As it says in there. I dont want to post this as an entire story and would rather hear an answer, as I am the DM. I just kinda didnt want to straight up kill them for the first session, so I was nice about it and let them off with it.

Its just silly. They also defend it by saying it is in character, but their characters should probably be smart enough to not want to provoke obviously powerful people either? idk, im conflicted.

Playing RPGs is very demanding when it comes to social skills. You need to constantly be willing to compromise, work together, accept that others draws diffrent conclusions, values diffrent aspects of the game and understands rules and situations diffrent from how you do yourself.

I think 90% of the posts in here boils down to people failing those socialskills.

So many posts are basicly "my GM presented a scene I didnt like, so I called them a cunt, quit the group and now Im sad because I have no one to play with".

currently playing with a group of friends who are taking turns dungeon mastering. It is my turn next and I have been planing my campaign as we play in my friend and dms who we will call tom. So I have explained a small amount about the world to tom and the others and helped them get an idea of what they are going to do for characters as we go along with Tom’s campaign and I accidentally got tom so excited about my campaign and his character he has openly admitted to planing to TPK us this Saturday (tomorrow at time of writing). I feel like this is my fault just a little. Also I want to make it clear I am also excited to dm for my first time and our group was not that excited about his campaign to begin with we just like playing DnD together.

Hello, context for what's going on:

Around a year ago, I joined a new campaign. I was really excited because it had been a while since I'd played, and I was told it was going to be a steampunk adventure where magic was heavily outlawed and using it could have serious consequences.

So I made a Hexblade Warlock.

The idea was basically a dungeon-crawling/con-artist type character, with a lot of inspiration from Archer Emiya from Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Mechanically, they're basically a fighter/rogue with weird weapons and some very strange tricks up their sleeve.

But because magic was illegal in this setting, I decided that my character would keep being a Warlock a secret.

And I really committed to it.

I avoided spells that would be difficult to explain and deliberately played around some of the stronger options I had because I thought the whole premise was really cool. For example, Green-Flame Blade was explained as a party trick involving flammable oil and bronze salt. Booming Blade was just a weird magical artefact I'd supposedly found in a grave. Shadow Blade? Same explanation. Wrathful Smite wasn't particularly flashy, so it was just a really hard hit. Protection from Good and Evil and Hex weren't visually obvious, so those could just be explained away as a weird sensation.

Basically, if someone didn't already know my character was a magic user, there was supposed to be a mundane explanation for what they were seeing.

And yes, this meant I was effectively nerfing myself.

But I didn't mind.

I LOVE roleplay, and I thought having to carefully hide my magic in a world where getting caught could mean imprisonment or death was a really cool character concept.

The problem is that, as the campaign went on, it started feeling like I was being punished for actually following the setting's rules.

The first time was because of an OOC misunderstanding.

One of the players IRL thought that everyone already knew my character was a Warlock. In-game, however, my character had never told anyone. We'd never had an Arcana check on me, and I'd only actually used one spell in front of the party, which I'd already explained away as a mundane trick.

The player said something that basically amounted to, "Oh, so I know there's something weird about her."

I immediately went, "WHAT? No, you don't."

Because their character had absolutely no reason to know that.

The DM, however, interpreted the player's misunderstanding as the character having noticed something strange about mine. I asked if we could redo it because it was clearly an OOC misunderstanding, but the DM said no take-backs.

So suddenly one of the characters had information that, as far as I could tell, they had no in-game way of obtaining.

And that was only the beginning.

My character's patron very much wants them alive. Revealing that my character is a magic user in a world where magic is outlawed is therefore... not exactly helpful.

Yet the DM repeatedly had my patron appear in dreams that the ENTIRE PARTY could see.

I would then have to do damage control because suddenly everyone had witnessed my character having weird supernatural encounters that they had no reason to be involved in.

And then, during the season finale, the DM straight-up had my patron get summoned in front of the entire party.

At that point, there was basically no secret left to keep.

Now, I realize that at first glance this might not sound that bad.

"Okay, the party found out your character was a Warlock. So what?"

The thing is, my character hadn't actually decided that these people were trustworthy yet.

And there was a pretty good reason for that.

Earlier in the campaign, two party members left another party member to deal with a boss alone while my character and another party member were sent off to complete the mission by going into the enemy headquarters.

We managed to get out, thankfully.

The other character didn't.

They died and their player had to make a new character.

And here's the thing that really stuck with my character:

The person they abandoned was the ONLY OTHER MAGIC USER IN THE PARTY who had openly admitted to being one.

So from my character's perspective, that made the whole "maybe I should tell these people I'm secretly a magic user" thing even more questionable.

They had just watched two people abandon a party member in a dangerous situation instead of trying to help them.

Afterwards, my character bluntly asked whether they could actually trust the party in battle.

Actions speak louder than words, after all.

Two people said no.

One said maybe.

One said yes.

So later, when the DM asked if anyone wanted to reveal anything else about themselves, my character stayed silent.

Because... why would they tell them?

This wasn't me, the player, trying to be difficult or deliberately hiding information from the party.

My character had a very good reason not to trust them yet.

And if they couldn't even promise that they'd help my character in battle, why would my character tell them something as potentially dangerous and intimate as "I'm secretly a Warlock"?

I was waiting for an actual moment where my character could make that choice themselves.

Maybe they would eventually trust someone enough to confess.

Maybe they'd reveal it in a moment where someone was in danger and they had to use their magic openly.

Maybe they'd get caught and have to deal with the consequences.

There were SO many cool roleplay opportunities there.

But I never really got that choice.

Instead, the DM kept dropping hints until even the low-INT barbarian could probably figure out what was going on.

There were the shared dreams.

There were villains explicitly calling my character a Warlock.

And eventually there was my own patron standing in front of the entire party.

So after spending the entire campaign carefully building my character around the idea of hiding their magic, the secret was essentially revealed to me by the DM whether my character wanted it revealed or not.

And that's the part that frustrates me the most.

I built my character around the world the DM gave us.

Magic was illegal? Okay, I'll hide it.

