Something that seems to be missing in the game rules regarding keeping the game focused on the narrative is a character goal. I'm not talking about something vague like the motivations that seem to never get used but something that the players come up with, a story goal of what kind of story they want to tell, specifically with their character. A character arc, basically.

I've taken to encouraging some of my players that seem to have trouble RPing and sticking to 1 persona for their characters to think of a character goal. I've had a lot that developed theirs immediately or over time, stuff like wanting to become a Jedi Knight or wanting to do as much to stop the Empire as they can, a group that intends to start their own smuggling operation, even a group that decided they are going to become Force Sensitive hunters.

In contrast, I've also had players that focus a lot (too much, IMO) on looting corpses and making every adventure turn into a cash grab with no real narrative reason for wanting all those funds. Players that can't decide if their character is a rogue-ish hero or a murderous sociopath. Players that want to be dark side users but aren't willing to accept taking Conflict for their actions & attempt to get out of taking Conflict when they perform said actions. Players that sit back and only react to the story rather than being proactive & deciding what they want before the situation requires action.

So I began asking the players "w hat story do you want to tell, where do you want to take your character on their arc & how do you plan to work towards that goal?" The idea behind this series of questions being that if they think of the answers to these questions we should both be on the same page as to what story they want to tell, how they want to tell it & how they will go about telling it. This should allow them to have an endgame of sorts in mind, even if it isn't necessarily the end of the story when they reach that point. They will know what they want and that should inform their decisions in the game, to bring their character to that point, narratively. This will also allow me to assist them in telling that story, since we're both on the same page.

I'm interested in constructive feedback on this situation and how I am handling it. Please no 26 page arguments about off-topic subjects if we can help it.

Do you do similar things with your players? If so, how has this worked in your experience? How has it not worked?

Would you do things differently? What specifically would you change? Why would you change the way you approach this?

I think a lot of it comes down to GMs working with the players at individuals and as a group, fleshing out their Motivations. Since Motivations are so far along in the character building steps, I feel like they sometimes get the quick-fix treatment... "Just roll a die, slap something on the sheet, and call it good."

But if players are willing to really get into what drives their PC, and are willing to play to that Motivation, then that is where the space magic happens.

Just now, awayputurwpn said:

I think a lot of it comes down to GMs working with the players at individuals and as a group, fleshing out their Motivations. Since Motivations are so far along in the character building steps, I feel like they sometimes get the quick-fix treatment... "Just roll a die, slap something on the sheet, and call it good."

But if players are willing to really get into what drives their PC, and are willing to play to that Motivation, then that is where the space magic happens.

I agree that Motivations could be the key to this. In practice so far, players hem & haw until they choose one of the dozens of Motivations & then they never play towards it. I've encouraged use of Motivations countless times in multiple ways. It hasn't really had an effect. Players forget about them faster than they took to choose them & end up playing towards a completely different Motivation entirely. How would you inspire your players to be willing to play to their Motivations? Or would you simply just change the Character motivation to match the one that the player is Role-Playing?

If you're not using the Motivations, it's not as if adding a new label like "Goal" is going to improve anything. Best to find out why the Motivations aren't working and deal with those issues before reinventing the wheel.

Just now, HappyDaze said:

If you're not using the Motivations, it's not as if adding a new label like "Goal" is going to improve anything. Best to find out why the Motivations aren't working and deal with those issues before reinventing the wheel.

This is logical.

Would you say that the method I have been employing recently, that I put into the first post would work towards that?

31 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

I agree that Motivations could be the key to this. In practice so far, players hem & haw until they choose one of the dozens of Motivations & then they never play towards it.

I took a look at the various PC motivations players chose. In all but a few cases, players have used the Motivation they chose to inform their RP.

Those that don't play to their Motivations are indeed the same players that tend to not have a specific character goal in mind & their Motivation choices were something like the cause: the weak/charity when the characters only do things for profit & try to turn every situation into one where theft is not only an option but a profitable option, with no real story reason for money being their primary motivator. I'll discuss with those players what I initially planned to but I believe I will also ask them to review their motivations & ensure that they match what the player's vision of their character is. Not once have they been those that help the weak or those that are charitable, it just doesn't seem to fit the character choices since day 1.

