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I am involved in running a campaign and recently I have found myself utterly frustrated. We have been playing this particular campaign for almost a year now and although at the start everyone seemed like they were on-board for a story driven game with a good amount of role playing I find that often I feel like I am the only person interested in actually participating in the story.
Throughout the campaign I have been working on dropping subtle clues on things that the party should be pursuing, or at least asking questions about, but if I (or an NPC) don't explicitly tell them what to do next they seem lost and clueless. I often get the feeling that the party would prefer to just play a hack and slash campaign and my efforts are just falling on deaf ears.
As I can tell one or more of a few things is going on:
*The writing/storytelling is terrible and the players are having a hard time understanding what's going on and thus are too intimidated to be involved.
*The writing/storytelling is too subtle and the clues/foreshadowing I'm dropping on them is being dismissed as unimportant.
*They really don't care and just want to fight stuff.
As of the last session the party had their final confrontations with one of the story's major villains and although they emerged victorious one of the major allied NPCs was killed as a result of the party not doing certain things they needed to do during the encounter (or in this case doing things they were supposed to not do). The allied NPC was essentially dead for good and the party was genuinely surprised. When I spoke to a few of the players afterwards the results ranged from 'I knew what we were supposed to do, I just didn't warn player X' to 'NPC Y didn't spell it out for us'.
Am I wasting my time? The campaign is coming to a close soon anyways, should I just put the rest of the plot on the rails and focus on making the last few combat encounters as fun as possible.
I hate subtle clues (which could explain my poor dating track record prior to getting married...).
Hit me over the head with something obvious every time, man!
A year is a long time.
Time for a break, amigo. Walk away for a few weeks. If it is worth it, you will get back to it later.
Try a different game for a while maybe? Let someone else GM if there are any willing?
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A year is a long time.
Time for a break, amigo. Walk away for a few weeks. If it is worth it, you will get back to it later.
Try a different game for a while maybe? Let someone else GM if there are any willing?
We play once every two-three weeks and occasionally someone else runs as a 'guest DM'. It's not a burn out thing.
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Kingmaker has several wanted posters for different things that clearly spell out what the task is and how to complete it.....
I did not use the posters just had people telling the PCs about things at opportune times!they might do better in a sandbox, exploration, collect the reward for the task things....
A couple of examples:
From kingmaker...Wanted: Bandits
Source: Wanted poster at Oleg’s Trading Post
Task: The bandits in the Greenbelt need to be
shown that their actions will not be tolerated.
Capture or defeat at least six of them to send
a message.
Completion: Any six bandits defeated completes this
quest.
Reward: One week after the sixth defeat, bandit
activity is noticeably affected and the swordlords
send a reward of 400 gp.Wanted: Tatzlwyrm
Source: Wanted poster at Oleg’s Trading Post
Task: The way everyone talks about tatzlwyrms,
one might think they’re swarming throughout the
Stolen Lands. This isn’t the case; they’re actually
quite rare. A tatzlwyrm head would be a great
conversation piece at Oleg’s. He has promised a
reward for anyone who can deliver one.
Completion: Slay a tatzlwyrm and deliver its head.
Reward: Oleg will pay 600 gp for a relatively
undamaged tatzlwyrm head.
Yeah, I considered doing 'quest handouts' a few times but I since we're so close to the end doing so now would be no different from just telling them, 'You need to do X and Y next'.
Besides, having a WoW-esque quest log like this doesn't really encourage the players to ask questions and explore. It wouldn't really work for the campaign we has planned on (or at least I the one I thought we had planned on). That said, I love their use in Kingmaker.
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I am involved in running a campaign and recently I have found myself utterly frustrated. We have been playing this particular campaign for almost a year now and although at the start everyone seemed like they were on-board for a story driven game with a good amount of role playing I find that often I feel like I am the only person interested in actually participating in the story.
