Food at the gaming table.
An Unpopular Perspective.

A sacred pillar of the stereotypical game! Topple it. Away from me, please. I don’t want your chips, your pizza, or your cookies at the table. It’s a mess. It’s a distraction. Unless the GM or host requests it, it’s disrespectful. Every chew of food is time wasted.

Focus on the game! If a player asks the GM a question — as they are prone to do when they want to know more details about their character’s current situation —  they shouldn’t have to wait for several minutes of munching for the reply. Similarly, when a GM asks a player a question about their character’s next action, they don’t want to have to freeze the scene till the player’s done chewing a mouthful of food. These minutes add up, and every short wait removes you from the immersion just like advertisements in a TV show.

Also, about one in five people suffer from misophonia, so odds are that someone at the table is ready to snap after having to listen to other people’s mastication. For that unfortunate sufferer, every squelchy chomp and slobbery lip-smack is magnified to an intolerable volume. If it’s the GM, get ready for a revenge TPK, or at least an ambush by drooling gluttony demons whose every bite attack is described in oddly detailed fashion.

It’s not a host’s duty to clean up food detritus after a session. And if the host is also the GM, they already have enough on their plate. They don’t want to be prising ground-in oreo chunks out of the carpet, or lamenting the pizza grease stains on their formerly pristine rule books.

If you absolutely must have food at the table, like a birthday cake with some pun on it about levelling up, or a celebratory muffin because the ranger’s shrub otter survived sixteen sessions in a row, set aside a short break halfway through. And use a damn plate!