I don't know as there is a one size fits answer. Some people will be into playing their character's story, and some are just playing a video game avatar and want the best dice pool they can build.

I think this is a good issue for the GM to put them on the rails. Give them the goal you'd like them to work towards and let them play around with how to get there. Sometimes having a table full of PCs wanting to really RP can be a pain if they're not on the same page. The campaign I'm doing now is your typical AoR 'the rebellion needs to find new bases and resources' kind of thing with my own twist, but it's the first time I've run the game serialized and not episodic, and honestly I am finding it alot easier to get them on task, and roughly keep them there. They also seem more into their characters and it isn't just 'lets get rich, or 'lets get powerful'.

To take a page out of @GM Chris 's book, you could ask the players to "Answer me these questions Three:

1. WHAT...does your character love?

2. WHAT...does your character hate?

3. WHY...are you here?"

This could be a starting point for getting your players to think about their Motivations in real terms.

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Do you do similar things with your players? If so, how has this worked in your experience? How has it not worked?

As a GM I don't require it from my players, but when I'm a player? I absolutely require it of myself. Thing is, it took me forever to figure this out, why I had some characters that just soared and I had some characters that landed with a thud, and did nothing for me. And after a while I started to notice a pattern - those I had with an end-game of some sort were way more fun to play than ones that just coast along from mission to mission. And it doesn't have to be a tangible "I need to save my father from The Evil Cult" or anything, it can be working through a state of mind.

For example, several campaigns ago I played a Stormtrooper clone that came from a bad batch - and the testing that the Empire put him through to figure out what went wrong was . . . how shall we say, left him in a very dark and broken place. The upstanding paragon of Righteousness like Skywalker? No, this guy was a straight out IRA terrorist, someone who would blow up a school bus if it allowed him to take out a Moff. My end game for him was working through his personal demons - while he would never be a happy person, getting him to a place of stability was a victory.

I've had core world princesses who needed to get back into her families good graces, I've had Superheroes that needed to save villainous siblings, and I've played a amnesiac Celtic goddess who had people wanting to swap her brain with an older more evil persona (it's a long story).

Mind you, an end game isn't always necessary to enjoying a character. My current engineer character has no real goal other than fix whatever broken thing is in front of her and I'm enjoying the hell out of her. The flip side is that an end game is no good if the GM never jumps on that story thread - I had a Super Sentai samurai in a superhero game that had to get her mobster family to leave her alone, and the GMs of that game never played her story out and the character kind of drifted to a halt.

Getting back to the "do I require it" part, no an end game is not nessassary, but I do strongly encourage a backstory write-up. Even if you have nowhere to go with the character, I can least find some plot hooks for me to bring into play.

1 hour ago, Desslok said:

As a GM I don't require it from my players, but when I'm a player? I absolutely require it of myself. Thing is, it took me forever to figure this out, why I had some characters that just soared and I had some characters that landed with a thud, and did nothing for me. And after a while I started to notice a pattern - those I had with an end-game of some sort were way more fun to play than ones that just coast along from mission to mission. And it doesn't have to be a tangible "I need to save my father from The Evil Cult" or anything, it can be working through a state of mind.

For example, several campaigns ago I played a Stormtrooper clone that came from a bad batch - and the testing that the Empire put him through to figure out what went wrong was . . . how shall we say, left him in a very dark and broken place. The upstanding paragon of Righteousness like Skywalker? No, this guy was a straight out IRA terrorist, someone who would blow up a school bus if it allowed him to take out a Moff. My end game for him was working through his personal demons - while he would never be a happy person, getting him to a place of stability was a victory.

I've had core world princesses who needed to get back into her families good graces, I've had Superheroes that needed to save villainous siblings, and I've played a amnesiac Celtic goddess who had people wanting to swap her brain with an older more evil persona (it's a long story).

Mind you, an end game isn't always necessary to enjoying a character. My current engineer character has no real goal other than fix whatever broken thing is in front of her and I'm enjoying the hell out of her. The flip side is that an end game is no good if the GM never jumps on that story thread - I had a Super Sentai samurai in a superhero game that had to get her mobster family to leave her alone, and the GMs of that game never played her story out and the character kind of drifted to a halt.

