How to better engage players? (help!)

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

Hi guys! I need some help with my campaign, with a number of issues that I think need to be resolved for me to run a better game.


1.) I have quite good knowledge of the setting, but have difficulty getting my players to read much about the setting. It makes it difficult for my players to understand/appreciate what I do with certain story arcs.


Part of my difficulty is because I feel the players need to understand the background of the story, I can get way more detailed than the players feel necessary. But the reason I do it is despite offering to send home books with players I get polite refusals, or if they do take books home rarely ever read them.


2.) Divergent character goals/Conflicting niches.


I tried to make sure everyone had compatible goals from the start and a good niche, but over time this is not working out so well.  


3.) Lack of knowledge of the rules


Certain players cannot handle basic arithmatic and I'm the only one who can walk them through combat. And I have to hold half the group's hand to do combat, and am getting really tired of it. I know more combat could solve the problem, it's just difficult to do.


Any thoughts? I'm happy to provide more details as needed. thanks!

 

[Persell]

I recently started exalted with my vampire group and did the following.


Every week I gave out a little task, it ranged from "write up all your charms and put them into our forum" over "read the rule book pages 118-178" to "descirbe the place your character is living" (they are dragon blooded, so this makes some sense). And everyone who would do her (all females but me) tasks would get 2 extra experience points per week. It worked a treat so far and in this short time playing they accumulated more knowledge about exalted that some had after half a year of vampire gaming. It works so good, that I am considering using the idea in my solar game, too.


Not only does it help the story, but I also have a lot more fun, when people prepare stuff, that I and my gaming experience benefit from. For example I can use one of the character's homes with ease. Everyone knows what it looks like and that not I was the one who made it up which therefore adds to the interactivity as players can create things in the world without me checking up on them.


There are also some other little helpers, for example voidstate character sheets or cheat sheets, which have all the numbers on them, are easily obtainable in the net and have a lot of helpful information on them. With those you could play exalted with children ^^


If that doesn't work, then you have to serioiusly talk to your players, it is more than unfair to leave you with all the work. Your task is handling the campaign, not calculating their defense values or accuracy. If they do not get that, kick them out before you loose your fun in the game.

 

[Flyck]

And everyone who would do her (all females but me)...
...

I stopped there.  


Can I join your gaming group?   :twisted:


j/k of course.

 

[Persell]

1.) I have quite good knowledge of the setting, but have difficulty getting my players to read much about the setting. It makes it difficult for my players to understand/appreciate what I do with certain story arcs.
Part of my difficulty is because I feel the players need to understand the background of the story, I can get way more detailed than the players feel necessary. But the reason I do it is despite offering to send home books with players I get polite refusals, or if they do take books home rarely ever read them.

A lot of players lack the time and/or inclination to do "homework" in order to play a game. With these folks you have to introduce the necessary material in the game itself.


Have NPCs or Lore rolls give them the bare bones, and point to somewhere that full details can be found (like a library whose use is simulated by reading a two page printout of the meaningful chapter).


Another option is to hand them the printout when they find something important. For instance, if they find a letter telling of the sad history of Joe the Solar, create a small (two-pages is good) handout that summarizes the story. If they ignore it, they'll be in trouble later when they can't get past the password-protected lock on Joe's door. At that point you wait for them to remember the handout, or perhaps remind them after a successful intelligence roll.


In both cases keep the handout short. If you give someone that doesn't like homework a book they're going to say no. If however, inside the game itself, you give them a small paphlet in flowing (but easily legible) script it stops being a chore and becomes a prop. Also, smaller handouts are easier to read. Those that lack the time can more readily take it and read it on a break at work or while watching the news in the morning. Despite the actual amount of reading being the same, a pamphlet has a smaller psychological impact then a book, and may entice those who generally aren't interested in these things into checking it out.


And in all cases, make the pamphlet tie directly into what they're doing now. It lends a feeling of importance to it.


If all else fails you may have to drop that side of the campaign or drop the campaign altogether. If you need for them to fully appreciate the historical depth of the setting but they are more interested in what their characters do in the present, it might be a conflict that can't be resolved.

2.) Divergent character goals/Conflicting niches.
I tried to make sure everyone had compatible goals from the start and a good niche, but over time this is not working out so well.  

What are their goals? Is it at all possible to create scenarios that combine the goals of multiple PCs, and let the players of the other PCs know that the next scenario will be aimed more at them?

