So I am a 3 year lomg DM who has been running a successful campaign during that time. However, I noticed a trend start to develop when it comes to certain situations. When there's a situation, ie) a princess is about to sentence a criminal that the players are still trying to figure out if he is innocent of the crime or is in fact the guilty culprit, the players all rush over each other to be the first one to make a decision that will decide the course of events.
Like one player may want to try to persuade the princess to hold off on making a decision so they can investigate more while another, whose character hates royalty, will want to rescue to commoner and bring them away from the court room. In a case like this, the course of action would go to the player who was basically the fastest in saying what they wanted to do first, ie) the player who wanted to do the rescue so an initiative would be rolled.
Often it leads to the players trying to talk over one another and I have to tell them to hold on so I can ask everyone what they want to do, going one by one. But the player who wanted to persuade the princess wpuld either change their mind cuz they feel intimidated or they see the other players clamoring over each other to get a say and wpuld back off. They would say something like "Oh, I wanted to talk to the princess but this works too. It's all good".
While this is not something that has happened, the above situation is similar to other incidents. I want to make sure all of my players feel heard while also avoiding too much meta gaming by allowing group discussions about the situation as this really slows down the session as then decisions feel like it has to be a decision by committee. How do I keep game flow going while avoiding everyone jumping in on saying something at once, thus missing possible important info and shoving less confident players aside?
It seems like you’re kind of doing that already, in asking people individually and trying to tease out their thoughts. If some change their minds, well, it’s not your responsibility to fix a person’s social anxiety. Absolutely, you should do what you can to make sure they have an opportunity to speak, but there’s a point where it’s up to them to be assertive.
An option could be to take yourself out of the equation. In the 1e days there was the idea of a “caller” the party would discuss among themselves what to do, and it was up to the caller to then report to the DM what the party would do. The idea was there was only 1 person who would officially say what was next. It would cut down on the shouting and contradictory instructions and make it so there was only 1 voice of the party. It can help reenforce the idea that they need a single coherent course of action. In practice for some groups it can work, if they are good at coming to consensus. You just have to be sure the caller isn’t some tyrant who ignores everyone else’s ideas.
I am playing a VTT game where the GM is having us roll initiative for these kinds of discussions (also often for shopping or downtime RP). I think it works incredibly well to make sure each person gets a chance to talk and be heard without having to interrupt or try to insert themselves into someone else's time. It means the aggressive people stand down when it's not their turn, actively elicits feedback from the quietest players, and keeps the GM from having to track if in fact everyone has had a chance to participate. It's especially good in a virtual setting where the conversational pauses aren't always at the same time and when there's less body language to see that someone is trying to talk, but it is a perfectly reasonable strategy in person as well.
It also helps to know WHEN it will be your time to talk, and also that you will be obligated to contribute, even if it's only that you don't have any action you want to do at this time.
I've experimented in the past with having the players choose amongst themselves a "party leader" who's job it is to direct group discussions and decide when everyone's had a propper say, take everyone's viewpoints into consideration, and decide who's plan to go with.
Now I know how that sounds-- surely you're just saying only this one player's opinion matters and the party is just going to go with their plan every time, right?
The thing is though, that's not been my experience. I think something about player psychology leads them to constantly test to see what they can get away with when the DM is the one directing the conversation, like they're trying to beat Death at a game of chess or something, BUT when it's another player who has the job, suddenly they remember about the other people in the room they're meant to be collaborating with, and they feel that responsibility to make sure everyone has a decent time.
In a vtt you can have them whisper you what they want to do next. Or create a whisper room in Discord and drag them in one at a time. At a personal table, you can hand out notecards. Quick sketches of what they want to do. If they are in conflict, you can use initiative to see what begins to happen first. You can also do the Matt Mercer and have everyone leave the room but the person who is likely to be traumatized by the encounter. Figure out what they are doing, bring everyone else back in and let the scene unfold. Obviously you don't want to do this all the time but impactful decisions or scenarios could certainly spark it.
So I am a 3 year lomg DM who has been running a successful campaign during that time. However, I noticed a trend start to develop when it comes to certain situations. When there's a situation, ie) a princess is about to sentence a criminal that the players are still trying to figure out if he is innocent of the crime or is in fact the guilty culprit, the players all rush over each other to be the first one to make a decision that will decide the course of events.
In situations like that, I usually just shut my trap and use nonverbal communication to encourage the players to discuss it among themselves and make their decision as a group. Yes, it does technically break very similitude a little bit. However, most of the time the players don’t even notice. On the rare occasion that they do I find they are often very quick to self engage the manual override setting on their disbelief suspension systems. Overall I find that the benefits of everyone who wants to getting to speak their mind and the group being able to determine their next course of action democratically far, far outweigh the slight hiccup of a plot hole their li’l powwow causes.
