u/artmonso

CW: fantasy racism, implied PDFiled, sections of COVID, mentions of torture

So I watched Magic Hat’s bards video, and it reminded me of an old high school DM, Johnny in the late 2000s, who let the class stereotypes of TTRPG rule his DMing/play. A few that I could remember from high school. 
People tried to turn skill monkey into engineer types in Pathfinder 1e via the rogue, since gunslinger wasn't allowed and always started in jail or was branded a criminal because of “the class's background.” Regardless of craft, social class, or race, they had to be criminals, con men, or pirates, and never a Lawful alignment. The rogue could never be Lawful. Bards had to be able to sing or play instruments for full class features, plus be flirty. The worst was the strict Lawful Good paladin stereotype: law enforcers who couldn't commit crimes even if laws were unjust, refusing rewards and leaving characters undergeared or not scaling properly in 3.5 or 4e. The deity had to be Lawful Good or close, with backgrounds like Jesus or Judge Dredd, or paladins who had lost levels and needed long redemption quests, which few completed.
So, cut to 2021 or 2022, the pandemic is in full swing, and I just moved out of my folks' home, after increasing boundary issues and other toxic behavior. I was invited to an “anime dark” style online DnD 5e game by Johnny whom I ran into while working on gig apps.

starting at 9th level, where we were a group of outcasts;

Me as a dragon born oath of vengeance paladin/dragon sorcerer (sorcerer to allow for a tail) was a holy warrior turned knight-errant after the ordermaster of “the people’s defenders” freely went along with the corrupt reforms on the stripping of rights.

Puppy, a mute gnome College of Puppetry bard, whose circus burned down to the ground by racists to avoid paying them, and communicated with puppet sign/music boxes, by her parents.

Anger-Burns Tiefling gloomstalker ranger, an ex-bounty hunter who, after bagging a number of resistance members to the mad kings reforms, had the inquisition called on them for being part demon… despite the inquisition being quietly replaced by a demon cult by the new king.

Lord Shadowmore, the bastard born half-orc rogue who was formerly going to be the head of a noble house, but due to a mix of racial purity laws and both sides of his noble line getting purged by the rule of the new king. Fled in the night and trying to find his Orc cousins for aid.

Campaign background: Stuck in a nation that, thanks to the “wrong” prince getting crowned as the guy ahead of him disappeared around the same time, as the old king was assassinated by a non-human, according to the new king. Over the last 20 years, things have been hell for non-humans. Slavery, using them for sacrifices to dark powers, closing off the borders as too many non humans fleeing/threats from former allies. We were traveling together because we had all been screwed over by society, and our issues were, one way or another, linked to a strange noble lord in one of the worst parts of the country. All of us wanted him to pay in some way or another plus he may have away past the magic boundary keeping the non-humans.