3.) Lack of knowledge of the rules
Certain players cannot handle basic arithmatic and I'm the only one who can walk them through combat. And I have to hold half the group's hand to do combat, and am getting really tired of it. I know more combat could solve the problem, it's just difficult to do.

Stop holding their hand. The math of Exalted can be done by my five year old son, so that's just an excuse. It seems like you may have some people on your hands that are more than willing to let you do everything for them that they will do.


1) Get them a cheat sheet so they have all the modifiers at their fingertips.


2) Run an extremely basic combats using their current characters versus a horde of incoming unexplained ninja extras. When they seem to be getting the feel for it, or seem to have given up, have a few beefier enemies show up and Join Battle. Bonus points for making it personal with enemies they've met in the past. Double bonus points if they thought those enemies were dead.


3) If all else fails, don't be afraid to have a character death. Combat systems and how they work become much more important to most players when they realize that not knowing how they work will kill their character.


Above all, remember that you're the GM. You've got an entire world to take care of and they only have a single PC. It's not a big burden and it's nothing that they can't handle by themselves. If they truly can't handle addition and subtraction, you can get a cheapo calculator for them at the dollar store.[/url]

 

[Balota]

Alot of your issues could be fixed by a early game bonding of the group and a strong player to take the leadership role. I normally set up a senario early off say the first three gaming sessions that will take multiply peoples skills to overcome and at the same time bring forth one player as a leader of the group.


If they can find rank order in the group then finding your way later will not be as hard.


Again this also takes the understanding of the players that we are here to allow for a good time with our friends.


An some people just want to throw a monkey wrench in, thats when you pull them to the side.

 

[Persell]

1) My suggestion for you is instead of trying to get them to read about the setting, make games in which they can explore the setting and experience it for themselves.  I know what this is like, as I tried to run a game with my group of players, who all do just D&D.  I tried to get them into Exalted, but they refused to read up on the books.  They wouldn't even read the setting chapters of the book.


Once I realized this, I decided instead of trying to get them to read it themselves or explaining it to them, I'd make them experience it.  I was going to have them on a "world tour" in which they would visit the major locations in Exalted.  That way, they could learn the ins and outs of the settings in-game, which I think would be more fun and engaging than trying to get them to read about it.


Because of this, you may have to rethink the campaign you had planned to run with them but, if this is the first time your players play Exalted, I think that is fine.  Use this campaign to give them an opportunity to learn the basics of Exalted so that, either later in your campaign or in an entirely different campaign, they can enjoy the setting with more experience.


3) This...  this is a bit more difficult to solve.  I know what it's like to take a group of d20 players and try to get them to learn the mechanics of Exalted.  It's quite tough, and d20 players can have a problem getting used to it, which is understandable.  Here's the rundown of the action for d20.


DM: Who do you attack?


PC: The bugbear.  *rolls d20 and adds attack bonus*  Do I hit?


DM: *compares d20 roll to bugbear's AC*  Yes, roll your damage.


PC: *rolls the various dice for damage and adds them up*  I did 16 points of damage.


DM: Okay.  Next guy.


For Exalted:


ST: Who do you attack?


PC: The zombie.  *rolls d10s and adds up successes*  Do I hit?


ST: *compares the number of PC's sux to NPC's DV*  Yes.


PC: How much bonus damage dice do I add?


ST: *subtracts DV from sux*  4.


PC: Okay, my damage pool is 13 dice.


ST: All right.  *looks at NPC's soak*  Subtract 3 dice from that.


PC: Okay, my pool is now 10 damage dice.  *rolls*  I got 4 successes.


ST: All right.  Next guy.


That's an extra 4 steps involved in a combat action, and that doesn't even take charms into account.  As such, Exalted games go a lot slower when combat is concerned compared to d20 games, ESPECIALLY when it comes to players who are not used to the rules.  You can try to help them out, but that will slow down combat even more when you do all the math yourself.  This makes combat EXTREMELY tedious.


My suggestion for this is to do less combat, not more.  Right now, you really want to hook your players, not grind them down.  What you could do is instead of focusing on combat, instead use traps or environmental dangers to try to thwart them.  This way, all they need to do is a few Ability rolls, making the game go much quicker.


And those instances when you do decide to have combat, it could be a whole big epic battle that you can concentrate on for the game session, really playing up the stunt aspects of it.  When you don't have combat planned, you can instead focus on roleplaying and the use of other Abilities.

