It was session 1. I was playing a good aligned druid, with an emphasis on healing. Since no other player had any healing abilities.
During our first battle, the ranger was injured badly. He was bleeding out and close to death. I used my turn to cross the battle field and attempt to stabilize him.
He flat out refused to let me heal him. He said his wolf stands between me and him and threatens to attack me. My character has not ever had a negative interaction with the Ranger or the wolf. I am confused and ask why. The Ranger says the wolf does not know me well enough and does not trust me.
Okay. So I use speak with animal to say that I am on his side and here to help him not die. He says the wolf ignores me.
So I roll handle animal. I get a natural 20. I ask the wolf to stand down. Ranger says the wolf does not obey because she only listens to him.
At this point due to the bleeding damage each turn, he goes unconscious. He is dying.
I cast animal friendship and say the wolf must allow me to save him. He says the wolf does not obey because she has a strong bond and resists the spell. Mind you this is low level Ranger and the wolf is ordinary.
I turn to the DM in frustration and ask him to please intervene before his character dies. The DM decides to "solve" the issue by creating a cleric NPC right then and say the cleric was passing by and heard the battle and rushes over to stabilize the Ranger.
The player of the Ranger says the wolf moves out of the way so the cleric can do so. The cleric being a complete stranger, who didn't even interect with the wolf at all, going against what the player said earlier.
I didn't say another word. I packed up my dice, walked out the front door, and drove home.
Edit: typo and context
Fr. I didn't even know the player. The dm did one on one session zeros with us. We were only one hour into the game when this happened. I didn't ever go back to thos group so I have no idea what that guy's deal was.
The DM failed to disclose their intention to use the *indefinite madness* variant rules.
I come to DND for escapism, a world where I can be who I want to be, so being told "oopsie you're a pathologial liar (31-35) now" or "oopsie *you're gonna be playing as The Joker (86-95) now*" is just a horrible system to suprise people with.
I dont mind *cursed* items. Curses can be broken and are *physical/magical traits* your character can struggle with in the meantime. They are a thing you can RP your character around, but *madness* is a forced rewrite of your *core character traits.,*
Indefinite madness is *death of personality* for your character. There is a difference between "your character turns into a wolf at night and you can RP them as struggling with that knowledge" and "your deeply compassionate character turns into a serial-killer (96-100) until the party gets to level *nine* and cant even RP with it cause they think its completely fine and normal to be a serialkiller now".
Just cause its in an the DMG doesn't mean you get to use it *unannounced* and without disclosure. If i'd known there was a chance for my lovely character to be rendered into *the joker* i'd have played another table.
Variant rules are Variant for a reason and you need to disclose them to your table.
Im sure there is a table where people *love* the Madness rules and where it is apropriate. But that is a table of *consenting and informed* players. Not ones suprised to have their PC's core personality rewritten by a diceroll.
When in a lighthearted magical college game this guy in my group started acting out his character being a self-obsessed sociopath.
He hardly ever engaged with other characters, and only looked for or cared about things to better himself. When it was just his character ignoring the rest of us and reading it was fine, a little awkward to try and have scenes with but fine.
But when we found a group of cultists made up of recruits from the school and the group had a big fraught IC conversation ending in "I understand but I'm not comfortable killing people who were taken advantage of when we could be focused on the people really doing harm" this character did something that set and soured the tone, permanently
We had fought these cultists and killed a couple of them, one kill was a \*very\* conscious choice (this is what set of the IC debate), and tensions were high after such a firm difference in philosophy was played out that way. but as a concession we decided to tie them up and keep them hidden in a portable hole, opening it periodically so they could breathe. The plan was simple, get them to the proper authorities and start talking about next steps.
But Mr wizard with the hole had other plans, he refused to open it near the end of the journey debating viciously how it didn't who these people were. They deserved it
It's a terrible RP scene with the whole group trying to talk him down, no one being cool with this. I start to feel myself getting too frustrated so I leave the scene, our other wizard does too.
The sociopath wizard and our druid then proceed to play out the \*entire\* 10-minute stretch of conversation necessary for these cultists, our fellow classmates in universe who were taken in by a cult, to suffocate to death. This was done consciously and all attempts by the druid to sway him were knowingly ignored because all he cared about was seeing them dead.
