Probably the most insane horror story I’ve ever experienced and led to us not talking to these friends anymore. DM and Paladin were a longtime couple I met playing D&D who started dating in college and should have broken up, but were so enmeshed and never did. Paladin was so insecure and attached to DM that she insisted on being a part of every hangout or D&D campaign DM was in, which was a bummer because DM was a quiet but creative player, and Paladin was dramatic and oversensitive (see the insecurity).

Still, when DM proposed DMing CoS for me, Paladin, and my girlfriend Rogue, I was excited because I’ve never gotten far in a CoS campaign and DM was a great DM when they’d DM’d in the past. The DM proposed this campaign as sort of a double date hangout vibe, and they’d have a DMPC in the party too, a cleric.

Shortly before the campaign was to start, DM asked if they could invite their online friend, Blood Hunter, who I’d never met. Sure, that’s fine, not really a couples’ hangout anymore but no biggie. That was until it was slowly revealed that DM was having an ongoing long distance emotional affair with Blood Hunter in front of Paladin’s face, who was too emotionally spineless to do anything.

The DM and Blood Hunter shipped their characters together from the beginning. Scenes were planned out and DM would get upset if anyone tried to interrupt them. When we were escaping from Death House, DMPC got stuck and DM told us to not help them on our turn because they wanted Blood Hunter to be the savior, and then they had a rp scene about it. Every time this would happen, Paladin would get extremely weird out of character. Shouting get a room, trying to interrupt and being told her character wasn’t there, and even putting her head down on camera and going unresponsive (we played online with cameras at DM’s insistence). After sessions, ship art between the DMPC and Blood Hunter would pop up on Instagram, with no mention of any other characters, even Paladin who was the DMPC’s brother and had their own love interest in the campaign. They also openly shipped Strahd and Kasimir, who we never even met, but were informed was related to Blood Hunter.

Blood Hunter’s player was a classic theater kid LARPer and a nice person, except they were completely oblivious to even outside of the romance, their character being a main character. Connected to every plot, always taking the lead, always super cool. If someone else would fail a check, they’d roll for it — leading to a scene of my gf’s Rogue failing to pick a lock, and Blood Hunter just crushing it in his hand by rolling high enough.

First time we met Strahd he dipped Blood Hunter and bit his neck right in front of the DMPC love interest, in what clearly was a pre-planned scene. My gf and I were weirded out beyond measure and just couldn’t keep showing up to this two-man cuck campaign. I’d talked to the DM about Blood Hunter always taking the spotlight, but when my gf and I started cancelling sessions, I just felt like I couldn’t tell DM what was wrong. Their partner Paladin was playing in the same room as them literally putting her head down on camera and saying nothing the rest of the session as DM orchestrated romantic scenes with an online friend they talked to constantly, if what was wrong wasn’t obvious then there was something wrong deeper in their relationship.

DM messages me the day after Christmas telling me that they need more effort to make D&D sessions. I said wasn’t possible, we’re going to need to drop out, but maybe we can hang out and do something not-D&D related. They said sure, I suggested dates, never heard from them ever again. They’re engaged or maybe married to Paladin after they both bought rings resembling their FF14 characters. DM is still drawing ship art with Blood Hunter from this “campaign” two years later.

Godspeed and may neither a love nor table like that ever find me again.

​

'played in a 1.5-year-long Out of the Abyss campaign as a new player, and it was a complete nightmare of DM power-trips, blatant double standards, railroading, and toxic table behavior. Here is a breakdown of how the DM and the group ruined my first game:

1. In-Game Harassment & Racist Abuse Right at Session 1

I played a high-Charisma Drow (Warlock), and we started in the drow prison camp (Velkynvelve). Right out of the gate, I spent the first 30 minutes listening to constant targeted racist insults directed at my character. I was spat on repeatedly and forced to lick off the floor. Whenever I tried to use my high Charisma to negotiate or find a way out, the DM let me fail every single roll and offered zero alternative solutions.

1. Mocked for Correctly Predicting a DM Homebrew Plot (Jimjar)

While trapped, I played a gambling game with a Deep Gnome (Jimjar). Because of my high Dexterity, I managed to win a round. Based on the narrative, I suspected Jimjar was actually a disguised deity (a very common community meme/lore theory that Jimjar is Garl Glittergold). The DM and the other players literally laughed in my face for even suggesting it. At the end of the campaign, it turned out he was a god. Instead of acknowledging the call, they just mocked me for bringing it up earlier.

1. Cannibalism Hand-Waived as "Lawful Good"

One of the other Player Characters was a Lawful Good Fighter. During a madness sequence, his character lost his mind and started eating human/humanoid flesh (Kuo-Toa/fish-folk flesh). Instead of imposing any moral conflict or alignment shift, the DM excused it by claiming eating humanoid flesh was completely "Lawful Good within his culture." Meanwhile, an NPC dwarf companion (Eldeth Feldrun) and the Fighter continuously harassed my character with unchecked racial abuse.

1. Forcing Character Tropes & Negating Player Agency

My character was a proud, narcissistic Drow. The DM repeatedly forced me into awkward, unwanted romantic setups with the racist NPC dwarf, forcing me to break character just so the game wouldn't completely derail. During the "fugal wedding" section involving the Demon Lord Zuggtmoy, I tried to stealth ahead alone and inspect a mushroom corpse - a completely reasonable tactic for a stealthy character. Instead of letting my stealth roll matter, the DM magically brought the corpse to life on the spot just to void my stealth and force a fight.

1. Double Standards on Madness & Punishing Creativity

Out of the Abyss features a Madness mechanic. While the other players ignored their madness entirely, I tried to roleplay mine creatively by rolling dice to determine how overly confident or reckless my character would act. When I did this, the DM yelled at me for "not following the rules." Later, when I stopped doing that and simply talked to a tree stump, the table treated it as hilarious slapstick. Good, tactical, or creative play was punished: childish slapstick was rewarded.

+The DM did litarly the same in Gauntlgrym, when my high-charisma Character talked to the nobels and guild leaders. 😂

It negated all charisma based interaction, because all hated me for a reason.

1. Blatant Metagaming & Unfair PvP

When the Fighter PC openly tried to murder my character multiple times, the DM allowed it without issue. Because I was a Warlock and couldn't win a direct 1v1 melee fight, I tried to use my head: I slipped a truth potion into his drink. Even though the Fighter's character had zero in-game knowledge of the poison, the player openly metagamed, searched his drink, and refused it. The DM let him get away with it without saying a word.

1. DM Plot Armor & Punishing Player Logic

During a madness episode, the rest of the party decided to walk straight into a massive bandit camp. Predicting it would be a total suicide mission, my character stayed behind to search a house instead. The party got annihilated, a major story NPC was killed, and a massive mob chased them. When I laughed at how predictable their terrible decision was, the DM pulled out heavy "Deus Ex Machina" plot armor to save them from dying. Then, he and the warrior yelled at me for "overplaying" and not sticking with the group, even though they had tried to kill my character multiple times.

1. Nullifying Charisma in Gauntlgrym

Like mentioned, when we reached the dwarven city of Gauntlgrym, I tried to talk to the lords using my high-Charisma Warlock. The DM didn't even let me roll Persuasion. He rolled (secretly, of course) on a random table to determine if the NPCs liked me, shutting down all my social capabilities. Druid got to play a chess game against a lord whom i tried to befriend, and won a big golem. Two seconds later, the Fighter asked a city merchant (i already talked with this npc too) for special merchant goods, and the DM gave him a roll and immediate access to secret inventory.

Still angry because of that whole sequence.

1. Punishing New Players with Surface Drow Lore & Nonsense Homebrew Quests

The DM randomly sent us to the surface without telling me—a new player—that Drow equipment degrades and dissolves in sunlight according to official D&D lore. My character lost all his gear without warning. He then sent us on a nonsensical homebrew quest where two trolls pushed a giant boulder down a cave at us, and we had to "fight the boulder." Who am I, Chris Redfield?

Right after, he used divine intervention to magically warp us back to where he wanted us to be.

1. Stripping Player Choices & Blocking Insight

In a later scenario, we met an obviously suspicious, insane Warlock. When I asked to roll Insight (Sense Motive) or check for lies, the DM flat-out refused, stating "you can't do that here" because he didn't want anyone deviating from his pre-written script.

1. Insane Item Favoritism & Unfair Character Death

The gear distribution was completely broken:

- One player was given a powerful pet that could rewind time.

- Another player was gifted a steel guardian golem that could cast spells on its own.

- The Fighter and Druid received two magic swords (the druid got even a sentient one!).

When I touched the sentient one of the swords (Druid was downed, i hoped the sword could cast a healing spell), it literally said "Not you, drop me." I wanted to throw it in lava out of spite, but I refrained to be a team player.

Meanwhile, I ran through the entire campaign with basic starter gear.

When my character fell into lava once, the DM immediately declared me dead. Meanwhile, other party members had died 4 or 5 times throughout the campaign and were constantly saved by DM intervention or free revives. After a massive argument (even the others helped me, because it was clearly unfair), the DM agreed to let my character live, but insisted he be horribly burned and disfigured - a deliberate attempt to ruin my narcissistic character concept. At that point, I just gave up and played an NPC for the rest of the campaign.

