I started DMing a new campaign recently and ran into some issues that I didn't expect. Right now, my main problem is that my players (all new to the game except for one) are not attempting to work together at all. Essentially, I am trying to get them to "party up" in a way that isn't forced upon them (e.g. waking up in a cell together, conscripted into the army and put in the same squad, etc) but am having little success. As it turns out, two of my players assumed that since I wasn't forcing them into a group, I didn't want them to play as a group and was in fact actively trying to separate them from each other.
So I clearly made some mistakes in explaining the game to them, but I think I've figured out a lot of it from here. This has got me thinking about a few questions, though:
1. What are good ways to bring a group together in the first place that feels natural but compelling? Their characters could choose not to, but they would want to anyway?
2. If a group is having a hard time connecting, how do you bring them together?
Obvious answers include finding a goal that they can all benefit from pursuing or achieving, or perhaps encountering an enemy that they all need to destroy for different reasons. I am trying to do both of those things, but in general, how do you get your party to play as a team?
(As a note, this is not the first campaign I have DMed, but it is definitely the first time I have run into this issue.)
EDIT: for some clarity, two of the players are fine and have no problem grouping up, the other two seem to be actively resisting it.
The book answer is; look at their background choices and weave that into the story, the archeologist's old professor has gone missing, last scene at some ruins that just happen to be where the criminal/spy used to meet up with the gang members if a job went wrong. and so on.
once they are in the same place, rolling for perception investigation w/e you got a party going.
alternatively you can attack the town they are in with a group that doesn't distinguish them apart. The attack on Greenest in HotDQ is a good example of that.
may you could have them "summoned" somewhere in the city where someone is looking to hire a group of adventurers. Post wanted posters accross the city, or Job postings asking for interested people to report to specific location at a specific time.
Start them in the same area, maybe even a cliche tavern, then have some sort of attack happen on the town or village, nothing brings folks together like fighting for their lives, then after they'll have questions, the town will probably want revenge, aaaand plot hooked.
Honestly, just talk to them as players and explain that the game would benefit from you not having to play two separate games at the same table, and ask the players to help you determine a scenario where the characters would find common ground and unite their efforts, and then let that happen (or maybe even just assume it happened offscreen). Heck, in my group we've gone for something as simple (and forced) as "the characters had an eventful night out and got really drunk together (again)".
@Gigaflop: I did do something like this, but it ended in a way that separated them unfortunately. A ship they were defending began sinking and my two neutral characters took the first lifeboat and bolted with a few other survivors. The two good-aligned characters remained in the dangerous waters to help other survivors and ended up getting back to port later.
Long story short, they were together for combat but then got separated and didn’t make a huge effort to meet up after that. I could have played that better.
I actually did pause the game at one point to make sure my players understood that going separate directions was not good for anyone at the table. My two good-aligned players were (IMO) not making any attempts to work with the two neutral ones and felt like they had no reason to party up.
My issue (which I have discussed with the players) is that there is a significant skill disparity between some of my players when it comes to assessing what choices are available to them and what their characters are good at. Which is fine when they are working together because they can cooperate and help each other, but my two better players (CN guys who teamed up) aren’t that interested in assisting the other players (good-aligned folks who are lone-wolfing separately) when they are mostly being antagonized by them.
Obviously my players would likely have a different perspective on this, and I have talked to them about it.
I did do something like this, but it ended in a way that separated them unfortunately. A ship they were defending began sinking and my two neutral characters took the first lifeboat and bolted with a few other survivors. The two good-aligned characters remained in the dangerous waters to help other survivors and ended up getting back to port later.
Long story short, they were together for combat but then got separated and didn’t make a huge effort to meet up after that. I could have played that better.
The thing is you gave them an out, a way to go their separate ways. If you're going to give them a group focused goal, you can't give them a way out, they'll have to work for it and then be let go.
You've explained what you want from them, you've given them opportunities to work together, and they're refusing to do so. Sometimes you have to take off the gloves and either tell them straight up "work together or we're done playing" or use something heavy handed like:
The group is mystically teleported to a new location, during the teleport they're told, by a mystical being, they are needed, as a group, to stop a catastrophe that soon to occur. The group wakes on a beach and must make due with what they have. From there you have encounters that require more than one or two of them to be present, if any of the encounters happen with a single player, it should result in their death, or near death. This is a dangerous place, show them how dangerous.
