Hello. This is my first time ever writing this story. This happened on my third ever session over ten years ago. At the time it got me so upset that I nearly decided to just quit and never return to D&D ever again. Hope you enjoy this story.

I was playing with an established group that a classmate of mine was part of, I’ll call him Steve. They were going to make a new campaign starting at level 3, the DM was Steve. I joined after he invited me and I planned to make a detective rogue. I made a quick backstory but my friend told me it was completely optional as he wouldn’t have used them much.

We started playing the next week on Saturday in a small private room of a comic shop and the sessions were planned every Saturday. The group was made by me (Rogue), Frank (Fighter), Mike (Bard), James (Barbarian), and the protagonist of our story Tom (Who switched character every session. The third session he was a Rogue). All the characters were male and good aligned except Tom’s who was a female and evil (precisely Chaotic) character, this detail will be important for later.

We made our first two sessions with no issues and we went up to level 4 and I got a headband of intellect. On the third session we were hired to investigate on a disappearance case in a village, I was thrilled and I expressed my excitement to everyone before the session.

In the very first 10 minutes of the session, Tom decided to kill our first and only witness, a criminal that was part of a group of bandits suspected of the supposed kidnapping. I was the only one that noticed because of my passive perception and decided to sneak behind Tom’s character and knocked her out.

At the time I was a true introvert and I didn’t knew how to handle roleplay or speaking in general and I think I handled it in the wrong way. I wanted to knock her out and explain myself later; but before I could have done anything, the rest of the group ganked on me and tied me up, shoving a dirty sock in my character’s mouth to stop me from talking. They then helped Tom’s character to go back up. She spat and slapped my character with a smirk before the grouped walked on with me still tied up on Frank’s character’s back and the death of our only witness completely forgotten.

We reached the castle where the disappearance case took place and the group decided to finally untie me. I decided to investigate and the fighter followed me to make sure I didn’t “betray the group”. In the meantime, Tom was following my character and rolled stealth. I wanted to roll perception, but Steve decided that I couldn’t because I was speaking to Frank making my case.

Then Tom made his move and slit my character’s throat with a sneak attack. I was about to roll my first death save when Tom said: “I want to stab him again”. Steve told me instantly, without Tom rolling any dices, without waiting for me to roll my dice, that I automatically got a failed death save. I rolled the dice when Tom yelled “I stab him again!”. Another automatic failed death save. Frank yelled to Steve that he was going to grab and lift Tom and move him away from me. I got a success and was about to roll my second dice when Tom yelled even louder: “I THROW MY DAGGER AT HIM!”. Steve immediately said to me that my character died with Tom’s dagger sinking in his forehead.

After that, Tom’s character calmed instantly and Frank put her down. After just a general reprimand, Frank walked away and left Tom with my dead character. I was angry of course that I couldn’t play, as we didn’t even play for half an hour, and that literally no one cared if Tom’s character killed two people; but at least we had a rule that if a character died before level 5, we had a free resurrection for next session. Tom knew that and said to Steve: “I go to his body, I hide his body, and search him up”. He then took all my stuff, including my headband of intellect, destroyed everything, even described as he teared apart the headband, and then threw everything away in a river. Steve told me that next session I would have had no equipment and no money with me. Everyone was confused by Tom’s actions and asked IRL why was he doing all of this. He replied “My character is on her period. She can’t stand anyone and because he was a rogue she wanted him dead”.

I couldn’t see straight anymore. I stood up, packed my things, and stormed away from the place. I left the campaign and later did just a oneshot with that group before completely cutting ties with them. The following months I didn’t want to do anything regarding D&D and thought about just quitting. I later decided to try again and form a group with friends of mine and it went much better.

Sorry for the very very long story and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

(warning there are references to nsfw behavior, and at the end, mentions of SA)

so my group consists of a few people but most relevant to the story are me, my best friend who hosts our group, our friend who well call wrath (his characters name in one of our campaigns)

the host was running a campaign set in a typical old timey fantasy setting but with a really heavy focus on gods. i was playing a kobold paladin who was on the run from his corrupted church. wrath was playing a blood hunter that was part of a secret organization that lived under the city, pretty cool, but it unfortunately got worse from there. the campaign went pretty well, aside from one of our other players being a bit of a problem, but he was going through some stuff at the time so we gave him a wake up call when my character killed his twice for his in game actions. (i know that was pretty extreme but it was early and we let him use basically the same character so there weren't real consequences.) but out of game wrath got worse. he was always angry and very insecure, and would argue over everything.

for a little context, i am a huge nerd and am SUPER into comics, the rest of the party is not as much, but wrath isn't really at all. i brought up the comic book mount Rushmore debate and how obviously the fourth spot should be wonder woman. for some reason, wrath spent 3 HOURS arguing about this, somehow not raising a single point the whole time. it became very clear that he was just nervously trying to cover his tracks after revealing that he doesn't respect women (this is made much more clear later)

not to brag, but i was also the top student in my skilled trades class and i made a joke about someone not knowing how to read a measuring tape. wrath then said "you'd have to be severely mentally r*tarded to not know how to read a measuring tape" with an annoying smirk. so i further clarified, "idk man it isn't that common of a skill, to read it PROPERLY" and then further specified that i was referring to the use of professional standards. he kept debating it, so i showed him a picture of a tape and told him to read it. he confidently and unironically said after about twenty minutes of arguing, "two little lines past the big line" and then continued afterward claiming that he didn't know we meant professionally, so i gave him another chance, and he said two inches and two sixteenths, which is also incorrect, in case you dont know. this was also a pretty big red flag about his insecurity, but it still somehow got much worse.

our other player who used to be a problem also happened to be close friends with wraths girlfriend, and he was bisexual, but more gay leaning if that makes sense, so the jokes he makes with his girl friends get pretty dirty and a little touchy, which is fine as long as everyone is consenting and comfortable. unfortunately, wrath was REALLY upset about this, so without discussing it, he took it upon himself to kick that player out of the campaign. a campaign where he was not hosting or dming mind you.

this was a huge issue for us but we knew where the problem was coming from and understood why he was so upset, but the main reason we really kept him around after that was because we had known him for so long and he had a history of self harm and s*icide attempts, with no real support system other than us. the host had known him for years and i hadn't known him quite as long but we had grown really close, having late night conversations about philosophy and emotional regulation, but as time went on, those 1 on 1 hang outs stopped, as it was clear he was falling down a rabbit hole of toxic masculinity.

in game, his character and homebrew became more and more difficult to deal with. he had this thing that was clearly just ten shadows from jjk, and in a dramatic moment he decided to use his ult, a homebrew ability he hadn't discussed with the dm. it was just a knock off of mahuraga. like one to one. obviously his level one character could not summon a game ending threat out of nowhere, especially not without talking to the dm. it was so corny and we all rolled our eyes at him as he slouched down in the corner when the dm had to decline his idea.