Getting back to the "do I require it" part, no an end game is not nessassary, but I do strongly encourage a backstory write-up. Even if you have nowhere to go with the character, I can least find some plot hooks for me to bring into play.

All of this

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

This is logical.

Would you say that the method I have been employing recently, that I put into the first post would work towards that?

Generally, I start with the group. Have them come up with a group motivation/goal that ties them together. Then we explore individual goals, taking into.account how they might interact with the group goal. Now most of this is rather informal unless I sense a potential problem. You won't see me handing out questionnaires, and I don't tend to spend much time on the details, because I'd rather get to playing. A little prepping is fine, but IME, it plateaus rapidly and starts to eat away at fun if it becomes formalized.

Motivations are what drives the character. Restore Justice in the galaxy, fight the empire, become the best pilot in the galaxy, seek thrills and action, all of the above. They usually are not supposed to be real concrete goals for a very good reason: Life and the GMs campaign would get in the way of such goals and players are supposed to form those goals as intermediate steps and expressions of their motivations.

Motivation: Ace: Best of the best

Goals so far would have been: Get access to to a ship which can carry a starfighter; get a starfighter; get access to the best starfighters for the job via contacts within the alliance; get the best carrier for the job.

ANd so on and on. The motivation is what drives the goals, but the goals themselves depend on what the group is doing and the context of the campaign. If we would operate from ground bases on Ryloth for example, fighting a guerilla war, I am sure that those starfighters would have switched to air speeders instead and carriers would not been mentioned once or only in context of improving the hangars of the base and increasing range of operating to help in the whole sector. Instead, based on the goals of the group as alliance special ops and demolition squad those goals adjusted and focus on flying escort and air support missions, based as well on his space/air superiority duty.

So, I would say the interaction between the different characters motivations and their roles within the group of PCs is what should form goals and thus is a subject for table talk, mostly even in character. If you want to formalize this than a group motivation sounds like the most easy solution, this should drive the narrative of the different motivations just fine along. Though I don't think any mechanic in the world will drive people automatically to let loose and start to focus on playing the role of their character primary. This might just come with experience. Remembering the players about some basic questions like what the character loves and hates still should help to make it easier or remember experienced players about the role playing and character development. With all this strange and unique cultures in star wars those questions are especially powerful in the setting imho.

So getting back to the main topic of the OP: I think just focusing on the motivations and formulating some sort of group motivation is all that is needed. Even if a player negates his own motivation, the group should always push him at least towards the group motivations and thus formulate some goals for the group which the player can pursuit with his character. Everything else should come with experience and examples of the same habits from well-played NPCs.

Someone pointed me recently to Matthew Colville youtube series and I think his Story vs Adventure video makes some points which are quite useful for the situation. The players pick their motivations for a reason and as GM you can present them easily with goals which align with those motivations, they might not bite for everything, but they don't need too. You just give them a chance to bite and eventually the will and this creates more adventure and leads to other interesting interactions. Asking players directly about their characters motivations, why they chose them should certainly speed up the process, but in the end you certainly don't need those big things to strive for, going from little thing to the next little thing should create already memorable and interesting adventures for the player and encourage them more and more to lose up and play their characters.

And for your guy who loots everything: Maybe he tries to keep everything to be prepared for everything? That in itself can be an excellent character motivation even this motivation might be based more on the player than on the character, but it can be used for roleplay quite well when you give this player opportunities to prepare his character better for all possible scenarios.

22 hours ago, Desslok said:

As a GM I don't require it from my players, but when I'm a player? I absolutely require it of myself. Thing is, it took me forever to figure this out, why I had some characters that just soared and I had some characters that landed with a thud, and did nothing for me. And after a while I started to notice a pattern - those I had with an end-game of some sort were way more fun to play than ones that just coast along from mission to mission. And it doesn't have to be a tangible "I need to save my father from The Evil Cult" or anything, it can be working through a state of mind.

Getting back to the "do I require it" part, no an end game is not nessassary, but I do strongly encourage a backstory write-up. Even if you have nowhere to go with the character, I can least find some plot hooks for me to bring into play.

