How do I get my D&D group to engage to a minimum

Question

I've been DMing for a group for a year. Initially, they were mostly new to D&D—one had a bit of experience, and two were fans of D&D shows. I've played quite a bit myself, so they asked me to DM. We've completed a homebrew adventure, a one-shot, and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (which took over 8 sessions).

I believe in learning the rules and getting deep into character and world-building. They, however, just want to have fun with minimal prep. I've asked them if they wanted to try DMing and they said yes (a one-shot each). At this point I helped out, providing them with backgrounds, pre-gen characters, and a guild structure to ease their prep work. Their reaction to the prepped material was anxiety and feeling pressured, despite my intention to help them focus to focus only on their one-shot.

I’m frustrated. They want to keep playing D&D but aren't willing to invest the effort it requires, leaving me to do all the heavy lifting. This is my only in-person RPG group, and I love playing.

What would you do in my situation?

Answer 1

Do you want to be a DM?

You said, that you love to play, but the question is: Do you love DMing, also?

They asked you to do it, as you explained it, but did you offer to be the DM in the first place?

Be assured, I know what you're talking about. I think 75% of all players I had (in the last decades, and in different RPG systems) are of about the same kind as your players, to a more or lesser extent. And I agree that you cannot (and should not try to) change your players in the way you mentioned.

In one particular group, all friends of mine, I actually stopped DMing (after the adventure), because I felt the imbalance of workload (and appreciation for my work) was too great. This happened only once, and I was confident that in the end one of the players would stand up and give it a try - as it currently happened really. They already signaled, that everything is good but asked me to DM the next adventure again. I am curious if this way of teaching them does work as I hope for.

Besides of quit being a DM you can change the players, as others already suggested. Actually, you probably don't need to change the whole group: In my experience it helps and motivates players if there is (at least) one 'working horse'-player. Maybe you can find and invite such a player? This player can support your work (answering simple rule questions, writing notes for the whole group, ...) and gives an example of what the game can give to players (links to character background, emotion, ...).

In the end it's your decision: Is the game currently fun for you or not?

Answer 2

The specific things I would do if I were you are:

Stop giving your players homework (which is what you're doing). Stop pressuring your friends to do things they don't want to do. If they tell you they are feeling pressured and anxious at the thought of GMing one-shots, listen to them, and respect that.

I am sure this impulse is coming from a place of good intentions. But I can virtually guarantee you, it won't work. Not everyone wants to be a GM, or is ready to be a GM. And the whole idea of making someone do this is... questionable. Really really questionable.

Please understand, though, that I know where you're coming from, or at least I think I do. I've been gaming-- either playing or GMing-- for a good forty years now. Trust me when I say that I know the distribution of labor is uneven between GM and players, and even between some individual players. And I know that if the players seem to take it less seriously than you do, that just makes the imbalance seem even larger.

But the thing is, you game with the players you have, or you get different players (which might mean no players.) You're very very unlikely to change your players in the way you want to. But you are likely to damage some relationships in the process.

The general things I would do if I were you are:

Find satisfaction in GMing that is not so dependent on the specifics of your players' attitudes, or, especially, their game-related workloads. In a game like 5e, those workloads will never be equal. That's life.

And yet, lots of people-- including me-- still GM. In my case, it is because I get more satisfaction (and a different kind of satisfaction) from GMing than I do from playing. If I felt the need to have all players contribute as much as I do in GMing, well, I'd never GM again. I'm the heavy lifter. That's the job. To call it a labor of love is cliché, but it isn't wrong.

How you find this satisfaction is, unfortunately, not something I can convey. There is no magic.

Also, it is possible that you are driving yourself too hard, as well. I am absolutely not going to tell you how to have your own fun. But I am going to ask you to at least consider the idea of, instead of upping your players' workload, possibly lowering your own.

Perhaps, with that in mind, there's a way to meet in the middle, in a place where you're not coercing your friends to GM one-shots that they clearly do not want to GM, and you're not feeling frustrated and burned out.

Answer 3

Frame Challenge: Switch to a low prep/no prep system

Your players don't want to do the work to run a D&D game. You don't want to do the work to run a D&D game. So maybe the problem is D&D. Many people are under the impression that other RPGs are more complex than D&D but in fact, the opposite is almost always true (there are a few games more complex than D&D, but they're the exception, not the rule).

You might start with a look at Dungeon World, one of the first Powered by the Apocalypse games (and not the best, mainly due to the earliness of it's inception). It's still basically d&d (you've got the 6 stats, HP, AC etc.) but considerably simpler for both the DM & players. The amount of prep required to run is worlds less than for a D&D session and there is a good framework to support the DM.

