Distracted Players

[ggroy]

Another option is not using minions at all.

One could use lower level monsters, if the players are already at a higher level.

 

[Marauder_POV]

I think minions are a good idea, mainly because the party lacks any decent AOE, The fighter uses cleave alot but his other AOE's are an encounter and a daily.(Tempest Dance), So i think more minions could work...

 

[vagabundo]

I usually shout "OT" at them and maybe give them a punch on the arm if they are close enough to me - it helps that I only game with family and close friends. I have jabbed them with pencils sometimes or throw a D20 at them.

I sometimes let it slide or give them an "OT" break. I've found it hard to keep them focused if it is not their turn in combat and the player is taking their sweet time - it doesn't matter how much I tell them to be ready when their turn come around.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with trying to eliminated the grind. Boosting the rats HP wasn't a great Idea for the DM. I think that the players were getting annoyed at having it take so long, plus none of them had any fear. I think fear is needed a bit to keep the focus on the game.

Whats an easy way to make the minions harder, with out turning it into a grind?

Use the Tougher Minion Rules from the house rule forum - they are elegant and only increase your bookkeeping by a fraction and actually reduce headaches from certain bloodied powers. I'm a fan.

 

[ggroy]

A nastier minion would be ones which do ranged attacks, and whom are hard to reach at first (ie. placed behind some tanks). These could be enemy archers or wizards which repeatedly spam their basic ranged attacks, until they are killed. By the time the players reach and kill these particular minions (with one hit), the players would have already been hit several times by them previously.

 

[mysticknight232]

Over the years I've found that banning alcohol, marijuana, and other recreational mind altering substances from the gaming table, helps a lot in significantly reducing distractions.

These days I simply won't play tabletop rpg games anymore with people who are drunk or stoned all the time.

DnD is an excuse for our group to get together and drink and eat as much as humanly possible. In fact, many of our best sessions have ended with a mostly drunk DM granting us phat lewts because he felt like he was in a giving mood. Ahhh, so much fun!

I will admit tho, the sleepy factor goes way up come midnight after a 12 hour session in which the group has gone through a couple cases of beer...what, we live in Wisconsin, that's what we do!!

 

[ggroy]

DnD is an excuse for our group to get together and drink and eat as much as humanly possible. In fact, many of our best sessions have ended with a mostly drunk DM granting us phat lewts because he felt like he was in a giving mood. Ahhh, so much fun!

I've had one too many bad experiences with playing D&D drunk or stoned.

In practice, I've found beer was manageable to some extent. Significantly less manageable was stuff like players drinking large amounts of vodka or everclear, and/or snorting cocaine at the game table.

 

[Jdvn1]

How do people keep their players from getting distracted? The guys i play with quite often fall into conversations about astrophysics or movies or cures for ringworm. Thats all good and well, but last game it took 3.5 hours to complete that rat cavern in KOTS(we did beef the rats with more than one HP(like 15) so they weren't to easy for us though, there are 6 of us)

I'd like to help speed the game along. Any hints?

A guy in my home group is at least a little ADHD--he just can't concentrated on the game for long periods of time. So, when it's not his turn, he'll play on his iPad or something. I'm totally okay with that, and he gets (some or most) of his turn ready before his turn actually comes up to help speed things along. At least he doesn't distract everyone else.

Sure, it'd be nice if everyone was intensely focused on the game for 8 hours, but that likely isn't going to happen. My players are all good people, and fun to game with nonetheless.

Also generally how long does a round take on average?

Depends on the level. For a level 1 group, I'd say your average will likely be 10 minutes or less per round. For a level 11 or 12 group, I'd say you might be close to 15 minutes per round.

Though, we're still collecting data.

 

[mysticknight232]

I've had one too many bad experiences with playing D&D drunk or stoned.

In practice, I've found beer was manageable to some extent. Significantly less manageable was stuff like players drinking large amounts of vodka or everclear, and/or snorting cocaine at the game table.

If players are doing hard core drugs at the table, it seems to me that there larger issues other than just staying focused on DnD. I would ban that as well. We have one weed smoker that we game with, but has never toked up during a session thankfully.

 

[Taed]

I had a small problem with the 9-year-old (my son) at our table wandering around the store when it wasn't his turn. So, my solution was two-fold. First, we go to the store a bit early so he can look at stuff and get it out of his system. Second, I gave him an NPC to control (which I (the DM) was controlling anyway) and kept its initiative half-way through the order from his main character so he only had to "wait" for 2 people between each of his "turns". We did those for the first time last week and it worked out well. (He also did a GREAT job with the semi-evil NPC.)

Those same two changes might work for other, more mature, players, depending on their issues.

 

[Blastin]

The Op's group sounds exactly like mine. I was frustrated by it for a while, and then just decided to go with it. All of us are adults with jobs and responsibilities. The game session is a social event, so I just let it be social.