Up to this point I've been making my players go and do stuff by having their boss (a Hutt), contact them and give them missions. It started getting stale and I wanted to mix it up so I took it slow. I just bought the Nal Hutta book and decided to use some of those encounters. As they entered the marketplace I had the 'deal gone wrong' encounter take place.

My plan was to have whichever NPC they chose become sort of a repeating character who would go to them and ask for help with jobs in the future but what ended up happening was they just stood back and let the entire encounter happen without their involvement.

Now I'm worried about coming up with any kind of non-Hutt related encounter incase it turns into wasted time and effort. Any advice?

One way of fixing this is, at the end of the session when you hand out XP, you list what they got (and didn't get) XP for. "Let's see, you recovered the stolen macguffin... that's 10 XP. Then you didn't do anything about the encounter in the marketplace... that would have been 8 XP, so tough luck...". Telling players that they're missing out on XP tends to light a fire under their behinds.

Another out-of-game way of handling it is to simply tell them outright. "Look guys, I have this adventure prepared but if you're just going to let all my plot hooks sail by then we might as well pack it up for the night." The GM is in charge of preparing the adventure, but the players need to step up and take responsibility for getting their characters involved in it. Otherwise you might as well sit around and read to them from a book.

Did you read the last paragraph in the encounter? The PCs are supposed to attract fire regardless of their initial involvement.

It also helps if the PCs have some skin in the game. Did the encounter just happen "randomly," or were the PCs going to visit this particular merchant? When I was reading through that encounter, it occurred to me that the PCs should probably be trying to visit this "Corte," or else perhaps they are meeting "Thamoss" here after receiving a very...non-specific invitation. That way, at least, they might be more inclined to try and get involved.

Yes, awayputurwpn makes a great point. A group of players that witness a fight between two sides they know nothing about will probably be reluctant to get involved for fear of shooting the wrong side. Things run much easier if you give them a previous connection to one side (or both), so they have a general idea about "hey, those are our buddies they're shooting at" or "that's the gang that tried to steal our ship, let's get them".

One way of fixing this is, at the end of the session when you hand out XP, you list what they got (and didn't get) XP for. "Let's see, you recovered the stolen macguffin... that's 10 XP. Then you didn't do anything about the encounter in the marketplace... that would have been 8 XP, so tough luck...". Telling players that they're missing out on XP tends to light a fire under their behinds.

Very true. This also helps to reinforce the idea that the PCs are the "heroes" of the story, not just another run-of-the-mill group of smugglers.

Another out-of-game way of handling it is to simply tell them outright. "Look guys, I have this adventure prepared but if you're just going to let all my plot hooks sail by then we might as well pack it up for the night." The GM is in charge of preparing the adventure, but the players need to step up and take responsibility for getting their characters involved in it. Otherwise you might as well sit around and read to them from a book.

While this is true, the GM should be also trying to engage the players' motivations. Players might ignore something because they feel that their character would have no real motivation to get involved—and that is perfectly normal, and a good way of playing lest the suspension of disbelief be completely broken and the players just treat it as a computer game, hopping into each conflict presented "because it's there."

I'm wondering if the players were prepared to think they needed to be involved. If all their instructions have come from a "boss" in the past, maybe that's what they were waiting for. I find my players rarely get involved with strangers unless there is a compelling emotional reason to do so. Even "tug your heartstrings" stuff often falls flat unless that's the clear way forward. I had one player dismiss a clear case of child abuse as "the kid probably deserves it, he's probably some slum-rat thief".

But they almost always rise to the occasion when there are previously established interpersonal relationships. This means some ally is in trouble, or some enemy is causing trouble, and through this you can introduce nearly any plot.

Did you read the last paragraph in the encounter? The PCs are supposed to attract fire regardless of their initial involvement.

It also helps if the PCs have some skin in the game. Did the encounter just happen "randomly," or were the PCs going to visit this particular merchant? When I was reading through that encounter, it occurred to me that the PCs should probably be trying to visit this "Corte," or else perhaps they are meeting "Thamoss" here after receiving a very...non-specific invitation. That way, at least, they might be more inclined to try and get involved.

I did read the last part of the resolution, the problem that came about was they basically just walked right out of the market and decided to 'go another direction'. I couldn't see a reasonable way for this fight to end up involving them as they take a step back then actually just straight up leave. Unfortunately the encounter did happen randomly as they were shopping for mods so I guess they thought it wouldn't be important.

If you want to pursue it, have them approached by both sides. One side could send a message stating "My men were slaughtered in the market and I know you were there. I have it from good sources that you fired at my men and I'm not going to lay down and take that from you. I really don't know who you are, but I'm gonna find out and you'll regret it!" Then have a hand delivered message from the other side, "Looks like we got off on the wrong foot. It's hard to do business when low-life scum threaten me in broad daylight. I would have appreciated some help there, but I understand you not wanting to get involved. Let's put that behind us, though, business is business..."

Feel free to change as needed. Or have both sides threaten them... just because they didn't want to get involved doesn't mean you can't involve them.

If you want to pursue it, have them approached by both sides. One side could send a message stating "My men were slaughtered in the market and I know you were there. I have it from good sources that you fired at my men and I'm not going to lay down and take that from you. I really don't know who you are, but I'm gonna find out and you'll regret it!" Then have a hand delivered message from the other side, "Looks like we got off on the wrong foot. It's hard to do business when low-life scum threaten me in broad daylight. I would have appreciated some help there, but I understand you not wanting to get involved. Let's put that behind us, though, business is business..."

Feel free to change as needed. Or have both sides threaten them... just because they didn't want to get involved doesn't mean you can't involve them.

Oh man that's perfect. That's brilliant, especially since they don't know who survived. I can have both NPCs survive the whole thing and do just this. Thanks

I like the world to be directly influenced by PC action (or inaction). So in the above scenario, I'd be tempted to let the merchant in question die (facing off against Trandoshan thugs, I'd think this'd be the likely outcome) and then it turns out that the merchant was actually the only person on this rock that could get what they are looking for, at least for a halfway decent price. Any "alternatives" are gonna run five times the asking price for each order and take 2 weeks to fill.

Oops...