Difficulty keeping attention

[SilentDungeon]

Often, I find myself hosting a game of D&D. Me, being the DM, Tries to come up with the best campain possible. I often spend hours on a single map, trying to perfect it. Then, gaming day rolls around. I start up the session and things go well for about 15 minutes or so, then things begin to fall apart.
After the third encounter, things become tedious. My players begin to lose interest. After all that hard work, my game is undone!

Any help with this would be appreciated.

-silentdungeon

[Fax Celestis]

Simple: Play with people who care.

[Crow]

Why is it that your player's lose interest?

[Gralamin]

Often, I find myself hosting a game of D&D. Me, being the DM, Tries to come up with the best campain possible. I often spend hours on a single map, trying to perfect it. Then, gaming day rolls around. I start up the session and things go well for about 15 minutes or so, then things begin to fall apart.
After the third encounter, things become tedious. My players begin to lose interest. After all that hard work, my game is undone!

Any help with this would be appreciated.

-silentdungeon

Another possibility then Fax's is the possibility that your spending to much time on something like a map, instead of say plot. But really, the question is, what do your characters like to do?
Do your characters like exploration?
How about Puzzles?
Combat?
Intrigue?
You need to know what your group enjoys, and focus campaigns around that.

[valadil]

Figure out what part of game your players like. Cater to that. Over time you'll learn how to read the players to see what it is they're looking for, but for now I'd start with asking them straight up what they want to accomplish in game.

In my experience maps are useless. As a player I zone out when the GM shows them to me. As a GM, I have a lot of fun drawing them, but the map rarely has an impact on the game. Okay, so we go north when the villain flees to the next town? You could decide that arbitrarily without using a map. There are probably better things for you to focus your attention on than mapping.

[Crow]

Do you have the tv on, or do your players have computers available to them when you game? I make my players shut that crap off, otherwise we have attention problems.

[xPANCAKEx]

another obvious (but often overlooked) part of DMing - let the players actions have consiquences. all that planning might unintentionally lead to rail roading your players

[Ponce]

At the start of the session, ask them for three fort saves each the instant they enter a room, mark down the results, and make no further reference to it.

[xPANCAKEx]

At the start of the session, ask them for three fort saves each the instant they enter a room, mark down the results, and make no further reference to it.

will saves would be even better

fort saves will kill you
will saves... that just gets NASTY

[SilentDungeon]

Thanks for your help in advance!

No, my players do not have any distracting stuff to help them not pay attention. Also, I do not try and railroad, but...i base my ideas off what i've experienced in RPGs. (quest based system anyone?) being relativly new to d&D in general, i have trouble coming up with alternatives to the, "you have a town, walk around and talk to people. Some of them might have jobs for you." as effective as this is in the short run, there is no real underlying plot.
though i can describe "box" dungeons perfectly, things like twisty roads, caynons that have many crevaces, and caverns are hard to describe. perhaps that is why they lose attention, not enough interesting description.
hm.......
Now that we realized my problem....any help?

[Lycan 01]

Do they just start talking amongst themselves or something? Do they zone out?

Throw random stuff into the mix. Become what is known as an "evil" DM. Not a "bad" DM, mind you. For example...

Bad DM: *gets annoyed* Rock falls, everybody dies!
Evil DM: *smirks* Wow, so nobody paid any attention to what I said? Oh man... Too bad...

Bad DM: You enter a room. An orc attacks you from behind! Everyone dies...
Evil DM: You enter a room, and hear a strange skittering noise from nearby. *players turn around* There's nothing there... *players turn back around* Nothing there either. *players take two steps* Player A walks into a noose of web. It wraps around his throat and tightens. He begins to be lifted into the air, towards the waiting mandibles of friggin' huge spider.


Keep them on their toes.


(Note: This works best in Call of Cthulhu, but it works pretty good in DnD, too.)

[LotharBot]

1) You said things "get tedious" after the first few encounters. Is there sufficient variability between encounters, or are you fighting yet another room full of orcs? Make sure each fight is unique and different, and make sure each fight requires a bit different behavior on the part of the players.

