The Day Job Syndrome is my phrase of describing an odd tendency I've seen among some players to, left to their own devices, have their character settle down into their "day jobs" and generally ignore and avoid adventures.

My current group is a case in point. It consists of a Guard Lieutenant/Medicae, a Guard Sergeant and a Tech Priest. They are the commanders of a refugee camp / field hospital on the outskirts of a hive city.

Various odd things are happening: the local garrison commander has a huge stockpile of weapons he's hiding from the Munitorium inspectors, a captain in the garrison is in league with the local narco-gangs, a nearby warlord is uniting the gangs and mutant tribes into an army, the local baron practically has "up to something" tattooed to his forehead, there's a rogue psyker running around the camp, feral servitors are attacking the refugees, etc ...

Given all these various plot hooks, what do my players choose to do? The Tech-Priest is fixing the plumbing. The Medicae does rounds at the hospital and files reports. The Sergeant doesn't do anything unless prompted (I've had to forbid the player from doing embroidery during gaming... it's like having someone playing a video game at the table, only without the cool factor).

When asked why they don't do anything, my players say that they've filed reports or dispatched NPCs to handle that... that last being my own fault, I guess. I gave them 2 squads of mook guardsmen and some office staff as support and instead of doing anything themselves, they send out the NPCs.

I'm trying to talk to my players about it, but it's like they don't get it. The tech-priest player has replied, via email, that his actions are in character since, after all, they are just all cogs in the great machine of the Imperium.

I'm stumped.

So folks, has anything like this every happened to you? What do you think I should do?

wow...ive never actually dealt with this at all but i think i have a good reason

my GM never gave my character time to himself, if i wasnt running from a hive mutant rogue psyker i was stuck naked in a deathtrap rolling 100's every other turn...

here's my simple plan to get your players to play the game

GO AFTER THEM PERSONALLY:

the techy wants to fix machines, well his tools are corrupt everything he's fixed so far gets destroyed and he is personally attacked by servitors or adepts that once worked for him because a machine spirit has taken control (see desciples of the dark gods and in Dark Tech theres an evil machine dataspirit in it its just what you need)

the medicae wants to take rounds: nurgle infestations in the hospital, a new disease from the hive comes up, mutations are running rampant among soldiers (blame it on the rogue psyker give him biomancy)

the sergent is lazy: let the ganglord unite his army and attack

if they want to be lazy give them something to deal with

I have had this problem with some players, and my solution was to bring the adventure to them, so that they have to react and do something. Not the most gracefull solution, or even original, but it can work. Have the refugee camp attacked by the narco gangs, looking for some one hiding there, or after the medical supplies. Have the mooks you gave your players removed, killed, so the players characters have to do something. After all it is a role playing game, not 'Sim of daily life in the imperium'.

Just my suggestion, which worked for me.

LuciusT said:

Well clearly, in his case, the cogs are not in their correct places.

Tech-Priests aren't plumbers and handy-men... they're the guardians and seekers of secret and arcane scientific and technological lore. Fixing the toilets can be done by any random layperson who has been taught the rites and rituals of sanitation maintenance (and I mean that seriously), or even appropriately-programmed servitors. This happens so that the Tech-Priests can get on with more important matters: continuing the Quest for Knowledge, and tending to machinery too sophisticated and too important to entrust to outsiders.

The two guardsmen are a junior officer and a non-commissioned officer... so neither is high enough up the chain of command to be able to slack off like that. Bring in the company captain (and his accompanying Commissar if necessary) to order them to get something done. Filing a report and sending faceless minions into the field to deal with it will not suffice, especially if those faceless minions didn't come back after they were sent to investigate something.

The Imperial Guard expects lieutenants, captains and colonels (and equivalent local variations of those ranks) to be in the field leading their men. And where a lieutenant goes, his sergeants must follow, to ensure that the lieutenant's orders are carried out swiftly and effectively.

In short, remind them that their job and their duty is the righteous persecution of the enemies of mankind. Sitting on their backsides doing paperwork is what the Administratum is good for, not the men and women of the Imperial Guard.

That should be sufficient to at least get them moving; once they're up and about, start rewarding the effort they put in. Make it clear that being active in their duties is going to be far more beneficial to them than sitting around doing very little. If that doesn't work, then don't give them any XP for sessions spent doing busy-work...

My advice, make it personal or make their efforts very hard and frustrating into taking command personally.

For example, the PCs food becomes poisoned (from the Narco-gang sending an assassin for example)! How could this have happened? Or, their transport is bombed (local baron maybe?)? Maybe they have to deal with a raid from the mutants, but the vast majority of the PC's mooks have no weapons? People are killing other people (maybe an attempt on a PC perhaps?) but don't remember a single thing about it and the warp reeks around them?

Short version short, slightly ramp it up, don't throw everything at once, but make it a top priority to the PCs that they will want to track it down, otherwise they will have more problems.

You know, I kind of wish I had that problem...

Either way, my approach would be a mixture of what's been said. It sounds like all kinds of hell is about to break lose if something isn't done about it and nothing is being done about it. So just keep advancing the various factions plots along logical lines, don't wait for player involvement. While their plots are advancing, any NPCs sent in to check things out will, at best only return with minimal results (like they passed all tests a PC would need to with no DoS) and just enough of those results to fulfill their mission. If there's a chance of them being noticed, they will be, etc.

