D&D 5E Being The Best D&D Player You Can Be

[aco175]

I agree with creating cool backgrounds that help the DM tie things into the world and provide hooks for him to use. Ask him up front if there is a region he plans to use and if he has a bad guy for a few levels. Ask if you can make a few NPC contacts in the town nearby where you grew up. Tell him about the odd uncle mage living in another close location that may be sick. As a DM mostly I like to say yes when I can and encourage plot hooks to give back to the players.

Players should be ok with me taking the odd uncle and making him a servant of the BBEG and using him as I see fit. If the PC wants to try and save him from the dark side, then I can choose to play along or not.

 

[Blue]

15. Match your table. If most of your table is heavy RP, don't play a character just interested in combat, and vice versa. If your table is serious don't be silly. And vice versa. Don't be the one uber-optimized character at a table, and if you are du-tune your character. And vice versa. There are lots of great, valid ways to play the game, and if the table is aligned players really add to each other's fun while it can detract if people have very different expectations and play styles.

 

[Ratskinner]

Barring some sort of disorder, I generally see this issue as a symptom of some work that needs to be done on the game or the running thereof.

Not IME. Our group will of ten switch GM responsibilities and there are two guys (one in particular) who are notorious for not paying much attention at all and pinging off on tangents and cell phones, etc. I've run and played in several different groups for long terms, and it just seems to be a character trait of some players. (Not to mention those with work and family responsibilities.)

While I agree with the rule as good advice for being a "good" player, I would also suggest that GM's not get too attached to being the center of attention. Especially with grown people, the purpose is to have fun and enjoy some camaraderie. Don't get hung up on the
"artistry" of being a GM. (Something I was guilty of when younger.)


Just my $.02

 

[iserith]

Not IME. Our group will of ten switch GM responsibilities and there are two guys (one in particular) who are notorious for not paying much attention at all and pinging off on tangents and cell phones, etc. I've run and played in several different groups for long terms, and it just seems to be a character trait of some players. (Not to mention those with work and family responsibilities.)

While I agree with the rule as good advice for being a "good" player, I would also suggest that GM's not get too attached to being the center of attention. Especially with grown people, the purpose is to have fun and enjoy some camaraderie. Don't get hung up on the
"artistry" of being a GM. (Something I was guilty of when younger.)

Just my $.02

Sure, sometimes it's just the player's bad habits and rudeness or perhaps some manner of disorder. But I tend to think that's fairly rare in the grand scheme. When I see something like this, my first thought is, huh, I wonder why this player thinks it's okay to fiddle with his or her phone instead of paying attention to and engaging with the game. What is he or she trying to tell me by acting this way? I mean, this person is literally choosing to play some other game on the phone (or whatever) instead of play the one for which he or she signed up. What am I doing to cause this? Is the game not engaging enough? Is my pacing off? Have I not shared the spotlight well? Did I not ensure there's enough action or high enough stakes to keep people's attention?

These are all things the DM over which the DM has control. When I started to ask players why they felt it was okay to check out mentally, I found that they were usually due to issues I could fix on my side of the table. After I focused on fixing these things (years ago now), I found that I just didn't have players reaching for their phones or going off on tangents. It's just full engagement for 4 straight hours with a couple of 5 to 10 minute breaks. It's not about being the "center of attention" either in my view, but rather seeing particular outcomes as indicative of some other issue and taking steps to mitigate it.

 

[woonga]

Sure, sometimes it's just the player's bad habits and rudeness or perhaps some manner of disorder. But I tend to think that's fairly rare in the grand scheme. When I see something like this, my first thought is, huh, I wonder why this player thinks it's okay to fiddle with his or her phone instead of paying attention to and engaging with the game. What is he or she trying to tell me by acting this way? I mean, this person is literally choosing to play some other game on the phone (or whatever) instead of play the one for which he or she signed up. What am I doing to cause this? Is the game not engaging enough? Is my pacing off? Have I not shared the spotlight well? Did I not ensure there's enough action or high enough stakes to keep people's attention?