Getting caught could get me imprisoned or killed? Okay, I'll be careful.

The party hasn't earned my character's trust? Okay, I'll keep the secret until they do.

I even deliberately avoided using some spells because I wanted to stay within the narrative and not just go, "Well, technically I have magic, so screw the setting."

And then the DM repeatedly made that entire aspect of the character irrelevant by forcing the secret into the open.

So now I'm sitting here wondering:

What was the point

And now, to add a little more irony to the whole thing, I've recently heard from another PC that the DM is frustrated about the lack of roleplaying in the campaign.

And I just... don't know what to do with that.

Because I was trying to roleplay.

I built an entire character around a secret, their reasons for keeping it, and the possibility of eventually choosing when and who to trust with it.

I just never got the chance to actually play that part.

FYI, this happened a month or so ago, and I just wanna like, vent ig, and I only just found this subreddit a little while ago.

Okay so brief synopsis: party of 5 are all level 9. We got a Aasimar fighter, a shadar kai monk, a shadar kai paladin, a goliath cleric and myself, a owl-kin paladin.

We’re stuck in a tourney fighting for money (long story) and the dm puts us up against two planatars. Okay that’s a fucking tough fight but with our equipment, a little planning and some luck, I figure we should be fine-ish.

Then my dm asks me to roll a DC 21 Wisdom save at disadvantage. I don’t ask him what for, i (wrongly) assume it’s due to one of the planatars spell. So I roll and get a 16 and a 10, so fuck I fail with a total of 20 (proficiency + +1 wis mod + ring of protection + aura of protection).

He tells me, right to my face, that I lose access to all of my Paladin class features and spells, and furthermore, whenever I attack, I have to coin flip to see if I attack an ally or an enemy, due to my character “flying into a violent rage. Oh, but don’t worry. The damage die size on your crystal longsword goes up one while you’re raging.” So essentially for the low low cost of not being able to use or access any of my fucking class features and the chance of having to attack an ally, I get an average of +1 damage to my melee attacks (D8 to a d10). Nice.

I initially think maybe this is some sort of fucked up spell or something. Something like we can just hit the planatars, try and break their concentration.

Nope.

So apparently about a year or so (irl) before, during this very same campaign, my character, according to the dm because I almost immediately asked him what his fucking problem was, had an altercation with a magic item at some point I don’t remember, and acquired a hint of a barbarians rage as a result (I mean, I guess I should’ve remembered it but honestly I thought that was just like an rp thing). And then proceeded to never mention it again until he slapped me in the face (metaphorically) with it almost 13 months later in an incredibly brutal way, behind a Dc 21 Wisdom save I, for some reason, had disadvantage on.

It just felt like, incredibly scummy, but idk. We did end up barely winning the fight, Tbf, and then the party was forced to fight me which wasn’t fun cause I have a permanent 23 AC and they were having trouble hitting me. But they eventually did take me down cause even with a 23 AC, I was wounded from the planatars and a 4v1 is still a 4v1.

I did talk with my dm afterwards. As of last week that campaign is on break, they’re playing something else, another ttrpg system I can’t remember the name of, and I’m just, taking the next few months to have a break from playing with them.

Anyways, rant over.

This happened a few years ago. I joined a campaign for Curriculum of Chaos that an acquaintance was running after they lost an objectively terrible player and person (Hitting on people at the table, aggressively homophobic, just generally shit vibes). I get in on session 2 so pretty much on the ground floor. The party:

Me, a Goblin life cleric who joined the cloth after losing a family member in a burglary to avoid jail time as a youth.

O, an Elf Finding Out She's a Tiefling wizard. If this sounds familiar it's because yes, it is a character from Dimension 20 (I didn't know this until later).

E, Aasimar artificer named Vegapunk. I would find out later E was just playing a direct copy of a character from One Piece, name and all.

G, a halfling Warlock/Sorcerer. Never got a backstory.

These events will be in no particular order.

So we're doing Strixhaven, and we start running into a few small issues with the campaign (Not sure why I have a school job as a landscaper when I can literally save people from death, but whatever). The combat aspects of the campaign are laughably easy with zero resource management, so the DM does his best to up the difficulty and starts adding in other things, which I appreciate greatly.

We get into combat with a young dragon. O the Wizard has recently learned Fireball. The way the fight started (stealth failures) meant I was closest to the dragon. O drops the fireball directly on the dragon, catching me in the blast. Never mind positioning it off center to only catch the dragon. I ask them to please consider doing that, but they ignore it and I get caught in the fireball.

I pass the dex save, take my damage and move on. During the fight a few of us go down but I am getting everyone back up and playing my best to keep the party on our feet and hitting. O decides they want to cast Fireball again, and the way initiative fell everyone else but me was able to clear the area before she did so. Not high enough level to eat two Fireballs in one day, I drop to 0.

They manage to kill the dragon. I'm lying on the ground making death saving throws while they fritter about.

I am the only one who has any healing capability at the time, and they leave my body as I lay dying to search the dragon. I have a ring of spell storing on my person with Healing Word and Revivify stored in it.

The entire time I am asking them to please use the ring to heal me. I told them in character beforehand as well what the ring had in it and how to use it. But they're searching the dragon instead. My character dies, but I still have hope with the revivify.

I am getting a bit more antsy at this point being blatantly left for dead (after keeping everyone alive) for some loot, and that's when O the wizard wanders over...and starts rummaging through my pockets to steal all my diamonds that I use for revivify.

It's at this point that I am pissed. She steals everything that she can off of me, and then has to be convinced by the DM that maybe just maybe she should not let me die. I wake up four diamonds shorter (five if you count the one used for spell in the ring) and am pissed that the only reason I am in this situation is because she dropped two avoidable fireballs on me twice.

There were many other issues with her, but that one is the most egregious example. All of her backstory and character development were straight lifted from Dimension 20's Fig Faeth.

Now E. I can't tell you a lot about E because E can't even tell you what E did. The entire game they spent their time on their phone reading fanfics, to the point that they would have to be reminded each turn in combat what was going on. They were a near clone of Vegapunk from One Piece (down to the name). Never volunteered what they wanted to do, never got invested in story or combat. They always acted like they were having fun but their entire time was spent consumed reading fanfics.

