My girlfriend isn't enjoying D&D. Is this fix a wretched thing to do?

The Game Room
1

Me, my girlfriend, and a group of our mutual friends have been running an awesome D&D campaign weekly since March. Three of the guys are very experienced players. I’m less experienced, but holding my own well. My girlfriend has no D&D experience and has been, for lack of a nicer term, dead weight on the party.

She very much enjoys combat, however, combat only comprises about 20-25% of the entire campaign. She’s very bored while we do the roleplaying and planning stuff, to the point that she falls asleep. While the rest of our characters have individual goals we’re pursuing, she pretty much just goes with whatever the party’s doing.

She’s bored and frustrated, and part of her frustration is that she doesn’t really understand the rules. I’ve tried to get her to read the PHB, but she says it’s dry and boring. It’s also been taking some fun out for everyone else because we have to show her how to add up her attack rating and damage every time her round comes up, plus remind her to roll Sneak Attack damage. She feels like no one in the group listens to her, but when we ask her opinion, she gives the standard answer, “Let me think about it a little bit.” She also doesn’t really understand how to roleplay. She’s not putting herself in the plot situations.

She doesn’t want to admit to the rest of the group that she’s bored and quit because she feels she doesn’t get to see our friends enough.

We’ve tried to give her several plot hooks to engage her even more, even setting up some personal side-quests for her. She hasn’t bitten any of them yet. The DM and I are going to make one last attempt to engage her. I am writing her a custom prestige class based on what she’s interested in (combat, strength, and leadership) and we are adjusting the plot slightly to give her a leadership task, earning her the prestige class if she completes it successfully. All that revolves around her taking the plot hook, though.

Here’s my question: If she doesn’t take the hook, I suggested to the DM that he just kill character her off in combat. She goes into negative HP pretty much every fight, and he’s avoided killing her off every time (at one point she should have been dead, but he let her live, unbeknownst to her). Is this a nasty thing to do to my girlfriend? If the DM kills her off and gives her the option to reroll, chances are she’ll decline. This’ll save her from having to admit she’s bored, and will save the rest of the group from asking her to bow out, which they’re getting closer and closer to doing. We can always store her spirit in the outer planes for resurrection later if she reads the books and gets more engaged.

Sorry this was kinda long. Thoughts?

2

Try asking her when there’s time pressure. Or have the innkeeper or noble or whoever ask her.

Don’t wait on her to bite on plot hooks; steer her towards them.

3

So, your girlfriend really wants to spend time with the friends, to the point where she participates in an activiy which obviously bores her and in which the other participants obviously distain her, so your big master plan is to kill her off? In the hopes that she will quietly slink away, leaving you and the bros free to demonstrate your leet skillz unburdened by her newb-itude?

I know its a crazy thought, but have you considered talking honestly with her about the fact that she isn’t a good fit for the group? Perhaps if you addressed the issue by making some plans to include her and the friends in some non-D&D activity, she wouldn’t feel pressure to participate.

4

Yeah, maybe the reason she is acting like an immature child is because you treat her like one. Try talking to her as an adult and a partner.

5

Killing her off would be an asshole move.

She isn’t interested in roleplaying or plot. She wants to roll die and kill stuff and be around.

Maybe a different system that moves faster. Maybe just letting her follow along and roll die and kill stuff. Her character can be the quiet one.

If she is interested in leadership (as in making decisions for the group) then she has to change her play style to do what she is interested in. Since she doesn’t seem to be doing that, let her roll die - and sleep or read a book or whatever (I’ve been known to crochet) when you guys are talking up tavern wenches to figure out the next plot point.

BTW, this could be me. After years of not RPGing because of bad invites, my husband started running a game two years ago and asked me to play. What seems like obvious steps to take to someone who has done a lot of gaming or reads a lot of fantasy - aren’t obvious to me. I’m not comfortable, and so I don’t make decisions - I follow along for the most part, and only step in when its obvious that we need a little focus (i.e. - WE GO DOWN THIS HALL! because you guys have been discussing this for 20 minutes!).

6

Or maybe come up with hooks with barbs in them.

You’ve been poisoned. The antidote can only be found on one small island in pirate and shark invested waters. Do you take the hook or do you die?

7

I’ll add more to the “it could be me…”

In high school I was interested in D&D, but didn’t know anyone who gamed.

In college I found a group. I was the only girl. They obviously weren’t comfortable teaching me to play, or with me being a girl (and not a bad looking one). I failed an acrobatics roll going over a stream and died. They didn’t let me re-roll.

After college I played with some friends and a GM who though letting us wander around in the woods for four hours until we figured out what he wanted to do would be a good time. It wasn’t.

