Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Setzertrancer 05-10-06, 04:25 AM	I'm about to start a new campaign and I need to find a way to #1 Appeal to my three players who care only about fights and #2 Find a way to run a Campaign with enough things other then fights to keep me interested in running it. My players are complete Roll players and the problem with this is that I will lose motivation to run the game if all I'm doing is managing monsters and rolling dice, and not stimulating my creativity. So does anyone have any Ideas for this delema, preferably ways to motivate my players to roleplay, solve puzzles and interact with the setting and enjoy it. In the DMGII I read about metagaming players evolving into roleplayers over time is this true or just an urban legend. If It is true does anyone know how it happens? Or if that's not possible how can I make it interesting for myself when DMing for metagamers?
Rallek 05-10-06, 05:28 AM	As something of a veteran, both as a player and as a DM I have to say that players become more like the group that they play with, and new groups become like the DM who runs for them. Over time rollplayers do often become roleplayers, but in my experience, this is due more to attrition than true evolution. Let me explain; If all that I want to do is run around and kill things, while becoming as uber as possible, I will "burn out" on D&D in a relatively short time. After a year or so of hardcore playing, I'll become a "casual" player who often misses sessions, ducks out early, just shows up to B.S., that kind of thing. After that I'll get more into whatever video game is currently letting me run around and kill things, while become as uber as possible, with better eye-candy than PnP games. That's when I fall out of the scene, as it were. If I instead move towards a roleplaying style of gaming, then I tend to stay interested, and involved. I can't find the same kind of experience on a video/computer game that I get from a group of good players and a good DM. The potential for character development and growth is unrivaled, and that keeps me showing up at the table, and having a blast doing it. Thus I stay in the scene, as it were. Now I will doubtlessly get flammed for my RP snobbery, and perhaps rightly so, but you asked for my input, and that's it. Now as far as how to nudge your players towards roleplay, I would start with a truly detailed setting. start small at first, if you're not sure what you're doing. Design a small city, draw out an overhead map of it, name the businesses. Flesh out all of the shopkeepers, tavern owners, and craftsmen. Give them personalities, likes and dislikes, prejudices, fears, wants, needs, do as much as you can to really bring them to life. Don't let the players buy their equipment by opening the book and erasing some gold. They don't just go to the armory either, they go to "Blackrope Forge", they don't talk to the smith, they talk to "A large man with well muscled arms and shoulders. He has a shaved head, and a large red beard. He wears a leather apron over his clothing, and long leather gloves. He extends his hand, and in a booming voice says, 'New faces! That's good, business was gettin' slow! M'name's Thoric, Yarl Thoric... and if ya haven't guessed I'm the smith round 'ere. What can I do ya fer?'" I find that the more I get into characters, the more my group "rises to the occasion". I don't know if it will work for you, and I know that it's kind of lame to say that if you want them to be interested, try to make it interesting, but it seems like that's what I'm saying. Give them a living, breathing world to play in, and see how they respond. Just one DMs opinion. Happy Gaming
Ankalagon 05-10-06, 05:30 AM	If you gave some metagaming examples from your game the help you get will be better but generally 1) Do the opposite of what is the norm. i.e A white troll can be a fire troll, the guy with the pointy hat, flowing robes with stars and moons on and big staff with a crystal on it is a monk. 2) The 'MADE OBVIOUS' BBEG is a good guy. Struggling now without more info.
Ankalagon 05-10-06, 05:32 AM	Oh and Ralleks right IMHO.
