What do you do with a passive party?

What do you do with a passive party?

I'm trying to GM a game for a bunch of players who won't do ANYTHING unless prompted to. I feel like I'm constantly railroading them, but otherwise they'll just stand around and not do shit.

If the mentor-NPC is obviously wrong about something, nobody corrects him. Weird shit goes uninvestigated. One character was literally freely sitting in another room while her father was getting brutally tortured, without making an attempt to interrupt, and the girl's a lawful good for fuck's sake.

The players have complained that I take too much control over the game, and I'd be glad to improvise based on their actions, but THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING.

What can you do to help that?

Find a new party. Players are dime a dozen.

Nope, not where I'm around.

Besides, me and my friends are a fairly tight-knit group. Everyone's known everyone for years. I wouldn't ditch them just over this.

Get a PC to wrangle them.
You can have as many fucking cold fishes as you want as long as there's a horndog there to revel in fucking them regardless of motion.

Which is to say, if someone feels the call to ADVENTURE, the others are going to get dragged along despite themselves.

Have you directly stated your problem to them?

A) Have you tried talking to them about it?

If they're your friends you shouldn't have any trouble explaining to them what the issue is from your point of view.

B) Now, the truth is, there are a lot of types of players, and passive ones are a common type. It's usually a fool's errand trying to turn one type into a different type, but you can encourage them. Find out what sort of things they want to see in a game, what sort of game they want to play, and use that to hook and interest them.

C) Ask them what their character's motivations and goals are. They should have at least three. Ask them what they're willing to do to get there.

D) If that doesn't work, then ask them what they aren't willing to tolerate in the world. Then throw that at them. It could be mass slavery. Demon summoning. Crazed cults spreading foul plagues. Monsters raping stuff. Wizards rewriting personalities. Brothels with all sorts of stuff inside them. Whatever gets them riled up, use it. Get them to care about some sort of problem or perceived injustice in your world and then they're hooked.

Basically this.

I'd wager just going full blunt mode.
"Your father is being brutally attacked, you better do something or else"

"That strange sighting by the moor sounds like the story the barkeep told about commie ghosts and their treasure."

>Veeky Forums
>actually communicating with people instead of complaining about your problems on a Nepalese zoetrope board.

Put them in a do or die situation. Ditch them on a deserted island or at the bottom of a dungeon, and tell them that no-one is coming to rescue them. Put a counter with 30 days on the table, and tell them that its end their characters will fucking die from a flood or whatever. Ask them leading questions, like 'where are you looking for sustenance' or 'how are you going to find materials to build a shelter' to get them moving.

Force them into situations where they either act or die
>The man you were speaking to yells out in pain and falls over dead as a previously invisible person suddenly appears holding a bloody dagger, he leaps out of the window and bolts. Someone starts knocking on the door asking what that noise was. What do you do?
Or any sort of situation where if they do nothing they'll be punished for it. No answer? He breaks down the door, sees the body and calls you a murderer. He starts yelling for the guards

Maybe even get a more experienced party member to get people into it? Chances are they're interested in the game but don't quite know how to act on that interest. Waiting for a "ok now it's your turn, what are you doing?" Some people like that just need a person to show them they don't need your permission to act after you're done describing (just find a player who doesn't interrupt you mid sentence so they don't start doing it all the time)