Hello, fellow Acolytes!

Have you ever had a problem when someone, or probably the majority, is not really roleplaying?

Currently i've found myself in a situation, when all of my fellas aren't really caring about it. Only one, who's a very experienced d&d player/GM is playing as a real assasin (at least what he think he must be), and others are just playing like "ah, dead demon! let's loot him!" It really pisses me of, as i'm a Sister of Battle, and i try to prepare some war chants, prayers and so on, to use them later, while our Arbitrator recently tried to steal an item from a shopkeeper and was all like "hey, what's wrong with it? isn't that what cops usually do? ii don't want to buy it!"

The worst part however, is a GM. He has some d&d background, but it's his first try as an actual GM. And he just focuses on battle. We killed, i think, nearly 50 men (i count only those who we were forced to kill by his decisions) and 2 deamonhosts already within 3 5-6 hours sessions. Fist thing he did as a GM was to say "pre-made adventures from the books are boring! i'll make one myself!", so now we are traveling in some kind of a vacuum tube without any storytelling. I found myself always asking "hey, what's the weather?" or "hey, what time is it? is it dark already?", or even "hey, what do we **** see, except o standard **** building?" It really feels that i'm telling the story, not him.

So, can i do anything except punch them so hard they'll admit their fictional personalities? Maybe use some LSD-flavored tea, or something? 'Cause i've found one of the players just PLAYING **** FABLE CRAP during the game session!

Honestly, if the GM doesn't really care about the RP and his sessions are more akin to a long series of hack and slash encounters then you might be in the wrong gaming group. There's really no recourse for you other than to drop out of the group or toss away all of your RP hopes and just go all out hack and slash. I believe you'll just end up more frustrated and unhappy if you try to get everyone to RP when it seems that they don't really care.

Sobakaa said:

Well, you could try the LSD-flavoured tea or...simply let it be. The game can tolerate a player not really role-playing, but in my opinion can never handle a GM who is not interested in role-playing (i.e. in his case story-telling). Maybe you could try to take over as the GM and "enforce" some more serious RP-behaviour by giving extra bounses and/or XP for good role-playing and showing how much more fun it can be to play a certain personallity/character instead of some generic mixture of oneself and an MMO-looting-bot.

The only hope that I see is with the GM. Being Game Master is quite challenging, especially for a rookie GM. Perhaps you could help him with some guidance so that he can grow into the role. Once he becomes a better GM, the group might improve too. If he shows no interest, then it would seem that your two options are to deal with it & enjoy hanging with your friends (I played a REALLY BAD game for a long time for this reason) or to quit the group.

Thanks for you replies. I was just so filled with rage that couldn't resist. Now it's much better, as i was the one who tasted that LSD-tea

So, as you suggested, i'll try to bring more roleplaying myself. At least, i'm an actual Battle Sister, so while i cannot punch a man because his behavior is stupid, she can! With her power of Faith and Bolter she can become a leader of the party and force roleplaying. At least no stealing Arbitres and looting daemons. Prayers and stuff, speaking as an actual Sister can help also, i think. I'll force them to play good or burn them with cleansing fire!

Sobakaa said:

Be very careful about 'forcing' roleplaying. It's an issue that occurs time and again at the gaming club i help run, and we've just got to the point where the GMs who prefer enforced RP only pick the players who enjoy RPing, whilst the other groups are made up of those who prefer to muck about and have a laugh hacking and slashing.

It works rather well as all the groups are more cohesive and get on with their precious, precious gaming time more efficienctly, however it can lead to calls of 'RP elitism'. To that, all you can really say is "We want different things in our games, so it is nothing personal, i just don't want to play in your games.

Well, when we decided to try this game, we all agreed to roleplay. However, i understand, that everybody has his own vision of it, and, as majority is new to the whole rpg thing, it can be hard to do for them. I want to try to show them, that every action they made would have some consequences in the future. As a Sister i can do it pretty good, as she is totally intolerable of heresy, psykers, stealing, and many other "bad" things.

I wish we had as many players, as you guys have. It's hard to find yourself a DnD party here, imagine how many people play FFG rpgs.

It sounds to me like your group might just be tempermentally unsuited to this particular game. If they are only interested in combat and not roleplaying, maybe they should switch over to Deathwatch. Not that there is inherently no roleplaying in DW, but it can be played effectively with a focus on combat and minimal roleplay if the GM chooses...

No, i don't think that they aren't actually interested. They are just new to this thing, and maybe lack of knowledge of 40k fluff is the point.

Well, i hope some beer and a good talk with a game master can solve the problem from this side, and my rp'ing efforts would encourage others to do so too.

