I'm currently running a homebrew campaign with a few friends (all of us are teenagers including me) and I've realized they aren't taking the campaign seriously (naming characters after famous people, not caring much about lore and storytelling, no cool character roleplaying, just generally taking it as a game rather than a story).
This isn't just for me, it's just a general question. How would you make your party take the story seriously? I know we're just teens, but... I want to see a fantasy story instead of a bunch of friends rolling dice and saying "I'm going to stab that dragon with my sword because that's the only purpose we're playing this for".
Like I said, this is just a general question, not just for my specific case. Have any of you DM's had to deal with this same issue? If so I'm happy to hear you out.
I honestly don't know. You can't really make anyone take anything seriously if they don't want to - my advice would be to carefully curate what you want out of the game and how they can make that happen.
But also, listen to them and find out what they want out of the game and how you can make that happen.
The main thing is to be explicit in setting the tone. In session 0 (or a mid campaign break session where you can discuss problems etc, just say that you want this to be a serious story. Allow some humour and jokes, naturally, but ask that the story be taken with serious and gravitas. Then deliver it with the right tone - if you're making it slapstick, no one is going to take it seriously.
That's the best you can do. Either they respect what you want, or don't. But make sure that you let them know, nicely of course, that you'd like them to take the game seriously.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Players and GMs are not always on the same wavelength. It's a good idea to find out what your players want from a D&D game, and it's also important to express to your players what YOU want from a D&D game. Some players are just there to blast monsters and murder NPC's. Others are interested in deep lore and world building, others are interested in character studies and roleplaying. It's a good idea to talk with your players and find out what they're interested in, and if there are any story ideas they're interested in exploring. If they aren't really interested in anything more than stabbing dragons, than an epic fantasy with lovingly created worldbuilding and lore is probably going to be wasted on them.
It's possible that some of the players might get into it if there's a hook for them. (I saw a video on CritCrab's Youtube channel called "Pro DM dismantles Murderhobo (accidentally)," where said murderhobo actually found some hook to get him interested in more than just murderhobo-ing.)
The GM is a player as well and also deserves to have fun. If all else fails, you can sit your players down and tell them, "it seems like we want different things from D&D, and for that reason, I don't think I'm the right GM for this group."
Thank you all for your advice. I'll make sure not to be harsh on the players. What I could do is just run written adventures so I don't have to waste my time building a world. I may find a second group along with this one eventually.
How would you make your party take the story seriously? I know we're just teens, but... I want to see a fantasy story instead of a bunch of friends rolling dice and saying "I'm going to stab that dragon with my sword because that's the only purpose we're playing this for".
Give them an example, perhaps a video, of the better experience you want for them.
You mentioned finding a hook for players who aren’t initially invested in deep lore or roleplay. Do you have any examples of hooks that worked well for you in similar situations?
You mentioned finding a hook for players who aren’t initially invested in deep lore or roleplay. Do you have any examples of hooks that worked well for you in similar situations?
Again, you have to talk to your players to find out what they're interested in.
Similar situations as finding a hook for players not invested in deep lore or gameplay? I don't have any examples of that. I do have one example of finding a hook which worked for me.
After finishing a module, our DM told us he was going to make a homebrew setting for a new campaign. All the PC's would be young adult students at a school for adventurers in a world which has been overrun with monsters, beating civilization back into a small number of cities as the only settlements remaining. Most of my pre-existing character concepts were based on the PC having a history, some events in their adult life which shaped them. I didn't have any idea for a PC which was starting out fresh. Other character ideas didn't work well with the notion of the world being restricted to a handful of cities. When the DM said that a day before the campaign started, one of the cities went "dark" - the communications were disrupted and no one knew what happened... that was my hook. I decided to make a PC which was from that city, the idea of suddenly being on my own with no idea what happened to my home was intriguing. That was what worked for me. Other players will have different hooks. There's no one-size fits all. You have to talk to your players to find out an aspect that they are interested in exploring. There may not be one, they may be there just to unwind, turn their brain off and roll dice.
What I could do is just run written adventures so I don't have to waste my time building a world. I may find a second group along with this one eventually.
I do want to stress that time spent building a world/story is never "wasted." It flexes useful parts of your brain and it's just a fun, satisfying activity in its own right.
One thing most DMs come to learn is that no player is ever going to be as in to your own lore as you are. Not because it's not good enough but because that's just the nature of human brains. I've always thought babies were pretty ugly and still do, but when I had a kid MY baby was cute.
Keep in mind that the social nature of the game means that the players' needs affect it. Especially for teenagers, they want to be perceived as funny or cool which often translates into not taking things seriously.