However there are thousands of other games out there that are also much simpler than D&D and still basically D&D. You've got Gonzo Survival Horror like Mork Borg, OSR and NewSR games that aim for the simplicity of original D&D (5th edition is really about the 9th or 10th edition depending on how you count - or 11th edition soon when the "new" 5e drops) such as Dungeon Crawl Classics, Black Hack/White Hack, Old School Essentials, are examples of these but you might also want to investigate Shadowdark, DC20, Mazes, FATE, Savage Worlds, Band of Blades, Root RPG, or Daggerheart as examples of considerably simpler games to prep and run.

Answer 4

Stop trying to force your friends to DM

They have already told you they don't want to do it and that it makes them feel anxious and under pressure. And it's just not a very nice thing to do trying to manipulate someone like that. Being a player and being a DM are two completely different roles and it's fine to have a preference for one or the other. There's nothing wrong with "wanting to have fun with minimal prep", D&D is something you do for fun after all.

You as the DM are supposed to do the heavy lifting, if you're looking for an equal distribution of workload, it's just not possible in the system you're playing, by design the DM is the one doing all preparation. You can delegate certain tasks like picking out and playing music, making notes and so on, but you will never reach an even split.

The way this whole situation reads to me is that you're not particularly happy DMing. You agreed because the others asked you are and because you are the most experience but you would really prefer to be a player. There are other solution to that than trying to force one of your friends into a role they don't want. If I were you, I would look for another DM willing to join your group and run a game for all of you. That would probably be the most satisfactory option for all of you. Looking into GM-less (and possibly rules-light-ish) systems is also a possibility if you're open to playing something else other than D&D.

Answer 5

You might want to do a belated "Session 0" with them

Session 0 is a tool to get you all on the same page for your expectations from the game, including in regards to play styles. Usually, you would do it before you start playing, but you can also do it later on if you realize it would help.

In this exercise, you can discuss your expectations regarding the play style of the campaign. If you cannot find consensus because the others just like to play a more casual, less serious style of bashing monsters, collecting treasure, and having fun that way, while you prefer to play with deeper immersion into the game world, more preparation and effort for versisimilitude, then the conclusion of this may be that you best should try to find another, more like-minded group of players. The guys you play with are probably not the only people you could find to play with.

You can take a look at How can I find other RPG players? for suggestions on how to find other people to play with.

If the issue is just that they do not know the rules, see What can I do to help the players remember the rules? to understand what you can do. Forcing them to DM is probably not the right approach here. DMing requires lots of things and work that you do not need to do or know as a player, and many people strongly prefer playing rather then DMing. Your payoff of getting them to DM is rather low if knowing the rules is your issue. Instead, ask them to be sure they know how the class features and abilities of their characters work.

Answer 6

Accept that the DM does most of the work

It's intrinsic to the D&D game that the DM has the opportunity and responsibility to act as an auteur, creating the entire campaign world, all the non-player characters, and decide and adjudicate everything that ever happens in it. In the Forward to Original D&D Vol-1 (1974), the creator Gygax wrote:

The most extensive requirement is time. The campaign referee will have to have sufficient time to meet the demands of his players, he will have to devote a number of hours to laying out the maps of his "dungeons" and upper terrain before the affair begins.

And then under Preparation for the Campaign:

The referee bears the entire burden here, but if care and thought are used, the reward will more than repay him.

Personally, my favorite mode of playing D&D is with brand-new players who know nothing about the rules. They're unencumbered by game mechanics, and simply immersed in the campaign world and responding to what their characters see and feel, nothing more. Over time I try to take more rule-work away from my players to make the game more smooth and immersive.

In general, players making decisions based on game rules is simply deficient to their making decisions based on the in-world situation. (One can read more on this point in Peter Perla's influential book, The Art of Wargaming.)

A lot of early DMs rolled all the dice for the players behind the screen. OD&D Vol-1 literally says the DM should roll all the ability scores for the player characters. Personally, I switched from modern editions of D&D back to OD&D (1974) because it's more lightweight, flexible, and improvisational for the DM to run in this way.

So if you're going to DM a D&D game, you need to embrace and relish the fact that you're doing a lot more work than the players. Among other options, you might consider trying an earlier, thinner version of D&D -- maybe OD&D or one of the Basic D&D games from the 1980's.

Answer 7

If your main issue is that you are doing all the work: Off-load as much to your fellow players as possible. Somehow the GM almost always ends up being responsible for scheduling, note-taking and often even hosting the game. There is no real reason why it has to be that way.

