When I find I can't enjoy something after giving it a earnest effort I just don't seek out those play styles anymore. I also am not a huge fan of turn based RPGs so I play action or story driven ones. Nier: Automata, Cyberpunk 2077, Jade Empire (an old one but a favorite of mine), Fallout 3/NV, The Outer Worlds (I know controversial but I enjoyed it).

When I see a game that looks fun but doesn't match my playstyle (Turn based, Horror games, Action Clicker RPGs, etc) I will often just find someone that streams it on Youtube and watch them play. I treat it like I did when I was young watching a friend on sibling play a game.

I can't solve the rest of it, but I can explain the d10 (or whatever number) thing.

A d10 is a 10 sided (d)ie. It's essentially a physical random number generator that will pick a number between 1 and 10, evenly weighted for all options. While there are no actual dice in computer games, it's hearkening back to the table top nature of cRPGs. So if a sword said 1d10+3, you would get a number between 1 and 10, and then add 3 to the result to get your resulting damage, which would end up somewhere between 4 and 14, inclusive. This can be extended to all sorts of scenarios and gets into probabilities. A 1d12 doesn't get you the same distribution as 2d6, for instance, even setting aside the fact that you can never get 1 on a 2d6. So it's exactly the sort of complex system for generating results that it seems you might like?

When you think of it like a board game like chess, then the turn based actions become more understandable. You usually know that the enemy is going to hit back, and when they do, can you take it? Are your support characters going to be okay or are you going to have to keep scraping them off the ground because they are so squishy?

I would recommend to try Persona 5. You don't need to have played the prior games. It has the turn based play, but plenty of action and stimulation to make it not feel like the game drags on slowly. Tons of narrative as well, where it feels more social than your average rpg. The music is also S Tier

I would stay away from Octopath Traveler. It is a top tier product, but it is the exact opposite of what you are looking for. It is a slow grind and in your current state, you would bounce off of it 100%.

I would also stay away from Pokemon. It would likely be under stimulating for you, as it tends to play on the easier side.

I encourage others in this thread to contribute their recommendations.

It isn't just you OP. I desperately want to play Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Divinity, and plenty of other Western RPGs because I'm absolutely burnt out on JRPG tropes. I've tried I think 4 times now to play Pillars of Eternity. I can almost recite the Prologue and 1st chapter from memory but damn does the combat suck. I'm also big on controllers for comfortable couch play but the only option for me is to bind keys to the controller, which I'm not above doing and have successfully done for World of Warcraft and Diablo 2 all the way to Hell, or play the switch version. Controls aside, the combat just completely deflates me.

It shouldn't be rocket science to kill wolves and spiders. Before the end of the first chapter I have more skills than I know what to do with and yet somehow, still get my ass kicked by a pack of wolves. And that's with like a party of 4. The screen pauses on combat but by that point I fucked up. What I've learned is I should be scouting and detecting traps and or setting traps up. So there's a whole pre combat stage to this. Then I initiate combat and...the enemies just kind of do whatever. I tell each of my party members where to stand and what to attack and then they get ganged up on, die, miss their attacks, or any number of things. It's grueling. And I can't even understand what's happenings to cause that because the text just scrolls so fast. The story is so good, the voice acting, the set pieces, the music, I want it so bad, but just can't because of the damn combat and I'm on normal!

The Witcher 2 was kind of like that too. The combat was absolutely brutal and I had a rough time even on easy and I play so many rpgs. I just got done playing Wo Long and that game is an excel sheet of numbers and stats before each battlefield! And I'm cool with it! Casually beat it, I love planning my builds and gear, combat is brutal but very enjoyable. Mass Effect was another fun one got through that no problem.

I've even played Eve Online! It's not the numbers that scare me, it's how they're delivered to me. SWKoTOR 1 and 2. Also brutal and unforgiving and yet I got through that multiple times. So it's not the DnD system that bothers me, I've played d
DnD, I get the dice giveth and the dice taketh and everything is about multipliers, the more dice you roll, the better you're doing, that and how many modifiers you have. Ideally, you want skills that synergize with your highest stats because then you roll tons of dice and add to the total and that's how you control the effect of randomness.