Throughout the campaign I have been working on dropping subtle clues on things that the party should be pursuing, or at least asking questions about, but if I (or an NPC) don't explicitly tell them what to do next they seem lost and clueless. I often get the feeling that the party would prefer to just play a hack and slash campaign and my efforts are just falling on deaf ears.
As I can tell one or more of a few things is going on:
*The writing/storytelling is terrible and the players are having a hard time understanding what's going on and thus are too intimidated to be involved.
*The writing/storytelling is too subtle and the clues/foreshadowing I'm dropping on them is being dismissed as unimportant.
*They really don't care and just want to fight stuff.As of the last session the party had their final confrontations with one of the story's major villains and although they emerged victorious one of the major allied NPCs was killed as a result of the party not doing certain things they needed to do during the encounter (or in this case doing things they were supposed to not do). The allied NPC was essentially dead for good and the party was genuinely surprised. When I spoke to a few of the players afterwards the results ranged from 'I knew what we were supposed to do, I just didn't warn player X' to 'NPC Y didn't spell it out for us'.
Am I wasting my time? The campaign is coming to a close soon anyways, should I just put the rest of the plot on the rails and focus on making the last few combat encounters as fun as possible.
Seriously. Print your own post out as a crib sheet. Alternatively, sit down at the table with your players and ask this one simple question:
"I need to know really and truly: are you guys having fun?"
And follow up with
"What can I do to make sure you are having fun?"
They may well assuage your fears or help you realize where GM and Player vision are just not meshing.
If you just get kind of a bland/noncommittal "Yeah sure whatever..." then say, "Really? Because I am not getting a lot of enthusiasm," and go into more detail.
For the record, I hear ya. I advertised a campaign amongst my friends about being an urban adventure with a lot of intrigue. I thought I had made it pretty clear that players would be encouraged to try to pick up subtle clues and engage in a lot of spy-type work. The players--not every single one, but the majority of them--then proceeded to plow through the thing like a video game, seeking the next quest giver and the next quest to achieve, and disregarded any "quest" that wasn't "go and kill these people." There weren't--as a rule--asking many questions or looking beyond the surface of anything I presented them (and when they did, it tended to be seeing nothing where there was maliciousness, but they were certain the mousy secretary helping them with paperwork was up to no good...). I got frustrated, but I talked to them. Some players who hadn't played a D&D type game in a long time admitted they had just been looking forward to kicking butt. Some of them gave me valuable feedback about when I wasn't doing a good enough job dropping clues.
I re-worked the campaign, taking them away from the urban setting. I kept the plot in the background, but essentially sent them to deal with a different aspect of the same problem, one that involved more direct dealings with dungeon crawling and bad guys, while still keeping enough political overtones for the players who did engage with that so they could benefit from their good RP in that regard. It ended up fine--it was disappointing that I didn't get to play out my intrigue game, but I think in retrospect I wasn't with the right group and wasn't experienced enough as a GM at the time to pull it off--but it gave me plenty to learn from for the future.
But it wouldn't have ended well at all if I hadn't talked to the players and figured out what was going on with them and how they were perceiving the game.
+1 DQ.
x1000.
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For the record, I hear ya. I advertised a campaign amongst my friends about being an urban adventure with a lot of intrigue. I thought I had made it pretty clear that players would be encouraged to try to pick up subtle clues and engage in a lot of spy-type work. The players--not every single one, but the majority of them--then proceeded to plow through the thing like a video game, seeking the next quest giver and the next quest to achieve, and disregarded any "quest" that wasn't "go and kill these people." There weren't--as a rule--asking many questions or looking beyond the surface of anything I presented them (and when they did, it tended to be seeing nothing where there was maliciousness, but they were certain the mousy secretary helping them with paperwork was up to no good...). I got frustrated, but I talked to them. Some players who hadn't played a D&D type game in a long time admitted they had just been looking forward to kicking butt. Some of them gave me valuable feedback about when I wasn't doing a good enough job dropping clues.
