How do i make party members care about eachothers struggles/problems

[iPotatis]

Yo so im planning a campaign and the idea is to have the party go on a quest set up by a merchant and after that quest is over id like to connect one of the party members personal story to it in some way.
Now i might be overthinking this but realisticlly, if one of the members dont know the rest of the party too well they have no reason to help this person seeing as that person prolly cant make it worth his/her while in gold or any other rewards.
he/she would only be helping a random person out of the goodness of her heart.
And yeah i know the party could be become best friends during the merchant quest i just dont want anyone to feel like their character has to do anything that they realisticlly wouldnt do.
So far i have an idea but its a bit dickish seeing as itll be ''forced'' behind the scene by the dm (me).
Ill have something happen to the person and the rest of the party will be saving him/her kinda leaving them owing the people or person who saved them.
Idk, i need some tips :P

[pwykersotz]

I like to simply go around the table at character creation and have everyone explain their character's relationship to the others. It lets the players define the terms under which they know each other and it leads to interesting connections that have a much higher chance of being cared about and being played out.

I'm done with trying to let them know each other from having a common employer, a first quest, and nothing else. Almost every time, even with willing players, the characters never gelled quite as well.

[iPotatis]

I like to simply go around the table at character creation and have everyone explain their character's relationship to the others. It lets the players define the terms under which they know each other and it leads to interesting connections that have a much higher chance of being cared about and being played out.

I'm done with trying to let them know each other from having a common employer, a first quest, and nothing else. Almost every time, even with willing players, the characters never gelled quite as well.

Yeah the plan was to have most of them know atleast 1 person in the party tho i dont want to force them into that, im thinkin in the case of 1 or more people wanting to start off alone for whatever reason.

[Specter]

I'd say give big conversation time and make them know about each other's past without direct statement (via letters, dreams, npcs, etc.).

[CaptainSarathai]

Yeah the plan was to have most of them know atleast 1 person in the party tho i dont want to force them into that, im thinkin in the case of 1 or more people wanting to start off alone for whatever reason.

I wouldn't force it on them, but I'd be very wary of any player who specifically avoids knowing anyone else in the party. "Loner" characters are problematic, and their players usually want to go that "all about me" route that just makes me rage.

In my current game, there's a CN Rogue who doesn't quite gel with the largely Good and Lawful party. However, his character and mine have naturally come together and formed a sort of "outsider's alliance." My character is also a Half Elf, one of two in the party despite it being an uncommon race. The other is a Paladin, worrisome to my Warlock, but the two still share a common bond.

[ad_hoc]

It isn't your job. It is the job of the whole group.

You are all creating a story together.

[Sigreid]

Short answer is you can't make them and shouldn't. Longer and more useful answer is to throw out hooks for multiple story lines tied to the back stories of multiple characters. Everyone has something they'll need help on and look at all these competent people I've already seen in dangerous situations.

In the end it counts on the group wanting to play the game and making up their own reasons though.

[SmokingSkull]

A good session 0 solves a lot of your problems. Many others have said better in this thread so I won't repeat it. However don't fully discount "loner" types, any good rper worth their salt may have an IC reason for why they are the way they are. And if they know what they're doing then their character will come around. At least that's what I did for mine, the way the DM set it up made it so that my char didn't know the others right off the start.

True, he wasn't easy to get along with at first but once the truth was known it was a lot easier for the group to understand. After several sessions and level ups he would eventually change as a person, and for the better might I add. However I wouldn't recommend this to someone new or someone not big into RP or not up to the task. In my view not every character in a party is gong to get along 100% of the time, it's unrealistic to expect. That being said however as long as whatever quarrels and disagreements remain just that and the party sticks together when it comes down to it, then what's the big deal?

But also remember that if anything does irk the group as a whole, then it might be a good idea for the loner to "find" a reason to get along with the group. I know I found my character's reason to get along with his, all I'm saying is it can be done but it isn't easy.

[Hopeless]

Easiest way to do this is ask them to discuss and suggest something that effected all of them and how it relates to their characters when the game starts.