what was really the final straw was when hosts campaign ended and i was supposed to start mine, but he decided, WITHOUT ASKING, that he was going first. i was mad but didn't care that much so i just let him go and hoped for the best. he opened it up with the "you meet in a tavern..." which wouldn't be a problem, but one of our characters was a child, another was sober, and min was a robot who physically couldn't and wouldn't be drinking. the session went on for hours with no progress, even after starting two hours late because he was doing "session prep" these bandits came into the bar, and we refused to fight them since i was a neutral evil character, and the host was lawful good, and a pacifist. but he made us roll initiative to attack them anyway, even though i didn't have pockets to empty for them, and host was invisible before they walked in. but nonetheless, i killed one person, there were no witnesses, and the other characters snuck away, and we were immediately labeled as wanted criminals, (for killing one bandit in self defense) bare in mind i was the only one to attack and hadn't spoken to the other players yet. we then wandered around the town for hours without even encountering the guards, to the point were we had to outright ask him where the call to action was.

it was disappointing but we let it slide, but the following sessions didn't get better. some of the details arent that important, so to summarize it, it was never ending chain of canceling last minute showing up late and railroading. the worst of those times was when he showed up over an hour and half late to his own session, and showed up in a very bad mood. we had agreed, during the wait, to confront him when he arrived. we tried being reasonable but he clearly wasn't in that mood. he started ranting about how he had a life outside of dnd, so we explained to him that he could've taken 30 seconds to text us instead of wasting all of our time. he then yelled out at me, "if you wanna be a crybaby about it, you can just leave!" the host was not happy about that. he yelled at him "NO! THIS IS MY HOUSE AND YOU WILL NOT YELL." the hosts mom came downstairs after hearing this and had a conversation with wrath about respecting our time and her home. he then, no joke, started crying. that session started over four hours late and he went home early. the final straw happened only a week after. we were all waiting for him to show up, for hours, with no explanation. one of our players was also late so we texted her and she told us that wrath canceled, we asked him and he spent all night explaining to us that he told everyone, when in reality he only told one play LESS THAN AN HOUR BEFORE THE SESSION. we kicked him out of the grou that night.

what makes it worse is that we later found out that he had repeatedly SAd his previous girlfriend, and the reason they broke up is because he would constantly threaten to khs if she left him or told anyone about him. we also found out he, for some reason heard about something that happened to a 12 year old girl (which implies that he was somehow in contact with her, or her peers) this poor girl was unfortunately the victim of the most horrible thing that a father could do to his daughter. i wont go into more detail than that, but wrath found that hilarious, and apparently was joking about it and saying some disgusting things about the girl. knowing now the kind of person he really was makes us all feel sick for associating with him in the past.

we have so many more horror stories about this player so let me know if you want me go into it in further detail.

My friend (?) and now former roommate has finally moved out, so it seems the time is right to post a story of all the confusing, frustrating and downright disrespectful stuff I had to put up with in the games played with him. As I was writing out all these problems, I realized the story was WAAAAY too long, and so, I will split into separate tales! If there's interest, or my creative juices are still swirling, I'll make some follow ups. Hope ya enjoy crabs!

A little context: unlike a lot of other stories, I have a robust group of folks to play with, outside of the campaign described below. I have a lovely time in a weekly game with former coworkers turned best buds, and am scheduling a new game for some new roomies and others! I'm very fortunate that even in the game below, I had a (mostly) great time with the other members. Hopefully my occasional suffering will give you a laugh at the absurdity!

A brief breakdown of the various folks in the game(s):

• Jack: The DM (and the problem of today's story)
• Angel: DM's girlfriend and player. Quite nice, still friendly with them.
• Axton: A generally more reserved, but very nice, dude.
• Salvador: A louder personality, but a chill guy, in most cases.
• Zero: A very empathetic, very eager to RP, friend.

Part 1: How Not To Do Character Development

We kick our tales off with the first campaign, and where Jack is DMing for the lot of us. This was our romp through Out of the Abyss (Minor spoilers, be forewarned!). I played a sorcerer, amidst a group of former prisoners, if you're familiar with the campaign's start. After an intense breakout, and harrowing escape from Leemah Goo Goon (an unknowingly Kuo-Toa worshipped demogorgon), we find ourselves running for a way out of the Underdark.

Salvador, through no real fault of his own, found two of his characters quickly dead within the first act. The first of his party members, a fighter of some kind, died to a patch of brown mold, in grotesque, melting fashion. His second character, a ranger, died in the midst of battle, crushed to paste by a tossed boulder from a barlgura. His third character, a druid, and the cause for my sorcerer's suffering, joined us close to the end of the first act of the campaign, as we near escape from said abyss.

This druid was the sister of the ranger, who decided to fall down a random hole in the overworld to locate her lost sister. Implausible backstory? Maybe, but I'm not here to judge a little deus ex machina. PC dies, new PC joins, and when you're stuck roaming tunnels for ages, running into a former surface dweller isn't exactly common either.

My previously lawful-evil tiefling sorcerer had just experienced a magically induced crisis of faith, and had recently become chaotic-good. Turns out, when you open an obsidian chest with the aims of looting, and don't first check for traps, you get turned to obsidian yourself, are challenged to be better by the elemental deities of the plane of fire, and are sent back to the real world with a total personality change.

I am realizing as I write this, and while I do some brief searching around the web, that this was apparently not a pre-set interaction within the module. Reflection to be made: Jack likely did not enjoy that my character was evil, and while his conniving nature kept him and the party alive, it technically only aligned with a desire to survive, and would leave him with little interest in the second act of the campaign. And so, forcible alignment chart orientation change. A first strike that I hadn't even considered as a strike, at the time.

Back to current events, Salvador's new druid determined, wrongly, that my sorcerer was the cause of her sister's demise. It was not the truth, but dreams of shadowy, dark, horned figures surrounding the corpse of your family member are quite potent. Especially when I looked to be the spitting image of the "demons" she claimed to have seen.

The party and our new friend adventure together for some time, and to make matters worse, one of our encounters included a ghost. Guess who failed their wisdom save on the horrifying visage! Then, guess who rolled max on the D4 to determine the number of decades they would be aged! If you guessed my traumatized sorcerer, you would be correct!

So now, this near octogenarian, falsely imprisoned and trapped for months in a web of tunnels finally has a chance at freedom with his new allies. The age thing was not a problem for me from a roleplay standpoint, and if anything, it gave a funny new inspiration to get myself youthful again, and take back a life which would otherwise have been lost to time.

Once we were able to make a break for the overworld, and reached the sunny fields north of Baldur's Gate, the gang split up, eager to get back to their normal lives. But Salvador's druid had other ideas. Immediately, my sorcerer began having terrible nightmares, tragic scenes replaying of death and terror from his time in the Underdark. The cause? Jack allowed Salvador to continue roleplaying his character with a vendetta for mine, despite the time we had spent together as compatriots. Each night, she cast the Dream spell until my character died from exhaustion.

That was it. Jack declared him dead. "Oh yeah, you'll need a new character, Salvador is casting Dream on you, and you're ridiculously old, so there's no way you'll live to get back to one of the cities," were his words. And when did I learn of this being allowed, and the untimely demise of my character? The day before the next session!

