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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Levitator" data-source="post: 4074422" data-attributes="member: 40099">In all fairness, I never said that things in and of themselves don't contribute to distraction, but I definitely don't believe that a laptop is any more of a distraction contributor than anything else.  Cell phones and PDA's can get online now, so I don't think its the internet's fault either.  Heck, a lit candle in the room can contribute to distraction, but I would hardly blame the candle for being distracting ( I once sat in with a group where one player spent the entire session putting his fingers in and out of the flame of a candle).  There are a million things in any given room that could contribute to distraction, but whether or not the become a distraction is up to the people at the table.I don't disagree that inanimate objects can contribute to distractions at the game table, but I give 90% of the responsibility to the player being distracted.  The actual items being used to game can be distracting, so I don't buy the argument that removing potentially distracting items (in one person's opinion) does any good.  I've seen people twiddle with and stack dice, doodle on their character sheets, thumb through splat book after splat book, etc., so if a person wants to remove every single potentially distracting object in the room, there won't be anything in the room but the players.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I've been lucky as a DM to have good players that get into the action and contribute consistently to the game.  I've been a player in some nightmare groups that barely get any gaming done with all the extraneous activity going on, though not for long.  My players tell me that I keep the story interesting and do a good job of moving the spotlight around frequently.  Of course, they are probably just sucking up to keep their PC's alive, but I do know that I make a concerted effort to keep everyone "in the game".  I think it helps that we are an older group.  I'm 38 and my youngest player is 30.  We all have jobs and families and responsibilities, so our gaming time is precious to us.  We don't waste a lot of time because we don't have it to waste.  My memories of twiddlers and easily distracted players are definitely of my younger days of gaming.  Even with my online group, where they are in their own homes with plenty of their own distractions, I almost never have to wait on a player that doesn't realize we are waiting on them.  So maybe it's partially an age thing too, or at the very least connected to the amount of free time people have in their lives outside of gaming.If I'm running a group and I see that someone is constantly distracted, I just talk to the person outside of the group to find out why.  Maybe they just aren't as into the game as everyone else, maybe they have a personal problem with me or another player, and maybe they are just having a bad day.  But my first reaction is never to take away whatever it is that they are fiddling with, but rather to find out why that person is distracted in the first place.  <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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