges because they are always overprepared. If you have any examples, present them as objectively as possible.

[Segev]

The best way to handle this, I think, is still a "how much bang for your buck?" approach. If he insists on using overwhelming resources every time, he's getting them from somewhere. Introduce a political rival who is trying to limit his resources out of a sense of self-defense. "I need those more than he does!" Or have some other person of similar rank pulling excessive resources for his own ops, leaving them dry for your player. Let him approach it however he likes; investigation reveals that Inquisitor Hallax has called for all of the Space Marines in this base to handle a cult uprising over there, so there aren't the ones he wants for the suspected Chaos Worshipper over here.

If he plays to get things faster so others can't beat him to them, then make sure that some of the things that would normally be handled get out of control because he over-committed resources. Using the entire National Guard of Texas to take out a gang of 10 dudes in a compound means that the National Guard of Texas isn't helping with border patrols, so the vampires from Mexico come through the Rift over the Rio in greater successful numbers.

If he plays for higher RANK, so he can avoid consequences or pass the buck, start assigning him responsibility for multiple problems at once, and give him people of his old rank who can handle some of them. But have those people follow his example in requisitioning resources and refusing to handle things without excessive over-the-top force. And now your PC has only so many he can assign to each, and they want, collectively, more than he has.

[Sinewmire]

I admit that I'm not super familiar with 40K, so I may be putting my foot in my mouth on this but I don't agree. My understanding from the outset is that the setting is not just dark, but absurdly bleak. If that's wrong, blame the memes I suppose. Though if 40K's setting really is grim, morose and shows no signs that things can ever get better, characters that no longer see a downside to death or serious injury start to make sense. With that in mind, crazier risks start to seem less crazy and less risky.

There's actually a system for that - tandem Insanity and Corruption tracks.

Basically, you accept the horror of reality and become evil, or you deny the horror of reality and go mad.

Anyhoo - This sounds like an IC problem, as the character is, and has good reason to be, paranoid and overprepared. I assume the you and the player can talk about this in the third person? Is everyone still having fun?

What do the party think of him? Do their characters agree? What does their Inquisitor think?
Let him be the voice of caution in the party, sure, but make sure that's not the only voice they have.

Your DM style sounds very similar to the long-running game I was playing in, down to the red-string board sessions. It's still my favourite game of all the games I've played.
My character was a guard veteran, and always chose the hard option, because they had to be sure.

If we don't stop them now, this place could be cleared out by th time we get back.
If we don't lead the purge, and get visual confirmation of the kills, the enemy leaders might get away and we'd never know.
Can we trust the backup? The PDF/Guard might very well have informants and spies. We don't know how deep this goes.
How much attention is this bringing to the team? They won't be able to play spies if they keep showing up leading an army.
If we make a major move, the enemy mightbolt and lay low, possibly for years.

So let him have his overwhelming victories where it makes sense, but don't make the enemy stupid.

If they have spies or wiretaps that tell them a regiment is on the way they'll bolt.
A formal military assault rather than infiltration could give them time to destroy evidence.
The target might simply not be there when you come back.
The ritual might go ahead.
The enemy might actually be better prepared for a full frontal assault than a covert infiltration.
Are we going to be able to exfiltrate in order to call for backup?

If he keeps borrowing other people's sledgehammers to crack walnuts, they might stop giving him sledgehammers.
Will his new buddies have to be euthanised? Where's his "acceptable losses" now?

Will his backup be traitors? ("Just got a vox from tactica command, they can't spare any men to help us." "What are you talking about? There's 20 soldiers landing as we speak!" Dun dun dun!)

Like you said, nobody likes a "gotcha!" DM, but easily foreseeable consequences are completely reasonable.

I hope that helps.

[Guizonde]

i'm currently playing rogue trader, and it seems we've got a player that's sorta like that. he's been distancing himself from the game because the dm flat-out said that our team doesn't have the ressources to call in orbital strikes yet. now, i'm playing an ex-storm-trooper, so the orbital strike pleases me greatly, but i like roughing it and thinking fast too (which is our plan b when negociations fail).

i'd let him take a long, hard look at the universe and the ramifications of playing like that. perhaps make him read the first eisenhorn novel that illustrates why sometimes an inquisitorial warband needs to go undercover (the glaw estate on gudrun example, i believe it's in the first third of the novel called xenos).

brute force closes as many doors as it opens. were i in your situation, i'd straight-up propose a fact-finding mission. nothing too dangerous, something heavy in clues and infiltrating all layers of society. maybe a shoot-out or an ambush by a couple of underhive junkies if they get sniffed out or flaunt too much cash/power. add all the clues together, you get the location of the new heresy going down, then maybe let him call in a squad of arbites or guardsmen. try to instill in him a sense of "appropriate response". arresting a couple nobles that have dealings with dark eldar? a squad of arbites in carapace with scatterguns. daemonhost? call the kasrkin. genestealer cult? now you call in a regiment of guardsmen. anything bigger won't help you.

make him feel like it's risky, but not so risky as to give the player panic attacks. comfort him into believing that he might need new briefs after the mission but won't get mauled or lose physical integrity. then again, augmetics are widely available to members of the inquisition. might dent the budget, seeing his expenses bill.

question, what does he play as? calling in so many favors, i'd understand for an inquisitor or an interrogator, but not for anything below that rank unless he's got approval or authorizations counter-signed by local authorities. methinks he might be taking the =][= symbol as a bit too omnipotent.

[Aneurin]

It sort of sounds like the best approach here is to say, out of character, "Okay, I appreciate the effort you're putting into playing the character but we're really starting to slow down now. I'm not asking you to go nuts or anything, but could you please start being a little less cautiously for the sake of the game?"



