u/GoblinBnB

Part 1, as a brand new player, experienced players led me to make a joke character and then scolded for being the joke character.

Part 2, party incompatibility, bizarre choices, "you haven't earned a social encounter," etc.

Rogue is a dick.

There was a time when he wanted to start a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire campaign with the table, and I was ecstatic to play and learn a new system. Not everyone was into the idea, so Rogue said he'd run on a different day to our usual in that case. He sent me all the resources, and I probed I'm about things and pitched character ideas. I had read the rules and got everything picked out for my character. The only thing I hadn't done was make the character sheet, and it's a good thing I hadn't.

A short time later, he started one of our normal sessions talking about the Star Wars campaign because he started it with Cleric and his friends on a different server. At a certain point, he asked me a question or a favor and prefaced it with, "This doesn't mean you're invited to join us."

Extra campaigns were common at our table because Bard wouldn't be able to make sessions. Sometimes, we'd carry on, and sometimes, someone else would take over. I would frequently volunteer because I wanted to practice DMing. It was fine to start. The group was participating because they wanted to help me cut my teeth because I was jumping in the deep end to figure it out.

Later on, however, I would volunteer ahead of time to see if everyone was interested in having me run if we knew the next week would be an off week. And more times than I can remember, Rogue would say he was up for it and then cancel on the day of. Twice he did it an hour before the session was supposed to take place, and one time he got on the call 10 minutes before we were going to start to tell me he was tired and didn't want to play. More than once, when he would cancel because he was tired, I would see him on a discord call all day with his friends on a different server, including his girlfriend at the time, Cleric.

Cleric, being his girlfriend as well, meant that if he canceled, there was a good chance she would cancel too. For the 5 years I've known Rogue as well, he was never in school and never had a job. So when I would get home from work, excited to run DnD for my friends, only for Rogue to cancel because he was tired, when I would see him on discord playing games all day with friends, I was more than a little pissed. Having a whole session fall apart and what I had worked on for a whole week being thrown out, possibly never to be used, made me feel like shit.

It was very much becoming an obvious pattern, so I went ahead and asked Cleric what his deal was because Rogue wouldn't respond to messages. And apparently, he just didn't like the character he had made one time, only accounting for about half his cancelations because I had 2 settings on the go. I still don't know what his issue with me as a DM is.

And while Rogue was starting games with other friends, very early on Cleric took DM, Barbarian, and Rogue to make a new table separate from me and Bard. It was a complete secret from us as well up until they wanted to share art of their characters. So early on, it made me feel like the group was already breaking into cliques as if to say, "We call you a friend, but you're not on the same level as this half of the group." If they hadn't kept it a secret, I'd like to believe I'd have felt differently at the time, but I was also still so excited to play and wanted to play more dnd, they probably didn't want the possibility that I'd ask to join them.

One Christmas Bard came to me with an idea. He wanted me to draw custom Florida Man cards for the whole group as gag Christmas gifts. He paid me to do it and wanted each of the 4 to have unique art, even putting some extra down to get one made for himself, so 5 in total. I then asked him when he had brought up getting one made for himself, if I should also do one for myself, I wouldn't charge him extra since it was for me. He told me flatly, "No."

I didn't push it, in case he was getting someone else to make one for me, and I tricked myself into believing this, because Cleric was also an artist. I kinda went the extra mile to having each artwork connected, i put references in the serial numbers, and I made the issued date on the card the day of our first session. He was impressed and happy with the results. So the day he handed out to everyone their gifts, they were all complimenting me and pointing out the references to each other, or I was explaining it to them.

And I waited.

But I never got a card, I didn't get anything. I guess Bard might have assumed the payment was my gift.

Not one of them noticed that I didn't get a card. Like yeah, it's a stupid gag gift, but what a way to make a guy feel forgotten. Being told no, don't include yourself in this group gift that I'm giving and you're making, and then have no one notice that you were left out.

And I don't know if this last one is just me whining, hell all of these posts could be that, but February of this year, my dog had to be put down.

