Hey, I am a new-ish DM

Hey, I am a new-ish DM.
I never played D&D as a kid, I picked it up as an adult, and found a group of people from my extended friends.
>my best friend Tom
>my gf
>my best friend's 2 firends
>my cousin

We have been playing together for about 7 months, I have been DMing, and everything has been going well, but recently, Tom has been increasingly uninterested in RPing, where everyone else has been increasing their time spent RPing.

Everyone seems to be enjoying RPing, except for Tom. He keeps trying to hurry everyone else up.

>Get to town
>Bard goes to Inn, talks to patrons, plays music for coin
>Cleric goes around trying to find people to heal, and convert to his faith
>2 Warriors visit smiths, try to seek quests, get drunk
>Druid looks for local flora to learn more about
>Tom (Wizard) goes to the inn, goes to bed, no matter the time of day, and tells everyone else to hurry up so we can "get to the game"

It sucks. I have talked to him, and he says that role play is boring, and "nobody likes it" but Im not forcing it on anyone. I never say "no" as a DM, and I have plenty of dungeons they can go into at any given time. But 5 out of 6 of my players are taking to RP like crazy. I just want to know how I can engage him better.

Even in dungeons, he tries to get in, and get out as fast as possible, doesnt care about the dungeon, he just goes through, kills everything, asks for more treasure, and then sits and waits on his phone for everyone else to be done "pretending" to be in a dungeon.

Tips? I want to be good. I want to be engaging and fun.

Unfortunately, not all groups work together well. If you have a fundamentally different idea as to what constitutes fun, you're going to have trouble. Best bet is to try to ease Tom out and get him to either play in a different group that's more tactically oriented, or to move him into wargames, which might be more up his alley.

Have you tried asking what he wants from the game? It may be that if your last few sessions have become repetitive/boring (to him) then something needs to be changed.

Well, thats the problem. He brings half the group with him. His two friends arent really my friends. We are friendly, and we all have a good time, but he literally drives one of them to our games, and the other one is his work friend. So I would lose half of the players if he left. Or I feel like I would.

And hes my best friend. I enjoy him being there, whether or not hes frustrating me.

He's your friend, but that doesn't mean he fits in the group, or the game you are trying to run.
If he fundamentally does not like roleplay, he's gonna have a hard time of it in roleplaying games.
Not everyone is long for the kind of thing you are doing, and the responsible thing would be to bow out.

Well, yeah. Ive asked him, and he wants more action, he wants intrigue. Or at least thats what he says, so I give him intrigue, I made this whole political assassination segment, and when things started getting heated, he convinced the group to leave town, so he left the city to a small town, and hes frustrated that there is no intrigue happening, so I inserted this witch character, stealing children, making the village suffer, and he decided he didn't want to deal with her, so he gave her a child from the village, and convinced the rest of the group to leave to another small town.

I made a bunch of flavor text for him, I know that might not be what he needed, but he just looked it over, and didn't even connect the witches to the witch he met in that town. It might have not been the best thing to do. But its what I know how to do. I make flavor text for everyone, and give hand outs and props and he is the only one that doesnt seem to care

I don't know what to do. Everything I make specifically for him, he just looks at and "skips" and then gets bored.

>he just looks at and "skips" and then gets bored.
That is his fault, not yours. He is playing a fundamentally different game than everyone else. Fact is tho, he is not the majority and he is the odd man out. You tried engaging him multiple times to no avail, so dont bother any more.

Only other thing I can think is to have one of the guys he drives to talk to him.

Does he enjoy combat at least? cuz you could try engaging him via complex combat. Big tough monsters who use terrain and their lairs to their advantage, ones who have lots of disposible underlings to use in waves and cunning traps and hard to traverse terrain. I suggest a Kobold Sorceror. not something that engages in melee with the tanks, but someone who can damage from afar, but has annoying spells to misdirect the party and give his numerous minions the upper hand

>TL;DR try engaging him with intricate and complicated combat

>Or at least thats what he says, so I give him intrigue, I made this whole political assassination segment, and when things started getting heated, he convinced the group to leave town, so he left the city to a small town, and hes frustrated that there is no intrigue happening, so I inserted this witch character, stealing children, making the village suffer, and he decided he didn't want to deal with her, so he gave her a child from the village, and convinced the rest of the group to leave to another small town.
Okay, talk to him about that.

"Ok dude, I gave you intrigue there there and there. Why did you ditch it?"

Thats what I have tried. I just barely got them into a dungeon that I *thought* I designed well, with tough monsters, a lot of environmental detail, so he can use the environment for combat, which is something we BOTH enjoy.
I was even open rolling, because he is really interested in the numbers.

