r/rpghorrorstories

I've had this story on the backburner of my mind for a long while and haven't had much of the courage to speak about it. Mostly because I'm still kind of playing TTRPG with the DM in this story because hes a kind of group friend. But more recent problems have caused a bit of a strain.

The game we're playing is Vampire:Dark Ages (a supplement of Vampire:The Masquerade that is OLD). We were promised a long form game where we build up our influence and reputation through the ages and generations with a story that would span lifetimes due to the nature of Vampires being Immortal and very politics driven where everything would begin in the First Crusades. Our Dm has over 30 years of TTRPG experience and has dm'd countless games and he's fun to play with as a Player.

Sadly though things got a little intense.

The Cast (Fake names of course)

Me:a Brujah(Bru-Ha) 12th Generation Vampire and newest player

Hunter:Nosferatu 12th Generation Leper Knight and most Knowledgeable of the World of Darkness and usually our forever Dm.

Gus:Human/Secretly a Werewolf Nobleman with a Squire named Gunther(NPC that will become veeery important later)

Belos:Our Dm.

Bear with me there was no Session 0 I shall present myself to the firing squad.

Belos presents to us this Vampire Game as a Grim Fantasy set in Historical times starting in the Dark Ages with all the accuracy down to the behaviors and the uh..other problems involved with it. But hey we were all excited we had all wanted to get in on World of Darkness for awhile and it gave Hunter some time off from being a Dm since he ran a game with me,Gus,and Belos on Sundays and another game on Saturdays with me,Gus and other friends(I Swear were trying to give him more breaks).

The Game would begin in France during the 1500's where mine and Hunters characters would meet up first since we started as Vampires in a meeting of other Vampires of the Masquerade and the Prince(Top Honcho Vamp) to discuss the Crusade on Jerusalem and whether they should get involved with the war or not. During the meeting one of the Methuselah's(High Ranking Vampire of the 5th Generation) was Murdered right in the middle of the Party by a Demonic blade that had one shotted the guy. After some questioning from me and Hunter after catching the Assassin it was revealed he was from a Middle Eastern clan known as the Bali. This led to the Prince and other high ranking Vampires declaring that they would Join the Crusades for this blatant act of war.

That's where we met a NPC I had a bit of a Problem with. Anthony, a Malkavian Jester, Malkavians are Vampires who are 100% Butt Fuck Insane, He was laughing and making Jokes about the Assasination as well as goading our characters a bit about our Clans.

Brujah are Scholars without a Cause its in there nature to Rebel against whatever they deem to be Oppression and my character was built to be more human in terms of Roleplay with such Merits and Flaws as Soft Hearted meaning I grow Nauseous and have sleepless Nights over seeing overt Cruelty. But I also had the Caveat of Common Sense and Sanguine Humor(Meaning my Body pretends to be alive such as Working Lungs and a Heart despite being a Undead Vampire)

Hunters Clan of Nosferatu are info Brokers who slink within the Sewers like Rats due to their Embrace making them Horrendously Hideous as well as one of his Flaws being Huge but he made up for it by being the most intelligent and knowledgeable of Laws and Politics sort of a Graceful Monster type.

Anthony as a Malkavian is connected to a hive mind of Madness and Obsession, and Anthony was the type of insane that reminds me of those edgy white bois pretending to be the Joker at your local 7-Eleven. He would actively talk about devouring the blood of Virgins and Children which made me uncomfortable but considering the world and time period we were in i Mostly just let it slide.

Afterwards me and Hunter are Not having any of it and pretty much drop Anthony like a sack of unwanted mittens leaving to go off to the Crusade cause a Sun FIlled Desert for Vamps and progressing the story sounded more fun than dealing with Anthony and we hope to Never see him again...spoiler we saw him again.

On the ship to Jerusalem we meet Gus' character who happens to be a very well off nobleman with a small Barony to his family's name and more than enough money to help fund the Crusade, which we were completely fine with we needed a sugar daddy, with his Squire Gunther a 14 year old youth(Emphasis 14) who wants to go out and fight in the name of God.

After some character interaction we find..Anthony on the ship with us that night wearing armor and ready to help fight with the Masquerade. A hidden Groan from me later and Anthony notices Gus' character and his well dressed manor and..his Squire.

Now every clan has a certain tic to them, a clan habit they can't break such as Brujah's wanting to rebel, and Nosferatu wanting to learn as much information as possible, and the Malkavians have Insanity in which they roll on a table what their problem is be it Multiple personality,Schizophrenia,ect.

Anthonys was Obsession..and he was obsessed with Gunther to a Unhealthy degree. For a good majority of the Campaign Anthony would try and get himself alone with Gunther to get a taste of his blood and hinted towards..other actions. (Reminder he's an NPC, they both are)

But luckily Gus' character has True Faith, which we had no idea about and we found that awesome when it was revealed because in one friendly handshake Gus burnt the shit out of Anthonys hand with a smile on his face after making sure Anthony knows not to touch his Squire. 

Turns out Gus and Belos had some private talks because Gus had no idea what clan he wanted to play so he got to play in the Hunter handbook, which is the book that allows for Human characters such as Knights and Witch Hunters. one of the Merits they could get is True Faith which was Humanities only F U to the Monsters in the world. It can fight Werewolves,Vampire,and even negate Mages at higher levels of course.

Gus only has 2 points into it so he wasn't overpowered or anything. After a successful observation check i found out that Gunther was a Garou(Ga-Ru) a Werewolf in this universe due to him having a Silver Sword on his hip that was from a Prestigous and Ancient Garou Family from a germanic Garou tribe known as the Get of Fenris explaining why Anthony was so obsessed Werewolf blood is like cocaine to Vampires.

Once we land in the Middle East we do some shopping and such and go through some scenes where Hunters character finds out were being watched, more specifically Gus and Gunther, by a group of Bali spies who seem to by speaking amongst themselves afterwards Hunter tells our characters about the spies and we all agree to be careful in the battle to come. At the War camp we notice that the camp is certainly diverse not just full of Vampires but agents of True Faith and even more Garou families(Who we found out through Anthony that one of their Leaders was also assassinated by the Bali leading to a bigger conspiracy)

The Next day we begin the first battle of the Crusade and it is Awesome and scarily accurate. Belos truly knows his history with barrels of oil being thrown over the walls and lighting aflame to burn many of the Vanguard and a whole slew of auxiliary soldiers storming out from the city to come and fight the crusaders.

But as we were charging into battle and in the chaos of everything going on I was told to make an observation check and saw that Gunther was kidnaped in a plume of shadow by the Bali.

That was the end of Session 1.

