Let’s Kill Stuff!
Number of Views :457I normally don’t post twice in a day, but this is a short one, and timely.
Today, on Twitter, @d20Monkey (also of D20 Monkey, the comic) said: “I worry that placating to my current groups “we just want to kill shit” mentality will make this campaign dull for me as a DM. Story elements and role-playing (both I fucking love) are met with snark and “when do we kill something?” This isn’t my first rodeo either. I’ve DM’d for a very long time. Most of them could care less about emotion or motivation. They want combat.”
To tell the truth, this is growing to be a concern of mine in my upcoming campaign, and these players haven’t ever even played D&D. When one of the guys made their character, he said, “I don’t care about my background, as long as I get to kill stuff.”
*sigh*
So, how do I keep these new players from only caring about combat?
Perhaps little incentives?
I plan on using the Fortune Cards. I could always give out an extra Fortune Card for good RP. Or extra Action Points, or hell, even extra Healing Surges.
What do you all think? How can I make roleplaying appeal to new players?
Do what you did for our one-off. Make sure players have to solve a mystery during the first session. The trial for you will be to ensure that you have a mystery for them to solve every single session. Why? If you just use battle as a filler, they will get used to it. Chances are that yes, they will fight at least once per game, but if you don’t have a mystery every sessions then they will draw the conclusion that battle is what its all about. What other kinds of encounters can you have? Make a list, and mix it up every single session. You can include battle, mysteries, puzzles, and social encounters. If you mix them up in different sequences you could even avoid battle during some sessions. That way you train the players to not know what to expect. Instead of them just sitting down and them immediately begging for a fight, they will sit down on the edge of their seats as you unfold your story. Of course, you still want to reward them with a few mindless sessions, like a veritable Battle of the Five Armies where the entire sessions is a huge battle. But they should know that’s coming (since chances are, you ended the session before with a cliffhanger before the battle began.) Those are my two-cents.
Allow me to recommend a deck of Paizo’s “Plot Twist Cards”, to give the players a little random input into developing plotlines or scenes.
So much better than fortune cards. My players actually use them; the fortune cards are typically forgotten about.
Don’t fight the momentum, but build your story, and their story around the conflict. So they have little personal motivation or awareness of character. That’s okay. They don’t have to start with that. That shifts the burden about what they are to you… unless they actually do care. I find there is nothing more motivating then telling someone something about their character and then them deciding they don’t like it.
However, there are a lot of good, deep stories that can center around brawling and killing. Start the campaign in the Underdark. The players are mercenaries hired as expendable troops by a Dwarven king against a Drow army. You work out the Background and the political maneuvering of the General and the Mercenary Leader, and the players, if they want to get out of these bad assignments, need to get involved with one side or another.
But throw them against steep odds. Kill a few players. They are the bones tossed to the dogs to keep the Dwarven Armies alive. Either they’ll start thinking stories are a good idea, or they’ll fall in love with you trashing them up.
I mean, it’s not he most ideal situation for the GM to be in the position to do, I realize, but sometimes, making the players part of the story that they normally don’t see can make a difference.