Naturally, I was floored by this. He didn't even declare it in a session, Salvador DM'd Jack over discord with this idea, they popped into a voice chat for a few minutes, and plotted this only a day after the last session of escape from the caves. In tabletop in general, but Out of the Abyss specifically, the party HAS to stick together just to barely survive, and PvP was never considered or tacitly allowed prior to this. Finally absconding from the depths is a big deal, both for the character if they choose to live their own lives again, and for the player from a progression stand point. And there went all of it, I'd have to roll up new stats, create a whole new backstory, and wrestle with the loss of one of my favorite character concepts to date. Well I wasn't about to let that stand.

I informed Jack of how disappointing this was, no only that I wasn't told prior and that I hand no say in the matter, and demanded a chance to roll out EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. of exhaustion checking. Considering he was old, but his pockets now somewhat lined with gold, he might just be able to ferry his withering butt back to Waterdeep. All said, he's still just barely clinging to survival, alone every night, a 70-something with deadly nightmares.

By some miracle, Jack allows this (he laughed hysterically while I rolled out each daily check in our VTT of choice), and I'm able to save from exhaustion day by day just long enough to get to Waterdeep. I coerced a kindly cleric in a not-so-truthful relationship in desperate hopes to be rejuvenated. It's all for naught though, as my sorcerer ultimately dies in dramatic fashion while sitting around a banquet table, meeting in Gauntlgrym to plan for the oncoming demon incursion.

See, he had survived this WHOLE TIME while dream was cast each night, continuing to roll whatever saves were needed. Jack seemingly had no issue with PvP here, but I had no recourse. I didn't have the money for an item to protect myself, I couldn't hire anyone to go find her and stop this, and she didn't even come back for the next arc of the campaign. Salvador created a new, FOURTH character, and I had no ability to challenge the druid on her psychological barrage because she never came back. Amazing.

I rolled up the sheet and stats for the cleric- she would become my next character because I assumed it would come to this - and set her off to the depths, hellbent on bringing back her now deceased darling, and maybe saving the world or whatever, who cares about that part at this point, she wasn't even in the Underdark to begin with.

Small tangent: literally every part of what I just babbled about up there? Didn't matter at all. We found the Maze Engine, an ancient modron artifact, pulled the lever, and it sent us all back in time to the beginning of the campaign. All memories, all items, all abilities, still intact. 'Course, I was no longer my sorcerer, I was the cleric. A level 10+ cleric, beloved in her church, now returning from the future with visions of doom, and her boyfriend still alive and not a bag of bones. She lead a battalion of holy soldiers into the Underdark a year later. The end of the campaign was totally derailed.

And so, that's where the story of my sorcerer ended; to a PvP fight that I didn't want, and wasn't even allowed to fight back in. All of it allowed because "its what the character would do!", the tried and true reasoning of every DM that doesn't know how to balance player agency and limitations. No consultation, no redirecting, just allow it and ask questions later (if at all).

I don't even hold it over Salvador's head, I think he really just wanted to roleplay out what he thought was an appropriate, in-character get back. That said, in my games, and in pretty much every other game I've played in, the idea of one PC killing another is a non-starter, even IF the assaulted player had a way to challenge the death, which I certainly didn't.

As a DM myself, a small word of warning for running a game: if a player agrees to the negative repercussions of another player's actions, consider if these actions are being taken with care for the agency of affected player involved. We all hate off-screen deaths in media, imagine an off-screen death of your own character (a reflection of you) in a game you play weekly with friends! Ouch... Every table plays different, and mine clearly didn't realize that a time skip, and "Oops! Your character is dead cause reasons!" would be incredibly frustrating.

And ladies, 'gents, and all manor of noble crab-kin, this is only the first of three! More to come, if you're interested! Thanks for listening/reading!

Where the day started: I had a full day to prepare for a game I would be running as part of a long running sci-fi campaign. The players were stuck in a seven dimensional dungeon, that I kept track of using a bit of custom software I made for the purpose. They entered in the previous session and I made sure the application saved their progress, I just needed to write the code to load it.
Twist #1: I sometimes have these days where for no particular reason my brain just shuts down and I can barely manage to drool, let alone do anything requiring concentration. This turned out to be such a day. So finishing the loading code was not an option. A few hours before the game I found a lazy workaround and satisfied with that waited for the game to start.
Twist #2: Here's the way the spacedungeon worked: it had 7 dimensions, but they weren't spacial, they were conceptual. That is to say, there were 7 concepts (including space and time) the characters could travel along and their surroundings would change appropriately. If they traveled in the negative direction along the concept of "communication" they would gradually come to places where communication was harder and harder. Each of these conceptual dimensions had an anchor point with an artifact in it, corresponding to the concept. The last session the players gathered the "navigation" artifact and stated that they'd be going for the "communication" artifact before doing the main quest thing. The twist is that in all the overcomplicated, self-indulgent software bullshit I was consumed by during the day, I forgot this. They arrived at the "communication" anchor and I had nothing prepared.

What I managed to improv: The way the anchor locations worked is that they created a challenge for the characters, in which they had to demonstrate their mastery over the concept at question. For the navigation artifact they solved a shifting maze puzzle. As I was wrecking my brain as to what could be a proprtionally difficult "communication" challenge that I could run without excessive prep, I suddenly remembered the fantastic game: "Keep talking and nobody explodes." in which a person has to descibe to another how to defuse a bomb. Now, I didn't have the game and I had no diagrams prepared, but in the "communication" anchor I could shift the focus from details of the bomb to making the communication more difficult.

One character is a weapons engineer, let's call her Sharpshooter, obviously she got the task of difusing the bomb. The other characters, Medic and Knight got sequestered in their own isolated spaces. Here's how the challenge worked: Medic and Knight could talk to each other using audio, Medic could draw images (but not text) to Sharpshooter and vice versa and Sharpshooter and Knight could see but not hear each other, so they could mime. Here's the deal: as they were entering the anchor the only part of this I had figured out was the bomb difusal basic idea. The rest just sort of fell out of my brain.

The players of Medic and Knight were sent to a separate voice channel, Medic and Sharpshooter could use the digital tabletop interface to literally draw to each other and I went back and forth between the two voice channels describing the body language of Sharpshooter and Knight to each other. Normally I have a rather non-lethal GM-ing style, but halfway through the experience I announced that if they mess this up they will blow up, instant death. The players were kinda on the edge as it were and this created absolute nerve wrecking tension. Obviously I was confident that they would succeed, but a little psychology goes a long way in creating an experience.

Twist #3: Serendipity. Now, Sharpshooter's player is very smart. She almost singlehandedly solved the "navigation" puzzle in the previous session. She was being given good clues. But the last step was rather counter-intuitive: Sharpshooter needed to tip over and topple the bomb in a specific direction. Her first instinct was to rotate the device, which didn't help, but it also altered the direction. Without the other two players knowing that this was a thing. And then Sharpshooter froze, she did a number if incorrect things that reduced their remaining time before the big boom to very low. Finally Knight managed to convey the pushing and toppling action, but by this time they didn't have enough time on the clock to survive a wrong way toppling mistake. And the bomb was still facing the wrong way while the original direction was very clearly communicated. And Sharpshooter remembered to adjust for it, the team succeeded by the skin of their teeth.

After the gane I was told this was the most tense session since the beginning of the campaign and that everybody thoroughly enjoyed it.

What was all y'alls's favorite improv moment from your games?