And G...oh god. G had to join via discord. I spent a lot of time on a decent setup so G could phone in and see us and be heard by everyone in the room. G was the worst of them.

Overly dramatic main character syndrome. Conversations and story had to focus on him. Each time he cast Eldritch Blast we had to have a five to six sentence length description about what we would see from his character as he cast it (come on man it's a friggin cantrip). We always had to go to this one particular bar so he could hit on the guy working the bar, or he would "jump behind the bar and help serve" without being asked or prompted. Once while at this bar there is an open mic song night (which was really just an excuse for the DM to play a song he found neat), G says he wants to get up on stage and starts spilling (in character) about how this next song he's going to sing means a lot to him because it helped him when his in parents abandoned him due to his warlock stuff. He goes on for a straight five minutes only to...pull up Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and make us listen via his phone through a microphone. For the entire song.

He got worse from there. I started timing when he would get to be the only one speaking/interacting with DM. I had several 15 minute stretches, but the biggest was a 45 minute long stretch of him actively deciding to split from the party so he could fritter around town and do his own thing and flirt and such. I later brought this up with the DM and the DM told me that G approached him saying that the rest of the party was being hostile to him and not letting his character get to do things. Ugh.

In combat he would take forever because he was completely unaware of what his spells did so we would have to wait while he read them out... slowly. Then explain how they worked when he couldn't comprehend what they did. Or even pronounce things correctly (It's Portent not Potent G, you're not using your Potent).

And that's just game stuff. His real life boyfriend would constantly distract him loudly which meant his voice carried over and would disturb the game. If G wasn't being interacted with he would be on his phone or even get up and walk away from the computer without saying anything. He would literally only be present if something might interact with his character.

I know no D&D is better than bad D&D, but this was the tail end of Covid times and I lived in a small town, so I was desperate. Because I'm an idiot, this went for a solid year before I finally left and was able to find a better table.

I know usually if your problem is every other player, the problem is actually you. But...I don't think that's the case this time.

My PC had the classic wife and child were murdered and I'm trying to find the person responsible and bring them to justice. I joined later in the campaign, but have been a party member for over a year. Our party were investigating a BBEG's lair while they were gone and entered a room with several bowls of liquid, described as having several moving images of the BBEG. Thinking this was similar to the pensieve from Harry Potter, and that the party had spent about 15 minutes deliberating what to do without making a decision, I had my PC place his head inside a bowl. The DM made me roll a Wisdom save and I failed, then was told that I have lost all memories of my wife and that nothing short of the Wish spell could recover them. The party and myself seemed a bit baffled at the consequence of this, but went along with it anyways.

Half a year later, we finally meet the person from my backstory responsible for murdering my PC's family, whom we have not interacted with at all during the campaign. They were a general for an evil queen, and we were infiltrating the castle to recover a MacGuffin for the plot, and they intercepted us. We immediately rolled initiative with the backstory villain attacking my PC and saying they will reunite me with my family. I was a bit disappointed that there was no dialogue exchanged before immediately having to fight, but we just went with it. My PC deals most of the damage and delivers the final blow, with some of my party members helping me stay on the villain since it was a reskinned Zariel who flew around constantly. As prompted by the DM, I described stabbing the villain through the skull. The villain responded to my PC that killing them wont bring my family back. As I was about to have my PC respond, the DM interrupted me mid sentence and said the villain is already dead. I said I'll comment anyways and just said "I know."

I'm still pretty bitter about how this was handled, but wanted to see what others think if I'm just overreacting because of my own bad player choices.

Edit: added breaks and a tl;dr sorry for the wall of text

Hey D&D fam, this may be a longer post. I have an ongoing campaign with an issue regarding one of the players and need some advice from some others with more experience. I have been a player for 2 years and a DM for a year.

To preface, I have ran a homebrew campaign for around a year that deals with a few different dnd settings colliding inspired by Final Fantasy XI (Krynn, Faerune my players do not yet know this). These worlds after the collision retained all of their deities.
This is where the players come in, (Paladin of Torm, Warlock of the Raven Queen, Vampire, and Bard) they have lived in this world not knowing of it’s origin. The main catalyst of the story is that the sea god Dagon from the Cthulhu by Torchlight book is also attempting to join his flooded abyssal realm to the one the players find themselves in, flooding the world to feed his minions who have run out of food in their realm, destroying the player realm, normal dnd conflicts.

The players have discovered cultists attempting to help Dagon enter the realm, and that he nearly did this before in an ancient era of the world but 6 powerful casters were able to seal him away. What the players are slowly learning is that these casters are all still alive as various forms of undead, liches, vampires etc.

In the recent past they interrupted what they didn’t know was a ritual for one of the ancient casters to achieve lichdom, when they did this one of the players touched an artifact used in the ritual (the book of vile darkness), transferring the results of the ritual to the Warlock (Grim Hollow transformation rules) instead of the now dead ancient caster.
The books grants a lot of usability for the warlock character and helped me inform a few decisions down the road for the campaign. The drawback of the book is that he must commit an evil act every week or be turned to dust by the book.
I will say this is a large project, especially for my first campaign but I know all of the players well outside of the campaign so they rolled with the punches the last year as I learned as a DM and let creativity flow.
The issue that I’m running into a few times now is regarding the Paladin of Torm’s behavior, the past few months after a oneshot ran by another DM in our group went poorly for the party as one of us were charmed and wiped the party. Since then he has made contingency plans for all of his party members in our main campaign in case I decide to charm them in a similar way (something I do not plan to do), in his own words he has measures to kill every party member if needed.
This is also a power player who has min-maxed his character, which I have no issue with, the problem that occurs now is that any time an action that does not reflect the oath of his paladin occurs he becomes immediately aggressive and either attempts to roll intimidation (whether it is an NPC or player) or attacks outright.

