#dungeons and dragons horror story

[charonarp]

A D&D Horror Story: My First and Only Decent Into Avernus Experience

Hello, hope you're well! I remember talking about this experience with a group of D&D friends, and a few had said that it could be posted on the "D&D Horror Stories" reddit thread, but I'm not a reddit user, so I'm posting it on here instead.

In this, I speak about my experience with my one and, currently, only experience with the Decent Into Avernus campaign for D&D 5e. This had occurred a few years ago when I was 16 playing with a group of adult players.

CW: Mentions of In-game SA (fade-to-black) + Forced Love Potion

I don't dive deep into anything, just explaining the scenario that had occurred. I don't recall player names, ages, or their characters in full details. I was but a baby in the field of 5e experience, mind you. New to Virtual Tabletop.

Hopefully the story is (somewhat) interesting to read, and maybe I'll post some more bad experiences from other groups (not a lot, but I do got a few).

In the beginning era of my first time exploring the VTT website known as Roll20, I was about 16 years old when I had applied to a game for a Curse of Strahd campaign, something that has had my attention since I had started getting into D&D through the Dice, Camera, ACTION podcast.

Though my experience in that particular campaign and group was quite poor, this is not the focus on that game specifically. My reasoning for mentioning this fact is because the DM (he/him) of that game had invited me to another game: Decent Into Avernus.

I knew nothing about the setting. I still don’t, for that matter, besides the fact that it took place in a setting similar to Hell. When I first joined his Curse of Strahd game, they originally had it where he and the players wouldn’t play with anyone under the age of 18. However, after speaking to them and getting to know the players, I was accepted and brought into the game. This sort of situation also happened when joining the Avernus campaign. When joining, I was informed that they had already started the campaign, but hadn’t gotten that far. I believe we were around 4th or 5th level. On top of that, I was informed that the setting would be rather mature, which I shrugged and said “okay”.

Granted, I was not informed what he meant by “mature”. In my mind, I presumed it was because it’d be a grindy, bloody, and jaw-clenching experience, with a few hints of what is typically anticipated by content regarding demonic-like figures.

Entering the game, I learned what the players were playing and reflected my character to fill in a role, but still playing a character I wanted to play. I played an alchemist artificer human male, someone who’s not very friendly to other people and dislikes adventures and aventuring. The plot hook was that something caused him to be in Avernus, and now he (begrudgingly) works with the party, and maybe he’ll lighten up if they earn his trust.

Unfortunately, the DM did not work with me in regards to how I’ll be introduced to the players, and I was unprepared to hear that I was being harmed by a demon (or devil) while restrained. Thankfully, the party came in and saved me, but offered no pleasantries and was very much on the “we gotta move” mentality.

Having nowhere else to go, my character followed the group, who barely even bat an eye to my character (The players were friendly, but in character, I felt disregarded).

The majority of the sessions I played were a bit of a blur. I recall one of the players making a deal with some devil mistress, another using a Wish spell they had access to to level us up several times, which gave us exhaustion levels of the amount of levels we achieved (I think it was three?) without a full party consent.

The main scenario that stood out to me, and is the main purpose of this post, is of a particular NPC hag character that the party (except me) knew about, and had met before. They were trying to get some information out of her, but she wouldn’t offer anything unless she could be granted a child of her own blood.

As the hag stated this condition, the majority of the party turned to my character and another PC, who played a changeling.

Key note here: the majority of the characters were female. I chose to play a male because I like flipping things around, and wanted to fill a role that wasn’t placed. Usually, if the party leans heavily on one gender, and I have no heavy interest in a particular concept, I’ll play the opposite gender of the group, or go full neutral.

Another thing to keep in mind: the players had not taken any time at all to get to know my character. No roleplay, no small talk, nothing. I was but a sheep following the herd, begrudgingly, as I would die if I went on my own.

