Motivate Your Players With Goals

[@Marcus-ki1en]

Motivate, Entice, Encourage - the exact opposite of the dreaded, linear railroad.

[@DDHomebrew]

Exactly.

[@krispalermo8133]

Classic side scroll video games were all basic .. linear railroads .. adventures. The best ones had side roads or secret doors to hidden treasure. Acting as a side quest goal of their own. How many games you .. thought .. you beat only to read Nintendo game magazines and found out you missed hidden treasure and there was two extra final boss fights left in the game ?

[@DDHomebrew]

@krispalermo8133 I remember the old adventure games as well. Leisure Suit Larry and the space janitor.

[@Marcus-ki1en]

@@DDHomebrew Any one remember: Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure? Hour upon Hour of time spent playing.

[@DDHomebrew]

@Marcus-ki1en I've heard of it but never played.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Yes each session should have goals and an overall goal

[@DDHomebrew]

Agreed.

[@shadomain7918]

great video, KR. I'm trying to create an ethical dilemna for the players to consider in my 5e campaign (PCs are currently 18th lvl). They got to deal with a world ending situation. In Ptolus the creator god created a barrier around the world which traps everyything indie, mortals and teh evil demi gods and demon lords alike. The event has sent all the evil fiends in the world where they can now prey on mortals. The PCs have an artifact which they could use to fight the fiends, or they could break the barrier, letting the fiends loose on the universe, but maybe saving the mortals of the world. It's interesting watching it unfold

[@DDHomebrew]

Great dilemma! And it will be interesting to see what the players do.

[@raff3486]

Great video! For a player having no goals with their character will spiral out of control as they don't know what to do & will only follow what the GM provides, which in return increases the GMs responsibility. To me it's very important that everybody is doing their part in the cooperative storytelling. The GM doesn't have to do all of the work. Players saying that they'd want to invest in something or create a new goal should be welcomed if the moment allows it.

[@DDHomebrew]

Agreed Raffy! And I've found that most players take the opportunity and run with it.

[@elfhunter6]

I always tell my players that their characters should have their own goals. I never worry about "presenting" meaningful choices to them or motivating them. The PCs follow their own motivations, and the game is better for it. :)

[@DDHomebrew]

If you allow them to influence the world to hey can create meaningful goals.

[@jacktough]

Good stuff, as always 🍻

[@DDHomebrew]

Glad you liked it!

[@Darkwintre]

In my last game as a player I was asked to convert my elven ranger into a cleric so figured why not? Reduced her back story to just answering a call for aid from her son. Any other dm would have just have this npc turn up later since they really haven't established anything by the first game. He promptly crapped all over the character killing off said npc and then instead of running his game properly centers his game out of a port city instead of where the first game ended. When pointing out no mother would abandon their child he expected me to just start a new character. I ran the next game so revealed she had been banished from an entirely different world and was suffering from temporary amnesia thus her goal was to find a way home or just contact her family back there. After a couple of sessions that same DM decided he wanted his game set on the same world mine was, but wasn't prepared to put any work into that. I quit after that as I was tired of him crapping on me all because he was too incompetent to run his own game properly. Three years on I know I made mistakes, but my main one was not recognising him as the tooxic fool that he is. More annoyed he didn't have the sense to just ask as it wouldn't have been difficult, but cooperation and communications aren't things he gave a toss about. Thanks for the video.

[@DDHomebrew]

So sorry you had to go through that. I've many stories like this since I started my channel. Some people just aren't cut out to be GM, and this person is Exhibit A. I hope you just keep playing, find a good group and forget about that guy! Life is too short.