Christ Centered Gamer

Well we had our first game last Friday and I can tell you the DM did well. I enjoyed playing my Paladin and being able to just sit back and relax and not have to deal with all the issues I was ranting about above.

The downside is the new DM had to deal with it, and I could see the frustration in his face. I tried to help by setting an example and trying to keep things focused, but there's only so much one can do. A couple of times he was delivering a dialogue from an NPC and one or two other people literally continued their side conversations right over him.

I think part of the problem is our group is too big. We have 8 players + DM. An 8 player party is HUGE, in my opinion, and has several side effects:

• More people means the DM has more to do keeping track of everyone
  More people means combat encounters go much easier and thus, less exciting
  Experience is divided more ways, resulting in smaller rewards for each character
  Same for treasure.
  More people means it's easier to get bored from not having anything to do, and that inevitably leads to side chatter, mobile devices coming out, etc.

There's also the problem of redundancy. This also leads to boredom. Here's what I mean... In a fantasy game like D&D there are really 4 basic archetypes of character... Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue. Once you have all 4 of those covered, you have a balanced party. It's always good to have more than one Fighter type, because they can distribute the damage they soak up between them, but you really don't benefit much from having multiple rogues, and the benefit of extra Clerics and Wizards is a matter of diminishing returns. So that makes people feel bored, and bored players cause trouble.

The ideal D&D party size, IMHO, is 4 - 6. That's enough players to cover all the archetypes at a minimum, with not a ton of redundancy at the upper end. This is the party size most printed modules are designed for.

Ahh bummer. Who is DMing next week?

The same guy. We're going to continue his campaign until it's done, then maybe I'll resume.

Rocks fall, annoying party members leave. >_>

That's an example of what I'd call not taking the game seriously. And I find it incredibly annoying, and personally insulting. It ruins the game/experience for everyone else and their grandma.

Even with games like Monopoly or Risk. Let alone a full scale group RPG.

Friday's session went WAY better. Hopefully that will continue!

Cool. ^_^ Are you enjoying it more, now that you're not GM, or just in a different way?

In a different way, I think. Not sure if it's the same or maybe a little more.

Glad it's going well!

It's been literally years since I played a D&D character in an in person, at the table game. The last time I sat as a player was... well at the most recent Nerdfest I played for a little bit when my son was DMming... but it was a short session and wasn't ongoing. Before that was probably at least... High school...

Cool. ^_^ I've spent most of my time as a player, but my short time in the GM seat was far, FAR harder and more labor intensive.

Still fun. But...work fun, instead of straight up fun.