D&D 5E Difficulty Playing D&D: Player Still Waiting Off Screen After 3+ Hours

[Greg Benage]

There's lots of good advice here (including that I shoulder a generous share of the blame). One thing in particular I would like to address is statements about my need to be 'The Hero' and not sharing the plan. It might just be our group, but generally when we come up with a plan we don't share the details with everyone else beyond what is absolutely necessary. We find that it makes it more interesting to learn of the plan as it unfolds because we tend not to expect it. Myself and the gnome wizard in the group are particularly bad for this.

I guess that's cool if it's fun for your group. But if your secret plan is to go on a solo adventure, don't be surprised when you're excluded from the group adventure?

Honestly, as I've gotten older, I've lost what little patience I ever had for this kind of thing. You're not playing Gandalf or any other character in a novel. You're one of several players playing a D&D game. Frankly, if I'm supposed to trust some guy with my life and he runs off when the barbarians are at the gate without telling me what he's up to, I'm going to have to metagame like mad to continue adventuring with him. I WILL metagame like mad, because I'm just one player playing a D&D game, but I won't especially appreciate it. That's just my preference, though -- if it works for your group, more power to you.

That said, it doesn't sound as though it works so well for your group! Next time, it may be better to say, "Hey guys, I think it would be a good idea to recruit some allies. Here's what I'm thinking." Maybe the timing requires that you still split the group to execute this plan, but at least everyone is on the same page. While there was obviously some misunderstanding about the timing, the point is your character couldn't KNOW what the timing would be. Lots of opportunity for your solo mission to go sideways with an orc army marauding in the area.

The only "mistake" I think the DM made was resolving the attack in combat rounds. I'd have put the assault on a sliding scale from 0 (town sacked!) to 10 (town saved!), starting at 5, and then let the PCs take actions to move the line (including a "recruit allies" mission, if someone suggested it. Ahem.).

 

[the Jester]

· As a DM, what would you do in this situation to ensure that everyone is included? (I DM a couple of games and I want to avoid doing this myself)
· Given the risk of being excluded, should plans that involve taking players off screen for more than a minute or two be prohibited? If plans that take a player off screen for an extended period are allowed, how much effort should the DM take in fast forwarding through that time?
· As a player, how would you respond if your DM did this? Is confronting the DM appropriate? Although we did have a Session Zero where people expressed an interest in playing a more strategic game, most players quickly decided that it is impossible to have fun without hitting things.
· Is my indignation justified? At this point I am seriously considering quitting the game. I can understand and accept a plan failing if it has a fatal flaw or if the dice don't allow it. If there is a missing piece of information that causes it to fail that is fine too. But when a player makes a decent plan (was it a decent plan?) based on invested time researching, their class features specific to the situation, and knowledge of game world politics, is it reasonable to expect it to at the least take place at some time during the session instead of being shunted to the side?

All right, so here are my comments and replies to your questions.

First of all, I agree with the sentiment that you largely did this to yourself. You didn't tell the rest of the party what you were doing; you split the party (!); you actively avoided the encounter the DM threw your way. Jeez, dude, the fact that you sat out most of the game is pretty much on you- and, in my opinion, you could have avoided it very easily.

There's lots of good advice here (including that I shoulder a generous share of the blame). One thing in particular I would like to address is statements about my need to be 'The Hero' and not sharing the plan. It might just be our group, but generally when we come up with a plan we don't share the details with everyone else beyond what is absolutely necessary. We find that it makes it more interesting to learn of the plan as it unfolds because we tend not to expect it.

Here is a huge part of the problem. If the other pcs knew what you were up to, they could have stalled the orcs ("give us until dawn to answer"). They would have, at the very least, had a sort of meta-reason to delay the battle and wait for you. But "See you guys later!"? As far as the other pcs (excepting the one guy you told, and that basically doesn't matter) are concerned, there's no reason to delay anything- let's get this over with.