I re-worked the campaign, taking them away from the urban setting. I kept the plot in the background, but essentially sent them to deal with a different aspect of the same problem, one that involved more direct dealings with dungeon crawling and bad guys, while still keeping enough political overtones for the players who did engage with that so they could benefit from their good RP in that regard. It ended up fine--it was disappointing that I didn't get to play out my intrigue game, but I think in retrospect I wasn't with the right group and wasn't experienced enough as a GM at the time to pull it off--but it gave me plenty to learn from for the future.
But it wouldn't have ended well at all if I hadn't talked to the players and figured out what was going on with them and how they were perceiving the game.
Yeah, this is more or less what I was considering doing - removing a lot of the 'figure it out' elements and just giving them each quest word for word as it comes up. I think they'll ultimately have more fun with it and I won't have to work as hard (and ultimately be less frustrated). It sounds like it worked out for you.
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This is one of the most difficult things about being a GM. Every player seems to claim that they love rich, detailed, immersive role playing stories. I certainly do. I'm all about the story.
But you know, sometimes life gets in the way and when I come to the gaming table all I want to do is relax, kill some bad guys, and make stupid Monty Python jokes with my friends. I feel badly afterwards when I realize that the GM was beating us over the head with the "get a clue" bat, but in the end, it's a game and I do it to have fun and get away from the stress of life for a while.
So I assume most players are at least similar to me. So when I am a GM I avoid subtlety entirely. I constantly remind the players about the overall plot, the point we are at now, and whether there is something that their characters should be thinking about in game.
On occasion I'll get a "duh, I know that dude!" response from an involved player, but the vast majority of the time the response is "oh yeah! That thing! Hey, we totally need to save that NPC guys!"
I find that works out best in the long run.
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One thing i have learned from being on both sides of the screen many times, is no one thinks alike. Seriously, you have 4+people on the other side of the table who's brains work nothing like yours. They will always think of things you didnt think of and miss things you thought were obvious. Unless they have some kind of formal investigative training, it may very well be they do care but just missed it. I cant say how many times I have been actively looking for the next clue in a game, trying gather information, interogating npcs, looking over notes, and totally missing something my dm set there to be important. I was looking, I wanted to participate...I missed it. And once you miss the first clue, the follow up clues become totally invisible. To you the dm, everything is building up to the big reveal. To the player that missed the beggining, he missed the train, and isnt catching up.
Now does that mean they might just not care or you didnt do a good job? Maybe, but chances are its just the fact that you are humans. Also keep in mind a year is a long long time. And though you probably spend 3 nights a week working on your story, they dont interact with it anywhere near as often. The forget, they misplace notes, or they forget what notes refer to.
Ways to combat this? Campaign journal. Seriously, put it up on message boards or in an email chain, but keep a written reccord of your game where your players can see it. Make sure the important clues are in there somewhere. Remember you have your notes and write outs to refer to remind yourself what's going on. Even if a player takes notes, its never as detailed as a dms work or what is in an Adventure path. Give them more detail so they can refer back. Keep a copy of the journal at the table either on a laptop or printed out so they can refer back to it when new clues come up.
Encourage them to keep their own campaign journals. Take 20 minutes at the end of every session and ask them to spend some time writting down their characters impressions of the events of that session. Maybe not 20, maybe 10 or 5, repetition is the mother of memory, and if they write it, they'll remember, and hopefully they'll notice the important stuff.
Obviously this is all moot if they are really more interested in kicking ni dungeon doors and killing monsters, which is why this needs to start with a conversation with your players. Do that, find out what they want and move on from there. And dont just do it at the start of the game, do it after every session. Ask them what they think, what they liked, didnt like, what htey are interested to follow. Even if they want story, they may not like every story no matter the quality. Finding out what in your world interests them will make it easier for you to create a compelling story for them.
