Tuesday, 26 June 2007

What helps players stay in character

I'm not sure my experience is typical. In recent years at least, the problem, when gaming in the evening after work, was keeping players from lapsing into a comatose state, rather than dropping to player level. Caffeine has little effect on the habituated. Worse, when players were out of the limelight, multi-tasking happens as people took to maximizing the use of their free time (reading, checking e-mail on laptops), to the extent of needing to prod people when their PCs' actions came round in combat.

At that point a simple “Your turn” and a pause for context-switching sufficed.

No-one violated character, but were active only fleetingly.

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