My play group is -generally speaking- irrationally paranoid.

I blame myself. We migrated to EotE from the Warhammer 40k line, where my plots were often filled with doublecrosses, intrigue and conspiracy. Expected. The group is very intelligent, so tossing simple "milk runs" at them is a rare treat. But even then, everyone is a potential bad guy. Checks that succeed with fistfuls of both Success and Advantage still obscure a potential trap. If I say -OOC- "Seriously, all is on the up and up" they don't take it at face value, and if a NPC says IC "Don't go there/do that, it'll get yer killt" they go there/do that, nearly get killed, and it's an instant ticket on the Paranoia Express, like I planned for them to ignore the warning.

So I thought I share this bit of advice from experience:

Uh, yeah. I got noth'n.

The players in the games I GM are always terribly nervous, to the point of camouflaging their character's ships when they leave them and having 30 minute discussions about how to open a door.

My play group is -generally speaking- irrationally paranoid.

I blame myself. We migrated to EotE from the Warhammer 40k line, where my plots were often filled with doublecrosses, intrigue and conspiracy. Expected. The group is very intelligent, so tossing simple "milk runs" at them is a rare treat. But even then, everyone is a potential bad guy. Checks that succeed with fistfuls of both Success and Advantage still obscure a potential trap. If I say -OOC- "Seriously, all is on the up and up" they don't take it at face value, and if a NPC says IC "Don't go there/do that, it'll get yer killt" they go there/do that, nearly get killed, and it's an instant ticket on the Paranoia Express, like I planned for them to ignore the warning.

So I thought I share this bit of advice from experience:

Uh, yeah. I got noth'n.

Well, in case you opened this thread to get advice: how about next time they nearly get killed, the NPC that told them not to go there yells at them and - as punishment - pulls all strings possible so they don't get full reward because they unnecessarily risked the mission/ got sidetracked/ blew their cover / drew too much attention...

Just my 2ct.

My group doesn't have experience RPing in the 40K universe, but I do, and as a GM, I take a lot from it. Your group would fit right in with me as a GM.

I don't see why Success and Advantage should convince your party of the absence of a trap. After all, those rolls tend to reflect outcomes of very defined parameters. Who is to say what lies underneath the movement of pawns on the board?

SUSPICION: the first shield of the Emperor!

Thats a hard one to bounce back from. I suffer from this as well to some extent. It helps if you introduce plenty of reliable NPCs that the PCs can depend on for "accurate" information (from the NPC's point of view, this is Star Wars after all).

This sort of over-analysis isn't exactly uncommon. Have you tried plying them with adult libations?

The players in the games I GM are always terribly nervous, to the point of camouflaging their character's ships when they leave them and having 30 minute discussions about how to open a door.

The other GM in our group has kind of trained us to be this paranoid, he'll find something we didn't specify and leverage that to our disadvantage. It gets tiring, because you can't possibly verbalize all the tiny things people do automatically, so there's always something unspecified to leverage.

Agree with Inquisitor Tremayne. It will take quite a bit of time, multiple sessions for sure, to get the players to understand that some NPCs are reliable. Wean them like puppies, it's the only way.

My old D&D group started getting overly paranoid. I got tired of the constant checking-for-traps every time a door got opened. I seriously think they would have checked kitchen cabinets for traps even if we were in the back room of a bar.

So in the interest of expediting the sessions my not-so-intelligent warrior became an idiotic mine detector by kicking open every door we came to.

My campaign is in an alternate Star Wars universe I've described elsewhere. The players don't know the extent of the alternate in that universe except that enough time has passed that there should have been a Battle of Yavin but there hasn't been. Neither has there been a mention of a Death Star and Alderaan still happily orbits its sun. As a result, there's been no rallying cry to attract support to the rebel alliance.

The players heard "STAR WARS" and built all sorts of hate-ons for the Empire into their backgrounds. However, the NPC that has been most reliable, most up front, and most supportive has been an ISB agent while the most coercing, manipulative and troubling person they have reluctantly worked for (because she played the "do this for me or your Obligation is about to become a serious problem for you" card) is, they greatly suspect, a rebel.

The way things are shaping up, they're sure the ISB agent will be cashing in on the good-will he's developed to get the PC's to help him nail the rebel NPC and her commander... and it looks like the PC's are going to side with the ISB agent and hand her over on the silver platter he's supplying!

All of this has made them very paranoid players. They're sure that the Empire is fitting their characters with mythra handcuffs. At the same time, handing over a rebel operative is alienating them from the security blanket of the Rebel Alliance that they've been able to run to for the last 28 or so years of Star Wars RPG's.

If I had a mustache, I would be twirling it...

My old D&D group started getting overly paranoid. I got tired of the constant checking-for-traps every time a door got opened. I seriously think they would have checked kitchen cabinets for traps even if we were in the back room of a bar.

So in the interest of expediting the sessions my not-so-intelligent warrior became an idiotic mine detector by kicking open every door we came to.

At some point, when the level of paranoia became this disruptive to a game, when they started checking for traps on EVERYTHING, rather than roll a die, I rolled whatever I had handy. The first few times, it was a pencil so that's become the de facto signal to, "STOP WASTING TIME!"

