Ok so tonight we had some cancellations on are 10th session but one player turned up just to hand out. We got on the topic of trying to make the game more serious. A little bit of background.

The party is made up of a bunch of late 20, early 30 year old all with 40 hour a week jobs. All the players are pretty good roleplayers but don't take time out of the game to think about their character, write backstories, do much anything but show up. They don't know much about the universe being DnD gamers. During the game, everyone is pretty focused on the game, but there lots of joking around. No one really digs into their character's role.

I'm trying to get some ideas on how to take my game from 5 hours of diversion on monday nights, sort of a casual beer and preztes game to something a little more in depth. Anyone have some nifty suggestions? I mean it's very possible my group is just looking for a diversion that a real character heavy "talk as your character" constantly session. I still like to add some in depth stuff to it though.

Ah! The classic game-masters conundrum! There are all sorts of roleplayers, and I don't neccecarily think that the "talk as your character" flavour is the only, or the best way to role-play. Most people have their own style - really, it is their own personality that shines through. Most of them are playing an idealized version of themselves in a fantasy setting, most of the time. And some times they pop entirely out of character, start meta-gaming or doing all sorts of other weird stuff. Usually, that can be really fun too, even though it might undermine the efforts of the GM.

So maybe one suggestion could be to figure out a way to refine the players, and allow some of their personal traits to be expressed through their character, rather than having the characters influence them. Maybe eventually, things will go the other way too. I mean, if you have a really aggressive player who always prefers a head-on solution to things, then "cast" him as a trollslayer or a Sigmarite. And if you have a very mindful, cautious player, hand him an academic character of some sort, or maybe a rogue.

Tip two: give them adversaries that they really hate. That will probably motivate them to pay more attention and work more towards the goal of stopping their nemesis. And - very importantly: reward them when they do something right. Let them save the day and defeat the bad guy. Having an unklillable nemesis will cause a lot of frustration, even though it will grieve you a lot as a GM, having to kill of your own creation.

Most importantly, in my opinion, is to just keep things fun. In my games, we probably have about 50 % actual game-time, and 50 % real-life anecdotes, jokes and general issue bull$h!t. The game is mostly an excuse to get together and horse around on a weekly basis, and I think a lot ot the players would loose interest if the game got to serious. No matter what you do, make sure the characters have fun. Degenerate them into slimehounds if you must, but keep them laughing, even in the face of chaotic horror

In my opinion, a good, roaring laughter is a lot more rewarding than someone playing as a dwarf attempting a scottish accent. Although that's pretty good too, of course. Good luck with the game!

Since none of them know the world well, part of their 'lack of RP' might be lack of knowledge. Photocopy relevant tidbits about the world from novels/books/source guides and point them to websites, then give in-game rewards (might be advancements, might be items, etc.) for reading and following up on your suggestions. If you keep your suggestions brief but inspiring, most players will respond well. I also try to work in one specific plot for each player so that everyone feels s/he's "special" in some way, then use their plot contacts to help shape their RP. I've also asked for my players to work on our Obsidian Portal site, too; nobody's had time for that yet, but we've all got 'building a story' as a goal for the group.

Oddly, the horsing around annoys me much less when I'm a GM than it did when I was a player. Nothing soured me on DnD more than game after game of idiots min-maxing the combats for hours and then deliberately blowing the RP scenes by asking questions about how every female NPC looked before they hit on her, desecrating holy spaces, being rude to nobles, and making jokes about body parts and beer. At least the joking my players do now is a) plot-driven and b) actually witty.

And I totally second the "give them enemies they really hate" bit. We haven't established my group's nemesis yet, partly because I'm working on that problem, but I think that's a key ingredient.

Try to run a few adventures to highlight different areas of the setting: the nobility, the religion, the races, etc. Cover several different staple enemies. Try to inject as many facets of the game as you can in the first number of sessions. It will give you a good idea where the player interest is focused, and bring them more familiarity with the setting.

Once you know where the interests are, give more and more power to the players. Give them a keep, a guildhouse, a chapter of a new knightly order, whatever they would seem to be interested in. Present several threats and opportunities, many at the same time. Let them persue what they want; the extra level of player control and empowerment works wonders in engaging players. Heck, in this system you can use the progress tracker to determine how their organization or little town is faring. Every time they look at that slider shift, they'll have a personal connection to it through ownership.

Also, keep the beer and pretzels

or bretzels as we call it in France, or Brezel in Germany.

