Update: thanks all for the very helpful advice! I think it’s really special that not one of you dunked on my DM. You all seem very supportive of a broad range of play styles and that’s a sign of a very healthy community.
I reached out to one of the more experienced players in our party, and I’ll be pinging our DM at some point over the next week. I’ll see if we can switch gears or if not leave peaceably. Thanks again.
Recently got into DND. Watched two seasons of Dimension 20 and loved them. A friend of mine offered to try DMing for our friend group. We meet every two weeks for 3-4 hours. We’re playing Pathfinder using the Foundry online interface so we can play remotely.
Apologize if I mess up any terminology, I’m new.
I am two hours into this week’s game right now (in another tab), and I’m so fucking bored. We’re in some underground tunnel system, and just getting bombarded by completely arbitrary enemies.
Last round we spent three hours fighting a mimic and a gelatinous cube, and there was no explanation for why they were even in the cave in the first place. We haven’t had a conversation with an NPC in three sessions. End of the round we come across some weird tunnel system with giant moths on one side and giant larvae on the other. No explanation for why they’re there. We start coming up with a plan on how to kill them so we can get the loot they’re guarding, but it was the end of the session.
This week, right when we start and try to do something about the moths, we get attacked by morlocks that came up the tunnel behind us, fight them for an hour and a half, and the remaining ones just run off. So now we’re finally dealing with the moths.
Anyway, we’re doing this on a giant map in Foundry. Nothing is theater of the mind. It’s all very literal, and it feels like I’m playing an incredibly slow PC game just sliding my token down tunnels. Nobody is really roleplaying. We rarely get any details during our battles beyond “they look really hurt.”
I don’t expect anybody I know to be at the level of Brennan or whatever at DMing, but there is just no entertainment value for what we’re doing here, we’re constantly in combat, none of my skills are useful (because we’re just fighting mindless monsters), and it’s like a solid 10 minutes between my turns.
Like end of last round, I floated the idea of trying to mount and tame one of the moths (I’m a halfling, and they’re big), and my DM just said “I mean, that’s pretty dangerous. If you’re ok rolling a new character, you can try it.” Like geez, sorry for trying to make it interesting. At least give me an in-game reason for why I shouldn’t do it.
I really want to quit. Any advice?
This all turned out a bit rambly, gonna send it anyway. I hope you can get some positives out of it if you do decide to read it. The last three (real) paragraphs are more structured, so if you’re only gonna read part of it, make it that part.
I have noticed that playing on Foundry (or roll20 or any other VTT software) often leads to more video-gamey/war-gamey campaigns. VTTs assist the DM and players with a lot of the gamey aspects, but offer much less assistance, if any, for the other aspects of ttrpgs. This leads to a lot of the potential issues you described. In my experience, having virtual battle-map after battle-map (or a single large one) thrown at you leads to reduced creativity, especially in newer players who do have experience playing computer games.
It takes both time and conscious effort to realize that what’s in front of you is not the actual game being played but just a projection. This counts for both sides of the DM screen. Some people will never clear that hurdle or even realize it’s there. That is fine for some people who do love the video-gamey aspects but not for others who want the opposite, or at least more of a balance.
For example, personally I also DM a Pathfinder campaign on Foundry and I constantly have to remind some of my players that they don’t need to click on all the relevant buttons the system already has programmed in. They can just say what they’re doing and do a naked roll if finding the button takes more than a second.
In regards to your last paragraph. You did get an in-game reason from your DM, although they were a bit indirect with it. Your DM telling you you might have to roll up a new character also means your in-game reason is: “I feel like I might die if I try this.” My advice in that specific situation would be to lead by example and roleplay your character going through those thoughts/emotions. I know it can be awkward, might even get a giggle or two from the other people around if nobody else has done any roleplaying yet this session or campaign, but someone has to make the first step.
Also don’t forget that the players have a lot of power in shaping the game. You do not have to explore a huge cave. You can walk out at any time, go to a town and talk to people instead. It’s kind of a dick move though if you let your DM prepare this cave for days, letting them believe that’s what you were interested in, only to then not engage with it. Of course that requires all the players (or at least a good number of them) to be on board. To find out what you all want to get out of this game together, communication outside the game is required.
