mazzoli
First Post
This might be the best suggestion yet. Well played.
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Unengaged Players
- Thread starter mazzoli
- Start date
This might be the best suggestion yet. Well played.
Zelda Themelin
First Post
Maybe the fact you like to do high fantasy stuff is part of problem. I think your players like it too, but it's harder to connect. Most dm's are ok when players got mundane ideas. But I've seen many times how confusing new gm:s become when I become player, got bored, and start telling my own ideas what to do, or what could be happening. I love to start telling ideas like: "I heard a story when I was kid, that demon lord was once bound under this very city and once in 200 years seals must be re-casted or it started to corrupt area and eventually possess people and then become free again. Hey let's find out if that's real." And dm is I can hear him thinking "no way, nothing I will had in mind, so you... uh find nothing... but I guess I don't want to ruin feeling so I will come up with something to stop the investigation": I do that almost always when dm dares to try to run mundane game for me. Those are ok, if I they are movie-like, fast-paced, but if not, my high-fantasy ideas start to pop there thourgh character because I prefer telling interesting in-game myth instead of listening boring stuff dm happens to come by.
So your playrs might lack such a bad habbit, but they might still think "shopping is boring, hanging at in is boring, we don't want to play boring, we want to go directly where adventure is happening." And since adventure is so high-themed, and there is no logical connection where it could happen, be meant for characters they wait you to pull them there. Since quite aperantly they know that stuff is hard to come by and don't want to ruin the good thing by doing something you didn't have in mind.
GSHamster gives good simple choice example. Try things like "you can go through land but trip is longer and some wildlife dangerous" or "you can take journey on ship, which is shorter".
Some players really like kinda social party freedom, but prefer rest of it just be adventure events, where unrelated things are faded into black.
I personally don't like so called sandbox-games (annoying name too). This is problem of dm:s too, and the fact that those often are low-fantasy-type campaings which I don't find usually interesting. If I want to play no-fantasy I rather play some modern agent game or something. I do like "fake-low-fantasy-worlds" aka most of populance things such and such don't exist but that's not how characters life unfolds.
If you actually want to embrace their ideas for adventure hooks tell them so. They might also come from camp where their last dm was highly abusive of any infomation given about friends and family. Clue to this is they don't mention family and seem to only hang with other Pc:s. If it hasn't come up you can always ask if their parents/sisters are known/stil alive.
If you want to save some work take module written by someone else, and change what you like in it freely. Or watch some tv showns. Good oldie outer limits gives be great ideas for fantasy games too. Or read some superhere comics, and steal plots from there, maybe with little downgrading depending. Lyrics of some songs are good for inspiration. Read short stories. Actually non-fantasy content IMO works better for fantasy ideas. Mainly because fantay is often bit so-and-so-written more often than it's not.
If you are feeling they are draining your inspiration empty use these other sources to get ideas. And use some helpful things you can find net to make creating stat-blocks easier. Use helpful quest-tagged npcs to bring their drama to pc:s. Avoid "hard" and "moral" choices. I have too playrs in my group that hate making them. They don't mind being pulled there they just don't want to be blaimed for making "bad choice" with "sad conciquences":
Take notice when those "showstoppers" happen. And how playrs react when challenged to do something, is it just confusion or is there signs of discomfort.
And if you end up feeling too drained by these playrs tell them something must change long before you have your burnout. And if that doesn't work either change into more dm-controlled game style or find playrs that are less shy about thinking up things to do. If you start to feel disintrest and even situations where they are active aren't that fun, don't continue to that direction. However if you like dm:ing game otherwise and are enjoying yourself too fast forward those moments in game where it could just stop.
Some people enjoy playing games with lot of freedom, some need rails and quest markers. Sometimes people only learn to fight for freedom when they are loosing it. Railroad away. Maybe they start getting more ideas what to do instead. If not that's how it works for them best.
I also know these things are somethings hard to discuss since same people who go "um, dunno" ingame, tend to do same when asked "how you like it" questions. Also, they might mislead you. I play with one person who really dislike social arguments and avoids them. I am not really hearing any negatives from her, expect in form of some really indirect notices. So if you have been trying to talk with your players about it and it hasn't helped this might be reason. They might also be shy about their ideas, and fear they are not cool/intesting enough for other players. Fear of being judged etc. It might not even be game related, it might be family or work-place related. Some stressed people don't really want to play "hard" games, they want to get to part where cool stuff happens as little effort as possible. Maybe they are bit shy. Reasons are many but don't whip yourself over it too much. Just ask yourself now are you going to be happy running game to these people even if they don't change?
