Unengaged Players

[Zelda Themelin]

You might have ended up with wrong type of players for you. Ones that are used to different style of playing, of just prefer it. There are some good advice in this thread, but I and something.

I don't personally like games where I as player have to come up with plots. I have really bad experiences with dm:s who like me to do that, and then response uninterest4ed or twist my ideas into something that doesn't really intrest me at all.

I actually prefer some railroading. Or rather, I prefer plot and events and theme. Not pre-written what playres do, but how rest of the world is likely to tick unless interacted to change it.

I might like more freedom to just do whatever I want with responsive world, if responses weren't so damn buggy. That kinda worked better when I played still Runequest and Grorantha at brink of herowars. Which was theme that kinda spawned adventures.

Maybe try to run those players some dungeoncrawly module. Or create some adventure event that jumps on them. Very often players new to their characters/dm/world aren't that active (expect for certain style of playrs). Maybe they need some leading from noses until they pick up the pace. But if your players are into mundane playing and turtling you are in trouble. Those are worst kinda anti-adventure style players.

Hope you got some ideas.

 

[Argyle King]

I've found that (sometimes) changing a small detail can get more of a reaction than changing a big detail or throwing out something massive. For example, if the players have a shop they normally go to, have the shop be closed. Have the alternative be a different shop where maybe the prices or equipment isn't as good. If they ask questions around town, maybe have word around town be that the owner of the first shop has taken time off due to his wife/son/whatever being very ill. Local sages can't figure out what's wrong with the person.

That's a pretty crappy example, but I hopefully got the idea across. It usually works best when the NPC involved is liked by the players. It doesn't need to be anything overly dramatic; maybe he just has a friendly attitude or occasionally offers the PCs a special due to being regular customers. They then have a choice: engage the world by gaining back an asset or engage the world by shopping somewhere else.

 

[Quickleaf]

You could try beating them. I prefer a nine iron as it has good heft and leverage without being too weighty. Otherwise, do what Crothian says and get back to us.

Really Kzach? Personally I would go for the putter - smooth glide and sweet impact - but different strokes and all that.

I have talked to them, and they like how the game is working, and like I said, I don't mind railroading them if that's what they want. It's just to the point where I'm getting so little to work with that it's really taxing my ability to prepare for our sessions because I don't have anything to build from. I'm just looking for ways to at least try to encourage some decision making from my players so that I don't have to make all of the important decisions for the party and I can have a foundation for planning subsequent sessions.

Can you give us an example of this lack of engagement that's currently coming up in your game?

Could be your group is better suited to Adventure Path style play. Could be they are just shy. Could be alot of things. Without more info it's impossible to say.

 

[DaveMage]

I have talked to them, and they like how the game is working, and like I said, I don't mind railroading them if that's what they want. It's just to the point where I'm getting so little to work with that it's really taxing my ability to prepare for our sessions because I don't have anything to build from. I'm just looking for ways to at least try to encourage some decision making from my players so that I don't have to make all of the important decisions for the party and I can have a foundation for planning subsequent sessions.

Then you may want to introduce an NPC to nudge them on.

For example, if they are explorers, introduce a sponsor that sends them places. Perhaps have a leader of the divine caster's church appear to give them a clue or send them on their way.

And, there's always a "vision" or dream that a character can experience.

Good luck!

 

[Rune]

I touch on the following points in this thread (and more), but Ill address these problems specifically:

The problem is that they don't do anything, regardless of how I try to get them to make decisions or take actions. I'm having to come up with not only new stuff for them to do every week, but also motivations for their characters. I started out trying not to railroad them, but they seem to be forcing me into it. I would say that it's what the players seem to want and just go with it, but it's really taxing my time and creativity to do this week after week.

I suggest that you do not start railroading this group, if you can help it; this would only create a dependency that you are unlikely to get away from later. Instead, get a box and some index cards. Write a bunch of hooks on index cards. Throw the hooks at the PCs (don't throw the cards at the players--that won't help). Lots and lots of hooks.

Every time the players don't bite on a hook, make a note on the appropriate index card and put back in the box. Later, when you're pulling hooks out of the box to throw at the PCs, this one may come up again. If so, have the hook come looking for them, as a result of their ignoring it the first time.

In this way, you will be hooking the players through the consequences of their indecision, rather than through heavy-handed rail-roading.

I've seen some suggestions such as bonus experience for player created content, and I think I'll give that a try.

I have had great success with rewarding players for such measures, but I highly recommend that you do not use experience as a reward currency. This will create an imbalance of levels at the game table (possibly quite significantly) that will only make your job harder, not easier.

Some sort of fate-altering points are a much better mechanic (such as Paizo's Plot-Twist Cards, or Trailblazer's Action-Points. My players love the plot-twist cards.). This would actually decrease the burden on you, because you don't have to worry as much about TPKs, or the like.

I've also got a player interested in being the DM for a session or two, and a friend who isn't playing but wants to write some material for the game, so that will help.

One of your unengaged players wants to DM? Is that why s/he is unengaged?

What I want to know is if anybody in the community has any suggestions for getting my players a bit more...invested, I guess...in the game. I want to get them to make decisions and take actions, especially ones that aren't explicitly outlined in the game mechanics. So if anybody has any ideas for providing some incentive for these things, I'm all ears.