Session 2 comes in after a bit and we start in the battle itself having Gunther just been Kidnapped Me,Hunter,Gus, and Anthony are surrounded by a group of Humans and 2 Vampires. Hunter is kicking ass his Beast of a character tore 2 of the Humans in half and Anthony is taking one of the Vampires angered over losing his obsession.

I on the other hand am struggling a bit having built my character to be more politic and interaction based and having not so great Weapons, I had to fight the other Vampire who had a Wraith come out from a coin.

Said Wraith was...well a Vengeful Ghost of a Roman Centurion and he nearly One Shots me with a Gladius that completely passes through my armor. Luckily in VTM there's no attack of Opportunity so I was able to weave around the Wraith and go for the Vampire.

Gus was dealing with another human and in the fight the baddie is Goading Gus insulting him and laughing at his predicament over losing his squire and Belos is having Gus make Willpower Checks to see if he can maintain his cool as the enemy explains "You Won't recognize your ward in a Fortnight!".

Eventually he fails and it's revealed he had another Secret which me and Hunter also found to be pretty Badass. Gus was a Garou as well unknown to even his character as the blessing of the Garou can skip a family's generation and in his rage he just Annihilates the Human who was insulting him.

In the shock of it all me and Hunter take out the Vampire with the Wraith after spending almost all our blood points after nearly dropping to the Wraith again.

Problem arises as Gus' character is in a rage and had Never transformed into a werewolf before and me and Hunter don't have enough blood to use either of our abilities to try and calm him down.

So Anthony holds out a hand and his eyes glow and he tells Gus to "Sit Puppy".

This makes Gus calm down and turn back into his human form using one of the Malkavian disciplines of Dominate. This would lead to Anthony giving little nicknames to Gus such as Puppy and how he was so glad we have a new doggy, This was to show how Powerful Anthony was as through an observation check it was shown that he was far more powerful than we could have guessed.

Gus calmed down and we were all scratching our heads. We have no idea what the Bali would want with Gunther and we have to find a way into the city as fast as possible before they can do him any harm. During this I find the coin that the Vampire used to summon the wraith.

Now Wraith in WOD are the spirits of humans who are powered by one particular emotion. The Centurion was powered by Anger and was willing to work with me so long as I allowed him to kill our enemies and not just treat him like a slave or else he'll take over my body so I'm thinking "Hell Yeah! this will be instrumental in helping Gunther!". 

After a day or two in game Hunter is scouting out the Walls to try and find his fellow Nosferatu to see if they would lead us in through the sewers to get in and Save Gunther. While doing so he finds more of the Bali slaves finding and kidnapping other Garou kids unconscious or injured on the battlefield so he waits for each of them to leave until he catches the last one which happens to be the one who kidnapped Gunther.

When we caught him we tried to question him but he wasn't letting up telling us he was already dead by the rules of Islam for being captured so we have to let Anthony torture him in order to get him to talk and it gets disturbing with holy water melting his skin in a symmetrical way.

I was disgusted and I'm just thinking "This fits the world, and this is the only way we can save Gunther" trying to justify this weird torture scene.

In the End he says he'd be willing to help us and allow himself to be blood bonded by Hunter. Side note this Bali was an 8th generation Vampire while Hunter was a 12th Gen the only reason he was able to Blood Bond him was because the Bali had like only 3 willpower while Hunter had around 5. Normally that shouldn't be possible but we ignored it for the sake of the rule of cool.

So after hes Blood Bonded he told us that all the Nosferatu were purged from the city under the order of a Tremere(Tree-Mere) Antitribu who booby trapped the Sewers by turning the ground to Ice and they had help from some form of "Queen" they made a dark deal with so we were out of options on that end. So we come up with a plan for Hunter,Anthony,and the Bali named Khasim to break into the city and get the doors open for us and all the Crusaders to get into the city. Main reason Khasim was following us was because he had to with the Blood Bonding since it basically makes the Bonded Vampire a servant of who they bonded too and he would just be killed by his former allies if he went back.

So as were preparing for everything we find out were being followed by Cats, these cats turned out to be the Bastet another Shifter race related to the Garou who shapeshift into Cats rather than Wolves and their the Info Brokers and Spies of the Shifters, Similar to the Nosferatu except less or more cute depending on your preference. After a bit of Negotiation in which we promise to free one of their own from the Bad guys we find out that the Bali aren't at fault here and that the true enemy were another Eastern clan known as Aasimites who are the assassins of the overall Vampire society. 

But we also find out the Aasimites plan is to create a Pariah, Pariahs are the ultimate Taboo amongst both Garou and Vampires as they are the what happens when a Vampire infects a Werewolf and one of two things could happen either they gain all their weaknesses or all their benefits such as no weakness to the sun and no weakness to silver. What's worse is the Bastet tells us they succeeded...with Gunther who's been seen following Aasimite thralls into their base in the sun.

Gus is feeling demoralized but me and Hunter try to keep up his spirits saying there could still be a chance to save him or free him from this curse and an observation check on Anthony shows he is extremely pissed with a flash of power in his eyes which leads to me finding out a little later that he's a Diablerist which is the act of a Vampire devouring a Vampire's soul to gain more power(A BIG NO IN VAMP SOCIETY). So the Bastet help us into the city through a secret passage and we get into the Aasimite base under the pretence of Me and Hunter wanting to parlay while Anthony waits outside incase things go wrong since we figured he'd be an extra corpse to throw at the baddies should things go wrong.

That's where we find Gunther on his hands and knees like a dog next to the leader of the Aasimites in the city with some of the guards bragging about wanting to "Mount" him later on and were forced to play nice and keep our cool even tho we want to violently murder the entire room of Aasimites(This was really weird, I don't know why he added that detail maybe to make them more evil? But it was overall unnecessary).

Though we can't because Aasimites have this quirk like other clans in which they have to be great House Guest/Host or they'll just die and vice versa so if any of us break cochur we'll die. One of the things he asks us is if we have any gifts for such a "Generous Host".

We all give him a gift with Hunter giving him a Sword from one of his fallen soldiers he bisected,I gave him a Crucifix, and Gus dropping a Lyra in his hand(Dark ages equivalent to giving 5 dollars to Jeff Bezos).

The dude is pissed but graciously accepts the gifts so he offers Me and Hunter a drink of blood from a fresh source of twin 6 year olds(YUCK and WHY!?!?!?). Luckily I was able to convince him that my curse excludes me from eating from Children but Hunter with a Grimace takes one for the team.

Gus is shaking with rage rolling to stay in control of himself as much as possible succeeding on Difficulty 10's trying not to go Werewolf and kill the Vampire Lord in front of him with his Squire at his feet.