And you're playing D&D. Combat runs in 6-second rounds. Objecting to the combat having run in 6-second rounds is... well, it's silly. Criticism of the 6-second round is fine as a systemic thing, but if that's the system in play, you should basically expect it to run in 6-second rounds. This is probably an example of where the 1e one minute melee round is superior (siege/army warfare), but hey, that's not the game you were playing. So on that score, although I agree that a 24-second siege is silly, unless the DM's already set up the expectation that it's going to work differently, you really should expect strikingly quick combats.

Anyway, I also agree with another common sentiment in this thread- the DM could have done you better by letting you play an npc or a backup pc or something. Hell, even some bad guys! That's my preference for offscreen pcs when possible. But that doesn't work for every DM or every player.

You asked if character-goes-off-alone stuff should be 'prohibited.' Well, that's very much a playstyle issue. For some groups, it probably is already. For my own, I run a pretty hardcore sandbox style game, so if a pc wanders off alone, so be it. But (as many others have said) that one pc will only get a fraction of the time everyone else gets- and my groups are pretty large, typically 6 to 8 players per session, so that means like an hour or less in the session. I do try to warn people before they wander off alone that they won't get to be spotlight hogs, but the choice is theirs.

Now, as to your reaction, playing a session where you don't get to do anything sucks. It's boring and not much fun. It does happen sometimes; maybe your plan went awry, maybe you got knocked out and nobody could bring you around, maybe you got killed early on and the pcs were in a trapped room with no way for you to show up until they escaped. Whatever- it's not fun, but it does happen; it's best when there's something for you to do, some way to participate, but that's not always possible. If it happens a lot, I'd probably leave a campaign, but if this is the only time (or if each time it's because of the choices the players are making), I would probably stick with it, assuming it was otherwise fun.

Okay, one final thing- confronting the DM. I'm gonna agree with others again here and say "discussing it with" probably works much better than "confronting" the DM. And clear, open, honest communication is important in any relationship.

 

[the Jester]

This is bad DM'ing, mostly due to laziness on the DM's part. You mean to tell me that he couldn't spare you even a few moments to give you an interesting and relevant encounter, or think of anything else that you could have done during this time? Then he basically told you to shut up for three hours? I would've been gone after thirty minutes. If I'm not having fun, then I'm not gonna bother, period and the end. Did you even get to save the day after the rest of the party stupidly got themselves killed? The moral of this story is: don't pay with douchebags, and ignore that elitist crap the other posters said. Maybe DM yourself, and show them how it should be done.

The DM did try to give him an encounter; he ducked it.

Remember, for every minute of focus he gets, there are four other people not getting focus.

I do agree with you that if you're not having fun, you should leave.

 

[Henry]

To me there's a meta game rule in place that overrides all others: The players are there to PLAY. To have fun. If the story dictates that I have to have one player sitting doing nothing for more than 10 or 15 minutes, the story. I come up with something, no matter how flimsy, to give the player some action. Might be a random encounter that they can fight in 5 minutes; might be a roleplay encounter; might be a choice in the road. Whether their PC is doing something awesome, or getting their TEETH kicked in, they are there to play and have fun.

I made that mistake once in my career, and really pissed off a friend who had driven 2 hours for a game, but for the sake of story I couldn't introduce his character for 4 hours in game. He left after hour three to go home, and I apologized profusely later. Never forgot that rule again.

 

[Uchawi]

It is my experience that any problems that occur at a standard table are amplified when you are playing an online game. At a standard table it is much easier for the DM to keep moving the spotlight, but with an online game the DMs attention becomes hyper focused on specific events. It is much harder to keep everyone's attention when they are distracted by other events occurring around their computer.

As a DM, there is more of an emphasis to keep the group together versus let them split apart. So a player in a online game is going to have to set table behaviors aside and converse with the group whenever possible. Solo behavior can easily disrupt a normal table and often slows down play for the rest. If the DM has to make a choice then the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few.

