4 People in 2 years
There’s got to be some sort of math equation for calculating the likelihood of problem players based on the size of a given TTRPG group.
Any names used are fake.
TLDR: People act weird and strange on a discord server and got kicked.
I am currently in a west march campaign that was started by my roommates and now has about 30 active members in it. It started in 2024 in discord and since then we’ve added a lot of people. Many of whom are really cool and some we’ve actually met up irl a few times. We just had our 2rd year anniversary and it got me thinking about all that’s gone on in game. It also made me put into perspective how many people have been kicked since the game started (the answer is 3…. technically).
The first person was very straight forward. Of the original people to start the campaign, two people were in a relationship. When they broke up they committed to still being friends and reworking that friendship so that they can both move on. Well one of them didn’t move on. Not in a ‘please take me back’ kind of way but in a ‘I blame you for all my problems’ kind of way. Let me be clear, this person was completely in the wrong during the relationship. He couldn’t admit his faults in the relationship and resorted to blaming the other person. This eventually manifested in game. His character would be openly aggressive to the other character for no reason, would go out of his way to find a reason to be aggressive, join games specifically to be mean to that other person, and straight up insult them in VC in front of other people. After going on for way too long, the mods stepped in and gave an ultimatum ‘fix your attitude or you’re gone’. He said sure then immediately insulted the other person for reporting him to the mods and was then kicked.
I have to go off on a brief side story real quick. After the first guy was kicked, a completely different person on the server left randomly. I later learned that that person also hated the partner because he was friends with the first person. He left because he thought the mods would come for him next. To me it came out of nowhere but other people were more perceptive than me.
The second person I was following their behavior more closely. If you want some backstory on this person, I actually wrote about him a few years ago (HERE)(TLDR: Chronically online alcoholic manchild). He was kicked out of our original group well before we all started this west march. The head DM let him back in because ‘I promised him before all the weird stuff he did’. Awful choice. He was made one of the only 2 DMs for the whole server because why not? Some context, the campaign is about a super hero academy and all of our characters are 15-16 years old. All of this guy’s sessions would put these children in increasingly weird, inappropriate, and adult scenarios that made a lot of people on the server uncomfortable. For example, making a PCs father a cuck, having teachers make advances on the students, trying to get the students to do drugs, and making his own character walk around half nude. Again, all the characters were 15-16. According to the mods, he had an actual file for all of his reports sent by other people on the server. When he was finally confronted about all of this he tried to say ‘everyone is being mean to me’ and ‘you can’t please everyone’ but the mods weren’t having it. Sure you can’t please everyone but no one was having fun in his games. He was kicked and the DM team was expanded (which included me 🙂). After he was kicked, he tried to beg other people on the server to let him back or to talk to the mods. Very sad.
The third person was kind of sad because they left before there was any kickable offense. I’m going to call this person Sophie. She had never played in a dnd campaign and didn’t know a lot of the table etiquette that most ttrpg players know. It started small with just talking over people in VC to which she was told to stop that. Then it became wasting time talking to NPCs when it was very clear the DM and the table wanted to move to the next plot point. That was a lot harder to explain because what are we going to say? ‘Stop engaging with the NPCs?’ It still bothered some people. Out of game is where the serious issues came. She would trauma dump in VC whenever she’d join. No one asked her to do that, unless you count ‘How’s it going?’ as a green light to vent about every issue. I know some people don’t have proper outlets for stuff like that but please take that to PMs. Eventually people started to leave VC or avoid joining if they saw Sophie in there. She would also flirt with every guy on the server, specifically every guy who was in a committed relationship. I’m not joking about this, once Sophie learned that a guy was dating someone she’d immediately start flirting. Many of those guys' partners were on the server, sometimes she’d flirt with the guy WHILE THEIR PARTNERS WERE IN THE SAME CALL. Truly weird behavior. Sophie was told to stop, she played innocent, nothing would happen. The downfall began when Sophie and other player want their characters to date. I think some basic etiquette in these moments is talk 1-on-1 and plan out what a relationship looks like. To make sure both players feel safe. Sophie ignored that 1-on-1 and purposefully tried to get them to break up so she could trash them in roleplay. Crazy work. Doesn’t seem real. She would constantly take over in game roleplay by saying 'isn't it crazy the [character] broke up with me? I think we should teach him a lesson', 'Remember when [character] dumped me? I was devastated', '[character] doesn't know what he's missing, I'm so pretty right guys?' It was bordering on obsession when the mods confronted her just to understand what the hell was going on. Sophie reacted very normal by claiming she was being bullied by the other player and left the server before the mods could take action. She messaged ‘i’m leaving the server don’t message me’ then left. Truly speechless. No one really knew what to do so we just moved on. Talking to other people on the server no one wanted Sophie to be kicked but they weren’t surprised that she left after being confronted.
So yeah happy 2 years to us and good bye to these strange players.