Thankfully, sort of, Anthony broke into the Palace and used Delirium to cause all the Guards in the room to start going berserk and kill each other and themselves giving us a chance to FINALLY end the Aasimite boss.

But sadly it's proven to us it's too late as the Aasimite forces Gunther to transform into a Pariah with all the Benefits Immune to Silver, and Immune to Sunlight and far too powerful for any of us to even try and fight him with the Aasimite in control of him with a ring on his hand.

Luckily I was able to cut off the Aasimites arm which led to..the Incident.

After I cut off his arm the Ring shattered on the ground and the Queen of the Unseelie Fae appeared and told the Aasimite they had broken their deal by allowing the ring to be destroyed and she turned the Aasimite into a ball of writhing pain filled flesh grabbed him and then left, which that turned out to be the queen they had made the deal with(Why such a powerful figure kills the big bad and left I have no idea we felt pretty powerless at the time and I really had no options it was either Die by Unkillable Were-Pire or cut off the arm arm..).

Thus we were left with a Vengeful Angry Were-Pire that immediately jumped on the Bali and Aasimite vampires in the room with us in absolute dumpshock. Me and Hunter's characters immediately ran the hell out of the room because we thought he was just attacking Vampires.

Gunther was on a Rampage killing and Diablerizing every single Vampire in the room with Gus following after him trying his best to calm him down and not die. Eventually Gunther gets into the bottom of the Base and comes to a massive Magically sealed door...which Gunther destroyed with a singular Punch with True Faith Coursing through his arm(AS he's eating Vampires he's getting stronger cause that's just how it works.).

In that room other Garou children were there but dead and torn apart along with the 6 year old twins and the Bastets lost member but the Tremere was there and Gunther leaped onto him and Diablerized him gaining both his power and a boost to his Vampiric Generation.

After that Gus was able to calm him down and get him to talk in which Gunther revealed he wasn't after the vampires he was allied with but only the ones who hurt him and would leave to hunt them down and the Blades of Christ which are Blades infused with the Nails used to impale Christ and left Gus with his old Silver Sword(side note:No clue if the Blades of Christ are part of the lore).

Later the Group comes back together and it sort of devolves into Chaos with Gus and Hunter going back and forth trying to find out what to do about Gunther. Hunter explains his reasoning that Gunther is Far too Powerful to be left alive and could be a walking apocalypse due to being a monster in the eyes of both Garou and Vampires and that eventually would deem both as monsters against Humanity meanwhile Gus is explaining that he could be taught that not all Vampires and Garou are monsters.

Meanwhile I'm sitting there silent with a growing headache because the wraith I have, one that was said to have caused the Fall of Rome itself, isn't going to fight him because he views his vengeance as Justified(Didn't get to use him once).

Belos on the other hand is sort of sitting there with a small smirk explaining some things about what Gunther is and how powerful he truly is which I shall summarize.

Gunther is now a Garou of the Get of Fenris, a Warrior clan who are known to be Berserkers and powerhouses even amongst Werewolves who on a normal Basis can tear Steel in half with their claws. He is one half Vampire of the Aasimite clan who have the Disciplines of Celerity(Super Speed in game giving them extra Actions in a turn at the cost of blood), Obfuscate(Invisibility so perfect your mind can't preserve them), and Quietus(Aasimite Unique discipline that allows them control over people's blood), and he had Diablerized himself up to the 5th Generation while me and Hunter are both 12th gen. Finally he has True Faith which negates Magic and he's going after a Blade of Christ which will immediately bring his Faith up to a 10 which lvl 10 True Faith users can incinerate Vampires just by being near them with all those he's immune to Silver and Sunlight(The only two major weaknesses Vamps and Werewolves have except Fire which he can just regenerate cause of his werewolf abilities).

The game had essentially become babysitting a Godlike walking Apocalypse by Session two while most of us were expecting a more stable and slow form game. We had fun but we all got sort of frustrated and disheartened. We told Belos we had a lot of fun with the game but once we got home we talked it over and planned to bring our grievances to Belos and hopefully find a way to resolve this without just dropping the game.

But Hunter and Gus had a talk with Belos,I was visiting family during one of our game days, and brought up our gripes and main concerns.

Turns out that all of this was based on an Old Horror story that happened to Belos in the past and he's had a lot of extreme problem players in the past who would join up with the villains and initially thought we would be the same despite showing visible digust and being uncomfortable with all this.

We did a Redo of the Campaigns, but thats a whole other problem involving forcing us to side with Cortez in Southern America.

Thanks for Reading, any advice and criticism is appreciated, for the record hes currently on thin ice after a few other Real Life stuff but we as a group are giving him one more chance.

TLDR; Fun game of Vampire turned into babysitting a Walking Apocalypse.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this. Part of me seeks validation, part of me feels like I just need to write this out, and vent it somewhere. Writing for myself like a diary doesn't really work for me- I've tried it. That said, and like the title says, I also think it's a fair point of view that I'm the asshole here. Maybe I'll post a version of this on AITAH too to get some more perspective. Throwaway because I know at least one of the people involved is on Reddit, though I'm not sure on this sub.

Alright, so.

I have been in a friend group for roughly ten years. For a large part of that we've been playing D&D- at least five of which I've been DMing. We've been playing my campaign for about five years. Let's call this campaign Voidcall. I'd considered them my best friends. There's a couple in this group, let’s call them S and A. There's a lot of history and such there, of course, that I could get into for more context but I'm not sure if that'd be proper. In any way, about a year and a half ago, S started an online campaign, which he'd eventually invite me for. Let's call this campaign Aspirations. So, I joined Aspirations when it had been running for a while, as one of the players had left. It went pretty seamless, my character fit the group dynamic really well, and I got along with the other players, who I'd never had met before, really well too.

As time goes on, A proves to be quite the problem player. This was strange to me and I tried to ignore it, as A isn't in Voidcall, or the other campaigns I've shared with her. This culminates to A leaving mid-session, and S having to call it for the night. I get to talking to the other players, and we're in agreement of a lot of things, and it turns out they had to have serious group conversations before over A's behaviour before I had joined. So, we try to have a group conversation about this, drama happens, we play on for a few sessions more, but A doesn't change their behaviour. Eventually, and probably inevitably, S cancels the campaign. I'm trying to keep details vague, it feels disrespectful to not.

The way Aspirations ended, really shook me. S blamed me for it. A indicated they needed some time away. A said in the groupchat of Voidcall they wouldn't show up for the session that was planned to take place about two weeks after this had happened. I followed up with that I'd be taking a break from DMing, and notified the DMs of other groups I shared with S and A that, unfortunately, I was going to have to leave. This was extremely painful, but from my POV, S and A didn't want me around, so removing myself from those group settings was the best solution. I was then uninvited from other group activities, and S and A held radiosilence with me. I've had a conversation with S about things, but besides that, he hasn't talked with me much. It has been exceedingly painful that I've lost my best friends and most trusted friendgroup over this.

