@beardsinger, I appreciate your comment but as I mentioned earlier, she gave me a detailed backstory right from the beginning and I had to work with her to cut it down. I don't need backstories from my players, just an answer to my question:

""Why are you doing this? Adventuring isn't easy or safe so why are you leaving home and risking yourself and your families (if you piss off the wrong cookie during your travels or something) to do this?"

I know my most recent post is a lengthy one but I think it would clarify some points to you and future posters. 

In addition, everyone so far has suggested I be patient with the new player and that is what I intend to do. It is my job as a dm to make sure she is having fun in the game and wants to keep playing. In my experience, this happens when someone is invested in their character. It's easier for me to accommodate that if I know what that character wants out of their adventure beyond them actually having one.

It is my job as a dm to make sure she is having fun in the game and wants to keep playing. 

To some degree it is your job, and to some degree it is the player's job. You cannot *make* someone have fun, nor can you *make* the person keep playing. There is another thread on this forum just in the last couple of weeks about a player not showing up on time, or at all, to sessions. The DM was trying to figure out how to address this -- and it turned out that this player had other priorities, and just did not put D&D high up on the priority list. When pressed, the player admitted they were probably never going to be reliable because those other things were just more important. The player and DM agreed that the best thing to do was have the player leave the campaign. This was done without acrimony, which is the best case scenario.

I am not suggesting that you ask your player to leave, but rather, that everyone has a different take on what D&D is for them -- a passion, a hobby, an occasional pastime. And similarly everyone has a different take on what is fun for them as a player. You might want to try watching some Matt Coleville videos, especially the one on the different kinds of players. He talks about how players have fun in different ways and as a DM, you shouldn't try to force a player to have fun your way.

In this video, Colveille says, in part, "Whatever your players like is OK. It's not a problem if someone doesn't play the way you wish they did. Some players are just audience members... they are perfectly happy -- and this is an important point so I'm going to repeat it for emphasis-- they are perfectly happy just watching the story unfold and taking their turn in combat and otherwise never engaging with the game."

He goes on to say when he was starting out, he thought this was a problem. "Why isn't that player engaging? I must be doing something wrong. Or a more treacherous thought," he continues, "they must be doing something wrong."

This is what I am getting from the story here --that the player is what he calls an "audience member." And the key is, he says you shouldn't consider this a problem. This is just how some people like to experience D&D.

Try watching the whole video. It may be helpful.

I've watched a few videos from this guy already and he does make some good points but you're misunderstanding me so I'm going to clarify something very key here.

I'm not forcing her to do anything. I'm not a tyrant demanding my players have fun on my terms. I am checking in on her and all my other players to see where they are at with my game and if they are enjoying the experience. If I didn't do this and one of them comes to me months later and says they aren't having fun and haven't for a while, that's on me. This is a shared experience, one where I want feedback so I can adjust it to the players and what they are comfortable with. For example, one of my players doesn't like pets dying so I adjusted my DMing narrative to cater to this so they can feel comfortable at the table. 

"My terms" for fun are in regards to DMing and being in control of my world and behind the scenes lore. My type of fun comes from creating adventures and stories for other people to live in and enjoy. Another player has a blast using spells he never has in previous games. Another player is a shit starter and loves the chaos he makes. All those forms of fun are not ones I enforce or "make" people have. I give an open world to the table and they do what they will with it.

To re-iterate. I am not MAKING people to do anything. I am not MAKING her have fun on my terms because my terms are DM flavored. I am not MAKING her become engaged or participate in combat or be in the party. I am MAKING SURE she wants to be there and is actually having fun on HER terms, not mine. 

Lastly, I have already agreed with you specifically and determined that patience is the best approach here. I think we can consider this matter closed.

Quote from Shot_Of_Happiness >>

So unless she gets super invested in one of the other players arcs and pursues that, I really don't know how to keep her tied to the party. At some point, they're going to meddle with some "we are way in over our heads" kind of stuff and there is a very real chance her character would leave because she wouldn't really have personal reasons to stay. 
 

(emphasis mine).

I've picked up one teeny little part of a sentence in a long post, which is one of many, so apologies if this isn't representative but this bit struck a chord with me.