Naturally, I wasn’t on board. As I’m someone who plays how my character would act (within reason), I was naturally against volunteering myself for something that I had no desire to achieve. After all, I was given no rundown on the goal, no knowledge on what we were doing, nor was I granted information to help me share a similar interest with the party (or reason to be their friend).

The changeling backed out, shifting their form to be female so that it left me as the sole male character. Instead of simply moving on, one or two of the players grabbed my PC and forced him to drink a love potion they happened to have. I failed the save, and it forced me to fall in love with the hag.

I, the player, was not asked if I was okay with this, nor was I given the option to even refuse, as a “fade-to-black” sequence occurred that forced my PC to sleep with the hag, and everyone moved on like nothing happened.

At the time, I was rather shocked by the whole thing. I’m someone who finds it difficult to get really uncomfortable by things, and by how nonchalant everyone treated the situation, I couldn’t help but laugh at how bizarre it was. It was a rather fast sequence, and I wasn’t really able to process it completely at the moment.

After that session, I felt a bit out of place within the group. My character was far from friendly, which probably kept the players from even interacting with him in the first place, or to even try to get to know him. There was hardly any RP time, as we kept moving and moving through the story. So, I asked if I could switch characters, to which the DM allowed.

At first, I wanted to switch my PC to another character who I had played before in a custom game: A Yuan-ti Pureblood Blood Hunter whose goal is to find his wife and kids who were kidnapped.

Unfortunately, the DM didn’t like the Blood Hunter class. So, I chose Paladin, which I thought was the closest thing to what my snake boy would be. Another unfortunate thing was that the DM considered himself “old school”, and said that “Paladins must follow a god”.

At the time, I didn’t know much on how paladins worked, as I never played one before. I didn’t like the thought of making my nonreligious character suddenly being religious, and I knew for a fact paladins didn’t need a god, just an oath, but the DM wouldn’t budge. He was adamant paladins needed a deity.

So, I went with Oathbreaker. And, once again, the DM didn’t work with me on how the switch would occur, nor was I told how it would happen. 

We were in some sort of car chase, or rather, we were being chased while in some large vehicle, when the DM suddenly started describing what my character was doing. He described that he was mixing up some sort of potion. He took a drink, and he was suddenly a different character, that being my Yuan-ti.

The scenario made me really disappointed. The players looked at him, shrugged, and moved on with the story. It was here where I lost interest in the game, because I felt unwanted and not valued as a player. I had no part to play, nor did I have anything to contribute at all.

It was after that session that I left the campaign.

It was pretty difficult to cut ties with that DM. When I wanted to leave a game, I’d message in private to settle it quietly in hopes of just being civil and not needing to make a big deal out of it. However, every time I did this, he would try to convince me to stay, to keep playing in his games.

I don’t remember how I managed to leave the group, but I do know that the DM had lied to the other players saying I was throwing a fit and acting like a child, which I don’t believe I was. I wanted to be civil, voiced my reasonings as to why I wanted to leave, and wanted to leave things on a relatively good note (as good as it could be).

Perhaps I blocked him, but I’m not too certain. I held connections with at least one of the players for a bit, who I believe was the one who told me he was lying about how I was reacting to the other players, to get them to dislike me or something.

It’s because of this incident that, whenever I want to leave a game, I always post it in the group chat. That way, my words can’t get twisted, and somehow, encourage other players to voice their wants as well.

It’s happened before, where I post my desire to leave in a server with my reason, and other players follow suit. It made me realize that there are players who have gotten uncomfortable in games, but are too afraid to voice it in fear of losing friends or for having no game at all.

But, to be honest, I’d rather have no game than a bad one. But that’s just me.

[airinn]

little red riding kaz... now who's that wolf following you 🐺

[wylanzahn]

New-ish post, kinda posting this on different platforms and getting a general vibe check for some ideas I have. But basically this Halloween I want to actually do something for the TTRPG and Actualplay world (oh yeah I’m into those kinds of things). I want to try and get both players, GMs, and casual viewers alike something fun to look forward to this especially spooky season. I’ll probably talk a little more when we get closer to the actual season of scare-giving but just know that if you’re interested I’m still looking for people to join in!!

