D&D General OVERLY CRITICAL: Sucking the joy out of the game.

[Fauchard1520]

I worry sometimes that I'm ruining the game for myself. That by being overly-critical of each and every session, I wind up talking all the fun out of my favorite pastime. It's especially bad when a nervous new GM friend asks, "Did you guys have fun?" Cue the nitpicks, followed by the gut punch of watching my buddy's face fall.

Am I the only one that has this problem? Do any of you guys find yourselves turning into joyless, overly analytical fun-sucks, or do you only acquire that template after you spending too much time on forums? Is there any cure?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

 

[Jd Smith1]

No. But I choose my players carefully, and when a player starts complaining too much we help him get past it through copious verbal abuse.

This won't work in all cases. YRMV.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Learn to give compliments to your DM (and if you're the DM, don't forget to compliment players).

If your D&D experience is one long string of moments that were pretty good but lacked something every time, and that sucked the joy out of it for you as a player, and you want to vent that frustration by explaining that to the DM, then just don't. Listing the individual mistakes (or potential improvements) don't help the DM. Try instead to see if there is any overarching theme to these mistakes (i.e. all NPCs really seem robotic or all the traps are too easy). Then open up with a compliment, then state that there is one aspect that bothers you, and explain it.

And don't hesitate to go back to another session zero, to check if everybody's expectations of the game are still the same.

 

[mortwatcher]

I always tell them I had fun even if I didn't enjoy 100% of the things
especially if it's minor stuff and nitpicks, keep that to yourself
if it's some big rules thing, we discuss it during session, make a quick ruling and then have a conversation about if afterwards online and see where we end up

there should be no reason to be impolite to a new GM and dry to make them do everything as you see fit, let them have their style

 

[Jd Smith1]

Learn to give compliments to your DM (and if you're the DM, don't forget to compliment players).

If your D&D experience is one long string of moments that were pretty good but lacked something every time, and that sucked the joy out of it for you as a player, and you want to vent that frustration by explaining that to the DM, then just don't. Listing the individual mistakes (or potential improvements) don't help the DM. Try instead to see if there is any overarching theme to these mistakes (i.e. all NPCs really seem robotic or all the traps are too easy). Then open up with a compliment, then state that there is one aspect that bothers you, and explain it.

And don't hesitate to go back to another session zero, to check if everybody's expectations of the game are still the same.

While this is a viable approach, IMO too much interaction is bad.

As a GM, accept that players vote with their feet, so if they're showing up each week, you doing good. Next, always watch and listen: besides using their paranoid speculation against them, focus on what they talk about among themselves. Note what they praise, and most especially what they don't talk about, because that is what failed.

As a player, and this is really hard, accept that no GM is going to get it completely the way you want it or would run it.

 

[iserith]

I'm very easy to please as a player. If the game is funny, I like it. If the game is productive, I like it. If it's both, then that's a good game in my view. I don't really care about getting the rules right when someone else is DMing unless it's just completely inconsistent to the point of not being able to make reasonably informed decisions.

If the game is neither funny nor productive, I'm going to say something in an effort to help. It may not always be what the DM wants to hear, but we don't do our friends any favors when we remain silent.

 

[cmad1977]

I usually wait until after the ‘adventure/campaign’, whatever to ask for feedback. Then I take the feedback and apply it to the next campaign, if applicable.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I worry sometimes that I'm ruining the game for myself. That by being overly-critical of each and every session, I wind up talking all the fun out of my favorite pastime. It's especially bad when a nervous new GM friend asks, "Did you guys have fun?" Cue the nitpicks, followed by the gut punch of watching my buddy's face fall.

Am I the only one that has this problem? Do any of you guys find yourselves turning into joyless, overly analytical fun-sucks, or do you only acquire that template after you spending too much time on forums? Is there any cure?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

What are you being overly-critical about?

We have a new player (only 6 months of experience) who recently ran a CoS spin-off two-session adventure. He's a great guy, friendly and such, and apologetic by nature. After each session he asked how it went. Myself and our regular DM are the only ones with DMing experience, so we gave him some little tips and such, but since every DM has their own style, we weren't overly-critical of him. Sure, he made some mistakes as far as rules, but even then we emphasized that he's DMing, so if he wants to run some rule a bit differently, that is his prerogative.

Now he is prepping his next CoS adventure, and we are all really looking forward to it.

Sometimes we get caught up in the rules-interpreting or analytics, but we try to put those aside for after the game and just go with it until the session is over.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I can be like that sometimes. I try not to be, and sometimes I just bite my tongue, but there are other times when something just didn't work or wasn't fun.

Usually it isn't a major problem, most of my DM's are people I DM'd for first, and they know I am equally hard on myself and highly-critical of my own games. So, they don't take anything personally.

I do feel bad about a time in an online game a newer DM (first campaign, but we were a year or two into by this point) pulled a really heavy handed dues ex machina that kind of ruined an entire session for me. He asked how we liked the game after, and I pointed out how the heavy handed move and his obvious reluctance to let the villains fully unload on us kind of ruined the fight for me, because I knew we were in a hopeless situation and we weren't saved by anything we did, we were saved because he wanted the entire fight to be hopeless and then us be saved by plot. I think I hurt his feelings a little, and I told him even then that I loved the campaign, it was just this one session wasn't fun.

But, I think one thing that really matters is the place the criticism comes from and how nitpicky it is. "Why didn't the villains use this more tactical sound plan in battle" is just being a jerk IMO, "Wait, what even is the villain's motivation in this campaign, and why are we supposed to just allow this to happen" can be more of a trying to improve the story.

 

[ad_hoc]

I would start by answering the question asked.

"Did you guys have fun?"

If the answer is no then there really is a problem.

If the answer is yes then say so.

There is a fine line in there. I like to ask the table after a session if they had a good time. I don't want something to bug someone and have them eventually quit the game because it never changes. Better to hear about it now and see if we can change things to make it more fun for them.

So I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, if your complaints aren't being addressed will you quit over it? Is the game not fun because of these things? If the answer is no you should probably let it go.

There is also room in there for constructive feedback about DM skills. I think these should be broad and not about any specific thing.

Here is an example of a real conversation:

Friend: How was my DMing?
Me: I had a lot of fun. I think something you're much better at than me is getting into the role of the NPCs and having great dialogue with us.
Friend: Oh great.
Me: I think one thing I'm really good at is pacing. Knowing when to narrate the end of a scene and the beginning of a new one to keep things going. I think getting a feeling for that just happens in time.

So it's not a thing my friend did wrong, just an area where they could find the most improvement.