GoblinStop

In my many years as a DM, one of the biggest hurdles I have encountered is a lack of focus on the game, which can stem from any number of causes.  Players sometimes have to arrive at different times, they’ve just come from busy days at work or school, they all want to talk about their Dragon Age: Origins characters or something funny they saw on 4Chan (gag!).  Everybody is glad to be with their friends and understandably wants to chat it up.  There is nothing wrong with this.  However, at some point, everybody needs to reach a consensual focus and start playing the game.

I have seen a lack of focus kill many game sessions.  If you are unable to grab your players’ attention even before the game starts, you will notice your session failing pretty quickly.  Joe will start checking his email on his BlackBerry.  Amanda will text her boyfriend every 3 minutes…THE WHOLE NIGHT.  Robert will pull out his Nintendo DS for some Tetris even though he “swears he’s paying attention.”  Aaron will flip through his sourcebooks making level-up plans during an important encounter.  You will see your entire game session disintegrate in front of you.  So what’s a DM to do?

The key is to do something communication-heavy that everyone must take part in together.

Have dinner together.  Having the whole group share a meal around a table immediately prior to the game encourages everyone to engage each other face to face and focus on a single topic at a time.  Plus everyone likes to eat with their friends.

Play a short board/card game.  Anything under an hour and that requires fairly intense focus will do the trick.  I highly recommend Settlers of Catan, because similar to D&D it has the players cooperating for the greater good while at the same time serving their private motives, which will get them into the correct mindset for D&D.  Tsuro, a Japanese tile game, is also great, because it really forces you to look at both the immediate consequences of your actions, and their possible long term effects as well.

The point is to get everyone into the Game Night frame of mind, which can be difficult without some kind of primer activity.  Whatever you do to foster this focus, it needs to require a lot of attention, and put the players in close physical proximity to one another. 

What tricks do you use to get your gaming group focused on the game?

Every time I hear someone talking about Monopoly being a game that “teaches you about business,” I can’t help but disagree.  While Monopoly a great game with a long history and an instantly recognizable brand, I think Settlers of Catan is a more accurate board game representation of what running a business is really like.

For those of you unfamiliar with Settlers, you can read about it here.  While they are both a lot of fun, I tend to prefer Settlers, and here is the reason:

Settlers of Catan has a reduced, more realistic degree of randomness. 

In a game of Monopoly, everything you have built can be completely destroyed just by accidentally landing on someone’s triple-hotel properties twice in a row (or even once, in some cases).  While there is a fair amount of strategy involved in Monopoly, you accept from the beginning that there is a possibility you can be completely wiped out in 2-3 turns, and you might not be able to do a single thing about it. 

While die-rolling is present in Settlers to give it a little uncertainty, the ultimate result of the game is usually not completely changed by a player having a couple of bad turns.  You develop a general strategy at the beginning of the game, and hone it to a specific, long-term plan as you gain more resources and make more deals.  At most, a few unfortunate rolls will force you to reevaluate your resource-trading strategy in order to make sure you maintain your success.

Monopoly is not a business game.  It is a gambling game.  This is fun every once in awhile, but it’s just a little grating to hear Monopoly so widely heralded as the “game that teaches you about business.” 

I know Settlers of Catan has not proliferated anywhere close to the extent that a game like Monopoly has, but if you ever get the chance, play it with some friends, or on Xbox Live Arcade.  It’s a blast, and quite frankly, I think it’s far more realistic from a business point of view. 

I’d love to hear the thoughts of those of you who’ve played both.  Do you think Monopoly’s higher stakes more accurately portray your own experiences in the business world?

Since I initially started GoblinStop a few months ago, I’ve gotten a number of questions about the site, my topics, my motivation for starting the blog, etc.  However, the most common question I get asked is “Why D&D and social media?” 

I can see the cause for the blank stares.  To be completely honest, it was initially a test; a test of my writing skills, a test of my critical thinking abilities, and a test to see how well I could take two seemingly unrelated subjects and bring them together to create something of value.  You can read all about my adventures in starting and running GoblinStop right *here*. 

Regardless of how it was conceptualized, it quickly picked up more steam than I thought it would, and it became a project for me.  I ended up taking a hiatus from posting, and focused on investigating what GoblinStop could become.  And so now, when I get asked that same question, “Why D&D and social media,” I have an answer other than because “I felt like it.”

I continue blogging about the convergence of these two things because they are more meant for each other than most people are willing to look close enough to realize.  D&D is inherently an exercise in socialization, and not even just the in-game part.  D&D players form clubs, businesses, online forums, discussion groups, event leagues, conventions, campus activity groups, tournaments, and many types of social units, all focused around the game they love to play.  Social media can provide these players and businesses with countless ways to keep in contact, advertise, play in real time, build relationships, and find new group members. 

So after a couple of months away and some serious time at the drawing board, GoblinStop is back and ready for action!  Great plans are in store for the future, and some excellent posts will be coming your way.  If you are reading this, you are currently standing at the intersection of D&D and social media, and you won’t want to miss out on the construction taking place all around you.  In addition to reading posts and commenting here on the blog, remember that you can follow @GoblinStop on Twitter and join the conversation.  Thanks for stopping by!

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