D&D 5E What does this photo say to you? [Project: Morningstar)

[Ruin Explorer]

Er... no. At least, not so flatly and generally. If nothing else, compulsive internet use and ADD are real things, and we are GMs, not mental health professionals.

There are other, less clinical problems, where the major issue is still on the player's side, not the GM's.

I think the generalization - "all you guys who are complaining about distraction are just bad GMs!" - without having discussed it at length, is pretty dismissive.

Amusingly, I have adult ADHD, but as I DM, rather than play, my attention is so constantly in demand, it's never an issue (well, in-game - it can be in trying to get organised, which is why I prefer games which require lower levels of prep).

The only digitally-mediated thing I've seen that prove problematic is needy SOs (of either gender) who regularly text/tweet and expect their other half to be attentive/responsive to that even if it's not like, in any way time-sensitive. Nothing DMs can do about that, though. Oh that and employees/bosses who have no respect for boundaries or work hours, and who feel like they can get away with it more when they send texts/emails rather than phone and actually have to talk to a human.

But yeah, I don't think most distractions are within the purview of the DM. Some players don't have distractions, some do. Some can also multi-task so well that you might think that they're distracted but it turns out they totally aren't.

 

[Emirikol]

My group is guilty of having electronics at the table (as am I personally).

I find that the recent research regarding a person's involvement with the topic being "learned" is significantly reduced and in some cases, people are entirely dropping out, is reflected by my own experience.

Electronics are proven to wreck the communal experience and significantly reduce or eliminate a person's ability to participate in a group.

"Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers"
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254

Since most of us gamers seem to be pretty bright fellows, shouldn't we be inclined to heed this?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Since most of us gamers seem to be pretty bright fellows, shouldn't we be inclined to heed this?

Because whilst it accords with your experience, it doesn't accord with ours? Because we are pretty bright fellows, we actually understand how to critically analyze information, and determine whether it is useless? As the vast majority of studies on this sort of thing are. Most of them are waffle which is directly contradicted by a study released a few months later.

I mean, if we listened to every dodgy study, we'd have made D&D illegal years ago, not to mention computer games, which have been the subject of countless studies showing how detrimental they are, and how, indeed, they turn our youth into killers.

Further, the study is about laptops being used during a particularly dull lecture - not about a variety of devices being used during a gaming sessions.

I strongly suggest you read your study. They basically performed the absolute worst, most worthless kind of lecture, an entirely one-sided affair where the lecturer bleats out stuff which is in the study materials anyway, which is not a situation remotely resembling a D&D game (I hope to god it isn't, anyway, or I've been doing it wrong all these years!). They forced half the class to perform tasks whilst taking notes - the writers of the article claim that their tasks were "representative" of what students do, but they appear to be a bad parody of what old people THINK students do, and even they admit they have no scientific basis whatsoever for either the nature of the tasks, their complexity, their duration, or really any other element of them - which by itself is enough to rob the study of any real scientific basis.

Also, is that article even peer-reviewed? I don't recognise the format, but it appears not.

EDIT - Also, your claim that the study supports your "wreck the communal experience" theory is completely unsupported by that study. All the study shows is reduced retention of what is essentially rote junk.

 

[Agamon]

If you're claiming you've eliminated any need to errata on an RPG you've designed, by playtesting, I'd like to know what RPG that was, and how many playtesters you used for how long. Please enlighten me.

I'm not claiming that, not sure where you got that from. Nominal doesn't mean non-existent. But let me enlighten you as to what I meant.

1E AD&D PH errata

2E AD&D PH errata

3E is 2 zip files, but comes to about 8 pages. And I think that's too much.

You mention the RC for 4e. If a game is digital only, as I stated, then errata isn't much of an issue. But D&D isn't digital only yet.

And really, this whole thing seems moot. I've been corrected of my original assumption, and the staggered release means they're taking errata seriously this time around. So it sounds like it won't be an issue.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Er... no. At least, not so flatly and generally. If nothing else, compulsive internet use and ADD are real things, and we are GMs, not mental health professionals.

There are other, less clinical problems, where the major issue is still on the player's side, not the GM's.

I think the generalization - "all you guys who are complaining about distraction are just bad GMs!" - without having discussed it at length, is pretty dismissive.

What part of "at my table" was too difficult for you to understand, Umbran? Did you require me to say "...which is poor DMing on my part." too?

I believe I used "I", "me", or "my" like eight different times... there's only so much I can do to not make people think I'm speaking in generalities here. LOL.

 

[Emirikol]

Also, is that article even peer-reviewed? I don't recognise the format, but it appears not.