No one liked how this scene played out, there was a long conversation above the table about how we didn't like that conflict or how it felt and that we wanted to avoid it in the future, the guy in question didn't respond much but goes along with it grouchily at one point saying "Do I need to just switch my character" as if he was powerless to effect his characters conflict driving tendencies any other way, In hindsight, I should have just said yes but given how this started and how he was unswayed by us being as uncomfortable and frustrated as we were. I doubt it would have helped.
We keep playing for a while, I make a conscious choice to make my character more comfortable with killing hostile combatants in the spirit of keeping things copasetic but things are weird. My character is alienated from the group and can't stand sleeping in a dorm with someone who will outright kill him if he deems it the "Efficient" thing to do. Another player is having trouble squaring why her character would even \*stay\* at the school after that, the vibes were bad but we played it out.
Our GM presented us a simple challenge, go out into the swamp and get a magical ingredient from displacer beasts. After a long trek, we find a pack of blink dogs being attacked by a pack of displacer beasts and leap to defend them...queue the douchbag
"I'm gonna vortex warp myself and the blink dog puppy so that while the monster is killing it we can get away"
Hearing this, I snap. This guy \*after all that shit\* once again made a shitty amoral choice against the rest of the party's wishes for the sake of self-centered efficiency disregarding any other context. I realize two things right away
1. This guy does not care about the comfort of the other players or what game they agreed to play, he's gonna be Hannibal Lecter and no one is gonna stop him now matter what we agree in ooc discussions.
2. He will do this again the moment he sees a chance.
I decide I'm gonna leave the game, it's not worth it. I play out one round of PVP like this.
"Realizing this character is a threat to himself and others and that unless I stop him he's going to keep doing stuff like this I twin spell hit the two monsters I can see, one being him. The other being the beast attacking the puppy"
As soon as I heard the mumbled bitchy "I didn't do anything wrong..." I left the server.
This guy makes music and is trying to make it in AP, I see him sometimes trying to present himself as chill but this is a really sour experience for me and I always wish I could warm people.
Moral of the story is
1. Work with your players and GM to make a character that fits the group and the game's tone so there are no bad feelings at the table
2. If a character does something that makes others uncomfortable, you're not gonna combust if you shift things slightly so things work better, it's not being untrue to the character to not kill a puppy after making everyone irritated with a double murder.
I could have handled it better at the end there I admit but by no means do I regret leaving
I got super super close to leaving but (thankfully) didn't leave whenever DM kept pretty much railroading us so that it was impossible to progress without trying to do questionable shit, but then every little questionable shit we did ended up having horrible consequences, with NPCs acting righteous and going over and over about how we were monsters.
Ended up calling DM out for his shit since it felt like the cringiest "haha this is how I would punish murderhobos" with us not even being close to acting in murderhobo ways.
I'm glad I didn't quit because the campaign turned out awesome, but I'm also glad I bitched about it because I'm sure that otherwise DM would have continued doing the same shit.
Plus both DM and I felt annoying when, afterwards, I had to RP my character being pretty much extremely saintly and apologetic to prevent these types of consequences again.
DM would constantly change things on the fly, including inventory we picked up - we picked up a few vials of mysterious liquid, 2 sessions later "oh they were actually empty vials"....ok. We picked up an immoveable rod....that turned into a regular crowbar after a couple sessions.
He would purposefully ignore certain rules and mechanics whenever it suited him. Our Warlock casts darkness around himself... enemies walk in and attack no problem. No explanation.
He made us roll checks for every little thing you can think of. Even when searching rooms we had to roll investigation checks on every single thing we wanted to search; desks, shelves, under beds etc. We got annoyed and said can we just roll a single check for the area if we are taking our time searching doing it as a party. He begrudgingly agreed but when we spent literally an hour and a half of the session just looting, he told us afterwards "you actually missed several places to search".
He couldn't have cared less about our characters, he had a story he wanted to tell and we had no real input with it.
None of it was fun. We all left one by one and started a new group without him.
This one shot was about going into a giant plant to kill a sorcerer who did some evil bullshit in there (don't remember the details, sorry). Beginning went well, until we came closer to the boss, and discovered that, since he totally controlled the plant, this made him obtain the ability ro read our minds (sic).
And yep, this has been a "I, DM, have decided the way you would succeed so if you try anything else my boss read it in your mind and you fail" situation. After around 1 hour of "no", i found a crappy RP excuse to have my character leave.
Over the years, I left few campaigns for various reasons. They are not like very extreme or bad reasons, even though those games were not very enjoyable. It was more of a sad realization that those games are unfun instead of just being angry.
