Shared Listening

The game of D&D relies upon the elucidation of the game world by the dungeon master, which prompts the players to interpret that world and then decide how best to exploit the knowledge they've deduced. Beyond the game's function, the process itself — details heard, details interpreted, actions given — relies upon our hearing every detail and having our minds clear enough to process it.

The dialogue benefits as we listen to our fellow players, allowing us to suss out what would be the best action at this time. Our goal, therefore, is to enable this sort of dynamic, where what's important is the immediate, practical aspects of what we're trying to do, and what we're trying to achieve in the long run.

Very well, let's take this first part of the process. The DM is speaking, describing what we see, or, in more complicated circumstances, the whole of the proposed adventure is being laid out in advance. As players, where ought our heads to be?

Well, engaged with the information we're receiving. This isn't a passive response, where the DM speaks and we just listen. Engagement is active. Our focus is mindful, while we think about what we're hearing and interact with the details in real time. One method is to take notes, as this helps assure that the information is there for our reflection later --but we must be very careful to be sure that those notes are, first, accurate, and second, not disrupting our attention so that we lose the greater sense of what's being said. As players, we're under no time constraints. There's nothing to stop us from telling the DM, "Um, just a moment, let me get this down before you go on." Our notes should be brief, to the point; they don't need to be complete, because the DM has all the information we need. If all we write is a note like, "the folding room," this is enough for us to later ask, "what's the folding room again? You told us about the folding room." And then the DM knows what we're speaking about, and can once again fill us in. Obviously, this necessitates our notes be accurate. We shouldn't write down, "the bending chamber," because then the DM won't know what we're talking about.

There's no reason why one player should write down everything; different people have different takes about what's important, so if multiple people write notes, then these can be compared later and things that person A failed to note might still be highlighted by persons B or C. Active engagement is a multi-person activity, not something to be assigned to an official record keeper. Everyone at the table is responsible for knowing everything, all the time.

Understand that time isn't a factor in D&D the way it is in many other games. Players should feel empowered to pause the game to get the necessary information down and confirm their understanding, without feeling rushed. This is part of the mindfulness that enhances the game’s flow. It’s far better to take a moment to ensure clarity than to muddle through uncertainty later. The DM is there as a benefit, not a person who's voice is sacrosanct and must not be interrupted. If we have a reason to interrupt, then we should embrace that.

This is important stuff, here. We should raise our hands and say, "Sorry, could I get that again? The tower is where, exactly?" DM's tend to rush through some details and throw too much light on others, and the players should feel justified in compensating for that. And when the DM is finished describing anything, from a bowl filled with water to the entire history of a kingdom, the players should be empowered to interact with that. If we've been given the framework of an adventure, it's not wrong for us to follow this up with, "Just to be clear, this fellow wants us to go through this forest, avoid that bridge, remember the yellow house is a bad place, so we can find this tower, enter it and find the folding room, then grab this object and come back with it. Have I got all that right?"

A proper DM can then answer, "The yellow house is the one you want, it's the orange house you want to stay away from," so everyone around the table can say, "Oh, right..." and then two people can write down "Stay away from the orange house." That's so that if someone made an earlier note to stay away from the yellow house, and forgot it was written down that way and therefore forgot to change it, the party's existence doesn't depend upon one moment of bad bookkeeping.

We have to remove the pressure of pretending that we've understood everything perfectly, when in fact we're not perfect and should not be held to that standard. By allowing us to confirm the details, the DM empowers us; by taking the step of confirming the details, we empower ourselves. Meanwhile, approaching things in this manner reinforces the shared responsibility of knowing what the task is and what to avoid.

At any time, it works well if any player turns to the others and asks the direct question, "Is there anyone here who doesn't know what we're doing, and why?" This expresses two deeply needful messages. One, that we care about what our fellows think, that we want to make sure that no one is left behind; and it unites us in defining a single purpose that we all share. This strongly counteracts the individual perspective, creating an active, communal feel to the party, which is then there to sustain the party in times of trouble, when we really do have to depend on each other. It also creates a general feeling that no one's going to be judged if they missed something, while encouraging a desire to "check in" with others on what's happening.

The next step is to discuss how deliberation is carried out between the party, as the information we've acquired is interpreted and resolved. I'll cover this with tomorrow's post.