Newish to dnd, and a bit of an anxious dude, so while I realize some of this can be handled with a stern talk with the player, all of my little bits of “yo please let me do this” have basically gone over his head.

I’m just gonna keep this relatively short. I made a bard of Eloquence, who’s specifically meant to be a silver tongued con man type. The campaign is very “political espionage/corruption” I guess, idk how to explain it. There is probably an equal amount of combat as there is roleplay, if not a bit more roleplay centered. I was really excited for this, I’d wanted to get more into actual roleplay and had a character I thought would be perfect, starting at level 10 where he wanted us. My bard doesn’t have a lot of combat options, as my DM told me it would be good to have someone who can talk our way out of problems, or into places. Mostly enchantment and illusion spells, almost all utility except for stuff like dissonant whispers and I guess phantasmal force. We also have a fighter, and a barbarian, both of whom said they were just here to fight, and are more playing bloodthirsty fighter/dumb barbarian, not really interested in doing a lot of roleplay (their words). Before I say anything more, i am perfectly fine not being the face of the party, I figure there should be multiple “faces” of the party depending on the situation, and even then in the couple games I’ve played I’ve never been big on talking or roleplay, I was always a bit too nervous. This character is pretty obviously made to sit back, throw out bardic inspiration and some buffs in combat, but mostly talk his way around big encounters were not ready for-again, something the DM said would come up a lot, and has.

Our last player, is a warlock. Again, to preface, he seems like pretty nice dude outside of the game, although I’m starting to think he’s a bit aloof, or just ignores stuff/doesn’t comprehend stuff in the moment, he makes a lot of jokes about having intense ADHD. His warlock, while having a sortve high charisma stat, is obviously made to fight. I have the “silver tongue” class feature- which turns all persuasion and deception checks under 10, into a 10, and also have a +12 to both, and a +8 to insight. I have detect thoughts, friends, disguise self, etc, just a ton of spells to help me talk my way around combat. He has basically all combat spells, and mask of many faces, not even beguiling influence, and no proficiency in deception or persuasion. When we started a few months ago he did mention that he likes roleplaying and is big on acting like his character as much as possible, which has definitely shown. He immediately answers every single NPC without giving me or anyone else a chance to respond, and any time I try to add something into the conversation he almost instinctively pulls it back to mostly a 1 on 1 convo, with me just having “added a good point,” in the first few weeks he barely even recognize that I said it in character, and he’ll just be like “oh yeah” and then repeat what I said in his voice, like it was a suggestion for their conversation. I’ve managed to make that more clear, but he still just takes every convo, while the DM, and the other 2 players don’t seem to mind. To be fair it’s mostly my problem, but when it comes to fights I can’t do anything, while the warlock absolutely can, so he’s basically just handling both at all times,

I’m just gonna run through some encounters-

• a vampire that we met wayy too early through some lucky rolls, and our DM specifically told us “don’t fight this guy, plz, he’s way outta your league right now, but I can’t not have him in his lair.” I got a chance to speak up early and clearly told everyone “I cannot roll low on these checks, please let me handle it.” I convinced the vampire we were sent by the faction he belonged to, and was so close to getting us out. Then the warlock speaks up and randomly tries to also say “the court also needs you to leave and return to their base immediately.” Rolled a 5 and an 8, and we all rolled initiative before I had to chance to jump back in. The DM had to come up with some ex machina shit, making the lair cave in so we could escape, and everyone was just laughing about it after. I guess it was funny, but it was about to be a really fun moment for me that just got ruined,

• we were trying to break into a prison to free an inmate we had to talk to, and the warlock came up with an idea to disguise ourselves as guards and initiate a riot by releasing all the prisoners, but one of us had to pretend to be a prisoner we were hauling in. 2 of us would go in, 2 would wait outside incase things went wrong. I continually said “I have the actor feat, I can definitely pretend to be a guard,” but the warlock decided that since it was his idea, and his character was from this reigon, it would make more sense and be safer for him to do most of the talking. This is where I pushed back hard, I showed him all my stats, compared them to his, and reminded him that we could not fight an entire prisons worth of guards if he got 1 bad roll, but eventually I gave in and just pretended to be the prisoner, I’m not good with arguments. Ofc we are caught at the very first check point, and are both taken into the prison, leaving the barbarian and fighter to find their one way to break all 3 of us out as it all happened too fast for them to react. It all worked out, again I think bc the DM lowered the difficulty a ton, but it annoyed the crap out of me. I did get to say “I told you so” a lot, but still nothing has changed.

Eventually I’m gonna have to DM him and just explain how frustrating this is getting, but I don’t wanna sound like “yo stfu and let me get more showtime!” We basically only talk during sessions though, we met on a discord server and all signed up for the same campaign, and he’s a funny, kindve chill most of the time, but damn I don’t think I’ve done a single real thing in the entire campaign, it’s fkn crazy

So this is sort of a combo horror story/AITA post, because I genuinely wonder often if I'm the one that is the drama. I'll do my absolute best to detail things as objectively and comprehensively as possible. So some backstory: My brother in law was our group's DM (we were all long-time friends, included my ex-wife before we split) and we had played together for about a year and a half in PotA. This was also the DM that allowed a magical item related to my backstory to be stolen from be in PvP just because he decided it would be a straight contested dice roll, and "That's how the dice went!" (this will be important later). I played a paladin who was kind of rigid in his morality, but really did his best to do right by his friends. When my ex and I separated, I took a few sessions away to deal with personal stuff. When I was ready to rejoin the table, I was informed that my paladin was brutally killed in combat the literal next session when I took my break, and that I needed to create a new character. We had 2 or 3 sessions after that before finishing the campaign.

Around that time, I had begun DMing another table through RotFM. When talking about what we wanted to do next, I offered to DM that book, since I was already prepping all the content for my other table, and they thought it sounded great. We had a session 0 where we had pizza, talked about character concepts, and I went into grueling detail about this being a survival horror game, where PC death was a near certainty, in particular if they didn't play it smart. It was about an hour solid of me explaining all the ways in which their characters are exposed to extreme elements in an environment where very few interactions will be friendly. We also had a little ramp-up RP over Slack before our session 1 where the group nearly TPK'd during an avalanche, and one of the PC's more prominent background characters had a whole monologue about the Lord's Alliance standing for civility and process, encouraging her to find ways to resolve conflict before using the end of a sword, etc. The party were still excited about the elements and chomping at the bit to get the campaign going in earnest. The aforementioned NPC was a high-level paladin who had demonstrated her usefulness in healing magic to that point, and had stayed in the base town as a sort of emissary for the party to get started.

During our second session, the group took the Foaming Mugs quest that has them track down a sled full of iron ingots which had been taken by a band of goblins with 2 polar bears pulling their wagon. The group decided to ambush them under the cover of night. They first lied about the ingots belonging to them (horribly failed the deception roll), then when called out on it, threatened the goblins to hand over the sled (horribly failed the intimidation check as well). When they could tell the goblins weren't having it, I had the goblin boss say, "Give us a good reason to let you have these," to which the person in front (the Lord's Alliance rep) said, "You can give them willingly, or we'll take them from your corpses." Rolled initiative. There were several times during combat that I had the boss say things like, "Here is where you run away," and "you're too outnumbered to survive." They just kept going at it. It wasn't until only one of them was left standing with a couple HP left that he decided to try running away, at which point an arrow got him. I was pulling dice left and right, not giving advantage on the hidden archers, etc., hoping they'd figure it out. They just didn't. One PC failed all 3 death saves, the other 3 survived and had their characters wake up in the snow 1d4 hours later with 1 hp and all their belongings having been stripped by the goblins.

In hindsight, I can recognize that as an inexperienced DM, I didn't think it would make sense to stop the combat and ask them wtf they were doing and just tell them they were going to TPK. I still don't think that I should have had to do that, but it at least could have prevented what came next.

The session ended due to time. I told them that they should carry their friend back to town and role-play what happens next. I tried to get them to do it over Slack, and was being ignored. I could tell they were active, but nobody was responding to me. One of them told me that they were having backchannel conversations without me about "how to move forward as a table," which I said was not cool. Then it all blew up. They told me that what happened was unforgivable, that I was abusing their characters to power trip to feel good about myself. I was called toxic, told that I set them up for failure by forcing them into an impossible situation, that they wanted to have fun but I put them into "heroic mode" without their agreement. Two of them quit over Slack, my brother in law specifically telling me, "If this is the kind of game where I die if I don't allow historically evil characters to just walk away with my quest item, then it's not the game for me," and how, "Being told to survive in this setting without any gear or equipment is a fate worse than death." (Yes, this was the same person who, as the DM, killed my paladin while I wasn't even at the table and let an important magical item be stolen in PvP and never seen again). They explained how, as the DM, I am god of the setting, and dice only do what I allow them to do, how I could have changed anything to work out for them, but that I MADE that outcome happen. So I lost it, since the group had already fallen apart, I told them that I was retconning the outcome to give them what they asked for, that the goblins didn't let them live but instead slit their throats and left them dead in the frozen wilderness. Obviously that didn't go over well. We are no longer friends.

Interestingly, the other table I started RotFM with is still together, and we're having a lot of fun with it. I also run 2 other tables, one of which we are making a podcast of, and play in another one. Anyway, that's my horror story. AITA?

Edit: The LA emissary was there to deliver weapons and other goods to the town to help them out, so the party definitely had a means of getting the gear they needed to not just be running around naked. As for the party, it's actually written that there are 6 goblins hauling the sled towards the wagon, which has the goblin boss and several archers hidden inside it, as well as several other goblins on the ground. The party escorted the first group of goblins to the wagon with the sled of ingots, then there, their plan was to be like "hey btw this is actually our sled of ingots, give it or die."

Second edit: The reason I kept telling them to just play it out and get to town was that I had already prepared for their paladin friend to use Raise Dead on their friend and give them some armor and weapons (though admittedly not as good as the ones they had) then send them on a different quest that would help arm them better. It was going to be a longer arc of them connecting with the goblins and forming an alliance, since one of the PCs was literally a goblin, who did almost nothing during RP to try to help prevent all out combat. Also, if you're going to downvote my post or comments, the least you could do is explain why.

Back in October I played my first ever DND session with a few people I recently met in college. This was ran as a quick tutorial oneshot for the people who hadn't played dnd before in the group. This oneshot also helped me as my only prior experience was Baldurs Gate 3 and allot of critical role. The game was fun and helped the others understand it. At the end one of the new players (Who streams to youtube) suggested he DM a full campaign and upload it, similarly to critical role. This immediately set alarm bells off in my head as it was clear he had no idea how to play DND, nevermind DM a full campaign. But he promised to learn the rules and began writing the plot of the game. Fast forward a few months and I keep checking up on the progress of the campaign and hear he wants to set it in gravity falls. With my character being a half elven rogue I immediately began trying to make sure my character could fit in this new game. Now a few weeks later passing on to today. He mentions he is currently writing the campaign while talking to us. We get onto the topic of our paladin and she decides she wants a homebrew god that she worships to be a band she likes irl. Both of us seem completely fine with this and I suggest the idea that the band is made into a group of bards just for immersion, just as before he is completely in support of this idea and loves it. I then begin to talk about my backstory to ensure he's happy with what I have made and decided. Halfway through he simply tells me to be quiet. At first I took this as banter but then as I continued he simply told me to be quiet again and that my character "will be forgotten" as this is his story and I "shall not intervene" as he typed these mid me telling the backstory a few more messages of who he is went through and he once again replied "hush". I then asked why he didn't care and asked if "No character backstory will be included in the main plot?" and he replies "There is just not yours". I asked why and he said there are characters that are more important than mine. He said that the plot needs none of us to have backstories to progress despite this not being a oneshot (which can be fine with 0 backstory) but a full campaign. I asked why he was so supportive of the paladins oath but not my character and he simply said it would "just be there" and would have 0 affect on her character. even saying that she wouldn't even be able to break her oath. I explained that a good part of a paladin is having to follow their oath as it can create good moral dilemmas and he simply says that me suggesting this is "backseat writing" and that I should just let him do his thing and if I don't like it that's a me problem. Although he did let up a bit and said that he would "write something" if I stop going on about it, but this was only in relation to our paladin. I really don't know why he is so against the idea of our characters actually being a part of the plot and not just random adventurer #3 since, in my opinion, this can improve a plot far more. And I hate to be that guy to go "mAtT mErCeR iS aMaZiNg" but just take a look at the briarwood arc. The whole thing is centered around percy but Matt is still in full control of the plot, besides the actions of vox machina obviously, and creates allot more characters than those made by Talisen for his backstory to flesh out his world. I hope I can get him to see that the story is still his even with us having aspects made by us. I more so find this annoying as not but 10 minutes before this argument he was asking me what an insight and perception check was and wanted the players to have to roll to read (Like literally every page, not because its burnt or in another language). Despite working on the campaign for a full month. I still plan to eventually play 1 session but I can already see how this is probably going to turn out.

TL:DR
DM doesn't like me and paladin having a backstory and doesn't want it to be included in the plot as it is his and we cannot "intervene" despite allot of dnd literally being the players intervening. Won't listen to my characters backstory and fake pretends to be supportive of a homebrew oath of our paladin. Calls me a backseat writer for suggesting these ideas. Despite acting like he knows allot about how to write a good DND campaign, doesn't know what a perception or insight check is and wants players to have to roll a check to read.

So am I in the right here for feeling quite annoyed that he wants to ditch our backstories or am I just being an asshole?

