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?
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.