Gotcha. Yeah I feel that the players that aren't really pursuing a story could benefit from having an endgame in mind, just so that they can grasp their character's personality better. It could enhance the game for them and for myself, something to try out. If it doesn't, I ain't requiring anything. I just know from experience in my other groups that the players who have goals in mind and stories they want to tell seem to have a lot more fun.

20 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Generally, I start with the group. Have them come up with a group motivation/goal that ties them together. Then we explore individual goals, taking into.account how they might interact with the group goal. Now most of this is rather informal unless I sense a potential problem. You won't see me handing out questionnaires, and I don't tend to spend much time on the details, because I'd rather get to playing. A little prepping is fine, but IME, it plateaus rapidly and starts to eat away at fun if it becomes formalized.

A group motivation might be a good idea to get... At the moment that might be centered around taking down a certain villain. I don't intend to hand out questionnaires either but I thought a frank conversation of where they want to take their character might help them might help them to have more fun when RPing.

19 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Motivations are what drives the character. Restore Justice in the galaxy, fight the empire, become the best pilot in the galaxy, seek thrills and action, all of the above. They usually are not supposed to be real concrete goals for a very good reason: Life and the GMs campaign would get in the way of such goals and players are supposed to form those goals as intermediate steps and expressions of their motivations.

Sure, I get that about the Motivations they don't have to be concrete goalposts. I've personally just noticed that those who actually play towards their Motivations instead of ignoring them entirely seem to create goals for themselves that are based on narrative & not mechanical goals like "I want that specific blaster rifle". I'm fine with the players changing their Motivations to match how they have been playing the characters (greed is their primary motivation, not charity or the weak like they've chosen). They have had ample chances to do good with their resources but they would rather hoard it for a 45,000CR rifle that isn't even that great of a weapon.

I've actually talked to one of them using the methods I described in the Original Post and it's worked really well so far. I have a clear idea of where they want to take the story and the player's got an endgame in mind that deals with basically becoming disillusioned with the idea of justice.

15 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Someone pointed me recently to Matthew Colville youtube series and I think his Story vs Adventure video makes some points which are quite useful for the situation. The players pick their motivations for a reason and as GM you can present them easily with goals which align with those motivations, they might not bite for everything, but they don't need too. You just give them a chance to bite and eventually the will and this creates more adventure and leads to other interesting interactions. Asking players directly about their characters motivations, why they chose them should certainly speed up the process, but in the end you certainly don't need those big things to strive for, going from little thing to the next little thing should create already memorable and interesting adventures for the player and encourage them more and more to lose up and play their characters.

And for your guy who loots everything: Maybe he tries to keep everything to be prepared for everything? That in itself can be an excellent character motivation even this motivation might be based more on the player than on the character, but it can be used for roleplay quite well when you give this player opportunities to prepare his character better for all possible scenarios.

Good video. What's discussed in it was basically what I discovered halfway through running my custom campaign last year as a brand new GM. I learned that I hated pre-planning out things months in advance, I got bored with the plot-line and the almost binary nature of it. I wanted to be surprised by how things went and didn't want to feel like everything was going sideways if the group decided to make a choice I hadn't planned for.

So I changed my methods into running games with basically no pre-written content, only fully designed NPCs. I write their stats, their story and make sure I know the 2 things anyone should know in an RPG: What does my character want & what are they willing to do to achieve that?

From there, the session content depends upon 2 things: Is it a player obligation or is it a non-obligation session?

Player obligation sessions, I discuss with the player ahead of time what story they would like to tell; they give me a general plot-line and I will throw in a few twists. This gets them invested in it from the beginning, because it's their story. I've tried the way the books suggest, springing obligation on players as a surprise that they aren't prepared for. It doesn't work very well with a group of people who are brand new to RPGs because it puts them on the spot.

Non-obligation is completely improvised in the moment and depends entirely on what the players want to do and where they want to go.

I do have some over-arching plot-lines I'm slowly building up to but I'm letting it happen pretty naturally, throwing in certain characters or themes when it feels appropriate and seeing if the players go that direction but it's all just stuff in my head.

Because my GMing style has the players driving the plot forwards with their decisions, sometimes it can be a bit slow or flat if a player doesn't really know what their character wants or what they are willing to do to achieve that. So the whole idea was to get them to think about that exact thing and then use that knowledge to inform their decisions in the game, hopefully building a story they enjoy as we play the game.

