TLDR: I did an impromptu givaway of a starter kit of Cyberpunk RED (I bought the kit myself). I didn't include in the givaway a rare Cyberpunk 2020 book cover protector that I had used during that session. Winner of the givaway feels entitled to cover protector and badmouths me to friend, who agrees I should have given him the protector.

So this happened a few years ago, although I only found out about the player badmouthing me a few days ago.

A few days before COVID lockdown in my country was declared, I ran a demo game of Cyberpunk RED using the starter kit (that had came out recently) as part of the "Monthly Roleplayers Meet" (it's a meeting that happens every month in my city, where several GMs come together and run one shots of less known RPGs - so no D&D or World of Darkness or Call of Cthuhluh - so people can try out new things and maybe find a new RPG to love).

The session went well and players seemed to have a good time, but I realized I didn't love the system. Since I own too many RPGs as is and I often need to prune my RPG shelves, on impulse, before everyone left, I decided to do a giveaway of the starter kit to one of those players.

I rolled a dice and a player I had never met (although I knew his name from online spaces) won it. Before I did the givaway, I specified that I would be keeping the dice that came with the kit for myself (since I collect dice and I didn't want to have to buy them after having bought the kit), and that the original box the kit came in was unfortunately left at my house (as I said, I hadn't planned on doing the givaway, and I had decided to leave the box behind because I felt it would only take up space in my bag). I would have happily given it away otherwise.

The players had had no problem with those two conditions, I gave the starter kit to the player, and that was that.

However, I did not expect the problem of ... the cover protector.

To explain: a while ago, a company produced a series of themed RPG book cover jackets\protectors - ie thick plastic covers that could be put on softcover RPG books. There were several and for several RPGs, but I owned a cyberpunk one (themed to make the RPG book look like a Militech field manual). I took it that day to protect the GM booklet (and to make the session feel more thematic) - again, this was because I hadn't planned to give away the kit until the end of the session, or I wouldn't have brought it.

As I am to hand out the items, I (obviously) strip the protector cover from the GM booklet.

It all seems fine until several weeks later, the player that won the kit sent me a PM to tell me he felt cheated because I had "kept the protector too, just not the dice". I pointed out that the protector was not part of the starter kit, and I went to the point of linking him to a site that was selling the protector (I believe that the protector was out of print /sold out and they commanded a pretty penny second hand). I also linked him to the official starter kit site where it listed al the items in the kit to prove to him that the protector was not one of the items included. He didn't say anything else after that, and I completely forgot the matter.

Until recently: while chatting about the Monthly RPers Events (that were about to restart after the Covid Hiatus) a common friend told me that the winning player had warned him not to play with me because I was a thief, that pretended to be generous but that got given stuff for free to demo games, but keeping the valuable stuff to resell.

I explained what happened (and the fact I paid for the kit, I didn't get it for free from Talsorian to demo anything, and wouldn't be reselling the dice or box), but he said it was tasteless of me to not only keep the dice and the box (I would have given the box away gladly, I don't want it, but I never saw the guy again and he never asked for it), but also keep the protector. Still, in his opinion, if I was doing a giveaway it was my responsability to have everything ready to be handed out, without causing confusion, and that if I said I was going to give THAT kit, I should have included the protector at the very least.

I honestly think that's BS, but my friend is a sensible person (normally) and I wouldn't think he'd say something like this unless he thought it was reasonable.

So, AITA for not giving away my rare protector (and the dice and the box) even thought this was an informal givaway and everyone else seemed fine with it?

Am I the bumhead in this…

There were several instances and I’ve been …mulling it in my head …just kind of stewing over everything and I wish to know what other people think on the situations. Context I am a plural system(it’s related to two of the exchanges) People Involved pinkie pie (generally the dm given that name because she loves pink and mlp) and cowboy (he’s …a cowboy and I am uncreative with names in this situation apologies)

Also I apologize for the length alots been on my mind and the situations been building up

I guess I should start with the smallest one in baulders gate 3 me pinkie pie and cowboy normally played together I one time was considering to play rouge, as a means to help myself get over the trauma I have because every problem player I’ve ever had was always rouge..but when I mentioned it pinkie pie just started softly telling me “remember all the problem players remember how uncomfortable the class makes you” and I couldn’t follow through with playing rouge because of that.

Next I have a history accidentally harming my group with aoe which has prompted me to be much more aware of my surroundings with using aoe spells and how to best utilize said aoe. I like to take thorn growth as a means to crowd control. I placed it in this one narrow path as we were running from some enemies that cowboy awoken (in baulders gate 3) cowboy decided to run back and I get blamed for cowboys character being on death saves. When I asked cowboy why he ran back he didn’t answer.

Cowboy wished to romance Karlach and I wished to romance lae’zel I would be teased for wishing to romance lae’zel and told how nobody at all likes lae’zel it bothered me greatly because I adored lae’zel’s story and while I of course found her physically appealing I adored the hardships being a githyanki in the world of baulders gate 3 would give. When I attempted to argue this point I was shut down every time and they’d almost always leave lae’zel to rot and b line to karlach and would start to chew me out to where the protector of my system almost comes out … when I start losing interest (for more then just the romance reasons)

Cowboy and me would playfully attack each other a lot, I found a thing that allowed me to cast create water and started spamming it when ever we’d get into camp. Normally over Cowboy during his conversation with karlach I as per usual am running around gleefully using create water on everything, I used it on top of Cowboy while he was having a conversation with karlach and the conversation ended he suddenly leaves the group and leaves call and I am told in call how important the conversation was and that I ruined it by pinkepie. I start trying to message Cowboy apologizing and he still mad starts venting about it, and while I’m trying to problem solve it turns out we were to far in the fun for the romantic cut scene anyway …yet he never apologizes for exploding at me. Am I wrong for being upset he never apologized?

Cowboy and pinkie pie would accuse me of being a loot goblin; as I do tend to stuff my pockets for anything in the hopes of selling it or giving it to the other members of the group who might need it more then I do. Yet…they run ahead of me take everything from a room and go through every chat option (even though I build my character to be the high charisma high dex character) and Devi up the loot amongst themselfs and Sometimes me if they don’t want it themselfs or if they found a better item …that half the time they don’t even use. This coming to ahead during this one mansion battle I had to leave for dinner so I let pinkie pie control my character from what I was told it was a hard battle my character was near 20 hp. The moment I get back I exclaim that I’m back and instantly cowboy attacks my character putting them on death saves, I get a little grumpy and go into cowboys inventory and grab to things he wasn’t using he gets really angry leaves the game leaves call and I get a strongly worded letter how I’m terrible for doing so from both pinkie pie and cowboy..was I in the wrong? Was I not?

