Boredom
Have you ever been in this situation? The campaign is going OK. Your GM is a generally tolerable dude. However, that one thing bugged the crap out of you. Maybe there was a bit of light railroading. Perhaps the rules lookups are getting out of hand. At long last the ostensibly ‘hilarious’ fumbles are becoming too much. Whatever that one thing happens to be, you’ve decided to put on your +1 big boy pants and to hash it out with the guy behind the screen. Good on ya.
As we all know, GM egos are easily bruised. That’s why it’s important to offer your critique as delicately as possible. Here are a few dos and don’ts to get you started:
- Use the compliment sandwich method. For example you might say, “Hey DM! I’m really digging this game. Your worldbuilding is on-point. I’m just wondering if we could write out the DMPC soon. You’re good enough at improvising that we don’t need him to keep us on track.” You should avoid faux compliment sandwiches: “Hey DM! I just wanted to say that your neckbeard is coming in nicely. However, your self-insert DMPC sucks girallon dong. Also, your BO is less noxious today.”
- Focus on the situation, not the person. The point is to fix an un-fun element of the game, not attack your buddy. When you focus on the person and not the situation, the message can get lost. Unless of course the message is that your GM terrible in all respects, not just for their in-game fuck-ups.
- Give recommendations on how to improve. Advice like “fewer random encounters would improve the pace of the game” is helpful. Advice like “die in a fire” and “delete your campaign notes” is not.
- Be specific with your feedback. If the aforementioned DMPC is the problem, say so. Letting your GM know that “everything about this campaign is stupid” will effectively convey the severity of the problem. However, it wont improve matters. The point of a critique is to fix what’s broken, not to vent.
- Make sure to give feedback, not instructions. Identify the problem rather than trying to fix it: “Listen, giving Bob a free dragon companion makes my ranger’s badger feel a bit useless.” This identifies the problem without telling the GM what to do. The ball’s in his court now, and the two of you can work on a fix together. When you try to go into a sensitive conversation with all the answers in your back pocket, you risk coming off as a bossy jerk. For example, explaining how switching back to your favorite edition would fix the dragon issue—as any idiot could see—is probably not going to change any minds. It may, however, get your badger killed by falling rocks.
A lot of the above seems self-evident, but I’ve seen enough people balk at the talk to them about it like an adult part of the flowchart that I thought some specific advice might help. These conversations can be awkward, and going in with the right strategy is a good idea.
What do the rest of you guys think? Have you ever had to give your GM some constructive criticsm? How’d they take it? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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All of my GMs have been pretty good, but I’d like to add some of my own advice.
>>Have these conversations before or after, not during, a gaming session. Ideally after, because that will give the GM time to fix things before the next session. <<
Dragging everything to a halt right in the middle a session with comments like "we're fighting MORE goblins? alright look I really gotta talk to you about your encounter design" is a bad idea IMO. Even if other people agree with you, it puts to much pressure on the GM to fix things RIGHT NOW, and if they don't you're dragging everyone else's fun to a halt so they can listen to you complain.
Other than that, I approve. I've said before that groups would run more smoothly if GMs and players communicated more OOC, rather than just trying to subtlety hint at whatever is getting their goat or sitting around an passive-aggressively hoping the problem fixes itself. It never works.
Good call. On the same note, waiting for a one-on-one is a good idea too. That way you’re having a private conversation rather than a public confrontation. It’s much easier to preserve egos that way.
You’re not wrong- but I want to add to explore this point further. If your problem is with the GM or another player, it might be a good idea to talk to the rest of the group first. See what everyone else thinks; they might have something to add, or it might turn out that everyone else likes what you find annoying. And if you’re offering criticism about game-styles, it’s always nice to have backup.
As with everything, the issue is balance. You don’t want someone to get defensive because they feel like they are being ganged up on, but with more people you might be able to turn it into more of a discussion instead of a 1v1 debate.
Is it just me, or is Thief looking really “vampirish” this week? Between pointy teeth and that empty space beneath Fighter’s left arm that looks like a wing, she’s definetly got a bat-like vibe to her. For once, I wouldn’t blame our favourite murderhobo for doing a little PvP – I mean, come on, it would be an honest mistake!
Well hey, as we’ve established…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/traditional-garment
…There’s no wrong way to tiefling. 😛
Another important thing is, especially with new dms, to make important the scale of the issue. In a 40k rpg that im a player in i mentioned that we were kinda tearing through space marines like tissue paper, so he ups it many notches and pits us up against a dreadknight. 2 characters died, and one ran away
Dark Heresy? How is the encounter building advice in that system? Is there a CR chart or anything?
Its a rogue trader all ork campaign and heavily homebrewed, i have no previous experience with the system or really 40k in general outside of the campaign i was invited to. The dreadknight was clearly supposed to not bea real fight but a plot thing that was there looming over us, but still that didnt stop us from trying.
Most of the DMs I’ve had have been good enough to end the sessions asking for feedback, stuff we liked and didn’t like, and generally being receptive to feedback, so that actually hasn’t been a big issue for me.