EDIT - Also, your claim that the study supports your "wreck the communal experience" theory is completely unsupported by that study. All the study shows is reduced retention of what is essentially rote junk.

I wouldn't say "completely."

Yes it is a peer reviewed journal.

Yes, it was based on actual study.

Yes, it was involved in communal learning (lecture, ask, test, repeat) that we all had in school (unless you went to an alternate school).

Any GM that works behind a screen and reads read-aloud text will have their group negatively affected by people who are on their laptops, and people behind them will be even less attentive.

Please don't be offended if you are a laptopper just because I posted this study. It's not personal. Its just some people doing research. If you have questions about their study, I recommend that you ask THEM and not attack me.

Thanks,

jh

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Honestly, I just see a lot of studies these days attacking the digital domain. A bunch of them are funded by people with agendas. But more than that, I see that some of their results are correct but often fail to weigh the benefits that go along with the drawbacks. People are less able to concentrate on one thing at a time because they've been raised in the internet age and are constantly multitasking. Which seems bad until you consider that they are accomplishing more total by their multitasking than they would have if they were only single tasking. People get emotionally upset and stressed when you take away their internet access. Which makes sense given how much faster and easier whatever they are doing would be with internet access.

To me, the studies are kind of silly. It's like saying "When you take away someone's car and ask them to get groceries they get stressed and upset". Or "Studies show that a large number of people will ignore the world around them and won't hear someone speaking to them while reading a book".

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yup, I have a player who loves my games, and is the main instigator/organizer to getting them running.

And then during the game, if not directly involved, she is tapping on her phone or tablet. Contributes to the game, loves the atmosphere, has ADD and will get extremely frustrated and anxious if I tried to ban whatever she was using to dilute her anxiety.

So I learned not to try and change her behavior, but to accept it and "roll" with it.*


* roll, get it?

That's a good point that some players might need to distract themselves for mental health reasons. The trick is how to accommodate them without encouraging everyone else...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's a good point that some players might need to distract themselves for mental health reasons. The trick is how to accommodate them without encouraging everyone else...

Honestly, some people without mental health issues concentrate slightly better when they are multitasking as well. I know that if some really boring part of the game is happening...especially when it doesn't involve my character or my character just doesn't care about it, I tune out. If I'm even remotely tired at the time I start falling asleep at the table. If I have something to distract me during the boring parts, at least I'm still awake for the interesting parts at the end.

I'm kind of torn about the whole issue because distraction is a real thing. But on the other hand, I believe the benefits of using technology at the table almost certainly outweighs the distraction as long as I can trust my friends to limit their distraction and maintain focus to the best of their abilities. For some of my friends, this is not the case.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes, it was involved in communal learning (lecture, ask, test, repeat) that we all had in school (unless you went to an alternate school).

I know the value of that particular kind of lecture, and I know it's relatively low for most pupils. I also don't buy that what they thought were "typical tasks" are actually "typical", and as they admitted, they have no proof whatsoever as to whether they were. Which as I said, makes the study largely unscientific.

Any GM that works behind a screen and reads read-aloud text will have their group negatively affected by people who are on their laptops, and people behind them will be even less attentive.

I don't buy it. No good DM resembles a lecture. Yes, a truly terrible DM will have similar problems to a lecture, but he's got a lot of problems, and "people with laptops" are not near the top of the list.]

A better comparison would be people bringing laptops to one of those sessions with the tutor where you have a group of people and discuss stuff (I cannot for the life of me remember the term of this).

Please don't be offended if you are a laptopper just because I posted this study. It's not personal. Its just some people doing research. If you have questions about their study, I recommend that you ask THEM and not attack me.

I'm not sure what a "laptopper" is, but given I don't use a laptop at gaming sessions (too heavy to drag around), I presume I'm not one. You brought up the study and by saying that it is relevant, you are making yourself responsible for it, specifically for explaining how it is relevant, something you have made pretty much no attempt to do (assertions are not explanations). I'll leave it there, as you clearly don't want to discuss it, but I don't think there's much relevance to our hobby.

I will ask if you could link me to proof that the journal is peer-reviewed, though. I checked the site again and could find no evidence to that effect, but it's entirely possible that I'm missing it.

You mention the RC for 4e. If a game is digital only, as I stated, then errata isn't much of an issue. But D&D isn't digital only yet.

RC is a physical product, not digital.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rules-Compendium-Essential-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0786956216

As for the other editions, those were the errata they got, not the errata they needed. That's my concern with 5E - that it will get the errata it gets, not the errata it needs (I agree that it will be less vital than 4E, but I think it's going to be more vital than other editions).