u/Soft_Trip7213

Hi there. This is a story from old russian TTRPG forums, like 20 years old or something. I decided to translate it and share with international audience, because this gem should not be lost. If anyone really need it, I can look up the link to the original. The story is at least 83% fictional, but I truly believe it is based on the real events. You can't make all of this shit up. Sorry if my grammar is weird, in my defense, the original was weird too.

Day one. We were drinking beer in the tavern with some orcs. They were arguing about who would hit the innkeeper with a stool after ten mugs of beer. Some old man was constantly getting in our way with stories about a dragon and a princess. We didn't listen to him. The Orcs won.

Day two. The orcs are gone somewhere, and the beer is gone too. After leaving the tavern, we immediately got to the city square, where the crier loudly and clearly told about the princess abducted by the dragon. Out of respect for the DM, we listened to him. We decided to earn money by joining the caravan as guards. We searched all day, but we didn't find a single caravan where guards were needed. There's a complete set in each of them.

Day three. We ambushed the guards from one of the caravans and made sure that they would be incapacitated until the caravan would left. We came to the caravan master and argued for a long time about how we wanted to get hired as guards. He didn't hire us and left with an incomplete set of guards. In the evening, everyone in the tavern were talking about the dragon and the reward from the king.

Day four. We were looking for any kind of job all over the city. There is no work. Almost everyone talked about the dragon and the princess. We ignored them. The guards tried twice to invite us to the palace to listen to the king. We ignored them too. In the evening, we decided to move to another city, where would be orcs, beer and jobs in caravans.

Day five. Early in the morning, guards broke into the tavern and dragged the entire party to the palace by force. We tried to resist, but they beat us badly. In the palace, the king told us about the pile of gold on which the dragon sleeps, and how much the king himself is willing to add to it for saving the princess. He also told us about how small and harmless the dragon is. For the sake of interest, we asked the king why he did not send his guards to beat the dragon. We have not received a clear answer.

Day six. We tried to escape at night, but they beat us up again. Then they cured and resurrected the wizard, who fell at minus twenty hp. At the afternoon they took us to the dragon. We tried to escape again, but we were beaten up again. In the evening, they drove us to a cave, into which we were forcibly pushed. Immediately after that, the ceiling collapsed and there were no way out. From the other side of the landslide, they shouted that there is another exit from the cave on the other side. We didn't believe them and spent the whole night trying to dig through the landslide.

Day seven. Early in the morning we tried to dig through the landslide again, but then a dragon came and frightened the whole party, which caused us to run out into a larger cave, where we immediately stopped being frightened. After 2 rounds, the dragon came out and said that he have a large pile of gold, he is old and weak, but he would not give us the princess. We said we didn't need anything and asked to be released. The dragon said he didn't believe us and would fight. We tried to give up, but he didn't accept it. We ran away from him for a long time, and he followed us. Eventually, the paladin stumbled and the dragon fell on him. Very unfortunate. Straight at paladin's sword. The dragon died immediately. Then the princess came out and said that we had saved her. Then our wizard noticed that we need a little extra exp to levelup, and offered to kill the princess. We tried. It didn't work out. The princess beat us badly. The wizard died again. Then the guards came, resurrected the wizard, and took us, the princess, and the dragon's gold back to the city.

Day eight. We tried to escape on the way, but we were shackled. After we arrived to the city, everyone congratulated us on saving the princess. We asked everyone to take off our shackles. We are the princess's rescuers, after all, it doesn't look good. As a compromise, the royal wizard made the shackles invisible. Then we listened for a long time the praises of our heroism from the King and the grateful people. The king said that our career as heroes has just begun, and he still has exploits for us. The shackles were never removed. In the evening, we were locked up somewhere again. That's how the session ended...

...We told the DM that the game was not bad, but it was too railroady. He said we were wrong. He have a living and interactive world, with complete freedom of choice. The sandbox, if you will, but it is realistic. That is why not everything and not always is possible. And if it seems to us that there are some rails, then we are just imagining it. And we should stop. For the future, the DM recommended us to better interact with the outside world, and the game would become even more interesting.

Disclaimer: I am sorry in advance for my poor grammar, english is not my first language and I don't have enough writing practice. Also, first time poster, so there might be some formatting issues

A couple of years ago my first succesfull DnD campaign come to an end due to schedule reasons — everyone involved were college students, and everyone had their exames and plans for summer. I decided to try and find me some new players by making an announcement on the online board. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to try and fit as much points about my playstyle and expectations in that announcement as possible. That was a mistake, and everything that followed was my fault. If you need any takeaway from this story, I can give it to you right now: yes, you absolutely should put your expectations in your announcements, but they are not a place for memes. As some really cool players I have met later told me, they have see this announcement and thought it was funny, but they desided to not take a risk by trying some wierdo gm, and, again, I can't blame them, I would probably do the same.
The people who did show up tho were two new players (they would agree to play pretty much anything if it have the word DnD slap onto it), and the star of this story. Let's call her Mary. We actually already have played together once, she have dropped from Fate campaign I was playing in after first game due to her work schedule. That campaign was cool, but had its own horror story at the end. Maybe I will post it some other time.
We agreed to play a dungeoncrawl oneshot to get to know each other. At the second scene of the oneshot, characters stay on the top of the hill, looking at the spiral staircase that goes down there. They know that somewhere down there should be goblins. Two other players started to planning: who should go first? Who should held the light source? Do they even need a light source, if some of them have darkvision? I am loving it. Planning and iterating possible outcomes is probably my favourite part of TTRPG gameplay. And I also know that whatever plan they choose, they would not be in a big danger. They are level 3, and down there is just a bunch of goblins, and not very smart ones.
Mary tho did not participate in planning. After listening to it for a couple of minutes she decided to make her move.
— Are we going in there or not? Are we going? I wanna go letsgoletsgoletsgo I AM GOING IN THERE
Cool — I think to myself — dramatic entrance should work too. She might take a couple extra hits, but this will be her moment of glory. And, again, it's not like there is any chance of TPK.
— Okay, by going down the stairs, you see...
— Wait, what? I don't want to go down there!
— Then... Why have you said "I am going in"?
— This was my in-character speech, obviously. My character is loud! She got bored with all this planning
— Then... What do you want to do?
— Nothing, I am waiting until everyone would decide how to go in
— You want to add something to planning?
— Nu-uh
After that we had a similar interactions a couple more times. I ask what her character doing. She start screaming some nonsense. I cut her short, saying "ok, you are screaming, but what do you want to achieve? What reaction from the world or from other players do you expect?" She never have an answers to that questions. After that interactions she demonstratively pulled out laptop and barely participated in the rest of the session.
Our post-game talk turned into screaming match. Her best argument was the one in the title: "how else should I roleplay as a loud character?". My answer was "by making freaking meaningful decisions", and she didn't accept it. I should have also added "and by respecting other players at the table", but I haven't think of this until later. Other players decided to not stick up after listening to that, and I can't blame them. I myself was on such low spirit after this game, I have decided to take a break from TTRPGs for a year and a half. I had some great games and great players in my life after that, but memory of this story haunts me until this day, and I am glad to share it with internet so you could have some good laughs