You can also use pre-made adventures which provide you with encounters, monsters and story.

Answer 8

I will try to make as little assumptions as possible and try to lay out what we did when we started roleplaying. You can then pick and chose if it applies to the people around your table, since you know them best. If it doesn't, no harm done, pick one of the other answers.

I will make one assumption though: you want the role of the DM/GM/ST whatever you call it to go round, so you can experience games a s a player, too, and the burden of preparing the adventure is not always on you alone.

Not everyone is open to being the single responsible person for everyone's fun.

Some people will want to be the story teller, some people might be persuaded when they see others being successful at it, and others may not like it as much, but put in a little effort to not stand out. Some might not want to, at all. That is fine, too. But you should make sure that it is because they genuinely don't like it, not because they are afraid of doing it, or to lazy to invest the time needed.

If they are helpful in other ways, maybe offer to invest time on other things, maybe they always pay for the snacks and drinks, maybe they buy the majority of books or maybe they bring the painted miniatures for your battles that they painstakingly painted up because you asked for "something like a green dragon". Helping your group succeed can come in many ways and you will recognize them. It doesn't need to be shared story telling, you can sink countless hours into the hobby and your groups success without ever DMing.

But it should be shared effort. If you find people that are just there to take and never give, you will notice them, too. It's up to you what you do, but for me it isn't worth it. Someone who isn't in it... doesn't need to be in it.

So enough rambling, what did we do back in the time? Well, DMing can be scary, because you should be in control. But you aren't. In your group, you are the one in control, you know all this stuff, the rules, the lore, all they can do is give a best guess and probably be wrong.

So for each person, let them pick something they are in control of. Whether it is another system entirely, just another part of the game world, another style of playing if your game has different styles. If they feel like they might be right or wrong on something they do, they are not the game master. They are the game proxy. Your proxy. Doing your job, just worse and opening themselves to criticism.

So we for example played D&D a lot. But one of us had read all the Forgotten Realms lore. And another had bought the Dark Sun boxed set. Full of weird magic and psionics, almost a game of it's own. A few of us really liked Cyberpunk 2020. One was a Star Wars fan. So we played a lot of games. And each had their specialist. They knew what they were doing. Or maybe not. But it was their decision. Nobody could tell them they were "wrong", because it was their story, their world, maybe even their system.

People would get battle mats, or miniatures or terrain based on adventures. The DM would tell the wargamers/miniature painters beforehand "hey, it would be really cool if we had a dragon for the end of the campaign". Or just "can you bring undead for today?". And it was their job to make sure that happened, and also their job to keep that secret so to not spoil the surprise. And they were in control of that part, the DM did not have miniatures, certainly not painted one's. And would not be able to tell them whether they were right or wrong about what they brought.

So what I am trying to say is this: People who you give a job to that is basically just "do my job", and who are inexperienced and are afraid of maybe not being as good as you are, are very reluctant to actually try. Give them control over what they want to do. Say

hey guys, after our next meeting, I don't have time to prepare an adventure for the three weeks after that, our inlaws are visiting with their baby. I can still be here and play though. Does somebody else want to do an adventure? We don't have to keep the system if you prefer to try a different one, like Star Wars or Shadow Run. Think about it and lets hear some ideas and decide on something next week so we know what we do the week after."

Make it about what they want to do and how they want to do it. Don't make them do something that you ordered them to do.

Answer 9

Create player aids for certain rules

You cannot force players to learn all the rules (even if every DM would probably like that).

I play in a group in which I'm the one with a bit of experience, and some others are also mostly here for the fun and do not care that much about the rules.

It's ok for the most part - and I don't mind helping the DM for remembering others rules - but what really was a bummer is that they had troubles remembering what their own characters can do (spells, abilities, etc). So, to avoid them looking through X pages on each of their turns and lose a lot of time, I made them one-page spells summaries, for example.

They also printed their abilities on a separate sheet, highlighting what's important, and it helped a lot. Sure, there are always turns for which they're not prepared, but it's rather a player problem than a rules problem.

You're supposed to do most of the work

This has always been true. You are the referee, and should know most of the rules, or at least know where to look them up if necessary. Also, you're in charge of the world building, lore, etc. In fact, the only thing your players should have to do is creating their characters backgrounds and learn a bit about their classes.

If creating a campaign from scratch is to much work for you, use existing adventures. There is plenty of good and enjoyable material, either official published books or fan-made content.

Answer 10

Quit

If you aren’t enjoying your leisure activity, why are you doing it?