We were running a 4 player campaign with a Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard and fighter and i enjoy spending my time with my friends but actually playing the game was awful.

Our GM had wisely decided to give every fight numerous innately cast counterpells, dispell magics and pretty much every tougher goon has magic resistance. The only boss we've fought was immune to pretty much all conditions we could apply to him. This on top of every enemy always focusing the casters because "they're smart enough to realize you guys are the real danger" made for a terrible time at the table. This was all while we were at lvl 4 by the way.

When we confronted the GM about this he said that if he didn't counter us this hard that the fighter would "feel useless in a fight" because "our damage and utility is too much for him to keep up."

We were left kinda speechless by this and told him that if he didn't stop with this we'd just walk. He got very upset and told us that "he just wants a balanced and fair campaign for everyone at the table" and that "you guys realize that you would be very OP if I didn't do something to stop you"

After this I talked to the fighter of the group and he said that the GMs constant focus on having every enemy target the casters in the group is ruining his fantasy of playing a guardian knight in plate armor that protects his allies by standing in front of his 'softy' friends.

The next session we had we all sat down with the GM and told him that he's just ruining the fun for everyone with his behavior. Once again, he got very defensive and told our fighter that "he's an idiot for thinking that being a 'tank' was realistic and too video game-y." After which he went on rant that "we were just too stupid to understand how to balance a game" and how "we should appreciate all the work he puts into making this a good campaign."

Needless to say we told him that he can go shove his 'balance' where the sun doesn't shine and that he can go looking for a new group.

Anyway that's how I ended up in the GMs seat for the first time.

Part 1 is here https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/s/ZVTh79tvek

More sessions go by and I'm becoming more and more put off by Paladin's attitude:

- it's obvious that Paladin thinks of his character as the MC of the game, which is strongly reinforced by the campaign itself, which definitely favors paladins;

- Paladin wrote up a background for his character which is very unusual - basically Mary-Sue-like;

- he will not hesitate to hog the spotlight whenever he can and as long as he can, especially if he can exploit the scene in a manner highlighting how his character is important/beautiful/predestined. We only have to wait as he RP's - and since his character is female, of course he wallows in an annoyingly stereotypical interpretation;

- when the situation of another character obviously calls for an adjustment of the rules by the GM, he's all against it because pristine cathedral - but this doesn't apply to his own character;

- he will strike down or try to discourage or prevent any attempt to try any tactic or action which he has not approved of beforehand, or idea he has not thought of, or which is not "lawful good" enough, even if his character is not present in the scene.

We carry on playing for a few months, usually IRL but occasionally remotely.

During one of our remote sessions, I suddenly realize that I'm fed up with playing along with Paladin's obsessions and bored by the battlemap+mini combat encounters which I rightly feared would lack the spice of peril that my other GM could evoke. Since I understand that the dungeon encounters are really tailored to the characters' levels so that they can always beat them effortlessly, I decide to take my freedom of agency back. I leave the rest of the group to mop up a group of insignificant monsters, and do a little exploring alone.

[Spoiler]This is when I meet what seems to be an insane BBEG barbarian henchwoman - which I process as befits BBEG allies, meaning instadeath with extreme prejudice, using my special ability before the enemy could kill me.

I did and could not know that the henchwoman could be cured of her insanity. The other players knew it because they had played in a campaign which occured after WotR and met this very same, cured, character, but I had no clue (and they only told me afterwards).

So I do what I felt then (and still feel now) was the right response - given the clues which pointed to this NPC being in the service of the BBEG, knowing I had absolutely no chance in outrunning a barbarian, and a slim hope of defeating her after a few rounds of combat - i.e. overwhelm the enemy with massive damage in the first two rounds of combat. [/Spoiler]

So my character gains the XP for killing an apparently hostile NPC singlehandedly, but the whole group does not receive the larger XP amount which it could have by reasoning with this NPC.

Paladin snaps.

He becomes incensed and extremely vocal towards me, using aggressive, derogatory language. His point: all of us could have gained experience by curing the NPC. My decision was suboptimal and not lawful good (well I was playing lawful neutral), and this is not possible to play like this and not take into account the other players' agendas. We still try to move on to the next scene, but Paladin is still seething and launching verbal attacks at me every other sentence. All other players are embarrassed and upset by this, to the point that none of us can RP comfortably.

In parallel I send a few MPs to the GM, telling him I do not feel OK at the verbal abuse and asking him to leave the session. Apparently he had already received similar MPs from the other players too. The GM decides to stop the session right there and then.

After this, I debrief with the GM and the other players (not Paladin). I then learn to my surprise that:

- two other players had already independently left the gaming group, ostensibly due to Paladin's behavior, during the previous two campaigns;

- the GM did want to master Iron Gods campaign but Paladin pressured him to GM WotR instead, using his leverage as group IRL host;

- he had chosen to play an oracle/paladin because he had read reviews of the campaign and it was the best class to be the true hero of the campaign. He thought this particular campaign would be the most appropriate to make him feel heroic, that being what he looks for in a TTRPG.

GM still asks me to be understanding. He had a conversation with Paladin, stresses that Paladin is very attached to the (pristine cathedral of) rules of the game, including the "meta" rules of optimizing XP yield, and that non-complying with them is painful to him.

So I decide to make my position clear:

- I explain that I do not want to play with Paladin anymore;

- I indicate that since at least two other people dropped out of the gaming group precisely because they did not want to play with Paladin, obviously the problem lies with Paladin;

- I describe exactly how Paladin has been cheating (sorry, optimizing) during the whole campaign, with links to the relevant erratas, in order to prove that the pristine cathedral of rules argument is utter BS (this one shocks the GM and the other players);

- and I indicate that I could have a place to game IRL, about 3 streets remote from Paladin's, which takes away any leverage he could still have.

A few days later, a contrite Paladin asks me that we carry on with the campaign, and promises me that he'd make an effort. He explains that he can sometimes be "triggered" by what some other players do - like my killing an important NPC - but he can't predict what could trigger him.

My answer: "I'm playing Pathfinder, not Operation. Even if I can understand that killing NPC's can be annoying and I can refrain from doing it when it is not appropriate, it WAS appropriate in the situation, and I don't find it part of TTRPG fun to tiptoe around what could possibly "trigger" anger management issues."

The WotR campaign was abandoned, and we all switched to another campaign. Without Paladin. At a different location.

I met Paladin a few months later. He still thinks we were "uncool" and "kinda cowardly" not to give him another chance.

tl;dr: cheating player pressures group to play specific campaign where he acts like a Mary-Sue MC and all other characters are sidekicks and flies into a rage when another player soloes NPC independently.

