Just venting after a recent session with my primary group, who have become...well, just really really boring. One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

I'd like to say that there's a reason for them to be cautious, but so far none of them has dropped below half wounds.

I know, I know, I just have to talk to them and work out what's going wrong. It's probably my fault anyway.

Sigh.

I don't play too often, so when I do get the chance to sit on the other side of the screen, I tend to play the wild cards. It sometimes annoys the other players, but I enjoy playing the character that gets things done.

My main goal when I play is to have fun and create memorable and cinematic scenes. That doesn't happen if everyone plays it straight. I'm in STAR WARS for darn sake. I want to swing across bottomless shafts and fall in love with princesses, not do my taxes and negotiate for a small business loan.

That being said, try and create an NPC that the PCs can grow attached to and through that NPC, stir the pot up. Or flip some Destiny points and throw in a complication or two.

Who cares if they do something interesting? Make interesting stuff for them.

Lead by example with your npcs.

Besides, if they play boring you can use creative play on the villains to bring them a little out of the comfort zone. Does not need to kill anyone, but having some pressure might work or some free time for their characters to play in the star wars sandbox itself.

I may be a bit more sadistic, but this is when I'd start chopping off limbs or throwing in some serious critical injuries or something.

Yeah, I find that you just need one person to start a crazy spiral, either one of your players or yourself. It will then start feeding upon itself and before you know it the party joyriding on Sith Inquisitors dressed in gimp gear while trying to hijack Imperial Freighters using riding crops.

Not that I have this issue, my players seem quite happy to make things interesting. For instance, the Wookiee is currently using a vibroaxe he acquired by having it embedded into him last session and then legging it screaming for the medic as the crit injury put him on the bleeding out stage while the axe was still stuck in him (the axewoman rolled a despair which we agreed would be her getting the axe stuck and unable to get it out, losing the weapon), the Gotal Antaran Ranger/Wannabe-Jedi had to be distracted from the rest of the party using the bodies of the fallen as props, the R2 unit is "pragmatic" to the point that the rest of the party have been horrified at some of the stuff she has done (I really don't need to elaborate here, and you don't want me to), the Klatooinian Heavy has been shoving itching powder made from Cratala's experimental medical supplies in the Chiss Pilot's underwear... looking at this I realise just how morally bankrupt the party is...

One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

Fine. The next time they turtle up, do something interesting to them.

So there you are, completely safe and sitting in your hotel room, playing Go Minock when there is a knock at the door - your room service has arrived. Crossing to the door and opening it, the bellboy staggers forward clutching an envelope. "They cant . . . get this." *gasp* - and that's when you see the knife in his back.

With that, six heavily armed and dangerous men kick open the fire door at the end of the hall and shout "THERE HE IS! GET HIM!" Please roll your vigilance for initiative. . . .

Problem solved.

If you need your players to "GET GOING ALREADY!" I would suggest putting them in life or death situations.

"You have all been captured by a Hutt, and are sitting in his arena. One of you must die for the rest of you to be set free. If you can't make this decision yourselves, then we'll see who survives the Rancor. Roll for initiative."

EDIT: What Desslok said.

One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

Fine. The next time they turtle up, do something interesting to them.

So there you are, completely safe and sitting in your hotel room, playing Go Minock when there is a knock at the door - your room service has arrived. Crossing to the door and opening it, the bellboy staggers forward clutching an envelope. "They cant . . . get this." *gasp* - and that's when you see the knife in his back.

With that, six heavily armed and dangerous men kick open the fire door at the end of the hall and shout "THERE HE IS! GET HIM!" Please roll your vigilance for initiative. . . .

Problem solved.

It sounds like that group would throw up their hands and claim they don't know the guy, and then be upset they're being railroaded into a shootout.

Before upping the ante in the game, you *have* to sit down with them and ask what the problem is. How do you handle the interesting things they have done so far? If they do interesting things, does the end result feel more like a penalty than an epic moment?

Or do they just sit there waiting to be spoon-fed easy encounters and loot?

It's a common writing tool that if during the course of the story, the protagonists stop moving forward, having a random threat pop out and attack them.

Desslok's example is a great one, since it spurs the characters to action, especially if the heat doesn't let up even after they deal with the current crop of attackers.

While the more common adage is "and suddenly, ninjas!" in Star Wars you can just swap ninjas with stormtroopers. Stormtroopers are very much a "shoot first and ask questions later" type of adversary, so them coming with blasters blazing works no matter what situation they get dropped into.