But holy shit pillars of eternity kills me. I just got Baldurs Gate 3 and I'm going in blind. It takes a controller out the gate which is nice so I'm going to give it my best effort and see how it goes.

I grew up on MUDs. Love them. Did very well in them and yet some of these RPGs just rub me the wrong way.

Maybe it's if I don't detect a trap and roll up with my squad and then everyone dies while the screen pauses and unpauses and I can't do anything about it? Idk.

I know this isn't really the advice you're looking for, but there are a lot of games I'm interested in for the story, the ideas, or the aesthetic, but that I find very boring to actually play, or too difficult to play. So I watch playthroughs of those games instead, or watch videos that explain the story and themes in depth.

Now that I think of it, I used to do a similar thing when I was a kid - I loved X-Men but I never liked reading comic books (plus it's pretty intimidating to approach the giant collections of X-Men comics at this point) so I got a big book that was just profiles of every X-Men character ever, with details about their background, their powers, which comics they appeared in, and what other characters they were connected to. To this day, I know some extremely weird, niche facts about X-Men and the many storylines, that I probably never would've known had I just tried reading the comics from the start. Sometimes summaries/alternative formats are great!

Anyway, turn-based games and anything resembling DnD are mind-numbingly boring to me as well. I'm all about being open-minded and trying new things, but once I've given something a good shot and it's just not right, I find there is little point in trying to force it.

I love turn-based RPGs, especially games like Octopath Traveler because it reminds me of the RPGs I played in my youth like Chrono Trigger. What I specifically like about the turn-based combat aspect is that it allows you time to strategize. These kind of games can be absolutely punishing if you don’t think multiple steps ahead. When you’re fighting a boss for the first time, you need to learn the order of their attacks, see what they’re capable of doing, react accordingly, and win in the process. With Octopath, for example, when you get to the real final boss (trying not to spoil here) you need to assign all eight of your team members the best jobs to work together in two groups of four. This is the only time in the game you ever do this, and you probably have stronger and weaker leveled characters, so there’s immense strategy is putting your two teams together.

Some of the lesser battles can get a little tedious, especially late game when normal enemy encounters are a breeze. But it’s the strategy of figuring out the hard bosses that makes the combat style fun. I think if you’re playing a game like this and find yourself bored trying to strategize, maybe you need to turn up the difficulty. Or maybe the style just isn’t for you. But for me, it’s super fun. It’s like a game of chess. You’ve got to think before you move, or else you’re going to get stomped.

In theory, turn-based games should be right up my alley

Admittedly I only have the information you’ve provided us, but from your post alone I would suggest that maybe they aren’t actually up your alley? There’s a wide variety of RPGs with rich narratives that aren’t turn-based so it may just be this play style just isn’t for you. And that’s ok! I love narrative driven games, but I also know that visual novel type games are not for me, for example.

Turn-based games are a different type of strategy than real-time. Instead of developing the skills to block an attack in real time, for example, you have to plan for the fact that your enemy will have the turn to damage you every time. One might make an argument that real-time is boring because once you know dodge, there’s no challenge. It’s also possible that if you find yourself quitting within a few hours, maybe you’re not progressing past the “tutorial” encounters that are more geared towards introducing the player to the concept turn-based battles and haven’t reached more strategic encounters that will stimulate you more and appear less boring.

That said, I feel that if you’ve tried that many games and still find yourself not feeling engaged, life’s too short to force enjoyment when there’s so many other options that can tick the boxes of what already know you like. Or maybe your brain really is trying to get you into woodworking in which case, we welcome you to come join the fun!

EDIT: I could have sworn when I first read your post that you mentioned you found your mind wandering to “Should I pick up woodworking?” instead of focusing on the game because you kept getting too bored.

For those really interesting RPGs with turn-based combat, I honestly just cheat. Pillars of Eternity (1 and 2), Tyranny, Divinity, etc.

I generally really get into the settings and storytelling of games, and combat mechanics can sometimes add to that, but it can often detract just as easily. I'm in my late 30s, have a kid and a mortgage, and time is limited, so I'm not ashamed to cheat.

If it's combat with a random mob, I'll shamelessly turn on one-hit kill and max initiative, clear the fight, and get on with the game.

I like how Chrono Trigger handled turn based combat.