I tend to feel the same way- as a DM you can feel when the players are all engaged, and feed off of that to make things better for the whole table. When I see that not happening, getting feedback on what I (as a DM) can do to fix my pacing or make things more exciting is always helpful. I've been able to improve a lot by players being really open about their preferences.

But at the same time, there are times when it's easy to get a little tuned out as a player even if you aren't doing so to be inconsiderate, or if it's no fault of the DM. I keep our gaming table covered in a big roll of butcher paper and throw a bunch of markers out there each session. In the ~year I've been doing this with two separate groups, the number of players on their cell phones has dropped to almost zero (without me asking, though in most cases I'd still say it can't hurt to politely ask in a session zero that people avoid playing on phones during the session). Sure, sometimes it will look like the players have tuned out, but when we sit around for a few minutes after the session I get to see that they were doodling how they imagined the group's cleric looked when she was giving that ~5 minute monologue where you thought they weren't paying attention. Other times they're sketching the item they just found, drawing out maps of the area I'm describing, or (one awesome player) drawing some pretty amazing real-time comic breakdowns of the session.

I think it's super important for players to be engaged, but this helped me learn that not having eyes on me non-stop as a DM doesn't mean they aren't engaged. Giving them something to do (besides phones) that channels creatively back into the session ended up being a really good solution for my group.

 

[Blue]

Sure, sometimes it's just the player's bad habits and rudeness or perhaps some manner of disorder. But I tend to think that's fairly rare in the grand scheme. When I see something like this, my first thought is, huh, I wonder why this player thinks it's okay to fiddle with his or her phone instead of paying attention to and engaging with the game.

I've had players cast "Wall of Dell" where everyone had open their laptop for their characters and reference (during a previous edition) and would play solitaire or something to fill any second they weren't actively interacting. Of course, I had the same thing this past weekend at a get together for a friend's birthday - we'd be sitting around shooting the bull and if someone wasn't engaged with the current topic there comes the phone.

Multiple editions had combat would easily leave 15-30 minutes between turns at high levels. 15-20 if everyone paid attention, 30 if you needed to reexplain things again and again when players lost interest while they had such a long down time. It was a nasty spiral where some players getting distracted meant recaps of the last round which bored the other players and wasted their time so they were more likely to do something on their phone, etc.

Really, combat is the #1 place where I see people disengaged from the game. Players who just did it habitually were #2, and a certain breed of player who wasn't interested in NPC RP if they weren't playing a "face" is #3. In my experience, so take with a grain of salt.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Multiple editions had combat would easily leave 15-30 minutes between turns at high levels. 15-20 if everyone paid attention, 30 if you needed to reexplain things again and again when players lost interest while they had such a long down time. It was a nasty spiral where some players getting distracted meant recaps of the last round which bored the other players and wasted their time so they were more likely to do something on their phone, etc.

Really, combat is the #1 place where I see people disengaged from the game.

Yep, I saw a lot of that back in the day. Not just in combat, out of combat one or two players would usually be more assertive and everyone else would just tune out. It was annoying. I'd always try to keep everyone engaged by actively asking what each player was doing when they seemed disengaged. On occasion, I'd have a player just up and say they were waiting for the action start or otherwise temporizing in a way that made it clear they were disengaged because they weren't interested. Most of the time, they'll do something. I've ended up running some very disjointed scenes that way, with some players interacting in one scene while others get into mischief nearby, for instance.

It's less of a problem the more cooperative the game's resolution systems have been, and, ironically, more of problem the less of a disparity there is among sub-systems & how long they take to resolve. When diplomancy can wrap an interaction scene in one roll, there's less disengagement from the wake-me-when-the-fight-starts crowd, when the wizard's turn takes 15 minutes, but everyone else is done in 1, that's a 20-minute cycle, but when everyone takes 5 minutes, that's 30+ minutes to cycle.

And there really is a 'cliff' some tables fall over. When the cycle gets long enough, they disengage, lose the thread of what's happening, and then each turn adds on having the situation re-explained to each player and the cycle gets that much longer. It's especially brutal running TotM, as you have to re-describe the whole lay of the battle and how it's changed not since the last turn, but since that player's last turn.
Also with a certain amount of irony, the more a PC has off-turn actions (notorious for 'slowing the game down') that the player likes, the longer that player can stay engaged in the encounter between his character's turns.

