what you said about "a game about exploration teams without any explorations" is a pretty valid concern: in the absence of stimuli, action does tend to fade out of games. the important thing to remember when trying to solve that problem is that DWRP is about the journey, not the destination, so any incentives provided should be material that makes action fun and interesting to play out, rather than IC rewards for doing the action. one gets you people threading things; the other gets you people agreeing that their characters did something and handwaving it.
the best way to encourage players to act in a certain direction - whether that's explorations or whatever else the focus of the month is in this environment - is to provide new and interesting components of the setting. sometimes that means additions, but it'll usually mean events. strange weather. dungeons with peculiar effects, traps, or obstacles. a sudden demand on the market for chestnuts. the great annual wurmple woods race. people play when they see a possibility in the setting, go "hey that looks fun", and tag in with their character's response to it.
tl;dr it's the journey, not the destination, so make the journey eventful enough to tell a story about.
also, having a setting-and-narrative-based approach over a numbers-based approach will encourage alternative characters. the great draw of dwrp is that characters can choose to interact with a setting however they like, instead of being locked into a "start here go there" narrative. you might get characters who can't be arsed to work with others and go around stealing crap off of exploration teams. you might get more civilian-type characters who run shops and require escorts from exploration teams. i tend to play characters like that, so i'm a little biased, but allowing people to take a third option - which number systems that reward only the OOC-"right way" don't - adds to the variety in the setting and helps the other characters shine.
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what you said about "a game about exploration teams without any explorations" is a pretty valid concern: in the absence of stimuli, action does tend to fade out of games. the important thing to remember when trying to solve that problem is that DWRP is about the journey, not the destination, so any incentives provided should be material that makes action fun and interesting to play out, rather than IC rewards for doing the action. one gets you people threading things; the other gets you people agreeing that their characters did something and handwaving it.
the best way to encourage players to act in a certain direction - whether that's explorations or whatever else the focus of the month is in this environment - is to provide new and interesting components of the setting. sometimes that means additions, but it'll usually mean events. strange weather. dungeons with peculiar effects, traps, or obstacles. a sudden demand on the market for chestnuts. the great annual wurmple woods race. people play when they see a possibility in the setting, go "hey that looks fun", and tag in with their character's response to it.
tl;dr it's the journey, not the destination, so make the journey eventful enough to tell a story about.
also, having a setting-and-narrative-based approach over a numbers-based approach will encourage alternative characters. the great draw of dwrp is that characters can choose to interact with a setting however they like, instead of being locked into a "start here go there" narrative. you might get characters who can't be arsed to work with others and go around stealing crap off of exploration teams. you might get more civilian-type characters who run shops and require escorts from exploration teams. i tend to play characters like that, so i'm a little biased, but allowing people to take a third option - which number systems that reward only the OOC-"right way" don't - adds to the variety in the setting and helps the other characters shine.