The entire week leading up to it was rotten, something terrible each day, until I found out, and it would be a 3 day wait for the appointment to have it happen. I messaged the group the night I found out. DM was the only one to respond to me the next morning with condolences. Bard was next later that day, but not before he posted some memes in a different channel. And the other 3 never said anything, not even in the session voice call on the same weekend it happened.

Like, tell me you don't give a shit about me without telling me. For comparison, the Cleric has a cat she posts about all the time, and I know if the same thing were to happen to her, the chat would be flooded with sympathy for her.

Like, 3 of them couldn't even muster the bare minimum, "I'm sorry." Or react to the message with like, a fucking hug emoji, just something. And thats all I really needed, was to hear from them, to know the people I thought were my friends were there when I was in grief over losing a pet.

Anyway, more in-game stuff in part 4.

In Part 1, I explained the very beginning of a 4 year-long campaign. I got encouraged by experienced players into making a joke character as my first ever PC. On 2 separate occasions, I accidentally killed a monster they were trying to interrogate when I wasn't intending to harm either creature, and I got scolded above table for both situations. When I offered to change my character since they seemed to be having issue with him, I was met with "We're not saying you have to do that.", "If you do that, it's your choice." Feeling confused, I ultimately decided to change my character for an arc.

This part is more retelling of where the group fell apart over the next 2 years or so, or I feel they mistreated or misled me as a new player. Or just strange decisions in general.

After only one arc, I made my second character, Locke Half Elf Clockwork Soul Sorc. At the time, I wanted him to be a him to be a mercenary, and I talked with Rogue above table, and we loosely came up with the idea that our characters had crossed paths before, but the DM decided a different origin for my character. Instead of joining the party on the material plane as part of the mission they were on, the DM made him a teacher in the Feywild and a liaison for the party, when I had no background on his version of the Feywild. DM has final say, and I get he needed an in for the party in the feywild, but throwing me to the wolves with no information sucked. Despite my character supposedly being a feywild native I was still learning everything along with the party, so if they ever asked me a question I would have to shrug.

I'm still not entirely sure how DM wanted to run his table because he would let PCs do most anything with little to no consequences. But also during the feywild arc is when the Bard became a Bard, seemingly by force. When we would talk about our characters above the table in later years, the Bard would almost talk about his class switch from Warlock to Bard like it was against his will.

It's not worth going over everything that happened in the arc right now. The DM used it to set up things for the future.

One thing that happened above the table really stuck with me. Since I was playing a CHA character and I was trying to take things more seriously, I mentioned during table talk that I was wondering if I could possibly lead a social encounter sometime.

"You haven't earned it."

Thats all they said to me. I would bring it up to the DM later because he wasn't present when it happened, and he would say, "They didn't mean it that way." And I just think to myself, how else could they mean it? What subtext am I missing?

After the feywild, I wanted to go back to Pickle, my first PC, I felt confident enough that I wouldn't play him as a joke anymore.

But then the party went to Hell without one of my PCs.

It wasn't intentional. The Toonkind Cleric connected his magic compass to the illithid ship we were using to planes hop, and it locked onto his friend in Hell. So it's not on the player I got left behind, but the DM knew I wanted to put my original PC back in play and rerouted the party to Hell.

The DM told me he could find a way to get Pickle to Hell, but I protested that it wouldn't make any sense. I was also riding a new player high, and the idea of making another new character was exciting. So I made an Owlin Rune Knight Smuggler to play during the Hell arc. Hindsight is 20/20, and I didn't realize how this would impact the parties relationship with my characters.

The session when they arrived in Hell, the ship was malfunctioning. They investigated it, talked to each other, talked to some infernal beings that were passing on the road, then discussed if they even wanted to stay in Hell or wait for the ship to prepare itself and leave.

This went on for 2 hours.

I fell asleep in my chair at my computer.

