Better Roundtables with Seb
Hi, I’m Seb. I’ve developed a novel spin on the traditional roundtable discussion format that makes for inclusive and lively group discussions on a set topic.
My format will help you get more attendee value from roundtable discussions.
What is a roundtable?
A roundtable is a moderated group discussion around a single topic. All attendees are given equal ability to participate — to ask questions or answer them. They’re common in politics, academic settings, and at conferences, usually with a fixed topic but without a fixed agenda or structure. They typically have one ‘moderator’: a host who sets the over-arching discussion topic, and manages the microphone.
Regular roundtables frequently suck. My roundtable format fixes many problems.
Seb’s Roundtables are particularly suited to roundtables that:
- host a diverse group, where a mix of job roles, experience levels, or perspectives makes it hard to please everyone
- tackle a high-complexity subject matter, where there’s no chance of exploring all the challenges and sub-topics
- want to find shared problems in a group, whilst also surfacing effective solutions and ideas from individuals
A roundtable in action at GDC 2025. Moscone Centre, San Francisco
Attendees will suggest topics to discuss, then everybody votes on what they want to focus on.
The moderator will balance the time toward what’s popular.
That’s S E B.
This resource shows you exactly how to run Seb’s Roundtables.
Where did these come from?
In 2024 I was chosen to run a series of roundtables at the highly prestigious Game Developers Conference.
I needed a roundtable structure that was inclusive, moderate-able by me single-handed, and flexible to the diverse roundtable attendees having lots of potential topics.
I couldn’t find a format that would help me focus on the very-interesting topics, and minimise the not-interesting.
So I invented my own approach. And it works extremely well.
Seb’s Roundtables have gotten universal praise for stimulating lively, well-balanced, and inclusive discussions:
“Love Seb’s format. Wish other roundtables could adopt this approach.
“The moderator’s method for selecting topics was PERFECT. All other roundtable moderators should consider this method.”
“Incredibly insightful in a short period of time!”
“Facilitating the the group to volunteer & then prioritise topics allowed for valuable and meaningful discussion across the whole group.”
“The facilitation was top-notch, it should be used as a model for other roundtables at GDC.”
— Anonymous session evaluation feedback
Fast forward two years: I’ve run this roundtable format dozens of times, and they’re super-effective. In 2025 I attended a roundtable being moderated by someone else, who announced they would be “running their roundtable like Seb Long does” … I decided it was time to stick my name on them by publishing this resource, and helping you run them too.
In short, how do Seb’s Roundtables work?
Seb’s Roundtables facilitate flexible group discussions in groups of ~15-or-more people by focusing on what they want to discuss.
Attendees will suggest topics to discuss, then everybody votes on what they want to focus on. The moderator will balance the time toward what’s popular.
That’s S E B
In more detail:
For the first five minutes you’ll collect 6-to-8 suggested topics that attendees would like to hear discussed, and write them on a whiteboard for all to see. (If your session is longer or shorter than an hour, you can modify the number of topics).
In one minute you’ll gauge interest in each of the suggested topics by a show-of-hands from everybody: who wants discuss this topic? Grade each topic’s votes on a scale from one-to-ten.
Moderate the roundtable, starting with the popular topics and balancing more discussion time into the things attendees really want to talk about.
Suggest topics.
Everybody votes.
Balance the time.
What makes this format better?
There are loads of problems with traditional roundtables that are fixed by my approach:
- Individual roundtable participants don’t imagine their interests or challenges are shared, and can be nervous to waste valuable discussion time. This format permits all attendees to directly influence the topics discussed by voting, and lowers the stakes of suggesting new topics.
- Traditional roundtables follow topics in-the-moment, and quickly become tangential, unfocused, and dull. There’s no fixed ‘stop point’ to switch topic except when a single topic becomes long exhausted — or arbitrarily stops. My format forces breakpoints that also respect the attendee’s interest for each topic.
- Normal roundtables rarely stick to time, or need to cram interesting topics raised near the end. My format fixes an agenda, and forces the most-interesting topics to the beginning, minimising time on unpopular topics.
Ready to learn how to run these sessions for yourself?
Step-by-step instructions
- Set attendee expectations ahead of time
- Arrive early and set-up
- Explain the format to the attendees
- Suggest topics
- Everybody votes
- Start with the most-voted topic
- Balance the time
- Wrap up
1. Set attendee expectations ahead of time
This roundtable format suits open discussions where there are many topics that could be discussed. Set your attendee expectations in advance so they come prepared with questions. For example, I asked attendees to “bring your professional challenges and questions” in the conference programme. Whether you’re running at a conference or a meeting, find a way to let attendees know that they will set the topics.