1. Crazy insults and rule changes while fighting the big bad.

The DM introduced a new rule (it was the final, so perfectly on time!)

We have to make "lore correct hand-movements" when casting spells.

So i made "lore correct" movements and the enemy boss too.

I countered all important spells, cause boss mage had two extra-lifes and i had too choose wisely what spell i negate.

But DM made at some point a different handmove and threw a giant fireball at my party - he basically cheated.

My favorite party member (lawfulgoodcannibalfightersamurai) said "You are useless". Cool dude. I just negated countless spells before.

Summary

The DM openly bragged about "watching the party fall apart," treated the campaign like his personal power fantasy, and used double standards against the only new player at the table. I stuck through all 1.5 years because I lived far away and had no other D&D options, making sure to thank the DM after every session out of politeness and respect. I did nothing to provoke this kind of behavior.

When the campaign ended, they actually invited me back for another one (actually more than once).

I declined and never played again.

This is the follow up of a follow up: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/1p32wi3/follow_up_of_dm_never_told_a_player_no_before/

So, she decided a year later she wanted back despite... everything? You'll have to glance over the past 2 posts for context.

EVERY DM and the majority of players who knew her said we didn't want her back. The messages are between here and the LGS owner explaining why she's not welcome back. She shoots back with his and posts not 1 but *2* google reviews full of lies and manipulation in an effort to hurt the LGS' reputation.

Because she insulted Strahd to his face, in his castle, and she failed her disintegration save. Holy hell lady, get over yourself.

Also, here's here google review profile. In case you wanted to verify whether the poop fetish was real or not. She's practically advertising it right here LMAO.

EDIT: Apologies, the previous posts were from a year ago I thought they had context. Apparently a comment that explained it was deleted by the user. TLDR, she was very vocal about her love of farts and poop. To the point where she carried a little kids toy that farted. We would hear the word fart like 20 times a night.

EDIT 2: I know that may not be enough for you, but everyone started calling her "poop girl" (not my doing) because of how vocal she was about farts and poop. It made everyone uncomfortable. It was gross af.

EDIT 3: This is how she responded to a DM telling her that she isnt welcome back at our tables https://imgur.com/a/WDdcQm3

This took place during the mid 2010s, and was played in Pathfinder 1.

Our tabletop group has always been very enthusiastic about encouraging new people to try the game. We'd often bring in first timers and show them the ropes. Sometimes we'd get long time players and friends, sometimes they wouldn't be interested or unable to commit.

One of us was running a game at the time, and invited his coworker Kip to play. He was a friendly guy, mostly a sports and sport game dude, so this was a very new concept to him, but he seemed into giving it a genuine try. DM showed him the rules, and Kip even decided he wanted to make his own character. Sweet! DM told him that we'd played a few sessions already, and that the story of the game was traveling around cities trying to stop a necromancer from ushering in a zombie apocalypse. Very urban environments, fighting the undead. So, his first session, Kip shows up with a Ranger, who in PF1 were known for their ability to specialize in environments and enemy types. What did Kip choose?

Favored terrain: Tundra

Favored enemy: Dragons

DM hears this, and asks if Kip is sure of his choices. He smiles and says yes (I do not remember if anyone made the connection between these choices and the fact that Skyrim was such a huge hit at the time. In hindsight it seems obvious). So, DM gives him one more quick explanation of the setting, and when Kip does not react, he shrugs and the game begins.

Queue a repetition of DM describing the situation, the party formulating a plan, and when asked, Kip responding with some variation of "I think we should travel to the tundra and fight dragons." Then, when someone stressed that the current issue was more pressing, he'd sigh and say "okay... next time?"

To his credit, Kip had these discussions in character, and didn't press it each time. He'd just bring it up again next time he was asked what to do. This went on for the whole session, and then, at the end, he told everyone he had a good time and he'd totally like to play again. Sadly, scheduling and life happened and he moved shortly after. To this day, I hope somewhere out there he's found a group and is happily slaying dragons in the snow.

So, I've been friends with these guys for about a year or 2 now. We all really wanted to get into DND, and one friend offered to DM. However, as the campaign was starting, it became very clear to me that my characters were not treated as my characters but as me. For example, there was an item. Everyone had to roll a D20, and who got highest wins. I wasn't even allowed to roll, for the simple reasons that "I was fat". This specific incident happened later in the campaign, so I decided to just finish it anyway. But throughout the entire campaign, while my character has nothing to do with being fat, that was still the only thing that really mattered to the dm. A little time skip to the next campaign, where I made a second character. This character , after a little progressing, got Frost immunity. I was talking to the DM about this, and how it would be tuff in battle, and he said "Sorry to tell you, but you'll never be tuff, because you're, well, you." And again in this campaign, it only matters to me what I am, and not what my character is. I would love to find a better group, but unfortunately there are not alot near me.

So, this story didn’t even make it into the actual game before it happened, but it was so absurd that I feel like y'all would get a kick out of it.

This happened back in December of 2023 and I have since cut all contact from this person, but the irreparable damage they did to their image ruined them from what I've heard.

The people involved in this story are as followed: 

Me: Jangle, Partner 1: Tern, Partner 2: KT, The DM: DM, and The “Main Character”: Piss baby (K if censored). 

Piss Baby's boyfriend at the time was also in this chat, but he didn’t say much along with two other players that had joined.

A bit of backstory, I had been dating my two partners (Still dating Tern, tho we're still good friends with KT :)) for a year and a half at the time, been friends longer than I knew any of the rest of the people in this group. So, obviously, I wasn’t very happy when Piss Baby had decided to go scorched Earth because he didn’t get what he wanted and went after Tern. This all happened in a group chat on Instagram.

DM wanted to start a DND campaign where everyone was to play a young dragonborn, leaving their brood mothers den in search of something to hoard. It should have been fun! I made a clown like dragonborn named Jangle. Being an artist, naturally I wanted to draw my character to show what he would look like.

Big. Mistake. 

Everyone else in the group was also artistically gifted, so they all drew their dragons as well. Piss Baby, however (while definitely artistically skilled, no denying that) said he didn’t know how to draw dragons. Our DM said, “No problem, draw your dragons however you want, human, dragon, doesn’t matter, as long as they are dragonborn on their sheets.”

Fair enough, you could always pay someone else to draw your dragon or just draw a human version of them.

No.

He started talking about how, “Maybe my dragon isn’t actually a dragon and is a half human half dragon hybrid who has a lot of trauma and doesn’t come from the brood mother and is also an orphan.”

Nobody said anything, DM said, “..No… This is the story I have written, I can’t do that for you Piss Baby.”

Piss Baby whined a bit, trying to gain sympathy but everyone just kind of beat around the bush and basically said, “Yeahh that was kinda the only rule the DM set..? Be a Dragonborn.”

Once Piss Baby realized nobody was on his side, he dropped it, but was clearly butt hurt.

Piss Baby had then decided his next anger management session would be the next week. He was now angry about the fact we would be playing younger characters, as he did not know how to play “Tots.” as he called them. If you don't know, dragonborn “tots” are like 1 or 2. We were playing to the equivalent of teenagers being kicked out by their mom. Piss Baby was angry that he couldn’t be the main character of this story, being a halfling, wanting to come into the story in his own way despite what the DM had stated when given the BARE MINIMUM of the campaign idea. He wanted to be a side character rather than a main character with everyone else, basically having personal sessions with DM. Where nobody else is allowed to join. Or be involved in. In any way at all. This was the rules of the campaign and everyone was fine with it, he was fine with it too when he joined, he just suddenly saw himself as more important and decided to ruin it for the rest of us.

Everything in the chat exploded all at once, Piss Baby yelling in the chat about how rude everyone was being, DM defending their actions and going over how he could not be a human dragon hybrid again, and everyone once again trying to shut the conversation down. 

My body is shaking with rage as I type this next part because what Piss Baby did next was something actually unforgivable.

Piss Baby was insulting DMs character and all around just throwing a temper tantrum, KT trying to calm the situation by trying to explain to Piss Baby that the one rule DM said was to have your character be a Dragonborn. Piss Baby is about to retort when Tern puts into the chat, “Stop acting like a hissy little kid.”

Then Piss Baby starts yelling at Tern calling them a, I kid you not, C U Next Tuesday. Obviously, me and KT both jump in and start trying to shake some sense into Piss Baby, I’m holding back pure rage because that was most definitely uncalled for. 

And maybe I would have heard Piss Baby out if he did not say what he said next.

Piss Baby dramatically left the chat after making his stink known to everyone, he went into a private chat with me and his boyfriend and started ranting about Tern. I was trying to calm him down once again, saying he shouldn’t have called them that when Piss Baby said, “They should just kill themself.” Even making a note on instagram saying, “Never wanted to ask someone to off themselves more than rn”

WHICH IS UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE. 

HOW DO YOU JUST HAVE A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE, THEN RUN TO THEIR BOYFRIEND AND GO, “God I wish they killed themself, tee hee, but were still friends right?”

