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?
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.