So I'm a DM for a party hat doesn't really want to do much. When they go to a dungeon they want the map so they can just run to each room and not explore, they hate fighting because it takes so long, they don't even like puzzles or anything. They do like NPC interactions but that is either not able to carry any game or is the really in depth stuff like playing a political subterfuge game, which they already said they don't want to do that stuff if it gets to complex and I don't really want to either. So what should I do?
I hate to be defeatist, but it sounds like the answer is "something else."
It just sounds like they don't want to play DND. The pillars of DND are combat, exploration, and social interaction. Each of which you've presented deal-breakers for.
Yeah, this seems to be an intractable problem. There are other solutions though, maybe they (collectively) don't want to play 5e. Other game systems and genres exist. Savage Worlds is actually pretty robust in its current SWADE format and lends itself to small and short games that are fast, lethal, and can be in any scenario you can develop. Maybe they want to tap into that superheroic itch sparked by the ten year success story called the MCU. Loads of games cater to that from venerable systems like HERO System/Champions to the d20 variant of Mutants and Masterminds 3e, and more. You might even get them interested in something from White Wolf/Onyx Path. I am running a weekly Scion 2e game that just had the Troupe pick up their 5th Legend Dot and I am officially in Terra Incognita as I have no idea how the "official rules" are supposed to cover Demigods.
Ask the group to reconvene a session zero and hammer out if RPGs are a thing you want to do together, if not go play Dominion, Gloomhaven, Talisman or even Division 2 on the PS4.
It sounds like your group is more into RP than dungeon crawling.It's also possible--not meant as criticism--that they might enjoy combat and exploration more under different circumstances.
Maybe they would enjoy adventures that were less dungeon-crawly, such as infiltrating a circus to try to find the serial killer who has been traveling with them. Your players would have to come up with acts and fake personas, find jobs to do that would give them excuses to talk to every NPC, roll to see how popular their performaces were, etc.
Maybe take a good look at their back stories and get them more engaged in your adventures by making things personally relevant. So, instead of 'Some random guy hires you to find the Sword of Sharpieness in the underground catacomb,' one player's brother sends a letter about hearing a rumor that their long-missing parents have been seen alive running a cult out of the catacombs or something.
And, I don't know your adventure types or your play style, so I am just going to throw this out there--are the dungeons they are going into actually interesting, with description and odd sights, and stuff they can interact with? Or just mazes stocked with traps, puzzles and monsters? Is there a story that is interesting and personally engaging and makes the players want to move it along, or is the story basically just an excuse to go into a bunch of dungeons and fight stuff? (IE, The Great Glumphous has awoken and is going to eat the world, and the only thing that can kill it is the Apocalyptic Axe. Unfortunately, the council of evilness broke it into a thousand pieces, and each evil boss took one piece home as a souvenir. You must retrieve every one of them, recreate the axe, and kill Glumphous.) Is the combat relevant and do the opponents have a point in being there, or are there just wandering mobs of opponents thrown at them just for the sake of adding fights? Are there interesting twists about the enemies, and unexpected powers and variety, or is it (for example) Orc Country so every battle is Orcs? Are there a variety of possible ways for the players to interact with your dungeons (disguise themselves, negotiate with the mobs, try a trick) or is every event swords-out-roll-for-initiative? Your players sound like they are finding dungeon crawls and battles to be more a chore than a fun part of the game. That may be just them, but it's possible it may be you.
It may just be that your play styles are different: you might do better with other players, and they might do better with a different DM.
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Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Who plays D&D and does not want to get involved with all that cool stuff. I mean I have players who seem to prefer one area over the other but they all get involved regardless. To me it almost sounds like the group you're playing with would be better off picking up some sort of videogame that would hold their hand and point everything out to them as to where to go and whatnot. You know something like… Well Diablo.
I remember a while back another GM complaining to me about a similar thing. His Call of Cthulhu game derailed when the players after discovering the world ending conspiracy and went home and ignored it.
