Eldersign
2017-07-13, 07:47 PM
Hello all,
This is my first post here, though I'm a longtime lurker on these boards. I'm sorry for the text dump-- I'm not asking a question as much as relating my experiences and looking for whatever validation, questions, criticisms, and similar experiences anyone here has to offer naturally. I do have a few questions that I'll address at the end of this, but I'm warning you, it's turned into quite the read and I understand if you want to skim through it.
tl;dr- My six-player group is unfocused in our current campaign-- their characters are inconsistent, and having troubling interacting with each other and the world around them. They are disappointed in the unstable group cohesion and the roleplay dynamic it causes. I've tried various methods to fix it, but I'm afraid I'm going backwards and burdening my players instead of helping focus them. I'm torn between wanting to blame the party size, the players' personalities, and my own DMing skills as the reason my group is at this impasse. I'm playing with really good, albeit inexperiences, players who are as open as I am in looking for the "magic" of the game. Nobody wants to abandon the current campaign or storyline, so I think that switching gears and tackling another adventure with other characters may help keep things fresh, while instilling good habits for when we come back to our main campaign. I'm looking for similar stories or maybe advice from other members of the community.
I've been DMing a somewhat larger group (six players) for about five or six months now. We've been running a homebrew campaign, and things have been going decently aside from the issues that I'll detail below.
To clarify my situation without going too much into details, I try to run a very roleplay intensive group. I originally had five players, but when one of them dropped out, the group asked to bring in two more. The small jump from five to six has surprisingly been more challenging than I could ever anticipate. I'm not in the position to ask anyone to step out--we're all friends and get along very well. Unfortunately, I feel the campaign and roleplaying has suffered as a result of the large group size.
I have three very outgoing and smart players. They're an actor, a writer and an entertainer, respectively. They're very invested in their characters and the overall plot of them game. The other three players seem to suffer a bit, maybe from being overshadowed by the more experienced and outgoing players. Unfortunately, this has resulted in them "zoning out", and just riding the wave, much to the chagrin of the group as a whole.
I've tried to remedy that a few ways. One thing I thought would help was introducing a simplified version of Hillfolk's DramaSystem into our campaign. For the uninformed, the DramaSystem asks players to assume the role of a writer, moreso than a character, and try to play a character based on emotional desires and needs. The idea is that detaching players from their characters will let them be more willing to put their character in danger or conflict with other characters to fulfill dramatic impulses.
This hasn't exactly worked as I hoped it would. We had a session where we just talked about our characters and their wants and desires, and while it helped flesh out some of the more static characters in the group, the rest of the system doesn't seem to be clicking with the party. Instead, it's just encouraged players to enter into pointless and boring conversations that seem to go nowhere, which has been wearing at the party's patience.
I'll be sitting down with my veteran players and seeing whether or not we need to scrap the system and try a different approach. Like a doctor who can only treat the symptoms of some unknown root problem, I'm not married to any one medicine. I just want my players to try to get a little more invested than the video-gamey idea of "wait for combat, push X to attack, collect Exp., repeat". I understand that there are some players who just love to smash things, and that's okay. But everyone in the group has expressed a desire to really get the full enjoyment out of D&D, and that means the rich roleplaying and character-driven experiences that only pen&paper can provide.
Other things I have asked my group to do recently include self-narration during combat-- things like describing the little steps they take and briefly taking us into the mind of their character when combat occurs. For the most part, this has helped: the group has recognized that they are each other's audience, and everyone is having fun making the experience a little more than "I roll a die, do I hit? Okay, here's the damage."
I really want my players to break out of their shell and have fun playing characters who are something more than just avatars for themselves in a game world. Since everyone has expressed a desire to do this, I'm fairly confident that I'm not projecting my ideal game experience onto them. Even my most stale players have read all the lore and history of the realms we're playing in, and ask a lot of questions and try to understand the nuances of the plot. I've been waiting for things to naturally "click" with them, but it's been six months now, and I'm afraid we may be going backwards now.
In a couple of sessions, we'll be approaching a major plot milestone, and I think what I'll do is call a "Season Finale" so to speak. I want to shelve the current campaign and give it some time to breathe in the backs of the players' minds. What I want to do instead is tell a different kind of story and play a campaign from a module.
