Long story short that I think I’ve told on Reddit before, my PC got herself in a lot of time travelling trouble, causing some of the group to either get angry, upset and/or worried for her safety. Despite saying she’d stop hiding things, communicate more and not rush off alone to do things, she secretly returned to where she initially went back in time to make sure no one else could do it. That and to get closure on some personal stuff.

Well she miraculously didn’t get caught, since dice rolls were on my side. But now she’s left feeling guilty due to telling 3-4 people she respects that she wouldn’t pull stunts like this anymore. Her options on who to talk to about this are:

\- One of her best friends and one of the few people who won’t lecture her. But she’s a blabbermouth and will likely tell someone else by accident. Easiest to talk to, hardest to trust.

\- The guy my PC has feelings for (and who likes her back). Also currently one of her best friends. He has said he’d follow her through hell and doesn’t want her doing things alone. She also told him not too long ago that she was done keeping secrets. Easiest to trust, most gut wrenching reaction possibly.

\- The father figure of the group. She’s slightly at odds with him right now due to feeling as though he’s overprotective of her and feels overwhelming guilt over lying to him for weeks prior to the time travel, but otherwise has a lot of respect for him and trusts him. He has lectured her on communication a few days prior to her sneaking back to where she went back in time. Confessing to him will likely lead into a conversation she isn’t comfortable having.

\- The Princess leading the army and another person my PC was lectured by. She was genuinely scared when she found out she went back in time and had her promise to tell the group what she’s planning before doing it. Also might lead into a conversation she isn’t comfortable with, especially since the Princess likely has ties to her parents. Out of the four choices, the Princess is the only NPC listed.

Now my PC doesn’t want to get in any more trouble, but this will eat her alive, along with the other stresses going on with her in campaign right now. Any advice and/or insight?

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

Warning: Misogyny, Sexual Assault

I have a DND story that I’ve finally decided to share about how we had a great DM, but my friends and I ended up becoming problem players during the first session. We have been playing DND for the past ten years ever since middle school. We started off on 3.5E Pathfinder at first, but switched to 5th Edition about six or so years ago (which caused its own problems for us, but that’s a whole different story). At first, we had a guy who ran campaigns for us at first who used 3.5E, but his campaigns were often way too unstructured and usually led nowhere, with the party just cracking jokes and messing around the whole time. Our new forever DM (I’ll call him DM from now on) was really into anime, fantasy, and video games, so he decided to take it upon himself to become our new DM when we switched to 5E since he had a lot of inspiration and is an exceptional writer.

DM put A LOT of effort into creating a massive world with in-depth lore, stories, and characters to be the setting for his campaign. I’ve had a sneak peek at his lore documents before, and there were THOUSANDS, and I mean THOUSANDS of pages. He had multiple groups of players who were all playing different questlines that would eventually converge in one single quest for the end of this arc. His campaigns are always great, and we always have fun, but unfortunately, our party is composed of people who are not exactly the most…serious individuals (such as my friend who created the dimension of "Cum-Low" that was filled with exactly what you think). This led to many situations in our campaign.

The first actually has to do with me. When DM’s campaign first started around six years ago, we began playing on Roll 20, and I started playing a high elf life domain cleric named Helaena who seemed dainty, shy, super nice, and supposedly was lawful good. However, I had cooked up a twist with the DM where my character was actually a servant of the God of Death (his world’s BBEG that we are STILL building up to) and she was secretly lawful evil and quite nasty as a person. Sometimes while I played as Helaena, I would intentionally drop her mask and she would say really mean or unhinged things, hinting that she was hiding something (this will be important later). She was planning on betraying the party once we reached the end of our current segment, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

The first problematic situation was with an NPC named Sir Gideon, who was basically the quest-giver and guide for the DM's campaign, but not really a DMNPC since he didn’t accompany the party. The DM actually copied him from Sir Gideon Ofnir from Elden Ring and even used the SAME picture from the game, but somehow he had no idea that Sir Gideon was from Elden Ring since he didn’t actually play that game. I have no idea how he managed to accidentally copy a video game character without realizing, but whatever.