You can't force 'em to play another way, but you might serve them a HARD adventure, with low fantasy...

Barony of the Damned (V2) is a great supplement in a nowhere place in Bretonia. It's hard, bloody, disgusting, tough, no reference to warhammer setting to learn, no magic, no funny greenslaying, no gods... I bought it to run it under V3... That's was great with no Dnd/lotr flavour inside.

Blood and flesh my friend.

I have identical setup.

As GM I have spent some effort to get to know Empire and Warhammer in general. I present this world location by location, character by character, adventure by adventure and this keeps things interesting and flowing. Everything is in-context so the learning process is not forced for the players but there's always some things they need to react to. If players get inspired to ask more about the background etc I provide them the details I feel necessary / able to provide.

PCs start as pieces of paper but their evolution to fleshier characters also happens over time. I also present adventure elements that describe relationships, history etc of PCs. As a rule of thumb if players are not self-motivated to flesh-out their characters, do it for them. My group is ready to accept and eager to hear about "their character" and then try to incorporate these elements to their gameplay.

Keep it simple. Do not force it.

I appreciate all the advice.

I've done a few campaigns in the past where I really worked hard to flesh out the story, make NPCs interesting etc... Most, early on in my RPG career, worked well, the last few have not. as I get older I see often players who are just too tired, frazzled, or preoccupied by something real life to care.

I think what it may boil down to is that whatever I do, has to be done at the game table, or else I'm likely to be resentful that people aren't putting the effort into the game that I am.

One idea I have is going through the list of questions (maybe some others from some other games) and have the characters flesh out their personalities that way.

I've combined a few questions from several RPGS. I think I'll start here:

Character Personality Profiles

My character is more (circle one):

Chaste / Lustful
Energetic / Lazy
Forgiving / Vengeful
Generous / Selfish
Honest / Deceitful
Just / Arbitrary
Merciful / Cruel
Modest / Proud
Pious / Wordly
Prudent / Reckless
Temperate / Indulgent
Trusting / Suspicious
Valorous / Cowardly

What did you do before you become an adventurer? Do you have a story for your character from that time in their life?

Is anyone your enemy? Is this an enemy from your past or present?

What are your prized possessions? Why are they so prized?

How would you physically describe yourself?

How would others describe you?

Does your adventurer have any recurring mannerisms such as a nervous twitch or flirting glance?

What are your adventurer’s most favorite and least favorite things?

What is your adventurer’s greatest strength? What is his or her ultimate weakness?

Does your adventurer have a hobby?

Does your hero have prejudices? If so, who is it and why?

What does your hero think of magic?

What does your hero think of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers?

What does your hero think of witch hunters?

What is the coolest thing about this game so far?

What is the worst part of this game so far?

What do you wish your character would get to do more of?

I have a similar list of questions that I've developed over the years. In general, I'd try to avoid some of the obvious questions (what do you think of Chaos) as the answers are typically fairly predictable and provide limited insight. Here's my own list of 7 questions:

Who does your character most trust? How was this trust earned?

How would your character describe him(her)self? How would others describe your character?

What does your character desire most?

What is your characters greatest fear?

What regrets does your character harbor?

What actions does your character consider unforgivable? Similarly, what crimes would your character overlook?

How do you expect your character to die?

Introduce someone that they have a chance to bond with, could be anyone really but keep them around for a few sessions so that they ge used to having them around and preferably be someone that they rely on or even better get some kind of regular reward from (someone rich with money to spread around or if the group is predominantly male, some kind of helpless young female works).

Then kill them

horribly and violently

when they least expect it.

This not only provides the nemesis for them all to hate, but players hate having things of value taken from them generally. Combine this with the personality trait questions in the other posts, and get the players to react to the situation using their predominant personality trait as a guide.

This should then help the players build up a sense of character.

Giving them moral dilemas with no obvious right and wrong answer is also a good way to go.

Also steal ideas from other games..

Trial of cthulhu has something that are called drives such as Adventure,Duty, Curiosity etc... following the characters drive in a certain situation (normally this results in putting the character in danger) gives a minor reward, which in WFRP could translate to a fortune refresh or stress/fatuge recover.

Conversely, ignoring the drive causes problems for the character, again translated to WFP this could be additional fatigue or stress or something.

A person's drive is the reason the hero goes into the haunted house rather than walking by.