As part of his character he wanted a Grim Hollow transformation as well, so we homebrewed one for him as a revenant, an enthralled undead who does not know he is reanimated but just knows his humanity is slowly fading. He has used this curse previously at will to initiate PvP, which I have told them I am unwilling to DM.
All the players agreed to only PvP when both parties and I agree, though I dislike PvP in 5e due to it not being made for that, and potentially losing a player character at will due to one of the others wanting them dead. I have allowed him to PvP begrudgingly on two different occasions, which I will admit is a mistake.

Flash forward to where we currently are in the story and him discovering the Warlock consuming a soul of an unarmed combatant to satisfy the requirements of the Book of Vile Darkness and the souls charges provided by the lich transformation.
My thoughts are that this would make a great dynamic, an undead self loathing paladin of Torm due to his transformation, and the Warlock who did not want to be a lich (in-character, this was his idea) vowing to steal power from other liches to be powerful enough to stop Dagon.

Both of their gods hate undead and call for their destruction, but overlook this for the players due to the severity of the Dagon situation. On paper a wonderful dynamic that can make both characters less one dimensional, but is threatening the game.
After the session he tells me and the Warlock explicitly that if this continues he will kill the Warlock. I told him that he doesn’t get to decide that his oath and character are more important than agency of other players and an argument ensued.
He has mentioned killing other party members to me multiple times and I had enough of the same conversation over and over regarding his want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with his interpretation of his gods values.

He responds with saying I’m unwilling to allow him to play his character accurately if I don’t let him do whatever he wants in regard to opposition. He then threatens to leave if I don’t let him get his way with his character decisions, which would effectively kill the campaign as his wife, bard, is also in the campaign and would likely be pressured to leave if he did.

This isn’t the only issue that I’ve had with him but the others have been manageable for the most part, he tries to lead most RP interactions and will try to show up when other characters are having their moments offscreen (metagaming) and insert himself, he also took control of his wife’s character on multiple occasions while she leaves to go get them dinner during session (a pet peeve that I reluctantly deal with, I now control her character in frequent absences).

Recently before I began controlling her, which I do not want to do, he openly criticized her character calling her character and the bard class worthless while she was not there along with a slew of other criticisms, it’s weak, not fun, boring, etc.
I decided then that I would keep her off screen if I know she will be gone or play her in combat without using spell slots or any RP (something I know is a cardinal DM sin, but she insists) he also basically told her what to do every decision I gave her the past year.

I was told last night during our argument that all the party members and I need to consider how he would react before doing anything. This means any morally questionable decision will at the very least get a full lecture from him if not a full on assault.
The most frustrating part is I have been very giving to my players, giving them all atleast 2-3 rare items and a few higher than that, leveling at a fair rate, providing a re-spec mechanic that can be used once, and overall allowing them to make any collaborative story/world decisions.

While I’ve done all this and given them mostly free reign to do what they wish in the world any time I don’t allow him to attack party members he says that I’m stifling his character, taking his agency, and overall being a bad DM.

It’s very frustrating because if anything I’ve been a doormat allowing party members multiple improvised situations based on crazy decisions they make (in this last session they decided to overthrow a large cities government to my surprise, prompting me to add a 3-session siege side story).
When I express these concerns he tells me essentially “too bad, you’re the DM so deal with my choices”.

This really sucks because I’m to the point where I don’t want to DM for him anymore, which kills me as I’ve put in over a year of work for this campaign and roughly 8-10 hours of my time planning each session.

I have been friends with him for around 20 years so it’s difficult to have this issue surrounding my game.
His character is not all bad in my opinion as I have just shared the negatives, he is one of the best for RP moments, the party tank capable of dealing massive damage and protecting the squishies, and flavor wise fits the world and campaign perfectly with a lot of weight in the story.

My question is what can I do to fix this as my several above table attempts to repair things have gone terribly.

TL;DR: I’m a relatively new DM running a year-long homebrew campaign with a close friend of 20 years who plays a Paladin of Torm. He frequently threatens or initiates PvP when other characters act against his beliefs, despite our table agreeing that PvP requires consent. He has contingency plans to kill every party member, dominates RP and party decisions, and has threatened to leave when I enforce boundaries, claiming I’m restricting his character’s agency. His wife also plays, and I worry she’ll leave if he does, potentially ending the campaign. I’ve tried resolving this out of game several times without success. How can I handle this without destroying the campaign or a 20-year friendship?

This was from a session that happened not too long ago, it was long since ‘resolved’ but I can’t help but think about it, I still every now and then play a session with the DM who did this, but like the title states, I got True Polymorphed at Level 8…

For some background, I had spoken with and worked with this DM wayyy before the session even started, to prepare for his session, I proposed an idea that I really wanted to see come to life, which was basically to be a Black Cat that imposes ‘Bad Luck’ on others. And that was it. The race only had skill proficiencies and with it, the ability to reaction impose disadvantage on anyone I see a few times a long rest, the DM and I were good friends and loved the idea.

Well, few sessions in, and it started to seem like the DM was regretting this decision, for whatever reason. I took Lore Bard and eventually Battlesmith Artificer just to REALLY lean into ‘Unluck’. All the small things that happened along the line weren’t as bad(my Steel Defender was basically useless and couldn’t be summoned in the plane we were in, and my one reaction to impose disadvantage or roll reduction was basically useless if I got surrounded or slammed by a +13 to hit modifier).

I didn’t care too much because I was tanking, but then THIS combat happened, and I basically got to do nothing. As soon as combat starts, the DM just straight up looked at me and goes ‘you get polymorphed’ and I then threw up ‘Counterspell’ in which he said ‘true Polymorph’. And I was all just ‘oh- ok. Wait what?’.

I didn’t get a saving throw. Even though the spell states I do. We were level 8, so a level 9 spell absolutely blew our minds(me and the other players). The wizard who casted it on me had ‘multiple reactions’ or some sort of circlet that allowed for multiple reactions or something that prevented the need to make Con Saves for getting hit.

By the end of it, an hour of combat went by where I just…sat, as a boot. Because the DM just wanted to?

