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

[overgeeked]

I am really enamored of this product for that purpose. If you're willing to give up on dice superstition, you can actually use the dice colors to speed up play!

No need to do anything that fancy. Go to your FLGS and pick through their singles dice. You can probably buy everyone you play with their own set for less than that product.

 

[Li Shenron]

When playing D&D (any edition), what are the boring bits you wish you could skip?

I can't think of anything within the game itself that I would regularly want to skip.

On the outskirts of the game however, certainly I would skip the optimization of a character build. Creating character abilities combination is fun, making calculations on whether X+Y+Z is five percent better than A+B+C is boring. If you want to do it in our games, you do it as a homework but we are not going to wait for you during a session.

Similarly, there is hardly anything more boring and annoying to me than ruleslawyering, simulationism or historical analysys. Keep them for online forums, or at least for after-game discussions, but not while playing.

 

[Oofta]

I am really enamored of this product for that purpose. If you're willing to give up on dice superstition, you can actually use the dice colors to speed up play!

I do that now. We bought a pound-o-dice, which gives you multiple sets for cheap. So even when I have multiple attacks per round my actions take a minute or less most of the time. I even have 2 D20s of each color with slightly different pattern if I think I might have advantage or disadvantage (i.e. if I use a shove to knock someone prone). I just explain to the DM what my pattern is and roll them all at once.

Now we hand out color coded dice sets to everyone at the table so they can do the same. Sadly, people still refuse to roll more than one die at a time.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm getting a mental image of a cartoon little old lady paying for a grocery bill with pennies from a little coin purse. "One...two...three...four..."

LOL That reminds of my first job while I was still in high school. I was a bag boy at Alpha Beta. Anyway, there were these two very sweet and very old ladies who came in to shop every few weeks. They always needed help out to their car and of course I took their groceries out without hesitation. After the bags were loaded into the trunk of their car, one of them would very slowly reach into her purse and pull out a quarter to give me as a tip. I always happily accepted it, even though quarter wouldn't even buy a candy bar. Like I said, they were very sweet ladies.

A few months later I was again helping them out to their car and after I finished loading the groceries one of them turned to me and said, "We are so sorry!" I was like, "For what?" She replied, "It has come to our attention that things have gotten more expensive over the years." She then slowly reached into her purse and pulled out.....................TWO quarters. I was highly amused.

 

[overgeeked]

It looks like most of the “boring bits” for people fall into one of four categories.

The game system itself taking too long, aka the dreaded 30 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours. Long combats, measuring distances, combat continuing after the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Other players causing problems, as in taking too long to decide, getting into pointless fights, the referee presenting static or boring encounters, etc.

Non-story-related time wasters, like all the pointless RPing with shopkeepers or tedious travel.

Bookkeeping, the ever present tracking of weight carried, ammo, rations, etc.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

For me it is someone else’s side quest.

I realize you are very interested
In ‘x’ because of your backstory.

But you also realize everyone is around the table to play too? I mean cool that you are learning about your family history but we’re sitting and waiting.

How about you talk and do some of this between session with the DM…then you can distill a bit so we can interact with it but not be hostage to it.

Roleplay is cool in the process of our shared endeavors. Watching you haggle with some peddler for 20 minutes not exactly exciting theater for everyone. We want to draw our blades and adventure.

Our group is into combat so that is a bias even as some other groups will find combat boring…

 

[Lanefan]

It looks like most of the “boring bits” for people fall into one of four categories.

The game system itself taking too long, aka the dreaded 30 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours. Long combats, measuring distances, combat continuing after the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Other players causing problems, as in taking too long to decide, getting into pointless fights, the referee presenting static or boring encounters, etc.

Non-story-related time wasters, like all the pointless RPing with shopkeepers or tedious travel.

Bookkeeping, the ever present tracking of weight carried, ammo, rations, etc.

There's a fifth one that I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned yet: non-game table chatter re hockey, politics, food (worst of all!), etc.

 

[MNblockhead]

There's a fifth one that I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned yet: non-game table chatter re hockey, politics, food (worst of all!), etc.

I don't know if that's a "boring bit" of the game. Its more being bored because folks are not playing the game.

But non-game chatter can certainly be part of the game-day experience. One reason I enjoy long sessions is that we can engage in non-game chatter as people settle in, during lunch and other breaks, and as we are packing up to leave, while still getting in a solid session of gaming. My group is good at avoiding non-game discussion while we are into the game, but it is not like we punching a clock. We enjoy a bit of non-game discussion around the edges.

 

[Scott Christian]

I know everyone will have different answers, and that’s great, that’s the point.

When playing D&D (any edition), what are the boring bits you wish you could skip?

Try to be specific rather than general. If you don’t like combat, what parts of combat don’t you like? If you don’t like travel, what about travel don’t you like?

I actually don't have any. If I had to choose something, it would be high level combat. Each player's turn and the DM's turn can be excessively long. But even then, sometimes there cool moments.

 

[DragonLancer]

1. When role-play becomes amateur dramatics. Not my PF group, thankfully, but when I see and hear other D&D5 groups at our FLGS going full Shakespearian all session, it just makes me roll my eyes. Too much of that in games just leaves me cold. I'd rather get on with the game and story. This also covers when shopping turns into a full blown session because either some players or the GM want to get their role-play quota.

2. Mapping. Thankfully this hasn't been an issue for years but sometimes you get a GM that wants the party to map the dungeon themselves. Yawn. Just draw anything relevant on a battle map and let's get going.

3. Encumbrance and resource tracking. Why is this even a thing? Can we not just say you can carry anything within reason. Same thing applies with treasure. I've lost count of the number of games where the party slay the evil dragon and are faced with explaining how they cart 10,000 gold pieces and all the silver out of the dungeon. Aargh!!!

4. Dead and Waiting. I get it, there are only so many defeated adventurers you can find chained up in the same dungeon, but waiting around after your character has died to get back into the game is tedious. I've been on both sides of the fence here, and I know sometimes it cannot be helped, but it's a waste of good gaming time. Usually when this happens in a game I am running, I ask the waiting player to help me run encounters, be the monsters or track the initiatives for me, and at least that is something.

I know that #1 makes me sound like a right grump but I've never enjoyed that level of role-playing. For me, role-playing is about the adventure, the story, and the game, not all the in character conversations. Sorry.