Help Players Invest into the Story
Understanding Emotional Connections between PCs and the Game
A Story to Begin:
Everyone left for the day. Unorganized dice and leftover character sheets still lay upon the empty table. My notes were full of great encounters and an epic campaign, but my players didn’t seem to care.
They were there - but not present. Sure, they rolled the dice, but also rolled their eyes. What was I doing wrong?
Was my campaign not interesting? Maybe my NPCs were bland? Possibly that my encounters were too easy or too hard. Either way, I knew one thing for sure.
My players were not invested in the game. Their bodies were there, but their hearts were somewhere else. This left me feeling meaningless and even worse, I was beginning to despise my favorite hobby.
All my players were my friends. We worked together, hung out after school and watched all of our favorite movies. We went out to eat and spent time talking. We all wanted to play tabletop roleplaying games, but I couldn’t seem to invest them emotionally. In other words, they didn’t care.
I didn’t fault anyone, not even myself. However, I set out to change the way I play games by following these principles.
I have studied connections and especially the values of those connections through my work as a hospice nurse. For 12 years, I visited home and sat at the bedside listening to what people thought was important in life. I concluded that we care because we feel the connection between ourselves and the world.
Types of Connections
Recognizing that there are many kinds of connections is the first step to identifying which invoke the most powerful emotional investment. I have noticed in storytelling that there are four basic connections that can be used by the game master. When studying these connections, know that all of them may not be used, and also used in different measures. They produce conflict and alliances in the game, whether they be applied to people, places or things. But they always relate to the player and their characters.
Angled
These relationships provide the most amount of conflict. Between two connections, their goals do not align and quite often make more trouble for each other than not. Not having the same viewpoint, they create sharp edges in each other’s lives. This kind of connection might not be sought after, but makes for wonderful challenges in games. Remember that most of your villains will connect to the PCs in this way. Find a way to add this kind of connection regarding your world, NPCs, Dungeons and Encounters to the PCs to increase their emotional investment. In short, if you want the PCs to care about the game, add an angled connection. This connection brings out frustrating feelings in the PCs.
Opposites
These relationships provide some conflict, and have some potential for service. Between these two connections, the goals align, and now it’s a race to the finish to see how the challenge will end. These make not only great challenges, but also potential allies. Because of the same line of thinking, although opposing, they draw upon a competitive spirit within the PCs. Find a way to add this kind of connection regarding your world, NPCs, Dungeons and Encounters to the PCs to increase their emotional investment. In short, if you want the PCs to care about the game, add an opposing connection. This connection brings out competitive feelings in the PCs.
Hand in Hand
These relationships provide little if no conflict, and have great potential for service. Between these two connections, there is simply a live and let live attitude. Without any natural hostility, the PCs can experience this connection in the world and either enjoy the downtime of the game, use it to their advantage to solve mysteries, or have these connections added to their inventory of benefits. This connection brings out compassionate feelings in the PCs.
Beneficial
These relationships provide some conflict, but have great potential for service. Between these two connections, there exists some level of challenge, but still with a friendly attitude. This connection pushes the PCs towards quests, saving the world, or even developing the character’s persona. The experience provided includes mentorships, developments, growth journeys and friendly challenges to improve the play of the game. This connection brings out exciting feelings in the PCs.
Remember to consider that PCs will invest into the game once they see the relationship in the story. Practice anchoring these relationships from people, places and things towards the player’s character. When they see the connections, they will care more about the game.
Caring about the World
Before you trailblaze off into the wild blue yonder of worldbuilding, remember that if you want your players to care, then you must allow them to participate. Off shoulder the burden of worldbuilding to everyone at the table. Creating your world doesn’t have to be done in secret. The characters of the story most likely know something about the world you are building and therefore, players can participate in that craft. Before dumping this overwhelming responsibility onto your unsuspecting players, intentionally call for a worldbuilding session in which you tell your players these three things.
We are going to work together to create a part of the world.
Each of you will have an assignment.
Your character may or may not know of the product.
There are many ways to develop the world. You can use a hex crawl map and create locales one by one. You can draw a map and decorate it with interesting locations. Create an outline of questions about the world and have each player answer them one by one. Browse through your favorite random table and have everyone roll dice. Make a day of worldbuilding and do all of the above! Gather everyone together, divide up the assignments, and get to creating. Afterwards, you can find out which character would know about each piece of the world.
No matter what method you use, focus on your players' participation. The more your players invest their own ideas into the world, the more they will care about the world. Usually as a game master, you may keep a tight rein on describing the setting and leave the players to manage their characters. However, in this kind of session, you may release some control over to the players in order for them to develop their world.
Part of tabletop roleplaying involves a level of creativity. Each player will participate in worldbuilding differently. Some manners of investment include writing up backstories on city politics, rolling upon random tables to stock a dungeon with monsters, drawing a decent map of a miry swamp, or designing traps for an abandoned tower. Remember that, as the game master, you can still add to the participation. Your players may not create exactly how you do, and that’s the point. Draw strength from that diversity and include the products into the world. At the end of the day, if every player has participated in their own unique way, the session was a success.
Care increases with participation. The fun happens because your players invest time and brain power into worldbuilding.
Caring about NPCs
The player to my left continued on to talk about their backstory. Everyone was listening, but no one was paying attention. It’s not that they didn’t care about the player, in fact, we were all great friends. It’s only that the information the player was sharing about their character had no place to hang upon the game.
Imagine with me a bundle of coats in your arms. Although not a heavy weight, they are cumbersome and naturally, you are already looking for a coat rack or somewhere to place them. When I point to the coat rack in the corner, you gratefully relieve yourself of this responsibility and hang them one by one upon the rack.
