How much role-playing?

I was just wondering how long your groups actually role-play before jumping into the dungeon? I was wanting to take a whole session roleplaying but all the npc interaction turns short and the party gets discouraged at cat maouse games(i.e. going to talk to this guy and then having to track down item and take to this guy, unless item is guarded by things to kill.) How can i set up an adventure to role-play most of the session?

Well, if the players don't like heavy role-playing, then what's the point?

It sounds like your players do enjoy role-play for a time, but they want to get to the action sooner rather than later. It sounds like you really enjoy the roleplaying aspect.

I usually try to adapt my game to my player's moods. There may be a solution that suits you both.

One thing you might do is sprinkle a little non-lethal combat into your roleplaying session. You'll probably need to plan ahead for this. For example, in the tavern or in the street (while gathering information), perhaps they stumble across a prize boxer and his manager having an tournament 'open to the public'. The manager has information the players need, but he would only provide the info if one of the players agree to box his champion.

This kind of non-lethal confrontation can help spice up roleplay, but we help keep the party in information gathering mode for a while longer.

Cheers.

Another option is to mix the roleplaying into the dungeon crawling. If the PCs are getting along too well (or have the personalities of real time strat game figures), then introduce some NCP party members or tag alongs to spice up the party. A love interest of a PC, racial tension, a quirky old sage they need to escort, an arrogant noble, a lovable troublemaker - anything goes if it is fun to play out. Lets see the fighter roleplaying when the damles in distress clings to his arm, hampering his movements and screaming ambigous warnings all over the place.

aliensex poses an important question (how weird does that phrase sound?!?). Your primary task as DM (IMO) is to run a game that provides the maximum amount of enjoyment, for the maximum number of people, as often as possible. Certainly there will be sessions wherein the activity and encounters favor the minority, but if your group doesn't care for a lot of roleplaying in their game, I don't recommend focusing entire nights around it if possible. Hopefully that doesn't leave you running a game which has little appeal to your personal tastes .

For my part, some adventures (or singular sessions) require lots of roleplaying, while others only need short bursts of in-character exploration and detective work. In terms of trying to promote more active roleplaying, you might explain how it helps create a more realistic, dramatic aura to the game. You could offer XP rewards to players that do a better jop of immersing themselves in your scenarios. Or you could attempt to run the party through a module with very little combat, but lots of PC interaction and puzzle solving.

Well, why don't they like more rp encounters? Is it because the xp system only rewards killing things? One possible solution is to give xp for rp. If you do this, though, watch out- 3e already advances pcs very quickly; I cut monster awards in half and give out rp xp every session.

If the rp stuff is just not to the taste of your group, it'll be a little harder to encourage. You may want to try interspersing it with combat encounters or making it a part of the combat encounter (try to establish a nemesis for the group who taunts them and makes them want to get him; or have some information that can only be retrieved from a captured opponent; I like the damsel on the arm idea, too...)

Vigilant Fiend said:

I was wanting to take a whole session roleplaying but all the npc interaction turns short and the party gets discouraged at cat maouse games(i.e. going to talk to this guy and then having to track down item and take to this guy, unless item is guarded by things to kill.)

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Sounds like your party gets bored when they have to go do lots of investigating (I wouldn'r necessarily call that roleplaying though!) If so, don't make them do all of the work. Have some interesting NPC's for them to interact with, and have those NPC's contact the PC's of their own initiative.

Currently we don't do much role playing at all because it seems to take so long to get even the most minor things done. Our last session we had two encounters with Wyverns and got to the Evil Templed we've been trying to get to for about 6 months real time.

Like conaill said- it sounds like you're mostly doing intrigue/ mystery stuff for the group. A lot of groups don't like this sort of thing; it's sometimes hard for people to wrap their head around it. There's also a fine line between what is obvious to the DM and what is completely lost on the players. A lot of players get stuck, the DM won't help them out, so they just decide to not bother with it and head out to loot some monsters instead. This sort of thing depends on a lot of variables- your characters, your players, the plot, how you're your running things or distributing the information, etc. Really, too much to go into on the boards.

The key point here is- there's no reason why a heavy roleplaying session should be all negotiation, maneuvering with NPCs, digging up secrets or the like (I blame all of this on White Wolf, as they've convinced people that roleplay has to equate to dirty political intrigue. But that's for another thread...)

My suggestion- take a session or two off to do some light-hearted campy type stuff. Send the players into a new town, have one of them mistaken for a local villain, someone else gets conned into stealing something from the mayor's house, that sort of thing. Just let them hang out, meet people at the tavern, get drunk or loose all their money gambling. That sort of thing. They could take to this type of NPC interaction much better than they do the cloak & dagger stuff, especially if they're new players and not used to how RPGs work.

Basically, treat it like a site-based adventure only without the monsters- they're exploring a town, and interacting with odd (or even normal) NPCs instead of monsters. The interaction is likely to be different, since the NPCs aren't threats and (presumably) don't have much that the characters want. The NPCs can then lead the way to small encounters with minor monsters, such as rats infesting a local temple, a band of orcs that keep raiding the same pie shop, that sort of thing. Then, in addition to rewards from the quick encounters with monsters, the PCs also get gratitude and help from the NPCs, giving them more reason to pay attention to people around them in the future.

If you're totally stuck, I recently picked up "The Goblin Fair" adventure from Airweaver Games. It's their only module to date, but its totally awesome. There's a few minor fights to keep the PCs from getting bored, but most of the module is just interacting with quirky (nigh-on insane, really) NPCs and trying to find some sort of magical key. The module's also structured so that you can get them the info to get to the end pretty much whenever you like.

Forced role playing

I was DMing a campaign some time back and I was getting tired of how the group played the game (we soon split ways). It seemed like social interaction was just a deterrent to slow our encounters down. We only spoke to people if we were negotiating a fee. Otherwise, let's go find some monsters!

I was burnt out and I desperately wanted to tap into the role playing potential of at least a few of the players. I knew they had it in them. So I set up a situation where they'd have to role play. That was a mistake. The people I was counting on were the people to get frustrated first. I was expecting something of them they didn't want to give.

If your group doesn't like role playing, don't make them do it. Dangle a hook out in front of them. If they take the role playing bait, you won't have to worry about convincing them to do it, they'll just do it.

I was playing in a game of Hackmaster a few weeks ago. I got on this kick about securing land rights and proving that we were heroes of the north and blah blah blah. The entire session went by. We were all jacking our jaws and having a blast. At the end of the night we realized we hadn't drawn a weapon once. It was just us talking to NPCs. All the DM had to do was keep up and we did the rest. It was a fabulous time.