If any of the players refuses to do anything but find a way off the island, let them, and the moment they leave the island they are teleported back to where they were, and they can sit in town while the rest of the group does the quest. They've shown they have no desire to play along with the rest of the table, so they can play a different game.
You can't be a passive DM and expect the players to follow a social contract that isn't enforced, you have to put your foot down eventually.
I think you’re correct, it has come to the point where I need to be helping them team up more than I have so far. My style is too passive for the group that I’ve got.
My current plan is to first have another conversation with my players to make sure they understand what I want and why they should want it too. Playing this game against each other for no reason is not going to be fun for them or me.
Following that, I plan to give them one more good story-driven opportunity to make that decision for themselves and then move to a more active solution if that fails. I’m hoping that it won’t come to that, but I’ll be ready if it does.
Thanks for the feedback, it’s very helpful!
EDIT: your comment about the social contract is dead on as well. I thought I was dropping pretty good hints (many of which I thought were very obvious) that they should team up, but I’m guessing that they wouldn’t have made sense to someone if they had no idea that they were supposed to work together. It didn’t occur to me that they would not be trying to do that, so i didn’t realize they needed to be pushed harder in that direction.
Bottom line, I have to take a more active approach and create situations where they absolutely MUST work together, because otherwise my two lone wolves are not going to do it (probably). Assuming that they don’t make that choice for themselves following our next discussion.
Now a disclaimer for you, and anyone else who's read this thread:
I do not advocate punishing players for playing to their characters. -There are the "lone wolf" types out there, but in many forms of media you can see the lone wolf joining with a group of adventurers and becoming part of the party: Aragorn II "Strider" was the dark brooding stranger in the corner of a tavern, the "lone wolf" who ended up joining the Fellowship.
I advocate showing players that they're not adding to a game by being antagonistic, argumentative, or disruptive. -A social contract was entered where the table has agreed to play a cooperative game. If a player, or players, choose to not honor that contract they should be talked to about it. If they continue to not honor the contract they can/should be ejected from the game.
I advocate letting the characters make their decisions and reaping the consequences of their actions. -Whether a player is making a blunder, an epic, or a tactically sound/unsound decision, it's their decision. I may hint that it's not good, or that it's an amazing choice, but I will not stop them.
I believe that the whole table must work to uphold the social contract. -If any person feels that there's been a breech of the social contract it should be brought up between them and the person(s) they feel were responsible.
Lastly: it's a game, if you're not having fun then step back and figure out what the problem is. Sometimes you need to change expectations, sometimes you need to remove a player, sometimes you need to remove yourself.
For new players who have never played before sometimes it happens that they die due to underestimating or overestimating their circumstances and the importance of team work. There have been some good thoughts generated above. I would add only that should your novice group all, or all but one be killed in an encounter they should have little problem with then you can restart it and show them what they could do in a step by step manner that emphasises the fact they are multiple people who can work together or they will, more likely fall alone.
I have run example encounters for new / rusty players before by jumping straight to combat. In these scenarios the emphasis on encouraging everyone to work out how to manage the encounter and talk to each other about how they can work as a team. This happens after character generation and before the game starts and often helps with what the different rolls and checks require.
During play often it is worth reminding people splitting the party in unexplored and hostile territory can be dangerous, and will split the session into chunks where those not involved can do nothing, so any solo activities contemplated could have a time limit agreed upon first. It does depend on your group and what they need help with. The easiest solution to a group running separately in 'downtime' is to move the adventure back into the comfortable creature murder for xp realms. A plume of smoke, a shadow of winged beasts heading in a direction, so high they cant make out detail will often get people moving to investigate, a link encounter to the next adventure site from there becomes easier. (usually) Now the fight can commence.
Good luck with the group dynamic and I hope you all get to enjoy the game :)
I am starting a campaign next month. The players are all asleep and dreaming. Suddenly they find themselves in a temple with three complete strangers. They find a sorcerer there and he attacks the group. They find their attacks vicious but the sorcerer keeps getting back up. He gets around nearly to an in-dream TPK when a wizard appears and says to find him in so-and-so to avoid this outcome. All but the highest INT character see this. The highest INT character sees all of the party being destroyed before the sorcerer turns on him. This character wakes up remembering such pain and anguish. Now, this is the player already in the town. Over the next day or two, the party comes in one at a time and are recognized by those already there. Once they all show up, the hooks begin to fall around them and we begin.
