u/paintedlotusyt

I've realized that our game has been going on for a couple of years now and the most joy I glean from playing is when myself and other players choose to be kind of silly. Otherwise, it's just extremely bleak with no reprieve in sight.

Is it supposed to be this way?

This is everyone's first time playing, including the ST, and. I can't help but wonder if we're doing something wrong. Isn't it supposed to be fun? I adore the world of Vampire and the system of V5, but it's feeling like we're just playing just to finish it at this point, not because we actually enjoy the campaign.

Any advice is welcome, of course.

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Update: I'm honestly really touched by the community's response to this. Thank you all so much for the advice and insight! I'm reading every comment and taking all of it to heart.

I'm definitely going to have a discussion with my ST. Little fun fact is that we didn't have a session zero until later on in our chronicle and when we did, it was to cover sensitive topics to avoid rather than play styles and expectations.

Thanks to your input, I've realized that all of us - our ST, the other players, and myself all had different expectations of the game going in and none of us realized that those expectations weren't shared by anyone else in the group.

I've also realized thanks to this sub that things have recently happened in my personal life that have made embodying a character in the bleak World of Darkness more difficult without tweaking it to be more lighthearted until I can pull myself out of my own real world issues.

Seriously, I can't thank y'all enough. I really love this community and so appreciate all of y'all for helping me see where I can improve my enjoyment of the game I love.

May your dice crit at just the right time in your next session. 🙏🏻

I have a friend. Let's call him Rob.

Rob broke up with his girlfriend (let's call her Jen) about two years ago, but they were effectively broken up well before that. That's a long story, but needless to say, she was not a good partner at all. I always tried to inform Rob of this, but he refused to accept it and got defensive if I or anyone else said anything remotely disparaging about the way she was treating him, so I left it alone and let him learn on his own.

Jen hasn't been able to hold down a job since before the breakup and Rob has allowed Jen to stay with him at his house since they were already living together.

Reminder: that was two years ago.

Rob is convinced if she moves out, she'll be immediately homeless and it'll be his fault.

He doesn't want help or suggestions and she's been living in his house rent free the entire time. He told me he got himself 5 figures in debt over her. He had given her her own credit card to use and only recently took that off the table. He's going to give her the car when it's paid off. He's spending thousands of dollars taking care of a full grown woman (she's almost 40) even though she treated him so badly in their relationship.

He told me he lost the chance at at least one romantic relationship because of this situation and that person's moved on. He has brought this up multiple times.

Despite not wanting advice, Rob has the habit of constantly moping about his ex living with him. He won't tell her off and only about 3 months ago did he finally start making her sleep on the couch rather than *in his bed.*

She's applying for jobs, but I've tried explaining that she's got no actual incentive to move out because she's got it made right where she is. He doesn't seem to want to acknowledge this fact.

He's complaining to me all the time that he doesn't get to be intimate with anyone (which doesn't make sense because other people have living spaces) but he laments that it's his own doing "because he's not an asshole." Honestly, at this point, I feel like he kind of is. To himself and everyone in his orbit - apart from Jen.

Anyway, my question is: would I be the asshole for telling him he either needs to kick Jen out of his house or stop complaining about it to me?

My sister-in-law is a complicated person in my family. She's extremely intelligent and beautiful, but her self-esteem is in the trash because of her mental health. She's been unnecessarily cruel to my husband and myself many times in the past because of her own issues, but she changed her behavior when she got pregnant with my niece (3 yrs). Since then, she's been friendly and genuinely appreciates our presence in their lives. Before this, I even considered her one of my closest friends. Now, I'm just not sure whether I even really know her.

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Because of her unresolved issues and abysmal self-esteem, she's gotten pregnant *again* with a guy who couldn't care less about her and barely sees my niece as it is. On top of that, we found out he indeed still has his girlfriend so my sister-in-law was actively sleeping with a man she hates, without protection, and was helping him to cheat on someone. We had no idea that she was seeing him in secret so all of us were blindsided and I'm pretty sure the girlfriend still doesn't know. She certainly doesn't know about the baby.

