First two experiences as a brand new player
A bit of context before I get into this, I’ve been interested in DND for about four years at this point but recently have picked it back up and fallen completely in love. I’d played a rough one shot a few years back and a proper one shot a few days ago but never had more experience than that. I think it’s also worth mentioning that I’m physically disabled and struggle with social interactions.
Myself and my partner have recently been looking to join a long term campaign, mostly through official servers. We ended up messaging about ten different dms and we had two people respond to us which was massively exciting for us.
The first one seemed to be normal, a vague plot hook about being summoned to investigate recent missing persons cases in a local village. We’d been told there were other players but we’re both just independently speaking to the dm who seemed eager to have us in the game. I’d had a vague idea of a dhampir Druid floating around my head and I thought he’d be perfect for this campaign, so, with the help from the dm, I spent a few solid hours creating my character. Fleshing out backgrounds, thinking of potential plots that could link into the campaign, making them as well rounded as I could.
Honestly, I was really excited about creating this character, and my partner was equally excited to make his. Regardless, both of us presented our characters to the dm, who seemed really happy with them. They even mentioned about art and eventually having pieces commissioned for the party, which I thought was amazing!
I asked about a server or meeting the other players, but they seemed dead set on what my character looked like, same with my partners character. I told them I could draw our characters if it would make it easier for them, assuming it would be for a token on roll20 or something similar, especially considering we’d met them on the roll20 server. That’s when they told us they were using this cool 3D map program that I admittedly didn’t understand very well, but they’d be already commissioning 3D renders of our characters. A bit much for players they’d just met but I assumed they were just excited for the campaign.
Which is exactly when the DM told us that we would be the ones paying for the supposed renders. $200 for both of them. Even if I had that kind of money to spare, I’d be very wary giving money to a stranger online for an artist they would even give me the handle for. Needless to say, myself and my partner politely declined and the dm tried to start cutting us deals. We restated that we had no interest and stopped responding, to which the dm sent a few gifs of sad anime characters but ultimately nothing else happened.
Not the best introduction to DND but I get bad things happen and scammers are everywhere unfortunately. It was a bit annoying but only a few hours of my life, I could always use the character for another campaign. Plus, we’d had another DM respond to us, and they actually had a proper fleshed out campaign.
This DM, who I’ll call David from now on, seemed really cool! They had an entire vetting process and a server they initially put us in to chat to other potential players too. Initially I was nervous to talk in the server as I struggle with speaking to new people, especially online, but managed to make some small talk with people.
Eventually, myself and my partner ended up on a call with David for the vetting process. We went over rules for the campaign, context for the setting and how sessions would play out. Despite being nervous, the call went amazingly! Myself and my partner got on really well with David, laughing and joking and generally excited for the campaign. We got on so well that we ended up being invited to the proper server for the campaign.
David was an experienced dm, running multiple games that he used one server to organise, so it seemed I suddenly had 20 or so new people to chat to. It helped that David encouraged all of us to chat regardless of what campaign we were in. Our session zero was scheduled for the next day, so myself and my partner got to work fleshing out our characters.
The campaign was going to be largely dictated by the players along with the DM, a big World-building exercise for all of us. We were going to give the DM material with our characters and he’d base the plot around it. The other three players already had their characters ready, so myself and my partner made sure to tie our characters into the other party members and add interesting hooks to the campaign. We chatted a bit to the other players, but I was still admittedly a little reserved, especially considering the last dm I spoke to attempted to scam me.
Session zero rolled around and we joined the call, despite being a bit terrified. David seemed to be running a little bit late but it was fine, all the players were in the call together and we all started chatting. We talked about the game initially and our characters but we soon found other common interests outside of DND. I slowly became more comfortable with these people and started genuinely having fun chatting. They seemed like really cool people, people I genuinely wanted to be friends with.
