Failing motivation to adventure

[Teflon Billy]

...I've seen a party break up (in game) because they found they had no compatible goals, and no real reason to stick together. 2 of the 5 PCs continued the game with 3 new PCs joining...

Yup, I've seen it, and I used to allow it (I had it in my mind that reacting to any example of PC's free will was what made my game good).

I have tons of examples of this.

I've had PC's jut bypass the adventure because their characters didn't like the idea of danger.

I've had PC's distrust other PC's because they couldn't explain where they had been while they were misdsing (the player was absent the week before)

The list goes on and on. In recent years I've made efforts to actually have games rather than have the players gum everything up at the altar of "Staying in Character"

I now describe PC's returning to the group after aplyer absence with the simple line "(Character Name) has been away taking care of some personal business that he doesn't elaborate on AND ALL OF YOU FIND THIS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE AND UNWORTHY OF COMMENT OR ACTION".

It's solved a lot fo problems.

As for the group breaking up over incompatible goals, I ususally insist during character creation that the PC's have compatible goals. If they grow during play, I usally say "No, you guys are not breaking up...get creative RIGHT NOW and think of a reason that you are going to stick together".

It wrecks the game for a certain kind of player, but the majority of my players appreciate it.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Nothing drives me crazier then when a player proclaims "why would I be travelling with this party." Generally, I go to great lengths to create motivation and reason, but every so often you'll get a player that ignores everything you put in front of them.

I've seen this more times than I can count.

My answer is largely the same: "Why would you make a character that wouldn't be travelling with the party? What were you hoping to do?"

It reminds me of one of Fusangite's players. She constantly made the same character: an unemployed Harp-Player. Didn't matter what genre (She made it for Cyberpunk in one of his better "Canyou beleive this" stories), it was the same.

She was talking at one point about joining my Superhero game, and I was just..."Nah".

My game wasn't about discovering things about your character's persnality. It was about saving the Earth from an Alien invasion using superpowers, flashy costumes and inspiring the cowed populace.

Unemployed Harpists need not apply.

 

[TiQuinn]

After a player in one game I was in declared he didn't see a reason to go along, the DM declared that he was not going to conjure another excuse for him to go OOC.

Right on.

 

[jollyninja]

frankly, a character that does not have an inwritten reason to go on adventures of all varieties is just a poorly written character. when i'm dming my answer to these problems is pretty much: "then create a character that would, i'm not running two games at once because your character doesn't see the need to rid the world of evil in whatever form it takes" as a dm you put easily ten times the work into a game then any player i've ever met (other then myself when i play, i used to design half the law enforcment and political structures for nations in a dm's homebrews because it was the part he had trouble with) so if one guy is bunging it up by creating a cn character to hang out with the holy warrior heavy party and not saying "i adventure to get chicks" then he can sit there and watch everyone else game. i used to try to be accomidating, then i let them become indentured servants of other party members (or other railroads) now i just let them know that if they really refuse to adventure, they can come watch the game or stay home and play the sims, imagining that it's their character's home they are creating and not wreck my game. i quit gming about a year ago because i got sick and tired of leading individual characters around by the hand when they already knew if they didn't do it people would die/suffer because of their inactivity.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Oh goodness yes! I had a player in the old Curse on Hareth adventure by the Companions that spent the entire day at the inn, then complained 'that was boring, nothing happened!' The other players looked at him funny...

The Auld Grump

 

[Abraxas]

Occasionally I have seen a player not have a PC go with the flow and choose to drop one character to bring in a new character.
DMs really do have to try just as hard to have reasonable motivations for the players to take on an adventure. Far more often I have seen DMs either

1) Use the same old tired - "But your the good guys" line as the only motivation while having everyone in the game world treat the PCs like lepers

or

2) Allow one or two characters to screw over another character, forcing them out. If you want the players to generally be altruistic good guys, you can't let the neutral freaks get away with evil actions without repercussions. It sucks when you're trying to play a paladin and the other characters are bent on summoning undead or killing non-combatants.

 

[Haradim]

Have you ever seen a PC actually get left behind for some role-playing reason.

Not yet. In most cases, it's just a matter of 'my loner character stays at the inn............' or the like, and I don't consider that worthwhile role-play. The GM and other players (myself amongst them) usually have to convince the player to actually play the game they showed up for...

But I have not seen a case where a character actually had a decent reason not to accompany the party*, because typically, there is nothing if you don't go with the party. If the GM was willing to run a dual game for the separate parties, so that the character was off doing something entertaining to observe, that might be a different story. But running separate, concurrent games doesn't seem very appealing, and every time this has happened, the character just ends up ... doing absolutely nothing of note, and the player barely attempts otherwise.

Creating some kind of consistently motivating common ground is such a simple matter, but getting our players to do it is strangely difficult. Even the ol' fallback of alignment is often inadequate. Loot seems to be the only thing that that is assured to work, but that can only go so far.

I've grown to suspect that some of these problems may actually be personality issues and conflicts between players, which makes solutions that much more difficult to reach.

* - Not entirely true, now that I think of it. We have one WoT character who is going his own way. I hesitate to describe that as a 'party separation gone well', though, since I suspect there is some pettiness involved due to the loss of the player's previous character. The GM doesn't seem to mind though.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

"But your the good guys" line as the only motivation while having everyone in the game world treat the PCs like lepers

Ugh, this is so lame & so many crpgs in particular do it. I've seen dms do it, not realizing they are rewarding a type of behaviour & then wonder why players are getting frustrated.