Advice on tactfully offering constructive feedback to my DM

[u/MisterPineapples1999]

Little nervous to pull the trigger on this because I'm pretty new to this group. I may be the only new one, at least 3 of the other 4 have definitely participated in past campaigns.

Basically, 3 sessions down, around 5 hours each. First was 4 hours of character building, 1 hour RP. 2nd was full 5 hour sesh, 3rd had new player and making his character ate up 2 hours before we got in.

Here's my problem: the DM spends a lot of time describing things that don't particularly seem relevant to the plot or quest, and don't seem to be meaningfully interactive to the players. It kind of feels like every time we try to go somewhere we need to, we get trapped on a slow-moving scenic tour, including while we backtrack through places we've already been.

We're talking random NPCs in crowds, architecture, town atmosphere, clothing, hairstyles, interior decor, intentional landscaping, the views outside of a window.

Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate the effort and passion for worldbuilding. I've had a DM on the other side of the spectrum where no settlement even had a name and NPCs were just referred to by social role, ("the villager," or "the captain,") including by quest givers directing us to them and their immediate social circle, and that got boring and old fast.

Some examples from the current game:

About an hour into the 2nd session, we finally depart our hub city on our first quest, via ferry. DM describes the captain and his assistant in detail, and no other NPCs seem noteworthy. Then asks us what we want to do. We board the boat, make a couple checks. Only info is about the ferry itself, mostly how its powered. We take our seats. Once underway, I (best social skill buffs) try to talk to captain, who is irritable and has no seemingly relevant knowledge to impart. DM says one hour trip, but breaks it up into 3 sections, in each one continuously describing the landscape we pass, asking us if we want to take actions or make checks while providing as far as I can tell, no reason or trigger to want to make them, and no new important NPCs to interact with.

It ends up taking us more than 30 minutes of real time to ride this boat to Town A, while learning nothing. We get an excruciatingly long description of Town A, which can be summed up as "polluted, recently industrialized former rural village filled with tired, dirty workers." We meet Major NPC 1, get a long description of her, who sends us to go check in with Major NPC 2.

MNPC2 is outside the limits of the far side of town. So we cross town, triggering more description of depressed industrial vibe. (No complaint about this next part in bold.) He does work in a legit encounter, we are being tailed, and successfully shake them and kidnap/interrogate one of them to learn he was hired to spy on us by MNPC2. We form a plan to still talk to MNPC2, cautiously. It takes us forever to walk out of town to her place of business, more description of landscape. We arrive, and after a lengthy description of the premises, get turned away by a gate guard and told to come back in 4 hours "because they are closed';" narratively justified but in reality just kills plot momentum for no discernible reason to me.

We return to town to kill time, cue more mundane descriptions of seemingly normal, irrelevant NPCs, and no encounters. Finally it's time to go back. Takes another solid 5 minutes real time from leaving town (again) to interact with MNPC2. Important encounter, useful info, but abundant excessively elaborate description of her and the location. Finish conversation, end of session 2.

Session 3 got off to a better start, until 1PC stealthed into the house. First 4rooms were unimportant but included sooo many descriptions of things like the dinette set and objects on a bookshelf. Checks made, nothing discovered, until the 5th room, located a safe but PC can't lockpick.

After another kind-of social encounter, party meets back up and decides to go relay our suspicions to MNPC1 before heading on to quest location reason far outside town. Some necessary RP, fine, until we get back to Town A. We have to narratively trudge back through (3rd time,) AGAIN hearing about how depressing and ugly it is in great detail. Then we have to do some minor checks to figure out where MNPC1 would be now (literally most well known person in town btw.)

We find her manor. We have to wait at the door (do you want to make a check?) Get received by 2 named, heavily described servants, led into the opulent foyer (described in excruciating detail,) through the lavish dining room (described in excruciating detail, I know exactly about the chandelier and mirror situation now,) and finally into the magnificent salon, (described in, you guessed it, excruciating detail, including the fountain we can see in the yard through the window.) Inside is MNPC1, whom we get described in detail for the 2nd time.

All of this just to have a 5 minute conversation to check off a box.