I’m gonna be devil’s advocate for the last three paragraphs of my rambling response:
Do you actually KNOW that the enemies you’re fighting are arbitrary? Do you know there is no explanation for the mimic and the gelatinous cube? No explanation for the moths and larvae? No explanation for the Morlocks? Is it possible that your characters just haven’t found those explanations? I’ve placed enemies in my games before and the players never found out WHY they were there (the characters never even bothered thinking about it in some cases) but there was always a in-universe reason. And even if your DM didn’t initially have a reason, I would assume they will be able to come up with one on the spot.
For example, Mimics are described as: “A mimic can remain in its alternate form for an extremely long period of time, sometimes remaining disguised in a dungeon chamber for decades. Regardless of how long it waits, the mimic remains vigilant and alert, ready to strike at any moment.” They do seek to ambush adventurers so hiding in a cave that would be attractive to adventurers is the #1 thing they’d do. It could’ve wandered in 10, 20, 30 years ago, biding its time. Saying something like “I investigate the area around where the mimic was, trying to find any hints whether it has moved recently” after combat could lead to you learning more context about how the mimic got there. Same with the moths and larvae, you could try finding out if they’ve been born and died in this cave? If something made them flee their previous homes (especially “easy” if you have anything to converse with animals), etc. I don’t think it’s the DMs responsibility to give you context unprompted. It’s their responsibility to give you context once you’re looking for context, and even then, you still might need to pass certain rolls to get context. In the end, most of the time, the DM shouldn’t and wouldn’t give you any info your characters wouldn’t have.
This also extends to other areas you complained about. If you want more information but your DM doesn’t immediately provide it, prod them for it through character actions. “What is this Morlock I’m fighting wearing?” “What’s the color of the stones here?” “How high is the ceiling?” “Can I hear anything at all?”
I think you’re on the right track with your Update though. Best of luck!
You raise some good points about VTTs, but on the other side, I’ll say that it also provides some tools that can make an immersive experience easier. I DM’d the first time on roll20 and got really into it.
We were doing Phandelver and I made a bunch of custom maps to supplement the default because it allowed me to have different music for each map so I didn’t forget to change it for atmosphere.
I uploaded a bunch of custom .pngs for tokens and stuff on maps.
Made handouts for monsters and important NPS so the players had a better picture of it than the small tokens.
Sound effects for events.
You can set dark vision and view distance for each character so you don’t have to keep track of who can see what.
You can put AC and HP on tokens for players and enemies only viewable by the DM for easy tracking.
You can have tokens hidden on the map that only the DM sees and can change the layer when the trap is sprung.
It actually made my fist time running a game a lot easier and the tools enabled me to be more creative as I found new things I could do. Also, I’m bad at voices so I got a voice changer program and it was much better for them than my poor attempts at sounding creepy or scary.
Yeah, I’ve personally been advocating leaving the cave since like day 2 (our original mission was just “investigate the cave that just opened up and report back), but nobody else in the party wants to do that.
Good point on doing more investigation checks. We definitely did a lot more of that at the start of the campaign. Finding patterns in the dust on the floor, learning about the NPCs we found, etc. But I guess people lost interest in that. His descriptions have never been terribly descriptive anyway.
The reason I say arbitrary is that we live in a world like 1000 years in our future where humanity forgot how to make technology, but some is still around and still working. A cave randomly opens up during an earthquake and we investigate to find it filled with robot automatons that have been keeping themselves functioning by scavenging parts from the dead robots and bones of the dead humans that ran the facility in the past.
So like, if all the humans starved to death and died 1000 years ago, and we were the first ones back in the cave (we had to solve a puzzle to unseal the door, and none of the robots apparently escaped in the meantime), why is there a thriving group of morlocks in here?
Looking back, we never tried asking where the morlocks came from, but I’ve gotten the feeling from our interactions that we wouldn’t get a very satisfying answer if we asked. If he had written one, I’d hope he’d nudge us in the right direction. Most of the group has never played before, and leaving everything up to us has lead to very repetitive results.