When the PCs file the reports of what their men find, the Powers-On-High will of course want results, matters taken care of, etc. Again, if they simply rely on NPCs,, at best, bare minimal successful results will come of it, usually with far more complications attached that vastly offset any small success that NPCs gained for the PCs back at camp. Meanwhile, set up all kinds of mundane challenges for the PCs to encounter while about their mundane activities. There's a rat tat the Sargent can never kill that keeps getting into their stash of what-evers -that rat must be tracked down, but it's a wily rat. Several patents get an odd virus or infection (watch Medical Mysteries or some-such for ideas, but make is completely mundane and is not the end of lives or the world) that stumps the Medicae and cannot be solved with one Medicae roll. Symptoms would be given, the roll would point the player in the right direction of research, but they'd still have to figure out how to cure this problematic disease by the clues (like a mini-mystery!) you lay down. And, of course for the Tech-Priest, there would be a rater old and cantankerous macinespirit that would pose puzzling problems to the Priest and require back-flips to appease.

Once all that is set up, it would simply be a matter of sitting back and watching the affair unfold. Will the PCs realize tat the problems they're working on mean nothing in comparisons to the trouble looming in their own back yard? Will the NPCs they send end up exacerbating the situation? Will the PCs give the issues proper weight and respond to them as such in time to do something about them or will they suddenly find that the possible mystery story had turned into survival horror while they were pursuing petty problems?

Old timer said:

I agree. These people don't think that those different events are important enough for their intervention. You need to have these things show themselves to be serious.

The question I have to ask is, what are their mooks being sent to do? A good way to give the players the heads up to do their jobs before you bring the hammer down when one of these groups attacks in force is have the mooks go on a failed mission. Have half of them stagger back from, say, hunting rogue servitors to report contact with large and surprisingly organized mutant patrols.

The second way is have these things start impacting the group. They don't realize how much trouble they're in. Have the ammo for their troops dry up because it's being horded by that other guy, have some communiques sent from command to say that heads are going to roll if the rogue psyker isn't taken care of. Things like that.

Really, it seems that everything is spiraling out of control because team drudge work is turning a blind eye. Now, I'm one for PC freedom so you don't have to force them to do anything explicitly. Just give them the impression that they're all going to die if they don't do something. Also, have their soldiers start not following orders and mocking them. That should tell them that they're making laughingstocks of themselves. Even a lowly Enginseer is above fixing plumbing (I am quite fond of one of the Enginseer's lines in Dawn of War: Winter Assault when you tell him to build something: "Ah, a challenge worthy of my skill!"). There are Technomats for fixing plumbing, normal doctors for filling paperwork, and subordinates to do nothing. If these people can't be leaders then they shouldn't be.

A 200EXP scum can 'fix' things. That's the reclaimator w/trade(Technomat) skill. If a player opts to repair something, remind 'em it's below their station.

Or make it so tedious and long-winded they won't want to do it again. Or so hyper-detailed that they realise "I could trick him into summoning daemons!", especially if you're 'on-side' with them (presenting a tedious challenge, but also plenty of player-favouring, rewarding and innovative options to solve things).

And, on a rather crude (but absolutely viable) level, just go for 'em personally. Normal RPGs don't play out as sims properly, all that running about caves...it's the crunch-points people want to get to, introduce a few! Ham-fisted, if necessary!

Rogue servitors attacking the refugees, the people the pc's are supposed to protect !

If this happens too often have the refugees march in protest, demanding protection. This could easily turn into a riot. Now the pc's have to fight or calm down the angry protesters.

Will the troops follow orders to shoot at the refugees ? time to show some command authority or diplomacy skills.

Large scale protests, riots, destruction and killing of civillians will bring unwanted attention on everybody in the area with demands for action and results.

A captain is in league with a narcotics gang. What if "his" gang is loosing a turf war with another gang, threatning the captains luxury lifestyle and he orders the PC lieutenant to attack the rival gang HQ. The pc is free to take any weapons he needs/wants from the base armory ( don't tell the pc's that large scale use of military weapons will propably be investigated by local law enforcement/Arbites/any nearby inquisitor/ local ruler/whoever the GM likes ).

Now the pc is actively engaged in a local gang/drug war and the target of an investigation into an unsanctioned military action.

Next week, the now well organised mutants makes life hard for the captains pet gang, and guess who gets to go and fight them . . . oh by the way, saying no is not an option since the captain now has ( fake ? ) proof that the pc was paid by one gang to attack the other. Say no to the captain and yes to court martial . . .blackmail is a wonderful thing :-) .

The pc can now either try to dig up dirt on the captain to get him court martialled or just go and organize an attack on the well defended, well equipped, well trained mutant army.

At any point the rogue psyker could go and cause a head explosion followed by a full scale demonic incursion, just to spice things up.

This is sure to bring the inquisition down on their heads.