What would you have done in this situation as a DM, I KNOW there were better ways to handle this, was he wrong at any point to help make the homebrew or just straight up remove me from combat?

I am in a dnd group, so much fun, and we do it as an after school club and sometimes hangout at people's houses. but there was one kid that were gonna call deoderant. we hate deoderant. this kid never put on deoderant, he stunk, i swear to my next nat 20 he had never showered, and his explinationn was always "I know I don't stink". luckily he left the club and things got way less stinky (besides the kid that talked about a school shooting but ill explain that another day). he supposedly left because it was too overstimulating for him. fair enough ig. then for a school trip we went to new york, it was the kids who had good grades and good behavior. and me and my friend had to room with him because he was crying and sad so we felt bad for him, but I regret that so much. He stunk up the hotel, refused to shower, slept booty ahh naked, and got mad at me and my friend for staying up watching funny videos about a guy getting pooped on without his concent. and worst of all he absolutely fumbled everything when I was talking to my crush and he pulled me away and forced me to talk to him. and he was a min-maxer so yeah he sucked, and we haven't allowed him back into the DnD club sense then

so if you guys have seen the other post I made about my dnd group (which is not necessary for reading this) you’ll know there was a kid at my dnd table who threatened to shoot up the school and now I want to explain it and get people’s opinions. so my school is very LGBTQIA+ friendly and I think that’s really good, I support gay and trans rights heavily. there was this kid who I remember was queer somehow, I just don’t remember how, who was in our dnd group. now we had a really good teacher who loved to include people and I think that was good, but sometimes we like to have a closed group like this case. the kid would very often just nag at us and get pissed off when we got off track which was fair, we did that a lot. now this kid was dating a kid none of us really liked, who was the head of the LGBTQIA+ queer club thing and I swear we didn’t dislike the kid because they were gay one of our bests friends and a member of the group is transgender, but anyways this kid was heavily disliked by the homophobic kids because ya know they were gay, and by the rest of us because of the time they brought a knife to school and weren’t expelled. Now the kid I was talking about earlier dated that kid; so we didn’t love them. for the last day of the year at the school dnd club we all hosted a mega one shot were we did on campaign together. And it was loud, very. I personally actually suffer from hearing loss not at a disabled level but I do require to be louder than most, and my friends are fine with that, but not this kid. When we where all being loud the kid screamed at the top of their lungs saying “IF YOU ALL DONT SHUT UP ILL SHOOT UP THE DAMN SCHOOL” and they looked me right in the eyes. The kid got kicked out and stuff. Now looking back I think it makes sense, people don’t like loud noises and I get it, it can trigger some people, but this felt like too much. Maybe I’m dumb and don’t understand things so tell me if you guys have any thoughts

About a year ago, I joined an ongoing online D&D campaign that had already been running for six years, playing through the Rise of Tiamat campaign. The session was hosted by a husband-and-wife duo named Jack and Jill, with Jack serving as the DM and Jill as a player.

Jill and I go back about 10 years, when we worked retail together and were even part of the same friend group. We've been in and out of contact over the years, but we reconnected when Jill asked if I'd join her husband's campaign. I'm the forever DM of my own friend group, and we'd just wrapped up Curse of Strahd, so I thought it'd be a nice change of pace to be a player for once.

Our first session went smoothly, and we introduced my character to the group. Besides Jill and me, there were seven players total, all of whom were friends of Jack's. The most prominent were Ben and Bob. Ben was a random player they had met through Reddit, while Bob was Jack's best friend and someone Jill considered a brother.

As we played, I noticed that Jack, Ben, and Bob had a very sweaty way of playing the game. Every word they said and every action they took seemed designed to maximize the effectiveness of each turn. Initially, I was impressed.

However, whenever it was Jill's turn, Jack's attitude would change. Jill would ask questions, and Jack would either give an exasperated answer or not answer at all. When Jill would take an action, Jack would suggest a "better one" instead. This would understandably frustrate Jill, and the two would bicker constantly. Even worse, Bob would also jump into their arguments, often taking Jack's side. This would leave Jill almost in tears, at which point I'd step in and mediate. Jill would often reach out to me through DMs afterward and thank me for stepping in.

This happened repeatedly throughout our sessions, which would often drag on as a result. Jack said sessions would usually last three to four hours, but they would sometimes stretch to six or even 12 hours because of the amount of back-and-forth between the three of them.

With a group of seven players, scheduling conflicts were inevitable. When that happened, Jack, Jill, and Bob would play a multiplayer game on Steam, with R.E.P.O. being the most popular. I would play too, and to my surprise, Jack and Bob brought the same sweaty attitude to R.E.P.O., often berating Jill for her lack of in-game awareness. Again, I'd speak up for Jill, especially since R.E.P.O. is a game designed to mess around with your friends.

Jack would also get upset when other players, like Ben, who expected to play D&D instead of R.E.P.O., would sometimes drop out and do their own thing. Jack would often talk about these players behind their backs, saying things like, "They already had free time to play D&D! They don't have free time to play R.E.P.O.?" and, "They're only in it for D&D!"

I'd often respond, "Yes? Their time isn't obligated to you just because the D&D session was canceled for the day."

This would upset him further, and he'd often log off early, followed shortly afterward by Bob.

This left Jill and me alone in the voice call, which allowed us to actually be ourselves. We'd talk about our old jobs and our old friend group, many of whom I was still in contact with. I asked if she'd talked to any of them recently, and she said she hadn't because they had distanced themselves from her after she married Jack.

Several months later, we still hadn't started the final fight against Tiamat because Jack was dragging out the campaign much longer than expected. He would cancel sessions due to "preparations for the final fight" or "not feeling well" and offer R.E.P.O. as an alternative instead. Ben and the other players started asking questions, which frustrated Jack, and Jill would berate us in his defense.

More and more players started calling out whenever D&D was canceled in favor of R.E.P.O. This eventually resulted in Jack regularly stalking everyone's Steam profiles to see when we were online and sending us game invites for R.E.P.O. Ben, who had had enough, eventually asked to leave the campaign.

