Hello everybody!

I ran my 2nd session for Star Wars: Age of Rebellion.
I'm having a little trouble getting my player to narrate. They would give me their intent, and just roll for it. They almost never interact with each other.

Example: PC - "I want to shoot the StormTrooper" - rolls triumph- -awkward silence- "I take cover"

Often I end up narrating for them...

"________ draw his heavy blaster and quickly fire a round before the trooper can react. The shot was dead on as it smash through the trooper visor . Before even the trooper body hit the ground, _____________ takes cover behind the speeder."

During both my session, I'm narrating about 90% of the time. I figure, roleplaying is about "Story Telling" and I want my player share what their character are doing/saying.
I've watch the Geek&Sundry Roleplay session, these guy character often talk to each other. Encourage or even force one another into an action.

I always end my scene with keyword, "What do you do?"
Or follow up a player action, "Okay, how would '__________' do that action?"

Not everybody is into a certain level of narrative detail, and many are uncomfortable if they haven't done it before. Some seem to think they need to come up with a paragraph for every action, but all it really needs is a few words. You can only lead by example, but I wouldn't waste time narrating their actions, only your own.

There are two elements in the game I found useful to drag a little more description from the players. These are using the narrative results to pass boost or setback around, and when flipping a DP. If they just say "I pass a boost die", I ask how and why that happens. When I first got the blank stare, I gave an example, and made it really brief, like "I missed my kick, but grazed his groin, and he flinched into the sights of Bob's blaster..."

This has worked for me in the past:

1. Lead by example - goes without saying, if the GM is doing it, others could feel encouraged to follow

2. Give an incentive - while I wouldn't be too generous, a well-constructed narration can warrant a Boost die or two, or could apply Setback to an enemy.

If at any point a player is describing a scene and fishing for "can I ...? " I look at the Destiny Pool and say, "I don't know, can you?"

I think you're on the right track with asking your players for more, and I think the solution is all in the phrasing - perhaps asking "what does that look like?" or just asking them to describe it could be enough. I feel like most people that sit down to play a game are ready and willing to contribute, they just need license from the group to proceed. Once we as GMs teach that the dice are there to guide the narrative and not just determine success or failure, a picture is put forth that the table just needs to fill in.

5 minutes ago, themensch said:

I think you're on the right track with asking your players for more, and I think the solution is all in the phrasing - perhaps asking "what does that look like?" or just asking them to describe it could be enough.

This would be my advice, as well. Just add this to the rotation of how you run turns. E.g.:

GM: What do you do?

Player 1: I shoot the stormtrooper.

GM: He's medium range, so that's Average difficulty.

Player 1: 2 Successes and 1 Advantage, so I hit and pass a boost to Sara.

GM: What does that look like?

Eventually, the players will get the hang of it and should start volunteering the narrative flair without prompting.

Not to be a downer, but my players generally don't seem all that interested even after about a year into our campaign to describe the effects of threats/advantage and environment, so it usually falls on me. However, there is one thing they do enjoy though: describing the final demise of their opponent. So it typically looks like this:

Player: I shoot the mynock group I was aiming at before....2 success 3 advantage, that is 12 damage and I use the adv to activate a crit.

GM: 12 damage, and a crit? That is enough to finish off the remaining group, would you like to describe what happens?

Player: Okay, so one of my shots pierces the neck, its corpse collides with another mid-air into some power lines....etc.

The only other times I have had success with player taking the initiative is when I present them with ALOT of specific details of the environment (ie there is a big chandelier hanging right above). Because (despite me repeatedly telling them otherwise), they think that if I don't describe it it doesn't exist and they don't have the liberty to create/shape the environment as well.

The one piece of advice I can give about describing things yourself is this: Always make sure to be aware of player agency and don't describe something someone else's character is doing that might have a player say "but my character would never do that".

Edit: I also tried incentivizing the players to describe stuff to get a boost die, but they ended up complaining because they felt it was inconsistent and arbitrary. "you gave me two boos last time i flew threw the air shooting, but this time i only got 1!".

1 hour ago, ThreeAM said:

Edit: I also tried incentivizing the players to describe stuff to get a boost die, but they ended up complaining because they felt it was inconsistent and arbitrary. "you gave me two boos last time i flew threw the air shooting, but this time i only got 1!".

I found this to be the case as well, which is why I advised caution with this - perhaps a single Boost die, no matter how good the narration - as long as a true effort was made - would be a reasonable compromise.

I get where your group is with this, and I've not only seen it, I've participated in it. For me I think it speaks to the onset of burnout. Sometimes, it's just that folks are tired. Ideally the whole group contributes so that when one person isn't feeling it, the rest can fill in.

Mostly I'm interested in whether they're having fun. If they aren't embracing an Oscar's level of performance on each roll I don't get too worried. Critical hits provide good fodder for narration as do weapon effx.

I do alot of the narrating because I like too. Some at my table do it, some don't, they all seem to have fun, they've been showing up for years. I let them decide for themselves what equals that for themselves.

Some people and groups love to indulge their descriptive natures, others do not. As much as I wish otherwise, not every group can be narrative debutantes like those at Dice for Brains or Critical Role.