For example they're unknowingly members of the same village or at least were physically present during the tragedy that devastated the settlement and they narrowly survived.

Each of them suggest how it effected them and why they're now coming back to find answers.

Make it personal to them and then have your merchant turn up with a clue to what happened but it merely serves as the opening gambit to your actual adventure.

Maybe they have missing family or they lost some important legacy which they want to recover... there's loads of ways this can be handled but it all boils back to what interests your players.

So ask them, its their characters after all why are they interested in playing them?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I like the Fate method. Basically, you have everyone come up with a short backstory... then turn to the player on their left and make a cameo in their backstory. You wind up with everyone connected to two other characters, making a nice little web of prior associations and mutual friends.

[PrincessCupcake]

It is not unreasonable to go into session zero and say "hey, for purposes of plot I need you each to have a connection with at least one other character, or the entire group to have a shared backstory element that you all come up with and agree on."

Heck, it doesn't have to be mandatory. With some groups all you need to say is "hey it would be cool if you guys all had some kind of connection to one another. Could be a place, or an event, or even a person." Not every group will have 100% buy-in, but you will usually get at least two going "that sounds pretty cool actually".

of course, that was how an entire group ended up "the Scooby Gang" in a mystery/horror campaign.

[AmayaElls]

In my view its kinda up to the players, but I guess you might have players that aren't always good at it. However hopefully your players will at least not be actively walking in opposite directions to one another. They may not care yet (I have one character that considers her team to be unknowingly simply bodyguards) but as long as they are travelling together and fighting together that should build the ties of trust. The story should hopefully put the characters individually in vulnerable situations (through connections to backstories, fears or insecurities) and the rest of the party should see this and many will soften towards each other at this point.

I guess my advice is don't force it, and don't rush it. Good players can likely keep their characters around for as long as they feel is necessary to progress along the character development needed to become friends. For some characters this takes time.

[Temperjoke]

I would be careful not to have too high of expectations. I mean, realistically, unless the characters have previously interacted, you are looking at making a bunch of strangers suddenly become close enough friends to participate in something that directly relates to one of them. That's not the sort of thing that happens overnight, no matter what you see in movies.

Without knowing what all the characters' goals/ambitions/stories are, I can't make a more specific recommendation, but I suggest that instead of focusing on one player's thread, tie them each into it. Why did the merchant recruit them? How did he find them? Why them, specifically? It's not like the merchant randomly grabbed a bunch of people, so there's already some sort of connection there. Maybe you should expand on this merchant's quest to a greater extent than it seems you are planning to, with unexpected complications?

[Thrudd]

The adventure should include things that all the characters care about, that's why they will want to participate. You probably should tell them that their characters all need to be friends or family or business associates or connected to each other somehow, from the beginning. They at least need to have goals that align in some way, like they all want to find treasure or they all want to find the lost city, or whatever. Each character's personal story must in some way connect or lead them toward the things all of them want.

If you have a bunch of characters that are not connected in any way and don't have similar goals, then you are stuck railroading them with adventures that usually don't make sense for most of the characters to be involved in. You can avoid that, you need to give them guidelines when they make their characters so that you can run the kind of game you want with the sort of adventures you want.

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

Connecting player goals is a good way to go about it.

Example:
Paladan: I must destroy the fiends that killed my parents.

Rouge: My old gang wants me dead.

As it stands neither of these charter really care about each others problems, until they realize that the Rouge's gang employs the very fiends who killed his parents. Now you have a connection.

Uniting players against your BBEG is the best way to make them care about each other

[djreynolds]

Make their individual skills invaluable.

Do you have a rogue, then make traps a big deal or for who wants to be the trap disarmer?

Make PCs with high arcana or history or nature or animal handling important. Spread out the skills

In many campaigns its perception, stealth, athletics, acrobatics and that is what's important and some conversation skills.

Create situations for players to shine so they must lean on each other, that's then fun.

If the paladin/warlock is kicking *ss in melee and from range, throw the archer a magic bow.

