From Germany

I have a Gaming Group of 6 guys, only one of them has personel Experience with Roleplaying. He loves combat and always knows what to do, the other are more nervous, which almost always ends up with them hiding behind him let him go first and almost fall in Panic when he get's seriously wounded.

How can i prevent that from happening, the gamer and me are bugged by it, but everytime the group splits the one team without him get almost paranoid, and when he's not gaming with us the get really slow because no one wants to make the fisrt step without him, and they're always scared to die (I usually don't kill gamers without reason).

Any Ideas with which i could get the others a bit more confident?

Training session.

If they are just uncertain about how the combat rules work, run them through a couple of "combat training scenarios" to help them learn the system. Very clearly lay out actions, options, resulting modiers and such, to help they understand what they can do and how those actions play out in game, without it being a "life and death" situation for the characters. You could even do this in character.

If they have broader problems with roleplaying in general, then I think you and the experience player need to gently help and encourage them to take a more active role. Put them in situations where each individual character can shine and gently draw them out.

Sadly i've already tried a dozen or so training Mission with them, I took my time to explain every detail about their Characters (even going as far as giving each one of them their own instruction booklets + ideas, no joke).

The roleplaying isn't their problem and when the experienced Gamer is around they don't have a lot of problems, the Gamer and me always take our time with them, any question is being answered and i always give them some option to do if they struggle, with a little explanation of how it might end, for better or worse.

They always have a time were their really good, but then self-doubt sets in and they struggle again, they know i won't kill em that easily, still it seems that they fear risks if this one Gamer isn't around.

Still thanks for the advice LuciusT, maybe i'll start this whole stuff from the beginning with them, hopefully it helps.

Have you tried outright telling them they won't die just because they sometimes take a risk?

Yes, i have, still everytime they get nervous if they don't have the more experienced player with them.

I have never killed one of their characters, since they pretty lucky when i came close.

The gamer and me will try a different approach with us switching places, maybe they'll have more confidence if i'm not the GM. If so i hope they'll start building some confidence at last.

P.S. : Dark Heresy is one of multiple Roleplaying games we play, and they only get nervous in this, still they enjoy it and want to play it, in other games their more confident about themeselves.

Well, no offense but it sounds a bit like it might just be the way the group is then. If the rules have been made clear to them, and it you're not an overly harsh GM that punishes every decision they don't really have a reason to be scared. But if its still well functioning but timid, that's a playstyle and not necessarily one that's broken, just different. Of course you know your group best, but just pointing out that there's a lot of ways to roleplay and perhaps it isn't just the players that need to change their perspective...caution can be a valid way to RP, even if it might be boring at times.

If you wanted to encourage them from a story side of things, perhaps making a story arc where they really don't have the time to stand around would be ideal. Perhaps a race against time to save a colony or pursue their arch-nemesis. Heck, if you had a tense scenario planned and they don't go for it...you could just stop the game session after an hour or two when their nemesis gets away and tell them to come back next week, because they let the foe get away and there's nothing else for them to do right now. If that doesn't get the point across I don't know what will...if nothing else it should open a dialogue about the issue.

If you habitually make great plots with lots of action and excitement, then adopt a sandbox point of view meaning the setting moves on without them...the world doesn't care if they are too cautious and inactive, so move to the part where the Inquisitor is asking them for an after-action report. Then they have to stand up in front of their boss and basically say that "we failed cuz we wuz scared". That's another way to get the point across without taking it into a metagaming discussion.

Just my thoughts on it.

Cygni195 said:

Do they know that burning a fate point will let their character survive something that would have killed them ?

Because it seems odd that they are worried about character death when the rules explicitly give extra lives, especially when they aren't worried in other games. Maybe you should force them to see it in action:

- Create a scenario that you expect them to win, but plan to have the good player killed part way through.

- When the death comes, read out the full text of the critical result. Give them a few seconds to process this, then ask the good player if he wants to burn a fate point.

- Good player is now out of the fight* but will live.

- Some time later, find an excuse to give him the fate point back since this death wasn't fair. But don't admit it.

*The way I play burning fate points is that the character is unconscious for the rest of the battle but will recover fully, though they may have scars and/or missing body parts (not always the part that was hit). All missing body parts get replaced with common quality bionics at their inquisitors expense at the first possible opportunity. So this could also be used to give the player an upgrade.

To Bladehate:

They love getting into combat, it's just noone except the experienced gamer is willing to take the consequences. Already tried the time limit but that caused major infighting in the group (two dead from friendly fire and one through grenade misshap).

I'm trying to get the feel of a time limit into the game, since nobody is going to wait for the Inquisition, except they're setting up a trap.

They always seek guidance from the experienced gamer, and always accept his plans, which i don't mind at all, but once without that guidance, inner conflict is almost always happening between at least 2 of them who should lead.

By now i'm considering to take those two and put them in different groups to work things out.