I ended up joining this D&D camapaign about a month ago, and my DM has always been weird but not too bad. He has dm'ing experience, even though he doesn't seem like it, he at least claims to. My character was always treated as a joke or the laughing stock of the party, which I don't have an issue with, my first ever character was pretty joke-ish. But where I do have a problem with this is when my character is specifically treated with unfairness that even goes straight up against D&D rules. I don't fully remember all of the details since I was doing something with being in call for the session being a more background task of mine, but this is how I remember the story going. My party and I were in a guild building for one we had planned on joining but before any real decisions were made, one of the DM's most iconic DMPC's walked in and immediately approached my party. The DMPC was a lvl 20 Goblin named Scrupelsac (pronounced scroo-pl-sac, also Idk how to spell it) and he had some history with my character since they had fought before, and he had won by shooting and killing my character but that's a different story. Scrupelsac had walked in, approached the party, and called me his "favorite party member" as he then "grinded against my leg", now this already made me uncomfortable that he did this when I was the youngest party member but we continued. I tried to cast Hold Person on him so I could leave, but then the DM said, and I quote "he throws up his hands and puts up an antimagic field" so I couldn't do anything. My party members then jokingly said "2 silver for ten minutes with him!" and Scrupelsac proceeded to hand them a bag of 100 gold. That's roughly 3 and a half DAYS with my character. After everyone was done laughing at this, I tried to say something about wanting to fight Scrupelsac, I was pretty confident in myself since last time I fought him I was level 3, now I was level 15, but before I got to say that the DM brought up something that doesn't even work in D&D. He said my character was drugged for 3 and a half days straight so he doesn't know what happened, doesn't remember what happened, or know anything happened at all. My character was a paladin, and paladins have immunity to diseases and any ailments, so it would be completely impossible for my character to be drugged, however he just was, and also even if I could be drugged, my lay on hands could instantly cure that, but no, he was just drugged and never got to fight back. So all my character knows is that he was in a guild building, when suddenly time had passed and he was put in a wheel chair. Yes, my character was actually put in a wheel chair, I thought it was a joke but the DM didn't seem to be joking and even described my character to be rolling and not running or walking. Side note, we fought a cyclops in that session, and he just literally cheated. The cyclops was under the effect of Hold Person and Blindness, but the DM described him taking a legendary action and just "shaking off" all the conditions that were on him. That is not an ability that any creature can do. I told this story to my brother, who is the one who got me into D&D, and he strongly advised me to just leave this campaign so on his word I did so, and I felt like posting this story on here cuz it's just so ridiculous. After reading some replies, I’ve been told to add some ages, I am 13 while everyone else in the campaign was adults. I’m pretty sure the DM was in his 20’s, hope that adds some perspective to this.

The DM killed my PC during a heated argument!

This campaign was my 3rd campaign and I am still fairly new to D&D at this point as I had only played one classic 5e campaign and was only playing homebrews. Real names will be changed to nicknames or character names. This campaign happened a while ago and I May slip up on details so I apologise for any inconvenience.

The campaign was a homebrew set in a martial arts school. My character named Nail is a wrestler fighter. The other characters were my friends Cyrus, Sorawind and Jenny (showed up to some sessions but due to a busy schedule could not attend). Our characters were young and attended a school set in our teen years therefore we did not have much of a backstory if not any. Looking back now this is probably the first red flag 🚩 as his DM style was very combat focused and did not encourage RP aspects. (Being a new player I was alienated from role playing but as we got later in the year the campaign got stale and repetitive fast due to this.)

The first session was really fun for all players enrolling into the school. Nail had to fight Cyrus to get into the school, Cyrus destroys my character but due to an unlucky role at the end plot I also knocked him down so we both got accepted. I had a lot of fun during this fight and during the campaign Nail and Cyrus would build a relationship together through combat interactions and story. After the first trial they received a pill each and my character stole a pill from a weaker opponent. Nail fought the NPC and left on a good cliffhanger.

The session was retcon 🚩due to Jenny not attending, I was pretty upset as it was very easy to bring Jenny into the story as a different student from another group. Nail felt very back seated during this session as I was almost replaying the previous session without the fun. Cyrus and Jenny ended up sneaking out of class and investigating an outpost while Nail and Sorawind stayed in class. The session was heavily focused and I was out of the session. Due to this I did ask Cyrus who was way more experienced with downtime and RP how to use my time effectively.

Next session was over discord and I had a discussion with Cyrus beforehand and gave me helpful advice on how to use the down time and I did just that. The session was very focused around Nail and Cyrus and was a fun session. I don’t want to get it twisted because the campaign ended badly from this point. I was often enjoying the campaign and the school aspect. Sorawind had similar trouble not being included in the campaign however this was not due to him being new to D&D but due to him wanting to be a main character. During levelling up he did not take huge power ups and take passive due to him wanting the DM to give him an overpowered weapon or ability that only he can wield. (More on this later)

A 3 year time skip within the campaign our characters had gone from young teen to mid teens and we had been drafted into a war…

So the school campaign took a huge narrative shift which ultimately led the campaign to its demise. The lack of role play and change of narrative the campaign became very combat focused and was repeating a lot. 🚩 the campaign was doing nothing new and from my point of view our own characters became dull or was not given rewards. The campaign would be rotated within the month with another campaign which Cyrus hosted (Alien isolation Homebrew). I think the fresh setting and atmosphere was a welcome change. It made the combat digestible as the Alien campaign made you want to avoid combat as much as possible and solve the rooms/ puzzles. On the other hand the Martial arts campaign was combat focused. Unfortunately the Alien campaign came to an abrupt end due to a character death and I did not get to conclude my character. Even though I am not a huge fan of aliens there was a lot more desire for my character out of others for the campaign. Not only that Cyrus is a huge fan so everything felt like a huge love letter to the franchise. In comparison it felt more like a tick box that the DM was ticking off.

When returning to the martial arts campaign (this may be my fault) I had no idea what was really happening. Players were dragged into the war because our school/ cult did and from here on out the session was dictated by the mood of the DM. In addition when asked about the campaign he did not plan too much and the DM had DM’d himself out in my opinion🚩. We continued the war and I was really disengaged. Jenny showed up to 1 session every two months and seemed to but heads with Sorawind due to a comment made on discord surrounding DnD. Jenny said they were going on holiday therefore could not attend the DnD session which Sorawind replied, “It doesn't make a difference if you show up or not,” In my opinion I think this was the start of a bigger problem but that is another story to be told.

Jenny showed up to the first DnD session after their Holiday and in my opinion was the last good session even though I had poor luck roles and was hard carried by Cyrus and Jenny. We all still had fun doing the session even when Sorawind had to leave midway during the session. Sorawind had not been a major character in this campaign due to him wanting to have this overwhelming advantage which he had finally got. The party hunted down a dragon 🐉 into a quarry. The dragon rested peacefully and we had a rp scenario go on. However I think this moment was completely ruined due to Sorawind fusing with the dragon even though the dragon stated his body could not harness his power. I spoke to the DM about this and asked why he let this happen and he said to let Sorawind do something.

During these last few sessions the DM introduced his DMPC out of nowhere for narrative reasons and had been there all along even though she wasn’t and has gone through 3 personality changes. The war had to come to an abrupt end and this was not our main drive for narrative. The second half of the dragon session I got really invested a murder town mystery that was a unique plot point that was no longer explored. A few sessions after we had made it to the capital city and I just had enough of this campaign at this point. Even though the DM stated he hated NPCs taking control of the campaign he forced our characters to make decisions to benefit his DMPC. However I refused the negotiations and did not agree. We began to bicker and Sorawind came up with an ultimatum to help the DMPC. The DM did not agree and I began to argue I have no relation with the DMPC and refuse to give my goods from the war to her. In the campaign she began to charge up a spell and in character I refused to fight her as my character had no reason to fight this character. I was met with an instant death, no saving throws I was just killed. The DMPC froze Nail into place and could make no effort to get out of it.

I immediately took a breath, gathered my things and left. We were out in English weather and I refused to watch 3 hours of a campaign I was unfairly killed in. Cyrus and Sorawind did tell the DM off and it was a little awkward for a bit. However the story has a good ending. Me and the DM are friends and still are today and if not better friends than we once were. I apologised to the DM for getting heated and arguing and he handled the situation and came to regret it. He explained he had gotten tired from DMing and regretted it a lot. He said the campaign has a few sessions left, to which I responded I am happy to make a new character or play the DMPC to finish the campaign off. We have not continued the session but I am happy to inform the DM is now a player with myself and Cyrus and Jenny hosting as the DM. The new campaign has RP and Great combat and has been a better campaign. Even though our characters sometimes but heads we have great teamwork and chemistry in combat and I’m glad events played out the way they did.

Before I continue, I need to make this clear. My DM is a great person. He's incredibly generous and kind and I know his heart is in the right place. He's incredibly passionate about what he does and is very hardworking. All of this to say, my only gripes with him is his writing ability, not him as a person.

My current DM isn't very good at writing. He's great at planning and making a detailed world, and he puts a lot of effort into his campaign. But he's really bad at making characters. For context, the DM is about 50 - 60 years old (not sure about his exact age) and is a close family friend. My friend and I (both F 18) joined about 2 months ago and things were okay for a bit. I'm not sure how my friend feels, but these are some things I noticed.

My DM has 3 kinds of characters he uses, huge and tough, bad guy, and women. Every character he writes uses one of those 3 templates. Huge and tough is basically every character in our party aside from 3, two of which being player characters. These characters are 6"4 or taller (unless they are a dwarf), 20+ strength stat, and are supposed to be dumb as bricks, but because none of the "hero" characters can have any flaws, they aren't shown as such, leading to them often sidelining the player characters. The "bad guys" are probably the best template, as they're simply people we can fight without feeling bad about it, nothing bad i can say. I can say bad things about how he writes women. If you've ever been on the subreddit r/menwritingwomen , he is exactly like that. Every woman has to have an extreme hourglass figure, and are usually used as a damsel in distress or are seen as objects. He has also told us the exact measurements of every female character we've come across.

If you were wondering how many characters act almost the exact same, at this point, there are 13 characters currently in our party, 7 of which are played by players (2 of us are playing 2 characters,). Out of those 13 characters, 3 are not of the "huge and tough" archetype. One is an female NPC character, who doesn't have a personality. The second is the character of the other new player (also female). The last is mine, the only male character who is not "huge and tough". I don't think the DM knows what to do with him, as he's often sidelined during combat, and is only used in verbal altercations even though he's been very useful during the little bit of combat he's participated in.

The bigger issue about how he writes deals with the topic of rape. My DM has brought up threats of rape against female characters at least twice a session. This is especially an issue because my friend has had 3 different characters graphically threaten to rape her, and the rest of the party doesn't get a threat even close to that severity. The female NPC has also had the same amount of characters threaten rape.

I vented this stuff to a friend of mine, and one of the other players heard her telling someone else about it. I'm not sure how much he said to the DM, but he ended up defending how he wrote female characters, and how he needed to tell us their exact measurements because we needed to know how well they could disguise themselves (???)

I know I should bring some of this up with him (especially the rape stuff) but I'm so scared that it'll ruin my relationship with my best friend, who is also in the campaign and is related to the DM. I dont want to lose 13 years of friendship. Also, losing him might end tearing my friend group apart or having most of my friends leave me, and I'm terrified of that happening. I don't think that jeopardizing my longest lasting friendship is worth some discomfort I have with his relative, especially when I consider the DM to be a good friend as well.

I've thought about leaving the campaign, but I'm having fun (when the DM isn't being weird) and I feel really bad for not liking it because it's clear that the DM is having a great time.

Thanks for reading my rambling, sorry for using the word "female" so much lmao.

I honestly never thought that I'd be posting here as all the vast majority of my games have managed to be normal enough - until recently. The names in the story were changed.

For context, I have started playing DnD 5th Edition in early 2023 and had a blast researching lore and tinkering with ideas for my first characters. After a few one-shots and short campaigns, I managed to land a spot in a game that seemed perfect for me - roleplay-oriented, lore-heavy story set in the Forgotten Realms and running a homebrew set of modules that had the party zipping across the continent and solving arcane mysteries. The group consisted of five of us players and the DM. Everyone created really interesting characters with cool, quirky traits and we each had our role to play in solving the mystery that we were facing.

The first ten or so sessions ran well until one of our players - "Jenna", who was playing a High Elf Archfey Warlock, needed to take a brief break from the campaign for 2-3 sessions for personal reasons. The party was sad to see her go, even if briefly, but she had an interesting idea on how to cover for her short absence. As her character was "possessed" with a tulpa that was released as a result of one of our missions, she thought that a different person, "Steve", a mutual friend of mine and hers who was thus far not in the campaign, could run her character in her absence, explained as the tulpa having full control over the Warlock during this time. The DM thought it was a cool idea and even mentioned the possibility of Steve returning later on for a mini-arc that could finish that storyline.

The first session with the replacement Warlock ran pretty smoothly, and Steve ran a very cool, if slightly unnerving imitation of the character's voice and mannerisms, as a result of knowing Jenna for a long time and being able to mimic her decently well. And while nobody expected him to pull out all the stops, he really did and did so with joy. In the final session in which he was going to stand in for our Warlock, he even dropped a few hints that he discussed with our DM which we could later use to fight the tulpa in their true form.

Once Jenna came back, it was business as usual for a few weeks. Steve did message both of us a few times asking if he could join the campaign in earnest with his own character, as he really grew to like the group and our dynamic. We asked the DM as well as "Lauren", the player hosting our game, about this. While the DM was happy to have them join, Lauren was worried about not having enough room in her very, very small apartment and mentioned that she'd be happy for Steve to join if someone else could host the game. Jenna and I passed this back to Steve who did not seem particularly bothered either way and said that it was not a big deal. That he'd find a different group. And that seemed the end of it. It wasn't.

About two months later, Jenna had to miss a session and both DM and Lauren offered to have Steve join if he wished for another piece of the tulpa storyline. He agreed. However, unlike the first three sessions that he took part in, where he was engaged, focused, and did his best, this time around he was dismissive, disrupted the game with weird meta humor, made snarky remarks about the way the other players roleplayed their characters, and mumbled cryptic comments under his breath. This made everyone really uncomfortable, and in order to, as we put it "not end up on r/rpghorrorstories", we decided not to invite him back and let Jenna act as both her Warlock and the tulpa upon the conclusion of that storyline.

The task fell to Jenna and I to have to tell Steve that his comments made the other uncomfortable and that he would unfortunately not be welcomed back. He was short, if slightly annoyed with me, but didn't argue and stopped replying shortly afterwards. He did say more in return to Jenna in their chats however, including a long, insulting tirade about how "shallow, vapid, and one-dimensional" she made the Warlock, and how he was doing a lot better portraying her. Furthermore, despite our continued attempts to work things through and figure out what went wrong, he continued distancing himself from us. Jenna and I were saddened at the apparent loss of the friendship, partially because Steve never showed any signs of this kind of behavior before, but after a mutual talk amongst the three of us, we decided it was better to leave it be now while things were still somewhat civil.