Throughout the issues with Aspirations, I had told myself that if Aspirations breaks due to A's behaviour, I'll have to quit Voidcall. It'd be difficult to tolerate A at the table knowing how they were responsible for Aspirations falling apart. But when it came down to it, I found that I still really cared. And I've held hope that things get better, and that Voidcall may continue. I really loved crafting fun sessions, sharing and collaborating on stories, and cooking for the people I care most for. Five years I have devoted to Voidcall. That game was my life. And since I've called the break, there hasn't been an iota of care towards it, or me from that group. It was all for nothing. The more time goes on, the less I even want to attempt to continue Voidcall. What'd be the point, so the group can drop me like a brick at first notice again?

To be fair, I do still have regular contact with one member of Voidcall, who does really care about it as well. And that is valued and appreciated, truly. At the same time, is that enough to keep it going? And, with how Aspirations ended, even if S is supposedly alright with me now, A is likely to hold a grudge and spite. I don't really know of course, as A still needs their distance from me apparently, but they're known to do so. And I can't just kick them out of the group either- their character is integral to Voidcall by now, and they're in a relationship with S, it'd create strain and tension.

I can't help but feel like I'd be selfish, to not just suck it all up and keep it going. That it'd be petty to end Voidcall over what happened in Aspirations. I feel like I still owe it to these people and myself to see Voidcall through, having spent so much time and effort on it. Simultaneously, I feel like I need to move on, to other settings, other stories, and other groups. Find people who are excited about my stories and appreciate my presence.

I don't know. I don't think I'm in a good place in terms of mental health to make decisions like these right now.

I don't feel like I can vent this to anyone I know, as they know S and A, but I think I feel better putting this out. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Between the 1st DM having a relationship with a player.....then breaking up with them and ghosting us and then finding out they are addicted to Meth/Pills.....and later dying from an overdose.

and the Second DM, unreliable.....2 other players constantly missing sessions ....and the other two in some weird relationship. The couple break up.....Dude abandons Game.

Me being sick of the Drama blocks everyone.

Imma just play Baldurs Gate 3 By myself.

I wanted to try and get the most appropriate tag for this, but seeing as what I recently found out I think this fits the best. My blood is still boiling and the only thing keeping me from reaching out to former player is the fact my current player asked me not to, and out of respect for her I am keeping my mouth shut for now. I am a female GM so I am usually really good at honing and snipping this stuff quickly, but I missed this one badly.

So to start out. I was running a homebrew game where the players were stuck in a sort of limbo plane of existance and couldn't figure out why. In the essence they were playing a story in which their souls were halved due to a curse and every reincarnation that was reborn was called back to the plane at the pinnacle point of their lives. In the plane was the other half of their soul in the form of their original itteration, a group of adventurers who turned evil and started challenging the Gods themselves. It was a karma based game where I secretly tracked their karma and watched how they played in detail. In doing this I created the opposite of how they acted. The BBG of each player was supposed to be a very impactful moment of the specific player facing who they were/could be, should they walk down that path. It was left open ended enough that should the player choose they could take their storyline and turn on the others at the big final reveal at the end of the game in which they could return to their original body and become whole.

It was SUPPOSED to highlight each player. Give each player and their creation the spotlight during their portion of the storyline where they were the main character. Portions of the world were catered specifically to each character to really give the player the feel of being powerful and important. For the most part it went swimmingly. My beautifully talented players took the idea and ran with it gleefully. They loved the small touches I added from their back stories and generally felt seen and heard which was my ultimate goal... until the problem started.

So, the player I will be referring to as The Bard was a generally likable person. He was very opinionated, generally likable, and did not hesitate to offer a helping hand to the newer players. A bit too much, but he came across to everyone as a really good guy. The second player, The Pixi, is a very sweet woman. She is soft spoken, very kind, and has the ability to throw out one liners that had us all laughing to tears at multiple points in the game. The Pixi was brand new to the game as a whole so I made sure to set time aside for her to go over the sheets, the complex rules, and answer her questions. She is still a table regular so I think I did a decent job at least.

The Bard instantly offered help to The Pixi. He was a GM as well and we spoke for hours about games so I wasn't surprised when, who I thought at the time was a great guy, offered help as well. Then he started overstepping a bit. I admit I was a lot more docile than I should have been, but his years of expierence made me doubt myself a bit. So when The Pixi would ask me questions in game and The Bard would jump in over me, we played online through discord for voice, I more or less thought it was a combination of server lag/his years of expierence as i catch myself doing it as a player as well. According to The Bard he and The Pixi were getting along swimmingly. They had a lot of plans and were intertwining their story. He sent me screenshot of their conversations and I checked in with The Pixi regularly to make sure everything was really okay, because he had become very pushy. She said she was fine with everything.

The reason The Bard was kicked from the game has nothing to do with The Pixi in honesty. In the end time conflicts arose, he took another players BBG spotlight leaving it to fell flat, and at that point (a few months in) his "big personality" turned into a big problem. Every single time a separate player had the spotlight he tried to make it about him. It got so bad that at points he would just sing random songs in different languages while the rest of us sat and waited. I was getting fed up and had to raise my voice a few times and felt like I was talking to a child. Saying "I understand, but this is Player A's conversation and you are in a different area" was becoming constant. Getting deep into a scene where even I was tearing up only to have his character literally jumping into a window downing two ales and looking for a fight was becoming norm. The day after he told me schedule conflicts would lead to him dropping to the game. Two separate players, not The Pixi, came to me and said it was them or him. Very kindly by the way. More in the sense that they could not enjoy the game with his antics. Since he was leaving already it was an easy choice. From then the game went swell until I had a sudden emergency and ended up in the hospital for a little over two weeks. We had to end the game early, but 3 of the 5 players are still table regulars and have stayed in the discord to hang out and play.

I thought that was the end of it. Just a player who had slowly become a problem right? WRONG.

The Pixi has joined another table. It is full of dirty little degenerates and I love every single one of them. Everyone is super respectful of one another, but they absolutely love eachother and it shows. They plan game nights, hang out in the discord, have movie nights, and really turned from random strangers coming together to play dnd to actual friends.

One night, as we were doing my post game cool down, where we chat and talk over the game or sometimes play a little game like jack box, The Pixi was getting drunk because it was her birthday. We were all playing little games deep into the night, talking about other games I run, and she officially dropped the bomb.

