u/Carlitagt

A D&D Campaign probably is the reason a whole friend group broke up.

Ok so I already wrote here and I indeed saw a lot of responses coming from all of you, which i aprecciated it.

I actually deleted the story, not because of the responses or anything, but because im pretty much a very scaredy person when it comes to share something, because i fear that someone from the party will see it and this would ruin a friendship. But this time, im not scared.

Some people I will mention go wiht the names of
- Koala
- DM
- Ruby

In fact, after telling that story, i got an update. So ill try to be brief (it complicates me, but ill try)

Last year, I joined a D&D campaign run by someone from my friend group. For context, our group had already started becoming unstable because one member, I’ll call him Koala, had a habit of trying to control everything. He acted like the leader in every space, pushed his preferences onto others, and got upset whenever people disagreed with him.

The D&D campaign felt like a fresh start. The DM made a separate server for it, away from the main group drama. At the time, I didn’t know tabletop groups usually work better with fewer players, so when I joined, I didn’t realize there had originally been a limit. Apparently, there was some miscommunication about who could participate, and that already created tension from the beginning. (It was Koala who suggested me to talk to DM to let me join. In the end, one friend who got left out and I joined, exceeding the limit from 5 members to 7.)

I was excited and tried hard to contribute, despite me learning how to do a character sheet on my own, but I was also in a demanding internship for my healthcare career, so sometimes I had to multitask during sessions. The campaign mostly focused on Koala and another player’s storyline, whom we will call Ruby, while I barely had opportunities to participate. Looking back, I understand part of that was because the story was still starting and facing time skips to follow the plot properly, but at the time, I felt excluded.

Eventually, the DM asked me to leave the campaign until I graduated. I accepted it, but I admitted to him that I felt left out during the sessions. That’s when the DM revealed he never really wanted me in the campaign to begin with and felt pressured into allowing me to join. He also admitted he intentionally avoided engaging with my character’s ideas or plot hooks.

At that point, I realized a lot of the things I had noticed (my character constantly being sidelined in sidequests, NPCs either ignoring my character or being mean, or nearly dying immediately) probably weren’t in my head. Still, I understand now that the situation came from mistakes on both sides. I shouldn’t have joined while juggling such an intense internship, and the DM should have been clearer about player limits from the start.

This is the point when I sent the original storyline here (And at the same time, that's when I found out about the member limit, the amount of time some campaigns take, this was all new to me.)

The update goes after this.

After I left, the friend group slowly started falling apart.

I distanced myself from the main Discord server because both Koala and the DM were there, though over time, I reconnected with most people individually. The only person I stopped talking to entirely was Koala.

Later, I learned the DM and Koala had their own conflict unrelated to the campaign. The DM had created an AU for a game series we all liked and asked Koala to help with sprite art. Koala apparently started acting like he co-owned the project and even referred to himself as the DM’s “right hand,” which caused a major argument because none of that had been agreed upon.

Honestly, that behavior matched what I had already seen from him for years. Koala always wanted influence over projects, groups, and creative spaces, and because he was the artist, people often became dependent on him.

By the end of the year the group was basically dead socially. Calls rarely happened anymore, and when they did, it was mostly just Koala, his boyfriend, and one or two others.

Earlier this year, I finally left Koala’s server completely. It took me a long time because I had a lot of memories tied to that place, but once I left, I realized how relieved I felt. Being away from someone who constantly made me feel miserable over fictional characters and group dynamics was genuinely freeing.

Koala tried contacting me afterward by sending me art of a character he knew mattered a lot to me, but I ignored it, and he stopped trying after that.

Recently, I talked to Ruby and asked whether the D&D campaign was still running. Apparently, it had been cancelled only a month or so after I left, mainly because of issues involving Koala. I don’t know all the details, but from what I heard, the DM eventually got exhausted dealing with him and gave up on the campaign entirely.

Ruby also told me that most people in the group eventually stopped talking to Koala altogether because they each developed their own issues with him. According to them, the warning signs had always been there. (Ruby still believes that Koala's boyfriend is still wiht him. We are not sure.)

Now the server Koala owns has apparently lost most of its original energy. Many old members left, new people joined, and the remaining community mostly revolves around agreeing with him on characters from games he enjoys. He formed his paradise and possibly surely replaced us easily.

Looking back, accepting and leaving was probably one of the healthiest decisions I could’ve made.

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If I'm being honest, I don't know if this is actually an RPG horror story, but it has an RPG involved part.

Anyways thanks for reading if you got to this part.

reddit.com
u/Carlitagt — 3 days ago

Very first work with punch needle.

Genueily I've been wanting to do this for a while and I got to learn from someone. I got the hang of it soon and I got excited. I need to finish it before putting it somewhere.

u/Carlitagt — 13 days ago