 

[iserith]

I've had players cast "Wall of Dell" where everyone had open their laptop for their characters and reference (during a previous edition) and would play solitaire or something to fill any second they weren't actively interacting. Of course, I had the same thing this past weekend at a get together for a friend's birthday - we'd be sitting around shooting the bull and if someone wasn't engaged with the current topic there comes the phone.

Multiple editions had combat would easily leave 15-30 minutes between turns at high levels. 15-20 if everyone paid attention, 30 if you needed to reexplain things again and again when players lost interest while they had such a long down time. It was a nasty spiral where some players getting distracted meant recaps of the last round which bored the other players and wasted their time so they were more likely to do something on their phone, etc.

Really, combat is the #1 place where I see people disengaged from the game. Players who just did it habitually were #2, and a certain breed of player who wasn't interested in NPC RP if they weren't playing a "face" is #3. In my experience, so take with a grain of salt.

I'm relentless in moving things forward when I run games. This is one of the things I corrected when I saw players checking out years ago in late D&D 3.5e and early D&D 4e. Even in D&D 4e, your turn came back round in 5 minutes or so, tops, even at high levels. My experience is if you set a high bar, the players will rise to the challenge.

Also, off-turn, my groups seem to love paying attention to be able to throw in a well-timed joke.

 

[Ratskinner]

Sure, sometimes it's just the player's bad habits and rudeness or perhaps some manner of disorder. But I tend to think that's fairly rare in the grand scheme. When I see something like this, my first thought is, huh, I wonder why this player thinks it's okay to fiddle with his or her phone instead of paying attention to and engaging with the game. What is he or she trying to tell me by acting this way? I mean, this person is literally choosing to play some other game on the phone (or whatever) instead of play the one for which he or she signed up. What am I doing to cause this? Is the game not engaging enough? Is my pacing off? Have I not shared the spotlight well? Did I not ensure there's enough action or high enough stakes to keep people's attention?

Dunno. We both have only our own tiny slice of experiences. IME, its not that rare, in yours it is. ::shrug:: Not that I'm saying everygroup has one. Far from it. I had two different rather large groups in college that were just full of "on" players. I had others that had players with ADD. My adult groups have tended to have more of it, especially since real life barely lets go of some of the players. ("Its my work phone, can't turn it off.")

These are all things the DM over which the DM has control. When I started to ask players why they felt it was okay to check out mentally, I found that they were usually due to issues I could fix on my side of the table. After I focused on fixing these things (years ago now), I found that I just didn't have players reaching for their phones or going off on tangents. It's just full engagement for 4 straight hours with a couple of 5 to 10 minute breaks. It's not about being the "center of attention" either in my view, but rather seeing particular outcomes as indicative of some other issue and taking steps to mitigate it.

To this extent, we just have different playgoals. We've talked about it openly in our group as well and made the decision not to worry about it overmuch. The distracted players just suffer the consequences (well, their characters, anyway). We just move on. Its more important to us that we can all goof-off comfortably together.

Now, if as you describe, the players are basically bored, then yeah, that's a DM problem. But it really doesn't matter for the "space cadet" I'm thinking of. Any DM, any Game...

cheers...

 

[AriochQ]

I am actually the DM in the OP's campaign and thought I would add a thought...

There are many different styles of DMing and that will tend to dictate what gets valued as a player. For example, in a very combat heavy campaign I appreciate players who have their actions ready to go and have already looked up any relevant details (e.g. spell range, etc). The prior posters have compiled a pretty comprehensive list and I agree with the vast majority of them!

My current campaign is very story driven, so I appreciate players who actively participate in telling that story (pogre does a great job in this regard!). I have a rough idea of how world events will unfold, but the players really drive the ongoing story, I refer to this as a 'co-construction of reality' or 'cooperative storytelling'. It draws on the "Yes, and..." method of improv. Basically, you take what the players are giving, expand upon it, and give it back to them. Rinse and repeat.

With all that in mind, I really value players who buy into that aspect of the campaign. A player who not only walks through the DM's world, but also helps construct it.