At any rate, part of the lore was that Sir Gideon had a lover whom he had a daughter with, but his lover left him, took her daughter with her, and married another man in a far away country. When we encountered him in-game, Sir Gideon often seemed unhelpful to me, as I felt he was deliberately hiding information from the party and he didn’t give out good rewards for doing his quests. For these reasons, I often referred to him as “Sir Gideon the Cuck,” and mocked him while doing so.

The DM seemed pretty upset when Helaena (my PC) made fun of Sir Gideon every time her “dainty and nice” mask slipped. To be fair, he did put a lot of work into his characters, so I was probably in the wrong to keep mocking his character like that constantly. This led to the following conversation:

DM: Dang, it really hurts that you call Sir Gideon a “cuck” and “useless.” He’s supposed to represent me and basically be my character in-game, since he’s trying to be a hero, help his friends, and do good in the world. So you’re basically making fun of me in real life.

Me: What? How can Sir Gideon be your character? He’s nothing like you!

DM: What do you mean? He’s heroic and tries his best to do the right thing. He’s basically me.

Me: That's not how I see it. Sir Gideon is a cuck, useless, weak, and stupid, while you are desired by women, always helpful, physically strong from working out, and quite intelligent. He's like the opposite of you!

DM:...

DM couldn’t really argue with this, and it did make him feel better to know that I saw him positively in real life, even if I didn’t like his character in-game. He explained that he didn’t intend for his character to come off that way, and he would change how he played him to make him more heroic and helpful. I toned down on making fun of Sir Gideon after that, but Helaena still had an in-game reason to dislike Sir Gideon, since she was secretly evil while Sir Gideon was lawful good. I felt bad though because I didn’t realize that the NPC was supposed to represent the DM, and thought he was just another NPC that we encountered in the world.

Now we’ll get to the next problematic situation that occurred not long after this. We had three other players, Va’Lik, a Githyanki fighter, Troy, a half-orc paladin, and Handel, a Drow Warlock, who would join our party on an expedition into the Dark Lands. Va’Lik was the problem player in this situation. When Helaena (my PC) first met the rest of the party, she had a disagreement with Va’Lik over some minor issue (I don’t remember what), and she pretended to be nice, but she clearly held a grudge and wanted to get back at Va’Lik.

In response, Va’Lik hurled misogynistic insults at her. He claimed that Helaena was a true woman because she held grudges over small things, that she was passive-aggressive like all girls, and that she should “go back to the kitchen” and had no place in a dangerous expedition. I was a bit taken aback and caught off guard, but continued playing in-character, since this was only the first session and I didn’t want to disrupt things. Helaena pretended to be nice, but hinted that she planned on getting back at Va’Lik for his insults later on.

While on the expedition, the party encountered a goblin patrol and defeated them, capturing a goblin whom we wanted to interrogate for information on the goblin camp we were sent to locate. The interrogation went poorly as Troy, the half-orc paladin, attempted to intimidate the goblin but failed the DC. Helaena, trying to hide her evil intentions, suggested using “enhanced persuasion methods” to get the goblin to give up the location. Va’Lik then stepped in, and I thought he was going to threaten to torture the goblin like Helaena hinted, perhaps by saying he would bash his teeth in or kick him. That’s not what happened.

Va’Lik: This isn’t working. I’ll handle this!

Me: I can help! Do you need me to cast zone of truth?

Va’Lik: No need, he won’t lie after this. You should look away. A squeamish girl like you will probably freak out at this. (To DM) *I grab the goblin.*

DM: Okay, you grab the goblin. What do you do next?

Va’Lik: I bend him over a rock and pull his pants down! I then unbuckle my own pants!

The call went dead silent for a solid few seconds.

Me: WHAT??

DM: Huh??

Va’Lik: Why are you so shocked? You said to use “enhanced persuasion methods”

Me: NOT LIKE THAT! I thought you were going to threaten him! I didn’t think you were going to r*pe him!!