It turns out they were waiting for my PC to come waltzing down the road in Hell to join them. Eventually, they got off the ship and went into the town nearby, where the DM finally introduced my PC as an NPC had him bound up and was trying to trade his soul. I got to play for maybe 10 mins all session.

At a certain point, we had to move deeper into the city to save the Clerics friend, which required we pass a checkpoint with a Soul Coin toll. Our Bard was hellbent on not giving up a single soul coin. Even when an NPC gave us counterfeit ones, his morals stood in the way. He wanted to save every soul he could, and for some reason, thought the counterfeit coins had souls in them. The party discussed how we would cross the checkpoint or the surrounding wall, and I felt specially suited for the situation since I took the smuggler background.

I was ignored.

I tried to bring up that I could attempt to smuggle us through, but the Bard repeatedly shut me down because he assumed I wanted to use the soul coins. Instead, they locked in on the fact my character had wings and a fly speed, so they decided I would fly them all over the wall in the bag of holding.

The bag got ripped.

The DM was kind enough to let all PCs exit the bag before the contents were scattered into the astral plane, but it felt like he was giving us a consequence, for intentional avoiding the path he wanted us to take. It also revealed the fact that no one was keeping track of what was in the bag of holding.

Also, in Hell is when the Rogue began meeting with the thieves guild, and for some reason, I took a lot of issues with it. I think it was the Rogues attitude around it that it was his little slice of the plot just for him. It was just him and DM. No one else could be involved. And he was using it exclusively for his own personal benefit.

I don't care about solo scenes, but it felt like he was trying to orchestrate his own plot within the plot that was just for him.

Speaking of, it turned out the Hell arc was a vehicle to progress the Cleric's out of game lore since she was playing her Cuphead OC. And it wouldn't be the last arc to do this. After we save one of her other toon OCs from Hell Prison, her version of the Cuphead Devil is brought to trial for his crimes and erased from all existence. This then led the Rogues toon OC to take the devils place in the toon realm.

We left hell shortly after, and I wanted to finally return to my first PC, who got a warm welcome. I had tried to do my best to work on myself and his behavior so we wouldn't have any more incidents that got me scolded while still keeping folks amused.

We entered another interlude/vacation arc, and the DM told me he planned a cooking competition, so my PC had a chance to shine. So myself, the Cleric, and the NPC we saved from hell became a team with myself getting to be team leader. The remaining 3 players signed up as a team as well, so everyone would participate.

Except, only the Bard participated.

He took center stage and took his time going to each NPC contestant to attempt to disrupt them, in his way, trying to help my PC win. This ended up souring the mood of the whole table as he ran his mouth and made multiple rolls. The players on his team were sick of it and letting him know. They just wanted the whole competition to be over so he'd stop. The DM rushed to wrap everything up. My team each made one roll, and I won the whole competition with a 17.

I have my timeline out of order, as we had a Western Arc just before this for Barbarians' character, where we saved his family, and they joined us on vacation.

But for a long time, I have felt the party never really interacted like a party. They were just Co Workers. And that was apparent when the DM made a combat where we had to fight mirror versions of ourselves. We accidentally figured out the only way to beat them was by working together. Someone just happened to attack a clone that wasn't of themselves. Up until then, everyone was engaged in 1v1s.

After the vacation, we traveled to an island the DM had intricately created with extensive lore. We encountered a town being attacked by Cadaver Collectors. For some reason, even though we heard people in trouble, the party wanted to stand around and talk about what we wanted to do. I decided to use tree stride and jump into action right away. The only person to actually come to help was the Rogue. Everyone else stood in the forest and waited. We ended up saving a group of children, and I think I was told not to go in alone next time.

The next town we went to was very totalitarian. We met the Kings advisor, who had clockwork drones. The DM said we could hear them moving in the shadows of the room, and I said I wanted to cast daylight to be able to see them. The DM told me that if I cast any magic, I would lose an arm. Obviously, he was setting up the tone and stakes of the new area.

