Engaging your players
Performance-enhancing thrills.

A consistently poor performance by a GM can (and should) quickly kill off any interest in a campaign. Avoid this by refusing to join the swollen, self-deluded ranks of bad GMs. The gray text monotone mumblers who don’t look up from their screens to connect with players (often revealing vital clues the players are not supposed to be privy to). The unprepared, inflexible screechers with tunnel vision who shut down player choices (often due to being woefully unprepared). The panicked deer with One Great Idea but no follow-through (often spending half the session hiding from the players behind a barely-read rule book). Don’t be like them.

Engage players as equally as possible, balancing attention between characters, and being vigilant against favoritism. If some players are more likely to dominate discussion and decision-making, make sure the others get their say. In combat encounters, initiative order helps guarantee that each character has equal chance to act. Outside of combat, it’s up to you. Increasing the party size will increase this challenge. In a party of four with time divided equally, each character can enjoy the focus 25% of the time. In a party of eight, that’s reduced to 12.5%. Be aware of your limits before letting a group grow too large.

Balance and vary the types of challenges that a party faces so each character in the party has a chance to shine. If there are shared roles, add NPC or faction role-playing opportunities to help differentiate between them and help them feel more unique. Encourage them to develop different ties and relationships with the world around them. This is especially useful if the players don’t provide a detailed backstory. (If a character background is sparse, with a lack of social ties or family, this doesn’t have to be a problem. Not everyone is looking to replace real-life responsibilities with new burdens for their RPG lives, so try to forgive them their orphan tropes.)

Be aware of different role-playing style approaches and try to adapt to each. Some players are happy to explore and enjoy uncovering the mysteries of the world. Others might demand an encyclopedic knowledge of the cosmos before they even feel comfortable creating their characters. You can give them enough to work from without presenting them with a mystical atlas of omniscience. Traits should usually be enough of a boost, but if they still expect knowledge beyond their official skill point distributions, use common sense, making sure that all other characters have similar opportunity for equal bonuses. Most importantly, provide motivation for each character throughout the adventure. They don’t need to be the chosen ones of prophecy, followed by a fawning throng of singing gnomes, but they do need some reason to be there.

While it’s good to give individuals focus (as long as it’s equally distributed), usually you will be engaging the group as a whole, as most challenges are designed for full group participation. Pay full attention to discussions within the party. If they make unwise group decisions after ignoring astute or correct observations from one quieter party member, you may need to point that out eventually. (But it’s okay to let them fail a few times first.) Puzzles and riddles are a common example of this. Also, be aware of player expectations with these. Some will rely strictly on in-game knowledge while others might feel real-world metagaming is okay. Let them know the relevant rules before flinging devious conundrums at them.

We all have off nights, and that’s okay as long as you’re capable of honest self-assessment and have a desire to improve. But don’t get complacent. Review each session, noting any imbalances in interaction or other shortfalls (hopefully stopping short of crippling perfectionism). Keep your group engaged, and you’ll most likely get another chance to kill them next week.