Dealing with players who don't want to roleplay.

[Walken]

I have recently tried DMing for a group of friends, while it was fun it was also excruciating, so much so that I don't want to DM for them again. They seem too jaded to roleplay, that and they play WoW, which kind of ruins the mythos of D&D.

Any tips on dealing with players not interested in RPing and prevent me from killing myself from the horrible situations like "I rolled the dice, what happened?"

[Stupendous_Man]

make them talk to an npc?

[Yakk]

The old standby -- have them roleplay themselves, transported into their characters. :-)

Naturally, they can fail to believe that this is "real". Characters who die are not replaced.

[valadil]

Are they choosing not to roleplay or do they not know what they're missing out on. Some players are legitimately not interested in RP and I think it's better for all involved if you find different players who are interested in it.

The best way to lure them out is with plots personal to their character. Have them give you a backstory and use plots from it that they wrote. The best thing I ever did for another player was turn his old nemesis into the BBEG for the game. It brought him closer to the plot than I've ever seen him before.

[Stormageddon]

Reward them with xp for role playing.

[AKA_Bait]

Are they choosing not to roleplay or do they not know what they're missing out on. Some players are legitimately not interested in RP and I think it's better for all involved if you find different players who are interested in it.

The best way to lure them out is with plots personal to their character. Have them give you a backstory and use plots from it that they wrote. The best thing I ever did for another player was turn his old nemesis into the BBEG for the game. It brought him closer to the plot than I've ever seen him before.

Pretty much this. How much time did you spend with them talking about their characters? Be sure you are giving them opportunities to RP that fit with the sort of RP scenes they would expect their PC to participate in.

[DarknessLord]

Reward them with xp for role playing.

While all the above seem like very good ideas, this seems like a very good one to me. It seems, based on what you said, that these friends of yours might be people who like to powergame in WoW and such, there's a chance, that if the reward for role-playing is big enough, they'll try it just for the exp.

If not, there are still plenty of other ideas in here that are equally valid.

[hamlet]

Apply a simple rule: If you say it, your character says it.

This usually is enough to cut back on out of character stupidity at the table at least, and is likely to get some of them more into the character as they realise that rolling dice at all times won't get them by.

[Walken]

As much as I have tried to get them to RP, they seem to just want to roll the dice and kill things. This may also be because they have a very limited grasp on the rules and all they know is combat. Fortunately for my sanity's sake. They will be heading back to their respective colleges.

[Darrin]

They seem too jaded to roleplay, that and they play WoW, which kind of ruins the mythos of D&D.

Any tips on dealing with players not interested in RPing and prevent me from killing myself from the horrible situations like "I rolled the dice, what happened?"

Statements like this could be considered flamebait, although it sounds like you and your players just have differing opinions on what exactly the "mythos of D&D" should be. The neo-post-modern position on this sort of debate usually boils down to, "They aren't necessarily playing the game wrong, so long as they are having fun."

Obviously you prefer a different style of play, and it's driving you up the wall. The best solution here is politely explain to them that you don't really enjoy their particular style of play, and you'd prefer to play something else, or have someone else volunteer as DM. Your group might be better off playing a boardgame, where the expectations for roleplay are low or unnecessary. Some good boardgames that feature a lot of tactical decisions:

Descent
Doom the Boardgame
Runebound
Talisman (may require alcohol for actual enjoyment)

If you want to slowly ween your group over towards RPGs that encourage or favor roleplay over tactical combat:

Call of Cthulhu BRP (combat = death. roleplay = probably death as well, but you last a little longer)

Warhammer FRP (2nd Ed. is great, but "Power Behind the Throne" is the Holy Grail of Social/Political modules)

Esoterrorists/Trail of Cthulhu/Mutant City Blues (GUMSHOE engine)

Dying Earth RPG (very hard sell to non-Vancians, but may make English/Lit majors cream themselves)

Amber Diceless (challenging but unique)

[Pink]

