>First half of the session >everyone's engaged, having

Find players who don't let food distract them?

What I normally do is break for a meal and we eat while playing, and I don't allow much more alcohol than enough to get buzzed at my table. A little bit of alcohol can loosen the tongue, too much and you're just a drag on the party.

A way you can do it to really avoid this is separate meal time and play time. Clear off the table and eat together, maybe watch youtube videos or like some tv, then after the meal is done get back to playing.

Or use clever scheduling and fit a 5 hour session between meals (from 1-6) then break for dinner.

If your players can't stay focused, maybe run shorter sessions? Or maybe have a proper break for a meal instead of letting everyone snack while you play.

>>49706049
>(from 1-6)
See that's the thing that's getting me riled up, that's my exact shedule, (give or take 20 minutes to account for people getting delayed.) andthe players are my friends because i really don't go well with strangers.
>>49706050
I could try this, i think that a proper break for snacks would be a good solution.

>>49706050
>Or maybe have a proper break for a meal instead of letting everyone snack while you play.
This

My group and I do this, and we usually pop an episode of something up on Netflix while we eat (unless we all get really quick food).

Eat proper snacks and don't drink until later, or only beer,cider, shit like that.

>>49706050
>have a proper break for a meal instead of letting everyone snack while you play.
More people need to do this.


Also, you need breaks to let people collect themselves, chat, check their phones, look up rules, do life processes like eating, and so on. Humans aren't supposed to be maintaining perfect rapt attention for 4 hours straight.

I find that it can help to let people be social before and maybe after the game. You get some of that chatter out of the way, and it structures things. People know they will get time to intoxicate themselves and screw around with other players, so they usually don't feel a need to interrupt the game for it.

>>49706033
Put some less distracting snacks out so they won't feel the need for a food run.

My group starts with food and plays after we finish eating.

Granted that's at like, 5

There is still the occasional distracted when a cat goes after someone's unfinished pizza but nothing on your level OP

>>49706033
Don't let everyone take a huge break right in the middle of your game???

>>49706033
I have the same problem, i'm one of the players though. Since we, by tradition, run marathon gaming sessions going at like 12-14 hours, everyone's completely borked after half the time. Commonly one person will always be lying in the couch after halftime, snoozing or just "resting".

I'd much prefer if we could have 4-6 hours of concentrated gaming instead of these long, drawn out affairs, I mean my free time isn't unlimited.

Oh, also why the fuck do half the group want to go shopping for snacks AFTER we've met up at the GM's place? Why not buy that shit before, so you're ready to start? Fuckers.

>>49713977
That used to be the policy at my last group: aside from tap water, what you bring to the GM's place is what you eat and drink there.