But here is the story that best fits you. When my husband and I were first living together, a bunch of his friends decided to game. At my house. They were going to play Champions, a system I’m more interested in than D&D. I asked to play - no it was going to be a guy thing. OK fine. One of the other guys girlfriends invited herself, and she invited a friend. And at that point I said “it isn’t a guy thing anymore, can I play?” And at that point they had too many people and the answer was no. Four months later, they added another player, and I kicked them all out of my house - and almost kicked my husband out over it as well. Do you give a damn about your girlfriend? Because if you value her more than the game, you’d better figure out a way to let her play as long as she wants to. Or say “gee, I’m getting bored, do you still want to play” and have you both leave. If they kick her out and you stay, you might not get laid by this woman again.

8

Maybe she just hates the game and wants to play something else. Or doesn’t want to play a game at all.

I completely sympathize with her.

9

It took you that long to kick them out?! And your husband was okay with all that behavior?

10

My husband wasn’t the GM, and it was the GM’s girlfriend who invited herself - and her friend. And it was the GMs girlfriend that decided we had too many people. And the game, and spending time with his friends, was really important to my husband, so I was willing to fall on the grenade of the GMs need to please HIS girlfriend. And we sort of all knew that the girlfriend really didn’t like me.

My husband was a little clueless over the whole “its my house and you aren’t letting me play” thing. And I didn’t spell it out until I finally lost it.

It was actually somewhat worse because her friend would bring over her toddler and somehow I was apparently just expected to babysit. The toddler got into some stuff in my bathroom (because I wasn’t watching the toddler), I got yelled at, and said “I’m not watching your child, either you watch her or don’t bring her. And no, I’m not childproofing my home for your kid.” The kid stopped coming.

He married her, they are now divorced, and my husband and I are still together. In part because I pick up on hints like “its a guy thing” and “its important to you.” But not because he picks up on subtle clues, I’ve had to learn to say right out loud “this is my damn house and your friends are coming over, playing a game you told me I wasn’t welcome at, and keeping me up late at night. Are you really that fucking clueless?”

11

The obvious answer would be to up the amount of combat so she gets to do that often enough to become good at it. I mean what’s the point of a combat oriented prestige class when she never gets a chance to kill things?

Try to imagine learning the huge number of rules for combat if you only get to experience combat 1 hour out of 4? Hell it’s less than that since you’ve got to cut that hour up amongst other players and monsters.

12

OOC problems need to be solved OOC. Trying to chicken out and resolve it by killing her character will just result in bad blood.

If she wants to do something with your friends but hates D&D, can she think of something you could do together that everyone would actually enjoy?

13

Are you using 4.x? If so the Penny Arcade podcasts are entertaining, show a bunch of geek guys learning the rules and have a ton of info on the mechanics.

If you’re not I’d recommend THAC0 charts to make combat rolls easier for her.

No one wants to feel like people are unhappy with how they are playing, that sucks the fun out of it for her too.

Hey maybe you all change to 4 and learn together.

14

You’ve got a chick that digs combat, and you’re complaining? Hell, I’d be bored to tears in a game like you describe. 25% combat? Bleh. Ramp up the action.

In the alternative, turn her on to some of the old “gold box” computer games if you can find them anywhere. They’ll let her get her stabby on, and teach some of the basic concepts in a non-boring way.

15

[hijack]The gold box SSI games are the reason I’m now married to my husband [/hijack]

16

Seriously. I’m not adverse to roleplaying, although I maintain that D&D is not a good game for it. At best it’s a framework to get your tactical wargaming on. A girl/woman who actually seems interested in combat is not a person to be tossed aside lightly.

Regardless, don’t just kill off the character. That’s just passive-aggressiveness. You need to hash it out person to person.

17

It sounds to me like she only participates because she wants to see people she doesn’t otherwise see. Why not ask her if she wants to quit playing and arrange other ways to see those people? And then actually do that, of course.

18

Damn lost reply post.

But basically, what dangermom and hello again mentioned seems like the best idea to me.

Maybe she could play in a couple combat heavy sessions, and skip out of the more RP intensive ones? It’d of course take some pre-planning on the DM’s part - but that might be a compromise that everyone can be happy with.

I empathize with her, because I tend to favor the combat side of D&D myself. But I also have seen your situation first hand, where an uninterested group member brings everyone down.
You’re thinking of just eliminating that downer of a participant is not unique.

19

dude, let her hang out and sit at the table and schmooze. She doesnt have to play to socialize …
she can hang there, eat and drink, and read a book or watch the game or watch tv. I used to have a few friends who had their GF hang out and just schmooze.

20

She sounds exactly like me. Only really enjoys combat, not particularly comfortable with getting into character, bored to tears by reading through the manuals. I stopped playing D&D with my friends and started inviting them to/attending other activities. I suggest to the OP that you stop trying to “engage her” in a game she doesn’t like. It’s not for everyone.