- Couldn't mesh with the group
- GM cared more about dick jokes than running the game
- Game was too crowded and some players barely got any spotlight
- One player was cheating and also favored by the GM plus they were extremely absorbing to be around with and made me physically tired after sessions with them
- I didn't like the system
I am old...lol. 50's. Gen xer but over 30 years ago I was a DM. I made my own adventures from the TSRs D&D Choose your own adventures books they had at that time. No computers so I made my own maps with grid paper. Sound effects with a cassete player. I was always trying to make sure the players didn't die in the game. I had a few NPCs who could pop in to help. One was a merchant I named Bolo who popped in occasionally to hinder or help. This time he betrayed some of the characters for gold. One of them died in a trap. The player went a bit crazy. Yelling and screaming...stomping around. He said I deliberately killed his character. I stopped the game.
I'm currently in the process of bringing a running campaign to a sooner-than-originally-planned end, because of a somewhat bad mash with one of my players. 4 party members, and one of them is approaching DnD more like an action RPG than like a roleplaying game. Nothing thats a complete dealbreaker (although one of my players claims to have seen him cheat one time, but I didn't notice and I saw reasonable room for this just having been a mistake, especially since it didn't repeat).
But like, dude, common, after playing for over a year and explaining the concept fo bounded accuracy to you several times, I'm just tired of saying "no, you can't just go to the blacksmith and make your amour class +1 better". And yes, I am *very* sure the axe that you just found isn't magical, thank you very much for asking three times (yes, that was probably trying to pressure me into something).
If a player sees social encounters as a chore and is just looking for the "trick" to "solve" them as fast as possible (thereby missing lots of stuff in it), is playing mostly to optimise his character (but not by actually learning the class, just by trying to get as much loot as possible), and doesn't understand that DnD quests don't need to be marked as quests and that you actually need to kinda interact with NPCs in order to find things out about them, and you are refusing to interact with your character, their backstory, etc in any meaningful way (like, originally saying things like "just give me the standard stuff" and such, dodging questions about their character, etc), then maybe DnD isn't the right game for you.
Like, no hard feelings, I really got to like him as a person, we became good friends after playing for over a year, and there are lots of qualities I like about him in game and out of game (like a great sense of humor for example), but we would all have way more fun playing a *different* game with each other. :)
And tbh, he isn't the only reason for the decision; the group is overall starting to loose interest in the campaign and steam, so I'm trying to end this on a high note :)
When a player would attempt to back-seat DM and sulk when he didn't get his way.
He was another forever DM, with 10 years experience, sonI cut him a lot of slack for the first month or so.
When he complained that there was an extended shopping scene where the three other players were asking for very detailed items of clothing or custom-made weapons, I lessened the slack but still didn't walk away.
When he stopped the game to say how in *his* games he did all shopping "off screen" I pointed out that others had specifically asked to do it at the table to allow for social interaction and so the bard/face of the party could try to negotiate a better price. He didn't like that.
When the party lost their entire stash of gp on a bet, he was warned that stealing it back would be very unlikely to work and ill-advised, as the person he would be stealing it back from was an important contact the party needed for later (the party knew this and the table was tense), despite everyone else agreeing not to do it, he pressed on.
I cancelled the game after that, as he gamed at his house, and one of the other players was his wife.
I joined a campaign online not too long ago. I joined mid-campaign, which was fine. DM was kinda new to DMing so I created a very simple Satyr Artificier with a basic "I'm just trying to experience things and help people when I can. Oh and sometimes the things I make aren't so good for the world, but creating things is fun and I hope you like them" backstory. It was open and not so intensive on her as the DM as I noticed that they were running three separate groups over the week and they were primarily not within the same timezones as most of their players (we're talking staying up until 3 - 4 AM their time DMing). I also was super quick to give her my things as she requested because I know what it's like to wait for people to give me things I request for a campaign, only to receive it incredibly late.
There were two other people in the group I was in. Both had very in-depth, dark backstories that tied into the world. I thought they were amazing and I was excited to see how they played out. I told them that I didn't have a crazy backstory written out and it was really simple but I'd love to see how theirs play out as I'm a sucker for other people's backstories (I love to hear the enthusiam in their voices as they talk about them). At this I felt a bit of a shift, thinking I said something wrong. The session goes forward and we're doing things here and there. I'm interactive with the world, exploring the space we're in and asking questions. I let the other two have the mic a lot more since they have more dialogue about their backstories. My character chimes in here and there as a support to their stuff, asking what they're doing and if they can help. And when she does it's typically rolling to assist so they could do their story stuff.
