Dead Weight Player Issue

[kmal2t]

If you were asking me specifically:

Kmal2t wrote:

If someone doesn't want to engage in the game you need to ask them at some point if they really want to be there. If FB or whatever else is more engaging than the session then either the DM needs to up his game or the player needs to stay home. If the player is there only out of some kind of obligation or habit because he started the game or just to get brief social interaction then he needs to go elsewhere.

It kills the desire for everyone else to roleplay when one guy sits there like "huh? Ya that's fine" and always goes right back to his laptop.

[Hama]

Obese people have nothing to do with being annoyingly distracting. They are just fat. See, I consider using cell phones(outside of an emergency, of course) in a social situation supremely rude. I hate it when people fiddle with phones anywhere. I turn off my phone when i go on a date, and have walked from one because her friend called her and she started talking with her (maybe it wasn't a fun date, but it's still disrespectful).
My friends and i actually have a sort of game when we go to eat somewhere. We put our phones in the middle of the table and whenever someone picks up his or her phone, he or she puts it on top of the pile. And then he or she has to pay not only for their meal, but for the meal of the person next to them. Thus far, nobody touched their phone during meals (again, emergencies are considered more important then social norms).
So it pisses me off when somebody grabs their phone and starts fiddling. Doodle, stack dice, use a rubix cube, don't touch your phone. Before the phone bowl, i used to stop talking if someone was fiddling with their phone when it is not their turn.
I pay attention when I am a player, no matter whose turn it is and even if the party was split.

[Nymian Harthing]

Eh, it wasn't intended at any specific person, kmal2t. My apologies that it appeared that way. It's just a goal of mine to keep a bit more on task, considering how often I derail conversations anymore. Heh.

To me it sounds like this player is not engaged in any way with the game. We had someone like that in another group, but she only came along to "play" because her boyfriend played. In the end, there wasn't anything other than Boyfriend that she liked about game. And even then, if he wasn't paying direct attention to her, she was unhappy and disruptive. ("Oh, I, um, jump in the river and shoot myself with an arrow. Are we in combat? Huh.")

My patience level for people who profess they want to play in the same game I'm playing in but who don't actually play at all is pretty low. This means that (most likely) like the OP I'm open to learning through suggestions. How does one engage a player who seems totally uninterested?

[CapeCodRPGer]

Nymian Harthing wrote:

Player's completely disengaged. How do you handle?

I just thought of this, but all the other players/ GM would have to be Ok with it and go with it when it happens.

If player is always playing on phone/ laptop/ tablet/ whatever during the game, ignoring everyone. Have everyone else ignore the player back. Then when the player want to do something the DM says "Well, you looked more interested in playing on phone then playing the game, so we played like your character is not here."

[3.5 Loyalist]

Hama wrote:

If you can't refrain yourself from fiddling with your phone for 5 hours, it is not me who has a problem. Thus far, nobody complained about the bowl, and they all readily put their phones there.

Agree.

Sorry kmal, but these type of people are a problem.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Hama wrote:

Obese people have nothing to do with being annoyingly distracting. They are just fat. See, I consider using cell phones(outside of an emergency, of course) in a social situation supremely rude. I hate it when people fiddle with phones anywhere. I turn off my phone when i go on a date, and have walked from one because her friend called her and she started talking with her (maybe it wasn't a fun date, but it's still disrespectful).

My friends and i actually have a sort of game when we go to eat somewhere. We put our phones in the middle of the table and whenever someone picks up his or her phone, he or she puts it on top of the pile. And then he or she has to pay not only for their meal, but for the meal of the person next to them. Thus far, nobody touched their phone during meals (again, emergencies are considered more important then social norms).
So it pisses me off when somebody grabs their phone and starts fiddling. Doodle, stack dice, use a rubix cube, don't touch your phone. Before the phone bowl, i used to stop talking if someone was fiddling with their phone when it is not their turn.
I pay attention when I am a player, no matter whose turn it is and even if the party was split.

Yeah, and you have to ask them "are you f%!#ing listening? Hey, look up here, and put your damn phone down for a minute."

"Oh" said the smartphone zombie, as they raised their eyes and the glazed look (temporarily) cleared.

[3.5 Loyalist]

CapeCodRPGer wrote:

Nymian Harthing wrote:

Player's completely disengaged. How do you handle?

I just thought of this, but all the other players/ GM would have to be Ok with it and go with it when it happens.