These aren't just adventuring PCs, but Heroes of the Realm

[Maxilian]

With my Group i found out that for that you can:

1- Make them come up with a background story where both of them participate (They could have known each other in the past)

2- Give a PC the solution to the problem of other player, so the other player will feel some kinship towards the first

3- Put them in a hard situation were someone skills will be invaluable

[Sigreid]

There's also always the very simple and straight forward "Look guys, I know the first part of this is a little railroady to get you into the thick of things, and I'm using Billy-Joe-Bob's character to do it, but can you just play along for giggles for a bit? I'm having trouble concocting a reason for you all to care." I've had several groups that will agree. If they don't, then ask for their help getting their characters interested.

[Phoenix042]

It is important to remember that each player at the table is responsible for making the game fun for everyone else, not just themselves. That's not the DM's job, that's everyone's job.

As part of that, each player is responsible for building and maintaining a character that is fun for both themselves, and everyone else at the table. Which also means it's a player's responsibility to explain why his character is motivated to play along with his fellow PCs. The character doesn't invent these reasons, the player does.

If you want to play a loner who doesn't need anybody, you the player are responsible for creating the motivation your character needs to stay with the party and play along. Maybe the character DOES need somebody, and just doesn't like to admit it, or maybe you talk to the DM and decide he has a geas spell cast on him before the game starts, and then starts falling in love with one of the members of the party before it wears off.

This goes for groups, too, if one member of the party has something that draws them, or a thread that's mostly about them. Keep in mind that you should rotate who that thread is about, so the players each get a turn with a character in the spotlight. But as DM, you aren't necessarily responsible for explaining why each character wants to tag along. Explain that to them before the session, and task them each with coming up with a reason or explanation for why their character stays with the party and invests in this adventure.

Don't necessarily encourage them to change their character just to fit with the rest of the group. Conflict, divided loyalties, and external motivators are all fine in the game world. A player of a super greedy coward might decide the party should lie to his character and convince him there will be lots of treasure, because that player (and the group) can all have fun with it. Another player might hate the idea of his character being lied to, and might decide his character intends to rob the party and leave them for dead at some point. He should discuss this with the DM, and also determine why his character's plan doesn't work (at least, if the other players don't want it to).


Party conflict can be fun for some people, but it should never upset the players. I had a couple of players in one of my games who were always fighting in character. These fights carried over to the table and everyone got really uncomfortable and stopped having fun, and this happened over and over in a lot of sessions. They each designed a character in a vacuum, focusing on what they thought sounded "cool" and never worrying about what the other player's (or me) felt about their character's role in the group. That was a very bad experience, and an example of how selfish players can ruin a good game.

On the other hand, my group recently started a new campaign and I'm playing a borderline psychopathic, delusional megalomaniac whose defining character trait is her overwhelming certainty that her destiny is to rule the world as a beautiful, powerful tyrant (she uses the word "queen" when she dreams of her future). She thinks of herself as a savior and a hero, but she'll she'll do anything to acquire power. She's a noble, playing politics for the long game, and she's decided to go out and "get her hands dirty" (although as a sorceress and a future queen, she'd never dream of *actually* touching any dirt with her hands). She's joined her otherwise good party on their adventures because so far, it suites her plans perfectly, but she thinks of them like pawns and always calculates her use for them. She's modeled after Darth Sidius in many ways.

However, when a conflict comes up, I always come up with a reason for her to play along with what the party wants. As a player, that's my responsibility.

I fully intend for the party to stop her someday, and possibly even kill her. We've talked about this as players, and everyone agrees that this is fun and they can't wait to see how her plans unfold and ultimately fail (or maybe succeed, if the party joins her).

If it helps, we've also instituted a houserule after some of the aformentioned conflicts got out of hand:
If another player's character tries to affect yours, you can decide how the attempt works out. You can simply declare that another player's attack on you misses, or that you win an opposed check they instigate. You can decide that the thief finds no coins in your pocket, or that the big fighter just can't get a hold of you when he tries to grapple you.
Or, you can decide to roll it and see what happens, or even declare that they succeed automatically.

This way, players have more control over how inter-party conflict plays out. If they want to, they can refuse to participate in it, or if they think it's fun, they can play along.

But that way everyone's having fun.