The Bard had been sexually harassing her the WHOLE TIME!! When he would tell me "WE" Came up with an idea it was him and he was cherry picking screenshot to send me. She sent me EVERYTHING. My blood was boiling to the point I had to walk into the garden behind our house and scream.

At first it was harmless ideas. Since she was playing a tiny creature The Bard suggested they band together since he was 'big and strong'. Then it became, "omg wouldn't it be cute if our characters had a love interest". Without her input he went into a giant tirade about how she WOULD HAVE to have a big strong protector since she was so tiny. She was gently trying to put him off in chat but he was not having it. Eventually he was sending her long paragraphs about how "it" would fit in her since she is so tiny, he started sending suggestive messages that included "its just a game its not cheating" and "if I arrive it will be like a geyser for your tiny fey she wont need her wings to fly haha".

I was mortified. I am still mortified, angry, and disgusted. I cried after screaming it out. The messages are way more graphic and disgusting. The description of how he would fit into her teeny tiny body was disgustingly in depth. I was sexually assaulted multiple times as a child and seeing all of that typed out sent me down a dark hole. The Pixi also admitted the same and it was like a dam broke. Even the guys were crying.

I can't beleive The Pixi stayed at all. We comforted eachother over tears and the guys in the chat were all seething and begging her to give them The Bards discord information. The Pixi told me in the end, she stayed because of me. We bonded very deeply and she felt ashamed she "let it get so far" in her words. It is not her fault, it was never her fault. It was his. His for being a disgusting creature and preying on her. She is an exceedingly beautiful young woman with the voice of an angel and a very soft disposition. I stayed online with her all night until she fell asleep, but I still read those messages over and over.

I am the GM, it was my responsibility to keep my players safe and I failed. It was all happening under my nose at MY TABLE!!! My table that I curate to be a safe space for everyone because people like The Bard exist and it STILL HAPPENED. The Pixi admitted she only now came forward to tell me because she was new and wasn't sure if I would kick her out because she made such good friends and I am ashamed. She was sexually harassed at my table and I wasn't able to stop it. It's a shame I dont think I will ever be able to shake off of me, but for her and for other players at my table I am going to make sure it doesn't happen again.

To any newer players reading these posts because they get suggested to you and you happen to stumble upon this one. Sexual harassment isnt normal, unwanted attention isnt normal. Please reach out to your GM if you are uncomfortable, and if they are a poor GM and refuse to do anything about it, walk away. No game is worth the abuse.

opa é a primeira vez que faço um post aqui mas essa história tá guardada comigo faz um bom tempo então achei que seria bom falar aqui (caso meu grupo atual veja isso eles sabem que não é com eles e que eu já contei essa história pra eles) bom vamos logo pra história.

eu como era iniciante em tormenta 20 ficava pulando de mesa em mesa online procurando campanhas pra ir aprendendo o sistema, entre essas campanhas eu tive um onde era um grupo com um paladino cujo acho que era um Qareen mas não lembro, um clérigo focado em debuff, um caçador que suava duas armas e um feiticeiro draconico que nem lembro mais oq ele fazia mas provavelmente era dano e pra finalizar eu um guerreiro Moreau urso que lutava com um martelo de duas mãos e era o principal tanque.

era um grupo onde todos já eram meio conhecidos menos eu pois entrei após a primeira sessão. Nosso objetivo era fazer várias Quest e ficar mais fortes pra derrubar um ditador de uma cidade, essa era a primeira parte da história da campanha completa, meu personagem se dava bem com o clérigo e o grupo em geral, porém esse paladino e o mestre desde o início não iam com a minha cara, tanto como personagem quanto como jogador mas aí eu não ligava já que a maioria gostava de mim, mau eu sabia oq esse maluco ia fazer.

ao decorrer de algumas missões o paladino não agia nem um pouco como as regras do paladino de tormenta 20 e de seu Deus (khalmyr) após as primeiras sessões ele sempre dava um jeito de matar um NPC que parecia ou era importante usando justificativa que ele tinha cometido um crime ou que ele parecia ser um traidor, o clássico jogador que faz merda e tenta justificar, porém mesmo ele matando inocentes ele nunca era punido pelo mestre, obs devotos de khalmyr e paladinos não podem ferir inocentes ou perdem acesso aos seus poderes divinos ou seus pontos de mana, e sempre o mestre passava mão na cabeça dele e seguia mesmo com eu e o clérigo frequentemente reclamando que ele não era punido por nada. até que chegou um dia estava no meio da campanha tínhamos acabado com o ditador e o mestre tava preparando um plot que seguiria, acho que lidar com o submundo do crime ao redor da cidade sla nem cheguei a ver, meu personagem um brutamontes gente fina (coitado tinha -1 em carisma mas os dados de diplomacia sempre eram bons) teve a bolsa de dinheiro roubado por um pirralho de uns 13 ou 14 anos e foi perseguir ele pra pegar de volta, alcancei ele peguei a grana e dei um esporro nele pra não fazer mais isso e ele veio com história triste que era um muleke que passava fome, o clérigo tinha jogado uma magia que dificultava a pessoa a mentir então era verdade a história, meu personagens então estava ponderando adotar o garoto pra cuidar dele (ele se viu no garoto pq no passado já foi morador de rua e um guerreiro adotou ele o salvando) e quando eu tava indo falar pro garoto que ia cuidar dele o paladino chegou na cena (ele estavam vindo bem devagar e me procurando pq eu e o clérigo saímos na frente) e simplesmente deu um golpe dividido no rapaz matando dele instantaneamente (era um NPC o coitado não aguentava nem 5 de dano) obviamente fiquei puto na hora tanto personagem quanto jogador e comecei a descer a porrada no paladino, nem cheguei a metade do meu HP e o cara já tava quase morrendo, até que o grupo decidiu separar a briga pra salvar o bárbaro, o clérigo foi me segurar e depois curou nos dois, daí o mestre decidiu que a sessão tinha acabado enquanto tava o paladino me xingando por quase matar o personagem dele.

mesmo com tudo isso o mestre não puniu o paladino então acabou que eu quase matar o personagem dele foi a punição nas próximas sessões meu personagem procurou um clérigo de Thyatis para poder reviver o garoto (eles são os únicos que tem poder de reviver pessoas) revivi ele e meu personagem se despediu do grupo e foi viver tranquilo com o filho adotivo dele, como meu personagem tinha vários contatos o paladino ficou jurando de morte por muita gente, algo que com certeza o mestre ignorou, daí saí da mesa mandando o paladino tomar naquele lugar.

hoje em dia não tenho menor contato com qualquer um daquela campanha e gosto de imaginar que o meu personagem passou o resto da vida tranquilo com o filho e considerando a índole do paladino e do mestre devem ter matado eles depois que saí.

então oq acham eu fiz certo um punir o jogador quando o mestre não fazia nada ou me passei?

obs: o mestre quase sempre implicava comigo sempre punindo cada ação, só fiquei tanto tempo ainda pq gostava do personagem e queria dar um fim bom pra ele, um dia eu jogo novamente com meu Moreau urso

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.