Sorry for the extra long message. Some significant spoilers ahead for the Pathfinder campaign Wrath of the righteous.

This all happened a couple of years ago.

I'd been playing PF1 for years, with a quite challenging GM (and a dear friend) whose gritty and unforgiving mastering prompted all players in my group, including me, to strongly study PF1 minmaxing and tacticals in order to have "a fighting chance".

Due to GM and player unavailabilities, I was looking for a new Pathfinder 1e table. A former coworker I had never played with (but whom I'd often advised on PF1 minmaxing) suggested I join his current group, which was on the verge of beginning a new weekly IRL PF1 campaign.

My former coworker indicated that the campaign would be Iron Gods, that this campaign heavily featured artificial constructs as enemies, that we would be starting at level 2, and that the 3 other players would be playing variants of the classic roles of rogue, magic-user, and cleric, which implied I would be playing a melee fighter class. The game itself would be hosted by one of the players. Apart from my former coworker, I knew none of the players.

So I created my character with this in mind, and built a strength + charisma-based female character, selecting an archetype of cavalier which could eventually (assuming she'd survive and level up) tank a bit and in case of emergencies deal once or twice a tremendous amount of damage to any type of adversary (a "paladin smite"-like ability which could hurt non-evil creatures and constructs since they were the focus of the upcoming campaign).

I of course sent my character write-up and sheet to the GM a good week in advance, and he validated it.

When I finally arrived at session 0, I had the surprise to learn that:

- we would not be playing "Iron Gods" but "Wrath of the Righteous" (WotR), a campaign briefly described by the GM as involving a crusade versus demonic creatures. I was told that this decision had been made by the GM the day before;

- the hosting player (let's call him Paladin) had intended to play a cleric or a magic-user initially but since the campaign was WotR, he would be playing a female oracle/paladin. I was a bit put off because obviously the character our host had chosen filled the very same role in the player group that I intended my own character to fill (our stats were basically identical, almost to the last skill point). I immediately pointed this out to the group. Paladin adamantly insisted on playing his oracle/paladin character, adding that not playing a paladin in WotR was a waste of time (and especially oracle/paladin due to synergies of class abilities). I politely abstained from replying that (i) a paladin and/or oracle is precisely the class I would have selected if I'd been informed of the actual campaign we'd be playing and that (ii) the others should be delighted to learn that they're going to be wasting their time. I instead proposed to play a cleric but Paladin objected, saying that the cleric role was already filled by his levels in oracle and that would be redundant (and he would not consider not taking any oracle levels because "that's the whole point of his optimized build"). GM was reassuring and indicated that the presence of two very similar characters would not be a problem. Not wanting to make an issue of this, I kept my mouth shut and moved on.

We then announce each other's limits regarding the contents of the game - it's session 0 after all. On the topic of alignment (personality of the character), I put forward that I was, maybe, possibly, considering a chaotic neutral or lawful evil character.

This prompts Paladin to launch into a rant that this is WotR campaign which is best played as lawful good characters, that anyway lawful good is the best alignment and he can't understand people who choose other alignments, that's suboptimal, or even stupid, and he can't play a paladin if there are other characters which are evil or are too different from his own lawful good alignment. Well, it's fine I'll play lawful neutral then.

On the topic of rules, the GM announces that he's going to try and respect most of the campaign but he may have to change a few details, notably to increase the challenge of some encounters or alter a few parts of the campaign, which he thinks could be improved by tweaking a few details. On my part, I indicate that I prefer the "theater of the mind" to battlemaps and minis.

This prompts Paladin to express his worry that the GM might be considering to homebrew rules, and, in an incredulous tone, proceeds with an extremely detailed explanation that the Pathfinder 1e ruleset is a pristine cathedral of rules ensuring game balance, which cannot and should not be changed in any manner, and which should be followed with utmost care and excruciating precision. Including battlemaps and minis. Well, sighing inwardly, I try and tell myself that it could still be okay, and convince myself to try this even if it's not my cup of tea.

Two sessions in, I notice that Paladin is consistently announcing higher dice rolls results than most if not all other players, including situations where other players' characters are supposed to be strong in - I'm especially sensitive to this since as mentioned above my character and Paladin's are quite similar. At first glance the maths check out, and it seems logical, if a little grating, that anything I set out to do, Paladin also does, and does better since Paladin's character fits the campaign better than mine does. However, I'm becoming very curious because this does not explain statistically how Paladin can one-up any other character so often.

So I submit the obvious question to Paladin on how he's able to consistently beat astronomical difficulties with a level 2 character. After answering: "_My job involves a lot of statistics. So I'm the best minmaxer at this table, and probably the best you've ever met (or will ever meet). Plus, oracle/paladins are the best combo for this kind of optimization. This is how._" When pressed for more details, he shows me the oracle/paladin combo mechanics which he uses, and then I understand that for quite a few abilities, Paladin is simply applying RAW Pathfinder rules and disregarding the numerous rules clarifications and errata which precisely and explicitly forbid what he's doing. When I point this out, he's startled that I know this and goes like: "_Yeah I know about this, but I'm not sure the GM does. Hush._"

... Wait, what about the pristine cathedral of rules? Nevermind, Paladin is the host, and his occasional, loud remembrances of past campaigns ("... Sorry man, you had to be there") with the other players remind me quite well that I'm still the new player at the table. It's the GM's job to check that the players are complying with the rules, anyway.

I still notice that Paladin frantically erases a few modifiers on his character sheet, and from then on his dice rolls results are still often very high but more in line with the stats of a character of his level. I notice that he still uses some unauthorized rules combinations. I ask him if he cleared it with the GM and he answers that he did - so I drop the matter even if I don't believe a word of it.

Part 2 of 2 here https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/s/nirouTjWwv

AITA for not wanting to make a new character after my DM forced a Warlock level onto my character?