How about something different...

let them go on like that! Ask them each day what they do. As everyone gave you something, give some summarize of an ordinary day with some ordinary obstacles they fixed without any dicerole or active action on parts of the players. In short MAKE IT PLAIN BORING!

Incorporate that the problems mentioned early are still their...or disappear..or worsen. Go on until they finally do something. I think that after an evening where everyone bored himself, they will either do something or leave you alone which gives you room for players who actually want to play.

Talking "want to play", perhaps your players are not so much into "adventure" but into playing "day by day life of the imperium". Ask them

The mooks run into a Narco Gang trap and get burned alive when the prometheum bomb goes off, the other squad is reasigned and since its just them again they don't longer need the office staff.

Make their Inquisitor demand some progress and threaten them with severe punishment...

Case solved...

Roll up new characters, the others simply "got lost in the day to day runnings of the Imperium and were simply forgotten about".

Or for a less ~drastic~ approach..

Let Higher ups treat them with the contempt they deserve!

Or for less drastic than that and a bit "soft on the players"

They get their staff to do every thing? Then the staff miss Vital things that the characters would have spotted, faces they would have recognized from previous missions in and around important scenes, odd glyphs or positioning of items in locations that would have stood out to the characters.

npc mooks screw up, they players get the blame for it, after all the buck stops with them..

Their boss sends an interrogator to find out why a screw up happened and they see just how poor the group has become, they clearly have no interest in the Emperors Own Holy Cause, thus they must be heretics or dissidents, give them a drum court trial and execute them.

Or

Each session dont hand out XP. after all if they expect the mooks to do all the work what are They learning from it?

See how many sessions it takes for them to realise.

Or..

Instead of emailing players, next session have a chat with them face to face, find out what their expectations are of the game, find out if they think you've given them to much power to soon or do some self examination and ask yourself the same question.

The game and group are not going as everyone expected it to be, find out where it went wrong.

If they insist on the "i'm just a cog" thing, then have that character shipped back to mars and get turned in to a servitor or sump cleaner, it's clearly all that character thinks they're expected to do.

Yow! Honestly, I'd let them keep doing the mundane chores they're doing, but make a mental note of how long the various plots you have would come to fruition. Keep giving them 'dispatches' about various goofy stuff going on but let their NPC lackeys downplay it as if it were nothing. See how long their lull lasts. Hell, you could even have the various nefarious plotters send them 'paperwork' to sign that would set them up as patsies. Then when the various situations you have developed have reached a breaking point bring in an Inquisitional cadre or some commissar lead elite investigation squad to try and clean up the mess they allowed to fester. Have them 'questioned' by the acolytes or commissars they send in and put them through the ringer. All the while all hell is breaking loose and everything that they worked so hard to build up is falling apart around their heads. Give them some way to redeem themselves if it works for the story. But basically let your NPC's constantly remind them that this situation could have been remedied if they had taken charge personally instead of letting a bunch of underlings do everything.

Another way you could play it is to have their underlings simply behave as lazily as their commanders. Make them insubordinate. Have the various people treat them like functionaries and not soldiers. Have the tech-priest doing the most simple and ridiculous maintenance that the NPC's can think of. Treat him like a janitor. Have them start to talk about their 'commanders' behind their backs and show them how the morale of their troops is falling apart because they think they're being commanded by a bunch of Administratum bureaucrats. Have the troops start to slack off when orders are given or not even bother to show proper respect or salute or anything to them. Have the soldiers begin to let their arms and armor deteriorate and have them bark orders at the tech-priest to fix it up for them. Make your problem their problem. Have their troops be just as unwilling to do things as they.

Or... You could do both.

PS. You call this the "Day Job Syndrome" I call this the "Happy Place". In a sandbox type arrangement sometimes the players find a 'Happy Place' and just don't want to leave it. This has happened to me lots of times. Not in DH but different games. There's really no rhyme or reason to it and really no way to anticipate when it could possibly happen. The players decided to concentrate on the minutia so much that they forget to adventure.

Yui 56 said:

This is pretty much what I was thinking of when I read the problem.... you can subscribe to my lazy player full proof plan.....beat them down keep them poor. The PCs are living the high life right now..NPC mooks to do their bidding not having to lift a finger.....another fix is the rouge psyker in the camp "pops" and oh boy demons!

at the same time the mutant gang army rises up and starts an attack on the hive and the shabby camp.....hello pale throng...

also I think this is a must...the 2 groups of NPCs you gave them.....take them out...kill them off....remove them...that will force the PCs to do something...if they send in forms to aquire more men have them road blocked by the Gov.."up to something" ...or the men are being used to fight off the army that has been allowed to mass.

oh and the camp leader that is stockpiling should be supplying the arms to the mutant army...just how i see it

You've let your players take the game away from you, and they've actively stopped playing the game.

Kill their characters. Start them as new ones on a derelict space ship that's losing its life support. Let's see him knit while he can't breath...

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

I wouldn't resort to measures as drastic as that, if only because of the opportunities present; to wit, since it seems that the players see their characters as ordinary people doing ordinary jobs (in a particularly lackadaisical fashion, no less), this could be the beginning of a wonderful 'ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances' type campaign! And this thread is full of great ideas to make such a campaign happen. =)