I recently GM'd my first game where I ran a single session Call of Cthulhu game in which the investigators were travelling from Arkham to Boston. They encountered a few mysterious events on the road and eventually arrived at a petrol station, that due to conditions on the road they had to stop at.
At this point I had set up several hooks for them to investigate and introduced the idea that there might be something in the surrounding woods for them to avoid.
The issue I had was that the players did not seem interested in investigating the mystery, instead focusing on escaping even before encountering the monster of the game. Even when I laid out reasons to keep them in the area (e.g. the game takes place in a storm so travel is slow making travel difficult) they focused more on getting out than investigating what is going on.
To be fair to them, this was in part in-character (e.g. one was playing a taxi driver who wanted to finish his job and get payed).
How can I encourage players to participate in the story more? Or alternatively how can I improve my GMing skills so I can adapt to the characters not fitting aspects of the scenarios?
Thanks
Best Answer
Start (experienced RPG.SE users will guess what I'm going to say next) by talking to them.
You obviously have a premise in mind: The player characters comes across something weird, and you expect them to investigate.
Your players are obviously on-board with the idea of a Cthulu game, and get that investigating is a thing they're expected to do. They also have a healthy sense of self-preservation, and so are trying to stay safe; There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
Both your premise and the way your players are acting are reasonable; You need to work out what your players aren't reacting to the hooks you're throwing them in a way you expect, and the easiest and best way to do that is to ask them why. Maybe they haven't got enough in-character information to be motivated to investigate; Maybe they don't have enough information to conclude that the Thing in the Woods isn't just a bear; Maybe they all made "reluctant investigator"-type characters and they want to be forced into investigating against their better judgement, or they have specific motivations for potentially investigating things that they hoped you'd pick up on but which you haven't yet noticed.
Whatever the explanation is, the only way to find out is to ask your players reacted the way they did to the plot hook you thought would work. They'll probably give you a completely reasonable answer.
Then, follow up by asking what kind of thing would have inspired them to investigate rather than flee. The answers they give you will grant you insight into both their playstyles and their characters' motivations, which will allow you to design story hooks that suit your players better.