Me one of my other head mates (my host (calling him shark boy)who the others make jokes at the expense of a lot) were playing pathfinder pinkepie was the dm for a homebrew world the sensai to shark boys character came up and was shoved off a large building by shark boys brother me and the host fell asleep as we were exhausted from sleep apnea and have problems falling asleep during the night. The session was already 3 hours long at this point pinkie pie decided to have the group fight shark boys brother without shark boy there. And when questioned why he did so…the reason was “because I wanted to” and that was it that was the extent of shark boys character motivation wrapped up while everyone else’s mine included kept going It was even worse because sharkboys sensai ended up being a talking skull the cowboy and pinkie pie used to mock him. Mean while my characters back story is so lovingly woven in the world that the bbeg is the reason my character is transformed into a warebare. The favoritism being so geared towards me that the group travels to the underworld to save my character specifically because I pulled from the deck of many things 4 times.

Not completely related but i wished to get art of something related to tabletop from a artist and pinkie pie would spend multiple days mocking the persons art suggesting I should comission her instead and insulting the persons art

Am I a bumhead for….not wishing to be cowboys and pinkie pies friend anymore? Am I the bumhead in any of those stories?… if so please let me know I can handle it please be harsh

Again I apologize about the length and bad grammar it’s early in the morning

I joined a DnD 5e one-shot through r/lfg. It is an investigation/mystery adventure in a Norse type of world, but with dnd races and stuff.

This is not going to be some huge blowup with major payoff, just a minor disagreement which has sent my anxiety running haywire and has me feeling awkward and like I did something wrong tho I don't think I did.

I chose a High elf Sorcerer for this, meaning I have access to three languages: common, elven, + other. In talking with the DM, they tell me there's only three languages in the 5e language options that exist here: common, elven and undercommon. So I have access to all three.

Now the character creation is very strict. We were told to do custom background. Usually you have some options for what types of proficiencies you want from your custom background, but this time it had to be two skill/weapon/armor, one tool/tech, and one language proficiency.

Since I already have all the language proficiencies they directly told me are relevant, I ask if I can swap that. First I say for skill, they say no. I say for armor or weapon, they say no, but (and I quote), "Maybe if it was something more cosmetic."

I ask "like what?" They say something about a coded sign language between family members, but my character's whole thing is his wife died so he's all alone. To be clear, all our communications to this point were more than polite, as is often the case in these situations, just being polite to a new person. Then they bring up some side story about how another player swapped her Bard's musical instrument proficiency for a tarot card proficiency, but that's the only situation they can remember that's like this one.

The musical thing got me thinking, so I say, "Hey that's something more cosmetic, I'll take an instrument." They say "I didn't say you could."

At this point I'm taken aback. It's such a minor thing! They specifically said I couldn't have something with utility. Well this doesn't have utility! I say wait so you won't let me? They dodge the question and keep replying about their analogy to that bard, saying I'm not understanding or hearing them. I heard them, but you're not answering me asking for a Lute proficiency. I don't have a performance proficiency so it's still not really utilitarian at all.

They say "no, you can't have one. Is that a sticking point?" I say no it's not a sticking point but it's a weird way to make me feel unwelcome. I variously ask "why did we have that whole talk about something more cosmetic then?" and say "it's a weird way to make a new player feel unwelcome" because the tone of the messages on discord switched hard from friendly to extremely strict and flat.

I know I was being annoying by making a big convo out of one thing, but they also directly implied I could do that thing and then were in my opinion needlessly strict. I started thinkijg of ways to apply it to my character, I wanted to have him use the lute as the one way of expressing his hidden gentle soul, cuz he has a hard exterior ever since his wife died. This is all written down in my character sheet but I don't think the DM had read it yet, I had some trouble getting roll20 to work, not their fault.

Anyways they said they've never had a player get rules lawyery over something so small (I was talking, once their tone shifted as well, in a very formal tone, but I'm bad at confrontation, I'm autistic and I talk like that to make it clear I'm not trying to be aggressive or emotional about it, that it's only a disagreement and nothing more), and that they hoped I had fun in future sessions.

And blocked and kicked me from the server (this convo was in PMs tho) before I finished my reply about how it's not a big thing so I'm fine to drop it because it is such a small thing, but that I expressed how I feel honestly.

Sooooo Am I The Asshole? I can see how I am for making a small thing into a big thing. Heck, I can see how asking for an extra skill prof is greedy, I thought no harm in asking but maybe I should've not done so until I came up with something less utilitarian. I truly thought a musical instrument would be no problem based on everything they had said, but I can see that they were probably against any switch from the beginning and just didn't wanna completely shut me down. But avoiding the topic inflamed the situation cuz I had to ask three times for an answer.

AITA?

I have no ill will towards this DM. I don't want to make them seem like an asshole. They are probably a perfectly fine and reasonable person and we just had an awkward clash of ideas that led to this disagreement, and they didn't wanna deal with it so they kicked me. I accept and understand it. Truly just want to know if I am an asshole.

Firstly, I just need to say that this player agreed to play one of my pre-built characters as she had been going through a rough time and didn't feel like creating a character herself. This character's backstory was that over 2 years her mother slowly changed from a loving and caring figure into an abusive monster towards both her husband and daughter. Ending with the barbarian flying into her first rage and killing her mother. The first arc I had planned was for the party was to return to the barbarian's hometown and eventually uncover why her mother changed. Now, the theoretical second arc involves some consequences for the party's actions. What lead to this was that I had intended to set up an "Orc Civil-War" arc by having an enemy Orc attack a ally Orc by orders of the rival leader. The party would end up ending the fight by pushing the enemy Orc down a 30ft well trapping her down there. I then had the idea of improving a fear of the dark for this Orc because I had her intended to be mentally handicapped and also abused by her own mother, unknowingly making her a mirror of the barbarian. The party decided to completely ignore what I had set up and take the Orc to the barbarian's father because he had already dealt with a similar situation before. The arc would start with the rival leader raiding barbarian's hometown and kidnapping the orc and her father. Which would of course send the party after them. But I feel like I'd be completely leaving the other players out of the story because this is something they only have the tie to this story being "we're the barbarian's friends and we want to help her" and I can't ask anyone in the group because of spoilers. So, I need outside help. Am I focusing too much on her and making her "The Main Character"?

WIBTA if I gave my Barbarian player 2 arcs centered around her?

Hey guys, so I was looking forward to play DnD with a group I already played TTRPGs with. They already had run the first session of their DnD campaign and I asked if I could join for the second one, since playing with them was fun in the past.

However, our usual DM was one of the players this time and one of the former players was DMing. As far as I know he isn‘t very experienced, and this was his first campaign. They already had a Druid and a Warlock. DM was very restrictive in terms of character creation. I wasn’t allowed to roll my character stats, but had to buy them with points because „there was the possibility to roll better stats than the other two“ ok fine. The prefered Rule of determining Attributes is up to the DM.

I was then told, that they need martial power and another „Magic User“ wasnt what they wished for because the DM was afraid I was taking away the Role our Warlock player already picked. Okay fine, I can play a martial class.

