How to keep the roleplaying element alive after N sessions?

[Kafana]

Hello. I'm DM-ing a group of five great individuals who are relatively new to the game. This is my first group and we've hand plenty of sessions (they're level 8 now, and we started at 2), but I feel that most of the stuff they want to fast forward.

Basically, the first few sessions we would roleplay everything, from speaking with the duke to buying a saddle for a horse. Eventually I started to skip frivolous dialogues (such as horse renting, getting a room in the inn (unless the barkeeper was particularly interesting), getting food and so on) and replaced them with a sentence or two about what they did, which, of course, is something I consider should be done.

Recently, however, I feel like I have to put a lot of effort into making an NPC in order for the roleplaying element to still exist. Basically, if the NPC isn't really interesting, half of the players would prefer that the NPC be a medium of information, rather than a person.

Is it possible to fix this? Is it common for the roleplaying element (in this sense) to disappear or, rather, decrease in magnitude?

[shadow_archmagi]

It's fine to fast forward past uninteresting parts, as long as those are being replaced with interesting parts. If your party was spending an hour chatting with peasants, and then fighting bears, but now they're just fighting bears and then handwaving the peasants and fighting bears again, is problematic.

So now just have them, say, fight bears, chat with the local Baron, and then fight bears, and then chat with the Baron again, because he's an interesting and important character.

[T.G. Oskar]

The most interesting NPCs are the ones you invent on the fly.

This usually depends on your playstyle, but there are ways to make interesting NPCs in short notice: a light-hearted game thrives on oddballs and goofs, while a more serious campaign thrives on shady guys.

You don't have to give them a backstory: so as long as they're relevant to your interests, and the party finds them enjoyable, you can wing some of their traits. Endurable NPCs are better when the party meets them a lot: there's a difference between their patron, the bartender at their favorite place, and a bystander.

Think of the following: if they're going to a bar, don't plot the stories of all the patrons, but work up something interesting. Say, the party gets in while there's a bar fight and the first one to enter almost reflexively dodges a stool flying around. If this doesn't pique their interest, and they simply go to the bar, the bartender can just tell them "you're not the kind of people that get fazed easily, don't ya?" and try to enable small talk from them. Something as simple as having the bartender throw a knife to one of the fighting patrons just because he was getting near the bar's namesake, for example, should get people on their edge, because things get serious. This makes the existing NPCs interesting, not necessarily a drudge for your players, and you don't have to fill in the dots to give it some more meat to work with.

Personally, I find it best to flesh an NPC after they become important, instead of making them important before they meet the NPC. It involves a lot of improvisation, and perhaps a bit of handwaving, but it can be effective.

Another key aspect is to have the NPC suddenly become relevant to a specific player. If the party meets an NPC and the wizard starts to get bored, have another NPC appear and startle him. Think of the backstory of your players, either the one they've developed before or the one they develop through play. If there's something that matters to them, exploit that when they start to get bored. You may need some more handwaving to make it work, but that's not necessarily detrimental; have, say, a swindler with an arbitrarily high Sleight of Hand check speak to the party. If someone starts to get impatient, throw a roll or two (depending on how you do opposed rolls, you can tell him to roll a Spot check or simply roll it yourself, then if the swindler's roll is high, distract the player with something apparently meaningless based on their result), and then when they leave, have someone else say "hey, I saw that guy getting on your pockets!". That may cause a distraction, but will probably get your players a bit more focused from then on. The NPC may be a one-shot, someone who the player might probably dispatch in a round or two; take note of that, and then, when the player gets bored again, throw it something odd again. Then have the two things connect, and then connect to a third situation. Perhaps it's three different swindlers stealing the same item, and they succeeded twice, and that's the result of an unknown enemy of the player somehow helping them? Maybe the guy (or girl, who knows) that advises the player IS their enemy, and they don't realize it until later on.

Thing is, it seems that you've lost a bit of the improvisation aspect. IMO, DMing requires part preparation and part improvisation. In particular, the more preparation you have, the less improvisation you need, but the better the improvisation should be in the case that the players go off the rails. Meanwhile, the less preparation you have, the more improvisation you need, but those improvised aspects don't have to be that good; you have more leeway on how to deal with unexpected situations.

This may seem like throwing stuff at the wall and watching what sticks, and that's mostly because it's true; it won't always work. Perhaps your players prefer hack 'n slash rather than deep roleplaying sessions, and you might have to shift accordingly. That said, since you mentioned that your problem lies in that NPCs need to stand out, you have to work on how to make one-shot NPCs stand out even if they're not met ever again.

