Hi all

I recently came upon this in my game. During a mission in space, I tried to introduce the "Welcome Aboard" modular adventure from Lords of Nal Hutta - essentially, the PCs discover a mayday beacon out in a remote system, and have to decide what to do.

The party has 4 PCs. Two of them wanted to go and investigate, and two of them (who seem to persist in refusing to take up story hooks, but that's a separate problem) suspected a trap. I don't really mind that my players disagreed, but the problem was coming up with a way to resolve the problem. If it had been planet-side they could have split up, with 2 of them going to investigate, but because they were in the ship they just ended up in a stalemate, neither side backing down.

In the end I stepped in and declared that the ship's pilot, since he was actually in control of the ship, had the final say, but I'm not really happy with that solution. Just wondered if anyone else had had similar issues, or if anyone has any solutions for if a similar incident crops up?

Thanks in advance.

One solution could be take a 5 minute break and pull the 2 paranoid players aside. Explain that this is not a board game, and it's not a GMvPC game. Tell them you took time out of your week to plan this story, your not out to TPK at the first chance, you want to craft interesting situations for the players to put their characters through... You want to tell a story.

The other option is they get dropped off at the nearest space station that just magically appears on que for them to quietly discuss the finer points of the galactic economy while their buddies go off and actually have fun.

Third and most antagonistic (least advised) is to call for initiative, whoever wins get to decide.

I missed an option.

Quickly look at your notes for any hooks to the reluctant characters, an NPC, a Ship name, etc. Then introduce that into the story, the beacon has the transponder code of a lost ship they where searching for, or the voice in the message is of a lost friend.

One of my worst nightmares.

I don't mind conflict between player characters, but I get super frustrated when the actual Players refuse to find a compromise for the sake of actually advancing the game.

A new established PC joined the party and was investigating a missing person case. The Bounty Hunter and his Outlaw Tech refused to help him because they don't do "samaritan work", and the other PC had no credits to offer.

And of course a party that is only tied by credits is a terrible thing. However, this missing person was pretty valuable to a local Vigo, due to the Information that he held.

The Bounty Hunter and Outlaw Tech knew this, but refused to follow the lead, because they doubted it would be worth it. (Because, clearly, selling incriminating information to another faction, like the Hutts for example, is clearly not profitable enough. *sigh*)

So they willfully ignored the red string that was supposed to tie the two PC parties together.

The real problem here though, was that I had no alternative that evening, due to another misunderstanding at the end of the previous session.

In a true stalemate like yours, if your players can't solve their dispute on a narrative level, I would eventually call for opposed skillchecks.

Coercion or Deception, if their relationships are more adverse, like a partners out of necessity style party.

Negotiation and Charme, if they're usually friends and a good team.

Overall though such situations a though to handle and I would wish that any GM had a party that's willing to cooperate to advance play if even on an out of character level.

Just let things run their course and if they don't investigate they don't investigate. Let them run out the clock for the evening doing whatever they want with minimal input from you (if the players don't want to take the plot hook the responsibility for the evening's entertainment becomes theirs and not the GM's). And at the end, when you hand out XP, you should list everything they've done that rewards XP and then go: "Investigating the distress beacon, 15 XP - oh no, wait, you didn't do that. Too bad."

Nothing gets players' attention like missed XP. Nothing.

I've run into a few of those situations, and (though I'm not very proud of it) I usually play a psychological trick on the stubborn players. Here's how it would work in your situation;

Call for a Knowledge (Warfare) roll from the most vocal stubborn player; if they fails, then tell them that they're right, they don't like the situation and it seems like a trap (this on a subconscious level tells the player they have the wrong conclusion). If they succeed, then tell them that they have come up with a plan to defeat the ambush by sending the two players that want to investigate in while the others pull the ship back to a safe distance (a short hyperspace jump away) and lie in counter ambush.

If the first roll was the failure, then go to the next stubborn player and offer a Perception check, make it terribly easy, so they pass (giving them boost dice if needed because they know the other player so well, etc). When they do, allow them the same roll, but make it easier (due to the idea that they have already figure some of it out).

This way, you're using the players own desire to showcase their characters against them. It effective becomes their idea on *how* to investigate the beacon safely, and if they don't go through with it they are in essence proving their own characters wrong - which runs counter to influencing behavior that made them resist in the first place.

