I have issued a warning to Khaki Campbell for this comment, so you should know better to come in and threadshit with more of the same. This is out of line in the IMHO Forum. Do not do it again.
Ellen Cherry
IMHO Moderator
My boyfriend’s suggestion is that you guys play Hero Quest with her.
I can’t stand role playing of any kind. I will never ever play D&D. Ever.
After about 5 minutes reading the rule book for Magic, I threw it away and told him to either teach me to play without it or I’m not playing.
If my boyfriend were to tell me he was going to start playing D&D again with all his old friends from high school and college, I’d welcome them with open arms and I’d even cook for them. But, my socialization with them would involve them playing D&D and me playing WoW or Diablo. You don’t have to play to socialize.
I’ve seen exactly one person/group “confirm the stereotype”: the OP. Everyone else is telling him it’s a dick move, even other D&D players.
I have an idea for a scenario for her. The entire group suddenly turns against her and she has to fight each of you to the death one at a time. If she survives she wins the game and decides what activity you guys do next!
No?
OK, then I would recommend she tries Dungeons & Dragons On-line too. You don’t have to roll any dice, there is a lot more combat, and it focuses a lot on group work. The majority of the quest would be extremely challenging to do solo.
Plus, like someone said, you don’t have to make snacks for everyone.
The thought counts, sure, but she’s also rather tone deaf about relationships if she doesn’t realise that putting herself in this situation is sucking the fun out of it for everyone else. It’s like if the OP invited himself to join her when she went to a movie she wanted to see, then sat next to her for two hours sighing impatiently.
I have been treating 4th Edition as a different game, with a similar name and a few similarities. If you just look at it as a different game, and not D&D, it’s not so bad. 
Woah, everyone, hold the phone. Has this thread actually gone 2 pages with nobody asking the MOST important question?!
… Is she hot?
Sure is a lot of sneak-bragging going on in IMHO these days. Obviously the OP here (a D&D player) just wants to let us all know that he has a girlfriend.
But you still live with your mom, right?
You don’t happen to be an adult actress, do you? (NSFW alert. Yes, that links to a series about alt porn stars and adult entertainers playing D&D.)
Allow me to clarify before everyone thinks I’m the Worst Boyfriend Ever (too late, maybe). She’s not just participating because she wants to hang out with me. She wants to hang out with our friends. I also think she has a genuine interest in playing D&D, but she doesn’t have the patience to go over some of the drier parts of the rules (and I don’t blame her, I haven’t read a lot of the magic rules because they are pretty boring).
My original inclination in the OP was to ask if the DM should kill her off because based on talks between her and I, she wasn’t enjoying herself but felt like she’d be disappointing everyone if she bowed out. Based on talks between the DM and I, the rest of the group, as much as they like her, didn’t feel like she was contributing much and were a bit tired of her falling asleep during sessions. Suggesting the DM kill off her character seemed like a way to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
A couple of days ago, the DM found an awesome prestige class for her (Dread Commando) which has a lot of latent, “always on” abilities and would save her from adding up a lot of bonuses. I showed her the class and she looked it over for a whole 5 seconds before changing the subject. It’s not like we’re not trying to work with her.
The cheap shots in this thread about D&D being an immature, 10-year-old’s hobby are completely uncalled for. I don’t see why it’s any different than Fantasy Football… both are playing make-believe.
Personally, I think she’s a jerk for ruining it for everyone else. It doesn’t matter if it’s D&D or anything. Any game you play, if you invite a girlfriend or a boyfriend, they should at least try to understand the game and enjoy themselves. And I see no indication the OP is neglecting his girlfriend - is this the only time they see each other?
The gf should bring a damn book and stop mucking up the game for everyone else… Doesn’t matter though. She’ll make sure the game ends, if only by making it miserable for everyone else.
And yes, I am an adult female who plays D&D. Fourteen years now.
No. My girlfriend and I see each other 4-5 days a week and always spend the weekend together. D&D comprises a few hours one night a week.
I asked Husband, a damn good GM, and one who’s been known to do a lot of tailoring his campaigns for the interests of the players.
He says she should bow out; if the game is going awesomely other than her character, and she just refuses to try, then it’s not fair to the other players to make them play a different game in the hopes that there’s an off chance that she’ll maybe like it.
She can be there, and socialize, but should not be playing.
I am still confused. WHY do you think this will be an awkward conversation? Everyone wants the same thing (for her to quit the group), it seems that if you alleviate her fear that she is letting down the group by bowing out, she will do so happily.
It all seems very straightforward to me.
You’re not understanding what she is interested in playing. Just here, you seem to have thought it was the (awful) requirement to add up bonuses in 3.5 that was her problem. Looks like that wasn’t the case.
You say you’ve talked to her – what did she say? What does she like about playing the game? What does she dislike about it? Specifically.
A vague list of “she thinks reading the rules is boring, and roleplaying is boring, and she likes combat” is useless to helping her enjoy the game more. As you have found out.
Why does she like playing her character? What does her character do that she finds enjoyable? What does she wish she could change about her character? What was the most fun she’s had in the campaign? Did she enjoy any of the plotlines?
I have to say, I’ve been where your girlfriend is at. In fact, I’m probably at that same place, now. We’re playing In Nomine and it’s a horrible, horrible system and it’s an utterly uninteresting plotline, and the campaign has arranged out so that my and several other characters are basically marginalized. I’ve been soldiering on, but am BORED out of my freaking HEAD.
The GM thought he had a solution to get me more involved… and created a plotline that made things worse. Now the plotline basically has my character trapped in Groundhog Day, so everything I accomplish is immediately undone. It’s excruciating – but I’m not putting up with it, and have clearly communicated what the problems are. They’re being addressed (or I’ll find something else to do with my friends).
Your girlfriend has not clearly communicated what the problems are. And you (and the DM) clearly have not addressed them. Go back, and talk to her again. Get specific.
We’ve talked about the kind of character she wants. She said she is interested in a bruiser who is sort of the “go-to girl” for strategy. She also expressed interest in leadership. The DM found Dread Commando and seemed to be closest to what we understood that she was interested in.
It’s not that she hates adding bonuses; she’s just never quite sure how to do it. As I’ve said, we’ve been playing in this campaign since March and we still have to show her how to compute her attack rolls, damage, saving throws, etc. A class with fewer bonuses to be added up would make for smoother gameplay.
How about reworking her character as a Warblade or Crusader? The Crusader isn’t quite as intuitive but if you print out some Maneuver cards she should get the hang of it. It means she can hand out heals (Devoted Spirit) and buffs (White Raven Tactics) as often as she likes, and beat the hell out of people at the same time.
If her current character is sneaky in heavy armour, you could also give her a dip in a divine class and take levels in Ruby Knight Vindicator. Even if she doesn’t use the divine spellcasting for now, she’s still an uber-tank.
Guys, what’s the point? It’s obvious she hates the game. Finding a different prestige class isn’t going to miraculously show her how much of a fan of D&D she is.
Why should she have to do any computation? Just let her decide what her character does, and then let someone else do the figuring.
In my experience, some players like doing the mathy stuff, others do not. So let the mathy players (or GM) do the math.
Heh. I always screen players for any game I am running – not just for maturity and interest level, but also to make sure we’re on the same page ruleswise. Occasionally this turns someone off. In particular, in Champions (a sort of complex super-hero roleplaying game) one or two people have really hated any attempt to go over how their characters’ powers will work in the game system. From their objections, I realized that they basically planned to try to rules-lawyer me during combat when I’d be under time pressure to keep things exciting, and specifically objected to even generalized discussions out side of the game (i.e., when time pressure was not working against the GM). So I screened those guys out.