I'm running into an unexpected problem.  My game group has downsized and is down to just 3 players.  The "leader" has always been a bit conservative but the two players who left were more brash and often pulled the group into adventures.  Now that they are gone (not the worst thing as they brought their own problems to the game), the "leader"  is so risk averse our games are becoming long sessions of running from all combat or conflict.

I call this guy "leader" because he is very assertive and since we started, all of the other players have deferred and let him make the call.  I've talked (both with everyone together and individually) and everyone else says they are OK with this, and adventures were the other players are put in a starring role tend to go nowhere as they constantly look to the "leader" to tell them what they should do.

But now... nothing is happening.

- I threw a big, classic D&D monster at them a couple weeks back.  Big and scary but something they should be able to handle no problem.  They turned their horses around and ran away.  "We need to recruit more heroes before we can fight a monster like that."

- They were asked to investigate a murder in a royal court and "follow the clues wherever they lead."  As soon as they found a clue pointing to dark magic, the "leader" pulled the plug and said "We will just report what we found.  This is too dangerous and not what we signed up for.  Let the royal guard figure this out."

I am somewhat at a loss.  Is this common?  Its my first game, but the combat has not been particularly deadly thus far.  Everyone still seems to be having fun, but the games are starting to feel like they are just on a safari tour, looking at my game world but hiding inside the car if any animals approach.

Quote from Bartjeebus >>

I'm running into an unexpected problem.  My game group has downsized and is down to just 3 players.  The "leader" has always been a bit conservative but the two players who left were more brash and often pulled the group into adventures.  Now that they are gone (not the worst thing as they brought their own problems to the game), the "leader"  is so risk averse our games are becoming long sessions of running from all combat or conflict.

I call this guy "leader" because he is very assertive and since we started, all of the other players have deferred and let him make the call.  I've talked (both with everyone together and individually) and everyone else says they are OK with this, and adventures were the other players are put in a starring role tend to go nowhere as they constantly look to the "leader" to tell them what they should do.

But now... nothing is happening.

- I threw a big, classic D&D monster at them a couple weeks back.  Big and scary but something they should be able to handle no problem.  They turned their horses around and ran away.  "We need to recruit more heroes before we can fight a monster like that."

- They were asked to investigate a murder in a royal court and "follow the clues wherever they lead."  As soon as they found a clue pointing to dark magic, the "leader" pulled the plug and said "We will just report what we found.  This is too dangerous and not what we signed up for.  Let the royal guard figure this out."

 

I am somewhat at a loss.  Is this common?  Its my first game, but the combat has not been particularly deadly thus far.  Everyone still seems to be having fun, but the games are starting to feel like they are just on a safari tour, looking at my game world but hiding inside the car if any animals approach.

 I have never had this happen before...

Try to make an encounter where they Cant run away.

Is it a personal thing that they don't want to risk danger, or like is that part of their character?

If personal, lay it out that D&D is supposed to be fun for everyone, but hours of effectively doing nothing...that's not fun.

If it's part of their character, flat out tell them, you're an adventurer...if you have no drive to...adventure, roll a new character that has motivation to do so.

I am not sure.  It was never a problem before.   

There was a major story incident where a bunch of the PC's were either killed or went on the run (left the game) after they destroyed a town.  The surviving PC kept going and the rest rolled new level appropriate characters to keep up and all was well.  Then we lost the 2 players.   Things seemed to keep going fine for a few weeks.  But now it is like they don't want to take any risks at all. 

Any combat, they try to find someone else to do it for them... like try to convince the town guard to go fight the bad guys.  Or if they have to fight, they make me roll up a slew of NPC's for them to hire to supplement their forces then look to use those NPCs as shock troops to avoid combat.  I don't much like that (its more work for me, I have to manage a slew of NPCs in addition to the monsters, and my players minimize their risk while maximizing profits).  But when I say "There's no one around to hire," the response is that oh well... lets move on to something less risky.  Its like they all suddenly decided being an adventurer was just too dangerous but nobody told me.

I am tempted to write a game where they just sit in an inn all night and knit socks for the winter.

Try running a one-shot where the party are a group of Gnolls, or B-list adventurers, who are disposable by design. Let the party get a feel for pushing their limits, knowing that death is inevitable. "The Untold Tales of the Heroes of Greenfrost Village", where a troop of fool-hardy young explorers decided to go slay a dragon in the search of fame and treasure and are never heard from again. If they die, then the tale ends there, but if they win, they can be whisked away to another part of the world, where their exploits grow in danger and absurdity.

