[RPG] One of the players is too passive and uninterested

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Game is DnD 3.5, not that it matters.

So, yeah, she is playing an Elf Rogue and she is like a ghost during the game.

In the last session, the party was searching for a guy and some Halfling told them that they can meet at midnight and he will take them to this guy. They went to the tavern and waited until it's midnight. The Ranger went early and climbed a tall building to check the surroundings. Wizard and Druid went to the meeting point, and when I asked Rogue what she wanted to do, she said "I go to sleep". I was like "Okay, you go to sleep" and then she literally went to sleep. LARPing at it's finest.

It happened one more time too. There was a lot of talking going on for some time, with PCs tying up two suspected Necromancers and trying to figure out who was the bad guy, and she just went to sleep.

While talking on our Whatsapp group, I was telling the players that I thought of something new. After each session, every player will award someone XP for good roleplaying, being active, etc. And I joked about trying not to award those who fall asleep during play. She suddenly got sensitive about my joke. Anyway, after that, I told the group to throw the old character sheets to garbage because there was a lot of stuff to update. and she said "I don't want XP. I'm sleeping during play anyway. I also lost my old character sheet."

Even when she plays, she is pretty much disinterested all the time. During combat, when she rolls one or two bad attack rolls, she is like "Well, I can't hit anyone anyway" and it's like we almost force her to roll the die. Then she starts playing with her phone while others make their move.

That's pretty much it. She still cares to come to the sessions at least. I'm setting up a quest about her character's background. If that doesn't work, I don't know what else I can do. I don't want to kick her out of the group but things are going in that way. It just downs everyone else in the group and kills the mood.

So, how do engage an uninterested player? If all fails, how do you deal with her?

Best Answer

Is she dissatisfied?

Is she upset by this situation? Does she desire greater involvement, or would enjoy more if there were something different about the game? Or does she like her low level of involvement?

There is no way we can answer these questions. They are questions for her. Talk to her, ask her straight out. She may be just fine with things the way they are; her level of involvement may be all she wants. She may prefer to be there for the camaraderie and social interaction, to be a part of the group, more than for the game itself. Or, there may be very different things she wants from the game, which she doesn’t know how to bring up or is too shy/polite to do so. Those are important things to know.

Here, I strongly recommend the Same Page Tool. It’s a great way for groups to get, ahem, on the same page. It will help frame the question of what she wants and what the game is actually providing and how those things differ.

If she’s comfortable: does it negatively affect anyone else?

If she doesn’t want more involvement, is that acceptable to the group? Or does the character who is apparently silent and uninvolved most of the time occasionally piping up cause breaks in immersion?

Again, questions for you and your group. I, myself, for whatever reason just did not get very involved in a game recently. As a group, we decided it was OK for the character to “check out” most of the time, with me only adding in quirky one-liners and tossing out the occasional spell in combat. It fit the character, and the group was OK with it.

In a different game with a different group and as a different character, I may not have gotten away with that. I most likely would have dropped out graciously, since I just wasn’t getting into the game. She may as well, or she may agree to some compromise, to try harder to get involved.

If she does want more, can you reach a compromise that will give her more opportunity to engage?

If there are things she wants from the game that she’s not getting, can you offer more of them without disrupting the game? Or are they incompatible with the game that you and the rest of the group want to play?

Once again, questions for you and your group. Be upfront and honest here; no one wants to waste time on a game that is frustratingly not providing the experience you want, and it won’t improve your game. But if possible, assuming she is a friend/you enjoy her presence in the game, compromise is a good thing. It’s entirely possible that what she wants is easy enough to provide, or a good idea in any case, or something the rest of your wants as well unbeknownst to you.