Jeff Wilder
First Post
I DM an Eberron campaign that is currently 11th to 12th level. Up through 10th level or so, I was using mostly published adventures, and adding hooks to strongly motivate my players. I'm a big believer in making sure players have goals or avenues of information. Unfortunately, this has recently backfired a little.
As I've moved away from published adventures and morphed my campaign into a more "sandbox" style, my players have begun floundering a little. There are several hooks and loose ends from the campaign history, and they've been generally working on one -- for those familiar with Eberron, they're trying to completely wipe out Daask -- but more narrowly speaking, they keep waiting for me to drop "the next step" in their laps.
They don't take prisoners to question. They don't negotiate with enemies or use trickery or deception. They seem to have lost the ability to do anything -- or even want to do anything -- but head into encounters, kill the bad guys, and wait for me to set up the next encounters. In the last adventure, they actively destroyed the major link toward their goal, without even really considering the consequences of what they were doing. Their idea of seeking information is heading to <insert random area of Sharn> and making a Gather Information check.
Like I said, I've seen this building for a few levels, but it's reached the point where it's impacting their enjoyment as well. (I don't think they quite understand the foundation of the problem, but just rather sense it as, like I said above, a floundering ... unsureness of where to go and what to do.)
Again, this is my fault: during the first 80 percent of the campaign, I always laid out the hooks and made them very strong and very visible. But I've been very, very clear that decisions as to what they do and how they proceed will be up to them, through the campaign's finale. And they seem to be okay with that, in theory, but it practice it's led to a stalled game.
I'm just wondering what else I can do about this. I realize my description of the problem, though wordy, is a little vague, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Any advice?
If it comes down to it, I can go back to just force-feeding them clues, no matter how often they ignore them. It's not very satisfying for me at this point, but the campaign will be wrapping up in three or four levels, so I could stomach it for that long.
What else can I try?
As I've moved away from published adventures and morphed my campaign into a more "sandbox" style, my players have begun floundering a little. There are several hooks and loose ends from the campaign history, and they've been generally working on one -- for those familiar with Eberron, they're trying to completely wipe out Daask -- but more narrowly speaking, they keep waiting for me to drop "the next step" in their laps.
They don't take prisoners to question. They don't negotiate with enemies or use trickery or deception. They seem to have lost the ability to do anything -- or even want to do anything -- but head into encounters, kill the bad guys, and wait for me to set up the next encounters. In the last adventure, they actively destroyed the major link toward their goal, without even really considering the consequences of what they were doing. Their idea of seeking information is heading to <insert random area of Sharn> and making a Gather Information check.
Like I said, I've seen this building for a few levels, but it's reached the point where it's impacting their enjoyment as well. (I don't think they quite understand the foundation of the problem, but just rather sense it as, like I said above, a floundering ... unsureness of where to go and what to do.)
Again, this is my fault: during the first 80 percent of the campaign, I always laid out the hooks and made them very strong and very visible. But I've been very, very clear that decisions as to what they do and how they proceed will be up to them, through the campaign's finale. And they seem to be okay with that, in theory, but it practice it's led to a stalled game.
I'm just wondering what else I can do about this. I realize my description of the problem, though wordy, is a little vague, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Any advice?
If it comes down to it, I can go back to just force-feeding them clues, no matter how often they ignore them. It's not very satisfying for me at this point, but the campaign will be wrapping up in three or four levels, so I could stomach it for that long.
What else can I try?
