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?
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.