D&D 5E Quiet players and social anxiety

[The Grassy Gnoll]

All the players are on the stage but the DM has hold of the lighting rig. Make sure you swing the spotlight onto the 'chorus member' every so often but not in an in-your-face way and they will generally respond. Especially if you have a more talkative player(s) at the table, sometimes they may need 'permission' (that's the wrong word) to feel happy to speak. It also can be good to manage the more talkative players who may railroad others. I had great fun with the table strategist when I reminded him that, while in Wild Shape, he could only communicate in grunts and snarls. That opened up the floor for the quieter players to make decisions and be more front and centre.

 

[spinozajack]

Indeed, good point. The DM does exert substantial ability to weave events to allow each character, and player, to shine at various moments. If you pass the ball to a fellow gamer (either as a DM or as another player), they should grab it and run with it, or at least pass it on. That's what teamwork is, benefiting from each personality at the table and hopefully everyone having fun. Sometimes to let the shy guy have some limelight the DM does have to step in and ask say the NPC speaks to him directly and to respond. This doesn't need to happen often, but it should happen enough so that each PC has if not a memorable character, at least having said something using his words and not his powers. But in the end it's still the responsibility of the player who's passed the ball to grab it and make his play. If I throw the ball to the next player, and he just stands there and lets it fly by, that shows a kind of unwillingness to play the actual game, which is a social one. Watching over people being sociable can help you learn or be at ease with yourself, and it often does, but after a while if you don't get out of your shell, that does get a little tiresome for other people to be around. I personally tend to vary between introversion and extroversion at opposite extremes, so I understand the lack of will to speak up (especially if you have nothing to say or nothing to add), but gaming is the time when I want to interact, and if you don't even want to do that while gaming, then forget it, it's never happening. If you don't want to interact at a game table, you're not really participating in the game. Nobody should be a bench warmer in D&D, at least not all the time.

If you don't want to step up to the plate, play a game where you do want to. This is a social game, you need to speak to play. Everyone has their turn in combat, but out of combat or during social scenarios, DMs should make sure every player has a turn to speak, or at least contribute to the non-combat pillars.

There are far better games out there to play than D&D if all you want is the wargaming experience. D&D might have started out as wargaming + social mixed in, but roleplaying inherently has socialisation as not only an assumption but a core requirement. You can't play a social game while rewarding unsocial or anti-social player behavior with experience points and levels. That's only going to make things worse.

 

[JWO]

[MENTION=6794198]spinozajack[/MENTION]: You present quite a simplistic version of what it is to have social anxieties. It's really not as easy as just 'trying' to make a contribution for a lot of people (that's kind of an offensive way of putting it to be honest), it can be a very physical response where no matter what you tell yourself there's no way of getting any words out of your mouth. I have some issues with social anxiety myself, combined with introversion, but I'm lucky enough that it's generally not that bad and in certain circumstances it's not an issue at all. Once I've gotten to know a group of people I'll generally be comfortable enough to vocalise my contributions here and there and even take charge every now and then. However, that's just not the case for some people and no matter what they do, they're not going to be able to 'join in' in a way that suits you.

Again, I can only speak for myself but there are certain times when there's something I'd love to say, some kind of contribution to make (I can think of instances in D&D, university, work meetings, etc.), it's on the tip of my tongue and then my heart starts racing, I start thinking about it over and over and my voice just shuts down. There's very little I could do to force myself to vocalise it. Other times, I'll have a similar reaction but I am able to speak but my voice comes out shaky and weak. Other times, I'm fine. Like I mentioned, I'm lucky because it's not as much of an issue for me as it is for other people.