As my team and I’d first debut we’re going to try and do a two to four session actual play, which will probably be released in the weeks leading up to Halloween. We’ve had a couple good friend way in on the matter of “setting” but now I come to you fine folk. Mind you this is a horror campaign/arc so if…

Isn’t your thing, keep on a moving.

But without further ado here are a couple of the possible settings for our players, and myself, this coming espookee season…

1.) Somewhere off the coast of Florida, 1926 end of the first major housing boom in the state, a small island which calls back to the Spanish Empire, is Isla Boñyela, a small port made tourist location during the boom of disposable wealth in 1920s America. A small group of friends from the northeast tag along down for the perfect paradise vacation. Only to discover the island is much much older than anyone could have ever assumed. Whilst dealing with upstart gangsters, unnerving US soldiers, and the terrified locals they find something older than even undead conquistadors.

While I don’t have a working title, this is an old project in the running which I’ve had a few attempts at revamping over time. Its previous title was “perfect paradise vacation,” and runs on the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition game. Anywho it’s a blast of fun with Caribbean lore, tone of anti-imperialism, and something dark lurking beneath the waves.

2.) 1950’s America, the nonexistent state of Mid-Atlantia (DMV coded) in a small suburban neighborhood where nothing goes wrong… it’s almost “All-Hallows-Eve” and little Johnny and Susie want nothing more than to trick or treat this year with all the big kids, Dad’s finally getting the big promotion at work, and Mom just got a new waffle iron! Sure everything is neat here in America. Heck you just got new neighbors! Newlyweds in fact from somewhere big and fancy, they sure aren’t like any of us in our simple town. But… and you can’t say exactly why but things are different. Or perhaps they’re all too the same? Everyday a repeat of ever other bland day that followed you over and over and over and over… and you could swear, while no one may listen to you there’s someone out there. Stalking you from outside your own home- or- perhaps, he’s just your friendly new neighbor welcoming you… to the end.

Ahhhhhh! I’ve also been working on this one for a sec and god writing it out does excite me. This is also a Call of Cthulhu game but modified/homebrewed to have a uniquely 1950s horror feel. This is definitely one of the more unique games I’ve written and am truly interested in seeing where it goes (even if we don’t choose it). This is for those who feel like isolation, fear of the unknown, fear from within, and liminal space horror comes best into play! So whadya say neighbor?

3.) The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, or How I Learned to Love Strahd, okay so this one is a lot less horror-y and falls much more under the comedic spooky category, just so yall know. Deep in the middle of Barovia, the ancient kingdom of Vampires, meets a council of Count Strahd von Zarovich's greatest commanders and lieutenants to hunt down Strahd's greatest enemy Rudolph van Richten and his party of heroes known as "The Grape-Smashers." Strahd's lieutenants have been gifted powers greater than any mere mortals, but are these gifts enough to stop Van Richten, or even enough to stop the personal ambitions of each other? Come find out in "How I Learned to Love Strahd."

Okay, as much as this may seem like a joke suggestion it cracks me up and I feel like it would be ill-advised of me to not at least mention it. In an era where "The Curse of Strahd," is well-overdone at this point, it's worth a take from an all evil "revenge story." Obviously this will be in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, which, in my opinion, is really hard to use for horror, but this is a nice go-around. Come for the evil PCs, maybe a PvP battle or two, and a game of intrigue in the shadows of Barovia! All that and a buff Van Richten.

4.) Before Annapolis was ever called such it was known as Providence, a settlement of exiled Puritans in the Province of Maryland, but these early days were no easy set-up for the far-flung protestants... in the mid 1600s the English Civil War spilled out into their holdings across the waves as brother turned on brother, clan erasing clan, and something from the shores of the Old World would arrive in the New. When around every corner could be someone you've known your whole life, what's stopping them from hunting you in the depths of winter. All matters made worse when rumors of a witch begins circulating your small home.

