A Tool to Enable Consensus Decision Making
- Problem: your group fails to make timely decisions due to a consistent failure to reach
a consensus
- Desired Remedy: A tool that helps alleviate this detriment to fun
gaming.
- Proposed Tool: Options Identification Process and Voting Tool (see
below)
- Requirements: Buy-in from GM and players on the particular voting
tool that will be used.
A voting tool can resolve all four problems if your group and your DM agree to use a voting tool. We don't know the interpersonal dynamics in this group. (It matters). I will assume that you are all friends or at least on friendly terms.
Note about reality: Who the "alpha dog" in your group is may color your success in agreeing on a decision aid.
What you seek is an in-game usable form of Consensus Decision making
A generic process is illustrated by this flow chart and the previous link is a concise summary of the process that is subject neutral. (Not TTRPG centric, but process/tool set used in many walks of life).
Per your comment that the group is all adults, you could just stop here and look at the summary in the first link, and tailor your own tool. But we'll proceed ...
Apply the voting tool when you find yourselves in the dilemmas you described in the question.
First:
- Identify how many different actions or choices are being proposed.
- If you don't identify what your options are, you can't make a
decision.
- You can die roll to see who states his case first, with the DM as facilitator.
- Take turns as pointed to by the DM, as that disrupts play less.
Second:
- each player proposing an option states it, along with a brief "why"
for that choice.
Third:
- With DM facilitating, you all vote on each option.
- Each player has 2 votes available. You cannot apply two votes to a single option.
- Use a d6 to indicate your vote, in front of you at the table:
- 1 pip is no, 6 pips is yes.
- A brief "why not" for a no vote is an option here
- Rinse and repeat for each option.
DM keeps track of votes received. (as neutral facilitator).
If there were more than two choices to start with, drop option with lowest score, vote on remaining choices per above.
Fourth: Vote To Determine the Group Decision
Voting Criteria For Success:
Unanimous agreement
Unanimity minus one vote
Unanimity minus two votes
Person-in-charge decides
Pick from one of the above criteria. Your group has to agree on the level of consensus that is acceptable to all(See Social Contract comment further down).
For the final vote, I suggest Unanimity Minus One or Unanimity Minus Two.
If you end up with a hung jury due to which protocol was chosen (like Unanimous) you have two last resort options to get a decision.
"Person in Charge decides." You can roll for, or each night designate, someone as "person in charge" and accept their decision for hung juries.
Roll the dice (high wins) or flip a coin to decide between the last two choices.
Your problem statement indicates that you want the group to make decisions. The above is a time tested method, adapted for your described table, that will get you decisions.
Summary of Benefits: (to address your stated problems)
- Vote on choices to keep play moving by making decisions.
- Don't split the party.
- You'll have less wasted time.
- Each player participates in making decisions for the group when the group needs a decision.
- The GM doesn't pull his hair out.
Caveat to this answer:
- If you are the only person at the table concerned about this, the
above as a decision aid is probably doomed.
- If the other players care, then you have something to discuss within your group
and get buy-in.
- Getting buy-in on collaborative processes like this is part of your Social Contract, which from your problem statement is not robust in your group -- at least in this area.
Experience:
Small group dynamics and decision making have been in my professional life for a few decades. I'll use an informal group example of a decision process following the same steps tailored to a different situation:
- RL example: seven men, one van, Friday night, which bar to go to? Thumbs up and thumbs down rather than dice. Same basic process, different objective, small social group dynamics.
Yes, it's always possible to be polite, and what you are running into isn't uncommon. Peoples' lives change.
Two Things to Do, One (Optional) Thing to Try
Address friendship first.
From your problem statement, these are your friends. This
consideration trumps games. As friends, you can do a lot of things
together that aren't D&D. Keep doing those things together.
For those who you think play now and again out of a sense of obligation:
- First ask them if you have perceived that correctly, (if yes)
- Then let them know that it's not worth forcing themselves to "have fun" if it isn't fun.
Flexible roles
For D&D nights, invite those who can only occasionally play to be that evenings' NPC role player(s). It's a varietal challenge that some will like and others not. Keep your core group happy if you want to keep the game going. With each person not in your "core group" the polite thing is to have a friend-to-friend conversation. Focus on the positive of how much you still enjoy the game, and how much the core group still enjoys the game.
Your message for those who have lost interest is that you are still into the game, and if the game doesn't do it for them anymore, cool: go back to point 1 on friendship being important.
An Option Depending on Space Available
If game night is a big social occasion, is there enough room for two tables?
If not, then this won't work.
If yes, set up two tables.
- One with the D&D game, and one with something else.
- That way friends are still congregating, but folks don't feel guilted into
doing something when they'd rather do something else.
As to high drama individual ... that is beyond game advice. That's interpersonal relationships, and best wishes.
Best Answer
Unfortunately, that's your answer.
Metagaming in this case isn't going to be deliberate, but it's going to be hard to avoid. If you constantly talk to one player and one player only, even perfectly honest players trying not to metagame are going to have a difficult time not seeing suspicious activity in anything that one player does. It's human nature. The biggest danger of it is that you give a metagaming speech and the players over-compensate by ignoring suspicious activity so to avoid the perception of metagaming.
The only way to avoid it is to either not talk to that player so often at sessions (by talking between sessions and letting the player improv as needed during sessions), or by talking to everyone so they have no reason to suspect any one person over another.
Example from my campaign
I recently ran a session with my players that was a peace negotiation. Everybody was playing an ambassador for one city (or nation), except one (he was playing his own character, as the host of the session). Every nation wanted something out of the negotiation. One of them wanted to see the whole thing fail. In order to ensure that nobody knew who that person was, I wrote half-page notes for every single player and handed them out at the start of the session.
The troublemaker knew who he was (because his note said so), but everybody had notes so nobody knew who was getting different instructions from everyone else.
Is that more work? Yes, absolutely. It was a lot of work. But it was a big success.
Other Tricks
If everybody has a phone or tablet at the table, you can exchange chat messages. If you do it rarely enough, it won't be overly noticeable. Doing it too frequently will make it obvious who you're talking to.
If you have one player come early, you can talk to that player before anybody else shows up. People don't arrive at the same time for games typically, so that's not overly suspicious.
You can hand the relevant player a note at the table with important information, at the time. But again, you'll have to do this with every player from time to time so it seems normal. I've done this with cases where one party member notices something odd that they might not want to share right away (like if only they hear a weird noise or think someone's lying).