Share the Conch
I woke up this morning to the sound of my illustrator giggling. When I inquired as to the cause of her mirth she blurted, “Initiative shouting!” at me. Then she showed me her phone. It was the Patreon preview version of today’s comic. One of our patrons had responded: “Omg, I’m having initiative shouting flashbacks!”
I pictured the slow PTSD zoom onto this GM’s face. It was accompanied by the sounds of nerds screaming random numbers at the top of their lungs. The Doors were layered over the top. I too cracked up. That’s because I’ve been there. Anyone’s who’s ever sat behind a cardboard screen has been there. And we’ve all worn the same expression as Inquisitor trying to make sense of the babble of player exuberance.
In the case of initiative specifically, you can try a couple of methods for combatting this tendency. You can call on players individually. You can ask for ranges: “20 plus? Anyone on 15-20?” If you’re in a VTT you can rely on virtual initiative trackers. If you’re at an IRL table, you can ask players to write their own initiatives on wet erase magnets before sticking them onto the initiative tracker. All of this can help, but it doesn’t solve the problem. That’s because initiative is only the most common hunting ground for Interruptus Rex.
As a recovering Diva, I love nothing better than a heated exchange. Rapid fire in-character dialogue complete with interjections, quick sallies, and witty retorts are virtually made out of interruptions. But when you enjoy that style of in-character interaction, it’s easy to step on your buddies’ lines.
Same deal if you’re having side conversations. Even if a couple of players aren’t distractedly giggling over memes and actually engaged in an in-character sidebar, it can still be hard to keep track over the general din. You hate to tell ’em to shush as the GM, but meanwhile the room is dissolving into an impenetrable wall of sound. At such moments, my inner kindergarten teacher yearns for quiet coyote to come and be my co-GM.
So here’s my question for today’s discussion. Are there any easy ways to mitigate the noise and clamor of player exuberance? Obviously “be polite” is the go-to, but are there any good strats to manage common pressure points like initiative or dumb jokes during serious RP? Sound off with your own interruption mitigation strategies down in the comments!
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I start singing , badly, so the players stop shouting and plead me to stop. Bonus for turning classics into more thematic, like “Staying alive” becoming “Rolling dice” or TNT to DnD or my favourite “Hunting high and low” “Rolling high and low”
I might have some lyrics for ya:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOUksDJCijw&t=1014s
How about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgY5U3LKgY
As someone with a tendency to be an “enthusiastic talker” I find that simply raising my hand help tremendously. First of all it distracts me from talking and secondly it allows the DM to pick me for talking the moment a moment arrives for it.
As a DM it mainly involves cutting it off quickly. Don´t let one-off comments escalate, quickly bring people back on topic or simply say “Player 1 were talking”/”I will get to you interrupter”. Banter is a core part of the RPG experience, but it also have a time and a place.
I have never felt guilt over shushing side conversations. If they have escalated to the point of being a problem then what is going on is either not all that important or the talkers should be made aware that they are being disruptive.
Good on ya for be self-aware about this. And the raised hand does indeed play well.
I had a rough one where a wererat sorcerer was having a dramatic confrontation with the wererat who bit him in his backstory, thus saving his life with (plot magic) lycanthropy. The rat in question was just about to offer to serve as his familiar when the rogue hanging back in the next room blurts, “I shoot the wererat through the door!”
Tough moment to decide whether to quash the players agency or permit them to steal the scene.
That sort of thing can be really difficult. And the solutions to it can greatly depend on your group. Something I dealt with somewhat regularly was my players wanting to skip the villain talks and go to combat.
What helped with that was simply telling them to let me finish, as well as not rewarding them with any surprises from interrupting a monologue (You can´t surprise someone who is staring at you while monologuing. He can see you preparing to swing that sword).
Overall communication is, as pretty much always, key. And sometimes I think the best solution is to go meta with it. I think it can be fine to tell someone that this is another players moment, or to let you finish setting something up, before they go to combat. But it can be difficult to judge when to do this. Especially because it can easily turn into taking away too much agency. I think the best way to frame it would generally be as a “Are you sure” moment, rather than a “Can you not?”.
With the interrupting monologue part something I find is that it is important to remember that the DM are also there to have fun. And part of that fun is setting up scenes and stories. And if the players interrupts that setup, then it can easily hinder the DMs fun with it. For what is often very little fun gain for the players. So players, let your DMs speak.
In the case of your player shooting the rat, I think I would have asked them to consider it and why. But I find it difficult to make out of context rulings on stuff like this, as it can vary greatly from case to case. Depending on the set-up and tone it might be him stealing the scene from another player, or it might be a totally awesome moment where he helps his friend.