Fast foward: my final idea was a Half-Orc Barbarian. Since I like characters with some out of combat utility (and hate it when the full caster of the group doesn’t bother picking identify). I thought about taking the ritual caster feat at Lvl 4 and picking Wild Magic as my subclass. Background was that my barb was part of a criminal organization that „collects“ and sells magic items.

DM was fine with the Character Idea, but told me that I have to speak with our warlock player about picking the ritual caster feat. Since I was already a bit annoyed from the previous restrictions. I told him that even restricting what feats I am allowed to pick just because another player might feel offended is a bit mean. He responded that I was being mean for forcing a wild magic barb on them because they said „no magic users“ before. I asked our former DM (now player) about the situation and explained that I have to think about playing with them again, since that was kind of a red flag for me.

Yeah, former DM told current DM. And now he kicked me out of the group for being a red flag player for trying to „steal another players role“ and „min maxing“.

Oh and for context: the information that I was given, is that said Warlock player was going for a Sorc multiclass EB build. If I was told „Tomelock with Book of Ancient Secrets“ I would kind of understand what the problem was.

AITAH?

Hi there, DM of a game here and I am just looking for a bit of feedback on something that has been going on for nearly a year. I have a group of 5 players and there is one, let's call her Sue, that is always on her phone. I don't mean this like checking her phone for messages. I mean, not my turn? Phone time! My character isn't in this conversation? Phone time! And then every time it comes to her turn, Sue asks what's going on. Mind you, this campaign has been going on nearly a year now. The breaking point where I implemented my new rules is I had a map with red squares added to them and said "These are your objectives. The more you save the higher the payout." That got everyone's attention as several people, Sue included, were vying for upgrades that needed a lot of money to get. Initiative is rolled, and we begin. Note: most of us have our Webcams on as we are doing this, Sue asked that so she would feel more immersed. I look at Sue, who is on deck... only to find her on her phone... again. I call on Sue for her turn, phone goes down and she asks, "What are the red squares?" I explain and combat progresses. Turn 6, combat has been going well, Sue is on deck on her phone, her turn arrives. "What are the red squares?" She asks. I can't answer so I briefly leave the call to compose myself before rejoining. Sue leaves the call 5 minutes later, doesn't say anything, doesn't message me or anything. Combat wraps up, money is awarded and I ponder my dilemma.

Posting a new channel is Discord, I post 5 rules and their adjacent consequences and ask all members to comment stating they've read it and agree. Cue Sue's message to me. She starts freaking out that I am targeting her and that it is hard to focus because of her ADHD. Sidenote: I too have ADHD and understand, but this has gone on long enough. To make matters worse (or better according to my other players), Sue refuses to play with us until I issue a formal apology to her for targeting her with the rules. The rule in question was: If you are on your phone on your turn and ask what is going on, your turn is skipped. You should be paying attention, especially in combat. Sue took this as a personal attack as I have to call her out on it a lot, but the rest of the crew is guilty as well.

It has been 3 sessions since Sue has "left" the party and each day demands I apologize to her for hurting her feelings. I replied with "I will not apologize, you will apologize to me for always being on your phone. That is very disrespectful to me as a DM." Sue did not take that well and we haven't spoken since. AITA?

UPDATE: First off, thank you all for the kind words and helpful advice. Now, for the reason most of you are here. I have yet to apologize to Sue and it seemed her character met a terrible end at the season finale of our session. Something about being Force Choked and tossed aside like a ragdoll (felt good btw). Sue decided to reach out and ask when Season 2 would start, so she could plan her character accordingly. record scratch yep, you all read that correctly. Sue thinks everything is kosher and she is allowed back at the table. I asked her what she meant by her character, and she went on to explain her idea. I interrupted and asked again. "What do you mean by your Season 2 character?" I ask. She trys to tell me again about this long lost, Force-sensitive princess (Doing Star Wars 5e) and a bunch of main character BS, also asking for a lot of things you would NEVER start with. I am a DM who likes to have fun. But giving a Force Sensitive Princess access to some high level juju "because it fits her backstory" is where I draw the line. I waited for her to finish, then she asked where the invite to the room was. I told her there was a reason she didn't get one, and hung up. Fast forward to yesterday, Season 2 is ready to be kicked off, new characters, same players, new server (still had that new server smell too) and we were ready. I looked to discord and saw Sue join the old server, right as I was deleting it forever. I got a message that went something along the lines of this. "I do not think I can be friends with you based on your childish actions. You say I'm allowed in Season 2 (when I first started talking about it), then you delete the server while I'm in it. You need to grow up and learn to be an adult, which is rich coming from me, 10 years your junior. Maybe after you reach a maturity I can tolerate, we can be friends again." This is word for word what Sue said. I was doing the opening crawl (Star Wars needs know what I'm saying) as I read this and simply pause. She had a lot of nerve saying that to me. To further pour gasoline on this firestorm, I sent an uno reverse gif with the caption. "Maybe if you applied that feedback to yourself, you'd be in Season 2." Before blocking her. I got a few messages through friends of friends, basically telling me I'm an AH and how dare I do what I did to Sue. Most of my friends, whom Sue thought would rally around her, told her to kick rocks and blocked her too. And so, Peace was restored in the Galaxy.... but not really these characters my players made are gonna be FUN!

First of all, let me give you the famous context: I've been narrating this campaign since the beginning of this month on discord and honestly, I've really enjoyed mastering this campaign and my players really enjoyed it too. It was a campaign in conjunction with another DM where my players were the antagonists of the campaign of the players of this other DM and as the sessions went on, both would get into conflicts until the final battle arrived at one point or another. Until recently, due to one of my players going back to school and he asked about how he would probably have to leave the RPG. I tried as much as I could to change the schedules so that everyone could play but I couldn't. The problem that this creates is that the players agreed that the characters would be brothers and that they would be the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the fact that one of the players left left me very discouraged to continue. Then another problem arose: I'm also going back to school and I have to focus on studying to get into a good college through a scholarship or get into a public one and for that I have to pass an entrance exam and I would like to focus on that, but with the fact that I'm a RPG master I felt that I wouldn't be able to focus on either and would end up delivering a terrible game to my players, this ended up contributing to the decision to end the campaign. The question is: Am I the asshole for ending it?

So I've been in a campaign with this person for over a year. At first it was three but now we've gotten 3 more players for a total of 6.

Well being one of the three originals, another who plays a barbarian and the other plays the ranger. Implying a warlock. I'll refer to them by classes.

At the start it was decent, the ranger would kinda take charge all the time and would need a bit of convincing from myself and the barbarian so we didn't get a tpk on some occasions.

Well recently we picked up a fighter, cleric, and a paladin.

Now it's been over 6 months playing all together now but the Ranger has stepped up and pretty much ordering what everyone should be doing and how we should play and always talking over or constantly interrupting the dm when he's trying to explain something. Example would be "so you enter the tavern and you.." ranger "who's all there how many people do they look dangerous" before he even has a chance to explain the scene.