So I have been playing DnD for a couple of years with random people here and there. 2 months ago, my friend group (8 of us, me included.) also decided they wanted to try out DnD. With me being the most experienced player, we all decided it'd make sense if I'd DM. (I had DM'd a couple times before, with AL modules and once with a couple of other friends, 1 of them were also part of this group) Since we were all busy with our studies, we decided it'd make sense we'd play during the 2 week break. Before we had our first session, the players would slowly start to brainstorm ideas for their characters, and I'd help them where ever I could. I even bought some digital source books from DnD Beyond, so they'd be able to have more variety and also have access to a digital copy of players handbook that they could refer to when needed.

Eventually 5 players came up with a character. One of them (the player who I had DM'd before, let's call him Dave) wanted to use a level 1 version of their previous character (a Tiefling Bard) and wanted it to be that his character traveled to Baldur's Gate (where the campaign would be set) after their last adventure (which mind you, was in the plane of Innistrad). The other player (lets say his name is Mike) wanted to also use their previous character (Halfling Rogue) from another game, but as a new version of them. I told Mike that he could play his character that way, and I told Dave that if he wanted to use the same character, he'd have to do it similarly, as it wouldn't make a lot of sense for a level 1 character to just be jumping planes here and there, but if he really wanted it to be that way, I could try and incorporate some plane shifting chaos in the campaign as a story line. He seemed excited about that and so I started writing some stuff for that.

Not even a week later, he comes to me with a new character, a Warforged Artificer, who travelled to this plan from a steampunk future (he straight up described Ebberon to me). I told him that time travel isn't something I want to deal with, but I could rewrite the plan travel stuff I had written, and just switch the planes and the themes. He was happy with that again. He with excitement, talked a lot with the other players about wacky interactions they could do.

Later on, in the same week, Dave comes to me with a new character that he's going to play instead. A human bard called Bardy Mc. Bardface. I was somewhat annoyed, as now, the plane's in chaos plot I had written was kind of useless now. I reluctantly accepted.

Now normally with the players I had told them that they could swap characters, as most of them were new. But according to Dave he was incredibly experienced and had been playing DnD with his family for a long time.

I later started doubting this, as he had mentioned how he has been working on an Elder Scrolls inspired campaign for years and that our friend group could play it later. He mentioned how he had fully fleshed out custom classes, species and lots of more stuff. I was pretty excited when I heard this and I asked if I could see any descriptions or other stuff he had for these cool stuff. He said that he didn't have any of them on DnD Beyond. I told him it was ok, and that I was just using Beyond so the new players would be a bit less confused by everything, and how I was experienced with reading source books and referring to them for character creation/rules. He then said he also didn't have them saved online. At this point I started getting suspicious of him lying. I didn't understand why he would lie about this of all things but it felt a lot like he was. Later on, during a class I saw him looking up Elder Scrolls DnD homebrew from his laptop. After the class, he showed me a document that he said he had made for his campaign. I acted like it was cool, even though I knew it was an obvious lie.

Some time later, Dave came to me with, yet again, a new character (Orc Barbarian). This time, he said it was inspired by Fallout. Called Frank Horrigan. If anyone has played Fallout, the name would ring a bell. I had never played Fallout, so I initially brushed over it. Dave mentioned how his character had warped from the Fallout universe after a nuclear reactor had exploded. It sounded cool, so I decided to re do the plane chaos plot again, and rewrote it to fit in the nuclear wasteland theme.

Then, believe it or not, in a week he came with the new character he wanted to play. With the exact words he messaged me, he said:
"Alright I’ve made a new character, I’ll actually be useful this time around. I am one of the most powerful angels in the whole of Catholicism in human form. Van Helsing the Vampire Hunting Werewolf."

He wanted to play a Bloodhunter (Lycanthrope subclass). Even though I am loose with rules, I had never approved Critical Role content. It took me a couple of days to convince him to play a different character.

Further more, when I checked his backstory on DnD Beyond. It looked incredibly odd. Nothing similar to how he had written before. I looked up Van Helsing. I found his wiki page. And believe it or not, his backstory was an exact copy of the Van Helsing fandom wiki page. His 'backstory' already had the entire story for him. This made me think to Dave's 'Fallout inspired character'. I looked up the name, and turns out it's a character in Fallout. His backstory was incredibly similar to Frank's fandom wiki page. After I paid a bit of attention, I realized it was an AI summary of the wiki page, with 2 sentences added at the end to make Frank travel to the Forgotten Realms. I told him that he had to make a different character, and actually put some effort into it. It wasn't fair at all when one player wanted to practically play a god, and not even putting in effort to their character, when everyone else is just wanting to have fun. More so, its not fair to me who's putting in so much effort into making something that's fun for everyone and you don't even have the audacity to be considering.

So behold, he comes with a new character. Called Joe Hendry (Dave was in a wrestling phase around then, and for those who don't know Joe Hendry is a wrestler I believe.). He introduces the character jokingly, so I assume it is a joke. But no he actually wants to play that character. I yet again force him to make an original character with at least a little bit of effort.

Eventually he makes a Human Fighter called Miyamoto (with the character image being the image of Miyamoto Musashi) His backstory was 3 sentences, but it was at least better than his other characters. At this point I had rewritten stuff so many times, and it was annoying how he couldn't make up his mind. I told him that he was free to make characters as much as he wanted. But after 2 days he'd be locked into whatever character he had decided. He accepted.

So eventually we finally had our first session! Despite our best efforts for scheduling two people were unable to attend. Mike and another. During the session, Dave decided that he would try to ask out a wife and daughter for a date. Together. Since persuasion checks isn't mind control, I decided that neither would accept, as it would go against their values no matter what Dave rolled. (The wife was happily married and had no reason to want to cheat on her husband, and the hook of the first session was literally the daughters forbidden love with someone else.) Dave rolled high on both, and when I didn't let him "seduce" the two, he was visibly annoyed.

Later on, there was a segment in a dark area where torches could not be used, as there was explosive gas in the area. Since all of my player's characters had darkvision them seeing wasn't a problem. Miyamoto could not see in the dark though. For him to see though, I made them run into a giant fire beetle early on in the area, so that Miyamoto could use it as a light source. Dave decided that it would be smarter if he squashed the bug. He was blind the entire segment + a combat in that area. The entire time he was complaining about how I made it unfair for him by making everything in the dark. (Fun fact, the combat was entirely avoidable if they had just walked past the enemies, but Miyamoto decided it would be funny if he shouted swears at the enemies through the dark).