To Bilateralrope:

Been there, done that, multiple times. The others understand the use of Fate points.

In thwe three different missions we had in that kind of scenario where:

1. Two guys arguiing and killing each other (suicidal use of a grenade inside a prometheum filled chamber), and the rest of the Team completing the mission, wounded, low on ammo, but ok.

2. Group failing the mission due to the target psyker ending up possessed and killed, mission was to retrive him alive. I explained to them it's not their fault, still it's like they treat the experienced player as a lucky Charm.

3. Pretty much like the first except no one died, and even thou i told them that it was good after the infighting stopped they still think their icapable to achieve anything without the experienced gamer.

We're trying the switch between me and the experienced gamer this weekend. Maybe They'll learn something more under a different GM.

Once here were three famous Japanese rulers: Oda Nobunaga
(1534-1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu
(1543-1616).

Every Japanese schoolchild learns the following poem that illustrates
the different leadership styles of these leaders: What would you do if
the bird does not sing?

Oda Nobunaga said, "Kill it if it does not sing."
Toyotomi Hideyoshi said, "Make it want to sing."
Tokugawa Ieyasu said, "Wait until it sings."

Alex

Option 1: Redshirts. Guard, arbites, PDF, assisting Inquisitorial Forces, whatever. Being as how you are the Inquisition, getting some should be a possibility on almost any non-feral world. They are excellent for promoting aggression because they provide the following benefits:

1. The players feel they have extra firepower on call, and lots of power with them. You move more confidently when you think there's twenty guys with lasguns backing your play.

2. They can suck up a few sub-optimal decisions or "good plan-bad dice rolls" by virtue of dying for the players. "As you ready the hand grenade, there is fantastic explosion a block over Your vox crackles : This is Red 3. Damned cultists threw a bloody grenade, in the bloody promethium warehouse! All contact lost with Red 2. Emperor **** them! At least the maniacs died too." or "[really bad dice rolls occur] as the cultist leans over you, he begins to stab downward. The knife is headed straight for your eye, but the cultist is slammed aside at the last moment, tearing off your ear instead. You blink and realize your savior is a guardsman, now wrestling with the foe "

3. They can help speed the action along. If your players can't figure out what they're going to do, Sergeant X begins directing his men to do stuff while the players squabble.

4. You can use them to highlight threats and environment is your players are weak on fluff or tactical analysis.

5. Their leaders can provide advice in their field.

Option 2: Keep combat simple, then ramp up. If they aren't tactically proficient or dynamic enough to handle planning a full assault on a underground sewer system to retrieve a pysker...don't make them. Set up the events so that they end up in a less complex, yet highly dramatic, show down instead. Include obvious action -> consequence displays, such as the part pysker feeling the raging battle of wills between the daemon and the extractee, and being able to gauge how close the etxractee is to losing. You can increase their decision making to larger purviews once they are comfortable with such simple concepts as 'do i charge, shoot, go for cover, or use a different talent?"

Option 3: Make inaction more deadly than action. If the fear of consequences is whats pinning them, make it obvious that a decision, ANY decision, is more likely to have them survive than no decision.

Option 4: They fail because they're too self doubty. The Inquisitor assigns them to missions more appropriate to their nature, since he obviously shouldn't be trusting them to fail yet another kinetic operation. You can use this to make sure their fights are small, manageable, confidence builders by using options 1 and 2. Obviously, as fate would have it, they'll end up in the thick of it anyhow, but not before you get them to where you want them.

I am so glad I read the OP's post completely. i was going to suggest he use more Blast(x) weapons... In this case i'm not sure if the players have the impression that characters 'die like flies', while there are similarities to CoC even CoC wasn't the character of the week in terms of replacement or madness.

Design an action/fight scene where the players need to be in two or more places at once.

• Two buttons on opposite sides of a 20m long corridor must be pressed simultaneously.
• They must not let the bad guys escape, but they flee in different directions, going around corners, and must be chased in multiple groups.
• They must get in small vehicles that can't fit all the players.

The idea is to give them different results if they cower behind the "tank" or if they take risks on their own. If they bunch up and cower, they can only get a marginal victory, and then have to do follow up missions to solve the entire problem. Or they get chewed out by their Inquisitor for not serving the Emperor with enough faith.

A good way to buid the spirit of the less experianced players, is to have the one that knows what to do act in a support role. get the players use to taking independant action. If they fear death, keep the first fight or 2 centered of something simple. a lightly armed gang or if all else fails large mutant rats.

I want to thank everyone for posting their ideas, all where helping bit by bit.

The problem solved itself as an old friend of mine wanted to join the group, he was completely new to the game and the system, but his recklessness and his luck in dicing showed them that they can achieve a lot with some trying.

By now they enjoy the game a lot more than before, and their Characters work pretty good for them.

Sorry for the late reply, lot of stress IRL, i almost forgot this post, still thank you all for helping, and happy holidays.