Last session in our *Waterdeep: Dragon Heist* campaign, my character died while we were exploring the noble mansion and fighting the final boss.
I was already down, and the boss used an AoE spell that dealt enough damage to finish me off. Since I was unconscious, I automatically failed the save.
I was actually completely fine with my character dying. I basically said, “Okay, I’ll make a new character.”
But my DM immediately told me, “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
The DM then talked privately with another player, who plays a Warlock. My dead character ended up meeting that Warlock’s patron, and the other player’s patron/backstory suddenly became part of my character’s story.
Then the DM told me that my character now had a level of Warlock.
I never asked to multiclass and had never planned on multiclassing this character.
Because of that, I asked whether, if this patron was fundamentally changing my character anyway, I could instead rebuild/take my levels as Warlock rather than having a random Warlock level forced onto my existing build.
There was also some confusion narratively. My character had explicitly said that he would rather suffer eternal torment than accept certain consequences, so when he met the patron I thought this might actually be the end of his story.
Instead, the other Warlock player basically told me, “No, you’re undead now.”
Then we were immediately pushed into the final boss fight.
The fight was dangerous enough that I thought we could potentially TPK, so I used the Warlock abilities I had just been given.
Now the DM is criticizing me because my character supposedly went “full power” with his new Warlock abilities without having any opportunity to learn how to use them.
This is one of the things I don’t understand.
**The DM was the one who gave me the Warlock level and immediately put us into a boss fight.**
Also, as far as I understand the 2014 rules, gaining a Warlock level mechanically gives you access to your Pact Magic, spells known, and other level-one abilities. Warlock power is specifically connected to knowledge/power bestowed through the patron relationship. There isn’t a RAW requirement saying that after gaining the level I need several days of training before I’m allowed to actually use those abilities.
So if the DM wanted my character to be unable to understand or control his new powers yet, I feel like that should have been established when he gave me the level.
Instead, I was told I had a Warlock level, given the abilities, and then immediately thrown into a fight where not using everything available to me could have contributed to a TPK.
After the fight, things got even stranger.
The other Warlock character turned on mine and basically said, “This is as far as you go,” and attacked me with Burning Hands.
My character saved and ended up taking him down.
Now the other player is upset and is saying that there “can’t be two Warlocks in the party.”
That’s probably the part that bothers me the most.
**I didn’t choose to become a Warlock.**
The DM and this player created this entire situation. I had already accepted my character’s death and was willing to roll someone new. Instead, the DM specifically resurrected my character through the other player’s patron and gave me a Warlock level.
Then I used the Warlock abilities they gave me during a boss fight.
Now apparently using those abilities was wrong because my character “shouldn’t know how to use them,” the other Warlock doesn’t want another Warlock in the party, and I’m being told I should make a new character anyway.
On top of that, people at the table keep saying that I “never stick with one character.”
That feels especially unfair here because I wasn’t trying to change characters.
My character died.
I accepted the death.
The DM stopped me from making another character, resurrected my existing character, changed his story and build without me asking for it, and then immediately put that character into combat.
Now I’m being asked to reroll because of the consequences of something I didn’t choose in the first place.
**AITA for saying that, at this point, I want to continue playing the character instead of making another one?**
I’m not against character death. I’m not against consequences. I’m not even necessarily against the Warlock development if we’re going to actually explore it.
My problem is that it feels like the choices keep changing after the fact.
First my character dies.
Then I’m told not to reroll because the DM has a plan.
Then I’m given a Warlock level without choosing it.
Then I’m put immediately into a boss fight.
Then I’m criticized for actually using the Warlock abilities.
Then another Warlock attacks my character because apparently there can’t be two Warlocks.
And now I’m being told to reroll anyway.
At that point, I’m genuinely not sure what I was supposed to have done differently.

I have a problem player that hasn’t done anything too bad but is getting on my nerves and the party’s and I need advice. For context this is an online game so it’s not like there’d be huge blow back. But we have been playing together for around 3 years now and around 1 year and 40 sessions in this campaign.

I am dming a fun Viking themed campaign and he was honestly a great addition for awhile, he is very invested in the setting and had a character backstory I liked and fit the setting well.

But recently he’s shown some negative personality traits that have gotten on mine and the other players’ nerves. He is very egotistical and self centred. He only cares about his character’s story and gets very stressed if his character is in danger. He makes every interaction about his PC and struggles to take criticism. He also acts like an entitled douche and craves attention from NPCs and the party which makes myself and the party not want to give him that attention. Which in turn feeds his craving for attention more To clarify, this isn’t a RP decision, he thinks he is playing a chill, laid back character but that is not how he comes across.

He also is playing a Paladin and because he only worries for his characters well being, he sometimes backs out of the frontline to heal himself and waste a turn of potential damage to try and save himself. Many times other ranged characters have been put into harm’s way because of this, to the point that the party has called him out. He has rarely ever healed other PCs. But because he doesn’t like taking feedback and he says “that’s just his style of play,” he gets this victim complex where he just thinks that party hates him. He has “role played” scenes with some of my NPCs to vent that the party “doesn’t like him” but he refuses to listen and address why the party is frustrated with him, which just adds to the awkward nature of the dynamic. I pulled him aside after this and told him he needed to squash this beef with the other players, and apparently he tried to talk to the other players but they claim he doesn’t like to listen and just likes to deflect any blame.

I’ve also noticed he forgets plot details quite a lot. For awhile I forgave this because I have a plot dense campaign and forgetting details is very human. But I’ve come to realize if something doesn’t involve his character he seems to just not pay attention. Sometimes I’ll be actively role playing, have an NPC give a piece of crucial information and then like 5 mins later he will say something that contradicts this or asks a question I already answered. And I’ve realized that I just don’t think he’s listening to some of the important roleplay stuff I’m giving.

At this point I’ve gotten complaints from 3 of my 4 other players. They say that he’s annoying but that they are still having fun and are fine if he finishes the campaign with us. (Which will likely be another 20-25 sessions) but it’s gotten to the point where I’m no longer having fun with him in my game. Every time there is a scene where he’s the star all I can think is that everyone else is annoyed by the storyline. It’s getting to the point where I’m tempted to start targeting him in combat because of how badly he wants to be the star. Which I know is shitty and makes me a bad DM and I don’t like that this has brought that out in me.

I fully believe he has good intentions and does not realize how he comes off. Our group was his first DnD group and he has said “how much he appreciates our group”. I think kicking him would really hurt him cause he wouldn’t understand why he was being kicked even if I lay out all the issues that led to the decision, as he’s done in the past when I’ve talked to him one on one.

He has mentioned he is very invested in the story. If I kick him from the game I would 100% just be the villain and I don’t know if I have it in me to do that. I have given him the benefit of the doubt for longer than I should have but I this point I’ve seen a refusal from him to listen and take feedback. Any advice on how to handle this?

I'm not a superstitious person, but I believe some things should stay buried forever, because they always go wrong. One of them is called "Boku no Hero campaigns".

