Never thought I’d be writing on this and tbh if I was it wouldn’t be for the current situation that I am in but honestly I’m both looking for guidance and share my story so hopefully someone who who may be in a similar situation may find the help the need.
I’ve been a forever DM ever since I started dnd, I didn’t mind it because I loved to tell a stories. But as much as i enjoyed it like all forever DMs I wanted to become a player. I was DMing with my group for a long long time and as soon as the tables were going to turn an I was getting a chance in the players seat half of my party moved to a different country (they were military and have gotten orders ) so now I am left with no group.
I decided to do what most people do and head online in search for a group. For context My partner and I both play dnd and due to certain circumstance (my partner is legally blind) in person is the only way my partner can play which makes finding a group even harder. Anyway I searched to find a group who wants to play in person and I even offered to hop back in the dm seat and hopefully find a good group to join and have fun. After a while I found this guy, we will call him M. M saw that I was looking for a group and he wanted to dm for the first time, saying he has another dnd group that he is a player but wanted to dm for the first time because he had a setting he wanted to run, he is running from a module. At least I thought I found a group and they are willing to do it in person. He added me and my partner to the group chat where we all introduced ourselves. Everyone here has never met each other and we are all complete strangers. I suggested if we were to meet in person for dnd in M’s house maybe we meet in person in a public space. I wanted to make sure that we vibed as people and individuals before I even went to the table. We met at a local gaming store and honestly everyone was really nice it was starting to look like a good group. Then comes the first session. We start the campaign with character introductions and the setting and it seems to be fine until M started to describe the scene. I’m going to try my best to write it out because listening to it was where the struggle was.. “so you arrive at the place and…idk how to say that word but yeah and then the…idk that word either but yeah the train stops and all that good stuff.. wha do you do” btw the words were station and locomotive.
Now I understand first time dms can be a hard job especially with people you don’t know. But I feel like if you are preparing to run a game and even if you don’t know how to pronounce words you’ve only read I feel like you try and at least do your best to learn off table before running it.
As he keeps trying to pronounce words we would help him along and try and be polite and understanding as much as we can. All of us even bought a copy of the module he is running so if he stumbles on a words we can cross check him. One of the players does vicious mockery at an enemy and M replies “so that’s how much FIZZ-ICK damage” (i try to type it how it sounded out loud) the word was psychic.
We are not multiple sessions in and it’s an entire 600+ modules that goes to level 20 and we are at 3.
Now I said before my partner is legally blind. They rely a lot on verbal descriptions and sounds to enjoy the game, and I will admit it’s very hard to stay engaged when our games become reading lessons and bare minimum descriptions. At this point my partner and I are going to talk to the other players to see if it’s just us or we all feel the same way. We really like the group and don’t want to actually walk away from the group but my partner and I aren’t having fun. And if the rest of the party is then maybe this just isn’t a right fit for my partner and we will have to walk away. Willing to take any and all advice on the subject because like I was saying I would love to keep the group but idk if I continue in the fam as M as the DM.