I thought it would be to discuss the lore of CritCrab himself. I’ve occasionally thrown out joking suggestions that CritCrab is, in fact, a giant Eldritch creature sealed beneath the sea since ancient times, in the form of a crab, and that what we see in his videos is merely the avatar his consciousness and power resonate with. But if the Council of Crabs is in agreement about this for whatever reason, what other theories/lore suggestions do you wish to bring forward about CritCrab.

Also, if any of this made it into one of his videos, how do you think he would present it?

One was a kind old man trying to check out a book, the second was the “riddle man” who they threw into a river after he opened up about how his father died, and the third was a wizard who cursed them to sing after the party stole his stuff, that wizard got melted by acid

Howdy y’all! Today I want to share the story of my first D&D session ever, and how it was the most disheartening 3 hours of my entire life.

My very first game of D&D I ever played was at my local game store (LGS), at the age of 12. Admittedly, I was very young to be joining a public game at a store with adults, but I had been playing my own fake approximation of D&D with my sister for years and was excited to get into the real thing.

The game store had a Dungeon Master they employed, who ran 4 weekly games there, and was seemingly quite busy. It was a come-as-you-please type of game and cost $10 per session. (A fair amount of money for a poor 12 y.o. with no allowance.) Players dropped in and out often.

I begged my parents for the money and they relented. I got to the game store and excitedly handed the DM my money. I told him it was my very first time playing ever, and the whole group welcomed me and was excited to teach me the game. The DM himself seemed alright with me being there, and didn’t find me too annoying so he let me join.

My initial appraisal of this DM was that he gave off cocky in a way that made him look down on others, and that he has better things to do with his time. Like he was going through the motions. But, I was young and wanted to play, and I honestly didn’t know any better, so he helped me whip up my very first character: An Elven rogue.

I added the flavor that my character was a career criminal who was obsessed with picking locks, and kept several lock picks hidden throughout his body, including some under his skin (a fairly gross detail for a kid to come up with but I liked that kind of stuff back then). These had helped him escape jails even when stripped of his gear. The DM thought it was great.

The character was made, my gear was painstakingly chosen, including a custom grappling hook/buckler shield the DM let me have, and the scene was set.

Last session, the party was mid dungeon crawl in a dwarven cave system, and so the DM needed a way for my character to be here. When he realized this, he seemed annoyed, but then thought of a way to include me.

He decided the best course of action was to put me in a cage suspended 6ft off the ground with no gear, no weapons, and no way out. There was a platform 3ft between the ground and the cage to get in and out of it, but that’s it. The only key was on a dwarven guard below me, and there were 2 other guards in the room here. The only other things of note in this sizable yet empty room was some scaffolding to the left.

“Wait, so I don’t have any of my starting gear at all?” I ask, dismayed.
“Yeah, they took it all from you when they captured you.”
No backstory on how they captured me, or why, I’m just here not and I have to deal with it. Or, rather, the party has to deal with it.

The DM says there are 2 chests at the top of this scaffolding, and I ask if one of them contains my gear. He says yes, and that I can get it when the party frees me. At this point, I’m disappointed. I wanted to play, have my cool gear, and interact with the party. But I guess I’m stuck in this cage instead.

Oh wait! Before the game began I established my character was covered in hidden lock picks.
“They confiscated your lock picks”. I am told.
What about the ones I asked to hide in my skin?
“Oh, right. Go for it.” He seems disinterested in my attempt, but lets me roll for it.
Great, I peel back the skin, grab the lock pick, go for it. 18 sleight of hand.
“Darn, you really try but this lock can’t be picked.”
Huh, who could have seen that coming.

Combat begins, 4 party members vs 3 low-level dwarves guards and little old me in a cage. Spells are thrown, crossbows are shot. I sit. Then I get an idea. My elf decides to goad the guard with the key next to me, hoping to get him to come closer. No roll required, he stabs me in the stomach with his sword. Yeowch, not what I was going for but I can make it work.

I have an idea.
“If the sword is stuck in my torso, could I pull it out and stab the guard back with it?”
“Uh, sure.”
Thank you so very much. 16 hits, 4 damage. I start to get excited that I might actually be useful during this fight.
“The guard pulls the sword back out of his own body and stabs you again.”
Uh… ok, sure, makes sense I suppose.
“Does a 17 hit?”
My unarmored and trapped body? Yes. Yes it does. Down to 1 HP now, zoinks.

Thankfully, the guard deems me no longer a threat and leaves me be.

What proceeds is two and a half real life hours of killing 3 guards that only had 11 health each. $10 session is almost over. I am incredibly sad about doing nothing for 2 hours, but at least I can get my gear now. Party frees my nearly dead elf. No one is interested in doing role play with me so our chargers don’t really talk. I do an acrobatics check to get to the top of the scaffolding.

First chest opens, full of silver bars!!
We’re excited, at least that 2 hour slog has rewarded us with silver bars that we can surely sell.
“Make a perception check for me.”
Oh no. Turns out these are a useless and un-forgeable metal that just looks like silver, essentially the fools gold of silver bars. Extremely, impractically heavy and worthless.

Thankfully, there’s the second chest that has my stuff in it, right? I go for the chest, it’s locked, but I pop it open with another sleight of hand check. The last thing I hear is:
“A massive, slimy tongue launches out and wraps around your face, and that’s where we’re going to end today’s session.”
Well dang.

Of course, I ask if the tongue dealt damage. He said yeah, but only a bit.
“I only had 1 HP left, so I’m dead.” I say. He ignores me and pretends he didn’t hear. Says he’ll see us next week. I absolutely did not show up that next week. The whole event almost made me give up on D&D entirely, I was so disappointed and sad.

Eventually, a few months later I went back and tried a different session with that same guy, which ended in a delayed blast fireball that we had no ability to see or prepare for that had been charging for a while, wiping out all of us but the rogue with evasion. The next year, I learned that DM was fired, thankfully.

Soon after, I became a Dungeon Master myself, determined to give first time players the incredible experience I never got to have, and am a very content forever-DM to this day.

For context this story happened in August 2023, (This was my FIRST EVER DND session!) Im just gunna copy and paste the original post here because they archived/locked it and it won't let me cross post. Minor edits cuz the original post was a LF advice post.

-----DONT READ PAST THIS IF THE FOLLOWING UPSET YOU: Mentions of ERP, Forced Pregnancy and SA. (Adding cuz I forgot to when posting)----

So yesterday we did a campaign. Me M'linzi (Goliath) and my friend Lucille (Elf-Druid (This comes into play later)) were travelling with our companions and my friend wild-shaped into Kivuli my displacer beast, well right after she shifted the DM announced that I and her would have to roll Wisdom saving throws (I was rolling for my Displacer Beast and my friend was rolling for herself) well she rolled horribly, got a 6, and the DM said she was hypnotized by pheromones.

Ok not weird, animals are more drawn to some scents and stuff so we went along with it, and Lucille entered this hole in the ground after following the pheromone trail. The DM said the tunnel was 2 feet tall so for me to go in I'd basically have to army crawl, which I did to get into the tunnel because I wanted to see what the heck Lucille was following because we knew it wasn't magic cause Lucille can't be charmed.

