Getting people to use Rituals

[Dausuul]

As a DM, if your players don't want to use rituals, just shrug and move on. They don't want to use 'em, so be it. It may not be their style.

As a player with ritual spells, if the rest of the party won't help pay for your components, then use ritual magic aggressively for your own personal benefit. When the other PCs see what you're doing and want in on the action, go ahead and cast the ritual for them, but demand they defray your costs as soon as the money is available... and chip in a share for future castings.

Ritual magic in 4E takes some getting used to, especially since the ritual lists are short compared to previous editions and many of the spells are not worth the price up-front; I don't think WotC itself has really gotten the hang of ritual magic yet. My group never used ritual magic at first. Then we discovered the wonders of phantom steed...

 

[Vael]

I find, as a player, I'm much more willing to use free rituals. My Bard just went Paragon tier, and two free bard rituals per day means I'm hunting for more rituals to add to my book and for opportunities to use them.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

First, that is obnoxiously complex. Second, unless things have changed recently, that just gives me a card with "Make Whole" or "Secret Page" written at the top, which doesn't do me any good. I know I have those rituals, there's a slot on my character sheet for them. What I don't know is casting time, casting cost, and exactly what the ritual does. Yes I know I can then edit the card and add all that info in to the sheet, but that is compounding both the obnoxiousness and the complexity.

The ritual text is now on the card. The only thing missing, that I would like to see is the duration and component cost.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

EW is correct though. If they don't like them then you should consider dropping them.

I like the card idea. I do think they should be on the builder.

I would already be very happy if the character builder would denote the source (and page number perhaps?) of each Ritual, so I can at least find them quickly.

 

[Ktulu]

I agree with the above, hand out ritual cards. Put all the relevant information on them, making it easier to look up.

Also, think episodic TV. They always point out the obvious tool early in the episode and use it later on. Do the same. Give out a ritual at the end of this week's adventure, and tie it DIRECTLY to advancing the storyline next week. Maybe the players found the last sight vision ritual a few sessions ago and now they're trying to figure out who killed the prince.. Luckily, his head is intact....

Doing this occasionally got my players interested in rituals. Especially when I did a total red-herring in a mystery plot. Had they not used the LSV, all evidence pointed to one of their ally NPC's. The last sight let them know how to prove his innocence.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

How does one edit the ritual cards?

 

[Ferret]

My group has problems with using rituals. The problem is two-fold.

1) When I'm DMing I hand out rituals and the appropriate reagents as treasure, but they just exist as a list on the character's sheet. The players never think about where a ritual might be useful, look into the books to see which rituals might be useful to pick up, or remember their rituals during play. It is so bad that they won't consider their knock ritual when confronted with a door that their thievery check couldn't open, unless I specifically remind them. The only exceptions to this seem to be "Tenser's Floating Disk" for carrying out treasure, and healing rituals. I essentially have to bring things to an impasse that only a ritual can solve, before they will use a ritual. No matter how much I punish (you wouldn't be ambushed if you had used a silence ritual to keep your clandestine conversation from being heard) or encourage (ok, non-healing rituals are free to cast) it just doesn't seem to sink in that rituals are a core part of the game.

2) When I'm playing my wizard, I generally can't get access to rituals. The DM doesn't hand out reagents and rituals because he isn't reminded to by the parcel system, so I generally have to buy them out of pocket. The problem with that is I have difficulty convincing the party to agree to paying for rituals that might have a use in upcoming sessions, though they will shell out for healing rituals. So I'm stuck deciding if I want to buy rituals or if I want to buy magical items or consumables.

So how do I encourage players to use rituals of their own accord? They reach for their skills readily enough, so they aren't just hack n' slash goons, but they don't seem to want to use rituals unless a plot barrier arises that only a ritual can solve, even if there is no cost.

How do I encourage my DM to hand out more ritual-based treasure without nagging about it? He'll give me some ritual treasure if I ask, but he always forgets by the time we play next month.

1. Move closer to where I live.
2. Let me join the Party
3. I will use Rituals.

Otherwise, maybe plot hammer it in. Or get the enemy to do some ritualing?

 

[Ktulu]

How does one edit the ritual cards?

I don't, I have a .pdf that I found of generic cards. I just type the information onto the card and print it off for the player.

We keep those cards for future use, so there's a nice stack of rituals in one binder, along with another nice stack of consumables in another.

 

[Celebrim]

It's come to this has it?

I suggest you give the players an environment that makes them more comfortable and which is more familiar to them.

Whenever they are confronted with an obstacle, hand them a multiple choice list of the things that they can do. This should work really well with NPC's to - just give them a multiple choice summary of conversational paths they can take.

Sure, it's a little more work for you up front, but think about how much easier DMing will be after you do it.

 

[Nebulous]

After DMing 4e for a good while now, i like the idea of rituals, but the actual implementation of them is completely out of whack (at least in our group). They do not fit into the "Power Fixation" that i've started to notice, which is instant gratification via powers at your fingertips. The combination of time, utility cost and niche use makes rituals hardly remembered by our players. Or they'll remember they had a useful ritual well after the fact.

I want to find a way to place them more up front and center so they'll be remembered and used. Otherwise, we're missing out on a very cool part of magic from past D&D editions that has been replaced by pure combat mechanics.