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Message: <blockquote data-quote="[OMENRPG]Ben" data-source="post: 5899013" data-attributes="member: 6677983">There is a lot of sound advice here, and much of what I think is cautious and wise has already been said.But, I had a group like this. And the way that I fixed it was all in one session.I sat there and stared at them for about 2 minutes. Once everyone was sufficiently awkwardly put into silence, I asked them "What do you do."After the first person spoke, I looked at the person to his right until he did the same. I did that for everyone in a circle, and didn't describe anything at all until they all said what they wanted to do.I then described as best as possible in simultaneous detail what I could to each player individually and tried to combine it and harmonize it as best as possible. All of the players that normally were checked out were very intrigued by this as I normally am very verbose as a GM and sort of seize any opportunity I can for each character.I kept just asking people what each character was thinking, doing, and I tried to keep as much of it "in character" as possible. If the party met a noble, the noble or his guard captain or his pedantic son would ask someone quiet and typically less engaged out of character a question.After a few sessions of people going "Huh?" and me replying in character with outrage or cynical humor people were pretty much invested at that point.One of the other things I think is important is to define some short term goals by challenging the characters and some organizations/causes that they care about.For example, my "for fun" game that is going on right now is a Star Wars Saga game. One of the players (a Jedi) is typically a very shy guy out of character. This somewhat suits a Jedi padawan as he is generally relegated to a less authoritative zone, but consistently his morals and the Jedi are challenged as a whole. He learns consistently about people questioning the Jedi's authority or begging for his assistance wherever he goes. Being a Jedi, he usually feels morally compelled to assist in whichever way he can without compromising his major goals (which currently is discovering a lost Jedi and her padawan.)My point is that you can do it the group collaborative out of character way, which is great, or you can just giving them a proverbial smack in their character's faces and try to engage them that way. One of my proudest moments as a GM was a few years ago when I spent an entire eight hour session in which the party all simply talked in character and asked me questions about how they could do about things or what their character could understand (and make a few rolls) but I never had to poke them to do something. After a while I just sat there quietly watching them enjoy their characters. I think that this is right at the core element of character investment (it took them nearly a year of my campaign to get to this level, so don't get discouraged) and something that might help your game.I hope some of this ramble was helpful.</blockquote>

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