Each party member has a progress bar that must fill before they take an action. So one party member can be ready to attack or use a spell or item while others might still be charging. And if you have multiple party members ready, they can team up with one another for combination attacks.

Definitely my favorite RPG of the 16-bit era.

If you don't like turn based combat there is nothing anyone can say to change that.

My advice is to play on easiest mode and straight up install cheats/trainers when possible so you can skip combat as much as you can and just enjoy the story.

The number before the D is the number of dices thrown. The number after the D is how many sides the dices have. So 2D6 is throwing two normal dices (with six sides) resulting in a value from 2 to 12.
Here is a photo of the dices available, with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sides. It's sort of a weird system, which is pretty much kept around for tabletop nostalgia.

Anyway, here's four turnbased I personally liked:

Jupiter Hell is a simplified traditional roguelike, with heavy inspiration from Doom. (it couldn't call itself Doom because, you know, copyright) it got the random hit chance, but still, this is one of the most badass turnbased out there.

Inscryption is a card game / board game with fair but brutal rules and an extremly creepy feel.

Spacechem Insanely deep chemistry-themed puzzle game where you must invent your own solutions. Crazy hard and crazy immersive.

Into the Breach Turn-based strategy simplified down to a playfield at the size of a chess board and no random hit chance. You're able to see how your enemy is going to counter-attack, something which grants quite a bit of depth. A lot of times, the turns feels like a hard but moderately fair puzzle.

One of the issues I’m trying to get past is the fact that my character has to just stand there and take it when an enemy is hitting them, then said enemy politely informs me they are finished and will stand in place while I retaliate. It’s like a violent game of HORSE, except with weaponry instead of a basketball and I find it difficult to remain immersed.

Well, all games have their abstractions in service of the overarching goals of their systems. It's ridiculous in a cover shooter, for instance, that your damage will heal over time if you go for long enough without getting shot, and that you can tank so many more bullets than the NPC baddies. But the cover shooter game wants you to have fun shooting, the intent is to challenge your aim and your reflexes in short bursts without bogging you down with managing an inventory of healing items or whatever. So regenerating health it is!

Same for turn-based games. The character isn't REALLY sitting there waiting to get whaled on (though I'm sure this is obvious to you, haha), it's an abstraction of the action because the system intentionally removes reflexes as a factor. This allows for potentially complex systems, and for me that's the fun part: at the core of it most turn-based games are basically big logic engines of interacting rules, and the test is choosing the right action to make the most progress towards winning. You have to see how the rules to resolve around your choice and how the opponents make their choices in order to understand the state of the battle - that's the key to predicting what choice will lead to the best outcome.

On writing this I've realised it might be a bit like reading a book versus watching a movie in a theatre. With a book you can stop whenever you want to look something up, and you have to fill in the actiony gaps a bit with your imagination.

First of all d10 is literally calling out a dice roll of a 10 sided die. A lot of times you will see two numbers around the "d" for instance 3d4, 3d6 or 2d10 each of those represent rolling 3 four side dice, 3 six sided dice, or 2 ten sided dice respectively.

Now to actually getting in to turn based games. Sarting out with a game that is psuedo turn based might ease you in to the genre. Maybe a game that uses an ATB (active time battle) system would help with the feeling of just waiting for the enemy to do their thing then responding. In an ATB system there is a time bar which progresses and actions can be made after a certain amount of time. That's not a great description but it will probably be easier to understand if you just watch a video about it. Several of the final fantasy games use this system. They tend to be quite long though so I would recommend starting out with something like "Child of Light". While you are still ultimately just waiting for your turn there is a bit more nuance to it.

You could also try something like "Dragon Age: Inquisition" which can be played in real time or paused and played more as a turn based game. You can start out playing it more as an action game but when things start to get a little crazy you can pause the game and play it almost as a turn based game where it will be easier to set up something a bit more tactical.

Hopefully you can find something that will make it click for you because there are awesome stories in some turn based games. Like you mentioned though it might just not be for you. There's plenty of other games and media out there and it's not worth spending your time on something you just dont enjoy. Good luck.

