u/ThelastMorguie

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a disappointing D&D experience that ultimately ended an eight-year friendship with two close friends, because I think new DMs might learn something from what happened.

In 2024, as a first-time DM with only a few small adventures under my belt, I started a Curse of Strahd campaign with my husband, two of my closest friends, and one of their partners.

We had a Session Zero where we mostly discussed safety tools, and I explained the dark and horrific tone of the campaign.

After just one session, I started noticing a pattern. My two friends would often talk while I was describing a scene or while another player was roleplaying. They had frequent out-of-character conversations and often seemed distracted.

The same thing happened session after session. At first, I tried to ignore it, but over time I realized it was making me feel as though my effort as a DM wasn't being appreciated.

My husband encouraged me to finally express how I felt to my friends. I also kept seeing the same advice on Reddit: "Talk to your players." I knew communication was essential for a healthy campaign, and I realized I shouldn't keep avoiding that conversation.

But I did.

The truth is, I had a hard time bringing it up, mostly because I knew my friends were very sensitive to criticism, and knowing that anything resembling a complaint would hurt their feelings or make them feel personally attacked.
So I started thinking that the problem was me as a DM, and thought I just needed to become a better entertainer. 

So after a session that went really bad because my friends was really unfocused, and one of them even scrolled her phone during a combat. I thought I was simply a bad DM and assumed that everyone except my husband disliked the campaign.

One year passed. 

Then my friends told me that they both missed the campaign and asked if we could continue it. I brushed aside my reservations and scheduled a new session.

Before we restarted the campaign, my husband suggested that I explain to everyone why I had paused it in the first place. He thought I should tell the group how I felt when people talked over my descriptions and clarify what I needed from the table, so we wouldn't repeat the same mistakes. He was right.

Unfortunately, I had just started a new job, kept putting off the conversation, and never had it before the session. Looking back, I realize I was doing what I often do when facing conflict: finding excuses to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.

So we played.

From the very beginning of the session, I noticed my two friends exchanging looks, making faces, and sighing while my husband was roleplaying his character.

Then the same pattern started happening again: they would have off-topic conversations whenever their characters weren't directly involved and often seemed disconnected from the story unfolding around them.

So, it was exactly the same as before.

At the end of the session, everyone stood up, thanked me for the session and said they were really happy that the campaign was back. But I wasn’t.

I realized that I must addressed the issue if I wanted to continue the campaign. So the day after, I sent a message to the group gently explaining that:

• I had paused the campaign because certain behaviors had made me feel like my work as a DM wasn't appreciated and described the behaviors that had been affecting me.
• I noticed those same behaviors during our last session.
• If everyone wanted the campaign to continue, as I did, it would require a group effort to stay more engaged during the game.
• I wasn't asking for four hours of absolute silence or seriousness. Jokes are always welcome. I was simply asking people not to have side conversations while me or someone else was playing.

No one replied. Not even a reaction.

After waiting two weeks of silence, I officially ended the campaign because it became clear that we weren't looking for the same D&D experience and thanked everyone for this adventure.

Sadly, it also probably marked the end of an eight-year friendship.

So here's my advice to new DMs:

• Talk about table etiquette during Session Zero. Don't assume that because you're playing with close friends, they'll naturally know what behavior is expected. Even experienced players can have very different ideas of what is considered polite and what is not. Be specific. It feels incredibly discouraging to spend hours preparing sessions only to realize that half the table isn't listening because they're having another conversation.
• Address problems early and gradually. Don't be like me. I went from saying nothing at all to ending the campaign. If concerns build up for months without being discussed, your players will likely feel blindsided when you finally bring them up. Looking back, simply saying something like, "Could you please save that conversation for after the game?" the first few times my players started chatting could have prevented this whole situation. 
• Make sure everyone wants the same kind of D&D experience. My husband, my friend's partner, and I were looking for a collaborative, immersive storytelling experience, while my two friends were probably looking for a casual excuse to spend time together and socialize. Neither approach is wrong, but they aren't always compatible within the same campaign.