Eventually, your players will either get a taste for combat, or quickly have their Main characters overshadowed by a bunch of nobodies. I'm sure it won't sit easy with them knowing that their caution is causing their "heroes" to lose notoriety, rather than gain it. They may either end up acting more boldly, or ask to spend more time playing the "other" party.

I love Memnosyne's idea!

That said, the most important thing is always to talk to your players. Remind them that D&D isn't a reality simulator, it's a story about cool heroes fighting monsters, like Aragorn or Geralt. Let them know that your encounters are balanced, and you're not just going to spring a monster on them that's guaranteed to kill them. Most importantly, remind them that you're a player too, and you'd really like to get some exciting fights in there. At the best tables, everyone communicates and looks out for everyone else's fun, and that includes yours!

Quote from Memnosyne >>

Try running a one-shot where the party are a group of Gnolls, or B-list adventurers, who are disposable by design. Let the party get a feel for pushing their limits, knowing that death is inevitable. "The Untold Tales of the Heroes of Greenfrost Village", where a troop of fool-hardy young explorers decided to go slay a dragon in the search of fame and treasure and are never heard from again. If they die, then the tale ends there, but if they win, they can be whisked away to another part of the world, where their exploits grow in danger and absurdity.

Eventually, your players will either get a taste for combat, or quickly have their Main characters overshadowed by a bunch of nobodies. I'm sure it won't sit easy with them knowing that their caution is causing their "heroes" to lose notoriety, rather than gain it. They may either end up acting more boldly, or ask to spend more time playing the "other" party.

 Best idea on here hands down.

I’ll second running the one shot to get these guys actually adventuring. 

I had a problem player who was also pathologically rejecting all plots that I threw at the party. I asked him why he was doing it, he denied doing anything.

“I’m just playing my character.” Was his main response.

After another three sessions where nothing happened, or where I had to improvise something, he actually started messaging friends on his phone during combat rounds.

I finally just asked him to stop leading the group out of the adventure I had spent hours preparing. 

He laughed in my face and said it was “More fun to watch you scramble to improv something.”

I quit playing with that dude after that. 

Now that may not be your problem, but it sounds like this player doesn’t trust you as DM and also doesn’t respect the time you’ve put in to prepare an adventure for your friends. I’d just have a candid conversation about it.

Maybe run with their inclinations.  The adventurers get a rep for being cowards lacking followthrough with assignments, so they start to lose jobs to the people who finish off whatever the party's "clues" discovered.  

Some time passes and the characters establish themselves in some small village as the local constables or maybe even the magistrate.  Keeping the peace there is mostly sleepy work, talking the town drunks out of fighting and walking them home or walking them to a cell to sleep it off.  Finding literal lost sheep, making sure estates are administered fairly, civil dispute resolution.  They've established roots, maybe even have children now.  If not, tight emotional bonds, plus no prospects anywhere else.

Bad guys come into town and see the local defenses as push overs, so begin a campaign of abuse with eyes on outright domination.  If they run at this point in their lives, they literally have nothing and its end of campaign.  For some tonal inspiration on how to play this see Eastwood's last Western, Unforgiven as well as the Cohen Brothers' No Country for Old Men.  

Some great ideas on this thread, particularly MidnightPlat and Memnosyne. Part of the issue, I think, is you have to be crazy to be an adventurer. 
Seriously - we have similar jobs in our world; mining or alaskan crab fishing or whatever, where the pay is good but there is either bad conditions or real danger of dying. Some people do it, but most people will just do their solid little job, gaining a reasonable living with reasonable rewards and be done with it. You expected them to choose the alaskan crab fisher but they chose the 7/11 clerk/office worker.

But then you have adventurers. Not only do they go out and get some coin, but once they have a lifetime of riches (1000gp or so) do they stop? No, they keep going, having blown it all on magic items or luxuries - so they do it all again.
So yes, "boring" (ie/ sane) people exist in DnD. So these people could be playing their characters - but those characters aren't adventurers. 

It is an old trope, but few adventurers come from happy lives and stable families. Mostly because you have to be a little broken to do what they do. 

As players part of the appeal is to play something so out there; though I tend to lean towards more "normal" characters. 
My half baked suggestion - give them a personal stake in things. Sounds like they are new so you have tropes at your disposal. Their hometown is ransacked and the people taken as slaves. Or they are just killed. The local constabulary have their hands full and don't have the time to waste on a no name village. Now they have skin in the game rather than just money. If you don't want to go the bloody route - you could easily have a nasty lord ramp up the taxes on their family. If they don't get large sums of money soon then they are homeless. Help us "heroes"!! etc etc. 

Good luck. 

Okahey brings a good point with adventurer's being uncommon in background and ungrounded in their sanity. Assuming the leader isn't like DM_from_1975's nightmare, it could be that he's making the mistake of asking "Alright. If I was in this situation, what would I do?"

