D&D General What are the “boring bits” to you?

[Schmoe]

In my experience, the value of played out travel time is in the opportunity to tell the players more about the world and reflect the passage of time.

You can get your "here there be monsters" moments,
your "your caravan is halted as a large force of heavily armed imperial soldiers marches grimly to the west where a vast plume of smoke rises from beyond the horizon",
and your" you meet a family of immigrants who tell tales of a strange island near their hometown where the moon never sets and strange music can be heard at the changing of the tides" moments.

And these can either be backlit by a sense of urgency to get somewhere on time, or as a release valve to cleanse the combat palate, or as an opportunity for the PCs to get themselves into trouble they weren't otherwise considering.

If it's just a series of empty survival checks, yeah it's kind of the worst, but it doesn't have to be that.

Edit: I would say that this is something where there can be some diminishing returns if done too often or done for too long, and will vary in value a lot depending on the group composition.

I've used travel sessions for several different purposes, and don't always handle it the same way. I won't claim that I've always been successful, but I think there are a lot of valid reasons where travel sessions make sense. There are a few examples from my most recent campaign.

The party was tasked with exploring a remote dungeon. I played out the travel every time they went to and from the location, with scenic vistas, travel complications, and wandering monsters, to explicitly convey the sense of remoteness and isolation. I wanted them to feel all alone and in danger. Travel to and from the dungeon would typically take half of a session, although I think the first journey was a full session. I think it worked out pretty well. The players seemed to enjoy experiencing the different scenes, and it was an opportunity to throw some interesting challenges their way (cockatrices on a thousand foot high stair carved in the side of a cliff!)

The party joined a caravan for a long-distance 600 mile cross-country journey. I skipped over most of the travel with a travel montage, but stopped along the way for a couple of key encounters. One was a lore-building encounter with the potential to go awry, as a blue dragon extorted a toll from the caravan. The other was another lore-building encounter where the party could save the caravan from a devastating haboob, learn about some of the history of the world, and delve into some dangerous ruins if they chose (they did!).

I find I'll often gloss over travel, though, especially if they are in a safe area. So I guess I'd say I don't do travel except in a few circumstances. One, if the journey itself is important. Sometimes conveying distance and making travel a real choice is important enough. Or two, if there are interesting encounters and lore involved.

 

[Maxperson]

Long drawn out combats. If it goes longer than 5-7 rounds I start to get bored. Once every year or two a culminating battle that takes an entire session can be fun, but any more often than that and I start pulling out what hair I have left.

 

[Maxperson]

Good question! It's a tricky one for me because I have evolved a lot as a GM, so that now I use lots of tools to sidestep, house rule, or revivify boring parts.

Why would you bring back something boring within one minute of removal?

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, I really have no idea how someone could fit what, like 6 fights into a single day? I can only imagine stretching a single in-game day over several sessions, which just sounds like a mess. Having to track spell slots and what not over potentially weeks of real life breaks sounds really annoying.

I mean…you write it down. No fuss, no muss, and no hassle.

This is really funny. I've never heard of anyone put this into words. I have a lot of newer players in my group so as we rolled up characters during our first session and names like Barb, Willy, Randy, and Beans were all thrown out, a small part inside of me was like "WTF.. Your silly level one sorceress is going to eventually be a super powerful mage! Do you really want her to be named BARB?!" But I decided to let it go and I'm glad I did. I wonder if Tim the Enchanter from the Holy Grail was actually a silly named sorcerer in some game John Cleese was playing.

The original name for the character was some obnoxiously long, barely pronounceable fantasy name with lots of hyphens. When it came time to film, Cleese couldn’t remember the damned thing so he said Tim instead.

 

[Maxperson]

Spending 10 minutes talking to the NPC you're buying boots from is one thing, spending two hours talking to that NPC is something else...

Ahem, no, I don't railroad. But are you seriously OK with the PCs going off and doing whatever? Really?...

And IMHO, anyone who GM's a pure sandbox campaign like you're suggesting, has a lot more time on their hands than I do...

I absolutely am. One session 0 the players decided they wanted me to come up with the next campaign idea rather than doing it as a group like we usually do. So I made up a story about demons getting loose, possessing folks and then arranging more demons to get loose, etc. The first time the group discovered demons the PCs were like, "Demons?! Screw this. Let's go south, steal a ship and become pirates." So they did and I was fine with it. It took time for them to travel south so I could prepare pirate stuff and the demon storyline continued in the background where the PCs would hear rumors and it would occasionally touch the edge of their pirate stuff as it spread across the world.

 

[Maxperson]

I have particularly bad memories of using Hypnotic Pattern and having a fiery paladin or barbarian attack once of my charmed targets "because that's what my character would do" rendering my action pointless. I no longer care if we win or lose at that point, both outcomes are uniquely unsatisfying.

For me this depends on the group and/or the desired outcome of the fight. If all the bad guys have to be killed, then the person using hypnotic pattern has to be aware that the target will be attacked at some point. If some of the bad guys are going to be spared for questioning, then yes, attacking the hypnotized target(s) would be wrong.

On the other hand, I don't think the game should live or die on tactics alone. There's plenty of satisfaction to be had in effective planning and execution.

Some of my favorite moments in gameplay are when my players turn what would have been a hard or deadly encounter into an easy one due to good planning and execution. Good on them!

 

[Maxperson]

The bolded is an attitude that infuriates me as a player.

To me it's not negotiable: a retired or not-currently-adventuring PC is still a PC and still belongs to its player, even if that player has left the game; and if the DM wants to use it for something that player's permission is required first.

Not for the bolded part. The former PC is still a part of the game world, has desires, goals, and can interact with things. If the player leaves the game, that PC is now an NPC. I'm not going to track someone down to see what they might want the former PC to do. If the player is still in the game and the former PC is being interacted with for some reason, the player of that PC will take over that portion of the roleplay.

 

[Maxperson]

Trash combats. IE, the kind of fights that 5E's "adventuring day" design pushes you towards* (1d6+2 goblins in the first room, a wight in the second room, all before the big goblin boss in the third room).

That's why I moved to the one long rest per week. Now the adventuring "day" is a week long, so I don't have to scrunch up the encounters like that.

I would rather have one big fight that can be loud and crazy, with the volume cranked to 11.

I'd like the ability to do that as well.

 

[Pedantic]

For me this depends on the group and/or the desired outcome of the fight. If all the bad guys have to be killed, then the person using hypnotic pattern has to be aware that the target will be attacked at some point. If some of the bad guys are going to be spared for questioning, then yes, attacking the hypnotized target(s) would be wrong.

For clarity, there were non-charmed targets available. The tactical decision is perfectly clear. I spent an action to deny several enemy actions, and my teammate opted to undo that benefit for no gain.

 

[Maxperson]

For clarity, there were non-charmed targets available. The tactical decision is perfectly clear. I spent an action to deny several enemy actions, and my teammate opted to undo that benefit for no gain.

I figured from your post that was most likely what happened. I was just pointing out that there are times when it is okay to do that sort of thing.