V_V:
Insecure, in that they feel if they leave the ship just floating, fiends will seize it (they want the souls for their lord).
Okay, though if the fiends can seize it, the PCs can seize it back for the same reasons: it's slow and clunky.
The souls are a hassle to deal with, a weight around the party's neck, and the party is trying to help them. That same bunch of souls is going to be a hassle for a group of fiends too. The fiends would know that and would bide their time until they figured out a way to transport the souls quickly and easily. Which, once it has been figured out by the fiends, the PCs can take from them.
V_V:
Simply; "What do you all want me to do about the ship?". I didn't pry or ask contrived questions. I am and the GM, and it's my responsibility to decide the minutiae, and I understand that, but I wanted general input, the more the better.
You won't hear me say that that's the GM's responsibility. The players have imaginations too, and leaving that resource untapped is just making one's own job harder.
More on this below.
V_V:
Not really much. A drow offered they just leave the ship, and teleport on. No one really teplied, but just went on discussing matters on the note of handling the ship. Later, the apaldin said "If we can do that, maybe we should" in response to a later offer to releport from the drow. There was no follow through.
You say "offered" and the paladin said "maybe." I see this a lot in groups: players merely suggest things, no one wanting to take any decisive action. It's unfortunate, but somewhat understandable, especially with a party that seems to be predicated on interparty strife.
V_V:
I think they are both unexperienced with epic level play (including non-epic high level magics) as well as absorbed with the notion hell is unassailable. The idea of hell being overwhelming evil holds true for most parties. I have, however, tried to convince them this was the epic challenge and that most of the "hordes of hell" can't threaten them.
How have you tried to convince them? Many GMs have a dual role, with conflicting goals: on one hand, they want to keep things unknown and tense, but on the other hand they want to guide the players. One goal requires suspicion, the other requires trust. Players are commonly very suspicious, wary of being tricked and made to look stupid. Could that mindset be at work here?
V_V:
I think they think I want to make a very difficult experience of hell. I could, I suppose, and while I don't think they want that, I don't think they realize neither do I.
Have you told them that? All in all, it seems like an open, out-of-game discussion about what everyone wants would, if possible, help a lot.
V_V:
As to "can they not agree?", and if not, "Can they collaborate?"; if they can, they've all been very gingerly about it so as to not cause strife. In game they ebb and flow with many GREAT ideas, but no follow through. Then out of character there isn't really a leading voice. So no one has cohesion.
That's pretty standard, unfortunately.
Any kind of apparent leader or commander makes players feel like they don't get to do what they want: the commander has to "maintain discipline" and the others have to "follow orders." The game degenerates further as it becomes about the leader pushing their plans through, or punishing insubordination.
This party clearly does get stuff done, so they're not completely paralyzed. What sorts of things
do they collaborate on? What sorts of adventures or missions do they actually go on?
Players are often worried that anything they decide will give the GM a way to get at them, or use it against them. Many GMs foster this feeling of risk and uncertainty. In my experience, this tends to make players feel like anything they try is going to make things worse for them, which leads to either actual reckless decisions, a lack of confidence in any decision, over analysis of every idea, or complete paralysis. Could something along those lines be going on here?
V_V:
This is probably something I can offer them. It's at least not a solution that I'd have to force, just an option for them to solve the tedium. I like it, thank you.
I hope it helps undo the block.
V_V:
engine:
They could come across a region of the Hells that is relatively quiet and out of the way. There's an opportunity to move the ship there unseen. It will appear to have simply vanished, but it will be secure for a certain amount of time.
This would require some godly intervention, as they're near a central hub, but it's not out of character for the current situation. I think I'll allude to this by a godly message, and then offer a divine block of senses and such for them. Another good idea, but i like the other one more.
I don't think it requires anything but some reconnaissance. Even a "central hub" is going to have hidden places. Consider how criminal or resistance cells can exist in cities, or maybe how rats can infest even packed modern metropolises. Every city/country has hidden, rarely-traveled areas. The "as-above-so-below" approach common to D&D planes: a hellish city will have bad neighborhoods or areas with recalcitrant populations who might turn a blind eye, or just not ask too many questions (especially of a powerful adventuring group).
All it really involves is expanding on the idea of the hells as a vast place that not even the fiends have a full grasp of.