The fighter and the barbarian have started to quit rping unless the ranger is not attending and it's frustrating.

Are we going to be the assholes if we start "in character" make coments about the plans and such? We don't want the ranger to leave (well i dont) But some have been starting to get issues with the ordering what the party will do every time there's a decision.

So about two years ago, I (25F) decided to join a LARP group in my area. It's a very intense campaign and it was already two years in, so I was a late addition, but I was nervous to join since one of the game masters, let's call her Vera (31) is someone I always had a really bad feeling about, and I doubted her abilities as a game master. I might be judgmental but she always looked like a crackhead to me, and is also a very vulgar person, so I kept my distance. Aventualy I got very warm recommendations on their game and decided to give it a chance. As time went by I tried giving vera a chance as well. It didn't come natural to me because she is a very aggressive, vulgar and kind of a bully, but a lot of people like her so I assumed I might try seing past first appearances and find a way to get along with her. I never tried being a friend and still kept my distance, but I found some good qualities in her to apreaciate and was always polite to her whenever we had to interact.

Another importat background, this game also had a very major online section. In between the live events we had a very active 24/7 discord roleplay server. I will not lie, it was very addictive and I was there a lot. A thing we sometimes did, if the game masters approved, was to enter with another anonymous account to play a mysterious character, if our character is in costume for some reason. It was always cool to try guessing which player is behind the new character. A game master? A new player? One of the active players? It became a part of our game colture. I did that as well once.

In time, many players left, and many of them with complains about Vera's behavior. I expirianced and witnessed some of it as well, but the last straw was discovering something awful that she did to my friend (who already left the game duo to this reason). I was so shocked and discussed that I considered leaving myself, but discovered, to my surprise, that Vera is no longer part of the game team. Actually, not part of the game at all. I bigen feeling safe again and decided to stay.

I was still really sad about my friend leaving the game, but was comforted by the fact that a new player joined instead. Let's Call her Angi. She seemed a very good and expirianced roleplayer and I was glad to have her there. We haven't met face to face yet, but we started talking out of game a lot, mostly about the game but also about music and such. She told me how she got into the game, that it was her first LARP and how cool she thought it was. Me and Angi started roleplayng together almost every day, and I was really excited to finally meet this new player in the next event.

A couple of wierd things about Angi. She refused to say her name. Angi claimed to be a gamer that never been to a LARP event befor, and so not comfortable sharing her name with people online. I thought that was wierd since we were going to meet up soon anyway but I let it slide. The other thing is that she had an absolutly absurd amount of XP. I thought she might of misunderstood the rules but she claimed the game master allowed it to her because she joined very late in. I believed her, and thoughts it was just a questionable Choice by the game master, but I didn't question her on it. Mainly because I didn't want her to feel guilty by a mistake someone else made.

The result of her XP overload, was that a lot of players didn't believe that she was actually new, but rather a game master or a masked player that was pulling a stunt. Some even asked me who do I think it could be, and I always have the same answer: she couldn't be a veteran, because I talked to her and she specifically told me we don't know each other, and if it was a veteran it means they are straight up lying to my face and making up stories, out of game, and making up a fake out of game persona, which is a completely unacceptable behavior and what kind of a veteran player would of done this. Little did I Know.

I aventualy confronted the game master about giving a new player too much XP and breaking the game, and he basically told me she is in fact, NOT a new player at all, and suggested I confronted her about this. This game master, BTW, is Vera's husband!

I confronted her, explaining that I know that she lying, and feel very hurt and uncomfortable. Angi then exposed her identity as Vera. i was in complete shock. My new "friend" was this older creepy woman in a mask. In response she explained that she knew people had bad opinions about her, and didn't want to be treated badly by people who disliked her as she decided to return as a player and no longer as a game master, and that's why she created Angi. She then proceeded to call me a bully for excluding her once I found out about her identity (I did not such thing, I simply told her I didn't like being lied to) and that I was a hypocrite since I "did the same thing" (played a hooded character in the past) and accusing me of changing my entire behavior just because I don't like her, and that I was perfectly fine with playing along her before knowing who she was.

She proceeded then to claim that she technically didn't lie to me, because she never told me a fake name, shared her real age and only changed details about how she got into the game. I honestly feel extreamly gaslighted by her, she did lie, a lot, and I could easily roll back to previous messages and find many fals claims she have made. I admit to have lashed out about her, I demended her to own up to deceiving me and to apologize, and take responsibility for what she had put me through. She did not such thing.

I wanted to complain to the game masters, but unfortunately she is married to the main one that just got mad and completely took her side, as expected. Unable to find any support around that incident from the game team, I decided to quit since I did no longer feel safe in that inviroment.

She aperently made a whole post in the server after I left, exposing her identity and claiming that not wanting to play with certain players is considered bullying, and is extreamly unacceptable in the game. Some other players supported her. In her story, I'm a bully and she is a victim. So, AITA?

Hey everyone, I wanted Ask the question would I be the a* hole if a charged players to play. On Roll 20 I would only see alot of pay to play games on the site and I would say to myself "Why" I understand for some it is a job but now I wonder if I should charge in the future because of so many flakey people. My idea is to charge a one time fee because I notice this type of behavior with free games. People sign up and drop out. I self reflect each time and think what did I do to cause the player to leave, but the leaving player would say" the game is not for them" or just ghost the whole party. Thus causing me to stop the game for everyone else who did show up. Just in case your think hey this is what session zero is for. I did that with each player that left and told them the type of game we are playing and my style of play. My thought is if you paid money i.e 15 bucks if you dont like the game refund you ten and we keep playing without you. Would be the a hole if I charged new players 🤔

Sidenote this not for my current running just me as a DM moving forward in a new game.

We're getting about as many karma farmers as actual tabletop game disputes. I want to be able to report them for something but their offense doesn't fit neatly into any of the existing categories.

Help me with my dilemma please

How do I politely tell my Friend/DM I don't want to switch laptops???

Background: I play ttrpgs with a group of friends. We play in person but with laptops. Every now and then we all take turns dming. Lately every session My friend DMs he always asks to switch laptops bc "His is trash and can't run properly" (his words). The issue is that I'm tired of using his laptop bc I flat out just dont like his laptop and on top of that I have to re-sign in to everything after im already set up. I keep telling myself it's for the good of the table but he's the only one who does this and no one else does. Please what do I do??? Or am I just being selfish???

Hello new to the chat and I want to make this short. I started a new group and I love to improv and be flexible with rules. I studied the lore of the forgotten realms and monster lore trying to keep close to it but still use my characters backstories as well. I informed the players that I wanted to play a hex crawl and they were fine with that. So I make a setting in a gold rush type of setting where higher leveled heroes killed a dragon at its lair and a small town is building itself around the area of the lair to take resources from the cave. We played two sessions and I found some of the players confused about what to do? I understand it could be a lot for level one characters so I showed them the different guild's and jobs they could do, but still some players are waiting for me to give their character a purpose in life or something. My whole goal was to build a town around the actions of the players i.e Fable but I just lost one of the players because he said it's not his "vibe." Am I the asshole for not putting the game on rails?