One solution could be take a 5 minute break and pull the 2 paranoid players aside. Explain that this is not a board game, and it's not a GMvPC game. Tell them you took time out of your week to plan this story, your not out to TPK at the first chance, you want to craft interesting situations for the players to put their characters through... You want to tell a story.

The other option is they get dropped off at the nearest space station that just magically appears on que for them to quietly discuss the finer points of the galactic economy while their buddies go off and actually have fun.

Third and most antagonistic (least advised) is to call for initiative, whoever wins get to decide.

Yeah, that might be the way to go in this circumstance. Although, more generally, there might be a legitimate situation in which players want to go different directions but are unable to do so due to being stuck on the same ship.

Yeah, this isn't so much a gameplay issue as it is an interpersonal issue on the player level.

While I'd never personally hinge my entire session/prep on the party choosing one option of a 50/50 decision (leaving a 50% chance of having zero in terms of preparation for the session), I'd also not pander to players who prefer to do nothing.

One way to avoid this in the future is to actually give them some sort of impetus: their boss has lost signal from another tramp freighter working for him so he sends this crew out to investigate...if the other ship has decided to cut and run, deal with them accordingly, but if they've fallen on misfortune, to save them...and their ship...but more importantly than either of those, their cargo.

That being said, it's a bit late for that now. Explain that you need them to decide, or the session will basically end with them having a committee meeting in the ship's lounge, and everyone can pack up and head home until next time.

Here are some popular stories to remind you players of:

1) A group of 4 pre-teens visit their relative in rural England during WW2, they find a magical wardrobe and decide to not go through

2) A peaceful, lazy Hobbit has his lazy Sunday summer afternoon crashed by an old wizard and a bunch of dwarves, they offer him a chance to come with them to slay a dragon and gather a bunch of treasure to make him and his heirs rich for generations....and the Hobbit provides them with a nice dinner and says no...

3) A farm boy on a desert planet buys some new droids, that seem to want to find a crazy hermit. Once he meets with the hermit, he offers the farm boy a chance to come with him to a civilized planet to seek out a resistance cell. The boy declines the offer and the Galactic Empire still has a powerful planet destroying battle station.

4) A NYC police officer visits his estranged wife and children in LA for Christmas. His wife tells him to come to their office Christmas party. While he is cleaning up from his long flight, the building is over run by terrorists. He decides to hide in the office and does not do anything to interfere with their plans....

5) In the near future, out prospective dark-horse hero of the dark web is offered a choice to take the red pill and experience the world as it really is or the blue pill to forget every thing, and chooses the blue pill

As a group we usually say 'yep Ok we'll (investigate this, transport that, go here, stop off there, deliver those) or we may as well pack up early and go home or put the PS4 on instead'

also... a LOT of films would be over in 15 minutes if the heroes/protagonists/main characters didn't do something stupid: How come they started the trench run at the distance they did?

Or Han's reply to Obi-Wan... 'Sorry, not interested, you look like a crazy old man.'

'Did you just hear that noise in the cellar? 'Yeah, let's get a torch and investigate not: 'Leave it, lock the cellar door and turn the TV up.'

The players/PCs not wishing to engage need to be marginalized or completely ignored. The 'All Important GM Guide for ALL Types of RPGs' usually states to involve all players. F*** THAT!.... How about the guide FOR players to ENGAGE and COMPROMISE for the person behind the screen who has spent time and usually money in an effort to entertain you. I stopped running a game after none of my players offered to run anything so I could take a break and 'Just Turn Up To Play' even after dropping the biggets hints I could like, I wouldn't mind playing that for a change when player 1 suggested MERP (we made characters, never played) or.. that seems an interesting setting when player 2 had bought DC Heroes (we made characters, played 2 sessions) etc etc. I was the only one married with kids, The rest either still lived with parents, on their own or just their G/Fs and no kids.

Remind the players it is just a game but a polite compromise would be greatly appreciated... did Luke walk away when Leia shouted It's a trap?

EDIT: When the MERP owner admitted 'I admit I'm lazy, I just can't be bothered' I decided to take the same mind set and sent a group text effectively giving them all the finger as politely as possible.

Yeah, this isn't so much a gameplay issue as it is an interpersonal issue on the player level.

While I'd never personally hinge my entire session/prep on the party choosing one option of a 50/50 decision (leaving a 50% chance of having zero in terms of preparation for the session), I'd also not pander to players who prefer to do nothing.