The DM quickly defused the situation by having the goblin quickly give up the location of the camp. Helaena then said she would set the goblin free as a gesture of mercy since she’s such a kind person, but when the rest of the party had their back turned, she slit his throat to keep him quiet, because she does not like to leave loose ends.

I was still confused and shocked over what had happened with the goblin, so OOC I asked Va’Lik why he did that. He claimed that it was the only way to get the information out of the goblin, and that he was justified because it worked. I told him that sexual assault was never justified, and warned him not to pull stuff like that in the future. He kind of shrugged it off with a half-hearted okay, and it seemed like he didn’t really care.

When we arrived at the goblin camp, the DM told us the camp was swarming with goblins, and a head-on assault was not a good idea due to their sheer numbers. We decided to try and sneak into the camp to try and find their leader, but Va’Lik, who was wearing heavy armor, got caught right as we were about to advance to the next area of the camp. The rest of the party was still hiding, however, and we were afraid of getting caught. Soon, a dozen or so goblins had surrounded him, and he was about to go down (we were only Level 2 at this point).

Helaena was the closest to him, and Va’Lik begged her for help, through healing spells or other magic to help him escape. However, I decided that this was the time for Helaena to reveal her true colors. She smiled with a wide, evil grin.

Helaena: I COULD help you… But since you were so mean to me before, I don’t think I will. Maybe you should have been nicer to me.

Va’Lik: What? No! Get back here you psycho bitch!

Helaena then ran off into the camp and abandoned him. Va’Lik went down in a swarm of goblins as his HP went down to 0, yelling misogynistic insults as he was knocked unconscious. He was captured by the goblins, and the party claimed we would rescue him next session. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the group wasn’t able to meet again due to scheduling issues, and I was moved to a different group with some other friends from high school. I haven’t seen or played with Va’Lik again since, which frankly, is probably for the best. I still play with the same DM though, and we have lots of fun playing his campaigns in his massive world and cooking up story ideas and characters!

TLDR: DM creates a massive world with thousands of pages of lore. I mock the NPC representing him, and Githyanki fighter tries to SA a goblin.

> be me

> announce a 2 player oneshot a weak in advance

> prepare everything on barebones system. Multiple locations, 10 enemies, effects, ammo and body system

> it is time for the game!

> first player with new one come in (annoyance and confusion)

> they are making a character for new one

> we make a character

> 30 mins later 2nd player comes in prepaired for the game

> we play, players explore 3 locations, decide to build a base

> we run out of time

> I start making new rules to speed it all up

> new rule: apocalypse every couple of hours

> Next part next friday

Another incredibly long story (sorry) from the bad West Marches campaign I played in (I could build a cinematic universe of bad D&D just from that one group, I swear), and I'll say right off the bat that nobody comes out of this one looking great, me included.

At some point, this guy - let's call him Iron Man - got randomly invited in the campaign (and I do mean randomly: one of the admins of the group liked to send invites to people in various D&D Facebook groups whenever she felt like it, which is insane to me) and, to be totally honest, I didn't like him from the get-go: he's one of those guys who get overly familiar very quickly, which is something that I personally really hate, and I found his sense of humor grating - you know, edgy and offensive jokes usually followed by "you should lighten up, I was just joking".

As a player, he wasn't initially that terrible; yes, he was playing this edgy warforged necromancer that he was clearly building to be as OP as possible, but whatever, at least his character made some kind of narrative sense at first.

After a short time he invited a friend to join, and he was also bad - mostly for the same reasons as Iron Man (but without any talent or interest for roleplaying), and what's worse is that he acted as his minion in every possible way. Let's call him Iron Boy.

Not long after he joined, Iron Man also became a co-DM, and that's where things started going bad.

I played one or two of his sessions, and they were terrible: edgy, pointless and needlessly deadly, but because his combat encounters were so unfairly difficult that most of the times the characters had to just retreat, he clearly felt like a god among men - especially with Iron Boy to hype him on.

Not only that, but he also started bringing other friends in the campaign. First a girl, whom he started dating not long after, and whose first character, despite everyone's efforts to include her, exclusively interacted with his (she's also the one who brought Mary Sue into the campaign, and some crimes can never be forgiven), then one or two more people that I'm not sure I ever even played with.

