by: Jared Biti
GM’s, have you ever thought, “How do I keep my players engaged?” Or players, have you ever thought, “Why is the game so boring this session?” Well, it boils down to engagement.
First off, GMs, you need to look for ways to engage your players, and their characters, in the plot. This goes into communicating with your players and getting a reasonably detailed background for their characters, this gives you fodder for your story plot, and their character’s personality traits, goals values, etc. Part of engaging players is engaging their characters. So, look for what makes their characters tick. Is it gold? Items that are typically purchased with gold? Then, look for ways to make sure they are earning gold and items. Specifically, items they want. With that in mind, create breadcrumbs in their path that lead to the character’s goals. Allow them to explore the development of the character that will lead to those goals. You can often weave NPCs from their background in with their goals, as either helpers or hinderers to those goals. This may give you the very thing you need to make your BBEG(big bad evil guy) for the campaign, accomplish a certain number of the steps, or a level of progression towards a character’s goals that leads them to be noticed by the BBEG, or for them to notice what the BBEG is up to.
A lot of this goes back to communication with your players. What do they want out of the game? What is fun for them? Depending on the game system and the world setting you place the characters in, this may vary. Dungeon crawls are fun for some. Exploring, social encounters, etc. are the bread and butter of others. It all depends on the players and what they find enjoyable in the game. And yes what the GM enjoys planning for a building is a factor here as well. So, this is also introspective. You, the GM, need to know what you want to get out of the game session. What do you find fun? With that, you need to communicate with your player group. Session 0 is great for this. What kind of game you are willing to run, and what they are willing to play? Hopefully, you can find the happy medium of what everyone finds enjoyable. Then you focus on the key things that are mentioned in this discussion of what the players find fun, that you think you can do, so that you are engaging them in the story you want to tell. Without that, you will find you will have bored, frustrated players that frustrate you in return, as they are not engaging with the world you put a lot of effort into building, presumably, for them.
Now for players. Yes, you have a responsibility here as well. Now there may be sessions when you are not feeling it. Or the GM has an off day and everything feels blah in the session. It is your job, as a player, if the GM has not called for the above session 0, to discuss what kind of game everyone wants to play. Even if it is an informal, between-sessions conversation of, “Hey guys what does everyone enjoy in the game”. TTRPGs are a group storytelling exercise. Yes, I said exercise. It takes work. And it means you have to make sure your character is engageable by the GM. Did you give the GM the tools to pull your character into the story? Are your character’s goals and personality clear enough and communicated to the GM so that they can use it to give your character a reason to engage? Even with all that. There will be off days. At these times, in particular, you should look for ways to engage. Look for ways that make sense for your character, to interact with the GM’s world and the other player characters.
Speaking of the other player characters, you should look for ways to engage your fellow players. Again, that whole “group storytelling” thing. Look for ways to have your character pull the other player characters into the action. Combat or not. “Hey, what is Bart the Barbarian doing while we are shopping? Does Wesel want to get more arrows?” That can be a thing. It should not all be on the GM to ask these questions. And also be prepared to answer these questions when they are asked about your character. Keep in fluid communication with your GM about your character’s goals and what they want to accomplish, what steps they want to take etc. So that the GM has things they can put in your path. No one is a mind reader. Be as open with your GM as you can. They need to know everything about your character more than you do. That way, they can plan things to help guide your character on their path. You should be asking your GM what they want to accomplish with the game. This will help guide you how much or little data they need and when about your character. Ask this consistently. Ideally, between sessions. And reciprocate what you want out of the game that way the GM feels like they understand you as well. Try to encourage your fellow players to do the same.
In short, to engage and be engaged? You need to have fluid communication between the players and the GM about what everyone wants to get out of the game, as players/GM and as their characters. Being open and honest about the desires and goals of both the people, players/GM, and the characters helps everyone work together and have fun together. That is the whole point of getting together to play a game, is it not?
Hope this was helpful! Questions? Comments? Your take on the issue? Come see us in the Discord and let us talk about it!
Game on!
About the Author
Jared “Martel” B has been GMing and playing in several TTRPG’s since late 2013. Enjoys the challenge of bringing his players worlds and stories straight from his mind in the moment that it happens. He is one of the Founders of RPGCounterpoint, happy husband to an active historian wife, and father to two puppers and new baby!
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