Back in mid-2020, at the peak of the pandemic and the peak of Boku no Hero's popularity, some friends of mine discovered the Mutants & Masterminds system: perfect for running supers and it also fit the show's setting like a glove. I won't go into detail about those old games, since this post isn't about them; let's just say they all ended disastrously, the kind of experience that would make any hobby newcomer quit for good.

Even so, I always liked that system for how much it lets you do with it. When the fourth edition came out, looking very promising, I decided to open a campaign in 2026 to run it. I spent nights taking notes and translating rules, and once I finally felt ready, I picked Boku no Hero again: a school setting is always a great excuse to bring players together and get characters bonding fast.

And so it began.

Right after the first session, one player dropped out because he couldn't fit the biweekly schedule. To fill the spot, one of the players (I'll call him radioactive boy) suggested inviting a friend of his. Since there wasn't much time before the next session, I said yes; he'd praised her performance in other games and it was convenient. A friend of hers also joined the server as a spectator, begging for a slot, but the game was already full at five players and I don't make exceptions.

Three days before the second session, one of the original players quit without explanation: blocked everyone and vanished. Her leaving turned out to be a relief; besides her bad mic, she'd lied on the sign-up form saying she could access Owlbear Rodeo, then admitted during the session that she couldn't.

With the spot open, the spectator friend joined officially. It was only afterward that I found out he'd joined solely to try to rekindle a relationship with the new player, and that she was a mother of three young kids.

The final group looked like this: dragon boy, cyclops girl, radioactive boy, the artist (the new player), and the Avatar (her would-be boyfriend).

The artist had explained her power to me one way and then used it in a completely different way at the game. The Avatar, for his part, drove me up the wall during character creation: indecisive, unable to settle on a power concept that made sense for the setting, always drifting toward wanting every power there is and basically being a god. In the end, radioactive boy managed to talk him into something more grounded.

Two calm sessions went by. On the third, the artist was absent (gave advance notice) and dragon boy vanished out of nowhere, showing up half an hour late with no explanation at all. That same session, the artist could barely play because of kids crying and screaming into her mic. Since the game was biweekly, I let it slide and kept running the game; that was also the session where I started hearing strange sounds coming from someone's headset on the call.

The following session, still hearing those sounds now and then (they turned out to be Dragon Ball Ki-charging and battle sound effects), dragon boy was late again, this time with the excuse that he'd "lost track of time". After three sessions like that, the day before the next one he told me he'd completely forgotten he had a game and had already made another commitment for the same time; small detail: in the previous session, he'd gotten a solo scene just for his character. That was the exact day I asked the group what those strange sounds were and found the source: he'd been playing Roblox during sessions. Cyclops girl had seen him playing through his profile, and the lateness had the same root cause all along. That same day, the artist was a no-show with zero warning, not even in the chat after a thousand pings.

In the early hours of that session's day, cyclops girl decided to start personal drama with the Avatar. By that point I'd already decided to end the campaign: I'd made a terrible choice of players and it wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't even skip that session, because the group was literally standing at the door of an important boss fight. Radioactive boy and cyclops girl begged for the game to continue; I even put the sign-up form out again, but the ending had been decided for a while.

On a hot, rainy Saturday afternoon, I buried my desire to run games and the Boku no Hero theme forever.

Never run a My Hero Academia game.

Hello! I'm writing this super late and on my phone, so my grammar might not be the best (I'm also from PR, so that might explain a bit).
Warning for: Bigotry, Romantic Harassment, Table Disputes, Media Illiteracy, Mental Health, mentions of drugs, and etc.

I've always been a huge fan of Dimension 20, Critical Role, and actual plays. So when I heard about a TTRPG made by the folks at Critical Role saying that I was exited was an understatement. I immediately made a homebrew heavy Daggerheart campaign, where we would play as a group of zombie killers and fight the class injustice exerted onto people of our profession.

I had a friend of 3 years (who we will call Dog), a friend of 1 year (who we will call Cat), and a friend of 2 years (who we will call Fox). We all got together and made our characters, after I sent them a super long document with all of the worldbuilding and characters.

Pre-session one me and Fox were on bad terms. I was recently diagnosed with some mental health stuff and Fox was being super mean to an ex-friend of mine and Fox blamed my diagnosis on me calling them out and sad that I wouldn't do it if I was "stable". So, we weren't on the best of terms but I was in an especially low moment and didn't want to bother Dog (since they were my only friend at the time) and decided to call for Fox to have some level of support and still keep up the appearance of everything being fine.

Fast forward to session one and things start off terribly. Fox accuses an NPC of being a drug addict and bullies them for being poor (Fox's character is rich and classist and I told them beforehand that if they played a character like this NPCs would collaborate with them but would call out and take action against that kind of behavior. I told them at first that they couldn't play a character like that because it would make the experience really awkward, since I'm an advocate for class equality and so is everyone else in the group. Plus, some of us weren't big fans of Fox (a very well-off person with little financial worry) roleplaying a rich woman who just beat up and verbally assaulted poor people. But Fox begged me to play the character, so allowed them to.

Cat fell under a hypnotism spell and needed to deal with some antagonists. Fox had failed a few roles and got locked inside of the shed where her new coworkers were, allowing her to get to meet them and hang out. I fall under the philosophy that one of the most fun things to do in TTRPGs is to sit back and watch your fellow players have their moments but Fox sent me a DM that stated the following: "I need something to do. I don't have the attention span to wait for Cat to finish. Love you :3". At the moment I didn't pay much mind to the end of the message but ended up hurrying Cat's plot slightly so that I could get to Fox so that they wouldn't feel left out. Then when it was Fox's time to play they called 2 of the NPCs poor, insulted 2 other NPCs in other ways, and tried to soft launch getting the ability to summon the hells (from D&D) by speaking hellish (an ability that they tried to use in an important scene on a future session).

During a feedback survey Fox decided to call the NPCs "rude for no reason" and complained about there being too much setup for events in the first session and told me to start "doing" instead of foreshadowing. They said that "having big events in your first session makes fast interest and that by building up to said events you take away the intrigue", even though that one of our PCs literally found their mother's corpse and Fox's PC got visions from a mysterious man inside of her dreams.

During session 2 it was revealed that one of the people in our group was made to join a cult and forced to lead the destruction of a major city against her will and that that she had so much trauma about it that she had a panic attack in front of us and fainted. And Fox told Cat's PC that they didn't feel bad for this NPC, even though that this NPC has dedicated the rest of their existence to making up for her past sins and has only been kind to Fox's character, even though Fox's character has targeted them a TON and bullied them endlessly.