Turn them into a cohesive group? Put them in jail. Have the magistrate need something to be done and if the task is carried out, then they will be pardoned. Have a random NPC point at the party and scream "That's them!" And the guard shows up and puts them in shackles. Now, be mindful that players will fight their way out 99 times out of 100. Make sure to place things into the environment that give them options. Items, NPCs speaking amongst themselves, you pick it. Hopefully this might get some ideas floating around in the old gray matter.
We had our second session last night and it went way better than the first. The characters discussed how they could work together for mutual benefit and they began acting as a team.
The thing I did that worked (I think) was just making that expectation clear to the players that didn’t want to cooperate. I discussed the issue with them and worked with them to find a way that their characters would see the benefits of teaming up.
As an example, my LG paladin character wants to destroy an undead Big Bad but can’t do it alone. The two CN characters don’t have a huge specific interest in doing that, but they’ve started to be come folk heroes on the island. The paladin was originally completely against working with them in any way, but I talked to the player and explained that if he wanted to play as a team, he could easily find a reason to do so that makes sense for his character: use their popularity to build support.
That player is still bummed because he wanted a more organic party-up situation to occur, but there’s only so much I can do. Overall, session 2 was a huge success in my opinion, and my players left far happier this time than they did after session 1.
Nice. be prepared for some back sliding but that sounds very hopeful - For the paladin, why not have an npc thanking them for making a good impression with the chaotic pair "they need a strong role model in their lives or they might go bad, I remember back in my day..." ramble ramble. For the pair - and if the paladin is more interested in justice than wealth, you can point out the obvious advantages of following them around to get rich, and due to most people not respecting their obvious superiority and greatness the paladin makes a good target to cover for them and smooth things over when people get uppity at them for 'no reason' (its no fun when your banned from every drinking hole)
I started DMing a new campaign recently and ran into some issues that I didn't expect. Right now, my main problem is that my players (all new to the game except for one) are not attempting to work together at all. Essentially, I am trying to get them to "party up" in a way that isn't forced upon them (e.g. waking up in a cell together, conscripted into the army and put in the same squad, etc) but am having little success. As it turns out, two of my players assumed that since I wasn't forcing them into a group, I didn't want them to play as a group and was in fact actively trying to separate them from each other.
So I clearly made some mistakes in explaining the game to them, but I think I've figured out a lot of it from here. This has got me thinking about a few questions, though:
1. What are good ways to bring a group together in the first place that feels natural but compelling? Their characters could choose not to, but they would want to anyway?
2. If a group is having a hard time connecting, how do you bring them together?
Obvious answers include finding a goal that they can all benefit from pursuing or achieving, or perhaps encountering an enemy that they all need to destroy for different reasons. I am trying to do both of those things, but in general, how do you get your party to play as a team?
(As a note, this is not the first campaign I have DMed, but it is definitely the first time I have run into this issue.)
EDIT: for some clarity, two of the players are fine and have no problem grouping up, the other two seem to be actively resisting it.
The book answer is; look at their background choices and weave that into the story, the archeologist's old professor has gone missing, last scene at some ruins that just happen to be where the criminal/spy used to meet up with the gang members if a job went wrong. and so on.
once they are in the same place, rolling for perception investigation w/e you got a party going.
alternatively you can attack the town they are in with a group that doesn't distinguish them apart. The attack on Greenest in HotDQ is a good example of that.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
may you could have them "summoned" somewhere in the city where someone is looking to hire a group of adventurers. Post wanted posters accross the city, or Job postings asking for interested people to report to specific location at a specific time.
Start them in the same area, maybe even a cliche tavern, then have some sort of attack happen on the town or village, nothing brings folks together like fighting for their lives, then after they'll have questions, the town will probably want revenge, aaaand plot hooked.
Really anything that galvanizes them to go after a common goal, a few thoughts (some are reiterating earlier posts)
And those are just a few ideas, there's many other ways, but the idea is simply to give them all a common goal/reason to work toward as a group.
