As I said, you as GM have got to make their backgrounds relevant. So if Jim the Fighter has a background with Bob the Thug as his dad, you have to NPC Bob, and have him talk to Jim.

The setting and the character backgrounds have to be tied in together. If they grew up in a town, that has to be a place they can visit, if they had a childhood friend that has to be someone they can look up or who might bump into them, if their whole family is dead, well they have graves to put flowers on, or which might be moved for a new commercial development.

Tie the campaign and the characters together in play.

If you do all that and they still stare at you blankly, then you have boring gamers and need to find some new ones.

Quote from: KrakaJakI.E. they have these neat interesting characters on paper, but come play time, they're as dull as a box of rocks.

No offence, but in that case... it's your fault as the GM.  They're creating interesting characters and you're doing nothing with them!  Sure, if they were more proactive you wouldn't need to push them a bit.  But not everyone is a proactive player.  And besides, you don't really want a group of entirely proactive players.  So you've got reactive players... take the interesting details about their characters and use that information to make them react.

In DMing and playing I found that characters really came alive when gameplay moves from "task that you MUST" complete to "situation that you've got to deal with." If the adventure doesn't work if the PCs don't take a certain job, you've either set up a pretty crappy adventure or are playing a game system where basic play expectations are built on that (Shadowrun I think). If you're handing the PCs situations that they have to deal with then it lets them be more creative and approach the situation in all kinds of different ways, according to their character's personality.

Bad adventure: PCs are hired to go kill the local orc tribe.

Good adventure: PCs are trying to go to X and have been paying their way by working as caravan guards. But now the caravan is parked in a town and doesn't want to continue along the road because raids have made the main road dangerous. The PCs can:
1. Try to browbeat the merchants into continueing.
2. Attack the orcs.
3. Try to continue along to X without the caravan off road and attempt to dodge the orcs.
4. Attempt the organize the villagers into an anti-orc army Seven Samuri style.
5. Camp out in the town and wait out the orcs and deal with running out of money, annoying villages, cabin fever and the eventual all-out orc assault on the town.

The best way to get players out of "I attack the orc" "I hit it with my sword" kind of boredum is to give the PCs real meaningful choices about what to do instead of just shoving them into your pre-made plots.

Yup, rpgs are a show me not tell me medium, and it's up to the GM to present the players with opportunities that demonstrate this.

Regards,
David R

I'm definately doing things with their charcter backrounds...but it seems in the end they don't care. It's more along the lines they've built characters they're un-able to actually roleplay.

For Example: A player built a daring celebrity socialite, with huge points in backrounds, and social skills. Huge backround story that she was a beautiful celbrity go getter. Instead of roleplaying their character as presented, as a manipulative seductive actress, she strictly does nothing in social situations (without my, or other players coaching).

I wish these players would instead play...oooh, supporting cast members, like hanger-ons of another character, or bodyguards, or something where I don't have have to work to bring their backround into play.

This is something that's hard to balance, because I like to help create new good roleplayers, rather than just find or recruit them. If a player wants a more pivotal role in determining the course of an adventure, who am I to dent that chance. If then the player can't step up to the plate, I then have to draw up a new scenario that doesn't revolve around that players character which can end up wrecking an entire session...or even a campaign.

Quote from: KrakaJakI'm definately doing things with their charcter backrounds...but it seems in the end they don't care. It's more along the lines they've built characters they're un-able to actually roleplay.

Ah...this is a very different problem. I always talk to my players before hand as to how they are going to roleplay the characters they have created. Sometimes if the player has created a charater which is out of his/her repertoire, I go a bit further discussing possible situations that may come up and how the player in question would roleplay the character. This is not to say that characters don't change from creation to execution, but these discussions act as a rough guideline for the player to work from.

Regards,
David R

Kill them and take their stuff.

Hi!
  I used to be pretty frustrated. My old group was hardcore and whatever we played, they learned the system and played to the best of their abilities.
  After I moved, I got a new group going, but they are not hard core. They learn the rules they use in play, but never read the manuals. Sometimes they make interesting characters, sometimes not. They almost never learn the background setting, unless its something they know already or it comes up a lot in game. And their roleplaying is pretty thin on the acting/narration side.
  I tried to push/pull more out of them.

  Then I realized, they are casual gamers. They like gaming, but they have other stuff going on. I get 100% of them at the table, but when they leave after, they get on with the rest of their life...
  Sometimes I miss the old days, but I have a great group and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
  As to annoying habits now that I know what I have, there are a couple:
1) One player harps on another player because occasionally he speaks before he thinks (the classic example was him suggesting that they party launch themselves into the side of a skyscraper, via a rocket).
2) Two players whose mouths run faster than their brains, but its not too bad since I don't do that stupid "You say it, your character says it" rule or anything silly like that...
  I am not sure what to do about the harping, I sometimes wonder if its not some kinda alpha-dog behavior or something like that...

dindenver: My suggestion, give in game rewards (usually XP) for the behaviors you want to encourage. If you can...do it instant gratification style.

Somebody says something awesome, give em XP.

Someone stays in character the whole game...bonus XP.

People bring food to the game table...drop some XP on 'em.


That's what I use on more "casual" players...and it tends to work really well.