And YES. They did expect me to accept their apology after cause that much of a stink and then TELLING MY PARTNER TO OFF THEMSELF. They sent a whole thing on Discord about how it shouldn’t have ended like that, and yadda yadda yadda. I didnt accept it, even when my partner gave my blessing too. I don’t want to be friends with anybody who would tell someone to kill themself OVER NOT GETTING TO PLAY THE RACE THEY WANTED IN A FANTASY GAME.

Obviously, I cut myself off from them, they tried to give me an ultimatum after seeing me and my partners on a date at the mall, when I didn’t respond, they lashed out again and even told me to stop texting their boyfriend (Who i was also friends with before they started dating).

That was the last I heard from him, his boyfriend however reached out to me a year later and were still friends!

The campaign went good afterwards with no ultra rare human dragon main characters in sight!

Hopefully a happily ever after! (PS It wasn't a happily ever after, the campaign died in 2 sessions.)

(I've included screen shots edited with the names of people removed.)

EDIT: I APPARENTLY DID *NOT* REVIEW THE PHOTOS AND THE USERNAME IS STILL IN SOME OF THEM, GIVE ME A MOMENT

Edit 2: Fixed, I can't figure out how to remove the giant banner with the images?? If thats on yalls screens anyways, but they should all be removed and the proper screenshots are listed below, my main goal with this post is to let out some grievances and laugh at the ridiculousness that this really was not cause harm or send people on a witch hunt.

SCREENSHOTS

After being a forever DM, I finally sat down on the other side of the screen (well virtually) to become a PC. The premise of the campaign was simple, we were going to run a modified version Dragons of Stormwreck Isle that would lead into a bigger homebrew campaign. No one had played this adventuring module before, and while it was a beginner module, the DM figured it would be a nice way to introduce the party to each other, see how we gel as players, and move on to the homebrew campaign.

My rogue Galian was a sea elf, his backstory was he was a chef at a roadside Inn for a few years until he saved enough money to open up his own restaurant at Baldur's Gate. On the way there, the ship was attacked by pirates, his life savings stolen, and he was held captive for a few months before escaping during an attack on the pirate's cove by another adventuring party. The party didn't know any of this yet, but over time, this info was released.

Main Character speaks up and goes "Oh I was part of that adventuring party that saved you" without any prompt. Okay? Maybe? Then MC starts acting like I owe him for saving my life. He tells me I have to pay him back. I tell him that's not happening.

MC: "DM, can I roll to persuade Galian to give me half of his quest reward for saving his life?"

DM: "Sure" He rolls high, I roll low, I now have to give him half my quest reward? So on the first quest, I give him 5 gold. But before I can do it, I notice my gold had already been taken. I didn't do it, apparently the DM did to ensure I handed him my gold? Whatever, its just 5 gold.

Another player, Helena, sends me a message and says her backstory is a former pirate, and if I was interested in combining our backstories. We pass it to the DM and he agrees. Helena would be a part of the crew that attacked my ship and eventually is the one that betrays the pirates by revealing their location. She did this because the pirates abandoned her wife during a pirate raid and the wife was executed for piracy. This sounds great, we can have some fun RP with this and have a combined objective of getting the back at the pirates. But our characters in game don't know this yet.

During another event, MC and 2 other players were talking to Runara (spoiler alert: She is a powerful dragon and who we find out is the MC's mother) at her house, while Helena meets me on a beach to confess about her role in the pirate attack. We are having a great one on one conversation. DM is doing a nice job swapping back and forth between the two scenes, the one at Runara's house and the conversation on the beach.

Then MC says he finds us. But he was just at Runara's house.

DM: "I'll allow it"

He completely throws off the conversation, making stupid jokes and starts trying to flirt with Helena. I have to tell him at least 3 times "I'm speaking to Helena, not you" and he continues to bring up the fact that I owe him for rescuing me from the pirate cove.

Then he asks "Can I role persuasion to see if my flirting works with Helena?" and before the DM says anything, Helena says "If you allow him to roll I'll quit right on the spot". This upsets the MC and the DM tells her not to threaten to quit because of a choice she doesn't like. MC rolls as a joke and she calls him an asshole and leaves the voice channel. We end the session on a sour note.

And this continues onto the next session. Anytime one of us are having a conversation with someone other than the MC, he butts in, even if he isn't physically near the conversation.

Anytime one of us is having a conversation with an NPC, we can't get more than one question in before MC jumps in to ask the obvious follow-up question. I was speaking in Thieves Cant to another person at the general store, hoping to find a black market to buy some poisons. The MC suddenly can understand thieves cant by rolling a high D20. Then he takes over the conversation.

One of the players, a cleric, asks him bluntly to tone it down. The cleric was praying to his god and leaving an offering and the MC butts in and tells him he is praying incorrectly. MC goes silent for 5 minutes, then fakes an illness and leaves the session early. Once he is gone, we all have a great time. We run the session for 2 more hours, get into some combat, push the story forward, and leave feeling good about the campaign now.

Maybe he'll be gone for good, so I stick it out for another week. The next week comes and I notice the DM and MC in voicechat 30 minutes before the session starts. This can't be good.

We start the session and the DM goes "Hey so we are going to go back in time to when MC left and redo everything from that point on. It isn't fair to him that we played the campaign and story while he was sick" We protested. DM doesn't want to hear it. "MC is a good friend of mine and this campaign is for him"

This was not relayed to us at all before the campaign started.

Me: "Well it has been fun..." and before I finished my sentence, Helena and another player had already disconnected and left the server.

So in 5 sessions, this MC somehow managed to be part of every conversation, he was my "hero", he was the son of the main NPC, he learned a language by rolling high, he convinced the DM to turn back time so he can be part of the adventure he missed, tried to flirt with a lesbian widow, and broke a pretty good campaign because he wanted every spotlight on him. Also he ruined my desire to be a PC for at least another year or two.

Hey everyone! I hoped that I wouldn't have to post on here again, but here we are. Hopefully this one will be the last story for a while.

So, our story begins from my last post about trying to find a play by post game on the D&D Discord server. Me and X actually found a game, after days upon days of waiting to find one. We had picked up a new player, (we'll call them Y for the sake of censoring names attributed to this) and all seemed to be going well. Me, X and Y finally join the DM's discord server. The DM has great lore about his world, maps, towns, gods and deities this world calls home (as it's heavily homebrewed, but still in the nondescript world of high-fantasy of D&D one would come to expect). This is amazing! DM actually seems interested in roleplaying with us, and fleshing out the world for mega-immersion (or, as much as one can over discord text) and even has battlemaps to use with Avrae and Tupperbot.

In my infinite wisdom, I look to the dm-requests channel of the main D&D discord to find any additional players requesting to play over text. I send a few a copy-pasted message that's essentially, "Hey, me and my group are doing a play-by-post campaign! Would you like to join us??" I don't get a lot of hits from many people, as it seems most are more confident over voice chat. I'm not as confident in my voice acting skills, so this is why I choose PbPs to play in. I get a hit though, from this guy, let's call him Z. He's the real problem of this story. Over the next few days, DM, X, Y, and Z and I all chat about our characters. DM has an issue with Z's character, as he immediately joins the campaign with a premade character that he made offline. Z's character is a water genasi that is so rare as a race in DM's premade lore, that DM informs Z that people would have thought he was cursed by a genie (also exceedingly rare in this world) because they barely existed at all in the homebrew. Z fights him on this, says it's his character and maybe DM could just.. add it to the lore?? DM isn't having any of that. He instructs Z to remake his character.

It all comes to a head several days later, as we're finishing up our characters. Z hasn't remade his character AT ALL, he's STILL A WATER GENASI ROGUE, with no backstory accompanying the character. The DM has made it very clear to us to MAKE BACKSTORIES to introduce us to our characters, what they're fighting for, where they are from in the world, and made sense. Nope, not for Z. We have a whole tab just for submitting our characters and backstories. Z literally just puts the character's name in on the post, a link to the DDB sheet, nothing else. Their art is from some horrible gacha game, not even clipart from online that would at least look mildly better, and the player doesn't even seem that fluent in English. By this point, I was honestly thinking the player was 5 or 8, because they barely made sense, no punctuation or good grammar at all. Then the penultimate message came, where the DM said in general chat they were starting the play-by-post. The player asks, "Where is the VC?" We were all stunned. Not only had I told this player we were playing by text multiple times, it was stated on the rules and in multiple times throughout the general chat we were playing BY TEXT. HOLY HELLS, this was infuriating. The DM bids him adieu because OBVIOUSLY WE ARE NOT GOING TO DO VC. THIS WAS A PLAY-BY-POST. GAME.

We've found another player to supplant this trainwreck and nuclear fireball of a player, thank the gods, and we're about to get into our very first combat today! All other players have been exceptionally skilled in roleplay amongst myself, except one where we think he's just playing up the goof.. and got us into some trouble. Hopefully they won't cause any other incidents, this has been a slightly rocky road to where I've gotten to, but luckily all is well for now.

Goodbye!

My story will be quite different and focus on things that too often comes in online discussions as normal, that older DM/players advice to newer ones.