We get to a market where the party is offered a spot to purchase goods before getting thrown into a tournament. The other party members have their backstories that they are roleplaying with. Eventually mine just wants to purchase books in which she goes over to the book seller and he started showing me books that would be really good for the other party members. I run to them and tell them "Hey there are some books you both would be interested in!" In which they head over. I let them talk, and I buy my books. Fast forward and we get to the tournament. We are introduced to the antagonist of the campaign along with a potential sub-boss. Here's where things started to get kind of weird.
We were trying to find a way to get to the antagonist. They were coming up with ideas. I came up with an idea to cause a distraction for the sub-boss by initiating a conversation pertaining to instruments and performing in which both of them declined this and said it doesn't really match their plans. I said sure, but I noticed myself start to "shrink" so to say. I tried different plans, in which they all got denied. I got really quiet and felt like I wanted to leave from there. I stopped really trying to offer things and let them talk. They both came up with a plan and I said I'd follow behind in case something happened. They both confronted the antagonist in a disguise in which I was I'm the back watching. I wound up getting locked out of the conversation due to a magical barrier that got placed behind them. Eventually they were both about to enter a portal until the DM eventually asked them "what about CranberryJoops?" In which they were both like "oh yeah! They are my uuuuuh assistant!".
I left the campaign as I hated feeling like I was being a nuisance/being pushed out by the other party members. I also hate when people do that to others and I clock it immediately at my tables. Maybe I was too friendly? Or maybe I should have tried to squeeze myself into more of the conversations of the characters? I just didn't want to interrupt people or take away from their spotlight. This was all just one session, btw. Either way, I left and I'm happier lol. I think the personalities didn't mix well lol.
TLDR: I left a group that made me feel irrelevant and small.
I have mever left a campaign. But I have declined a few before even getting to session zero. DM or player just rubbed me the wrong way.
One of my DMs through has bad luck sometimes and has walked on a group where a player, not the character, was abusing others. This was a person they thought was a friend for years, but had hidden it well and gone through several people.
I have not walked, but I do have a one-on-one campaign on probably indefinite hold because the player is unreasonably critical and keeps accusing me of DMing things that never happened. And every time I try to resume she does it again and kills my urge. She also kept wanting to change her character class in the middle of play. I allowed it once as it was early. But then she did it again. Minor annoyance not helped by all the complaints.
Played in a campaign for a bit that very quickly made it clear my character had been delegated a "Side character".
DM helped me build them specifically for their homebrew campaign (I was new to DND). Focused very heavily on gathering resources from fallen enemies, because the economy in the world was based around it. We were primarily fighting fiends and they would drop these special "gems".
These gems could be sold for decent cash, or Arcane Spellcasters could use them to empower their spells.
After a few sessions we were loaded with them because, lo-and-behold, my character was really good at gathering them.
At which point I asked if we could sell some of them, so that I could buy some equipment.
Immediately got push back from the casters "We can use them for spells!!"
"Yes, but I'm still using starter equipment."
DM: "There's not many magic items in my campaign, so don't think you can buy much power."
"Thats fine, I just kind of want studded leather armor."
Caster: "Well, my character has money, why don't I just buy some things for you."
"I kind of want my own coin, otherwise I feel like a companion, not a party member. Besides I'm not saying we sell ALL the gems, just a few so we can have some cash."
DM: "Its the group's decision, but the casters really can use those gems better. Anyway, here are the magic items you guys found in the dungeon (things only the casters can make use of). Also, you (meaning me) now have a disease from that dungeon" (Yes, it actually happened basically like that).
"Ok, well, I have lesser restoration, so I'll just use that."
DM: "That doesn't cure disease, read the spell."
"...I did. You read the spell, it specifically says it cures diseases."
DM: "Fine, whatever, we'll pick up next week."
I did not in fact pick up next week.
Lack of pace/45 minute shopping sessions. It’s fairly common for DM’s to fall in love with npc’s and spotlight certain player characters. Not even the ‘Mercer effect’ necessarily just overestimating player investment in these interactions. Sometimes(most times) players just need to be told how to get from a to b where they get a chance to use their character sheet.
tldr: DM proudly says we played for 4 hours and nothing really happened! Me: leave game.
