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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spinozajack" data-source="post: 6649162" data-attributes="member: 6794198">Indeed, good point. The DM does exert substantial ability to weave events to allow each character, and player, to shine at various moments. If you pass the ball to a fellow gamer (either as a DM or as another player), they should grab it and run with it, or at least pass it on. That's what teamwork is, benefiting from each personality at the table and hopefully everyone having fun. Sometimes to let the shy guy have some limelight the DM does have to step in and ask say the NPC speaks to him directly and to respond. This doesn't need to happen often, but it should happen enough so that each PC has if not a memorable character, at least having said something using his words and not his powers. But in the end it's still the responsibility of the player who's passed the ball to grab it and make his play. If I throw the ball to the next player, and he just stands there and lets it fly by, that shows a kind of unwillingness to play the actual game, which is a social one. Watching over people being sociable can help you learn or be at ease with yourself, and it often does, but after a while if you don't get out of your shell, that does get a little tiresome for other people to be around. I personally tend to vary between introversion and extroversion at opposite extremes, so I understand the lack of will to speak up (especially if you have nothing to say or nothing to add), but gaming is the time when I want to interact, and if you don't even want to do that while gaming, then forget it, it's never happening. If you don't want to interact at a game table, you're not really participating in the game. Nobody should be a bench warmer in D&D, at least not all the time. If you don't want to step up to the plate, play a game where you do want to. This is a social game, you need to speak to play. Everyone has their turn in combat, but out of combat or during social scenarios, DMs should make sure every player has a turn to speak, or at least contribute to the non-combat pillars.There are far better games out there to play than D&D if all you want is the wargaming experience. D&D might have started out as wargaming + social mixed in, but roleplaying inherently has socialisation as not only an assumption but a core requirement. You can't play a social game while rewarding unsocial or anti-social player behavior with experience points and levels. That's only going to make things worse.</blockquote>

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