Have a GMing Problem: I keep GMing the way I would play

[innerdude]

So, as a long-time player, I am your classic "exploration/plot/NPC" guy. I love to engage with the story, the world, the people when I play RPGs. I'm much more interested in out-of-combat roleplaying than combat, though I do enjoy the combat aspect.

But I keep having this problem: I'm GMing the way I would want the campaign to look, not how my players seem to want it.

No one really seems interesting in finding plot hooks. No one really wants to check out locations. NPCs are just props.

With one notable exception, the players mostly seem interested in, well, doing the same things they always seem to do: getting in fights, shooting stuff, and then bragging about it afterwards over an in-game beer.

I'll admit, it's kind of getting to me. Not in a big way, but just in that sort of mildly exasperated, *Sigh* "Okay, you go into the building/cave/office/airport with guns blazing. Now what do you do?"

And it's starting to make me antsy. I want them to engage with the world, plot, and characters, but I also don't want to railroad them, or basically force the plot down their throats.

So, my question is two-fold: How can I increase my character's interest in the exploration/interaction elements, but also, how can I bring my game a little closer to their desires without making it more un-fun for me to GM?

 

[S'mon]

Dangle what they want in front of them - enormous weapons? But make them work to get it. If they know they need to do some exploration work to get their mitts on the Landwaster 5000 experimental railgun, I reckon they'll put some effort in. You can try hitting their other buttons too - eg if they like sex, the beautiful, busty, scantily clad female scientist comes to them for help looking for her father, the designer of the Landwaster 5000. If they like money, Mr Johnson offers them an enormous wad to locate and recover the prototypes... and so on.

 

[Razjah]

Have you talked with them? That would be the first thing I would do. Once you express your concerns (make sure to make this not sound like an attack on your players) you can try to meet in the middle.

If you talk with your players they may be more willing to work with you about interacting with the world if you are willing to give them some nail biting combat. You can always work in NPCs for combat. Directing them, and having betrayals take place during the thick of a skirmish/battle/war.

For Example:
If they want more combat and you want more world interaction try to draw them together. The party needs to interact and explore to uncover the evil necromancer/BBEG of choice. Then they can go in guns blazing to fight through minions and work up to the BBEG.

 

[Mark CMG]

Dress the game you want to run in the trappings of the game they seem to enjoy and both sides will win.

 

[Heathen72]

Find better players. Or at least ones better suited to what you want to run. I know that sounds glib, but you will be more satisfied GMing a group closer to your own heart.

In the meantime, you can try to stretch your players a bit, but for the most part keep it simple.

 

[kaomera]

Find better players.

I hesitated to say the same thing, because it is pretty severe and it may not be what you're looking for. But I've found that you can get players to engage in stuff that's beyond their interest, but it's really impossible to make them care. They might come around to enjoying the kind of game you want / enjoy, but if you've talked to them about it and they haven't budged then I'm not sure how much hope of that you've actually got.

But talking it out with them is definitely a good first step if you haven't already done so. Personally I find that it behooves me to consider the interests of everyone at the table, it just makes for a better game. It's never good to make threats, but if you can let them know (in a non-threatening way) that if they can't make the game more enjoyable (or less un-fun) for you, then you might end up not wanting to GM for them anymore, that might possibly be of some help.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'd caution not to be too hasty with laying all your cards on the table. Your players might not yet know everything that they would like and speaking of it without presenting it might not put it in the best light. As I said above, "Dress the game you want to run in the trappings of the game they seem to enjoy and both sides will win." By this I mean to suggest that you covertly present your favored style of game under the guise of the game to which they currently are drawn.

To wit, knowing that they like to have their characters drink and brag, they are excellent marks for anyone, friend or foe, who has spies or underlings who might have overheard their boasts. Let the next adventure cleave more closely to reality. Have a would-be patron use what he has found out about the characters to handle some particularly dangerous exploration, exploration that cannot be accomplished without their special style of shoot-em-up tactics. However, as a wrap up to the usual routine, before they go off to drink and brag, allow them to observe how the patron makes use of the knowledge gained through exploration for a higher, more expansive purpose.

If within a couple/few attempts to show them a "better way" they do not respond as desired, and if at that point you opt to discuss the situaton in plain terms and they do not come on board, I'd suggest bringing one or two new players to the table who are more like-minded. If they cannot sway the group toward the game you wish to run, replace the rest in due course: Your table, your game, your players.

