I’m not just a new DM but new to dnd as well. I ended up dm by default for a group of us who have never played. It’s been going pretty well for the 6 months or so we’ve been playing. We lost a player due to work conflicts a few months ago so my husband joined us. My problem is with him. He says it’s boring and gets upset things don’t move along quick enough. We play for about 3 hours once a week. I admit I have some time management issues and sessions can run long but I try to wrap up in places that make sense. After or before a fight or rest of some sort. I always ask the group around the 3 hour mark if they want to stop or keep going. We play online. Half my group loves rp and the other half fighting and I do my best to balance it out. Half talking half fighting each session if we can. Just tonight we did a museum heist. They cased the place looking for magic items and found a few cool things so they went in guns blazing. The casing the joint and first fight took one session and today they ran into a second layer of defense and had another fight. Not hard but time consuming since they split the party. My husbands group went to get the items for the fight and the other half stayed back. He was pissed the items on display were fakes made to seem magical. I’ve talked to my other players and they are nothing but positive with feedback so I’m confused honestly. Everyone is seeming to have fun but he’s just annoyed after every single session. I don’t know what to do. He seems to have fun during the games and talks about the weeks game in the days leading up to it 🤷♀️ I have been working on getting fights to flow better and better npc roll playing. Advice? ( also sorry for the long post)
Without knowing specifically what your player (not your husband) is annoyed with, no one, not even you, know how or what to address in your game to make a positive improvement.
You probably need to have *the talk* with your player, as your player (not your husband) and directly ask them out of game what they dislike about the game. It's possible that this player likes the fast paced, cinematic things in life, while the rest of the party likes the slow exploratory method of figuring things out. Problem here is that you don't know that for sure. My suggestion is that you muster up the courage for the conversation, set aside time out of game, and rip off the band-aid and get to what's eating at your players enjoyment of your game.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The first thing I will say is don't get worried, from your description it feels like your session are paced about right. Like you I run 3 hour sessions and something like a heist I would expect to last over 2-3 sessions with planning and then execution and possibly escape.
I also love your idea of a museum full of magic items that are actually all fake (I am going to borrow that). It can be hard sometimes DMing a partner, the game ends but they are there to nit pick and question, or moan about things. You mention he has never done DnD before so, and I might be wrong, I am guessing he is playing in part because you are rather then because he loves the concept of TTRPG's. This is ok, but I would suggest you have a mini session zero with him and maybe just find out what his expectations are, what he wants from the game and gently explain that the very nature of roleplay games is that they sometimes move a little slowly, especially if your players like Roleplaying. In the past I have had hours and hours of gameplay where I have simply sat back as the party have roleplayed between themselves sat round a camp fire. Not all players like that, some want a dungeon crawl/computer game type experiance with lots of combat, fast reward and quick resolutions to stories. From what you describe you are not that kind of story teller and that is fine. Personally I prefer the long drawn out process (in 10 months of gameplay and 32 sessions my party have completed 6 weeks of game time).
Your other players are having fun so do not beat yourself up over this. You know your husband best, talk to him and try and work out what it is he wants, if it is a faster pace you may have to gently explain that this is something that he wont get in your game.
Honestly it sounds like he's being an enormous jerk. If he thinks its boring he can always leave the game. Now all that said its obviously more difficult with the problem player being your husband and I'm definatly overstepping somewhat here but if he is this disrespectful to you normally then you deserve better. Seriously maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree but this sounds like his problem is with you being incharge.
It's not uncommon for someone new to take a bit to wrap their mind around the various paces of D&D. As you say, combat can be more flashy and exciting, but as players learn of their character's skills and become more engrossed in the story, the exploration, planning and sneaky bits get more interesting as well. Can't stress enough the advice given for "The Talk" with the player. Hubby or no, he needs to discuss with you what he's not happy with and what visions he has for the game, to see if it's viable at all.
Few questions that might shed light on his issues though. What class/subclass is he? Often a character can feel left out or bored if the exploring/planning doesn't have anything in it for them to do. Barbarians don't tend to shine much on sneaking about filching things, so perhaps as part of the break in there is a gate or something that requires great strength to lift? Has his character (or ANY of the characters) been "singled out" at any point, with a plot hook or tidbit specifically aimed at that character? I have also found that focusing on the character who feels left out for a moment can yank them in to the story and make a big change in how involved they feel.