Just like previously, things returned somewhat to normal for a while. The campaign was going strong, the roleplay and character interactions were getting better and better, and we had a lot of fun just being able to kick back and relax after a long week. Around this time, Steve messaged both Jenna and I apologising for his behavior at his most recent appearance in the game and asked if he could speak to the rest of the group as well. After checking with them, we all had a group call where he admitted to being hurt by not being allowed to join, letting it fester, and saying things he did not mean out of frustration. He claimed he had gotten over it after some time with his new group and some therapy. As a friendly gesture, and hoping to bury the hatchet, he offered to book us a night at the game room at a local game store that had all the bells and whistles for amazing tabletop experiences. And while he did not explicitly state that the would do this for the DM letting him finish his storyline as the tulpa, he did his best to phrase it indirectly. However, we weren't comfortable with him paying for it all so we calculated the per person cost and paid him back. It was the thought that counted anyways.

It looked to be a perfect resolution. How foolish we were. Upon our arrival at the game room, we were delighted to find it had plenty of space as well as amazing terrain, minis, mood lightning, and much, much more. Steve was there first along with five other people. When all of us arrived, he mentioned that they were his friends from his new campaign and that they, being new players, wanted to watch the game unfold and hopefully get some inspiration from it. As the room was massive and he did his best to organize everything, we had no issue with it at the time. We were too excited to play and see this storyline to its conclusion.

After a five-hour session, the tulpa was finally defeated and all of us had fun, interesting moments with our characters and couldn't wait for the next session. We thanked Steve and all seemed well. This is all until the five "spectators" started laughing at us. It wasn't long until Steve joined in on the mockery. They then revealed to us that for the past three months, they had been playing our characters in a campaign of their own and were aghast at how terrible our performances and roleplay were compared to theirs. We at first thought it was a joke, as Steve was known for pulling elaborate pranks before. That was until they started acting out, in my opinion, poor imitations of our character's voices, quoting their backstories, and pulled out the "fixed" versions of their character sheets with "more optimal feats, magical items, and higher stats". They briefly clarified that Steve told them of our wasted potential with our characters and how they made a group specifically to do what were doing - but "better". We were speechless. For one moment, we thought that were on one of those old candid camera shows. Jenna and I quietly apologised for Steve's behavior, as we considered ourselves partially responsible for all this, and tried to leave the store. This was when we discovered that Steve had not paid for the use of the room - only the holding deposit for an open date ticket. While opinions were mixed on whether or not we should contest it with the owner, as we did pay our shares to Steve well in advance, Jenna and I agreed to cover it between ourselves and the rest of the group pitched in for their drinks, snacks etc.

It took us a while to really come to terms with what happened. While it would be fun to be able to say that we got back at him or did something cool in response, we did not. Our next session was cancelled and we took that time to discuss what happened. Jenna and I apologised for allowing him back into the group, but the rest of the group insisted on it not being our fault. For a while, we felt like something was taken from us as the whole experience felt like such a massive breach of privacy, decency, trust, and what we thought was friendship. We didn't play for a while after that. However, after a month-long hiatus, DM and Lauren insisted on us meeting again. Last night, our party awoke in a dreamy haze somewhere in the Feywild, with some of their memories gone. They were a little worse for wear and terrible confused, just like we were irl, but they decided to pick themselves up and keep at it. Just as our little friend group did as well.

PS - to hell with Steve. All my homies hate Steve.

It's been a little while since this happened, and now that my thoughts on it are clear, let me tell you what killed my passion for DMing and for DND as a whole.

please note that the events contained herein happened around a year and a half ago, and so things may be a little fuzzy on my part.

Let me begin with a bit of background. The story begins all the way back in 2022, with a good friend of mine offering to DM a game for myself and a few friends after the failure of a different game.

we’ll call said friend, “John”, short for John Doe.

Anyways, He wanted to do a campaign set in a homebrewed version of Eberron, and set the parameters for our characters and told us to go to town. A few weeks later we had our characters rolled, were told what to expect on Session 0, and started to play.

For nearly a year I was involved in this campaign. I say this now because it's clear that I overlooked several warning signs that reared their ugly heads long after It's death.

Long story short, the campaign died due to internal drama- One of John's best friends of many years had a falling out with him over the friend smoking weed. John made a point to distance himself from the friend, and because the friend took his girlfriend with him, our table went from 5 players to 3 players, with myself slowly becoming less involved due to work scheduling and other responsibilities.

Rather than attempt to plan around these troubles, John decided to shoot the campaign in the head, write off an epilogue and tell us what he had planned to bring closure, and so on.

Fast Forward a few months and I get the idea to DM again. I tell John that if he's interested, I'd like to do a DND 5e campaign. After some discussion we settle on a mostly homebrewed campaign taking place in the Dark Sun setting.

Full disclosure, compared to John I'm a novice DM. this was a campaign I was working on in my spare time. I didn't have the money for maps or minis, but John was nice and let me DM at his place, since he would be in the game. We grabbed the last of the people who were involved in the last campaign, John got another friend to join in, and away we went.

Despite some rocky sessions and me winging it a few times in terms of planning, the story took off and it seemed like the players were really enjoying themselves.

Well, I thought so at least. John had other ideas.

My players came to me with a somewhat diverse lineup. One of them wanted to be a shifter, essentially A werewolf paladin. We homebrewed a bit and made it work in the setting. Then we had a human fighter and an elf ranger.

And then John's character- a Half-Elf Wizard, and one of the most blatant examples of main character syndrome i have ever seen. Some of the players were quiet and at first i thought he was doing it to fill the silence, but it was far more than that.

Oh, the party has a new quest? Leave it to John's character, he'll lead them.

Talking to someone in a city? Let John take point.

Plot point about starting a rebellion to overthrow the Sorcerer Kings? Don't worry, John's plan is to usurp them all, and he'll make sure to remind you how capable he is too.

This is partially my fault. I didn't see the signs initially and tried to reward him for engaging with the content, I thought it would encourage the quieter players, but it just emboldened John.

John's character was the most prominent in every roleplaying scene, Dominated every social encounter, and was at the center of every plotline.

He got mad when his character didn't decisively end battles or was outshined by another character.

The other players got around a quarter of the time that John's did, and it showed. They were non-confrontarional, but i often found myself feeling bad. I tried to include them as much as I could be John almost always butted in. He had to be in the spotlight constantly, and he always had to be who everyone was discussing.

Note that this same man often got angry At myself and other players in HIS campaign for "Spotlighting" during roleplaying. I was often told that he felt i was taking agency away from other players, my character was too antagonistic, etc. For context, my character was very Cynical and sometimes called other players out for what she perceived to be stupid or poorly planned decisions. Admittedly she was a little harsh at times.

So what did John do? Create a Cynical half-elf sorcerer who hides their insecurities due to their tragic backstory......who also calls other characters our for stupid or poorly planned decisions.

Essentially, John was very much a "Rules for Thee but not for me" kind of guy.

And it didn't end At the table. He made sure to remind us how lucky we were that he was nice enough to let us play in HIS space, and constantly badgered us for money for random things like minis nobody asked for or to remodel the space we were doing the campaign in. He was constantly Reminding us how amazing his campaigns were and how awesome of a person he was. He expected everyone to pool money together to buy him games for his birthday and christmas, demanded people take time off work or quit their jobs to attend sessions, and just generally was a demanding, greedy asshat.

Meanwhile, if you said or did something he disliked or disagreed with, he was a relentless bully.

And of course, since he DMed Previously, he loved being the backseat DM. He was constantly calling me to discuss sessions, but mainly to go “If it was me, I'd do…” and to make me feel bad about my decisions.

But he's not content with being the center of attention, oh no.

He's also got to have the strongest character in the campaign And be jack of all trades.

After the campaign starts, as part of a “Plot Point” he asks to be given several spells that are not on the Wizard list, mainly cleric spells like cure wounds. The idea was that due to the fundamental differences between magic in the Dark Sun world and regular DND worlds it would be possible for a “Defiler” to learn “Preserver” magic because the Sorcerer Kings could use healing.

After some discussion I told him I'd try to implement it in a way that made sense. He took that as “Just study every session and remind the DM until he gives me what I want.”

At this point, my opinion towards John is beginning to change. While we were originally good friends, I'm beginning to see a side of him out of character that I had originally noticed during the Campaign he DMed for.

Things get worse when, after accusing another player of cheating for putting spells on their list they didn't have access too….he does the exact same thing by giving his PC Guidance, a cleric spell, without asking me. I find out and tell him to take it off his list. Little did I know that tiny action would snowball into something much worse.

After this, he becomes angry with me. He claims i screamed at him and put him on the spot during a session which was patently untrue. We move on.

John becomes Increasingly passive aggressive, constantly alluding to the fact that it was “unfair” of me to not simply give him the spells he wanted and mumbling about how Guidance wasn't strong enough to warrant taking it away from him.

Finally, this culminated In me rather sternly and admittedly, rudely telling him that I understood his request and he would get these things when I deemed it fitting, and not a second before.

He shut up for the rest of the session and I thought It was done, until he called me that night and again, accused Me of putting him on the spot. I explained my reasoning and things began to get heated. He became angrier and alluded to the idea that me taking away Guidance was singling him out, despite HE HIMSELF rulesharking another player for the exact same thing.

I've had enough. I raise my voice and passionately explain that I find his behavior Ridiculous and that he needs To privately discuss these things with me instead of trying to spring them on me at the last minute. In a rage he hangs up and goes to our mutual friends and the other players claiming i screamed at him. He goes around telling everyone involved that I have anger issues and mental problems, and need counseling because he can't fathom why I'd raise my voice at him.

Drama ensues, and I won't bore you with the rest of the details. Essentially the conclusion ended with me angrily Confronting John for being a pathological liar And manipulator even outside of just DND, unceremoniously killing a nearly year-long Campaign, and cutting contact with 2 other people. Me and John stopped being friendly around a month after the initial incident.

Since then, aside from a failed attempt to rekindle the old campaign and a few ideas here or there, I have not been part of any DND campaign whatsoever.

Essentially, I think the moral of the story is very simple- if you notice something is wrong, don't keep it to yourself. Ask the DM or someone else about it, and you might save Yourself from getting involved with a guy like John.

Not a story.... just a personal expression of a dislike of a paticular spell that takes away setting vibes from time to time (which has happened frequently so I can't point to any paticular story!). This spell I would say is similar in it's game side effects as the entire:

DM: "You're in a dark scary place"
Player shouts out and interrupts "I HAVE DARK VISION"
DM: "...........You're in a scary place"

The above scenario I've learned to deal with and even work with at times to create some fun scenarios, describing via private chat the horrors one player with dark vision see leaving the other players going "Oh god - what can they see but I can't!" - and (unlike what I'm about to mention) is a real game changer that alters the player's choices, which I respect ... but one spell in particular irks me more than anything:

Prestidigitation.

To set the scene, if you will, you have the party going through a swamp describing the sounds of the insects and other wild life. You talk about the mists sweeping the area with an ominous sense of dread with conditions further worsened from trudging through the boggy terrain which muddies your clothing when you see...

Player shouts out "I HAVE PRESTIDITATION. MY CAPE IS CLEAN"

..........like... well done. You have a clean cape.

This example is a strawman argument I know, the bigger problem with something like this would be player table etiquette ... but it's a small irritation of mine of these type of things coming up that eliminate aesthetics of settings that provide no real advantage to anyone. It doesn't solve any problem. It makes none of the other player's experience better. Sure, if you are playing a character that is all about cleanliness that could be interesting but it's never that (legit - I would love someone to play a character with this personality trait!).

With it being a cantrip as well... urgh ... very bothersome.

As I said, it's a small irk and not something I'd consider discussing with my players. If it's not relevant to the scene I just say "Yup, that happens" and we roll on.

Bonus moan: Players using this to 'soil' character's pants. It was funny the first time maybe. Not the 50th.

Just learned about this sub and thought yall might find this one particularly juicy.

About eight years ago there was a time where my friend group would all play Dungeon World. We had done a campaign before that went longer and it largely fizzled out because people just got busy. One day we decide to pick up a side campaign that would be more low stakes.

My character was a 14 yo paladin who stole his father's sword and armor to live up to his legacy during his warrior days. It was intended to be an arc where he would learn the hard lessons his father had learned from being a warrior. I felt like after having just played a Chaotic Evil character previously it would be refreshing to play as someone with a sense of justice. So I was pretty excited for this campaign!

This other player however... They had a common theme with their characters. They would literally try to fuck anything that moved. Enemies, authorities, the old woman running a tavern, a n y t h i n g. This time they had made a character who was that. But he made her speak in that "sassy black woman" voice. Just so you know, this guy's the whitest Aussie you know. So already it's incredibly awkward, but as always I severely underestimated how much worse it could possibly get.

Throughout the campaign, he started making weird advancements towards my character. It would start off small, but as the campaign went on it would continue to get more and more aggressive. It was really uncomfortable, especially since I have made it explicitly clear before that my character is a minor. Idk if he wasn't paying attention or willfully ignored it, but either way it just progressed. It really reached a head when we beat the boss and left the dungeon. He decided, with no warning to just perform oral (iirc) on my character.

It was the moment where everyone in the group just broke character and said "You realize [my character] is a minor right?"

Him: What??? No way really?

Me: Yeah dude, he's 14. I was pretty clear about that from the start.

Him: OH FUCK!!!!

He then proceeded to quickly make his character commit suicide and replaced her with some throwaway he made on the spot.

Needless to say it was probably the most insane campaign I've played. And I've had a few insane campaigns both in Dungeon World and DnD 4e. But yeah, that was the last time I played a tabletop game and if I do it again it will not be with that guy.

Possible TWs: homophobia, transphobia, SA, gross misunderstandings of how mental illness works

Buckle up nerds because this is a long story.

So, back in my junior year of highschool, I joined a dnd campaign for the first time. I'm a college freshman now, so I've been playing ttrpgs for almost 2 years. All of the horror comes from highschool, as my experience with ttrpgs in college has been significantly better (i have a minor horror story with one dude, but it's not dnd so im not going in depth here).

Anyway, junior year. I joined in the middle of the campaign, and my character was the stereotypical rogue with a dark backstory, but i spiced it up by making him a single father of a little girl and his motive for being an adventurer was that his daughter was kidnapped by his ex and he's looking for her. In my head, Ethari, the character, was a trans man as I'm a trans dude, and his ex was a man. I never got a chance to write this down as I was still very new to dnd and it was close to the end of the year. There was also lore for that character (the ex) involving a curse that I, again, never got to write down before the reveal. Basically if Ethari died I was going to play as his hypothetical dead husband as a reborn.