I would start by giving 5xp to the player who roleplayed the best in a given session. Instead of boost dice or setbacks.

You could also give them a light side destiny point for good roleplaying/narratives. That would be instant feedback.

1 hour ago, kaosoe said:

Some people and groups love to indulge their descriptive natures, others do not. As much as I wish otherwise, not every group can be narrative debutantes like those at Dice for Brains or Critical Role.

My group is a little like this. We have been gaming together for nearly 20 years (adding a few and losing a few over the years) and it's more common that they will spend 45 minutes roleplaying in detailed arguments coming up with a plan for the battle and how it could go bad or how they will sneak in and then when it comes to the battle, it's "I shoot him". However, the time spent with them agonizing over a plan - because I always have two people who tend to contradict each other and hate the other's plans because of character based personality quirks, not player based feelings - are some of the greatest moments of the game. As a GM, I can just sit back and listen and think to myself how poorly (or good) this will go for them.

1 hour ago, Scotboyd said:

I would start by giving 5xp to the player who roleplayed the best in a given session.

Oooo, that's dangerous. In pretty much every group I've been in, there's been this one person who's just significantly better at role playing than the other players are, so you'd just give that one a steeper progression curve than the rest gets. Guess it depends on how your group is set up. The Destiny Point approach is reasonable in any case, though.

Thank you so much everyone! ( whafro g, themensch , SavageBob , ThreeAM , 2P51 , kaosoe , Scotboyd , Varlie , EpicTed )

I see that I have to accept that some player may not that be all into it.
But its important to maintenance the FUN factor above all else.
I didn't know I can reward player with Boast Dice or Setback Dice or even Exp. I'll keep that in mind!
I'm also glad I'm on the right track to ask the player on ," What does that look like" to incentive player to narrate.

Although I describe the scene. I tend to make it broad as to avoid forcing their character into doing something they would normally NOT do.

Thanks for all the replies, its worth its weight in Kyberite and exactly what I needed.

If anybody else have more input. Please let me know!

2 hours ago, EpicTed said:

Oooo, that's dangerous. In pretty much every group I've been in, there's been this one person who's just significantly better at role playing than the other players are, so you'd just give that one a steeper progression curve than the rest gets. Guess it depends on how your group is set up. The Destiny Point approach is reasonable in any case, though.

True, you might have to grade on a curve. A really good player should understand that it's more of an incentive for others to raise their game.

6 hours ago, bsan89 said:

If anybody else have more input. Please let me know!

The most important thing of all is that if you're all having fun, then you're doing it just right.

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 1:08 PM, kaosoe said:

Some people and groups love to indulge their descriptive natures, others do not. As much as I wish otherwise, not every group can be narrative debutantes like those at Dice for Brains or Critical Role.

To my mind Critical Role has had the unintended consequence of putting up an unrealistic expectation. Those guys are actors, getting paid to produce a show that is in the form of a game, with a production team and all that goes with that. They are there for the show so they don't have all of the typical problems associated with individuals getting together for a private game with often disparate goals and personal situations. Players often are uncomfortable or unskilled at description and need compassionate help in this at their own pace. In my experience a lot of people get better about this over time if it's seen as a positive.

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 1:41 PM, Scotboyd said:

I would start by giving 5xp to the player who roleplayed the best in a given session. Instead of boost dice or setbacks.

You could also give them a light side destiny point for good roleplaying/narratives. That would be instant feedback.

I did something like this in D&D years ago. I redesigned experience to reward the type of play I wanted to see and to not reinforce munchkin behavior. It does work because the power gamers quickly see that there is a different way to get power, but then they try to game that too and over do it.

I like your idea of the Destiny Point for the reason you mentioned.

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 9:10 PM, bsan89 said:

Hello everybody!

I ran my 2nd session for Star Wars: Age of Rebellion.
I'm having a little trouble getting my player to narrate. They would give me their intent, and just roll for it. They almost never interact with each other.

Example: PC - "I want to shoot the StormTrooper" - rolls triumph- -awkward silence- "I take cover"

Often I end up narrating for them...

"________ draw his heavy blaster and quickly fire a round before the trooper can react. The shot was dead on as it smash through the trooper visor . Before even the trooper body hit the ground, _____________ takes cover behind the speeder."

During both my session, I'm narrating about 90% of the time. I figure, roleplaying is about "Story Telling" and I want my player share what their character are doing/saying.
I've watch the Geek&Sundry Roleplay session, these guy character often talk to each other. Encourage or even force one another into an action.

I always end my scene with keyword, "What do you do?"
Or follow up a player action, "Okay, how would '__________' do that action?"

Maybe a way to start is just to get them to narrate more without pushing for dialogue yet. So ask them to describe but don't show your desire to have them talk to each other. Have NPCs talk about stuff and let the Pc's interject with descriptions of what they say. Once they get fluid at that they usually eventually realize it's more efficient to say it in character than to narrate it when it's short statements.

I also think that you should adjust your expectations (if you have any) for how long it will take to get them talking in character and make that an open-ended time period. Don't saddle yourself with an impatient approach. Real change takes time and has to be their idea.