I've practiced. I keep trying to learn. To figure out what I am doing wrong.
I keep losing. And, well, after it keeps being loss after loss after loss, the whole enthusiasm to learn and get better is lost when you see no progress.
I really want to enjoy this game!! But it's not fun if you lose EVERY time!!
So I was on an rpg Discord server asking if someone was going to bring a short D&D adventure to test my new barbarian character idea.
A guy replies saying "I'm not bringing D&D, I'm bringing Troika, but your barbarian will work well".
I had never heard of Troika before. He explains me the game and apparently it's kind of a Planescape meets Hitchicker's Guide To The Galaxy thing with classic surreal British humour. I tell him my fantasy barbarian will not fit in a game where, he explained, we will roleplay as post office employees.
He insists that "you can play literally anything you want in Troika" and that he "invites players to use their old characters to explore them more".
I still feel the barbarian would be very out of place in a modern-ish setting, so I propose "you said I can play anything? REALLY anything? Can I play a non-humanoid character? I never get to do that so I'd love to take the chance. But tell me if it's awkward."
Well apparently it wasn't awkward as long as my character wasn't too big, so we brainstorm it and I eventually make a monstruous cosmic eldritch abomination. Now I strive to make characters fit the setting, so the British humour thing was that this Lovecraftian horror was...... working as an underpaid post office new hire. The DM is very excited about it and keeps saying how awesome this character is. The only negative (sexist) comment he makes is "if that creature look like that, does it have to be female? it should be an it". But I say part of the joke is that and it'll be more amusing if that monster is female. But yeah he seemed very excited about her.
-----
That was the premise. Now on the game session with two other players.
The DM tells our characters to introduce ourselves and says "everyone here is using a premade character, except for [calls my name] who made her very custom idea". That made me feel immediately awkward, because it felt as if I had been a jerk who didn't want to play premade characters, while the truth was that the DM pitched it to me as "play what you want! bring your old characters!" and I had no idea the other players would play with quick premade sheets.
The session begins well tho. Everyone is good, it moves smoothly, we're all having fun. The other two players were a steampunk robot and a man made of jelly. Both humanoid, tho, and I realize I'm the only non-humanoid shaped sentient being. No big deal however and my character seems to fit in really well.
Not even a hour into the session, we reach a gate that seems to have a defense system if you go through it. I propose to fly over the gate since my character can fly. Another player ignores it and steps past the gate: nothing happens except an automated welcome message. My character, then, decides to fly over the gate: it immediately gets electrocuted by a defense system, I fail the roll, and I take 3/4 OF MY HEALTH as damage.
As my character falls to the ground wounded, the robot player offers me lantern oil to heal myself. Now my character being an alien, she is clueless about this world just like the robot is clueless about organic creatures (which is why he offered me the oil to heal). But I pause the situation by loudly making my character ask "Are you sure I should try it?". Giving a last chance to avoid the damage. But the robot insists. My character takes damage (not even a dice roll required) and I end up at 1 single health point. I try to attack the player but I use a non-damaging attack (mind control). The idea was to mind control him into telling me why he hurt me, then the robot would explain why, I realize he meant no harm, and that's it. But of course once the DM sees I made a great roll, he says that "mind control is an ability not an attack so acshually the result must be lower not higher". Ok then, so I fail the attack.
The players apparently felt bad about the whole situation so they decided the idea was to find something to heal me. I don't want the story to derail from the main quest because my character is dying, so my character insists she'll be ok.
As we proceed, we enter a dark room. The two other players, both full health, decide to search in the messy room. Me, having only one health point, tell the DM that I will stand still and be on the lookout for any danger.
The DM makes the two players roll to see if they hit a trap. One of them avoids it. The other gets hit by it.
And that's when the DM says to me....
"Actually. I think you should roll to avoid the trap, too".
Why? I was specifically not doing anything to avoid traps.
But sure, why not, I understood the DM's game now, so I roll. Oh, turns out it's not the other player who took the damage, it's me, the one who was away making sure not to get killed.
My character dies.
The DM immediately rolls to give me a random premade sheet. Oh wow, finally I'm a premade character just like everyone else.
I stay silent. I'm pretty pissed. He pitched me the game as "play any character you want, you can even bring your old characters from other campaigns" and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER told me Troika is actually one of those old-school rpg where the player characters are cannon fodder. I spent time and effort to make a character I played for one single hour total, because I was NOT told this was a cannon fodder type rpg adventure.
As I stay there silent pondering if to just thank for the game and call it quits, the DM tells me I can join with my new character if I want.
I do just that.
"So your character, he is standing in the hall...."
I interrupt him.
"Yeah no, SHE is standing in the hall."
I do my entrance. I take that dumb premade shit and turn her into a memorable, quirky monkey tamer, or should I say monkey abuser.
However, after my grand entrance, I do not intervene much in the story. I pretty much act only when either the DM or another player calls me, but when I do, I'm always roleplaying well.
I do not disrupt the adventure. I don't leave. I play well.
But everyone clearly saw I was not invested anymore.
----------
Aaaaaand that's the long story of when the DM promised me a "play anything you desire" adventure while he actually did not want that. Even if my character was tailored for the game setting itself.