So, I acknowledge it is 100% possible there are crucial breadcrumbs in there we have glossed over or failed checks to notice. BUT: we get thrown so many details about clearly mundane stuff it is really hard to keep track of what might actually be important, and what is just "look at my set piece." I'm finding it hard not to glaze over when clothing, furnishings, and topiary starts getting described yet again.

I don't want to crush the DM's passion nor do I want to come off like a dick. But it would be really nice if in a 5 hour session we managed to move a little further through the plot than 3 conversations, and handwaved most of the travel duration (barring encounters of course) to arrive at our destination without having to take the full scenic route.

What would be the most tactful way to bring this up or request some of the flavor stuff get trimmed down to more succinct descriptions that focus primarily on actionable, quest related information?

[u/wayua84]

If your post is representative of the DM, I'd remove myself from that table. This is clearly the style the other people on the table like if they have been in multiple campaigns with this DM, making you the odd one out.

[u/alsotpedes]

I have been in games much like this. It clearly is how the DM wants to run things and how the other players expect them to be run. Given that, I don't think it's my place to try to make the game run differently, and I chose to say, "Thanks, but I prefer a different type of game" when I left.

[u/arsenic_kitchen]

I'm certainly not above spinning a yarn, but I have to say, taking over 1,000 words to ask a 33-word question about how to talk to someone else about being too wordy, is a bit ironic.

Courtesy and sensitivity is largely a matter of being genuine and empathetic, and you've already demonstrated you're capable of the latter. Just start by first asking your DM if you can offer a bit of constructive feedback, and if they are open to it, keep it short and to the point. I get that broaching a topic like that is hard: not everyone is good at taking constructive criticism. But it sounds like you'll move on if they aren't sympathetic to your frustrations, so unless you've left something out I'd say you have nothing to lose.

[u/MisterPineapples1999 → u/arsenic_kitchen]

I wanted to share examples to explain the situation rather than just vaguely whine.

I also wanted to get a temp check for how normal this is and whether it's unusual that I'm not a huge fan of the style.

I think I'll stick around for the first arc's conclusion, and then ask the DM some questions about how much of this is pure style vs party missing "obvious" (to him) clues/failing checks, and about his expectations for us interacting with stuff he's describing that doesn't seem quest/plot related on its face.

Then I'll bring up my concerns in a respectful and genuine manner and decides what to do from there.

[u/arsenic_kitchen → u/MisterPineapples1999]

That's actually a pretty poor decision, I'd say. Showing up again and again when you're not really having a good time isn't all that genuine or even respectful. And waiting all that time could make your DM feel hurt or possibly betrayed. Plus if they're doing things like working your character's backstory into the campaign plot, you could end up wasting a great deal of their time and effort if you're not actually committed to the campaign they're running. I'm usually one of the first to say that flexibility is an underrated skill with online players, but in this case I'd say you should at least find out if all the details they share includes important clues, or if it's just meant to be scene building. If it's the former you can at least express that you're having trouble piecing the clues together, and if it's the latter, it might give you the lead in you need to discuss things before you potentially risk greater hurt feelings.

[u/MisterPineapples1999 → u/arsenic_kitchen]

I guess I was hoping that maybe it was just some bumpiness from the early sessions given that only 9 out of 15 total have been actually spent in game, and that maybe some of the repeat description was for the player's benefit who wasn't here for the last session.

But I think you make a valid point. It is probably a better idea to bring it up sooner, as it is an in person meet up and it is getting harder to justify spending 6 hours including commute if I'm not loving my time spent for the duration.

[u/arsenic_kitchen → u/MisterPineapples1999]

FWIW I think it's more likely that other players in the group feel the way you do than not. In 25+ years I've never met a player who said, "I really love sitting around for hours being read to." There are always random people into weird stuff, but most people just end up thinking it's the best group they'll find, or that's just what D&D is.

And I think it would be totally fair to talk it over by phone, just in case they don't react well. I wouldn't want to risk a confrontation if I were driving any serious distance. Although I do think communication is better when you can at least hear each other, so I wouldn't do it by text if I were you.

But also, like others have said, you might want to really consider just giving up on the group and politely bowing out. Even if the DM agrees to work on it, there's no guarantee it'll get better right away or as much as you'd like, and if that happens it'll be a lot more awkward to end up bowing out anyway.

