Screens at the table

[Gerald.Lock]

Hi CC GMs, just wanted to ask how GMs feel about players on laptops / tablets at the table (ie. face-to-face games)?
Personally I'm a fan, mainly because I use roll20 as the game table, character sheet manager and (if needed) dice roller.
It gives us a lot of advantages, especially as we keep bouncing in and out of COVID lockdowns, home visitation limits etc..
Downside is that a couple of my players have reservations and don't like how the other players automatically revert to their screen instead of engaging in proper conversation.
I'd like to hear from anyone who has experience with this, and/or ideas about how to make the best of the situation (they're not going away at my table)

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Nice thread, Gerald.Lock.
Some of my players regularly use laptops, others don't. I see the advantages and disadvantages.
It is much easier, if they use tablets instead of laptops, as they will have no "barrier" between themselves and other players and actually use the tablet only as character sheet, dice rolling etc.
As GM I stick to the laptop though as I don't want players to see my notes and as I am accustomed to looking over the screen... or rather, as I am often standing when GMing, it is no wall at all. If that makes sense.

 

[JohnnFour]

In my Murder Hobos game, every player uses a device. In my other campaigns it's mixed.

For crunchy games like D&D, the automated character sheets, and online references and tools, speed things up quite a bit at higher levels for us.

We also maintain a shared Google Doc for session logging. When Campaign Logger gets the player sharing feature we'll switch to that!

 

[hauke]

It is much easier, if they use tablets instead of laptops, as they will have no "barrier" between themselves and other players and actually use the tablet only as character sheet, dice rolling etc.

That is the way I am thinking. Players should be aloud to use all the cool electronic stuff, but that stuff can't be aloud to be in the way at the table.