But the Rogue didn't like that, and he messaged everyone after the session to say he didn't like how restrictive the DM was being, I didn't agree with him, kinda just said it won't be like this forever. At the next session, Rogue confronted DM and lumped me in, saying that I did agree with him, I defended myself, but what the Rogue said did have an obvious effect on the DM. Because later when we were invited to the castle to meet the king, the Rogue went to the area of the castle he was explicitly told not to go, and only encountered some incompetent guards that folded without him having to roll a check. We never saw the clockwork drones of the evil advisor after our first meeting with him.

I was playing my first PC Pickle, up to this point, but I was really struggling to find a reason that he would still be adventuring with the party. Hell, I don't know if the party still wanted him around. During some clothes shopping, the Barbarian got some new boots and decided to test them out by repeatedly kicking my character to get him out of the shop. This was completely unprompted. I wasn't cracking wise or trying to do a goof, not to mention I had never been the party punching bag, so I was a bit stunned.

I told the DM afterward how I felt about it, and he told me the Barbarian messaged him to say that he felt bad for doing that. And I want to call bullshit on that. If he actually said that, why wouldn't he have messaged me directly to say that.

But I wasn't doing any of the old bits anymore, I wasn't trying to open chain restaurants, I wasn't trying to pickle things like a pigs head. I was trying to make the character more interesting for myself, to keep myself invested in the story because I had trouble shedding the joke character that he was. Too many of the jokes had actually become his backstory. I eventually gave up and asked the DM if I was able to play my character from the feywild again since he was more realized and had a buy-in for the plot.

He was fine with it. We planned it for the next session, and everyone was made aware of my decision beforehand. So, at the top of the session, everyone said their goodbyes to Pickle, and I was ready to jump in to play the character I'd finish this campaign with. But that wouldn't be for another 2 sessions.

I got to sit and listen to everyone else play for the entire session until the DM narrated 5 mins before the session was supposed to end, that my PC tumbles out of a crate that was dropped off at the castle. The following session, the Rogue, took the full 2 hours of game time to retell the entire campaign to an NPC while we just sat there and listened.

Before a lot of this, we were invited to a Gala by the King, and the Rogue decided it was time to bring everyone into his plan, he got a tip of a treasure in the castle from the thieves guild and he wanted to heist it during the Gala. The DM also introduced 7 NPCs to also participate, one of the NPCs he had spent a night with, and almost transmitted to her, a mind controlling fungal entity that was dormant in his body, that he picked up in the Feywil. He left her a note in the morning to "See a Cleric." The mind controlling fungus at the time was also leading a war on the feywild because we accidentally released it from a tomb on our first visit.

At the time, the whole party was on board for the heist. But when I switched characters, the Rogue assumed I the player was still on board, but I wasn't. My PC had a different mission he was trying to unite the feywild leaders at the Gala to work together in the war. So I didn't attend the meeting when the Rogue reveals to the party after 3 irl years that he's a changeling. They then spent a painfully long time on a changeling anatomy lesson with him.

But this had been revealed by a different player 2 years earlier. The Bard figured out he was a Changeling because of a description the Rogue made of a sound that came from his character behind a closed door. Bard messaged Rogue to ask if it was the case, and Rogue asked him to keep quiet. But at the tail end of a session, Bard let it slip, and Rogue had a full meltdown over it. Cleric and Rogue were dating for most of the campaign, and Cleric tried to calm him down while Bard slinked off after being berated.

After the anatomy lesson, the heist fell apart as each PC decided they didn't want to participate anymore, and the Rogue was left alone with his group of NPCs.

My issues with Rogue, Cleric, and Bard extend beyond just in character moments, so I think it's best if I end part 2 here. I've already over explained a lot.

TL;DR First-time player lead by experienced players into making a joke character, got scolded twice for being the joke character.

If anyone from this story were to see this, it would definitely burn some bridges. They all still call me a friend.

A month ago, at the time of writing, I left a DnD group I was with for the last 5 years, beginning in May of 2021. During my time with them, I was made to feel like a 3rd wheel, that I was just around because I was there at the very beginning, and the DM would tell me their actions that would make me feel that way were unintentional.