So your playrs might lack such a bad habbit, but they might still think "shopping is boring, hanging at in is boring, we don't want to play boring, we want to go directly where adventure is happening." And since adventure is so high-themed, and there is no logical connection where it could happen, be meant for characters they wait you to pull them there. Since quite aperantly they know that stuff is hard to come by and don't want to ruin the good thing by doing something you didn't have in mind.
GSHamster gives good simple choice example. Try things like "you can go through land but trip is longer and some wildlife dangerous" or "you can take journey on ship, which is shorter".
Some players really like kinda social party freedom, but prefer rest of it just be adventure events, where unrelated things are faded into black.
I personally don't like so called sandbox-games (annoying name too). This is problem of dm:s too, and the fact that those often are low-fantasy-type campaings which I don't find usually interesting. If I want to play no-fantasy I rather play some modern agent game or something. I do like "fake-low-fantasy-worlds" aka most of populance things such and such don't exist but that's not how characters life unfolds.
If you actually want to embrace their ideas for adventure hooks tell them so. They might also come from camp where their last dm was highly abusive of any infomation given about friends and family. Clue to this is they don't mention family and seem to only hang with other Pc:s. If it hasn't come up you can always ask if their parents/sisters are known/stil alive.
If you want to save some work take module written by someone else, and change what you like in it freely. Or watch some tv showns. Good oldie outer limits gives be great ideas for fantasy games too. Or read some superhere comics, and steal plots from there, maybe with little downgrading depending. Lyrics of some songs are good for inspiration. Read short stories. Actually non-fantasy content IMO works better for fantasy ideas. Mainly because fantay is often bit so-and-so-written more often than it's not.
If you are feeling they are draining your inspiration empty use these other sources to get ideas. And use some helpful things you can find net to make creating stat-blocks easier. Use helpful quest-tagged npcs to bring their drama to pc:s. Avoid "hard" and "moral" choices. I have too playrs in my group that hate making them. They don't mind being pulled there they just don't want to be blaimed for making "bad choice" with "sad conciquences":
Take notice when those "showstoppers" happen. And how playrs react when challenged to do something, is it just confusion or is there signs of discomfort.
And if you end up feeling too drained by these playrs tell them something must change long before you have your burnout. And if that doesn't work either change into more dm-controlled game style or find playrs that are less shy about thinking up things to do. If you start to feel disintrest and even situations where they are active aren't that fun, don't continue to that direction. However if you like dm:ing game otherwise and are enjoying yourself too fast forward those moments in game where it could just stop.
Some people enjoy playing games with lot of freedom, some need rails and quest markers. Sometimes people only learn to fight for freedom when they are loosing it. Railroad away. Maybe they start getting more ideas what to do instead. If not that's how it works for them best.
I also know these things are somethings hard to discuss since same people who go "um, dunno" ingame, tend to do same when asked "how you like it" questions. Also, they might mislead you. I play with one person who really dislike social arguments and avoids them. I am not really hearing any negatives from her, expect in form of some really indirect notices. So if you have been trying to talk with your players about it and it hasn't helped this might be reason. They might also be shy about their ideas, and fear they are not cool/intesting enough for other players. Fear of being judged etc. It might not even be game related, it might be family or work-place related. Some stressed people don't really want to play "hard" games, they want to get to part where cool stuff happens as little effort as possible. Maybe they are bit shy. Reasons are many but don't whip yourself over it too much. Just ask yourself now are you going to be happy running game to these people even if they don't change?
Zelda Themelin
First Post
Also very passive-agressive thing to do. I personally wouldn't do that, since I did couple of times and it backfired badly. Most people I know would see that kinda erkish behavior.
It also might work, some people are kinda sleepwalking/were distracted when they game. "Lighting bolt hits you and you die." "Uuu". "You die." "What?" "You are dead." "Huhm, uh?" "You died." "Huh, wait, what, when, was I critted? Hey I still have 20 hp left".