The best you can do is engage with their characters to make it their story too, with the understanding that sometimes this will mean that things don't go the way you planned them to. This is where some of the real magic of D&D lives where you can get truly collaborative stories. Don't let them totally ruin things, but if you give them a chance to see that their character's actions can have real effects in the game world it can start to pull them in.
See this as an investment. Your own world-building is an investment in your own skills and talents, and your games are an investment in your players as you help them develop into more mature gamers. Once the shine of AnYtHiNg CaN hApPeN wears off, some players will start to chill out and get more into roleplaying. But be prepared that some maybe won't.
Once - long ago - I played in a group where one of the other players actually roleplayed. It was highly disruptive. The rest of us were just having fun, waiting for the bullets to start flying, and here was this one guy who had an extensive backstory, and insisted on viewing the entire game through the lens of his characters past and current perceptions and experiences.
It was frankly somewhat horrifying, and obviously it didn't work. The group couldn't function.
I'm kinda guessing you're in a similar situation - sadly: The product you're selling isn't what your players are buying. You need to either change the product or find new markets.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
There is a reason most stats in D&D are combat related - yes there is a small (but significant) rp community, yes there is the punitive no nonsense crowd, by and large in my experience most players want to be a super hero - kill stuff - get rewards so they can kill bigger stuff next session, and have a few laughs along the way.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that - it is supposed to be FUN. It is usually a bad idea to try and force a group to a place where they do not want to go - down that path lies the series of "sorry pal schedule change I will need to be leaving the campaign" -
Most DM's think their lore is super interesting - here is a secret - it is not. If it where they would have a best selling book and be a published author. (I include myself in that as I DM 3 games - I keep my plots simple and my combat complex)
You can either adapt to the tables style - or bring the game to a close and find a hard core group of rp'ers to run a new game with ---- and do the lore, story etc stuff that the entire table will enjoy.
Exactly laugh out loud. Game of Thrones was all about wanting to become and heroes and princesses and marrying the king until Ned got his head chopped off.
that said, even in combat humor is a stress relief, and sometimes the most morbid type of stress, relief. if that’s how the characters are dealing with what they’re doing killing hundreds of monsters, killing other soldiers almost being killed by giant massive evil reptiles maybe their antics at the inn is their character’s way of stress, relief.
The solution to a surprising amount of D&D player questions is simply to have an earnest, frank conversation about what you want from the game. Don't look for in-game solutions (i.e. punishing characters, taking magic items away, arresting the party, etc) for out-of-game problems. That'll just create an adversarial relationship between the DM and players, and only make your game worse.
The solution to a surprising amount of D&D player questions is simply to have an earnest, frank conversation about what you want from the game. Don't look for in-game solutions (i.e. punishing characters, taking magic items away, arresting the party, etc) for out-of-game problems. That'll just create an adversarial relationship between the DM and players, and only make your game worse.
100% this. I am frequently surprised at how often I see questions from DMs in the forum where the solution is to just talk with the players. I think most players want to make sure the DM is having fun too. I personally have never encountered a group where that was not the case. However, no one can read your mind and sometimes people are not aware that their level of silliness might be pushing the line on what is fun for someone else. I have had to ask some players if they can reel it in a bit once and they were totally cool with it and everyone still had a good time.
I have had players who specifically wanted to play bumbling idiot PCs with the understanding that that can cause some in-game problems, but that is very different than punishing players in-game when you have not talked to about their silliness and how that could potentially impact the game. I believe that if you are going to have in-game consequences, the players need to be aware of the possibilities beforehand to avoid exactly that adversarial relationship you talk about. In one, the players are 'in on the gag' and in the other they sense it as retaliation, which will negatively impact the relationship between player and DM every time.
I'm currently running a homebrew campaign with a few friends (all of us are teenagers including me) and I've realized they aren't taking the campaign seriously (naming characters after famous people, not caring much about lore and storytelling, no cool character roleplaying, just generally taking it as a game rather than a story).
This isn't just for me, it's just a general question. How would you make your party take the story seriously? I know we're just teens, but... I want to see a fantasy story instead of a bunch of friends rolling dice and saying "I'm going to stab that dragon with my sword because that's the only purpose we're playing this for".
Like I said, this is just a general question, not just for my specific case. Have any of you DM's had to deal with this same issue? If so I'm happy to hear you out.
I feel you pain, as someone who built a OGL setting which took me over 10 years to design, including planetary math, including orbital mechanics, and calculations for day night cycles and seasonal variances.
I Also spent years developing a history, and mechanics based on the in universe explanation for magic. The total document was over 100 pages fully illustrated by me.