But I guess I underestimated him, because he successfully used a spell to blow open a locked door which I foolishly described as "wooden, but sturdy, with a metal handle and deadbolt" he used some acid splash to dissolve the handle and lock, because we previously established his acid could corrode metal, he rolled a natural 20, and since I dont say "no" he melted the handle, and skipped 2/3 of the dungeon.

my fault. But it upset me a little. I got a little triggered. But I didnt say anything.

People are often terrible at knowing what they want or figuring out what make them unhappy. If turns in a game are taking too long, and a person is getting bored because of it, they may complain that you can't do enough on your turn. Now, in a certain respect, this makes sense. Because it takes so long to come back to your turn, you don't want your turn to be over too quickly. The problem is that by increasing the amount of stuff people can do on their turns, it then takes longer for shit to get back to you. So really, the best way to address this problem would be to try to make the game go faster, and letting everybody do more shit on their turns is definitely not the way to make this happen. So if you understood why the person was unhappy, you could point this out. Only the chances are that they won't actually tell you that they're bored because shit is taking too long (because they don't fully understand the source of their discontent). They'll just say that they're unhappy they can't do more on their turn.

It sounds to me like Tom is bored with your game, and maybe with RPGs in general (maybe it's just that the luster has worn off something he once enjoyed). And when you ask him what he wants, he doesn't really have a good answer, so he grasps at straws, and says intrigue, maybe because that's something he finds entertaining in movies and shit. But when it comes right down to it, he's not actually very interested in it in the game. Maybe it requires too much enthusiasm and focus from him (which is difficult for him to muster if he's burned out on the game). Maybe he just has no idea what he wants. But it really does seem like hes being impossible to please.

>he's a caster
>looking down my nose
user, you botched it. Why wasn't the door trapped, or at least, not even openable? You forgot to account for your players, but it happens to all of us.
Do not be afraid to change shit up on the fly, so long as you can smoothly slot it in.
Better idea?
Take all the ideas of that dungeon, resuse them. I, as a GM, freely reused ideas and toss them back at players. Shit, I once used the same dungeon on my group 3 times, just changed the map layout, DCs and the description.
Also, talk to the ENTIRE group. Get a read on how they feel about the game, do not focus on a single player and forget the rest.

>But I guess I underestimated him,

lol dont be discouraged by one mistake. I made the mistake once of having lots of "locked wooden doors" in my dungeon once, the idea being they would have to bust them down alterting whatever was behind them.

buuuttt... they players realized that locked means having a keyhole and not thinking I agreed allowing them to peek into the rooms to asses the threats, and planning to counter them skillfully instead of being surprised by them, making most of the combats trivial. it happens, just learn from it instead of getting mad. None of my dungeon doors have keyholes anymore, and I dont hand out adamentine weapons they can use to bust down walls with

Use some solid stone doors, say they are made by dwarves. or have no doors and use teleporting runes instead, or 20ft ledges (hope they have rope lol)

sounds like you were close, just try again

The player wants something of substance and a suitable motivation to go with it, and the GM just doesn't know how to provide it. It's a pretty common occurrence and most GMs don't even realize that it's their fault.

>Bard goes to Inn, talks to patrons, plays music for coin
>Cleric goes around trying to find people to heal, and convert to his faith
>2 Warriors visit smiths, try to seek quests, get drunk
>Druid looks for local flora to learn more about
In other words: players bumble the fuck about looking for shit to do. The wizard doesn't want to fuck around trying to stumble into something, so he just waits. He's not wrong to do that. Fucking around doing nothing of substance gets really boring really fast.

Link this thread to him

That sounds fine. You should never be upset at somebody kicking more ass than you expected. If he outsmarts your dungeon set up, more power to him. You'll just have to step up your game next time. The trick is not to just negate and undermine his plans. What's the point if no matter how clever you are, the end result is the same? That's frustrating and makes it feel like the GM is out to get you. No, you should try to design things so they aren't a cakewalk, but still let your players shine.

It sounds like Tom might be into an old-school style of play, where it was more "players vs. dungeon" than anything else. Basically, the dungeon was like a puzzle for the players to solve. Sure, there could be role-playing and so forth, but the focus was more on player skill than character.

>Fucking around doing nothing of substance gets really boring really fast.
This makes sense. I approve of role-playing, but not so much people fucking around, especially not on their own (because then it's not even interactive, and you're excluded from what's going on like 3/4 of the time). Maybe skim over the stuff between adventures and encourage more role-playing during adventures?

user, those players seem to be investing themselves in the world and playing their characters.
Are you saying that doing the things in their off time that their characters would have an interest in is wrong?