DM-ing isn't easy at the best of times. You'll have players who have an issue and often won't verbalize it until pressed for what's wrong. Getting that info out in the open and working through a solution will not only help the game be more fun, but should give you, AND the player, a sense of accomplishment, for having resolved a problem.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
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I’m not just a new DM but new to dnd as well. I ended up dm by default for a group of us who have never played. It’s been going pretty well for the 6 months or so we’ve been playing. We lost a player due to work conflicts a few months ago so my husband joined us. My problem is with him. He says it’s boring and gets upset things don’t move along quick enough. We play for about 3 hours once a week. I admit I have some time management issues and sessions can run long but I try to wrap up in places that make sense. After or before a fight or rest of some sort. I always ask the group around the 3 hour mark if they want to stop or keep going. We play online. Half my group loves rp and the other half fighting and I do my best to balance it out. Half talking half fighting each session if we can. Just tonight we did a museum heist. They cased the place looking for magic items and found a few cool things so they went in guns blazing. The casing the joint and first fight took one session and today they ran into a second layer of defense and had another fight. Not hard but time consuming since they split the party. My husbands group went to get the items for the fight and the other half stayed back. He was pissed the items on display were fakes made to seem magical. I’ve talked to my other players and they are nothing but positive with feedback so I’m confused honestly. Everyone is seeming to have fun but he’s just annoyed after every single session. I don’t know what to do. He seems to have fun during the games and talks about the weeks game in the days leading up to it 🤷♀️ I have been working on getting fights to flow better and better npc roll playing. Advice? ( also sorry for the long post)
Without knowing specifically what your player (not your husband) is annoyed with, no one, not even you, know how or what to address in your game to make a positive improvement.
You probably need to have *the talk* with your player, as your player (not your husband) and directly ask them out of game what they dislike about the game. It's possible that this player likes the fast paced, cinematic things in life, while the rest of the party likes the slow exploratory method of figuring things out. Problem here is that you don't know that for sure. My suggestion is that you muster up the courage for the conversation, set aside time out of game, and rip off the band-aid and get to what's eating at your players enjoyment of your game.
Best of luck.
Also, MCDM - Running the Game if you haven't sought out other advice across the interwebs.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The first thing I will say is don't get worried, from your description it feels like your session are paced about right. Like you I run 3 hour sessions and something like a heist I would expect to last over 2-3 sessions with planning and then execution and possibly escape.
I also love your idea of a museum full of magic items that are actually all fake (I am going to borrow that). It can be hard sometimes DMing a partner, the game ends but they are there to nit pick and question, or moan about things. You mention he has never done DnD before so, and I might be wrong, I am guessing he is playing in part because you are rather then because he loves the concept of TTRPG's. This is ok, but I would suggest you have a mini session zero with him and maybe just find out what his expectations are, what he wants from the game and gently explain that the very nature of roleplay games is that they sometimes move a little slowly, especially if your players like Roleplaying. In the past I have had hours and hours of gameplay where I have simply sat back as the party have roleplayed between themselves sat round a camp fire. Not all players like that, some want a dungeon crawl/computer game type experiance with lots of combat, fast reward and quick resolutions to stories. From what you describe you are not that kind of story teller and that is fine. Personally I prefer the long drawn out process (in 10 months of gameplay and 32 sessions my party have completed 6 weeks of game time).
Your other players are having fun so do not beat yourself up over this. You know your husband best, talk to him and try and work out what it is he wants, if it is a faster pace you may have to gently explain that this is something that he wont get in your game.
Honestly it sounds like he's being an enormous jerk. If he thinks its boring he can always leave the game. Now all that said its obviously more difficult with the problem player being your husband and I'm definatly overstepping somewhat here but if he is this disrespectful to you normally then you deserve better. Seriously maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree but this sounds like his problem is with you being incharge.
It's not uncommon for someone new to take a bit to wrap their mind around the various paces of D&D. As you say, combat can be more flashy and exciting, but as players learn of their character's skills and become more engrossed in the story, the exploration, planning and sneaky bits get more interesting as well. Can't stress enough the advice given for "The Talk" with the player. Hubby or no, he needs to discuss with you what he's not happy with and what visions he has for the game, to see if it's viable at all.
Few questions that might shed light on his issues though. What class/subclass is he? Often a character can feel left out or bored if the exploring/planning doesn't have anything in it for them to do. Barbarians don't tend to shine much on sneaking about filching things, so perhaps as part of the break in there is a gate or something that requires great strength to lift? Has his character (or ANY of the characters) been "singled out" at any point, with a plot hook or tidbit specifically aimed at that character? I have also found that focusing on the character who feels left out for a moment can yank them in to the story and make a big change in how involved they feel.
DM-ing isn't easy at the best of times. You'll have players who have an issue and often won't verbalize it until pressed for what's wrong. Getting that info out in the open and working through a solution will not only help the game be more fun, but should give you, AND the player, a sense of accomplishment, for having resolved a problem.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.