Don’t listen to the people saying you should just quit. Talk to people first, especially the DM. Tell them about what kind of game you’d like to play. This is something that groups should generally do before they start a campaign (in what some people call session 0), especially if they’ve never played together. It’s possible that the DM isn’t consciously designing the sessions like this and is willing to change it up. Maybe they’re even happy to get some feedback and the other players might also enjoy some more roleplay. Maybe the DM can’t see themselves running a game like that, but another player would love to.
If it becomes clear that the kind of game they want to play and the kind of game you want to play are incompatible, then it’s perfectly fine to say “this isn’t for me” and stop playing with them.
Sorry in advance for random stream of consciousness.
There’s definitely a learning curve to being a DM. And some people, like myself, just aren’t cut out for it. If you want to keep playing with these people, I would suggest being honest with your feedback. Talk to the group about how you’d like to incorporate more roleplaying and cut back on combat. It might be a good idea to try running a pre-built campaign if you aren’t already. But even those can be kinda dry without the right DM.
I haven’t really played in years, but my DM got to the point where basically, the rules were just guidelines. If a player wanted to try something, the DM would just roll with it. They’d try to come up with a reasonable check for you to roll and then just see what happens. Most of the “funny” moments come from massive failures or critical successes. Ham those up. Instead of saying, “nope, you fail”, make up a consequence. “You tried to mount the giant moth, but you couldn’t get a grip and it flung you up to an outcropping” or “you missed so bad you hit the column and it comes crumbling down, you and the enemy both take 2 points of bludgeoning.”
The rules are great for combat simulation, but if combat was all you wanted, you’d be better off playing Warhammer. The best advice I can give is just loosen up. And again, like Jack Sparrow says, it’s more like guidelines. We eventually got to the point where we said, no opening the books during the session. If you don’t know a rule, make it up. The goal is to have fun, not to follow the book.
So yeah, it’s about mindset and teamwork and cooperation and communication. Being honest in what you want out of a session is the most important thing, because nobody knows what you want unless you say so. They may be able to tell when you aren’t having fun, but they may not know why or how to fix it and may just throw more monsters at it because that’s what they think will fix it.
As for player death. We embraced it. If we really liked our character, we’d just come back as MyGuy the 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th, and when we got tired of that character we’d move on to something else rolling a new character at the level everyone else was at and picking a few items to keep (assuming someone else made it out alive).
One of my favorite stories was from a D20 modern campaign we were playing. This is a setting where it’s modern time, but some supernatural stuff still exists. There was a cave system under the city that we were exploring and we found a mummy and a bunch of skeletons. I rolled a 1 on an attack roll and my DM said I dropped my sword, so for my 2nd attack I said I was going to headbutt the skeleton and I rolled a 20 so my DM ruled that I headbutted this skeleton so hard my head just went down his spine as all the bones just exploded apart. Next turn I was like, that went pretty well, who needs a sword. I tried to headbutt the next one, and rolled another 1. He then ruled that this time I killed the skeleton but it’s spine impaled my head and I died. It was the most swingly battle ever, and kinda outside the actual rules, but it’s something I’ll never forget (this was 10 years ago) and all because we made an effort to ham up critical successes and failures.
It depends on the campaign. My players are very against shit going wrong after rolling a 1 in a DAMAGE roll - it penalises classes that have more attack actions.
It sounds like you have a brand new DM not just some public game where you jump from group to group. Talk to your friend be helpful and constructive with your feedback. I have seen a bunch of new DMs be combat focused. because roleplaying can be awkward at first. he may need some help.
Some Good DMs I have played with will have a season 7. Where we get together and recap the story so far and then they ask for feedback on what we liked and didn’t like so far.
We dumped whole books like Dungeon of the Mad Mage. After most of us were not having fun and it turns out nether was the DM. We were all just playing for the sake of everyone else. Like with everything communication is essential.
That table is not for you.
No dnd is better than bad dnd.
Even someone running a pre-made I think you’ll like more because some of them are super investigation or research based.
So yeah, not for you. Maybe some of those players have fun trying to maximize damage each turn, and that’s okay if it’s for them.
I would look for a new group personally. Don’t be afraid to politely leave groups that aren’t for you. A dnd group is a huge time investment so shouldn’t just be “first group I join I’m stuck with”.