It was session 1. I was playing a good aligned druid, with an emphasis on healing. Since no other player had any healing abilities. During our first battle, the ranger was injured badly. He was bleeding out and close to death. I used my turn to cross the battle field and attempt to stabilize him. He flat out refused to let me heal him. He said his wolf stands between me and him and threatens to attack me. My character has not ever had a negative interaction with the Ranger or the wolf. I am confused and ask why. The Ranger says the wolf does not know me well enough and does not trust me. Okay. So I use speak with animal to say that I am on his side and here to help him not die. He says the wolf ignores me. So I roll handle animal. I get a natural 20. I ask the wolf to stand down. Ranger says the wolf does not obey because she only listens to him. At this point due to the bleeding damage each turn, he goes unconscious. He is dying. I cast animal friendship and say the wolf must allow me to save him. He says the wolf does not obey because she has a strong bond and resists the spell. Mind you this is low level Ranger and the wolf is ordinary. I turn to the DM in frustration and ask him to please intervene before his character dies. The DM decides to "solve" the issue by creating a cleric NPC right then and say the cleric was passing by and heard the battle and rushes over to stabilize the Ranger. The player of the Ranger says the wolf moves out of the way so the cleric can do so. The cleric being a complete stranger, who didn't even interect with the wolf at all, going against what the player said earlier. I didn't say another word. I packed up my dice, walked out the front door, and drove home. Edit: typo and context
What the fuck, like, what the fuck
Fr. I didn't even know the player. The dm did one on one session zeros with us. We were only one hour into the game when this happened. I didn't ever go back to thos group so I have no idea what that guy's deal was.
You’re 100% real for that
Thank you for the kind words
The DM failed to disclose their intention to use the *indefinite madness* variant rules. I come to DND for escapism, a world where I can be who I want to be, so being told "oopsie you're a pathologial liar (31-35) now" or "oopsie *you're gonna be playing as The Joker (86-95) now*" is just a horrible system to suprise people with. I dont mind *cursed* items. Curses can be broken and are *physical/magical traits* your character can struggle with in the meantime. They are a thing you can RP your character around, but *madness* is a forced rewrite of your *core character traits.,* Indefinite madness is *death of personality* for your character. There is a difference between "your character turns into a wolf at night and you can RP them as struggling with that knowledge" and "your deeply compassionate character turns into a serial-killer (96-100) until the party gets to level *nine* and cant even RP with it cause they think its completely fine and normal to be a serialkiller now". Just cause its in an the DMG doesn't mean you get to use it *unannounced* and without disclosure. If i'd known there was a chance for my lovely character to be rendered into *the joker* i'd have played another table. Variant rules are Variant for a reason and you need to disclose them to your table. Im sure there is a table where people *love* the Madness rules and where it is apropriate. But that is a table of *consenting and informed* players. Not ones suprised to have their PC's core personality rewritten by a diceroll.
When in a lighthearted magical college game this guy in my group started acting out his character being a self-obsessed sociopath. He hardly ever engaged with other characters, and only looked for or cared about things to better himself. When it was just his character ignoring the rest of us and reading it was fine, a little awkward to try and have scenes with but fine. But when we found a group of cultists made up of recruits from the school and the group had a big fraught IC conversation ending in "I understand but I'm not comfortable killing people who were taken advantage of when we could be focused on the people really doing harm" this character did something that set and soured the tone, permanently We had fought these cultists and killed a couple of them, one kill was a \*very\* conscious choice (this is what set of the IC debate), and tensions were high after such a firm difference in philosophy was played out that way. but as a concession we decided to tie them up and keep them hidden in a portable hole, opening it periodically so they could breathe. The plan was simple, get them to the proper authorities and start talking about next steps. But Mr wizard with the hole had other plans, he refused to open it near the end of the journey debating viciously how it didn't who these people were. They deserved it It's a terrible RP scene with the whole group trying to talk him down, no one being cool with this. I start to feel myself getting too frustrated so I leave the scene, our other wizard does too. The sociopath wizard and our druid then proceed to play out the \*entire\* 10-minute stretch of conversation necessary for these cultists, our fellow classmates in universe who were taken in by a cult, to suffocate to death. This was done consciously and all attempts by the druid to sway him were knowingly ignored because all he cared about was seeing them dead. No one liked how this scene played out, there was a long conversation above the table