Thanks for your responses everyone! I'm enjoying seeing all your viewpoints.

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

Sure, I get that about the Motivations they don't have to be concrete goalposts. I've personally just noticed that those who actually play towards their Motivations instead of ignoring them entirely seem to create goals for themselves that are based on narrative & not mechanical goals like "I want that specific blaster rifle". I'm fine with the players changing their Motivations to match how they have been playing the characters (greed is their primary motivation, not charity or the weak like they've chosen). They have had ample chances to do good with their resources but they would rather hoard it for a 45,000CR rifle that isn't even that great of a weapon.

I really like that 45,000c rifle. There are many rifles, but this one has extreme range, works with gunnery, can't reflected back at me and usually takes out a target with one shot or at least prevents it from running straight or otherwise at me if I am at the legs to take away a maneuver while using knockdown. It is one of the items which can make an ace absolutely fantastic on the ground without investing even a single point of xp into ground combat. You can do a lot good with it. So greed is not the only motivation which lets you strive for such an specific item. A player could feel inadequate equip for the challenges the GM create or his character motivated to do the best job he can, player greed and not character greed can most certainly a factor as well.

Anyway, before I get too lost in details, "I want that specific blaster rifle" is something which tells you something about player and/or character motivation, as such equipment can only be means to end, in this case it tells you something about how the character wants to fight, that either the player or character sees the need to improve his combat performance. That 45,000 credits heavy shatter rifle tells you as well something about player and character agenda, they want to fight from long or extreme range, stay out of the fray and focus on their gunnery not small arms skills. You can use this for your adventure, for your encounter designs and as GM you have the ability to help them with that so that they don't need to be greedy to achieve this. AoR duty mechanics can just flat out give the player this sniper rifle or you can make them work for it in Edge via obligation. Either way, it tells you something about your players characters outside of a one-dimensional motivation picked from the books.

And well, that rifle is imho really great. *g*

Maybe it's my group, but I've always assumed it's the GM's job to set the scene, and the character's goals derive organically from that, and the story the GM starts to tell. I started my current campaign with a really mundane premise: the PCs have an import-export company. But the real story is how they get woven in with NPCs, both positive and negative, and whether they get drawn into the larger backdrop of the Imperials taking over their planet.

So I don't think it's necessarily on the players to come up with goals-on-demand. If the story is good enough and the NPCs are compelling enough it will just happen.

And not to toss bombs, but...when I see players making their PC goals equipment-oriented, that smacks of boredom.

3 minutes ago, whafrog said:

And not to toss bombs, but...when I see players making their PC goals equipment-oriented, that smacks of boredom.

Way

7 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

I really like that 45,000c rifle. There are many rifles, but this one has extreme range, works with gunnery, can't reflected back at me and usually takes out a target with one shot or at least prevents it from running straight or otherwise at me if I am at the legs to take away a maneuver while using knockdown. It is one of the items which can make an ace absolutely fantastic on the ground without investing even a single point of xp into ground combat. You can do a lot good with it. So greed is not the only motivation which lets you strive for such an specific item. A player could feel inadequate equip for the challenges the GM create or his character motivated to do the best job he can, player greed and not character greed can most certainly a factor as well.

Anyway, before I get too lost in details, "I want that specific blaster rifle" is something which tells you something about player and/or character motivation, as such equipment can only be means to end, in this case it tells you something about how the character wants to fight, that either the player or character sees the need to improve his combat performance. That 45,000 credits heavy shatter rifle tells you as well something about player and character agenda, they want to fight from long or extreme range, stay out of the fray and focus on their gunnery not small arms skills. You can use this for your adventure, for your encounter designs and as GM you have the ability to help them with that so that they don't need to be greedy to achieve this. AoR duty mechanics can just flat out give the player this sniper rifle or you can make them work for it in Edge via obligation. Either way, it tells you something about your players characters outside of a one-dimensional motivation picked from the books.

And well, that rifle is imho really great. *g*

The rifle pales in comparison to something like a Heavy Blaster Rifle, which is 1500 credits and can to 2-3 times the damage with a user who has skill in Ranged Heavy. This PC has YYYG in Ranged Heavy and only GGG in Gunnery. The PC also has a E-11S Sniper Rifle at the moment, which is very useful in long range combat but the PC always gets into combats at very short ranges.