One way to avoid this in the future is to actually give them some sort of impetus: their boss has lost signal from another tramp freighter working for him so he sends this crew out to investigate...if the other ship has decided to cut and run, deal with them accordingly, but if they've fallen on misfortune, to save them...and their ship...but more importantly than either of those, their cargo.

That being said, it's a bit late for that now. Explain that you need them to decide, or the session will basically end with them having a committee meeting in the ship's lounge, and everyone can pack up and head home until next time.

Yep... No one likes being railroaded.... but if you don't like being railroaded go and play Skyrim, The Witcher or GTA V as a sandbox... I think every adventure ever published is a railroad with mild diversions to give the illusion of free will

While I hate it when my players pull this kind of thing, I have to admit it's often because I haven't provided significant motivation. In these cases:

also... a LOT of films would be over in 15 minutes if the heroes/protagonists/main characters didn't do something stupid: How come they started the trench run at the distance they did?

Or Han's reply to Obi-Wan... 'Sorry, not interested, you look like a crazy old man.'

'Did you just hear that noise in the cellar? 'Yeah, let's get a torch and investigate not: 'Leave it, lock the cellar door and turn the TV up.'

The players/PCs not wishing to engage need to be marginalized or completely ignored.

...there was significant motivation. Han was desperate for money. If he was a player and he didn't go for the job, then Jabba's meeting under the Falcon (in the "footage added" version of E4) wouldn't have gone as nicely. People hearing a noise in the cellar would be stupid not to investigate, they would lose any ability to respond to the threat and would be taken by surprise.

At the risk of being the antagonist here, I think a solitary mayday beacon (assuming it was out of the blue with no foreshadowing) smells exactly like a trap. Some players hate to put their character at risk. This does drive me nuts, especially when they're playing "badasses"...but as frustrating as it is it's still true. These people need a reason to become engaged. So a beacon isn't enough, they need some kind of extra motivation. Rather than a beacon, some actual communication would be more helpful. Maybe the local princess is in trouble and she'll be most grateful...monetarily, romantically, whatever...for the save. Or a wealthy merchant can become a patron/mentor. Or a smuggler will be able, with the PC's help, to make his drop in time, and he can introduce them to new important NPCs.

The other thing is to avoid creating a bottleneck in your story. (I made this exact mistake last session and it still stings.) If the story depends on them investigating the beacon, then you need to make it compelling, even to the point of putting it right in front of them if necessary. It's the same as "the bank heist depends on them getting past this door"...and then watching in frustration as they roll their 5 yellows against 2 purples and fail miserably. You basically have to make the door passable, either by not having them roll, or having the roll represent the amount of time before entry. The other option is to have several ways for them to end up in the same place, but that can require more work.

It's reasonable for the party to split anytime they aren't agreeing on what to do. Those who wish to investigate the issues should, while the remainder can do what they will. Include some terrain for the pilot to navigate through or something that halts the ship's hyperspace jump while the other party investigates the plot hook. If anything, the two staying in the cockpit can converse in-character with one another and keep on comms with the search party.

If the groups get into sticky situations as far as what they all want to do, I have them make competitive leadership checks. Whomever has the better roll is the decision we go with- that way something is decided and the game doesn't come to a halt with bickering. In-game options besides that is setting some sort of limiter on the amount of time they have to discuss things. Give them all an initiative slot and if after a few rounds of having their say (each person taking their "turn" by saying what they want) no decision has been made, something happens further that requires them to make a decision or suffer consequences of not taking action.

"Hey... guys. You're right. It's absolutely a trap. Or not. However, regardless of what it turns out to be, it's what I've prepared tonight. So if you decide not to go and investigate, then the rest of the evening is going to be me asking you what your characters are doing now, over and over again, and it will be up to you guys to propel any kind of story until we decide that we've had enough of that." Most groups wouldn't be able to stand that, and in the rare case that they do provide enough get up and go to provide their own ideas for adventures, then I'd call that a win anyway.

As others have said, it's an agreement between players and GM that the characters will follow hooks. Can you imagine the other way around? "Okay, first adventure. The Fighter, the Mage, the Rogue, and the Cleric. You're all gathered at the tavern for various reasons. What do you guys do? What do you guys do now? What do you guys do now? Oh... no, I don't have any adventure planned, your characters are in this world, just that nothing is happening at this tavern, or town, or kingdom right now. But anyway, what do you do now?"