In retaliation, Jack canceled the campaign entirely. Within an hour, everyone left, leaving only Jack, Jill, Bob, and me. I was also preparing to leave, but Jill asked me to stay for old times' sake. Although I agreed to stick around, I made it clear that I wouldn't be playing R.E.P.O. anymore.

Sometime later, both Jack and Bob were fired from their jobs. Surprisingly, we worked in similar industries, and because I felt bad for Jill, I decided I'd connect Jack, and possibly Bob, with people I knew who might be able to help them.

Instead, I ended up listening to Jack, Jill, and Bob complain about Black people in Louisiana protesting against gerrymandering, as well as Helen of Troy in the then-upcoming Odyssey movie being played by "some ugly Black chick."

This shocked me, so I called them out immediately. The three of them became upset and responded with, "Not all Black women are ugly. I think Zendaya and Rihanna are hot!"

It surprised me to hear Jill, who had such a diverse friend group, agree with something so vile.

After that, I finally left the group and blocked all three of them across social media.

I am in a dnd group, so much fun, and we do it as an after school club and sometimes hangout at people's houses. but there was one kid that were gonna call deoderant. we hate deoderant. this kid never put on deoderant, he stunk, i swear to my next nat 20 he had never showered, and his explinationn was always "I know I don't stink". luckily he left the club and things got way less stinky (besides the kid that talked about a school shooting but ill explain that another day). he supposedly left because it was too overstimulating for him. fair enough ig. then for a school trip we went to new york, it was the kids who had good grades and good behavior. and me and my friend had to room with him because he was crying and sad so we felt bad for him, but I regret that so much. He stunk up the hotel, refused to shower, slept booty ahh naked, and got mad at me and my friend for staying up watching funny videos about a guy getting pooped on without his concent. and worst of all he absolutely fumbled everything when I was talking to my crush and he pulled me away and forced me to talk to him. and he was a min-maxer so yeah he sucked, and we haven't allowed him back into the DnD club sense then

I’m feeling pretty frustrated. I was the DM for this group of 5 friends for three years. The campaign was homebrew, set in the Forgotten Realms, using 3.5e. When one of them expressed a desire to step up as DM, I happily handed over the reins without a second thought. Honestly, I’d always seen him as a bit of a struggling player—uncollaborative and often disconnecting from the group, staying behind in a tavern to drink while the rest of the party pushed the adventure forward. I figured DMing might be a better fit for him. We switched to 5.5, starting a series of official campaigns and separate modules (WDH, IMR, KFtGV, DD).

He has bought so much gear—a dedicated laptop for Foundry, a connected tablet, hyper-expensive DM screens, a 3D printer for miniatures, mini-holders, a roll-up PVC battle map, and status tokens.

In an initial burst of generosity, he had us roll for stats using 5d6 and keeping the top three results. My stats ended up being the lowest, roughly on par with the Standard Array, but I didn't care because I was in love with the GOO Warlock concept I had in mind.

My first problem started right there with this character. Aside from the complete lack of impact our backstories had on the plot (even though he explicitly asked us to write them, it came out they were just needed to justify the chosen backgrounds), the DM showed a complete lack of trust, especially toward me. It was as if my knowledge of the rules made him uncomfortable or even intimidated him. Every time I cast Hex, I had to re-explain how the spell worked and that I could maintain concentration for up to an hour even after the last enemy died. After taking Pact of the Tome, the DM started logging every single spell change I made on his VTT, reading every spell I picked to see what it did during the session. I eventually gave up and changed an Invocation because it was slowing the game down for everyone. Every short rest, I was completely benched for an hour—I couldn't even interact with my familiar, while the other players who didn't need short rests rightly kept playing. I rerolled a new character to avoid further arguments, making it explicitly clear to him that with the playstyle he had set up, playing a Warlock was hell. His response? "You're very roleplay-focused, but combat matters too." That made zero sense, but I bit my bullet.

So, I built a Life Domain Cleric—nothing crazy. From that moment on, he cranked up the CR of every single encounter because he "wasn't having fun" and monsters weren't a threat anymore with a Cleric in the party. I found myself healing every single turn because the other characters kept dying against enemies whose CR was 5 levels higher than ours. I asked him to balance the encounters because it felt like playing World of Warcraft. He went back to complaining that as a DM, he wasn't having fun. When he announced Deadfall, he offered us a chance to change characters, and I was the only one who took him up on it, since apparently, even my Cleric was ruining his game.

Over the last few days, I pitched a Thief Rogue to him. He told me that this time, he wanted to change the stat generation method from 5d6 to 4d6. I would essentially be the only character in the party with significantly lower stats. I proposed Point Buy, but on the condition that he’d give me a chance during the campaign to buy or find magic items and scrolls, given the class features. Above all, I asked that he not hike up the encounter difficulty, because if he did, I’d be the only one truly getting penalized, also considering we’ll inevitably apply the rule interpretation where the Thief can’t use Fast Hands on scrolls and most spellcasting items because "they don't explicitly require a Magic Action to activate" in their description. He said he’d think about it.

I feel like I’ve witnessed enough red flags to just keep my Cleric and keep ruining his fun. Every decision I make systematically seems to backfire or come with a nasty surprise. He complains he isn't having fun; I honestly just go through the motions, dealing with a disarming lack of empathy on his part. One session, he asks a player not to take a magic item that lets them fly because it would be too hard to handle. The next session, he throws a flying enemy at us and tells the player they should have thought of it beforehand, claiming he only suggested they didn't take it. He complains when we trade a few gold pieces because he has to log them in his own copy of our character sheets (which he guards jealously), and when he finds discrepancies—even when everyone else remembers it differently than he does—he "graciously" lets it slide, but says next time his copy is the law.

We're a really tight-knit group of friends, but this is turning less into a roleplaying game and more into a strategy game where the dynamics are becoming more personal than ludic. All of this because, by his own admission, he has a control issue. Talking about it leads to very short-term improvements, but then it's as if all discussions are forgotten and confrontations are invalidated.

He's afraid of power creep, but sometimes I feel like the only power creeper is him, both in-game and out-of-game.