By getting the players to define a drive, it is something you can then use to get them into situations, and in turn it begins to help them define their character concept each time they give in or resist their drives.

You could give each character a couple of drives, although in trial, its limited to 1.]

Pendragon has a good way of defining characters by choosing one of two words to best define the character, with the words effectively being polar opposites, very much like your Chaste/lustful listing... in fact that looks very much like the Pendragon list!

.. and if you have enough friends to choose from let the ones who are more eager to join.

This is what I did. My group was somewhat resisting to WHFRP by "dice being complex" or having just fun to object my adventure plots. Did a little rearranging and now with my half-renewed group we're having a blast!

stanmons said:

THIS. I completely agree. Some friends are good for one system, some for another. Doesn't mean you love them any less...but some just aren't gonna take to your vision of a particular system.

I have a very involved group of players, but all are 30 or more and have full time jobs. We keep things alive by throwing ideas and funny rants about the game thru emails we write once in a while. I often send images too, paintings from the 16th century often can be used as ambience or NPC portraits. I don't necessarily show these in-game. I often send them by email: "oh, by the way, this is what Herr Heller looks like."

I find that gets their juices flowing and makes them eager to play again. It also stimulates discussion and speculation (via email) about characters and story elements. And now they all write these emails in-character ! With much joking and goofing around, but still...

And yes, we use funny voices. Only not all the time. We have this zoom in zoom out reflex where when scenes become more dramatic and tense, the voices kick in. In more "off time" scenes, I let my players metagame a bit and just talk player to player.

Then I'll "zoom in" again by describing some in-game element (location, atmosphere, action by a minor NPC) just to remind them that their characters are in situ and need some action. They'll naturally switch back to their roles and will expect the story to start moving again.

Usually, the more intense roleplaying happens 2 hours into a game. Our games last 5 or 6 hours.

Jericho said:

I like the idea of an e-mail. I'm thinking of something more of a "teaser trailer" type thing two days before we play. That's a good idea.

In my experience, the best way to encourage roleplaying is to lead by example. If you are always talking as the NPC, adopting accents and mannerisms, addressing characters by their names (rather than by the player's name), et cetera, your players will begin to follow suit. If you can talk to one or two of your players to help you in this regard the rest of the group will fall into rather naturally.

That being said, not everyone likes the deeper character style of roleplaying so what works for my group may not be fun for yours. I'd suggest asking your players directly if they'd be willing to give it a try before doing anything to "force it."

We are having exactly the same setting as the author of the topic described.

We do have A LOT of joking and we do have a lot of beverages and 'edible bits' during play. Somehow that, however, does not impair the gameplay at all. When the plot gets serious we get excited and concentrate on the situation. When we need to think - we think. But there is always a place for a good joke (we have had some absolutely smashing humour hits, laughing out loud for several minutes - no better way to have fun) or a real-life anecdote. Sometimes the real-life talk might take us away for a longer time, but that happens rarely and usually when we are dead tired after a tiresome week, late on Friday nights. But usually we play on working days, and we do play rather than talk about something else.

In my view, if there are jokes AND the people are interested in playing your game, no GM should try to 'strain the reins', as ultimately he will most certainly fail.

egalor said:

Yeah. See the thing is I'd love to have more focus time and roleplay development, but I get the feeling the party would rather just get together and be entertained. I was trying to find creative ways to get them more in an rpg mode and less in a game mode, but then again, if that's what they want ouf of the game, I don't want to make them hate it.

Indeed this is a question with multiple answers. You cannot force players to play in a certain way but you can do things to guide them. I think the first step however is just say that you'd like to try a more "serious" gaming and encourage your players to bring their characters to life. Really express to them that they should be deciding things based on their characters motives not their own and not what from the outside world might seem like the best thing to do. Failure due to playing in character is really quite fun.

It is also your job as the GM to give them a dynamic world to game in and it's a lot of work outside of the game sessions let alone bringing it to life on the night itself. As a player I always enjoyed writing my backgrounds and learning about my character and as a GM I tend to do a lot of writing for my players. After discussing their general history with them I then proceed at flushing out their backgrounds through write ups and by doing so teach them about the world of Warhammer and who they are in it. As an example, I am beginning Eye for a Eye tonight and over the last couple weeks I have had a solo gaming night with each of my players. We made their characters individually and did a short intro fight or encounter to let them test out the dice before a real game. (and for me to play test too) After each PC was made, gaming night was scheduled to start weekly, and before the first session I wrote them each a 4 page introduction, describing bits and pieces of their characters life and how they came to be in Ubersreik and why. I emailed each of these stories to my players and when they show up tonight they will each know exactly where they are, why they are there and what happened moments before entering The Red Moon Inn. From the first moment of the game they are prepared with pages of personal data and individual purpose and a vividly described environment.