 

[Persell]

3.) Lack of knowledge of the rules

You know I have a player with this same damn problem.  She can't do basic math and it boggles my mind.  She used Trance of Unhesitating Speed to fire three arrows, added up everything she needed (with the help of myself and the player next to her).


Her next action tick rolls around, same charm, three arrows... none of the math had changed and we spent ten more minutes trying to explain to her how to do it all over again.


1. She knows the rules.


2. She is not stupid.


What I started to do a few sessions back was simply inform all the players that they had to have their actions prepared, and ready to go in a set period of time or their action set back three ticks as they assessed the situation.


1. It encourages them to pay attention more to the battle as it played out and cut down on "Wait... how many were there, and why is Four Winds Laughing being the target of an onslaught?"


2. It helped to enforce quick thinking.


Ya know... she got good at math really darned quick.  It was amazing.  She also suddenly gained this immediate cosmic understanding of her charms and how they worked without needing the book (as much).


It was the damnedest thing.

 

[Flagg]

1. She knows the rules.
2. She is not stupid.

The empirical evidence you have presented speaks to the contrary.

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

double post oops.

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've started with Safim's suggestion for giving xp for reading up on rules and the setting (relevant material mostly) and my group agreed that 1xp per 10 pages works out pretty well. (naturally subject to some questioning just to check.) I think that is a bit on the high side, but a few of the players find reading setting material and rules really boring. So, hopefully the incentive is appropriate. The only difficulty I'm having is what about players who've already read a bit of background material? (i.e.  the eclipse caste PC reading the eclipse caste book!)


Safim and James, I do have the voidstate cheat sheets printed out as of my last session and they were helpful. Thanks! Now I just point to it in case they don't know what to do.


James, I think the difficulty with the group goals is that the original group goal I had for them actually turned out to not only be boring for me to run but also boring for the players. I was going with a huge treasure hunt, but it really bogged down going the wrong direction. The current individual character goals are:


Dawn Caste 1: Rebuild slaughtered clan and train huge army to fight DB's


Dawn Caste 2: Rebuild Indomitable Skyfortess (epic project)


Zenith Caste: Create new UC religion and conquer world under Solar rule


Twilight Caste: Start big university and new center of learning


Night Caste: Kill bad guys not caught by the system/ Reconcile DB and solar differences without tons of bloodshed


Eclipse: Unite all solars and defeat enemies by diplomacy


The group as a whole has been working towards building their own city state south of Greath Forks and each character is filling in a niche to build the city. The main difficulty is that there is still a lack of consensus about what to do.

Balota said... Alot of your issues could be fixed by a early game bonding of the group and a strong player to take the leadership role. I normally set up a senario early off say the first three gaming sessions that will take multiply peoples skills to overcome and at the same time bring forth one player as a leader of the group.

Most of the group has been playing with each other for over a year. Just mainly, not playing exalted and D20 which is way too simple for my tastes. The difficulty is that 2 players are very new to RPG's and  have never played any CRPG's and are totally out of their league. My wife (one of the new players) complained to me that each RPG has it's own "lingo" and is like learning a whole new language and culture.


One player who's been at it for 10 years automatically takes the lead even if her character is NOT a leader type and I have to have a talk with her I think. She knows what to do given most situations just out of sheer experience.


My plan is in a few weeks all the players should be able to come to gaming and what I'll do is have a big sit down and go over things with them and go over things taking into account all the helpful suggestions here.

 

[Mr.E]

I think this is an awesome thread! It really helps me out just by reading it!


I love building little nooks and crannies, but, I hate trying to build entire campaign arcs, but, I usually offer to sit in the hot-seat. I suck at it. But, I really did get a bit of unifying advice from this thread.


I also liked the background reading idea for EXP, it makes it a little easier to level, it's a great incentive, and it forces me to read! I mean, I do have a life of my own, and even I'm not cement in the background. I haven't gotten to supplements yet. Has anyone concerned just making it 'recommended reading,' and giving players a little quiz, and if they do well on it, 1-2 exp? You know, a quick 5 question multiple guess quiz? It still rewards players already know the stuff, well bringing newbloods up to the chance. Would that help ya HTH? :wink:


On a similar line of thought, I don't want to thread-jack, but, what is 'acceptable' as a campaign? Especially for Solars? I mean, all of their goals are haughty, but, I know a low-level solar can't rally 10,000 men to run at the DB Empire, just not gonna happen. So, how do people build campaigns? Especially build ones that all players can mingle in? It'd be easy of all characters had the exact same goal obviously.


