všehochuť

Last Hope: Talk it out. This is somewhat of an emergency exit just before you quit the stage. If your players aren't listening to you, or are plainly ignoring your in-game attempts to get them roleplaying, tell them. After all, you're GMing for fun - and if you're not having fun, something should change. And if you've done all you can to change the situation without success, it's the player's turn. Tell them that you don't want to GM anymore if they don't start roleplaying. Now _they_ should act -either they help you in creating a good story, or they'll have to find another GM...


From: Jones T.

I believe that your points in [Issue #51] speak to the very heart of a truly enjoyable and exciting campaign.

With regard to your first Point, wherein you speak of 'spending time on each character', I have a method which has proven to get all players excited about their PC's.

Whenever a player wishes to join one of my campaigns, they roll up their stats and then are required to provide me with a background. The background must come first.

From each background, I go over it in fine detail, taking notes, giving NPCs names and adding bits and pieces to fill it out. I then provide the player with his "Player Information". This sheet of paper gives him the names of the NPCs as well as a few other bits of seemingly trivial information (of course, my PCs are catching on that these tidbits are not trivial.)

From here, I develop small, long term campaigns with each Player's background. My games generally take the form of several long term campaigns, each one taking the characters through many levels and, sometimes, many years. In the backdrop, I provide what I refer to as "mini-campaigns" and "one-shotters." The "mini-campaign" is a series of 2 to 4 adventures, the 'one-shotters' being one adventure. The players never know what kind of adventure they are participating in at any moment.

From the Player's backgrounds, I create long-term 'mini- campaigns." Perhaps an adventure with the initial hints at 1st level, another one at 4th level, then an adventure that leads directly into one that relates solely to the PC's background and so on.

I have rarely seen a player not become very excited about his player with this method.

For an example, I have a Fighter from Neverwinter in one of my FR campaigns. At the start, he provided as a reason for his military skills the fact that he spent much time with a retired captain in the militia of Neverwinter. I expanded this background to say that this man actually found the Fighter as a babe in the Nether Mountains, halfway across the continent. This Captain was given the babe by a powerful figure who told him to watch over the babe carefully, for reasons not mentioned. He brought him back to the family that he believes to be his own and watched him throughout his upbringing. I have been playing off this (with more detail then I can give here) for nearly a year's worth of real-time gaming and the player is very excited about every bit of info that happens to drop his way.