How do I deal with apathetic players Veeky Forums?

How do I deal with apathetic players Veeky Forums?

We're playing 5e (inb4 have you tried not playing D&D) and it's my first time DMing. My players all have this frustrating tendency to not explore anything. I can describe a dozen plot hooks in their environment but unless I have some NPC physically walk up to them and request their help they won't do anything. For example:

>Me: You arrive in the town of etc, from what little you know of the town you've heard rumors of a resurgent thieves guild, missing grain supplies from the harbor and a recent political scandal involving the mayor
>Players: We head towards the tavern
At first I thought they'd try to get some information there but literally all they did was just have their characters sit there and drink. This continued until I ended up having one of the related problems come to them or nothing would have gotten done.

Another example:
>Me: You wade through the fetid waist high swamp water. On either side of you you catch the occasional glimpse of a cave entrance.
>Players: We keep moving forwards

It's as if they think that quests or important information or loot will just come to them instead of seeking it out for themselves as though everything in this world revolves around them. I've asked them all if they enjoy the game, both as a group and individually, and they all insist they do but then they invest themselves into it as little as possible. Now if it were just one or two players doing this I'd discuss the issue with them and possibly let them go if they continued but it's literally the whole group doing this so I can't just kick them all. The worst part of this all is that the game isn't unenjoyable; I'm just constantly reminded of how much more enjoyable and interesting it could be every session if not for my players handicapping themselves. Furthermore it makes all the work I put into the game feel redundant.

Confiscate their phones, then, as they enter a town, stab one in the leg and tell them if they want to fix his leg with the first aid kit they have to solve the mystery of the town.

Who is this semen demon?

Constanze Mozart from Amadeus

Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart, Amadeus (1984)

To be fair I wouldn't immediately dive into a cave sunk beneath a fetid swamp without a good reason either.

Honestly, as a player, I generally don't investigate rumors until it becomes relevant to me. Videogames gloss over this, but talking to strangers and having an agency into local problems is really weird. Imagine if you go to the town next over and flagged a random stranger on the street and go "DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM THAT NEEDS FIXING?" or "TELL ME ABOUT THE MAYOR"

Also having the rumour about the town is lame. The town should actively be experiencing problems. If you want missing grain supplies to matter, tell the players at the tavern that they run out of food, or have bunch of assholes take their food.

Play with other people.

You da real MVPs.

Sometimes players just don't do initiative well. You might try having a plot hook they ignored develop further and engage them on its own terms, making it clear that them ignoring it changed the world. Don't go overboard and TPK on this or anything.

Or you might say to them that you'd like it if they'd try to explore more, and if there's anything you're doing that makes it seem like they can't.

Well, sure, you give the players plot hooks, but do you and make sure their characters would have reasonable motivation to act upon these hooks. I think you'll find this will get the players more invested and will take the bait more in your game if you payed close attention to character backstories or even just prior interactions they've had in game and presented plot hooks related to them.

See that's the real kicker user. They don't roleplay. All of their character motivations, backstories and alignments went out the window within the first half hour of playing. Instead they just do whatever they think they're supposed to do instead of what their characters would reasonably do.

Try talking to them about needing it to be a group game where they have to have some input to make it fun? Making your hooks directly effect the players and the world around them helps too.

RPGs are a group thing, you all have to engage with creating story. I'm assuming you're roleplaying as adventurers, so look for adventure. That's the point of the game.

Pull a Spoony and steal their shit, have some goblins liberate them of some gold or equipment and then escape to a cave or something.

If this somehow doesn't work then it's time to find a new group.

So you're saying them first night after travelling long distances you would immediately start looking for trouble instead of making sure people know you're on town and taking a load off.

You're saying you would go wandering in the maze of getting lost rather than exploring a particular direction's full extent.

I think perhaps it's simply that your players are smarter than you, op.

mess with something they like. not much, but enough to give them an excuse to go bother some minor character over it.

Kick and replace. The supply of players so vastly exceeds the demand that you should never settle for ones you don't want.

>How do I deal with apathetic players Veeky Forums?
you can't

depends.
The Player/Character needs an agency.
Simple examplecould be that as a Paladin you don't want the People of this town to suffer from hunger so you investigate.
Or maybe yourCharacter plans to move upward in the political hierarchy, so naturally he/she would try to gather information about the mayor to further his own political ambitions.

The Problem lies with players who don't have a Goal for their characters. Because "I wan't to go into old Graves and Loot magic stuff" is not a reallistc character goal. It's gamey and without Roleplay. On the other Hand, venturing into the Vampires lair and killing them silently so they don't overwhelm you can be an intersting Dungeon idea for example.

Some players are naturally detached and poor at improv, I fall into this category myself. Though I do try to work in some degree of character motivation even if I'm not very good at expressing it in-character.

I don't think you need to 'fix' your players, per se - some DMs would kill to have a group that doesn't derail the campaign with lolrandom hijinks. You do need to acknowledge that your players are not self-motivated and adapt your campaign to that behavior, but it's by no means a game-wrecking one.

How about having a local lord/noble/bishop/whatever send an envoy over to the party while they're relaxing in the tavern, offering to hire them for a quest. They'll probably say yes, you get them on the quest loop, and turn that NPC into a recurring quest-giver until they finally figure out some kind of interest of their own.

Your adventure hooks are boring and mistakable for fluff. I'd skip them too.

Seriously a cave entrance? Was there any sign anything actually lived in the cave? Anything more interesting than a bear even?

The adventure of the misplaced shipping supply! The mystery of the mayor's budgetary indiscretions! A thieves guild - just a thieves guild - I guess they're picking a lot of pockets lately!?

Honestly, if you want your players to get more invested in your game, cut the bullshit and just skip to the interesting bits and make those bits the main focus of the campaign.

In a book or a TV show or a game, you'll rarely find situations where the characters are necessarily walking through an empty space for 22 minutes straight, they're always in a situation where shit's going down and the subsequent parts of the story either build upon that situation or cut to a new problem that could lead to its own sets of objectives.

So rather than focusing on the long road between adventures, just start off each campaign in media rais with the party coming across a problem, rather than expecting them to go out of their way to find a problem to deal with.

>8 players coming and going, west marches style game
>players want a message board they can post character backgrounds and session recaps in
>me (DM) takes the time to set up a Facebook group that serves as the town tavern, full of rumors and tales of glory
>players get excited
>explain that I do enough work prepping games, that it's up to them to take care of the group page
>they agree
>7 sessions later, not a single post

Idk why I expect them to do anything more than show up 30 mins late and roll dice.

As someone who has been in the same boat, I find it helps to either make it cute or dangle a bit about them on the hook. I accidentally had a group spend a good while trying to help an injured kid who had been seeing spirits and fey entities ever since the incident, their also injured father not gaining the same powers. They went surprisingly direct with it, too, and are about to investigate their main plot point.

That said, once you have them interested enough to stick with you initially, it becomes a matter of teaching them to make such choices solo.