[Kafana]

Great advice. Thanks.

More suggestions are highly appreciated.

[Kol Korran]

not everyone wants to roleplay everything. And it's fine, because not everything is interesting. a lot of what you described at the opening post isn't exactly... thrilling. think of a good movie, with an interesting dialogue and such: it rarely includes the stable boy, the peasent on the road, and so on. if it does, it makes them interesting. I'll make an example using a pirate party, partly underway. they include:
1. a sort of freedom loving womanizer swashbuckling type, think Jack Sparrow. likes to goof off and take the game lightly. dislikes the human Empire.
2. a guy who is part crazy, can speak to animals, plants and... remains of the dead. loves short involving scenes with interesting characters.
3. a sort of royal ex spy, who hates humans of the empire. very secretive. conspiracy loving player.
4. plays an orc brute, with some connections to the spiritual world, very physical, likes to intimidate. Not much of a good roleplayer, prefers simple things and interactions.

I tend to build NPCs with 3 possible "attraction venues" in mind:
1. Scenes which matters. Interesting choices: renting a horse or getting info from the farmer will probably happen no matter what the party does, so why go through the hassle to play it? lets just move to the interesting parts, shall we?

make roleplay encounters where there are interesting choices, interesting outcomes to the conversation held. (and not just obvious and simple outcomes). make the conversation MATTER, be dangerous even if swords and spells aren't flung about. D&D's simple rules for diplomacy and bluff might make things a bit simplistic, but i'm sure you can make things more interesting. i'd suggest looking at the giant's diplomacy rule makeover- suddenly it's not so abusable, and suddenly making the right deal, in terms of risk vs. reward, and gaining friends matter. you must enable the campaign to continue reasonably even if they fail, otherwise you might be too tempted to not let that happen.

a few examples:

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- at the start of the campaign the party was seeking to meet a pirate named Red Beard (pardon the cliche), two of them sought to gain information from the place they've been, and there were a few potential NPCs to do this with. failure meant a false information, or even alarming Red Beard they were people looking for him. success revealed some of his abilities and strategies.

- on another occasion the party met a test- a superior crew in a tavern, who wanted the party members to "amuse them", but didn't specify in which manner, it was left to the party's creativity. The captain of the crew had an important piece of a treasure map to give if they succeeded. some opted for a show of skills, some magic, some trickery, but in the end they failed, and they had to find another way to the map piece.

- at a later time they faced the human who hounded them, a sort of a church inquisitor and some of his crew on neutral ground, a sort of a parley. he tried to goad them to break their truce, learn some important info, and when all failed- trick them to his ship under protection. lets just say that this turned VERY interesting. still one of the most memorable scenes.

- as the party tried to gain their crew, i gave pivotal potential crew members interesting personalities, motives and such, and had the PCs try to convince them. they convinced most of them, but not all. luckily enough it was enough to man a ship, and some to spare. the composition of their crew was determined by these simple, yet pointy negotiations...

2. Appeal to Player sensibilities and Character sensibilities: character and player are not alike. different things interest different players, and different characters. As you get to know them, I suggest making a short list for players and characters of what draws a reaction from them. (positive or negative, it's all good!) a little secret- reactions from players are more important, because it's their interest you really want to capture.

once you got them hooked, the players will do the work for you. I suggest at having enough things to attract 2 of your players/ half the party in a roleplay encounter (otherwise they might feel that most of the party isn't interested, and shuffle it along. it also helps keeping the dialogue going.

a few examples:

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- knowing that two players hate the humans, but also that they have "different" attitudes towards morality, i put an encounter with a few shipwrecked human survivors- a merchant, a soldier, and a deck cleaning boy. this got their attention Immediately! they had first captured them, interrogated them, argued about their fate, and it finally led to one of the greatest party conflicts in the campaign (we like them, as long as they are handled maturely) and a lovely complication later on.

- on a different island the ex spy met a person from his homeland island, and tried to recruit him for their cause, which led to a lovely bit of roleplay. unfortunately, I made this bit to only interest him so the other got bored, and then annoyed, and the whole thing was cut a bit short.