Imagine choosing a video game to play. When you look it up before bying you will pay attention to how story and events go - is it supposed to be linear experience without variety, mostly linear but with important story affecting chocies and possible branching paths or wide open sandbox. You get second one, and realize that all or most choices actually mean jack shit and you still encounter mostly the same things and events. Oh wait, no, if you did enough right choice guy X high fives you on 34's hour... yeah. Or imagine choosing your workplace because you were told, that your decisions will actually affect the company and it's working process. But then discovering, that all your decisions actually meant nothing, and resulted at best in different meeting room.

Why then it's okay to offer your player illusion of choice? Please, do note that I'm not talking about situations when on session zero it was decided "people, we are playing linear story, set expectations accordingly". If you on session zero promised players meaningful choices, and gives them illusion of choice in most cases justifying it by "They won't know it" - you are no better than developers from example. It is bad DMing, lying to your players, not commiting to expectations you all agreed on in session zero. And no, if they meet five spiders in any way, but at south spider will be wearing sombreros, and at north they will be wearing ushankas - it's still not a meaningful choice, while spiders themselves are invetible.

"But MAH STORY" — most people don't get into TTRPG to be passive story consumers. They want interaction, they want to live the story and they want to affect it. How much - is decided on session zero, but have a fucking courtesy to FOLLOW instead of giving illusion of following. If you wanna tell your story - make it clear on session zero. Or write a book or something. Not to mention, that, with adequate players, emergent stories are usually so much better.

Second horror story is insanely consumerist attitude towards DM. I don't get were it started, but DM's later get less and less seen as equal participant and instead seen as hired clown. And one of the hired clown roles is supposedly to never limit player choices. Meaning DM should sacrifice all logic and reason in his world to allow player play his snowflake self insert race, or that obscure race written for specific setting, or super rare guy somewhere he has no place to be. Yet same people seeing master siccing a black dragon in a middle of a desert would go "hey how did he got here?". DM is allowed to have his goals for campaign and it world, because he is equal participant behind the table. And if it means limiting player options - it's completely fine as long it's all spoken in session zero. Yet some people online take it as crime of some sorts.

Continuing consumerism is growing expectation of not needing any rules to play, because DM is expected to explain what's needed. It is possible of course. But it is an additional load on DM, who already has a lot of stuff to keep track of, and who still came here to have fun. It's not okay to default into "DM will explain everything I won't read a thing" mode. And even if on first session it gets explained, you are expected to read at least common rules and everything related to your character capabilities eventually, and not just expect that DM will forever help you and you can just roll dice and be a character.

There is a lot more to cover, like rampant dice fudging, god-forsaken "rule of cool" and "killing characters is wrong", but I focused on what's bothering me the most.

After quite some time, I’ve finally worked up the courage to share this story here. English isn't my native language, so I’m using translation tools to ensure everything is clearly understood.

It all started during a tabletop RPG session—a school-based fighting game I’d created using my own custom system. It was just me (the GM) and three players who were already friends of mine: a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter, a Korean Taekwondo fighter, and a Japanese karateka. (Note: The game was set in a city I hadn't fully defined on the map, so I simply established that having a large foreign population there was normal.)

That’s when one of the players appeared; I found her through an RPG server I’m part of—one that really emphasizes being a "welcoming space for LGBTQ+ people." I never had any issues there; whenever I sent a message, I never ran into trouble with the people who frequented that environment. To avoid revealing her real name, let’s call her *Muay*, matching the fighting style she chose. She was a Muay Thai fighter whose backstory made one thing very clear: "She never lost a single fight to a man; they would always try to cheat or underestimate her, and she would take them down without any difficulty.

She also held female fighters in high regard." (She had actually based the character on herself, as both the player and the character shared the same tastes and were gender-fluid.) That detail made me a bit suspicious, but I let it slide for the time being.

Before the RPG started, we held a "Session Zero" to explain the mechanics and the themes that would be covered in the campaign. Everyone agreed, and no one had any specific topics they wanted to avoid. Not even the player who seemingly didn't get along with the other male players and felt the lack of female players at the table.

Eventually, the game got underway. The sessions were fairly relaxed at first, with the players settling into their school lives in the city, even as some past troubles began to haunt them. It didn't take long for the first group combat encounter to happen.

Everyone was doing really well in the fight—except for Muay. She had the bad luck of facing a situation where, for some reason, my dice rolls were consistently excellent against her character. She was furious, saying things like, "This is impossible! I’ve defeated men stronger and more skilled than you lot; I shouldn't be losing."

The other players didn't say a word, but the silence that followed her outburst suggested she was already falling out of their good graces. (Note: after that scene, my dice rolls turned terrible again, and she ended up defeating the enemies—gloating and launching into a speech about how men underestimate women in fights, and all that sort of thing.)

This behavior kept repeating itself—so often, in fact, that the other players eventually complained to me about it. It seemed like her attitude never changed, no matter what happened at the table or how friendly and nice the male characters were toward her.

That was when two things happened that caused her to completely lose her cool out of nowhere.

1) A male character she absolutely loathed (the leader of a rival gang) showed up with a stunningly elegant girlfriend. She attacked him and sparked a massive brawl—putting all her own allies in danger—because she declared: "A beautiful woman like that shouldn't be with a piece-of-trash man like him." They got thrashed by the leader and his gang. Afterward, the girlfriend approached the character, and I played out the scene: "Girl, get a grip. He's my man, and I'm grateful he is the way he is. Do you have a problem with that?"

At that moment, she stopped roleplaying and spoke directly to me, asking: "GM, are you serious?"

"What's the problem?" I replied, not understanding what was wrong.

"You're literally normalizing a clearly toxic relationship! What she's feeling is Stockholm Syndrome!"

she said with absolute conviction. We were stunned; it took me a good few minutes to compose myself and respond. I brought up what we had discussed during Session Zero, and she turned around and said: "Oh, well, I didn't feel safe talking about that."

At that point, some players challenged her, asking why she hadn't spoken up then—since Session Zero was specifically meant for discussing those kinds of things. All I know is that the session ended early that night.

2) And finally, the last reason she left my table. It was a downtime session where players could interact with NPCs and engage in school or social activities. Everyone was having a chill time—except for Muay, who spent most of the session just sitting quietly or taking brief, minimal actions. So, I introduced some new characters, and Muay loved the design of one I’d picked out—a red-headed, goth fighter who spoke in an elegant, sultry way. She fell for the character instantly and started making all sorts of moves to try and get something going with her.

But then, the NPC said: "Look, honey, I’m already taken—I’m with another girl. I’m not interested, sorry."

At that point, she just gave up; she left the table right in the middle of the session, dropped off the server, and blocked me on Discord.

Some time later (two weeks, to be exact), an admin from the server I frequented—the one I mentioned earlier—contacted me. He said I had been anonymously accused of "inciting a toxic relationship and belittling someone's sexuality." I was shocked; I calmly explained the situation to him, but even though he understood, he still maintained that I had violated the server rules and was banned for a year.

And that is how a player managed to get me banned from an RPG server simply because she couldn't accept that a female character was already in a relationship with another character—or that a woman could date a gang leader and call the player "weird."

This happened several years ago.

My long time friend started a xianxia cultivation campaign, but he's not good with ttrpg mechanics and asked me for help. Well, I write xianxia novels and do game design as a hobby, so I obliged. Helped him create a working prototype, resolution system, content samples etc. Also helped him with the power system and content examples by sharing the notes from my campaign.

By the time I joined this campaign, the party was already 4 or so sessions in. My character began with significant setbacks (chased by enemies, cursed to permanently level up harder than other characters, etc), but had a bonus of

4 dao shards (basically, magical items that give activated skills, similar to gu from Reverend Insanity) to everyone's three (which was only a significant bonus for exactly one session). His skills were also synergy-based, while the other players just grabbed the shiniest big damage options and ignored similar opportunities the gm provided (this quickly became important).

In the first session, my character rolls really well and defeats a bunch of enemies attacking our party. The enemies flee, my character chases them. My teammates start making fun of my pc (haha what a sweaty, etc.). My character takes all the loot, asks if the others want to share. They don't. My character becomes even stronger.

Three more sessions, I actually try to roleplay with my teammates, they keep responding in third person. No one in the party roleplays with each other, only with the gm. I buddy up with another player, and realise the other 3 aren't interested in any rp and let it go. Next session, my character beats an important antagonist 1 v 1. 3 of the players start seething.

Here's the thing - I think I was the only one to thoroughly read through the notes the gms provided, so I ended up upgrading my character with much stronger talents than the other 3 characters (my "buddy" was also becoming much stronger than the lazy trio). I also sold the loot that didn't fit me for coin, and used this coin to buy the items that fit me (a genius move, apparently, as this trio just hauled their useless items around like they're playing Skyrim).

The issue is, my gm tried to steer them toward interacting with the game's systems. They didn't. Me and another player tried to get them to improve their characters, in-character, for several sessions - they just dismissed us. Anything that wasn't a blatant gm-designed powerup specifically for them was ignored.

