How to Keep shy players form falling between the cracks in a RPG
How to get a shy player to participate in your RolePlaying Game. It sometimes seems odd to me why geeks love Role playing so much as it is
one of those games that require social interaction. So when you have a shy player how do you keep them involved in the game?
Here are a few ways to keep your shy player from getting frustrated. Set the appropriate expectations to of the behaviors that are acceptable at the game. I have a player in my group that seems to always talk over other players in the middle of a sentence. Not saying that what the interrupting player has to say is not important but its not their turn. So setting expectations of only one person can talk at a time unless you are roleplaying an argument will help greatly. Check in with the Shy player Now there is nothing wrong with a player sitting back and enjoying the story. So don't "force" them to interact if that is not what they really want can actually be worse. If you notice that one of the players is not being very active check in with them when the others are not around. Find out what their goals are and then try to help out those goals even if that is allowing them to sit quietly and enjoy the show. Keep track of who is active in the game.
I use a spreadsheet to keep track of the players in my Homeworlds RPG . Every time I award some XP to player for kicks ass role playing I mark it down on my spreadsheet at the end of the game I take a look at the scores of all the players (It's really not a Judge of how they play but a score of how I am as a Gamemaster is doing) . Whoever is the lowest score of the night ends up being the topic of the next adventure. You can get a copy of the spreadsheet that I use here as a free download from the RPG tools page.
Set up all the players around the table in the order of initiative
then be very clear on who's turn it is. I have seen people use counters to a bottle to point at the player who has their turn. Ask the more dominate players to help the shy player. Here is the as more famous example of this. http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/09/heres-how-obamas-female-staffers-made-their-voices-heard.html