The other key players for campaign 1 are Warlock, Cryptid, and That Guy. There were 2 others, but they didn't show up as much for this campaign compared to the other one, so I'll get to them later. Warlock is a minmaxer and DM herself. She also writes very detailed backstories. Cryptid is the guy along for the ride with some of the funniest things happened because of him. (Old man mpreg) That Guy is, well, That Guy. Another thing to mention is that aside from DM and That Guy, everyone else at the table is queer in some way shape or form.

Anyway, the last session we are introduced to a witch, who is "very familiar" to my character. She is revealed to be my character's wife. This came as a surprise to me as I said above, my character was gay and trans. I shrugged this off as I had never gotten a chance to write down that information, but I was still a little disappointed and frustrated that I had to change a huge part of backstory that I had for him. It was forgivable, so I didn't say anything. It was easy to retcon.

For my next character, my thought process went a little something like this: "Ethari has a daughter. I want to build upon the changes to his backstory while mixing fantasy and realism. His daughter's gonna be my new character."

So that's what I did. I made my previous character's daughter, Corrin, into my next character. She's a bard/rogue multiclass (this is extremely important) and I made sure to go in detail with her backstory to prevent what happened last time. And because of what happened last time with Ethari, I made sure to add that she's a lesbian in the character notes I had for her. This is where it gets weird. The DM (who I should also mention was my boyfriend at the time, he's now my ex for reasons stated in the TWs.) found it really hilarious that I specified Corrin's sexuality in the extensive notes I had on her. Mind you, I had so many other notes in my miscellaneous section and most of them were a collection of my thought process when I was creating her. I also got a chance to write about the curse in her backstory, which is basically a magical type of generational truma on her mother's side.

Spoiler alert, this went COMPLETELY ignored in favor of something else. And it still pisses me off to this day.

Now let's talk about That Guy. Because goddamn was this guy favorited. The most prominent example was that he was allowed to play gimmick characters, Saul Goodman and The fucking Lorax, but my friend (who I'll call Gimmick for this post) made a character with a silly character, which was just a revamped version of a character he already played in the previous campaign and died 2 sessions in, and suddenly he "wasn't taking the campaign seriously" and "had no respect for the DM".

That Guy was playing a druid/paladin multiclass, but he almost never used his paladin abilities. This is, again, very important. Warlock was playing, you guessed it, a warlock, but she multiclassed into fighter. She later played a pugilist. Cryptid was a cleric, Gimmick was an inventor, but then a barbarian. No-show (they barely showed up due to medical reasons) was also a warlock. There's also YoYo, who I believe was playing a fighter. Chill dude. He didn't do much.

First session, nobody could get a word in because That Guy would. Not. Shut. Up. I was getting annoyed because I was kinda forced into voice of reason by session 3, but I already suspected that of being my role by the first session. He nearly got the party killed because he wouldn't let the two higher charisma characters (me and Warlock) say anything. This was the first. Fucking. Session. The only reason the DM didn't do anything was because he "felt bad".

Couple sessions go by, and the favoritism is really starting to show. We had a downtime session, and my character got drunk and passed out in an alleyway. Gimmick kicked me to make sure I was still alive (think of like a gentle nudge with your foot), but That Guy, who wasn't even close to where we were, suddenly shows up and decides to roughly kick my character in the gut for no reason. And the DM just let it happen.

Did I mention that That Guy was playing as The Lorax? Yeah.

So, in one of the sessions, I stole a ring for Warlock's character, as it gave a +2 to charisma. She had a 22 charisma with this ring, and because I was playing a bard and I stole the ring, I asked her if and when her character dies, can I have the ring. She said yes.

Guess who got the ring. That Guy. Remember how I said he's a druid/paladin multiclass? Yeah, he never once used his paladin abilities. He was primarily a wisdom caster. He took the ring, and when I asked if I could have it because, you know, I'm the only reason the party has it in the first place, he refuses. I remind him that I'm a bard, and I could really use that boost to my charisma, but he ignored me. Stole the ring off him last session after he tried to get me to pay for his drink. Fuck you, Nicholas.

My character was also forced into situations she never agreed to by That Guy, and the DM just let it happen. It led to her brother dying, and now she feels responsible for his death as well as her brother in law's. Nice going, DM.

Now for the backstory change, because this still pisses me off. In Corrin's backstory, I had written the curse in a way where it was vague as to what it did, but concrete as to what it was. This was ignored when we finally meet my character's mother. She's a lich, who didn't care for Corrin or her father, and only cared about her own immortality. She was also the one who placed the curse for some fucking reason? I don't know what the DM was smoking when he made that decision.

OH, and Corrin's intrusive thoughts! How could I fucking forget? He made that the effect of a spell Corrin's mother placed on her! Apparently, after the spell was removed, her intrusive thoughts were also removed! I had said, in character, shortly after that scene, that "just because the spell is removed, my intrusive thoughts are still there" to That Guy who was actively antagonizing me both in and out of character.

The DM gave me a weird look and said "No, the spell is gone" AS IF THAT'S HOW MENTAL ILLNESS WORKS???? TF? Corrin, despite no longer being 'cursed', is still mentally ill. She has BPD. That's not magic, that's mental illness.

Now the real kicker: after the campaign was over, the DM and I were talking and he brought up how That Guy felt about me. That Guy didn't like me. Shocker. But apparently, the DM said that That Guy felt like I was antagonizing him for stealing the ring. This was because That Guy apparently had a grand plan involving the ring, but he couldn't do it because my character took it because, y'know, BARD.

I argued this, but apparently That Guy's reasoning was stronger than mine. I brought up all the other times That Guy caused problems, like everything mentioned above and saying slurs to and about everyone else, but nope, I was the problem player in the DM and That Guy's eyes.

Anyway, I'm part of 2 different campaigns now, one dnd and one Lancer, along with running my own campaign. DM and That Guy were definitely the problem.

Alright, this is going to be a really long one so buckle up.

TW: fictional racism and suicide

Four years ago I join a “Das Schwarze Auge” (The Black Eye) roleplaying group through my best friend. The DM helped me through the process of creating a character and he told me one of the players has a min-maxed character and that I could be whatever I wanted and that the group wasn´t missing any specific class. Most of the races in Black Eye are just humans with extremely slight variations, with one exception, the lizard folk. They look kind of awesome and you can even get extra limbs and make them green but people can be racist towards them.

I´m non-binary so I was on board with being hate crimed if it meant being a cool lizard! I played as Adario, a charisma build with two snakes that could deal damage for me. (a black snake named Shadow the Hedgehog and a colourful one named Espio) I chose to have wings and the DM decided that he would allow me to fly as well, unprompted, despite the rulebook not allowing it.

I was hyped!

My backstory is that I was enslaved, bought by a loving family who just happened to be smuggler pirates living in the most diverse place on the map and I was brought up as a thief. Then, I heard these exaggerated stories about a man in a bird mask traveling the world and helping people. I had never heard of such heroism before and I believed every detail, deciding that the bird man must be secretly a god! I decide to abandon my old life in favour of meeting this person- thus meeting the party!

The bird man is Sicarius. He is my best friends character. Uber edgy plague doctor guy who is confused and uncomfortable with Adario´s manic adoration. He rejects being a god but I point out that that´s exactly what a secret god would say, to which he doesn´t have an answer. I ask to join their party and serve my god Sicarius and Sicarius reluctantly agrees to let Adario join them! Hooray!

The other two people travelling with Sicarius are a min-maxed dwarf and a priestess barbarian. They both go along with whatever Sicarius decides to do and refuse to answer any of my questions about who they are, what their goals are and where we are going. They don´t seem fond of talking in general so I take the hint and go along with things.

We arrive at a village and I decide to talk to the guard at the gate with Sicarius and thus am introduced to the racism!

It´s BAD.

It´s so bad, people are terrified of my character (all of them, every single one we meet with no exception). They have never seen anything like me. They assume I´m either a monster or a pet and they hate it when I talk. If I want to convince them to treat me like a person, I need to do a charisma roll and if I fail, it might spell disaster for my entire team.

I am a level 1. My charisma is NOT good enough to risk our entire team sleeping in a stagecoach for the night so I pack up my dignity and just roll with being a pet. Sicarius always introduces me as a pet, I act the part, he gets weirded out when I show any degree of affection towards him and the people we meet go along with it in a sort of “well, I don´t like it but they are teamed up with a priestess I guess” way.

It´s vaguely fun. I got to brag about being owned and draw some slutty fanart of my character wearing a collar. I had expected to get to interact with people but once I knew that wasn´t an option I just tried to make the best out of it.

So, remember how I´m a level 1?

My team was not. The enemies were also not. In every single combat encounter, I was two hits from a death roll. Trying to protect anyone had a high chance of making me a liability and in the first session I could fly and throw rocks from above or scratch enemies but after that the DM decided the weather was too cold and I couldn´t fly anymore. My snakes had less HP than me and their venom took a bit of time to kill so, yeah, I was just always terrible at combat.

I did talk to the DM about this but he didn´t take it seriously and pointed out that the dwarf could carry the entire team so I just resigned myself to drawing fanart for the team whenever combat started so that I could contribute in some way.

So, we play 4 sessions and I kind of get to understand the group dynamic. The only one who really interacts with the story is Sicarius. The dwarf and barbarian are there but they are there for the combat and to just kind of watch things unfold. The group does not interact with each other aside from going along with Sicarius and they are also unwilling to interact with me. At all. I asked the players after the game if I was being annoying and they were very friendly and informed me that, no, their characters are just kind of anti social.

So, it´s all a little bit rough. I can´t really do much, at all, in any of the sessions but the story beats are interesting and the group is willing to tolerate some of my side gags and they like my fanart and one time I managed to make the guy playing the dwarf laugh and he did some brief bantering with my character.

Then Sicarius dies.

He dies in a kind of tragic, semi-scripted “was not able to accomplish his goals” kind of way. My best friend is not fond of the reveal that for some reason the DM did some kind of time travel or mimic stuff, replacing him with a clone so his family didn´t even know how to react when Sicarius came back home disfigured and furious. I don´t care, I thought his death was epic. I really liked the twists, I thought it was kind of funny and tragic that his dumb plot of vengeance against the people who vaguely betrayed him failed, I was having a fantastic time, however, Adario was predictably devastated.

Sicarius was not just his friend, he was his god. The man abandoned everything to basically be a hero like him and now his god was dead and he hadn´t even changed that much.

So, I´m like “That was sick! I love it! However, Adario would weep and grieve the loss of his friend and god and be a mess on the floor. So, uh, how do you guys want to deal with that?”

Crickets.

There is a bizarre silence as the players for the dwarf and barbarian refuse to engage and I try and help them along, suggesting the worlds smallest amount of role-playing, like “maybe just say your character comforts him” or “talk about what Sicarius meant to you two, I assume you tolerated him for a reason” ect but they say their characters wouldn´t grieve Sicarius and wouldn´t know what to do with a sobbing Adario.

I am uncomfortable and confused. To this day, I have no idea why those two characters travelled with a man they cared so little for. Eventually, the dwarf goes “There, there” and pats Adario on the back twice. This does nothing so he decides to pick Adario up and proceed to the next dungeon.

Incredibly awkward but okay! We survived the session, I still had fun and I´m excited to meet best friends next character. I draw cool fanart of Sicarius´s death and gush to the DM about how cool the session was.

Now. We have arrived at the REAL STORY.

The dungeon is strange. We go from a snowy medieval setting to this gigantic tropical underground paradise, the size of a football stadium. There is sunlight somehow and tons of animals but we get locked in and need to find a way out. The DM describes the area and we learn that any wounds we sustain heal. None of the animals can die or be killed because there is some kind of magic that’s making everything live foever.

“And then,” says the DM. “You spend the next 300 years trapped there.”

There is silence at the table.

The guy playing the dwarf goes “Oooookay?” and I immediately ask for clarification.

Healing magic. None of us age. We spend 300 years never figuring out how to leave. No, I don´t get to level up. At all. The time just passes but we can decide what we did during the time.

The barbarian player shrugs and builds a home and a garden. The dwarf shrugs and says nothing.

I am distraught. I don´t even know how to explain this but Adario is a bit of an extrovert and I could not imagine a world in which he would willingly spend 300 years with THOSE TWO. I mean, talk about miserable, who in their right mind could handle spending SO LONG with people who couldn´t even be bothered to be kind to someone who was grieving??

I talk to the barbarian player if I could join her gardening. She says no. We decide our characters might hook up a couple of times and I decide that Adario learns to brew alcohol and becomes a drunk. In hindsight, trying to salvage the situation was just a doomed endeavour.

At this point, I realize that I´m not having any fun anymore. My character feels completely ruined. His flaws were that he didn´t actually have morals, willing to do everything for his god, but now- now I don´t know who he is. I didn´t actually want to play a character who had lost his mind from isolation, failing to ever bond with the only two people in his life because if I wanted that I would just go home to my parents, you know??

Anyway, AFTER  the time skip, the DM introduces the “puzzle” we have to solve to exit the dungeon.

Now, we all know that players suck at solving puzzles. This is known. However, this puzzle! Like, I don´t even know how to insult it. Please do try to guess the answer but basically:

In the middle of the dungeon there is this stone platform with dirt.

Anything that is planted there grows gigantic in a matter of seconds and then dies and then grows again, I´m talking trees the size of sky scrapers!

There is writing on the stone platform but none of us can read it and the dungeon does not contain any other book/text to give us the ability to learn the language.

What do?

Well. The players decide to grow a tree and then jump down from it to commit suicide.

I don´t know how they expected this to work. I protested this decision but they did not listen to me because they wanted to just try and get out of this dungeon. The DM lets them do this and it does not work. They try it again and again and I go to the kitchen to cry.

I have a past of suicidality and at the time my worst fear was that one of my friends would kill themselves. DM knew this because on the day of my planned suicide, I spent the day with his girlfriend instead and he was also there and saw me cry and hung out with us. (It was nice, I brought food and drinks)

The session ends with the players never finding out how to exit the dungeon.

I talk to the DM a few days later, after I am done processing what happened. I tell him I had fun but I´m done, thank you for letting me play ect. He´s fine with it, it´s all good, a couple of days later the DM talks to best friend-kun and then he talks to me.