Put them in a role playing situation. I like the comment about talking to an npc. It could be that your players are simply those that haven't tried the roleplaying aspect before and simply do not know how to approach it or may be too embarrassed. Therefore you have to be the example. Use a strange and possibly silly accent for the npc, have some distinguishing trait stick out. Make it seem like it's not you, the friend, talking, but the actual npc, who is waiting and will react on what they respond with. If they start talking out of character and making jokes and such, ask, "Are you saying that in character?"
In fact, questions like that are also things that can help you, as well as questions like "Is that something your character would do?"
Also, keep track of their alignments and, if their actions are straying from it (Good characters killing from little provocation, etc.) change them to something proper.
That is of course, assuming they just haven't really tried roleplaying before. If they truly are the types who just don't like roleplaying from experience instead of not trying, and just want combat, but are still having fun? Well, there isn't much you can force them to do, nor should you.

[ZekeArgo]

Or just talk to them about what game they want to play. Beer and pretzels style "bash down the door and take on a dungeon" is a perfectly fine way to play DnD. Hell, just look at Roguelikes and the huge, if underground, following they have for proof that a dungeon can be extremely fun, challenging and deadly if the work is put in to make it so.

If your not looking to run or play in that kind of game, then your best bet would be find some other players.

[Walken]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll defiantly try these in our next session, which will probably be online one because of distances, which will add another layer of difficulty for me :D

[Wreckingrocc]

Do it in a 'roleplay or you're screwed' method. For example, have an NPC who is unfriendly, but will give information if the players do the right thing. If they say, "I make a diplomacy check; I roll the die, what happened, say: "You make up what your characters say. No roleplaying/talking will result in an automatic failure of the check." :smallwink:

[Yakk]

For social encounters, your character rolls a dRoleplay -- you don't roll the die, but rather you describe what your character does. The better the description, the better the roll. :-)

[AKA_Bait]

Do it in a 'roleplay or you're screwed' method. For example, have an NPC who is unfriendly, but will give information if the players do the right thing. If they say, "I make a diplomacy check; I roll the die, what happened, say: "You make up what your characters say. No roleplaying/talking will result in an automatic failure of the check." :smallwink:

This seems a little draconian to me. Some players are just not quick on their feet and it's a bad idea to force them to RP something they aren't comfortable doing.

An alternative, is to tell them that good RP on the check gives them a bonus to the check. They don't autofail if they don't want to do it, but they have an incentive to do so.

[busterswd]

This seems a little draconian to me. Some players are just not quick on their feet and it's a bad idea to force them to RP something they aren't comfortable doing.

An alternative, is to tell them that good RP on the check gives them a bonus to the check. They don't autofail if they don't want to do it, but they have an incentive to do so.

^

If they don't want to roleplay, forcing them to roleplay isn't going to make things better. Some people like DnD for the twinking, dice rolling aspects and feel pretty silly speaking like their characters.

Make there be an incentive for roleplaying if you really want to see them do it, but don't force it upon them. XP or circumstance bonuses are good incentives.

[xPANCAKEx]

openly an OBVIOUSLY reward roleplaying for a short while: "hey, hes the guy who bothered to talk the the old guy, he gets the +1 sword" and they will soon follow suit

the posibility of stat bonuses are like shiney things to magpies

[Shazzbaa]

Are they choosing not to roleplay or do they not know what they're missing out on. Some players are legitimately not interested in RP and I think it's better for all involved if you find different players who are interested in it.

Seems like this'll be the most important thing to figure out first. If they're just not roleplaying because they never have before, you can push them in that direction. If you're pushing and they're actively resisting, because they don't want to, then be careful that you're not just forcing them into your playstyle.

But lots of good ideas have been mentioned for helping players learn how to RP. Pulling plot from their backstory is an excellent one... and if they have trouble making up a backstory on their own, you can always help. The very first D&D-esque campaign I ever played had almost nothing but newbies who had never roleplayed before, so the GM pretty much invented backstory for each of us to give us all a role in the world.
We also had the "sign of Dis" in that game. I never found out why the GM had named it after the devil, but it involved throwing up devil's horns and/or saying "sign of Dis" whenever you wanted to mention something out of character (e.g., "Wait -- sign of Dis -- I forgot, who is this guy?"), otherwise you'd be answered with "Are you really saying that in character?" So we were allowed to speak out of character, but OOC chatter wasn't the normal, assumed interaction. It wouldn't be hard to implement some kind of "this is out of character" thing that people have to use.
Same GM also gave out XP that we came to refer to as "Aslan points" for the similarity of the speech to Aslan's, where he rewarded each child for a different virtue -- the GM would say something to the effect of "To Hikaimo, for discovering the secret passage, 100 Aslan points" or "To Oruka, for distracting everyone with her beautiful music, 50 Aslan points" so that even non-combat achievements were rewarded with XP.
It was a slightly silly game sometimes, but you could not fault our group for not roleplaying.

