Break and Prevent the Boredom Spiral
by Mike on 5 May 2025
I'm not a great RPG player – I'm much better in the GM's seat. When I GM, I'm fully engaged. I have to be. I'm managing the story, the game, the pacing, and the fun of the people around the table. I'm always on.
When I play, there are several other players and the GM. There's downtime between turns or between breaks in the conversation. I get distracted easily when it's not my turn and I'm not directly involved in the action. I want to stay engaged. Here are a few tricks I try:
Even with these tricks, four hours is a long time and sometimes my mind just wanders. Gods help me if my eyes stray to my phone.
Then I face a problem. If my mind wanders for too long, it's hard to come back. The game moved on. A lot of what happened in the game slipped past me. I don't know where we are or what we're doing. I don't want to admit that I lost track so I try to catch up but then my mind wanders even more because I can't grasp what's going on now when I don't know what happened before.
That's the boredom spiral. As a player, your mind might wander off and, when you try to come back, you can't because the whole story moved on. You don't want to embarrass yourself by admitting you were off in never never land but now you're even less engaged and the spiral continues.
As a player, ask to pause for a minute and get a quick summary of where things are. Maybe try to catch back up on a break. If you have a chance, ask one of the other players at the table if they can catch us up. It's ok to admit that you mentally wandered off for a bit and get back on track.
What can we GMs do to help prevent the boredom spiral in players?
If we can tell one or more of the players checked out, pause and re-describe what's going on and where everything is. Where are the characters? What's going on around them? Remember, players only grasp about half of what you're describing so give them the information they need to understand the situation even if you feel like you already have. Be specific. Write things down on index cards and drop them on the table like the names of NPCs or the details of a location. Give players something visual and physical to hang on to.
Pause your game regularly. Get people moving around. Grab another drink or go to the bathroom. Taking a break helps break up long narratives and splits longer games into shorter bits. Then, when everyone's back at the table, restate the situation and give everyone a new baseline.
It's tempting to call on players who might have checked out but it can seem confrontational and rock them back on their heels. Instead, it's ok to call on quiet players but give them context about the situation and where their character is in the middle of it. Let them know what their character would know. Call on them, describe the situation, and then ask what they want to do. Reiterating the situation gives players time to check back in and pick up on the details of the story.