Turns out, he had planned for like a whole thing?? Based on my character??? And never told me or involved me. His plan was for the group to find a dead civilisation of dragons and for Adario to find out he was also a dragon, which would have made him feel…? Special? I guess? No prophesy. Just “You have dragon genes”.

This kind of felt like a slap in the face tbh. If he had asked me about it, I would have told him that I didn´t want Adario to actually be a dragon. He was just a delusional lizard folk who liked to brag about his wings. The point of his character was that he was just a regular guy who needed moral guidance from some kind of alive authority figure. That was his character. He didn´t care about his origins. He never even cared who his biological parents were, despite knowing he was adopted.

I also got to find out the solution to the puzzle.

Buckle the fuck up.

SO! The players find the dirt, find the stone. The writing cannot be deciphered, it is just supposed to signify that this is where the puzzle is and that this is important. The tree being planted and growing and dying is supposed to signify the cycle of life. The player is supposed to see all of this and have their character say “Oh, its like the cycle of life” and this magically unlocks the gates, freeing them.

I´m sure he would have also accepted if a player said “Oh, it’s the cycle of life” and then the gates would have also opened.

Also, the 300 year time skip was because he wanted like a steam-punk setting. He could have made it so that the world was just different when we left the underground dungeon and involved some time travel but he chose this instead.

SO YEAH! That was the last time I did a role-playing-game. I did enjoy it despite everything, I was glad to have been able to participate and I don´t regret it. Our DM was really good at describing intense story beats, handling combat encounters and working with our silent players, I think it just wasn´t the right group for me.

So yeah, I´m really glad to get this off my chest. That last session was just such a truly miserable time, god, lol

I'll start by saying I'm VERY new to DnD so I suppose I'm seeking a little advice on whether or not this is normal or if I'm just being sensitive.

I joined a group after months of being asked by one of the players (no joke, multiple months of "ehhh I dunno it sounds fun maybe if my schedule works out") and I do really like the group, but at this point I'm not sure you can call what we're doing an actual campaign. It's already changed once when we lost the original DM (who was the only other new person to the group) and the person who invited me took over. This is his first time DMing, but this group plays multiple other sessions together weekly, and that's where things get ... frustrating. They're constantly mixing up each other's characters, talking about what's going on in their other games, and not really fleshing anything out for this campaign. There's barely any role-playing, and when there is, my character is treated like a joke. (I suspect this is because I made one of the NPCs look bad and my DM took it personally, but how does hurting one NPCs feelings warrant making my character the butt of a joke in every single interaction?) My characters are also constantly being sexualized, so much so that in the first game we were playing that fell apart I had to actively, out of character, say "if my character has to react to what you just suggested he is going to do so violently." I don't know if it's because I'm the youngest in the group by like ten years, or if it's just because I'm new to their whole dynamic, but it has genuinely started taking some of the joy out of it for me that they treat the only campaign I can be in like it's just a throwaway game that doesn't matter. We're supposed to play every other week, but in six months we've had maybe 5 actual sessions of play. I really want to become a more experienced player and maybe even DM a game myself but with how little progress this group makes in this specific campaign while all their other campaigns go along swimmingly I'm not sure if I should stay or just look for another group

Edit: I really did myself a disservice adding that my characters are constantly being sexualized. yall this is not a group of sex pests. they are genuinely nice people, we have open discussions about just about everything under the sun including adult topics. the women in the group and I have even gone on little "girls and gay" days to craft stores and botanical gardens and shit. the ONLY reason I included it is one of the few consistent ways their characters interact with my character and it adds to making me feel like it's kind of just a joke to them. my partner's theory is that they find me attractive and "sexy people gonna sex"

So, this is a relatively lax story, the worst of it being a comment near the end. So I ran a campaign at the LGS and got a pretty solid group of players. For this part of the story, none of the other players really matter. I was running Princes of The Apocalypse and about halfway through we got a new player who wanted to join us.

I'll refer to him as John(Not his real name ofc) for story's sake. So John asked if it was alright if he used a character he already had rolled up, so I glanced over it and said it was alright. I introduced him and early on, he started to make checks constantly but would always grab his dice right after rolling and say a higher number. Eventually someone caught him and he denied it but stopped.

A few sessions later, I had decided to homebrew a side quest and decided to use a False Hydra as none of my players were familiar with it. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a Homebrew creature that constantly emits a song that makes you unaware of its existence and eipes any memories that would hint towards its existence like remembering a missing person.

I setup everything with a familiar NPC and started laying out the hints. As soon as I gave them the first clue to what this thing was, John piped up to say he casts silence. They were in the middle of town and there was no logical reason so I asked him why, and he just didn't explain. However, I knew he just knew what it was but I (in an arguably poor decision) just ignored his attempt to cast silence and moved on.

Later on they went to the castle and after talking to the king and further hinting at the False Hydra, he just straight up said "I know this beast, it's a False Hydra and it's song prevents us from knowing its there. We must plug our ears." Which led to another player asking how he knew that and he simply responded that his character saw one in a previous campaign so of course he knew. We had already established the previous campaign was nonexistent to his character.

That was it for that campaign but I was a player in the next campaign and that was where things kicked off a bit more. Now I will refer to John, Fighter, and GM. So our GMs style involves cutscenes through dream sequences and likewise events to show plot we wouldn't see otherwise. Consistently John would try to interrupt these and say "My character would actually do something." Even though it was abundantly clear it wasn't interactable. He even did this with bad events for our characters that we agreed with the DM on for plot.

Anytime he didn't get what he wanted, he stood up and started pacing and breathing real heavy, always getting close to the GM which made her clearly uncomfortable. He had always seemed a bit unstable and we barely wanted him there but we never brought it up so it was never resolved.

Then we had a Druid join us. His character was sheltered from the world and knew almost nothing, so my character who was essentially the partys adoptive dad, began showing him the world, while John also tried to teach him stuff. However, as my character had been the first person to ever be nice to him, the druid gravitated towards my character in interactions and learning and this clearly also upset John.

It all culminated in the session of my characters death. He was dragged down to Hell by a Vindictive Ex so John teleported everyone down there to fight the boss. Everyone was ready but before we fought her, she stated that her problems were only with my character so they were free to go. John then immediately teleported out... With none of the team. He was the only way in or out of hell and when somebody pointed that out he asked the GM if he could take it back but they declined as he probably shouldn't have acted so quick. He did his usual pacing and heavy breathing near the DM.

My character died and then I took a few sessions break, and just heard more complaints about him, like how he tried to just say he won a game of chess against another PC without making any contested checks, but things were mostly calm. Until the last session he was in. The fighter has an Angel who stays in a plushie that she carries around and her character at one point, was having to take a break from the campaign so she left her plushie with John. John talked to the angel and learned that as xey were genderless, xey used Xey/Xem pronouns. John then proclaimed (in the middle of a group of basically all LGBTQ players including a Trans DM) "I wish people would stop shoving all this pronoun bullshit down my throat. Boys are boys and girls are girls, that is it." Safe to say, he was kicked out after that and was never seen at the shop again.

Disclaimer: I'm not against people basing things around their hyperfixations.

I had wanted to play my first game of DnD for a while now as it seemed like a lot of fun, and I've got experience creating characters for my own personal writings. I was a very new player, and I didn't exactly know everything other than you needed to roll dice in order to do most things. I hoped that because I was new, I would get some help with learning the game. I don't recall what version of DnD it was, it was a few years ago and they basically said they were "playing DnD" and nothing else.

My friend, I'll refer to as Z, was also playing in the campaign. They had much more experience than me as they grew up with parents who loved this kind of stuff, so they obviously knew how to play. The reason Z couldn't explain the way the game worked to me was because we're both neurodivergent and I'm the talker and they're the listener. They're smart and can form their own ideas, but they usually can't explain them out loud in ways other can understand, so I'd step in for them. I was perfectly understanding of this and I didn't want to put any pressure on them at all, they mainly helped with my character creation.

The fundamentals of my character aren't important in this story, but I was a Tiefling Druid if you're curious.
They rolled the dice for my stats and yada yada, but I made sure to emphasise I was a new player and I probably would need some help in game. The group consisted of around six people DM included, though only me, Z, the DM, and the DM's friend (Who I will refer to as B) are important. B would say he was a player like everyone else in the game, but it was kind of clear that him and the DM were kind of working together, which felt a little odd to me but I didn't really say anything.

My first three days on the campaign were fine, but nothing too special. Mainly we were exploring this abandoned house and trying to find any loot we could. The house was near a town, and we got a quest from that town, and it all seemed like standard stuff.

Until one day the DM said he had finished Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Apparently, B had wanted him to watch this series for a while, and the DM had been doing so. B and the DM were obviously in tune, making references etc while the rest of us brushed it off, we didn't understand any of the references that they were making, though, as only they had watched the series.

When we actually started the campaign that day, Z and I's characters obviously teamed together in case anything went wrong, mainly because we didn't enjoy being around people we didn't know and we usually work together really well. However, this is when B started to take hold of the game. B had basically become a second DM, which none of us were ever informed about or expected. B told us that our characters had all been trapped in this pocket dimension where time was slowed and we had to figure out how to escape.
Since my turn went last, I got out of there due to my group's efforts, though two people somehow died in there. They didn't show up to any future games, so I had assumed they probably talked to the DM beforehand to say they were leaving and to just kill their characters off.

It was the last campaign day, the time was shortened due to the fact we were doing this at school and the end of the year and the subsequent holidays was around the corner. Our party made it to a colosseum, and this character (From the show, I can't remember the name) challenged our party to a duel, but every person had to fight them individually so it was fair (1v1).
Z went first. B and the DM immediately ended the fight on Z's first term, saying that Z had died before they got the chance to react. Z didn't say anything as per usual, but I was kind of annoyed, as that was unfair and didn't even make sense.
After Z's turn it was mine. I managed to get at least one hit on the character before they told me that my character died immediately after touching them. I was even more annoyed now, because that wasn't fair at all. I asked them if I could create a new character, or be revived, and they responded with "No, because [character] killed them and disassembled their molecules so they won't be able to come back"
I didn't say anything, and I had to sit there for the rest of the game as the only player left was literally handed an item that could kill this dude first try, winning the whole game while the rest of us were dead. And that was the whole campaign.

I was given no instruction, no lessons on even the basics of the game, and then died immediately when I had a chance to learn how battles worked. And the DM and B had the audacity to say "I think that was a good game" at the end.
I'm sure not all Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fans are like this, but after that event I had nothing but bad experiences with other fans of the series, which made me not want to touch it with a ten foot pole. I've tried to get into other games, but every time I did I put in a submission to join and was pretty much forgotten about with no follow up email or anything so I've given up.

Good day to you, dear readers! I hope today treats you well and I hope reading this story, be it partially or fully, will entertain you even in the slightest!

Before I begin with this one story, I do have to give a heads up about a few things. In respect of plenty of the people involved, I shan't name any, not even with nicknames, and would instead opt with their classes or roles' title. It is for ease of reading and to keep up with the cast and their actions. And secondly, be mindful of what you read. Not everyone is a reliable narrator, and this is only one side of the story many has experienced.

And yes, this is a newly made account. This is by far the less trustworthy source of honesty, but since I made it for possible recruiting of players or DM sometime in the future, and while waiting for the current possible group to form, I wager I could at least post something in the meanwhile.

Now that this has made clear, it is time to embark on a tale of one soul believing to be the center of attention. A man so convinced boundaries doesn't exist that it hadn't feared even going hard on other players' characters, the somewhat petty DM, and the NPCs.

It begins with the DM, someone I relate to a lot, and Co-DM, a very close relative to DM, making a group together. They had reached out on two discord servers for players and gathered enough to make a full party. The setting in which this group will play in?Co-DM's Homebrew world of medieval fantasy, using the 5e system of DnD. How it worked was that the two DM would switch roles, as in one would hold the game, and the other would be a player in the group.

It danced around, exchanging roles whenever the party had completed the host's adventure, and said host needed time to prepare the next one. In his stead the other game master with a fresh and ready advanture to offer, so to keep the momentum going. And so on so forth.

In this tale, the people of importance are the DM, the Co-DM, the druid, and Sorcerer. Sorcerer was the instigator of trouble, playing as a dark elf half dragon sorcerer from the Underdark, who's alignement had the connotation "good" in it.

The first session had only some small instances to itself. Co-DM hosting and introducing us with the party meeting in a tavern, and everyone getting hired by DM's character, a noble alchemist lizardfolk. It was a game of investigating some illicit trading possibly held by a rival house, a house the party visited thanks to Sorcerer charming the guards at the gate. Ensue two high class rivals going on passive agressive negotiation, DM trying to have the upper hand but failing at doing so, doe to Co-DM's style asking "roleplay your dialogue and I'll make you roll with advantage if I judged you did well, or with disadvantage if I judge you did poorly". DM was never prompted to roll and it went on for several minutes.

The only reason the party had gotten a lead from the suspected noble was thanks to Sorcerer, claiming loudly how this is going nowhere and stepped in. Without asking anybody beforehands, he interrupted DM and began negociating with the NPC to try to find an agreement. He would get one, by being told he'll get something if he agrees to be available for a service against DM, and Sorcerer agreed without any second thoughts. Didn't asked DM how he felt about this, or how we could try to find a loop in the agreement, just plain took on his own shoulders to be a possible thorn in a player's side.

And DM, while being annoyed, hasn't said anything about having an issue with this OOC, so this was nothing more than a small situation.

Another one later in the session was when we followed the lead to an old, seemingly abandonned warehouse. It is a very small case but foretold what could've came much later. DM trying to lockpick, and failing, getting egged on by Sorcerer, and when the way was opened has the frail caster made the call to take the lead instead of the party's tank.

That was it, nothing more. A few issues that could be discussed outside of the game and should have before it got more worrysome.

The first time DM actually held the session, we were sent out to simply browse the city's offerings at our leisure, especially the attic sale ongoing. We browsed, found some small trinkets or materials, and all seemed well. Sorcerer spotted a merchant of fine clothing's goods easily loosing its colors, revealing it was only colourful and vibrant thanks to quickly applied cheap dye, and made a scene to bring the public's attention to the shady business. A little after, another shady merchant was found.

It was a lady, selling jewels and other goods that normally are very costly at low prices. Sorcerer investigated too, made the group aware for once and we pressed on as he showcased to be normally right in his assumption. The party pressed and intimidated the woman, who broke down crying and admitting she was recently made a widow, and selling her late husband's belonging in hope to avoid any opportunities of remembering her soulmate's tragic passing.