Y’know how when you watch a movie you might notice a fairly glaring or major plot hole the first time you watch it, but the more minor or better concealed plot holes you miss until the second or third time you watch the movie? It’s like that, only the players don’t get to rewatch it so they usually never even pick up on it.
So I am a 3 year lomg DM who has been running a successful campaign during that time. However, I noticed a trend start to develop when it comes to certain situations. When there's a situation, ie) a princess is about to sentence a criminal that the players are still trying to figure out if he is innocent of the crime or is in fact the guilty culprit, the players all rush over each other to be the first one to make a decision that will decide the course of events.
Like one player may want to try to persuade the princess to hold off on making a decision so they can investigate more while another, whose character hates royalty, will want to rescue to commoner and bring them away from the court room. In a case like this, the course of action would go to the player who was basically the fastest in saying what they wanted to do first, ie) the player who wanted to do the rescue so an initiative would be rolled.
Often it leads to the players trying to talk over one another and I have to tell them to hold on so I can ask everyone what they want to do, going one by one. But the player who wanted to persuade the princess wpuld either change their mind cuz they feel intimidated or they see the other players clamoring over each other to get a say and wpuld back off. They would say something like "Oh, I wanted to talk to the princess but this works too. It's all good".
While this is not something that has happened, the above situation is similar to other incidents. I want to make sure all of my players feel heard while also avoiding too much meta gaming by allowing group discussions about the situation as this really slows down the session as then decisions feel like it has to be a decision by committee. How do I keep game flow going while avoiding everyone jumping in on saying something at once, thus missing possible important info and shoving less confident players aside?
It seems like you’re kind of doing that already, in asking people individually and trying to tease out their thoughts. If some change their minds, well, it’s not your responsibility to fix a person’s social anxiety. Absolutely, you should do what you can to make sure they have an opportunity to speak, but there’s a point where it’s up to them to be assertive.
An option could be to take yourself out of the equation. In the 1e days there was the idea of a “caller” the party would discuss among themselves what to do, and it was up to the caller to then report to the DM what the party would do. The idea was there was only 1 person who would officially say what was next. It would cut down on the shouting and contradictory instructions and make it so there was only 1 voice of the party. It can help reenforce the idea that they need a single coherent course of action. In practice for some groups it can work, if they are good at coming to consensus. You just have to be sure the caller isn’t some tyrant who ignores everyone else’s ideas.
I am playing a VTT game where the GM is having us roll initiative for these kinds of discussions (also often for shopping or downtime RP). I think it works incredibly well to make sure each person gets a chance to talk and be heard without having to interrupt or try to insert themselves into someone else's time. It means the aggressive people stand down when it's not their turn, actively elicits feedback from the quietest players, and keeps the GM from having to track if in fact everyone has had a chance to participate. It's especially good in a virtual setting where the conversational pauses aren't always at the same time and when there's less body language to see that someone is trying to talk, but it is a perfectly reasonable strategy in person as well.
It also helps to know WHEN it will be your time to talk, and also that you will be obligated to contribute, even if it's only that you don't have any action you want to do at this time.
I've experimented in the past with having the players choose amongst themselves a "party leader" who's job it is to direct group discussions and decide when everyone's had a propper say, take everyone's viewpoints into consideration, and decide who's plan to go with.
Now I know how that sounds-- surely you're just saying only this one player's opinion matters and the party is just going to go with their plan every time, right?
The thing is though, that's not been my experience. I think something about player psychology leads them to constantly test to see what they can get away with when the DM is the one directing the conversation, like they're trying to beat Death at a game of chess or something, BUT when it's another player who has the job, suddenly they remember about the other people in the room they're meant to be collaborating with, and they feel that responsibility to make sure everyone has a decent time.
In a vtt you can have them whisper you what they want to do next. Or create a whisper room in Discord and drag them in one at a time. At a personal table, you can hand out notecards. Quick sketches of what they want to do. If they are in conflict, you can use initiative to see what begins to happen first. You can also do the Matt Mercer and have everyone leave the room but the person who is likely to be traumatized by the encounter. Figure out what they are doing, bring everyone else back in and let the scene unfold. Obviously you don't want to do this all the time but impactful decisions or scenarios could certainly spark it.
In situations like that, I usually just shut my trap and use nonverbal communication to encourage the players to discuss it among themselves and make their decision as a group. Yes, it does technically break very similitude a little bit. However, most of the time the players don’t even notice. On the rare occasion that they do I find they are often very quick to self engage the manual override setting on their disbelief suspension systems. Overall I find that the benefits of everyone who wants to getting to speak their mind and the group being able to determine their next course of action democratically far, far outweigh the slight hiccup of a plot hole their li’l powwow causes.
Y’know how when you watch a movie you might notice a fairly glaring or major plot hole the first time you watch it, but the more minor or better concealed plot holes you miss until the second or third time you watch the movie? It’s like that, only the players don’t get to rewatch it so they usually never even pick up on it.
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