my story
Man, I feel for you. I actually had almost the same problem (sounds as if you were playing with my group). Perhaps by telling you what happened to me I can alleviate your frustration a little, or at least show sympathy. Anyway, here goes...
I had been running a AD&D game for a few years with a group of 7 players. This group was mostly hell. All attempts at drama and background were just lost with those arguing about who got which magic item, the guy who slept on the couch and the guy who constantly ogled our two female players.
Then third edition came out, and I took the chance to disband the group.
I reassembled the first group I ever played with, 3 players and very good friends in addition to a somewhat new guy we'd only known for about two years.
We started in the Realms, and because I wanted to run a game asap not all players had a Player's Handbook (they were waiting for the German translation). I cut them slack on knowing rules and such.
I had planned a great campaign centering on an evil cleric who ruled over a fairly important town. In the course of the campaign, the players were thought to free the town, and while each came to grips with their own problems and quests, finally defeating the cleric.
In the second session, the players were captured. When I took the chance to have them meet the cleric, they made fun of him - constantly. After warning them in game and then out-of-game of possible consequences, the cleric killed one especially vocal player - who then accused me of DM bias.
My fearful antagonist had become a point of ridicule and DM-directed anger.
Fine. I didn't care, I could adapt, the point was having fun in making my players have fun.
Time went on, and I realized that the players were neither too interested in my story nor in getting to know the rules. One player showed up so inconsistently that I looked for a replacement and found one who quite exactly matched my expectations.
In order to renew the players' interest I took steps to bring the campaign to them. I used their backstories even more than before, I gave one player an affliction - he held one fourth of a great demon in him, which he could call forth but risking possession and finally total loss of personality. What possibilities for role-playing I foresaw when the player would tell the others what exactly had happened, when they went to find the others and banish the demon for good - or unleash him again, when one of their favorite NPCs joined them, when they traveled to a far-away jungle island to anoint another player with the grace of the snake queen, when one player's past caught up with him and he was pursued by a league of assassins, when the last player finally got a clue to the location of a mythical smithy where he would forge his own, ultimate weapon... man, I get excited when I start to think about it again.
But nothing. There was no reaction, my players just accepted every level of creativity I threw at them as almost satisfying their expectations while constantly whining about the rules as DM bias.
Then, one player made a new character - a drow - and accused me of being unfair when I had elves react hatefully towards him and attack him - of which I warned him before.
I was so fed up that I introduced the deck of fates and officially crashed my campaign with it.
But these were my friends. How could I tell them that I was so disappointed with their style of play? How could I critisize them without them taking it personally - especially the real problem player? I didn't think I could.
Then, I read something about Kalamar. It all sounded great, a new breeze, a world that was so much more my world than FR was. I bought the setting and loved it. I asked my group whether they wanted to playtest the Player's Guide, and we did. New expections, fun, excitement all around.
They all played humans, and one elf. Standard classes. Which was, of course, great for playtesting. Not.
Anyway, I thought, then I'll have my NPCs with new clases et al. Doesn't matter, as long as I have fun again.
The plot involved bringing back a scoundrel who had impregnated one of the PC's sisters. When they arrived in town, said scoundrel had been caught entering an evil temple and was held to be executed by said clergy. The players didn't know, of course, that the scoundrel was an agent for a good organisation one player wanted to get into, that strove for freedom and against slavery.
They forgot about the scoundrel. Anything would have been fine, but not that. One player remembered him and tried to save him. I threw a LOT of encouragement into the ring, but he decided in the end he wouldn not risk his character's life for a thief. Fine. It was in character, and all right.
But the player whose sister was pregnant used the whole week they had before the execution to craft a masterwork emerald for his psi-stone! The other players didn't care and had fun wrecking all relations I tried to built up between them and any NPC that came around.
The players didn't even use the new feats or powers from the Player's Guide - in my opinion, they never even read one page of it! (Perhaps one, but no more than one tenth of the book). They didn't give me their opinions on the book, or the game, so I took all of their off-hand comments, the results from game play, and from my own intensive check-up to write in as playtester comments. I had an obligation to Kenzer, and I tried to fulfill it (and I think I did, even though my group had almost no part in it except as the rocks I threw my creations on to see if they would break).
They didn't know the rules, no matter how often I told them. They weren't interested in the plot, or the detail I was putting into the game, all my work. They were interested in a friendly get-together. (All except one player, the earlier replacement, that is. He was fine.)
We even had the move-full attack-problem you mentioned, too.
And being my friends, I was hesistant to tell them all my worries that meanwhile were full-blown frustrations. I wouldn't have been able anymore to quietly state my gripes, it would have been accusatory in tone at least. So I just quit.
That was one year ago.
A short while later, I started DMing a totally different game, Trinity from WhiteWolf. Psionics, SciFi, different rules. It was a break from D&D without a break from gaming. I played with a new group, and we are all a little shaky on the rules, which is fine, as the game is not nearly as rules-heavy as D&D is. It's neither the best game nor the best campaign ever, but I can confidently say we're all having fun.
Eventually, I played in a D&D campaign with "the replacement" and two other nearly burntout DMs. It was a revelation. The group was - and continues to be - nearly perfect in what I expect from gaming, and working together (another venue where my former group lacked). We are having so much fun it hurts. We meet ~every two weeks and game 7 hours, and it's great.
I recently bought AU and feel relaxed enought to start a new campaign in the DT setting alternating with the other two DMs FR/Ravenloft campaign (one DMs FR the other Ravenloft, but with the same PCs).
I'm back!
As to the rest of the group, one is out of sight, the other two I see not as regularly as when we were still gaming, but we are still friends, and two weeks ago I attended one's wedding. They are still trying to get me to DM for them again, but without explicitly stating the reasons, I remain adamant.
) of gaming moot. Well I guess I'm going to do that anyway if I kill the game...