Adding on: The players don't talk to each other in character either which is weird for me I never been in a group that doesn't talk to each other.

So for context I have been a player for about 3 years, and not to long ago I had an opportunity to dm for the first time in one of DM's custom worlds.

After some brief story boarding and creating a custom item that would be important for the main quest line I start up the session with about 3 players. For the first while everything goes fine, but session 5 or 6, one of my players (who we'll call Charlie for this story) let's me know that someone he knows will be able to fill in a spot. For context I already knew about this player who we'll call Derrick, what Derrick is, is your typical incell (ik surprising.) Derrick joined about halfway through our session, the party was supposed to meet him in a zombie riddled city that they were traveling to however the party decided to chase a "squirl" so instead I summon him in through the "squirls" campfire. After combat I encourage the party to talk with one another in character, and after a while Derrick decides to castrate one of the enemies, a little weird but I let it slide. Incident #2 The next session they arrive in the city, watch towers are on fire, and there's obvious dead guards laying around the gate, not 5 minutes after clearing the gate Derrick begins to castrate the guards. At this point its been 2 sessions in a row, and for a character with a neutral good alignment I found it strange but I keep my mouth shut and just let the players voice their concerns. After this Derrick decides that when the turn timer is on he's going to derail the session and talk about anything else other then dnd, I timed it because I was curious about weather or not he'd be able to get back on topic on his own. It took 15 minutes, and me having to step in because it was getting ridiculous. This happened 3 more times, all on his turn. After this I impliment a strict 3 minute turn policy, and on more then one occasion I had to end Derricks turn because he just didn't use it.

Intermission: this post Is getting longer then I thought, make sure to reup on whatever drink you have.

After this the part cohesion completely fails. Charlie, decides that hes going to abandon the party to "drunkenly" wander, Derrick is off castrating whatever isn't moving, and my other two players who I've known since HS, are forced to continue at half capacity.

THE LAST SESSION: At this point I had already talked about my concerns with Derrick and he'd offered to kill the character (completely unnecessary) I instead offer him to just stop castrating everyone he can see and limit it to only his enemies given his alignment was neutral good (a position that if the campaign continued I would've changed forcibly since at this point the charlie and Derrick had racked up enough bad deeds for the party to almost make me turn it into an on the run one shot instead of a campaign.) But he's insistent that I either kill or capture him. Then shortly before the session starts Charlie let's me know that he made a change to his custom class character, essentially he saw what one of our barbarians was doing and thought it would be cool to have a table of random effects, one such effect was apparently the ability to Teleport anyone from anywhere, I let him know I'm uncomfortable with it and he agrees to not play it... or so I thought because the first time he pulls a card, guess which one it is. That's right and he wants to pull one of the evil characters that sent them into the campaign. I lose my shit and out right tell him no, and nearly end the session there.

Anyways idk why but my final straw was when Derrick asked when the next level up would be. (All they had to do to get it was go up a mountain that they had refused to go up for about 3 sessions, or fir those who want more specifics, 9 hours of play time.) At this point I just break and ask if any of them actually wrote down why they were coming. Charlie who had issues with digital note taking informs me he hasn't been taking physical notes even though it was well established his digital notes weren't saving. Charlie joined mid way through the adventure so he has a pass, and the rest of my party just either wasn't there when the quest was given, or are so new to dnd they didn't know they were supposed to.

At this point I'm so pissed off at both Derrick and Charlie that I skip out on next week's session and ask the other two players (my close friends) whether they even want to keep going given what the other two have done. They decide no and not to long after I send a message letting everyone know, the icing on the cake for me was when Derrick replied to the announcement with "there goes the majority of my ability to be social".

Was I the asshole?

I'm a 39-year-old Changeling disguised as an Eladrin travelling with a group up towards the city of Aglarion for a festival known as "The King's Games". One of my companions is quite an oddity if I must say. They have the lower half and the ears of a cat much like the Tabaxi, but a human-like face and torso. During our introductions they said their name was "Summer-Breeze. One night around the campfire during a watch that me and Summer had taken together, I decided to ask about their odd appearance and whether they held any relation to the Tabaxi. Summer then proudly exclaimed that they were a "Taboshi" something completely separate from "those cat-people". Here is where I might have been the A-hole. I then said, "Just so you know, I am never going to call you that....." and I was going to continue but a yawn came over me at the worst moment, stopping me from continuing what I was saying. Then Summer got angry at me, calling me rude, disrespectful, and ungrateful for what they had done for me. I then said, "Please let me finish what I was saying. I was going to say that I'm not going to call you that, because I already knew your name. Calling you by your race and not your name just seems redundant and an act of disrespect itself. Please refrain from jumping to conclusions so fast." Summer then hmphed and sat back down, this time facing away from me. They haven't talked to me since and it's been multiple days. But no one else in the party has said anything, so I don't think they've told anyone yet.

So, Reddit: Am I The Asshole?

Edit: This post is being made from the POV of my character, not me the player. My character is asking if he's the A-hole, not me.

So here is the context, my friend group has been playing dnd together for about 10 years or so and last year my DM started up what was supposed to be a short campaign (~10 sessions) where a lot of characters would die. The start was pretty rough but with how short it was supposed to be it was manageable, however the DM decided to surprise us and turn the short campaign into a full fledged campaign where the characters who lived were going to be our characters for the full campaign. This could have gone better however we wanted to see where the DM was going with this. Additionally its important to note that the DM told us that none of us were allowed to switch characters so we have to play who survived, and that was after we made them.

Only thing was this is where the problem started. I am playing a war veteran who has done some terrible things in the past, this will come up later. As the campaign goes on we are shunted through a portal and have to go on a man hunt, and after a while half of the party wants to continue the man hunt while the other half wants to help the people here. Then an invasion from a neighboring country occurs and we are recruited to help with the promise that afterwards we would receive help in our man hunt. Well during this time my character starts to pick up some of their old war personalities which is something they tried to bury deep inside themselves. They don’t do anything too extreme but are willing to put themselves in more and more dangerous situations as they believe they are doing the right thing. Well after the invasion it turns out the government is being mind controlled and we are labeled as enemies, effectively meaning we have very few allies and are forced to flee while not receiving anything and more specifically the help in the man hunt that we wanted.

After this incident my character feels betrayed and no longer cares about the people here. They are willing to go as far as sacrificing anything to complete the man hunt and leave. This causes my character to butt heads with the part of the party who wanted to stop the man hunt and help the people here. The DM saw this and decided to try and run some sessions to get the half of the party who wants the man hunt to care about the people here but does it in a backwards way. For example there was a session where we were going to infiltrate a prison and rescue someone, my character didn’t want to go but after some RP decided to go specifically for the person giving us the mission. I asked in character if we should save others and was told that the mission was to rescue this one person and get out without being noticed. So we go through the mission and when we find the person we get them out of their cell and are about to leave when someone asks if we are going to rescue the other people here. I remind them that we were told to rescue only this one. Well this apparently wasn’t what the DM or this player wanted to hear and it caused them both to get quite angry at me.