I spoke with the player about the fact that the heavy shatter rifle is neither the best choice for the character he's created nor the best choice for dealing damage at long range, in addition that the rifle can break super easily by rolling 2 threat/despair. The player basically just shook his head and replied with something along the lines of "but I want that rifle". So it's certainly not about optimizing or getting the best bang for your buck, since the player is determined to grab the rifle that they were only ever interested in when I mentioned that it is the "most expensive personal scale blaster in the game".

I also spoke to the player about using their credits to do things that would actually aid the group as a whole, stuff like better equipping their ship for combat, stealth, speed, whatever. I've presented many avenues that they may not have thought of in regards to using their credits to better themselves or the group. The player has previously demonstrated murderhobo tendencies & is fixated on this one piece of loot that I warned them, could easily break beyond use compared to most other weapons. They're probably going to end up with a 45,000CR paperweight, which I know they will be sad about and is why I'm trying to warn them of it's downsides, so they don't freak out when all that time was wasted.

I think it's a bragging rights thing honestly, because logic would dictate that the player grab something like the Heavy Blaster Rifle for 1500 and heavily modify it to get off 20+ damage shots easily, especially when considering their Ranged Heavy dice pool.

As far as feeling inadequate in combat, I hope not because I've been very lenient with how tough combats are with that group, in fact even tho they get into combat often they are usually more than enough to stop it and I sit back and note that I need to challenge them more each time.

Besides the thing about the rifle, this specific player and I have already discussed where they want to take their story, as I noted above. I really like their concept and I'd have not known about it at all if I hadn't asked. I'm not even so sure that they would have come up with where they want to take their character if I hadn't asked, so the discussion went really well and we're on the same page. Now I have to do with with some other players.

12 minutes ago, whafrog said:

Maybe it's my group, but I've always assumed it's the GM's job to set the scene, and the character's goals derive organically from that, and the story the GM starts to tell. I started my current campaign with a really mundane premise: the PCs have an import-export company. But the real story is how they get woven in with NPCs, both positive and negative, and whether they get drawn into the larger backdrop of the Imperials taking over their planet.

So I don't think it's necessarily on the players to come up with goals-on-demand. If the story is good enough and the NPCs are compelling enough it will just happen.

And not to toss bombs, but...when I see players making their PC goals equipment-oriented, that smacks of boredom.

I set the scene sure and I have story ideas I want to tell with the NPCs and with some big overall plots that will converge but what I want to do takes a backseat to how the players act and react to everything they encounter. Eventually I'll get to reveal the big bad villain they didn't suspect but for the most part I want to hear the stories they want to tell too. It's a living, breathing galaxy, so if they don't encounter a character at one point in the story then they encounter them at another point.

On-demand seems a bit sudden of a phrase. We've been playing for well over a year and some of these characters are still concepts. There is no character arc to a character that wants to do Conflict worthy things but wants to avoid taking Conflict for them. There is a character arc with someone who doesn't want to fall to the dark side but is willing get their hands dirty when the need arises. There is no character arc to a character that's focused only on credits and items just because "hey, it's cool stuff". There is a character arc with someone who's focused on credits and items because they are trying to pay back a loan shark or because they are being chased by famous bounty hunters. As I've said, I spoke with one player and we're on the same page, a cool story is forming and I don't believe that would have happened if we hadn't talked about it. I plan to do the same with the others.

Boredom might actually be on the money there. It's only recently this group has started enjoying combat (before it was a lengthy, difficult process of constantly explaining the situation due to no one paying attention & reminding players how combat turns work). Printing a player reference sheet & reading it aloud helped a ton!

4 hours ago, whafrog said:

And not to toss bombs, but...when I see players making their PC goals equipment-oriented, that smacks of boredom.

I've seen some cool PC Motivations centered along equipment in DnD, but Star Wars itself just isn't equipment focused. You don't normally have swords handed down from you great-grandfather, or need an heirloom shield recovered to restore your family name's honor, or anything like that.

Now, that said, I could see this being an excellent motivation with a member of a primitive or war-faring race. Maybe someone stole your lucky blaster, or you fight with a zhaboka that you took as a trophy from an assassin sent to kill you, and now it's part of your identity.

