What to do when your D&D players don't care

The real point of DMing is to increase my capacity to procrastinate planning.

Session Zero is important to find the right types of players for different types of games.

"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their dice."

The dinner and drinks comparison was actually surprisingly helpful for me to visualize the concept in my head lmao

this was my experience in my first game. No one was invested, and I was criticized for "not making the game more fun". The problem was no one knew what they wanted, they just knew I wasn't giving it to them. It felt like I was putting on a show, not playing a game. I went through 2 dnd groups before finally gelling with my third. Even when first playing with my current group, I had to learn that there is a difference between investing and hardcore roleplaying. I finally feel like I'm with a group that really appreciates what I do for them, and it makes a world of difference.

In the game I’m currently playing, I gave my character the noble background and told the DM that the family’s rank was up to him and I’d flesh out her backstory and family history accordingly. We get to Session Zero and I quickly notice that my character’s family name is now on the DM’s world map as one of the major kingdoms on the continent. I was abruptly put in charge of a rather noteworthy chunk of the world building, probably because I’d told him ahead of time that I have a tendency to write too much for my characters and he decided to capitalize on that. Needless to say, I am very invested in this current game.

I couldn't answer this question myself for a while, but eventually I found out that I really enjoy watching the player characters grow and experience new things. A player completing their personal quest, or finding that long-lost relative is just... chefs kiss

Between this video and Matt Colville talking about how short adventures are the way to go over long campaigns... Man I wish I'd seen these before I built out my last game. Thank you for this, Ginny! You make my games better.

The point of DMing - there will be a game. My sessions would drop to about 20% of what they are currently if I didn't DM.

Loved the metaphors to other activities! That's how it is in my experience. I'm lucky that a couple of my best friends really enjoy RPGs, but not all of them do. And different styles, more light and comedic vs more crunchy or dramatic, just appeal to people differently so it's natural for the group to shift a bit depending on the game/campaign.

One of the best campaigns I ever played in was a world where the DM created a port town and added some basic features. But then we players got to add our homes, bases of operation, and local features important to our characters. During the entire campaign we never ventured more than 100 miles from "our town". It was kind of an expanded "Keep on the Borderlands" type campaign. But we were invested in it. We owned businesses. We had to deal with pirates, bandits, corrupted grave sites and tombs, and eventually an invading orc army.

Oof. I felt this one. I have a good friend who was so excited to run a 5e game for us with her own bespoke world. Spent months writing out backgrounds, interweaved plot points, fleshed out NPCs, and a Big Mystery. It was amazing....and it tanked in three sessions because our group just doesn't do that. We roleplay but it's more Monty Python than Royal Shakespeare Company. She wanted the latter.

One thing to bear in mind as a DM, is that you may have spent weeks or even months preparing the setting for a new campaign, while, apart from may be an overview before the campaign and maybe during session zero, the first session will be the first time they get to interact with the world, so it could take them a few sessions to get the feel for the setting and warm up to it. Also, as Ginny says, as DM, you need to set expectations and the feel for the campaign before hand, and if you do not know already, what the players expectations are.

My favorite bit of advice for involving players in the creation of the dnd campaign world is to make their back stories the main story of the game. I like coming up with a setting that sparks their imagination and then getting together with them in order to create their individual stories that will weave together. Sure the stories are usually clunky and a bit soap opera-y. But when the evil king is the fighter's long lost brother that he hasn't seen in decades it's immediately more interesting than it just being an evil king

Hey ginny I’m new to dnd and you have been so helpful. Thank you 🙏

YES! This is something I've run into. I run a Ravenloft (Curse of Strahd) campaign for two different groups. Group A. are experienced RPG'ers , most of whom I've known for over thirty years. They love roleplay and emergent play, but also love slaying monsters, collecting magic items, etc. Group B. are most inexperienced with tabletop RPGs (for the most part) and have trouble, or seem to have little interest in roleplaying (one player even ROLLS A DIE to have his character make decisions), and rarely "engage" with the world other than to fight things, run from things, or fuck with stuff (i.e. "pranks" and goofy behavior doesn't really fit the tone of what's happening in game in that moment). It's frustrating, but I do think it has a lot to do with both experience with tabletop rpgs (which are very much not passive), and MORE experience with videogame rpgs (which are a more passive entertainment form). PS - During session zero and session 1, I tried to get the players in group B. to flesh out their characters backstories but barely got anything from them. Ten sessions in, they could barely even remember what they DID come up with, lol. They just have little to no interest in having their CHARACTERS engage in the campaign and treat the game very much as a passive type of entertainment. They never discuss what their characters plans are, never talk in-game or out-of-game about what they've learned, what their goals are (short term or long term, even with prompting) who they've met, what they've seen, etc. It's like starting from scratch every session, sigh.

"Fighting and Looting" That is more than my players do. I often have them stand around and DO NOTHING. >Hey, the city is burning down, there is a giant portal with demons flooding in. A young girl in a very expensive dress and 4 knights with golden armor run out of the city, right past you. >I look at them. >okay, they keep running. One of the Knights asks you to come with them without stopping >I don't do them, I watch them leave and then look at the city >Civilians are being cut down and eaten by demons as the city burns down, with the portal above them not closing they had no chance. You can see the Magestower within the city >I watch it

The hardest part I've run into is the 'kindness gap' where a player will sometimes prefer to not have fun and burn out than 'be mean' - and people often have a difficult time discerning the deference between rude and honest. I had a player tell me 'having fun' for 5 games, then heard 3rd party they were bored, addressed it with them (which initially was uncomfortable for them) then fixed it next session - but they had 4 'bad' games because of that communication gap.

This was eye opening, because I've always thought providing content was the GMs primary function. I did not consider that there were things both GMs and players could do to help one another make the experience better outside of session zeroes. Thank you for making a great series of videos that make me think!

Know your party. Reward all engagement with plot hooks. Solicit feedback after every session. I prefer to do so obliquely, for instance, asking my players in one-on-one text messages what they though of another player's actions. This can easily lead to honest feedback. Last, but not least, improv, improv and improv. When a funny idea comes along, justify it and put it in the actual plot.