Over the course of 3 to 5 sessions, we were traveling deeper into the heavily wooded  province. Where monsters of all kinds lay in wait, and the few civilized counties were at the smallest a gathering of Hamlets, and the largest a small trade post or lake/river port. It was the sessions, or at least parts of them in civilized parts that put a timer on the campaign.
Strike 1: After completing a quest to recover wagons of food meant for one of the few untouched halfling villages, we learned that the “good” part of the people’s defenders were extorting the town for the food. They demanded either that ⅓ of the town return to the capital as slaves or that the town give up most of the wood, coal, and furs stockpiled for the coming winter. I stepped in and asked the quest giver, “What in the name of the fucking gods were they doing?” only to be told, “Doing the people’s bidding by finding fresh slaves for the slave pits, as is the people’s will, through the god king emperor,” before pointing out that I still carried the emblem of the order. I was told I'm still part of the org and have to obey the king, especially as one blessed with dragon’s blood.
I naturally ripped the emblem off and broke it while in the same motion, stabbed the man with the two-handed broadsword. A short combat later, the Survivor points out that the key is enchanted not to open the food stores unless one) someone of true blood is touching it (pure human or dragon) or two) someone stronger than the owner claims it before trying and failing to teleport it away with puppy’s counterspell. Lord grabs the key and shoves it into the defender’s open wound while I lay on hands. We told the crowd with fair music from puppy’s dolls that they can rip it out of him and save themselves from hunger, leaving the man screaming as he is ripped apart by starving halflings. 
Strike 2: while coming back from a job dealing with cannibalistic bridge trolls, Anger-Burns was told to make a hard perception check to spot a tattoo to a bounty hunting group that was part of trying to hand her over. The sheriff confessed on the spot to it but it's been years ago, plus he now has a wife and kids and a productive member of the community…of what the DM put as “not even racist white trash would live here.” In fact, there was his wife and kids now. Running down the hill to tell him about their day, dinner in hand.
Anger-Burns and the rest of us waste no time killing whatever law enforcement was in the building which, to be fair, was being condescending and tried to shortchange us on the reward. The wife and kid were put in a jail cell within earshot by puppy, as Shadowmore looked over the records on the noble we were trying to find as well as freeing prisoners that were clearly being held on false charges. Anger-Burns and I took turns beating and scalping the crap out of the sheriff to get the combo for the evidence locker full of loot and other names of the man that wronged are party member who also seem to be working for the Noble that we were looking for. Before setting the sheriff’s office on fire but after letting the wife and kids go, the wife tried to stab Shadowmore, and in kind, he stabbed her, leaving the kids to grieve over the body.
The final strike: an inn out of the way of most of the townships run by catfolk as effectively used as a base for most of the game. While investigating the area where the Noble’s hidden manor was, the man had access to druidic magic to hide it. Getting back to see the place burned to the ground and the mother and father catfolk running the placed hanging from a tree, stripped of clothing and brutalized. The two kids were no where in the remains of the building we called home and was helping fix up. Anger-Burns tracked the drag marks to one of the swamp towns on the border. To make a long story short, the town was full of cultists, grabbing non-human travelers to sacrifice to a Lovecraftian swamp puppy. The family was accused of cheating one of the elders out of cards, sapplies, and possibly the dad was cheating on one of their wives, so they organized the kidnapping of the kids and the lynching of the parents.
Getting back to town after the “quest” they put us on, thinking their demi-god was unkillable, to a party of level 10s at this point, dropping the monster's head to their feet, they dropped the act. Going from anger at killing their god, to appeals to tradition, and shadowmores, and my character’s “purer sides” of our bloodlines. Ending with “you can't just kill all of us, we outnumber you, and clearly too good to wipe out a town,” which my character laughed, Shadowmore ordered the woman and children indoors and Puppy put a puppet by the door to the temple to block it. It didn't take long to massacre the whole lot of them after the warlocks and trained fighters went down. We then told the woman and children to flee into the night as we looted the temple and set it on fire. The session ended with Johnny telling me that I have become an oathbreaker and everyone was now of evil alignment and needed to make new characters.
The aftermath: we, the party, talked to the DM in a makeshift session zero, where the DM laid out what he hated after reviewing our sheets and backstories a bit more thoroughly. The first thing was that, by DnD tradition, we were not a real DnD party, as “none of you are playing your class right or the proper alignments!!!” None of us were on the Good axis, as I was CN leaning CE, Shadowmore was LN, Puppy was true N leaning NG, and Anger-Burns was CN leaning N or L. Johnny told us that leaning isn't a thing and we needed to role up good characters as “regardless of a shit world, Adventurer parties are always the good guys, you four act more like mercs and hired thugs.” Which, in fairness, adventurers are a step up from.
On top of the alignment issues, we were murderhoboing regardless of who attacked first, species slurs or refusal to talk until they were on their deathbeds. Even if spared, they just come back a session later with friends and mock us for our “weak mercy,” and try the same waterworks when they are nearly downed again. On top of that, we did kill women regardless of them attacking first, or us defending ourselves and possibly inadvertently killed kids by making them orphans.
He pointed out how each of us were failing as our chosen class, Lord Shadowmore was a rogue and couldn't be Lawful in any way, regardless of taking the noble background. The fact that he was also playing a “pirate” subclass when acting like an English gentleman showed that he never really played a “true rogue” before. Next was Anger-Burn who, as a ranger, was “too urban” and was also taking away the optional feature that replaces Favored Terrain. Rangers and keepers of the wild and also didnt like that she picked humans and the like as Favorites Enemies, regardless of her backstory having them live in the cities for most of her life, “its not logical for your character.” as he switch to puppy, o puppy the homebrew mute puppet bard was told that she needed to add a lot more singing or Poetry to her act to be a real bard. He also wanted to question if she was going for some kind of “Sexy Jester,” given the nature of the class. The performance acts around kids had Johnny concerned about if anything was going on. Given that the whole class was sexual in nature and was trying to quietly block them just in case. Which Puppy being IRL non-verbal autistic either from likely being told she was going to lose her text-to-speech bot or being suggested to be a PDFile, dropped the server, followed by burns and lord.
He was confused about why they dropped or even blocked him, and about the claim that “people don't understand what their character would do,” since class tropes are the building blocks of any character in the hobby. 