Speaking of, I really like best the idea of giving a check bonus for RP. So, yeah, you can just roll the dice, but roleplaying the encounter has a tangible reward that feels a little more natural than "since you roleplayed, you get XP."

Taking both sorts of rewards, encouraging in-character speech (or at least something like "Aphelion's going to point out that the guard's got no better alternative than to help our party, so... diplomacy check?" I think this is a good alternative for people who aren't used to talking like their characters), and providing an automatic interest by pulling things from the backstory may help lure them in.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

You can't force players to role play. You simply can't. If they don't want to, they won't.

You can tantalize them with rewards, make it more interactvie, but if you tell them, "What you say, your character says." They'll stop carring, and you'll stop DMing. Players saying=Character saying, just makes them game less social and more of a chore. As now they'll want to have short conversations every now and then about Halo, and it will disrupt the game as the NPCs will think they're crazy. You're only hurting yourself by creating intricate plots for players who just want to roll dice.

D&D is a social event. If you do not allow them to socialise and role play at the level they want to, you will not have players.
And people please, stop saying, "Get yourself a new group, it's less hassle." Because 1: it's not that easy, especially in areas of low nerd population
2: it's HARD to find a new group you will like, and
3: it is the least helpful thing you could possibley say. EVER.
Leaving your group for something so trivial means you have as little love for the game as they do.

ENDURE.

[Eldritch_Ent]

I agree with the moose. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

In addition, trying to force players into roleplaying isn't right. Remember, this game is as much for them as it is for you, if not more so.

Put down plot hooks and interesting characters, but if they don't want to, then just post up a sign saying there's a dungeon full of goblins nearby that has a bounty on it and let them have their "Kick in the door" game.

[crimson77]

I agree with the moose. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

I disagree. Some people's experience of DnD has not included roleplaying. I think you need to see yourself in a new role as the DM, you need to be a teacher.

First, understand that roleplaying can be awkward the first few times. You are returning to the days of crawling on the carpet with army figures or legos acting out battles. However, the rules have changed and we like to think that our game is more sophisticated; however, to others on the outside it can be a new experience.

Second, explain the benefits of roleplaying. Use analogies such as they are actors playing a role or the five of you are telling a story. Have them spend some time writing up a back story similar to an actor preparing for a role.

Third, be mindful of the environment that you game in. Do players feel safe to role play. I would not feel safe to roleplay a character in a dorm lobby but i would in a study room or living room.

Fourth, do not think of these players in dichotomous thinking (e.g., they are either roleplayers or they are not). Try to engage them in role playing situations without forcing them. Look at your players and say "[Insert characters name] you see....how do you respond?" Engage them in a mystery they have to solve, but don't force them to role play.

Fifth, give them a chance to grow and reward their efforts. Either give them xp every time they roleplay or give them poker chips when they role play a situation. At the end of the session the one with the most chips gets a random magical item for their character which has a backstory. Remember that rewards should be even as simple as them saying I statements when talking about their characters actions.


Give some of these suggestions a try and avoid forcing the players to roleplay by only letting the plot progress if they talk to a single npc.


Remember you can teach a horse to drink (http://www.kbrhorse.net/tra/h2o1.html) when you want, you just have to motivate them.

[Jayabalard]

You can tantalize them with rewards, make it more interactvie, but if you tell them, "What you say, your character says." They'll stop carring, and you'll stop DMing.Sounds like a win-win situation to me; either the players start rolepolaying or the OP doesn't have to DM anymore in a game that isn't any fun for him.

