30 Days of Gamemastering: Part Twelve

This is part twelve in the continuing series of posts for the “30 Days of Gamemastering Challenge” from Triple Crit.

Table rules: how do you keep players focused on the game?

This is actually something I have trouble with myself and will be looking at other blogs following this challenge to get some pointers.

My current group, fortunately, doesn’t have a lot of trouble with being focused on the game. Frankly, we play so sporadically that there is motivation to pay attention built-in. Usually it takes us a little while to get started, but once things start rolling, everyone focuses in pretty well. Occasionally, things will go off the rails during the course of play. I simply ask a question of a player to get them paying attention to the task at hand and then we get back on track pretty quickly. I suppose I’m spoiled by having such a good group.

What about you? How to you get your players to focus?