For example, HTH's group, 4 of them want to bring the solars together, and conquer the DB's... 1 wants to slaughter, 1 guy in the group wants no bloodshed. How do you work that? Wouldn't those two PC's butt-heads... a lot?

 

[Persell]

Can you bring the group's indecision to a head? Ask them, OOC, to use some time over emails or at the end of a session to decide what it is IC they want to do next.


It sounds like some of them have incomatible goals, especially the Eclipse / Night compared to the two Dawns. That's either a recipe for some excellent sessions, or a train wreck

 

[Mr.E]

I was in a group where we butted heads over ideas, but, we were friends outside of the game, so, we bickered a lot in In-Character. It was very realistic, with friendly debates, and such. I mean, think about it, do you and your friends always get along all of the time?


We sometimes made diplomacy roles within the group! It also plays us on our own virtues a lot, instead of just saying "well, my character would do this or that" It was often the Zenith looking at the Dawn and going "come on, you would dare let us walk alone un-protected with the Wild Hunt chasing us? Like it or not, we need you to protect us!" Darn having lots of compassion and valor  


But, we were a group of mature people, it takes a bit of role-playing and maturity to not have it break into an argument and have dice flying across the table, someone leaving the table, or a die lodged in a wall behind someone's head.

 

[Persell]

I use little things like handwritten notes passed from NPCs to PCs (or as excerpts from books, etc) as notes I've done up myself for them to keep facts straight.  My players are all fairly experienced with Exalted -- all of them have run it at one point or another -- but I tend to have involved, complex storylines, and they may miss something that is vital to the overall plot that their character's likely wouldn't.   This helps them out a bit.  If they lose the notes, I don't replace them though, unless they have a good excuse like, "My toddler decided my Exalted crap would look better in a million tiny pieces" which has been a valid excuse given to me.

 

[Persell]

You got 5 solars? A full circle could definitely take on the realm. With the right spread of charms a starting circle can almost instantly start waging war against the realm. First against satrapies of course but do not underestimate solars. No satrapy will stand up to the mindbending and martial powers of a full circle of solars for long.


On campaigns. I will give you the one invaluable piece of advice:


Write notes, not stories.


When dealing with solars,more than any other thing in roleplaying nothing is fix. They have the ability to turn around nearly everything. So, make notes, they often only ignore the stories anyway ^^ that is... without a lot of railroading of course, and let's be honest, nobody likes railroading.


When designing antagonists take special care of their motivation and intimacies. Several duels and discussions under dramatic circumstances with the bad guy are not out of question. People are often reluctant to kill friends from their first age lives, be they reincarnated or not. Play to that. Let the foes come back. Don't make them too obviously evil and always make them evil in a heroic way. Abyssals are not just slutty emos in dark armour. They are heroes. They extend their own suffering to bring everyone the glory and peace of the eternal void for example. Every martial arts duel is a philosophical discussion and a recruitment chat at the same time. Or at least two (old) friends argueing over something, perhaps something they have done many times before. In the end your tiger style has to beat his snake style and your points have to beat his.


As you see, exalted is incredibly character driven. Why? Easy, because they are mostly exalts, they bring change just by their sheer awesomeness ^^ or force of personality or their swordsplay. Change is bound to happen around them. If you read around here how awesome this or that primodial or 3rd circle demon is and that nobody ever can beat it - ignore it. Stay away from plot devices as long as you can (sometimes they are neccessary). And when you incorporate something big and evil into your campaign, like a deathlord. Expect your characters to destroy it. Nothing in the setting is out of question to be taken down or rebuild. The setting is full of "impossible" stuff. Like repairing the glass towers of chiaroscuro. Impossible means: No solar has tried it until now. Tried is the wrong word actually. All solars are disciples of yoda... there is no try, only do.


That does not mean everything should be a cakewalk. Make it hard, make them suffer for their successes. They may be eventually destined to take down the first and forsaken lion, but that does not mean he doesn't make them bleed on the way. Attack their kingdoms, friends, lovers, magical equipment. And that is only the first level. Attack their virtues, their moral, question their motives. Play in the great curse. Nobody said being an exalt is easy.


Make use of examples. Tell them of a circle in the east failing. Tell how limit breaks have torn their unity apart and how they all fell into darkness alone.