Got robbed of a magic item.
A dumb little rant in the middle of the night. A while ago I was in a curse of strahd campaign with my friends. There was one friend who was the meta gamer of the group. We all kind of made a gentleman's agreement to not try any cheese strats or builds, but they absolutely could not help it. They simply like being strong, and will take any advantage made available. We'd call it them 'being a nugget' for some reason. It's just how they are, and for the most part I don't care too much. However this is the one time that I did.
Now I'm a bit aversive toward arguments, so whenever a magic item popped up I would often just kinda keep my hand out of the pot to avoid any conflict of 'who gets what'. This meant my warlock would usually get hand me down magic items that the other party members would throw her way to free up an attunement slot. That's essentially how the entire campaign went, clear through Strahd's eventual defeat at the hands of out rag tag little group. Now with the big bad gone there was a considerable treasure pile to sift through, one item being a whole ass staff of power. My warlock had just recent snapped her own magic staff in half for character arc reasons, and ho boy would that make a great replacement. This was probably the only time the whole years long campaign that I called dibs on a magic item. My patience had bore fruit after all this time
....My friend told me no.
The sanctitiy of 'dibs' was broken.
His cleric had run off ahead of everyone to appraise all the items first, and since their character saw it first, they got it. With their 1 level dip in warlock (edited note here. They actually had 4 levels in warlock and 11 in cleric.) they could attune to it too. They gave me their +1 rod of the pact master as compensation. Yet another hand me down item. They were called out on them being a nugget. They responded with just this goofy laugh, the kind of nervous laugh someone makes when they cant hide something theyre doing wrong. I did really want to argue, but like I said Im not a big fan of causing an argument with my friend over imaginary magic staffs. I just kind of relented immediately, though a little verbal about my dismay. They had also grabbed up the lion's share of everything to be honest. Several items and over half the gold in the whole of Castle Ravenloft got nabbed up by their cleric as 'they were the first there'. It was the end of the campaign anyway, so any earnings were just kind of a formality. Nobody really was all that annoyed and at the time were more preoccupied in closing the campaign out with some final roleplay.
But now years later talks of a reunion campaign have cropped up, and while talking about it I did bring up the staff, and that it felt like a low blow. They just kind of gave another goofy ass laugh and joked that at least I got the pact master rod. It just kinda rubs me the wrong way. I dont consider this a full on horror story, but it was something I felt the need to rant about to strangers at 1am. I really wanted that staff, dude. Feels bad.
- Wow hey editing this in because I think some of you guys are getting kind of nuclear in the comments and making it out to be more than it is. This was just a little angy vent at 1am about an imaginary stick that make numbers on a paper a little bigger. Despite my aggravation about their munchkinism theyre still my good buddy. Infact this dnd group in general is composed of some of my best friends. I'd never want to play with any other gaggle of dorks that isn't this one, even when one dork in specific gets greedy. If its them or the staff, im picking them. Theyre my friend. Plz dont call my friend a cunt.