How deal with bad roleplayers

[jadecourtflunky]

I GM at my school every friday, and the players love it. However, most of them aren't what you would call roleplay-oriented. The main way for the party to solve any problem is to go and kill the source. Some of them take it all like a joke, too. I swear that if I introduced an object that is integral to the survival of the universe one of them would pee on it. Still, I get the sense that some of them want to learn how to roleplay... so how do I teach them?

[Chris_Fougere]

I think the first two things to know are

1) How old are the players?
2) Why are they playing?

I'm not for a moment suggesting that you have to be a certain age to RP but a general idea of maturity would certainly help.  As to why they're playing...maybe some of them just want to kill monsters, loot the bodies and that's fine for them.  Maybe take the ones that seem to want to RP (and really everyone's idea of good RP is different) and run them in a separate game.  It'd be a start.

[Tedronai]

collaborative character building focusing on the combined carrot/stick of aspects, followed by a prolonged, possibly painful, learning  period during which you 'encourage' what you consider to be 'good roleplaying' with compels against those aspects and other, temporary, aspects gained during play (or against aspects they interact with in the form of those universe-sustaining objects)

That, and mature discussions with the players involved on what you consider 'good roleplaying' to be, and why you think it's beneficial to the enjoyment of the group as a whole.

[paulie]

Have you tried talking to them and asking them what they want out of the game?

[Beefstew]

I used to LARP.  I had absolutely no interest in the RP part of the game.  So I made the dumbest possible character (a half-ogre) and did as little talking as possible, while running around and killing bad guys.  Eventually I just became an NPC so I didn't have to deal with any kind of RP whatsoever.

I don't think it's a matter of maturity.  They enjoy playing the game, just not the RP aspects.  That's ok, RP isn't everyone's cup of tea.  If you don't want to play with them you don't have to GM.  Teach one of them how to do it and break off the people that you think want to do more RP into a separate group.

But if everyone, yourself included, is having a good time, roll with it.  That's the whole point of playing a game.

[tymire]

Well would seriously recomend not trying to force folks into trying to play a certain way.  It just leads to bad feelings all around.

I would probably start a second group and state that this one is going to be RP focused and "might" have 1 combat every 4 sessions.  Spend 2-4 sessions creating the city/characters and during creation focus on making "real" people and places, not just combat thugs or other things you probably have in game.  Really if going RP focused 2-3 people is plenty, you don't need many to have a good game as player to player conversations should take up as much time as player to GM conversations that you are probably used to. 

[sinker]

Look at a lot of the methods used to teach acting. I do a lot of theater tech these days and I used to act and I'm telling you good acting is literally the same thing as good roleplaying. It's been a long time since I've learned (or taught) acting though, so I can't think of any good methods but seriously check out some books and see if any have any fun exercises you could use in a group.

[UmbraLux]

I GM at my school every friday, and the players love it. However, most of them aren't what you would call roleplay-oriented. The main way for the party to solve any problem is to go and kill the source. Some of them take it all like a joke, too. I swear that if I introduced an object that is integral to the survival of the universe one of them would pee on it. Still, I get the sense that some of them want to learn how to roleplay... so how do I teach them?

As others mentioned, you need to find out what the other players' goals are.  If their goals are incompatible with role play, teaching isn't going to help.  If goals do include role play feedback (in game and out) is needed.  In game - does the environment (including NPCs) react appropriately?  Out of game - is role play encouraged and rewarded?

[devonapple]

1) How old are the players?

Seconded. Especially re: the peeing.

[Beefstew]

One other thing I thought of, have you ever put something in the game where killing it results in further badness that can only be solved by not killing?  It may be that killing the source has always been the easiest solution, so that's what they do naturally.  I mean, in most action movies and in almost every popular video game, that is the best, if not only, solution.

Maybe exposing them to problem solving type modules would interest them.

[jadecourtflunky]

They're all high schoolers (so very immature at times). I can see that most of them want to roleplay... and that drama idea is a good one. I myself am involved in the theatre at my school, as are some of them. These are all pretty good ideas, (though I don't want to split the group. I'll just have to work with both sides). Thanks for your help.

[Viatos]

They're all high schoolers (so very immature at times). I can see that most of them want to roleplay... and that drama idea is a good one. I myself am involved in the theatre at my school, as are some of them. These are all pretty good ideas, (though I don't want to split the group. I'll just have to work with both sides). Thanks for your help.

Best of luck. My group is mid-twenties now, and they still pee on plot integral objects, assuming that it's impossible (not just probably but actually) for them to "romance" it or use it to "go pirating" for five or six sessions before they get bored and remember the fate of the world is in their hands.

I've just accepted the challenge of conceptualizing worlds and stories wherein everything will eventually acquire a sort of yellowish patina.

[Leatherneck]

I still game with my high school friends, 30+ years later.  They can still be a bunch of immature imbeciles.  But we get together and have fun.  So what if one of them runs naked down the street screaming, I roll with it and they gladly accept the consequences.  Meanwhile everyone laughs and we have a great time.

Years ago, I wanted less juvenile pranks in game and ran a small select of hard core RPers.  And I still ran the pillage, burn, and prank brigade.  It worked well enough to make me happy.

[Viatos]

I still game with my high school friends, 30+ years later.  They can still be a bunch of immature imbeciles.  But we get together and have fun.  So what if one of them runs naked down the street screaming, I roll with it and they gladly accept the consequences.  Meanwhile everyone laughs and we have a great time.

Years ago, I wanted less juvenile pranks in game and ran a small select of hard core RPers.  And I still ran the pillage, burn, and prank brigade.  It worked well enough to make me happy.

Thumbs up. 

[Lanir]

Easiest way to reward good RP is with more RP.

I'm not saying this will stop people from peeing on things but if all you do to react to that is say "Ok" and move on to the next person, eventually this can tend to make such things less common. Usually I tend to think pranks like that are grabs for attention or attempts to inject humor into a story. If you can provide other ways to add humor to the mix and pay more attention to roleplay than random territorial markings, then the problem will solve itself, or at least settle down to the point where it can be shrugged off.