Think "The VVitch" (2015) meets "A Field in England" (2013) meets Atun Shei's recent film "The Sudsbury Devil" (2023). It is the unexplored wilderness of early colonial Maryland, but the hateful warmongering that slowly builds that makes the horror and tension so clear. Unsure of what system we'll be using, but maybe the new Regency Cthulhu system.

5.) The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed some 140 Acres of Baltimore proper... and in it's rubble awakened something far worse. But you and your fellow survivors are just trying to get by in the aftermath of the fire... only for something to call out, whether some strange magicks or perhaps just a sickness... but sickness doesn't even linger like this... it doesn't call to you...

Some more local history, aspiring from the actual Fire of 1904 things quickly devolve from there as rumors of a cult begin to spread along the streets of Rosland Park... a mysterious illness leaving even more dead... and the death of an eclectic professor. Definitely using the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition for this one.

Aaaaaaaand that's it! Let me know what y'all think!

[whereserpentswalk]

Ttrpg safety tools and the dog test

A quick rundown of what safety tools are: tools for setting boundaries in ttrpgs. Can be useful to some people, but often used really wrongly, and often seem overly gamey to me personally. It's like therapy speak for rpgs. And is similary used by the people it was meant to be used against.

One of the most common examples of these is the X card. The X card is a card with the letter X written on it. It sounds like a good idea if you've never interacted with people before. The X card is a boundary where one of the rules is you can't talk about the boundary. It's very useful for anyone who want to weaponize it, and not very useful for asserting actual boundaries.

There is also a type of chud who dislikes the the idea of safety tools because they think they're "woke". The only way to have a productive conversation around safety tools is to ignore them. Bad faith questions don't deserve good faith answers.

Now, a lot of people would think that its easier for a player to step out then deleate a scene. But a lot the culture around safety tools is based on this toxic highschool mindset around ttrpgs where someone feels like they both have a right, and a duty to be at every single momment of every session, and everyone else does to. So every single safety tool you'll see will assume the of lack the option of leaving the table at all. Being able to leave at any time is the ultimate boundary in ttrpgs and many other safety tools are attempting the impossible task of establishing boundaries without it. People compare them to safe words in bdsm. But it's like trying to create a safe word system but you have to cum and can't take breaks.

See part of the problem is 4chan and reddit have cultures of rpg horror stories. Which are useally lies. I'm not going to say fiction because that implies a relationship with the audience that they don't have. And these lies almost always have queer people, ND people, leftists, and anyone you'd see called a degenerate or weirdo as villains. While the type of nerd that Scott Pilgrim was the first book makes himself out to be a hero. And reddit also happens to be where the concept of safety tools was popularized.

It's this problem where people aren't trying to deal with actual triggers, they're trying to police content they morally condemn. R/rpg horror stories is the home of people who consider themselves outcasts for liking star wars and then have a deep fear of a marginalized person or someone from a slightly less mainstream subculture showing up at their table. And when they're the ones defining what a boundary conflict in rpg space looks like it's useally pretty bad. When a lot of safety tools go bad it's the case of weapons made to catch monsters being bad at dealing with humans.

And beyond all that. Beyond the specifics of rpg horror stories and it's influence. The way people talk about safety tools is mostly about removing content they deem objectionable from ttrpgs. When people talk about the X card and things like it, they're useally afraid someone will talk about something taboo and the table, and want a way to stop them, with the assumption that the rest of the party agrees. The extreme nature of how much someone has the power to censor, is brought with the assumption that what will be censored won't just violate their personal boundaries, but a community sense of morals.