It seems from what I have read that her character absolutely will carry on adventuring with the party because the player hasn't (yet?) grasped the idea that her character would choose to leave as there is nothing making her stay.  The character motivation that "I'm adventuring because I can" (which is how I interpret her side of things) doesn't have an expiration date.  The character started adventuring without any strong in-character motivation and I don't see how that is likely to change.  It will be just as viable in 1 year and 10 levels' time as it was at 1st level.

In short, I agree with the rest of the DMs - leave her to play how she likes to, especially as a newbie, and if she doesn't have deep character motivations that's one less PC you have to cater for in terms of tying adventures into backstories.

Lastly, the mere fact you posted here, asking for advice and that you're listening to ideas and suggestions, tells me you care about the player and your world, and there is nothing more important as a DM - so good work and keep it up!

Cheers
Blakey

Hi .. I think many of the responses addressed the issues but I wanted to emphasize one aspect. Here are key quotes from the OP.

"Why are you doing this? Adventuring isn't easy or safe so why are you leaving home and risking yourself and your families (if you piss off the wrong cookie during your travels or something) to do this?"

"I just want to have an adventure and have fun."

"I made it clear that "I want to have an adventure" is not an acceptable motivation for me from a player"

The player expressed that their character's motivation for adventuring is to "have an adventure and have fun" and the DM turns around and says "No, that is not acceptable". At this point, I would have to say that the issue is entirely the DMs.

How many people do you know in real life who just take off and travel to more dangerous parts of the world to have an adventure?

There was a woman I knew in high school, who, as soon as she graduated went off traveling, on her own with just a backpack through Asia and Europe for months - Thailand, Burma, India - they were in Amritsar India when it was shut down due to some civic strife - and more. As far as I know, her only motivation was to see the world and have an adventure. Which she clearly did.  So, honestly, when a DM says that "having an adventure and having fun" is an unacceptable motivation for a D&D character there is a clear disconnect between the DM and what is really an acceptable reason for adventuring.

In my opinion, this is only a problem in the DMs head until the player decides that their character doesn't want to play and that is more likely the more constraints the DM makes and the more they tell the player how they have to play their character and how the character has to have some other sort of motivation. (Hint: the character doesn't really need any more motivation).

If the campaign reaches a point where the player thinks their character wouldn't bother then the player will realize that they need some more motivation. However, this may never occur to a new player - they are there to play D&D and have fun with friends - this doesn't happen if the character doesn't stick with the group and actually play. For most non-anti-social folks by the time a situation comes up where the player realizes that maybe the character might decide not to adventure, then hopefully they are already so invested in the story line and other characters (their friends) that they will have more than enough character motivation to stay with everyone else so it doesn't become an issue. If it still becomes a problem then the DM can have this discussion at some future date that may never happen.

I know it has been almost two years, but i wanted to way in as a DM and a former player who has been in a group with such a player. Unless the discussed player is really good at character building (like personality, morals and stuff), lacking real motivation or direction will problaly influence the roleplaying aspect. I can give my former groupe as an exampel- We had a similar player.
After the group found together it was really hard to intergrate this player in certain discussion like what to to next and why or which side to help, because the PCs mostly didn't care and only wanted to have "fun" (?). We know what that meant on the meta, but in game it was just annoying. Also inbetween banter was harder for them because their PC lack a consitent personality that was more than just "chaotic fun on ADHS", so questioning them on like mundane things like " hey, what do you think about this...or ...what is your nicest memory of.." were met with " i don't know" or nonsens things that changed every session. You had little chance to get to know there character which just lead to the rest of PCs hardly interacting with them after a while and the PC in question not doing anything for half the session and sometimes getting borred between fights. The PC died at some point.

The player wanted to stay, so the DM and another player sat down with them and build a new PCs together. A simple backstory something about honour and even more important  a connection to another PC, I think they even did a prelude. So than the player came in with the ney PC they had already a established relationship they could play of, a reason to help these strangers and go with them. This also helped the other PCs rationalizing why they should take up this stranger..

I know what the other poeple mean with...

"I just want to have an adventure and have fun."

and I  think it's enoigh to start an adevnture, but other time a "because" should follow that sentence.

I'm not saying that's the way is has to be done, i'm just saying this playstyle can have a big impact on the rest of the players, even if you don't notice it directly. Not every character needs to have an arc or a deep motivation, but if roleplaying is a big aspect of your game a PC with internal motivation to stick with the party is necessary