… and I find myself quite frustrated over it.
We have a semi-regular party and this is our fourth campaign, but they’re chaotic and make it difficult to DM for. (Sorry, rant incoming)
I put a lot of plot threads throughout the campaign. The party would find an important NPC that has been assassinated… But rather than investigating it, they opted to ‘not touch the crime scene’ and move on. They found a dwarven girl who was cursed, but decided to drop her off at a tavern. Lastly they found an unidentified plot related magic item but chose not to identify it until the last ~2 sessions, when it was largely irrelevant.
In the end, some of the players said they didn’t understand the story and wanted more narrative. They noted they were aware of some of the plot hooks but chose not to engage with them, but were also frustrated by suffering the consequences of ignoring quests/issues/NPCs.
One party member would frequently start big fights, and at one point walked up to the BBEG’S fort (noticing a massive row of archers, I made the danger very clear), he knocked on the front door and announced he wanted to fight.
The hail of arrows left two party members very injured and two on death saving throws, which led the party to be upset with me for an unbalanced encounter. (It wasn’t supposed to be an encounter)
He turned another low level encounter into a near TPK by yelling into a goblin cave as he wished to fight ‘all’ of the goblins at once.
The rogue couldn’t decide who he wanted to be and kept changing up his personality. At one point he was wearing heavy armor (without proficiency) and using a weapon he didn’t have proficiency in. He wanted to subclass into spellcasting, but also wanted to use a heavy crossbow. (He had 12 weapons he collected, and would randomly use a different one). He would often charge the enemy, and never got to use his sneak attacks bonus until 75% through the campaign.
When he very nearly died from these choices (probably around 4-5 near deaths, thanks to his party rescuing him each time), he proudly announced his next character would be the same rolled character, but with a 2 at the end of his name.
I had one player message me afterwards that it was the worst campaign so far, and wanted more roleplaying and narrative. Immediately followed by another player very excited for the next campaign.
I am at a loss.
On one hand, the party obviously enjoys the chaos but they also dislike the consequences and lack of narrative their chaos brings. What would you do?
So this is a two-pronged problem; Firstly, your players and their lack of initiative and desire for exploration, and Secondly, your choices as a DM for your players.
If your players are upset about the engagement of your story narrative while actively avoiding said narrative, I’m not sure what else they expect. A good way to circumvent situations like these is to prepare for such possibilities. For example, if you put a dead body as a plot hook for your party, have an investigator meet the party beforehand. He can then join/tail the party after asking if they’ll help him investigate a lost person. Regardless of their answer, you can still include him when the situation comes up to give your players more opportunity to invest in the plot hook. For magic items, maybe a mystic or attuner can sense the magic in the item.
It sounds like the problem is that you’re giving the players too much agency. Giving them a little less choice will help not only you hook the players into the plot, but also your players with their perceived lack of narrative. You said you’ve done three other sessions with these players. Did they just drastically change their play style in this campaign or did you change this campaign from the others in some way?
DM’ing is difficult. Aside from story- and world-building, you also have to accommodate for the playstyles of each of your players. This may be a controversial statement, but your world and story can be subpar if you keep your players engaged. The most important job as the DM is to make sure everyone is having fun. That should always take priority.
They’ve always been a little chaotic, but this campaign was definitely extra. Ironically some of the past campaigns were similar, if not more open.
Regardless I have a lot of good points to consider here, thanks!