They don't just want their triggers removed, they want things they deem immoral to be removed (not everyone who uses safety tools of course, but the hoard of bearded cishet white men who play 5e who dominate the conversation on them). That's just what a lot of the conversation around safety tools always comes down to. When somebody says they want safety tools to remove torture scenes or sex scenes from their table, it's not their personal triggers, its that they don't believe these things belong in the medium at all. They don't imagine what it would be like to be the only person in the room with their trigger, because the narrative they've created with problem players and safety tools, has made it so they assume the majority of the room shares their boundaries. Safety tools as they exist and are talked about are not built for a minority of players to be able to assert boundaries agaisnt the majority of players.

The dog test: so basically, while safety tools in ttrpgs have good reasons to exist, a lot of the time they're weapons players use to remove content they deem immoral. So often every discussion around things like the X card comes with a lot of moral condemnation, and assumptions about what content can ever be triggering vs what is ok. And this culture of moral condemnations can make safety tools especially dangerous for queer people and ND people, or just members of certain subcultures.

So I've developed the dog test. The dog test, is an example used to test if a safety tool (or more commonly someone talking about them) wants boundaries or wants moral policing. The dog test is simply to see how the safety tool is viewed if it's used to remove dogs from a game. Basically taking the commonly used examples like blood, or sex, and replacing them with the existence of dogs. Perhaps to add to it let's say the only case this hypothetical person will be ok with dogs is if they're killable enemies. This isn't unrealistic, a lot of people have trauma from dog bites, it's probably more likely to be a good faith trauma than a lot of the examples.

If they person is as willing to work with the needs of a player who has trauma around dogs as they are more sympathetic triggers than they've passed the dog test.

Disclaimer. A lot of these thoughts were developed in a discord conversation with @dragonpurrs and a lot of these words were originally things I said to it.

[zmasters]

A Dungeons and Dragons campaign, DMed by Elon Musk:

It’ll be an official DND campaign, but Musk will claim he made it himself and some minor things would be changed.

The world is ruled by the God-King Gary Stu self-insert DMPC, who has the funniest, smartest, most fertile man who can do no wrong.

All female npcs want to have King Mlon Eusk’s babies.

Social issues like global warming, homosexuality, and public transportation have all been cured by King Muskrat himself. Things like poverty, class divide, and slavery still exist, but it’s actually a good thing because of “free speech” or some other excuse.

Saying that you think there’s a flaw in the God of Mars’s rule will get you kicked from the table.

Gods don’t exist you fucking idiot. If you play a cleric, you will be hated by all npcs and will have no cleric powers. He will not tell you this until you try to use a cleric ability.

All “good” races (humans and elves, you know, aryans) are good, and all “evil” races (orcs, goblins, jews, tieflings, etc) are evil. There is no nuance. All tieflings are trans have eaten cats babies.

The BBEG is very obviously Kamala Harris, but the version of Kamala that alt-right memes depict her as. Everyone knows that she’s an incompetent idiot who would only bring doom if she would take power, something that would never happen. You still have to deal with her though.

The god-king will get the final blow and you will fucking love it.

The DM would constantly get rules wrong as he didn’t read the rules book. If corrected, he’ll say that he’s actually right because he’s doing a meta strategy that’s super smart and no one but him knows about.

There’s a homebrew rule that female characters are inherently weaker and more submissive than men. Female players have to play female characters.

The reward for killing the evil witch of DEI is a cybertruck. No fantasy bullshit, it’s just flat out a cybertruck.

The story ends with all female characters being impregnated by the self-insert.

I legitimately think Musk has a breeding fetish.

And of course this campaign (three at most sessions because he couldn’t be half-assed to do anything more) was the *greatest dnd campaign of your life.

*the following was written under the threat of a lawsuit.

[ronnierocket91]

The tingling aroma of spices and oils filled my nostrils, breaking my stupor. Before I could open my eyes, a sharp pain tore through my brain, causing my whole body to tense. I attempted to clutch my throbbing head, but my arms felt as if they were snagged, and I couldn't free them. My eyes slowly blinked open. My vision blurred, I could not make out my surroundings, but I could see shadows cast by dim light. I sensed movement amongst the dark, and I began to hear whispers of a tongue I did not recognize...