I tried to tell him, explain to him how that wasn't true, or the whole “why are you a bard around children, dont you know they have to be sexy” comment. Only to get my share of what was wrong with my character and me as a person.
Paladins and Clerics' first editions were always to be beacons of morality and justice, and all Paladin and Cleric players have to keep that in mind regardless whatever WotC say. He wasn't going to stop me from taking the Oath of vengeance but I needed to be the most lawful good version of that possible. Like how my antag, the ordermaster as a paladin, had no choice but to hold up the evil laws. In fact, if he had fully read my backstory or the others, he wouldn't have allowed me to become one, after finding a line about “losing their faith in the system…” meaning I didn't even have the most basic part of being a paladin, faith.
He went on about how I was “leading the party to the wrong Conclusion about the noble” as he was dropping hints that he was the lost Prince and all the pain and suffering he did to the party was accidental/prepping us to be the agents he needed to take back the crown.
He ended it with a speech about how I haven't changed since high school. Inflexible and unable to adapt to the pre-established groundwork that RPGs and fantasy have laid out to how the genre Works, I needlessly push the boundaries to be in my comfort zone instead of others, and I was still a Godless A-hole with no sense of right or wrong before kicking and blocking me.

TLDR; high school DM who follows class tropes too closely, grew up and invited me to his dark gritty game world, ends up destroying it with RPG tropes too when no one wanted to play into them. Tells me I haven't grown up at all, then blocks me.

edit 1: formatting

Hi all, this is a story about one of my older groups in my teens with a former friend, let's call Stringfellow, based on his adopted name. I had gotten him into the world of RPGs by DnD after my dad talked to his dad about RPGs like DnD after their family kicked me out of their house one time for bringing "satanic" materials into the home. The talk went well, and I got a small group from his church's young club going. We start with DnD, then expand to Traveler and Call of Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu was surprisingly one of the more popular games, not just for one-shot but full-on campaigns as well.

The only issue with CoC was that any attempt to have sessions on, near, or crossing the Atlantic Ocean would kill the game. crossing by boat, an elder one attacks and sinks it. trying to get to a small island where the lighthouse holding the seals needed to save the world, the driver crit fails, and we all get swept up in a drag tide and drown. Starting a WW2 Call of Cthulhu campaign with the starting point being the D-Day landings, everyone got busy with finals and has yet to pick it up again.

Now, I understand we were young, like high school young, and the Curse was more bad luck and everyday IRL commitments, but I feel like the two following times the "curse" struck were more Stringfellow's ego than just bad timing or a roll of the dice.

The first Flaming Hindenburg was his attempt to launch a campaign, departing from Germany for New York to embark on a globe-trotting adventure in the post-WW2 era. From what I remember player-wise, there were four of us. I was a travel journalist, the other from Stringfellow's church group, let's call a prayer friend, being a biology professor and our mutual friend Edward who was leaning into his Jewish heritage by being the group's wealthy accountant. We were going back to the States from the UK after receiving letters from an old friend about "strange happenings" around their manor in Lovecraft County, Maine.

We were boarding the blimp with a DMPC of a medical doctor, Dr. Hatecraft, when Stringfellow mentioned a group of "hooded figures" boarding as well. my character went to try to talk up the pass a notice check to find that the figures were all wearing the same strange amulet. one of the other players, Edward, lucked out on a hard mythos lore check (2 to 5%) as Stringfellow, "as a joke" decided to grant Edward mythos lore for his Jewish faith. Turns out they were some kind of fire-worshipping cult. They pull guns, and none of us being armed, run and hide til the port authorities come and deal with it.

