When I almost decided to not play DND because of bad DMs

What happens when DMS ignore what the player wants...over and over again


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I had heard about DND for many years and I had roleplayed on forums before, so why not try DND? Well…not when you have bad DMS. I will change names for my story for privacy sake.

It all started when my ex wanted me to start playing with their group on their DND. The DM (let’s call him T) was doing a multiverse game, it was mostly roleplay with no stats. T decided on the characters powers or weapons. I created a watchmaker, steampunk style, I talked with the DM about my character before the game and I had drawn some watches my characters could make. The DM approved of my character and we started the game. I was expecting to have some powers related to clocks or jewelry…you know, something related to my character, who was made to be more like a support character. The DM gave me a Persona 3 gun and he railed roaded the fight (we never saw his dice roll and we rolled but somehow everything went fine or his “Hero” NPC would save the day) and was intending on making my character a fighting type by making her train with a boxer or a fighter type video game character. Since the DM didn’t get my character at all and I wouldn’t have fun by this denaturation of my character, I just told my ex I would make another character for the adventure that would fit more the DM story.

So, I did! He wanted a fighter character! I would make a berserker type character! I would at least have fun raging in the combats and roleplay accordingly, just turning my brain off. So I made this panther woman who would fight with her claws, thinking the DM would give me bracelets or powers that fit according to the character. But then…the game was doing fine and he gave me glove in order to use the Legend of Zelda mastersword. I asked him to give me another power, and he just went :

 
You like Legend of Zelda?
Me: yeah?
T: So that’s your power.
Me: But my character is a berserker not…a fighter in a traditional way…what about my claws?
 T: Well, you would lose all your bonuses (remember we just rolled, no stats!) if you remove your gloves.

 We ended the session, T asked me if I would be coming back and I said no.

I played another game with a friend but my ex was pretty negative, they were playing with me and my friend was the DM and his girlfriend was the other player. Because my ex didn’t like the game we left. Recently I told my friend I was wrong and he wasn’t at fault. He accepted the apology and we are still good friends.

It took a few years before I would play another game. My ex really wanted me to play a 5th edition game with me. I knew my ex was really mean with nat 1, like, once, they were DMing someone rolled a 1 in a bar and they slipped and killed themselves by their own weapon because of that slip. So, since I didn’t know the rules, I asked them to not kill me or make an easy game at first so I didn’t feel bad to have my character die with a nat 1 and that would help me learn the rules. So my ex asked some of their friend to play and we started…Curse of Strahd. Yeah, new player who wants to learn the rules and NOT TO EASELY DIE in a curse of Strahd game. I told the other players (Thief and Fighter, i was a wizard) I was new and to show me how to play, they all agreed and while I was waiting for my turn, still while listening, I was reading the player book to help me on how to play my character. So, we were searching the house and the Thief player grabbed something in front of my character, I asked if I could see that, the DM made me rolled and I failed, I accepted my roll. Then, I ask the Thief if he had see anything interesting, he says no and we proceed, the Thief player then went:

Why didn’t you try to see if I was lying?
Me: I can do that?
 Thief: Yeah, you can.
 Me: So can I try now? I didn’t know…
Thief: No, it’s too late.

 My ex said nothing and just agreed and we proceeded. We arrived in a room after defeating some undead,  I was the only one in the party who did real damage, there was a sphere and the party all agreed to not touch it. The Thief did just when we were about to leave the room and we had to fight more undead. I was basically the MVP and the players were not working with me while I was trying to protect them. I asked the players if we could play more as a team…when we tried to leave the house later, my character failed her death save twice just near the entrance and the other players were just waiting for my character to die, I had to ask them 3 times to save me. Let’s say I was not happy. I told my ex I didn’t want to play anymore, they didn’t understand why.

Few more years pass, I started watching Critical Role and I understood a bit more how you could play DND. One of my University Friend, let’s call him M, was doing two DND campaings and was very passionate about it. I watched him host a DND game and it seemed pretty fun. I told him my bad previous games and I had few characters ideas I wanted to play, but, this time I really didn’t want a fight oriented game more an RP focused game. He told me he had others players in mind and that he would start another game in the same universe as his other gamesthat would fit my needs. I made a defence based paladin by putting all my stats into RP. The DM approved of my backstory and some knickknacks (My paladin was scared of the dark so she had a glowing in the dark teddy bear to help her sleep and he made me some gloves so I could do non-lethal damage if/when the party had to fight). First game comes around, I do some RP with the other players character and with some NPC, at the end, we fought some NPC. It was fine. Second game, we avoid fighting a group of thieves that were stealing feom the starter town because I persuaded them not to, but then the leader started to fight us because he had a cursed helmet (before that we avoided an encounter with a scorpion). Third game, we are send to find a lost person, the game  was mostly a fight. At this point I speak to M privately, I told him I didn’t like to fight and each game had a mandatory fight and I had told him before we started that wasn’t what I wanted or was we discussed about. M told me it was fine that he planned more RP. Next game? Random encounter in the desert with barely some RP that took all the game’s time. I speak to M again speaking my concerns (and that I was just bored at this point), he told me the other players preferred that we had a fight each game. I gave it another session which had more RP…but then, we fought a martial master, I was mostly doing diversion so my party member could do damage, and the martial master shamed me at the end while praising other characters, to the point I started crying post game. M told me he wanted to give players lessons in his game and that he was sorry, the other players were really kind and took some time to help me calm down and feel better, but that was it for me, it was too stressfull and boring for me. So I told M I was leaving because I was too stressed out. He accepted, we are still friends.

My current boyfriend is playing with M, it was the game I was observing at first, that game was more RP and fight oriented, there was mystery and relationship based RP with a village. My boyfriend told me that, now, every game has a long fight in it and that each group had to pay for the actions of the other games without being able to do anything about it like Group 1 would be immediately affected in their next game by Group 2 that had their game before theirs.

I honestly didn’t want to play and just watch other DND games. My current boyfriend offerend to do a game where I could have fun  and I decided to give DND a last try.

Luckily, I am now playing in a really fun game. My boyfriend who hosts two groups made a RP game for me. It is really fun and I am learning a lot about the game, I am having fun and I am learning that a failed roll is not death but a way to push another solution and to be creative. I’m glad I can finally play a game that allows me to enjoy DND.


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