- another island i dubbed "monkey island" (even played the music), and I had quite a bit of it populated by adversery intelligent but not talking demon monkeys. this interested the guy who likes talking to animals, and the orc brute who had some connection to monkey spirits. at first they battled them but later they conversed with the monkeys (and a tree or two) under harsh conditions)

- I tried to make the different crew members to appeal to at least 2 in the party at the same time- some were simple and direct (orc brute), some were more funny and trustworthy (jack sparrow guy), some were just quite intricate with interesting mannerisms (crazy guy), and some held... secrets (ex spy)

3. make them have interesting quirks, manners, attitudes, actions, way of speaking: again- a lot of interesting movie characters draw you to engage them by the way they move, act, speak and such, even before you really get to what they wish to say. many of them are a bit... extreme in their way. true, this is not so realistic, but it can work wonderfully. The batman animated series had a way of making even total standbies sometime appear more interesting and appealing. when introducing a character, give it 1-2 identifying mannerisms, to make it come more to life to the characters. and if you can- talk that way, move that way, act that way! (some DMs use props, I haven't gotten to that yet)

- a few examples:

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- In a previous campaign there was a character which we'll dub only as "the organ seller", who offered to attach organs of powerful creatures to party members, in exchange of some of their... "heroism". the party still remember him. I made him loom (he had the body of an ogre mage), speak slowly, elegantly, drawing out his words, and he had a very particular exact motion of "taking a heroic spark" and putting it in his satchel. something i repeated each time a bargain was made.

- In the current campaign, Red Beard is a one legged, one handed, one eyed (yes I know- a cliche), very loud and aggressive speaker. I made a show of walking with one leg stiff, made a sort of hook which i waved and used whenever i could, and shouted interrupting the players speech, along with uproaring laughter. the party got a feeling of who Red Beard is.

- the church inquisitor had a rifle over one shoulder, so i took a broom and mimicked it. he also stood very tall, and talked after humming a bit to himself, thinking. I used very "high intelligent sophisticated" words to show his breeding (had to work a bit on that before the meeting, to choose a few "choice sayings". it got their attention

- I made some of the crew members more "pronounced"- a dwarf cursed to have bits fall off and then grow back, speaking in a high pitched child's voice. an orc brother and sister who were very much alike in thought, but very little physically. a hobgolin elite fighter who never spoke except in sign language, and the halfling scoundrel who spoke for him. and so on.

4. What might help as well- pictures and music: we found this greatly help to put a clear image of a person in the players' mind. a picture does wonderfully, but music might get the "theme" of the person even better! a slight added bonus is that using these gets the players attention on board quickly, since they assume it's important. the extent of how much you useit is left up to you.
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I hope this helps. I use various amounts of the "spell components" above for most of my roleplay encounters. it keeps the game afresh.

[Kafana]

It's not that my players don't pay attention to the NPCs, it's just that I fear they'll soon completely abandon their interest in roleplay. I do have fun DMing, but I want my players to have an awesome experience along the way. After all, they are trusting me with several hours a week of their time to have fun and I intend to show that the trust was well placed.

The problem I have with improvisation is that I fear I may get a block, or perhaps simply not make an interesting story. I do improvise, almost every session, and so far the improvisations have been good, but seeing as how I don't have a lot to fall back on (my experience with DnD consists of reading the PHB and DMG of the 3.5 system, playing in two groups before I started DMing and playing a bunch of roleplaying games (some more or less based on the DnD system)). That's why I always aim to prepare materials for about a session and a half, while leaving room for minor improvisation every step of the way.

[laeZ1]

It's not that my players don't pay attention to the NPCs, it's just that I fear they'll soon completely abandon their interest in roleplay. I do have fun DMing, but I want my players to have an awesome experience along the way. After all, they are trusting me with several hours a week of their time to have fun and I intend to show that the trust was well placed.

That's a good attitude to have.

I've two thoughts on the matter.

The first is that you should learn what it is your players enjoy about the game. Some people play to roleplay, some play to build a supercharacter and be BA. Maybe someone just wants to make a character to have them do things they can't get away with in real life. Some play to hear the descriptions of new and exciting places, and others play because it's just a form of social interaction. Find out why it is your players play, and how D&D is fun for them. At that point, you should either suit the game to their playstyle, or find players that enjoy the game for the same reasons you do.

My second thought is the progression of power, and how that changes one's outlook on life. It's something I do on purpose in my games: as the characters grow in power, I'll describe things differently, and important things from earlier on become mundane. It subtly gives the players a sense of growth. It seems like you may have been doing this on accident. It's especially fun to throw a duplicate encounter of something they faced at low level, to emphasize their power growth.