Now, that campaign worked like this: a DM made a post on the Facebook group where they announced a session and the number of players they would accept, and the players needed to comment the post in order to get in. It was usually a first come first served kind of deal.

What happened with him was that he clearly gave a heads-up to his gang before he posted, so they would always, without fail, comment within 15 seconds of the post appearing, taking up all the spots before most of the other players could even see the notification.

"You said that you hated his sessions, so why are you complaining about this?" you may ask.

I did hate them, and you couldn't have paid me to play them, but here's the thing: soon enough he went from guest co-DM to official co-DM, which meant that he didn't need to say in advance what he would do in his sessions or what loot he would give, which in turn meant that we had these 5 players who were constantly getting powerful magic items completely unchecked. Not only that, but, by exploiting a loophole, at some point he started constantly assigning double sessions to the members of the gang, whose characters started levelling up like crazy.

(It's not important for the story, I guess, but I might as well explain this loophole: double sessions used to be assigned only to characters who took part in sessions where all the other characters or the average level was at least a tier above them - so, for example, a level 3 character in a session where all the other characters are level 6 would get 2 sessions. Iron Man decided to interpret this rule in a different way: you got double session if the level of the session was higher than the characters' - but that could just be determined by the DM, instead of by the average level. So he just started saying, for example, that the session was meant for level 10s, so all the characters, who were, say, level 7, would get double session. Sometimes he went even further, and assigned *triple session* - which was completely unheard of before - if the session was high level and also considered too long - but again, this was just for his gang. One other player once managed to play with him and at a little past midnight he excused himself, since he had to work in the morning and the session appeared to be over anyway. It turned out that they had continued roleplaying for almost 3 hours after that, or so they said, and everybody but him got a double session. It took waaay too long for people to notice this, and when it came out it was like a fun little scandal to observe from the side-lines).

Some of us players complained about him, but the other official co-DMs were mostly happy to turn a blind eye because Iron Man was the only one who managed to keep a steady rhythm of at least one session a week, and there were stretches of time when he was almost the only one DMing at all.

In the meantime, his general behavior worsened too. It was clear that he believed himself above everyone else. He overruled a decision made by a guest-DM about a character they were managing because the player was becoming part of his gang (basically, the player's paladin temporarily lost his powers as a warning, and Iron Man unilaterally decided to give them back after a couple of days in-game despite the character having shown no sign of repentance).

Iron Man had at some point set up a mandatory push to talk system in our server to avoid cross-talking, even though it it was an unpopular (and, in my opinion, infantilizing) measure. Then, one evening, after having interrupted a serious roleplay moment with some ill-timed jokes twice, Iron Boy's mic was muted by a fed-up DM. Iron Boy went to complain to daddy Iron Man, who treated it like a great injustice and demanded an apology from the DM. Please note that Iron Boy's character had absolutely nothing to do with that roleplay moment, and that the session was basically over when he was muted.

Iron Man was also a constant presence in the Facebook group: not a post went by without one of his trademark "hilarious and witty" comments - posts to announce sessions (even when he couldn't participate), roleplay posts that had nothing to do with him, questions directed to the DMs or even to other players, nothing was safe. Whenever a new player arrived and asked who they should talk to, the gang immediately flocked to that post to direct the new player to his highness, the one and only Iron Man. In the meantime he and his new girlfriend also subjected the whole group to post after post in which they romanced each other's character - which is particularly fun, considering he was always ridiculing in-game romances.

A couple of players left the campaign explicitly because of him, and a few others (me included) were thinking of doing the same. I told two of the co-DMs about my intentions, pointing out that it was no mystery that I wasn't the only one; one of the DMs (Blondie, the one who was weirdly forgiving with Mary Sue) was completely noncommittal about it and the other (Simp) wanted to kick him out, but nothing ever came of it except for a pissing contest that resulted in a (honestly well-deserved) TPK. of the gang's secondary characters. (And, by the way, isn't it curious how the gang's characters always survived Iron Man's mean and unfair encounters, but dropped like flies when they played a tough but fair session?)

