Simple game leads to losing friend group of 10 years.
TLDR: Started a game of 5e with my friends of nearly 10 years. Got kicked out of the group due to no proper communication and building up issues.
Apologies for the weird formatting, rantiness, and the length. This is my first post on Reddit in a long time.
To preface this story, I had a group of a couple friends who I had known since high school with 2 others who joined later afterwards. I had known 3 of them for nearly 10 years and the other 2 for around 5 and they were my main/only group of friends for the longest time. One more person joins later through Rainbow Six Siege and the other was dating and later married one of the other people in the group. Despite how some of them sound based on my descriptions, we are all in our mid-20's as well.
For clarities sake, let us label them as their character classes for the campaign;
GM (Myself)
Sorcerer (Online friend)
Ranger (HS friend)
Paladin (HS friend)
Druid (Ranger's wife)
Barbarian (HS friend)
Fast-forward a couple years and a little known game called Baldur's Gate 3 releases and we decided to try it out. Myself, Paladin, Ranger, and Druid create a campaign with myself and Sorc having our own campaign. We all loved it and while the first campaign was never finished, Sorc and I finished at least 2 playthroughs together.
We all loved it so much in fact, that we decided to try our hand at an actual D&D campaign, with myself offering to run as GM. (Barbarian would join later due to school at the time.)
We eventually start playing, but it becomes evident that with 1 exception (Paladin), we were all newbies. There are numerous occasions where either Ranger or Druid stop the session due to misunderstanding an ability/spell or arguing a ruling. I think, "Well it's fine for now, we are all still learning, I'm sure that things will settle down later when we get used to it."
It did not.
During the game, I quickly found out that they had very little clue what to do during most sessions. Each one of them had issues that they never really fixed or worked on between sessions. They almost never took the game seriously, rarely stayed in character, and constantly talked over one another.
- Sorcerer was usually fine ingame, (had a bit of a main character syndrome) but almost never responded to DM's when I asked them to help with upcoming events (They were essentially a CO-DM as I was new still). He also had a bad habit of leaving conversations mid-way, whether it be with an NPC or even a PC and would be the first one to stop responding to me.
- Ranger usually is the one arguing against rulings and was ultimately the one who kicked me from the friend group. He was typically the one who was the "leader" out of game and would get confrontive when I suggested we change scheduling, due to him and Druid constantly being late by 15 to 30 minutes.
- Paladin apparently had a bunch of issues, but at no point ever DM'd me and told me about them. She then would go on to tell the others that I had made her cry multiple times without me ever knowing why due to her never telling me her issues. She apparently made it a habit of telling the others this and using it against me.
- Druid was by far the worst person of the group who was constantly arguing, doing things during the game that I asked them not to (listening to music, playing a game, not paying attention) and would get downright hostile when I asked them if they were paying attention. She would also get huffy and loud if things didn't go her way ingame or out of it and derailed things nearly every session due to her and Sorcerer "stimming" and memeing constantly.
- Barbarian is the only semi-normal one and joined later in the campaign due to prioritizing his schooling. He was the only one to deliver the message that they kicked me and actually engaged with the world and NPC's and his only issue was that he put up with far too much of Druid's schenanigans.
I should have probably seen things coming when before one session, they had stopped me and began to tell me that they wanted certain changes to the campaign. They asked for more time to RP with each other, less homebrew, and less railroading, to which I agreed. Yet, when I began to fix the issues, nothing happened. They still ignored one another for the most part and still didn't know where to go without being told by an NPC. I honestly had no idea what to really do to appease them at that point and just sorta continued to play, until I realized I wasn't having fun anymore.
Fast-forward to roughly 3-4 weeks ago when I told them that I was no longer having fun with the campaign and I wanted to either restart a new campaign with new characters or end it entirely. They proceded to tell me that my decision was not something they agreed with and they basically told me, "Even though you're the GM, you don't have the final decision on anything." And after the next couple weeks of being ghosted by all of them, I was silently kicked from the server with only Barbarian even telling me about this news.
I had known them for so long, I considered them a second family. We had gone out to bowling, celebrated each others birthdays, and been close for so long that this was incredibly painful. Even after most of them moved out of state, we kept in contact and talked nearly daily.
Apparently, they had taken a vote and had been talking about it since I had told them I wanted to do a new campaign/end the old one. Between that time and when they kicked me a week ago, they had ghosted me, ignoring any and all replies or @'s in Discord. I was told that due to my behavior and my GM'ing had become an issue, even though I wasn't told any specific issues. What hurts the most as well is that they are currently continuing to play without me.
I will fully admit, that my hands were not clean in this entire story and I had my own fair share of issues. I was controlling at the start, used too much homebrew, and changed mechanics way too often. I am certain this aided in the game deteriorating, but any friendship issues were things I had no knowledge of. I was a still new GM at the time who had only read the Player's Handbook and watched a couple videos on how to GM. I had plenty of my own issues and I never really shared them with them, so I know that must have helped in their decision.
Looking back on it, at no point did any of them ever thank me for my time and efforts, nor did any of them ever comment on my GM'ing with any positivity. At some point, it felt like we were just gathering because we agreed to play, but no one was actually enjoying themselves.
Overall? I wish I had seen this decline in my "friendships" sooner. I just wanted to make a game for my friends and I to enjoy, only to have them stab me in the back and toss aside our nearly decade long friendship over the most petty things. I highly encourage players out there to tell their GM that they appreciate them and make sure they know their efforts are valued!
Stay safe and I wish you all a good day/night.
(Sidenote: GM looking for work now!)