Who plays D&D and does not want to get involved with all that cool stuff. I mean I have players who seem to prefer one area over the other but they all get involved regardless. To me it almost sounds like the group you're playing with would be better off picking up some sort of videogame that would hold their hand and point everything out to them as to where to go and whatnot. You know something like… Well Diablo.
We have a guy in the party, that for a long long arse time was like "Yeah i'm the role play master" cause he ran a bunch of Medevil rpgs etc.
Now we're a bunch of people who plays online and talk over discord for the last 4 years.
So when i restarted to get into D&D after my previous group stoped playing 4th and din't want to play 5th( cause when 5th was called Next, it was boring and bland, so no one had any interest in it), i suggested to them to play D&D.
Off course everyone was excited about it, even the Old guy, but, there was a problem, in his opinion 5th is too rigide a rule set, and ther's too much rules to learn.
Now to each its own, but i ran CoS for them and they have a blast ( i emphasis heavely on the Gothic horror ambiance using audio cues etc from Youtube and some Vincent Price maniacal laughter from Thriller for when Strahd mocks them)
Here we started Avernus, with someone else DMing, so the Old dude, his thing was to basicaly stay in BG and not move an inch from there.
For Rp purposes since he was an Artificer, the Dm gave him a little workshop, so that he could do his craft, wich was nice and all, but he just din't want to leave it, his idea was to just craft, make trade, and live his daily life...
No incitive to go adventuring or anything, so for a while all he wanted was to be essentially a NPC, since he would not contribute to the party outside the occasional crafting if someone asked...
Wich off course would be a moot point once we're all in Avernus..., while he was still in BG.
It took a while to convince him, we finaly got it through, he din't like combats at first( His idea of a good RPG is when he takes IRL 4 hours to describe how and where he goes to get the croissants and have his breakfast and talk to the neighbores..., i kid you not..), but he kinda took a liking to it, well when things goes his way, if things goes south he's like "******* stupid game"...
But since he doesn't like to be left alone while we do stuff, he always wants to be included...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
So I'm a DM for a party hat doesn't really want to do much. When they go to a dungeon they want the map so they can just run to each room and not explore, they hate fighting because it takes so long, they don't even like puzzles or anything. They do like NPC interactions but that is either not able to carry any game or is the really in depth stuff like playing a political subterfuge game, which they already said they don't want to do that stuff if it gets to complex and I don't really want to either. So what should I do?
I hate to be defeatist, but it sounds like the answer is "something else."
It just sounds like they don't want to play DND. The pillars of DND are combat, exploration, and social interaction. Each of which you've presented deal-breakers for.
Yeah, this seems to be an intractable problem. There are other solutions though, maybe they (collectively) don't want to play 5e. Other game systems and genres exist. Savage Worlds is actually pretty robust in its current SWADE format and lends itself to small and short games that are fast, lethal, and can be in any scenario you can develop. Maybe they want to tap into that superheroic itch sparked by the ten year success story called the MCU. Loads of games cater to that from venerable systems like HERO System/Champions to the d20 variant of Mutants and Masterminds 3e, and more. You might even get them interested in something from White Wolf/Onyx Path. I am running a weekly Scion 2e game that just had the Troupe pick up their 5th Legend Dot and I am officially in Terra Incognita as I have no idea how the "official rules" are supposed to cover Demigods.
Ask the group to reconvene a session zero and hammer out if RPGs are a thing you want to do together, if not go play Dominion, Gloomhaven, Talisman or even Division 2 on the PS4.
It sounds like your group is more into RP than dungeon crawling.It's also possible--not meant as criticism--that they might enjoy combat and exploration more under different circumstances.
Maybe they would enjoy adventures that were less dungeon-crawly, such as infiltrating a circus to try to find the serial killer who has been traveling with them. Your players would have to come up with acts and fake personas, find jobs to do that would give them excuses to talk to every NPC, roll to see how popular their performaces were, etc.
