Keeping players focused

[Emrak]

What I'm looking for here are ideas to keep distant players focused on the game. What happens from time to time is, during the downtime between turns, players will post/read on Facebook, check email, read news, even watch videos. What methods have you all used to keep the attention of the players on FG (and by default, on the game itself)?

Obviously I'm doing my best to reduce "analysis paralysis" and keep turns moving quickly to keep players engaged, but I'm sure there are clever attention focusing techniques I'm missing. Whattabout you? How do you keep players 100% engaged?

[damned]

play a faster ruleset!

[GunnarGreybeard]

Is the group splitting up a lot where you end up interacting with just a few players for extended periods or is there 1-2 players who always seem to dominate the conversations? Either of those situations could cause players to wander off.

[bennis1980]

I haven't encountered this too much. A few more details about your game might help

[Emrak]

I'm actually not running a game at the moment, but mine is coming up. :) This is just what occurs that probably most GMs may not know about. In our case, we're a very tight-knit group and are all friends on Facebook, so you can see many times that people are doing other things during the game by checking their FB. Also, I know the tell-tale signs of "background" distractions due to our close friendship.

Small Signs Your Players May Be Focusing Elsewhere
-They ask something subtle like "sooo, can I get a recap on what's going" or something blatant like "can you redescribe the situation".
-You hear mouse-clicking or keyboard typing in the background, but it's obviously not in-game.
-They are posting things on FB (lol) or FB is showing that they're doing stuff
-They mention news article/current events/funny things they read online in the present tense (ex., "wtf? can you believe such-and-such got replaced by so-and-so on the 49ers??")
-There is a TV playing in the background
-A player laughs at something (but nothing funny is happening in-game) or makes side commentaries about something not in game.

I know there's always bound to be some attention drift in a virtual environment, but I'm just trying to figure out ways to minimize it.

[JohnD]

Part of this is driven by group size.

I run campaigns for 6, 7 and 8 players respectively. That invariably leads to some time between turns, especially with the more "complex" rule sets, however an interesting setting and situation helps to keep people interested.

You are probably best off accepting the fact that these distractions happen in the virtual environment. For the big offenders, you could try an out-of-game message to simply ask them to pay closer attention.

One option is to out of the blue ask everyone to roll a Perception (or whatever) check in the tower and do a countdown in the chat window; 5...4...3...2...1... and whoever isn't paying attention will miss the window and get hit by a trap or something.

[Tiqon]

We all play for different reasons. Some players are super attentive, some are not. I have played with both ends of the spectra. I have LEARNED through time its not necessarily because you are boring as a GM (it might be of course ;), I know I can be from time to time), that players tend to lose focus. I have had players who are so deep into the story and the game they forget everything else (oh! SHOOT! I had to pick my wife up 30 minutes ago!) and I have had players who just attended the game to have some company when they ate their brought dinner (true story :), one guy... never really said anything while "playing", be he seemed content). And this is from face to face games. In a game played in eg FG the focus gets even harder to hold.

I have no idea how to hold the attention beside what has already been said, other than just accept that it differs from player to player and if it gets really bad, just talk to the player and tell them that you would like for it to change. It can be very hard to have used HOURS preparing a good scenario and just at the most exciting point someone say something that indicate they haven't hear a word. That's harsh.

[bennis1980]

I had one player who was studying hard for his exams while playing at the same time (now that's commitment). He would say just to let him know when it was his turn and tune in then. I accepted this and didn't expect anything more from him during that time and factored it into my prep work (no important character stories which relied on him. Plus he never asked for a major update that would distrupt the whole session (mostly other players filled him in)

Another player just could not resist picking up my son's discarded toy swords and guns (we used to play in the children's playroom) and become lost in some other fantasy. This DID in fact annoy me, and I told him to stop. For this kind of offender (and I would include FB addicts) I would ban them of the distracting behaviour or starve them of story (no repeats or updates).

Then you have the sort of player who keeps notes of everything and always knows what's going on: they never become distracted, even on Fantasy Grounds. It's for these players we keep doing it. Concentrate your efforts on these players and the experience will always be good. And those people who aren't fully attentive may hopefully learn that the rewards go to the more eager and alert.

[damned]

about 5 weeks ago i had one player who had been at a sporting event all day and had a little to drink at the event. about 2 hours in we had a refreshment break and he didnt come back. then about 90mins further on he sheepishly re-appears - he had fallen asleep!

[damned]

do you have other players who spend just a little too long taking their turns? that could be affecting things. perhaps if you do have one or two players who take a long time describing their turn - every time - set them (or all players) a time limit per turn. this can be relaxed where appropriate. that will encourage players to get prepped properly -between- turns when they could be drifting off....

[Griogre]

If you have not started a group or game, I'll tell you the obvious: Have fast rounds. In practical terms this means keep the number of players *down.* I run 4E which is not the fastest but not the slowest either and the time diffrence it takes to play a round at high level between a 5 and 6 player party is *huge*. I've let most of my games attrition down to 5 for that reason.

[dr_venture]

I'm playing with text chat only, and I feel like the game is pretty packed with players at 4 - beyond that, it seems like folks have to do too much sitting around without being able to contribute anything. Also, with too many players, I find that when a NPC finishes saying something intriguing, you see 5 or 6 chat bubbles appear at the top of the screen... I just know that I'm going to miss something in those exchanges, as I can't type and watch the screen closely enough to catch everything. My policy now is that if the party needs more muscle or skills, I'm just going to let the existing players roll up an extra character, both to expand the party's capabilities and to have a backup in case their primary punching bag gets whacked.

I think a certain amount of distraction is just normal, even in face to face games. For me, as long as I don't have to re-explain stuff much or there aren't a lot of long pauses between when I say something and when a player responds (i.e., gets around to noticing that the game has progressed), I'm happy enough. Some ability to multitask while playing is a positive feature of online gaming that I have used to sell my friends (and their spouses) on playing in my game: "Hey, such-and-such doesn't have to leave the house for 8 hours - he can stay home and at least be partially involved with what's going on there." I see it as a potentially good thing, as long as it doesn't go too far.

[unerwünscht]

I have found (at least for me) the magic combo is to keep all game chat in the FGII chat window, but to also have something like skype running for the players to engage in out of game banter. I have also found it best if the GM does not log into the voice chat.