Breaking a GM star pattern: d20 more ways

Is talking to your players like playing a game of verbal ping-pong?  Is the table quiet unless you are speaking with one of them?  Do you fill the silence?  Then you may have fallen victim to one of the classic GM blunders! The most famous of which is, 'never use your friends as props to write a novel,' followed by 'expecting your players to notice something'...but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never allow a GM star pattern when you are running a game!"  

The GM star pattern was first described by the blogger and Microscope creator Ben Robbins: "When I say 'star-pattern', I mean when the players all talk to the GM but don't talk to each other. Picture the table, and draw lines showing interactions: all the lines go from the GM, the center, out to the different players, like a starburst. There are few or no lines from player to player."  

Now, Ben spent an entire post laying out five potential fixes to the star pattern, including a player fix, a GM fix (the campfire challenge), and three system fixes (GMless games, GM's using group initiative, and GM's running West Marches games).  

But that's only five fixes, and for the Randomness Blogwagon, I rolled an 8 (post on June 8), then a 10 (2000 words exactly), and drew the King of Spades (Ben's ars ludi blog).  So how many fixes to the GM star pattern can I fit into 2000 words?  Time for a random table!

Overall design idea from ars ludi, with bad art from me.

But I must say, before I begin, 2000 words is a LOT of serious advice to lay down–I may get desperate quickly.  Also, I often have the opposite problem, which is getting my players to shut up and decide already on which of their nefarious plans they are doing, so I reserve the right to add a second table, "How to Blackhole your Group", to pad out my word count to round out this post. Without further ado, I bring you:

d20 more ways to break a GM star pattern:

1	GM: Describe an interesting problem with multiple possible answers and no easy solutions.  Then ask the players, "What do you do?"  Then shut up, and listen, and briefly and honestly answer follow-up player questions.  It's time for them to decide what to DO, so stay quiet!  Throw them no ropes!
2	Player: Join forces with your fellow players to stop the game to look up and debate how spells and/or rules work. The more you can say before someone finds the right description, the better.  Do not let the GM do this alone, this is a competition.  Invoke this one at your peril however, because if you are sufficiently annoying the GM may fry you with a lightning bolt.  In or out of character.
3	System: Play a Honey Heist, Cocaine Owlbear, or Raccoon Sky Pirates one-shot.  Steal that enchanted cocaine so you don't revert back to being a non-talking forest animal!  When your group is planning a heist while squinting at a blood-stained map, they are not talking only to the GM.
4	GM: Next time they encounter an NPC, create language issues where only one player can speak with them, and that poorly ("Eh? I only speak a little Elvish! What did you say?).  This designates one player as the Talker-to-GM.  Put your hands over your ears and hum while the players tell the Talker what to say to you.  Then, before they talk, have them roll for comprehension.  If they fail, they can only use mono-syllabic words when speaking to you.
5	Player: When a fellow PC says or does anything to an NPC in character that smacks of a decision or agreement, object out of character and start a 20-60 minute debate about the best course of action.  Even better if you do this mid-combat or mid-negotiation, and by the time you return to the original matter at hand, they still need to finish their sentence and the GM had time to go pee, drink a rootbeer, check their phone, doodle a bit, and completely lose track of the narrative.  That's how you grab control!
6	Player: Talk at length with each of the NPCs, to the point where your fellow players break in to ask if you can all move on.  Then respond politely to their rude interruption, in character, and you are talking to each other, presto!  Feel free to flirt outrageously with the NPCs at any time.
7	System: Next time you don't have enough players for a full session (or you just need a break), encourage one of your players to run a one-shot, either in-world or whatever system/scenario they want.  Let them be the GM and see how hard it is to be at the center of the star pattern.  Help them by talking to other players.
8	GM: If a player is quiet and doesn't talk to you or others much, give them: A) the Talker role for a whole region of badly-accented NPCs, B) a cursed or magical item that forces them to declaim loudly at random times (preferably with a reward for doing so), or C) a pet that annoys the whole party but that they love and want to defend.
9	Player: All player shenanigans operate on the buddy system.  Recruit your buddy, split the party, and sneak off to go do that thing (push that statue, TP the mayor's house, adopt that goblin dog).  No one will mind your side conversation as you endanger yourselves.
10	System: Don't just use group initiative, use speedy parallel resolution to model the chaos of combat: chaos sandwich initiative.  It's a group initiative system where the party goes before and after the monsters, all actions are resolved at once at a rapid clip, and your players will inevitably come up with plans and then have them go awry as they kill the same monster twice in a round.
11	GM: Acquire fake laryngitis at the start of a session.  The show must go on.  Talk softly, in a raspy voice, and say as little as is needed to paint a scene.  Ask the players questions about what they see, make go-on gestures when they are talking, and point to other players when they ask you questions another player can answer.
12	Player: Same as #2, but for zany edge-case antics you have dreamed up.  If you are not dropping 2000 darts out of a bag of holding while flying, or covering a giant squirrel in syrup and launching it off the side of your castle using a water slide supported by an Immovable Rod, you are not trying hard enough.  Make your GM sweat, then help as a group by suggesting all sorts of rules that do not apply to this situation in any way whatsoever.  Bonus points if you planned your antics with your buddy (#9) and/or propose these antics improbably mid-fight or mid-negotiation (#5).
13	Player: Mid-fight, turn to a nearby player and start negotiating with them to borrow their magical item(s).  If they turn you down, ask the next player for a different item.
14	System: Each player is given a role to play in the party.   1-Bursar: The GM doesn't track party money and magic items, and if the party doesn't do it, shit disappears.   2-Mapper: the GM may draw the scene by scene maps, but they erase them as they go.  Players better be mapping if they don't want to get lost.   3-Salmon-of-doubt: This player is there to point out the others' plans will go wrong.  The GM will prove them right about 50% of the time.   4-Scapegoat: This one is the one who answers when the GM asks, okay do you all like this plan?  Feel free to blame them.   5- Chaos Monkey: This player is always looking for a buddy, but in the meantime, they are going to taste the weird glowing mushroom, poke the sleeping owlbear, and put on that creepy amulet.   6-Straight arrow: This player is in charge of remembering what happened last time, taking notes, and otherwise trying to keep the burning train arriving on time.   If your players don't already follow these roles, assign them a role randomly.
15	GM: Give each player loyal minions and/or pets.  Then assign control of those pets and minions to neighboring players, with you making final rulings on things like morale and betrayal.  Remind the neighbors that, while minions and pets are loyal to their individual employer/owner, they also look out for themselves.
16	Player: Randomly roll for a group drinking song and sing it with your buddy every time you want some sort of favorable break from the GM (or just to annoy them).  Alternatively, if you and your buddy don't like to sing, start a serious in-game prank war against them.  Make sure you win the challenge of escalating pranks.  Nothing will go wrong, stop worrying about it.  The more in-game you do to each other, the more you are talking.
17	System: Use a Luck point system (Tales of the Valiant has one that works well in 5e, so does Shadowdark, and Pirate Borg too) and allow players to help each other with rolls by sharing Luck points.  The only catch is they must describe their intervention in-game, and it must be plausible ('I call back down the tunnel, reminding Delg that a good dwarf with a beard like his shouldn't fear a fire elemental!').  Make stuff harder for them, so Luck is needed.
18	GM: When you are doing your campfire challenge, every 20 seconds a players doesn't say something, sigh heavily, pick up 2d6, roll them, inspect the results carefully, and look worried.  At some point, if you do this 3-4 times in a row, something bad happens in-game.  Blame the dice.
19	Player: Play a drinking mini-game: every time there is a new problem/enemy/trap at hand, you must turn to your neighboring player and loudly complain.  'I can't believe this is happening!'  Then ask them how they feel about the situation. Be alert for opportunities to form plans for buddy shenanigans.  And here's the mini-game: if you forget to complain each time there is a problem, you take a drink.  Up to you if this is in-game or out-of-game.
20	System: When you play an NPC in a conversation with the party, talk in turn to each of the PCs directly, as if they were real people and you are trying to be a good host.  Ask each of them questions to pull them out.  Try to draw them into conversation with each other, by asking the next player about what the first one said ("Do you agree with his request, for me to give you passage through my barony for free?  Don't you think it's a bit rude of him to ask me this without even offering a bribe?  Have you two even talked about giving me a bribe?  Go on, I will walk over here and give you a moment to confer.  Make it good.")

And, yes, these are all things my players DO, so if they won't shut up…

 d4 ways to Blackhole your party:

1	GM: As the players continue plotting / debating / arguing in the middle of combat / negotiation / wildfires / chases, every 30 seconds the players keep talking, sigh heavily, pick up 2d6, roll them, inspect the results carefully, and look worried.  At some point, if you do this 3-4 times in a row, something bad happens in-game.  Blame the dice.
2	Player: Point out that the GM needs to describe something.  Follow up with more questions.  End only when the GM notices this trick or their loredump gets to the length of a Wikipedia article.
3	System: Play using grid rules, but theatre-of-the-mind, without minis or markers.  If your RPG system lacks grid rules, introduce them.
4	System: Use an air horn.