During the second session, he decided to completely deviate from the group and go his own way, to find a "Vampire Nightclub" that a NPC had jokingly said.

Now its important to know, that I was severely under prepped for this session. One drive had screwed up and deleted all my files, causing me to try and and write as much as I could in 2 days, so him deviating, was making the session that was already stressful for me, even worse. I am not an experienced DM.

To visualize Baldur's Gate, I was using an online map website I had found. Dave, decided to also open the website, and look through every single land mark one by one.

First he went to a graveyard he found on the map. Called "Candulhallow's Funeral Arrangements:. I made up a random human NPC who was the grounds keeper. Dave went and "Erm Actually" 'd me. Because according to the forgotten realms wiki, the place was owned by Elves. I told him the Elves were out of town, and the Human was an employee. He was annoyed there weren't any vampires.

Later as I'm explaining stuff to the rest of the group, he jumps in exclaims he's going to the Flaming Fist headquarters, Sea Tower of Balduran. Now the current plot going on was a faction war. Between Zhentarim and Shield Trading Co. (I had written that Shield Trading was a socialist faction in my lore) And the Thieves Guild is attempting to stir things up. He decides to forcefully introduce Flaming Fist into the equation, even after I kept telling him there was no Flaming Fist here. I end up having to role play him applying to join the Flaming Fist, while the rest of the group is waiting to actually play along with the story. (He is never going to get a response.) He went behind the DM's back to find the resource that I was using and wanted to use it against me.

And now, a week later, he decides that it would make sense if "Realistic damage was a thing". He wants it to be that crits cause PERMANENT DISFIGUREMENT to player characters, such as losing an arm or an eye. Because he wants the game to be more "hardcore", "realistic" and "brutal". Worst of all, Dave wants what limb you lose based on a dice roll.

You are a level 2 character. You cannot afford to lose an arm just because of luck. None of the spellcasters in your party can cast greater restoration. You cannot afford someone else to cast it for you.

TL;DR: Player decides that its a better idea to be annoying than cooperative

I was invited to join a D&D gaming group about three years ago. It was fun for a while, even though the person who invited me (let's call him K) would often veto my ideas. While his technical interpretations weren't necessarily "wrong," I felt my agency was slowly being whittled away. Under a previous GM, I wanted my half-orc barbarian to use a whip as a secondary weapon; based on the rules, I just needed the right proficiency or a few Monk levels. That GM was great—he helped me design the character and offered a homebrew solution. Back then, I was rarely questioned for my combat choices, and the games were mostly improv, which I loved.

When we changed DMs, it became more apparent that K was challenging my choices under the guise of saying "that's not available" or telling me I was "not playing efficiently." For example, my bounty hunter-style fighter would save certain abilities that required a short rest to reset, but K would often insist I use them more frequently. In my opinion, it should be my choice whether or not a situation warrants burning a resource.

Over time, his micromanagement worsened. I couldn't attempt "pulp-style" play—the kind that can often be resolved with a simple Athletics or Acrobatics check—because K constantly tried to "ground" me. We used minis for combat, and he’d insist I was "better off" running to one specific square rather than positioning myself where I actually wanted to be. I started wondering why no one else ever spoke up to ask, “Why can’t you just let them decide?”

During a Sigil campaign, where characters have different lives but the same soul, he clearly had issues with my Swashbuckler Rogue build. When one player joked about me hijacking our ship (a bastion), another player chimed in, saying, “Oh, he’s going to get tossed overboard,” if the word pirate was even used. In a group of six, those meta cues were becoming blatant: it was time to exit.

Everything finally came to a head when K tried to take total control of my turn. I described my action: “I’m going to get up, take cover behind a magic portal, and if I can, take a potshot at the prone goblin.” K claimed I couldn't do that and demanded I decide on my actions "first, second, and third" because my plan wasn't "battle optimal."

After I finally told K to shut up and let the DM handle the ruling, the damage was done. K stormed out, convinced he was right and I was wrong. Another player (nicknamed A) actually backed me up, noting that K was clearly rules lawyering.

I apologized to the table 

for my outburst, but I feel K overstepped twice: first, by micromanaging my character, and second, by being condescending in my own home. There are unspoken rules concerning the relationship between hosts and guests, in addition to who actually manages the table. K clearly forgot where he was. I’m glad I’ve left the group; if I hadn't quit mid-campaign, I would have gone insane. His mocking behavior was the final straw, and can finally say "I’m feeling MUCH better now!"

A few months ago I went to check out a local board game association that hosts events in a library. There I met a couple of guys, one around my age (early 20s) and another around 40. Over time we formed a friend group that now has about 14 people.

Everyone has different lifestyles, interests and schedules, so in practice you end up seeing about half of the group regularly while the others show up rarely. Roughly half of the regulars are interested in RPGs, while the others mostly prefer board games.

The 40-year-old guy has been playing RPGs for decades. About six months ago, since many people in the group had either never played or had bad past experiences with RPGs, he proposed running a Call of Cthulhu oneshot.

I made a cabaret artist character and played him as a kind of joke-cracking skeptic. It was supposed to be a oneshot, so I went with something light and silly.

The oneshot lasted 15 sessions.

Mostly because the GM didn’t really know how to handle missing players. He didn’t want to progress the story if someone was absent, but he still wanted to play, so we had sessions that were basically filler. For example, one session was just our characters having visions in the back of a van. Another was us gathering information while we were IRL sitting in a restaurant eating pizza.

There were also some strange character death situations. My character died at one point and was brought back the next session as a ghost. Another character died and came back as a time traveler. A third character died and the GM was planning to bring him back as some kind of half-zombie, but the player arrived late that day, so instead he temporarily played the “half” of my character that wanted to pass on. Which was pretty pointless, since he liked what my character was doing and didn’t even try to stop him.

Overall I’d say the campaign was… average. It did become the classic meme of “the oneshot that lasts forever”. But honestly, if someone says they have decades of experience running RPGs, and the oneshot turns into a 15-session campaign because the scenario clearly wasn’t a oneshot from the start, I’m not sure that counts as good experience. Apparently, since he met us, he didn’t have a group, and from what I understood, he hasn’t had an RPG group since COVID.

And like in any horror story, I started noticing strange behaviors in him, both in and out of the game. For example, he created a smaller group inside the main group called “The Four Emperors” (which already felt a bit like a personality cult). It was supposed to be the group that made decisions for everyone else on how to run the group. The four members were me, the other guy in his 20s, him, and his wife. The reasoning was that the three of us “started the group”, and his wife was included because, I don’t know, she felt lonely? He didn’t want to talk with her? There were clearly issues in their relationship, but that would make this post way too long. The point is that the “moderation” group had 4 people, while the group being “moderated” had 10. Very useful.