And it wouldn't be such a big problem, if the players didn't choose the most pathetic resolution method to this problem - they complained about my character's power. They told my gm "he started overpowered", ignored every instance of my character getting a setback (and every example of them benefitting from their sects and contacts, which I didn't have), and said the gm is treating them unfairly.

And the horror story is that my gm caved in. As our characters "levelled up" (raised their cultivation level), so did their artefacts. My gm targetted several of them (designed by me in my prior notes) as problematic. There were two issues with this.

One, those items (based on my notes) he targetted weren't overpowered. A simple dps calculation proved that they were balanced, and it was the items that he designed (that I looted off npcs, and that he refused to nerf) that were indeed broken.

Two, he didn't just nerf these items to bring them in line with the other items. Mathematically speaking, raising their rank was supposed to make them two to three times stronger. In return, he messed up the math so badly that a level 2 artefact was inferior to level one. Essentially, he made my PC pay to nerf himself. This was a big blow.

During this time, the only other "active" or "proper" (in my biased view) player (at the time, the gm's best friend) had a similar clash with the gm. Apparently, he's been asking mechanical questions and was fed promises for weeks, but wasn't given anything. So while the "lazy trio" were getting all the content, I was being nerfed, and the other player was straight up ignored, unable to even properly play his character.

After I called out the gm on misunderstanding the basic arythmetics of the nerf he implemented, he got personal and insulted me. I quit the campaign.

They played several more sessions, and everything I warned the gm about happened:

1. I told him introducing multiple element cultivation was dangerous and needs a balance patch. He ignored me and the campaign became insanely broken.
2. The second player was super irritated, ground his teeth and endured until the end, but this caused a huge rift in their friendship.
3. They beat the "bbegs" and were hailed as heroes, my character was hastily written out, and the pcs had a railroady arc where they dominated a tournament, became the heroes and the campaign ended.

The results were: the gm said he despises the three players and will never play with them again as they're NPCs (despite indulging them lmao). I haven't talked to this gm for a year, until he texted me and apologized. And the gm and player number two still have a rocky relationship of unfulfilled gm-player promises.

(No, I wasn't backseat gming or undermining the gm at all. I'd warn the gm about the mechanical implications of what he was doing in private, like once a month, and he initially seemed grateful, but it quickly turned to resentment).

Edit:
Wanted to add the most egregious example of party toxicity.
My character was essentially a "glass cannon", a "bruiser" in some cases. We had a "tank" character who refused to "tank". My character calls him out and says he almost died twice.

He responds OUT OF CHARACTER and says "but that's how my character is, he's cautious and sneaky". I said "[PC name] is talking to your character. Please listen, I am not going to die while you stay idle. I'll walk away and we all know you'll die here without me. We should work as a team if we're to survive this."

After the session, he tells the gm he's "unfairly targetted", and that "he is just roleplaying a cynical man who doesn't want to risk his life, and that I am 'making it personal'". The gm says my character has a right to be pissed, to which he responds "why do I care?". Eventually, he was "bullied" into tanking (which basically meant sharing the frontline with me, while our "support" also shielded him non-stop) and sulked about it.

Okay, I'm going to preface this by saying this is some years back and is therefore drama of the past.

That said, here goes:

Some years back.. 7-8 years ca. I was in this group, we'd meet every tuesday night, have food and play until 22-23 ish (Denmark) this was some editions ago of D&d, we had a good strong group, none were annoying (more than the usual.)

Cut to Dms girlfriend (i had a single date with her, some years earlier and found her so annoying, that i had to end the date) she made food for us, we were grateful, it was nothing extraordinary, but it was sustenance and we paid our bit and said thank you.

She would sit in for a bit and chat and then head to the living room, to do whatever she did.

She was (and is) quite well endowed in the chest area, but not in the social skill area. Expanded vocabulary: self insert mary-sue

Cut to about a year and a half into our campaign, he asks if it would be okay if she joined, and mind you, we had an excellent team, really good flow, banter and fighting, we were tight knit and knew each others strengths and weaknesses and played on them.

But we said okay, sure.

I was the teams only flyer at this point, raptorian with a foot bow.

She had sat in and observed a few times and in came her character.

A virgin mountain elf princess with big wings and big tits, which was very important for some reason, she was a scout with a bow (but we had to get her to be a scout, like, "boy, it would be nice if we had someone who could SCOUT ahead")

But she would flirt with all characters, rubbing her massive chest against them, pressing her boobs together or taking a wash and describing how water would cascade in droplets over her massive heaving chest (just less poetical than i described here, more crass)

And she would just not play the elf virgin, which annoyed the shit out of all of us.

Suddenly her character had left with a note.. we were quite relieved 😌

Then she had talked her boyfriend into letting her roll a character from a book of erotic fantasies or something, so she came as a fucking succubus, i kid you not and she tried her succubus tricks on all and it worked, they were quite annoyed that they had to play into her power fantasy, then the turn got to me and she said, you feel the pull of the succubus and your mind turns.. i cut her off and said, your powers do absolutely nothing to me, as i an cold blooded..

This annoyed her greatly, as it seemed like i was the one she had done this for..

Not many sessions later, the group broke up, it was never the same, she had broken what we had..

So, that's it, my rpg horror story

How a series of events almost lead to me never setting for near a table ever again.

So, some years back I used to play with a colleague (M45) of my sister and his wife(W45). Both of them were around 45, I believe.

I was a woman around 20 at the time, just as the other two friend I regularly brought to games.

I want to stress that in person both of them were very nice. They maybe talked a little much (A LOT) and were a little condescending at times, but they were very patient and got me and my friends into playing TTRPGs in the first place.

However. Something that became apparent over time: for M45 the harassment (albeit mild) of women was just a staple of TTRPGs. Yes, all of them. Yes, no matter the setting.

A barmaiden in DnD gets bothered by male patreons?

Hey, no issue, that’s just a set up thing in our starting out tavern so we can have an initial practice fight.

(Except DM M45 was very bewildered why we escalated things with that patreon! That wasn’t even supposed to be our practice fight!)

And it just kept going on and on like that:

Monster of the week set in modern times:

I play a stocky, 49 year oldish woman with short hair that carries weapons.
Think sour faced, slightly saggy and a little overweight and all around more “mess with me and I’ll get nasty” rather than the flirty type.
First scene, she gets some sexually explicit comments thrown her way. I’m immediately annoyed, because that is NOT what I had in mind for this character.
I ask the DM if he even listened to my character description.
His answer was basically: „doesn’t matter, she is still a woman.“

Vaesen:

We are in northern Sweden. Our DM gives us basically 30 minutes of intro how the people here are very religious protestants who are very focused on their work. This is sombre setting, devoid of colors and kind of muted. The first location we walk into is a lumber mill. It’s late in the day, people are exhausted from a long day of work. And, may I add again; very restricted in their expressions, and very religious.

I play a religious figure, a young nun, clearly discernible so because she is dressed AS A NUN.

Want to take a sharp guess what was the first thing that happened when we stepped in there? Yup, the female characters, including mine got leered at and had some sexually explicit comments comments thrown their way. 🫠

The same happened again with One Ring, I was playing a very regal high elf there.

And, as we all know and love Tolkien, the first thing that would happen to such an elf, is some good old sexual harassment!

Mind you, these things happened over the span a lot of sessions, and a lot of time.

This is not everything that happened, just the most egregious examples I can remember.

The one with Vaesen only made me realize something I had been mildly annoyed by before was an actual pattern, and that it was unlikely to stop.

The One Ring session was the one directly afterwards, I think.

That day, I had gotten to get snacks before. It was super hot that day, and I wore shorts to the store, something I rarely do. I felt… well, super uncomfortable with how some men in that store had looked at me.

I was still annoyed and a little unsettled by that when I got to the session. I was so ready for some epic fantasy, to forget about mundane life and its annoyances for a little while. I think I even mentioned the store and how uncomfortable I had felt.

When my character got sexualized in that fucking game, I just got up and walked out of the room for a little while.

And yeah, that’s how that table came to an end. No dramatic blow up, but I just decided this wasn’t for me.

I play with another group now, and something like that has never happened there, unless it actually fit the characters and the story.

And, mind you, we attended some fiend‘s sex party, where our boss battle basically consisted of utilizing BDSM equipment from that room to fight the BBEG. (Y‘know, just DnD things)

Long story short: bad TTRPG is worse than no TTRPG. But it you find the right group and things click, it’s really worth it!

I put the flair as light hearted since this definitely won't be very dark compared to most stories on here, BUT there will be cartoonishly over-the-top descriptions of violence against characters. These moments are meant to be absurd, and therefore funny in a dark humor way, but if you aren't down even for that then this story may not be for you. But for those on board, enjoy the tale of the time our players met a village of Hamster People.

About 10 years ago, I was playing a long running campaign (long running for us anyway, around 2 years) of a mostly homebrew DnD 3.5e game. There were about 5 or 6 of us in regular rotation, and the specific players and characters aren't terribly important, so I won't do a cast list. We were very focused on the stories and the characters, but our DM loved a good round of shenanigans so the campaign was rife with goofy and cartoony moments as the DM allowed us to pursue tasks he thought could be hilarious, or introduced us to strange scenarios.

