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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kengar" data-source="post: 1029855" data-attributes="member: 3230">The two things I would suggest are:1) Keep the screen and books down for the first 15-30 minutes of the night. Talk, chitchat, whatever. Then, once the conversation seems to be waning -or focussed on the game ("Did my character get the rest of his CON damage back yet?"), sit down, set up the screen and say -in a loud, clear voice- "Okay Gametime! When we last left off..." Setting up the screen and making a game-time "announcement" is a visual and verbal signal that chat-time is over and play is beginning.2) Keep things moving. If the group isn't focussed enough on what's happening, FOCUS them. "When in doubt, have two armed men burst into the room" was Raymond Chandler's advice on writing a detective story. If table chatter gets too far afield for too long, hit them with a curve ball. A ghost walks right out of the dungeon wall and does a spectral attack on one of the party. There's an explosion from further down the hallway and a cloud of smoke fills the corridor. It doesn't have to be a combat. For town adventures you can do all sorts of things: Tell the wizard he just noticed that his +3 Ring of Protection is missing from his finger (A nimble street urchin stole it a few minutes ago while he was deep in conversation with the paladin.). Have a young half-orc fall dead at one of their feet; a knife in the back. Don't "punish" them; the ring is recoverable and the half-orc isn't actually their problem. Maybe they pursue the "mystery", maybe not, but get their attention on the game where it belongs. This also has the side-benefit of discouraging meta-game thinking since not every encounter event is critical to the central plot.Will these things matter in a week or so to the campaign? Not necessarily, but the players are thinking about the game again instead of last night's episode of Reality TV. Anyway, that's my advice, feel free to use or ignore. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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