For the rest of the session, nothing really happens, as we try to investigate the cultists' cablins, question NPCs, and look at the cargo bay, nothing of note comes up. We end up RPing with each other and learning about what's been happening in the states for possible leads for the main quest when the final night of the Zeppelin, when we are just able to dock inland, and when we are asked to make Con checks. The dinner has been spiked with chloroform by Dr. Hatecraft, knocking all of us out. The doctor summoned Dimensional Shamblers to start killing everyone on board as he calmly set the Hindenburg on fire to complete a spell to bring an elderage god of fire into our world. The only one that was given a chance to ecape was Edward, as he timed out the sleeping drugs first, so at least he got the chance to jump off the ship and onto the small landing pole just before eather the monsters or fire could get him. he failed his Dex roll and hit the concrete, putting him down to a hit point and breaking both legs. The last scene of the game was Edward fruitlessly trying to crawl away from the Hindenburg as its burning hull slowly landed on him.

So none of us caught on that the Dr. was an evil cultist, and that was that, it's CoC, and there was a risk of a TPK with each session. At least that is what I thought when I started up my game.

It was going to be the party trying to stop WW2 in an alternate steampunk CoC earth, complete with some homebrew rules and items I found online. I would have it start on the Hindenburg, where, due to an advanced Faraday cage built into the blimp, the lighting didn't set the zeppelin on fire. Now, it and a few other Luxury Blimps are considered some of the fastest and most Stylish ways to travel in the world.

The party being, I believe, Stringfellow as his Doctor DMPC from the one-shot, with the church Friend being a War vet from WW1, Edward as a wealthy stockbroker They were going to meet with an old friend, let's call Professor Christian, who lives in Poland, and they each owed a favor to him in one way or another. He was concerned about what was happening in Germany with the military buildup and the raids on archaeological sites from a newly discovered culture that seemed to have worshiped squid-like beings. So the party took Hindenburg to Germany to catch a train to Poland in time for the dual invasion by both Germany and the USSR (who also had their own plans with the mytho).

So, boarding the blimp, I start dropping hints about what the overall campaign will be by letting the part meet some major historical movers beforehand. One of tehm was to a red Haring, Adolf Hitler. The counselor was visiting the US about lifting sanctions on helium but in reality, visiting the American branch of the Lovecraftian cult to see if everything is ready for the “mass sacrifice” that was World War II, with the US intervention being a “back-up” to make sure enough people died to summon the elder god. I think I would have Goebbels as the “real” BBEG but the campaign ended season one.

Stringfellow, also being a veteran of “The Great War '' had met Hitler during the war and wanted him dead due to him owing them money and Hitler trying to get out of the debt by leaving him behind in no man's land. At least that's what String said was in his background, which he never gave me a written copy of. He then offered the two other party members cancer screenings and told them they had terminal cancer. Seeing they have cancer provided a good cause to live out their final days, to kill Hitler. String's best friend jumped on board without much thought. The bystander questioned the cancer diagnosis without any reliable tools. They started to fight that if the roll was good enough to convince them they had cancer and rolled high enough on his fast talk for them to believe him. church friend wanted him to do it with genuine medical gear like an X-ray machine or blood labs. After another long debate over whether they even had that in the 1930s, the pair decided to have it in private on the balcony. To which Stringfellow wasted no time grabbing and throwing the vet into the sea.

This was when the campaign truly went off the rail as Stringfellow, and Edward when off to the engine room to pop the hydrogen sacks. While the church friend took over one of the NPCs on board, the captain of the security on board tried to stop them with a squad of men. The battle was pretty one-sided, as Stringfellow, I would later learn, just took the already OP DMPC from his one-shot and added the vet template on top, poorly at that, as he had 200% firearms and 120% mythos. The game ended when Stringfellow opened a portal to the inside of one of the hydrogen bags, pulled out a flamethrower which I am not even sure he got it from, and sent a blast of flames through. I described how the Hindenburg exploded and everyone died despite stringfellow trying to interrupt me to say he was “explosion and fire proof and just swims the rest of the way back to the US”

Stringfellow killed my game as he felt it was fair as I killed his game for as the bible saids “an eye for an eye.” turns out he blamed me for finding the cultists early as I suggested to edward to look at the fire cultists. he also felt that I was meta gaming as the cultists used the same names and ethnicity of the characters from nectar through a sieve a book we were reading in high school.

what boiled me was that Stringfellow would never reveal this in front of the others. Every single time we remotely got close to the subject of my Hindenburg game he would start heavily pointing out that it was the “Curse of the Atlantic” that i should have known better than to set the game over the ocean. O, and to point out the hypocrisy, Stringfellow would just call BS about the curse ruining his Hindenburg one shot and just blamed me for “sabotaging it on purpose to get your shit game off the ground.”

