GMs - Do you get bored when you're a player?

[Retros_x]

Yeah but I am not bored on combats. Especially if they are challenging I am always thinking through my options what to do when its my turn (probably also caused by me being highly annoyed as a DM when its a players turn and they clearly have given no thoughts about what to do in the last 5-10 minutes since their last turn).

But I am getting bored in meaningless "roleplay" aka the smalltalk equivalent of actual roleplaying: Talking in a bad accent for 15 minutes to the barkeeper/vendor, acting out a "dramatic scene" with the other characters for 20 minutes without new revelations or character development on the level of a really bad and boring soap opera etc. These are the moments where I wish the DM would take their role as a moderator more seriously and transition us to the next scene. I also love roleplaying, but its much more interesting for me to play out the ideals and flaws of my character if there is something actually happening and we have to do a meaningful decisions and its not just "you are in the tavern, what do you do"?

 

[Retreater]

Yeah but I am not bored on combats. Especially if they are challenging I am always thinking through my options what to do when its my turn (probably also caused by me being highly annoyed as a DM when its a players turn and they clearly have given no thoughts about what to do in the last 5-10 minutes since their last turn).

So I understand that, but many systems are so tightly defined that they limit your options. For example, my character in Pathfinder 2e CAN technically do a lot of things (Demoralize, Trip, Disarm, etc.), but what am I going to do? Raise Shield, Stride, and Strike. Possibly I will Exploit Vulnerability (as a thaumaturge), then Stride and Strike. There's basically four things I do, all clearly delineated on my sheet. And I've been playing this character weekly for 6 months, and we've only made it through the first book in an Adventure Path.
Because of the wide gap between trained and untrained skills, it would be foolish of me to use medical aid to try to stabilize a dying party member if the witch is available to do so, for example.
Maybe I take an action to take a stance that creates an aura that gives a +1 bonus to Fear saves or something? Or I can Raise Shield, Stride, and Strike.
If I had a spellcaster, I would likely spend round after round casting Electric Arc, dealing half of a 2d4 damage roll against most creatures. When I wanted to pull out the "big guns" once per day, I could throw a 3d4+3 force barrage as a 3-action activity to deal a whopping average 10 points of damage to a creature with 60+ HP.

 

[Retros_x]

So I understand that, but many systems are so tightly defined that they limit your options.

I have no clue about pathfinder, but D&D has a specific "Improvise" action to be open for everything and of course the general actions everybody can do "Object Interaction", "Push", "Grapple" etc. In general I try to think from the situation not from my character sheet, so I first try to think what needs to happen on the battlefield, what role (not class) do I play, decide for a course of action and than look in my character sheet at last to find the best option in that situation for that course.

For example recently we fought against a Beholder (the invisible one in "Tomb of Annihilation") and it was a brutal fight, we were way too underleveled. I was playing a ranger fighting from outside the arena where a bunch of terrain effects happened. In the beginning I was trying to figure out how to make the Beholder not invisible anymore and hitting him because as Ranger I naturally have the role of Striker, but during the course of the other turns it was clear that we had to retreat. Our bard went immediately down and our only other source of healing, the monk, was not able to because he was charmed. The bard was in the middle of the arena where the Beholder basically randomly shot deadly lasers. Now I actually did some roleplaying and thought what my character would do, would he try to continue killing that beholder, would he try to rescue the bard or would he flee? Normally he would flee, but he had a strong relationship towards his good friend there lying there dying between the deadly lasers. So during the next turns I tried to think of preparing my turn of rescue out of this arena, measuring the distance and when it was my turn I could actually immediately say that I screamed to the fighter to distract that thing, cast a spell that increased my movement and readied an action to run in the arena and drag the bard out of the danger zone after the fighters turn. The fighter now could think of a good distraction and in the end we managed to get the bard out. The fighter died though with his heroic sacrifice with lead to juicy roleplay

 

[Thomas Shey]

I kind of considered that to be under the umbrella of content, but sure.

I’m looking at it as possible correlation. Many GMs are bored as players because they have less ability to influence the content and process of play.

Perhaps if they, as players, had greater ability to influence the content and process of play, they’d be less bored as players.

I wonder how many of said GMs even considered to grant their players more influence on the game to prevent player boredom.

The distinction is that I don't often have a strong feeling about what kind of output I get, I just want to be engaged.

(And for what its worth, by my standard I do make sure players are as involved as they can be, but of course some people don't want that level of involvement, and forcing that doesn't seem virtuous either).

 

[DragonLancer]

But I am getting bored in meaningless "roleplay" aka the smalltalk equivalent of actual roleplaying: Talking in a bad accent for 15 minutes to the barkeeper/vendor, acting out a "dramatic scene" with the other characters for 20 minutes without new revelations or character development on the level of a really bad and boring soap opera etc.

This! 100%. People do seem to forget that role-playing isn't amateur dramatics. As a DM and as a player, I want to get on with the story not sit there while players talk in-character to every NPC.

 

[TwoSix]

This! 100%. People do seem to forget that role-playing isn't amateur dramatics. As a DM and as a player, I want to get on with the story not sit there while players talk in-character to every NPC.

But for other players, this is absolutely the core of roleplaying. That's only solvable with compromise and/or not playing together.

 

[Retreater]

I have no clue about pathfinder, but D&D has a specific "Improvise" action to be open for everything and of course the general actions everybody can do "Object Interaction", "Push", "Grapple" etc. In general I try to think from the situation not from my character sheet, so I first try to think what needs to happen on the battlefield, what role (not class) do I play, decide for a course of action and than look in my character sheet at last to find the best option in that situation for that course.