30 minutes seemed to pass quickly, and still no sign of David. We all started to be a little concerned as none of us had any message from them, but it was ultimately fine. Maybe something had come up, things happen, but we all decided to stay on call because we were just genuinely enjoying chatting with each other. 30 minutes soon became an hour, then an hour and a half, then two hours. For my timezone, it was now 2 in the morning and we were still waiting for our dm. Still chatting, but most of us were playing video games and streaming it for each other.
Finally, David joined the call, very apologetic but ready to do our session zero. He’d overslept, but none of us really minded, as I said, shit happens. After two hours, the session finally started up and we spent five hours in the call fleshing out characters a little more and getting our sheets and roll20 all set up. We even did a kahoot on the lore of the setting we were in (setting I’d rather excitedly spent the hour before the call reading the lore for).
Everyone was really excited for the campaign and we started to all talk a bit more personally, like we’d all known each other for ages. Towards the end of the call I opened up a little about my health as it meant I would potentially miss sessions and everyone was really kind about it. I told them their kindness meant a lot to me and it was nice to be able to chat to such genuinely cool people. I thought it too personal to share with them at the time but this was the first time I’d spoken to people outside of doctors or strangers in person for years.
I’ve been house bound due to my health for a few years at this point, bed bound or stuck in hospital during the worst of it or going out maybe once a week at the best. Unfortunately, this led to me losing my old friend groups as I just couldn’t keep up with them anymore. Not to get too depressing in this post, but a call that seemed so simple genuinely meant the world to me. It’s part of the reason myself and my partner looked into dnd campaigns in the first place, so I could start meeting new people again.
Regardless, we got off the call after 6 hours of talking and laughing, and I was incredibly excited about our first session a week from then. In the mean time we were all still chatting and I kept working on my character, although I was more concerned with learning the ropes of actually playing dnd. Everyone else had a couple years of experience and I would be new to everything. I spent the week watching YouTube videos on dnd lore, how to role play well, how combat works, everything I possibly could to make this as fun as possible for everyone. I even ran a one shot with my tutor so I could practice for the proper campaign.
I started watching critical role and various other campaigns, writing notes on how to involve everyone in the campaign, good role play moments. Literally learning everything I could. I’ve also recently picked art back up again and spent 10 total hours drawing my partners character and beginning on a detailed portrait of my own character. Needless to say, I was unbelievably excited for my first campaign, for the chance to become friends with these people. I’d even shared my art in the server and people seemed really excited by it.
Cut to about four hours before our first session, I have a message from David asking to talk. I respond and ask what’s up, to which he tells me he had kicked myself and my partner from the campaign. No warning, no message to my partner, just to me. He’d kicked us both from the server. He explained it was due to the age gap between myself and my partner, something we had mentioned in the first five minutes of the vetting call. There’s a ten year gap between myself and my partner, and I specifically said to David that I understood and respected if it made him uncomfortable and if he didn’t want us as players because of it, but he reassured us at the time it wasn’t at all a problem.
I told him I understood and wished him well, thanking him for his time. I went to check my private messages with the other players and it turns out they had all blocked me. As silly as it may be, this crushed me a bit. I’d spent the past week learning everything I could about Dnd, spent hours on my character and making art for them, hell even just being able to join a call and talk to people was a massive milestone for me, and now it was just gone.
As I write this, it’s been about six hours since being kicked and I’m still just kind of processing. I know I’m just being dramatic but both of these experiences back to back have me questioning if I actually want to play this game. It’s an escape from real life, a safe space to have fun with friends, but now I’m too scared to reach out to another dm in case this happens again. I don’t want to pour days of my time into something that results in nothing.
I genuinely hope the players enjoy the campaign and completely respect the boundary being set, but I really wish it was before I’d spent so much time on this. I’ll probably try look for another campaign to join but I fear I’ll keep my walls up this time. For what it’s worth, I’ll leave the art in the comments too, one a quick sketch and another a WIP.
TL;DR first attempt at joining a campaign ends up being a scam and second attempt ends in being kicked a few hours before the first session after days of preparing.