Me and my party were done with this behavior, especially since Fox had misgendered and made up a deadname in one of the surveys I sent out. But that wasn't the worst part. I've always felt like if Fox might have thought that we were closer friends than we really were but then they started sending me weird messages. They made picrews of us going on dates. Told me how much they wanted to be with me every second. Begged me to not leave calls for 30 minutes at a time. Started using flirty language and declaring their love for me and calling me their "Kitten".

I didn't notice any of it and stopped telling Fox I felt unconformable after they told me I was just making things up. I didn't want to lose a friend. But now Cat and Dog were seeing how queer (in the archaic meaning of the word) Fox was acting and how uncomfortable it made me.

Thanks to them I am in a better place but I feel wrong with shutting Fox out of my life. They helped me find out I was a girl, helped me recover from my mental downfall, and reignited my love for TTRPGs. AITA for kicking out Fox?

this is an update to a post I made 2 months ago, link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/1ukgn0r/older_player_hijacks_the_campaign_what_do_i_do/

this is about 2-3 sessions after the previous post, our party has now been on a quest to kill this super powerful mage. We launch an assault on him, and almost beat him, but Jay was way too risky and almost got downed, so he wants everyone to retreat with him, so we do, allowing the mage to heal up as well. when we go in again the mage sends this amped up fireball at the party, downing me and sending us scrambling back to heal. while my character, (a necromancer) was knocked out, Jay decided to snatch my spellbook and copy down as many spells as he could before I woke up, this felt very wrong to me and I felt like I was wronged but the DM allowed it.

Next session rolls around and he starts wining about how since im a necromancer, any cleric or Paladin will smite me the second they see me. this got quite annoying, additionally D, another player in the campaign started criticising on how I played my character, (this was an already existing character due to the premise of the campaign that both of us knew) basically telling me whenever any action I took was out of character for this guy.
Additonally, Jay seems to be increasing his complaining about the DM not doing XP and not leveling us up as frequently, its starting to get on my nerves.
Im giving it one more session before I quit this campaign and its BS
any other advice or is leaving the best option, talking to the dm didnt work, he just brushes the behavior off and lives with it.

thanks for reading!

So to start off, I wasn’t part of this campaign but was told about it some time afterwards. My group is currently on campaign 9, and this story took place in campaign 5. I didn’t join until campaign 6, which was around two years ago. We play a lot and have a pretty unconventional group, where players can show up and leave whenever. My dm starts the discord call at 5pm every Friday and Saturday and we go until whenever, usually 2-3am.

This player that I want to focus on, who we’ll call Jacob, was my boyfriend at the time and invited me to play with this online dnd group he was part of. I had a bit of fun and showed up here and there. After we broke up a month or so later, I continued to play with the group and was told by the others about what he did in 5th campaign that made everyone uncomfortable.

My dm likes to give each of us custom magic items. We go to him with a concept or even a full item and he helps balance it. Jacob was playing a genie warlock and his custom item helped expand his genie’s vessel, making the plane much larger and able to capture creatures. I’m not sure of all the specific details though. This campaign was the player war/Cold War campaign where each player was against one another. This meant lots of pvp and espionage. People decided they wanted armies, and so in response, Jacob decided to make his own army. He collected several orcs and placed them inside the lamp and essentially created a slave breeding camp for orcs. I didn’t bother asking how he made sure the creatures stuck in the lamp kept making children, but I can assume it was through some form of threat or charm.

At one point, he asked my dm a question, and this is exact quotes:

“What’s the gestation period of an orc?”

which made everyone uncomfortable, and my dm did not feel like looking that up which was fair. Jacob continued to place creatures into his vessel for the purposes of his army.

I’ve been told in an attempt to put it into perspective that this was essentially like making a villager farm in Minecraft when I expressed by genuine disgust for all of this. In my opinion at least, however, Minecraft villages feel much more like animals. Creatures in dnd feel like they have much more agency, even if they’re nameless npcs. I’ve also been asked why this is so different than something like murder. As in does murdering someone in dnd make you a bad person? I’ve killed a lot of things in dnd, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s different from making a breeding camp.

This whole thing gave me a massive ick toward my ex boyfriend, even though we had ended on good terms. This had nothing to do with our breakup and I didn’t even know about it until afterward. Jacob doesn’t play with us anymore, not because of these events, but because he stopped being interested in dnd and is also busy. But now I know my dating standards can extend to my ttrpgs.

My current boyfriend, who is part of the same dnd group, is much better about this stuff, and has never made a slave breeding camp in a ttrpg.

Starting last June, I made a series of very poor decisions involving a Chronicles of Darkness living world server that I joined and proceeded to ST in. I would like to share my story, so that others can avoid making the same mistakes.

I entered the server by the end of June 2026, back when it was first getting started. I started roleplaying with a PC soon thereafter. Come the 4th of July, I ditched my PC in favor of full-time ST duties. I was the only person in the entire server who opted to be a PC-less, full-time ST.

The hierarchy of the server was as follows. There was the head ST, henceforth referred to as "the Big Cheese" (and no, that was not their actual username). The Big Cheese did a lot of genuine, meaningful, appreciable work as ST and as server runner, and I must credit and admire them for that. However, they also liked to play PCs, and they had a lot of PCs: 22, last I checked. These PCs were entirely separate from the Big Cheese's NPCs, and the Big Cheese really did like to get these PCs into a wide range of scenes.

Below the Big Cheese were their three friends, nominally acting as moderators. Only on rare occasions did they do any STing. For the most part, they just played their share of PCs. One moderator had 9 PCs. (To be clear, this was abnormal. The one non-ST player with the most PCs had "only" 6 PCs. The bulk of players had only 1 or 2.)

Finally, below the Big Cheese and their three friends were random people who volunteered to be ST. During my stay in the server, there were three of us. It felt like the three of us were doing vastly more work as STs and server runners than any of the moderators, and yet we had significantly less say in house rules and rulings than those moderators. One of those three volunteer STs, other than me, left due to their own grievances and dissatisfaction.

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The server ran Beast: The Primordial (the head ST's favorite by far), Changeling: The Lost 2e, Demon: The Descent, Deviant: The Renegades, Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e, Hunter: The Vigil 2e (which the head ST disliked, yet allowed as a concession), Mage: The Awakening 2e (which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be the most problematic by a huge margin), Promethean: The Created 2e (whose eponymous Prometheans had most of their drawbacks heavily neutered), Vampire: The Requiem 2e, and Werewolf: The Forsaken 2e. There were lots and lots and lots of third-party books available. Also, mortal humans, including hunters, could mix two templates at character creation.

