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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sage Genesis" data-source="post: 6781119" data-attributes="member: 6706099">Whether or not something is "interesting" or "boring" depends on many different facets. Let's look at some of them, starting with the basics of taking a turn.In general terms you can imagine that as a flow cart. First you must decide what action(s) to take, then dice must be rolled, and then finally it comes to resolution and description. Let's compare 5e for a moment to a few other games: D&D 4e, Legend of the Five Rings, and 13th Age.4e tried to make the first step more exciting. Just saying "I attack" is too simple for its tastes so it provides you with some class features, at-will attacks, encounter and daily powers, magic item activations, interactions with monster/environment/trap elements, and so forth. So the first step is really exciting if you're into that kind of thing. (There are some drawbacks to this approach as well but that's not the issue we're debating right now so let's leave it at that.) L5R tries to make the second step more exciting. Combat relies on raises - for those who don't know the game, accuracy tends to be pretty high but you can accept penalties prior to rolling to get increased effects on a hit. Not just disarms and knockdowns, but also extra damage dice and "class features" can rely on this mechanic. The first step is still simple: you just say "I attack" on a lot of turns but then it comes to dice and that part is more exciting because there's gambles and odds to weigh. Which is cool if you like playing with risk-reward.13th Age's Fighters are kind of clever in this regard. Their main mechanic is that they roll attacks and then can add on one special effect, but which effect they can use depends on the d20 roll. Some of them can only be used on an even roll, some only on a 16+, some need to both odd and miss the target, etc. So they try to give the same kind of excitement you get from the first step, but they shunt it into the second step with a semi-automated system by attaching it to the die roll itself. Nearly all the little effects of 4e and nearly all the speed of 5e. Not everybody's cup of tea, but it's a cute idea. Some of the advice given here in this thread can be summarized as, "describe things better". That is an excellent way to make the third step more exciting... but it won't improve the first and second steps. In 5e non-casters have relatively few action types available to them, or at least few that can be used often and are efficient. So if you want the first step (choosing an action) to be more exciting, you really kind of need to be a Wizard or something.There are also other sources of excitement of course, ones that fall outside of the scope basic turn-taking and action resolution mechanics. There are objectives (save the hostages!), story-related tensions ("one of us dies today... brother") and the risk of death/consequences ("there are how many ogres?!"). For those who enjoy strategy over tactics, there is daily resource management for some classes. But at the end of the day, different groups have different play styles. And different styles focus on different aspects of games to get the excitement they want. If your group gets bored by the first step of the flowchart, then you need to either do some big houseruling or accept that 5e was just not built for your tastes. That's ok. Not every game can be everything to everyone. The idea that the cause lies either with the system or the players is a false dichotomy, because the actual cause lies in the interaction between the two. Sometimes there's just no chemistry, you know? Spice it up, move along, or accept that some of your gaming experiences may be a little on the dull side.</blockquote>

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