This won't all fit in one post, and there were events in and out of game that impacted how I felt. In this post, I'll cover the very beginning, at least.

This group came together as basically all strangers. The Cleric, who wanted to start the table, picked me up from a discord server over a shared interest of a horror podcast. Already in her discord was the DM who was happily taking on the role, but she sent out a message on her Twitter looking for more members to join the table. 3 people responded, becoming the Barbarian, Rogue, and Bard.

I was elated to start playing, I was brand new, I had been listening to actual play podcasts for the last 2 years. I was excited to meet new friends, as I didn't have any lasting connections after dropping out of post secondary and the pandemic.

They had session 0 without me.

I got to pop in at the very beginning, where everyone was kinda talking about what they wanted to play. I found out that Cleric was going to be playing their Cuphead OC, a toonkind character, DM had a, everything goes attitude. I got to briefly pitch my character idea, a hermit who likes to pickle things. Druid and Goblin were floated, and I went to bed thinking about names while they remained in the call, making their characters together.

The following week, I would make my character sheet and try to come up with a name. Unfortunately, Pickle Rick was immediately suggested, but I landed on Pickle Brinestone.

I feel it's important to mention again that I was brand new to playing DnD at the time. The DM had an unknown amount of experience, Cleric had at least a year, Rogue and Bard sounded like they had at least experience with 4e or later as well as other ttrpgs, and Barbarian was the most experienced out of all of us.

I reiterate because this is where Pickle started getting pushed in the joke character direction, which I have realized may have been the worst possible thing to happen to me as a new player. Instead of helping me to come up with a buy-in for the story and a motivation to adventure, he became a restaurant entrepreneur who wanted to open pickle themed restaurants on other planes. I was on board for this, I had primarily listened to NADDPod, and I was all in for the goofs.

Session 1

DM tells us a war happened (news to me), the illithid had lead a devastating incursion across multiple planes of existence, and have since retreated. Barbarian and Rogue wake up in a military hospital, are given exposition, gold, and immediately go shopping. Once they are done with that, the military general NPC leads them to a strange illithid ship, more exposition, and it turns out Barb and Rogue had the ability to open it. Inside, they find the Toonkind Cleric, who goes through a whole anatomy lesson on his body. It was beginning to get late at this point, and the DM finally got to me and Bard.

(Bard was a Warlock at the time, but the same character)

Pickle had this massive brining barrel he brought with him everywhere and was taking a nap in it. So the DM described the barrel being loaded on the ship as Pickle dreamed. Bard entered Pickles' dream and somehow also the ship because his warlock abilities at the time meant he was his own patron, could enter dreams, and was immortal because he existed through all of time all at once.

After waking, the other 3 obviously thought we were intruders, Pickle tried to explain himself. But Bard decided instead to cut him off, sitting on the barrel lid trying to push him back in.

I had brushed this off as DM let me make a STR check to push my way out, but Bard described himself as graceful dismounting. I'm really not sure what this was, if it was just a casual razzing or if he was trying to impress the rest of the group in some way. At the time, it was also getting late, and I had gotten maybe 15 mins all session to play, same as him.

Important to note as well, when I went to do Pickles voice, I panicked, I had been practicing different ones, and I thought I had landed on something. But in the moment, it came out as a gravely Brooklyn accent. This then gave rise to more jokes about Pickle, that he's from fantasy brooklyn, that he's jewish, and I leaned into it cause we were all laughing, and I felt accepted, so I wanted to keep them laughing.

First Arc took us to Shadowfell, and we were charged with looking into mindflayer activities. We went to a variety of locations, one being a lab where the Bard found a purple skull crab, and he handed it off to Pickle. At a later location, while the party investigated for close to a half hour, something that would turn out to be just flavor, Pickle sat alone and found out the crab was psychic. I didn't understand how familiars worked, and I asked him if he would be mine. So Pickle got his familiar, Scuttlebutt the psychic skullcrab.