Like my dm isn’t top tier, but like we got attacked by a lesser kraken… because we “may” have stolen eggs on a whim, and we were running around manning cannons and yelling at one another and it was chaotic and fun being on that ship.
Before that we were at a carnival and we thought we were slick because we cheated and won a boat… then after leaving we realized that while we did cheat with spells to win that, the tame owl bear we bought was a druid bear covered in illusion that ran away and we just ignored the million red flags. Why was it so cheap? Why did all the animals in that stall seem almost human intelligent, reacting to the salesmen almost like they were anticipating what he was going to do?
Someone who wants to min max damage would hate a session that was about scamming carnies then protecting our stolen boat from a lesser kraken because we stole its eggs on a whim and are now looking for a place to hatch them. But to me it’s fun that we get a chance to use all our abilities in a fun way.
Different people play D&D in different ways, which is one of the coolest and most frustrating things about the hobby: there’s a group out there for everyone, but at the same time finding the right group can be painful.
It sounds like there’s a couple of things going on here: first, your DM seems to be off the classic dungeon crawl variety. This was how most games were for me Back In The Day, and the hobby originally came out of wargaming, so I feel like it’s not unexpected, particularly in Pathfinder, which is much more “combat rules” than 5e.
Next, your DM is new. It takes a long time to get used to running a game. It can be pretty stressful trying to make sure you’ve got content to fill the four hour slot for your friends, and particularly in rules-heavy games one of the easiest things to do is just prep a combat encounter, 'cause that’ll take a lot of time. For me, I know my players well enough that I can count on them spending an hour talking to some previously-inconsequential NPC, and they trust me enough to be okay with going in the direction I gently nudge them, most of the time.
So I guess long story short is: don’t give up on TTRPGs. Whether or not to give up on the game you’re in is up to you. You’ve got options:
You could talk to the DM. Letting them know what you like might be more effective than telling them what you don’t; some people can get defensive.
You could take the plunge and offer to run a oneshot (which will almost immediately be more than a single session). Showing the DM what you like instead of just telling them can be really effective, and who knows, maybe you’ll even like it?
You could find a different group. If you’re in a town or city of any decent size, there are likely other gamers around; maybe another group will suit you better.
I almost bet the GM found a map they thought looked cool and is just throwing stuff at you to fight because it’s faster and easier than coming up with storylines and characters with motivations. I get it, we GMs get busy with life and stuff too, but if you’ve been doing this for a while, there’s always a reserve of characters or stories that you made but didn’t use which can be pulled into the current game. With a new GM, they may not have that luxury.
All that said, the best course of action seems to be the thing you’ve already concluded: talk to the GM and the group. Maybe let someone else try being GM if it’s just the case of the current one being busy. As others have said, running a prewritten campaign is just fine, especially in Pathfinder. Heck, you can even buy many of them as foundry modules with music, maps and handouts all ready.
Here are a few cents from my side. I’ve been running games for about 20 years now, and if I had to start out now, it would be daunting. Critical Role and all of that set the expectation so high, and a lot of our communities don’t take you seriously until you created your own world. Creating a dungeon with monsters to fight seems easier than creating social encoungers.
So here is my insight: Talk to your gm what you like and what you dislike. Also, check other systems, maybe something free-flowing like blades in the dark is more up your speed.
Tell your GM you are fine with a premade module. way easier to prepare and most of them are a good mixture between combat and social encounter. If you want to stick with dnd, maybe still have a look at paizos Abomination Vault adventure path, its foundry module is delightful and its a really fun adventure with a good mixture of dungeon crawling, fights and social encounters.
Do a session 0 and decide, what kind of game you want to play.
Get your GM a copy of the Return of the lazy GM. It helped me so much with just letting go and get the players to do things. Encourage your GM to let a session run by the players and tell him when you had fun.
Sounds like a table that’s not a good fit for you. Sounds like I wouldn’t like it either. It’s 100% ok to politely exit. Tell them you appreciate the work they put in, but you’re looking for a different kind of game.
Side note: if you want more roleplaying pathfinder and DND aren’t really the best for that. They’re combat games first. Probably check out some pbta games, or fate, or the world of darkness games.