Beyond that, he constantly seemed to try to position himself as the leader of the group. Activities were usually organized only if he was present, we often ended up playing what he suggested, and criticism wasn’t really welcome. Sometimes he would even judge you as a person based on how you played board games or RPGs.

Then he started proposing bigger and bigger ideas: turning the Cthulhu campaign into a “replay”, opening a YouTube channel, creating an Instagram page so random people could come play with us, complaining that half the group was “inactive”, discussing after how long absent people should be kicked out, talking about “social contracts”, and proposing more RPG projects than we would realistically ever have time to play.

At one point he even created a fictional city that we were supposed to use for future oneshots, which basically meant that if you wanted to GM something you were expected to set it there. The overall feeling was that the group should gradually start playing RPGs his way, because he was “teaching” us based on his 20+ years of experience.

You’ve probably already noticed, but a lot of what happened was confusing, because he himself was confusing: he would say one thing and do another. For example, complaining that people in the group were inactive, but then “recruiting” new people without even asking about their availability.

I wasn’t the only one noticing and disliking these behaviors, but people either tolerated it because they weren’t the type to say no, or because he was seen as “the group leader who decides what to do”. Also, the other “founder” of the group was always on his side, since he has family and relationship issues and sees him as a father figure. On the other hand, he seems to see that guy as someone who proves he’s still young and still has value despite his age, wife, and child.

The moment that really made me question things happened in private.

I proposed running a game of Fabula Ultima for the group. He immediately tried to take control of the project by insisting on running a oneshot prologue himself. Then he proposed a homebrew rule where two classes would be fused together. In Fabula Ultima one class focuses on exploration and the other on combat, and he basically wanted to combine their unique mechanics, which would have broken both systems.

When I said no, he spent three days trying to convince me to change my mind. At one point he even said something along the lines of “Let’s drop this topic before I don’t want to see you GM another campaign.” Literally just an argument from authority. Also, am I supposed to stop thinking about running a campaign just because you said “no”? At worst, the group says no. At best, they say yes and you just don’t play.

Then he started organizing a Vampire campaign. As usual he didn’t write anything about it in the group chat. Instead he contacted people privately and only asked for their availability, making it sound like the campaign was already decided and that the only thing left was scheduling.

Then, about two months ago, we had our usual meeting at the library. At some point he pulled me aside and basically scolded me for not explicitly saying that I wouldn’t attend a meetup at a bar earlier that day.

This was despite the fact that I had told one of the people there I wouldn’t be coming, marked that I wasn’t coming in the poll, and said that I wasn’t interested in playing RPGs that evening, and also having said during other meetups that I don’t like playing if half the party isn’t there. But no, that’s definitely me being rude.

I tried to talk things out and clarify some of the issues I had with his behavior. Instead of acknowledging anything, he mostly dodged the criticism or tried to turn it back on me. For example, when I said that he seemed to be trying to act like the leader of the group, and he said he thought it was me trying to control it. Which was ironic, because:

1. I’m not the one sending half the messages in the group chat.
2. I’m the one who has always said that group decisions should be made openly in the group chat.

Like dude, at least call me a communist, make the nonsense you’re saying entertaining for me. Then we talked about Fabula Ultima again. He confirmed that yes, he meant exactly what he wrote earlier: by refusing his homebrew idea, I was being a bad GM.

So apparently I’m a bad GM because I want people’s first experience with an RPG to be with the actual rules of the game, instead of immediately modifying the system. Also, he clearly wasn’t “respectful” of the game, saying resource management isn’t important, that his homebrews were good because of his experience, and things like that. I obviously don’t want people throwing parties for every RPG we try, but I don’t want people with this attitude either.

Oh, also, Fabula Ultima has a mechanic called Fabula Points that lets players influence the story and collaboratively shape situations. It’s a system designed to encourage shared storytelling. And he wanted to remove that entirely.

But sure, he has experience, so he’s a good GM.

At that point the conversation also included several classic manipulative lines like “I did this for you”, “I had a very high opinion of you but it dropped a lot”, “I looked into this for you”, and “I’ve always supported you”.

There’s a limit to how much bullshit a person is willing to tolerate, and I think he exceeded mine quite a while ago.

The most absurd part is that right after this discussion we started playing a board game. When it was the first time he had to interact with me during the game, he froze for about ten seconds before deciding to change the nickname he used to call me.

That was the moment I mentally drew a line. Between the nickname thing, the constant drama, and the overall attitude, it all just felt incredibly childish and like a theater I’m no longer interested in supporting.

So I told the other “regular members”, and they too had noticed strange behaviors in him, so we formed our own smaller group, more relaxed, without the “participation rule”. Oh, I didn’t mention? He wanted to kick “inactive” members. The other “Emperors” said no, but in the end he’s the leader, so he chose yes and kicked 4 people for inactivity, including me. And yes, I could definitely think of people who were more “urgent” to kick than me. Like, dude, if you want to be the emperor, at least do it properly.

In the end, I don’t really care about this whole situation anymore. I stopped talking to him and his “adopted protégé”, and I stopped going to the board game association.

And in a way, I kind of “won”. While I was still in the group, he said that one of the goals of the Cthulhu “oneshot” was to “pass on his way of playing” to us. So:

1. you’re putting yourself in a higher position than others, especially since no one asked you to, you just decided to climb onto the podium and make yourself the protagonist,
2. and it’s not even a special way of playing! It was literally just “the players shape the story and the GM follows them.” Really? I thought my barber was the one shaping it!

Also, I’ve been told that after kicking us “inactive” people, it started another discussion in the group, so it’s likely that others are starting to notice his behavior too.

Talking with the others in our smaller group and going over various events, which I won’t go into too much detail about since they’re not RPG-related, but just for context/example, include him criticizing the looks and behavior of girls in the group, organizing very long group outings to avoid responsibilities with his wife and as a parent, having conversations with his wife in the group chat instead of in person, etc.), we came to the conclusion that he’s a forty-year-old clearly going through a midlife crisis, probably on the autism spectrum, with difficulties in social interactions, relationship problems with his wife, and trouble accepting his new life as a parent, which leaves him with much less time for video games and RPGs, and in a clear need for validation in being and feeling young.

And there you go, the perfect requirements to be the emperor of nerds. (Which is a meme in our smaller group, the mods group was "the emperor" but of what? Seeing the situation, probably of the nerds)

And there you go, the perfect requirements to be the emperor of nerds.

I’d rather be a farmer.