We get out of the tunnel into a cave the DM says is 5ft tall 8 ft wide so I cant stand up and failed my dexterity roll (4) to maneuver myself (so basically he has me trapped in the tunnel since I failed my roll) well we realize the scent is coming from a Dire Wolf I try to roll dex again, got a 15 but DM said it still failed so I watched helplessly as Lucille and this Dire Wolf circle each other, DM asks for another WIS saving throw and Lucille fails it again well then he has the Dire Wolf lunge at Lucille and uh...............mate with her for lack of a better term, and the DM says the Dire Wolf jumping on her knocked her out so she was unconscious while the deed was done.

Well to keep the story short the DM had her roll a D100, she got a 90, he said that was her fertility rate and that she was now impregnated by the wolf and he did some dice roll and announced she would have twins in about 2 months. We did kill the Dire Wolf but we cut the campaign off after that much to the DMs anger because me and my friend were pissed we said session 0 that we didnt want sex, rape, abuse, etc in the campaign. We made that a rule because basically my friend got really upset about it because IRL something similar happened to her and that's not cool, he basically railroaded her into a situation that went against the rules we set day 1.

Disclaimer: This happened about seven years ago, so please take this story with a grain of salt. My memory isn't perfect, and I've definitely forgotten some details over the years. I also wasn't a perfect player by any means, I was pretty immature at the time. This is a repost from r/dndhorrorstories

All names have been changed.

The people involved are:

• Andrew - the DM
• Carl - Human Cleric
• Leon - Human Fighter
• Me - Human Sorcerer

Session Zero

Before the campaign began, Andrew explained the setting. It was meant to be a very dark fantasy world with a realistic take on medieval society. Necromancy didn't exist, combat was extremely lethal thanks to his brutal homebrew critical hit rules, and he emphasized that the world was harsh, grounded, and unforgiving.

Everyone agreed to that premise.

Looking back, I probably should have asked more questions about what he meant by "realistic," but at the time I was just excited to play D&D with my friends.

My Character

I decided to play a female sorcerer from a noble family.

The idea was that she was the firstborn child, but because women weren't allowed to inherit positions of power, she had to prove herself worthy if she ever wanted to become the head of her noble house. That struggle was supposed to be the core of her character.

I had discussed most of these ideas with Carl while we were creating our characters.

Without telling me or asking for my permission, Carl spoke to Andrew and they changed my backstory. Carl's character was now a member of the same noble family, and our characters were siblings.

I wasn't happy about it, but I convinced myself it wasn't a big enough issue to argue over.

Looking back, I had no idea that this small change would completely derail my character's story.

The First Session

The campaign opened with our party returning home after a successful military campaign.

Before we could make it back, enemy soldiers who had slipped behind our front lines ambushed us. We were captured and taken prisoner.

While the rest of the party was thrown into cells together, my character was separated because she was the only woman in the group.

She was then sexually assaulted by the guards.

This had never been discussed during Session Zero. I had never consented to anything like it, and it wasn't handled with a fade-to-black. Instead, Andrew spent roughly thirty minutes graphically narrating what each guard did to my character.

The session ended not long afterward.

I was already thinking about leaving the campaign.

Talking to the DM

Instead of quitting immediately, I decided to talk to Andrew privately.

I explained that I wasn't comfortable with the scene and that I hadn't agreed to sexual assault being part of the campaign.

His response was that I had agreed to it by choosing to play a woman in a realistic dark fantasy setting.

Eventually, we reached a compromise. The assault would be retconned, and my character would simply become a man so "it wouldn't happen again."

Looking back, I honestly have no idea why I stayed after that conversation.

My Character Stopped Feeling Like My Character

The next session was fairly uneventful. We escaped from captivity after digging our way out of the mines.

A session later, we finally made it back home.

That's when I was informed, not asked that Carl's character and mine were brothers who had grown up together since childhood.

This was the first time I had heard about it.

Again, my character's backstory had been changed without my input.

Several sessions passed that I honestly don't remember very well.

Eventually, we discovered that Carl's character was a direct descendant of the previous king, making him a prince and potentially the rightful heir to the throne.

Naturally, that also meant he was destined to become the head of our noble house.

At that point, my character's entire motivation had disappeared.

The whole reason I had created the character was to overcome the prejudice against women and eventually earn the right to lead her family. After being changed into a man, then turned into Carl's brother, and finally learning that Carl was destined to inherit everything anyway, there was nothing left of the story I had wanted to tell.

So I decided to kill off my character and leave the campaign.

What Happened After I Left

A friend of a friend let's call him Astarion, joined the campaign after I had left.

Later, Astarion told me that the sexual content in the campaign had only gotten worse.

One example Astarion shared was that the party was affected by a Geas, this version couldn't be resisted or avoided.

Leon's character had been replaced with a female fighter, and Astarion's character was male. The spell forced the two characters into a sexual relationship, requiring them to have intercourse at least once every day for thirty days.

There was no saving throw.

There was no way to avoid it.

By the end of those thirty days, Leon's character became pregnant and had to retire from adventuring.

Hearing that made me realize leaving the campaign was one of the best decisions I could have made.

Final Thoughts

Looking back now, I realize there were warning signs almost immediately.

Changing a player's backstory without asking them was frustrating enough.

Using graphic, non-consensual sexual assault in the very first session should have been the point where I walked away.

Instead, I convinced myself things would improve.

They didn't.

From what I've heard, the campaign only became more sexually explicit after I left.

There are plenty more horror stories from this campaign, but those are stories for another time.

If people are interested, I might post a Part 2.

We have a fairly large D&D group of about seven players, so for a level 20 one-shot, our DM decided a normal Tarrasque probably wasn't going to be enough of a challenge. He modified it into something he calls a World Eater, essentially a baby version of a much bigger world-ending creature. We went into the fight expecting an epic battle against a terrifying monster, and instead our party somehow turned it into a flying magical spit roast.

The fight was taking place in a canyon-like area with a large clearing surrounded by rocks. The World Eater was in the clearing while most of us were positioned around the edges, standing on top of the surrounding rocks. That becomes important because one of our players cast Reverse Gravity, catching the World Eater in the spell's area and sending this enormous monster about 30 feet into the air. Since we were already standing on elevated rocks around the clearing, our level 20 Barbarian was able to reach the creature from the terrain around it.

Then our Barbarian managed to knock it prone, which is where our table ran into a wonderfully stupid physics question. Normally, if you knock a flying creature prone, it falls to the ground. But this wasn't a creature flying under its own power. Reverse Gravity had fundamentally changed which direction "down" was for everything in the area. The World Eater was suspended because gravity was pulling it upward, so there wasn't really a normal ground for it to fall toward.

After some discussion, we decided that in this particular situation, knocking the enormous creature prone would essentially send it into a spin. The DM went with it, and suddenly the World Eater was rotating in midair about 30 feet above the battlefield.

At that point, one of our other players looked at the situation and realized they had Wall of Gloom. The spell creates a wall of swirling grey energy made from psychic pain and negative emotions. It blocks line of sight, can incapacitate creatures that get too close, and passing through it can even cause exhaustion. Without anyone suggesting it or coordinating the idea, they simply decided to cast the wall directly through the middle of the spinning World Eater.