Out of curiosity how old is everyone at this table? Is everyone new to pen and paper rpgs there? Because it sounds very similar to some embarrassing stuff I ran when I was a teenager first planing DND. Lots of half baked ideas and semi railroading.
Nah we’re all in our 30s. I think if anything he might be too busy with work to put some time into it. First few rounds had some NPCs and lore, but last two or three have just been random enemies in tunnels.
But excepting two people in the party, we’re all newbies to DnD.
I second the world of darkness suggestion, though learning a whole new game can be intimidating. But I like the relative simplicity of the dice pool concept. Everything is a 10 sided die. 7 or higher is a success. So for example, you have 6 strength die. If you want to break down a door that takes 7 successes, well good luck. Pretty hard to roll 7 successes on 6 die (though not impossible because 10s get a bonus roll). And then overall I feel like the lore is easier to roleplay because I feel like it’s easier to picture yourself as a pack of werewolves or a coven of vampires or whatever version you’re playing.
You entered a time tunnel to 1988. It’s the only explanation that makes sense!
Seriously, there are multiple ways to play this game. There is nothing wrong with an old school dungeon crawl, but it’s not the only way to play. I have two regular games going on right now and they are very different from each other in tone and content. Your table clearly has a different vision than you do. Also, playing online exacerbates this problem.
Have a look around, see what else is there, see how other people play. No one is “doing it wrong” but they are doing it differently.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by playing online exacerbating the problem?
Body language. It’s way easier to “read the room” and figure out what the players enjoy and what they don’t when you are physically sitting around a table and can monitor players reactions both actively and in your peripheral vision.
In addition to what the other poster said, I found that if you play using an VTT that fully supports your system, it’s going to push you into a very mechanistic play style.
Initiative trackers, battle maps, range indicators, turn timers, all this stuff is meant to facilitate a tactical combat focused game. Unless you actively disengage from them, you will end up with a tactical combat focused game.
Looks like you’re in a very combat focused campaign. With my irl group we half roleplay and half just say stupid things for like four hours and then fight something at the end. Our last fight was against Richard Simmons and our wizard like solo’d him while the rest of us had to get Brawndo-addicted obese people out of bed and to safety and I became addicted to Brawndo in the process. Brawndo is what the plants crave, it has electrolytes.
As for advice, maybe find a group that is not so combat focused?
Shouldn’t the combat at least be more interesting? Like maybe some objective other than “hit enemies until they die or run away?” Most recent fight was just five morlocks no reason for them to be there. They had no objective beyond just hurting us. There were no atmospheric elements at our disposal. Nothing to stand on or hide behind or activate. We just took turns hitting them.
Thats not really for me to say. Creating, running, and maintaining a DnD or Pathfinder game can be pretty labor intensive and lots of different tables play the game differently so a different group might have more of what you are looking for.
I find there’s generally 3 major skills outside of general group facilitation you exercise as a DM, world building, character design, and game design.
World building is designing the setting conflict and story, character design is making interesting NPCs and role playing them, game design is making interesting combat and skill based encounters.
Most DMs are only good at one or two of these. If your DM is new, they likely are still figuring out what they are good at and enjoy doing and what they’re bad at.
Ideally combat is well narrated, but if your DM is not a strong character builder, maybe there’s not a great understanding of the motivation of the combatants. If they aren’t great at world design maybe they don’t fully understand all of the alternative ways an encounter can be resolved.
They also are probably just figuring out how the basic rules work in general in which case give them some time and maybe suggest things like, can I roll animal handling to try and ride the moth? Or are there any tribal or religious insignia on the Morlocks I can use to try and parlay with them?
This moves some of the heavy lifting off of the DM who may be swamped with bookkeeping. I find often times players also don’t realize they also need to be familiar with the rules and how their character works and just rely on the DM to know everything out which isn’t often the case when everyone is new.
I just want to add to what everyone else has said: the only way to ensure you get to play in a D&D game that fits the style of play you are looking for is to be the DM yourself. It is a lot of fun and you get to create the kind of story that you are interested in seeing play out.
You want a cRPG, e.g., Skyrim or the Might & Magic series or any open world games. D&D at its core is combat oriented. Heck, try the Baldurs Gate series for the best of both worlds.