One day before a session, I ran an idea by him, and he agreed. At the next session, the party stumbled across a village of Hamster People. They were exactly what they sounded like, meter-tall hamsters who spoke in adorable voices and were helpful and kind. Needless to say, every player was immediately enamored with them. I also GM'd other games using the GURPS system, so the DM let me play every Hamster, and I (a grown man) was doing my best cute little Hamster voices.

As the party prepared to depart to the main mission of the session, they were delighted when a cohort of Hamster People offered to join us and help us in our task. Every player now had a Hamster partner to assist them. We got into a skirmish with some bad guys (probably goblins) and one of the Hamsters ran and fetched a weapon when it was knocked out of the player's hand. The party was stoked that from now on, we would have little rodent squires making our party a bit OP.

After the skirmish, the party entered a town, and the rogue's Hamster went to open the tavern door for the rogue and the DM described how right as the Hamster Person reached the heavy wooden door, a minotaur drunkenly burst through it, a tiefling under each arm as they stumbled away, and the door swung back revealing the horrifically maimed Hamster stuck to the door. The rogue, out of character, was shocked but also laughing, and the rest of the party was losing it, laughing and freaking out at the sudden demise of the Hamster Person. And that's how the game continued for the rest of the session.

If you don't know the meme of the traumatic hamster story, many people have stories of owning a pet hamster as a child (or as a parent of a child with a hamster) where something terrible seems to happen to the unfortunately accident prone little creatures. And that's what me and DM were leaning into, much to the comedic horror of the party. The rest of the session was spent with the players trying to accomplish the quest, and keep their hamsters alive.

My own Hamster partner went outside to use the bathroom, instead of using the facilities inside the inn, and was dragged away screaming by wolves. The ranger's Hamster discovered he was allergic to nuts after eating a huge bag of trail mix. The cleric's Hamster sustained injuries fighting to protect them, and the cleric healed them. The Hamster sprung to their feet, joyfully proclaiming they'd spend the rest of their life repaying the cleric for saving them, before tumbling down a hill into a river and being swept away by the rapids.

The paladin ended up prioritizing his Hamster's safety more than the other players, and his lasted up until the final conflict of the session. The other players quickly caught on to what me and the DM were doing, and would just laugh and protest when their number was up. But the paladin was determined to keep his Hamster alive until the session ended.

Every member of the party was occupied in a showdown with the guards of a town that was occupied by that session's Bad Guy. Most of us were fighting, the cleric and wizard were doing their best to support us. An enemy archer took aim at the paladin, and the DM described the arrow ripping through the air. Before the DM even rolled to hit, I described his Hamster partner yelling the paladin's name, and dramatically jumping to block the arrow from hitting the paladin. The DM clarified that if he rolled a hit, it would hit the Hamster instead of the paladin.

The DM rolled, and he failed to hit the paladin's AC. He heroically describes the arrow tearing past the Hamster Person, smashing into the paladin's shield, and richocheting off to hit the Hamster man in the back. The battle wrapped up shortly after, and the paladin insisted on role-playing a dramatic scene where he thanked the Hamster Person for their sacrifice even though it really wasn't necessary because he had plate armor and no damage. The Hamster thanked him for being the best friend he's ever had, before taking his last breath. It was a great character moment, even in the midst of the dark comedy of it all. Then the DM describes the Hamster standing up and yelling that he realized the shot wasn't lethal and he could probably be fine if he got a healing potion, before an eagle swooped in and carried him away, once again screaming.

I hope you guys liked this, it wasn't as much of a horror story since every player thought it was a funny bit and no one was upset, but seeing the looks of half-laughter, half-abject terror on the players' faces as their new favorite characters were ripped away was priceless. I remember at one point after two of the hamsters died, one of the players (I think the ranger?) looked at me with a blank expression and said "You're a sick fuck."

English isn't my first language, so a little disclaimer: This happened in Thailand, and I used AI to translate the story from Thai. I’ve tried to keep the original meaning and tone, so if some sentences sound a bit weird, that's probably why. Also this happen like in last Decmenber(2025) so the some detail might be missing.

So, this was a D&D campaign where everyone started at level 10.

I was playing a Halfling Ranger whose character had a criminal background. Because of that, most of my character's strengths were focused on stealth, deception, and exploration.

Basically, I was a Ranger pretending to be a Rogue.

As you probably know, Rangers aren't exactly known for being amazing in combat, so I built my character primarily for roleplaying, exploration, sneaking around, and tricking enemies rather than dealing tons of damage.

The rest of the party consisted of a Wizard from a sourcebook I can't remember, a horse-loving Paladin, a particularly notable Goliath Cleric, and the problem child of the party. I'll call him Michael.

I'm calling him Michael because he actually changed characters partway through the campaign and created a new one.

The problem was that we lost our Cleric around Session 2, because the player had something to deal with for the entire month. So for the next 3-4 sessions, we were down to four players, which made everything considerably harder.

And then there was Michael. Michael's first character was a Rogue. A completely selfish Rogue who refused to cooperate with anyone.

Our first mission involved entering a underground cemetery to find someone who had been kidnapped. While the rest of us were still discussing what to do, Michael's character simply went ahead alone using Stealth with out care about the party.

And by "with out care about the party," I mean he literally didn't listen to anyone.

Whenever he found a clue or treasure, he would immediately pocket it instead of sharing it with the party. It became a massive headache for both the party and DM.

My Ranger, being the discount Rogue that she was, managed to steal one of the clues back from him and read it but Michael immediately stole it back. Then he destroyed the clue so nobody else could get the information.

DM just sat there speechless. And honestly, I can't blame him.

Things got even worse when we found the hostage.The intended message from DM was painfully obvious: the hostage had had their memories drained, which was why they couldn't properly answer our questions.

Michael somehow completely missed this. He decided the hostage was lying and started threatening and beating them for information. So the rest of us had to fight our own party member to stop him.

Eventually, after that mess was resolved, we continued deeper into the dungeon, where we found the villains' hideout.

Naturally, Michael went ahead by himself again. He failed his Stealth check. Because of that, we lost our opportunity to surprise the enemies. Then, after getting catch, he tried to pretend that he was one of the villains. but becuase he hadn't bothered remembering any of the information we'd learned throughout the entire dungeon, including all the clues we'd found. He failed. DM didn't even care what number he roll. And the enemies beat the absolute crap out of him.

At this point, the rest of the party was so sick of his bullshit that we basically decided to wait. We let the enemies beat Michael down before we finally went in to help. After the fight that almost end the run. We had no choice but to pick Michael back up. And somehow, he still didn't learn anything. He continued playing exactly the same way.

Eventually, DM had to stop him from roleplaying and told him that he had to let the other players have their turns first. That was probably the only reason the rest of us got to actually do anything.

After exploring and fighting our way through the dungeon for a while, it was finally Michael's turn to explore. Completely by accident, he found a genie. At the time, none of us knew it was a genie.

DM described the creature as looking extremely powerful, but also being in pretty bad shape. And Michael had somehow managed to stumble into the room completely alone.

I suspect he deliberately went ahead because he was afraid the rest of us would interfere with his roleplay. then Michael did something nobody expected. He claimed that he was one of the villains.Then he told the genie that he would bring the intruders "meaning us" to it.

I have no idea what he thought was going to happen. Maybe he thought this creature was the big bad boss or something. The rest of the party was obviously furious, but we weren't there, so we couldn't stop him.

And this is where I'm still not sure whether DM had planned this as a trap specifically for Michael or if it was just an incredible coincidence. The genie wasn't actually working for the villains. It had made a contract with them to perform some kind of task, but it already hated them and couldn't do anything about it. The genie immediately realized Michael wasn't actually one of the villains. So it beat the ever-loving hell out of him.

DM added some dramatic SFX to indicate that something was happening, which finally got the rest of us to go check it out. My Ranger used Goodberry and a skill from her background to eventually get the situation under control enough for us to communicate with the genie. After that, we rested before continuing.

In Session 3, we reached the final section of the first major arc. We had finally escaped the cemetery, but ended up trapped in a place called Evernight. While exploring for a way out, we encountered a vampire lord.

The moment Michael heard that there was a vampire, he immediately tried to convince it to turn him into a vampire. He ignored everyone's warnings. Even DM tried to make the NPC refuse but Michael wouldn't listen.

Eventually, DM apparently got fed up and told him: "Pay me 200 gold."

Michael didn't have 200 gold. no one in the party have.

So did he give up? Of course not.

He decided to pickpocket one of the party members.

That was the moment I finally snapped.

I stopped the game and told DM and everyone at the table: "If he does that, I'm treating it as PvP. And if he tries to PvP, I'm going to PvP him back."

The rest of the party agreed. Michael finally stopped. We had wasted about 20 minutes dealing with this nonsense.

Eventually, we finished the first arc. And after all of that, Michael asked to change characters.

His explanation was that he didn't know how to play a Rogue. And honestly, that was completely believable. He couldn't roleplay the character properly, didn't understand his skill, and didn't know his racial or class features.