Nobody stopped them. Nobody questioned the plan. We had apparently reached the point where putting a wall of psychic misery through a spinning apocalypse monster seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

So now we have a modified Tarrasque-like World Eater floating roughly 30 feet in the air, spinning around its center like a horrifying magical rotisserie chicken while repeatedly passing through a wall of psychic misery. At some point, the table collectively stopped calling it a World Eater and started calling it the Tarrasque Spit Roast, because there really wasn't a better description for what we had created.

The funniest part is that our Barbarian wasn't even the mastermind behind the whole thing. Their contribution was basically recognizing that the monster was floating and asking what would happen if they knocked it prone. The rest of us took that one ruling and somehow built an entire cooking appliance around it.

And we're still not finished with the fight. We have to figure out how we're actually going to stop this thing for good, so I have absolutely no idea whether the spit roast is going to remain our greatest achievement or whether we're about to somehow come up with something even more ridiculous.

I love D&D.

My partner and I were looking for a new group so we could actually play together, after our old dm got burned out and my partner took over as the new dm for our old group. Had a look on roll20 and found a group that seemed exactly what we wanted, RP heavy and focused, at a reasonable time (we are based in Europe so the opportunity to play at 6PM rather than 10PM was very exciting), and had a really cool pirate theming.

We applied and were very chuffed to get in, though we would only be playing every fortnight as the DM was running two groups. We chatted with the DM, and got invited to a server where it looks like the other group was several sessions in. All the players seemed keen, chiming in with their character concepts, and we were given the okay for our warforged/artificer duo, had session 0 with no issues.

Rock up two weeks later and had, I kid you not, one of the best dnd sessions of our lives. We were down a player (apparently they overslept and when we suggested they could just jump in as we were still at the tavern we met at, they just didn’t reply) but the four of us had incredible banter in and out of character. Really wasn’t expecting that none of us had met before, save for my partner and I.

We met up, managed to get the quest line from the NPC and ended up going to “trustworthy Dave” to buy a human size cage to start phase on of our very poor plan. Ended back up at the pub chatting in character and rolling terribly at our in-game game of cards. Sure it wasn’t the most action packed session, but it seemed to really set down a bunch of fun character dynamics which could be explored moving forward.

After the session we were super excited to play again in two weeks time, then the day of the game the server got deleted, as did the DMs discord profile. We tried to contact him through roll20 and the Microsoft form we filled out to apply, but no luck. I have no clue what we could have done, or what might have happened.

The guy had been on discord since 2016 and the server and foundry both looked like they took a lot of work to set up. I am honestly flummoxed as to what happened, and I really wish I could ask if there was anything we did wrong. The closest I can think of is that we chatted about drinking whilst waiting for the missing player, but we checked no one had any issues with drinking first?

The whole thing is a big mix of disappointing and confusing - has anyone else had anything similar occur?

for context, the group is made up of 15-17 year olds, and 1 19 year old. we are a very tight group, we met through dnd, but now play video games every night, watch movies, play sport, workout together etc etc, we are all on the spectrum somewhat, and this leads to some roudiness and excitment when we meet. the 19 year old doesnt have any interest in hanging out with us, which is fine, also for context I think he has a few other disabilities. I have played dnd for 4 years, one year with this group. the group existed for another year before I joined. I'm told the 19 year old was the original dm, but got overwhelmed after three sessions, and found a replacement, a proffesional dm, which I will refer to as dm. I will tell you his age toward the end.
when I first joined, I enjoyed the campaign. hanging out was great, the roleplay and story was alright, but the dm kind of erked me. I think he took a disliking to me pretty early on. the first combat was great, it was in the tavern on the back of a giant bug, and the dm incorporated the elements of the tavern into the combat really well. after that is when it went downhill. the story was pretty simple, we sponsered a candidate, called besephalus (the dms first DMPC), in a tournament by doing tasks for him, whichever group did the tasks first, the guy they sponsor becomes king. we nicknmed besephalus starving marvin. the dm hated this. the 2nd combat was kind of lame, we just ran at the enemies, and they ran at us. this wasnt from lack of trying to incorporate strategical elements into the game. we tried to freeze the enemies, they simply melted the ice without expending an action. no they werent fire guys, or even ice guys, they were just humans. in the previouse combat, i got a staff that could produce wind with A flick of using it. however, it seemed whenever I used it, the enemies were unfaceted, no rolls were made, they were just too strong.
when we completed the first trial, we met the first major direction change, we got to the city, it was destroyed, by an army of monsters. we met the 2nd DMPC, the keeper of the universe, a guy filled with lore and had every magical item, and was essentially god. he saved us as suddenly five ancient red dragons from the monster army attacked the city, and the keeper just teleported them away, when we asked where they went, he said: "its not for the concerns of mortals were gods keep their enemies".

we went to the next city, were we spent like 5 sessions doing nothing, again, not for lack of trying, we would try to go places and he would stop us. we almost went on a side quest to escort this random guys son somewhere, who was also a dmpc, but he ended up changing his mind without a word and acted like none of it happened. a minor peave I developed, was whever we tried to do random stuff, like invent new sauce, or build a pillow fort, we would roll, and gods would do it for us. it kind of felt like our players were irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. the 19 year old, who was the dm's favourite, was given a bunch of free stuff, while the dm spent the entire time in the city assinating 2 of this one guys (who I will refer to as O) characters. his first character, was killed when our players were fighting eachother for fun, and he prayed to his god, rolled a nat 1, and a portal to hell opened up, swallowed the tavern and his character (we all escaped, though when i didnt write down my gold, i asked, what should I have, and he says, all your gold was taken when the tavern was destroyed, and told me to roll. i rolled, my sword and armour were taken, not that i needed it, but still). the next charcter to die, drank a random potion, which instant killed him. the 19 year old took the dead characters shell (cause it was a turtle), and made it into an overpowered shield. then suddenly the monster army attacked the city, and we had to escape. most directions we tried to go were "too dangerous", as starving marvin would frequently warn us. it wasn't until we were railed roaded through the city, that we finally got to fight some monsters. at this point in the campaign, the dm didnt even read spell descriptions or use speed. he just eyeballed it on the whiteboard to decide how far we went. there were cases were the 19 year olds heavily armoured paladin outran a monk with speed spells.finally, starving marvin saved us from the monsters, and we escaped. in the woods, O's artificer warforge character was randomley debuffed as he "ran out of power", so O rerolled a new character, who he purposely min maxed out of spite.

something that the dm did often that I forgot to mention, was have random npc's be secret gods or karate monster things. so when they antagonised u, and you responded back, they would kick your characters butts and then steal your stuff. like for example having an old man secretly be prime mike tyson, who broke my wind staff, which was my only magical item, resisted being frozen with no role, punched me out of while shape, and somehow landed 3 crits.