 

[garrowolf]

Talk to them. That is the only solution. If you don't you will be at cross purposes with them the whole campaign.

The other thing that you may need to do is restart you game. You may have to do this anyway if your players have developed these characters in their minds a certain way and they need a new set of characters to do this.

Make sure that you are rewarding the right kind of gaming. If they are getting XP from killing things and nothing from social interactions then you are telling them what to do - kill things!

Let the logical consequences occur. If they are always busting into places violently then let their jobs dry up. Don't tell them why. May them have to go out and talk to people in order to discover that they are on someone's crap list. If they just go around doing damage to everything then send in the police and then the SWAT team and kill them or cart them off to jail forever.

If they have a habit of doing things a certain way when certain things occur then take those normal occurrences away. Make them think fresh.

For Example: In Shadowrun there is this really stupid thing of meeting with the client and trying to intimidate him into more money or just to do it. Street Sammies seem to be preprogrammed to do this. I thought it made no sense in the long run so I fixed it.

There are no meeting with clients and there are no independent Fixers anymore. A client goes to the Mafia and needs something done. If it is a little too specialized for them they will have an in house Fixer organize his people. Shadowrunners all work for the Syndicates or Megacorps.

If you try and strong arm a mafioso fixer he will just sent other shadowrunners to kill you. He will also be sitting in a building that the Mafia owns, controls, and is filled with their enforcers and up and coming shadowrunners who would love to make a name by killing someone for them as well as prime runners who have a huge number of contacts there and like to relax with them. Do you really want to start something in there?

 

[pemerton]

Make sure that you are rewarding the right kind of gaming. If they are getting XP from killing things and nothing from social interactions then you are telling them what to do - kill things!

<snip>

If they just go around doing damage to everything then send in the police and then the SWAT team and kill them or cart them off to jail forever.

I'm not sure this is always the right way to go about things.

First, do we know that the OP's players are motivated primarily by XP? Maybe they like a combat-oriented game and will incline that way regardless of how XP are handled.

Second, what is the point of sending the PCs to prison, or killing them. Is the game then over - in which case, why not just cancel the game outright, as Spunkrat suggested. Or do the players get to make new PCs? In which case the issue of game tone and focus still has to be resolved.

Talk to them. That is the only solution. If you don't you will be at cross purposes with them the whole campaign.

I'd caution not to be too hasty with laying all your cards on the table. Your players might not yet know everything that they would like and speaking of it without presenting it might not put it in the best light. As I said above, "Dress the game you want to run in the trappings of the game they seem to enjoy and both sides will win."

I think you have to be careful with Mark CMG's approach, but I think it has the potential to work better than talking. There are obvious benefits in showing rather than telling! And conversely, no matter how good a game you talk, if in fact you can't present a game that engages the players at the table, no amount of talking will persuade them that they really enjoyed it.

One way to go about "dressing the game you want to run in the trappings of the game they seem to enjoy", which is a bit different from that suggested by Mark CMG, is by locating exploration opportunities within combats, or as the link between combats. Have an NPC join them during a fight, and make it relevant to the fight itself for the PCs to discern the NPC's motivation (this is a staple of superhero comics). Have a fight expose a safe or a secret door hidden behind some wall decoration that gets shot up. Have one of the combatants in a fight open a secret tunnel, and the players have to choose between finishing up the bodyguards, chasing the fleeing combatant, or both - which makes exploration part of the fight scene.

In my own experience, this sort of approach is more likely to engage players who like a combat-based game than is an approach which tries to load even more exploration into the parts of the game they don't particularly care for (such as - I gather from the OP - negotiating with patrons).

 

[Thunderfoot]

One way I kept things from going too far afield (after many years of trial and error) is having player DM conferences, the "How am I doing" chat. Usually about every three or four game sessions. (I asked for input, ideas, and serious critique.) Take notes and listen.

The converse of that once you have built a dialog bridge, the road goes both ways. Letting your players know what is frustrating you, asking about character motivations versus player assumptions can get your players thinking like their characters at the game table and not like Bob playing Gandalf the rogue.

You may never get the "dream" campaign you are looking for, but you may end up with one you really enjoy.