There was talk about starting a parallel group with another campaign in the same setting. They even talked about writing in an apocalyptic event to start the original campaign from scratch with brand new characters, but none of the DMs thought about the simple, most obvious solution: kicking out Iron Man - or, at the very least, having a talk with him. It was maddening.

In the meantime, Iron Man was also exploiting everything he could to have an unkillable character. I don't know exactly how (I think through a combo of wish and simulacrum), but he gave himself resistance to ALL damage and created like 3 clones hidden in separate demiplanes as a failsafe.

Roleplaying with him had become impossible. Multiple characters approached him to talk about how that level of necromancy wasn't an acceptable thing for the group, and warned him that there would be consequences if he continued on his path. He, of course, ignored all the warnings and kept on blatantly raising undead to his heart's content, riding his pet gloomstalker about.

He was also always saying incredibly cringy one liners like "The only law I follow... is my own" and "I made myself a promise: to become disgustingly powerful... and that's what I'm doing" and (while talking with Vecna) "I don't want to worship you... I want to take your place". (I know this is a minor offense, and that cringe is in the eye of the beholder, but as a topping for all the rest it was particularly noticeable. Those dramatic pauses were truly something).

So here's where we all become the assholes.

One of Blondie's characters came from a land where necromancy was considered especially bad, and she was also a "junior inquisitor" to boot, so - in character - she started a conspiracy to get rid of the warforged. Out of character it was a pretty big group chat of players - it was basically everyone but Iron Man's gang and 2 or 3 other players. For at least a couple of real life months we studied a plan to kill the warforged, and we kept everything a secret because we all knew that, if Iron Man got wind of it, he would metagame to hell and back in order to counter any move we could come up with. We also knew that we didn't have a lot of time, because the warforged was rapidly approaching level 20 (he was already a legendary tier character when the plan went into motion, and he also had attuned either the Eye or the Hand of Vecna, I can't remember which one). In all this time, Blondie remained the leader of the conspiracy (a detail that will become important later).

We finally settled on a plan: we had to lure the warforged in a place where we had created a few security measures, and we also had to make sure that we didn't kill him, but only knocked him unconscious, so that he couldn't use a clone.

A person who wasn't part of the group chat was asked to DM the session in which we would try to kill the warforged. At the time, I noticed that he was trying to hinder our efforts (for example, he deliberately misinterpreted a request made with a divine intervention), which back then I found incredibly annoying - only more than a year later, after I left that group, I heard his side of the story: he thought that the conspiracy was too much of a dick move and he didn't want to DM that session. He was pretty much coerced by the other DMs (who didn't want to DM it themselves because they wanted to take part to the ambush as players, by the way) and he still tried to fight back by making things harder for us.

One evening the plan finally went into action. We made it look like any other session, so Iron Man was probably very surprised when we started attacking him and his simulacrum out of nowhere, after one of the characters gave this monologue that also served as a signal for us. There were 7 characters going against him, and he was almost dead by the end of the surprise round.

Yeah, as I said, none of us came out of this looking good.

Anyway, the warforged died, but not really - he was true polymorphed into a rock or something, I don't remember. The end result was the same.

In the following days things were understandably tense. Members of the gang started leaving passive-aggressive comments on various posts. Iron Man, Iron Boy and Iron Man's girlfriend were the most vocal, obviously.

Despite this, at first it didn't look like they would leave. In the following month they kept playing, even if not as much as they used to, and exclusively among themselves (which wasn't exactly noteworthy, of course). Then one day they just left the server en masse without a word.

After they left, Blondie - who, again, was the de facto leader of the conspiracy and forced someone to DM that session because she wanted to actively participate in it - started going on and on about how we did a bad thing, how much of a dick move that had been. It wasn't even a "I'm only now realizing that we behaved like assholes", but more "I was actually against this from the start". You know, like a liar. And if she felt so bad about it, why has she never apologized to anyone - Iron Man or the guy who was forced to DM that session?

