I don't hate D&D, but I did notice how much harder combat gets from DM's side to prepare, and also how much more bored of it the players are. My players started doing everythign to spend more sessions on their own shenanigans, character moments, roleplay and NPC interactions. The thing is we love our campaign and characters, but are too high level to switch systems. So we're taking break to play short Mage: the Ascension campaign. I am now learnign two different new systems, Mage and WFRP, pray for me.

One I did was "joke character who ended up being very serious."

You are aware that most of DnDs mechanics are focused on simulating fights? If you do not like that, you are maybe playing the wrong system. Beyond that, how are you totally useless in combat? All classes get combat-abilities in one way or another and are designed to be at least moderately useful.

The answer is simple : I don’t play DnD. Mostly Naheulbeuk (where the fights are hilarious so I don’t mind) and call of Cthulhu (where fighting often just kills you immediately anyway)

I think of myself as the chaos engine that drives the plot forward. Everyone else in the party would just sit and talk plans forever if I wasn't out here rolling death-saves.

A former foot soldier in the crusades who had a panicked war horse fall on his legs in a skirmish somewhere on the way to Antioch and was left behind in Bulgaria by a retreating supply train on his way back. His shattered leg never healed well and he is in constant pain he has mostly learned to live with, does not speak the language and is edging out a small existence as a gravedigger in a bigger city, dragging his twisted limb through rain-soaked earth, muttering prayers in a foreign dialect to saints no one there worships. Somewhere between Neutral Good and Neutral Bitter, depending on the day. I know it is a bit hammy.