The only 'problem' I really have with quiet players is with quiet players who really want to be contributing but can't bring themselves to do it out of shyness/social anxiety. But it's only really a problem for them. I feel bad for them because I know what they're going through but it doesn't impact my enjoyment of the game at all. Why does it bother you? If the rest of the party are handling the social aspects of the game and chatting away with the NPCs, why does it matter if one or two of the players are taking a step back in these situations? Presumably the game is flowing anyway without their input. Presumably the quiet ones are getting something out of the game that they don't get out of CRPGs or MMOs because otherwise they'd just head off and play one of those. There's something very special about tabletop RPGs so maybe they're content to just sit back in social parts of the game and let the waves of RPG goodness and imagination wash over them.

 

[spinozajack]

I'm not an academic expert, but I've had my share of awkward moments and D&D does help out a lot of kids get out of their shell.

But if you still can't get out of your shell in a safe environment with your closest geek friends, it ain't happening. D&D should still be fun for everyone at the table, including the DM, and while it can be therapeutic, it's not the game's primary purpose which is to have fun. All I'm saying is I don't have nearly much fun playing with players who don't say much. If you're incapable or unwilling to stepping out of your shell for a fun game, then it's pretty hopeless. In that case I would really advise proper, actual therapy, or just playing MMOs, as much better uses of everyone's time and energy. Unsocial people (for whatever reason, even if it's not their fault), are not ideal players of social games. That is fairly straightforward and common sense, even if it sounds exclusive. I've always tried my best to include such people (including those with autism, asbergers, major or minor social interaction issues), and have found, in my experience, that there's a limit to what D&D can achieve, and in some case, it won't help at all and might even be counterproductive. Sometimes a game is just not a good fit for certain people.

For example, I'm a terrible artist so I don't play Pictionary. I don't find it enjoyable to lose all the time. Like I draw worse than a typical 5 year old child. It's not fun for me. It gives me anxiety even thinking about drawing in front of others. I get embarrassed at my totally worthless scribbles. It's fine, though un-PC, to admit that this is the case for social games with those who don't want to be social, or are unsocial, or anti-social to begin with. I don't want others to sit through my pathetic drawing attempts just like I don't want to subject the awkwardness of having to speak before others, seeing a friend who is clearly uncomfortable and likely never will be, even try. It's one thing to learn to interact in your teens and even 20s through playing D&D, but after a while it's time to give up, if you're in your 30s or 40s and still can't (or won't) assert yourself socially in a social game. Life's too short. I wouldn't presume to waste anybody's time watching be suffer through my horrible drawing attempts, so why should I in turn want to play a social game with someone incapable or unwilling to be social?

D&D is not for everyone. Sometimes it takes others to notice when something isn't a good fit. Would you encourage a friend with horrible knees to keep running? This is the same thing.

 

[KarinsDad]

I try not to force quiet players to participate in roleplaying a lot. An occasional NPC will directly talk to or ask a question of the quiet player's PC, but this tends to be the exception and not the rule and I tend to do it when it makes sense, not to necessarily force the player into the roleplaying.

But I do force quiet players to control their PC in combat. In fact, I go out of my way to shield a quiet player from the more boisterous and loud players during combat who often offer suggestions "Frank, it's Joe's turn. On your turn, you can tell me what your PC is doing, but it's Joe's PC's turn.". I then look over to Joe and ask "Joe, what is Kragnor doing?". It does put him on the spot, but this is an aspect of the game where I feel strongly that PC character decisions are not a table discussion issue. They are the prime responsibility of the player playing the PC. To fight, one has to participate. This might bother some quiet players, but none of them have ever complained as far as I can remember (course, a quiet player might not ever complain about anything). Players can table discuss in character all they want, but the NPCs hear the PCs plans this way. Other DMs allow entire sets of tactics to be discussed in the middle of a combat out of character. By not allowing these types of tactical table discussions, it tends to move the combat faster and it prevents the quiet players from getting shut out. It also prevents the dominating players from taking over the table.

 

[JWO]

[MENTION=6794198]spinozajack[/MENTION]: You stated in your post that you don't play Pictionary because you don't enjoy it but those quiet players who are playing D&D, and continue to play in spite of the fact that they don't open up in the social segments of the game are presumably still enjoying being involved in the game. For whatever reason, they're still turning up at the table in spite of whatever anxieties they may or may not have. Your Pictionary analogy just doesn't work. The runner with 'horrible knees', if they were having a good time running in spite of their difficulties then too right I'd encourage them!

