The scene: Your at your FLGS running your 2nd session of a fantasy game with 6 players new to your table. 4 of them are veteran gamers, 2 of them are somewhat new to RPGs. The first session was exciting, everyone was engaged, and having fun. After all the introductions, quick summary and what not you put in a solid 3 hours of play. The scenario was set; the PCs headed out to the Dark Forest to find out what happened to Alderman Put's latest shipment from The Large City several days travel to the south. The first encounter was with the ubiquitous Goblins, who provided our 1st level PCs with some challenge. Then the PCs follow the tracks back to the cave entrance where the Goblins clearly came from. Session one ends.

Queue the 2nd session. The PCs have encountered some resistance in the cave and defeated several small groups of Goblins guarding various passageways. They decided to go left, overcame a nasty pit trap and are now exploring some caverns that branch out here. The dungeon you have prepped has no real encounters in these caverns. You have encounter tables ready to go, but the last couple checks came up "no encounter". A small amount of time goes by exploring and deciding which way to go.

Then two of the players, one veteran, one new nod off to other places and start doodling and fidgeting; clearly no longer engaged or paying attention.

What do you do?

P.S. You're the GM.

P.S.S Make any or no assumptions based on your experience or even better based on the lesson/advice you want to share.

Clarification questions are of course welcome. :-D

Show signs of an approaching threat.

Go with the weird. I pretty much always have a number of 'D&D is a weird place' encounters to go, and drop one in. "No encounter" has its place on a wandering monster table. When populating a dungeon, "No monsters, no trap, no secret door" doesn't have to mean an empty room.

1. My fault for bringing an open exploration map to a 3 hour FLGS game with new players.  Don't do that.
2. Their fault for having the attention span of a Mayfly.

1 I can correct, just design better next time.
2 I cannot correct, I'll have to evaluate this later to see if these are adrenaline junkie players.

Solution 1: some form of...Ninjas Attack!

• Piercers, Cave Fishers or some other "When you least expect it, expect it." monster to readjust the perception that this is "empty space".
• Place Undead somewhere in the back of the caverns to explain why they are so empty, again the point is to adjust the perception that "nothing is happening" just because Orcs aren't coming out of the stonework.
• As Cranebump says, environmental descriptions putting them back on point, again readjusting the perception.

Solution 2: Play it out normally, then talk to them afterward and find out what's what.  If they literally can't keep focused for two missed encounter rolls, then they're looking for more of an action-focused campaign.  This campaign may or may not be for them.

It's kind of hard to do this one because the assumption is something normally I wouldn't do.  If I was doing a 3-4 hours FLGS session with new players I'd try to come up with something that is more tight and contained than usual to avoid the type of chaotic sprawl that can happen in a long-term campaign that might be going for longer sessions.

But if more than one player is drifting at the same time, it's simple, either they are incompatible with my GMing style, or I'm just fucking up, so I have to call an audible to get things back on track.

Normally, I wouldn't invent stuff at the table like that, but doing a limited time FLGS session with new players, it's not SOP to begin with.

Call a pee break and when I sit back down again see if they've refocused.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;938773Call a pee break and when I sit back down again see if they've refocused.

So sayeth the Master.  We do dramatically overthink things, and can't see the forest for the trees at times.

Drop an encounter in and see if that interests them.
Drop a map of something and see if that interests them.

Were they doodling/sketching things from the game (i.e. drawing portraits of their characters, etc.)?

* bow *

Every once in a while when the Players start drifting, tell them to make a Perception check or a Saving Throw or ask what their marching order is. Nothing has to happen, but it is a not so gentle reminder that this world their characters are in is still worth paying attention to because threats are present.

I had a friend who would get miffed at at us if we did that. Sometimes, he'd tell us, "Make a saving throw!"

Our English teacher would do the same thing, but with pop quizzes. Maybe he got it from her. It did get us to pay attention. Makes me laugh now.

Doodling on paper probably fine.  If they are in their phone disaster.  

(Also keep them out of the rule books no good comes of that)

I doodle during games. It keeps my imagination active and helps me engage withe the fantasy environment.

A GM shouldn't mistake doodling for not paying attention. I'm very capable of doing both.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;938838I doodle during games. It keeps my imagination active and helps me engage withe the fantasy environment.

A GM shouldn't mistake doodling for not paying attention. I'm very capable of doing both.

You're an artist.

Just like with the last entry in the series, I think people (including me) are being a little too literal.  Replace doodling with phone or tablet use, side talking, reading a different RPG book or anything else that could be "in your opinion, your player's attention is lagging, how do you recapture it?"

First, assess what's actually going on with those players, relative to the game. It's not my job to keep ADD people thrilled all the time, and I don't need everyone to be an attentive player, though I may talk to them between sessions to see if it's better if they just not show up. I won't alter the universe to entertain such. I will however adjust the time frame and the way I engage the players. If nothing is going on, we can accelerate how we move from place to place. If player input is needed, I can ask players for it.