2) Are you sure your players want the sort of game you're presenting? Do they want more storyline than you're giving, or less? Do they want more dialog and roleplay, or more combat? Do they want more influence over the story, or do they just want to be given excuses to kill stuff? You should sit down with them and talk this over. Remember, it's not "your game" that's undone, it's "your group's game" -- so make sure you're writing the sort of game the group is looking for. (One mistake new DMs sometimes make is trying so hard to NOT railroad that they don't give the players any direction. Some players want to just explore a big town, but others would prefer a flashing neon sign that says "evil goblins that need killing, 3 miles this way!")

3) While you're at it, get everyone on the same page about their gaming expectations, and set some "table rules". If you have one player expecting to watch sports on TV while everyone else expects a distraction-free environment, that's something that needs worked out. Make sure your players understand that if they're going to get up to get more pizza, use the bathroom, etc. they should do it right after they've gone in the initiative or in between fights. As above, talk it out.

4) Make sure you're not wasting people's time (and make sure your players do the same.) A lot of time in D&D is taken up sitting and waiting for the other players to finish their turns, or for the DM to finish the monster's actions. This is OK to a point, but when a player or the DM takes too long making a decision or looking stuff up, everyone else is just sitting around bored.

Here are some time-saving tips. You might not want to use all of them, but hopefully you'll like some of them:

- initiative cards: write down each character's name in big letters on an index card or a small bit of paper, and make cards for monsters too. When initiative is rolled, put the cards in order, and put them where everyone can see whose turn it is and whose turn is next. When someone finishes their turn, put their card on the bottom of the pile and make sure the top 2 (or 3) are visible again. This should help your players be ready to act when their turns come up.

- if a player isn't ready to act when their turn comes up and another player's turn is next, ask if they'd like to delay until after the other player.

- Write down your monster stats beforehand. Include defensive values (HP, 3.5 saves, 4e defenses), attack values, special powers, immunities, senses, basically anything you need to run the monsters. Also include which page of which book the monster, and any special equipment or powers, came from -- this way if you DO have to look something up, you know exactly where to look. (I used to have a sheet with all of my monster stats for the whole night. Now I write the stats on initiative cards.)

- When you're writing down your monster stats, also figure out basic strategy for them -- "this guy is going to be aggressive in melee" or "these guys are going to focus on squishies using this particular power." This way, when their turn comes up, you already know basically what they're about.

- Know when to draw a curtain on an encounter. When the group of 8 enemies is reduced to two minions, don't play it out unless the players really want to. Be willing to say "and somebody kills it" and move right on to the next scene.

- Roll your attack roll and your damage dice at the same time. If the attack misses, the damage is irrelevant, but if it hits, you've saved the time of picking up a new set of dice and rolling them.

- If multiple players are doing things that either (1) won't effect each other or (2) will add together but not kill the monster, let the players act at the same time and then just get the totals when each one has worked it out.

- If it's going to take a while to set up an area, or if your players do something unexpected and you have to rewrite something, let your players know it's a good time to take a break.

- Take a few moments to describe the area and the monsters, including the actions they take and the condition they're in. Yes, this is a time-saving tip! When your players understand what they're looking at, they're quicker to act, and more likely to act in ways that will make the combat end quickly. When all they see is a generic room with 4 generic bad guys, they have to stop and ask "which bad guys are wearing armor?" and "what did he hit me with?" and "are any of these guys badly wounded?"

[TheCountAlucard]

Bad DM: *gets annoyed* Rock falls, everybody dies!
Evil DM: *smirks* Wow, so nobody paid any attention to what I said? Oh man... Too bad...

One time, when my players weren't paying attention, I said in a calm voice, "The tavern's on fire."

Does that make me a bad DM, or an evil one?

[AslanCross]

One thing I noticed works well: Don't talk too much.

I spend hours preparing statblocks, dungeons, and encounters, but I noticed that writing massive paragraphs of descriptive text and reading those utterly bores players. Prepare them, yes, but only hand out teasers. A couple of sentences at a time is enough. Only give more when the players ask for more.