This isnt always a bad thing, this is how almost all my games start. players look around and engage with things organically. So easy to create quest hooks out of anything they do

>Bard goes to Inn, talks to patrons, plays music for coin
and runs into a competing bard who challenges him to a rock off, or wants to team upo to steal a magic instrument from a local museam
>Cleric goes around trying to find people to heal, and convert to his faith
discovers a nasty plague ravaging only the towns poorfolk, or uncovers a local cult to an opposing god
>2 Warriors visit smiths, try to seek quests, get drunk
so much here. bartender talks about a haunted windmill/farmstead/tomb/church. smith's shipment hasnt arrived yet and wants them to investigate
>Druid looks for local flora to learn more about
and discovers a nasty foreign species of invasive weed

now we string it all together:
The other bard is a member of a local cult who is plotting to cull the poor of the town as sacrifices to their dark god. In return they will gain the power they need ot overthrow the local noble and sieze power. they are growing a nasty form of nightshade that puts the ingester to sleep and numbs pain. horses of travelling merchants have been eating this pervasive weed on the roadsides and have been falling asleep and/or dieing

boom, campaign off the top of my head based only on player actions

Ask Tom to write down some personal and party goals for his wizard. What does his character want to accomplish in life? What does he want to accomplish using the aid of the party and how does he want to help the party?

Get the answers to these questions. Now, when you design adventures, maintain some of the adventure around his goals. Perhaps his Wizard is setting out to obtain an ancient tome. Well, he's not going to just be able to walk up and grab it. Work conflict into his goal of obtaining the tome. Mystery and intrigue, the tome is guarded by ancient beings, reading the tome will irreversibly change the character, etc.

I do this for all my players in every single campaign to help with adventure design. I recommend you do the same. If they have vastly different goals, work on a couple at a time or rotate through the character's goals.

It sounds like Tom is ready for 1 of 2 things; complex dungeon diving with less roleplay, or a more concrete and complex idea of what his character is supposed to be doing exactly, with significant and sometimes mechanical feedback. Giving his character purpose and life may help him get back into the game, and stop all of the insubstantial faffing about the party is doing in towns and such. If there's an adventure hook dripping with intrigue that makes sense for his character's goals, I'm sure he'll take it. If not, well, there's not much you can do aside from taking the other advice in this thread about increasing mechanical complexity and challenge or moving into a new hobby like wargaming with him.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I once played in a game where we couldn't ever get to the fucking adventure. We'd have meeting the next day to set up our mission, then the GM would ask us if we wanted to do anything before then. He'd actually kind of go around the table and ask us individually, and almost prod us about it. And with this much encouragement, most everybody would come up with something to do. And so we'd spend a few hours on people coming up with projects and shit--one person was trying to set up some sort of commercial venture, for instance. And that's all well and good, but nobody's shit involved anybody else, and folks were really only doing it because we weren't already on an adventure.

And as soon as everybody had done their shit, the GM would go around the table asking if there was anything else anybody wanted to do. What about you? What about you? And you? And with that much nudging, somebody would eventually figure out something else to do. And I couldn't convince everybody to just skip to the meeting without being confrontational, because getting people to agree to shit, or even really consider the situation and what actions would make for a better game, is nearly impossible.

And I love playing in character. I just don't want to play out dull shit for no good reason. We're goddamn adventurers. Let's fucking go on goddamn adventure and not talk the woman at the fruit stand for 45 minutes like there's nothing better to do.

Well, thats not exactly a good representation. Basically what happens is like this

>After a long and arduous fight through the woods, the party finds themselves in the village of Riverton. Riverton is a logging village, as immediately evidenced by the sawmill that dominates the skyline, Small houses and businesses dot the village, and a cloud of white smoke billows from an inn.

>It is lightly raining, and you notice there are a few dozen villagers going about their daily work in a downtrodden fashion. A smith works in his shop, clanging hammer on anvil. An old man casts a fishing line into the river. A colorfully dressed gentleman with a curled white mustache sits smoking outside the general store.

>There is a noticeable lack of any children, or even young adults. The villagers are all in late middle age.

>What would you like to do, now that you are here?

Then, the party goes about exploring the town, Tom goes to bed. One of them finds a questline IMMEDIATELY. Tom gets out of bed, murders his way through any quest, or just gives an NPC what they want immediately whether he probably should or not, and then goes back to the inn, and goes to his room.

That is not the same as OP's example tho.

>Riverton is a logging village
>not Loggington

>Not Riverloggingtonshire

>not Loggington
No, no. Loggington is the river town about thirty miles north of Riverton. There aren't enough trees up there to support a decent logging industry.

>not Axeswingylogwoodchoppychopyvilleingtonshire

Stop trying so hard to paint the player as being in the wrong. If he doesn't see the appeal, he's not going to find it if you just leave him searching for it. The single best way to motivate people to roleplay isn't asking them what to do and then getting butthurt when they don't give you an answer you like, it's to have characters and situations they can meaningfully interact with, and have those characters and situations respond organically to those interactions. If you're doing it right, you'll never find yourself in a situation where you have to drag a course of action out of your players.

