My gaming group has traditionally been very combat-focused, and our campaigns of D&D or WoD have always involved at least one significant fight per session. I'm trying to do something different in Dark Heresy -- I'm trying to run an investigation focused game because I feel it suits the setting much better. However, my players all chose very militant characters:

• Void-born assassin who specializes in sniper rifles (he eliminated targets from afar when they docked at a port of call)
• Schola Progenium cleric (wanted to play a Redemptionist until he found that they couldn't smoke or drink)
• Noble-born guardsman (was originally a forge world tech-priest but changed characters after the first adventure, the new character ties into the ongoing story very well though)

As for their non-combat abilities:

• The cleric has good Fellowship but is reluctant to pick social skills when he could instead take talents that allow him to smite heretics with greater efficiency. He has Schola training to help out in the lore department but doesn't have very good intelligence.
• The assassin has abysmal Fellowship and the void-born social penalty so feels marginalized in social situations. He has no Lore skills whatsoever.
• The guardsman has good Fellowship due to being noble-born, but Guardsmen don't get access to many abilities that don't involve killing things or preventing people from being killed. He wants to pursue the Stormtrooper path at higher levels.

As you can see, this group of characters isn't particularly tech-savvy or knowledgeable, and my original plan of including heavy Dark Mechanicus involvement in the ongoing story will not work nearly as well now that the tech-priest has retired from =I= service. Social challenges are doable but tend to bore the guardsman player, who has the unfortunate habit of sitting back and looking through weapon stats whenever the party gets into a social situation.

GMs, have you encountered a similar problem before in your games? If so, what is a good way to engage the non-social party members in an investigation-heavy adventure?

Well, as a GM I always keep an eye on the classes my players take and therefore I would have hinted that my campaign would require social interaction and that they have to keep this in mind. If they do not care it is their faul and I would run my campaign as intendend with them getting severe problems in social situations. An assassin, a cleric and a guardsman are by no means a match for a bigger enemy.

The Assassin can become a trickster witht he social career but I doubt he will take that and the guardsman is one of the most uninterisitng classes if only speced for combat so the only hope you have is the cleric. I would have a talk with the player and try to convince him to look on some social talents. Nothing is more fun than rallying a mob to kill some heretics or to get support by the local ministorum.

But if they prefer a combat only game as it seems you simply might have the wrong party. You can only show them what your campaign could have been but it is on them to actualy like it or not. This might be a bit frustrating as a GM but it is the truth of PnP. You cant play everything with everyone. A very common trick though is to show them the bigger fishes. Let it be a huge gang group, around a dozen or so, and they will meet enemies they can not faceroll. WH40k is about conflict and war and even the streets of a hive world are, more or less, a battlefield. Show them that they cant always fight and have to look for other solutions to solve their problems. But when they come from games like D&D and WoD they might be very used to the role of a hero. In DH you are no hero. You are an acolythes diggin in the dirt and trying to stay alive. WH40k has such a huge scale that does not care about the lives of individuals.

But you should accept that this might not be their game. You can not educate players to a playstyel, they have to like it by themself.

Covered in Weasels said:

I'm not sure I understand you correctly.

Your players want to engage in social interactions , but chose unsuitable classes ? Just throw the tests out the window, use common sense.

Your players want only combats? I'm not sure that it makes sense to force them to play what they do not like (i.e. the DH that focuses on the investigation ) . Maybe you could try Deathwatch or Only War?

Try to include various factions within your game sessions that the combatants could use/get along with.
For example in my game I have a lot of talky folks, but I also have an Assassin. He's one of the Sons of Dispater and as such I use that faction every so often in my games. He gets heavy bonuses when interacting with other Sons.
You could do the same for your assassin, use your Guardsman's old regiment, and have the Ecclesiarchy mix with your cleric.

Eventually they'll realize that they could really capitalize on these social situations and possibly put more towards it.

Well, in our group I do play a Moritat who is not a social PC at all.. His social skills:

Medicae - because should require u and another person

Interrogation - because should require u and another person

Intimidation - because should require u and another person or more

oh and The Reaping - because should require u and other persons!!

Yet he does interact with the others and people around him.. just not in ways normally helpful to the party... He is the Party walking attack dog and capable of action at a moment notice.

Pretending he is drunk while walking the team home who are drunk... always fun.

Meat on a Stick, always good!!

Drinking!!

and of course Bodyguarding.. Have great fun being the Barbarian in civil areas...

Just because they don't have social skills doesn't mean they can't have fun interacting with people.. I mean try them at marketplace or a bar

Of course Alaric needs to have someone come with him when he wants to buy anything.. because when you effectively Fellowship 11, harder to get those great rolls..

So this is a very interesting question- I believe that the answer, as earlier proposed, is to include factions and politics into the game.

And bigger monsters.

And lastly, some sort of hidden "bonus Exp" for these skills.

Lets address point (1) first! Elgrun's put it down perfectly: not just Imperial factions, but Inquisition factions as well.