[Tsotha-lanti]

An alternative, is to tell them that good RP on the check gives them a bonus to the check. They don't autofail if they don't want to do it, but they have an incentive to do so.

This, but take it further.

If my players say, "I search the cupboard. Nothing? I check for a false bottom" they don't need to make that skill check to find the false bottom in the cupboard - they find it. If they tell me what they're saying to the guard/cop they're trying to get past, and it's convincing (or they at least put some effort into it and had a good idea), they don't need to roll a check to get past them. This rewards roleplaying to the max, while not forcing anyone to do it - they can just rely on dice rolls. (And sometimes they'll have to.) Applies everywhere except combat, since all the games we play are supposed to have randomly dangerous combat.

[JMobius]

I have one question here, inspired by some of the responses: What exactly constitutes the form of 'roleplaying' that the OP would like to encourage?

Some suggestions seem to focus on rewarding the explicit micromanagement of tasks. This... is not exactly what the term means to me. Depending on what is desired, different methods are called for.

[Kalirren]

I don't know if what I'm about to say is of any pertinence whatsoever, but on the off chance that the OP's problem is the same as the one I had, I'll offer the extent of my insight.

There are plenty of people who know what roleplaying -is- but won't bother to -do- it because it just isn't fun for them.

I had a friend at my table who had exactly this problem; he was not the sort to make any effort to roleplay his character. Sometimes he would do things in character. He understood what that meant. And he understood the difference between IC and OOC. He just didn't care. He would spend session making smart comments and jokes about the way the system failed to make common sense, built characters around stereotypes that had little to do with the world feel (e.g., a 5th-level wizard, becoming a "wiz-aaaaaard" wannabe in Eberron, if you know what I mean. An elven archer. A mafia don.)

That was the problem, in retrospect, now that I write out the examples. Instead of making characters, he made portraits of characters. The concept was fundamentally static. If there was something from the world he happened to incorporate into his portrait, that would become his sole fixation in RP. But more often, his character portrait had absolutely nothing to do with IC reality, and could often be directly transplanted (without family, even) from one setting to another without much loss of context.

Throwing NPCs at him didn't help, either. It was like talking to a summoned creature. Out of the portrait he would construct a response, but then it would meld back into the portrait and would not change the portrait. I couldn't find a way to elicit any dynamism from him.

I have to say that our group's moving from 3.5, a system with which he was very familiar, to a less combat-intensive game of WW-style d10 helped for a little while, in that our DM was making up many of the rules on the spot (as one does in d10, inevitably.) which left much less room for his rules-lawyering. But he just fell silent after that; he didn't -want- to roleplay. He just wanted to be entertained by coming to session.

In the case that you have one of these people, my suggestion is to lay things out for him simply. You don't even need to drag him away from the table - our group habitually runs post-mortem discussion sessions where the players discuss what we think we (players and GM) did well, did badly, could or should have done instead, etc. Get into the habit of talking about these things. Explain to him, perhaps in little snippets instead of all at once, that the game that you would like to run is built on a model of cooperative storytelling. It is the player's job under this social contract to match the pressure exerted by a GM-imposed Situation with pressure stemming from a player character's own Initiative. Without that dynamic interaction, I find it difficult to understand what he likes about roleplaying.

And if all he's after is a RP-system-based hack-n'-slash, just buy him a copy of NWN or some such. Hopefully he'll then stop coming on his own and sucking up your attention and time.

[Shazzbaa]

There are plenty of people who know what roleplaying -is- but won't bother to -do- it because it just isn't fun for them.

I had a friend at my table who had exactly this problem; he was not the sort to make any effort to roleplay his character. Sometimes he would do things in character. He understood what that meant. And he understood the difference between IC and OOC. He just didn't care.

Well, I dunno, I would think this is typically the point where you say, "oh well," and just make sure to give him some hack-n-slash or whatever it is that he does enjoy, and let him be quiet when other players RP and he doesn't want to.

I was in one group with a very quiet player that others in the group thought needed to be opened up, or needed to develop her character more, or just wasn't used to the roleplaying thing and needed to be pulled out of her shell... imagine our surprise when we discovered that she loved the game. :smallconfused: Despite the fact that she spent almost the whole time listening, flustered when she had to make in-character decisions, and rarely took more decisive action than "I guess I heal everyone," we later found that she was having a great time just doing that, and enjoyed sitting in the back being entertained by the rest of us much more than she would've enjoyed jumping in and trying to BE a developed character.

