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<blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 6257549" data-attributes="member: 12037">I like the concept of looking at what is not fun and going from there.For me, what is most not fun is a feeling of non-participation. I do a lot of boardgaming, more than roleplaying right now, so take a relatively common boardgame: Settlers of Catan. In that game, you've got settlements on a hex map with resources gathered when a certain number comes up on a 2d6. When an entire turn goes around the table and your numbers never come up, that's a lack of fun. when it happens multiple times in a row, you start to lose interest in the game. If it goes any longer, you wonder why you're playing.The same thing can happen in a roleplaying game. It doesn't even have to be tied to bad rolls. When you find that you aren't participating to the level of other people, the game starts to drag. Take a D&amp;D 1e fight against a monster with immunity/magic where you're the guy without magic, or a 3e rogue in a very basic encounter with some constructs, or a 4e slog against a MM1 solo, etc. In those scenarios, you might as well pull out your phone and start playing Bejeweled or something for as much participation as you're doing.Then you get into things like death in round 1 before you even get to act, or needing a 17 to hit, or other things that rely too much on randomness to get past. There's nothing you can do, mechanically.I think one of the main problems with this in D&amp;D systems is that if you roll to attack and miss, it means nothing happens. There's nothing interesting in &quot;fail... next&quot; gameplay where failure can be common. Taking a situation where you enter &quot;fail... next&quot; gameplay, the DM has to really think of his or her toes, move forward, and start making things interesting for you. This isn't really something that can be handled by rules, so rules should, IMO, be set up to avoid these situations or you end up with my original Catan scenario where you're waiting for the random rolls to come up in your favor, and until you do, you wish you were anywhere else.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ThirdWizard, post: 6257549, member: 12037"] I like the concept of looking at what is not fun and going from there. For me, what is [I]most[/I] not fun is a feeling of non-participation. I do a lot of boardgaming, more than roleplaying right now, so take a relatively common boardgame: Settlers of Catan. In that game, you've got settlements on a hex map with resources gathered when a certain number comes up on a 2d6. When an entire turn goes around the table and your numbers never come up, that's a lack of fun. when it happens multiple times in a row, you start to lose interest in the game. If it goes any longer, you wonder why you're playing. The same thing can happen in a roleplaying game. It doesn't even have to be tied to bad rolls. When you find that you aren't participating to the level of other people, the game starts to drag. Take a D&D 1e fight against a monster with immunity/magic where you're the guy without magic, or a 3e rogue in a very basic encounter with some constructs, or a 4e slog against a MM1 solo, etc. In those scenarios, you might as well pull out your phone and start playing Bejeweled or something for as much participation as you're doing. Then you get into things like death in round 1 before you even get to act, or needing a 17 to hit, or other things that rely too much on randomness to get past. There's nothing you can do, mechanically. I think one of the main problems with this in D&D systems is that if you roll to attack and miss, it means [I]nothing happens[/I]. There's nothing interesting in "fail... next" gameplay where failure can be common. Taking a situation where you enter "fail... next" gameplay, the DM has to really think of his or her toes, move forward, and start making things interesting for you. This isn't really something that can be handled by rules, so rules should, IMO, be set up to avoid these situations or you end up with my original Catan scenario where you're waiting for the random rolls to come up in your favor, and until you do, you wish you were anywhere else. [/QUOTE]

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