How to Get Players More Involved
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Sometimes as a game master you can have trouble getting a specific player, or multiple players, into a game session. They seem content to simply be dragged from point to point. When this happens, what can you do to get players more into your game? Here are a few suggestions on how to get players more involved in your game sessions.Character-Specific Items – If there is one particular player you are trying to get involved, throw them a bone and give them a cool weapon, armor piece, or other item. This item could be tied to the character’s past, or race-specific, or it could even be magically drawn towards the character. It could be something that is given to the character permanently, or it could be something that only remains with it for a short amount of time. Either way, make it good and make it something that only that character could use. Then the player knows it was meant for them.
Write A Background For Them – If the player hasn’t built much of a background for their character, then build one for them! One of two things will happen. The first thing that could happen is that they run with the background that you give them. If they don’t run with it, at least you can use it to pull them more into the campaign. The second thing that could happen is they rebel against what you wrote, and write a background of their own. Either way, you win by getting them more involved.
Give Them A Stalker – So the player (or players) are content to bumble around from point A to point B, with little care for the situation. Give them a stalker. This could be a conspicuous character that seems to continually pop up throughout the campaign. Maybe it’s a dark clad figure in a bar, that they mysteriously see again later in another town, and then again on a road to another town. Don’t make the reason for this ‘stalker’ immediately obvious. You may not even know what the purpose is for him, other than to peak player interest. You’ll figure one out though. Listen to what the players say about the stalker. They may even give you the idea of what he’s there for!
An Individual Encounter – Normally I am very against doing combat, or some separate encounter, for one player that excludes everyone else. However, I will reserve an individual encounter for a player that is having particular trouble getting into a game session. Find a way to separate them and give them an individual combat encounter. Or, have them meet someone in a dark alley that only wants to talk to them and give them important information. Maybe this NPC has some reason why they will only speak to that one character.
Reference Of Things To Come – It’s never too early to start dropping hints about what could be coming in the future of the campaign. The players could wander into a tavern where the bartender tells them that someone was looking for them a few days ago. Or they could receive a message from a far away land that the players know they won’t be getting to for a while. You could also start introducing a group that will become important later on in the campaign.
Magical Divination – If all else fails, just give the player some major clue to your campaign. Maybe the players are stuck at some point and need a clue. Find the player that is the least involved, and just flat out drop a clue on him. It could be a note that catches his eye, a voice that whispers something in his ear, or an item that leads them to the next area.
What are ways you have used to get players more involved in your game?
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December 12, 2008 at 1:31 pm
“What are ways you have used to get players more involved in your game?”
Normally I don’t play with people who aren’t invested in the game to begin with. But if I’m gaming with someone new, I like to run Spirit of the Century, Primetime Adventures or In A Wicked Age…games where the players have to be heavily involved in order to play.
December 12, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Very interesting game choices. I’m going to have to investigate them more thoroughly. I’ve heard of Spirit of the Century, but I have not played any of those you listed.
December 12, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I’d watch out for character specific items, as you wouldn’t want to make the other players jealous or appear to be showing favouritism as a GM.
Also, watch out for gripping a character to strongly to the game world, rather than bringing a player more into it.
jatori’s last blog post..Knowledge (Geography) – Mechanics
December 13, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Many games include various “hooks” in the character creation process, the vast majority of which can be added to a character during play. White Wolf’s “Mage: the Ascension”, for example, includes “Adversarial Backgrounds” (Guide to the Traditions, pp. 222-228). A surprising number of them can be adapted to any character type in any game, though a ‘tough but fair’ GM would at least give the player upon whom these things are being inflicted at least some warning.
I do agree with Jatori, though: a GM with this problem would reap much better rewards by shifting focus onto drawing the *player* into the game experience, rather than trying to manipulate the *character*.
In most D&D games, it’s fairly easy for a character to get on someone’s bad side; this is a textbook opportunity to give the character an Enemy. This would be an effective tool for a player who tends to be somewhat competitive but doesn’t want to disrupt the other players’ enjoyment.
It’s also fairly easy to set up circumstances in which the character owes some NPC a significant Favor or Debt. This would be effective for a player who enjoys political discussions or lends/borrows money in real life.
Perrin Rynning’s last blog post..Forge Master
December 14, 2008 at 7:59 am
Great suggestions. And Perrin, you just conjured up another post idea for me regarding competetive players…
And now I’m going to have to get a copy of that book to look up those pages.
December 29, 2008 at 8:20 am
Those are all some great suggestions. I agree that focusing on drawing in the player tends to be a better fix than focusing on the character. In the past when I’ve encountered this problem I turn to my “go-to” solution; mystery.
In my experience mystery generates curiosity, and curiosity generates involvment. I like to to use mystery as a secondary focus. What I mean by this is that mysteries are not the primary attribute of my adventure (such as “who killed the king”) but instead they float around at the edge of the adventure. They are small things that get the player asking himself “I wonder…” I’ll give you a few examples:
In my home campaign an important NPC that frequently acts as the heroes’ patron has several mysterious facets; he will only meet with the PC’s at night, sometimes when he meets with them he seems very ill as though he’s dying, other times he’s the picture of health, he always seems to know what the heroes have been doing and where they have been. Regardless of their current adventure my players are always curious about Lord Baraxis. They have yet to have the opportunity to investigate these mysteries (more pressing matters at hand) but I frequently overhear them pondering them and sharing their personal theories with each other.
I also like to use mysterious “incidental” locations. In the same campaign the heroes frequently travel between two small towns. At a crossroads deep in the forest is a large flat stone, four foot high and nearly 60 feet long. Travelers make use of the stone’s clearing because it lies roughly a days journey from either town. No one has any idea of the stone’s purpose or history but a beautiful half-elven woman has lived atop the stone for as long as anyone remembers. She has a sort of “hippy-chick” vibe and no means of support (no home, no bedroll, not even food). She never leaves the stone’s surface, not even in the winter.
These are just a couple of examples of “secondary” mysteries. For the time being the characters have been unable to persue these mysteries (not because I’m not allowing it but because they have more pressing adventures at hand). But all of my players are curious about these things, more importantly they are curious about the “setting” not just their current adventure. This curiousity not only generates more involvment but encourages my players to initiate their own adventures and lines of inquiry, not just play “follow the DM”.