Weekly Tip/Trick for Friday, September 21, 2012
- Try to Get the Players Invested in Your Game – This is a crucial step in motivating players to keep coming back! Think of it this way, you are 100% committed to your campaign, that’s obvious, but the players start out 0% committed to it. The idea is to find ways to get your players invested into your world, your campaign, and everything that is going on in them. This takes time, but having players who are invested in your campaign will help them get into character more easily. Essentially, if you were to ask any one of the players in your game, “What is your motivation for playing in this campaign?” Each player should have an answer. For example, they could say, “…because I want to see that dirt bag Harkins get what he deserves plus I would like to see how Sarah is recovering back in Stone Front..” You don’t want players to say something like, “…I dunno, because I like role-playing…” or “…to rid the world of evil doers, I guess…” Of course this isn’t set in stone and some people just don’t give a crap about the campaign or storyline and just want to roleplay. That’s fine too as long as they are having fun. I just look back to my favorite character I have ever played and remember how invested I was in him. He was looking for his wife who was taken from him and when he finally found her, the roleplay was epic! (if I do say so myself). The DM’s girlfriend, who was playing with us at the time, was in tears. Enough about that though, here are some examples of ways I try to help get players invested in my campaigns:
- For one of my campaigns I run, I ask each player (who wants to earn a few extra XP or a special item) to choose one of the locations I have marked on my map. They then are to create a city and give me detailed information about their created city. The city then becomes a permanent part of my world and also allows players to have an early investment in my campaign. What generally happens is, they will have to ask me about the history of the area, what events have happened, and so on. This gives me the opportunity to give them more info about my world. This knowledge can then be used in game. If they ever travel to that city or town, they will see their creation being used in my campaign. It sounds farfetched, but it works!
- Have the players make character backgrounds before they start playing. This will give them time to ponder specifics about their character and his/her past, etc. You can then use that info as plot devices, or a way to motivate their characters. Remember to reward those who take the time to do this. This makes it feel more like an investment and less like a chore. There is a character template that Mumbles made that has some great questions in it. You may want to condense it a bit so more players will be willing to fill it out (that was not directed at you mumbles).
- Make time for one-on-one roleplaying. This will force the player to roleplay and thus, get him/her more in character. This usually works, but like I said, not everything will work on everyone. They have to want to get invested. That isn’t always easy to do.
- Give the players opportunities to be awesome. Let the fighter with great cleave kill goblin after goblin as he keeps cleaving their heads off. Give the druid opportunities to use create water or speak with animals to help the group in a tight situation. Perhaps the Bard could entertain an audience to secure the group a room for the night. If a player feels like his/her PC is equally contributing and important, then he/she will enjoy playing their character that much more.
- Award players for showing an investment in your game. If there is great roleplay, then there should be some kind of reward.
- One idea I recently started testing is assigning random personally quirks. Some people are always reluctant at first, but by the end of the session, they almost always are glad they did it. You can find over 1800 random quirks by going to the following website: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19873978/1001_Character_Quirks?pg=1 or by searching on Google. I also have a list of 100, if you want to have the group role a d100 (aka percentile dice) to randomly assign a player quirk. I did this last week in two games, the one game, we were laughing so hard; we had to stop the game for a bit to get ahold of ourselves. Good stuff.
Getting players invested is one thing I always try to do. I want those playing to want to solve the problems within my world (or create them, depending on the group). When I first started out I often would ask players to rate my sessions from 1 to 10. I had a piece of paper with 1 thru 10 on it and all they had to do was circle a number. This was so I didn’t know who was giving me what rating (if they had to write the number down I would have been able to tell). Anyways, if I got less than 7 out of 10, I really focused on what I could have done wrong. One session, I received a really low score from someone. I asked if whoever gave me the 4 out of 10 (yeah a 4!) wants to help me out, please send me an email. I then got an email the next day and it was extremely helpful. I made some improvements and the next session I received all 10’s! Never forget the importance of feedback, it can make a world of difference.
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