Honestly, just talk to them as players and explain that the game would benefit from you not having to play two separate games at the same table, and ask the players to help you determine a scenario where the characters would find common ground and unite their efforts, and then let that happen (or maybe even just assume it happened offscreen). Heck, in my group we've gone for something as simple (and forced) as "the characters had an eventful night out and got really drunk together (again)".
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
@Gigaflop: I did do something like this, but it ended in a way that separated them unfortunately. A ship they were defending began sinking and my two neutral characters took the first lifeboat and bolted with a few other survivors. The two good-aligned characters remained in the dangerous waters to help other survivors and ended up getting back to port later.
Long story short, they were together for combat but then got separated and didn’t make a huge effort to meet up after that. I could have played that better.
@Twooshort
I actually did pause the game at one point to make sure my players understood that going separate directions was not good for anyone at the table. My two good-aligned players were (IMO) not making any attempts to work with the two neutral ones and felt like they had no reason to party up.
My issue (which I have discussed with the players) is that there is a significant skill disparity between some of my players when it comes to assessing what choices are available to them and what their characters are good at. Which is fine when they are working together because they can cooperate and help each other, but my two better players (CN guys who teamed up) aren’t that interested in assisting the other players (good-aligned folks who are lone-wolfing separately) when they are mostly being antagonized by them.
Obviously my players would likely have a different perspective on this, and I have talked to them about it.
The thing is you gave them an out, a way to go their separate ways. If you're going to give them a group focused goal, you can't give them a way out, they'll have to work for it and then be let go.
You've explained what you want from them, you've given them opportunities to work together, and they're refusing to do so. Sometimes you have to take off the gloves and either tell them straight up "work together or we're done playing" or use something heavy handed like:
The group is mystically teleported to a new location, during the teleport they're told, by a mystical being, they are needed, as a group, to stop a catastrophe that soon to occur. The group wakes on a beach and must make due with what they have. From there you have encounters that require more than one or two of them to be present, if any of the encounters happen with a single player, it should result in their death, or near death. This is a dangerous place, show them how dangerous.
If any of the players refuses to do anything but find a way off the island, let them, and the moment they leave the island they are teleported back to where they were, and they can sit in town while the rest of the group does the quest. They've shown they have no desire to play along with the rest of the table, so they can play a different game.
You can't be a passive DM and expect the players to follow a social contract that isn't enforced, you have to put your foot down eventually.
@DMThac0
I think you’re correct, it has come to the point where I need to be helping them team up more than I have so far. My style is too passive for the group that I’ve got.
My current plan is to first have another conversation with my players to make sure they understand what I want and why they should want it too. Playing this game against each other for no reason is not going to be fun for them or me.
Following that, I plan to give them one more good story-driven opportunity to make that decision for themselves and then move to a more active solution if that fails. I’m hoping that it won’t come to that, but I’ll be ready if it does.
Thanks for the feedback, it’s very helpful!
EDIT: your comment about the social contract is dead on as well. I thought I was dropping pretty good hints (many of which I thought were very obvious) that they should team up, but I’m guessing that they wouldn’t have made sense to someone if they had no idea that they were supposed to work together. It didn’t occur to me that they would not be trying to do that, so i didn’t realize they needed to be pushed harder in that direction.
Bottom line, I have to take a more active approach and create situations where they absolutely MUST work together, because otherwise my two lone wolves are not going to do it (probably). Assuming that they don’t make that choice for themselves following our next discussion.
Now a disclaimer for you, and anyone else who's read this thread:
I do not advocate punishing players for playing to their characters.
-There are the "lone wolf" types out there, but in many forms of media you can see the lone wolf joining with a group of adventurers and becoming part of the party: Aragorn II "Strider" was the dark brooding stranger in the corner of a tavern, the "lone wolf" who ended up joining the Fellowship.
I advocate showing players that they're not adding to a game by being antagonistic, argumentative, or disruptive.
-A social contract was entered where the table has agreed to play a cooperative game. If a player, or players, choose to not honor that contract they should be talked to about it. If they continue to not honor the contract they can/should be ejected from the game.
I advocate letting the characters make their decisions and reaping the consequences of their actions.
-Whether a player is making a blunder, an epic, or a tactically sound/unsound decision, it's their decision. I may hint that it's not good, or that it's an amazing choice, but I will not stop them.
