I'm seeking advice. How do you encourage players to talk to each other and do stuff?

[garbagetier]

Man, I love this site. I'll respond to all in turn but overall, thanks so much for being awesome and supportive everyone. Bombing truly destroyed me.

 

[garbagetier]

Yeah. Unless you are a bunch of teenagers... treat folks as if they were mature adults. If you have a problem, talk to them.

I recommend doing this in a non-accusative manner - "Hey, folks, I have noticed a pattern, and I was wondering if this is the way you want to play..."

Be ready to get some critique yourself, as you may have supported the behavior you've been seeing.

We are all early to late middle aged. I know two of my players very, very well and can definitely have a heart to heart. A third player is a great guy, is definitely interested in playing sometimes, but is usually the first to get bored. I'd say we are good friends, we both enjoy hanging out, but this is one of his first tabletop rpgs.

One of the two dear friends is a gem at the table. He frankly steals the spotlight often but I've spoken with the other players about this, encouraging them to let me know after a session if I ever failed to recognize when he's doing this. I let him run wild a little bit now and then but mostly pull other players into the spotlight with him or encourage him to do it.

The other dear friend, yeah, he's definitely the one to talk to straight forward. Overall (I'm replying to this post first as it was on the bottom) everyone seems to say "talk to them", which should have been obvious, but man I was in the dumps last night. This second dear friend, he'll not pull punches when he tells me how I can improve and he will also be receptive to my own needs from him as well. This is a great start.

I also made a list of where I feel I fail as a DM. I'll be searching this site for how people improve in those areas as well.

Thanks!!

 

[garbagetier]

First, I think you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s great you want to improve your game, but keep in mind it’s just a game.

Second, there are a couple of things to parse out here. Are they bored? Or are the merely passive?

One could be passive or reactionary, but still be engaged. As mentioned above, some players play to escape and relax so being reactionary is their preferred mode (but they still enjoy playing). Boredom of course is more concerning.

Third, re encouragement to be more proactive, what system are you running, if I may ask? Some systems are designed to elicit a more proactive approach (FATE Core comes to mind).

All good points. Two of them are definitely there to escape and relax, but the game is more "background Netflix" for them. Another player is a rabid animal eager and hungry to play. I love his passion and know how to keep him in check when he spotlight-steals.

I'm running a homebrew version of D&D. I've borrowed a lot from other games that give players more creative freedom (7th Sea for example). I'll check out Fate Core. I've listened to a few actual plays but never done a dive on the book.

Thanks!

 

[garbagetier]

Honestly, talk to them about it.

Don’t try to trick them into being more engaged, talk to them. Ask them why they don’t engage more, and listen.

You're right. I will do this.

 

[garbagetier]

Without knowing your table this'll be a complete shot in the dark, but there's a few things you-as-DM might want to try:

Encourage - or certainly don't discourage - inter-character relationships within the party. These can be romances, rivalries, friendships, whatever; as long as the characters are interacting with each other. To get this sort of thing started you could lob in an adventuring NPC for a while to stir the pot.

A more dramatic option might be to, one session when they're in downtime, sit back and say "Right - you lot are on your own tonight - all I'm going to do is react to what you give me, if I have to. Anything you say henceforth will be interpreted as if your characters said it, so get in character and talk to each other - get to know each other, decide what you're going to do next and how you're going to go about it, and that's what I'll run."

Holy crap I love this.

I have lobbed an NPC in to stir the pot and was also in the past able to run an entire downtime game where they sat around a campfire and chatted about life. It was wonderful, I only nudged here and there but mostly sat back and listened.

The suggestion of "you lot are on your own tonight", yo. This is great advice. I am definitely doing this. I will let everyone in that group know that I want to work on my nervous GRAB THE WHEEL tick and have them help me with it by driving.

 

[iserith]

In addition to talking to them, I think it's important to develop a vision for your game and articulate that to the players before committing to a campaign. Then make sure they understand what you're going for and are bought into it.

In a plot-based adventure, it's a bit easier to be "passive." There's a storyline and you just follow it till the end. Often it's not about whether you'll get through it, but how. Maybe it's linear or there are some branches; otherwise, it's just going from start to finish. In that sort of scenario, the players can be more passive in my experience. The DM will present the plot points to engage with and the goal of the players and their characters is to follow the plot.

But if you're thinking of running a game wherein the action will be driven by the players rather than the plot such as in a sandbox style game, the game will tend to stall and be boring if the players don't set goals for their characters and get after it. If they are used to plot-based games, they might not know what to do in this situation and you end up with sessions like the one that is troubling you from time to time.

