When you GM a campaign, it’s fine to make the occasional task a chore for the PCs. This is best handled with a quick description of how much of a pain in the ass it was, followed by moving on to something fun.
But you should never make anything a chore for your players.
This is a bit of a double standard, because for most GMs, at least an aspect or two of GMing will be a chore from time to time. I can’t stand statting out d20 System NPCs, for example, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. That’s a chore for me, but also a necessary evil (and for many other GMs, not an evil at all).
But nothing leads to player boredom faster than having to jump through a bunch of hoops to something basic, or slog through lengthy exposition, pointless puzzles, a long series of die rolls to accomplish a single task or any number of other things that might not sound so bad on paper, but that turn out to be terrible at the gaming table.
Unless you’re the kind of bad GM who has it in for your players on a personal level, chances are you don’t plan for anything in your campaign to be a chore for your group. Tools like the Loved, Blah, Hated list can help you keep tabs on things that didn’t turn out as expected, letting you avoid those chores (and other potential roadblocks) in the future.
The simplest way to sidestep this problem, though, is just to consider how things will play out before starting a session. Make this part of your game prep — it’s an easy one to put on your mental back burners and chip away at throughout the day, and it shouldn’t take very long.
When you’re considering how an element of your next adventure will turn out, just imagine that you’re one of your players and ask yourself “Will this slow down the game in a bad way?” (because not every slow moment is a bad thing).
If the answer is “Yes,” there’s a good chance that you’ve identified an element that might turn out to be a chore for your group.
What tricks do you use to avoid making things a chore for your players?
Man I wish some GMs I played with read this!
The only advice I can think of is to observe your players from outside of the game. If you see 4 to 6 people bored out of their minds at the table then you as the GM are doing something wrong. Scrap your plans and improvise something to make the game fun and involving again.
Two words: Personal Subplots.
Pay attention to making certain that every session, or at least every story arc, ties into some aspect of each character personally. This may come at the expense of a little plausibility if you overdo it, but generally speaking, if there’s a little something extra going on for every player to consider their angle on in relation to the main plot, they have something to burn that excess mental energy on when things are slow. Naturally, these subplots shouldn’t be time-consuming, or the momentum of the central story may be lost.
With personal subplots, the players know that if sit back and stack dice, no-one else is particularly incentivized to pick up the slack for them, so they’d better stay involved to get the most benefit (and fun) for their character.
Save the chores, if you must have them, until the players are more fully fleshed out and developed as role-playing creations.
Oh, and keep them really, really short.
(Telas) Counterpoint: Sometimes things we don’t think we’ll like, turn out to be fun after all. YMMV.
True enough. A chore for one player (item management, let’s say) might be exciting for another player — that’s why it’s important to observe which of your players respond best to each aspect of the game.
I have to add, based on a campaign in recent memory, that avoiding player-created issues which turn out to be regular chores is a good idea.
For example: A PC has a ton of secret identities and creates layers of separation between most of them. If the other PCs have to contact him, it might be okay to jump through the “persona maze” once, but any later time it should be completely glossed-over. Don’t let a single player create “chores” for everyone else.