+1 to Kolok
If you want to see how differently your mind works from your players' minds, just create what you think is a dirt simple puzzle to solve and watch them go into contortions trying to figure it out. It always opens my eyes how totally differently my mind works and other people's minds do.
I agree and endorse what Kolokotroni said as well. I have a message board for my campaign where I keep my campaign notes (which players and visitors can read) that is sort of like a campaign diary. I also post rumors and things that we didn't get a chance to rp out in the session.
PCs who want to keep abreast of the campaign can peruse the posts and print them out if they want. I also encourage them all to take their own notes during the session. Some do but most don't. Those who do are a leg up on the others when it comes to having a clue about what's going on in the campaign world. I don't like everything revolving around a skill roll. But that's my personal opinion.
One thing i have learned from being on both sides of the screen many times, is no one thinks alike. Seriously, you have 4+people on the other side of the table who's brains work nothing like yours. They will always think of things you didnt think of and miss things you thought were obvious. Unless they have some kind of formal investigative training, it may very well be they do care but just missed it. I cant say how many times I have been actively looking for the next clue in a game, trying gather information, interogating npcs, looking over notes, and totally missing something my dm set there to be important. I was looking, I wanted to participate...I missed it. And once you miss the first clue, the follow up clues become totally invisible. To you the dm, everything is building up to the big reveal. To the player that missed the beggining, he missed the train, and isnt catching up.
As a side note, my old DM always used the following rule for things like this: If you ever absolutely need the palyer to figure something out, make sure to have three independent paths of getting there, chances are they will find one.
One time I had take a (rather deadly) wizardry test to become an official red wizard of thay. The trials were rather broad and thinking back I could see that there were other routes I could take other than the one I chose (still nearly got killed by the aboleth). It was still challenging, yet it was clear that there was a solution that I could find.
@OP: Were they ever getting the subtle clues?
If so then either:
A) They stopped caring and just want to fight stuff
B) Your clues have become too subtle
If not:
A) They might never have cared.
B) Your clues were always too subtle.
C) The players just aren't good at finding clues.
The only way to tell if A) is the case in either situation is to talk to them. In the latter case, if they did care, you can differentiate between the two by giving them a complex, yet overt puzzle. If they succeed, then your clues were too subtle. If they fail, then they aren't good at problem solving and the endeavor was doomed from the get-go.
sometimes it may not be a case of lack of interest but how the information is conveyed. we just finished this game involving a lawful evil side vs a chaotic evil side. we figured out fast to talk to the le side for information but just killed the CE guys when wevsaw them with no urge to talk. the dms whole plan involved us working both sides to save the city but either player mindset or dm setting this never came about. the end result was I as a player couldn't follow what was going on.
thevfact that we just killed the CE guys on sight may have ome across as hack n slash but any need o talk to them felt forced.
if you are playing every two week it could be that they are forgetting . things. the kingmaker wanted posters may work well for player memory then.
Definitely tell your players. Have a conversation. Maybe they're wanting hack-n-slash. Maybe they don't pick up clues. Personally, I do the three-ways-to-find-a-clue thing. I call it "dropping an anvil." Clues are usually too small for players to notice.
I once had the PCs find a note that explained where the BBEG was hiding. Each of the three players looked, read the note, and then asked "So, where do we think this guy's at?" I just about lost it.
As a player, this is why I always keep a campaign journal. As a GM, this is why it pains me that no one ever keeps a campaign journal.
For the record, I hear ya. I advertised a campaign amongst my friends about being an urban adventure with a lot of intrigue...Yeah, this is more or less what I was considering doing - removing a lot of the 'figure it out' elements and just giving them each quest word for word as it comes up. I think they'll ultimately have more fun with it and I won't have to work as hard (and ultimately be less frustrated). It sounds like it worked out for you.
What was IMPORTANT was running the situation by them; the specific solution I came up with was what you say, but only because I ran it by them first. It could be they were looking for something entirely different--just as your players might be--and I wouldn't know except that I talked to them about it.