Pathfinder is explicitly codified. A GM has the freedom to "improvise" a rule if they don't want to take the time to look it up, but it's generally discouraged (because why are you even playing this game if you're not going to use the rules, right?)
For example, do you want to slide between the legs of the ogre, jump up behind him, catch him off guard, and stab him in the back? Well, that's an Acrobatics maneuver called Tumble Through - augmented with the 1st level rogue feat Tumble Behind. It requires an acrobatics check against the Reflex DC of the opponent, with each space counting as difficult terrain.
And guess what happens if you're not trained in Acrobatics - or don't have the specialized feat?

 

[aramis erak]

I might be misunderstanding the sorter turns like B/X part….cause your character or fighter can only attack once every round for 7 levels…or do like old school games that had porters and treasure carriers and mercenaries that were need to fill out a part to 8 for an adventure?

There's an urban myth that simpler rules ≣ shorter turn times.
(≣ means strictly equivalent to)
While there is a correlation, it's not the strict equivalence many OSR evangelists claim.

I find the much more complex D&D 4e played much faster than D&D BX (and I'm MUCH more experienced with BX), simply because 4E relies upon the grid, and that's much faster than TotM for me as both player and GM. Further, its reliance upon the specifically detailed abiliities, and keeping them low in number (most 4e powers replace earlier learned ones, not adding new slots), also speeds play, at the cost of discouraging narrative driven special cases.

WEG SW, which is roughly equivalent complexity to BX, has much more math, slowing things dramatically. And the more foes, the more rapidly the math increases... not exactly linear, due to the increased number of comparisons needed, as the success roll is also the initiative for the action... This negates the ease of tracking damage levels. Oh, and given that damage in SW 1e is a multiplication function...

Book	Result	In actual 1e play	2e
2* DR < SR	No Effect	DR < 0.5×SR	DR-SR < 0
DR < SR	Stun	DR < SR	DR-SR in [0⋯3]
DR ≥ SR	Wound	DR ≥ SR	DR-SR in [4⋯8]
DR ≥ 2×SR	Incapacitated	DR ≥ 2×SR	DR-SR in [9⋯12]
DR ≥ 3×SR	Mortal Wound	DR ≥ 3×SR †	DR-SR in [13⋯15]
	Instadead	DR ≥ 4×SR ¢	DR-SR ≥ 16

DR = Damage Roll, SR = Strength+Armor Roll.
† some GMs used 4 instead of 3, simply for ease of use on a 4-function or 5-function calciulator.
¢ logical progression in 1e as played, but not designated in rules. 2e adds it as an explicit level of damage.

2nd Ed WEG is somewhat more complex, but due to the maths, initiative set at start of combat and retained throughout, subtraction rather than multiplication in damage finding... it zips along, and thanks to the group rule, one can easily adjudicate larger combats by consolidation of groups into a single initiative slot, single action roll, and single damage roll on hit.
In either edition of WEG Star Wars, There's an easy way to speed up play a good bit: no strength+armor; instead use 3 per die, and one per pip, to form a Resistance stat, and prefigure the thresholds... one less roll per combat action.

Rolemaster. if one has the tables handy, is about the same speed as AD&D, a bit slower than WEG SW 2e, and still faster than WEG SW 1e for groups of 4-6 PCs and suitable numbers of foes. The AL/CL book itself does not quality; having a photocopy ready of the table for that encounter is far more useful, so you can lay them out in front of you. Likewise, make the players look up their own to-hits.

Burning Wheel, more complex than WEG d6 Star Wars (either), D&D BX, or even corebook only 4E, has the fastest combat I've run yet... it's one of 3 combat systems (and 4 conflict systems): Bloody Versus. State the goals of both sides, describe the methods, GM awards bonus dice for suitability of description and skill choice, one roll each side, resolved; winner gets their goal, loser takes one hit. Combat over, move on.

The factors of per unit math, initiative handling, GM rules familiarity, ease of adjudication, and specific dice mechanics break the strict equivalence. As do shortcut rules present in some complex games for low importance fights... D&D 4e mook rules, BW's Bloody Versus, etc...

 

[Retreater]

I find the much more complex D&D 4e played much faster than D&D BX

Wasn't my experience with 4E at all, and I just wrapped up a 9 month campaign in August, so the memory is fresh.
I used a timer to track a round in combat: sometimes it took over an hour.
Regardless of the system, I like to use some sort of visual representation of combats and rarely do theatre of the mind.

 

[pemerton]

So I understand that, but many systems are so tightly defined that they limit your options. For example, my character in Pathfinder 2e CAN technically do a lot of things (Demoralize, Trip, Disarm, etc.), but what am I going to do? Raise Shield, Stride, and Strike. Possibly I will Exploit Vulnerability (as a thaumaturge), then Stride and Strike. There's basically four things I do, all clearly delineated on my sheet. And I've been playing this character weekly for 6 months, and we've only made it through the first book in an Adventure Path.
Because of the wide gap between trained and untrained skills, it would be foolish of me to use medical aid to try to stabilize a dying party member if the witch is available to do so, for example.
Maybe I take an action to take a stance that creates an aura that gives a +1 bonus to Fear saves or something? Or I can Raise Shield, Stride, and Strike.
If I had a spellcaster, I would likely spend round after round casting Electric Arc, dealing half of a 2d4 damage roll against most creatures. When I wanted to pull out the "big guns" once per day, I could throw a 3d4+3 force barrage as a 3-action activity to deal a whopping average 10 points of damage to a creature with 60+ HP.

Is the game you play limited to combat?