Currently, my players are also very combat focused... but... I've successfully been able to entice them to take some more of the.... "useless" skills (Scholastic Lores [Legend, Heraldry] & Forbidden lore (Inquisitor, Ordo Xenos/Hereticus/Malleus), by introducing massive amounts of lore into the game. Having them constantly spot statues of Saints, hear stories about this or that- but just fragments, enough to get to ask questions and be interested in looking up these events if they are tied into the main plot.

There's enough mystery, love and hate regarding their Inquisitors (as they are working for a Cabal made up of three Inquisitors, one of each ordo) that the players actually want to find out exactly whats going on behind the scenes. Its not necessarily social, per say, which as Angel of Death said can be resolved in baby steps by tailoring situations to their social level. [Contests of Str in a feral tribe/Gang Initiation instead of a Masquarade Ball for example].

Politics tied up to the individual players is a great way to get them interested- especially if each player has his own agenda.

As for bigger monsters: Call of Cthulhu works great as an investigation game because the Guns, even though deadly for humans, don't do much to hurt the bigger monsters (some of the small ones too). If the players want to behave like a death-watch kill team, don't be scared to have the final boss (And perhaps some of his minions) be equivalent in str to a, say, a BIG tyranid from mark of the Xenos.

I've had this problem with my players- but its not really problem: despite our rolling everything out in the open, they get incredibly luck and though combat CAN be very deadly in some games [a regular zombie for example took out three players with a simple great weapon], it can also be very easy when you'd think the situation would call for a wipe! [Three Arco-flagellants were handily defeated, when only one was enough a previous to cause a wipe.]

If the players are built for combat, sometimes you have to show them that the monster simply CANNOT (or at least SHOULD NOT) be defeated in combat- despite all of the lucky rolls! Having Daemons shrug off an unnatural amount of Shots and bullets is perfectly [natural?] Perhaps slaying Foe X requires a Special Toxin to be synthesized and injected into the creature, or a specific ritual to be perfected, and at best heavy damage will only delay it for a couple of rounds.

Now, to get to the final point- which is alternative EXP game. We've just starting using a relatively simple system which I've found is doing wonders for the game: giving the ability for people to actually input time and learn skills and stat advances (1exp per hour studied, can study a maximum of hours based on the Stat modifier for the skill your using.) So that people can actually study a subject, (those skills that people don't want to spend hard earned EXP getting) and still get them. You can justify these gains in any way (Practicing in front of a mirror for charm, studying this or that lore at the library or trough books, etc etc.) and I've started reducing the EXP gain that they get from the game so keep it even and so far no one has really noticed.

People start to pick up the stuff that they like without feeling as if they've missed out on anything, because its quite streamlined with the downtime, the game-time and the actual mission.

Tldr: Politics are a great way to get people interested in the "behind the scenes" of the world, ask for a lot of skills rolls (non-crucial) you know your players don't have to incite them to taking them- and provide ways to learn this information trough Ingame efforts (Library, Remembrancers, etc), provide alternative methods to victory during [some] fights (The ones that "really matter"). And lastly, give players a chance to learn these skills without actually spending "Exp", but trough time and interest.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for all the advice! We've had a couple more sessions since my first post, and things are actually going much better. I've had some success by playing up the harsh, uncaring nature of the supposed "good guys" (primarily Redemptionist clerics so far, but nobles are coming into the picture as well) to create some social conflict between the players and NPCs with the same background. My players seem to be enjoying the social aspect of the game more and more as we progress through the campaign. I will definitely try to give the players opportunities to learn skills through education (particularly the Guardsman, who has 40+ Fellowship and multiple Peer talents b/c of his noble background but no social skill training to speak of).

The Assassin was formerly part of Battlefleet Calixis and the Guardsman is a Tranch War veteran, so there should be plenty of opportunities to use their background as a catalyst for some interesting social situations.

for 99% of social interactions i just allow the players to roleplay their characters, even a low fellowship voidborn (power built btw) assassin talks, and interacts in his environment, i just dont allow them to SUCCESSFULLY negotiate lower prices etc without passing the test, if they fail, they get alot of "mind tricks dont work on me"

saying that my group has similar problems when the hyper social gun slinging scum isnt around (has yet to fire a shot, runs from anything that says boo, hurts himself trying to escape the situation (lost his arm running away from a weeping angel) yet brags about his exploits in bars and to anyone who will listen... yes we love this player)

but in terms of dealing with hyper specialised killing roles you have to think outside the box... im struggling with the guardsman and two psykers combo myself (one is a psyker-templar, the other fatigue bombs everyone and uses HORUS-BLESSED astral projection. long story short said telepath got badly hurt astrally projeting into an enemy compound (his self was suddenly bounced hard off wards) then he took ungodly amounts of fatigue damage when the wyrdboys saw him floating there)

he has recieved a reminder from the inquisitors right hand that unleashing his abilities all the time will at the very least, piss off the more monodominants in the area (they have redemptionists hunting them as we speak... they dont take kindly to ghosts and exploding glass and warp phenomena appearing in their town( esp the WEEK it rained blood)) and he has been very kindly warned that if he continues to be a threat to the imperium that doesnt have any control/restraint. he will at best be fed to the redemptionists, at worst, bisected to see what makes him tick.

to make the guardsman more socially inclined they have had a few missions alongside my inquisitors storm trooper squad.