Show an example session description/agenda
“An open discussion on approaches, lessons, challenges and opportunities in the use of player feedback. Bring your questions on how to capture, comprehend, action and measure the impact of insights from real players.
These three roundtables present a valuable opportunity to surface your challenges, viewpoints and experience on the use of player feedback to inform game design. Learn from the experiences of fellow designers, researchers, data scientists, community and player champions, and take away new ideas and perspectives on the value of players’ voice in design decision-making.”
2. Arrive early and set-up
Arrive slightly early to prepare the flipchart or whiteboard, making sure it can be seen by everyone in the room.
If you have microphones — and maybe microphone handlers during the session — you’ll need to get set up and explain how session will go.
You might like to draw a hype-o-meter to help explain how the session will run.
What is a ‘hype-o-meter’?
When you’re counting up attendees’ votes by show of hands, you don’t have time to count accurately.
Furthermore, the process of explaining the roundtable format to attendees — the next step — also needs to be as short and effective as possible.
As such, I explain to attendees I’ll be “measuring their level of interest on my highly scientific hype-o-meter“, and flip the flipchart page to reveal this silly diagram (pictured).
This provides some conceit for giving an approximate interest score out of ten, rather than boring everyone with an exact count of hands for each topic. It also makes the format more understandable. And it’s a little funny.
The hype-o-meter isn’t essential or always appropriate, but you might find it helpful — especially for your first time running a roundtable like this.
Note: While a score of ten-out-of-ten on the hype-o-meter is possible — by having almost everyone in the room vote ‘interested’ — there are times when a score of eleven out of ten has been needed, when a particularly spicy topic gets the room excited. And, to avoid any attendee the embarrassment of having no one else be interested in their suggested topic, the hype-o-meter never gives a score of less than three.
3. Explain the format to the attendees
It takes a few minutes to explain the format of the roundtable at the beginning of the session. Have a script ready.
Ask attendees to suggest topics.
Show an example introduction script
Hello and introduce yourself.
Housekeeping (phones off, recording on, etc.)
Introduce the broad topic of the roundtable.
Say: “I’ve asked you to bring your challenges and ideas on this topic, hoping you have problems to solve, or advice to share.”
Say: “I’ll take the first few minutes to collect topics or problems you want to hear discussed. Once we have 6 or 8 topics then we’ll quickly vote — by show of hands — if that’s a topic you’d really like to hear discussed here.
[Optional, introduce the hype-o-meter]
We’ll spend five minutes capturing topics then quickly voting, then I’ll move us through those topics every ten minutes or so.
Ask: Does anyone have any questions about how this session will work?
Ask: Is anyone brave enough to suggest a first topic?
4. Suggest topics
Choose volunteers to explain their topic.
Using a flipchart or whiteboard, quickly summarise the topic suggested by the attendee, large enough for all to see.
Try to summarise using under 5 words.
As you’re writing and listening to the attendee explain the topic, consider:
- do you understand what they want to know? If not, stop writing and ask for clarification
- is this topic very specific? If so, suggest an expansion of the question topic
- is this topic very broad? If so, ask the attendee to narrow it down, or suggest focusing on just a portion of their topic
- is the topic very jargon’y or unclear? If so, explain your understanding of the question back to the attendee to clarify
- is this topic aligned with the roundtable remit? If not, work with the attendee to reframe it
Try to remember which attendee suggested which topic.
Don’t make the audience wait for you to finish writing: start suggesting the next topic.
5. Everybody votes
Once you have 6-to-8 topics — ones you feel will fill the remaining time — you can move to voting.
Remind attendees how voting works: raise your hands if you’re interested in hearing that topic discussed.
Read off the first topic to be voted.
Quickly judge the level of interest. Don’t count hands, it’s too slow. Give a score based on interest, from nearly everyone (10) to only a few people (3). Don’t give scores of 1 or 2.
Write down the interest score on the whiteboard next to the topic summary.
Repeat for each of the topics.
6. Start with the most-voted topic
First, check the time and make a mental note of it: the remaining time is what you must balance.
Read aloud the first topic from the whiteboard.
Begin your moderation, facilitating the attendees’ discussion.
General tips for running roundtable discussions
- Encourage people to raise their hand to speak, and come to them in order.
- While the current person is speaking, try to acknowledge the next person you’re coming to. They will appreciate knowing they will be next, and the conversation runs more smoothly.