A few felt sad, and sorcerer denied any implications in this by claiming he wasn't the one who made her cry, it was those who pressed on her when he stayed back and watched.

And as they went on after this, a small rat-kin was spotted, looking a little shady but most of all, unarmed. This fellow was quickly caught pickpocketting and having a wagon loaded with all sorts of of goods that probably were stolen. It spoke in small, nervous succession of words, chaining around 4 or 5 before taking short pauses, stuttered and showed no signs of resistance. The party got attached to this rodent, Sorcerer didn't.

He pressed on, harder and harder, intimidating, making threats until the party's soon to be mascot just plain fainted from the pressure. And he didn't felt bad about it, due to him playing his character as a hardened cold person due to the underdark being the underdark.

And the reason we knew he was from the underdark was when the party nested by a campfire, after the shopping session and a bandit ambush, he would just go on and on about how life in the underdark is hard, harder than any of us could imagine. This was something he loved to bring out to excuse him being mean or agressive to NPCs, and used to make it sounds like he had the toughest backstory out of everyone.

After this session, it really got truly overbearing having to hear it again, especially when Sorcerer pushed himself into most of the interaction anyone had with an NPC and taking the lead in such interaction. You desire to chitchat? He bump in and makes the NPC talk to him instead. Rumors seeking? It was him that would get it instead of who started. Saving a child from bullies? Pushed aside the players doing it so he could do that instead. This never ended, and no matter how hard the host tried to split the spotlight between everyone, Sorcerer was the one to steal it.

It is when the bullying outside of game began. Druid voiced his miscontent of feeling like a side character. Complained about being able to do one, barely even two things due to someone hogging the spotlight, being so little invested as a result he fell asleep as he had to wake up at 6:30 to play. While it started with no clear indication who did, Sorcerer's arguing rubbed Druid the wrong way. Allow me to grant you, dear reader, the height of the arguing.

Druid: "Dnd isn't supposed to be a fucking jrpg. Having a time limit would just make shit worse"

Sorcerer: "its not supposed to be a fucking bar fight either*.* because thats what this is a bunch of drunk idiots fighting over nonsense"

Druid: "Yeah when I have to wait for an entire session to do ANYTHING IS FUCKING NONSENSE"

Sorcerer: "fucking speak up then you passive twat dont fucking blame others for your lack of spine. enough of this im getting annoyed now"

It continued for a few message before Sorcerer ended it with "i have more important shit to worry about than your social issues [Druid]", and soon after DM threatened to close the server if no one was capable of communicating without making a fight out of everything. It had gotten everyone to clam up, but as I look at it, that just sounded too unwilling to assist the Druid by making severe threats like that to just stop the fighting.

If anyone had just came to Druid's rescure and told Sorcerer off, we wouldn't have gotten as much headache as we did afterward. Alas, no one did, and the only thing we can do is to learn from this painful experience.

Later, it would be DM that would get targetted by the unkind treatment. During one session where Co-DM hosted, the party stumbled upon an abandonned tavern who was being haunted. No one knew at the time, but this used to belong to someone that DM's character knew well, his lover who has vanished from the plane. After removing the noisy spectral inhabitant, we decided to sleep in the building for the night and each picked a room. DM picked the master bedroom, which Sorcerer didn't liked.

The caster simply couldn't let that go and demanded he get it, to which DM just said no, he wanted it. As a level headed response, Sorcerer lit his hands on fire and threatened to burn down the entire tavern if he didn't get that one bedroom. He even withheld DM from possibly taking a reaction, as Sorcerer argued he had higher dex than DM and therefore would act first. If it wasn't for Co-DM stepping in, telling Sorcerer the moment the host become a player he will give him a whallop, we would've all slept atop piles of ashes.

So DM got his room, searched for his lover's diary, had his little flavouring rp reading the diary and writing in the blank page a letter to the one he misses dearly. Meanwhile, Sorcerer just pouted outside, taking the tavern's furniture to throw into a big bonefire, and the player explained how the character was insulted to have lost something to what his draconic side deemed a pitiful creature, and swore to get back at the offender as they are now rivals.

It was hard to believe such character was good aligned. I do not remember if it was chaotic good, neutral good or lawful good, but I recall with 100% certainty that it at least had "good" in there.

Now, on to the last major issues. DM was the host, and thanks to an odd artifact guiding the party to odd places, we found ourselves in a secluded town, the exact day its inhabitants celebrated a carnival in honor of local guardian spirits. We had a blast, with some moment where Sorcerer wanted to hog the spotlight, and everyone just did different activities. The map was busy to say ther last, with plenty of tokens and decorations, and plenty of barrels. A few of those colored red, but we were too engrossed in the festivities to investigate.

All came to an abrupt end when a carnival prop revealed itself to be a life syphoning crystal, taking the vitality of many, and before anyone could react, flames errupted from everywhere. One by one, the red painted barrels bursted into a mix of powder and fire, tents and buildings were consumed by flames, rubbles trapped many civilians, and some of the performers drew blades to slaughter citizen and guards alike. It was pure chaos in the middle of an inferno, but the party worked together to bring down the foes and stop one of them from escaping with the crystal.

As the assault ended, each players went to help the injured and choke the flames, and the session ended right then. It seemed all had a blast, that everyone finally had a chance to do something in accordance to their roles. Feedback were asked and feedback Dm received, as one by one the players left the call. All, except Dm, Co-DM, and Sorcerer.

Sorcerer's feedback was different from the rest. It wasn't thrilled or happy, but bored and distant. He claimed DM's was bland, uninspired and predictable. Argued that Sorcerer just saw the barrels, expected something to go wrong, and found it so boring and predictable he decided not to participate in any way. Apparently, something going wrong is so cliché and uninteresting.

DM didn't took that well at all, but decided to ask the player about how he could've done it. Sorcerer then proceeded to describe the festivities going on, then spent at least 3 or 4 minutes talking about the red barrels in specific, which DM hasn't. DM expected the party to notice them on their own, and if they didn't, they would later on know that red barrels equate to terrible news. Sorcerer, instead, thought that telling the party directly about how odd and offputting the barrels were would've made things better.

I wouldn't say who is right, as I have a bias myself. Perhaps you, dear reader, can wager and argue what is the correct way, but ultimately it is simply a case of differing DM style.

However, that is when DM got petty. He offered Sorcerer to just show how it's done. next session, the player would become the game master and grant us a one shot adventure. All the while DM had concocted a way to show how he wasn't as predictable as Sorcerer claimed.

Comes the dreaded session time, one I shan't forget. We wandered in the forest, found a temple that wasn't there before and investigated. As the last member stepped foot inside, the doors locked behind us, and we were trapped. A distant, ethereal yet booming voice claimed to be the resident of this place, a bored god seeking amuzement, and we were obligated to oblige through 4 unique challenges.

The first challenge was one of us having to play chess against the god. Co-DM was picked, and the rest of us? We waited. We couldn't see, we couldn't assist, we couldn't hear. We sat in silence while Co-DM and Sorcerer played a game, and it was terribly uncomfortable. Apparently, Co-DM won, and we moved to the next challenge: the maze.

DM was chosen, put within the maze and tasked to find the exit before the time ran out. The rest of the party watched, and this time we could hear and encourage, it was great, not like the maze. It consisted of DM trying to make it interesting with wordy sentences, but quickly devolved in a game of few words.

"I go [x direction]" and it either was met with "you get to another crossroad" or "it's a dead end". Right, left, left, back, right, so on so forth. No need for a map to be drawn, it was just saying a direction until Dm get out. And so we completed the second challenge, thus allowing us to get on the third challenge: Meet thine desire.

One by one, we had to get into a room and face what our soul's darkest desire was. It was a second moment where one was doing something with Sorcerer, while the rest sat and waited, unable to see or hear what went. Worst part was for DM. His character having sold his soul to a demon for knowledge as part of his backstory, was denied to even play this. The entire duration of the challenge he simply sat and waited for it to end, awkwardly trying to strike a discussion with the party members that were there. And with two failing, and DM unallowed to do it, we didn't succeeded in this challenge.

So come the fourth one: arena battle.

A challenge where everyone took a turn fighting in the arena. One player step in, the rest watch from the podiums, and the dueling character had to face an exact copy of themselves, but evil. Yet another moment where the whole party but one had to sit through it, as there was a magical barrier disallowing any of us from stepping in, throwing anything, or casting a spell. We could only watch and cheer while the fight was two exact same character sheets rolling dice to find out who roll the best dices.

It was when DM's pettiness showed up. While in the podium, his lizardfolk noble spent his time drinking a coffee, and waited until his turn came up. When facing his own reflection, he pointed a cane he freshly has acquired, shouted bang proudly, and showcased his artificer's skills at having made a blowdart cane. A sleeping dart fired forth, alas it missed, not without bothering DM. The clone tried to pull the same, but DM argued that even if it hit, it would've been met with a save roll with advantage thanks to the coffee he drank which he had altered, thanks to his alchemist subclass's quirkiness. Sorcerer was a little annoyed to have someone actually having something to make them different than the copies, something that could've given some advantage.

So they both missed, yet not forever. Come forth a spell casted by DM, Ray of Sickness, and the opponent fail the save, getting poisoned. The clone tried to return the favor but it misses, and that lazardfolk has the advantage. That was until DM acting his character relaxing, pulling out a white flag, and claim to abandon the fight. The clone won by forfeit, while this reptile smugly said:

"You wanted entertainment? I can trust this was definitely most entertaining to you!", as if the goal wasn't to win, but to get this godly being out of their boredom. And after we barely won, that was it. Some rewards, the temple vanishes, and that was it. DM was very happy to have showed up he wasn't as easy to read as Sorcerer claimed, and we resumed the campaign.

Now, dear reader, it is with regrets that I have to tell you there is no big showoff to this. A few more sessions happened, and Sorcerer was hooked on DM character's misery as part of that rivelry of his. Refusal to assist, mock the character if they get graveously injured, poked at the bear, but just nothing grandiose to conclude the campaign.

DM simply casted out Sorcerer, then later on blocked him when finding out that the player liked art of underage characters, to which he didn't even denied and only reached to Co-DM and claiming he would understand of Co-DM wasn't fond of him, especially for liking that sort of art, and that is it.

The group just continued without this unruly factor, with a new player found quickly enough, and all that remain is unsavory memories.

I thank you, whoever you are, for your time reading this very long tale. I apologize if it feel like something is missing, as it has happened around two years ago, and it is also just my side of the situation. Perhaps I was misguided on something, or perhaps I forgot a few parts. I cannot tell with certainty that I am the most reliable source of information on the matter, so is the nature of only written texts on the internet

I bid you to fare well in any endeavor you take, and I shall see you for when I make the next entry in this saga.

TL/DR: A player chased the spotlight, acted without communicating with the party, blamed other for being annoyed at it, didn't participated in scenario or team, then get booted out.

Hey folks!

TL;DR - DM'd for a random party. After a cringe session, two of the people at the table got drunk and asked to see pictures of my dick.

I have moved around a bunch in my life and D&D has always been something I take with me wherever I go. I find groups and as a "forever DM" I am often the one who will wrangle up a gaggle of players I find, or folks who are interested in D&D and try and give them a fun experience.

This kicks off back in 2020 at the beginning of COVID. I was taking a course for work and one of my classmates (We can call him Ted) mentioned he enjoyed D&D, but could never find anyone to run it. Knowing this was my moment I let him know that I run games, and have run games for years. If he has some friends that are interested, I'd gladly come over and run a little mini-venture to get everyone's feet wet.

Fast forward for 3-4 weeks and we've worked out a small party of 4 which includes an old coworker of his (We can call her Sally), and a couple that knew Sally (I'll just refer to them as "the couple"). The date is set and I'm HYPE!

Then the session starts off.... bizarre.

The couple has some bizarre character concept they cooked up (after I asked for everyone to keep it simple for a first session) where one of them is "wolf" and the other is "lamb" a la Kindred from league of legends. They're trying (poorly, and embarrassingly) to complete each others sentences when RPing. Staring into each others eyes the whole time and its at this point I'm starting to feel someone voyeuristic.

But, a couple being weirdly into each other at the table has never stopped me before and I trudge along. The entire time Sally is talking about being a wiccan, and her love of kink with anyone who will listen, and Ted has taken to the ciders people brought a bit hard.

I apply a little pressure and introduce some NPC's to get the ball rolling and before long everyone is more or less following along in the prepped adventure. I dodge a few awkward situations between "the couple" as they continue to try and get their freak on both in and out of game, Ted has a few more ciders and I'm starting to lose him, and oh no Sally has gotten into the margarita mix. Time to bring this train back into the station and say my farewells.

I quickly thought of a way to wrap up the session about an hour earlier than I'd planned (Gave them some extra bread crumbs to find the bad guy) and by the end of the final combat before I can go into RPing the conclusion "the couple" had to leave early to... go home and do... something? (they never quite said, and I didn't want to ask) Now its just Ted, Sally and I sitting around the table wrapping up.

Ted has had more than a few and asks Sally to crash at her place (where the session happened). Sally offers him the couch, and pours herself some more margarita mix. While I'm packing up she's talking about how "Impressive it is that you like, can command authority over a table like that". Being in my early 20's, and naive I just shrugged it off and replied with "Not really, everyone here wants to play. I just give them what they want". Say my goodbyes and begin driving home.

As soon as I get into my car the text messages start. I'm watching these all pop up with my cars notification thing on my GPS.

Ted (Who sent like... 6 messages that looked something like this):
"I know this might be forward but you should show me your dick."
"Oh fuck, I shouldn't have said that".
"Please?".
"No, don't. Sorry I'm being weird I had too much".
"Unless you want to?"
"Ugh. Sorry!"

Sally (Who ALSO sent me multiple messages to a similar tune)
"You should totally come over again some time.
"I'd love to see what kind of kinks you're into
"I feel like you could be a Dom"
"Have you ever taken a BDSM test?"
"You should send Ted and I some pictures of that dick"

I'm approximating what they said but yeah... Needless to say, I was VERY uncomfortable.

Before you ask, no. I didn't send anyone any pictures.

Ted was HORRIFIED after. I told him no hard feelings - he wasn't overly pushy after I told him no and I just ignored any other drunk texts I got from him that night. Class was... interested for the remaining few months we had. I tried to play it cool after but I think I made it worse by being very nonchalant about it.