Edit TLDR high school friend kills game in justifiable Christian Revenge for accidentally killing his game by recognizing the names from my homework assignments

Hi all, this is a story about one of my older groups in my teens with a former friend, let's call Stringfellow, based on his adopted name. I had gotten him into the world of RPGs by DnD after my dad talked to his dad about RPGs like DnD after their family kicked me out of their house one time for bringing "satanic" materials into the home. The talk went well, and I got a small group from his church's young club going. We start with DnD, then expand to Traveler and Call of Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu was surprisingly one of the more popular games, not just for one-shot but full-on campaigns as well.

The only issue with CoC was that any attempt to have sessions on, near, or crossing the Atlantic Ocean would kill the game. crossing by boat, an elder one attacks and sinks it. trying to get to a small island where the lighthouse holding the seals needed to save the world, the driver crit fails, and we all get swept up in a drag tide and drown. Starting a WW2 Call of Cthulhu campaign with the starting point being the D-Day landings, everyone got busy with finals and has yet to pick it up again.

Now, I understand we were young, like high school young, and the Curse was more bad luck and everyday IRL commitments, but I feel like the two following times the "curse" struck were more Stringfellow's ego than just bad timing or a roll of the dice.

The first Flaming Hindenburg was his attempt to launch a campaign, departing from Germany for New York to embark on a globe-trotting adventure in the post-WW2 era. From what I remember player-wise, there were four of us. I was a travel journalist, the other from Stringfellow's church group, let's call a prayer friend, being a biology professor and our mutual friend Edward who was leaning into his Jewish heritage by being the group's wealthy accountant. We were going back to the States from the UK after receiving letters from an old friend about "strange happenings" around their manor in Lovecraft County, Maine.

We were boarding the blimp with a DMPC of a medical doctor, Dr. Hatecraft, when Stringfellow mentioned a group of "hooded figures" boarding as well. my character went to try to talk up the pass a notice check to find that the figures were all wearing the same strange amulet. one of the other players, Edward, lucked out on a hard mythos lore check (2 to 5%) as Stringfellow, "as a joke" decided to grant Edward mythos lore for his Jewish faith. Turns out they were some kind of fire-worshipping cult. They pull guns, and none of us being armed, run and hide til the port authorities come and deal with it.

For the rest of the session, nothing really happens, as we try to investigate the cultists' cablins, question NPCs, and look at the cargo bay, nothing of note comes up. We end up RPing with each other and learning about what's been happening in the states for possible leads for the main quest when the final night of the Zeppelin, when we are just able to dock inland, and when we are asked to make Con checks. The dinner has been spiked with chloroform by Dr. Hatecraft, knocking all of us out. The doctor summoned Dimensional Shamblers to start killing everyone on board as he calmly set the Hindenburg on fire to complete a spell to bring an elderage god of fire into our world. The only one that was given a chance to ecape was Edward, as he timed out the sleeping drugs first, so at least he got the chance to jump off the ship and onto the small landing pole just before eather the monsters or fire could get him. he failed his Dex roll and hit the concrete, putting him down to a hit point and breaking both legs. The last scene of the game was Edward fruitlessly trying to crawl away from the Hindenburg as its burning hull slowly landed on him.

So none of us caught on that the Dr. was an evil cultist, and that was that, it's CoC, and there was a risk of a TPK with each session. At least that is what I thought when I started up my game.

It was going to be the party trying to stop WW2 in an alternate steampunk CoC earth, complete with some homebrew rules and items I found online. I would have it start on the Hindenburg, where, due to an advanced Faraday cage built into the blimp, the lighting didn't set the zeppelin on fire. Now, it and a few other Luxury Blimps are considered some of the fastest and most Stylish ways to travel in the world.

