At some point, every Game Master looks up from their notes and realizes half the table is gone.

One player is scrolling. Another is whispering about something that happened three turns ago. A third is staring into the middle distance like they’ve slipped between realities. You’re mid-scene, the stakes are real, and yet attention is leaking out of the room like air from a cracked hull.

This isn’t a personal failure. It’s not even a player problem.

It’s an attention design problem.

Modern tables sit at the intersection of long-form storytelling, turn-based mechanics, and a world engineered to fracture focus. If you want engaged players, you don’t fix this by banning phones and lecturing about respect. You fix it by shaping the session so that staying present is easier than drifting away.

This article is a practical guide to doing exactly that.

---

Distraction Is a Symptom, Not the Disease

Let’s start with a hard truth: most distracted players are not bored because they don’t care. They’re bored because the game has stopped asking anything of them.

Research outside of gaming backs this up. Studies from the University of British Columbia found that people who used their phones during face-to-face social interactions reported enjoying the experience less than those who didn’t. Other research shows that even the mere presence of a smartphone can reduce available cognitive capacity. Attention is fragile, and once it slips, it’s hard to claw back.

At the table, distraction usually shows up during three moments:

1. Downtime: long waits between meaningful decisions
2. Low-stakes scenes: nothing seems to change if they tune out
3. Unclear focus: players don’t know when they’re “on”

If you treat the symptom, you get table rules and resentment. If you treat the disease, you get engagement.

So let’s treat the disease.

---

Step One: Diagnose the Distraction Before You Fix It

Before you change anything, run a quick mental audit during your next session.

Ask yourself three questions:

• When do players disengage?
• Who disengages, and who doesn’t?
• What is happening in the game at that moment?

If distraction spikes during combat, that’s a pacing issue. If it happens during roleplay scenes, that’s a spotlight issue. If it happens whenever one specific player acts, that’s a clarity or tone issue.

Here’s the key insight: disengagement almost always correlates with a lack of agency. If a player hasn’t made a meaningful decision in a while, their brain looks for stimulation elsewhere.

Your job as GM is not to entertain nonstop. Your job is to keep meaningful decisions flowing.

---

Step Two: Set a Downtime Budget

This is one of the most powerful tools you can adopt.

A downtime budget is a simple rule:
No player should go more than a set number of minutes without making a meaningful decision.

For most tables, that number is somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

A meaningful decision is not:

• listening to lore
• watching someone else roll damage
• debating hypotheticals

A meaningful decision is:

• choosing an action
• responding to a question
• committing to a plan
• reacting to consequences

Once you start tracking this mentally, patterns jump out fast. Long monster turns. Rules lookups mid-combat. Scenes that drift because no one is being directly addressed.

You don’t need to eliminate downtime entirely. You just need to budget it.

---

Step Three: Fix Combat First (Because It’s the Worst Offender)

If phones come out during combat, that’s not because players hate combat. It’s because combat is eating time without feeding engagement.

Here are concrete fixes that work.

Put Players “On Deck”

At the end of each turn, say who’s next.

“Goblin A attacks. Sarah, you’re up. Mark, you’re on deck.”

This single habit cuts decision paralysis and keeps attention forward instead of backward.

Front-Load Decisions

Ask players what they plan to do before their turn arrives.

You’re not locking them in. You’re getting them thinking. When their turn comes, execution is fast.

Reduce Monster Thinking Time

Monsters should act decisively. Pre-roll damage. Use average damage. Group similar creatures into shared initiatives.

If a monster takes longer to decide than a player, you’re bleeding attention.

Narrate Outcomes, Not Math

Describe what changes in the fiction. Numbers are necessary, but story is what keeps eyes up.

Combat should feel like a sequence of consequences, not a spreadsheet.

---

Step Four: Use the Engagement Loop in Every Scene

Outside of combat, distraction usually comes from unfocused scenes. The fix is structure.

Run every scene through this four-step loop:

1. Micro-recap
   One or two sentences. Where are we? What just happened?
2. Direct address
   Pick a player. Ask them a question.
3. Clear options
   Present two or three paths forward. Not infinite fog.
4. Stakes check
   Make it clear what might change based on the choice.

Example:

“You’re standing outside the sealed vault. The lock is arcane and unstable.
Kara, what are you doing right now?
You could force it, try to dispel it, or search for another way in.
If you force it, something inside may wake up.”

That loop does three things:

• it anchors attention
• it assigns spotlight
• it creates urgency

Run it consistently, and distraction drops without you saying a word.

---

Step Five: Channel Side Chatter Instead of Fighting It

Side chatter is not always disrespect. Often, it’s unused energy.

People talk when they’re not needed.

Instead of shutting it down, redirect it.

Assign Table Roles

Give talkers something productive to do:

• initiative tracker
• mapper
• rules lookup
• loot recorder
• recap lead

These roles keep players engaged even when it’s not their turn.

Use Intentional Breaks

Every 60–90 minutes, call a break. Encourage phone checks then.

When everyone returns, do a quick recap and re-establish the scene. This mirrors best practices from facilitation and training environments and works because it respects attention limits instead of pretending they don’t exist.

---

Step Six: Stop Treating Phones as the Enemy

Blanket phone bans often backfire. They ignore accessibility needs, digital character sheets, and how people actually self-regulate focus.

Instead, set use boundaries, not bans.

A practical phone policy looks like this:

• Allowed: character sheets, dice apps, rules references
• Discouraged: social feeds, videos, unrelated browsing
• Planned: regular breaks to check messages

Explain the why. Phones fragment attention. Fragmented attention weakens the shared story.

Most players respond better to purpose than to rules.

---

Step Seven: Ask Questions That Can’t Be Ignored

One of the fastest ways to snap attention back to the table is to ask the right kind of question.

Not “What do you do?”
Ask “Why do you hesitate?”
Ask “Who taught you this?”
Ask “What are you afraid will happen if you’re wrong?”

These questions can’t be answered from a character sheet. They demand presence.

Use them sparingly and intentionally, especially when you sense drift. They turn passive listeners into active participants in seconds.

---

Step Eight: Have the Hard Conversation When You Need To

Sometimes distraction isn’t systemic. Sometimes it’s personal.

If one player is consistently disengaged in ways that disrupt others, talk to them privately. Be specific. Be calm.

Describe the behavior. Explain the impact. Ask what’s going on.

You’re not accusing. You’re diagnosing together.

Many issues resolve here because the player didn’t realize how visible the behavior was, or because something in the game isn’t landing for them.

Avoid public callouts. Handle it like a professional.

---

Step Nine: Design for Attention, Not Against It

The best tables don’t rely on constant novelty. They rely on rhythm.

They rotate spotlight.
They keep decisions flowing.
They respect cognitive limits.
They build habits that reward presence.

When you do this well, phones stay down without a single rule. Side chatter turns into collaboration. Disengaged players reappear because the game keeps inviting them back in.

This is not about control. It’s about care.

---

Bringing It All Together

If players are distracted at your table, don’t start by asking how to stop them from checking out.

Start by asking how often the game asks them to check in.

Engagement isn’t enforced. It’s engineered.

So here’s your call to action:

At your next session, pick one change from this article.
Put players on deck.
Run the engagement loop.
Set a downtime budget.
Schedule a real break.

Do it consistently for three sessions.

Then watch what happens to the phones, the chatter, and the energy at the table.

That’s how you keep players engaged, not by demanding attention, but by earning it.