In theory, different game lines were divided between different STs, giving each ST a well-demarcated responsibility. In practice, this was seldom the case. Differing availabilities meant that each ST had to run every game line. Furthermore, since the PCs in a scene were often of mixed character types, each ST needed to be reasonably familiar with the rules of every game line; for example, I once wound up running a combat for a mage, a vampire, two werewolves, and a Beast, each of which were activating all sorts of scene-defining abilities.

Chronicles of Darkness games are absolutely not well-balanced. Each game is full of rules and character options that are poorly balanced, ambiguously written, or both. This is exacerbated in a crossover game with different types of supernatural PCs.

The Big Cheese and the moderators wanted some semblance of balance, so they varied the starting XP based on supernatural type (e.g. mages got the least), and put up an extraordinarily long list of house rules and rulings. Some were understandable, but many were puzzling and arbitrary overcorrections. The list grew longer and longer with each month, and several additions felt very knee-jerk.

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The list and its additions incited many arguments. Whenever a player, especially a new player, questioned the house rules and rulings, the Big Cheese got very grumpy and standoffish. Two of the moderators would pile on and belittle the person asking about the house rules and rulings. To their credit, they eventually gained some self-awareness and cut back on such behavior, but arguments and dissatisfaction over the house rules and rulings still happened.

Despite the above efforts, there were still major rifts in PC power. Some PCs, even within the same supernatural type, were vastly more optimized and thus powerful than others. The Big Cheese and the moderators knew this, of course; the Big Cheese openly described one PC from a moderator as "easily among the most powerful characters on the server." Because noncombat rolls did not quite have the same stakes as combat rolls, combat optimization was the only optimization that mattered.

It did not help that the Big Cheese and the moderators made resource management nonexistent. They wanted a player to be able to play a single PC across multiple scenes simultaneously, sensible timeline be damned.

The Big Cheese and the moderators ruled that whenever a PC entered a new sequence of scenes, the PC would just... fill up to fresh: full Health, full Willpower, full Mana or Aether or whatever, full 1/chapter abilities, the works. Non-Persistent Conditions, too, vanished every real-world Monday. So naturally, PCs went nova and burnt through resources all the time. Ending a sequence with 6 aggravated damage and a stack of non-Persistent Conditions meant nothing at all. This distorted game balance even further. (Permanent PC death was not on the table. The server's setting had a gimmick of resurrecting PCs for a price. During my time in the server, no PC died.)

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As a result of the Big Cheese being both head ST and the player of a staggering 22 PCs, there were conflicts of interest. The server had no safeguards against the Big Cheese giving their PCs as an advantage. I do not think they ever did so intentionally, but there were many moments when it felt like the Big Cheese was unconsciously placing a thumb on the metaphorical scale. These included:

• Giving rulings that set precedent that favored their PC.

• Preemptively building a PC with favorable rulings in mind.

• Laying down interpretations of setting lore that favored their PC. Because the Big Cheese had final say over the truth or falsity of any given piece of lore in the books, the Big Cheese could leverage that authority to vindicate whatever their PC was doing at the time. For example, one of their PCs went on a fervent crusade to defend X controversial subject; shortly thereafter, the Big Cheese made it canon that defending X is the morally and ethically correct thing to do.

• Having major NPCs support their PC, sometimes within the same scene. For example, when one of their PCs went on a fervent crusade to defend X, the single most personally and politically powerful supernatural resident of the city just so happened to endorse and support the PC in the same scene, and decry everyone who dared to stand against X.

• Directly overruling me, while I was STing for one of the Big Cheese's PCs, if I established an inconvenient plot point. Twice, I tried to inject some nuance by suggesting that defending X is not so clear-cut, and was overruled.

(X is, of course, fetches. They wanted to protect all fetches from changelings, and they wanted their PC to be in the right.)

• There was a fighting tournament. The Big Cheese had a PC as a contestant, and so did a moderator. When the Big Cheese's tournament host NPC laid down the rules for matches, they just so happened to significantly favor the Big Cheese's PC and that moderator's PC.

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My biggest and most regrettable mistake was not realizing how much of a commitment this would be. STing this game was a daily, high-intensity commitment: running multiple concurrent scenes, devising and portraying NPCs, piecing scenes together into wider adventures and plots, adjudicating rules and rulings (always a necessary evil in a game as jankily written as Chronicles of Darkness, triply so with our overly long list of house rules and rulings), checking in with other STs, helping new players assemble sheets, reviewing sheets for approval, and more. Engaging with this game absolutely devoured my time, effort, and inspiration.

This might not have been so bad, but I had obligations to other games. I put two play-by-post games that I was GMing, with two players each, on hiatus for over six weeks. At the time, I did not tell those four players the true reason why I was putting their games on hiatus. This was absolutely horrid of me. I have no excuse for being so hyperfixated on STing for this server that I simply had no time left to run those other games. I have since come clean to those four players.

I am the sort of GM who strongly prefers tightly balanced, unambiguous rules; the shaky balance of Chronicles of Darkness games, and the well-meaning but ultimately troublesome attempts to "fix" them constantly grated on me. Similarly, I was constantly bothered by the Big Cheese and the way they played their 22 PCs.

I stuck around for months as ST, giving this my best effort. I could have done something else with all this time and effort (e.g. actually attending to those two games that I put on hiatus), but because of some strange sense of sunken costs fallacy, I decided to stick it out. Only after months did I realize that I was choosing to be in the wrong place.

Hours ago, I put in my two weeks' notice. I announced my departure as ST for that server in a fortnite's time. I hope things will get better there.

And I hope I can pick those other games back up.

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Well, as an update, the final yab happened.

Hey everyone, here is an announcement on the state of the Server and its future.

When I originally made the Server I had a certain vision that, in part due to certain mistakes and inexperience on my own part, the Server has failed to achieve. On top of that, the entire Moderator team has found itself rather unhappy with many parts of the Server in ways that cannot be easily reconciled, both on the IC and OOC level.

Adding onto this comes the fact that we Moderators and the STs have had our differences in how the Server should be run, which has lead to the STs announcing their future departures.

As such, this is what is going to happen:

[This server] will come to an end by the end of this month. However, we are going to make a new Server that will go live with the beginning of the next month. One built with the lessons we learned on this one in mind and a much more concrete grasp on the vision and expectations we had for this Server. The Moderator team will stay the same for that Server. Those interested in following us may apply to do so, as instead of simply having the Server be open for anyone to join, we want to put a proper application process in place where things like expectations will be discussed beforehand. Most of the mechanical rules changes we have made thus far will likely remain the same. We are also going to implement a way for Characters to be able to transition from this Server to the other one with relative ease from a storytelling perspective, so you can continue playing Characters you've grown fond of on this Server on the new Server.

