After having been the GM for awhile now, I have noticed what has become a fairly consistant "problem" with my players and I would like to get some advice on how to change it.

I am having a problem getting my players to go from "research/investigative" mode to "confrontational" mode.

What I mean by this is the players are VERY hesitant or flat out refuse to "draw swords and make demands" in a sense, regardless of what "evidence" they already have that "this is the bad guy".

A quick example of what I mean: Just last night we finished off Horror of Hugedal. When in the doctor's office they foud the note that directly implicated him in the spread of the disease and responsible for the death of Lady Agnetha's husband. Instead of confronting him, they continued to just ask a few more questions and were content to leave it at that and wanted to exit the office. ..... This same type of situation occurs often and has occured in ALL the campaigns they have run,.. Eye for an Eye, Gathering Storm etc,.. They don't know when, or are "afraid" to go from "ok,. lets go here and look at this,. or ok,.. here comes the evil cult leader, just say "hello" and don't look him in the eye" to "There he is! He is the one poisoning everybody! Get him!" .. I have found myself HAVING to remind the players that "hey guys,.. you have just found a note that says the Doctor is responsible for killing half the town are you just going to leave?" .. Which isn't so subtle..

I understand that a GM has to push his players along every now and then, but this has been rather consistant and it is feeling like it is becoming more "GM says we should start attacking this guy" as opposed to the players realizing "Hey, we have the evidence to justify intimidating this crazy, evil follower of Chaos!"

Do any of you have any advice on how I might be able to make my players "more brave" or how I can get them to realize that they have enough info to start taking action, violent if need be, without it being obvious?? I have struggled with this question and haven't been able to come up with any ideas or solutions,...

Thanks for any advice you nay have,...

In our "rogue" WFRP3 campaign, my players got to the point where they were terrified of combat. What I found really well is to give them half xp if they don't confront the bad guy or certain situations. 0.5xp and tell them "you didn't take out the bad guy." It's not enough to just investigate.

Tell your players that BEFORE your next game starts.

Another problem I see creep up once in a while is when the PCs want to "run off to the witch hunters or city watch" and tell tales of who is the bad guy and expect the authorities to deal with it. I solved that one by saying, "we're too busy as we get these kinds of complaints all day...come back next week..come back next week..come back next week...etc. ;)"

jh

Interesting, I'm not sure if I would see this so much as a problem rather than a style of play.

If, indeed, it is a problem my first thought is to fall back on the old "Two guys with guns kick in the door. Think fast, what do you do?" Turn the tables on your players and bring the fight to them. Asking too many questions can draw the wrong kind of attention and word is quite likely to get back to the folks those questions are being asked about.

A second idea is to impose consequences for inactivity. Let your players fail because they refused to act and let them see the results. This may muck up a few of the published adventures but it can be a lot of fun if done right. It will also reinforce the idea of player agency, showing them that their actions can impact the setting for good or ill.

Is it that they just enjoy roleplay/investigation or is it that they are trying to avoid critical wounds and harm etc?

Either way, I would "bring it" to them that failing to confront certain sorts of mischief turns out badly. It doesn't have to be a forced encounter.

It can be, using Doktor example, "you wake up in the middle of the night feeling badly, what has happened, has the Doktor perhaps fearing you learned too much infected you with something..." time for Disease checks all around. Oooh, maybe a pestilent vapours bomb tossed into their room? Disease is worse than Critical Wounds hee hee hee.

That and/or "oooh, the ruinous power is so pleased with your actions, blessed Corruption is yours.... a bit more and Nurgle will bless you with his Mark".

Then the witch hunter shows up, does the job they should have, discovers they did not reveal or act on information and it's burning time.

On the last point, they may try deferring to "authorities" to take action. Of course, we know how well that will work out in the Old World.

Thank you all VERY MUCH! ALL very good suggestions,..

To address a few of the above questions... They do enjoy the investigative side of things equally as much as the combat. What I have found is that they practically NEVER "start" the fight. If they are attacked (i.e., the Bucket of Blood tavern while sleeping) they fight back quite well. A few of the problems are:

1. They are new to Roleplay - WFRP3e is their first roleplay game they have ever played outside of WQ.

2. I am certainly NOT God's gift to Gm ing.

3. I am certain they feel as though they have a great deal of time and energy invested in their characters and don't want to see them die ( I view this a s a GOOD thing).

Cronvald,.. You are right,.. It has become their "style" of play, and I enjoy the investigation part as well,..however, in nearly every campaign it has caused me to alter the "timeline" of events to such a degree that the story itself starts to not make sense. I mean, those were some of the laziest, good for nothing deamon summoning cultists to ever have graced the Empire,..

Emirikol and Valorik, I think the idea of giving them consequences (apart from all the "bad stuff" that is happeneing due to their lack of "action") by means of fewer XP might do the trick and it hadn't even occured to me to do so. I WANT to see my players characters advance. I know how much fun that part of the game is. By letting them know in advance that failing to act to resolve the situations in a reasonable / timing manner, will result in their characters advancing at a slower pace, that may just give them the little push they need to jump the bad guys when they "know" that is the bad guy,...

Thanks so much for your help,.. I will post back with an update of how the "new" XP distribution went,..

I would just mention that Gathering Storm has an absolutely memorable ending if the characters fail to stop the main villain in the end. Lack of determination in the end would give the whole party an experience they would likely still talk about years from now.

Experiencing an epic failure like that first hand, would put the pressure on the PCs in letting them witness first hand just how much their actions (or lack of such) can impact the old world.

