PC's (almost) complete lack of commitment to anything. Help!

[Keenberg]

So I have been DMing on and off with a group for a few months now, but mostly we've been pretty regular. All the PC's feel that the game is doing great, and are having tons of fun every time, but I am not satisfied with the story one bit. The Players have gone from level 1 to level 4 without really finding their place in the world.
We started off with a fairly coherent plot, but the characters turned on their employer, stole a ship, and now are randomly sailing from island to island. I have a whole story arc in mind, but I suppose I'm having a hard time getting the PC's to commit to... well... anything other than being pirates.

My intended story: The Gods are at war. Hints have been dropped in the first four levels of play as you'll see below, but the characters have not committed to the action. I want the characters to achieve greatness as they progress in this game. First they might run their own base, then a kingdom, and so on. By the end of the campaign, I want them to fight and overthrow the gods, and take their places alongside the gods themselves.

Keep in mind that the original idea behind this game was for the players to be evil, but that (sort of) fell by the wayside. Here's a list of current story details and hooks:

[sblock]Fighter and Ranger arrive at Fallcrest. A dragon hide has been stolen off a caravan, and the "theive's guild", so-to-speak, known as the River Rats hire the PCs to pick it up before its intended owner.

PC's raid kobold hall, kill kobolds, drakes, and young dragon, recover dragon hide and return it to the River Rats.
​

Fighter and Ranger are rehired by RR's to travel downstream and raid a merchant ship. New PC (cleric of Sehanine) is sent with the party for backup.

Clerics travel downriver, kill some gnomes who try to board ship, take aboard a traveling family of halflings. Halflings have adopted a lone gnome named Buttons. Buttons joins party.

Ship stops in a small swampy town, PCs engage in sidequest to recover a dead witch's treasure, get back on ship.

INTENDED HOOK: Ranger starts reading bibles to gain a training in religion. One book is normal, on Sehanine. One is magic and is read in it's entirety in one sitting, on Eilistraee. The last book is... odd. It has no text, but when opened, speaks in conversation and debate to the ranger about Corellion.

PC's reach the bay and board the merchant ship. They kill the merchant's bodygaurd minotaur, whose corpse mysteriously disappears. The merchant's business partners fight too and narrowly escape (planning on all three becoming recurring enemies. Minotaur will come back as a revenant or something of the sort.)

PC's kill the merchant, who actually turned out to be a primordial. HOOK: With her dying breath, the primordial tells her that the gods are falling to their own quarrels. She says the time of mortals and gods is at its end.

PCs return to Fallcrest with the Ship and its booty. This is where they turn on the river rats, stealing the new ship (steamship) and leave town.

They also steal two cannons and hit the open seas.
​

From here the story has almost completely lost any coherence. I sent them to an island populated with Goliaths, and a new goliath PC joined the party. They are currently exploring a fey island which pops in and out of their realm and the Feywild.[/sblock]

The eladrin Priest had a dream where she was called upon by Sehanine herself to help redeem the drow. Sehanine and Corellion have been consulting with Elistraee and it has been agreed that the drow who worship Elistraee deserve redemption.

The Dragonborn Fighter had a vision in which he was called upon by the vision of Io to choose sides between Bahamut and Tiamat.

The Drow Ranger is being called upom by Elistraee to lead in the redemption of the drow.

I currently have no hooks for the gnome or the goliath (not worried about goliath, that player might now be able to make the sessions regularly.) I need something to get my brain rolling, I want the PCs in the real action, but it might be difficult considering they have a ship that they'd probably all freak out I "took back" from them.

Anyone got ideas?!

Edit: Read this thread and realized I need to sit down with the players and tell them my thoughts on the game. Ideas for how to incorporate the story ideas still welcome.

 

[aco175]

There are 2 options that I can see, either tweak the pirate idea towards the gods idea or abandon the gods idea and focus on the pirate theme.

One thought I tend towards is if the players are having fun and enjoy themselves you should let them. Make more encounters for them to be pirates and loot. The game is more for them than for you and in the end if everyone is having fun that is what the game is about.