 

[redrick]

It is my experience that any problems that occur at a standard table are amplified when you are playing an online game. At a standard table it is much easier for the DM to keep moving the spotlight, but with an online game the DMs attention becomes hyper focused on specific events. It is much harder to keep everyone's attention when they are distracted by other events occurring around their computer.

As a DM, there is more of an emphasis to keep the group together versus let them split apart. So a player in a online game is going to have to set table behaviors aside and converse with the group whenever possible. Solo behavior can easily disrupt a normal table and often slows down play for the rest. If the DM has to make a choice then the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few.

Agreed. Having DM'd a campaign on Roll20 for 9 months or so, I can say that trying to manage ongoing "whisper" side conversations (that is, private messages) can be very difficult. A DM has a lot going on, is probably flipping through several screens, programs, notes, or whatever trying to keep track of everything. I usually missed private messages that players sent me if I wasn't expecting them, and there's also the problem of having to maintain a conversation with the group as a whole while also firing whispers back and forth with one player. Unless absolutely necessary, it's easier to just keep that stuff out in the open.

Whispers are great for simple one-off stuff. Personally, I sometimes like to whisper the results of knowledge checks or investigation checks to the relevant player, because it gives them an opportunity to RP sharing that information with the rest of the party. And there's always the "don't tell anybody, but whisper me a save vs possession by evil spirits" trick.

For splitting the party, on the other hand, I think it best to make the various sub-parties do everything out in the open. They can have a secret agenda that only the DM knows, if they really want, but their actions should be resolved with table time just like everybody else's. It might look like this —

DM: The orcs are storming the gate! Most of the townspeople throw down their pitchforks and flee. Only you stand between the citadel and 400 orcs! But meanwhile, 20 miles away, Ranger Rick gallops north on his awakened pony.

The stars out. It's a beautiful night. Your pony sings an old traveling song under his breath. Suddenly, you notice a fire alight at the top of a signal tower in the distance to the south. What do you do?

RANGER RICK: Oh man. Trouble in paradise. Turn around, awakened pony! Sing me a song of galloping!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't mind split parties, and I would probably have had you control some of the bad guys... but it sounds to me as if the key issue is that you want a more strategic campaign, and the others want a beer-and-pretzels game about rolling initiative: Combat As War vs. Combat As Sport. That's probably not going to change. I'd think hard about whether the game is worth your time, assuming that it will not change. Life is too busy IMHO to invest time in an unenjoyable game. Breaking up is painful but sometimes better.

 

[Mistwell]

I think you made some mistakes as the player, but that's been well covered. What I would have done as DM to adapt...

1) Have the combat take place in such a manner than your rescue army would arrive in the midst of that battle, or

2) Arrange for rapid transport from the fortress you had arrived at, so that their army could arrive prior to dawn.

The later could be anything inventive. Maybe they have trained purple worms and carriages for rapid transport. Airships. Giant eagles, or vultures, or rocs. One time use ancient teleportation devices. An ancient druid able to cast that spell that lets you walk from one plant to another. Divine intervention. Something that can get an army somewhere faster than normal.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

As the DM, if I were intending to run the siege in standard 6-second rounds (which I wouldn't have), I would have made sure you were aware of that when you first explained your plan. "That would be cool. You know that if you aren't back before the battle starts you won't be able to participate at all, right? It's unlikely to go longer than a few minutes."

I assume that if you had known that your mechanical assumptions about the siege were different from the DMs, you wouldn't have made the same choices for your character, or at least you wouldn't have been frustrated when you didn't make it back for the battle. (And you should have been given an NPC, but it's really easy to forget about that in an online game--especially if you have players who like to wander off when their PC is off screen.)

 

[TarionzCousin]

Short version: You wanted to be Gandalf; Gandalf is an NPC and NPC's don't get the same focus as PC's. So you did NPC things (like sitting quietly/muted) while the PC's played what the DM had prepared.