When I told her that I knew we had acted like complete assholes, but that I didn't really regret it because Iron Man was making everyone miserable and was not far from causing a collapse of the entire campaign, she had the gall to say that I should have talked about it with her and the other DMs. I pointed out that I did exactly that - multiple times - and that I wasn't the only one who had complained about him, and that everybody knew about players who left because of Iron Man. She never really replied to that - but until I finally left that group, I occasionally heard her bring up how bad she felt for how we treated Iron Man.

Now, I won't be an hypocrite and say that I regret the part that I played in killing Iron Man's character. It's been over 5 years, and I still maintain that he had it coming: whenever he was present, he sucked the joy out of that campaign (that, at that time, was in its golden age), and he was generally just a bully and an asshole with a God complex who got into the group and started making rules that only him and his friends were the exception to.

At the same time, I also fully recognize that the situation was handled poorly by *everyone* involved.

First of all, the worst offenders were obviously the official DMs, who should have taken their role of moderators seriously and they should have listened to the players when they complained. They should have stopped Iron Man's reign of terror before it got to that point, instead of letting everything slide because he was such a prolific DM. Instead, they saw him break the rules again and again and did nothing - the only time he faced any kind of consequence was when he exploited that loophole to level up his gang (and they were super mild consequences: the characters that had benefitted from it simply couldn't be assigned sessions until they made up the difference, but he remained an official DM until he left).

Maybe us players should have talked to Iron Man directly, but what good would that have done when he had his small army of yes-men to tell him that he was surely the best thing that had ever happened to that group, and the moderators that let him do whatever he liked?

The warforged's fate to me also felt like a karmic punishment, both because of how unfair he was as a DM and for his over the top exploitation of the game mechanics to make the most OP character ever - not to mention that he was one of those players who don't care about who gets caught in their AOE (yup, you guessed it: he almost killed a couple of characters with a fireball in at least one occasion. Shocking, isn't it?). Also, he was given plenty of warning in game about the consequences of his actions.

(To respond in advance to those who will inevitably say that I should have just left instead of just talking: it was my first ever D&D campaign, the one that introduced me to the game, and at the time, I adored it. I played two characters that I was deeply invested in, I loved my friends' characters and there were many storylines that I wanted to see to the end. When we had our "bubbles" that were almost untouched by Iron Man, it was some of the most fun I've ever had with D&D. It was so good. Well, back then, at least. After this, the cracks started to show, but at the time I loved that server so much, and the thought of ever leaving made me incredibly sad)

tldr: guy almost causes the collapse of an entire campaign by being an asshole, the DMs refuse to act like adults about it and, instead, one of them starts a conspiracy to kill the guy's character. The conspiracy is a giant dick move, but it's successful: the character dies and the guy leaves the campaign. Everybody sucks at least a little.

For context: This was my first DND group in about a year and a half. I'm not too versed in Forgotten Realms lore so forgivee if some things are misnamed/misremembered. This campaign was started around 2/3 months ago, DM is self admittedly using AI for "only item stats" (bs, he had been typing away to ChatGPT anytime any of us asked about the setting for the first 3 sessions) and is taking place in Forgotten Realms, Faerun, and currently Waterdeep, past the Canon timeline. My PC is a Teifling Warlock who is on a mission to search for his wife who was kidnapped, and he has been searching for her for a few months. He heard rumors about someone who knew her living in Waterdeep. He has met 3 other PCs, and wanted to help them on their quests, a Dragonborn Druid, Human Paladin, and a Woodelf Ranger.