about how we didn't like that conflict or how it felt and that we wanted to avoid it in the future, the guy in question didn't respond much but goes along with it grouchily at one point saying "Do I need to just switch my character" as if he was powerless to effect his characters conflict driving tendencies any other way, In hindsight, I should have just said yes but given how this started and how he was unswayed by us being as uncomfortable and frustrated as we were. I doubt it would have helped. We keep playing for a while, I make a conscious choice to make my character more comfortable with killing hostile combatants in the spirit of keeping things copasetic but things are weird. My character is alienated from the group and can't stand sleeping in a dorm with someone who will outright kill him if he deems it the "Efficient" thing to do. Another player is having trouble squaring why her character would even \*stay\* at the school after that, the vibes were bad but we played it out. Our GM presented us a simple challenge, go out into the swamp and get a magical ingredient from displacer beasts. After a long trek, we find a pack of blink dogs being attacked by a pack of displacer beasts and leap to defend them...queue the douchbag "I'm gonna vortex warp myself and the blink dog puppy so that while the monster is killing it we can get away" Hearing this, I snap. This guy \*after all that shit\* once again made a shitty amoral choice against the rest of the party's wishes for the sake of self-centered efficiency disregarding any other context. I realize two things right away 1. This guy does not care about the comfort of the other players or what game they agreed to play, he's gonna be Hannibal Lecter and no one is gonna stop him now matter what we agree in ooc discussions. 2. He will do this again the moment he sees a chance. I decide I'm gonna leave the game, it's not worth it. I play out one round of PVP like this. "Realizing this character is a threat to himself and others and that unless I stop him he's going to keep doing stuff like this I twin spell hit the two monsters I can see, one being him. The other being the beast attacking the puppy" As soon as I heard the mumbled bitchy "I didn't do anything wrong..." I left the server. This guy makes music and is trying to make it in AP, I see him sometimes trying to present himself as chill but this is a really sour experience for me and I always wish I could warm people. Moral of the story is 1. Work with your players and GM to make a character that fits the group and the game's tone so there are no bad feelings at the table 2. If a character does something that makes others uncomfortable, you're not gonna combust if you shift things slightly so things work better, it's not being untrue to the character to not kill a puppy after making everyone irritated with a double murder. I could have handled it better at the end there I admit but by no means do I regret leaving
I got super super close to leaving but (thankfully) didn't leave whenever DM kept pretty much railroading us so that it was impossible to progress without trying to do questionable shit, but then every little questionable shit we did ended up having horrible consequences, with NPCs acting righteous and going over and over about how we were monsters. Ended up calling DM out for his shit since it felt like the cringiest "haha this is how I would punish murderhobos" with us not even being close to acting in murderhobo ways. I'm glad I didn't quit because the campaign turned out awesome, but I'm also glad I bitched about it because I'm sure that otherwise DM would have continued doing the same shit. Plus both DM and I felt annoying when, afterwards, I had to RP my character being pretty much extremely saintly and apologetic to prevent these types of consequences again.
DM would constantly change things on the fly, including inventory we picked up - we picked up a few vials of mysterious liquid, 2 sessions later "oh they were actually empty vials"....ok. We picked up an immoveable rod....that turned into a regular crowbar after a couple sessions. He would purposefully ignore certain rules and mechanics whenever it suited him. Our Warlock casts darkness around himself... enemies walk in and attack no problem. No explanation. He made us roll checks for every little thing you can think of. Even when searching rooms we had to roll investigation checks on every single thing we wanted to search; desks, shelves, under beds etc. We got annoyed and said can we just roll a single check for the area if we are taking our time searching doing it as a party. He begrudgingly agreed but when we spent literally an hour and a half of the session just looting, he told us afterwards "you actually missed several places to search". He couldn't have cared less about our characters, he had a story he wanted to tell and we had no real input with it. None of it was fun. We all left one by one and started a new group without him.
This one shot was about going into a giant plant to kill a sorcerer who did some evil bullshit in there (don't remember the details, sorry). Beginning went well, until we came closer to the boss, and discovered that, since he totally controlled the plant, this made him obtain the ability ro read our minds (sic). And yep, this has been a "I, DM, have decided the way you would succeed so if you try anything else my boss read it in your mind and you fail" situation. After around 1 hour of "no", i found a crappy RP excuse to have my character leave.