I also echo the statements above regarding consequences. Always prompt the players for what they want to do. That way they tend to think about the game more.

Though yeah, your players might not really care to begin with. It's best for the DM to really discuss expectations with the players.

[Fax Celestis]

One time, when my players weren't paying attention, I said in a calm voice, "The tavern's on fire."

Does that make me a bad DM, or an evil one?

Burning buildings are surprisingly difficult encounters for low-level characters.

[magellan]

Diagnosis: Too much (meaningless) details

You arrive at the town. there is a peasant enjoying an apple next to a fully ladden wagon of straw. The straw is yellow, and the wagon is 5 feet wide and 12 feet long. It is pulled by 2 horses, one brown, one black. North east of it you have got this canyon, its walls slope up at a 37.5 degree angle. It is 12 feet wide. first it makes a bend with a radius of 60feet to the left. there are 4 little indentions on the north side of the wall. one of them is 3 feet wide, 1 feet high and 12 feet above ground level the other is 2 feet wide and a half fide high and 8 feet above ground level

In a CRPG (where you have your inspirations from) the above would be a single screen. A glimpse and everything is clear. At the table it fills 2 minutes without any relevant info for the players. And 2 minutes listening is *long*! no wonder they turn out.

Tabletop gaming is actually closer to the text adventures of old than to CRPGs. Ever played one of those? They give you a short, 1 or 2 line description of the room. the details you have to get through "look" or "examine" commands.

Thats how you present a location to your players: Short, concise, only the most basic stuff, they will tell you what they want to know.

Also you need a plot. Doesnt need to be convoluted. I found in the beginning a simple plot (Plz adventurer do this for me) is better. Many of mine early adventures came to a "Oh but i could improve the plot/descriptions here, here, and here" phase that went on for eternity (sealing said adventure in my notebook never to see the light of day)

BUT: No time whatsoever should be wasted to find the first plot. If the city mayor has a job for them thats the guy they talk first to. Dont be afraid of a little deus ex machina there either. While a CRPG can have a bunch of NPCs to fill the scenery that do nothing but say "sigh, times are tough" a table top game doesnt work that way.

Remember: While drawing and creative writing is fun, your players do not come to you to admire your skills in those areas.

[SilentDungeon]

In a CRPG (where you have your inspirations from) the above would be a single screen. A glimpse and everything is clear. At the table it fills 2 minutes without any relevant info for the players. And 2 minutes listening is *long*! no wonder they turn out.

Tabletop gaming is actually closer to the text adventures of old than to CRPGs. Ever played one of those? They give you a short, 1 or 2 line description of the room. the details you have to get through "look" or "examine" commands.

.

ok, i am familiar with the old text games. I see your point. Being only used to CRPGs i describe my locations and format my games as such. I try it in different ways in the future.


Thanks!

[mr.fizzypop]

1) You said things "get tedious" after the first few encounters. Is there sufficient variability between encounters, or are you fighting yet another room full of orcs? Make sure each fight is unique and different, and make sure each fight requires a bit different behavior on the part of the players.

I second that
but I usually liven up adventures with very gory descriptions of your attacks they that stuff, tendons flapping, ribs snapping, elbows forced in awkward positions, its all good.

- Know when to draw a curtain on an encounter. When the group of 8 enemies is reduced to two minions, don't play it out unless the players really want to. Be willing to say "and somebody kills it" and move right on to the next scene.

Usually I have the last two monsters decide to run which leaves them open for:
a) to captured by the PCs
b) To be attacked with no dex bonus to AC

It also reminds me of a funny story...but its too off topic for this thread

[Lemur]

I've noticed that throwing action in the players' faces gets their attention and motivates them to continue adventuring more than throwing "missions" at them. That is, instead of "the mayor asks you to hunt down some goblins who have been raiding the village," a better approach would be "as you walk in to the village center, a haggard villager runs in from the west and shouts, 'The goblins! They're attacking!'"

Either way the players have two choices: fight the goblins, or don't. But with the second option, refusing to fight the goblins isn't a passive decision- they still have to initiate action in the form of trying to escape, because the action is coming to them whether they like it or not.

