DM Creates Massive World! But I mock his in-game persona and then problem player SAs a goblin
Warning: Misogyny, Sexual Assault
I have a DND story that I’ve finally decided to share about how we had a great DM, but my friends and I ended up becoming problem players during the first session. We have been playing DND for the past ten years ever since middle school. We started off on 3.5E Pathfinder at first, but switched to 5th Edition about six or so years ago (which caused its own problems for us, but that’s a whole different story). At first, we had a guy who ran campaigns for us at first who used 3.5E, but his campaigns were often way too unstructured and usually led nowhere, with the party just cracking jokes and messing around the whole time. Our new forever DM (I’ll call him DM from now on) was really into anime, fantasy, and video games, so he decided to take it upon himself to become our new DM when we switched to 5E since he had a lot of inspiration and is an exceptional writer.
DM put A LOT of effort into creating a massive world with in-depth lore, stories, and characters to be the setting for his campaign. I’ve had a sneak peek at his lore documents before, and there were THOUSANDS, and I mean THOUSANDS of pages. He had multiple groups of players who were all playing different questlines that would eventually converge in one single quest for the end of this arc. His campaigns are always great, and we always have fun, but unfortunately, our party is composed of people who are not exactly the most…serious individuals (such as my friend who created the dimension of "Cum-Low" that was filled with exactly what you think). This led to many situations in our campaign.
The first actually has to do with me. When DM’s campaign first started around six years ago, we began playing on Roll 20, and I started playing a high elf life domain cleric named Helaena who seemed dainty, shy, super nice, and supposedly was lawful good. However, I had cooked up a twist with the DM where my character was actually a servant of the God of Death (his world’s BBEG that we are STILL building up to) and she was secretly lawful evil and quite nasty as a person. Sometimes while I played as Helaena, I would intentionally drop her mask and she would say really mean or unhinged things, hinting that she was hiding something (this will be important later). She was planning on betraying the party once we reached the end of our current segment, but we haven’t gotten there yet.
The first problematic situation was with an NPC named Sir Gideon, who was basically the quest-giver and guide for the DM's campaign, but not really a DMNPC since he didn’t accompany the party. The DM actually copied him from Sir Gideon Ofnir from Elden Ring and even used the SAME picture from the game, but somehow he had no idea that Sir Gideon was from Elden Ring since he didn’t actually play that game. I have no idea how he managed to accidentally copy a video game character without realizing, but whatever.
At any rate, part of the lore was that Sir Gideon had a lover whom he had a daughter with, but his lover left him, took her daughter with her, and married another man in a far away country. When we encountered him in-game, Sir Gideon often seemed unhelpful to me, as I felt he was deliberately hiding information from the party and he didn’t give out good rewards for doing his quests. For these reasons, I often referred to him as “Sir Gideon the Cuck,” and mocked him while doing so.
The DM seemed pretty upset when Helaena (my PC) made fun of Sir Gideon every time her “dainty and nice” mask slipped. To be fair, he did put a lot of work into his characters, so I was probably in the wrong to keep mocking his character like that constantly. This led to the following conversation:
DM: Dang, it really hurts that you call Sir Gideon a “cuck” and “useless.” He’s supposed to represent me and basically be my character in-game, since he’s trying to be a hero, help his friends, and do good in the world. So you’re basically making fun of me in real life.
Me: What? How can Sir Gideon be your character? He’s nothing like you!
DM: What do you mean? He’s heroic and tries his best to do the right thing. He’s basically me.
Me: That's not how I see it. Sir Gideon is a cuck, useless, weak, and stupid, while you are desired by women, always helpful, physically strong from working out, and quite intelligent. He's like the opposite of you!
DM:...
DM couldn’t really argue with this, and it did make him feel better to know that I saw him positively in real life, even if I didn’t like his character in-game. He explained that he didn’t intend for his character to come off that way, and he would change how he played him to make him more heroic and helpful. I toned down on making fun of Sir Gideon after that, but Helaena still had an in-game reason to dislike Sir Gideon, since she was secretly evil while Sir Gideon was lawful good. I felt bad though because I didn’t realize that the NPC was supposed to represent the DM, and thought he was just another NPC that we encountered in the world.