And his response to himself is of course: "Well, seeing that I am NOT insane and do NOT want to die, I am going to run from danger."

Which is a very sane and reasonable response to danger that will serve him well in real life should he be confronted with any ghosts. But this isn't real life, it's fantasy, and and in fantasy we make the crazy decisions because its fun. (I'm saying this from the perspective that I would likely fall into this trap myself for at least first couple sessions of being a player [Currently a DM that has yet to play, very sad I know.]) Both the one-shot and giving his character some proper personal motivation are both great ways to break him out of that pesky chronic sanity of his. Again, assuming he isn't malicious like DM_from_1975's nightmare guy.

Have you tried talking to them about it? Not even quite a session 0, but more just asking them (or really just the one guy) why they don’t go into combats?

Do they not like the idea of fighting? Is combat too mechanically complicated or otherwise not fun? Are they scared their characters will die? Something else?

Until you know specifically what the problem is, it’s very difficult to solve and you risk trying to fix a thing that doesn’t bother them while leaving the actual problem to fester. 

When finally do get these cowards to fight, do NOT kill them. Knock one of them to 0 hp and then bend and break the rules to let them win.

If you kill one of them after so long running, they will never turn around.

If they are regularly running to the authorities or running to mercenaries, then you should find a way to stop them from being friendly towards the party. As you've lost 2 players, presumably their characters just wandered off in-game, so you could say that one of them slept with a mercenary leader or picked a fight with his wife, and the mercenary knew that he was their associate so has a grudge against the party. You could have the players framed for a crime, perhaps by the merc, and so lose their friends the guards. When they are later lured into a trap by the merc, he could give a monologue explaining how they run from every fight and get others to fight for them, and they are sick of being used as fodder for the party to get fat from the profits. Have a vent via a bad-guy, so the players realise that their cowardice is having repercussions in the world - The guards are fed up of fighting for the so-called "heroes", and the mercs have wised up that they are dying whilst the "heroes" are getting rich.

When they next get someone else to come to the rescue, have bad repurcussions for them - have a chest full of really good stuff (lots of gold, enchanted armour, magic weapons, etc.) found and claimed for the treasury of the local constabulary - guards are often corrupt, and if they did the fighting they'll want the loot. 

Have their quest-givers make snide comments alluding to their damaged reputation - "Excuse me, adventurer! I have urgent need of someone to help guide me to an ancient treasure, which I am willing to split evenly between myself and my assistants! I understand that you won't be interested, as it will be dangerous, but can you watch the walls of the town whilst the guards and I go on an adventure?"

But the top advice is to talk to them and find out what they want from a game - are they so attached to their characters that they are afraid to lose them? do all 3 of them enjoy walking away from fights? Perhaps make a point of explaining that they would have levelled up twice by now if they had actually done any fighting.

I agree with Xalthu.

This demands a conversation as a group, together, before the next session or instead of it. You need to find out what is going on and why they keep running from the adventures.

I think if, as a DM, you want to run fun, exciting adventures with risk, and they don't want to play in such adventures, you need to stop running for them. Ask if one of them would like to DM now, or would they like to play a different game without adventuring in it, since they don't seem to like to adventure. But saying "We're not going to go on the adventures the DM prepared" is not an option. 

Talking to them would be a good idea as always.

Maybe they're afraid of death. Like if they die, then game over not going to play again. Maybe they don't know they can roll up a new character or get a rez.

Maybe they're afraid of death. Like if they die, then game over not going to play again. 

Yup -- this happened to Colville's group. One character died, the player took a walk to clear his head and blow off some steam, and the other players, being new, thought "that's the end of D&D." 

try playing with 12 year-olds.

• DM: "you come across a farm"
• outcome: you spend the next 60 minutes trying to get them to abandon the idea of building a big dairy farm and becoming dairy farmers.

or

• DM: "you killed an ankheg and you realize that since your brought along your alchemy kit you might be able to harvest its bile to create a vial of acid"
• outcome: you spend the next 60 minutes trying to get them to abandon the idea of capturing and breeding ankheg to corner the market on acid.

every game, about half the time is spent trying to keep them adventuring.

nothing stopping that from being the adventure though...just boils down to what you had prepared vs what the players want.

At least your 12 year old kids are being proactive and doing stuff... They're not trying to get someone ELSE to breed ankhegs.

If you really wanted to it is actually a good way to get them to learn about breeding in captivity and how it can often be a challenge. If they decide to go the "wild farming" route then they would imbalance the ecosystem if they aren't careful, which could teach them something else. Not traditional D&D but could be both fun and a learning experience.