A module will be easier for me to prepare, and it will give me several weeks/months to begin writing and fixing our regular campaign. Everyone wants to try different characters, races and classes (Everyone is a first or second-time player, I should add. There is one other player who has been playing as long as I have, thought this has been his first 5e experience), and I think starting everyone off as new characters will give some of the more shy players a chance to experience a campaign from its freshest stages, instead of jumping in from the middle like a few of them have.
A few members of the group have expressed an interest in playing monster hunters, which is something that seemed to really appeal to everyone in the group. It may have been because I just watched the Castlevania show that just debuted on Netflix, but I naturally thought of Ravenloft and the Curse of Strahd campaign. I suggested it to the group, and told them about the overall themes and ideas of the campaign, and they're very excited to get to it.
I'm hoping that a break from the current adventure and a delve into something a bit more structured will instill some good habits into my group. My design philosophy for our original campaign can be summarized in the following bullet points:
-I come up with the meta-adventure, and tell the party, based on their character's motivations, where they need to get to next.
-Everything that happens in between is their story to craft. I'll have a hand in making it interesting, but the pace of the adventure, who they meet, what they do, that's their story and I'm there to help flesh it out.
-I want their actions to have a meaningful impact on the world. I set our first campaign in Forgotten Realms, in the year 1374 DR. I want to do a follow-up campaign set in the present 5e year-- the actions and events of our first campaign I want to see the echoes of in the present. I think it adds major gravitas to a world when players have a real impact that can be felt and spoken about.
I've read through Curse of Strahd, and it represents a major departure from how I've been telling a story. It's an open-world sandbox philosophy, which is something I adhere to, but events are far more scripted and the overall advancement of the plot is more focused and somewhat more linear than I am. I really think that it's something my group needs right now, so they can focus on their place in a world. I think that once players understand how their characters can fit into a world, they can take full autonomy in interacting with it and changing it.
Anyway, if you've made it down here, thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I'll be happy to clarify anything, or answer questions. I'm really just looking for whatever natural input the community has to offer, whether you have similar experiences, or you want to chastise me for doing it all wrong, I'm completely open. I just would like to know if there are others who have had similar experiences/obstacles, and how you've overcome them as DMs or Players.
This is my first post here, though I'm a longtime lurker on these boards. I'm sorry for the text dump-- I'm not asking a question as much as relating my experiences and looking for whatever validation, questions, criticisms, and similar experiences anyone here has to offer naturally. I do have a few questions that I'll address at the end of this, but I'm warning you, it's turned into quite the read and I understand if you want to skim through it.
tl;dr- My six-player group is unfocused in our current campaign-- their characters are inconsistent, and having troubling interacting with each other and the world around them. They are disappointed in the unstable group cohesion and the roleplay dynamic it causes. I've tried various methods to fix it, but I'm afraid I'm going backwards and burdening my players instead of helping focus them. I'm torn between wanting to blame the party size, the players' personalities, and my own DMing skills as the reason my group is at this impasse. I'm playing with really good, albeit inexperiences, players who are as open as I am in looking for the "magic" of the game. Nobody wants to abandon the current campaign or storyline, so I think that switching gears and tackling another adventure with other characters may help keep things fresh, while instilling good habits for when we come back to our main campaign. I'm looking for similar stories or maybe advice from other members of the community.
I've been DMing a somewhat larger group (six players) for about five or six months now. We've been running a homebrew campaign, and things have been going decently aside from the issues that I'll detail below.
To clarify my situation without going too much into details, I try to run a very roleplay intensive group. I originally had five players, but when one of them dropped out, the group asked to bring in two more. The small jump from five to six has surprisingly been more challenging than I could ever anticipate. I'm not in the position to ask anyone to step out--we're all friends and get along very well. Unfortunately, I feel the campaign and roleplaying has suffered as a result of the large group size.
I have three very outgoing and smart players. They're an actor, a writer and an entertainer, respectively. They're very invested in their characters and the overall plot of them game. The other three players seem to suffer a bit, maybe from being overshadowed by the more experienced and outgoing players. Unfortunately, this has resulted in them "zoning out", and just riding the wave, much to the chagrin of the group as a whole.