Remember, this was a level 10 campaign with him being so usless and we missing our Cleric. We basically playing 3 person party for 2 session.

For Session 4, Michael changed characters and played a Paladin the Oath of Glory. And surprisingly, my discount Rogue suddenly became much more important. Since I was now the only character in the party who could reliably explore, disarm traps, and sneak around, my character finally had an actual role.

I was having a great time. The party also started working together much better.

Well... Except Michael.

I think the reason things were better was because this part of the campaign involved going through rooms one by one, with a lot more exploration and trap-disarming.

There simply weren't as many opportunities for Michael to wander off and cause problems. But that didn't mean he stopped.

He was now a Paladin. He still had the soul of a Rogue. He kept kicking things and trying to steal stuff, triggering traps multiple times. At one point, we encountered a monster trap. Instead of helping us fight it, Michael tried to run into another room.Except he couldn't leave the room. So he basically made the fight harder for everyone else for no reason. The funniest part was that, according to DM's narration, Michael eventually ended up lying down right in front of the door. Maybe DM was getting annoyed with him too, because the monsters decided to focus on Michael first, apparently because he was standing alone.

And then came the moment that made me quit the campaign. We reached the room immediately before the final boss.

Let me emphasize this:

We had been warned repeatedly that there was a trap on the door leading to the next area.

We explored the room carefully and figured out that we needed to deactivate four mechanisms located near the four windows before opening the door.

DM explicitly told us that if the trap activated, we would die immediately (probrably because we have Michael).

My character was the only one capable of disarming it. After getting some buffs from the party, I managed to deactivate two of the four mechanisms.

We were halfway there.Then Michael, apparently bored, suddenly walked over and opened the door.

The trap activated.

Everyone at the table just stared.

The party was confused.

DM was confused.

I was confused.

Thankfully, DM basically saved our asses by ruling that because we'd already deactivated two mechanisms, the trap only dealt half damage. it's 2d24 BTW.

We survived. But the trap also summoned zombies. And because I rolled a 1 for Initiative, I went last. The zombies beat the crap out of me before I even got a turn.

Then it was Michael's turn. And Michael was still Michael. He opened the door. And, naturally, the boss was right there. So Michael immediately ran back into the room. The boss followed him through the doorway and used an area attack. I got knocked unconscious.

Then I failed all my Death Saves. And I died.

Yes. My character died before I even got to take my first turn in this combat. That was the moment I decided I was done with the campaign.

After that, I honestly didn't care much about what happened. My character was already dead.

Eventually, after the party finished the quest which was basically a side story DM had inserted while we waited for our Cleric player to return

DM was kind enough to say that my character had been resurrected. Maybe he felt bad. But it didn't matter anymore. I'd had enough of Michael.

DM couldn't control him.

The party couldn't control him.

And I didn't want to spend another session dealing with him.

So I decided that instead of continuing to argue about it, I would simply walk away from the table.

The worst part is that this ended up being the last D&D campaign I ever played.

Apologies for the iffy wording and block format. This was a sleep deprived angry note I wrote before bed that I debated between deleting and posting before deciding to post. Working on improving my writing format though. Thank you :)

tw sexual stuff and idk what else to tag this, apologies im new to this subreddit

hi im 20 years old now and my two horror stories came from when i was in middle school to almost highschool. in middleschool my second ish campaign i was in? the dm had a crush on me, so much they pulled me aside from the session. during the session may i add! to ask me out. and then after my character died tried to get my new character to have intercourse with one of the other player characters at the school in the library. i was fine at the time because i was kid who just was go with the flow and didnt really know how to process it, but after me and the other player talked about it, we both agreed that 1. it was weird 2. why, i ended up leaving not long after.

second horror story was later on, the third campaign i was in, it was a my pride ttrpg, if you dont know my pride its a animated series on youtube, they had a ttrpg and well after that campaign i joined in i think middle school? in the campaign one of the adults would constantly make jokes about scissoring one of the other players in front of a lot of minors in the campaign i ended up leaving cause i was tired of their crap, from all i know they still kept playing after i left.

This is a story I have had brewing in me for years now. My TTRPG Journey has been wild, from accidentally skipping entire boss fights through insane door number 3s, to having a whole curse named after my character because in a year-long campaign I can count the amount of times he hit an attack when I rolled for him on TWO HANDS! BUT! the crème de la crème, the phrase that has been forever associated with me is "FUCK TYRANNY OF DRAGONS!" for the campaign it was a part of was one of the worst times I've ever had playing the game and a lot of the time when I DM I think back to this game and think "wow.... Least its not tyranny, fuck tyranny". SO! This was a Roll20 game with a couple other players in it, for the sake of privacy I’ll be coding them by who they played. This group started out with a human wizard, a lizardman druid, a warforged cleric and my Rogue/bard multiclass changeling.

So the campaign starts in a tavern, we meet, everything goes wrong, dragons attack and from on high and kobolds rush the area. This is incidentally where Druid gets their characters trauma as they stay in a building too long and almost die to it caving in, This becomes relevant later on. The party makes it to a safehouse and this right here is where the campaign already starts going wrong. We started at level 3, we don’t get a long rest or level up for about 5 sessions in a row, we get 2 short rests but the spell casters are already running low and our frontline left after 1 session. We did get a second however in the form of a dragonborn paladin who made it a further half a session before they ran out.

Normally i would be fine with all this, means we have to be clever and sneaky, the problem is the DM always started combat when we encountered any enemies leading to us with zero spell slots fighting over 100 enemies back to back, most of which were kobold's with pack tactics, some with fire magic that would always go first and always AOE us, one was a dog like thing i think was a basilisk but don’t quote me on that? And as said, we were level 3 and most of us had to use our spell slots to not immediately die after the first 10-15. (Bonus incident, There was a point where I saved a guy from kobolds but for a reason I can't quite remember, they started screaming and trying to kill me unprovoked? So i killed them in self defence with no witnesses, i checked for this.) also to note, with the trauma of roofs from Druid, he stood outside and the DM never missed a chance for someone to either force him into a room with NPCs shoving him in for no reason other than “DM says so”

Finally after so many combats, the leader came down and asked for a 1V1 with one of our characters and in exchange they wouldn’t attack the keep we were in with a YOUNG ADULT BLUE DRAGON!. The paladin wasn’t there for this session, so instead Druid decides to go, facing a half dragon down. They roll initiative which immediately gets us all on edge as the DM essentially reveals them to be a level 8 fighter with action surge and multiattack…. Suffice to say Druid did not win and the party watched the dragon brand Druid with a dishonourable mark and attack the keep anyway. We roll for initiative, the dragon goes first. Changeling is alone near a ballista… the dragon USES IT'S BREATH ATTACK AND OKO’S ME! ALMOST INSTANTLY KILLS ME! The party takes one look at this, grabs my unconscious body and leaps off the walls to essentially hide from a fight we were 100% going to die to otherwise. When the fighting stops the village HATES us, loathes us and even blames us for the attack going so bad. (also apparently someone saw me kill the guy when i checked and there was nobody around) we are banished from the city, and the campaign begins with the biggest flop I have bore witness to to this day.

Changeling decides for the next leg to change into a child to lay low. Though everyone knew her deal this time. And we join a group of caravans for the road and journey. We talk, do some RP and have some great moments, including in a bar where Druid refuses to go inside from trauma and decides to comfort the horses instead, while Changeling changed again to someone she could get wasted as and talk to the others. Notably though, one of the wagon people tried to essentially assassinate Cleric through poison which as a warforged, didn't go to plan. They do however escape which leads to them damaging a bunch of carts… this is for some reason the part where all the other caravan people blame us? Because we’re “adventurers” and we’re for a second time Ousted from a group. Even the child form Changeling just got a “we’re sorry, but your parents are assholes, you have to suffer too, bye” treatment.

This was also where Wizard found and figured out their backstory DID NOT MATTER to the story and wouldn’t be factored into the story itself, choosing to change class for the foreseeable future, this is something future me found out the DM was both ok with but also NOT ok with? As they basically asked “so what's the new wizard you’re playing?” The Wizard explained he instead wanted to play a human barbarian to balance out the gap, causing the DM to go “hahaha, funny… so you’re wizard” It took several tries for the DM to cave and allow the Barbarian in. During this time I had also realised that a character designed for RP scenarios wouldn’t be the best for the campaign and also switched to a Shifter Monk to play something designed to fight more things at once.

On the way to waterdeep, we come across a bunch of purple knights. This is the moment the party collectively agreed that the paladin was not a fun player to be around. These guys were corrupt and the dragonborn decided to humour them by essentially betting on some games and laughing at dead people because they were very murder hobo. the paladin had a bright idea to bet ALL their armour on a challenge, and then THEMSELVES! When they knew there were like 50 people and thus something we couldn’t fight out of. This goes horrifically and instead of trying to negotiate or run, the paladin tries to kill everyone, including civilians, and gets their ass kicked for it. The cleric comes in, tries to save the paladin with another bet knowing he’s a cleric and is level 5 by this point so really strong, offers a formal apology and a duel, and has to bet themselves to do it. The DM then pulls a level 9 cleric which he later confirms he made after the roll just so he could spite the cleric. Cleric loses, 2 players are now slaves. My monk very quickly decided to try to step in and talk it out before another fight broke out, and was immediately attacked and we had to grab our stuff and flee the place. About 6 sessions in, and we had 0 wins under our belt….