I understand that my character is causing some rifts in the party and isn’t being the most cooperative, but this is the character that came out of the short campaign and I wasn’t allowed to switch characters for one that would work better with this campaign.

So with all that said, AITA for how my character changed with the story?

A friend of mine learned I watched Critical Role (don’t be judging) and asked if I wanted to join a one shot with her and her friends. No one had experience except my friend and the DM. The game started and we began a quest, go to a small kingdom and ask for aid to kill a dragon. We were all level 1 so a head on attack against a dragon was certain death. So we went to the kingdom and waited for the king to enter the throne room. While we waited 2 of the 4 of us decided 1 wanted to attack the guards and 1 wanted to rip up the thrones built into the floor. My friend was kind of letting us do our own thing so we could experience the game. So 1 player ran at the guards but I asked the DM if I could stop her. I rolled higher so she was stopped. (I figured if we started a fight with the guards, then the entire kingdom would attack.) The king entered and asked to speak with us as a group but we had to pass a quick test. Me and my friend agreed but the others declined so they had to stay in the throne room while my friend and I met with the king. Ultimately the other 2 lost interest in the game because they weren’t included in the meeting but they tried meta gaming because they’re at the table while the DM was explaining the situation. My friend says she understands why I stopped my teammates from destroying the place, but I’ve told other people and was told “just let people play however they want.” AITA?

I just want to get some other people's opinions on this. For context, myself and my friends usually play DND with a group with about 5 of us in total, including myself, and I usually DM for this. We have a friend/not friend (complicated) who we will call 'D' who has been hanging out with us more these past couple months who also plays DND but in a separate group. D offered to DM for us for a one shot with possibility of turning it into a mini campaign which we all made characters for. D has ran one shots for us before and they went fine but the issue is that this time it apparently did not go fine.

I won't explain too much about the premise of the game for fear of it being very obvious who we are, but it was essentially that the whole world was tasked with making their way to one specific point or end goal before a certain amount of time had passed or the world would be destroyed by an angry god.

Myself and my friends who were players met up in a city in game and were tasked with making our way to that point which we set about doing. We met various NPCs and began to follow the path towards the goal and at the start we ended up in combat with some monsters. We then had to follow the path through a forest and encountered some guys in a wagon who had a map of the surrounding area which the party was unfamiliar with. My character sent their familiar to go to try and look at the map which failed, then they tried to steal the map from them which also failed, so when the party caught up to them we tried again to get the map and figure out our way forward, I know, we are stubborn. One of the other party members disguised themselves as one of the guys in the wagon and we all tried to convince the other guys in the wagon that they had the wrong person with them, which worked with a bit of help from a charm person spell. We tied the real wagon guy up and put them in the back of the wagon and our party member got to look at the map. Obviously the charm person spell wore off eventually and we were kicked out of the wagon but we had seen the map and knew where we needed to go to move forward. We then came to a fork in the path, my character sent their familiar off to look for any trouble up ahead and found that one of the paths had a scary guy who had chains and cages and the other way was clear and had also been the way the wagon guys were going from their map, so we decided to go the other way because of this and as we had all just been in combat and were low on spell slots/health etc and wanted to keep progressing forward the right way. We were asked for a survival check for us to be able to follow the correct path through the forest which we failed. We ended up getting lost and had to retrace our steps and start over, following the right way this time. We got to the end of the path and that was where the session ended. We all seemingly had a good time, apart from one or two issues where D clapped at us to get us to be quiet and one of the other players felt a bit targeted during the combat. D expressed some disgruntlement about how we handled the wagon guys but it was left at that and we all thought it was lighthearted and the standard 'ahh crap that didn't go how I expected it to' type thing (when does it ever?). However, the next day we all got a message in our group chat from D roughly saying they were frustrated with the way we interacted with the session and they thought we were disrespectful to the time and effort they put in and while they appreciated that we are generally pretty chaotic, we were actively disruptive to the content planned.

We were all pretty dumbfounded by this as we all felt we played the exact same way as we usually do (which when I DM I see no issue with but then again I am used to this) and used tricks and things that we had done before when playing our other one shot with D as DM, such as disguising ourselves and turning into one of the NPCs. Part of me gets it because I understand feeling frustrated when you aren't able to use content that you have spent time creating preparing and that you are excited about, but I also know that DND (especially with this group) never goes the way you expect it to. In these cases what I normally try to do is just take the bits and pieces that I have prepared that didn't get used or fully explored and move them elsewhere in the game, or try to find a work around to loop back to it and provide good incentive to go there. Sometimes you also need to make it very obvious that that's where the party should go because it's very easy to sit behind the DM screen and think 'why aren't they following the clues?!' when you have all the information in front of you.

We responded to D trying to explain our point of view which was along the lines of that we were just trying to play our characters true and in a way that felt fun and productive for us and trying to do the best with the information we were given to move forward and reach our goal - it wasn't necessarily that we were trying to be disrespectful to the effort they put in and appreciate that DMing is a lot of work. This however devolved into more of an argument as D dug their heels in and became defensive, insisting that the issue is that we deliberately chose not to engage and stating that we did things that our characters probably wouldn't have done that were evil (a lot of us were chaotic neutral and one lawful evil) and we should have recognised the content and stepped outside of our characters to find a reason to go there. We tried to get our point of view across to get them to understand that we weren't purposefully not engaging with malicious intent or to make D feel that way, it just seemed like the right thing to do for our characters at the time, and due to frustrations at the conversation we, certainly I, probably said some things that were a bit harsh. D pointed out that while there were some things that they did that weren't great (clapping at us) we hadn't apologized for making them feel frustrated, and I don't know if I was wrong for this but I refused to apologize because I didn't feel it was an us problem and we hadn't done anything but (unintendedly) play the game in a way they hadn't expected? It ended with D saying that they wouldn't be DMing for us for a while as they think our ideas of the way we play DND is too different to theirs.

I don't know, I don't think we did anything particularly disruptive or disrespectful, at least that intention wasn't there, and feel like it's more a personal issue with D, but would appreciate some other points of view because I know our group are all very similar and have very similar ideas so it's very easy to get caught up in our own little bubble. I want to state that I don't want to demonise D for this, it more I'm struggling to see what we did that was so wrong. I've tried to put what details I can in here but it is likely bias as its just my perspective on it, AITA?

So this is something that people have gotten upset with me for in the past. My go to characters are usually unaligned or neutral characters with no religious affiliation and actively atheistic.

Key points:

• Often as Adventurers we are killing cultists who worship a dragon (or other powerful creature) as if it's a god.
• Demons, Devils, Angels, etc... are killable.
• Often times the deities are killable albeit requiring magic artifacts to do so.