I've tried to remedy that a few ways. One thing I thought would help was introducing a simplified version of Hillfolk's DramaSystem into our campaign. For the uninformed, the DramaSystem asks players to assume the role of a writer, moreso than a character, and try to play a character based on emotional desires and needs. The idea is that detaching players from their characters will let them be more willing to put their character in danger or conflict with other characters to fulfill dramatic impulses.
This hasn't exactly worked as I hoped it would. We had a session where we just talked about our characters and their wants and desires, and while it helped flesh out some of the more static characters in the group, the rest of the system doesn't seem to be clicking with the party. Instead, it's just encouraged players to enter into pointless and boring conversations that seem to go nowhere, which has been wearing at the party's patience.
I'll be sitting down with my veteran players and seeing whether or not we need to scrap the system and try a different approach. Like a doctor who can only treat the symptoms of some unknown root problem, I'm not married to any one medicine. I just want my players to try to get a little more invested than the video-gamey idea of "wait for combat, push X to attack, collect Exp., repeat". I understand that there are some players who just love to smash things, and that's okay. But everyone in the group has expressed a desire to really get the full enjoyment out of D&D, and that means the rich roleplaying and character-driven experiences that only pen&paper can provide.
Other things I have asked my group to do recently include self-narration during combat-- things like describing the little steps they take and briefly taking us into the mind of their character when combat occurs. For the most part, this has helped: the group has recognized that they are each other's audience, and everyone is having fun making the experience a little more than "I roll a die, do I hit? Okay, here's the damage."
I really want my players to break out of their shell and have fun playing characters who are something more than just avatars for themselves in a game world. Since everyone has expressed a desire to do this, I'm fairly confident that I'm not projecting my ideal game experience onto them. Even my most stale players have read all the lore and history of the realms we're playing in, and ask a lot of questions and try to understand the nuances of the plot. I've been waiting for things to naturally "click" with them, but it's been six months now, and I'm afraid we may be going backwards now.
In a couple of sessions, we'll be approaching a major plot milestone, and I think what I'll do is call a "Season Finale" so to speak. I want to shelve the current campaign and give it some time to breathe in the backs of the players' minds. What I want to do instead is tell a different kind of story and play a campaign from a module.
A module will be easier for me to prepare, and it will give me several weeks/months to begin writing and fixing our regular campaign. Everyone wants to try different characters, races and classes (Everyone is a first or second-time player, I should add. There is one other player who has been playing as long as I have, thought this has been his first 5e experience), and I think starting everyone off as new characters will give some of the more shy players a chance to experience a campaign from its freshest stages, instead of jumping in from the middle like a few of them have.
A few members of the group have expressed an interest in playing monster hunters, which is something that seemed to really appeal to everyone in the group. It may have been because I just watched the Castlevania show that just debuted on Netflix, but I naturally thought of Ravenloft and the Curse of Strahd campaign. I suggested it to the group, and told them about the overall themes and ideas of the campaign, and they're very excited to get to it.
I'm hoping that a break from the current adventure and a delve into something a bit more structured will instill some good habits into my group. My design philosophy for our original campaign can be summarized in the following bullet points:
-I come up with the meta-adventure, and tell the party, based on their character's motivations, where they need to get to next.
-Everything that happens in between is their story to craft. I'll have a hand in making it interesting, but the pace of the adventure, who they meet, what they do, that's their story and I'm there to help flesh it out.
-I want their actions to have a meaningful impact on the world. I set our first campaign in Forgotten Realms, in the year 1374 DR. I want to do a follow-up campaign set in the present 5e year-- the actions and events of our first campaign I want to see the echoes of in the present. I think it adds major gravitas to a world when players have a real impact that can be felt and spoken about.
I've read through Curse of Strahd, and it represents a major departure from how I've been telling a story. It's an open-world sandbox philosophy, which is something I adhere to, but events are far more scripted and the overall advancement of the plot is more focused and somewhat more linear than I am. I really think that it's something my group needs right now, so they can focus on their place in a world. I think that once players understand how their characters can fit into a world, they can take full autonomy in interacting with it and changing it.
Anyway, if you've made it down here, thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I'll be happy to clarify anything, or answer questions. I'm really just looking for whatever natural input the community has to offer, whether you have similar experiences, or you want to chastise me for doing it all wrong, I'm completely open. I just would like to know if there are others who have had similar experiences/obstacles, and how you've overcome them as DMs or Players.