V_V:
This was always the last ditch effort I've been holding. Bring the fight to them and have the Lord seize the souls (at least until they go after him). If all hope seems lost to move forward, this is exactly what I've planned to do. It robs the PCs of much choice, but is at least a very imperative goal then.
It's not clear what they're doing with the choice they have now.
V_V:
No, actually the paladin is fine. There's complicated moral tension.
Okay, I'm glad I was wrong about this, and I apologize for my assumption.
V_V:
If I knew what I was doing to hold it up, I would fix that, or stop doing that. I think the fact the ship can't go 240 feet per round is the only realism I'm keeping. It's certainly not something I cling to, I just think it doesn't make sense. If that's what would solve the situation I would have a magical consumable, like a fire rod, that would power the ship that fast.
I meant to ask about why this is an issue of "verisimilitude vs. ease of play." Given the nature of this game, there are really no limits. Look at Star Trek: Voyager: they state at the outset that they are facing a lengthy journey home, and it would wreck everything if next week they found a quick, easy way back. But, every other episode, they encountered someone who could give them a way to shave a year or two off their time. In this game, you're not even restricted to keeping the same ship. The PCs can learn about another vessel, abandoned for some reason, but still worthy. Maybe there's a secret band of angelic pirates roaming the area. They won't help the PCs, because it would slow them down, but the PCs could take one of their faster ships (or earn one somehow) and transfer them.
V_V:
I made a mistake of having the group make balance checks when the air elemental rammed the ship forward. That was also something I won't do again,it created unencessarey pause.
Right, that's the kind of thing that makes players wonder why they try things, because the GM has the power to make them wish they hadn't. You are to be commended for being aware of that impulse and resisting it.
V_V:
It's not pure dice rolling, far from it, but in the end I'm trying to give plausibility of having them fight these creatures and be able to use all the tricks in their character's bag. I just don't like to do hard resets or drastic alterations that break the immersion. I have no qualms about changing anything I need to that will make; a) the game more fun and engaging for players and b) easier the complications (not creating soap-opera level drama and chaos).
The neat thing about immersion is that verisimilitude is really only part of it. Another part (I would argue that it's the larger part) is enjoying what's going on. We've all had conversations with people who absolutely love a particular story or show and who either ignore or have explanations for every single error that we point out to them. Those errors break our "immersion" with that show, but not theirs. At the same time, every show we ourselves love also has holes or errors in it, because no fiction is perfect, and we still love those shows so much that we can push the errors to the back of our minds.
So, part of having a believable game, is having a game that is enjoyable for more than just its objective believability, and for more than just the suspense derived from players not knowing something. It can be worth giving up objective realism and suspense to gain more engagement (which in turn bolsters the remaining realism and suspense).
Above you mention asking "What do you all want me to do about the ship?" That is a good question, but it's very open-ended. You could instead ask something like "You learn of a location where you can stash the ship indefinitely. What is that location? How do you learn about it? What steps have to be taken to keep it secret?" Those questions are still open ended, but they're focused around a fixed nugget of reality: they
do learn of the location, and they location
will serve their purposes.
Continuing that example, say a player says "Maybe we meet a damned soul who tells us the secret." Pounce on that, or whatever else they offer, before anyone says no. Whether anyone else in the world would find that realistic
this player does. As soon as you say something like "Yes, you do, and he hands you a fragment of a map that will lead you toward this location," then you have bolstered its plausibility. You could question that suggestion, or stay quiet, but instead, you help solidify it.
Other players might raise objections: "How do we know we can trust him?" "The fiends would know about this location!" etc. Focus your further questioning around making the original suggestion work: "What sort of thing would lead you to trust a damned soul?" "You think that the fiends very likely
don't know about this location. Why might that be?" If your players are creative at all, and most players are, my bet would be that they would give you interesting answers that you either never would have thought of yourself, or would never have believed that they would accept.
Maybe some questions don't have answers. Try to leave those aside for now. Shows and stories don't always tell us immediately why things are the way they are, and often that's because the authors themselves don't know yet. The key is to accept that there is an answer, even if it's not related aloud.
Not all players like this kind of approach. That's fine. This can just be an interesting conversation between friends about the game world and various hypotheticals. It doesn't have to be applied to the game unless the players want it to be.