Players have run out of ideas

[Jancarius]

So in my campaign, as you may or may not be aware, the party is currently under attack by a White Court vampire, because in their backstory, 2 of the party members killed his brother.   While party members other than these 2 are just targets of opportunity to the vampire (except the WcVirgin who he's trying to get to turn), the party basically has decided that they don't want to kill the WCV, because their worried all his 'friends' will show up and the situation will just get worse.

They've come up with a plan to try and trick Antonio (The WCV) into thinking at least one of hte party members is dead, but they've pretty much realized it won't work, cause he's been spying on them for weeks and generally has the drop on them.  He has 8 skilled mercenaries with him (he started with 10, 2 have been removed one way or the other).  He's framing the eccentric artist member (Lucian) of the party as a pedophile (extended social conflict), but will settle for just killing the changeling sorceress (Melody) if it seems like she'll escape into the Nevernever or something. 

I think they should go with one of the following plans: Pool their parties SIGNIFICANT social power together and try and 'take out' Antonio socially.  For a white court, that's a pretty humiliating blow, and the less other WCV respect him, the less resources he has to draw on. Once he's no longer able to pay his mercenaries to shadow the party around town (and provide SIGNIFICANT gun muscle), the party should be a match for him in a fight if they just want to kill him at that point.  OR they could try and 'find a bigger fish' which is a strategy the Kincaid-expy (Sheridan) keeps veto'ing hard, because I feel OOC he's like "Oh noes, supernatural debt" more than what I think his IC reaction should be "Oh shit, I might DIE if I don't get help"  OR they could ask the Wardens for help (game takes place right before Changes) or even just the mortal police. 

The problem is, they don't seem to be coming up with any of these ideas.  They just feel stuck.  How do you suggest I push them in the right direction without giving them a multiple choice option list?

[BumblingBear]

Introduce an NPC who is an "expert" or a family member of one of the PCs.

Let that NPC be your voice.

Simple.

I personally would just kill the WCV if I were a player in your campaign.  Why argue with a monster who is trying to frame a friend?

If I die, I may as well go out doing something I believe in. 

[fantazero]

Introduce an NPC who is an "expert" or a family member of one of the PCs.

Let that NPC be your voice.

Simple.

I personally would just kill the WCV if I were a player in your campaign.  Why argue with a monster who is trying to frame a friend?

If I die, I may as well go out doing something I believe in. 

Yep kill him
or try and get a favor of one of his underlings.
Would you let your players hire an Private Eye or an assassin?

[fantazero]

or get rid of the White Court Vampire, people get hit by trains all the time.

See if there is a member of you group willing to "Die" to take out the Whitecourt vampire so they can play a backup character *But keep this secret from the rest of them*

[noclue]

Have you suggested to your players that if they don't get active and start going for what they want, your NPC is going to steamroll them?

[Eldritch Donut]

Why not get the players involved in WC politics. The guy they're up against must have enemies in the court. If they could hook up with his rival, they'd have some support for either a social or physical confrontation.

[sinker]

If you wanted to go for a straight brute force solution (I.E. kill the bastard) then you could always have a different Whampire come to the party and say "Look, you guys don't like this guy and I don't like this guy. You take him out and I'll make sure that there's no political backlash." That would totally be the norm for the Whampires to find their opponent's enemies and then drive them to take action.

If you wanted to do it the other way though you can simply remind them that there are more options for taking someone out than punching them in the face (I.E. Physical combat) or you could bring the social fight to them. Perhaps the Whampire feels that he has sufficiently broken them and summons them "To talk" or you could focus on his smear campaign as the first round of social combat and then ask them "Your turn, what do you do?"

[Jancarius]

I'm glad other people see it as "Why don't you just kill him?" to the same degree I do.  None of them have thought of trying to find enemies of his in the WC.

As for the steamroll thing, I think they feel like if they engage him, they'll be steamrolled.  Not entirely unfair I suppose, the Kincaid-expy did get nearly taken out by just 2 of his mercenaries when he was unprepared, but htat's without his armor or anything more advanced than a heavy pistol, but why they haven't even tried, I dunno.

[noclue]

As for the steamroll thing, I think they feel like if they engage him, they'll be steamrolled.  Not entirely unfair I suppose, the Kincaid-expy did get nearly taken out by just 2 of his mercenaries when he was unprepared, but htat's without his armor or anything more advanced than a heavy pistol, but why they haven't even tried, I dunno.

Are they possibly right? Are there flaws in his plans that the PCs can exploit, or are they correct that they'll get steamrolled if they go after him?
Do the players always approach challenges with this amount of trepidation, or is there something about this game that is setting this off? DFRPG gives you lots of ways to go after stuff that's important to you, but it can be a bit daunting to find a way forward if you don't see how.