Not one person playing in that world even opened the document.
So what do you do...
You have 2 options, kick them and find a group willing to read your book. (not advised) or
Let the players have fun, and find a way to have fun too.
BTW, I will never again run a Homebrew setting, I use the premade books and make changes to fit my players now. My world, will be found in a novel I am still writing.
Hi community,
I'm currently running a homebrew campaign with a few friends (all of us are teenagers including me) and I've realized they aren't taking the campaign seriously (naming characters after famous people, not caring much about lore and storytelling, no cool character roleplaying, just generally taking it as a game rather than a story).
This isn't just for me, it's just a general question. How would you make your party take the story seriously? I know we're just teens, but... I want to see a fantasy story instead of a bunch of friends rolling dice and saying "I'm going to stab that dragon with my sword because that's the only purpose we're playing this for".
Like I said, this is just a general question, not just for my specific case. Have any of you DM's had to deal with this same issue? If so I'm happy to hear you out.
I honestly don't know. You can't really make anyone take anything seriously if they don't want to - my advice would be to carefully curate what you want out of the game and how they can make that happen.
But also, listen to them and find out what they want out of the game and how you can make that happen.
Somewhere between those two is a happy medium.
The main thing is to be explicit in setting the tone. In session 0 (or a mid campaign break session where you can discuss problems etc, just say that you want this to be a serious story. Allow some humour and jokes, naturally, but ask that the story be taken with serious and gravitas. Then deliver it with the right tone - if you're making it slapstick, no one is going to take it seriously.
That's the best you can do. Either they respect what you want, or don't. But make sure that you let them know, nicely of course, that you'd like them to take the game seriously.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Players and GMs are not always on the same wavelength. It's a good idea to find out what your players want from a D&D game, and it's also important to express to your players what YOU want from a D&D game. Some players are just there to blast monsters and murder NPC's. Others are interested in deep lore and world building, others are interested in character studies and roleplaying. It's a good idea to talk with your players and find out what they're interested in, and if there are any story ideas they're interested in exploring. If they aren't really interested in anything more than stabbing dragons, than an epic fantasy with lovingly created worldbuilding and lore is probably going to be wasted on them.
It's possible that some of the players might get into it if there's a hook for them. (I saw a video on CritCrab's Youtube channel called "Pro DM dismantles Murderhobo (accidentally)," where said murderhobo actually found some hook to get him interested in more than just murderhobo-ing.)
The GM is a player as well and also deserves to have fun. If all else fails, you can sit your players down and tell them, "it seems like we want different things from D&D, and for that reason, I don't think I'm the right GM for this group."
Thank you all for your advice. I'll make sure not to be harsh on the players. What I could do is just run written adventures so I don't have to waste my time building a world. I may find a second group along with this one eventually.
Give them an example, perhaps a video, of the better experience you want for them.
Also, consider this book for shifting the game focus to the players so they drive the story: The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying: Guidelines and strategies for running PC-driven narratives in 5E adventures (The Game Master Series): Fishel, Jonah, Fishel, Tristan, Di, Ginny, Ashworth, Jeff: 9781956403442: Amazon.com: Books
You mentioned finding a hook for players who aren’t initially invested in deep lore or roleplay. Do you have any examples of hooks that worked well for you in similar situations?
Again, you have to talk to your players to find out what they're interested in.
Similar situations as finding a hook for players not invested in deep lore or gameplay? I don't have any examples of that. I do have one example of finding a hook which worked for me.
After finishing a module, our DM told us he was going to make a homebrew setting for a new campaign. All the PC's would be young adult students at a school for adventurers in a world which has been overrun with monsters, beating civilization back into a small number of cities as the only settlements remaining. Most of my pre-existing character concepts were based on the PC having a history, some events in their adult life which shaped them. I didn't have any idea for a PC which was starting out fresh. Other character ideas didn't work well with the notion of the world being restricted to a handful of cities. When the DM said that a day before the campaign started, one of the cities went "dark" - the communications were disrupted and no one knew what happened... that was my hook. I decided to make a PC which was from that city, the idea of suddenly being on my own with no idea what happened to my home was intriguing. That was what worked for me. Other players will have different hooks. There's no one-size fits all. You have to talk to your players to find out an aspect that they are interested in exploring. There may not be one, they may be there just to unwind, turn their brain off and roll dice.
I do want to stress that time spent building a world/story is never "wasted." It flexes useful parts of your brain and it's just a fun, satisfying activity in its own right.