We would eventually arrive at a monastery in a mountain, and going below, we would find a city in the mountain. We encountered a family of NPCs that led us to a cave where they worshiped a giant creatures skeleton that was sat at the edge of a pool. I can't recall why, but Pickle cast faerie fire on the skeleton, and we discovered there were small versions of it swimming in the eye socket.

I said Pickle takes out his fishing rod to try and get one of the smaller skeletons, but I was immediately stopped by the table. Full stop, halted what I wanted my character to do, which I can get being cautious. However, the Rogue immediately went over and climbed up to scoop one out with his hand, with no resistance from the party. By doing this, in a later session, the DM invited the Rogue to take Warlock levels for a custom patron.

In hindsight, a Druid Warlock multiclass for a brand new player would've been awful, but if I had been allowed to take the action I wanted, imagine how exciting that would've been as a new player. Having such an interesting and unexpected proposition made, a possibility I would've never thought of or expected. Instead, Pickle was literally picked up and carried out of the cave, so I also couldn't grab one like the Rogue.

We descended further into the mountain, eventually reaching another lab, where we found a creature made up of a mass of different bodies that was fused to a giant metal ring in the middle of the room. Seeing that there were dwarves and other humanoids fused into the creature, they attempted to ask it questions. This resulted in random memories being projected into their minds as well as taking psychic damage for even being near it. I don't remember how long this took, but I eventually said Pickle goes to touch the control panel that was also in the room.

Up to this point in the campaign, still only months in, I had been jokey with Pickle. I had filled a cup of peanuts with wine because I forgot there were peanuts in it. I pitched a restaurant franchise to a friendly beholder. The barrel he carried with him became a vile vat, when as a group, we decided that things like cheese, corned beef, and shrimp were in it. Pickle had an iconic way of saying "Hello" that the table liked to imitate. We were all having a good time with it.

There was no indication as to what the machine was. The DM gave me no warning. I said I pulled a leaver, and the DM responded, "A portal opens, cutting the mass in half, killing it."

The table lost it at me.

Both in character and above table. I was scolded for what I did. My character was manhandled. The Rogue took my familiar away (who is played by the DM) and told him that if he didn’t keep me in line that he would boil him.

I was stunned. I didn't know what was happening, I don't even remember how it all resolved. Eventually, an evil NPC entered the room, and the scene continued.

Not much else happened during the Shadowfell arc. We all boarded the illithid ship again and headed back to the material plane.

DM intended the return as a brief interlude, a short break for the PCs. But one night, Pickles barrel was stolen by the DMs homebrewed Grablins. The Grablin fight left the party cursed by the Wave Mother and was the DM effectively telling us, "Don't go near the ocean." However, for some reason, the party took a hostage grablin who we interrogated back at the Inn. We weren't getting much out of him, and they didn't want to leave him in the room alone or walk him through town in broad daylight. So Pickle picked him up and stuffed him in the barrel.

It wasn't until we reached the next location where we were taking our prisoner that we found out that Grablins evaporate when they touch salt water of any kind, which include Pickles brining barrel.

For the second time that month, I was scolded above table for something I could've never known would happen.

I told them that if its getting to be too much, I can bench Pickle and let him have some off-screen development. You guys are obviously having an issue with how I'm playing him. They responded with, "No, you don't have to do that.", "If you change characters, that's your choice." I felt so confused.

But I ultimately decided to bench Pickle and make a new character, after only one arc of what would be a 4 year long campaign.

I've reflected on these events a lot, and when I was still at the table, I talked to the DM about them. He would agree with me about things, but most times, the conversation would end with him deflecting that we were all very new to each other as people.

These and other events left me feeling defeated. Over time, I just became more passive as a player.

Recently, someone had brought up favorite moments. They listed all these big cool things the other players did, and for my character, "He really came into his own." The DM then chimed in, listing his favorite moments, and for my character, "He really locked in toward the end."

I'll go over the moments that contribute to this later, but I should end it here for now before I get any more off-topic.