u/thescottishgeek

TLDR at the end

Part 2 of the Echo saga

So here it is the long awaited follow up story of Echo our terrible DM. I'll link the previous story just below for context. But the TLDR is Echo the DMPC is literally a super God and we spend 9 IRL months being his lackeys and not playing the module -

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/s/QIAtJqtqus

Ok so after that awful campaign came to an end we stopped playing D&D all together for about a year. That was until my friend moved close to us and asked if we would be interested in starting a new D&D campaign with him as the DM. We'd heard from other friends that he was a great DM so we we're all excited to get started.

The cast are as follows with some previous players not returning.

Me playing Eileen, a elf Blood Hunter/Ranger

Big Tat playing Yhoona a big blue sexy Goliath Barbarian

Paladin from previous game now playing Akkan a Fighter Yuan Ti

And finally Echo.......playing Sparky, a Twilight Cleric. His choice of class will become important later

So we start off the adventure and for the first few weeks everything goes well. Until it doesn't. Sparky for some reason despite being a good aligned character insists on picking fights with guards when he doesn't get his way, freeing trapped angry polar bears and being surprised when they attack and just generally being very antagonistic towards things he doesn't like. All these actions have a roll on effect as we are a group. We try to have a chat with him about it and his behaviour improves but not for long.

His character for some context was just all over the place in general. He kept on asking the DM to make "sanity checks" even though that wasn't a mechanic we we're using and then using his results as an excuse for whatever nonsense he was up to.

Then there was his class. Now spoilers for Rime of the Frostmaiden here so skip to the next part if you want to avoid any spoilers. We were infiltrating a Duergar strong hold in the mountains and Sparky kept on insisting we went a certain route even though once again as a party we had decided to go another. He was huffy but relented. When we got ambushed by the Duergar, Sparky made a comment like "should have listened to me". We went into initiative and started fighting. But when it came to the Duergar's turn they went invisible and got the upper hand. That's when Sparky with a massive grin on his face case fairy fire. But the DM had other plans. He then describes the Duergar running away leaving us to chase after them, right onto a massive trap. We ended the session there and Sparky made a comment about "thats not what was meant to happen there".

After he left me and the DM sat and discussed his behaviour and why he was so tilted by some encounters we've had. It was then that the DM dropped the bombshell, Sparky had read the module and was trying to bet the game. It all suddenly made sense. His class choice directly countered a lot of the enemy types in the module, his constant forcing us in certain directions to avoid traps and ambushes and the way he would insist on interacting with NPCs only to be disappointed with the outcome he got. I was annoyed. What's the point if your just going to "cheat" and try to "win" the game while making it miserable for the rest of us. The DM assured me he had a plan and that Sparky was not going to get the module as written because he had tailored it to our way of playing and our characters back stories. And sure enough as the weeks went on Sparky frustrations became more and more apparent as things he expected to happen didn't.

Personally I was loving it. Our DM had obviously put in a lot of time and effort to make the story connected to our characters rather than just as written. But it all came to a head during an encounter that once again the party wanted to deal with one way and Sparkey decided to deal with his way.

So picture this. You've just rocked up to a suspected Hags cave in an isolated icey mountain. Outside you see the remains of the previous adventuring party who dared try and enter smeared all over the ice. You deside to send the stealthiest character in to have a snoop around before charging in. While inside you find more humanoid remains, a butcher room and the most disturbing thing, a 30 ft undead frost giant intombed in ice. You report back to the rest of your group and deside that stealth is very much the correct decision.

Now, does your Cleric

A - follow the plan and help your characters stealth their way in?

B - Ask their God for guidance before blessing your fellow party members?

Or

C - ignore all the other party members, run up to the entrance of the cave and shout at the top of their lungs "Hello, you in the cave".....

If you guessed C, you are correct. We all asked the DM if there was any way to stop this but unfortunately Sparkey had made it clear that he had ran ahead. So, out comes the 30ft undead frost giant and initiative starts. I rolled super high and went first. I turn to the DM and say "I use the Dash action and use my full moment to get away from Sparky because let's be honest here, theres no way my character would put her life on the line for him after repeatedly not working with the team and putting our lifes in danger. As she runs away you hear her cursing your name Sparkey and she gives you the finger".

He was stunned and I was done.

The other two players love a fight though so we did end up fighting the UFG and ai got the killing blow from a distance using my bow. Sparky spent the whole combat unconscious as right after I went it was the frost giants turn and he used all 3 of his attacks to turn Sparky into Twilight Paste. (Very satisfying).

After the session we all had a chat with Sparky telling him its maybe best he retire the character as clearly he wasn't working. But in the case with most of these D&D horror stories the trash took itself out. He permanently stepped away from the group. After a few weeks we brought in a new player and she has been the best addition to the team ever! So happy ending.

TLDR -

So yeah I didn't think it was possible for Echo to be a worse player than a DM but I was wrong. He cheated, he didn't work with the group and he tried to outsmart our DM and "win" D&D.

There is one more horror story involving Echo that's probably the worst offence of all but this story's already long enough so I'll save it for another day.