Your players may have entirely different needs or expectations than mine did. The point is not to repeat exactly what a stranger on the Internet did with her friends, the point is to get feedback from your own friends and fix it right.
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No, no... trust me. You emphasized it enough.
Another thing to remember is that there is a strong relationship between how subtle you can be and how often you play. At two to three weeks your problem might be that your clues aren't too subtle for your players, but they don't remember some of the clues you've given them.
As an example say you've got a mysterious organization that is going after the players, and the members all wear iron rings. Over the course of the campaign several seemingly unrelated encounters all have the leaders with iron rings. If you're not making a big deal about the rings, and just adding them to the loot each time, a group that plays more often is more likely to make the connection. They are more likely to remember small, seemingly unimportant details.
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As of the last session the party had their final confrontations with one of the story's major villains and although they emerged victorious one of the major allied NPCs was killed as a result of the party not doing certain things they needed to do during the encounter (or in this case doing things they were supposed to not do). The allied NPC was essentially dead for good and the party was genuinely surprised. When I spoke to a few of the players afterwards the results ranged from 'I knew what we were supposed to do, I just didn't warn player X' to 'NPC Y didn't spell it out for us'.
I've been in a player in a similar sounding campaign and probably behaved in a similar way.
It was basically because the GM was try to tell a story rather than getting the players to tell the story so basically we didn't care.
The story the GM was telling was great and we wanted to be part of it but we couldn't because there was too much that we had to do.
It can be a fine balance, some things have to happen - final boss fight etc, but some (most) has to be flexible so the players can tell the story.
I can bring some wise words from pc game design:
If a backgorund don't effect the story, don't waste time creating it.
If a background is vital to the story make sure the player will get it, not by guessing "they will do X or Y" but simply by telling it straight to them.
I have the same problem from time to time, write whole story concepts, but what's left at the end?
"A goblin tribe lead by a dark force. the tribe pillage the village, defeat them."
It doesn't matter at this moment that the dark force is an ancient god who was defeated and imprissoned a thousand years ago and at some time in the future (aka lvl 16) the players will defeat his avatar, who will try to free his master.
The background is fine, but until lvl 16 it doesn't matter.
especially if you want to create a campaign from lvl 1 to 20 you have to be patient, it's hard I know, the idea is so nice you have to tell...
Otherwise talk to your group what they want, simle skirmish play or heroic campaign arcs?
Also estergum give a good advice:
Don't tell a story to the player let them create their own, where you only set up the stages.
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To the OP: This may help you.
I use a similar system for making presentations at conferences
Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them
Rule of three. Hollywood uses this a lot if the film makes you want to remember something. Usually a theme or name will be mentioned 3 times to make you remember it. It's useful in GMing to get people to remember a name or point of interest.
Good orators will use the rule of 3 a lot in speeches often as climactic statements. e.g.
Friends, Romans, countrymen...
...so much, owed by so many, to so few
...free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last.
Useful for GM's to remember that too.
Three is the magic number...
As a player I hate being railroaded. As a DM I hate it when players ruin my story arc by not 'getting it'. The balance point is inbetween a linear adventure path and the sandbox. My best games have been when I have let the players have the illusion that they can go anywhere and do anything, my worst when I have been telling them a story and letting them roll dice once in a while as though it mattered. One thing that is really important is establishing from the outset what kind of game you want to run and getting your players onboard. You will always find someone who will insist on playing but has their own ideas about what they want the game to be and will try to take it in that direction, but providing you stay true to the original concept and have the majority of players onside it should work. When it comes to laying down clues, the rule of three is an excellent model to follow as players don't always write down the important stuff and end up frustrated that they missed the DMs hints.
We always used to invoke the "three wood lice rule" when deciding whether a plot was too complicated. (Admittedly for live action role play where as a general rule, the party IQ was equal to the average IQ of the players divided by the number in the party).
Explain the plot to three wood lice. If two of them get it, it's simple enough.
