quarantine slice of life, Zoom question

[sartorias]

I went grocery shopping at the Old People Hour early this morning. It occurred to me that I was wearing the weirdest outfit I've ever worn out of the house, even counting costumes, which at least are all of a theme. But today's look: tank top, shorts, sandals, sunhat, huge serious-looking assassin mask (spouse ordered very early on and got what

Comments

[heleninwales]

You can see people's names on all the video conferencing systems, so you can ask someone by name if they have a comment to add or you could ask people to wave a hand to indicate they want to speak. If you're running the Zoom meeting and someone is hogging the speaking time, you do have the ultimate sanction of muting them!

[sartorias]

Thank you!

[heleninwales]

I mentioned being able to see the names because I'm hopeless at remembering names on first meeting someone, so that's one advantage of online meetings over f2f ones.

[sartorias]

VERY true.

[whswhs]

I've run two sessions of my fantasy campaign via Zoom, one with all but one of the other players in a living room together, but the more recent one with everyone in a different location and thus a different window. It was occasionally difficult. I had two players who were outspoken and a bit loud. With only five players, I was able to notice words that got talked over, and body language that said "I want to say something," and direct attention to the person who had been shoved aside, asking them what they had wanted to say or what their character was doing. I think I was able to do this without calling people out for rudeness, but I'm not necessarily a good judge of that! But in any case it does take more work.

Your experience as a teacher might be relevant here. How did you manage this in classrooms?

[sartorias]

Teaching is slightly relevant, but not trustworthy as classroom dynamics (with everyone in accustomed seats, so one has developed a pattern in where to look, so to speak) are so different from faces in random squares, and people talking at a screen instead of each other, taking in body language, etc.

[whswhs]

I can see that. It was easier to manage things when four of the players were sitting in the same living room.

It is possible to take in body language over a screen; I found that I could do this and it could help me notice people who wanted to talk, though it did mean I had to not look at the person who was talking. In principle, the people who talk over other people could do that too. In practice, those people may already be focused on what they want to say, and the reduced bandwidth of video may be making it just a bit harder for other people's body language to get through.

[sartorias]

Yup. And then there are the talkers who don't pay attention to their audience, but talk and talk and talk.