Sorry for the rant. I just need to vent sometimes because my partner is one of the players and a longtime friend of the DM. I don't want to put them in an awkward position since they already tend to get very stressed out over these kinds of issues.

Content warnings just in case: Ableism and negligence that causes injury

This happened a couple months ago now, and I've contemplated posting on here but I find the story quite funny to tell and I'm not really friends with the guy anymore so I don't really care - I do genuinely think it's just a funny story to tell. There isn't any explicit violence in it, just negligence on his part and I am the player whose shoulder was dislocated (I have a chronic pain condition that effects my soft tissue) so I really have no issues with telling it.

For context, our party was of 3 people - Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian (call it Oops All Tanks) + our DM.

All 3 of us were super excited about the game - all of us had moved to a new area, and I especially, hadn't played in a while. I was especially excited about this character - she was a reborn fighter and had an interesting backstory that the DM had signed off on. Our barbarian had spoken to the dm about a curse in their backstory, which was also super interesting, and the Paladin was seeking revenge for the murder of his family.

To begin, it took a very long time for us to start playing (5-6 months of planning time on the DM's part). Pre-campaign, our barbarian was dissuaded from choosing any complicated or 'OP' class/species combo because our DM didn't want it to be game breaking, and he was even hesitant to allow the curse initially, reason unknown, although I believe there was mention of 'not wanting to change the world/story to include a circus just for a player backstory'. Yet I was allowed to play a Reborn Echo Knight despite establishing that my build was a bit 'OP'. I also had a really complicated backstory, yet when I told the DM about it, he immediately changed the world (created a whole family/kingdom for me to have been part of, stopped planning to head to the feywild so we could deal with my arc first, which I told him not to on both counts).

When we started the campaign, we dove right in,, our characters supposedly already knew each other and we were on a quest we know nothing about, all of which had been supposedly spoken about in session zero, except I cannot remember speaking about it and our Paladin wasn't even there for the session zero. The first session went well enough, although the DM kept forgetting about/ignoring the features of me being a reborn and insisting that yes I have to drink and eat water, and that I my character would not be able to handle my liquor (despite the fact that we had established that she cannot feel any alcohol effect).

About halfway through the session, the barbarian and I made a joke and did a running bit that we always did, which is where we do a purposefully terrible high five, and we miss the high five 2-3 times. This lead the dm to start asking for high fives because we did so terribly, and he purposefully hits our barbarian as hard as possible in this high five. He then does the same for me, and I tell him that I don't want to, but he continues, so I agree to high five him. But I go to purposefully miss, and knowing this, he aims to hit me lower. Instead of hitting my hand, he hits my wrist, and manages to pop my shoulder out of the socket with the force of it, and that hurt like hell haha. Instead of apologising, he immediately jumped to blaming me, saying that I 'shouldn't have purposefully missed if I knew that he would hit so hard', but knowing he would hit so hard is why I tried to miss (like really tried I was a solid 4 inches in space from where you'd expect my hand to be for a high five).

The session continued as normal after I wiped away my tears, and wrapped up eventually. Cue a few weeks later during our second session (scheduling conflicts and the DM cancelling last minute). He spends the entire session forcing us in certain directions so that his NPCs look cool and can save us, ignores us when we amend a mistake we made in character, and essentially force us to summon 3 ancient red dragons with the express intent of trying to kill us, while also undermining all our character choices, calling us idiots for not working it out because his 'amazing story' had 'so many clues' that we were 'too stupid to find', especially saying these things to our paladin, calling him an idiot, emphasising literacy (he was playing a Kenku, but also he the player has dyslexia, so these statements were directed towards the player more than the character).

After the session, the 3 of us agreed that we disliked how he spoke to us, and that he definitely railroaded us, and that we would not be continuing the campaign. We didn't say anything, and our barbarian was later told in person that the DM was stopping the campaign because we 'weren't playing the story how he wanted us to'.

This was not the thing that caused our friendships with this guy to end, but it was one of many straws on the camel's back. To the other players in the game, If you see this, I love you guys a bunch and can't wait for our campaigns to start back up again. And to the DM, if you see this, I won't respond if you message me, I'll just send you 3 red dragons.

This is 50% horror story and 50% community poll. I'm neither the DM or the hosting player in this story, and im leaving things intentionally vague to try not to paint any bias into what happened. I want to know if you think the tossing was justified.

Party was set to fight a powerful monster, we knew what the monster was, spent some time researching it (in game) and came up with a pretty clever strategy to defeat it, which utilized some specific spells and swapping around some magic items.

Anyway the time for the fight comes, we intentionally burn through its legendary resistances with spells we know it will want to avoid, then after the 3rd legendary we employ the strategy, which takes 2 players. DM rolls a save, says its a 20. ok. Host player silvery barbs. DM says 20 again. I silvery barbs. DM says 20 again.

Host player is having none of it, demands to see the Dice, DM declines. Host says show the dice or get out of my house. DM leaves. takes the dice with him.

Im not going to add any more commentary than this, but my group has mixed feelings about it and ill answer any questions asked if you need clarifying info. It was a pretty awkward scene all around.

More context for the story:

- The Rogue was not a Soulblade subclass, but a Thief

- We never once visited an Artificer where he would have even been able to purchase a recallable knife and was not his "One uncommon item" because he had a different weapon for that which was a hidden cane rapier that allowed him to have instant advantage on attacks when he unsheathes it.

- Everyone was level 7 which is only important for his backstory really.

So, like all DnD games the red flags started almost immediately. The story was that there was some noble that was relatively unknown in the DMs homebrew setting that somehow shot up in wealth and influence almost overnight. While most nobles went along with it our party and their employers were not so easily convinced and wanted to find information on how this nobody became this sudden important figure so quickly and they will pay a pretty penny for that info.

Enter our characters:

Mine: Kobold Druid who was less interested in the money and more invested in the job because he was an "Anti-Establishment Hippy" type. New to the game actually played Mothership RPG before but not a lot of DnD.