If the game's running smoothly then why do you care if there are players who are taking a back seat in the social parts of the game?

 

[JWO]

If a player is especially quiet in social parts of the game then maybe you need to reframe your perception of their character. There are so many archetypes out there for quiet characters, so many examples in pop culture and literature that I really don't think it's much of a stretch of the imagination to just say to yourself. 'Ok, well she never takes part in any of the in-character conversations, I guess her character's the strong, silent type/the quiet loner/the druid who prefers to communicate with animals/the wizard who's so absorbed in the arcane that they barely notice the goings on of the mundane (yet for some reason, they've attached themselves to our party)'. I'm just trying to think back on players I've gamed with who didn't speak an awful lot and I've always just automatically pictured their characters as quiet and made it work in my imagination.

 

[spinozajack]

If the game's running smoothly then why do you care if there are players who are taking a back seat in the social parts of the game?

Because those silent players are negating the enjoyment and benefits that non-silent players would be contributing in their stead.

There are limited seats at the table. Also, if only two people speak up most of the time, let's say, and the others are more seat-warmers, that gets tiresome hearing their voices and ideas all the time. I'd much more rather a democracy of relative equals than one in which 2/4 have the most say (because, let's say, 1/4 doesn't speak up at all, and the other isn't as assertive. Shades of grey, right?). If there is a gross imbalance of airtime spent in each session listening to a couple of the players, that's nowhere near as much as one that is more evenly distributed in terms of air time. I tire of listening to the same voices speak, sometimes you want to change the channel. A D&D player who is silent or rarely speaks is like an extra in a movie, not a headliner. Headline stars should have speaking parts, and in D&D, the players should all be the stars. I'm not discounting having a party face, like one usual RP headliner and a bunch of backup vocalists. But the backup vocalists need to contribute at least the harmony. Silence doesn't harmonize with anything, or rather, it harmonizes with everything. That is, silence is completely forgettable and discountable. And by extension, silent players are as well.

I'm not at all advocating people purge their own groups of players who contribute little, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. I'm just saying, I consider it to be a problem in D&D, and in that respect, player types that cause problems (such as grossly unequal airtime because they never speak up) are by definition problem players. There are many other types, including the spotlight hog who always wants to be the star of the show and monopolizes the game, seeing D&D as their personal theater stage with everyone else playing bit parts and them getting all the monologues and soliloquies. Those are also problem players, too. I don't have solutions to all these issues, or even any, aside from the obvious, which is to talk to them and ask them to share the spotlight and sometimes to grab it to get their fair share. For the good of the game. It's more fun for everyone when everyone's contributing. I feel sad for those who don't contribute, and that is a detriment to my own fun, so I'd rather just not be around such players. I'd also avoid players who are jerks, immature, spotlight hogs, but if you expect perfect players you will be left alone. I don't expect perfection, or even want it, I just want an equitable share of airtime and it's everyone's responsibility at the table to not only not hog it, but also to assert it and demand it for themselves. People who don't do that, ever, or very rarely, are a detriment to the game's potential.

 

[kalil]

In my experience the quiet players are not the problem. The players who never shut up are. If only 2/4 players at your table are talking I would look carefully into these players behaviour rather than assuming that the quiet players are not interested.

I have no social anxiety (in fact quite the contrary) but I am not at the gaming table to argue or fight for the spotlight. So if I find myslef at a table with hysterical spotlight hogs I just lean back and wait for "roll iniative". It is just not worth the hassle to try to stop these people for elaborating endlessly about how the tie their shoelaces or flirt with nameless bar maidens.

 

[Umbran]

Because those silent players are negating the enjoyment and benefits that non-silent players would be contributing in their stead.

Ah, so basically it is gamer opportunity cost, then?