there is always a reason why people don't want to get involved. thinking they should listen more or be more focused and putting the blame on them is usually the first mistake a DM does. i do a lot of intro spection and believe me, there are so many times where my players lost interest and thats not on them, thats on me. Its not hard to be a good DM. it only requires that you listen to your party. the major problem with DMing is that people think the story is of the utmost importance and that every players should listen to every single moment of it, as if they were in school. we're not in school when we play.. you should never tell others to shut up and listen to you talking, that takes away their agency and thats the problem. we're not at a table to shut up and listen. we're not at a table to listen to you tell a story. we're there to play "OUR" Characters.

again there is always a reason why things hapens the way they do and more often then not, the DM is the one at fault.
i'm not saying be perfect, i'm not saying they are right you are stupid. i'm not saying anything of the sort because that would be false.
i am just saying... if you are not a good listener, if you are not capable of not reading that book. then you should practice more.

tips of the day...
- reading the book line by line and encounter by encounter, is not a great way to play.
- Throwing information at the head of your players, should be limited to what they are asking about.
- if your players all have lost interest and are talking about other things then D&D. its time to take a breather, take a 5 minute break and relax.
    - in that time, take this opportunity to ask each players what they think of the game right now ?
    - in that time, ask them why they are not engaging with the story ?

you will be surprised by th eanswers you'll get. some might say that their character is a fighter and they want encounters, that story telling is not for them.
some might tell you that they are tired and that concentrating is hard for them at this point.
some might say, sorry i should listen more.

you never know, but you definitely should listen to them more. and do not hesitate to take a breather.

The only thing my party listens to intently is the list of treasure we found.

I write down everything and listen carefully.  When we come to some obvious "moment" in the story, some start asking me "What did that guy say back at Village Place?"

I think the players should give the DMs more respect, but in the end it is up to them to DO it.  And likewise, you must give them respect and try to listen to their expressions of what makes a dungeon campaign interesting.

Good luck.

I'm in the minority here, but I think it's incredibly rude of them to interrupt you. DMs do a lot of prep work and if your players are being so disrespectful that the trip you up in the middle of describing important details then you are well in your right to tell them that you expect them to listen to you when you are talking, just like you are listening to them while they are talking.

Well... it's been 2+ years since the topic was created and I learned a lot.

I dropped the campaign where people were not paying attention. I tried real hard to follow the players and characters, but it ended up they didn't want to play D&D as a campaign or multi session adventures. I brought to them the D&D boardgames and they enjoyed much more. A one-shot adventure without much character involvement was what they wanted. Players may feel shy to tell you that they don't want to play what/how you are proposing but we need to try to make them comfortable to do so.

Also, started a new campaign with co-workers. They wanted to create their own characters and each one had something related with one another (which bonded their relationships to act as a group). Sunless Citadel was the adventure. We took 8 months to finish it with an average of 2 sessions/month.

They really enjoyed the game, but, as we are playing during a long lunch time, it was ok for once in a while they check emails/respond message/answer calls during the game. And that brings the breather mentioned above.

We are currently running Storm King's Thunder, which is difficult to players with characters made with previously achieved goals (they didn't want to create new ones) to follow the plot, but as they want to play, they wear the cap of "we are adventurers, so let's fight the evil or die trying".

Thanks,

On a roughly related subject, does anyone else have an issue with players tuning out when the focus is on a character other than theirs - especially during combat? I run a story-heavy campaign, but the story is very much guided by the players' characters and I know for a fact they all dig the story. But my ethos is that every character gets a moment in the spotlight, and I find it extremely disrespectful when players 'zone out' while another player's character is having a moment.

This weekend, there was a hilarious 100% player-guided interaction between two characters that was so genius I awarded them both inspiration for it. But two other players completely missed it because they were talking among themselves about some class feature they're going to get at Level 14 (which is at least a year away, since we play every two weeks).

Similarly, during a combat with a huge monster, one of the characters used an improvised action to mount the creature, climbing using her rapier as a piton, and messed with the creature's action economy so much that she pretty much won the party the fight. But again, another player wasn't aware that it had even happened when his turn came around, because he'd been chatting about the latest Critical Role episode with another player.

I understand that we are playing a game and that players are excited to talk DND when we get together and might see the time between "their turn" as a chance to do that, but is it unreasonable to ask that every player respects every other player by paying attention when the spotlight isn't on them?

Having 20 year of experience on that matter... it is impossible for you to keep the attention of people all the time. the average "brain" attention for a human being is about 8 seconds.
while you may be concentrating on listening, your brain is starting to think of other things and many people have started using the "before i forget, i should tell you !" and thus you lose their attention, not because of malice but because of brian attentions and their habits. there is is strickly no way for you to get better at this. it entirely depend son people.

i for an exemple, will always listen to a game, not just a DM but as a player, because i love stories and i love hearing people around me. but that is me, that may not be the others.
i have a DM right now that irks me and i'm about to say it to him... because he's trying too hard to push the game forward. and it seems to him like when he's talking, he wants us to listen as if we were in school. basically, stop talking, let me give my description. and when he's talking about lore of the story, he would stoip and tell players to write this down. and if he sees no one is interested in writing it down, he takes it at heart to tell us to write it down because its important.

you see that kind of behavior is not better, this only makes you lose players.
you have to understand that players are at that table for numerous reasons, yours, is not theirs !
you gotta ask players what they are about ?
and ask them why do they lose interest during the game.

as an exemple...
Combats are usually very tacticals, most players aren't tactical mans, they either preffer cinematic ways of doing things and or story elements. barely any people are tacticals. i for one am not a tactical guy. i love the combat mechanics but it stops there. so if i lose interest during combat, it is normal for me. unless you try to find a way to include me in every single moment of combat, you will lose me when its not my turn. i do try hard to listen to others, know whats hapenning to the battlefield... but if i can't... don't put the blame on me, that will only make me leave your game sooner then later.

again, you have to understand your players there.
don't be afraid to stop the game, and ask, or after the game talk to them, or better yet, before the game. show them you ar einterested in them.

This can be a little annoying especially as a dm, the first thing you should do is talk to them out of game and hope they take it to heart. However, at the end of the day it may not change anything. If it is only happening rarely and the side conversation isn't interrupting the game you may just have to deal with it from time to time and repeat yourself on occasion. Now if these conversations are happening very often and are causing the story to be interrupted because people are talking loudly if after you talk to them about this and they don't make any attempt to fix issues then you may have to part ways with certain players that are taking away your fun or the party's. Also, Ask yourself if there may be something you could be doing to keep them involved more often and not losing interested and maybe even ask them for their thoughts after game.

I think you should sit down with your players and redo session 0 to discuss what kind of game they want to play. 

Most DM's want to have a game where 'realism' plays a role to involve players into an immersive setting of storytelling a fantasy tale. But some players are just more into making fun, jokes or just about monster killing - like a skirmish setting. Figure out what they want and adjust either the game or find players who are on the same page as you are.

Regards,

Rob.

It gets this way occasionally. Sometimes players have no interest in the story and only want to roll dice. You need to get a feel for which game your group wants you to run. Remember, it is everyone's game, so your job is to make it fun. That being said, it can be very frustrating when you want them to follow the story and they don't care. I have this problem a lot in the board games I introduce. 

If you love to tell the story and want players that care about that, I suggest finding a second group and enthrall them with the webs of your story. However, keep the current group and listen to the vibe of the table. Keep them engaged as they want to be and the game will continue.