How to Tell a GM You're Not Having Fun?

[Rune]

I'm accustomed to always being the GM, so when a player told me he'd like to run for a bit, I gladly passed the reigns. He was excited about trying a new system he had purchased, found a well-reviewed adventure, and put a lot of time putting it on a VTT so we could play a weekly game.
My group has had numerous lackluster sessions in a row. I was talking to another player to make sure it wasn't just my bias, but he's also not having a great time.
It's slow. We're exploring/uncovering an average of 40 ft. of dungeon per session. We've gained no significant treasure. We've lost more XP from character death than we've gained playing the adventure. In the last session, due to his need for specificity in our actions, we found 2 secret doors in a room - in a 2 hour game. Didn't even get to explore them.
It's difficult. Everywhere we turn there are impossible combats that can't be defeated - at best they can be narrowly escaped. We're trapped in a dungeon with no chance to get supplies as our characters are starving to death. Even when we try to find food, warbands come through and we're lucky to flee with our lives.
We're having no opportunities for roleplaying, character development, etc. It's all about tedious procedural minutiae - even after we've set up things like watch rotations, marching orders, he makes us specify each time. Even after we tell him "can we just get on with the adventure," he is strict about enforcing the procedures. As it turns out in most cases, it wasn't even important - there were no traps in the hallway, there were no random encounters overnight, we had to spend 15 minutes to make sure he understood party formation before going into an empty room, etc.
So how do you bring this up to a GM who is your friend? How do you try to improve the game?

This is a tricky topic. I’ll preface all the following by saying that I’m presenting an ideal; I don’t always succeed in handling this type of scenario well, myself.

In the past, I’ve noticed that my experience as a GM seems to exacerbate the problems, because the new GM is intimidated and, thus, tries to overcompensate and prove themselves capable to the group. This is difficult to address because it is invariably something that the new GM doesn’t know is happening. (As an aside, the choice of using a system that nobody is familiar with may be a subconscious manifestation of this. Regrettably, it’s likely to complicate matters, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.)

What’s missed here is the understanding (gained through experience) that being good at GMing is virtually impossible without practice. That, and the ability and willingness to identify and correct problem areas.

This last quality requires an awareness that most new GMs are going to lack; their heads are usually so full of ideas about what they want to do that they can’t listen to the players talk to each other at the table (virtual or otherwise). This is a crucial skill to develop. There is no better – nor immediate – way to hear what the players want in a game, or what they are enjoying.

So, how do you facilitate the transition? A direct confrontation is one approach (and might ultimately be necessary), but that’s likely to be taken defensively, which will probably make the points harder to accept.

It might be better to break through any anxiety the GM has about making mistakes (and simultaneously subtly teach a thing or two) by telling stories about mistakes you’ve made in GMing and what steps you took to course-correct.

It is important to do this with the whole group present, though; if the new GM is intimidated by your experience, this will help put you on even footing. Also, hopefully, it will put the idea in everyone’s minds that mistakes are for learning, not fearing.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Ah yes, the "original fun" of having hallways of gotcha traps that thief had a 35% chance to find and even less to avoid blowing the party up trying to disarm it, a kobold with a Nine Lives Stealer, a band of wights to devour every level the party had just earned, and other bad adventure design mistakes we made because we were inexperienced kids back then (I really did throw the kobold with a Nine Lives Stealer at my gaming group back in the day).

He's run a few games over the years, but not traditionally in our group of players. The "new" system is an OSR system, and he expressed a desire to get back to the "original fun" of the game.

 

[billd91]

We're having no opportunities for roleplaying, character development, etc. It's all about tedious procedural minutiae - even after we've set up things like watch rotations, marching orders, he makes us specify each time. Even after we tell him "can we just get on with the adventure," he is strict about enforcing the procedures. As it turns out in most cases, it wasn't even important - there were no traps in the hallway, there were no random encounters overnight, we had to spend 15 minutes to make sure he understood party formation before going into an empty room, etc.

Whoo, this sounds really... procedural, maybe even anal-retentively so. It's almost like he's going over a detailed checklist every time, which might be OK if he were a surgeon or an airline pilot and safety were paramount. But for something like setting watches or marching order in an RPG, unless the players decide to change it, setting it once is enough. Maybe you need to do the ol' Minister's Question Time and say "I refer the Right Honorable gentleman to the previously given answer" when faced with repetitive questions. Or just say "No changes. Using the Standard Operating Procedure".

As far as the rest goes, beer and pretzels dungeon crawling is a particular kind of fun - not so much role playing development, mostly the brains of the players vs the brain of the module writer as far as solving clues and finding traps and so on. It's not for everyone, but I think it's worth asking him if that's what he's going for, if that's the kind of game he intended to run, and then setting expectations accordingly.

 

[payn]

Original fun sounds like Nintendo Hard. We had an older member in our group that liked OG fun. To him the game was all about survival period. Your character didn't go to the outhouse without the cleric holding their hand. It was just that dangerous to do anything. The entire point to was to see how long you could survive the meatgrinder.

We had to step back, try some other genres, have a lot of discussions around the concept. We eventually came to the position that this player could run Call of Cthulhu anytime, but would play everything else. Since the theme fit, it worked to the players style and the groups fun as well.

There is a solution here somewhere but you wont find it until you discuss it.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah, doing a meatgrinder dungeon would be one thing, but there's a mix of tone. Some of the players want to be overly cautious, some want to have gonzo action - and sometimes those are both coming from the same player. Me, I would just like to feel some accomplishment: defeating a foe, finding a magic sword, uncovering more of the map.

 

[embee]

"The real adventure was the traps we found along the way."

The spiked pit was inside you all along!

As were those slaad eggs.

 

[Lanefan]

Or just say "No changes. Using the Standard Operating Procedure".

This.

Now that you-as-players/PCs have done these processes a few times in detail*, SOPs are Your Best Friend.

* - IMO it's important to go through things in detail early on in a campaign, even if doing so might be a bit tedious, in order to set up the SOP model later.

 

[Retreater]

Or just say "No changes. Using the Standard Operating Procedure"

We do that. He won't continue until we spell it out again and again.

 

[billd91]

We do that. He won't continue until we spell it out again and again.

Gotta put that foot down. If he won’t continue, I guess we’re done here. There’s compromise and meeting someone partway, and then there’s madness. And it sounds like this is closer to madness.

 

[Retreater]

Well, we had the conversation tonight. I think he's going to try to lighten up on us. I told him that while the "old school" feel was fine and maybe true to the original intent, but to a bunch of guys in their 40s, with screaming kids in the next room, playing after a long day at the office, on computers on a Virtual Tabletop - we're already in an environment where the "original intent" is not achievable. So speeding past some of the tedium would be appreciated.