The other idea is to turn the encounters towards your plot ideas. If the players are not offering anything they want to see you should develop what you think and see if they go for it. Have their ship crash due to the whim of the gods and the island they are on has encounters set towards that goal. Have the ship get teleported to the underdark for some underworld sea adventures with drow merchants and pirates of their own. Drow privateers may be on the good side and help send them on another quest towards your plot goals.

 

[the Jester]

I suggest you go with the flow and let go of the idea of telling a story through the game. Wait until it's over and then tell the story of what happened instead.

If you let plot hooks develop in the background when the pcs pass them up, events will write themselves. But if you try to force the game along a chosen path you are very likely to end up dissatisfied.

 

[Cute-Hydra]

The problem is that you have multiple themes which makes it tricky to plot them together not just with piracy/religion but on the religious note you have

Eladrin & Drow concerned with redeeming drow

Dragonborn alone with tiemat/bahamut

I think you need to have a way of ending the piracy theme because it won't last that long. You will run out of ways of making it new each time as there are
only so many piracy plots you can use and keep it fun.

My chosen link between the two would be:

PC's arrive on an island or other land which is run/occupied by an outpost of exiled drow whom worship Elistraee. The PC's initially get on fairly well, and they explain that they are being attacked by a chromatic/metal dragon (depending on which is opposed by Bahamat or Tiamat depending on which one dragonborn chose). The PC's after they have dealt with the dragon are told that a relic is vital for the redemption of the drow, and wihtout it Lolths corruption will weaken and eventually kill them. Including the PC drow. The P's then go on a long quest to recover it.

I would suggest giving the PC's a goal which you have already but make it rewarded with XP, religious based relics, new utility powers anything you like. But, this allows you to make sure the players stay on track of their objectives while not railroading them. Although my themes might be too linear. Different DM's have different methods.

Hope to have been of some help,
Cute-Hydra

 

[garrowolf]

Have some plots going on in the background that explain what is happening in the world. Then let the players go in the direction they want to go. If you want someone to care about a plot you have to make it tied to the character some how.
For instance, if you want a game about politics then you have to have one of the players royalty and in trouble because of the politics.
PCs will almost never do something because it is a nice thing to do. They will do it out of self interest to escape their normal lives. Most of the time they won't want to do "good" things because they are boring or involve self sacrifice. Now if they are involved in something chasing them or they have to clear their name in order to keep from getting killed then that is a different story.
There is a big difference in having a "stick" in a game and railroading. A lot of GMs don't know the difference. Railroading is trying to get them to follow a plot. What you need to do is stop thinking in terms of a plot. Have some NPCs with goals and have some of those goals drive them right through the PCs. Have a setting with events and not a plot and let your PCs wander around in it on their own. GMs want their games to follow a line and it always causes problems as far as I'm concerned.
Just think in terms of logical consequences of actions and most of the time the PCs will generate your story for you.

 

[Cor_Malek]

As an inspiration, I recommend Firefly series

 

[Goonalan]

To be honest at Heroic level it's about letting the PCs find out who they are, even when I design what I think are brilliant plot points, individual character arcs et al that fit in with their background stories... Well much of it gets missed, or 'oh yeah- what's next...'

Generally it takes till about Level 7-10 before the PCs start to go back and ask what have I done about them reclaiming their lost throne/empire etc. Even then some of the players (due to time issues mostly) just want to turn up for the session and smash things, they're like 'meh, turns out I'm some sorta portal key-thingy scion of the gods, to be honest I can't be arsed with it- pass me my axe."

So don't fret.

Personally I'd go for a limited number of special effect cut scenes that blow the players minds, or a bit of personal story sections.

Have every creature they kill in some spectacular combat get back up. maybe during the short rest (or whenever), point at one PC and say something arcane, twisty and semi-terrifying. If you can do it then ham it up, act it out- scream at the PCs in gibberish- make a big deal of it.

Then one of the dead guys spits a locket out of his mouth inside of which is... a picture, a map, a... whatever.

If they don't go for that then design an encounter that is so over their heads that... well kill a few of them and then have whoever the avatar of whatever god is and lay waste to the bad guys- say something arcane but a bit easier to understand-

"There can be only one."

