Goblin Attention Span is a live spotlight tracker for tabletop RPGs. Track player speaking time, scene focus, and spotlight balance during sessions.
Goblin Attention Span (GAS) is a free live spotlight tracker for tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, and other TTRPGs. It helps Dungeon Masters track player speaking time, scene focus, and spotlight balance during sessions.
The goal is not to make every player's time perfectly equal. Different players enjoy different amounts of attention, roleplay, and decision-making. GAS simply helps DMs stay aware of how attention naturally shifts around the table during long sessions.
With a single tap, you can switch between players, track cumulative spotlight time, and monitor who has or hasn't had meaningful focus recently.
The reason is this video by Loot Goblin Marketplace, or at least that is what made me commit to do something about it. I have played a lot of TTRPGs, on both sides of the table, and tried feeling "left out" or felt like some players did not get the amount of stage time they deserved. My problem then would be that I did not actually know what was right, and three hours into a session it is difficult to know, and because of my own "Goblin Attention Span" as a player once called it, I had no idea if they were right. I choose to believe they were right and that it needed fixing. Goblin Attention Span helps with that.
One of the hardest parts of running a tabletop RPG is managing attention across multiple players at once.
Some players naturally take initiative: speaking first in social encounters, driving party decisions, roleplaying heavily, or engaging deeply with NPCs. Other players are quieter, more reactive, or simply enjoy participating differently.
Over the course of a long session, this can unintentionally create spotlight imbalance — where some players feel overlooked, even when the DM never intended it. Goblin Attention Span helps make those patterns visible in real time.
GAS is not designed to enforce strict equality. A player might only speak for a few minutes but still have an emotionally important scene that makes the session memorable. Another player might dominate conversations without realizing it.
The purpose of Goblin Attention Span is awareness, not punishment. Many Dungeon Masters use the tool to: notice when one player hasn't spoken in a while, rotate attention more intentionally, check whether roleplay scenes are balanced, review session pacing afterward, and better understand player feedback.
Goblin Attention Span was built specifically for live tabletop play: one-tap player switching, live session timers, cumulative spotlight tracking, a lightweight mobile-friendly interface, and support for any tabletop RPG system.
Whether you run D&D 5e, Pathfinder, Vampire: The Masquerade, Delta Green, Blades in the Dark, or homebrew systems, GAS works as a simple session awareness tool.
Please let me know if you have any feature requests — contact info can be found on the home page.
Although many users discover Goblin Attention Span while searching for D&D spotlight tools, the app works for almost any multiplayer tabletop experience: tabletop RPGs, actual play streams, collaborative storytelling games, LARP sessions, improv groups, and narrative-focused board games. Anywhere conversational balance matters, GAS can help track it.
Goblin Attention Span allows DMs to track the time in the spotligt at TTRPGs for 2 to 10 players. Each player can be defined with a name, class, icon and color to help differentiate them.
Optionally you can track what kind of scene you are playing, there are 6 predefined types of scenes (Combat, Social, Exploration, Rest, Investigation, Downtime) and you can add more custom ones if desired.
During and after each Session, you can click the "Stats" button in the top right corner to view a Session Summary, showing you an overview with the following information:
All of the above insights into your TTRPG sessions are compiled simply from tracking when and how long each player has the spotlight at the table.
Furthermore you can save your session to continue play another time, or start a new session with the same players without having to re-enter their data.
Goblin Attention Span runs entirely in your browser. No accounts are required, and no personal data is collected or transmitted. The application does not use cookies or external tracking services.
To save a session, you can download a small JSON file to your device. This file contains only your local session data and is not uploaded anywhere by the application. Restoring a session is done by uploading the saved JSON file back into the app.
Goblin Attention Span is provided free of charge, as is, for personal and non-commercial use. Use in tabletop roleplaying sessions, live streams, actual play shows, podcasts, or other public gameplay recordings is explicitly permitted and is not considered commercial use.
You may not copy, redistribute, rehost, or resell the application; create derivative commercial products based on it; or remove attribution notices. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.