As a player, I don´t think I would ever do that as I have a very “This is about you, not me” attitude when it concerns someones backstory. I take a step back, and react in response to their actions, rather than start taking action on my own (Within reason).
Well, GM’ing Pendragon always brings a lot of Monty Python and the Holy Grail jokes to the table. So I usually try to get those out of the way as fast as possible by making (and letting the players make) as many as possible in the shortest time, and then get on with the game. This usually works quite well. Mostly we lose only about three to five minutes that way. And players that have played with me before know about it, and also know that it can be very inappropriate, so help me get though it as fast as possible. I see it as part of the preparation for a game. At least with The Holy Grail it gets all the imagination and the Theater of the Mind on the right visual, and questing, path. So both a hindrance and a way of getting in the correct mood.
I love that this is a specific problem. It crops up in my typical dungeon-bash games, so I can only imagine a literal Arthurian system, lol.
How do you set it up? “OK guys, last time we [plot summary]. Before we set out to visit the Fisher King, give me your best Monty Python jokes. Timer starts now.”
I wish…. No, it usually happens somewhere during play, with a scene that reminds someone of something in the movie. So basically play stops for about three minutes whole everybody tries to outdo each other in reciting lines and jokes from the movie and sometimes other Pyton skits
You should literally have a Monty Python timer with “stop that, it’s too silly” sound bite as your alarm. Show them the ticking clock. 😛
Playing online makes this difficult to avoid because you don’t have visual cues for when people are aboot to speak.
Nothing quite like the, “Oh, sorry. You go ahead. No, you go ahead,” dance. And weirdly, it’s occasionally GOOD to have overlapping voices on chat, just so you know if a joke has landed or if all the characters are reacting to dire news or whatever. It becomes a replacement for the missing body language.
So I have one about one of my players who had a habit of cutting everyone off after a battle to loot the bodies. Their healer wanted to investigate the terrain? He loots! The barbarian wanted to thank their ancestors? He loots! The paladin wants to check the bodies? He loots and starts rolling and I haven’t even asked him yet. It got so bad he would start asking to loot the room he just entered! He wasn’t even a rogue! He was a wood elf Warlock who didn’t have prof. with investigation and slight of hand. A rogue I can see eyeing things discreetly, but not a lock.
I eventually had to implement the weight rules just to stop him from cutting other people off!
My whole group as another, collective way of dealing with interruptions. Anytime someone interrupts we all start shouting “RRACKER!” It was such a stupid moment that spawned this because the character didn’t have any pb in survival with 0 mod. So “Tracker” became our way of saying that you’re doing something stupid and I’m busy with this one person. As a GM I’m aware I have more leeway to interrupt, but I hardly ever use it. So really, if the gm can be patient, why can’t everyone else?
Also humbled!
> Also humbled!
Sometimes a phrase hits just right. “Initiative shouting” is friggin’ evocative.
> A rogue I can see eyeing things discreetly, but not a lock.
Greed is a character trait independent of class. Being bad at swiping stuff doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to do it, you know? But by the same token, disruptive behavior isn’t restricted by character class either. Dude clearly liked getting paid, so you might have tried making “obvious loot is automatic” a part of the post-battle sequence, just to keep the game moving. But more realistically, talking to the player rather than using rules to curb the character might be the better call.
When we play online, we just type initiative and other important numbers in the text chat so they dont get lost. Easy reference.
Playing in person, the DM will usually just go around the circle clockwise or counterclockwise, write down the initiatives on a notepad, and go from there.
In either case, if somebody’s turn comes up and other people are speaking over them, we have the almighty gavel of yelling “Hey! SHUT UP!” until they quiet down and remember its not their turn. Its surprisingly effective. Bonus points when we play on Discord where we can actually mute someone if they dont respond. Its harsh, but nobody has taken it personally yet.
I sometimes get confused with the text chat initiative, as it’s easy to mistake the last check rolled as an initiative entry. Still, it does present an arguably superior alternative to the “everyone shout into your mic” method.
I don’t call “Okay, Initiative!” or whatnot, because with most groups, it leads to everyone trying to go all at once. My sister does the calling ranges thing when she DMs for her group, and it’s usually a decent way of doing it, though one time I recall it got gummed up by the fact that all four players had gotten 12s, and thus all shouted over each other within that same range bracket, continued to do so as it narrowed, and then shouted over each other in determining who had the fastest 12, and necessitated a second set of range calls to determine initiative modifiers. Normally it works well, though.