I believe that the whole table must work to uphold the social contract.
-If any person feels that there's been a breech of the social contract it should be brought up between them and the person(s) they feel were responsible.
Lastly: it's a game, if you're not having fun then step back and figure out what the problem is. Sometimes you need to change expectations, sometimes you need to remove a player, sometimes you need to remove yourself.
For new players who have never played before sometimes it happens that they die due to underestimating or overestimating their circumstances and the importance of team work. There have been some good thoughts generated above. I would add only that should your novice group all, or all but one be killed in an encounter they should have little problem with then you can restart it and show them what they could do in a step by step manner that emphasises the fact they are multiple people who can work together or they will, more likely fall alone.
I have run example encounters for new / rusty players before by jumping straight to combat. In these scenarios the emphasis on encouraging everyone to work out how to manage the encounter and talk to each other about how they can work as a team. This happens after character generation and before the game starts and often helps with what the different rolls and checks require.
During play often it is worth reminding people splitting the party in unexplored and hostile territory can be dangerous, and will split the session into chunks where those not involved can do nothing, so any solo activities contemplated could have a time limit agreed upon first. It does depend on your group and what they need help with. The easiest solution to a group running separately in 'downtime' is to move the adventure back into the comfortable creature murder for xp realms. A plume of smoke, a shadow of winged beasts heading in a direction, so high they cant make out detail will often get people moving to investigate, a link encounter to the next adventure site from there becomes easier. (usually) Now the fight can commence.
Good luck with the group dynamic and I hope you all get to enjoy the game :)
I am starting a campaign next month. The players are all asleep and dreaming. Suddenly they find themselves in a temple with three complete strangers. They find a sorcerer there and he attacks the group. They find their attacks vicious but the sorcerer keeps getting back up. He gets around nearly to an in-dream TPK when a wizard appears and says to find him in so-and-so to avoid this outcome. All but the highest INT character see this. The highest INT character sees all of the party being destroyed before the sorcerer turns on him. This character wakes up remembering such pain and anguish. Now, this is the player already in the town. Over the next day or two, the party comes in one at a time and are recognized by those already there. Once they all show up, the hooks begin to fall around them and we begin.
Turn them into a cohesive group? Put them in jail. Have the magistrate need something to be done and if the task is carried out, then they will be pardoned. Have a random NPC point at the party and scream "That's them!" And the guard shows up and puts them in shackles. Now, be mindful that players will fight their way out 99 times out of 100. Make sure to place things into the environment that give them options. Items, NPCs speaking amongst themselves, you pick it. Hopefully this might get some ideas floating around in the old gray matter.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
Thanks to everyone who gave advice. Super useful! I’ve got some better ideas now of how to resolve my issues.
Make sure you report back. We want to know how it goes. What worked and what did not and so on and so forth.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
Count on it.
Good news team!
We had our second session last night and it went way better than the first. The characters discussed how they could work together for mutual benefit and they began acting as a team.
The thing I did that worked (I think) was just making that expectation clear to the players that didn’t want to cooperate. I discussed the issue with them and worked with them to find a way that their characters would see the benefits of teaming up.
As an example, my LG paladin character wants to destroy an undead Big Bad but can’t do it alone. The two CN characters don’t have a huge specific interest in doing that, but they’ve started to be come folk heroes on the island. The paladin was originally completely against working with them in any way, but I talked to the player and explained that if he wanted to play as a team, he could easily find a reason to do so that makes sense for his character: use their popularity to build support.
That player is still bummed because he wanted a more organic party-up situation to occur, but there’s only so much I can do. Overall, session 2 was a huge success in my opinion, and my players left far happier this time than they did after session 1.
Nice. be prepared for some back sliding but that sounds very hopeful - For the paladin, why not have an npc thanking them for making a good impression with the chaotic pair "they need a strong role model in their lives or they might go bad, I remember back in my day..." ramble ramble. For the pair - and if the paladin is more interested in justice than wealth, you can point out the obvious advantages of following them around to get rich, and due to most people not respecting their obvious superiority and greatness the paladin makes a good target to cover for them and smooth things over when people get uppity at them for 'no reason' (its no fun when your banned from every drinking hole)
Keep having fun.