If you have people who've just never done it before, or think it's weird and awkward because they're not familiar with it, then you can teach roleplaying to them, which is why, I think, the majority of advice is geared in that direction.
But if they've got some other reason, like genuinely not wanting to RP or not enjoying it, then it doesn't seem like anything really needs to be done to change their behaviour, as long as they're not disruptive about it.


I have one question here, inspired by some of the responses: What exactly constitutes the form of 'roleplaying' that the OP would like to encourage?

Some suggestions seem to focus on rewarding the explicit micromanagement of tasks. This... is not exactly what the term means to me.

Roleplaying, I had always figured, was thinking in terms of the world instead of in terms of the mechanics.
Recently, my brother sat in on one of my group's sessions (he hasn't really played D&D, but has played similar video games). When he was talking to me about the game afterwards, he mentioned something that he thought was really cool, which I hadn't even noticed: when we got horses, we bought feed for the horses. We bought feed based on how long the journey was supposed to last -- not based on how much we could technically carry or afford, but what would make sense for our characters to purchase. He said this sort of thing, when people made decisions and discussed things in terms of the world rather than the math, was what made our D&D game seem really cool to him.

So, if that means speaking in character, like an actor, and talking to the other people in the world, that's one application of roleplaying... but anything that takes D&D beyond a more complicated game of chess is good. If, instead of just rolling a search check and hoping your number beats the game's number, you're thinking about what you're actually looking for and what your character is trying to do -- you're thinking in terms of the world, not the numbers. Though this isn't the typical use of the term "roleplaying," it's a step in the right direction, and something you may want to reward and encourage.

On the other hand....



If my players say, "I search the cupboard. Nothing? I check for a false bottom" they don't need to make that skill check to find the false bottom in the cupboard - they find it.

...The problem here arises when this player is the smartest player, playing an INT 9 fighter who wouldn't quite think of that. If this sort of reward isn't handled carefully, you may just be rewarding puzzle-solving skills on the part of the players, rather than roleplaying.

[valadil]

...The problem here arises when this player is the smartest player, playing an INT 9 fighter who wouldn't quite think of that. If this sort of reward isn't handled carefully, you may just be rewarding puzzle-solving skills on the part of the players, rather than roleplaying.

That may not occur to an INT 9 fighter, but if he saw someone else do it he might remember that trick. It's up to the player to roleplay up an excuse for why that could work. "Key to the safe is under the cupboard, just like where my mom used to hide it growing up at 57 kings road in Waterdeep," as loudly as possible.

Anyway, I too have encountered some players who love the story but don't want to participate in it. They watch the game like a TV show. Once I've decided that it's not a case of getting someone out of their shell, and that they really do just want to watch, I tend to let them keep playing but give the personal plots to characters who will run with them.

[Walken]

What I really want from them is just a little roleplaying not "I rolled, what happened?" it adds flavor and its the way I play with my usual group.

I also think that it is also because of their very minimal grasp on the rules. They probably don't feel comfortable RPing because of the social stigma attached.

[Tsotha-lanti]

...The problem here arises when this player is the smartest player, playing an INT 9 fighter who wouldn't quite think of that. If this sort of reward isn't handled carefully, you may just be rewarding puzzle-solving skills on the part of the players, rather than roleplaying.

That's easily solved.

"Hey, you know, your character's pretty damn stupid - maybe he shouldn't be acting that smart?"

(Not that the specific example would require an Int higher than 9, in my opinion.)

[nargbop]

I've had the luxury of knowing multiple groups with significantly different temperaments and playing styles. The creeps and the autistics were not invited to join future games. We managed not to have many.

I was, myself, one of the stanby folk who just waited for something to happen in a high-level Exalted game. I'd never played Exalted before , and I didn't want to mess up any plans or... well, really, I didn't want to do stupid unrelated stuff when the party got going. I don't really know why I was asked to join that game.