The problem with complicated plots is that the GM almost invariably works from the 'reveal' backwards through logical steps to the initial clues. When you see the whole web, it's obvious. On the other hand, some villain described as wearing a red sash when by his rank and class it should be green isn't likely to grab the attention of a player. Regularly checking what the players think is going on allows you to work out what they've missed so that you can tell them again (only this time with two swats from the hint paddle). I have known of a campaign that ended suddenly with "on the other side of the world, the demon you *should* have been trying to thwart wakes from his thousand year sleep and conquers the world".
<shrug>
I think the players still had fun.
I can bring some wise words from pc game design:
If a backgorund don't effect the story, don't waste time creating it.
Ohhh, so not true. Take Halo vs. Blacksite. Both perfectly adequate FPS games. Halo I've played again and again, Blacksite I made it to the end (I think) and have forgotten it completely. The difference - Halo takes place in a setting that has depth and someone spent a very long time working on it. (OK, they were probably thinking of the merchandising, but still...)
I DM the Rise of the Runelords adventure path and we play like once a month... So it's obvious that my players will not retain every little detail of the past few games. Here's what I do to help the story make sense after weeks of not playing.
1. As DM, I am also "a voice" in their character's thought processes. I don't straight give out answers, but slightly lead them in the right direction.
2. At the end of each session, we talk for a few minutes about what they've learned during the present game. I regive names, point-out facts that the players came up with during the game.
3. After the game, maybe a few days later, I always type up a "Dungeon Stats" sheet that I e-mail to my players. This sheet includes, Experience points gained during the last game, the Xp totals, a count of critical hits and fumbles (for fun), the top three "Hot Shots" (which consists of most damage done toa an enemy in a single blow or spell), the player of the week (who usually ended up with the most xp), and a segment called "The Story So Far..." (which is a quick recap of the last game including what we've discussed at the end of the game, like important people and facts). I also have a hard copy of every dungeon stat in a binder close to the table that my players refer to from time to time...
4. At the start of every game I quickly re-read the last "Story So Far..." segment to refresh my players memory a little.
Remember that you have to step in if someone is playing a character with a 20 intelligence score (as the player himself is most certainely not a super-genius): "Ok, so this and that happens, and just by the look of it, the wizard deduces that this is yet another attempt by the baron to further his ascention to power...".
Your players may not have a clue, but their characters should know what they're doing.
Ultradan
Hello all. I've seen some players not get points or forget. It happens, it is understandable, especially if they are only half in the game.
I've taken to using a facebook group, with the players all as members, so we know when the game is on, what each session will be about, what happened after the game, and recently added what they could do next session and where they could go.
Also allows me to add pics of npcs and monsters.
It is a bit of a sandbox game, so I am giving them some help. One player is very driven and into it, the others a little more passive, but eager for combat and some actions with their players (e.g. cav guy wants to be in the cav battle coming up).
Also, you can't forget the power of good description. If they have heard how something smelt or you spent time explaining the appearance, they might remember it more.
e.g. a player talks to a monk of the Golden Erinyes, I describe how she seems almost dead inside, focused, calm, seemingly on auto-pilot. She doesn't seem intelligent, humourous, witty, there is nothing there but duty, not even ego. He shows courtesies, but they are unnoticed, she is not a political player, she is a tool.
As I looked at the somewhat now uncomfortable player, I knew he was starting to get who these people are. It isn't an un-fleshed out npc, it is a woman made into an obedient ki hammer.
I like stories as a player and a DM!
But I like freedom even more as a player. Sometimes the overarching story can feel like a straightjacket. For example, my current character and party are trapped in a city besieged by tens of thousands of sauhaugin. We've been running from a sauhaugin siege for, oh, about three months real time now. Now I like a lot of the story lines our DM has going on, but if you start giving me 3 months of sauhaugin and scrags, my character is going to start wishing for a bomb large enough to blow this whole besieged continent up. I want a choice, and by choice I do not mean a choice of ways to break the sauhaugin siege. Maybe I don't give two $&%'s about the sauhaugin siege any more.