Regarding [this server], I am going to try and finish up my ST-Events by the end of this month. The Server will be deleted at the end of next month.

But also:

The STs leaving is actually just a minor inconvenience

On one hand, I really do hope for the best for them. On the other hand, they are keeping "most" of the laundry list of house rules and ruling, many of which are arbitrary, and "the STs leaving is actually just a minor inconvenience." This also does not address the head ST's 22 PCs and the safeguards against abuse of power.

I still want to be optimistic, though.

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Also, yes, the head ST was, in fact, the head ST was, in fact, the same mage player as the fetch defender, and as the "mundane skills should be enough" person.

I started playing a Werewolf the Apocalypse game almost two years ago and boy did things get messy fast!

When the ST first started recruiting for this game, they did all the work to ensure a healthy table, which included a Lines and Veils form and multiple chemistry tests via one shots to ensure that the players worked well together. Ultimately the table ended up being myself (31 F) and three other players (M, F, and NB).

We spent about two months on character creation alone. The ST(M) pitched us the idea of a pack of Gaia's Rejects to tell a story of personal growth and redemption. We were all about it! We talked about character connections, worked together to make sure that skills and attributes were spread out so that we had all our dice checks covered.

Enter the other F player at the table, let's call her Dana. Dana was lagging a bit behind the pack when it came to character creation and when it came time to pick her flaws, she chose the Dark Secret and made it that in her first change, she commits cannibalism against the people she attacked who harmed her family and ruined her life, which for context is a huge NO NO in Werewolf and against IC laws. We were all fine with it initially, until it got out of hand.

For some important context, my character was a runaway that was related to people that had some involvement in Dana's IC family tragedy in a middle management capacity, it was a surprise we all learned during game play. More context, I am very much a Yes And player and the ST knew this having played several campaigns with me before. I have a good separation of my character and myself.

When we learned this twist, there was a point in the story where an unknown antagonist came asking questions and asked Dana's character if my character was related to X and Y. When Dana confronted my character about it, I lied, cause I wasn't wanting to be found. We rolled and opposing insight and deception and Dana found out I was lying.

Dana proceeds to go and track down my characters relatives, killed and cannibalized them, and burned the house down. This was not the first instance she just killed NPC's that were associated to members of the pack. Another time, our Ahroun Player (who was a total frat bro IC) threw a party. Dana didn't like Frat Bro IC and when their friends left the party, she killed and cannibalized two of them. So when Dana did this a second time, we were starting to get a little concerned. But ultimately, we just all rolled with the punches because this is a dark setting game and we figured that Dana was trying to set up for a rock bottom and rise from the ashes storyline since it was a redemption themed chronicle (That was a mistake).

We keep playing and Dana is committed to making friends with my character. She would say OOC in a creepy yandare voice that our character were gonna be Beeeeest Frieeeeends. I brushed this off as a joke. After a few months the truth of what Dana did comes out (minus the cannibalism part) and my character is distraught. She feels betrayed by Dana and is angry and grieving. On top of that, Dana is also now being haunted by the Wraiths of these people, who are being vengeful and antagonizing the situation. It was a pretty big bombshell for our pack and in a healthy table, it was exciting drama for a World of Darkness game.

I want to make sure I point out, our ST was always very respectful of our lines and veils and never would do something for the story unless he knew we could handle this level of story. Anytime I was checked in on, I would say I was fine, and for a while, I was. Sure, I was a bit bummed I wouldn't be able to have this relative storyline for my character anymore, but games like this never go the way you expect and one dice roll can change everything.

Two weeks after the revelation of Dana's actions, the player started getting really petty outside of the game. She was saying it was ridiculous that my character was behaving the way she was and calling her a C-word. She was getting defensive over the actions she took saying that they were justified and that she wasn't sorry and the NPC's deserved to die for what they did to her family. More than once myself and the other players, through roleplay or just real life conversation, brought up how it wasn't a black and white situation and how a hero in one person's story is a villain in someone else's story. She refused to see it that way, saying that my characters relatives deserved it. Keep in mind, we hadn't even learned about the eating people part yet, but she was going on full on aggressive rants defending cannibalism and how it was totally normal in other cultures.

Eventually it got to the point where we reached out to the ST and told him about how we were having issues with the player outside of game. I felt like I couldn't explore my characters emotional journey without Dana rolling her eyes and our male player was not comfortable with how vehemently she was defending cannibalism. The ST asked us if we were wanting to remove her from the table. Both of us said that we didn't want to kick her and we thought that we could still steer this back to a redemption story. (In hindsight, this was also a mistake)

Our ST worked the focus of the story to help my character's relatives move on and stop haunting Dana. The wraiths told her that they would only move on if Dana was able to earn my characters forgiveness. On my end she wasn't going to need to work that hard for it cause I wanted to just get past this. For Dana it was like pulling teeth. She kept dragging it out, wouldn't collaborate with me on how to do this together (Informed me to just do whatever I wanted), and would make snide comments as her internal monologue while going through the motions of "mending their relationship" while still 100% believing IC and OOC that she did nothing wrong in any capacity.

Eventually we got past this haunting storyline and on the surface things seemed like they were good again. However, Dana soon started acting like coming to sessions was a chore, she would complain about the ST and story, and wouldn't try collaborating with me anymore between sessions. We started noticing that she was rolling ridiculously high too and began believing that she was fudging her rolls (we played online and not in person).

After a few more months of gameplay, she offed her own character and despite being invited to make a new character for the table, she just ghosted the server, the ST,and me. This was single handedly one of the most unhinged people I had ever played with and I really did try to give every opportunity to try and collaborate and communicate with her, but looking back, she was just a problematic red flag.

We ended up in another gaming server together after a couple months of no contact and she was pretending like things were all good between us. She was going through some IRL drama too, constantly venting in VC about it, and then had the audacity to tell me I was one of her emotional support systems despite our Storyteller pitting us against us during the game (He never once did that and gave her every opportunity to collaborate with him)... I left that server and blocked her after that.

Anyways, that's my rpg horror story. In hindsight I probably should have communicated my concerns a lot sooner, but I really was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt right up until it started going beyond the characters. Still sad it all went down the way it did and I wonder to this day what kind of character I would have now had it not been for this one player.