Just talk to them. But also as others have said, work on your hooks. A nebulous message of distress may not be worth it for Boba Fett to investigate. A message of distress from the Royal Family of Darkonan might be better. My last distress call was from an Imperial Star Destroyer signalling that they were abandoning ship and scuttling it, the PCs raced there hoping to salvage what they could, and of course it was a trap. The players knew it was, but they went anyway. Again, the agreement. If the players wish to be involved in creating a good story, they must share some responsibility in creating it.

However, all that said, please make sure that they CAN have some responsibility in creating it. A GM who always hooks them into adventure, leads them by one scene to the next, and then delivers a finale in which all the PCs must do is survive... that can be exciting, but it removes player agency. If your players can run your entire play session by saying, "Okay, we go to that location.", and then making skill checks,... they aren't really being given the chance to make decisions, and they aren't players, they become the audience in your table-read story.

Always have a captain, and always choose that captain wisely.

Once players are on a ship they have a whole galaxy to explore and a way to do it, you could spend days plotting out a shadow depository heist on mustafar with a serial killer AI subplot... but then the smuggler decides to do a 180 and try the kessel run, or the slicer takes a trip to coruscant to hack the imperial news network (to make the emperor appear naked when he broadcasts his state of the empire address).

Give the ship to a reliable player, experienced if possible, with the understanding that they are responsible for keeping the ship on course and paying attention to plot hooks.

Han took luke where he wanted to go, returned Leia to the rebellion and saved the death star run. He used the ship for the good of the party, but he always had the final say as to where that ship went. If the chewie player had wanted to take the money and run the Han player would have been able to keep the plot in the right direction.

Always have someone to be your Han.

"Hey... guys. You're right. It's absolutely a trap. Or not. However, regardless of what it turns out to be, it's what I've prepared tonight. So if you decide not to go and investigate, then the rest of the evening is going to be me asking you what your characters are doing now, over and over again, and it will be up to you guys to propel any kind of story until we decide that we've had enough of that."

I strongly disagree with this approach as well, though.

If you're going that route, why not just tell them every action they need to take to follow your plan and how it all turns out and who does what, and just deliver it to them in a long email and don't inconvenience your friends by having them travel to a common location to tell you what you want to hear?

Ultimately, if you're a GM, it's your job as a storyteller to be adaptable. Since nobody is infinitely adaptable, you do what you can to mitigate that "flaw".

So you have a mysterious distress beacon...give the players limited options under the guise of unlimited options.

If they jump at the mystery, great, no further persuasion or adaptation needed. Otherwise, add impetus:

Appeal to their love of/need for credits: maybe they've been hired to track down a lost space barge or exploration team...or their Hutt boss if paying well for recovered derelict ships...or an Imperial convoy went missing in the area, hauling riches from the outer rim to Coruscant.

Appeal to their love of/need for gear: suppose they were captured in the last session when an Imperial cruiser ran them down...perhaps this distressed ship might have better engines...maybe the natives of this sector are known for their devastating weaponry and have lost one of their own (and might be willing to reward the rescuers with some awesome blasters), maybe a bounty hunter stole their hyperdrive/droid brain/still and fled to this area...perhaps he fell on hard times and they stand a chance to recover it.

Appeal to their sympathies: maybe the young navigator had been exchanging letters with his folks...who mentioned this region before the replies stopped, perhaps there's rumors of a Jedi in hiding, maybe they were sent to join/relieve a crew, but when they arrived, nobody was there and they're looking for signs of life.

Long story short: "There's an ominous thing" isn't enough to convince your crew...it's up to you to sweeten the deal.

One solution could be take a 5 minute break and pull the 2 paranoid players aside. Explain that this is not a board game, and it's not a GMvPC game. Tell them you took time out of your week to plan this story, your not out to TPK at the first chance, you want to craft interesting situations for the players to put their characters through... You want to tell a story.

The other option is they get dropped off at the nearest space station that just magically appears on que for them to quietly discuss the finer points of the galactic economy while their buddies go off and actually have fun.

Third and most antagonistic (least advised) is to call for initiative, whoever wins get to decide.

To be honest I like neither of the 3 options.

#1 is a good option if the players indeed just assume a trap because the GM created the situation, It nice and all to clear up RPG 101 with them, but it does not help a times when the characters and not the players are just being paranoid or even worse rightfully have a bad feeling about it.

#2 drop them off at a nearby space station which magically appear sounds as arbitrary as it gets.