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It's really hard to understand why my sister-in-law would do this. She's experienced cheating before and knows how hurtful it is. She's ended relationships over it. She's also told me that making him the father of her child was the worst mistake she's ever made.

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And yet, there's another new baby on the way. With this same guy as the father.

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My mother-in-law is already my niece's other parent due to the fact that the baby daddy can't be bothered to show up more than once a week for a couple of hours at most. He hardly does anything when he's there and expects my sister-in-law and mother-in-law to do all the work. I'm told he's gotten better now that my niece is old enough to walk by herself, but it's still a bare minimum situation. I'm actually convinced he's incapable of feeling shame or empathy because he doesn't seem to care about anyone other than himself. He always just has the same smug, unbothered expression. My sister-in-law has always asked us to keep the peace with him even after all the things we know he's done or failed to do, but after this, I'm just really not sure whether I can be around him.

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Apart from being irresponsible with this guy, my sister-in-law has been a really great parent to our niece and she clearly loves her.

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It's all just frustrating because this affects our whole family and I wish she would have thought of that. My husband and I regularly help out with our niece and I'll cook for them when I can because my mother-in-law is supposed to be retired, but she's having to work full-time to get by. She lost her husband just 3 years ago and the medical bills from his autoimmune disease during his final year in the hospital put her in debt. She's hardly been able to grieve because she's had to help take care of my niece the whole time. Now, my sister-in-law is doing this to her, and to us, a second time.

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Not only that, but she complained that she felt so alone during her first pregnancy because my husband and I couldn't handle being around pregnant people just yet and it came as a shock because she wasn't dating this man at the time. I'm still not in a place where I can be around pregnant people without getting emotional. She knows we've struggled to conceive and she's doing it effortlessly and carelessly with someone who mistreats her and our niece. It actually breaks my heart because we've tried so hard and haven't been able to experience the joys of parenthood. But she's not even trying and she gets to experience all of it.

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So we feel obligated to be there for her because she's family and we love her. We also already love that baby, but I just can't do it. I almost started crying just asking her how she's been feeling a couple of nights ago, but I held it together because I want to be there for her.

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My husband deserves to be a father. He's such an incredible uncle and one of the sweetest men alive. And yet fertility isn't a sign of virtue and there are a lot of people who become parents without actually deserving the title.

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It feels selfish, but I've just been breaking down every couple of days over this because it hits really hard and breaks my heart. I don't want to go through this again, being forced to constantly be around another baby who isn't ours. And yet, I want to be a good aunt.

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If anyone else can relate, please feel free to comment. If anyone has any advice, I'm also always open to it. 🙏🏻

I haven't seen Cora Coe in a hot minute and I'm getting concerned for this fictional child. Sam has been on my ship, I'm romancing him, did his personal mission, and shortly before becoming a full fledged Freestar Ranger, Cora went missing.

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I haven't been back to the Lodge in a bit so I'm hoping she's there, but she's supposed to be tied to her dad so I'm wondering where she is. Sam still announces when we're back on the ship to her as though she's there, but her dialogue never plays and she's nowhere onboard.

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Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a fix? Will going back to the Lodge get her back on the team?

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I'm on PS5.

My husband and I went through two embryo transfers last year and both failed. The second was really rough and we only have one frozen embryo left.

The hormones from the procedures made me gain weight and the doctor at the time was already telling me that I need to lose weight to improve my chances (I'm not obese, just overweight). So I'm trying to lose the weight before we try again.

Meanwhile, I've just been feeling like a shell of myself. I haven't really been the same since my diagnosis with PMOS (formerly PCOS) in spring of 2023. These procedures and negative tests have really gutted me and it's difficult to focus or function properly. I can hardly enjoy spending time with my little niece because I keep wishing I had my own child and being around children reminds me of my grief.

If anyone has any advice on how to handle this pain, please feel free to share in the comments.