Our Characters had been exploring Waterdeep in search of Cultists who were stealing artifacts tied to some Old/Dead Gods and the BBEG who was draining the artifacts to make her god stronger. we had killed many and chased off others. We had an NPC join our party who had a noble sacrifice, so we went to bury him in a grove, since we figured it was the proper thing to do. Once I finish carving his headstone, the BBEG appears from the shadows, slowly clapping with a bunch of mages also clapping from the shadows. At this point in the story, we have been offered many deals from BBEG, who wanted our help finding artifacts in return for my wife's safety, and also some Devil guy who wanted Information. Our party had denied every deal given to us. While my character always tried to find the benefits of making the deals with these characters, our party always talked my PC out of it, so when the BBEG gave me my wife's severed hand, I was ready to make a deal. BBEG teleported my wife in front of her, put hands to her head, and was ready to snap her neck. At this point, the party tried our best to stop the BBEG, and as was a recurring problem with this DM, "You tried, and dont even roll for damage, as what you did seemed to have no affect on her" Cool. Love it. My party was offered a deal one last time, we denied it, I say we, but I tried to reason with the group, going nowhere. I tried to attack BBEG one last time, She not only snapped my wife's neck, but "pulled her spinal chord completely from her body" Ok. BBEG disappears almost instantly. It's ok, I have a custom Item, Scroll Of Revivify! we've been saving this for an important death, seems like a good use. "oh uh actually you try using it and it seems like what your wife was killed by, was outside of anything magic could heal" Wow, that's new. Never heard that one before, maybe could have told us that before giving us the "revive anybody" scroll during session one.

Long Story short, feels like no matter what my wife was going to die, and I'm pissed because it feels like I have no agency in this Campaign. My characters sole purpose and goal is now null and void. So yeah, don't really feel like playing anymore because EVERYONE AT THE TABLE DOWNPLAYED IT! I can't even express how angry I am because they would all just tell me I'm overreacting. Feels like a targeted way to get me to leave the Party.

My group has been playing for 3 years. Most everyone was new except the first DM and the current second (they swapped after the first campaign). There are 2 sisters that have been with us from the start and they... just don't seem to get the rules. They do things like forget which numbers to add to dice rolls and forget their own abilities. Last night, one of them who played the Barbarian last campaign, she's playing the Ranger now, we told her to use her bonus action for Hunter's Mark. She argued back she had already used her action to stealth, until someone finally realized the confusion and explained the difference between action and bonus. She said she didn't know she also had a bonus action. We've been playing for 3 years. And 2.5 of those years she was the barbarian using her bonus action to rage. You might think, maybe she's still getting used to the new character? But no, this wasn't our first combat.

How do we help them? The first DM took an approach of patient explanation mixed with I'm going to let you make mistakes and explain them later so you learn. The current DM is a little more abrasive and up front with saying no that's a bad idea and calling them out for not knowing things. We the rest of the players try to pick up the slack and help answer their questions and make suggestions asking the way. But like what advice do you have for helping people remember the basics?

This is part 2 to:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CritCrab/comments/1t77st6/my_players_thought_i_planned_this_twist_for/

I’m really happy so many people enjoyed my previous post, so here’s another part of his character arc.

The Voices

After everything that happened with the demon Uridezu during the trial, the possession storyline didn’t simply disappear. It became an important part of Bolt’s character.

One evening, Bolt was alone in his room inside the party’s base when he started hearing voices. Not inside his head. Inside the room. The door was locked, and nobody else should have been there.

Bolt lit a lantern.

Nobody.

Bolt:
“Come out! Whoever you are!”

The voices stopped.

A few minutes later, just as Bolt was about to lie down in bed, a rat casually walked into the middle of the room.

“Got anything to eat?” the rat asked.

Bolt:
“…What? What are you doing in my room?!”

Rat:
“This is OUR room. You’re the one who moved in while we were already living here.”

Another rat:
“Yeah. We live in the walls.”

Third rat:
“We smelled food.”

Bolt started arguing with the rats while trying to process what was even happening. Meanwhile, Flik happened to be walking down the hallway outside Bolt’s room.

Flik’s player:
“Do I hear any of this?”

Me:
“Roll Perception.”

High roll.

Me:
“Yes. Very clearly. You hear Bolt making bizarre squeaking noises that make absolutely no sense to you.”

Flik:
“…what?”

The party knocked on Bolt’s door. Bolt opened it. They saw him apparently talking to rats… and the rats squeaking back at him.

Me:
“This is all you hear.”
Then I played actual mouse squeaking sounds through Discord.