If player is always playing on phone/ laptop/ tablet/ whatever during the game, ignoring everyone. Have everyone else ignore the player back. Then when the player want to do something the DM says "Well, you looked more interested in playing on phone then playing the game, so we played like your character is not here."

Nice. A trick I saw a dm pull (and I've tried a variant of it), is during the middle of a combat, when it is mr smartphone-laptop-loser's turn, look at them for a few seconds, count six seconds while waiting, and then if they aren't "there" in words and action, move on.

The offending player later asked where their place in the initiative order went. I think the dm laughed.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

When a player's initiative comes up he has six (real-life) seconds to declare his action. The only way this will work out is if the player had been paying attention to the combat. If no coherent action is declared then he is delaying, like it or not.

[kmal2t]

I'm going to disagree that passive-aggressive behavior (having everyone ignore the player) is the answer to the phone problem. That's likely only to make it worse.

I would however agree with the idea of skipping over the player's turn in combat a few times. When his turn is up, say "Ok it's Nightblade's turn" ..wait a second..and if he doesn't respond move on. Don't go out of your way to get the Player's attention (i.e. "Mick...MICK!") and when he wonders why his turn was missed 3 times point out you told him and he wasn't paying attention. He should get the hint after this.

And I'm still going to disagree with the anti-phone idea. As long as it isn't hurting the game I don't see an issue. I've already said that if someone's head is buried in a tablet the whole time they have a problem...but if another player and the DM are in a 10 minute discussion about the Knowledge: Religion skill, I see no reason why a phone is so much more a no-no than "doodling, a rubiks cube etc".

Yes it is rude when someone is engaging you directly and you ignore them with your phone, but that isn't what I've ever been talking about. Its there as a tool to entertain you for those times when you're idle.

If the DM is talking to the group and I'm absorbed in reading through Ultimate Campaign or flipping through a comic book this is rude behavior as well. There's a million other ways to be rude by not paying attention. Using a cell phone is not inherently rude in a social setting..it just depends on how its being done.

[CapeCodRPGer]

We had to boot a guy from the group. He was new to table top RPGs but wanted to learn how to play. After awhile he still kept asking how to do basic stuff, rolling to hit, movement, ect.. We kept askign him to look at the rulebook when he had time. He never did. He was always on his iphone.

He told me that he learns better by doing not reading. So I told him to pay more attention during the game to get basic stuff down. Next game whenever I asked what he was doing he looked up from his iphone and had to ask what was going on.

He still wonders why we kicked him.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Ahh, a phone zombie, it is good you turned him from your table then.

[Pippi]

We have a story that's kind of legendary with the kids I grew up and played with.

We were playing a homebrew Sci-Fi game, and one of our friends had a habit of falling asleep at the table (he usually stayed up all night during the summer and slept most of the day).

We had crashed landed on a planet that had been declared off-limits by the government of this particular sector, and had run into one of the planetary rangers in charge of maintaining the quarantine. We had finally convinced him and his enforcers that we had landed out of complete necessity, and were ready to get a lift to their station when the ranger noticed our friend standing in a stupor and asked "What's with him?"

--OOG, our DM noticed his player had fallen asleep again, and woke him up by calling his name, loudly. Without missing a beat, the player jerked awake and shouted "I shoot him!", then grabbed his dice. Before anyone could say anything, he rolled a critical. Our DM smiled wickedly and told him to confirm. He did, and he killed the ranger with one shot.

Back in game, the rest of us immediately threw down our weapons and watched as the remaining enforcers beat our friend to within an inch of his life. We went along to the ranger station to await transportation to a security station for questioning.

Our friend stayed awake for the rest of the summer. It kinda sucked, but watching the elation at his awesome critical turn to confusion as he looked around at the rest of us was pretty much worth it.

More to the point, we have a roomate of one of our players join up with us a few months ago, and she would jump on her laptop the instant she finished her tunr, and we'd spend more time catching her up when her turn came around than it took for the rest of us to take our own turns.

Finally we all just kinda told her (as kindly as possible) that we liked having her around, and wanted her to keep playing, but that it was really making the game less enjoyable for us when she clocked out of the game every 30 seconds.

She put away her laptop and we made a special effort to try and make sure she felt included in all of the aspects fo the game, and not just as monster bait/distraction during combat.

The game's been better since our conversation.