Boulders Gare 3 doesn’t really even have a concept of grinding. There are no procedurally generated encounters and each battle can only happen once.
You could say doing all the side quests and exploring the side areas is a type of grinding but it’s really just “content” IMO.
i’m glad you like it, DnD makes me actively disinterested anymore though.
What part of D&D do you not like? Depending on the specific issue, you could have fun with Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Divinity: Original Sin.
the part where you sit down at the table and it takes all night but it’s 90% keeping yourself occupied while waiting around and nothing of consequence ever happens and everyone loses interest after four sessions max, and this is so predictable and dependable that in 20 years of never saying no to a TTRPG I’ve never leveled up a character
the part where the underlying rules systems are deeply flawed in every edition, down to the d20 being an awful choice for the skill die due to how swingy it is, to the point that you may as well make your own better game from scratch for how much you have to homebrew to make it not clunky as hell
the part where every group has been toxic as hell and defended their bigots to the person until I decided it wasn’t acceptable and quit playing
the part where I would spend a month filling a binder with campaign plans and the average player does everything in their power to intentionally avoid everything I’ve prepared because it’s funny to waste the fuck out of my time or something.
not to mention the setting is the genre equivalent of plain yogurt, it’s just straight up uncompelling and done to death.
i used to LOVE the idea of TTRPGs but in two decades of “giving it a chance” it’s literally never been a good experience.