I'll suggest another currency. Let's call them Awesome Points. Every time a player has a cool idea, give them a token. At the end of the session, whoever has the most Awesome Points, gets a fate (karma, plot-twist, action, or whatever you're calling them) point as described above. It shouldn't take long before the players are trying to outdo each other in coming up with cool ideas.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I have had lots of fun talking with players out-of-game about what the character wants to do. I do this one-on-one so I get feedback from each individual player. It might be creating some backdrop for the current story and so on. A sort of collaborative story creation.

This means that some of the background story is tied directly to the characters and they can help you get the campaign on tracks, without YOU rail-roading it, since it will be the player who does it for you, through his/her character.

This way, you don't have to come up with everything yourself and you get players that get really involved in the story.

Personally, some of the most fun RPG-moments I have had have been out-of-game like this, making up fun stories and not being constrained by the game system or rules in any way.

 

[mazzoli]

Thanks for the outpouring of advice. I'll address a couple of specific points now.

Johnny3D3D: I wish I could just get my players to decide to go to a shop. If I can convince them to decide to do that kind of stuff, then that's a pretty good idea to shake things up.

DaveMage: They do have a sponsor. I'd intended him to be something of an adviser but he's become the lead decision maker. I'm thinking I'm going to have to get him out of the picture for a little bit to try to encourage some decisive action from the party.

Rune: All good suggestions. I level with a milestone system, so it would essentially be party-wide bonus experience, but the fate point mechanic also sounds like an interesting idea. The player who wants to DM is fairly new to RPGs and wants to experience the other side of the screen (I actually don't set my screen up, but you know what I mean). He's working on writing up an adventure and wants me to help him with encounter balancing, and isn't interested in the job long term so I don't think that's the problem.

Quickleaf: I suppose I should give an example.

A recent session was supposed to be very to the point. I had some new players joining the group and one of the older players had retired their old character and was bringing in a new character due to new party dynamics, so I needed to get the new characters into the party.

Partly because of this situation and partly because I've found that it's the only way to get the party to sometimes move along, I gave them one singular hook. The players understood that this was going to be the case and were fine with me not really even giving them the semblance of choice for this session. I didn't want to really force their hands quite that much, so I phrased this hook as a from the captain of the ship they were going to be hiring and let them have a bit of free reign as to when and how they'd work on it.

Regardless, the outline was clear: go to a specific place and pick up a specific item for the trip. I asked the group what they wanted to do.The players didn't immediately set off on the assigned mission, they didn't waste time in town, they didn't even sit around carousing in the common room they started in. They just sat there and stared at me.

Eventually I ventured a suggestion or two. No commitment. I finally just had to tell them that they set off down the road to the farm they were supposed to head toward. Once they got there they went through everything just fine.

Basically I can't get them to roleplay anything that might have consequences. They have no issues with roleplaying their characters' interactions with each other, but once they might have an effect on anything they shut down. Basically they wait for me to shuffle their characters between each piece of action that they expect me to have prepared for them.

I have no issues with preparing memorable preplanned adventures for them, I just want them to put some effort into the in-between times.

/rant with apologies for the length.

 

[DaveMage]

The only suggestions I have left would be either some sort of emotional issue for the PCs (for example, make the bad guy someone who personally hurt their character's family or friend or something like that) or making them choose a party leader and then you simply ask the leader what they are going to do.

Sometimes emotional motivation can spur players on to decision making. Also, the process of picking a leader might help them as well.

If those don't work, I got nothin'.

 

[ggroy]

A few years ago I was DMing a 4E D&D game, where something similar to the OP post happened.

It turned out the players didn't know what to do in a sandbox. (It was in the 4E post-spellplague Forgotten Realms). So they just went around Waterdeep getting into barfights and beating up random NPCs on the street. The game became rudderless.

In the end, I ended up resigning the DM chair.

One of the other players became the DM, where we played through the 4E "Thunderspire Labyrinth" module. Later I found out the players actually preferred playing through a module, instead of a sandbox.

 

[Memnoch3434]

Since the players are so concerned about consequences in the long term for the world I thought up a quick scenario that would maybe help.

Have the players encounter some sort of "sleeper" that has a secret in their head and some sorc/wiz/cleric what have you asks them to go inside the "sleeper"s head and get it out. Make this a long enough encounter to take a session or two and involve towns and cities inside the person's head. This world can be interacted in without consequences and make sure they know this. If they don't interact with the non-consequential world than you know the issue is not a fear of interaction. If they do interact inside this world then you can have all the craziness you want. If you feel like they seem to be doing better with this world maybe the big secret they are pulling from the dream is a whole forgotten town. Which makes some of their interactions then matter, or if they didn't interact in a positive way you can show them that even negative interactions don't always have an effect.

I don't want to kill your game but another possibility might be to make them investigate something, or give them a hook of some deep conspiracy. Maybe you could even make the consipracy the death of this sponsor they have. Then for whatever reason he shows up again in a shady way claiming what they saw was an illusion. Maybe he got replaced by a doppleganger or something more sinister. If you make the hook interesting enough I feel that they will have to roleplay and interact with the NPCs. Maybe some of these NPCs come back later on with more/other hooks.