I think a OOC chat is in order. We were having some issues in our game with the players sitting on our hands waiting for an "opening" and the GM waiting for us to open something up. We fixed it by talking about expectations. We players decided to commit to going for what the characters want. The GM warned us that his NPCs were done playing nice and were going to be providing opposition. Since that chat, my character agreed to a favor for Aurora that threatened to send Winter and Summer into pitched warfare, summoned Titania and convinced her to buy my marker from Aurora in return for me finding her missing Knight, released an elder god of trickery and knowledge from his imprisonment at the hands of both courts. Another player went from vanilla mortal to Red Court Infected in order to save his niece's soul. Then we defeated a black magic wielding Warden and his warden henchmen who have been hunting us throughout the campaign, transported him to the mesopotamian version of hell and killed him there, while trapping his death curse in a magic bottle to avoid the sundering of the gates of hell.

[BumblingBear]

Are they possibly right? Are there flaws in his plans that the PCs can exploit, or are they correct that they'll get steamrolled if they go after him?
Do the players always approach challenges with this amount of trepidation, or is there something about this game that is setting this off? DFRPG gives you lots of ways to go after stuff that's important to you, but it can be a bit daunting to find a way forward if you don't see how.

I think a OOC chat is in order. We were having some issues in our game with the players sitting on our hands waiting for an "opening" and the GM waiting for us to open something up. We fixed it by talking about expectations. We players decided to commit to going for what the characters want. The GM warned us that his NPCs were done playing nice and were going to be providing opposition. Since that chat, my character agreed to a favor for Aurora that threatened to send Winter and Summer into pitched warfare, summoned Titania and convinced her to buy my marker from Aurora in return for me finding her missing Knight, released an elder god of trickery and knowledge from his imprisonment at the hands of both courts. Another player went from vanilla mortal to Red Court Infected in order to save his niece's soul. Then we defeated a black magic wielding Warden and his warden henchmen who have been hunting us throughout the campaign, transported him to the mesopotamian version of hell and killed him there, while trapping his death curse in a magic bottle to avoid the sundering of the gates of hell.

That sounds like a badass campaign!

[noclue]

That sounds like a badass campaign!

It has been completely badass! And totally an homage to Dresden with swings from dark comedy to just plain dark. My sorcerer's rituals are all about the fae. In the final battle, I spent a FP to reveal my "Prep" which consisted of a swarm of valley girl pixies led by my "friend" Lilly (of the Valley, get it?) who I had enticed with Orange Julius and Cinnabons to keep the gun mage busy. Swarm of Valleygirl pixies for the Block! Later, the gunshot Evil Warden used the power of his own bloody wounds to nearly take me out with black magic, giving me a Severe and Moderate physical consequences in that one move.

But, a few weeks earlier we nearly ditched the campaign because of the issues I mentioned above. Which is why I say to the OP, if the players are feeling that they can't succeed, you need to make them believe they can. There are so many tools at their disposal to get proactive, but only if they know what they want and go for it.

[Sanctaphrax]

You could just force an encounter. If you think they should just kill him, have him mug them on a street corner and fight to the death.

Of course, that's probably not in character. Here's something more plausible.

Antonio decides to finish off his frame job by appearing publically in court/on TV to denounce the character. Compel the players to stop him. They can either take him out socially (debunking his claims in front of the world) or physically (putting on ski masks and murdering him).

[Lanir]

Introduce an Alfred (yes, I'm going all Batman on you... don't worry, it'll be brief).

The qualifications for this character are simple. They have some reason to talk to the characters. You don't want to give answers? That's fine, this NPC isn't for that anyway. No, this one is to ask the right questions. If the right questions are going around IC then your characters will not only are they likely to jump onboard a plan your questions suggest, they'll also feel invested in it, a lot moreso than you'd get from just listing options for them.

The reason I use Alfred the butler as an example is because he's just kind of always there. You don't expect much from him as far as active plot development. He's a butler, which is like saying he's window dressing for the background. Every once in awhile when the writers need to introduce a moment where Batman starts thinking outside the box, they'll have Alfred talk to him and just ask the right questions and maybe make a few suggestive comments reminding him of where his priorities really are. If you don't have an NPC strategically placed to do this, make one. And don't be afraid to re-use him/her a little before the PC's feel totally stuck next time.

[Jancarius]

That sounds like a really cool idea to me.  I'm not sure who I could use in that role though.  They don't trust anything Tarsiel says (the Denarian that one of the characters is carrying around the coin for, and another has a shadow of).  I guess I could try and get them to talk to the owner of the local accorded neutral grounds bar. 

I don't like the idea of Antonio just publicly attacking them.  He's already acting pretty in the open for a White Court, which I'm justifying by saying he's enraged over the death of his brother; I think appearing in person for a social denouncement might be too much.  Though... he might show up to the artists trial and start slamming the lawyer and defense witnesses with despair, or any particularly sympathetic seeming jurors.  And I'd let the party know: "The case against you seems flimsy, but with Antonio smashing these people emotionally, it seems like they might convict you."

Also with BB on this one, noclue, that sounds like a ridiculously awesome campaign.

[ways and means]

I would just have another white court vampire use the party as a weapon against Antonio due to white court politics.  With the help of a WCV perhaps even Antonio's second in command (aide du camp) the party should be able to kill Antonio.