I'll continue throughout sessions to do write ups and encourage them to respond to them with their own. For me the process of writing really sinks it into my head and hopefully theirs. It's as good for my GM'ing as it is for their playing.

The environment you set up is important too. I have a memorable night of gaming where I removed the gaming table from the room so that we sat in our circle as usual but there was only floor between us. (we had small side tables to keep our stuff on) I encouraged them to stand at times if they felt like it, get up and do something physical and as the GM I would take the floor to interact with them. It was an amazing night. I recommend everyone try it some time. I wouldn't do it every night but changing it up like that can have a lasting effect.

I understand what your going through, I had 3rd Ed for awhile now and I have try all kinds of things to get my group in a serious mind about it, then in one session I just blurted out to them " dudes why do you guys keep goofing off when we try to play this" they responded by telling me that it didnt feel like a RPG but rather a board game to them and when they said that I told them they should have told me that months ago. so what I did after that was shelved 3rd Ed and saying to myself "That was a waist of a $100" went to my book shelf and busted out 2nd Ed and we been playing it for a month now and the problems I had getting my long time players back into playing warhammer again pretty much went away, I don't think I'll go back to 3rd Ed anytime soon, but from my experience as a GM when you got players that goof off alot or don't take a game in a serious tone to your liking could be they're bored or just not interested enough to care which was my problem over a month ago.

I have a bunch of the 2E books in PDF, so i've made those avaliable to my players along with some of my old WHRB codexs so they can get a feel for the flavor and history of the gameworld, its helped some, but they are still kinda suck in a "this is a board game, not an RPG" mindset, though thats my personal cross to bear.

What i've done with other games, and has worked, is to encourage people to create a backround and history for their character by giving them a tangible reward, namely an extra advance and a specfic peice fo gear based on the backrounf they provided. They don't have to write it all out, few of my players have time for that, but i let them tell it to me, and the group if they wanted, as a lead in to the game during our chracter creation / setup session. Seemed to work really well and brought the whole group into it, i even had to give one of the players an extra reward because the part like his story so much they insisted he get something extra for it, and far be it for me to disagree with the group when it was the only thing they all agreed on

I agree with Grayzen that you shouldn't force your players in to playing a certain way. As others have stated I would ask them if their lack of serious roleplaying it just what they want to do or a lack of interest in the game.

It's hard as a GM to get people seriously involved in a game when they are unfamilar with the world but this can also be a good tool to use. Not knowing the world gives you an opportunity to introduce things that the characters have never seen before and try to invoke the same reactions their characters would have. Their characters have probably never seen or heard of Skaven before as most people even after encountering them assume they are just a beastman. So use this lack of knowlege to get them interested by having an encounter with something they've never experienced.

I follow Grayzen's views on creating a background story for the characters. Especially if they are unfamiliar with the setting. This can provide some background of the world for them and not make it such a task to come up with a background when they know nothing of the game world. As they become more familiar then you can opt to let them do their own backgrounds. What career the players character is give an opportunity to withhold information also. A beggar from Reikland, for example, probably knows little or nothing outside of the city/town/village/etc. they are in. So providing them with a background story based soley on where they have been begging and nothing may give the player the feeling of excitement when you descibe the first dwarven hold he/she visits.

Asking basic questions can help the player figure out how they want to roleplay their character. Does the character have a temper or the character cool headed? Stuff like this. Then reward the player when they roleplay based on this. Once players figure out that they may get an extra fortune for roleplaying their characters they may start to get a little more serious.

SinisterSyx I wouldn't put the game away just because your players feel like they are playing a boardgame. Find out why they feel this way. Maybe even take some things out for the time being. Instead of giving the players wound cards draw the cards and keep them behind the screen. If they get a crit then flip the card over and tell them what the effects are. I think once they've played for a while the resistence will go away and you can add more elements to the game.

I also like the idea of sending out emails with little teasers that get the players excited about playing the game.

It's always difficult to balance serious and non serious gaming but ultimately it's up to the players and the GM to figure out what they like. If someone is not having fun then it can bring the whole experience down.