Communicational lethargy; how to deal with it?

[hymer]

The players are designing their characters for the coming campaign, using an online forum to coordinate their efforts. One of them asks "Has anyone got [ill-defined group of skills] covered?" Okay, not the best way to start, but still, seems relatively straightforward. Then the answer ticks in: "More or less."
The conversation grinds to a halt. Nobody knows what to make of this strange conversation, which seems to be saying little. Had the initial question been "I want to do this, any objections?" then the lethargy would have worked in his favour. If the answer had been "I'll be putting [effort/points] into [specific skills]." then the conversation would have served its purpose, coordination would have happened.

My questions to you good playgrounders are:

1: Do you have these kinds of problems getting your players to communicate, or am I all alone in this?

2: Is there some concrete advice on how I can get these people talking to each other? Preferably without insulting their communication skills or requiring me to keep pushing every three posts.

3: Am I just wrong in thinking that things like the example is counterproductive?

Please talk to me, and tell me everything's going to be allright.

Edit: Meant to put this thread in general RP, but it's ok. The game in question is 3.5

[Angelmaker]

Ironic that a post on communicational lethargy should go unanswered.

Here is the situation I was in: DM, asked evrey player to send in character concepts, not details, in per mail. Worked. ROUGHLY. 3 of 6 waited till the last day.

Played a few sessions, basically because the host answered the mails and everbody, without replying, always just tagged along. Asking if anything is wrong, or if they wanted me to do anything else, no replies came. In the end, they wanted to coordinate via whatsapp, even thoughm2 had no whatsapp. So I agreed on the premise, that they coordinate the other 2 players on phone and gave me the meeting details via whatsapp.

Did... Not... Work... Even... Once. Group died.

Before that I had a year long running campaign,p with biweekly meetings. The last nine months basically just happened because I always made a date and had to assume everyone would be there... Worked, miraculously. :smallfrown:

Advise: if you want to pull this through, you need steel in you will to see it through till the better end, and you need to be the one outstanding anc clear in its communications. A group can be fixed during meetings, even thounit costs times and nerves. But you cannot make people care about a game if they don't want to. Have a few meetings and ask them if they are invested in this at all. If not, don't pursue it. It is not worth the trouble.

[hymer]

The irony isn't lost on me, but better late than never! :smallbiggrin:

Thanks for the stories and the advice.

[Kol Korran]

It all depends on the type of people you have in your group, how sociable they are, how much do they know each other, and how communicative they are. With new groups it's usually more awkward, and it falls unto the DM to coordination the group till (and IF) they fall together.

I find it useful to set an example while DMing, and set exact and clear questions when communicating with the PCs. most of my players do the same, but 1-2 of them are usually not that communicative, or don't pay close attention to the game and so on. It's a bit frustrating, but I've come to accept it and work around it, just asking them directly and specifically. Not ideal, but it works.

There are no exact answers to the questions in the OP as these depends heavily on the individuals in the group, and the dynamics between them. It is a sociable game, and it suffers from all the little problems social situations can come with. Good luck! :smallsmile:

[hymer]

You're right, of course, and thanks. The individuals in question have known (of) each other since the equivalent of highschool, and they have a long history of communicating poorly, particularly with each other. Many was the time when I've been listening to one complaining about the other's communication via text.