We store information the same way. When I tell you that it’s going to rain later on today, even that trivial piece of information must be placed by your brain into the correct location. How seriously your brain was already serahin for this information will determine how valuable it is to your existence.
“It will rain.”
“Doesn’t matter, we are inside all day playing games.”
“It will rain.”
“Great, that’s going to make my bike ride to work a bit more complicated. In fact, should I now take the bus?”
“It will rain.”
“I’m eternally grateful; we needed this to water the crops for this year.”
The information is the same, but because another was already looking for the information, the fact that it will rain meant a lot more to the different individuals. Perhaps this same individual has now determined the information is more valuable because of their dynamic life!
When you introduce an NPC to your players, they may not care about this NPC because they don’t know where to put this information. It’s a lot like handing someone a coat when it’s not going to rain. They don’t know what they don’t know. Part of being a game master is practicing good hospitality and showing your players where things go.
If you want your players to care about your NPCs, show them how they relate to the world they have helped to create. And better yet, show them how they connect to their characters and the story you are all telling.
Connections for NPCs.
NPC connected to another NPC
NPC connected to a place
NPC connected to a villain
NPC connected to a thing
NPC connected to a quest
NPC connected to a character
NPC connected to another NPC
Upon introducing this NPC, give either a description or a statement that hints to the players that this person in your world holds value. If the shopkeeper is the daughter of the sailor who granted the party the quest, the value will then transfer since the players are already invested in the quest. You have then broadcasted that this person has a place in the story.
NPC connected to a place
“Where are you from?” is quite anecdotally the most common question asked upon visitation. Introduce your NPCs by stating where they hail from. If your players participated in worldbuilding, they will understand much of the cultural climate, which cities are corrupt and which mines are haunted. After hearing where the NPC comes from, they will immediately connect that person to a place and if that place holds current value to the players, they will care about that NPC.
NPC connected to a villain
Pay special attention to the fact that players caring about the NPCs in your world can mean friendly and hostile care. Villains, in fact, get the most attention since they evoke aggressive emotions within us. Don’t forget that sometimes, the most memorable NPCs are the ones who generate conflict for the party. In this way, you can tell your players, “you should care about this one.”
In order for your players to care about the villain of the adventure, follow these extra steps:
Create opposition through the villain
When the party fixes something, have the villain come behind and break it.
When the party finds something, have the villain steal it.
When the party travels, have the villain hunt them.
When the party laughs, have the villain cry.
This relationship holds particular value to the players because the villain provides challenges, opposition, threat and otherwise chaos to the order the party brings. In some respects, villains create adventures. But if you want the players to care about the villain, have the villain oppose what is near and dear to the characters, and better yet, connect the NPC to that same villain.
Remember that the game master determines the challenges of the game. It falls upon you to regulate how difficult the encounter with the villain will be. While you want the players to experience difficulty, remember not to develop an impossible, and therefore frustrating encounter. Rather than regulating the villain, find external resources such as environment, terrain, minions, curses, and time to increase the challenge of the villain. In this way, if you need to reduce the challenge in a fight, you do not have to weaken your villain in front of your players.
NPC connected to a thing
The PC picks up a magic item and scribbles down the item upon their character sheet. Besides asking what it can do, questions of its origin come to mind. Who made it? Who lost it? If a PC now wears shiny new armor they found in a dragon’s lair, would it be possible if there were more of that same set made in the last century? Now the PC wears the uniform of a highly trained unit of guardians. Another idea is to have the NPC run a item shop so that the PCs can return after making some great purchases. Items are inherently valuable in the game, so if you want players to become emotionally invested into NPCs, simply connect those NPCs to the items in the PC’s inventory.
NPC connected to a quest
In order for the PCs to care about an NPC, the game master can anchor the NPC into the quest. If the PCs are searching, delving, traveling or storming, you only have to make the NPC’s participation pivotal to the success of the quest. Perhaps a young child has a map upon her back leading to the lost temple. Or a elderly witch has forgotten memories that bubble up as clues to help the PCs. The NPC could be the director of the quest, or ask for escort along the way. Rescue missions are a simple hook in that the PCs now have a direct link to one NPC and the quest of rescue.
NPC connected to a PC
Family ties, star struck emotional bonds and war time companions are a few anchor points from NPC to PC. While encouraging your players to possess familial and friendship bonds in the game can be difficult, you can also reward the PCs mechanically for doing this very thing. Adding bonuses to statistics while close to this NPC, or the NPC providing support for the party can be great ways to improve the livelihood of the adventure. Some players may simply enjoy having a relationship to the world building through NPCs such as a family or friends to care for. Since players may identify with their character, then this bond can prove to be the strongest for that type of player.
What does the table value?
Overall, emotional investment in the table will occur, for that is why we play games - to feel good. How that occurs depends on the values of the table. There is much to say about fantasy and disassociation with real life, but I would argue to allow video games to help us disconnect. I believe RPGs do something different. While they do provide us a simulation that is separate from our own life, they also provide a reflection of that reality. To quote a player, he said, “I’ve been in this situation before, in my own life, but this time I was able to consciously make better decisions. And this time, I won!” Winning in RPGs is not only about rolling high numbers on dice, but also making great decisions and watching them unfold into new opportunities. To further exclaim, winning is about making these strong connections. As a gamemaster, your job is to orchestrate and find meaning between seemingly disparate entities, such as a random shopkeeper NPC and a Player Character. When the table values connection, which I think everyone does, for that is why we show up, then they will feel the win when the game master links together the game to the story to the people at the table.