Another thing to establish attention is to point in one direction with one hand, then slap them with the other hand when they turn their heads. Metaphorically, that is. For example, the PCs need to find an old man who lives inside a cave that has information they need. However, when they reach the cave to talk to him, a cave-in occurs, and they all fall into a deeper cavern system. Now they have to fight the deepspawn's slave army in order to escape, and prevent the deepspawn from enslaving the old man, who was taken captive after the cave-in occured. In my experience, at least, people pay more attention when they're never quite sure what to expect.

[Raum]

Often, I find myself hosting a game of D&D. Me, being the DM, Tries to come up with the best campain possible. I often spend hours on a single map, trying to perfect it. Then, gaming day rolls around. I start up the session and things go well for about 15 minutes or so, then things begin to fall apart.
After the third encounter, things become tedious. My players begin to lose interest. After all that hard work, my game is undone!

What does your campaign typically consist of? All you mention is a series of encounters and a map...

About the map, you may want to spend less time creating it and more on setting the game's pace. Some times making things happen faster helps keep attention.

Another q - how long are you playing? Would shorter sessions help?

Thanks for your help in advance!

No, my players do not have any distracting stuff to help them not pay attention. Also, I do not try and railroad, but...i base my ideas off what i've experienced in RPGs. (quest based system anyone?) being relativly new to d&D in general, i have trouble coming up with alternatives to the, "you have a town, walk around and talk to people. Some of them might have jobs for you." as effective as this is in the short run, there is no real underlying plot.
though i can describe "box" dungeons perfectly, things like twisty roads, caynons that have many crevaces, and caverns are hard to describe. perhaps that is why they lose attention, not enough interesting description.
hm.......
Now that we realized my problem....any help?

It sounds like you may have a static world. Ask yourself this: What happens if the PCs do nothing? What will the NPCs do? The antagonists?

Set one to three goals per NPC / antagonist. One for simple NPCs will little interaction expected (combat is 'little' ) and more for more complex / longer term NPCs.

Then when the PCs are at a loss for what to do next, ask yourself what NPCs in the area may be doing to reach their goals and how that may intersect with the PCs.

[Devils_Advocate]

Diagnosis: Too much (meaningless) details

You arrive at the town. there is a peasant enjoying an apple next to a fully ladden wagon of straw. The straw is yellow, and the wagon is 5 feet wide and 12 feet long. It is pulled by 2 horses, one brown, one black. North east of it you have got this canyon, its walls slope up at a 37.5 degree angle. It is 12 feet wide. first it makes a bend with a radius of 60feet to the left. there are 4 little indentions on the north side of the wall. one of them is 3 feet wide, 1 feet high and 12 feet above ground level the other is 2 feet wide and a half fide high and 8 feet above ground level

In a CRPG (where you have your inspirations from) the above would be a single screen. A glimpse and everything is clear. At the table it fills 2 minutes without any relevant info for the players. And 2 minutes listening is *long*! no wonder they turn out.

Tabletop gaming is actually closer to the text adventures of old than to CRPGs. Ever played one of those? They give you a short, 1 or 2 line description of the room. the details you have to get through "look" or "examine" commands.

Thats how you present a location to your players: Short, concise, only the most basic stuff, they will tell you what they want to know.

To expand upon that a bit:

You don't have to require players to individually list everything that they want to examine. You can go ahead and give a lengthy description of the environment if someone says "I look around to get a sense of my surroundings." But if no one says that, hold off on describing things that one would only notice upon carefully examining the scene in detail. Because the characters quite possibly are not examining the scene in detail! Maybe they're hustling about with little regard for their surroundings, because they're busy people with places to go and things to do. Don't presume that they're paying attention to anything, unless it's something obviously attention-grabbing. The players are the ones who should be deciding whether and how their characters are examining stuff, not you.

Not only does a scene contain way to much detail for you to communicate all of it every time, you may be describing things the characters wouldn't actually be aware of! You want to describe the world as filtered through the characters' perceptions; don't even try to allow the players to see it as if they were there themselves. That's not just an unworkable goal, it's arguably a bad one.

