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5crownik007
2019-05-18, 04:18 AM
One or two of you may recall that I made a thread titled "Need Help With My Players" in December of last year.

Welcome to "Need Help With My Players II"

Fortunately, this problem is much simpler to word than the last one, which required individual explanation of each player's specific situation.

It seems I've heavily botched the startup for my campaign and the party doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything. When we begin playing, they remain silent until I present something to occur to them. They aren't proactive.

My party is reactive. I have to apply stimuli to them to get anything to happen. Even then, it's very weak. Combat encounters go very slowly. Just last session, an NPC was beginning a conversation with a PC, and the PC was silent.
I understand that I must share some of the blame for this. My players are clearly disengaged from the game, and as the game's master, I take responsibility for that.

I have instituted the policy of "If you don't do stuff, stuff will happen to you" but it's a band-aid. It's not a good method of play.

I am going to attempt a new solution, getting the characters to write down a short-term goal and a long-term goal, and rewarding work towards these goals with character points, but that's currently untested.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do?(besides find a new group of players)

I preemptively thank suggestions.

Mr Beer
2019-05-18, 04:54 AM
So...you're responsible for the players being engaged, they don't have to show up with a 'have fun and do stuff' attitude? It's super easy to drag down the best GM in the world by being passive-aggressive and uninterested. It takes more effort to help make a good game but that's kind of the point of turning up to RPG.

5crownik007
2019-05-18, 07:12 AM
So...you're responsible for the players being engaged, they don't have to show up with a 'have fun and do stuff' attitude? It's super easy to drag down the best GM in the world by being passive-aggressive and uninterested. It takes more effort to help make a good game but that's kind of the point of turning up to RPG.

I'm not sure I understand the point, can you explain what you mean?

zlefin
2019-05-18, 07:20 AM
if you botched the start; it's best to restart and do things better, rather than try to continue something that isn't working. run a new session zero to find out more.

When you talk to the players about what they want out of the campaign and the game, what do they say?

are you sure they even want to play, and aren't just showing up out of some sense of social obligation?

Zhorn
2019-05-18, 07:40 AM
If the players aren't actively trying to pursue a goal, be it an adventure hook or one of their own making; then they are not playing an adventurer.
If they are not playing an adventurer; roll credits and move onto the next game, either with or without them.

Being a DM is hard enough, prepping the story, organising materials, coordinating and meshing player stories into the narrative... at some point there needs to be some effort from the other side.
Any good game can come to a grinding halt if the players refuse to get involved, and any bad game can be saved if the players are enthusiastic about being involved.

Wind up this story, ask what they would have rather done, and set up the next game. If they have nothing to contribute => new players.

Wuzza
2019-05-18, 09:52 AM
Fortunately, this problem is much simpler to word than the last one, which required individual explanation of each player's specific situation.

It seems I've heavily botched the startup for my campaign and the party doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything. When we begin playing, they remain silent until I present something to occur to them. They aren't proactive.

My party is reactive. I have to apply stimuli to them to get anything to happen. Even then, it's very weak. Combat encounters go very slowly. Just last session, an NPC was beginning a conversation with a PC, and the PC was silent.
I understand that I must share some of the blame for this. My players are clearly disengaged from the game, and as the game's master, I take responsibility for that.

I have instituted the policy of "If you don't do stuff, stuff will happen to you" but it's a band-aid. It's not a good method of play.

I am going to attempt a new solution, getting the characters to write down a short-term goal and a long-term goal, and rewarding work towards these goals with character points, but that's currently untested.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do?(besides find a new group of players)

I preemptively thank suggestions.

My group is fairly similar, although they do (finally) decide to do things sometimes. It maybe just that your players are the sort that need things presented before them. There's nothing wrong with that, you may just have to amend your style and expectations to compensate. (they've missed a few things that they could have learnt by interacting with NPCs's. but I can just make the information available to them at a later date)
The other thing that I found quite invaluable was to integrate the players background into the story. I asked them to give me an idea of their background, then amended it slightly to fit in with the story. This was unintentional at the start, and something I though would be cool to do. You can use this to give them some kind of motive if needed.

(examples I'm yet to use. Player A has a bloodline connecting him to a mini BBEG. Player B's ancestors were instrumental in taking down the final BBEG. Not sure on player C or D yet, but these are, I think, pretty good reasons why they were "chosen" for this quest)

Some groups just need that "rail road" style" :smallsmile:

jintoya
2019-05-18, 10:21 AM
I've gotta agree that the best thing to do is find out what went wrong and try again with a new session, players, villains etc.(whatever it takes)

Alternatively you can Segway into a new campaign through this one by simply having them randomly teleported into... Anything that doesn't allow then to sit around, make no excuse, just say "this isn't working, I'm gonna have to change settings or we should retry this one"
Maybe they want to be tossed into the abyss, underdark or feywilds by forces unknown.
I'd poll them on it, but this could be kind of hard if you are the kind of DM who plans everything... I'm not, so my approach is kinda not for everyone.

Inchhighguy
2019-05-18, 12:19 PM
So assuming you and the players all want to play the game....

Some players are just very cold starters, and you can quite often get a whole group of them. Either they don't ''get'' the idea that they can do something, or they simply don't want to ''do" anything. Some players don't get the idea that they can proactively engage in the game.....and some players just don't want too. It's really not such a big deal, it just means you have to engage the players as the GM. Except you don't provide a ''hook", you provide more of a ''whirlpool" to move the characters along.

King of Nowhere
2019-05-19, 09:30 PM
could simply be that your players are the kind that want to react. Sometimes it's easy to read big internet diiscussions about proactive players and railroading (defined as anything that would remotely try to push the players), and forget that the people engaging in those discussions are not your average gamer.

So, maybe those players prefer to follow a plot than to make their own one. Maybe they just don't feel secure enough in the game or in the campaign world. I had similar players for a long time, and they started to get ideas eventually when they started to understand the campaign world better. Maybe they come from something purely combat-oriented where they are presented with a quest and a dungeon and they just have to follow it, and don't get the concept of building their own goals - my players came from heroquest.

And I also assumed that I had failed, but when I asked the players if they were actually engaged in the game or if they wanted to stop, they all assured me they were fine.

So, rather than assuming that your players' lack of proactivity is a problem by itself, talk with them and see if there is some other underlying problem or if they just prefer to be given clear plot hooks to follow.

Quertus
2019-05-19, 10:51 PM
I guess I'll say… talk to the players (and their old GMs, if any), find out if they understand and can play in the style you desire.

If so, reboot.

Ideally, talk to them about what it will take, then run a few one-shots in a shotgun pattern around that general target.

Then talk to them again. See what worked, what didn't.

Repeat until everyone is happy, increasing to short adventures and eventually a campaign when you think everyone's on the same page.