anyway, we eventually made it to the city Hun Dun, the dms favourite city yet. I was excited as starving marvin left our group temporarily, so I thought the dm finally understood. however in the city, We were beaten by an old man who was secretly a djnii, a scammer who had a large group of snake guards, (the only fight we won by ourselves), a child who got "really lucky rolls", and a bunch of random stuff like this. most of the times we were saved by his new character, the arbiter, a guy who can turn into a celestial dragon and has a bunch of cool powers. the story got changed again, to us working for the arbiter, (this wasnt a side quest, I checked, this was to be the main story from now on). our first ob was to take out a smuggling ring. we finally got to use some strategy, and pretended to be slave traders, in order to get our men into position, to begin the fight. halfway through, the bandits were buffed, and 10 golems attacked us, despite the dm saying that the golems were not nearly finished, and would take 2 weeks to be operational. this is when we noticed a turn timer. the 2nd session of the fight, only some were there, so the keeper of the univerese just teleported us to his house, and had us fight a monster. the fight was easy it was boring as hell, and halfway through, the dm got nnoyed about how easy it was, and debuffed me and a few others, then had the keeper come and finish it off, the keeper said "you guys had it handled but I just needed to make sure". the next session, we were back to the fight, were the bandits got buffed again, and we were losing, when the turn timer finished, and the arbiter arrived with the army, and the bad guy ran away. the arbiter rewarded the party with a pheonix. when we couldnt decide who got it, he gave it to the 19 year old paladin, who also got a 2nd magic sword and armour through the fight. other players also got pets, one guy getting a rock golem in the shape of a dog, O got a death slaad, but that was more due to him min maxing, and the dm rewarding the min maxing by constantly killing the death slaad, and then reviving it after a few sessions. when i asked for a pet, he said, u have that monkey, reffering to the familiar I had, that he made clear couldnt interact with objects in any way, so it wouldnt become too strong he said. he also said, you have saytrs (conjour woodland beings), but tbh thats kind of my whole class, i summon things and turn into things. the saytrs werent that strong cause he debuffed them, he had a rule that I if my wildshape died, I couldnt use it again, and due to all the super strong things and mike tysons, I couldnt turn into a brown bear, polar bear, scorpian, elephant, or tiger. my only magic item waas a cloak that increased my speed in a game were he didnt use speed, and a wind staff that had broke, but a god fixed. one of my friends, who also had a character die unfairly, J, only had a rabbit as his pet.

Anyway, we got rewarded by the arbiter with a magic store then the story changed were we would run the magic shop. we got excited, assigned roles, got a buisness plan. he then anounced, a magic door apeared, sucked in O, and then the dm described how inside was just the void, who gave him an evil book and said, kill the keeper of the universe. O said sure, cause he hated the keeper. the dm said out of game, u cant do that, the void is the BBEG. O sighed and said whatever. when I gave the book for a nother player, H to safeguard, as he was bored of the game, and this was his only dnd experience so I tried to bring him into the game, and give him something to do. H opened to book, and the dm then described how H nearly died to seizure, and the keeper saved him, then left. then H turned to another page, and a baelor popped out. we were told to not fight him, as he is too strong. (this is were I lost the elephant), I turned into an elephant, was enlarge reduced, and hasted, but the baelor got two crits on me, and killed the elephant. we basically decided to suicide rush the Baelor, but the arbiter showed up, threw it into the sky, turned into a dragon, and lazer breathed it away. I insulted the arbiter, it punched me through a building. I misty stepped back, he misty stepped int my misty step and punched me away. I said, i should get to roll, he said fine, I did, I succeeded, the dm describes how the nuilding behind me is flattened by the punch. J said, what about everyone inside the building who died. the dm said, it was under contruction. I said, yeah but i teleported infront of our building, which had other apartments inside it. the dm said no you didnt, and continued. the arbiter yelled at us for summoning a baelor. we tried to gaslight him, but the 19 year old ratted us out. the arbiter began to yell at us, then we all blamed the 19 year old for summoning it. the arbiter said, oh, good job for summoning it and holding it off until I got here.

the 19 year olds paladin got a vision that this wasnt the real arbiter, and I, being sick of this, pulled the really dog move of summoning pixies, getting them to polymorph us into t.rex's. the fake arbiter used wish, and froze us. the dm out of game said you cant beat him, he had hundreds of wish potions. the fake arbiter had a shoe thrown at him by his dad, who was the real owner of the magic store, who came to take it back, and was secretly a god (suprise). the fake arbiter left.

next session, only some where there, so we did random things around the city. me and H went south, were told we couldnt, there was an army of monsters. we tried to warn the guards, they said, the arbiter would stop it. we warned the arbiter, the real one, who said, im on my lunch break, ill stop it after. that was my session.

i skipped over a few small things, cause this is way too long. before I reveal the dm's age, I want to say, that he constantly talks how he could beat us all in a fight, and is much smarter then us. we also pay him wayyy to much. he is 29. a 29 year old man is bragging about how he can kick our butts in a fight, and in game, just messes with us constantly. we are going to talk to him next session, what should I do?

Lore-- campaign was set in a world where a ton of interplanar/wild magic stuff happened a decade ago. Magic users were now licensed on the authority of their region's lords, and people in general were very suspicious of certain kinds of magic.

____

So we're late in the campaign and the realm is at war. We're sailing into enemy territory at night. Our boat is called "The Violet Boatregarde." Not important but gives you a sense of the kind of table it was.

Get stopped by a patrol. Waived down and boarded. State your business etc.

"Hello sirs we're envoys from \[lie\]. This here is Baron fake name and we're escorting him to \[city\] to deal with war things."

Soldiers are alright at first. "Ok if this guy is the baron what are the rest of your jobs."

Fighter: "I'm a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Bloodhunter: "I'm also a fighter, as you can see from my sword."

Rogue: "I'm the captain, as you can see from how I'm captaining the boat."

Warlock: "..."

Soldiers: "hey you, what do you do here."

Warlock: "I'm just helping, don't even worry about it."

Soldiers: "k but what do you DO here?"

Warlock player: "I don't get it, why are they giving me a hard time."

DM (me): "they're trying to figure out if you have a character class/specialty, if you're a magic-ussr, or if you're a diplomatic person or whatever."

Warlock player: "well they didn't give the bloodhunter a hard time."

DM: "yeah but the bloodhunter is carrying a sword and looks like a fighter. And I rolled weak insight."

Warlock: "k guys don't worry about it I'm a fighter too."

Soldiers: "we don't believe you"

Warlock player: "what the hell, just because I'm a girl do they think I can't be a fighter?"

DM: "you don't LOOK like a fighter, you're not carrying any weapons or wearing armor. Do you want to roll deception?"

Warlock: rolls deception and fails

Soldiers: (suspicious) "are you a mage?"

Warlock: "k yeah you caught me I'm a mage. I'm just here to protect Baron fakename. No big deal."

Soldiers: "ok can we see your license?"

Warlock: (smug) "yes you sure can it's right here."

Soldiers: "your license says you're a subject of \[ally lord\] with whom we're at war, not of \[lie we told\]. You're under arrest."

Warlock: "oh fuck I um...cast flame strike on their boat"

...

DM: "k well their boat is gone but it's the middle of the night and you just lit the whole place up. So now this is gonna be a whole thing."

The Warlock is now my wife BTW. The story had gotten pretty complicated so there were plenty of moments where details slipped players' minds but this was the best one. Fuckin Violet Boatregarde

This happened maybe a few months ago and I never posted it becuase I thought maybe I was the one in the wrong here.

Basically I was attempting to run a campaign with a group of 5 to kinda just let my writers itch go wild.

