Explain "20 Minutes of Fun over 4 Hours" to me

[Mark CMG]

We schedule bathroom breaks and the like.

We take a break in the middle of our four hours but if someone has to go, they just go ahead and go (not at the table!)

 

[Thurbane]

The only thing I can think is that his games must really suck.

There are parts where things slow down, but if I was only getting about 20 min of fun every four hours of playing I'd find a new game to play.

Exactly - while the games I play in do tend to get bogged down in some combats, they are still fun.

Of course, the primary reason my group play in the first place is to catch up and hang out together, so even that "bogged down" time is an opportunity to talk and hang out with guys I don't get to see all that often otherwise...

I would estimate the average length of our games to be about 4 hours, and I would say that at least 3 1/2 hours of that time qualifies as fun for me.

 

[hong]

I mean, we don't shoot you in the head if you need to hit the head before that.

Ouch.

 

[howandwhy99]

I must admit that playing the 4h,20minute way is frustrating as heck. I once played in a game where folks would show up between noon and 3 and just watch movies until everyone arrived. It took forever to get a session started and then it was only half way attended to.

My current group is a complete 180. Socializing is mostly done before and after and during a few breaks in between. But once things start everyone focuses on the game. I don't mean we talk in 1st person character all the time, maybe about 50% of it. But it's all about the game. Even the jokes arise spontaneously out of it.

 

[eyebeams]

It is the theory that you dislike your fellow players so much that they have no social utility to you unless you are all pretending to be someone else.

 

[RFisher]

Of course, when I'm DMing, the 0:20 wouldn't be nearly as much fun if I didn't have the 3:40 of distractions to give me time to think. (^_^)

 

[DM_Jeff]

We take a break in the middle of our four hours but if someone has to go, they just go ahead and go (not at the table!)

Yes, that's what I meant, that's what we do.

-DM Jeff

 

[LostSoul]

It is the theory that you dislike your fellow players so much that they have no social utility to you unless you are all pretending to be someone else.

Um... what? In my example, I liked the other players in the game just fine. I would go out for a beer with them any time.

I was there to play D&D, and it was boring. That has nothing to do with me liking or disliking the other people at the table.

 

[Deset Gled]

Honestly, if I was just sitting there watching a game of D+D, I'd probably think it was about 20 minutes of entertainment in 4 hours, too. I never thought D+D was intended to be a spectator sport.

 

[DM_Jeff]

I played in a boring game a while ago. We had to wander around town looking for someone to tell us where the front door to the dungeon was. It was boring. Those 3-4 hours could easily have been summed up by the DM in 30 seconds, and we could have started having fun right away.

Interestingly, I see WotC's taken note of this, and for their part many modules of theirs recently (and greatly so in Eyes of the Lich Queen) begin with a combat right out of the gates, and immediate clues as to what to do next. EotLQ actualy goes so far as to suggesting you run the openign combat first and then paraphrase the group being hired and the journey to the location as a flashback!

The few convention games I have played in (VERY few) have not had the problem because the DMs have an obvious time constraint and they usually get you into the plot quick.

Sometimes I get the impression that DMs who are insecure or unsure will actually let the players 'wander around aimlessly' instead of taking a direct hand, as if the players will be entertained silmply by playing their characters and, well, wandering around.

-DM Jeff