I've been running my first campaign for a bit now and I'm constantly finding it hard to keep all my players incaged, we aren't all ready at the start more people start getting side tracked and then once we do start the party is getting split up and it's hard to keep going back and forth, sometimes it's my fault and sometimes my players come up with the idea of splitting up and I start losing there attention, or are lawful good paladin and neutral evil wizard start going st it again, and you get the idea, as a DM how do I keep all these players engaged and not wondering back to the IT trailer except Penniesworth is the Cat in the hat.
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Marvarax andSora (Dragonborn) The retired fighter and WIP scholar - Glory
Brythel(Dwarf), The dwarf with a gun - survival at sea
Jaylin(Human), Paladin of Lathander's Ancient ways - The Seven Saints (Azura Claw)
Urselles(Goblin), Cleric of Eldath- The Wizard's challenge
Viclas Tyrin(Half Elf), Student of the Elven arts- Indrafatmoko's Defiance in Phlan
Some advice from the many years I have been playing and running tabletop games:
Talk to your group about issues - be open about it and ask them to help you solve them. It makes the game better for everyone.
If that doesn't work, or you don't know the players too well, there are some other ways you can exercise control:
If people aren't paying attention at the start and are messing around, just wait for them. Clearly state that you're waiting. If the other players are ready and waiting too, the person who isn't ready will likely feel awkward and sort themselves out quickly.
Never run a party that has both good and evil characters in it (unless that happens by design and you are sure you and the players have the experience to deal with it). It makes plot hooks a LOT harder and often promotes in-fighting.
Unless it's unavoidable, don't split the party. If you have a single player who keeps insisting on going off alone, explain to them that there's only a certain amount of game time, so whilst they can go and do things on their own, the majority of your focus will be on the main group of players. When you do deal with the single player's solo stuff, keep it very brief and resolve situations with simple rolls. This makes it less enjoyable for them to go do things solo.
I'd love to hear what others have to say on this as well. Sometimes I have groups that just gel and they actively listen to others, giving everyone time in the spotlight and getting so engrossed that hours fly by. However, I've had far too many that roll like you describe.
How long is the game going before they go sideways? Maybe plan on having breaks more frequently? Is it just a single player that's instigating the side conversations or many? If just 1 or 2, an off-line conversation may help by asking them to try and stay off of phones etc. Also, try asking them for suggestions to make it more interesting. It may be that you have half a group that really wants to role play and a few that want to slash-n-loot more. I was surprised and relieved when I started a session one time with "before we even start, give me some quick feedback on our last couple of sessions. What did you like, what was grueling and what would you like to do more of?".
In a recent campaign, I had to speed up battles because players told me they were getting bored waiting for their turn. I ended up having everyone roll initiative about 10 times before the game and then when we went into each battle, I already had init ready and everyone felt like they had say in it without having to wait. I then let people roll together. For example if the init order was 3 pcs, 1 monster, 2 pcs and another monster, I let the 3 pcs discuss what they wanted to do, roll all at once, take their actions, then acted for the monster then let the other 2 pcs discuss what they wanted to do and then roll at the same time. It wasn't easy as a DM but I got used to it and rounds became dramatically faster. (note: I tried the same with a different group a few months later and it failed miserably, so results vary but the point is tweaking to get the players involved in coming up with a solution rather than trying to manage it all on your own).
The problem that doesn't really work with the last 2 since I don't want to tell my player to change character since he's not like completely evil and, uselly when it's my fault the party splits that wasn't my intended plan and when it's the players fault I don't want to contrict them to much.
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Marvarax andSora (Dragonborn) The retired fighter and WIP scholar - Glory
Brythel(Dwarf), The dwarf with a gun - survival at sea
Jaylin(Human), Paladin of Lathander's Ancient ways - The Seven Saints (Azura Claw)
Urselles(Goblin), Cleric of Eldath- The Wizard's challenge
Viclas Tyrin(Half Elf), Student of the Elven arts- Indrafatmoko's Defiance in Phlan
The problem that doesn't really work with the last 2 since I don't want to tell my player to change character since he's not like completely evil and, uselly when it's my fault the party splits that wasn't my intended plan and when it's the players fault I don't want to contrict them to much.