The party being, I believe, Stringfellow as his Doctor DMPC from the one-shot, with the church Friend being a War vet from WW1, Edward as a wealthy stockbroker They were going to meet with an old friend, let's call Professor Christian, who lives in Poland, and they each owed a favor to him in one way or another. He was concerned about what was happening in Germany with the military buildup and the raids on archaeological sites from a newly discovered culture that seemed to have worshiped squid-like beings. So the party took Hindenburg to Germany to catch a train to Poland in time for the dual invasion by both Germany and the USSR (who also had their own plans with the mytho).

So, boarding the blimp, I start dropping hints about what the overall campaign will be by letting the part meet some major historical movers beforehand. One of tehm was to a red Haring, Adolf Hitler. The counselor was visiting the US about lifting sanctions on helium but in reality, visiting the American branch of the Lovecraftian cult to see if everything is ready for the “mass sacrifice” that was World War II, with the US intervention being a “back-up” to make sure enough people died to summon the elder god. I think I would have Goebbels as the “real” BBEG but the campaign ended season one.

Stringfellow, also being a veteran of “The Great War '' had met Hitler during the war and wanted him dead due to him owing them money and Hitler trying to get out of the debt by leaving him behind in no man's land. At least that's what String said was in his background, which he never gave me a written copy of. He then offered the two other party members cancer screenings and told them they had terminal cancer. Seeing they have cancer provided a good cause to live out their final days, to kill Hitler. String's best friend jumped on board without much thought. The bystander questioned the cancer diagnosis without any reliable tools. They started to fight that if the roll was good enough to convince them they had cancer and rolled high enough on his fast talk for them to believe him. church friend wanted him to do it with genuine medical gear like an X-ray machine or blood labs. After another long debate over whether they even had that in the 1930s, the pair decided to have it in private on the balcony. To which Stringfellow wasted no time grabbing and throwing the vet into the sea.

This was when the campaign truly went off the rail as Stringfellow, and Edward when off to the engine room to pop the hydrogen sacks. While the church friend took over one of the NPCs on board, the captain of the security on board tried to stop them with a squad of men. The battle was pretty one-sided, as Stringfellow, I would later learn, just took the already OP DMPC from his one-shot and added the vet template on top, poorly at that, as he had 200% firearms and 120% mythos. The game ended when Stringfellow opened a portal to the inside of one of the hydrogen bags, pulled out a flamethrower which I am not even sure he got it from, and sent a blast of flames through. I described how the Hindenburg exploded and everyone died despite stringfellow trying to interrupt me to say he was “explosion and fire proof and just swims the rest of the way back to the US”

Stringfellow killed my game as he felt it was fair as I killed his game for as the bible saids “an eye for an eye.” turns out he blamed me for finding the cultists early as I suggested to edward to look at the fire cultists. he also felt that I was meta gaming as the cultists used the same names and ethnicity of the characters from nectar through a sieve a book we were reading in high school.

what boiled me was that Stringfellow would never reveal this in front of the others. Every single time we remotely got close to the subject of my Hindenburg game he would start heavily pointing out that it was the “Curse of the Atlantic” that i should have known better than to set the game over the ocean. O, and to point out the hypocrisy, Stringfellow would just call BS about the curse ruining his Hindenburg one shot and just blamed me for “sabotaging it on purpose to get your shit game off the ground.”

Edit TLDR high school friend kills game in justifiable Christian Revenge for accidentally killing his game by recognizing the names from my homework assignments

CW: alcholism, drugs, mentions of politics, and gaslighting

So a few years back, my friend Steve invited me to room with his normal two con roommates when he wasn't able to room with me and our regular friend group, Jeff, his sunny's "best friend," and Sunny, the main problemmatic roommate. Sunny was as he put it an "independent farmer" who was making a killing on the side with crypto investments. While Jeff was more on the quiet side and small, Sunny was tall, large, and very loud and expressive, depending on how much booze or drugs were in him.