[Lycan 01]

One time, when my players weren't paying attention, I said in a calm voice, "The tavern's on fire."

Does that make me a bad DM, or an evil one?

Evil. Thats not always a TPK, and it helps create a mood of intensity, obviously. Also, it serves as a funny red herring.
Player A - "Maybe the enemy light the tavern on fire to assassinate us!"
Player B - "Or the gods are angry with us!"
Player C - "Maybe a guard and a whore got too into it and knocked over a lantern?"
Players A & B - "STFU!"
Player A - "I bet it was the BBEG!"
Player B - "Yeah! Lets go hunt him down!"
DM - *doesn't bother to tell them player C was right. Enjoys watching them investigate non-existant leads*


Also, I might use that idea in my future CoC games if they piss me off. "Btw, you guys smell smoke. Also, there's a faint orange glow coming from the window. Oh, right. The house is on fire."



Also, why is Alucard wearing a pirate hat? His Fedora is much cooler...

[TheCountAlucard]

Also, why is Alucard wearing a pirate hat? His Fedora is much cooler...

EDIT: ...What pirate hat?

[LotharBot]

"sigh, times are tough"

+1 point for the RPGworld reference.

Diagnosis: Too much (meaningless) details

Give MEANINGFUL details, of the sort that characters might notice, not just details for the sake of details. "One of the attacking orcs wields a bigger and shinier axe than the rest" is important; "there are about 8,000 apples in the cart" is not.

[Lycan 01]

EDIT: ...What pirate hat?

Oooooh, you're a sly one...


You avatar makes me want a Hellsing one... I wouldn't know who to get, though - Anderson, or Pip?

[Kranden]

Give the players more meaning to their decisions and allow them to change the story based on what they do. Don't have your heart set on a certain outcome and try to force the player to do it. Let them make their own moral decisions and have them make tough choices. (Should I save that hot chick from a Dragon or save that big pile of treasure that's sinking in lava!)

When in doubt make a more evil campaign! >=) (think of what rich did with OOTS destroying Dorukans gate except more extreme) Try to turn the good guys into badguys! The goodguy stuff is pretty cliche and boring. Yay I saved the day again! next dungeon!

[Crow]

Should I save that hot chick from a Dragon or save that big pile of treasure that's sinking in lava!

Of course my group will split up to try and do both, failing miserably!

[SoD]

Of course my group will split up to try and do both, failing miserably!

Whereas my previous group would do so, and one lot would nearly end up dead, the other group nearly reaching the BBEG before deciding "Let's see what the others are up to?" and my current one...well, one would go one way, the others would go the other...and would soon see the lone guy tied up and unconcious after being defeated by an orc with a dagger.

[leperkhaun]

if you are having trouble with short sweet descriptions or even coming up with a plot, get some old 1e, 2e....3rd party modules.

They often have short sweet room descriptions and can give you ideas for your own plot, also unless your players have played extensivly they are unlikely to know those modules.

It should be realitivly easy to convert monsters and such (or find comparable ones).

[SilentDungeon]

To help you understand what my average campain is like, I'll describe my latest one to you guys.

"you wake up in an abandonded army camp in a clearing. there are no survivors."
(it was a tad more elaborate than that, but im saving space here.)
"the terrain around you seems cliff-like, almost rocky. there is a path to the north, heading out of the clearing you're in. to the south, is a similar passage."

That was, give or take, the opening statement for my latest campain.
The object of the first few sessio was to figure out where the hell they were and how to get out of the mess they're in. The rocky ravenes and twisting gully's had MANY random(not really, sort of a table I rolled on) encounters. After a while, they got to a cave formation that would eventually lead them out. Not before making them go through a small classic esque dungeon first.
After the upteenth encounter, and as soon as they reached the mouth of the cave, they REALLY lost interest. I called it a day there. (Keep in mind, the session had only gone on for about 2hrs by that point.)


Now lets play "whats wrong with this picture"!