I'm accustomed to always being the GM, so when a player told me he'd like to run for a bit, I gladly passed the reigns. He was excited about trying a new system he had purchased, found a well-reviewed adventure, and put a lot of time putting it on a VTT so we could play a weekly game.
My group has had numerous lackluster sessions in a row. I was talking to another player to make sure it wasn't just my bias, but he's also not having a great time.
It's slow. We're exploring/uncovering an average of 40 ft. of dungeon per session. We've gained no significant treasure. We've lost more XP from character death than we've gained playing the adventure. In the last session, due to his need for specificity in our actions, we found 2 secret doors in a room - in a 2 hour game. Didn't even get to explore them.
It's difficult. Everywhere we turn there are impossible combats that can't be defeated - at best they can be narrowly escaped. We're trapped in a dungeon with no chance to get supplies as our characters are starving to death. Even when we try to find food, warbands come through and we're lucky to flee with our lives.
We're having no opportunities for roleplaying, character development, etc. It's all about tedious procedural minutiae - even after we've set up things like watch rotations, marching orders, he makes us specify each time. Even after we tell him "can we just get on with the adventure," he is strict about enforcing the procedures. As it turns out in most cases, it wasn't even important - there were no traps in the hallway, there were no random encounters overnight, we had to spend 15 minutes to make sure he understood party formation before going into an empty room, etc.
So how do you bring this up to a GM who is your friend? How do you try to improve the game?
My group has had numerous lackluster sessions in a row. I was talking to another player to make sure it wasn't just my bias, but he's also not having a great time.
It's slow. We're exploring/uncovering an average of 40 ft. of dungeon per session. We've gained no significant treasure. We've lost more XP from character death than we've gained playing the adventure. In the last session, due to his need for specificity in our actions, we found 2 secret doors in a room - in a 2 hour game. Didn't even get to explore them.
It's difficult. Everywhere we turn there are impossible combats that can't be defeated - at best they can be narrowly escaped. We're trapped in a dungeon with no chance to get supplies as our characters are starving to death. Even when we try to find food, warbands come through and we're lucky to flee with our lives.
We're having no opportunities for roleplaying, character development, etc. It's all about tedious procedural minutiae - even after we've set up things like watch rotations, marching orders, he makes us specify each time. Even after we tell him "can we just get on with the adventure," he is strict about enforcing the procedures. As it turns out in most cases, it wasn't even important - there were no traps in the hallway, there were no random encounters overnight, we had to spend 15 minutes to make sure he understood party formation before going into an empty room, etc.
So how do you bring this up to a GM who is your friend? How do you try to improve the game?