As long as a player can make it interesting, I'm game to facilitate it.

You (or your PCs) seem to be crossing the definitions of Goals and Motivations.

Goals: Are things that you want or the person that you want to become. Examples: Lose 40 kilos/ pounds, Make $1,000,000, or go to church at least 3 weeks a month.

Motivations: Are what drives your character and makes them get up in the morning. In other words, they are the WHYs of the goals. Why do you want to lose the weight, make the money, or go to church? The key is you need to keep asking "Why?", until you uncover a key value.

Why do I want to lose 40 lbs? To reduce my BMI. Notice this is not motivations, these are still things.

Why do I want to reduce my BMI? So I can improve my health. Why? So I can live long enough to see my daughter graduate from college and get married.

Wanting a specific rifle is not a motivation, it is a goal.

That being said, character background and motivations are also something that people need to grow into. Some do it faster than others. It also depends on why the Player is playing. I often find, that players that make the same character over and over (and typically these are the ones that always make the big beaters) play more to socialize with the rest of the group and blow off steam from their personal life. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, and often if you force them to develop their characters, they tend to resent it.

However, if you take the dog training approach and reward little efforts that they make and other players make that highlight what types of things that you want, they tend to want it.

So, give the Player that has a fully developed background and motivation, 5 XP after they hand in the character, and explain it in a manner that is not demeaning to the others. When you are awarding XP after a session and a player acted in line with their motivations and let them drive the PC, give them some bonus XP (just not all the time, a good rule is not in consecutive sessions).

Now, the key is whenever the lax player does something that even touches on it, give them some XP. So, if before session 2 the player in question gives you a background with some motivation, reward them. If later on they try to act out that motivaion (no matter how well if goes), reward them.

1 hour ago, JalekZem said:

You (or your PCs) seem to be crossing the definitions of Goals and Motivations.

Goals: Are things that you want or the person that you want to become. Examples: Lose 40 kilos/ pounds, Make $1,000,000, or go to church at least 3 weeks a month.

Motivations: Are what drives your character and makes them get up in the morning. In other words, they are the WHYs of the goals. Why do you want to lose the weight, make the money, or go to church? The key is you need to keep asking "Why?", until you uncover a key value.

Why do I want to lose 40 lbs? To reduce my BMI. Notice this is not motivations, these are still things.

Why do I want to reduce my BMI? So I can improve my health. Why? So I can live long enough to see my daughter graduate from college and get married.

Wanting a specific rifle is not a motivation, it is a goal.

That being said, character background and motivations are also something that people need to grow into. Some do it faster than others. It also depends on why the Player is playing. I often find, that players that make the same character over and over (and typically these are the ones that always make the big beaters) play more to socialize with the rest of the group and blow off steam from their personal life. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, and often if you force them to develop their characters, they tend to resent it.

However, if you take the dog training approach and reward little efforts that they make and other players make that highlight what types of things that you want, they tend to want it.

So, give the Player that has a fully developed background and motivation, 5 XP after they hand in the character, and explain it in a manner that is not demeaning to the others. When you are awarding XP after a session and a player acted in line with their motivations and let them drive the PC, give them some bonus XP (just not all the time, a good rule is not in consecutive sessions).

Now, the key is whenever the lax player does something that even touches on it, give them some XP. So, if before session 2 the player in question gives you a background with some motivation, reward them. If later on they try to act out that motivaion (no matter how well if goes), reward them.

These players have yet to act on the motivations they chose. They've played more dungeon crawl types of rpgs where story doesn't matter and this is their first real story and character heavy rpg, so I don't think they really get the difference between a dungeon crawl and a narrative game. So I can't encourage aspects of play that they don't know are part of the game unless they first learn about those aspects.

When I have explained things to them in conversation, especially with the aid of reference sheets , they do really well and their enjoyment of the game increases. This last session, before we started I encouraged them to think ahead for structured play so that they know what they want to do before I call their name. I then told them how awesome they did afterwards and encouraged them to keep it up. (Turns were around 10 minutes per player in a 6 player group; combat was something we didn't get into much because of how much time it absorbs with long turns.) That is my current plan of action. Talk with them about it and if needed, create some visual aides. Commend them on putting forth that effort when they do well.