#3 Is based on a state which should not really have any meaning in this.

The captain's word is law is in this case imho completely sufficient. And if those two PCs have trouble with the captain's decisions they can be dropped of on the nearest planet of captains choice after they investigated that distress call. Naturally this is based on assuming that #1 is not needed as it assumes roleplaying reasons instead of OOC actions to be the reason for the characters opposition to investigate.

With all that said and totally admitting that there are tons of good reasons to ignore a distress signal, especially for an average edge group:

Increasing the appeal of the plot hook is the most simple solution. Credits, sexual attraction, ideals, loot, revenge, whatever. There are plenty of good ways to make that distress signal more personal and more appealing for the group. And on top of that it looks a lot less suspicious than a random anonymous and automatic distress signal which is used just as often by pirates then it happens to be legit.

"Hey... guys. You're right. It's absolutely a trap. Or not. However, regardless of what it turns out to be, it's what I've prepared tonight. So if you decide not to go and investigate, then the rest of the evening is going to be me asking you what your characters are doing now, over and over again, and it will be up to you guys to propel any kind of story until we decide that we've had enough of that." Most groups wouldn't be able to stand that, and in the rare case that they do provide enough get up and go to provide their own ideas for adventures, then I'd call that a win anyway.

Ironically one of our recent sessions was a shopping trip Socorro, our GM was kind enough NOT to trigger that distress signal on our way to Socorro, we had a whole session on the black sands of socorro to deal with some highly illegal shopping needs and the plot hook triggered on our way back from Socorro.

And besides, part of the unwritten social contract between group and gm is that the group will react the plot hooks of the GM and the GM will provide plot hooks which seem actually interesting for the characters AND players of the group. If this is in general not working anymore than it is indeed time to talk, though sometimes fluke happens and the players do not even realize that they just walk away from the starting point for the next major campaign. Let's be frank here, as a player I would not suspect something as random and arbitrary as a distress signal to be a real campaign starter. CotG teached me a lesson how random FFG adventures can be. And how annoyingly bad the encounter design of them is though that lesson was taught to me plenty already from Dead in the Water. ;-)

I've run into a few of those situations, and (though I'm not very proud of it) I usually play a psychological trick on the stubborn players. Here's how it would work in your situation;

Call for a Knowledge (Warfare) roll from the most vocal stubborn player; if they fails, then tell them that they're right, they don't like the situation and it seems like a trap (this on a subconscious level tells the player they have the wrong conclusion). If they succeed, then tell them that they have come up with a plan to defeat the ambush by sending the two players that want to investigate in while the others pull the ship back to a safe distance (a short hyperspace jump away) and lie in counter ambush.

If the first roll was the failure, then go to the next stubborn player and offer a Perception check, make it terribly easy, so they pass (giving them boost dice if needed because they know the other player so well, etc). When they do, allow them the same roll, but make it easier (due to the idea that they have already figure some of it out).

This way, you're using the players own desire to showcase their characters against them. It effective becomes their idea on *how* to investigate the beacon safely, and if they don't go through with it they are in essence proving their own characters wrong - which runs counter to influencing behavior that made them resist in the first place.

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Absolutely in agreement. The last distress call we made us literally launch all fighters, and sneaking up on the location with with a reconnaissance fighter while having a long-range sensor ship scanning the area around it, all with prepared hyperspace emergency jump data and when finally approaching the target doing it with a jump from out of the "enemies" sensor range, right into close range, ambushing the actually supposilvy pirate ship and "detaching" it from the damsel in distress via a volley of light laser cannon fire, causing rapid decompression on the "pirate" ship with little chance for them to react. All that with having the "mothership" (modified sil 5 freighter) outside of sensor range of the encounter themselves, simple to not put our large ship in any danger

Yes, 20 years of roleplaying can make you that paranoid, at least when you play characters on the run from the empire. Turned out that it was just a harmless plothook and all the paranoia was wasted. ;-)

We still eat up on that plot hook just fine, while freaking totally out about it.

One way to avoid this in the future is to actually give them some sort of impetus: their boss has lost signal from another tramp freighter working for him so he sends this crew out to investigate...if the other ship has decided to cut and run, deal with them accordingly, but if they've fallen on misfortune, to save them...and their ship...but more importantly than either of those, their cargo.

While I hate it when my players pull this kind of thing, I have to admit it's often because I haven't provided significant motivation.