If you really want an IC solution, though, I'd go with time limits like some of the others here have suggested. I know you said he'd just let the objectives pass... but if he does, then the PCs should face some consequences. Not least of which is their Inquisitor getting very angry with them for failing to do their job and giving them a horrible assignment and orders to "learn to make do, rather than whine about resources"... like purging sewer mutants. On their own. They are, after all, supposed to stop things from escalating to the point where massive reserves of manpower and resources need to be used - if they're going to use all those resources anyway, why is the Inquisitor bothering to keep them around?

Alternatively; massive corruption. The cell is on a planet to go an figure out who's in on it, which means they can't trust anyone. They can call in assistance if they want, but the odds of it blowing up in their faces is going to be high.

The other way to deal with this is the fact that - from what you've said - none of the PCs are Inquisitors or even Interrogators. Which means that senior Imperial officials can tell them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Okay, they'll probably do it more politely than that, but there are limits to what an Acolyte can force from officials (though the officials might regret refusing later if the Inquisitor decides they were being unreasonable). Lowly Acolytes don't outrank generals or Imperial Governors or Bishops or Rogue Traders or Admirals... which means that anyone who works for those powerful individuals can claim their own orders take precedence - though some will, of course, be willing to forget their orders to assist from time to time.

[The Glyphstone]

i'm currently playing rogue trader, and it seems we've got a player that's sorta like that. he's been distancing himself from the game because the dm flat-out said that our team doesn't have the ressources to call in orbital strikes yet. now, i'm playing an ex-storm-trooper, so the orbital strike pleases me greatly, but i like roughing it and thinking fast too (which is our plan b when negociations fail).
.

See, now that actually does strike me as odd because even a neophyte Rogue Trader will still have a ship, which is presumably armed and perfectly capable of bombarding a planet from orbit. You're not going to be very accurate without specialist bombardment cannons, and you will definitely wreck any potential loot (which should always be a Rogue Trader's priority), but a RT lacking the resources necessarily to paste something from orbit is extremely weird. So I'm sort of on his side, barring additional context.

[Guizonde]

See, now that actually does strike me as odd because even a neophyte Rogue Trader will still have a ship, which is presumably armed and perfectly capable of bombarding a planet from orbit. You're not going to be very accurate without specialist bombardment cannons, and you will definitely wreck any potential loot (which should always be a Rogue Trader's priority), but a RT lacking the resources necessarily to paste something from orbit is extremely weird. So I'm sort of on his side, barring additional context.

i apologize, i wasn't clear enough: first, we're still outfitting our ship in the name of our parent dynasty, and our main prow armament has been stolen by pirates. we're not playing rogue traders per se, we're playing a rogue trader's team until we get a good enough master of the void to become a proper captain.

secondly, i wasn't talking about orbital bombardment, but orbital deep strike teams in drop pods. we used to have a prow lance that was sufficient to glass a city, and we've still got enough broadsides to discourage wannabe pirates looking for easy prey, so yes, we could ruin a planet's day. our dm specifically forbade us from having exterminatus capabilities for now. we botched our rolls to find said exterminatus-worthy armament. we're still waiting on a few old inquisitorial contacts to allow us to reroll. we're not spectacularly rich, but i'd say a team's influence score at 42 is still pretty honorable in 5 sessions. so, the void-master (who may or may not be abandonning the table) still thinks it's a-ok to ask for a drop-bay, with veteran soldiers, with drop-pods, along with a couple of fighter screens. just the fighter screens go above our influence in upkeep alone. it's also why i said that the orbital drop pleased my storm-trooper greatly, since in his background that's the role he had (orbital drop and extraction). the dm likes the idea, but we botched rolls, we're low on funds, and our main armament has been stolen. i'm thinking the "ground invasion shotgun" can wait a few sessions, unlike the other player.

my mistake. rereading my original post it really was unclear.

[FreddyNoNose]

Time sensitive threats. If they aren't dealt with right now they're going to get a lot worse.

Ambushes and other related threats. You don't have to be railroady or cheaty to ambush the PCs. If they spot the ambush and get out of it without a fight, that's fine, you can do it again another time. Sometimes they'll fail the roll and then you'll have them.

Give other sorts of challenges that aren't violence related. It's a lot harder to run away from, say, an important diplomatic function without messing everything up. And they tend to be less scary too.

One shot opportunities. You know where the target is right now, but in a couple hours he'll be off the planet and out of your reach if you don't want to spend months tracking him down across the galaxy.

Time sensitive is the answer. The problem with it is do you let them know it is time sensitive? I was in a playtest group for a call of cthulhu module that had time sensitivity as major factor in the ability to overcome the adventure. The GM was vague about the time pressure and brought up things like is there anything else you want to do now? We lost badly and apparently is was suppose to be vague.

Now what I like to do in my DND campaign is let players know they aren't the only ones to know about something. You can imagine picking up a rumor in a tavern and then can understand you aren't the only ones to hear about it. So if you are overly cautious, when you arrive to the "dungeon", you will discover the enemy has been defeated and the treasure is gone. After a few times, you hope they learn.

This problem is also particularly exposed in games where the DMs don't let players fail or die unless it is some major heroic death. You carry them for so long then you pull the time sensitive crap on them. Allow them to fail and die.

[ross]

Every time Bob goes and gets reinforcements, when he comes back, the enemy has also been reinforced. Whatever tactics he chooses, just throw them back at him tenfold.

Eventually he'll get the message and either stop playing like an idiot or stop showing up, so you win either way.