While I would love to use the "reinforce positive behavior by giving out xp" method, nobody would like a difference in xp between players. Complaints would be common. I've also already established that I don't want a party imbalance due to varying xp levels.

A 5 xp gap is not going to hurt or benefit anyone significantly in the long run, especially if is not going to the same person all of the time.

Everyone has the opprotunity for bonus xp for a writtwn back ground, either they take you up on it or not. The ball is in their court.

For "good RP", again it is dependant on the indivodual player acting out their character and their motivations. If they are, then they get the XP and if they are not, than they do not. The key is to not pile it on the same player (s) all of the time.

So if in session X, Player 1 does a good job, FOR THAT PLAYER, RPing their motivations then give them bonus XP and explain it to others if needed why he got the bonus. Then in session X+1, Player 2 makes even a small attempt at it, give them the bonus and so on.

Do not, continue to pile xp on the same pc (s) as that does look like favoritism. Make it once every other session or evey 3 or 4 sessions.

44 minutes ago, JalekZem said:

A 5 xp gap is not going to hurt or benefit anyone significantly in the long run, especially if is not going to the same person all of the time.

Everyone has the opprotunity for bonus xp for a writtwn back ground, either they take you up on it or not. The ball is in their court.

For "good RP", again it is dependant on the indivodual player acting out their character and their motivations. If they are, then they get the XP and if they are not, than they do not. The key is to not pile it on the same player (s) all of the time.

So if in session X, Player 1 does a good job, FOR THAT PLAYER, RPing their motivations then give them bonus XP and explain it to others if needed why he got the bonus. Then in session X+1, Player 2 makes even a small attempt at it, give them the bonus and so on.

Do not, continue to pile xp on the same pc (s) as th at does look like favoritism. Make it once every other session or evey 3 or 4 sessions.

Effort needs to be made on the part of the PCs to acquire this bonus. There has been very little effort by most in a certain group, whereas two in that group have been following their motivations since the beginning. As the two who are doing well with their Motivations are family, it could seem like nepotism if I awarded bonus XP to both family members for RPing towards their motivations before any of the other 4. I need to encourage playing towards motivations by talking with the players before I just start handing out bonus XP for a concept that I've previously established that I wasn't intending to use, so that hopefully someone other than just a family member can earn it early on. There's also that we play monthly, so 5XP can seem like a huge deal for these players.

As I know how some of the party members react to things like equipment and credits, (seriously greedy players), there is a high probability I will get complaints about other people getting XP even after I've explained the concept of additional XP going to whomever RPs towards their Motivations really well. I'm still considering rewarding RP with XP but I have to be cautious about it, explain it in word form & likely with visual aides as well.

The system Exalted has this as a requirement, the caveat is it has to be world changing. Yes your PCs can and will get that powerful. FFG for many would be "become a jedi knight." cool, Exalted version: Become grand master of the Jedi order and bring it forward a few millennia. FFG: take out a Sith lord. Exalted: Destroy the Sith in their entirety.

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There has been very little effort by most in a certain group, whereas two in that group have been following their motivations since the beginning. As the two who are doing well with their Motivations are family, it could seem like nepotism if I awarded bonus XP to both family members for RPing towards their motivations before any of the other

Which is why you make a blanket announcement PRIOR to implementing it, like at the end of a session to give them a chance to think about it and a reminder at the beginning of the next session as well as reminders, when something would interact with a motivation.

If they cannot see that it is not nepotism, then the players need a quick case of GTFU.

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As I know how some of the party members react to things like equipment and credits, (seriously greedy players), there is a high probability I will get complaints about other people getting XP even after I've explained the concept of additional XP going to whomever RPs towards their Motivations really well. I'm still considering rewarding RP with XP but I have to be cautious about it, explain it in word form & likely with visual aides as well.

Again, if they freak out about a 5 XP every other session and make absolutely 0 effort to make even a minor effort to remedy the situation and they don't want to make an effort to understand, then you have 2 choices.

1) Live with the group as it is, and run it as a video game where greed is the primary motivation

2) Have the players get a quick case of Grow the F*** Up! and deal with it or get new players

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.