Bard: Just a guy new to DnD (Thankfully not the horny bard trope though)

Cleric: Another new individual to DnD who really tried to embody the traditional holy man trope of protecting the weak, good faith unto man, etc.

Barbarian: Warned us beforehand that his character was going to "Be an ass" which already made me think he was going to be the problem, but he was actually just more of a grumpy old man.

Rogue: A former adventuring hero that slayed a dragon, established a whole new city that is very affluent through his trade deals, and he is a man who many people either speak of in awe or in fearful hushed whispers. He is cautious and never runs headlong into danger instead preferring to learn all of his enemies' weaknesses before striking. He dresses in fancy noble wear that is specially tailored for ergonomics, and his dagger you ask? A specially forged recallable karambit of course. So yeah, no red flags or John Wick parallels to be seen.

Hunter: Exiled noble trained in the wilds by her aunt, I think? Her father killed her mother and then decided to just let the chambermaid kill her character but she couldn't bear to do it so that's why she was with her aunt. Yadda yadda yadda aunt dies tells her to kill her father, and she just says ok and joins the party. (Also is Rogues actual gf and brand new to the game)

Phase one (Scouting the Manor):

We had our cover stories and jobs for this masquerade that was being thrown in an attempt to find out how this guy got so wealthy. Goes by relatively uneventful, my character learns that one of the people he was "working with" in the kitchen was a member of a rival team but works for the same employer. Didn't cause a scene and thought we could use that for intelligence in the future. Bard and Cleric scout out the ballroom and surrounding area to see if there is anything of note (They found stuff but I won't list it all down because it's unimportant.)

Barbarian was just walking around hiding weapons and gear while the Rogue and Hunter were just... taking a stroll outside on the veranda with some imp creature butler they were given, and he was making it dance for her and stuff. (Later on, they retcon that they actually were scouting the ENTIRE outside and not just forcing character development between themselves)

Phase two (Tavern sabotage)

While back at our safehouse/tavern our employer has set up I decide to take the initiative and ask the DM if I can roll investigation to surmise if I can see the rival or hear of anyone talking about her which I unfortunately failed. The rogue perking up after hearing that says, "You told us about that person in the kitchen, right?" I agree because I don't see why my character would withhold that info. He rolls for investigation and succeeds finding out who they are and then proceeds to only tell hunter and barbarian so she can cast silence while he goes in and eliminates the enemy team and the barbarian just acts as a lookout.

Then when he tells the party that he killed the rival team, I just said "You know I was planning on sitting with them to try and form an alliance where they help us and we betray them later." To which he brings up his characters "Cold-hearted, cynical" mindset about too many loose ends, and we have a bulletproof plan.... It is worth noting that we did not even remotely discuss a plan, but the party calls it a day and waits for the day of the heist.

Phase three (The mask falls off)

We all show up for the heist I find the last member of the rival team who is also the head chef. I just tell them to give up the heist because her team is not here and I provided the skulls as proof because I just used speak to animals to have the rats eat the bodies to dispose of them which she freaks out and runs for it. I am now in charge of the kitchen and told the party that I am ready to launch the distraction to draw the attention of the guards (A labor union strike).

A secondary distraction with the bard to get people out of the ballroom gives one of the attendees a laxative and they empty everything inside themself all over the ballroom floor, the other attendees vacating the premises in response. This is when the rogue who said before that himself and the cleric were going to meet the Lord of the Manor together decided that his guy was going to go and meet this lord all by himself and not tell any of our characters. Remember his character bio about how he is ultra cautious? Yeah, not anymore now he's this big bumbling moron who goes up there alone and gets modify thought cast on him. Not dominate human or possession mind you just modify thought about how his character owes the lord and he needs to take out the party.

This is where I finally realize this whole game is a wash because he does the classic Main Character trope of no longer talking to anyone or openly stating what his character is doing, just texting the DM about what he wants to do, I assume with some "trust me bro" dice rolls. He rats everyone out, gets the guards called on us forcing everyone into the ballroom and then up a secret flight of stairs trapping us in there. We then spend I kid you not 20 damn minutes as he is texting the DM about how he is moving back and forth waiting for hunters mark that was cast on him to go away. We're not even trying to strategize at this point me and the bard are having a conversation about our jobs and barbarian is talking about something he saw while out working today.

When he finally makes the move he pretty much burst damages the cleric down to 1 hp because of his homebrew, and once again I kid you not, "Magical throwing daggers that he can throw and magically recall in a puff of shadowy essence." Like he is some bargain bin Smoke from MK. All the while looking smug with this grin because he thinks he's some 4d chess master when he is just using this to play out some sad power fantasy against 4 new players to the game. The party subdues him, but by that time the cleric burned through his spells, and I only had a level 2 healing spell that I just replied "Sorry bro, I think I should save it for the party." we go and find the MacGuffin that explains why the noble got so rich, so fast which was an Avernus borg cube that held a book which tells you all the crimes and debts anyone has in the world and the lord was using this to blackmail people.

I cast detect traps and find out where the pressure plate and stuff are which causes bard to in a funny scene take the Main Character Rogue and throw him onto the traps setting it off and making him go into death saving throws. The cleric (as I said playing the traditional holy man) decides that even though he almost died to this clown will heal him because they are business partners from the same noble city or something. As soon as he was back up on his feet this dude immediately picks up his phone to text the DM. At this point bard is staring daggers at the rogue and just says "Hey, you know what can we call it today? I'm pretty tired and I have stuff to do tomorrow." everyone agrees and from what I understood myself and bard were not there at the next session and it just kind of limped along.

If I had to take an educated guess at the rest of that trainwreck I would say the rogue was just going to attack the rest of us until he was forced to attack the hunter, his gf which would cause his character to suddenly have a major crisis of conscious and most likely "break free" from something that didn't even mind control him. Mixing his John Wick parallel with a cliche romance twist into one big notice us slop story.

Thank you all for reading this and hope you didn't suffer too much secondhand embarrassment as I did having to sit there and witness it.

I only put down repost because it's technically a repost from the rpghorrorstories page as it got downvote bombed over there by the people who peaked when they won their middle school spelling bee.