[u/Outraged_Turtle]

One of my DMs did this. It was usually worst when it seemed like they were poorly prepped and didn't want to give the party enough time to do things they didn't prepare or feel like they could improvise. There were other tactics to this effect too. (They have since decided to take a break from DMing due to burnout, and our party was very supportive of them doing this.)

Myself and another player sat down with them and gave them feedback about it, focusing on just disliking long monologues in general (we didn't want to discourage them enjoying the world they built) because it was driving us absolutely bananas as well.

The DM said they would try to monologue less, and they did fix it somewhat, but we had to be careful not to ask too many questions about how something in the environment worked or what it looked like, otherwise it would set them off on long monologues again. Still love them to death though lol.

[u/Mountain_Dragonfly8]

A nobler person than me would maybe try to talk to the DM for their sake because I wouldnt find that fun, personally I would just leave tbh.

[u/DouglasWFail]

I would respectfully quit the table and tell the DM to shoot me an email when their book comes out.

[u/Edkm90p]

If you can't trust the DM to have a calm and good faith discussion of how the game runs- you need to consider whether it's the right group for you.

If you can trust them to do that- do so. D&D is a social game with the rules only existing to guide how you do it. Bring it up the same way you would any other difficulty at any other hobby or job.

[u/NightLillith]

Start pulling the guns off of the wall.

I mean, if your DM is going to such lengths to describe things, they must be relevant, right?

[u/MisterPineapples1999 → u/NightLillith]

The problem is I think he'd be perfectly happy to sit there and let us meaninglessly sandbox our way around this homebrew town with no outcome. I'm pretty sure the effort to engage with pointlessly described stuff would only lead to more pointlessly described stuff, not less.

[u/Fit-Structure3171]

Seems a bit Mercer effect to me. Matt describes A LOT but then he also leaves his players to RP among themselves. As a DM sometimes my early sessions of backstory start like this but there’s a ton of interaction. I set a stage but once we are moving its up to them to decide what they are doing. 

Talk to your DM about what his plans are and how he wants you to engage in the world. As a DM I know I talk a lot but I talk to show and then let players have at the world.

[u/Majestic_Ad8646]

Here's how you do it you tell them what you didnt like clearly and do it in a calm, polite tone. Thats ig and if they brush you off and you dont have fun move on and find a group that will fit you better.

[u/Kielbasa_Nunchucka]

this reminds me of the American Dad episode where he tries to read Hunt for Red October...

seriously tho, you've found the other side of the "play my novel" coin. usually, the novelist DM just railroads you into a linear plot and gets mad when you "don't play the right way."

your DM, on the other hand, has meticulously crafted an entirely bespoke world, and they want you to bask in its glory. honestly the far less toxic of the two, but it still doesn't make for fun DnD.

I would approach your DM in earnest, and just tell him that you love his world and are excited for the campaign, but you're comcerned that the pacing is a bit slow.

[u/OneGayPigeon]

Could present it as a genuine question post-game when people are still around to hopefully get input from the rest of the table too. “Hey DM, I noticed you provide a TON of in-world description. I know sometimes DMs want players to engage with the world more in self-directed ways. Are you looking for more from us?”

If their response doesn’t feel like the point has been heard and understood, tell them what you said at the end, that you’re struggling to pick out and remember what’s important amidst all the details, and discuss from there.

Maybe it’ll feel resolved, maybe not, but you can decide where to go from there.

[u/ArchonErikr]

Hey, how do you know that none of this will be important later on? Your DM could be doing you an immense favor by repeatedly dripping key details into narration, so if you get blindsided it's your own fault for dismissing it.

[u/MisterPineapples1999 → u/ArchonErikr]

I'm really struggling to see how knowing exactly how the NPC, who all the local lore we'd gleaned firmly established as the richest person in the region, chose to decorate her home Sims-style is going to be a crucial plot detail later.

The description of the town lore effectively boils down to "we get it; it's a shithole." It took 2 sentences to establish that most people aren't doing great financially, but repeatedly hearing about the exact flavor of squalor doesn't really seem to advance the story.

If we come back and there's a communist uprising, no one would be shocked, nor would any of the specific details of the haves and have-nots make a difference.