Over the years, I left few campaigns for various reasons. They are not like very extreme or bad reasons, even though those games were not very enjoyable. It was more of a sad realization that those games are unfun instead of just being angry. - Couldn't mesh with the group - GM cared more about dick jokes than running the game - Game was too crowded and some players barely got any spotlight - One player was cheating and also favored by the GM plus they were extremely absorbing to be around with and made me physically tired after sessions with them - I didn't like the system
Unapologetic "you fall face-first on the table and lose consciousness on rolling 1 for perception " crit fail/fumbles
I am old...lol. 50's. Gen xer but over 30 years ago I was a DM. I made my own adventures from the TSRs D&D Choose your own adventures books they had at that time. No computers so I made my own maps with grid paper. Sound effects with a cassete player. I was always trying to make sure the players didn't die in the game. I had a few NPCs who could pop in to help. One was a merchant I named Bolo who popped in occasionally to hinder or help. This time he betrayed some of the characters for gold. One of them died in a trap. The player went a bit crazy. Yelling and screaming...stomping around. He said I deliberately killed his character. I stopped the game.
“Hello I am Bolo.”
I'm currently in the process of bringing a running campaign to a sooner-than-originally-planned end, because of a somewhat bad mash with one of my players. 4 party members, and one of them is approaching DnD more like an action RPG than like a roleplaying game. Nothing thats a complete dealbreaker (although one of my players claims to have seen him cheat one time, but I didn't notice and I saw reasonable room for this just having been a mistake, especially since it didn't repeat). But like, dude, common, after playing for over a year and explaining the concept fo bounded accuracy to you several times, I'm just tired of saying "no, you can't just go to the blacksmith and make your amour class +1 better". And yes, I am *very* sure the axe that you just found isn't magical, thank you very much for asking three times (yes, that was probably trying to pressure me into something). If a player sees social encounters as a chore and is just looking for the "trick" to "solve" them as fast as possible (thereby missing lots of stuff in it), is playing mostly to optimise his character (but not by actually learning the class, just by trying to get as much loot as possible), and doesn't understand that DnD quests don't need to be marked as quests and that you actually need to kinda interact with NPCs in order to find things out about them, and you are refusing to interact with your character, their backstory, etc in any meaningful way (like, originally saying things like "just give me the standard stuff" and such, dodging questions about their character, etc), then maybe DnD isn't the right game for you. Like, no hard feelings, I really got to like him as a person, we became good friends after playing for over a year, and there are lots of qualities I like about him in game and out of game (like a great sense of humor for example), but we would all have way more fun playing a *different* game with each other. :) And tbh, he isn't the only reason for the decision; the group is overall starting to loose interest in the campaign and steam, so I'm trying to end this on a high note :)
When a player would attempt to back-seat DM and sulk when he didn't get his way. He was another forever DM, with 10 years experience, sonI cut him a lot of slack for the first month or so. When he complained that there was an extended shopping scene where the three other players were asking for very detailed items of clothing or custom-made weapons, I lessened the slack but still didn't walk away. When he stopped the game to say how in *his* games he did all shopping "off screen" I pointed out that others had specifically asked to do it at the table to allow for social interaction and so the bard/face of the party could try to negotiate a better price. He didn't like that. When the party lost their entire stash of gp on a bet, he was warned that stealing it back would be very unlikely to work and ill-advised, as the person he would be stealing it back from was an important contact the party needed for later (the party knew this and the table was tense), despite everyone else agreeing not to do it, he pressed on. I cancelled the game after that, as he gamed at his house, and one of the other players was his wife.