So, how to deal with your WoW-type friends... I started one of my friends doing the narrate-and-roll bit after he asked "What happened?" by saying "Which direction are you swringing that sword?" and running with it. Get details! The story is details, and just run with it. When he starts saying the details and thinking of other details to say without being asked, he's begun narrating properly.

[JMobius]

Perhaps my definition is the non-standard one, but I percieve roleplaying as 'getting inside the head of', and exploring an alternate persona. I continually try to encourage my players to develop interesting and plausible personalities, etc.. The games are generally as much about how characters respond to their situations as they are about the situations themselves.

Things like narrating how one searches a closet don't really contribute to that at all, so I'm typically fine handwaving it away with a search check in d20, or an automatic success in other systems. While I might in passing describe where exactly in the closet they found the MacGuffin, an overemphasis on details like this just seems to me it would slow things down without adding much.

[kamikasei]

Perhaps my definition is the non-standard one, but I percieve roleplaying as 'getting inside the head of', and exploring an alternate persona. I continually try to encourage my players to develop interesting and plausible personalities, etc.. The games are generally as much about how characters respond to their situations as they are about the situations themselves.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[new1965]

What I really want from them is just a little roleplaying not "I rolled, what happened?" it adds flavor and its the way I play with my usual group.

I also think that it is also because of their very minimal grasp on the rules. They probably don't feel comfortable RPing because of the social stigma attached.

Many of the players I know that arent into RPing just arent invested in their character emotionally.

We had the current group come up with a back story for their characters that included family/friends and the reason they became adventurers. Now that the DM has hooks to take it from just being a campaign to being about the characters lives, RPing gets a LOT more interesting when its personalized

which is more appealing to RP..

You hear of an attack from a tribe orcs on a nearby village and some of the villagers have been taken as slaves
or

"Aramil... Thank Kord I found you! I got away when the orcs attacked but your brother and sister weren't as lucky... They are still alive but i saw them get captured "

[Tsotha-lanti]

Perhaps my definition is the non-standard one, but I percieve roleplaying as 'getting inside the head of', and exploring an alternate persona. I continually try to encourage my players to develop interesting and plausible personalities, etc.. The games are generally as much about how characters respond to their situations as they are about the situations themselves.

Things like narrating how one searches a closet don't really contribute to that at all, so I'm typically fine handwaving it away with a search check in d20, or an automatic success in other systems. While I might in passing describe where exactly in the closet they found the MacGuffin, an overemphasis on details like this just seems to me it would slow things down without adding much.

That is one style of RP, certainly, but not the definition. It's very internal, and I - and some others - don't find that very interesting. I'm always less concerned with the internal workings of my characters, and more concerned with their actions.

Rewarding detailed actions is a good way to encourage players to put more detail into what they do, whether it be fighting a goblin or raising an army.

[kjones]

Role-playing does not necessarily mean talking in character - you can role-play very effectively with a third-person narration ("Krogoth says..."). Many people find this easier and less awkward, and you don't even need to work out what you're saying verbatim ("Krogoth asks the king what happened to the puppies").

With regards to the matter of the Int 9 fighter coming up with stuff, I've always assumed that such problem-solving exploits were the work of the entire party working together - thus, if the smart player (playing the dumb character) figures something out, it can be assumed that it was actually the smart character (played by the dumb player) that came up with it. This makes it possible to role-play characters who are smarter, wiser, or more charismatic than yourself.

[DeathQuaker]

Have you asked them about it?

Tell'em you're used to gaming groups that are really into character and really don't focus on the dice quite so much. Ask them why they aren't--are they uncomfortable with it, or is it not their thing? Ask them what they think you all could do to encourage it more. Give them a few examples of what you're looking for.

If they tell you it's not their thing, then switch games, or just get out an adventure module and take them through a crawl, IF you are so inclined. Play wargames or board games instead. Find other people to play your RPGs instead.

If you find they want to do this, but just aren't comfortable with it or seeing the opportunities for it, hear their feedback on what would make them feel more comfortable roleplaying.