>not choppychoppytreesgodroppyton

Depends on whether you are a GM or not.
A lot of GMs, me included, look poorly on players who can not summon up independent goals of some sort, or at least approach the world on their own terms.
When a player says they find roleplay "boring", you have a hard case, and if everyone else is enjoying what the game is presenting, then he is the problem.

The player probably just doesn't realize that there's a lot more to roleplaying than just fucking around during your off time. After all, how would he?

Exactly. Which is why Tom's character needs to have a purpose, drive, and have to make meaningful decisions.

>he doesn't get roleplaying
>so the solution is to have him figure it out himself

user, you can't force a person to act independently, and if they do not find roleplay fun, and state as much, how will telling them to find purpose and drive, in order to roleplay, make a difference?
It really seems like you are taking the standard Veeky Forums tactic of blaming the GM for all ills.

I mean, you could always try something like this, but I think there's a good chance that Tom still won't be interested in anything.

I didn't say figure it out himself. I posit that the GM should aid Tom in coming up with goals and drive for his character. Either the GM or an experienced roleplayer, anyways.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about that may be worth a shot.

And I mean to say that the GM can offer a solution and Tom can agree and they can work together. I mean, if Tom's the only one not having fun that's on him, but obviously OP wants to salvage his fun.

How the fuck do you expect him to find roleplaying fun if the only roleplay he's ever had experience with uses "fuck around during time off" as its definition? You're going to make him want to roleplay even less if you force him to figure shit out on his own. It's so fucking easy to motivate a player in-game, I just don't get how so many people struggle with this. I've GMed for all sorts of groups, players who make motivated characters, players who never even think about backstories, and I've never had trouble keeping people engaged.

>It really seems like you are taking the standard Veeky Forums tactic of blaming the GM for all ills.
The standard Veeky Forums tactic is blaming the players for all ills. Have you seriously never seen all those greentext stories where "the players do something stupid and the GM totally had no hand in this"? Thankfully, that's changing these days.

Exactly what I'm saying! Insubstantial fucking around is not fun for everyone, it simply isn't. It's not the deep, satisfying roleplay Tom may like.

>How the fuck do you expect him to find roleplaying fun if the only roleplay he's ever had experience with uses "fuck around during time off" as its definition?
Because you can in no way make that assumption from OP's post when he also said he has tried other ways to hook him in and the player directly states "roleplay is boring".
>The standard Veeky Forums tactic is blaming the players for all ills
The only time that happens is in That Guy threads, and those stories are usually fake and everyone knows it. In all other threads, you will have SOMEONE find a way to blame the GM, usually on some farfetched assumption, similar to what you are doing.

>Tips? I want to be good. I want to be engaging and fun.
Play with a GM that's actually good. You'll learn everything you need to know to run a good game. One nigga changed my entire outlook on tabletop RPGs using a setting and premise I had absolutely no interest in and a character I'd made as an afterthought.

>It's not the deep, satisfying roleplay Tom may like.

Doesnt sound like he likes any kind of RP. Some people dont, and there isnt really anything you can do to motivate them to enjoy something they dont like. Cant force someone to enjoy something they dont enjoy, you have to find what they do enjoy in order to engage and motivate them

Find out by trying for a sesh, and if it doesn't pan out then try something else.

>Insubstantial fucking around is not fun for everyone
It is if you are a halfway good DM

fucker stay in bed and complain instead of fucking around like everyone else, have some bandits try n rob the tavern, going room to room to take valueables

if they players wont go to the adventure, bring the adventure to them.

Point is, OP did try for more than one sesh and it never panned out. OP asked him what kind of RP would he enjoy, he said intrigue then fucked off and didnt bother. ergo time to try something new

>OP asked him what kind of RP would he enjoy
How would he know?

When he enters his room, there's someone tied up in his bed.

How would he know what he himself likes? that is a really dumb question

Belive it or not, some people who play RPGs are only in it for the G. Doesnt make it right, but it is what it is

a good DM tailors his game to what the player what, not try to tailor the player to what the DM wants

If a player only gives a shit about combat, I can still work with that.

>DM I dont really like that this game has such a large focus on anime school girls...
>HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!

But there in lies the problem, I make combat scenarios, and he finds the quickest possible route though them and does all the bullshit he can to skirt combat.

that is easy to deal with

dont make a quick route through it. if he keeps find ways through, learn from each time.

make seemingly easy paths through, but have them trapped to shit, or requiring teamwork to get through. nothing he can solo

Examples?