Jarrad 05-10-06, 06:57 AM	Rallek's right. Detail, detail, detail. There are some hints and tips to running that sort of game though. When you get a spare hour or two, just generate character names, appearances and backgrounds like mad. Add "hooks" as they occur to you. They don't have to apply to any specific role or important person to begin with. For instance: **** Adric Deloray: mid-twenties, unruly mop of blonde hair, green eyes, sneering expression, posh accent, wears a jewelled rapier when out on the town, having a secret liason with the innkeeper of the Salty Troll, her dad will kill him if he finds out. Hooks: although almost everyone dislikes him he's actually a really nice person and goes out of his way to help the less-fortunate. He was badly bullied and beaten when he was growing up and thus hides behind his arrogant facade. Is a talented writer and musician although his family must never know as they despise that sort of person. **** Just brainstorm like mad. I literally just wrote whatever popped into my head just now, but it provides a foundation for what follows... What's the innkeeper's name? What's his daughter's name? Why does the innkeeper object to the match? How did his daughter find out that Adric isn't the arrogant b*st*rd that everyone thinks he is? All of Adric's network of relationships can come along with him. When you generate your next one, decide whether he or she has any relationship to the previous one. Brothers, sisters, cousins, people they are blackmailing or beholden to, any trouble they might be in with the law or with underworld loan-sharks, or with the army for deserting, or with the local mage for signing on as an apprentice then running off with a valuable item. Most importantly though, get the physical, emotional and mental characteristics sorted so that you can really play the role when you need that person. Get idiosyncracies of speech and any distinctive mannerisms down on the page so you don't have to think about it when the time comes. The thing is, at this point Adric could still be almost anyone. He could be a member of the City Guard, he could be a noble, he could be the son of Rallek's blacksmith, he could be a thief... If there's one word of warning, it's this: resist the temptation to spend too long on one "spare" NPC, no matter how cool he is becoming. Chances are a lot of your effort will be - well, not wasted but at least unseen by the PC's. Set yourself a maximum time limit - I suggest five to ten minutes at the outside - for generating each character, give yourself a couple of hours and let your imagination run riot. The player characters could encounter Adric anywhere and for any reason. He could have almost any character class. The point is that when you need an NPC in a big hurry, you can dip into your grab-bag of pregenerated personalities and with the other hand dip into your grab-bag of pregenerated statistics (for a particular type and level of encounter), match the two up and just go with it. Because the depth and intricacy of the relationships and personality of that character are known and understood by you, you'll portray the character much better and the players will "feel" that this is someone they can interact with. Do the same thing with locations, particularly those that you need a lot of, like temples, blacksmiths, taverns (you can never have too many and don't forget to note whether they serve food, what standard they are, how much they cost, whether they rent rooms and whether or not the staff are attractive ;) ), apothecaries, alchemists, leatherworkers, armourers, weaponsmiths... You can have some fabulous success with this approach. The PC's tell you they're finding an inn for a night so's they can get some proper rest. You tell them that there's a tavern a couple of miles down the road and as they approach... (Scan the list for a tavern name you haven't used) "The inn is called the Blue Griffon. It is..." [read description of the outside] When the players go in... (Scan the list of random characters suitable for such an occasion) "When you enter this normal-appearing rural inn, you are startled to note a humanoid reptilian creature working behind the bar! All around you are human farmers and labourers eating their evening bread, mutton and root-stew, apparently unconcerned at the six-foot lizard serving them the beer. You begin to wonder if you're the only ones who can see who's standing there..." Of course there's nothing to this. It's a completely random encounter. Perhaps the creature behind the bar is an unusually civilised lizardman who did some great service for a local person whilst wandering the human lands and was offered some work and a place to stay. Perhaps the tavern owner was transformed by an angry sorceror who got short-changed (or was allergic to the turnips in the stew) and all the locals are used to him. His name might be Korthyss, ex-High Priest of the Dreadful Maw or his name might be Geoff, ex-President of the local Farmers' Union and married to a short-sighted woman called Tamsin, who sings very badly but makes great chutney. All this is stream-of-consciousness: I've got so used to this now that I can do it on the fly without pausing for breath. The fact is, if the PC's have a detailed, interesting and engaging environment to interact with then they'll get a lot out of doing so. It's a lot more work until you get into the swing of things, but it's totally worth it :) My... that was a lot of words just to agree with Rallek :D
Morka 05-10-06, 11:03 AM	You could use this NPC Generator (http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc.cgi) to make a lot of NPCs rather quickly. Each NPC comes with 2 motivation and a recent history that he could talk about. But you will have to add a description of the NPC.
Arganis 05-10-06, 01:19 PM	Run RttToEE.
JacksonCash 05-10-06, 01:46 PM	Run which now?
kelvinaw273 05-10-06, 04:51 PM	My advice is to start them as level 0 - that is, as level 1 'commoners' before letting them level into level 1 players. Have them in a situation where they HAVE to use their wits to survive, and it is clear that they don't stand a chance alone. The way I work this is: 26 pt buy build, d4 hd (4+Con Mod hp), any six skills they want, with 2+int skill points. They may choose an 'afinity' representing a class feature of a class they intend to take, such as able to cast a levl 0 spell, weapon proficiency etc. When they 'level up' to 1st level they gain extra skill points, 4 extra points to their abilities and a full hit-die's worth of hit points; they lose their 'affinity' as it is swallowed up in the new level 1 class. The extra 4 hp at level one increases their survivability and is the 'carrot' for doing the level 0 start. The point of this is that they start really weak, and they have to take the non-combat options.