As a DM, I create lots of my own stories, but I try not to write endings, and I try to adapt them after choices the players make that I wasn't even anticipating. One of my players in the last campaign actually volunteered to sacrifice his character in order to save the realm. It was an eventuality I had made allowances for, but I thought they'd go for the direct confrontation for the big bad instead. I try to think about what choices my players would like to make and plan the plot around that. When I give them 3 choices and they leave the rails entirely, I improvise. Maybe the realm doesn't have to get saved at all. Maybe they just want to escape and live with whatever consequences come with that. Maybe they want to watch while the dragon eats the princess instead of saving her. Fair and good, but be prepared when her dad the king finds out and does everything in his power to hold you responsible.
I used to get frustrated when my story didn't go the way I wanted, or the players weren't as impressed with it as I was when I wrote it. Now I let them react however they want to what I've written. I believe the unexpected is a crucial element to the exitement and fun in this game, and player choices are a major engine of it. To a large extent, your players are rolling with whatever world and rules you came up with. Try to roll with them as well. See what happens.
Something that helps me a lot as a player is reminders or callbacks from the GM. For example someone upthread mentioned a clue being iron rings that all the leaders wore. You could shout iron ring over and over each time and hope they remember. You could write it down or make them write it down and hope they remember. But I suggest that each time they find an iron ring you just tell them they remember. “He has x weapons, x armor, x magic items, x gold and an iron ring that looks just like the one you found on [insert list of past ‘iron ring possessing guys’ here].”
Another thing that’s helps is not letting them go too far down the wrong rabbit hole. I let players go off the rails as far as they want, but when they start getting out of sight of the track, I let them know aboveboard. That way I know if they are heading in the wrong direction because they want to or because they think that is where the story is. If it is because they want to, I ask if they ever want to get back on track and just need a temporary distraction or are more interested blazing a different trail. Usually they reevaluate and try going at it from a different direction.
I’ve found players (me included) don’t want to be pointed in the right direction as much as be able to trust that the GM won’t let them invest too much in the wrong one – that is assuming they are still into the story at all. It might be more a matter of them just needing a short break though. A side quest ‘dungeon crawl’ that is only tangentially related to the main story if at all might refresh them. Sometimes they just need to mindlessly kill s!*@ and/or experience some closure – you know an actual ending. Then they will come right back to the main story refreshed and raring to investigate.
A year is a long time to stay with the same story. If they are simply over it, don’t feel bad. When the story isn’t working for them, you just have to let it go and go back to the drawing board. It can be hard not to take it personally, but you can bring the game back around. I’ve done it.
I was able to salvage things by giving them a letter from another character's family describing problems going on in her hometown. I streamlined the plot, reskined the NPCs I had made up, backed off on the ‘these guys are real bastards’ thing some and they ended up saving that city in the end.
*The writing/storytelling is terrible and the players are having a hard time understanding what's going on and thus are too intimidated to be involved.
*The writing/storytelling is too subtle and the clues/foreshadowing I'm dropping on them is being dismissed as unimportant.
*They really don't care and just want to fight stuff.
Evil Lincoln is right, take a break and make sure a few things are being done in the game for the players. The players need to be stimulated by using thier abilities and you can intertwine the storyline in how they achieve that. The players need to feel a part of the story and I include relationships with NPC's that are re-occuring and they hand the PC's hints or obvious answeres. My group likes having their chracters involved with several different NPC's and I challenege the them routinely. They enjoy the gaming sessions and sometimes I need a break to rethink new tactics and I try not to rush things. Hope that helps!
Not throwing punches, but sometimes a DM can do so much prep, writing, characterisation, and then for the players this becomes a railroad.
I've played games and wondered what really could be done, is this going to go a certain way no matter what we do?