Conclusion:

I don't think my friends handled the situation well. I genuinely believe that setting boundaries was reasonable, and in hindsight, I realize that I felt disrespected by their lack of response.

At the same time, I understand that I greatly failed as a DM, by staying silent for so long and avoiding uncomfortable conversations.

I finally talk to my players, but it was too late. In the end, that avoidance made everything worse.

One last thing, remember that as a DM, you're a player too. Your enjoyment matters just as much as everyone else's. It's easy to fall into the mindset that your role is simply to make sure everyone else is having fun, but a campaign should be enjoyable for the whole group, including the person behind the screen.

Thank you for reading. I hope it can help another new DM avoid making the same mistakes I did.

UPDATES:

First of all, thank you everyone for your comments and for sharing your perspectives. As I mentioned, I finally had a phone call with one of my friends yesterday, and I'm happy to say that it went in a positive direction.

For those who are interested, here is my attempt at summarizing our conversation:

She started by saying that I was being "a bit dramatic" (...fair enough 😅). She then explained that they (my two friends and my friend's partner) wanted to take some time to talk things over together before replying to me. They had actually met up last week to discuss everything, and she was about to send me a message when I ended the campaign before she had the chance…

She then told me that my message had hurt her because it felt like she was being singled out, and she felt personally attacked. She said they would have preferred to have this conversation face to face rather than through a group message. ( which is also fair).

I apologized and explained why I chose to send it to everyone. I  understood why she felt singled out, because she is probably the most talkative person at the table. But I didn't want to blame her specifically, because this wasn't caused by one person. Group dynamic involved several people (myself included, for not speaking up sooner), so I didn't think it would have been fair to put the blame entirely on her. These explanations seemed to help, and she said she understood my reasoning now.

After that, she told me that she strongly suspects she has ADHD and doesn't see herself being part of a campaign where the DM expects everyone to stay quiet, still, and serious for 4 hours straight, or gets upset when someone simply checks their phone to see what time is it.
I answered that it wasn't what I expected either. I didn't expected people to be focused 100% of the time. I just wanted people to avoid side conversations while I'm describing scenes or speaking over myself.

Then she said something that surprised me: "You know, Rick also tried talking to us about this during his campaign too. After bringing it up a few times, he finally accepted that this was just how we are."

(Rick is a mutual friend who DMed a campaign for them ( my two friends and friend’s partner) before I started CoS. He is really a great DM and a great person).

I responded that Rick is a much more experienced DM, and honestly a bit of a genius at DMing. He is really good at staying focused, even if the table gets distracting. But I don’t have his ability to filter things out. If being able to chat about other subjects during games is that important for them, we are not the best fit. And it is probably better to end the campaign. 

She told me that it was a shame because she had really enjoyed the campaign. She was disappointed that it had gone on hiatus for one year and wished we had talked about all of this sooner instead of letting it sit for a year. 

(For context, we still saw each other almost every month during the hiatus. We just never talked about the campaign, and nobody asked when we'd be playing again.)

I also apologized for not explaining why I had stopped it. And told her that even if it wasn't really an excuse, at that time I genuinely believed that they weren't enjoying the campaign.

The conversation ended on a positive note, though. She concluded that nobody is mad at me, they still want to keep hanging out for board games and dinners, and she thanked me for running the campaign. She also said that she genuinely thought I was a good DM and that she had a great time playing. We both agreed that ending a friendship over D&D disagreement was not what we wanted.
It was particularly important for her because something similar had happened to her in the past.

I still haven't been able to reach my other friend. I texted her and tried calling her, but she hasn't replied yet. She might just need some time to process everything.

So thanks again for your thoughts and valuable advice. As I mentionned, I am running an another adventure with a group I really enjoy DMing forand playing in an other one. So, in the end, things turned out pretty well. :)