What causes boredom in a game session?

[The_Gneech]

In the games I've played in, what's tended to cause the most boredom is the GM not taking command of the session.

GM: "You're in your room in the tavern."
ME: "Okay."
GM: ...
ME: "Um, well, I go downstairs."
GM: "Okay, you're downstairs now."
ME: ...
GM: ...
ME: "What do I see?"
GM: "The downstairs of the tavern."
ME: "Um. Is there a bartender?"
GM: "Yup."
ME: "Okay, I go up to him and say, 'What ho, bartender!'"
GM: "Okay. He gives you a drink."
ME: ...
GM: ...
ME: "...And?"
GM: "You have a drink now."
ME: "Is there an adventure anywhere in this adventure?"

This happens a lot in combat, too.

GM: "Okay, your turn."
ME: "I attack!" *roll dice, calculate damage*
GM: "He staggers from the blow."
ME: "Mwuhahahaha!"
GM: ...
NEXT PLAYER: ...
ME: ...
GM: ...
NEXT PLAYER: "Is it my turn yet?"

...etc.

So my advice to GMs out there is this: it's up to YOU to make the adventure happen! Keep things moving at all times!

-The Gneech

 

[Tinner]

I chose the "have nothing to do" option, but the problem in our campaign is that we have a younger inexperienced DM who has crafted an epic, gradiose world with amazing characters and plots, but has given us no incentive to do anything, and no hope of being able to complete the task we are being encouraged to take.
There's a huge war amongst dragon kind that has polarized the nations of the world, and literally has the world at war. We're somehow supposed to do something about this.
Unfortunately, we started as 1st level PC. And had the whole "fix this world" problem dumped in our laps. We have several experienced roleplayers in the group, so we've managed to keep things creeping forward, but there have been plenty of times when we were just totally overwhelmed with the situation we were dumped in.
It's like he wants to run a Saving Private Ryan campaign, but instead of saving one soldier, we're supposed to assassinate Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo and broker worldwide peace in the meantime.
Baby steps ... baby steps ...

 

[der_kluge]

Or let me put a finer point on it: SHOPPING.

That's funny. The groups I've been in love to shop. I consider it a fun part of the game.

I chose other, because I think the critical factor is "pacing". If the GM isn't propeling the game forward, it just stagnates. I become extremely bored if the pacing is just not there.

 

[Clangador]

I've actually fallen asleep in a game before. I find large parties, say 6+ PCs tend to get boring for me. I almost always play a wizard in large parties, so I stay to the rear at low levels wich leaves very little to do.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

On the "Players take too long discussing ideas/tactics" front:

As GM, I've started telling the players that if they forgot something critical to their plan (like, they're planning to climb over a wall to sneak into a building, and it turns out nobody remembered to bring rope) then I'll retcon that they didn't forget it, maybe with, say, a flashback to the PC putting some rope in his backpack.

It's a little thing, but man oh man, how it's saved me from hours of players planning. I'd rather jump right into the action and handwave it if they forgot something. Then again, our game focus isn't on scintillating planning, so I guess I can get away with it.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The real answer of course is all of the above.

 

[Henry]

Agree with JoeGKushner, but the meta-answer to me is, "A game is boring when the players aren't getting what they came for."

If a player is most interested in power acquisition, he's not going to like as much sitting around in character and at the end gaining no XP or material rewards for the session. Butt-kicking players are going to be bored when an entire session goes by with not a potential for violence in sight. (Worse, they may MANUFACTURE potential for violence if they don't get it.) Specialist-character-oriented players are going to be bored when their character has no chance to shine. Story-focused players are going to be more dissatisfied with a raw encounter-crawl.

These are related to the poll reasons, but not the same as the poll reasons. A butt-kicking player may have the time of his life if the DM and another player are running a gladitorial contest, and the DM's doing a good job of verbally painting the beatdown the other player is giving the NPCs. The power-gamer may not gain a single XP, but if he gains a contact that could mean significant reward in the future, he could be pleased as punch.

So it's better IMO to look at WHY people are enjoying the game, and make sure they at least get a small dose of that injected into their experience.

 

[MonsterMash]

I would have liked a multiple choice poll so I could have voted for most of them, in the end I voted for players taking too long discussing tactics, though just D20 combat tends to be a drag.

 

[farscapesg1]

In this order: Combat taking too long and taking forever to decide on a course of action. Many has been the time that I've been caught up in the throes of combat for far longer than it should've lasted, and I've heard many stories about a single combat in the whole gamut of systems lasting for half the game session (and in some cases, lasting whole sessions or even multiple sessions).

Understandably, when I run a game, I tend to shy away from creating combat situations...

That pretty much sums up one of our last sessions. We are currently playing the Shackled City adventure path, and one session was tied up with one massive battle in the Lucky Monkey Inn. Of course, we kind of brought the whole force of enemies down on ourselves at once, so there were a huge number of combatants. However, I still think that 5 hours is too much time to spend on one battle!!!!

 

[sniffles]

Our group has a terrible tendency to overthink everything, IMHO. We want to strategize every situation, even situations where our PCs don't really have time to think. Everyone is always suggesting alternative actions to other players. I notice this most in one of the campaigns where we have the largest number of players. Everything drags to a halt as two or three players start suggesting possible actions. I find strategy sessions really dull, because I'm not good at strategy so every suggestion sounds equally valid to me and I have nothing to offer.

Umbran has a good point though. Really all of this does boil down to those two situations.