Maybe take a good look at their back stories and get them more engaged in your adventures by making things personally relevant. So, instead of 'Some random guy hires you to find the Sword of Sharpieness in the underground catacomb,' one player's brother sends a letter about hearing a rumor that their long-missing parents have been seen alive running a cult out of the catacombs or something.
And, I don't know your adventure types or your play style, so I am just going to throw this out there--are the dungeons they are going into actually interesting, with description and odd sights, and stuff they can interact with? Or just mazes stocked with traps, puzzles and monsters? Is there a story that is interesting and personally engaging and makes the players want to move it along, or is the story basically just an excuse to go into a bunch of dungeons and fight stuff? (IE, The Great Glumphous has awoken and is going to eat the world, and the only thing that can kill it is the Apocalyptic Axe. Unfortunately, the council of evilness broke it into a thousand pieces, and each evil boss took one piece home as a souvenir. You must retrieve every one of them, recreate the axe, and kill Glumphous.) Is the combat relevant and do the opponents have a point in being there, or are there just wandering mobs of opponents thrown at them just for the sake of adding fights? Are there interesting twists about the enemies, and unexpected powers and variety, or is it (for example) Orc Country so every battle is Orcs? Are there a variety of possible ways for the players to interact with your dungeons (disguise themselves, negotiate with the mobs, try a trick) or is every event swords-out-roll-for-initiative? Your players sound like they are finding dungeon crawls and battles to be more a chore than a fun part of the game. That may be just them, but it's possible it may be you.
It may just be that your play styles are different: you might do better with other players, and they might do better with a different DM.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Thanks for all of your input. I will ask them if they do actually want to play D&D or want to try something else.
Who plays D&D and does not want to get involved with all that cool stuff. I mean I have players who seem to prefer one area over the other but they all get involved regardless. To me it almost sounds like the group you're playing with would be better off picking up some sort of videogame that would hold their hand and point everything out to them as to where to go and whatnot. You know something like… Well Diablo.
I remember a while back another GM complaining to me about a similar thing. His Call of Cthulhu game derailed when the players after discovering the world ending conspiracy and went home and ignored it.
We have a guy in the party, that for a long long arse time was like "Yeah i'm the role play master" cause he ran a bunch of Medevil rpgs etc.
Now we're a bunch of people who plays online and talk over discord for the last 4 years.
So when i restarted to get into D&D after my previous group stoped playing 4th and din't want to play 5th( cause when 5th was called Next, it was boring and bland, so no one had any interest in it), i suggested to them to play D&D.
Off course everyone was excited about it, even the Old guy, but, there was a problem, in his opinion 5th is too rigide a rule set, and ther's too much rules to learn.
Now to each its own, but i ran CoS for them and they have a blast ( i emphasis heavely on the Gothic horror ambiance using audio cues etc from Youtube and some Vincent Price maniacal laughter from Thriller for when Strahd mocks them)
Here we started Avernus, with someone else DMing, so the Old dude, his thing was to basicaly stay in BG and not move an inch from there.
For Rp purposes since he was an Artificer, the Dm gave him a little workshop, so that he could do his craft, wich was nice and all, but he just din't want to leave it, his idea was to just craft, make trade, and live his daily life...
No incitive to go adventuring or anything, so for a while all he wanted was to be essentially a NPC, since he would not contribute to the party outside the occasional crafting if someone asked...
Wich off course would be a moot point once we're all in Avernus..., while he was still in BG.
It took a while to convince him, we finaly got it through, he din't like combats at first( His idea of a good RPG is when he takes IRL 4 hours to describe how and where he goes to get the croissants and have his breakfast and talk to the neighbores..., i kid you not..), but he kinda took a liking to it, well when things goes his way, if things goes south he's like "******* stupid game"...
But since he doesn't like to be left alone while we do stuff, he always wants to be included...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)