Now we’ll get to the next problematic situation that occurred not long after this. We had three other players, Va’Lik, a Githyanki fighter, Troy, a half-orc paladin, and Handel, a Drow Warlock, who would join our party on an expedition into the Dark Lands. Va’Lik was the problem player in this situation. When Helaena (my PC) first met the rest of the party, she had a disagreement with Va’Lik over some minor issue (I don’t remember what), and she pretended to be nice, but she clearly held a grudge and wanted to get back at Va’Lik.
In response, Va’Lik hurled misogynistic insults at her. He claimed that Helaena was a true woman because she held grudges over small things, that she was passive-aggressive like all girls, and that she should “go back to the kitchen” and had no place in a dangerous expedition. I was a bit taken aback and caught off guard, but continued playing in-character, since this was only the first session and I didn’t want to disrupt things. Helaena pretended to be nice, but hinted that she planned on getting back at Va’Lik for his insults later on.
While on the expedition, the party encountered a goblin patrol and defeated them, capturing a goblin whom we wanted to interrogate for information on the goblin camp we were sent to locate. The interrogation went poorly as Troy, the half-orc paladin, attempted to intimidate the goblin but failed the DC. Helaena, trying to hide her evil intentions, suggested using “enhanced persuasion methods” to get the goblin to give up the location. Va’Lik then stepped in, and I thought he was going to threaten to torture the goblin like Helaena hinted, perhaps by saying he would bash his teeth in or kick him. That’s not what happened.
Va’Lik: This isn’t working. I’ll handle this!
Me: I can help! Do you need me to cast zone of truth?
Va’Lik: No need, he won’t lie after this. You should look away. A squeamish girl like you will probably freak out at this. (To DM) *I grab the goblin.*
DM: Okay, you grab the goblin. What do you do next?
Va’Lik: I bend him over a rock and pull his pants down! I then unbuckle my own pants!
The call went dead silent for a solid few seconds.
Me: WHAT??
DM: Huh??
Va’Lik: Why are you so shocked? You said to use “enhanced persuasion methods”
Me: NOT LIKE THAT! I thought you were going to threaten him! I didn’t think you were going to r*pe him!!
The DM quickly defused the situation by having the goblin quickly give up the location of the camp. Helaena then said she would set the goblin free as a gesture of mercy since she’s such a kind person, but when the rest of the party had their back turned, she slit his throat to keep him quiet, because she does not like to leave loose ends.
I was still confused and shocked over what had happened with the goblin, so OOC I asked Va’Lik why he did that. He claimed that it was the only way to get the information out of the goblin, and that he was justified because it worked. I told him that sexual assault was never justified, and warned him not to pull stuff like that in the future. He kind of shrugged it off with a half-hearted okay, and it seemed like he didn’t really care.
When we arrived at the goblin camp, the DM told us the camp was swarming with goblins, and a head-on assault was not a good idea due to their sheer numbers. We decided to try and sneak into the camp to try and find their leader, but Va’Lik, who was wearing heavy armor, got caught right as we were about to advance to the next area of the camp. The rest of the party was still hiding, however, and we were afraid of getting caught. Soon, a dozen or so goblins had surrounded him, and he was about to go down (we were only Level 2 at this point).
Helaena was the closest to him, and Va’Lik begged her for help, through healing spells or other magic to help him escape. However, I decided that this was the time for Helaena to reveal her true colors. She smiled with a wide, evil grin.
Helaena: I COULD help you… But since you were so mean to me before, I don’t think I will. Maybe you should have been nicer to me.
Va’Lik: What? No! Get back here you psycho bitch!
Helaena then ran off into the camp and abandoned him. Va’Lik went down in a swarm of goblins as his HP went down to 0, yelling misogynistic insults as he was knocked unconscious. He was captured by the goblins, and the party claimed we would rescue him next session. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the group wasn’t able to meet again due to scheduling issues, and I was moved to a different group with some other friends from high school. I haven’t seen or played with Va’Lik again since, which frankly, is probably for the best. I still play with the same DM though, and we have lots of fun playing his campaigns in his massive world and cooking up story ideas and characters!
TLDR: DM creates a massive world with thousands of pages of lore. I mock the NPC representing him, and Githyanki fighter tries to SA a goblin.