On players getting bored though…whoo boy. I’m trying to get some of my cousins into the wonderful world of ttrpg, and trying to keep the attention span of under 12s has been quite a challenge. It’s Mutants and Masterminds so a more cooperative game with a higher power ceiling which helps, but they tend to get bored easily when it’s not combat or their turn, and tougher longer fights also get at them easily. One session I literally had the bbeg knocked into a shark tank because ther short attention spans seemed at their limits.
Oh I dunno. I find that giving good feedback—the really useful kind that a GM can use to improve a game—is harder than it’s cracked up to be. Willingness to take criticism is a bonus, but fixing a collaborative game takes work on both sides, ya know?
“…This is because I made fun of your puzzles isn’t it?” -Me during an elaborate death trap puzzle.
Did you live?
We did. I haven’t learned anything.
At first (because of the lighting and therefore difference in coloration, I think, not to mention that the bit of cave under Fighter’s left arm makes it look like Thief has bat wings coming out of her back), I thought one of the dungeon obstacles was some sort of succubus or energy construct being or metallic shapeshifter imposter thing in the shape of Thief that was holding onto Fighter in a “you’re my hero” pose to try and seduce him or strangle him or beg him for help or something, but Fighter was nevertheless bored because it was a non-hitting-based encounter.
That said, the comic hits on another potentially problematic issue – the unbalanced party. I’ve never seen one myself, but from my Internet encounters with optimizers, I know it’s fairly simple for a party to have one player whose build is mechanically far more powerful than the other PCs and therefore steals the show, especially if that player has a lot more experience than the others. That’s also where playstyle can be a big factor – the classic roleplaying vs rollplaying debate. Fortunately, most of the highly optimized characters I’ve played alongside are a) extremely specialized and so not powerful in all situations (the charm/compulsion Sorcerer, the musket Gunslinger/Paladin, the grappler Monk), b) designed for high-risk, high-return strategies (the grappler Monk, again) or c) played by players who roleplay to hold back and let others have some spotlight (the intentionally cowardly battlefield control Sorcerer, the grappler Monk, AGAIN).
I’ve played two games with a lot of rookie players in them, and I generally tried to help them in character creation to make something mechanically adequate (while still giving the player some choices during the build – for example, saying “do you want to have a sword and a shield and have higher survivability or go two-handed and deal more damage?”) that gives the player a basis to roleplay off of. These builds usually aren’t “optimal,” but they are functional, and since most of my personal characters’ optimization goes into “how do I make this ridiculous multiclass abomination functional?” (or things like “how do I make a greatsword Magus work?” instead of “how can I make the most stereotypical scimitar DEX-based Magus possible?”), it all balances out.
I have a friend, though, who has played Pathfinder with the same group for many years, and they got themselves stuck in an optimization loop, where they’d optimize enough that the GM would have to raise the level of everything they fought to balance it, and so they could never make suboptimal characters again for fear that the game balance was created with their super-optimal PCs in mind. Thus, everything turns into a “kill it on the first turn or you’re dead” situation and got kind of boring. It got so bad that they had to switch to 5e just to reset everything (though, on the plus side, they are currently having a blast in 5e, so it all worked out).
I suppose we also see in this comic another difference in player philosophy: Thief is quite attached to her character despite all of the trouble she gets into while Fighter sees his character as a pile of replaceable numbers whose death will only be mourned by his identical twin brother who shows up to collect his equipment as inheritance right before joining the party.
So no more purple backgrounds on Thief. Got it. 😛
My go-to advice with “that one optimized dude” is to ask him to roll up an optimized support class. If you’re ridiculously OP at making the other party members look cooler, no one tends to mind.
That does beg the question: How many identical relatives with the exact same personality has Fighter’s player gone through?
What do you mean “Fighter’s player?” This is an internally consistent fantasy world I’m operating. >_>
All right, how many times has “Fighter” died and had some identical relative come along and take his place?
Dozens.
Yeah, “differing levels of Optimization” can be a real problem for a GM. One group I’m in we are all pretty experienced (with the exception of my husband, who is naturally good at stumbling into Optimized. o.o’ ) so it’s not an issue. In the other group (which shares 4 members), we are having some problems with the fifth guy. His build isn’t exactly sub-optimal for the Investigator, it just feels like he may be playing it a little more like a fighter and less like a “Skills mix”. Which is funny, cause he’s really good at keeping his skills in mind and playing to his strengths outside of combat, but he feels he “has to keep up” with the Bloodrager and the dual wielding Slayer in combat.
I wish I could figure out how to help it, but like I said his build is good. It’s just not keeping up with a Draconic Bloodline Bloodrager going Dragon Disciple and a dual wielding Scimitar Slayer guinsoo machine.
That one’s rough. I mean, if you aren’t playing a full-BAB murder machine, how are you supposed to keep up with the full-BAB murder machines for raw damage output? If you’re going to invest resources in being a skill monkey, it’s necessarily going to decrease your “hit stuff harder” potential. Sounds to me like this is less of an optimization problem and more of an issue with playing the wrong class.