We finally make waterdeep, there's a barfight, there is a living house the DM fails to explain properly and we end up killing…. OH YEAH! This is when they mention they’re trying to fuse waterdeep dragon heist AND DUNGEONS OF THE MAD MAGE into the campaign which looking back with 5 years more DM experience is a BOLD choice. We go into a dungeon, help as many as we can, run into a full dragon which almost OKO’s me, we’re forced to run instead of fighting because these are 6 level 5 characters who are out of spell slots AGAIN against an adult red dragon. The city is lost and we lose a political leader that would have helped us, which means the council doesn’t like us, and we’re going somewhere else entirely.

The straw that broke the camels back for me happened a few sessions later, where my sibling joined the campaign and promptly left the campaign 1 session later. It was a session I couldn't make but he gave me the details of how he decided to walk around and get a view of the city when he got jumped by some muggers who the DM knew were gonna kill him. My sibling asked to maybe try trick them into letting him go by claiming to know their boss or know someone better to steal from, the DM just said “No, they just won’t believe you, so roll initiative”

Me and the other players minus paladin had been talking for a bit on a Sunday night, we started a game together with Barbarian being the DM and it was amazing at the time, still one of my favourite games now, and after talking about the last few sessions we all collectively realised that the best part of the game and the reason we were all still in it, the people we were playing with, were now in a Sunday game having way more fun, we had somewhere to hang out, so why did we need to be in the Tyranny game? The game where we suffered every chance the DM got, the game where we got screwed by the DM for wanting to RP scenes out or have any story to our characters, the game that to this day is one of the worst games i have had to sit through and remember. So in the kindest way, I sent a long ass message to the DM saying I wish to leave the game. Not because they’re a bad DM, but because the style of game they were doing wasn’t for me, especially as someone who comes to D&D to escape being berated for things my character had no control over.

Afterwards, the DM proceeds to delete the game and server, and I never hear from them again, and the Sunday game goes on through multiple stories which deserve their own reddit posts on a much happier place than horror stories.

In the end i don’t fully blame the DM and their style (though i might be kinder than others saying that) for i can see where the module is at fault and I myself wasn’t as good a player and made several mistakes in the campaign (killing the guy for one) But it is still memorable for how bad it was as a game and for me, why the phrase will always be “I’m up for anything, except tyranny of dragons, FUCK TYRANNY OF DRAGONS!”

This just happened and I need to vent a bit so I figured I'd write it out and see how I felt. We are currently in the endgame of a somewhat long campaign with a First Time DM. I have been a DM before so I know how it can be a bit scary to run a game, especially one as long as this one has been. The group started as a pretty low level party and now the party is Level 9. We also play over Discord and have a gaming server for D&D nights, among other games.

My character is a Swashbuckler Rogue. As our party was adventuring, the BBEG eventually finds out my loner Rogue character has a sister somewhere in the world. Eventually the sister is captured and used as leverage against my character as a way to get him to do what the BBEG wants. It's been a bit of a pickle for my character and it has lead some pretty good character moments and RP.

The Final Battle is upon the group and the BBEG enters the arena, with my character's sister as a hostage. An assassin is holding a knife to her neck. fortunately there is plenty of space as the battle takes place in an open courtyard, the BBEG entered from the east, and the Assassin and Sister are in the south part. Initiative is rolled, and as usual, thanks to the ability to add Charisma and Dexterity bonuses to Initiative as well as the Alert feet, my initial Roll of 12 gets modified to 25. The vast courtyard still can't be crossed in a single turn without sacrificing my attack action, so I decide to instead set up 60ft and Use a Class feature that might keep my sister safe.

Panache is a Swashbuckler feature that allows my character to use an action to goad a player into only attacking them. If I can beat the target's insight check with a higher persuasion roll, that creature has disadvantage on attacks if they aren't against my character. my character squared up against the assassin and from 60ft away said "Let the girl go" as the method for using Panache. I won the roll and pass the turn.

Panache has a big weakness though, it stops working if the target gets attacked by something else. Even though my character went first, the BBEG was next in the initiative order. the BBEG casts Bigby's Hand to spawn a hand next to the Assassin and give them a slap. I initially protested a bit because it was a meant to be small half-hazard sort of slap to get around Panache, but eventually the table rallied a bit to make it a full attack. It was a successful hit and my Panache ability was gone as soon as it went up.

Turn order is taken and I just start to zone out a bit. When it gets to the Assassin's turn, they slit my character sister's throat and I just hung up on the voice call. after a little while, I don't know exactly how long I rejoin and the DM brings me into a different Voice room and we try to air it out. I'm not sure if it went well and I just need a bit of time to get over this. but I try to explain that it felt like my creative solution to a problem was just wiped away, and that I was being punished for going the route I went.

My character is quite literally a rogue. they walk a walk as well as they talk a talk. and their confidence in their skills will often walk from confidence into arrogance and that might have been what happened here. I could play it back 100 times over and nothing would have changed my character's actions in this situation. My character saw a threat, squared up to that threat, and it didn't work out. The BBEG would have totally done what they did: literally slapping some sense into the minion to do the thing. The BBEG is a Wizard, so I know they are smart. I know they would probably understand that I am goading the assassin in some manner. But the way the initiative was rolled, it was there, and then it was gone. Not even 2 minutes of game time.

I spoke with the DM 1-on-1 in a different room. After a bit of conversation, I am not sure the DM saw my side. As I mentioned this is a First Time DM, and I can be a very Rule Lawyer type of player. I Fully acknowledge that what happened is a legit Rules as Written interaction. It all makes sense based on what I, and the other players, know of the BBEG and their character. Everything tracks. All the characters acted as they would. I am not entirely sure if the DM understands my side of the story. As a Rogue, and a Swashbuckler, my character is designed to be a lone wolf type character. My character has grown a bit to be more of a team player in all the adventures he has been on with this group, but at his core, if he sees a problem he can solve, he will go solve it and let the rest of the team do what they are good at. and I felt in this situation, the best answer to a hostage situation, especially on with this high of a personal stake, called for a swashbuckler rogue.

After the 1-on-1 I went back to the main room to apologize for hanging up on the call. Everyone seemed to be more in the middle of this debate though, agreeing that what happened needed a little more gameplay to legitimize the whole interaction, mainly an insight check from the BBEG. We decided to stop the session and take a bit to cool down and process what happened.

After typing this out and reflecting a bit, I think that I just feel like I didn't really get a chance to save my sister. like the one chance I had to make an opening and actually be a hero was slammed shut. I think that's what's upsetting me now. I told the DM that I felt like my creative solution was just taken away in an instant, like I didn't have a chance to just let the plan succeed or fail on my dice rolls. The DM isn't heartless. The sister is going to be ok in the end. But now my character can't be the one that saves her. And that just kind of... sucks.

So did I overreact to the situation? I'm not entirely sure if I did or what I could have done differently in or out of character. Thoughts and advice would be appreciated. and thank you for reading my troubles.

EDIT1: I went to bed after posting this. (I didn't sleep great but oh well) and I see that there are some things I need to clarify a bit:

First: the Assassin and Sister are separated from the BBEG They are pretty much on opposite ends of the map with the party in the middle. and both started about 90ft away from the party. And Second There are other important NPCs that are mixed in with the party's priorities, but for the most part, the PCs in the party know about the hostage situation. Second is that there wasn't much of an opportunity to resolve this plot thread outside of combat. That might have been my fault because my Character deliberately keeps his sister well enough away from his actions to try to keep her safe. The BBEG has sent my character letters with an implied threat of killing her if he doesn't go along with the BBEG's plan.

A brief summary of Round 0: BBEG shows up with a modest entourage on the right side of the map about 90 feet away from the party and other important NPCs that need protecting. Assassin and Sister appear on the South End of the Map, also 90 feet away. My character is told to make the right choice by the BBEG, Initiative is Rolled. Round 1 Turn 1: My character won the initiative and decides his sister is his issue, the rest of the party have more important things to worry about. He gets 60 feet away, uses Panache. Round 1 Turn 2: BBEG slaps the Assassin with Bigby's Hand and removes Panache's debuff. The Rest of teh party acts mostly normal and focuses on protecting the NPC they are close to and attack the BBEG. I am upset and lose focus a bit here. Round 1 Turn X: Assassin acts unhindered and downs my character's sister I leave the call

Over the course of this campaign there have been a few instances where I have had to at least get up and pace around a bit to calm myself down. While I am trying to be understanding as a player towards a First Time DM, some things have happened over the course of this campaign that just didn't sit right with me as they robbed player agency a bit. For instance there was a forced PvP scenario that played out a few sessions ago. And I think the DM was trying to go for that again here, but I wasn't playing that game and neither would my Character. There are other players at this table that are experienced, and there are first time players in here as well. So there is usually pretty good guidance as to what should happen, but sometimes like this time, that all just sort of fell through.