I GM a campaign for a newbie party. For now everything is fine: they roleplay well, they don't solve their problems with violence, etc.
In their scenario, they came from a relatively small city sealed off from the world for a long period of time — one day the seal just vanished and their adventure began. The city was attacked by enormous, highly organised ants, and the City Council sent various parties, including one made up of the player characters, to search for allies. I imagine being cut off from the world for so long, the player characters would be a bit interested in what the outside has to offer them.
They're curious and ask questions about local lore. For example, they met a tribe of evolved ape druids who used the tactic of fleeing and hiding to survive these ants (not ideal allies for fighting, but good for scouts), befriended them, asked them to be allies, and upon learning of their tactics they just carried on with the search. They hunted with them though, exchanged presents, participated in rituals, formed blood bonds and so on, which went really well. They asked about gods, way of life, and so on.
However, the problem is they aren't asking the right questions. They didn't ask about the ants, or about other tribes, and so are missing out on information about those things. I fear them repeating this and continuing to miss out on this information.
(I've spoken to one player: it seems they forgot they came from an isolated community, so next session I'll remind them of this, and explain the standard mind-set of a normal citizen of the City. I'll repeat this on the beginning of every session until they understand — they are really forgetful and don't write anything down.)
How can I get my players to ask the right questions to find out this information, so they don't miss out altogether?
(Note this is separate to How to get players to be curious and ask questions?, given they're not having trouble asking questions altogether)
Best Answer
It sounds like your players are engaging with the NPCs, they're just not asking the questions you want so they can get the information you've prepared that will help them. Doesn't sound like disinterest so much as they interact differently than you would, or than you'd expect. It's unlikely that you'll be able to change the way they act, at least not directly, so you're probably going to have to change your style a bit to correct the mismatch.
In general terms, you may have the classic problem that often arises in mystery RPGs; the players miss the clues, don't ask the obvious questions, and otherwise fail to extract the appropriate information from the scene to move the plot forward. It's a common disconnect, usually due to the fact that the GM has a lot more information, so connections that seem obvious are actually much less so to the players. To counteract this difference, you'll need to put a bit more window dressing around the points that they need to discover that are critical to the plot.
I recommend reading Justin Alexander's essays on the Three Clue Rule. It gives some great advice on how to improve the players chances to ferret out what they need from the setting without just handing them the info. Ultimately, if there's a piece of information that was important enough that you've actively called it in your setting notes, you're going to need a couple of back-up opportunities for the players to discover it, because they're going to miss the first two glaringly obvious opportunities to do so.
A last tidbit that I find works for some groups is profiling,, i.e. put stuff where they look. Pay attention to the details the players engage with and try to get a feel for their patterns. Maybe they tend to engage with shopkeepers but not people on the street. Maybe the wizard is always looking for cool wands. If you want them to ask the locals for more info on the ants, put a cool wand proudly displayed in the local shop. The shopkeeper will tell them it's not for sale, but he'll ramble on a bit about the wizard that created it, and how he lived here to study the physiology and tactics of the ants. As one of three clues that they can get more info to help in their fight, it starts to give you a chance to get the message across.