Funny enough, I just looked up one of the investigator guides. Under the “what is your role in combat” heading, it says the following:
Damage Dealer – You will never be as good of a damage dealer as any d10 hit die class, you don’t have proficiency with any good two-handed weapons and this forces you to invest in Strength more than you normally would as an investigator. Despite all of those disadvantages, you can be okay at damage dealing. Studied Combat overall increases your attack bonus to greater than full BAB (except at 5th level), so you can pick up Power Attack and go to town. Half-your level to damage isn’t terrible either. If you had asked me during the playtest, I would’ve told you that this was a terrible idea and that you shouldn’t try it, but now that the ACG is out, it’s not a terrible idea. Not amazing, but not terrible either.
If it’s important that his numbers be as big as the other guys’ numbers, I suggest a rebuild or a retirement for the character. Either that or a serious recalibration of expectations.
Optimization is a tough topic. Between differences in rules systems and comments about min-maxing, just having a conversation about it can be tricky. I think a big part of it is how you use a character, though. I’m playing a sub-optimal rogue, and it kinda works. He was supposed to be all about Dirty Trick maneuvers, but we’ve reached the point where damage rolls are so high that he can’t stay in the thick of things very long, making it hard to pull off.
The character himself, though, is awesome. A 2-level dip in Alley Witch lets him talk to the soul of the city, he’s become the chieftain of a goblin tribe living in the sewers (who all may become pirates eventually), has a room filled with shoes stolen from slain enemies (he didn’t wear shoes until he got civilized, so he has this vague idea that shoes are the cornerstone of civilization), and is overseeing construction of a fortress for his goblins on a small island about a quarter mile off from the city’s harbor.
The numbers aren’t very optimized, but the character is awesome. Who doesn’t want to be a shoe-stealing, goblin-ruling, mystic-city-talking dude who occasionally wins fights through gratuitous use of pocket sand?
Custom magic item time? I bet that “gloves of spectral pantsing” would get a pass from a GM. 30′ range to keep it fair. Price according to IRL Diplomacy check.
I do this all the time. I am basically incapable of stopping myself. Though not just directed at the GM. Which can wind up with me being a bit… nit-picky. I mean, yeah I’m trying to make everything better for everyone. But I grasp that if it happens too often, that very thing is an annoyance for people.
As for how it goes… kinda 50/50. Some GMs go “ok thanks”, others get offended. Some just kind of shrug and don’t care or have a different perspective and just don’t agree (without getting offended that I have a differing opinion). Some who appreciate the constructive criticism/opinions are actively happy to have player opinions no matter how often, and others only have so much they care.
As far as boredom specifically as complaint goes, that’s only happened to me once and it was entirely about the system and had nothing to do with any specific game. (The combat system was designed in a way such that 95% of the fun of it was putting together your combat build, but playing with it was really just repetitively going through (or attempting to) the motions until you did the 1-3 combos you’d built. Which is not good for an activity you might be doing who knows how many times through a character’s playspan.)
I think that any aesthetic enthusiast gets to this point. I’m an English major, and balancing criticism with enjoyment can get rough. Picking apart the thing you ostensibly love gets tiring after awhile. God knows I’m getting sick of reading think pieces about The Last Jedi, even though I saw it the third time just so I could talk shop about it with my buddies afterwards.
Well as a DM myself i always ask for Feedback from my Players to improve myself. As a Player, weeeeeeeeeeeeell you don’t want me to get bored. Especially if i play a Fighter who hasn’t had a Fight for three Sessions straight, because all we did was searching everywhere in the City for that God damn unfindable Assasin Guild.
That might Result in my Character getting impatiant as well, and taking on things they really shouldn’t be messing with. Too my own suprise through sheer Dumb luck (and our Bard talking us out), all my Character survived. Most of the Time the DM gets the Hint, if not i will give some Constructive critism. 😛
Naw dawg. That’s what I’m saying. As a player, don’t wait until it gets to a breaking point. If it’s been a few sessions and you’re spinning your wheels, don’t do the “I’ll be disruptive and hope the GM gets the hint” shtick. Though occasionally hilarious, that strategy is less likely to get results than starting with constructive criticism.
I know I know youre right. On the other hand, in that particular Situation it fit my Character too freak out and Attack, i had a good Excuse written in the backround beforehand. And to be honest Hellknights serving a Vampire LOOK like bad Guys, especially since my Fighter is a devout worshipper of Pharasma who grew up in Cheliax.
Well then. Carry on. 😛
While i know I have problems with how i play dnd and similar games that can annoy others that i have to work on, communicating with the DM in a way that is constructive while still very friendly is something at least that i am quite good at.
It’s sort of like being a millennial job seeker. The most important skill is the ability to acquire new skills. If you’re willing to put in the work to fix what’s broken, you’ve already got it made.
But what if I am DM? How do I carry my thoughts to the players, like: “I know murderhoboing is fun, but this was supposed to be a sneaking mission!” or “Killing you guys is my job, not yours!”