I think I would take the opposite view. Fold up the screen, put away the dice, and go home. Tell them someone else can run the game.

At the point where "Nobody do anything interesting" gets broken out, tell the players that they have exciting carreers as accountants until the empire blows up their planet

Game over

One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

Was this in-character or out-of-character?

Either way, this makes little sense; and I'm inclined to believe that there's more going on here.

Did you even ask this person what he meant by that?

One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

Hmmmm... I'd make a point by leaving the gaming table and put the TV on, start putting all your stuff away, sit down and start reading a splatbook etc...

I've been in situations as a GM where I've spent f****** ages prepping, placing a hint to an artefact and one player took the lead about the hook saying 'oh we won't go down there then' ( the cellar door leading to catacombs) It's not real life, it's a game... if we took real life decisions in SWRPG, Call of Cthulhu or PFRPG we'd stay at home under the thumb of the Empire, trying to ignore the truths of the universe or paying our taxes while stupid adventurers do the dirty work

EDIT: In fact years ago I made a home brew parody of Vampire: The Masquerade called Mortal: The Mortgage.... I never got to play test/GM it, but you can bet it looked boring on paper

I've come to the same conclusion as a lot of people here - next session the ship is getting attacked by pirates, and I'll see what my players do with that.

One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

Fine. The next time they turtle up, do something interesting to them.

So there you are, completely safe and sitting in your hotel room, playing Go Minock when there is a knock at the door - your room service has arrived. Crossing to the door and opening it, the bellboy staggers forward clutching an envelope. "They cant . . . get this." *gasp* - and that's when you see the knife in his back.

With that, six heavily armed and dangerous men kick open the fire door at the end of the hall and shout "THERE HE IS! GET HIM!" Please roll your vigilance for initiative. . . .

Problem solved.

It sounds like that group would throw up their hands and claim they don't know the guy, and then be upset they're being railroaded into a shootout.

Before upping the ante in the game, you *have* to sit down with them and ask what the problem is. How do you handle the interesting things they have done so far? If they do interesting things, does the end result feel more like a penalty than an epic moment?

Or do they just sit there waiting to be spoon-fed easy encounters and loot?

They're just super cautious, and never risk anything...even for the things their characters are supposed to care about.

Actually, that's the problem, isn't it. That's what I need to discuss.

Thanks.

I think I would take the opposite view. Fold up the screen, put away the dice, and go home. Tell them someone else can run the game.

At the point where "Nobody do anything interesting" gets broken out, tell the players that they have exciting carreers as accountants until the empire blows up their planet

Game over

Tempting...

Not Star Wars since I never vet to play on the player's side. But I tend to play door-kicker types of characters. People tend to be very cautious with their characters but being that I GM for the most part I tend not to worry to much about them lasting. My recent half-orc bard, Jugger Knot, in the Curse of Strahd campaign, came to glorious end at the hands of Strahd himself. During the campaign there was many a time the group would scream "Jugger No!!" As I did something that like kick a door open or start a fight. Fun times. If they won't start something then GM will have to step up.

Just venting after a recent session with my primary group, who have become...well, just really really boring. One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

I'd like to say that there's a reason for them to be cautious, but so far none of them has dropped below half wounds.

I know, I know, I just have to talk to them and work out what's going wrong. It's probably my fault anyway.

Sigh.

Why are they playing?

Actually this sounds like there are some underlying concerns.

Talk to them. I would start with: " This was the general concept I had for my campaign.". And ask "What do you guys want?". Try "Start stop keep"

A.k.a. " What do u want me to start doing?, Stop doing? Keep doing."

Or maybe these folks really want to play "Stat Wars, A new Balance Sheet.".

Can you give some more specific examples of what they passed up, and the context of the "No one do anything interesting" quote?

It's a common writing tool that if during the course of the story, the protagonists stop moving forward, having a random threat pop out and attack them.

Desslok's example is a great one, since it spurs the characters to action, especially if the heat doesn't let up even after they deal with the current crop of attackers.

While the more common adage is "and suddenly, ninjas!" in Star Wars you can just swap ninjas with stormtroopers. Stormtroopers are very much a "shoot first and ask questions later" type of adversary, so them coming with blasters blazing works no matter what situation they get dropped into.

In the same vein as Donovan's excellent advice, I'll share something that's really helped me keep games interesting. I try to make the sessions episodic, even in the context of a larger campaign. Aside from the down-time this allows between 'episodes,' it lets me start each session the way every Stars Wars game should: in media res.