I agree with all that has been written. Just for the fun of narrative, though, I personally would try something different than giving the PCs half the XP. More to the line of what Smogg suggests: give the PCs a clear idea of what happens in the Old World when people that are in place to act doesn't do so.

If your players are taking too long investigating, don't slow things down. Let things happen. And maybe give them a glimpse or clue that shows that, even if their are not ready, things are happening. If they don't act, things could get horrible for them and for a lot of innocents.

One thing that could work if the game was at it's start was to bring some flashback scenes from the character's background (that you could be creating while you are describing it). Someone that comes from rural lands remember the horror of a neighbor farm that was housing strangers which everyone were suspicious about, but didn't act. And then the whole family was used in a ritual to transform the some of the animals in daemons or beastmen. Something like that. But since players have had some time with their characters, it would be strange to draw from their background only now...

The best thing in my opinion would be to create one of this circumstances in actual play - exactly as Smogg suggests regarding the end of TGS. Some situation that does gets bad, horrible or maybe only almost. And then you just have to describe that situation coming back to their minds once they start hesitating.

Because maybe they got used to a pace in the game that doesn't translates our view (we, the ones that read the rulebooks, novels, forums and stuff, mind you) on how things work in the Old World. And if that's true, you have to bring to the actual physics of the reality you are describing the pace you want them to have, the way you want them to understand how things happen.

There is one more tool that I think would help you a lot in doing this: create a NPC that works like "GM's PC". Someone that the PCs will get attached to. And maybe it will work better if it's someone that cannot defend him or herself (like a child or teenager), or can only barely do that, but can't manage the situation the PCs are in (like someone that is really agile and know a lot about folklore and small talks, but doesn't know how to use a weapon). But it could also be someone that could add significantly in the struggle, like a experienced soldier or something like that.

Than, after the PCs and this special NPC has created a bond, and are part of the same group, you start voicing some of your own ideas as the ideas of the NPC. And then you don't force the PCs to act as you would like, but maybe they'll get the push needed to act. Like the teenager looking at them with visible anxiety, worries coming out of his or her ears, and says "you mean this letter says the Doktor is in league with cultists, and we are not going to try and make him stop what he is doing? But the whole town can die horribly if he is able to carry on with this!".

Give them the feel of the gravity, and don't prevent bad things from happening. They will start acting differently once they understand their inaction brings worse consequences than their action.

As the others have said, don't be reluctant to make the PCs inaction lead to consequences.

I'm not so fond of the idea of an XP penalty, but there's plenty of other ways to use the mechanics to reinforce the storyline. For example:

The nemesis organization sheets are great for keeping the players informed and on-task, via their Agenda and Stability tracks. Even if you don't have a sheet that matches your storyline, you can just set up a progress tracker to do roughly the same thing. Put a couple of event markers on it, and figure out some consequences if the marker gets there. Then get really overt about moving the tracker. If the PCs let time pass without acting against the villains, move their marker closer to doom, and don't be shy about what it represents. At the end of each session, write down what space the tracker is on, and when you set it up again the next session you should recount to the players what actions (or inaction) made it move to its current position. If the PCs have enough clues to understand the villain's goal, tell them "see this next event marker? That's the point at which he summons a greater demon to destroy the village." That should get them motivated.

As the Player's Guide suggests, you should give out a fortune point with each discovered clue, and another when they defeat a henchman or move to stymie the villain in any significant way. This reinforces and rewards things they do that advance the plot.

You could make up some clue cards for major plot points, and hand them out when the players find out details. This gives tacit acknowledgement that the thing they found out is really important. Taking it a step further, you could make each clue card do double duty - it lists the clue itself as well as a bonus they can trade it in for when confronting the villain.

• You've figured out how the bad guy is killing people, so this card gives you a bonus yellow die on your resilience checks against his poison.
• You're so fired up over the innocent people he's murdered, so you can trade this clue card in for +1 damage vs the villain.
• This clue is the proof of the villain's evil plans, so it's your get out of jail free card you can use to get the city watch to look the other way when you murder the bastard. etc.

If the players uncover the villain, but walk away from him, overtly bump the villain's power. He knows you're on to him, and it's just a matter of time till you come for him. He doesn't have to be subtle now, and starts walking around openly armed and armored, or enchanted, or surrounded by guards. If they'd taken him out when they first figured it out, he'd have rolled over easy, but now he's had time to prepare. Don't be subtle about it. Put the bonuses on the table in an obvious way. Make a villain talent or condition called "The PCs are on to me!" and increases his rolls or damage or something. Make a big deal of fetching monster cards out of your box or binder to be his bodyguards (or better yet, the assassins he sends after the PCs). As Valvorik suggested, give them corruption for pleasing the chaos gods when they decide not to expose the villain's evil ways.

Or just let the villain win. It's perfectly in keeping with the Warhammer setting. Innocents die. Demons are summoned. The town burns to the ground. The Elector Count dies and is replaced by a paranoid and heavy-handed despot. Chances are your players will take it better than you think they will. I ran an Amber campaign where the PCs dithered so long I literally had the villain succeed in destroying the universe and killing everyone. I expected the players to be upset, but they took it really well and excitedly signed up on the spot for the next campaign I ran regardless of the system or setting.

I would definitely caution against the xp penalty. Perhaps it's just me, but it sounds a bit too much like punishing the players for not playing the game the way you want them to.

The suggestions others have made are much better worded examples of what I was trying to get at with my second suggestion. Don't worry so much about sticking to the pre-written narrative and be flexible. Let the bad guys win from time to time. Terrible things happen within the Warhammer setting. Let the players see how their inaction can contribute to that and perhaps they'll be a bit more proactive in the future.