Personally, I’m lucky enough that the group I normally DM for has (unlike many game groups I’ve seen), retained some amount of what they learned in kindergarten. They take turns without being told to, and announce initiatives in clockwise order without needing to be prompted to do so.
With other groups, I do prompt. “Okay, going in a circle, starting with Alice, tell me your initiatives. Okay, now Bob?…” The key being to announce the fact that you’re doing this in some semblance of order (i.e. “In a circle, starting with Alice” AKA none of you other buggers had better start shouting numbers at me) BEFORE you tell them what you’re actually doing.
> Personally, I’m lucky enough that the group I normally DM for has (unlike many game groups I’ve seen), retained some amount of what they learned in kindergarten. They take turns without being told to, and announce initiatives in clockwise order without needing to be prompted to do so.
Who are these paragons of civility? What temple did they train at!?
I do like the “calling on them specifically” method. Specifically cuing your players can feel heavy-handed in some social situations, but initiative shouldn’t be one of ’em.
For the longest time I kept a laminated sheet with the players characters names and would write each rounds initiatives in grease pencil. I’ve had DM’s that had numbered discs that they handed out and one that used poker chips of different colors (didn’t even know they made them in 10 different colors till then). Most DMs I’ve played with just expected us to remember and go on our initiative.
> Most DMs I’ve played with just expected us to remember and go on our initiative.
Doesn’t that get confusing? I almost always have a visual counter, so that method sounds like a recipe for chaos to me. Especially if you factor in additional critters entering the scene mid-combat.
Citizen, interrupting a higher clearence citizen while they are talking is insubordination. As punishment, all your actions in the next scene will occur last in initiative. Interrupting the GM is treason, treason is punishable by death.
What about interrupting Friend Computer?
Probably the same as interrupting the GM (since the GM plays Friend Computer) or, failing that, template erasure. But if any setting could determine the appropriate punishment for “double treason”, it would be Paranoia (or warhammer 40k if treason is substituted for heresy).
Oddly, initiative never became an issue with us. I’m a compulsive note-taker, and everyone always behaved for rolling and recording initiative order. The chaos ensued immediately after that, as everyone began executing plans they made in twos and threes without consulting each other or listening to anything actually going on in the combat already.
After one infamous session with more than a dozen PCs and an attempt to headbutt a battleship, we put a vague limit on the number of players at the table and on the number of adult beverages consumed per person before you are declared to take “fate of the party” and sent to go watch TV until you calm down.
“Femfighter? She also went with Magus and Antipaladin to train at the Evil Chapel of Evil. I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything either.”
Your comment means one of three things. I’m not sure which.
1. Fighter is also evil.
2. You’re requesting a HoEF comic.
3. This is a prediction for a wacky plot twist.
Once the neighbors asked that to the police 😀
They didn’t got an answer 😛
I either loudly proclaim “So!”, which catches everyone’s attention because we are default a pretty quiet group, or stand up and look at everyone. Either method works cause most of the players work together in real life, or we play milsim games where I’m the officer. Plus we’re all introverts, ranging from somewhat to pathological, so the ruckus is rarely out of hand.
The other thing we do is calculate the average initiative modifier for half or a third of the player group, since we play 6-10 player games, and break it into squads of 2-4 players each. Each squad has similar dex scores and party roles, so we’ll have Stealth and Charisma squad; short range or long range; elf, cat, bird, etc.
This way, initiative is real fast to calculate and we jump into the fight quickly.
Y’know, entirely in-universe… this is probably going to put a strain on their relationship. Inquistor and Magus I mean.
“Oh hey honey, you were being possessed by an evil mean demon queen and were in turn taking her place? Yeah, no, I didn’t notice at all.”
I mean… doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it? And it’s not like she’s been doing a perfect Magus impression either. … Might warrant some serious talking between the two.
And like… We don’t even KNOW what Magus did to secure Succubus’s help. (Or at least not until tomorrow’s Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic.)
On this general sort of thing, I don’t use a formal initiative tracker in my Roll20 games, instead using my traditional format (which I will detail below). I do, however, usually write “INITIATIVE!” in the Roll20 chat before anyone starts rolling, so there is an obvious visual break between the initiative rolls and the other rolls before that.