As a DM, you really do need to be willing to step up and work out problems - even if that feels like you are "constricting" your players at first.
If you talk to them about what you perceive as being a problem (i.e. mismatched party alignments causing inter-party conflict that sidetracks the rest of the table, and the logistical difficulties which arise when the party is split), why you perceive it to be a problem, and then work with them to decide upon solutions to these problems (assuming, of course, that the players agree that there are problems - if they think everything is cool as-is, there's nothing that can be done besides finding a different group of players that fit your preferences and leaving them to find or become a DM that fits theirs), then no one is being treated unfairly in any way.
But if you just sit back and let the problems you perceive continue because you don't feel like you should be saying things like "We need the party of characters to actually want to work together as a cohesive team, so no one should be intentionally making that not happen" or "Splitting the party might often make sense from an in-character perspective, but it is extremely difficult to manage out-of-character without players getting out of focus on the game because they can't participate for long periods of time, so let's put having fun as a higher priority than making sense in-character and agree to just not split the party." then your game play experience is likely never to get better.
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I've been running my first campaign for a bit now and I'm constantly finding it hard to keep all my players incaged, we aren't all ready at the start more people start getting side tracked and then once we do start the party is getting split up and it's hard to keep going back and forth, sometimes it's my fault and sometimes my players come up with the idea of splitting up and I start losing there attention, or are lawful good paladin and neutral evil wizard start going st it again, and you get the idea, as a DM how do I keep all these players engaged and not wondering back to the IT trailer except Penniesworth is the Cat in the hat.
Marvarax and Sora (Dragonborn) The retired fighter and WIP scholar - Glory
Brythel(Dwarf), The dwarf with a gun - survival at sea
Jaylin(Human), Paladin of Lathander's Ancient ways - The Seven Saints (Azura Claw)
Urselles(Goblin), Cleric of Eldath- The Wizard's challenge
Viclas Tyrin(Half Elf), Student of the Elven arts- Indrafatmoko's Defiance in Phlan
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D&D Beyond FoundersSome advice from the many years I have been playing and running tabletop games:
If that doesn't work, or you don't know the players too well, there are some other ways you can exercise control:
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I'd love to hear what others have to say on this as well. Sometimes I have groups that just gel and they actively listen to others, giving everyone time in the spotlight and getting so engrossed that hours fly by. However, I've had far too many that roll like you describe.
How long is the game going before they go sideways? Maybe plan on having breaks more frequently? Is it just a single player that's instigating the side conversations or many? If just 1 or 2, an off-line conversation may help by asking them to try and stay off of phones etc. Also, try asking them for suggestions to make it more interesting. It may be that you have half a group that really wants to role play and a few that want to slash-n-loot more. I was surprised and relieved when I started a session one time with "before we even start, give me some quick feedback on our last couple of sessions. What did you like, what was grueling and what would you like to do more of?".
In a recent campaign, I had to speed up battles because players told me they were getting bored waiting for their turn. I ended up having everyone roll initiative about 10 times before the game and then when we went into each battle, I already had init ready and everyone felt like they had say in it without having to wait. I then let people roll together. For example if the init order was 3 pcs, 1 monster, 2 pcs and another monster, I let the 3 pcs discuss what they wanted to do, roll all at once, take their actions, then acted for the monster then let the other 2 pcs discuss what they wanted to do and then roll at the same time. It wasn't easy as a DM but I got used to it and rounds became dramatically faster. (note: I tried the same with a different group a few months later and it failed miserably, so results vary but the point is tweaking to get the players involved in coming up with a solution rather than trying to manage it all on your own).
Can't wait to hear any other suggestions.
The problem that doesn't really work with the last 2 since I don't want to tell my player to change character since he's not like completely evil and, uselly when it's my fault the party splits that wasn't my intended plan and when it's the players fault I don't want to contrict them to much.
Marvarax and Sora (Dragonborn) The retired fighter and WIP scholar - Glory
Brythel(Dwarf), The dwarf with a gun - survival at sea
Jaylin(Human), Paladin of Lathander's Ancient ways - The Seven Saints (Azura Claw)
Urselles(Goblin), Cleric of Eldath- The Wizard's challenge
Viclas Tyrin(Half Elf), Student of the Elven arts- Indrafatmoko's Defiance in Phlan