From Wikipedia : "A narrative work beginning in medias res opens in the midst of action. Often, exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, either through dialogue, flashbacks or description of past events. For example, Hamlet begins after the death of Hamlet's father. Characters make reference to King Hamlet's death without the plot's first establishment of said fact. Since the play focuses on Hamlet and the revenge itself more so than the motivation, Shakespeare utilizes in medias res to bypass superfluous exposition."

Starting your games in the middle of things, I find, can really help set the tone for the session. If done well, it also inspires the PCs to find out the "why" behind the action that started the session. Bypassing the non-essential details also allows the players a finer focus, and allows you to hone in on the relevant details.

And this is why the Cthulhu campaign where we played ourselves several decades ago got abandoned after one session. You can't play an RPG the way you'd play real life and enjoy it!

Characters should take risks the players won't!

And this is why the Cthulhu campaign where we played ourselves several decades ago got abandoned after one session. You can't play an RPG the way you'd play real life and enjoy it!

Characters should take risks the players won't!

That's a sizeable portion of the fun of RPGs, to be able to step out of your day-to-day life and step into the role of someone that can have larger-than-life adventures, be that role a burly barbarian, an arrow-slinging elf, a spell-slinging wizard, an honorable street samurai, a scruffy-looking scoundrel, a super-powered crime-fighter, a Jedi Knight, or any of a thousand different roles.

If the players just want to turtle up and not do anything exciting in the game, why the hell are they even playing an RPG in the first place?

Just venting after a recent session with my primary group, who have become...well, just really really boring. One of them actually said, and I quote, "Nobody do anything interesting" to the rest of the party.

I'd like to say that there's a reason for them to be cautious, but so far none of them has dropped below half wounds.

I know, I know, I just have to talk to them and work out what's going wrong. It's probably my fault anyway.

Sigh.

Flip a destiny point and have a force using red lightsaber sith land at engaged range and hit someone. I'm exaggerating... a bit. Ha! If my PC's are being too cautious and not critically thinking, I adjust and FORCE them to go down a different path to complete the objectives or hit them in their dump stat. I don't let them do what they're comfy doing. You can use encounters creatively to not allow they to get comfy.

So, do they really want to play the game? Sure, there are plenty of ways you could force the action, but is that the fun you all signed on for?

I wouldn't be so hard on yourself, edwardavern - this is a group responsibility to keep the fun rolling.

I've come to the same conclusion as a lot of people here - next session the ship is getting attacked by pirates, and I'll see what my players do with that.

Or do they just sit there waiting to be spoon-fed easy encounters and loot?

They're just super cautious, and never risk anything...even for the things their characters are supposed to care about.

I guess the first question for them is: why are you playing? Do you want to be awesome heroes, or sit there like hemorrhoids?

Second question: what are you afraid of risking? Wounds? Strain? Death? Your amazing reputation for inaction?

One of my players is always reluctant to throw his character into physical situations, even though he's playing an Enforcer. It's weird, but then he's playing against his normal type (which is more of a charmer/smuggler/face type). And he's plenty inventive generally, so it's not really a problem.

You might offer zero XP for non-interesting behaviour. If you don't engage with the world, you can't learn anything.

When a PC does anything even remotely cinematic, reward him/her by highlighting how awesome he/she is (this may require you to downgrade your planned encounter difficulty). This will probably make other PCs a bit jealous, and other one may take a risk.

Is there a possibility PCs are cautious because they have had some hard encounters? If so, make things easier for them for few sessions. Is you have some harder encounter/scenarios planned, they will feel more dramatic later, if PCs relax, and see they are not always at risk. Remember the tension release formula. Good fiction usually has some kind of tension, which is released through the climax of scene. I learned the hard way that ramping up the tensions eventually means there is no tensions at all (and I lost a player, because he wanted lighter game).

So, my advice is make the game lighter for few sessions. Make encounters easy. Reward all risk taking. As I don't know your or your game or your players, filter this through your own knowledge.

TL;DR: It may time for interlude.

P.S. Your players don't suck, your current situation sucks.

It seems that it isn't that they suck, rather they seem like cowards. Best thing to do is, Im probably restating earlier advice because I'm too lazy to reread the rest of the thread, is sit down and talk to them. If they aren't comfortable with the sytem ask them if they want to try one of the begginer games, if you have it, or if they're comfortable with the system ask them why they dont want to do anything.