- Deliberately keep checking the time: the better you’re doing your job, the more engaging the conversation and the faster time slips away.
- If one person keeps talking too long, use body language to cue them to wrap up. If that doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to interrupt them: “I’d like to hear from others on this”.
- Keep a mental log of who hasn’t spoken. Don’t hesitate to jump to new contributors, even if they weren’t the first with their hand up.
- Don’t be afraid to contribute your own experience or opinion, but only do so when you’re confident it will drive conversation forward, or surface a new facet of the topic. Don’t give yourself the last word on any topic: another reason to keep checking the time.
- If you’re getting the same voices: ask for someone new, ask for contradictory views, ask why this isn’t on other people’s minds, or this is a non-issue for others.
- If no one is talking, poll the room on a topic (“put up your hand if you’ve ever…?”) and pick on someone that puts up their hand.
7. Balance the time
Each topic gets a fixed amount of time. Divide up the total time remaining in the session, and balance it according to the votes. The most-popular topic should get ~20 minutes of discussion time.
For example, in a one-hour session with 7 topics you could balance like this:
- The introduction, suggest topics and everybody votes needs ~5 minutes
- The highest-voted topic gets ~20 minutes
- Second-most gets ~10 minutes
- Topic 3, 4 and 5 get ~6 minutes each
- Topics 6 and 7 get 3 minutes
- The wrap-up needs ~1 minute
Use your judgement to bias more-or-less time into each topic. For example, in the voted topics shown in the photo above: 2 of the topics tied with an interest score of 8/10. I split the first ~30 minutes between them (20+10÷2).
Once the allotted time for a topic has been reached, interrupt the discussion and introduce the next topic. You can remind the room of the next topic from memory, or ask the original asker to restate their topic.
Repeat this for the remainder of the session.
8. Wrap up
Say your thanks and well-dones.
Take (and share) a photo of your topic list with it’s interest scores.
Tips and advice
Tips for Suggest Topics
Ask for suggestions to be called out while you’re writing — don’t make the audience wait for you to finish.
Write down as few words as possible. If you lose some nuance from the topic, don’t worry: you can ask the person who suggested the topic to remind everyone, once their topic comes up later.
Don’t write down a topic that you don’t fully understand: you’ll annoy the asker, confuse other attendees, and muddle the vote. Take a moment to clarify the topic.
The Seb’s Roundtable format is more democratic and inclusive than traditional roundtables, but you’ll still need to be deliberate to ensure the suggest topics phase includes a variety of voices from the room.
Write a list of emergency topics, in case the room suggests fewer than are needed. Even if falling short is unlikely — it’s never happened to me — having pre-made topics reduces anxiety, helps you shape suggested topics, and helps you ask progressive follow-up questions.
Tips for Everybody Votes
Don’t be tempted to count the number of hands accurately: it takes too long. Quickly scan the room for raised hands. Less than half the room? That’s a 3, 4 or 5-out-of-10 based on the vibe. Nearly everyone? That’s an 8 or a 9. Somewhere between? That’s a 6 or 7: it’s likely that the topic will get decent time with either score, so just decide.
In the event of several tie-scoring questions: you’re still a moderator. Use your judgement to push and pull topics based on your judgement.
You’ll immediately know a 10-out-of-ten vote (or an 11!) when you see it. Embrace that exciting moment, if it happens, and be ready to balance the time strongly, accordingly.
Tips for Balance the Time
Try to move smoothly between topics if you can. A smooth segue from one topic to the next makes the whole roundtable feel like one big conversation.
If a low-rated topic comes up during another discussion, consider if you can cover the low-interest topic quickly at that point, allowing you to drop it from the agenda later.
Any topic that might have got less than a three is OK to cut completely from the agenda. But be sure to apologise to the room — and the askers — for not getting to all the topics, during the wrap-up.
It’s probably better to keep on a lively 5-score conversation than pivot to a 3-, 2-, or 1-score.
If you can remember that the asker or voters for one of these low-scoring topics hasn’t spoken much, then perhaps it’s worth forcing it regardless.
If conversation dries up, ask if people who voted for the topic (not the asker) have any follow-up questions. You could also ask the topic-setter for more nuance or examples. Or just move on.
Feedback or comments?
I hope you find my roundtable format to be inclusive and effective.
If you run a roundtable using this format, let me know how it goes, and if you have any tips! I’ll share the best tips here, with credit.
And if you found this resource useful, please share it: sebastianlong.com/roundtables