So this story is from a year or so ago, so I apologize for not remembering a lot of the details…
A few key points to note before I dive fully into the story:
* 3 members of our party (that I know/knew of) had dealt with varying levels of sexual harassment/assault in their lives.
* the DM for this one-shot knew most of the party members fairly well and knew about the assault/harassment mentioned above and knew we would have a major issue with certain aspects of this story, but didn't care.
* He never came to anyone in the group previous to this game to let us know he had a problem in the first place. Instead, he used this one shot to lash out at us as revenge for a perceived wrong that we were NEVER made aware of.
* I was still very new to D&D myself, still learning everything, and was very new to this gaming group overall and have anxiety when dealing with people I'm unfamiliar with and when I feel I've failed in some way (perceived or legitimate).
As mentioned above, I don't remember a lot of the small details. I don't even remember what race I was playing… What I do remember is that our DM for the evening's new roommate had joined us, wanting to try D&D for the first time ever. We had a team of 6 or so people playing (again I can't remember exactly). What I do remember is that he picked our characters for us and I had been chosen to play the Cleric. I dislike playing Cleric, partially because of previous negative experiences with another party member who refused to let me heal them, but mainly due to this particular one-shot… But I did my best. I honestly don't remember what the other party members were playing… I've blocked most of this night from my memory…
The Mission:
Our party was summoned to a town that was having problems, by the local nobleman. We weren't made aware of what the problems were, just that we were needed to help. When we arrived in the town we discovered the whole town was acting strange – i.e: having orgies in the street or worse (this was a farming town, use your imagination…), etc. This gave several party members a very high creep factor, myself included. We were told by the nobleman's guards that the nobleman himself had been stolen away and that something was controlling the town. So we packed up and headed out to track down the nobleman using whatever mundane clues we'd been given by our DM.
We arrive in the forest and find a group of pixies or imps (I can't remember which), and one of our party members immediately stated that she prepped a spell that would shield against these creatures when it was triggered. Then our party went into stealth-mode and followed after whatever-these-things-were. We reached a clearing with cabin and three figures standing outside. A husband and wife pair of succubi and the nobleman, clearly enthralled by their powers. Yay…
From here things go from bad to worse.
The Massacre:
The DM refuses to let our party member, who prepped the spell in advance, cast said spell because of the time it would take to cast it – now if he had said this to her BEFORE the fight started, none of us would have minded or argued. But he waited until we were in the middle of the fight to tell her she couldn't cast it… Again – despite the fact that she stated long before the fight that she prepped the spell.
He "remembered" after one round that the little imp-pixie creatures had advantage on all attacks, and doubled their damage rolls regardless of what he rolled to land said attacks… + multiple attacks (which honestly, they didn't need at all).
There were 20-30 of these creatures + the two succubi + the nobleman who was also attacking us.
He wouldn't let me, cast any spells that would buff or protect the party, only healing or attacking spells.
He wouldn't attack me until the end. He made me – as the cleric – watch as he slowly killed off members of the party. I couldn't do much because of limited spell slots, limited ability to cast so many spells per round, and proximity issues – this caused me to have a panic attack during the game because I was having to choose who to heal per turn and the people I healed would drop back down again before I could do anything else.
Our newest member – the DM's roommate, who'd never played before – was the last one left standing. I used one last healing spell to give him enough to run away from the fight and survive before I was finally set-upon by enemies. At this point, I had given up and my character didn't even fight back, because I just wanted it to be over.
After everyone was either dead or escaped, the game ended and everyone at the table was nearly silent. Several party members were livid. I was still in the middle of a panic attack because I thought it was my fault that everyone had died. The DM never said one word to us as to why he did what he did. Those of us who could, packed up and left without saying much to the DM at all. Then myself, the brother & sister-in-law, and two of our regular/main party members stayed behind in the front yard to discuss what had just happened.
The group that stayed was mostly angry at what had happened inside. I kept apologizing for letting everyone down as the Cleric until they convinced me it wasn't my fault, but the DM's.
We were never told directly what the Valentine's Day Massacre (as we have since dubbed it) was all about. It wasn't until one of the party members – the DM's best friend – took the DM to dinner a week or so later that he learned the DM had done what he'd done because he wanted to "get back at the party" for whatever wrongs he perceived had been done to him. He never came to any of us to fix the issues either. Nothing was resolved.
I think the worst part of this whole ordeal is that the roommate never rejoined us for another gaming session… I still feel terrible that his first-ever experience with D&D went like that…
This particular person has caused other issues for the group – but as a player… We all refuse to allow him to DM our party ever again, because of this particular incident…
[zombify_post]
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