Possibly, go through a "roleplay" session with no dice whatsoever. Just play through maybe, say, how your party met, or a conversation they might have over the fire one evening. (Some of my gaming groups just naturally go into "roleplay talks" when we're not in session, just talking in character about what we want to do next, or what we think about said NPC, etc. It's a great way to feel in character)

Ask them to write up backstories for their characters. Ask them to include one of the following--an item they are looking for, a personal nemesis, a family member/friend/lover to find/rescue, etc. This does two things: 1) Gives you some spice for your plot, and 2) Makes them feel invested in the STORY more than the mechanics. They'll feel more excited about defeating their personal nemesis than random BBEG#43, and that in itself will make them feel more invested in their characters and what's going on.

And though I would work on more organic things like the above first, mechanical rewards--in moderation--can help too. The most obvious as mentioned is roleplaying XP. Or say, ask them to describe their actions as detailed as possible. If they're very vivid, give them a +2 to their roll. Or say, "That conversation with Bob was so stimulating, he gives you a Potion of Cure Light Wounds for your trouble."

[kamikasei]

In addition to DeathQuaker's good advice, I suggest, if you think they're partly influenced by a lack of familiarity with the rules, running a no-roleplay session or two. Just run them through a sort of "boot camp" or obstacle course of encounters intended to familiarize them with combat mechanics, special attacks, skill use, lesser-used options etc. Give them a chance to try out various permutations of "just what can my character do in this scenario?". Maybe after that they'd be more comfortable branching out. I know I find it easier to think of what my character might want to do when I have a good mechanical understanding of the options available to him, because then my view of the situation more closely approximates his (who, after all, has all the experience to use those skills).

[Tsotha-lanti]

As for learning them the rules and what they can do: print-outs with tables of the actions from the PHB/SRD combat section. It takes about one page, and is easy as anything to do in Excel / OpenOffice Calc.

[OneFamiliarFace]

As much as I have tried to get them to RP, they seem to just want to roll the dice and kill things. This may also be because they have a very limited grasp on the rules and all they know is combat. Fortunately for my sanity's sake. They will be heading back to their respective colleges.

(I'm in agreement with everyone here. For rules, I'd recommend just telling them to ask you how to do what they want to do, and you tell them how. Try to say 'no' as little as possible.)

In this case, if you have a group like this in the future and want to maintain them, then embrace their playstyle. Work on combat exclusively at first, in order to design the most interesting encounters. Make sure there is something for each player to do in the encounter. Then, have roleplaying situations come up in combat. It can be as simple as explaining what the monsters do, or asking politely for the players to explain their actions. Later, have things happen based on their actions. Did they bust in and slaughter a family of farmer goblins because they assumed they were evil? Next encounter is with local law enforcement, or a band of gobbos with vengeful intent.

Most of the time, they will just go right on ahead and kill the law enforcement. And that's cool. Now they are outlaws and get to raid camps and stuff. But sometimes they will realize a fundamental difference between WoW and DnD: In the latter, your actions have an influence on the game world. WoW is a fine game, but anyone who even has a shred of the tiniest roleplayer in them has to at least be slightly bothered by the fact that when they kill the villains, the villains just poof back into existence. Or when they complete a quest, they notice someone running up to turn in the same quest.

It doesn't work that way in DnD, and you can emphasize that by making the players' actions have a direct and noticeable effect on the environment. It can even be something as small as the wizard's spell setting a chair on fire. That won't happen in WoW, no matter how phat your lootz are.

I have DM'd groups on both extremes, and I've found that you can always force roleplayers to roll dice, but you can't always force the people who just want to kill stuff to roleplay. So you almost have to trick them into it. If you DM to tell a story, or if they just don't have fun, then set up a LAN party, do an instance, and find some new people.

[BobVosh]

There is an easy enough anwser to this. Play gurps, lots of fun for everyone without requiring roleplaying.

I just want to throw this out to the guy who said CoC. In CoC there are no winners. No survivors. Only very rich mental asylums. Seriously the best way to play CoC is with your eyes closed and fingers in your ears. Then all you can do is taste something magical/creepy and go slowly insane. Elder gods have smooth silky hands, so they can't feel you crazy.

[Knaight]

Hence dark. Its there for if you want to end your game with everyone either killed or insane, and I can think of some people who would love playing that.