First let me tell you guys a little bit about my D&D group. We have 4 people + the DM for all our campaigns and 2 of the PC's /really/ want to have more Roleplay to their campaigns instead of a pen and paper version of Diablo. The problem is we have 1 person that blatently doesn't care at all about roleplaying and one that is very very quiet and hard to get an opinion for anything from.
The 2 that want to roleplay and myself (the DM in this campaign) end up having to lead our other 2 friends by the nose to get anything done and it is very difficult to actually roleplay anything when having to supply your character's actions and give obvious enough clues for them to follow (which they still usually don't).
I'm fairly new to pen and paper gaming and this is my first real game being the DM and was wondering if anyone had any advice on ways to get slightly reluctant or shy people more into the "roleplay" aspect of the game? Also if anyone knows other good sites where people discuss pen and paper gaming I would much appretiate it. Thanks for any help you can give!
try tossing them stuff that apeals to the players, not the charactors. Yeah, this encourages metagame thinking, but you can fix that.
You can also request char. history from everyone. This will make them think about there charactor and allow you to toss in some roleplay insentive for them.
Also, you can give XP incentive to roleplayers as well.
Also, plan a game night in which there is no combat possible. Perhaps the party is guardin a caravan, but no one decides to test its defenses. With a couple well placed NPCs and the help from your RPing players, you could perhaps draw the other two out by starting a boasting contest with some of the other guards (or perhaps the caravan leader is a former merc and wants to tell of his exploits). Regardless, don't let them "we camp for the night" and 'blow' 12 hours of in-game time that could be roleplayed instead of skipped over in an OOC format.
Alternatively, a murder mystery that the players need to solve, with the "murderer" having actually accidentally caused the death, and was just too worried about appearances, or was an ex-convict servant who was afraid blame would be levelled at him without anyone looking for evidence, or the murderer actually died himself as a result of the murder (so the players wouldn't be justified in meteing out their own 'justice' so to speak). If you're worried about the non RPer getting bored/angry/whatever, throw in some random combat with some local toughs (or wererats from the sewer) that drop a clue related to the crime. This will let him whack-a-mole a bit, but don't make it the focus of the game.
The last, and perhaps worst option is to ignore any ooc chatter from the players.
Non RPer: We ask the bartender about clues
DM in gruff voice: You talkin' to me, bub?
Non RPer: C'mon...what does the bartender know about the case?
DM in gruff voice: Look, if you want a drink, order one. But quit talkin' 'bout me like I"m not here.
RPer: Greetings friend. We are curious if you happened to see somethign the other night.
If the Non RPers have a good idea that they think should be asked of an NPC, they may try asking it in character instead, which could help them get into the spirit of the game. Llabaktharr Gigglegiggler
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Thanks for the advice, I'll try some of these things and see if they help. We also got a very RP oriented player added to our group today so tomorrow I'll see if she can help me spice it up.
I want to say Female gamers around here are rather sparse. But in reality its probably closer to they are picky about who they game with. (Which dosnt bother me really) I have one female gamer in my group that plays with us every time we play. Another one usually ends up sitting in front of the computer playing EQ instead of actually becoming involved in the game.
From what I understand however she prefers not to play with one of the players that wasnt there when we started the campaign. Hence she's a NPC most of the time now.
In my other gaming group we had two female players but they were both was just... out there. Typically wasnt much RPing going on, was just there to be social it seemed. Though one did give us a rather entertaining quote. She wanted to see someone elses longsword, so she said "Let me see your long thingie." The other player was male.
In 'Gameshop groups' (Groups that get put together at mini-conventions that frequently occur at the gameshop here.) there is typically a few women. Most of them end up playing Magic instead of RPG'ing. When they do RPG you get quite a mixture, and they are apt to just leaving if they dont like the group. Some are rather self-important as well. We had one 400 lbs woman covered in soricass (sp) that thought she was god gift to men. Claimed that a group should be happy she was gaming with them. She was a crappy RP'r as well. Always useing OOC Knowlage.
All in all I probably know about a dozen female gamers. Only about 5 of them id prefer to game with, about 40%. With male gamers its about 80% I dont mind gaming with, and theres at least 5 times as many of them I know.
On Topic:
When you get a mixture of hackmasters and roleplayers your still not doing to bad. Just so none of the hackmasters are also munchkins.
It sounds like you already know you want to go more towards Roleplaying so maybe you could get the hackmasters into it by Gladiator Circuits. (If it fits into your campaign) Maybe a person in the bar will come up to them and say something along the lines of "You look like a tough fellow, would you be intrested in makeing some extra coin? Only be a simple fight." Play it up so that they cant get into the arena unless they RP with the underground folk. May even make themselves a few contacts that they could contribute to the party's rp'rs with.
With the middle-ground person you could follow Madar's advice. You could use a Light or Darkside approach. Find something they really like or dislike and make an adventure around it, as long as it fits into the campaign. And dont forget Gnomes when your determining if something fits. To a Gnome Tinkerer a Bicycle may be possible. D&D BMX Riding anyone? The only problem with this is that you could get into a Monty Hall type campaign. End up with a gnome paladin riding a 10-speed into combat.
On the dark side, the player may be really against mugging the poor or (apologize if offended) rape. Half-Orcs have to come from somewhere. Orc raiding parties are a classic adventure, just toss in the typically unsaid comment about it and it may set them off an a fury agains orcs.
Gives the RP'r something to go along with. The -blah- player something to focus on, and the hackmaster alot to kill.
Heh I love In Character chatter. I get to more boisterous and flamboyant than I normally am. Plus one of our players has some interesting voices for his characters. His intonation, slang, and inuendos make for some interesting dwarves.
I also like it because it's a lot more fun to try and pry information from NPCs through actually talking rather than rolling dice. My group generally uses stat scores as a guideline as to what our characters can do rather than resorting to rolling.
I really like using the advice given about developing background for the characters. When I do my DMing, I demand a somewhat relevant background description before we play. That way I can intermesh some characters.
You might also consider forcing some background on the players. Remember that not everything in life is up to you. The GM can decide that a character grew up in the plague ridden capital of wherever and is subject to sideways glances from strangers due to it. But if the players don't like it, don't force it on them. It needs to be fun for both. One of the most interesting ways I had a character introduced in a game I ran was when I decided that one member of the party and the one joining were engaged at some point in their past. They were surprised but it was one of teh funniest and most entertaining bits of roleplaying I had seen. They insulted each in character for like a half hour before we pretty much broke down laughing.
Gnome paladin on a 10 speed is the funniest thing I have EVER read. Thank you. Brother Pren, Human Transcendent on The Tribunal Server
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If I would shed my skin, the layers left,
But not the lessons learned
It would not undo what I have done
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