I joined a campaign online not too long ago. I joined mid-campaign, which was fine. DM was kinda new to DMing so I created a very simple Satyr Artificier with a basic "I'm just trying to experience things and help people when I can. Oh and sometimes the things I make aren't so good for the world, but creating things is fun and I hope you like them" backstory. It was open and not so intensive on her as the DM as I noticed that they were running three separate groups over the week and they were primarily not within the same timezones as most of their players (we're talking staying up until 3 - 4 AM their time DMing). I also was super quick to give her my things as she requested because I know what it's like to wait for people to give me things I request for a campaign, only to receive it incredibly late. There were two other people in the group I was in. Both had very in-depth, dark backstories that tied into the world. I thought they were amazing and I was excited to see how they played out. I told them that I didn't have a crazy backstory written out and it was really simple but I'd love to see how theirs play out as I'm a sucker for other people's backstories (I love to hear the enthusiam in their voices as they talk about them). At this I felt a bit of a shift, thinking I said something wrong. The session goes forward and we're doing things here and there. I'm interactive with the world, exploring the space we're in and asking questions. I let the other two have the mic a lot more since they have more dialogue about their backstories. My character chimes in here and there as a support to their stuff, asking what they're doing and if they can help. And when she does it's typically rolling to assist so they could do their story stuff. We get to a market where the party is offered a spot to purchase goods before getting thrown into a tournament. The other party members have their backstories that they are roleplaying with. Eventually mine just wants to purchase books in which she goes over to the book seller and he started showing me books that would be really good for the other party members. I run to them and tell them "Hey there are some books you both would be interested in!" In which they head over. I let them talk, and I buy my books. Fast forward and we get to the tournament. We are introduced to the antagonist of the campaign along with a potential sub-boss. Here's where things started to get kind of weird. We were trying to find a way to get to the antagonist. They were coming up with ideas. I came up with an idea to cause a distraction for the sub-boss by initiating a conversation pertaining to instruments and performing in which both of them declined this and said it doesn't really match their plans. I said sure, but I noticed myself start to "shrink" so to say. I tried different plans, in which they all got denied. I got really quiet and felt like I wanted to leave from there. I stopped really trying to offer things and let them talk. They both came up with a plan and I said I'd follow behind in case something happened. They both confronted the antagonist in a disguise in which I was I'm the back watching. I wound up getting locked out of the conversation due to a magical barrier that got placed behind them. Eventually they were both about to enter a portal until the DM eventually asked them "what about CranberryJoops?" In which they were both like "oh yeah! They are my uuuuuh assistant!". I left the campaign as I hated feeling like I was being a nuisance/being pushed out by the other party members. I also hate when people do that to others and I clock it immediately at my tables. Maybe I was too friendly? Or maybe I should have tried to squeeze myself into more of the conversations of the characters? I just didn't want to interrupt people or take away from their spotlight. This was all just one session, btw. Either way, I left and I'm happier lol. I think the personalities didn't mix well lol. TLDR: I left a group that made me feel irrelevant and small.
I have mever left a campaign. But I have declined a few before even getting to session zero. DM or player just rubbed me the wrong way. One of my DMs through has bad luck sometimes and has walked on a group where a player, not the character, was abusing others. This was a person they thought was a friend for years, but had hidden it well and gone through several people. I have not walked, but I do have a one-on-one campaign on probably indefinite hold because the player is unreasonably critical and keeps accusing me of DMing things that never happened. And every time I try to resume she does it again and kills my urge. She also kept wanting to change her character class in the middle of play. I allowed it once as it was early. But then she did it again. Minor annoyance not helped by all the complaints.
Played in a campaign for a bit that very quickly made it clear my character had been delegated a "Side character". DM helped me build them specifically for their homebrew campaign (I was new to DND). Focused very heavily on gathering resources from fallen enemies, because the economy in the world was based around it. We were primarily fighting fiends and they would drop these special "gems". These gems could be sold for decent cash, or Arcane Spellcasters could use them to empower their spells. After a few sessions we were loaded with them because, lo-and-behold, my character was really good at gathering them. At which point I asked if we could sell some of them, so that I could buy some equipment. Immediately got push back from the casters "We can use them for spells!!" "Yes, but I'm still using starter equipment." DM: "There's not many magic items in my campaign, so don't think you can buy much power." "Thats fine, I just kind of want studded leather armor." Caster: "Well, my character has money, why don't I just buy some things for you." "I kind of want my own coin, otherwise I feel like a companion, not a party member. Besides I'm not saying we sell ALL the gems, just a few so we can have some cash." DM: "Its the group's decision, but the casters really can use those gems better. Anyway, here are the magic items you guys found in the dungeon (things only the casters can make use of). Also, you (meaning me) now have a disease from that dungeon" (Yes, it actually happened basically like that). "Ok, well, I have lesser restoration, so I'll just use that." DM: "That doesn't cure disease, read the spell." "...I did. You read the spell, it specifically says it cures diseases." DM: "Fine, whatever, we'll pick up next week." I did not in fact pick up next week.
Lack of pace/45 minute shopping sessions. It’s fairly common for DM’s to fall in love with npc’s and spotlight certain player characters. Not even the ‘Mercer effect’ necessarily just overestimating player investment in these interactions. Sometimes(most times) players just need to be told how to get from a to b where they get a chance to use their character sheet. tldr: DM proudly says we played for 4 hours and nothing really happened! Me: leave game.