Sally also apologized for being drunk but proceeded to hit on me more after. I declined her advances after being REALLY weirded out about the whole situation.

I didn't DM for them again.

So this dungeon master was making a campaign that had the players at the end of an adventure at level 20 in a homebrew world, i was joining aware that is was most likely not going to be fun but i wanted to give him one more try at being a good dungeon master, first my character was a level 19 wizard and level 1 warlock with my subclasses being hexblade for warlock and chronogy for wizard, this character was a thri kreen (despite psionics not existing so I shouldn’t have telepathy but i did anyway) and they had a full history that i was never told for some reason because the astral sea didn’t exist, and finally we were given a legendary starting item I choose the item “black razor” and the campaign started, due the black razor being unable to eat the souls of undead i wasnt very interested in killing the main enemy and the paladin of the party killed him, this was the last major choice we had as a party until we started walking home, i tried to do something with glyph of warding and my familiar i had but the dm wouldn’t let me because “my familiar had free will” and i was arguing it because the familiar does listen to the caster who summoned it, the cleric just decided to teleport us their instead of hearing us fighting to the king (btw never was told who hired us so we were all surprised by our contractor being a king) during our report some human had interrupted with a giant wild wolf and was badly injured, the cleric naturally tried to heal them but we learned this was an anti magic field, there were several reasons this was bad my patron was black razor so I couldn’t communicate with him since he was knocked out in an anti magic field, also i am a thri kreen the only way for me to communicate to other people was via telepathy that was shut down in an anti magic field, so i left and the dm wasn’t happy when I explained that I couldn’t interact whatsoever with the story and my reasons for leaving the anti magic field, then someone else entered the area and killed the king leaving everyone surprised, no saves no nothing instant death i found this weird but nontheless the choice was the parties on who to side with the assassins who killed their king or some random women, they choose the random women and a fight started, hearing the commotion i ran in and the anti magic field went down during the fight so i could cast spells, when it came to my turn because I volunteered to go last for the fight (i had the alert feat so I couldn’t be surprised but i did the punishment to myself so everyone else got a chance the do what they want) when it came to my turn i had black razor give me haste and i casted shapechange turning into a maralith a creature with 7 attacks +1 from haste despite this i apparently instantly killed 7 people with my attacks with none of them having higher hp then 30 something (all without me rolling) i then when up to the assassin and then she used a reaction to instantly send us to another universe (not using magic so no counter spell) then session ended, the next session I couldn’t hear the dm on where we were (apparently a cave) and i started to light a fire to rest since all of us had just came off a war and a successful assassination attempt i was told no, not knowing why i was told no i asked why and he said “you would suffocate from the fire” still not understanding why i simply asked how we would suffocate and he yelled at me that we were in a cave and called me names (mind you this guy is significantly older then me and i was a kid at the time) the session continued however with people agreeing we needed to long rest and people being mad at me leaving the anti magic field, i casted demi plane to give us a demi plane to rest, the npc we were with did hear us trying to rest but didnt follow and when we were done we had found the npc was gone and session ended there same with the campaign because majority of players were not interested in this campaign and left overall this guy was rude to everyone and never took jokes well and very rarely actually listened to players or their complaints about how the game was ran.

Ultimately i didnt have fun and no longer have contact with this person anymore because of their actions, its likely i am missing things but this is for some extra spice on this story was a guy who was a mod in a discord server and didnt care if someone gave genuine death threats to a kid and gave barely any consequences.

So. For starters. This was my first and ONLY dnd campaign, the whole fucking thing was a shit show, I joined late and was a replacement for dwindling player counts. I've never found the right group and quite frankly, this makes me avoidant of playing again as sad as it is, even after all these years.
I will let this be said, Warnings for forced romancing, Emotional manipulation, and just all out weird degenerate behavior

First dnd campaign, I played a male Aasimar warlock with a tiny lava pebble spitting rain frog familiar, whatever not very important. I joined in right before a boss fight. Now the person who invited me to the group was... utterly smitten with him to say the least. I brushed it off at first, granted we were too busy fighting whatever BBEG thrown at us.

It wasn't until people started leaving more and MORE did I start to get.. suspicious? Apparently if I wasn't able to show for a campaign because of my work schedule SHE wouldn't show up to campaign because I wasn't there. She also had begun to try and befriend me outside of campaign, which was fine and okay, she'd also force me into a... situationship of sorts? Like a loads of flirting, attempted.. dirty.. roleplay, I was 15 at the time so I was.. Uncomfortable! She was 17 going on 18 so.. yikes!

She eventually brought up the idea of shipping our characters together after having gaining my trust and friendship, also making me feel bad so.. Stupidly, and with the pressure of dwindling player numbers due to issues which I'd later learn to be mostly with how this player was treating them, I accepted.
The idea was brought up to DM and DM said it was okay, ASLONG as it was kept on the downlow, I acknowledged this and figured that was sensible cause.. Why would I want to make the last 2 other members uncomfortable or any players at all no matter the number? [For reference when I joined we had about 6-7 members]

What had finally forced one of the members to formally leave and one to kinda.. slowly stop showing up to sessions was this player making a reference to our characters... doing some not very kid friendly activities in their inn room in a campaign with a 17 yr old dm and mostly minor players. [all of us being 15-18]. Our DM was very clearly uncomfortable as was I and the other players. leaving us the only 2 players for MY final session.I had gotten into a romantic relationship, The gal.. REALLY didn't like this, insulting me, calling me a .. cheater? also insulting my partner very heavily. I had enough of her ass so I did what I see as the right thing and blocked her, told the DM the situation and said I'd be unable to continue the campaign also apologizing for his campaign being forced to end. He was LIVID, calling me selfish and an a-hole for "betraying him" and leaving his campaign like this. Like.. Dude, that player made 90% of the other players leave!

So, to give you guys some background. Im 26 from Europe, and i have been playing with this group for some time, i got invited to it by my DM that was running our game. The game we were in was getting quite stale and we were talking about doing a one-shot. I only DM'd once before for the previous group i was with, but i offered to run the same oneshot i did for my own group. I stated clearly i was new to DM'ing and that im not too experienced since i only played DnD for about a year. The one shot i ran was Shemshine bedtime rhyme which is like a little adventure where the players get stuck inside a library and a curse gets unleashed, they need to solve it and figure out whats going on. I put a lot of effort into it (music, custom lights, made the map in Foundry, etc) since i wanted everyone to have a really good experience.

The group all together was 4 players including me. There was a rogue, a paladin, and a warlock. It was revealed that the paladin subclass was Paladin of devotion, and he was devoted to the evil necromancer. The game started off okay, the introductions with the characters were done, They kinda looked around and explored the place, after a while i presented a pretty obvious hook to get the adventure going, the rogue went for it but was stopped by the Warlock and the Paladin. Now they were the problem players, They decided to make characters together named Aurora and Boriales, so thats what i will refer to them as, The guy character name Aurora and the girl character name Boriales. They randomly just went looking for books in the library and just throwing out names at me, completely ignoring the obvious hook that i set out in front of them.

After a while of them doing that the rogue jumped in and got them to make some progress, by progress i mean them going down the stairs and into bed. They shared a room together and the rogue player got his own room. After they woke up they started making really odd and inappropriate comments about how they were making noises during the night, and how they found some 'interesting' books and tried stuff out that they saw in them. Now, i dont mind if the party wants to joke around or whatever, im all for it. But they were being super weird and making me and the rogue uncomftrable and weirded out. They completely left him out of any roleplay and interactions they had other then them mentioning how they had multiple goblins at home in their basement which they do stuff to(rogue was a goblin), i tried to fill the lack of competence and interaction with the rogue using the NPCs to interact with him and help him out.

After a while the curse started spreading and they figured out that something was going on,(thanks to the rogue ofc), and the paladin wanted to throw someone in a room and set up a trap with a spear he has, i told him 'okay, so how do you want to use your spear to make a trap' he just said how 'i just want to use the spear to make a trap'. I told him if he wants to explain it to me and like..make it make sense there is no issue but im not just gonna let him use freaking.. power word trap to make a trap appear from nothing. He wasnt really happy with that. A bit later towards the end of the adventure there is a music box they uncover that is used as a step to stop the curse. The rogue was the only one attempting to use it while the other two just kinda looked at him and interacted with each other. He had to take 3 rounds of pretty high psychic damage to solve the music box. They didn't even try or bother to help or do anything.

Now for the creme de la creme. There was a child NPC, after a bunch of bad stuff happened in the game she ran up to them with this book that had something that looked like blood on it, she said she was attacked and that she needed help. They both did a check to see if she was lying, One of them rolled a nat20, the other one rolled pretty high as well. The PALADIN didnt think two checks, her being absolutely terrified, and her being attacked was enough proof that she was innocent, and decided to decapitate and innocent child. The final fight happened, the rogue did everything again, and i explained how the archmages that felt the curse was awakened showed up and saw everything that happened (pulled it out of my ass), The rogue was awarded and the paladin and warlock were thrown in the worst prison there was to stay there forever. After saying that the paladin was visibly upset over his webcam and complained about it, at least that gave me some pleasure. I reached out to the rogue and apologised, but he was really understanding and didnt blame me for the shitfest that happened.

We went back to his campaign next time we played, and the stuff that was happening there was the worst DnD i have ever played. If you guys are interested let me know and i'll either update or make another post.

Anyways, Thanks for reading. Take care!

Nothing too harsh, but its been years and still annoys me.

Ages ago I wanted to play a conjuration specialist who only summoned creatures to hang out with. A tiger here, an imp there, maybe a wolf and a badger. He'd summon them, feed them, spend his free time chilling with summoned creatures, and then dismiss them back to wherever, with a full belly and a good brushing.

He often summoned a specific Erinyes once he obtained a true name and summoned blindly. It actually took a liking to my character. The Erinyes would show up, yell about being in a summoning circle, realize it was my character, and then just hang out. The summoning circle was huge and had tables and chairs and good food and drink available. Then my character would spend time asking questions, sharing stories, and send the confused yet pleased demon on it's way. The Erinyes enjoyed the break twice a month and their "deal" was that she would accept the hospitality in exchange for conversation and some information. This had been our deal for years. The long term plan was for the Erinyes to become a "familiar" to my character once we got to a good level where it wouldn't be unbalanced.

It was all roleplay during downtime and the group and the DM enjoyed it. I was playing this character for about a year of real time.

Our long time DM had to stop playing due to some personal obligation and one of the players stepped up to take over. This would have been ideal since we all knew the story and where we wanted to go...but I guess this player turned DM actually just hated all our characters.

In the first session it all went okay. There was some tension from the DM but we figured it was first time jitters.

The the second session started. It was a shopping/downtime session where we all could roleplay a little. This is when the DM hit us.

1. The Paladin of the group lost contact with his god. We got excited for a plot hook, there was no plot hook. No bread crumbs. Nothing. The Paladin was demoted to a stock fighter. He was at least allowed to rebuild his character to the same level as a fighter, but he wasn't happy. We talked after and he was considering dropping group.

2. Our Rogue seemed to be incapable of stealth, pick pocketing, anything rogue shenanigans related. Every NPC suddenly had some version of Omniscience about her actions because "you're a well known adventurer and stick out wherever you go". Even her high levels of the disguise skill and investment in the best costumes and

3. Our wizard was fine, no issues.

4. And that comes to me. The "conjurer". I was a conjuration focused Wizard/Druid and the support for the group. During the session I went out into the woods and tried to summon a bear and was told that it didn't work, but the spell was spent. I was surprised and tried again. No dice. So I gave up. Later we needed some story related information and I went to call up my ally Erinyes to ask if she knew anything. She appeared and wouldn't talk. Just went wild in the circle, threatened me, and destroyed the furniture and food I had provided.

Finally we all asked the DM what his problem was and he went off on us.

The Paladin had always overshadowed his Fighter and he didn't like that. It was unfair and he haaated Paladins. Like, just the whole class because it was OP. He also hated that the player was always playing Lawful Good. Keep in mind the Paladin didn't force his character on us, it was all in his own bubble and he played his character well. The DM also hated that the Paladin was okay with me "enslaving and evil devil". The paladin said that his character would be fine with it since it was more of a visit than a binding, and I never used my Erinyes friend for anything but information and companionship. According to the DM the Paladin should have slain the Erinyes.

The DM hated the Rogue because she was specialized in espionage rather than back stabbing. She wasn't a "real" rogue according to him. He didn't like the she played a quiet character who used her skill to get info we needed, supplies, and spend her off time stealing from wealthy people to donate to the needy. The DM said she wasn't even playing a rogue correctly.

Then it came to me. He HATED that I played battlefield control over summoning creatures in combat. He said my whole concept was childish and stupid and he refused to allow me to summon anything outside of combat and any evil creatures I summoned would only try and kill me.

We kicked him from the game and the Rogue took over and it was good from there, but that was one hell of a rant from a guy we had peacefully played with for years.

Have you ever felt like that one meme when the guy slowly turns into a clown? That is kind of what I am feeling at the moment. I've been in the same group since the beginning of 5e and was one of the original members. Since then we have played several homebrew campaigns with the same DM all the way through (this is something that he wants rather than the designated eternal DM). Since starting this recent campaign 2 years ago, I've noticed my character's lack of inclusion in the story, while other members have risen to main character status. I've even spoken to my DM and asked what I could do, but in return, I have been told that my time will come. It's been a year since then, and a year and a half since I had a single session when he was relevant to the plot. Every session that goes by makes me feel like I am an NPC not only in my campaign but also in my friendship.

I've also noticed that this has been a problem since the start. While others would have daring escapades and heartwarming story arcs, I would always end up with a crumb of a narrative. I wish this were a case of my character lacking in both story and design, but this time I gave everything. Enough of the background to provide a motive and history for my character while leaving space for the DM to take creative liberties with. A character who has enough weakness to have room to grow, but it's hard to grow when there is no time to do so. Every session that goes by, I hope for a sip of recognition and every session a new part of the clown makeup is added.

Long rant short, how long is too long to go without anything story? Is this time to hang up the dice and call it quits?

Did a prison break one shot for some friends who have never played before and one of my friends wrote this as his backstory. He is 27 years old...

