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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5485979" data-attributes="member: 42582">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.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).</blockquote>

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