You may also want to review the incentives in your game for doing the sorts of things you would like to see. Are you using standard XP, milestone XP, story-based advancement? Where can they get treasure and what options do they have for spending it? By tying these things to the activities that will drive your game forward, you can use the players' desire to level up to keep things moving.

Finally, make sure that adventure is easy to find. Lots of games feature quirky, cagey NPCs that the players are supposed to interview to even find the adventure. This can get tedious and frustrating, particularly if the players are more passive. Session time is precious in my view so get to it as quickly as possible by making the routes to the action as straightforward as possible.

 

[garbagetier]

they're tired from work/school or because they prefer listening to the stories you tell.

This is true. I've definitely enabled them to play passively and "listen to the story I'm telling" but we also all get up early in the morning and can only play in the evening on work nights. I may try an internet based game in the future with them to cut down on the required travel time. I've had a lot of success with some of them playing via Google Chat or similar programs. It might be good to try this out. Also, with their permission, record it so I can study and see where I can improve.

A big thing that happened last night was I had a weak NPC that wasn't interesting, force-fed information dumps rather than allowed a scene to play out naturally, and I simply wasn't prepared to defend the job-giving NPC's motivation for why they would want to do the job. That on top of their regular passive natures, whew, it was embarrassing. I dropped all the balls.

Or, it could even be that they aren't enjoying the campaign enough to take any action.

I know they are having fun overall, but the current mission they are on has an atrociously weak motivation. I'm actually going to talk with one of them out of game and potentially retcon some of the events from last night. They are not eager to risk their necks for the provided reasons.

I would start by speaking individually to your players and asking what they would like their characters to accomplish in-game. Perhaps they have interesting ideas but are unsure how to get from point A to point B and would benefit from a conversation with you on how to do that. You could even encourage them to write background stories for their characters which you would offer to treat as canon in your campaign, giving them an opportunity to "write the story together" as you say you would like. This wouldn't work for some players but for highly introverted people it would potentially be just the jump-start the campaign needs.

I really need to do that. We jumped in to this game very quickly in the middle of the summer. None ever really took the time to flesh out their character's backgrounds and motivations nor have they since.

And last but not least, are there tangible improvements they would like you to make for future gaming sessions?

I am definitely asking this. Thanks so much.

 

[garbagetier]

Is it possible however that you get more of a buzz from a extrovert group and actually your more introvert group are enjoying themselves just as much but you are not getting the same kicks from running?

Good question.

I don't want to give up on the second, more introverted group, because I know they enjoy themselves more often than not. I'm just frustrated that I feel like I need to push and push for things to happen and they expect me to do it. I'm enabling this behavior and need to stop.

Communication is the number one response from everyone it seems and it is the approach I'm going to take. After that, I resort to physical violence.

 

[garbagetier]

Heh. Yeah I would say either stick to type 1 players, or for type 2s run a simple dungeon bash campaign that doesn't require them to roleplay much or be proactive.

Damn. That's a fantastic point. Work to their strengths. They love combat. I've brewed up a fun hybrid of systems and they have outloud exclaimed how much fun they have. Rather than force them to enjoy something they don't, feed them what they like. Cater the experience to the group's tastes rather than expect everyone to be all things.

 

[garbagetier]

In addition to talking to them, I think it's important to develop a vision for your game and articulate that to the players before committing to a campaign. Then make sure they understand what you're going for and are bought into it.

In a plot-based adventure, it's a bit easier to be "passive." There's a storyline and you just follow it till the end. Often it's not about whether you'll get through it, but how. Maybe it's linear or there are some branches; otherwise, it's just going from start to finish. In that sort of scenario, the players can be more passive in my experience. The DM will present the plot points to engage with and the goal of the players and their characters is to follow the plot.

But if you're thinking of running a game wherein the action will be driven by the players rather than the plot such as in a sandbox style game, the game will tend to stall and be boring if the players don't set goals for their characters and get after it. If they are used to plot-based games, they might not know what to do in this situation and you end up with sessions like the one that is troubling you from time to time.

You may also want to review the incentives in your game for doing the sorts of things you would like to see. Are you using standard XP, milestone XP, story-based advancement? Where can they get treasure and what options do they have for spending it? By tying these things to the activities that will drive your game forward, you can use the players' desire to level up to keep things moving.

Finally, make sure that adventure is easy to find. Lots of games feature quirky, cagey NPCs that the players are supposed to interview to even find the adventure. This can get tedious and frustrating, particularly if the players are more passive. Session time is precious in my view so get to it as quickly as possible by making the routes to the action as straightforward as possible.

Yeah. I'm going to talk to them, cater their experience to what they enjoy (combat), and focus on strengthening my weaknesses.