How do I encourage my players to do research?

[Anaki J.]

My players and I are about three sessions in to Book 1: In Search of Sanity. They have recently reached the library and have cleared out the threats therein. Two of my players are Int based classes; a wizard and an arcanist. They both enjoy books, the wizard especially, and while they seemed pleased at the sight of a library neither is showing any interest in actually perusing the collection.

Now it doesn't seem like the information held within is crucial for completing the mod, but they will definitely miss out on some cool lore and world building stuff. The mod itself does not provide any hooks to entice research--probably because they assume anyone playing a game like this will already be interested--but I would greatly appreciate any suggestions on spurring their interest.

[TheFlyingPhoton]

My group felt pressure to clear the asylum quickly, but didn't see a pressing need to explore the library, so they passed it by.
They did go back and do it after clearing the asylum. So maybe you could point it out to them and remind them it's there when they're on their way out.

It's not very critical, so they don't need to do it, it's mainly there to introduce them to the mechanic. Though, there's some stuff in later books that they may not know what's going on if they don't look into this library. But, the amount of time that'll pass in the real world is so large they'll likely forget what they find there anyways.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Did you explicitly tell them that they could learn more about the asylum and the island by perusing the books in the library?

IMO, that would be obvious to their characters from seeing the titles of the books on the shelves (or the books the ratlings threw at them), but might not be obvious to the players, who might be thinking library=set dressing.

[Nullpunkt]

I would also just flat-out tell the players that it could be fun to peruse those books. A little heavy-handed, but sometimes players need that. Especially when they have bookish character concepts, sometimes a little nudge towards roleplaying those traits goes a long way.

Another way would be to overemphasize the temptation of the titles of some of those books and see if they take the bait.

[Daeryon]

I would bet this is a common problem. "We're adventurers! Not Librarians! Now where's the tavern wenches?"

A couple tricks I used:

A character had a vague deja-vu moment on seeing a book title. (prompting him to pick it up and start reading).

Subtle hints from the DM like: "WOW. He found something in a book. What a neat idea".
Suddenly they were almost all librarians.

[TheFlyingPhoton]

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

Did you explicitly tell them that they could learn more about the asylum and the island by perusing the books in the library?

I told them there was something there in the library and that the research mechanic would be involved (which they knew about because of the campaign trait) to try to help settle a player dispute.

I had one player that was planning on going Loremaster, so he jumps on any books they come across. One of the other players (who has since quit the campaign) was vehemently anti-exploration and would push hard for everyone to just get to the next room, no looking around, no loot. After being told the library wasn't just a setting, the future loremaster compromised, agreeing to go back to the library once everything was done. When the boss of the asylum was killed, the impatient player insisted they not stay. The other players (who only really cared about combat and things that get written down on the character sheet) wanted to check the unexplored rooms, but didn't want to look around the library because they didn't put any ranks into any knowledge (I told them they didn't need ranks and that the research goes a lot faster if everyone participates). The impatient player quit (for unrelated reasons), and the other players left the asylum after checking the other rooms but refused to aid in the research. The loremaster was annoyed because they had all made an agreement to research the library and were now backing out, so he stayed, splitting the party. I had the loremaster handle the research solo, and the rest of the party did the preliminary exploration of Thrushmoor, where I delayed major events until the party was reunited. I gave all of the XP for the asylum library to only the loremaster for soloing it. Having him be a level higher than everyone else for a few games got the other players to participate more in the plot.