My old D&D group started getting overly paranoid. I got tired of the constant checking-for-traps every time a door got opened. I seriously think they would have checked kitchen cabinets for traps even if we were in the back room of a bar.

For a brief period of time, I ran a D&D campaign where the main NPC they interacted with was supposed to be a charlatan wizard. I role-played him well, but I kept dropping hints that maybe his staff was pretty crudely painted if he was such a great wizard, etc….

Problem was, the players kept believing my role-playing and not all the hints I was dropping.

So, when it finally came out that he actually was faking it the whole time, they got seriously pissed off at me. The game held together for a little while longer, but he quickly died after that reveal, and then they tied a rope to his body and kept throwing him around as a trap-detector.

He actually worked better as a trap-detector than anything else he ever did while he was alive.

then they tied a rope to his body and kept throwing him around as a trap-detector.

This is The Funniest Thing.

Ask your players what scenes in the movies they enjoyed most. Then ask them if their actions in the game so far have been consistent with what they saw in those scenes.

It's hard to die in this system. If your players aren't prepared to swashbuckle, then maybe they should be playing a different game.

Players will always think you are out to get them, that trouble is in every corner, etc.

JUst create for them some happy moments and fun activities they can do with thier character, to sweet'n the bitter pill of "real life in the galaxy".

Also don;t be shy to explain how you plan and execute encounters, so there will be full disclosure and good communication.

Ask your players what scenes in the movies they enjoyed most. Then ask them if their actions in the game so far have been consistent with what they saw in those scenes.

It's hard to die in this system. If your players aren't prepared to swashbuckle, then maybe they should be playing a different game.

This.

It's Star Wars.

I don't even play in canon, but we respect the themes.

It's pulp science-fantasy; keep the action moving fast and keep it exciting.

My old D&D group started getting overly paranoid. I got tired of the constant checking-for-traps every time a door got opened. I seriously think they would have checked kitchen cabinets for traps even if we were in the back room of a bar.

So in the interest of expediting the sessions my not-so-intelligent warrior became an idiotic mine detector by kicking open every door we came to.

Everyone rolled a perception check!

Our gm took a deep breath and said in a disbelieving tone, "The sun comes up."

We were playing Dragon Age rpg once, and were also utterly paranoid. We had been traveling all night, and near the end of the March our gm mentioned that there was a light on the horizon.

Everyone rolled a perception check!

Our gm took a deep breath and said in a disbelieving tone, "The sun comes up."

When I was working at AOL many years ago, I had a day like that.

For the life of me, I could not figure out how the hell there was a weird bright spot on the carpet at the end of the hall. It took me about five minutes of wondering and walking down there to finally realize that I had worked through the night.

I had a number of days at AOL that I worked through the night, but that was the only time I recall not comprehending how there could be a weird bright spot on the carpet.

Certa8in experiences can make players paranoid, but I have also found that there is an overly large unwillingness among players to accept failure for their characters. Ok, I can accept that repeated failure is irritating, but several players I have played with (I will admit I have succumbed to this instinct at times as well) just will not act until they can be sure of how things will turn out, that it is the "correct" decision. They will um and ah about how to open a door, whether to accept a job or whatever, and not just roll with the story.

I partially blame D&D for this. People that were brought up on 3.5 seem to have lots of expectations to games I find unusual (and at times tiresome). Among these are 1) a real min/maxing drive ("I need to be sure to succeed at this one narrow task, at exclusion of all else, rather than accepting a 75% or 60% success rate and then be able to do some other things passably") and then 2) an unwillingness to do things characters are not optimised to do, leading to stalling ("Well, my character has 1 Presence and no relevant skills, so there is not point even trying convincing this merchant to give me the relevant information").

My group was also overly-paranoid due to their time spent with me as the DM for our D&D campaigns. I had a reputation for trying to take out characters (only half-true because of course the DM can always win if he really wants to). It worked for that game but it seemed to take them a while to adapt to the different style of this game. The players are getting there, it's just a bit of an adjustment moving to a game that is more of a cooperative narrative.

I've found that it helps to provide incentives. I did a halloween game that had a horror theme. I knew my players wouldn't normally do things that would fit that sort of setting so I offered bonus XP for every time a character played into a classic horror trope. Next thing you know I had characters splitting up, crawling into air ducts to investigate strange noises, and wandering outside the ship alone.

The players in the games I GM are always terribly nervous, to the point of camouflaging their character's ships when they leave them and having 30 minute discussions about how to open a door.

The other GM in our group has kind of trained us to be this paranoid, he'll find something we didn't specify and leverage that to our disadvantage. It gets tiring, because you can't possibly verbalize all the tiny things people do automatically, so there's always something unspecified to leverage.

Agree with Inquisitor Tremayne. It will take quite a bit of time, multiple sessions for sure, to get the players to understand that some NPCs are reliable. Wean them like puppies, it's the only way.

There's the Deus Ex Machina rules to mitigate this somewhat.

In Lure of the Lost I told them how dark the cave was, and it was too bad they didn't buy torches at the village. They spent a destiny point to say "Well, we did buy some torches!"

2 Sentences later, they learn the cave was illuminated by glowing crystals. Score a dark point for me to use on them!

I gave them back the point because I'm a big softy.