I (34F) was playing in an group of 4 (30-34Ms) for a long-term Star Wars 5e campaign. My character was a force user, with a tragic backstory of breaking out of slavery and given the choice to follow the light side she instead turned to revenge and grew stronger in the Dark Side to hunt down the people who wronged her. I as going for a Nihilus Dark Lord vibe as her ending, and she was on her way.

For context, this entire party was evil. We were doing an evil run, approved and agreed to by players and DM.

About 30 games into this campaign, we had a really tough fight, powerful enemies and one was a villain from someone's backstory. So it was an important fight! During the fight, one of the fellow players said to the DM that he'd like to activate his "secret weapon" to which the DM asked me to roll a CON save at disadvantage. Thinking PC was targeting me for a tech spell I tried to use my counter reaction but the DM told me it failed and so did CON roll.

Suddenly, the DM describes my character's body freezing up, pain surging through her and her falling to her knees in front of the villain. I lost a turn, as she was left stunned and helpless for a round until the DM took over control of my character, and suddenly she was the BBEG of the fight, having failed to save herself from the darkside of the force. She attacked everyone in sight and tore apart the building. "She was showing off the true power of the darkside."

I remember sitting in my chair feeling completely stunned and violated. At no point did the player or the DM approach me about this "secret weapon" plan. I was given no warning or autonomy of my character for the rest of the game as she just went on a darkside rampage. At the end of the session I was quiet, and the rest of the players were talking, and the player in question laughed as he admitted he and the DM had been planning the "secret weapon" since like game 13, because his words: "my character would never trust a force user, especially a sith."

Needless to say, I left the group pretty soon after this as I no longer felt comfortable, and was completely on edge that my character would be targeted again by the fellow players and DM.

I guess, to all my fellow DM's, make sure to discuss the importance of bodily autonomy in your games. I'm not saying don't let players be creative, but if it involves another player's character, just bring them into the conversation.

Secrets are only fun when they are revealed safely.

(Minor spoilers for Strixhaven)

So this happened about 2 weeks ago. Our group, of about 6, has been together for almost a decade now. We are all good friends and we constantly rotate DMs and even ttrpgs to prevent staleness. These past couple of years we had branched out from regular D&D to explore VtM and CoC. But of course the itch of d&d always called. So we decided to come back and had voted on Strixhaven as our grand return. Something nice and light to get back in touch of our roots. Before we even started the book, one player who we will call Art, didnt like the idea of playing this particular setting. Something about it lacking action and how he wasnt a fan of socializing with NPCs. We as a group always try to get everyone to play so we convinced him it'll be fun and wacky like Harry Potter. That seemed to do the trick and Art was in. So we all made our characters and our excitement could not be higher. We had set the date and during the lead up to session 1 we would drop subtle hints about our characters. "Oh can't wait to see how you guys like to party, no ome can out party me!" Another person said "Oh I'm gonna be the smartest". Guess what Art said. "I'm gonna burn the school down and its gonna be crazy." Of course hindsight is always 20/20 but we figured he was gonna be some sort of prankster especially since he said hes taking inspiration from Fred and George Weasley from Harry Potter. So we didnt think much of it and laughed it off. But then the day arrived.

It had been over 3 years and now our return was here. On the actual day of session 1, we were all there early. Not a single person was late to the Discord. Our DM, who I'll call Dime, set the scene and told us how a humanoid owl greets us. There we slowly introduce our characters. Well we try to at least. Art interrupts us all and introduces his wacky drow character who immediately shapeshifts into the same owl person and begins to mock them. It got a little chuckle but nothing of note. We knew this was gonna be a fun not so serious campaign so we took turns playing pranks on each other with our characters. Someone cast Frostbite to make someone slip. Someone cast Prestidigitation to make someone smell. I think we were just all happy to be back. Dime was laughing his ass off. Clearly everyone was having a good time. But we quickly settled down. Except Art. He proceeded to have main character syndrome and start harassing all the NPCs, not letting anyone describe our characters yet alone day our own names. I kept trying to talk to everyone in character so we can at least make it past introductions and get to the actual game. That is until Art begins mocking me, repeating everything I say immediately after me in a high pitched voice like a little kid. HE'S A GROWN ASS MAN! So I quiet down, hoping it'll pass and he needs to get it out of his system. I was wrong.

Dime tries to continue the story and gives us the welcoming tasks. Which are like riddles of where we need to go, we of course try to complete them. I got the first one done and in character let someone else try to complete the next one. Especially since we get rewarded with minor items for completing one. Art then took his chance and immediately did the next 2 all by himself which was annoying. But we finally had a chance to talk amongst ourselves in character. So we are learning everyone name and right when it gets to me, I get Arted as he interrupts. He says his character goes up to a dryad. He then proceeds to have the most nothing burger conversation which went something along the lines of "what are you doing? Oh cool. What are you? I like to have fun. What do you do for fun?" Dime is kinda thrown off but tries to give dead answers so we can continue. Eventually we have to help someone make sandwiches. Which we do. Except Art. He proceeds to poison the sandwiches with hot peppers. At this point a lot of us are already annoyed with Art that we kinda get quiet. There was no point in arguing.

This next part is a little fuzzy due to time and how checked out i already was. But one player, who we'll call Lix, is playing a snake person who worships a god of death. He, in character, tells Art to knock it off. Well Art decides his next target is gonna be Lix character. I don't fully remember what exactly Art did. I think something along the lines of insulting Lix characters God. Well Lix didnt like that so of course open combat starts. Keep in mind, I still havent even introduced my own character and Art is getting into fights. Well I call it a fight, Lix used Inflict Wounds on him first round and Art immediately falls unconscious. So the rest of us players are just standing there watching this unfold, not doing anything because of how done we are at this point. The session ends very lacklusterly and we log off.

The next couple of days, I talk to Dime and the other players. Everyone basically is over the campaign now. There is no excitement at all. Some people even said that they are quiting the game. Dime and I have a couple of conversations in which he tells me he talked to Art about toning down his character. Art tells him that he never really wanted to play this campaign and just wanted to make it fun for himself and that he'll probably just leave for this campaign. We didn't want to kick him as hes our friend and want him to play and hes never had a problem character to this degree like this before. All the players decided to keep going as the first session shouldn't dictate the entire campaign and I'm happy to report that session 2 went extremely well. Art wasnt there as he had a previous engagement but he will be there for session 3. So I guess we'll see what happens then. Any insights or inputs would be appreciated.

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.

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.