Even in-person, I’ve always DM’d with a laptop (better to take notes, check rules and show pictures), and for initiative, I will have a blank notepad document and just type all of the participants’ information in initiative order. I then use that to keep track of everything’s status. For example:
Fidelis [27]
—-Goblin Red [23] HP 16 – 9 = 7 – 10 = -3
Woolantula [18] DR 5/cold iron Regen 2 HP 42 – 8 = 32 + 2 = 34
Aisla [13] [Nauseated 2/3]
Goblin Blue [11] HP 16
Goblin Green [6] HP 16 – 12 = 4
Aisla and Fidelis are PCs, so they keep track of their own HP. Initiatives are in brackets. Something that is downed like Goblin Red gets a bunch of dashes in front of their name as an easy signifier that they are incapacitated and so no longer get a turn. “Red” and so forth are markers I can put on tokens in Roll20 so I can tell which identical enemy is which. Factors like Woolantula’s DR and regeneration are noted because it is very important that I remember such things when calculating damage.
As for actually getting this info down, I usually go around the table and ask everyone their initiative (if I can’t just see it clearly on Roll20) and then slot them into the table at the appropriate spot. If I’ve thought ahead, I might even have pre-rolled for the enemies.
In online play, text can become a helpful sidebar tool–whoever isn’t talking at the moment can either wait or just move whatever they have to say to text
The “one roll” system used in “Monsters and other childish things” (plus a bunch of other games) had a good fix for initiative shouting. All actions are resolved simultaneously, initiative determines the order everyone announces their actions. This way, it’s better to be last in initiative so you know what everyone else is going to do and can plan accordingly. Player shouts their initiative before being asked? Ok, you can go first. They learn quickly or not at all.
This video comes immediately to mind based on the discussion at hand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpNy4C7Ftmg
TOO REAL
I only play online right now, so we have to be extra careful about cross talk. When I’m on video, it helps when people raise their hands or visually cue that they’re starting/stopping, but audio only it’s a little harder.
One thing that helps is that since we use discord to voice chat, most of my games have at least one and sometimes more than one channel specifically for side conversations or jokes, so that we can still make our puns and wisecracks without actually stepping on the people talking in the scene—or chime in helpfully, with things like “can you ask about [plot hook]?” from players whose characters aren’t present or aren’t leading the conversation
As for actual initiative, I use a VTT that tracks it pretty well, so if they roll on dndbeyond it can automatically grab it. In person or when I’m not using that, I usually just call for each person by name, write them down, then write it again in order
I’m starting a Lancer game soon, too, which has popcorn initiative built in—first the players choose one of them to go, then the GM chooses an enemy to go, then the players choose one of them to go, then the GM chooses an enemy, etc.
Players always go first unless they’re surprised, initiative always switches sides after each person (unless there’s leftovers, in which case that side finishes all their people before going back to the top of the round), and the order is fluid which makes it a tactical choice to decide who goes when, encouraging the players to plan it out together instead of shouting or zoning out waiting for their turn
Patches is objecting to the use of the word “bitch” as an insult.
If his version of swearing is, “Oh biscuits,” this stands to reason. He is the goodest boy after all.
While not exactly the same thing, I’m having a bit of a similar problem in a play-by-post game I’m currently running. I like to let my players get in as much RP as they want, but at the same time I also want to advance the plot, and as a naturally passive person I have trouble asking to cut off an RP conversation that’s been stalled and is now just holding up the game.
I know I’ve written about this somewhere
Ha! I found it:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/druid-court
Yesterday we had a Halloween Evil one-shot that’s turning into a 2-shot because it was both fun and ran kinda long, where I played Gretel of Grey Teeth Mountain, a Cook People kind of witch who’s husband, Hansel the Maneater, graciously allowed our boss to use the Chicken Hut as a planar Uber. But that’s beside the point. 🙂
The week *before* last was pretty heavy on the social interactions, and as the team Bardess, Shasallah had a-lot-a-lot of screen time. I was a little concerned that I was stifling the others, but I did a quick OOC temperature check halfway through the session and another as we were disbanding for the day, and every agreed ‘Hey, don’t even worry about it, you’re the Bard, that’s why we have a Bard, so we can hit the DC 30 Diplomacy checks. Talk! It’s totally fine.’
We used to run into cross purposes pretty often, but with time and a regular investment of friendly empathy, that scenario turns from “Why are you trying to steal from the guy I’m talking to?” into “Holy crap, that was a crucial Aid Another! That DC was way too friggin’ high.”
I’ve deleted and rewritten like 5 paragraphs of run on thoughts, but they can really be summed up into ‘Everyone will have a turn at being the Main Character, and it’ll come back around to yours faster if you wait more patiently’. (Universal ‘You’, of course) I think I’ll leave it at that 🙂
It’s a good point. Interrupting can be read as a cry of, “I want attention.” But with time and maturity, you begin to shift from diva to ensemble mindset. Everybody gets their turn, and you’re good enough to have a you-centric episode.
Props for taking the OOC temperature check though!