So what's the difference between an Deity having an Angel versus a King having a Royal Guard?

Pushback I've gotten for this line of thinking is:

• Deities exist.
• Deities can kill you.
• They can give you boons if I worship them, like magic abilities and good fortune.
• If something looks like a deity, sounds like a deity, and acts like a deity its probably a deity.

But in this regard, a dragon or lich could kill me. And if I wanted magic abilities I don't need a deity to grant them and for good fortune there are ways to do that on your own proactively (i.e. a farmer could pray to a deity for good weather or they could work with a local druid to help with the farming or work with a blacksmith/engineer to build better tools).

Additional Background: My favorite DnD setting is Dark Sun which doesn't have deities. In fact a couple Sorcerer-Kings that rule the City-States in setting claim to be Deities though this is a lie to keep their people complacent. One Sorcerer-King has figured out how to ascend to become a deity, but there are modules that are about actively stopping him from doing that.

TLDR: Am I being unreasonable for playing atheist characters?

throwaway bc reasons.

I(17m) have been wanting to play a ttrpg called monsterhearts for a while but I wasn't able to find any people who would do it irl. I turned to looking for an online game but every group was only looking for player that were 18+. I gave my age as 18 to one person who was trying to get a group together and we eventually got enough people to play. we have been playing for a while, but my decision has been weighing on me. I like everyone i'm playing with but feel bad that i lied and am lying to them.

Am I the Asshole? and if I am, what do i do?

I am playing on a Gritty Survival style campaing in D&D 5e, where we are a large caravan (our little town of roughly 30 people) traveling the continent escaping from an army in a low magic setting. Of course, since we are on the run, a good night's sleep are few and far between, and so are Long Rests.

While we are speaking and preparing to resume travel after our third night without propper rest, and he makes a comment of working on a project I haven't heard him talk about "during the long rests" and wanted to roll. I say yo him that we didn't have a long rest, and we haven't had one in a while, and another player (playing a wizard) and I (artificer) would have known since we have spell slots. He replies back that I shouldn't complain so much since I choose that class (he choose a Monk, so his ki points recharge on Short Rests).

My artificer uses a homebrew subclass that creates a magical caravan and bases around it, and I had until level 4 to get that feature, and I always joke-complained in the groupchat, saying stuff like "my pc is homeless" and the like, never as something that really bother me since the campaign and the character worked really well already, and nobody said anything, some even joked as well.

I don't believe I did anything wrong and won't apologize for correcting a known fact at the table, but if you find anything that I did wrong, I'll take any advice into account for the future.

TL;DR Monk talks about working on Long Rests we haven't got in a while, and I (caster) corrects them, Monk shoots back "should have picked different class"

This is my first time writing this in a public reddit post so I apologize in advance if there's any grammar mistake. To be honest I'm still contemplating if this is a good idea but I just need a third party POV for this matter.

I (30F) am an active player for all form of TTRPG especially D&D (and just recently Cyberpunk RED), my GM (49M) had been my long time GM for as long as I first started knowing TTRPG and had been his faithful player. (When I mean faithful I really mean I only ever played at his table and never any other GM but at this point I just want to jump ship) What ever game he run, be it D&D, COC, SW5E etc. I will always be there to sign up for it cause that's how much I love playing TTRPG game. That's of cause until sour poop happen recently.

A little bit about myself and context before I continue (as I hope this might help make more sense in my reasoning). So ever since I first knew about TTRPG, I've been very enthusiastically write stories and BG stories for my character (even when there's no game or that there is no ones else to read about them). I must admit that I'm not the best writer out there, but I always knows how to envision the stories in my head and write them down in Words. Even our GM encourages us to write our BG stories as detailed as possible just so he can rewards us EXP for our effort and use the material we wrote as a story hook or plot for his campaign. (I once wrote a 28pages of BG stories for my first ever D&D character, fun times). We also used to play TTRPG face to face in real life until the pandemic hits and we were all stuck at home, that's where we were introduce to ROLL20 instead and since then it had been our go to site for any form of VTTRPG.

So anyway, early this year we finally ended our four year long D&D campaign and we immediately start Cyberpunk RED (CBPR) right after, and as usual when ever we start our session 0 or session 1, our GM will have us write our PC's BG story, again just so he knows what is our goal in the game and how we will RP our character as per how we write the character. He even specifically said that he will be more strict about how we RP our character in CBPR as that's how the game rules work in order to reward us of Improvement Points (Basically EXP in D&D). So me being me I wasted no time and begin to write about Three + One Extra Page (cause I add in more characteristic info for RP purposes) long BG stories just so I can RP her the way I had already envision her to be. Bare in mind that cause this is in the world setting of CBPR and our GM allows us to go chaotic as we create our PC as long is within limits and not over board with r18 stuff.

What I end up making is that I made my PC as an Exec that used to be a Solo Edgerunner, who eventually got betrayed by her former team mates during one of her gigs. Her entire agenda in the game is to climb up the corporate ladder and assert revenges against those who had wronged her (Cliché I know but I never got the chance to RP that kind of character before so it was supposed to be a challenge RP for me). She had an extreme trust issue with men due to her past experience hence she is always on fence against any men that tried to get closed to her. (All this info will be important later so please bear with me for now)

Now, to be completely honest here, I never played Cyberpunk games ever (Not even CP77, sorry) But that didn't discourage me for trying to learn the lore, the story timeline or even the important characters in Cyberpunk world to insert them into my BG stories just so it doesn't screw up the setting in the GM's world. Here's where shit started to happen.

When I first submitted my BG story to my GM via discord DM, I genuinely don't know what goes into his mind when he first read my BG story but he somehow just chooses to scrap my entire BG stories (that I obviously took the time and effort to wrote) and pretend that version of my character never exist. There was a lot of time left between me submitted the BG story to him and before the actual game start but nope, he never once mentioned anything to me about wanting me to adjust my story or change the way how I will be RP my character and when the game finally started he begin wanting me to RP in a total opposite direction of what I initially wrote in my story. He never ever discuss this with me at all and I'm obviously beginning to feel uncomfortable about him wanting to change how I want to RP my character to suit his 'version' of my character instead.

I eventually confronted him about this unexpected changes to my PC and what was his reasoning? "Oh you did not give enough info of your character there for I am now giving you my own input instead". Like BRUH? Is four page not enough? And what beginning to pissed me off was that he decided to throw me under the bus for saying I never gave him any BG story to begin with aside for the ones he wrote it himself in the my ROLL20 Character Sheet Bio Info section as he pulls out a screen shot to show everyone in our discord channel.