"Remember- 'the eye of the tiger'"

Or just bow before one of the PCs and then fade away, after resurrecting/healing the fallen.

What I'm trying to say is make it known they're special (different), don't do yards of plot just a few WoW Special Effect cut scenes, or even mid encounter.

When they get to Paragon see if they've decided get on board.

Until then Pirates, with the odd strange event.

Example my PCs bust into a Dwarf Creation Forge- slightly smash and grab, the first encounter is with a bunch of Dwarves that all look a bit like one of the PCs- they smash them up and they turn out to be mechanical devices.

In further encounters leader types scream when they see the same PC, and do their damndest to kill him. he gets all the attacks.

PC's name is ROCK, he's a Dwarf.

They later discover the head Dwarf here was a guy called Creator Klum.

After more of these encounters which just weird out the PCs and the player inparticular they discover a chamber and need to research how to turn of the creation forge, mid search they find a secret report about project 'R0', which was headed up by Creator Klum.

The front cover of the report is headed R0, next to it the initials CK.

The PC is a mechanoid- actually Dwarforged is the name I decided upon.

The player has no idea if he is or he isn't, and he's not keen to fully investigate, particularly as along the way they have encountered more advanced versions that are combination of man-and-machine.

The character is motivated to find out, now bolt to overarching Plot and continue. Repeat for other characters.

A little later they of course find project R1, initialled CK.

ROCK has a brother.

I try to play it that every PC gets a bit of this before level 10, I try to work with the PCs one-to-one, but sometimes like with ROCK above I just spring it on them. Now ROCK doesn't have to be Dwarforged, he could turn out to be rather the son of Creator Klum, the initial model for the Dwarforged- it does however make the PC think that his guy is special/different, and has a story.

Cheers

 

[Sergeytov]

As someone who seems liable to have a similar group (mostly due to age/maturity differences), I've been pondering this one myself.

Any ideas on what your players want to do in a game? They may be escapist players wanting to feel awesome causing havoc and having wacky adventures, from how it sounds. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

You could just as easily have them go after some buried pirate treasure with a religious relic or two, or raid a ship ran by a religious operation to try and give them a back door into your ideas.

My instinct on this is to do it gradually and gauge their reaction. Maybe a noteworthy holy symbol is found in some treasure they stumble upon and has roleplaying consequences down the line, or maybe they find some important scroll that one of the divine factions wants back (which could be used as a great opportunity to get the Dragonborn to choose between Tiamat and Bahamut via action - giving it back to whoever wants it, or not- , rather than a mere declaration).

Is your group even into roleplaying that much? If not, you may have to try and introduce that slowly as well.

 

[wargear]

My intended story: The Gods are at war. Hints have been dropped in the first four levels of play as you'll see below, but the characters have not committed to the action. I want the characters to achieve greatness as they progress in this game. First they might run their own base, then a kingdom, and so on. By the end of the campaign, I want them to fight and overthrow the gods, and take their places alongside the gods themselves.

First four levels are really just about survival. One third of 1st level parties bite off more than they can chew and are either wiped or lose enough members that the replacements completely change the character of the team.

In other words, you worry too much. Give them time.

As for your game plan, why change it. They want to play pirates, let them be pirate kings. Let them seize a small pirate settlement, build a fleet, conquer the seas, force tribute from the other seagoing or dwelling races.

Let them step up to overthrow the sea gods. Take a look at the plot in Pirates of the Carribean. Calypso, goddess of the sea, is bound to the will of the pirate lords in order to "tame" the seas and allow sea travel for all.

I suggest you back off from the original gods, and have the various sea gods turn on them, subtly at first, then with more direct intent. Minor acts by natural sea creatures, escalating priestly intervention, poor weather, more powerful critters, powerful otherworldly agents, culminating with direct avatar involvement by the gods. If they are like most Players I know, they will get their backs up and resist you trying to beach them and consolidate their sea-going activity.

I don't have a text handy, but there are a rediculous number of seagods. I don't think the God of Gods will object to them being consolidated a little.

To sum up...run the same campaign plan, but change it to a sea/pirate setting.