Bolt:
“So apparently I can talk to rats now.”

The party tested his new ability with other animals, but only rats responded to him.
Bolt eventually named the three rats living in the base:
Poul, Mike, and George.
He regularly fed them whenever he returned to the base.

Base in Flames

Some time later, the campaign’s BBEG attacked the players’ headquarters while the party was away on an expedition. It became one of the most dramatic scenes in the campaign.

As the players returned to the city, they noticed a massive column of smoke rising in the distance. People were running through the streets.

I told them:

“You see smoke coming from the district where your base is located. Citizens are running toward it. Something is wrong.”

The party sprinted through the city and arrived just in time to see their headquarters completely engulfed in flames. Several friendly NPCs had already died. Bodies covered with cloth lay outside the building.

The fire was far too large to extinguish.

An allied mage from a guild the players occasionally worked for was using powerful telekinesis to prevent the collapsing structure from falling apart.

I described him struggling to maintain the spell.

“He can’t hold it much longer.”

A Race Against Time

I started a timer. The players rushed inside searching for survivors, including one player’s adopted daughter. They managed to rescue two people and recover the body of the housekeeper who used to cook for them.

The timer was almost over.

The group prepared to escape.

Then Bolt heard a voice coming from his half-collapsed burning bedroom.

Mike.

The rat was screaming for help and told him that George and Poul weren’t moving.

Bolt:
“I jump through the flames into my room.”

He roll good. Bolt made it inside safely.

He quickly found the rats and shoved them into his bag.

Smoke filled the room.

Me:
“Roll Constitution.”

Bad roll.

Bolt became disoriented from the smoke and couldn’t figure out where the door was anymore.

Flames spread everywhere.

CRACK.

The floor collapsed beneath him.

Bolt crashed into the lower floor, taking heavy fire and fall damage.

The rest of the party realized what had happened.

Using a Decanter of Endless Water, they temporarily extinguished enough fire to pull him out.

The timer expired. Outside, the exhausted mage finally lost concentration. The entire building collapsed. The players barely escaped in time.

Once Bolt recovered, the first thing he did was pull the rats out of the bag. Mike was coughing but alive. George slowly woke up, struggling to breathe.

Poul wasn’t moving.

Bolt:
“I perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

Medicine check.

Animal Handling check.

The rest of the party watched Bolt desperately trying to save his tiny friend’s life.

George started crying.

Then suddenly…

Poul’s tail twitched.

His eyes opened.

He began violently coughing.

Success.

Mike and George immediately started running around Poul in excitement.

Bolt collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.

Bolt to the rats:
“You need to be more careful next time.”

Mike looked back at the burning ruins of the base.

“We don’t have a home anymore.”

Bolt replied:
“You can travel with me. You’ll have food and you’ll be safe.”

The rats agreed this was a good plan.

From that point on, Bolt carried them around somewhere underneath his armor.

I never asked where exactly.

The players never asked either.

We all agreed it was better not to know.

Sometimes one of the rats would sit on Bolt’s shoulder squeaking something to him while Bolt casually answered in squeaks.

New Companions

During the following session, after the destruction of the base, the players were sitting in a tavern and overheard rumors about the woman responsible for the attack.

Bolt suddenly said:

“I’ll use the rats to spy on conversations for us.”

So he sent the rats one by one to gather information. The problem was that the rats weren’t exactly geniuses. The players had to repeatedly send them back because each rat returned with completely different information.

One got distracted by food smells.

Another focused on random unrelated details.

At one point a cat entered the tavern and all three rats immediately panicked and sprinted back under Bolt’s armor.

The entire situation became hilariously chaotic.

Everyone at the table knew the party could have simply walked over and questioned the witnesses normally…

…but after the emotional destruction of the party base during the previous session, the players really needed a lighter moment.

TL;DR

After getting rid of the rat demon, Bolt permanently gained the ability to talk to rats, adopted three of them as companions, rescued them from a burning building during an emotional timed escape sequence, and later started using them as terrible little fantasy spies.