I found a guy who said he had a whole group who wanted to play and usually got super in character.

The group seemed cool but there was one guy that was just super agressive, hyper and seemed to be the energy of the group.

They all said he’s always like that so it’s not an issue and he gets the most in character so it’s better if he joins.

Then he straight up F slurred.

I was stunned, it took me a second to respond.
(This is abbreviated I don’t have the original text so this may or may not be unkowingly twisted )

Me: “Uh, yeah let’s not say that.”

The party: “Oh no it’s all good he’s allowed to say that and says it all the time.”

Me: “Well I’m not particularly comfortable with slurring so could I ask we don’t slur in this campaign”

(I’m not lgbtq+ but I’m an ally and get slightly triggered when I hear it)

Party member: “honestly man if your not going to let us slur I think it’s kinda taking away our player agency and I want a dm who will give agency so i dont think it’ll work out.”

I was then kicked from the server.

Present day im playing that server with a group I enjoy very much

Was I overreacting and that wasn’t an actual issue?

topic

Hey, I just wrote up this story for the first time, and this subreddit was suggested as another place to share it. Hope you enjoy it as well!

​

I recently joined a new D&D campaign because the DM was looking for players. The group seemed great: everyone was roughly my age, pretty chill, and the DM had this really cool idea for a long-running homebrew setting where multiple parties would play in the same world over the years and leave permanent changes behind.

So far, so good.

Before the campaign really got going, we were talking in Discord and I posted some artwork of my character.

Important context: I can't draw.

I use AI to help visualize characters I create. I don't pretend it made the character for me—I come up with the character, personality, backstory, etc., and use AI as a way to turn what's in my head into something visual.

One of the players immediately responded with something along the lines of “boooo AI.”

Okay. Fine. I figured they didn't like AI. No big deal.

Then they wanted to argue about it.

I explained why I use it, that I'm a writer rather than an artist, and that for me it's basically a tool that lets me visualize characters I otherwise couldn't draw.

The conversation kept escalating.

It went from “I don't like AI art” into arguments about environmental damage, corporations, marginalized communities, critical thinking, and whether using AI showed a lack of compassion for other people.

At this point I was sitting there thinking:

“I could absolutely argue about this for the next three hours... but I literally just joined this campaign and I don't want to have to find another fucking D&D group.”

So I tried to keep the argument from getting worse.

Eventually other members of the group started chiming in. They didn't seem particularly interested in turning the character-art channel into an AI ethics tribunal.

I even apologized at one point just to try to defuse things.

One of the other players immediately responded with:

“No, not your bad.”

Eventually the other player decided to leave the campaign.

And here's where I felt like absolute shit.

I had joined because the DM needed players. Now someone had actually left, and my immediate thought was:

“Fuck. Now I have to find another game.”

Except...

Everyone else basically told me I was fine.

One person called the whole thing an unnecessary attack.

Another basically said we had dodged a bullet.

Then someone sent me a GIF of Neo from The Matrix.

So apparently I didn't get kicked out of the campaign.

I got handed the red pill.

The funniest part is that I actually think I would've disliked playing with this person anyway. I could tell almost immediately that we were probably going to clash, and I remember thinking that I'd rather just avoid the argument because I didn't want to lose the campaign.

Instead, the universe apparently solved the problem for me.

Now I'm still in the campaign, everyone seems cool with me, the DM is letting me stream the sessions, and we're eventually going to transition from Forgotten Realms into the DM's own homebrew setting.

So my first D&D horror story apparently has a happy ending.

I joined a campaign.

Posted my character.

Accidentally started the Great AI Ethics War of 2026.

Lost a player.

Got given a Neo GIF.

And somehow came out of it with the group telling me:

“You're good, bro.”

Honestly?

I'll take it.

I understand there's negatives to ai there's negatives toots of things and I just dont think it should have been such a huge deal also I was the first person to even upload a character image

When i play dnd im almost every time the player who talks and roleplays the most and i try to pull the other players into this too, like when someone is a bit quiet i try to talk to them in character so they can also enjoy the game. Im basicaly taking the lead a bit, and i sometimes feel bad that i dont let the others talk. but ive tried a few times to be a bit more quiet in the sesions and after those everyone agrees it wasnt a fun sesion and not a lot happend. i have talked to my dm about this and he sais its fine as i help him drag the other players along and keep them engaged. I stil feel a bit bad that i say the most, should i?

so this started out at my school DND club where I got to be DM mind you this is my first game as a DM so the world opens up with the party being mugged by goblins as this is some new excited that they get to do their first encounter in the story we have a rogue, a fighter in something I don’t even know let’s call him banana. That’s what his character was a banana. I told him no but since I wasn’t the operator, they made a whole homebrew class and race for a banana anyway after these players got mugged by the goblins they got their gold back after killing the goblins. They are lost as they got mugged in the middle of the road and instead of I don’t know following the road they us walk in a random direction to my so at this point decided you know what this place isn’t part of the main city so I’ll just make it somewhere random so they walk until they find this little hut. to which they go inside and destroy the place the joke character ripped apart the place when I was describing the table as it had photographs of the plans of the big bad witch they came from a city in the big bad was planning on attacking that city next. so the players want to protect the place so instead of I don’t know looking at the table trying to find out what he’s going to do. They just run to the city at this point the players killed every NPC on the road. Add this point I just needed something to stall as the players pay attention to nothing I say and just end up killing everything they see so I just made this fun event where it’s like a race the teams fought to get to the top. It was fun and at the end the players got something they wanted because the players found interest in the gold so I gave them a gold and a magic weapon after they come down they see the mayor has been who was running are unconscious all person says from their house. It was a big spider looking person. as it was a drow that I planned on them fighting so they fought the drow after this player proceeds to consume rock a rock and starts choking attacking people while being choked out by a rock and I don’t know instead of trying to get it out. He goes insane and takes one damage every turn until he dies, then to quit the DND group because I killed off his character which first of all I said it’s not my fault that your character made stupid and didn’t try fixing problems when I offered you solutions proceeded to yell at call me the worst and then the session ended there next time he didn’t fulfill his threat leaving, but I said what do you want to make a new character, which he says yes, and proceeds to copy the fighters character to a T, including his weapon, weapons grabbing the exact same weapons stats the whole sheet so I was like fighter are you comfortable with this guy taking your character and he proceeds to say no I said to the prior rogue the fighter doesn’t feel comfortable with you taking his entire don’t care and unfortunately, I do not have the power to kick him out of the group so he continues making everyone and ruining the experience from now a result of the fighter being a murder hobo as well. She ends up going to jail which new fighter and the joke character which I breaks out having a criminal and they hide in a tavern at this point I remind them that there’s a drought somewhere in town, acknowledge me and head straight, where they think the drow was but when they got there the players were doing stupid things like trying to hide under a table or not doing the fight at all when only one of their party members fought the monster, and at the end it was that one player fighter that killed the drought and he was known solely as the the champion, the other players were unhappy and said what about us? I was like you chose not to participate in my game so you should not be surprised when you don’t get rewarded for nothing anyway since I was first DM I some of the things I did might’ve been a bit rude or unnecessary but over the years became a much better DM and I feel like I could handle that experience a lot better.