A good tip would be to try to explain the problem you're experiencing and maybe offer to GM a session or two. That way you have the narrative control and can help the players get a different view on Dark Heresy.

A small house rule I'm used to (only if everyone says it's okay) is to give players an OOC penalty, basically if they do something that's out of character for them, like an arbiter stealing, they will suffer penalties until they act according to their character again. It helps in the beginning as it can be temping to do things your character shouldn't.

If the players aren't too worried about roleplaying just jump straight in with whatever crazyness you want. Inquisitor giving a mission.... Shoot him for lulz! Another PC giving you lip, shoot him. Sure your GM will kill off your character, but you can just role up a new one (no RP means no attachement to the character anyway) and start again (you might as well have some pre gened characters ready for this)

Basically if you take the not caring about the RP aspect of things to the next level it will either make the game very entertaining or boring even for the other players, you can then suggest a more RP focused game.

Its a similar tactic for GM's. If the PC's don't want to RP at all then just make the mission a long endless series of pointless fights. Most players will begin to get the point.

Incidentally roleplay sessions which have very little roleplay can still be very fun. But I would treat them more as a monty python or family guy episode and just crack out the puns, jokes and stupid plans with abandon. If the GM doesn't want you to treat the game as a joke then he will quickly ramp up the RP aspect.

I'm with "Q", to an extent...

Used to play a Champions 'RPG' and once I worked out it was all just combat I got disappointed - then I started playing 'combat characters' and just throwing the roleplaying into the combat. That can work. Sure you may love your SoB but do you love playing her in that group? If you pick a character who can express themselves in that environment then it may encourage others to be expressive, which leads to... roleplaying, even if of a violent/militaristic sort!

Also if the GM is effectively presenting you a 'sandbox' go for it. Sounds like the other players would be up for starting a radical cell, even a cult! Who says you have to be Puritans even if you aren't playing Black Crusade.

And all joking aside, good luck with that.

Thank you for all the wonderful replies

However, i'm definitely not going to drop, and not going to be like Conan the Barbarian. I have to find a way of having fun even with this type of a group and GM. Maybe over-roleplay a bit, since Sisters are such devoted and faithful

Does your group use any kind of rewards or penalties for how the players act in the game?
My groups award a 'player of the game award' or POG award to whichever player the group as a whole (minus the GM) feels contributed the most to the gaming session. This is democratically vote on, with the GM arbitrating how much bonus XP the player is awarded, though this will depend on the system.

For example, if the session awarded each player 500xp, the POG may award a bonus 100xp on top of this. You can also use it award things like Fate points, or rare items though this can a massive boost to players that regularly roleplay well.

I have this problem, although from the GM's perspective:

Our Guardsmen is easily the best roleplayer of the lot, regularly performing actions that fit his character, even if they would be detrimental to his health (or more often his image)

Our scum is second best, even though he has little to no experience roleplaying (The players a bit of a jock) he just enjoys himself, doesn't munchkin, and quietly listens while people are talking about things he doesn't understand(doesn't know much about 40k).

Our first assassin and arbitrator I tolerate, they seldomly roleplay at all, but at least they don't metagame or min/max.

And then their is our seond assassin, who gets in to loud arrogant arguments, metagames, and munchkins like crazy. He even yells at other players for roleplaying ("Why would you do that?!" - "I wouldn't do that, my character would") and is the only character with no backstory.

I deal with the group by meeting everyones demands:

Their are plenty of social situations that the guardsman and scum will find rewarding and interesting.

For the scum specifically, I take a more light hearted approach to the grim dark future filled with all sorts of situations for comedy gold.

The combats set up unique tactical situations for the assassin and arbitrator, who enjoy wargames and videogames.

And there is loot, the munchkin can dine on loot.

No one really cares that the munchkin is more powerful then they are because they get things out of the game that he doesn't, that said, even though he doesn't participate in social encounters doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy them.

reidchapman said:

In your situation, i would put the guardsmen or scum in charge of the group as the Alpha, giving the players slight control over their actions. This way peer pressure may help ease the munchkin into working better as part of a group.

An NPC is the groups captain, however do to her poor health she usually lets the guardsman lead, arbitrator is second in line because the scum would just screw around (in entertaining ways, but the story would go nowhere.

reidchapman said:

Problem? What problem? Sounds to me like you have everything well in hand.

I deal with the problem, that doesn't mean it went away.

In metaphorical terms, I'm trying to take out a fire with a bucket of water, but I really need a fire hose. Though the fire would be allot worse if I didnt go at it with the bucket at all.

reidchapman said:

Fair enough.