D&D General What are the “boring bits” to you?

[Rystefn]

I hope you make your views on this clear in every game you participate in, because there are people who enjoy the parts of the game (and yes, they still are part of the game) where the PCs aren't actively "on duty in the field".

This statement applies equally to literally every post in the entire conversation. It goes without saying that everything here is subjective and that what one person finds boring, others will find to be the most fun and engaging parts of the game.

 

[aco175]

I find it boring to not get to roll dice on my turn in combat. If I'm a caster and cast fireball, then all I get is to tell the DM to make Dex saves. I liked being able to attack the bad guy's Reflex save that a past edition had.

 

[grimmgoose]

Trash combats. IE, the kind of fights that 5E's "adventuring day" design pushes you towards* (1d6+2 goblins in the first room, a wight in the second room, all before the big goblin boss in the third room).

I would rather have one big fight that can be loud and crazy, with the volume cranked to 11.

*I hear the keyboards clacking now - the problem doesn't really rear its head until the latter-half of Tier 2, and yes, I'm sure better DMs can do one big fight at later levels, but that's just like, your opinion man.

 

[Andvari]

I find it boring to not get to roll dice on my turn in combat. If I'm a caster and cast fireball, then all I get is to tell the DM to make Dex saves. I liked being able to attack the bad guy's Reflex save that a past edition had.

I’m in two minds about that. On the one hand, rolling dice is fun. On the other hand it makes magic feel different that my victims are now responsible for surviving my attack.

I also prefer attempting to save to just being told I was disintegrated.

 

[Rystefn]

I find it boring to not get to roll dice on my turn in combat. If I'm a caster and cast fireball, then all I get is to tell the DM to make Dex saves. I liked being able to attack the bad guy's Reflex save that a past edition had.

You know, this is a small thing, but now that you bring it up, I totally agree. I very much preferred that aspect of 4e, on both sides of the screen. It's the same things as stuns and paralyzing and whatnot. Smaller, but the same.

 

[Neonchameleon]

How odd. My experience of old-school combat has been precisely the opposite. Well, almost. Either you mindlessly charge in and win, or you mindlessly charge in and lots of PCs die. And that very thing you speak of, "win the fight before the dice are rolled," is incredibly boring. Because it means there was never any challenge in the first place. There was never actually a threat at all, just a bookkeeping effort, no different from the logistics you mentioned in the part I snipped out.

The last sci-fi campaign I played we won the fight before the battle started. But we normally did that because the guns we were using were very lethal - which meant that if we set up the ambush and got the first shots off we won. If we didn't and they weren't in utter disarray before they got to fire back it was going to get messy. But we had to work for those ambushes.

 

[Pedantic]

The answer to this is to have chaotic players at the table playing chaotic characters who don't follow orders or scripts and who are going to do their own thing - whatever it might be, probably different every time - in any combat that arises. And if you ain't got such players, become one yourself.

Again, you seem to be focusing only on the optimal choice. What about the fun-risky-entertaining choice that maybe isn't so optimal?

Put another way, instead of thinking "what does the flowchart tell me to do now?", think "what can I do here that nobody will expect but that also (hopefully) won't lose us this fight?" And then when something comes to you, just do it. Don't ask anyone if it's a good idea, never ask permission - just effing do it and let the chips fall where they may.

Front-liner #1: "Where'd Jocasta go?"
Front-liner #2: "Dunno - she was right behind me a minute ago as my backup."
Front-liner #3: "There she is! She must have found a way to sneak around behind them! She's got their caster down - and crap, she's about to get swarmed....."

In this instance, I'd probably be Jocasta's player.

That's what I'm proposing: thinking outside the flowchart is what keeps the brain engaged; and if an unexpected action doesn't present itself in this combat, it will some other time.

I have to disagree with both positions here. There is nothing worse than sitting through combat with someone who isn't a team player. Either it reveals the combat was so trivial that no active effort was required in the first place, denying the players even the satisfaction of executing a solid plan, or if the combat was sufficiently difficult to require strong coordination, it gets everyone killed.

I have particularly bad memories of using Hypnotic Pattern and having a fiery paladin or barbarian attack once of my charmed targets "because that's what my character would do" rendering my action pointless. I no longer care if we win or lose at that point, both outcomes are uniquely unsatisfying.

On the other hand, I don't think the game should live or die on tactics alone. There's plenty of satisfaction to be had in effective planning and execution.

 

[GrimCo]

I thoroughly enjoy every one of the things you mentioned, and object strenuously to your subjective opinion of them. What you want doesn't sound like a fun, meaningful RPG experience in a verisimilitude imaginary world to me, and that's what I want.

And good for you. If you find that stuff fun, great, more power to you. Enjoy what you enjoy.

Of course it's subjective, this tread is about personal preferences. D&D isn't my top pick as game systems go. It would be tied on 3 place with Cyberpunk, behind WoD and 7th sea. But, we play it cause everybody in the group likes it enough and it serves it purpose. These days, i like games that are good mix of fast paced combat and social interactions, with dose of lighthearted humor and lore light. We play Sunday mornings from 9:30 till 12:30, with hard cut off at 13:00. So at best we start playing at 10 which gives us 2.5-3h of gaming time (or 1.5-2h of game time at best). So it's about trimming the fat, streamlining games, and going straight to fun bits (kick ass, chew bubble gum, bang hot wenches and be the big hero of the day).

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Non-roleplay shopping.*
Purely "attrition" traps.
Excessively "streamlined" (aka trivialized) combat.
Waiting around doing nothing because my character died.
Excessive time spent on logistics. Some is fine. Spending more than a quarter of most sessions on it is not.

*That is, "roleplay" shopping is when it's actually a process, with one or more real characters you actually interact with, and can persuade both through actually good argument points and through leveraging your character's strengths. That sort of shopping is actually fun, and can even be the start of a whole adventure. "Non-RP shopping" is just dull logistical BS you have to jump through otherwise you'll be slapped with dull logistical gotchas while you're out in the middle of nowhere.

Interesting, but isn't that entirely backwards?

Ultimately RP-shopping ends up being the players faffing about not being able to decide what to get or how for how much and it's generally completely uninteresting and the shopkeeper needs to present exactly what he has available and for how much etc. etc. Tedious.

Of course non-RP shopping is also uninteresting, but by not roleplaying it you at least don't have to waste much time on it.

An exception is when the players have a very specific object in mind and they know exactly what they want.

 

[Lanefan]

Hard pass. If I signed up to play Dungeons and Dragons, I have zero patience for someone trying to play Boutiques and Bookbinders. If you want to retire and start a cute little B&B, then your character is an NPC now.

The bolded is an attitude that infuriates me as a player.

To me it's not negotiable: a retired or not-currently-adventuring PC is still a PC and still belongs to its player, even if that player has left the game; and if the DM wants to use it for something that player's permission is required first.

People can roleplay and engage with the setting by going on adventures. Signing up for a fantasy adventure game and then trying to avoid adventures is literally the same thing as making a character who refuses to work with the rest of the party and tries to wander off alone all the time, and it should be treated the same way, not called "good roleplaying." Well, no. I take that back. the person going off solo might actually do something interesting at point.

Thing is, there's many ways of engaging with the setting other than just by adventuring, and the setting doesn't (usually!) consist of nothing but adventure sites. And so, allowing downtime such that the PCs can engage with non-adventure-related parts of the setting now and then can IMO only lead to a deeper richer campaign.

And if the players only engage with the downtime activities instead of adventuring, you might want to look sideways at the adventuring options you're giving them.