Over two differnt gaming conventions, I had to deal with drunken political rants, having to use the hotel restroom as the room bathroom would be taken up with him sick from over consumption, or...well, if the years of working at rehab and PHF units, the sounds of snorting complete with a white powdery residue while getting snacks for another game. All three of us were out of the room enough that we only spent about 20% at the con but that 20% was unwanted conversations about how crypto and AI were the future, how he was close to voting for trump for a 2nd time but didnt feel like his policies on deregulation the stock trading, crypto coin, and Anti-DEI didnt go far enought, and would take every opertonity to taking up his shirt and try fighting over everything from not agreeing that his sister a *gay insult* (while adding not all *gay insults* are *gay insults* and had friends who were *gay insults* but the *gay insult are really *gay insult*) liberal snowflack who was sueing him for misuse of the family trust to the god damn animated hobbit film.

I did talk to the other two roommates, where Jeff told me he was harmless and only help come sunny down by getting him to smoke some weed and take some edibles which not only triggers my asthma once, and one not got bad enough that i had to sleep in my car for the last night of the con, but shifted his tone to aggressively about everyone is wrong exluding him but a strange self piteding near crying...about everyone blaming him for all the right chooses in life. Steve would just ask me to stop arguing with Sunny, saying "this was his vacation too," and didn't want to think about politics at all for the trip, despite agreeing with me that Sunny was wrong on the topic and being more liberal-leaning.

over the two cons, some of the most notable events being;

1. finding out I was selling old board games, RPGs, and comics at the con bazaar, then asking me to pay extra for "costs I forgot to talk to you about" be it parking fees, my share of the grocry money for the food Sunny bought for the con to make out of my Insta-Pot which I was told would wave part of the food bill or that I needed to be the one to tip housekeeping being the first one in the cycule, a cycule that started and ended with me. Yes, I did debate him, but til the other two roommates just paid on my behalf for everything but the housekeeping tip. I couldn't help but notice that the tip money seemed to have disappeared when I got out the door, and that Sunny made sure he was the last one out of the room and wouldn't let me back in, saying, "I already checked we are good."
2. Blamed me for getting him a lifelong ban from the 100-man werewolf/Mob game as he would take THC gummies right before the game started to "help with immursion." The game had to be reset because people joined late or left early during setup. I was one of the people to leave after 3 or 4 false starts, and frankly, despite the novelty of a 100-person game, never a big fan of social deduction games. The edibles kicked in too soon, and Sunny started to freak. The organizer, whom I later found out the next day had asked him to come sober or not at all, banned him on the spot and would try to kick him from the con if he even passed the con room it was hosted in again.
3. The man is a very bad rules lawyer and generally poor sport, having to redo turns and, if not full rounds, in any board game or just debate endlessly till he gets the point. I walked when he did this at a Twilight Empurium game, which earned me some very passive-aggressive texts for killing the game mood.

So, come con number 3, we started texting about who was bringing what, who was covering what costs, and what we weren't going to talk about, when Steve took me aside and told me I wasn't invited back. Sunny had made a completely differnt group chat to complain about my needless arguing, that I was a drama lama unable to "have a sivil convo about politics" and unable to agree to disagree...about some wildly uninformed conspiracy theories on immigration and globalism.

That I was drinking to excess and puking in the room, and why he's trying to get me to tip housekeeping, mind you, Sunny for as long as I've known him was never sober once, and we caught him more than 6 times being sick in the room. Both Steve and Jeff call him out for it and point out examples, but always reflex "well, it could have been OP!"

That Sunny was only tolerating my behavior as I was a "serve member" even if it was part of the wempy coast guard, and would have "taken OP outside to show him what a real man was" otherwise. I was never part of the Coast Guard, just had a hoodie from my time as a contractor in one of the mess halls. Plus, I don't think you needed to be in any branch of service to win against a man who trips just standing upright on the bed. What made this worse, while sitting with Steve, showing me the group chat, Sunny was texting me about plans for the coming con, where to send payments and that i could send them early, and games he wanted to try together.

Steve said he was busy and could not make the con, and Jeff said a distant family member died and the funeral was the week of the con. My dad was planning to go to that 3rd con, and Steve just joined us and couldn't be happier not having to deal with Sunny, so we needed to pay extra for food since we couldn't cook in the room, but that is the price of peace.