One thing most DMs come to learn is that no player is ever going to be as in to your own lore as you are. Not because it's not good enough but because that's just the nature of human brains. I've always thought babies were pretty ugly and still do, but when I had a kid MY baby was cute.
Keep in mind that the social nature of the game means that the players' needs affect it. Especially for teenagers, they want to be perceived as funny or cool which often translates into not taking things seriously.
The best you can do is engage with their characters to make it their story too, with the understanding that sometimes this will mean that things don't go the way you planned them to. This is where some of the real magic of D&D lives where you can get truly collaborative stories. Don't let them totally ruin things, but if you give them a chance to see that their character's actions can have real effects in the game world it can start to pull them in.
See this as an investment. Your own world-building is an investment in your own skills and talents, and your games are an investment in your players as you help them develop into more mature gamers. Once the shine of AnYtHiNg CaN hApPeN wears off, some players will start to chill out and get more into roleplaying. But be prepared that some maybe won't.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
You make the consequences of not paying attention and playing seriously a bit punitive. If a campaign gets derailed because of that, so be it.
Just remember, if your group wants to play a certain way and you railroad them to your style you may lose them.
Once - long ago - I played in a group where one of the other players actually roleplayed. It was highly disruptive. The rest of us were just having fun, waiting for the bullets to start flying, and here was this one guy who had an extensive backstory, and insisted on viewing the entire game through the lens of his characters past and current perceptions and experiences.
It was frankly somewhat horrifying, and obviously it didn't work. The group couldn't function.
I'm kinda guessing you're in a similar situation - sadly: The product you're selling isn't what your players are buying. You need to either change the product or find new markets.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
There is a reason most stats in D&D are combat related - yes there is a small (but significant) rp community, yes there is the punitive no nonsense crowd, by and large in my experience most players want to be a super hero - kill stuff - get rewards so they can kill bigger stuff next session, and have a few laughs along the way.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that - it is supposed to be FUN. It is usually a bad idea to try and force a group to a place where they do not want to go - down that path lies the series of "sorry pal schedule change I will need to be leaving the campaign" -
Most DM's think their lore is super interesting - here is a secret - it is not. If it where they would have a best selling book and be a published author. (I include myself in that as I DM 3 games - I keep my plots simple and my combat complex)
You can either adapt to the tables style - or bring the game to a close and find a hard core group of rp'ers to run a new game with ---- and do the lore, story etc stuff that the entire table will enjoy.
Either way GL - we always need more DM's !
kill them
Exactly laugh out loud. Game of Thrones was all about wanting to become and heroes and princesses and marrying the king until Ned got his head chopped off.
that said, even in combat humor is a stress relief, and sometimes the most morbid type of stress, relief. if that’s how the characters are dealing with what they’re doing killing hundreds of monsters, killing other soldiers almost being killed by giant massive evil reptiles maybe their antics at the inn is their character’s way of stress, relief.
Short answer: ask them to.
The solution to a surprising amount of D&D player questions is simply to have an earnest, frank conversation about what you want from the game. Don't look for in-game solutions (i.e. punishing characters, taking magic items away, arresting the party, etc) for out-of-game problems. That'll just create an adversarial relationship between the DM and players, and only make your game worse.
100% this. I am frequently surprised at how often I see questions from DMs in the forum where the solution is to just talk with the players. I think most players want to make sure the DM is having fun too. I personally have never encountered a group where that was not the case. However, no one can read your mind and sometimes people are not aware that their level of silliness might be pushing the line on what is fun for someone else. I have had to ask some players if they can reel it in a bit once and they were totally cool with it and everyone still had a good time.
I have had players who specifically wanted to play bumbling idiot PCs with the understanding that that can cause some in-game problems, but that is very different than punishing players in-game when you have not talked to about their silliness and how that could potentially impact the game. I believe that if you are going to have in-game consequences, the players need to be aware of the possibilities beforehand to avoid exactly that adversarial relationship you talk about. In one, the players are 'in on the gag' and in the other they sense it as retaliation, which will negatively impact the relationship between player and DM every time.
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I feel you pain, as someone who built a OGL setting which took me over 10 years to design, including planetary math, including orbital mechanics, and calculations for day night cycles and seasonal variances.
I Also spent years developing a history, and mechanics based on the in universe explanation for magic. The total document was over 100 pages fully illustrated by me.
Not one person playing in that world even opened the document.
So what do you do...
You have 2 options, kick them and find a group willing to read your book. (not advised) or
Let the players have fun, and find a way to have fun too.
BTW, I will never again run a Homebrew setting, I use the premade books and make changes to fit my players now. My world, will be found in a novel I am still writing.
Beat them with a stick until they do