Sikibidiah jones: Humanoid from planet Skibidi. Space cowboy and former Intergalactic fugitive. Skibidiah jones was on the run for fifteen years after poaching big chungus into extinction for their fuzzy wuzzy pelts. They finally caught him munting in Ohio, with a grimace shake in one hand and a glizzy in the other. Police were tipped off by his arch nemesis, Lord dingleberry the third, whos a crime boss that was competing with Skibidiah in the big chungus pelt market.

Skibidiahs biggest fear is the Costco guys, because one time he was held hostage by Ellen digenerous, who was seeking the famed magical golden plunger. she played “we bring the boom” on repeat during the interrogation process. Eventually skibidiahs buddy busted him out, but the damage was already done. He was held in a dark, isolated room for two months, and came out different, and traumatized, on the other end. After escaping, On the brink of insanity, He picked up munting as a hobby and never looked back, which eventually brought upon his downfall.

I recently got a chance to get back into DND and decided to join a one-shot with some friends before actually joining a long campaign with them. All of us have known each other for 5 years+, so none of us are strangers. Part of the one-shot was to teach two of them how to play (as well as reminding me), and part of it was to let the DM and the other veteran player get a sense of how we play. For this story, the relevant characters are me (Wood elf Bard), one of the new players (Human Rogue), and the DM.

The DM is both lenient and also harsh. They'll let you get away with things as long as you can build a strong case for them. PVP is on the table no matter the situation though. I feel I should clarify that I do NOT have an issue with PVP, nor how my DM is running things. Hell, I got burned to death by other players during prior play-throughs for things that were 100% my fault.

We were investigating a building and with how things got pulled around, the literal only thing I could do with knowing I have poor luck on dice rolls was that I light the lamp we used and played music. Unsurprisingly, this attracted some enemies because I forgot DND has combat after how many jokes we were making. Since I didn't want to use my instrument as a weapon, I pulled out a dagger with plans to help my teammates

Rogue, for an undetermined reason in character, went on some sort of frenzy and instead of engaging with the enemy, attacked me and damn near oneshotted me (8 DMG vs 9 HP). Rogue out of character SPECIFICALLY stated that it was because my character pulled out a dagger. Due to being so low on health, I used an action to disengage and fled out of battle. By this, i mean i fled to a new area that required an acrobatics check to even access. If this is where it ended, I wouldn't be here.

Since Rogue is new, he didn't realize that since they had advantage AND did a sneak attack, that they should've technically did more DMG than theh actually did. When they realized this, Rogue tried to correct themself and almost got upset when the DM overruled them.

At this point in the battle, the enemy have started attacking Rogue and the other teammates with Rogue. Instead of engaging with the battle now that I was gone, Rogue chose to take a hit from an opportunity attack to pursue my Bard and also got upset when they got made to reroll the dice bc they tried to dash to me before the DM had done the opportunity attack.

Rogue was so hellbent on killing my character that DM, Rogue, and I all had to step out of character so we could get Rogue to stop hunting down my character for the stupid reason on the dagger, which resulted in my Bard losing their dagger.

Once our teammates had defeated the enemies, Rogue and I returned to the area where our group was. Rogue, in character, proceeded to call my character a fucking liar when my character was telling the others how the Rogue attacked me. Since one teammate literally couldn't see or hear us and the other was focused on attacking enemies where we were, there were "no witnesses".

When the veteran player attempted to use a dagger as a barbarian to get cloth to tend to my character, Rogue suddenly didn't want to attack. Even before the vet player realized their mistake and swapped the weapon, Rogue was trying to find a way to not attack them as the DM was saying that they'd hold the Rogue to what the Rogue had said earlier. Keep in mind that we all have known each other for years and the Rogue wasn't being a murder hobo. I'm going to keep playing with them, but I have absolutely talked to the DM saying that I'm not tolerating that kind of behavior.

Just needed to rant. TLDR: Rogue tries to kill my bard over choice of weapon to the point of sacrificing themself, but didn't want to give others same treatment

A guy in my friend group is making a DnD campaign that is almost entirely homebrew focused, to the point it's barely even DnD. As I said in the title, he said he was going to add over 100 levels of content. I was very confused by this because it will be more back breaking to himself by having to make spells, feats, levels, monsters, etc, and to the players because of the added confusing rules. He also made it so the player levels are all over the place, I was level 5 (now level 8 through lots of begging), another was level 7, another 3, and another 10. It is very frustrating and he is very stubborn

TLDR:DM adds a lot of confusing rules and makes unfair levels.

This is a short one, because thankfully I caught it and averted any actual issues, but jeeeezus.

I run a lot of games online, and occasionally post on Reddit to fill seats. I have a good mix of players at my tables, generally all my games have at least 1 woman, and I have a campaign with only one guy and 4 women, so that's an interested change of pace! My girlfriend also joins some of our games occasionally - don't worry, half the reason I'm on this sub is to make sure I never end up here lmao. I've also got a spectrum of LGBTQ players, so keeping the space safe is one of my main goals. For this reason, I adopt the rule of just no sexual content whatsoever for my tables, and honestly everyone seems to enjoy it.

Cut to a few weeks ago when I was looking to fill a seat for an upcoming game.

I posted on Reddit and got a good bit of replies. Usually I just send anyone who responds to my Discord, even if they don't join that game, I have a lot of other stuff for them to check out. I generally just have a copy/paste message linking them to the resources channel with the rules and character creation stuff for the game at hand.

For some reason, I got curious, and checked one of the potential players posts AFTER I already sent him the invite. His most recent comment before my thread was in a rape fantasy sub.

I am not one to kink shame, and just because you enjoy a fantasy doesn't make you a bad person! However! Linking your social media account to your fetishes and ALSO to your social gaming profile is a fucking choice to make my guy. Shows some serious lack of social awareness, regardless of what it may or may not say about your character.

I have never deleted a message so fucking quickly in my life. He responded to the now empty chat, "?".

I moved on. Bullet dodged.

EDIT: A surprising number of you guys are complete and utter pieces of shit, and I'm truly concerned. I will be doing a much better job of getting my reddit players so that I don't get people like you at my tables.

And yes, I got aggressive. Too many of you are acting under the assumption that you are not pieces of shit, but you are. Don't worry, I'm happy to remind you how worthless you are. I'm out for blood at this point. Hide ya kids, hide ya wives - don't worry though, at least I have no fantasies of raping her.

I wish I never posted this. Opened my eyes to some really pathetic people.

Temp banned, and notifications off. What a shit show.

These stories were from many years past, I hope they can help warn others to not make mistakes I've made. To make it consistent I will be going by the character name and not I.

The Chaotic's

This game was set up my one of my friends Kevin, it was his first time DMing. There was, Jack, Lucy, and me: Nick, as the players. We had all previously met in another group prior to this game. After that games ended, we decided we wanted to start up a new game. Kevin was nervous about the concept, but came around to it initiated! Note* for Nick and Lucy this is our second game of ever playing dnd. Jack and Kevin were veterans compared to us with their experience in the game.

On the opening session we started to get acquainted with our characters. Nick was playing Chaotic Good, Lucy Chaotic Neutral, and Jack Chaotic Evil. Note* in the prior game alignment had no real meaning. It mattered as much as a medium characters height being 5'8.75" that never gets referenced again after the first session. So Nick and Lucy felt confident that this "flavor change" was not worth bringing up to Kevin and Jack.

However Jacks character was an asshole, was terrible to the party and a complete wangrod. Jack justified this as a "I'm playing my alignment", which Nick and Lucy were too novice to see an issue with that logic. This was also the first time Nick tried role playing a character. Nick copied a popular character in actual plays at the time, and tried to do the voice, and play that part. Jack's character kinda ruined it, it is hard to explain. Note* I did have at this point thoughts of wanting to broach Kevin about this. But because Kevin was so nervous prior to the games start, I chose to ignore the red flags in hopes Kevin would run a campaign 2. The group was overall a very fragile group, if there was no game we likely would have split apart.

Eventually after many many many sessions, missed family events so I could support my friend Kevin with his first game, we arrive at the final session. The big battle! What really matters is the end of the battle, so we'll skip to that. At the end of the battle Jacks character (Chaotic Evil) betrayed the party. Fun Fact* In the first dnd game I was in (that prior game with everyone) Jacks character betrayed the party and Jacks character was assassinated by the rest of the party (not us, but other party members not listed here) for leaving us to die in combat... In the end we swore off betrayal.

So when Jack betrayed the party and killed Nick's and Lucy's characters, Nick and Lucy were pretty mad. Less about their character dying, but about Jack betraying us two. What was revealed the next minute was much much worse. You see it turns out that Kevin and Jack had planned this to occur. Yes the DM coordinated the death of Nick and Lucy's characters as a way to justify Jacks character becoming the big bad of a Campaign 2 from the very start of the whole game.

Now I want to be extra clear about what feelings were felt. Nick and Lucy were not as mad about their characters deaths, but a betrayal of IRL friendships by Jack and Kevin. Secondly the fact that the dread of "your choices during the game never mattered since this is the precursor to a campaign 2' really stung. Third that Nick and Lucy lost some trust for Jack and Kevin. And that is why we swore off ever mentioning this campaign again since it would collapse the friend group.... That campaign 2 never came and never ever will.

The Investigator

This game world had a main theme to it that we as players worked into our characters. In the beginning it was good, at this point we as a group liked the play style of having character arcs. Parts of the game that are more one party member focused. Nick decided to play a detective, at this point Jack was the DM. Note* After the "Chaotic's incident" and some more arguments Nick and Jack had, it was clear to any outside observer that we were not good at communicating to one another, this will be important later.

We decided to start the game with Nicks arc, since Nick is playing an investigator. Nick during the game tried to play a "serious investigator" the kind that don't use magnifying glasses, or mirrors, or another comic style thing. The kind that take the situation very seriously with no "gimmick items" [This will be important later]. It was well communicated in text and verbal with the other players and the DM and was given the all clear! So as time goes on Nick knows of finals session [a month period] starting up and gives Jack a 6 month heads up, and gives Jack regular updates every month about it.

One of the big things Nick and the DM were preparing in semi-secret was a "heist mission" that Nicks character would lead during Nicks Arc [we talked about it at the start of the game]. But as finals session grew closer Nick was reminding the DM more of "we need to do this before or after finals season", the DM assured Nick that we were gonna have the heist session before finals season. The week before comes, and no epic heist session. Nick then goes against his own word to go to the next session instead of studying, and still no heist session. It is only two weeks after that it happens, explicitly during finals. Note* it is assumed if the player is not present, their character is not present during the session. So Nicks character was not present during the big moment of Nicks character arc :(

In between this-^ and that -V there was a spell incident. A ruling issue that Nick and Jack got in a heated argument about. Leading to Nick swapping an acid spell that was part of Nicks character sheet. Nick therefore wanted nothing to do with acid spells for the rest of the game. This will be important later.

After the first round of finals Nick still have updates to Jack about the upcoming second round of finals 5 months later. Still giving monthly updates, with more frequent ones as we neared closer to the time. At this point Nick and Jack had patched up the "heist mission error" and decided on a new "mini-character-arc event" to make up for it. Nick gave good notice of when Nick needed to leave, and made sure Jack heard, noticed, and understood Nick that Nick will not be here next session for 1 months time...... Nick studying a week later, an hour before the next session got a text from Jack "I want you at the session so we can do the mini-arc moment. Nick reneged on his word again, but said Nick can only come for half the session. Jack said that works.

We come to the session, The DM starts off with a combat, takes half the session, and Nick leaves. Jack then does the mini-character-arc without Nick there. Which hurt....
After the months time, Nick returned to the game with a new magic item. It was a gimmick magnifying glass that turns into a mirror and did acid damage. :|

After the session Nick and Jack had an hour long argument, because Jack fell in love with his creation and felt it should never change (as if it was a Vango or a Picasso) . Nick tried to argue that this was antithetical to Nicks whole character. In the end a compromise was made, that the magnifying glass did thunder damage, but still kept the swap gimmick property. Note* The option of "Give the item to another party member and make Nick a new item, or just make a new item for Nick that actually fit Nicks character did not exit and was sworn off by Jack as an impossibility.

We then go later having more arguments between Nick and Jack, to the point that modern day Nick nor Jack cant remember them individually. The campaign ends in a TPK, funny enough a game Nick was not even at. Overall Nick felt through many other incidents that Nicks character changed so much, and so many compromises were made that Nicks core character was erased and forgotten.

After some eventual time, and one more incident in a new campaign that followed. A final line was crossed and composure was thrown out the window, well deserved if you asked me, but Nick was kicked from the group by Jack, as it was clear Jack and Nick were not compatible as people. We wished each other the best, and said thanks for the years of friendship even if a good portion were regretfully arguments.

Note* I do want to be clear me and Jack were not saints during those arguments, it was only until years later we both understood we were not compatible as people with each other.

since then Nick started up their own game, with a new group of gaming friends, the new group has fun every week and is doing so much better than before. I know this was an academic paper worth of text to read. It is a bad habit I'm trying to fix.

But it is the truth, I hope the red flags that i failed to notice and act upon can be noticed by others, to not make my mistakes.

So, as a setup, our party has been trying to complete a long quests for months. We're finally at the finish, we have the item we need, and just have to go turn it in. That's simplifying things, but relevant information. We're given a shopping session, and one players, let's say player A, gets more focus than the rest during the shopping during this particular session. But, I didn't think much of it, because that's how it goes sometimes.

Anyways, the DM informs Player A during the session that their pregnant love interest has gone off a quest. A quest she didn't ask Player A to get involved with. So what does Player A do? He abandons our long quests, jokingly talking about how his character would do it later. He runs off, without telling anyone, taking the item we need to complete that quest with him. So, what happens now? He abandons us, right. Should we go look for him? Should we do our own thing? Well, it didn't matter, because instead of getting the choice, the DM decides to play a 1-1 game with Player A for about an hour and a half, while we can literally do nothing. And, the session ends with Player A getting into a fight, which was implied to be how we'll start our next session, with player A getting more solo time.

Now, to he fair, Player A's character did "try" to warn us. Thing is, it was using a method that Player A knew wouldn't reach us. Something the character wouldn't have known, but like, I feel in that case, where it involves abandoning the entire party that a little metagaming would be appropriate, so as not to leave without anyway for us to respond.

Anyways, afterwards I did voice greviences, but I felt like an asshole doing it, as I was the only one complaining. Still, I don't want to go to a session, and have it be essentially a solo session with one player.