I was at a TTrpg and board game con where I could get a chance to try RPGs I never get the chance to play back at home, or at least as a player. So got to try mage for my 2 or 3 times ever. I was playing one of the steampunk mages; I think the other 3 were: a voodoo doctor, a crusader-type, and a proper wiccan witch.

We were tasked with finding out what strange disturbance was happening in a small town hosting a science camp. Believing that this was the doing of the BBEG of the setting, the technocracy or logic-based mages. We got there and found that everyone was acting very strangely, like no one could look us in the eye, everything had to be super neat and orderly, and on occasion, we could catch one of the residents shaking their hands or rubbing them together really fast or even using figurine toys. As a matter of fact, everyone also had either earbuds or headphones.

It wasn't until the Wiccan tried some scouting with her animal familer which straight up ignited, and the crusader started to bleed from the eyes, trying to divinate something both taking lethal wounds that we realize that this place seems to be as the storyteller put it "a hyper pocket of reality," as finding some pamphlets and flyers that the camp and possable everyone in the town were on the autism spectrum. So the paradox rolls will be doubled out of sight of the sleepers (non-awakened mage people) and tripled if in sight of anyone in the town.

For the purpose of reposting/cross-posting, to the best of my understanding as a casual WoD fan, magic in WoD Mage: The Awakening operates on consensus, the collective belief of the setting, so stuff like microwave ovens to cook food and cars being able to burn gas to move where you need to go, is a form of magic in the setting. Magic is just reality warping, but it comes at a cost. If you do something that doesn't agree with the collective consensus, then reality tries to warp it back, possibly in a violent manner. It could be anything from physical illness to just outright being twisted into something monstrous and outside of the rules of Consensus.

So we had to be careful about using our powers, as paradox rolls would be deadlier than normal. So it was mostly trying to use our mundane skills to blend into a town full of autistic stereotypes. From 4chan insel mods, to furry tech bro to people who want to talk nothing but trains, if you can think of something touching ASD it was there.

I'm not sure what is normal for paradox, but it was, to say the least, very disruptive for magic when not in front of witnesses, like:

• The crusader broke into the boarded-up church in town to perform some miracles beforehand in the hopes of using them later...the church burned into flames as a monster in the shape of an "atheist Reddit mod" tried to kill us.
• The voodoo doc dolls turned into Disney figures, like from " Princess and the Frog, plus at times he felt compelled to start singing what he was saying. His mannerisms and appearance were becoming more "animated" like a rubberhose cartoon.
• nearly had my steam-powered tools explode on me, and plus the airship I summoned to be parked nearby, it Hindenburged.
• Wiccan interaction with any animal or plant would end with them exploding into flames or twisting into human-animal/plant hybrids and attacking us while speaking in that strange OWO speak. If my memory was right, fire was the most common outcome for her and crusader, but anything involving fire seemed to actively try to reach her first.

At some point, we got a clue to look at the clinic attached to the camp were it turns out the high rate of autism was caused by the logic mages taking paradox spirits, putting them into vaccines to make kids autistic....if anyone can say if this is lore accurate and not just insulting, let me know.

So we downloaded the info and the rival magi burst into the room looking for a fight, and this is when the shit hit the fan. As the already high paradox rolls were tripled in the presence of the autistic patients and the enemy Mages.

The crusader tried to empower his sword with the spirit of Saint Peter, the sword exploded, into flames, while he burned, a pit opened up under him as lava-based demons dragged him to what we could only describe as hell.

While the clinic was burning down, with paradox spirits and demons fighting and killing everyone, Voodoo Doc managed to get a strand of one of the enemy mages' hair and tried to perform something on his doll. He failed his paradox check so badly that he became a literal cartoon character and went on a killing spree.

The wiccan and I got out of town heavily wounded and half mad as we were arguing to the story teller to try to get the multiplier down, me arguing that I was some random youtuber who was know for "making all this in the back of his garuge" and the wiccan asking me to do a research check (character specialized in internet culture) to explain what otherkin were in game to avold meta gaming. fitting into the autism consensus.

The storyteller asked for feedback. Wiccan and I, the newer players, felt like it was a bit too high-fatality, especially since we couldn't really do much magic, and the two vets felt like he needed to read the books more.

The storyteller just told us that if he runs games at this con again, he won't let us play with him because we were all too combative about his rulings.

so that was Mage.