But also as others have said, work on your hooks. A nebulous message of distress may not be worth it for Boba Fett to investigate. A message of distress from the Royal Family of Darkonan might be better.

Having thought on it, I was going to come back here to say pretty much this. The PCs didn't have any real motivation to investigate. I'll have to work on this in the future. Thanks guys.

Always have a captain, and always choose that captain wisely.

Once players are on a ship they have a whole galaxy to explore and a way to do it, you could spend days plotting out a shadow depository heist on mustafar with a serial killer AI subplot... but then the smuggler decides to do a 180 and try the kessel run, or the slicer takes a trip to coruscant to hack the imperial news network (to make the emperor appear naked when he broadcasts his state of the empire address).

Give the ship to a reliable player, experienced if possible, with the understanding that they are responsible for keeping the ship on course and paying attention to plot hooks.

Han took luke where he wanted to go, returned Leia to the rebellion and saved the death star run. He used the ship for the good of the party, but he always had the final say as to where that ship went. If the chewie player had wanted to take the money and run the Han player would have been able to keep the plot in the right direction.

Always have someone to be your Han.

I thought about this. Unfortunately there isn't really a good choice. The best RPer is also the guy that the other players are most likely to ignore, so that wouldn't work; the most authoritative guy is the worst RPer; player number 3 is prone to somewhat whimsical decisions that nobody understands; and the final player is a complete newcomer who's very quiet around the table.

I've found this tactic works out well

Other players have a great adventure and the others sit in a canteena drinking all day because nobody needs their select set of skills at the moment.

So, one thing I would observe is that when you face unexpected reactions, it is totally legit to talk to the players and ask them if this is a response from the player (maybe because they suspect the GM is setting up a trap for them), or if this is a response from the character (maybe because that character really is an annoying twerp sometimes, and the player is good at role-playing that aspect).

Once you have an idea what the source is of the unexpected reaction, you can start to formulate a plan for how to address it.

So, one thing I would observe is that when you face unexpected reactions, it is totally legit to talk to the players and ask them if this is a response from the player (maybe because they suspect the GM is setting up a trap for them), or if this is a response from the character (maybe because that character really is an annoying twerp sometimes, and the player is good at role-playing that aspect).

Once you have an idea what the source is of the unexpected reaction, you can start to formulate a plan for how to address it.

I did actually do this. Unfortunately the guy who refused to go was a Smuggler/Scoundrel, who pointed out that his character would not only suspect a trap but, in fact, had probably set traps exactly like this one. Not gonna lie, that kind of stumped me. Will be better prepared next time...

Another sort of end-around you may consider is that if you can convince the group leader to go for it, the ship arrives, and when the curious ones leave the ship to go investigate (whether they're docked with the derelict ship, land at the abandoned station, etc.) the stay-behinds get involved against their will.

Most likely options:

• The signal *is* a trap, (expect a chorus of "I told you so!"s at the end of the adventure), and the investigators fall into it. Now the stay behinds need to go to their rescue.
• The signal isn't a trap...per se...but the party learns firsthand exactly what caused it in the first place. A swarm of dangerous creatures, toxic gases, airborne pathogens, radiation, stellar phenomena...some sort of non-intelligent or marginally intelligent danger set to give the group a bad time.
• The signal isn't a trap at all. They arrive, find a situation with little added danger beyond routine space travel, and are able to come to the aid of the people that sounded the signal. The point is that responding to the call and addressing it wasn't the whole adventure, it was the jumping off point. Perhaps the ship's crew are all dead or missing, but they're found some sort of valuable cargo...or the lone survivor says the ship was attacked by pirates who stole the cargo and enslaved the crew...or it's a simple case of ship malfunction, but the captain, having no way to reward them, asks them to accompany him or her on the completion of their mission, ad which point their boss will see to it that they're rewarded.

You could try using a ship that comes with a shuttle.

Next time the two who want an adventure can take the shuttle, the stubborn two can wait and play holo-chess until they get a message from the rest of the party saying "were not dead, bring the ship" or "it's a trap, come save us".

In my experience, have either a group leader that everyone agrees with, or else it is up to the pilot where to go. In one of my favorite games (under WEG) my Jedi wannabe kept being dragged under protest to a pirate outpost. I had a choice ... go along, get off, or fight the party/sabotage the ship. I found a way to work with everyone, despite my loud protests.

Maybe try an odd number of party members so you'll never get a deadlock, one side will always have more votes.