I realized a while back that I’m kind of in the same boat. I don’t hate turn based combat, though, I’m just indifferent to it. I have never bought a game because it has turn based combat but have turned many down because of it - though to be fair it’s more because of the assumption that they are time sinks rather than bad gameplay.

My solution was to start looking for the things that I did like about those games and scrutinizing them based on those. The biggest thing for me is story, and that’s honestly a hard thing because it’s hard to judge ahead of time if a story is going to be something you would enjoy. Final Fantasy used to be a pretty good source but the last decade or so has been full of disappointments. This is one of the biggest reasons why I don’t buy games when they are new: I need to see what people are saying about it first.

There are also games where the normal turn based gameplay has been tweaked enough to make it more engaging that I can enjoy for at least half the game, but they have never managed to carry me through the whole thing, and I don’t think from your descriptions that you would find them even that interesting.

You might want to take a 45 degree turn from turn based RPGs to turn based strategy games. I find them much more engaging. Some of them are pure strategy and have little to no story, but I like the strategy RPG genre, where story gets a front seat. Try Shining Force; it’s more RPG-like, and it’s fairly easy and forgiving so it shouldn’t be too frustrating.

Maybe you could try this mobile game I've been getting really into. Its called Slice and Dice. It's a simple turn based battle game. There is no story for the turns to feel like they are keeping you from. It's just pure turn based strategy. 20 battles with some random changes each game so you can play it over and over like a rogue-like.

Somehow it's just really well balanced. It has simple low numbers. Like most swords start at 1 damage. Most of your characters have 4-8 hit points. But there are items and modifiers that can stack and make interesting and powerful combinations.

The game tells you exactly what is going to happen each turn. You know what each enemy attack will be before they do it and you can plan your turn to shield their attacks or kill the enemy who is going to do the most damage first. It's similar to "Into the breach" if you know that game, which is a great game as well. But "slice and dice" is even simpler, and so I think plays better on mobile.

It makes turn based combat seem more like a puzzle, and less like just taking turns bludgeoning each other. I found I really started enjoying the game when I stopped trying to kill the enemies ASAP and Instead just took my time looking at all my options and doing whatever felt most clever or efficient. It really rewards patience, I find if I'm playing and feeling frustrated I just put it away and play or do something else. Then come back to the game when I'm calmer and not in a hurry.

Maybe something simple like that could help you find enjoyment in turn based stuff?

I play strategy games more often than RPG's, but in general, pacing can be difficult in turn-based games because the more decisions you have to make, the longer each turn takes. If there are 4 characters in your party, there are more decisions to make for them than if there were only one character.

Also, these games tend to assume you want to know what every opposing character did and they use animations to show that. Often, only one action gets shown at a time even though there's a lot of things going on.

To get a faster pace, there need to be fewer decisions. I've played a lot of Compact Combat, which is a simple strategy game with a limited number of moves per turn. More recently I'm getting into Ozymandias, which is somewhat streamlined because it has a "simultaneous moves" dynamic. You schedule what you want to do on your next turn and so does everyone else, and then they all happen at once.

By contrast, Civilization has extraordinarily bad pacing, because you get more units and have to make more decisions per turn as the game progresses, and so does everyone else.

I'm in a similar boat but I got a steam deck and I finally beat a RPG with it because even though it was boring at times I could play at my own speed and leisure and it made it worth my while. Disco elysium and Octopath traveler were the perfect games for me.

I used to imagine it from the perspective of my 10yr old self thinking my chess board pieces have come to life on a game board or if I am playing with action figures, I only have two hands, so I can’t make everyone attack at the same time.

Some Options:

Child of Light - A few have mentioned Chrono Trigger. If you do get around to playing it and enjoy it, or want a shorter game with a similar style combat, then Child of Light could be a game you enjoy. This game is all about trying to manipulate the ATB type system of turn base fighting, to get certain things to happen in certain orders.

Kingdom Hearts - While it does have a story, it’s pretty crazy, but if you really want to break free of the turn base formula, then there’s always Kingdom Hearts if you like Disney or Final Fantasy.

The Banner Saga - This one also adds the top down grid aspect of it. You don’t get a game over if you lose a battle, but instead there can be consequences for failing that will effect the story moving forward.