I was obviously taken aback by his action and very annoyed but I choose to swallow up my anger cause I just don't want to ruin this for everyone just cause of my PC BG story. But what end up broke the camels back was that later that day he decided to DM me in discord asking me make multiple changes to my BG story cause is too cliché and it wouldn't fits into his 'ideal' vision and narrative instead. (So he did got my BG story yet chooses to throw me under the bus, that SoB) And this is his word, not mine "Because a scriptwriter (as in me) stuff can be changed by the director (him) to make the story better. If you want to make the story more interesting you should included one of the guys from our game to be your love interest, who is it is up to me. And you shouldn't get angry when I change you PC story, If it was another GM they won't even bother with you BG story."

The lion, the witch and the audacity of this bitch I swear to god.

In respond to that last paragraph he sent me, what I end up doing was that I wrote a long ass essay explaining why I'm not comfortable with how things are going in game and that I'm generally do not want this "romance" being throw into the mix (not especially when I give my PC a specific characteristic of having a huge issue with men in general). He somehow got offended by my explanation and proceed to be pissed off at the most ridiculous shit saying how he can't believe I got so work up and upset over a stupid PC BG Story.

I felt so hurt when he wrote that text in the DM and we end up having (probably the most stupidest) argument over DM in discord and we are currently not in talking terms.

Its been few days now and he continues to pretend like nothing happen and occasionally tag me in discord chat seemingly wanted to prompt me to chat in public with him but I just refused to give any form of respond to him especially after all those hurtful things he said in the DM. Does other players know about what's going on? Maybe, but they aren't too concern with the situation since is not their problem and as long they gets to play the game instead.

At this point I just no longer feel safe being in an environment that a GM would choose to berate a player for wanting to explain themselves. But it also been a few days now and I give myself some time to process the situation in a more level headed mind and I feel like to the matter was rather petty that could be resolve if I choose to compromise my PC story or something and be done with. But if I were to be honest myself, I genuinely just don't like being put in a situation where I don't feel comfortable even if is just for RP in game only.

My ultimate beef about this entire situation was that if you wanted me to RP a total different personality he should have told me in the first place and not wait till the game start and only tries to change everything last minute just because it doesn't fit his story narrative. I just feel that my effort was wasted when I took the time and effort to write up the whole story in my head while still trying to blend in together only to be thrown down in drain just cause he thinks its too cliché and me being stupid for overreacted the entire situation.

When he mentioned the "If it was another GM they won't even bother with you BG story." I don't know how other GM does it cause again, I only ever played at his table so I will never know if that's true or not, but at least from how I met other GM during convention that runs their game that isn't true at all.

So AITA?

So this guy wanted to play at my table. Cool, ya, why not... I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he didn't know... No big deal I thought, I'll help him figure it out...

Turns out it's a huge deal for him as he couldn't understand anything. I'm not making a joke when I say he was like Patches in that one seen we know with the wrench.

I tried for about an hour and a half to get him to snap out of it and give real replies to what I said and did, but he kept being like "Hu? I don't get it..."

The screen shot below shows one of the last bits. I don't care if people know how to reach me on Discord but his name is blacked out.

https://preview.redd.it/666fhhcuiuua1.png?width=710&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d95742fee96bde8914063a4257aebcbccd6c5f7

This event happened a couple of months ago but it still kind of bugs me. I'm a 19-year-old male who ran a D&D campaign that recently fizzled out. The player that this post is surrounding was playing a barbarian that in his backstory, his family was very close to bears, and after some discussion. I allowed that the ring his character possessed could be able to briefly turn him into a Werebear but implemented a charge system and it would consume a bonus action to activate it, to try and balance it out. After the session where it had activated, I went back to Roll20 to look back through everybody's sheets. I noticed that the barbarian had not reverted back to his normal human form despite the time limit having long expired when the session ended. I messaged him about it and at he didn't understand what I was talking about, since it was getting late, I decided to lay it out as simply and understandable as possible. That the ring worked on time limit and a charge system, and the buffs would not be permanent. When I woke up, I opened my messages and saw that this player had adopted a "My way, or no way" mindset when it came to this ring and if the ring was going to work like this, he didn't want it because he was convinced it "nerfed" his character since it did not give any passive boons. I tried to talk it out with him, but the attempt failed, and I was forced into giving in; and thus, the Werebear proceeded to tear through the last few sessions before the campaign fizzled out.

So reddit, AITIA?

I asked my (23M, human) orc gf (25F, orc) to stop deadlifting my family members when she comes over for the holidays because it makes me looks small and weak, and now she and the rest of her clan keep forcing me to run laps and lift whole roasted hogs when I visit for orc holidays. AITA?

!https://balentay.tumblr.com/post/692311253965766656!<

A little bit of context.

I am a DM who wanted to play as a player in a one-shot or short short-term campaign.

I received an offer from admin of one Westmarch server on Discord. I joined the server and rolled for stats there. I then used the stats rolled for my previously created character. It was Chaotic Neutral Wood Elf Warlock. In her backstory, she was wandering around the woods when she met tiefling woman, who turned out to be Glasya, The Archdevil. My character kissed her and became her Warlock and "romantic" partner. Admin of the server immediately said that she can't be my lover. Also, my character wouldn't have found her in the woods, but rather those who work for her. I tried to compromise and suggested Glasya's mortal form, then some illusion or projection, admin said no. I asked why they were so strict about this. They answered that I don't encounter "high-level gods" on material plane. Then I proceed to suggest a trinket from a ritual to Glasya, e.g. locket with mirror as a communication tool. They refused, stating that my character couldn't talk to Glasya and she would need to work to notice her in a game at later levels. I asked: "How would I strike a pact with her, if I haven't spoken to her?". The admin is strict and they mention that my character could only encounter Glasya from 3rd parties. As further compromise, I stated the idea of my character founding the arcane focus and gaining the powers from that, while Glasya would just sense the arcane focus falling into someone hands. Admin said that my character didn't have a contact with Glasya (even though, I didn't mention any contact) and Glasya (mind you, my Warlock Patron) would only notice my character after she works her way up (then why would I even need a pact?)

Am I the asshole for wanting to maintain a pact with my Warlock Patron?

Edit: Thanks guys. I really appreciate your answers. I left the campaign and my Warlock backstory has been accepted in a different campaign and by a different DM.

I wasn’t either of the involved people but I think it’s hilarious. My cousins, my brother and I were playing D&D. My oldest cousin was DMing and my brother was playing as a Goliath paladin. His backstory was that he technically wasn’t a paladin, because everyone he tried to pledge himself to didn’t want him representing them. It was a really interesting character idea with just the right amount of silly. As the game progressed, my brother abandoned any actual depth of his character and made his sole purpose to get taller (already 12 feed of stature be damned). Every time we interacted with an npc my brother asked them for potions that would make him taller. The DM refused him the first few times, but eventually told him that every time he increases in height, he loses a point in his intelligence stat. That settled him down relatively well. I think it was warranted, because my brother was far from the youngest at the table. He knows better than that and was disrupting everyone who we’re actually trying to roleplay and progress in the campaign. But my grandma who was watching thinks the dm was overreaching his authority. So who was the asshole?