Over on his "GM tips" blog, Sly Flourish, Mike Shea has posted an article about How to Get Back Your Players' Attention. I commented, because I found one piece of that advice a little counter-productive.. and I will share that comment with you here.
Much of Mike's advice works for me, I like the idea of keeping the initiative order in view… I might have to try the cards on the top of the screen. (I normally use a Paizo Combat Pad and I've experimented with a spreadsheet combat manager on my laptop.) Not so thrilled with the buddy system... if you're having that much trouble keeping their attention, I'm afraid that this would be a Band-Aid and not a cure for the real problem.
But the one thing I think it's going to work is having players pre-roll attacks and damage before their turn comes up. On one level, I have a player that I suspect would re-roll or declare that he used an at-will and not his daily if he thinks I wasn’t looking… he’s not my typical player, but he’s a friend and generally fun to play with, despite his competitive view of the game.
But on a more important level, a lot of the fun of such a tactical game is watching it unfold as it happens… the dice are what create the tension of combat, and pre-rolling the dice removes the tension out of the moment. It’s the difference between the whole group looking on, waiting to see if you’re going to hit the big bad at that critical moment (”A 20… 18 points of damage, eat cold steel, dragon!”) and phoning in your results… (”Yeah, wait until his turn’s over. I’m about to crit the dragon for 18 points of damage… it’ll be cool.”) By the time you declare your results, the energy has been drained out of it.
It’s almost like knowing if the batter is going to hit the ball before he steps up to the plate… if you already know the result, there’s no anticipation, no elation or let-down when he hits or misses.
What little roleplaying that happens during a combat comes from everyone paying attention and being in the moment… having players pre-roll is asking them to stop paying attention to what’s happening right now and think about what’s coming up. And that's the opposite of what we're trying to do here... get the players to be in the moment and pay attention to what's happening at the table right now.
My thoughts are, if you’re having this much trouble with players’ attention wandering, you probably have too many players at the table, or the DM is running with too many monsters (or, if you’re me, you’re taking too long to make up your mind about what to do).
My solution is to ban the iPhones and Blackberries if they’re causing trouble (if they can’t distract themselves, they might actually get interested in what other people are doing), cut down to a manageable number of players, cut all monster hit-points by 1/3rd so that the “it’s all over, but the fat lady still has 23 hit points” tail end of combat is minimized. Keep things moving fast and keep them interesting, so that the players find what’s going on at the table more interesting than texting their girlfriends or checking the latest sports scores.
The player’s side of the game is not so complex that he needs a computer to keep track of his character. I’d rather players use pencil and paper, and avoid the distraction of a computer interface just to keep track of hit points and the minimal resources of 4E. As a DM, I’m reluctant to use a computer on my end… the interface itself can become distracting, when it takes longer to find the right tab/window and position in my document to make a note than it does to scribble something down on my notepad. I’ve experimented a bit, but I haven’t found/developed the solution that doesn’t “take me away from the table” when I interact with it.
Thoughts on wandering player attention
Over on his "GM tips" blog, Sly Flourish, Mike Shea has posted an article about How to Get Back Your Players' Attention. I commented, because I found one piece of that advice a little counter-productive.. and I will share that comment with you here.
Much of Mike's advice works for me, I like the idea of keeping the initiative order in view… I might have to try the cards on the top of the screen. (I normally use a Paizo Combat Pad and I've experimented with a spreadsheet combat manager on my laptop.) Not so thrilled with the buddy system... if you're having that much trouble keeping their attention, I'm afraid that this would be a Band-Aid and not a cure for the real problem.
But the one thing I think it's going to work is having players pre-roll attacks and damage before their turn comes up. On one level, I have a player that I suspect would re-roll or declare that he used an at-will and not his daily if he thinks I wasn’t looking… he’s not my typical player, but he’s a friend and generally fun to play with, despite his competitive view of the game.
But on a more important level, a lot of the fun of such a tactical game is watching it unfold as it happens… the dice are what create the tension of combat, and pre-rolling the dice removes the tension out of the moment. It’s the difference between the whole group looking on, waiting to see if you’re going to hit the big bad at that critical moment (”A 20… 18 points of damage, eat cold steel, dragon!”) and phoning in your results… (”Yeah, wait until his turn’s over. I’m about to crit the dragon for 18 points of damage… it’ll be cool.”) By the time you declare your results, the energy has been drained out of it.
It’s almost like knowing if the batter is going to hit the ball before he steps up to the plate… if you already know the result, there’s no anticipation, no elation or let-down when he hits or misses.
What little roleplaying that happens during a combat comes from everyone paying attention and being in the moment… having players pre-roll is asking them to stop paying attention to what’s happening right now and think about what’s coming up. And that's the opposite of what we're trying to do here... get the players to be in the moment and pay attention to what's happening at the table right now.
My thoughts are, if you’re having this much trouble with players’ attention wandering, you probably have too many players at the table, or the DM is running with too many monsters (or, if you’re me, you’re taking too long to make up your mind about what to do).
My solution is to ban the iPhones and Blackberries if they’re causing trouble (if they can’t distract themselves, they might actually get interested in what other people are doing), cut down to a manageable number of players, cut all monster hit-points by 1/3rd so that the “it’s all over, but the fat lady still has 23 hit points” tail end of combat is minimized. Keep things moving fast and keep them interesting, so that the players find what’s going on at the table more interesting than texting their girlfriends or checking the latest sports scores.
The player’s side of the game is not so complex that he needs a computer to keep track of his character. I’d rather players use pencil and paper, and avoid the distraction of a computer interface just to keep track of hit points and the minimal resources of 4E. As a DM, I’m reluctant to use a computer on my end… the interface itself can become distracting, when it takes longer to find the right tab/window and position in my document to make a note than it does to scribble something down on my notepad. I’ve experimented a bit, but I haven’t found/developed the solution that doesn’t “take me away from the table” when I interact with it.