The World Ends with You - I played this back on the DS, so I am not sure how the ports work. It’s a turn based game where you have two characters fighting at the same time on two screens. You focus is split between both characters during the fights.

Maybe it's just the turn-based RPGs you can't get into, OP. They are a different beast anyway due to the complexity from the RPG layer.

If you're talking about turn-based in general, the gateway for me was Kikoskia's XCOM playthroughs. Specifically, I think it was one of the Antarctic challenge ones. He played XCOM in a decidedly un-XCOM way that did not look tedious, and that made me want to try it out. Then after XCOM, I had to try other flavors of course, e.g., Civilization-style, Into the Breach, Invisible Inc.

If your issue really is with the turn-based mechanics, maybe a perspective from a different playstyle or different type of turn-based game might help get you into them more?

It’s like a violent game of HORSE, except with weaponry instead of a basketball and I find it difficult to remain immersed.

That's an alarmingly accurate description of turn based strategy and RPG games.

I wonder how you feel about turn based board games, since there's not really a way beyond storytelling/imagination to make them more immersive.

I don't like turn based games. But two things get me into the genre (for some games at least):

First is Shadowrun Returns. It has a good detective story that kept me hooked (although most people would say Dragonfall have the best story in the series) and XCom style combat. I played on the lower difficulty and it'll skew the RNG chance in your favor a lot. Like a 10% sniper chance that I can rely on 50% of the time to be a crit. It doesn't feel good when your 99% attack chance in XCom misses, while in this game's difficulty you would never miss the 99% shot. I still don't like the hacking sections though, and the last game make it a realtime stealth.

Another game I like is the Trails series. It has a series-wide story that span over 10 games now, which is unheard of. The world building is cool - town NPC have their own life story and all of them move around with new dialogue after every major cutscenes. It's full of anime tropes and subversions, including fanservices that get worse in later games (although the last game now make those scenes optional). The JRPG comes with long animation (>20s) for magic spells and ultimates, but the English release adds turbo and skip animation which I always use. The game eliminates grind with catch up system where you'll get large amount of XP if you're behind, and 1 XP if you're far ahead. I think the easy difficulty is perfect for me. Not hand holding or cheat like Shadowrun, while still be challenging.

It sounds like the core combat is your biggest block here, so longer and more in depth stories may not be what you need to start getting into the genre. So instead, I'm gonna turn the focus away from story heavy games to an older game that's almost fully focused on gameplay. In fact, this is the game that got me into turn based RPGs as a kid, and what I think might be worth a try if you haven't already, is the original Paper Mario. I don't know if you have any Nintendo systems or means to play it, but I found the design so fun back then, and so fascinating now.

Yes, it is turn based. The numbers in combat are small and rarely go over 10. The premise is simple and the story is predictable. But it is still one of my favorite RPGs to date. It takes the basics of turn based combat and layers many systems over it to keep players engaged.

The biggest thing is that it implements a system called action commands, so while you are still going to take turns attacking and taking damage, you have agency every time something happens. If you press the A button right before you land a jump attack, you get a second jump attack for free. If you press the A button right before you take damage, you can lower the damage taken by 1. And as you keep playing, new timings and commands are introduced, and enemies will start mixing things up to keep you on your toes.

Since you're having a hard time being engaged with the core combat of modern turn based RPGs, I think Paper Mario can offer a different perspective and show these same basic mechanics in a different light, and maybe you could walk away with a new appreciation for turn based games in general. And while the story may not draw you in like Divinity, it still offers a charming look at a world you may be familiar with, but may not have engaged with.

Of course, there is no true simple solution here, and if the game doesn't sound interesting to you either, well that's fine too, but if you're open and able to I think it's well worth the time.

Maybe you should try some turn-based games where just standing there taking hits is something you must avoid at all costs and not just a regular part of battle, and games where there are no dice rolls.

Vactics and Into the Breach are two of my favorite such games.

As for divinity original sin, I highly recommend you play it with a friend or two, bantering and talking about the lore and the moral dilemmas makes it souch more fun.
It also adds another dimension of decision making and nit having all the control in your hands that's more fun IMO

Try some of the older Final Fantasies with the active time battle system, maybe. While it's in normal gameplay effectively turn based, it does add a little bit of pressure and heat that might help you find it more interesting.