The voices appeared to be feminine in nature. Soft and sultry with a garnish of low growls begetting the question if the chattering are of man or beast. I blinked the dirt and tears from my eyes. As they adjusted, 3 figures came into focus. Their eyes aglow, piercing my soul with what can best be described as disdain. Their skin, ghastly white, was scantly covered in furs with no intention of concealing their most intimate portions.

Horror swept through every fiber of my being with the ferocity of a hurricane ripping through the summer isles. I recognized my captors as the very denizens I was charged with purging from the world. I knew my fate was sealed. I can only pray that whomever the church sends, to reconcile my failure, finds my corpse, and returns it to my family... if there is anything left...

* The illustration was shared on Facebook with no mentions of the original artist. If you know who the creator is, please leave their name in the comments so they may have credit for their work and so that I may enjoy the rest of their portfolio. Thank you!*

[crows-bottle-cap]

going to run a dnd campaign for some 7th graders and im so fucking scared

[zigmenthotep]

Someone posted in the comments on my video on the topic about not being able to find the "44 rules for dnd" since the original posts were deleted, and I honestly couldn't even find the Twitter post I got them from originally. So I've transcribed them to Tumblr where they can live forever with all the other trash!

Context: Posted to r/dndhorrorstories May 25, 2024

My dm laid out the 44 rules for dnd 

My dm just posted this after a hiatus, enjoy:

I'll just put shit out now thats going to change before anyone goes through with anything:

I'm timing turns. I don't give a fuck of it’s unfair in your opinion cause your spells are hard or you don't know what square to move to. you get 1 minute to know all the actions you want to take or I skip your turn.

If you want harder fights, bring a second character sheet and expect to twiddle your thumbs when you die. I'm not going to baby anyone.

If you call me or my rolls unfair, I'll get up and go home. and if you got a ride with me you can find your own way back and suck it up.

I'm going to take your characters loot away as regularly as you want it given out. Rule 3 will apply here.

If you don't act out any of your persuasion or intimidation or any other social checks you fail, before you even roll. You fail immediately because you aren't even trying and you're making the game lame for everyone else.

If you don't pick up cues for "side quests" that's not my problem. Get over yourself, it's not a video game, it's a role playing pen and paper based game with miniatures. I'm not holding your hand if you choose not to pursue shit.

If you move to a square in combat there's no take backs.

You tell every single person what you're doing before you do it. You don't fucking roll dice and then say you're casting fireball. You tell us all.

I will give out exhaustion more frequently. If you argue, go home or you can actually fight me over it or you can dm yourself.

Every snide comment you make to an npc will be remembered and paid back in triplicate. You all seem to believe there is little consequence.

You will not be given a mega dungeon every session. A temple is not the size of a small city, neither is a cave. This shit will happen when it's natural and organic. Go play some roguelike if you want that.

The travel portion is done. You wanna travel continents doing literally whatever you want whenever you want? Go play world of Warcraft or play dnd with chat gpt.

If you're late with no good reason I'm going to halve your characters hit points for the entire session.

If you don't show up for no good reason, and that will be determined by me alone if no one else has the guts to say shit for fear of upsetting one another, the first time you'll find yourself losing either a whole level or up to three major items of your own. The second time you do it in a row, you'll be removed from the chat and the group full stop. I have no fucking time for people to not show up.

If you get too stoned or drunk to play, I will go home without a warning. Your warning is here.

If you get up for bong or smoke or whatever breaks every 10 minutes I will simply pack up and go home. I'm sick of waiting for every bloke to be at the table.

Guidance, divination spells, owls and whatever spells I decide are too fucking stupid are banned. Outright. No more fucking guidance.

You get one chance at a skill check. If you fuck up, your party doesn't get their chance to do the same check. Think careful who's good at what.

Discussion of meta game details in game will result in instant damage to your character

Rules lawyering fellow players is encouraged. “Uhm Ackchtually”ing me will just result in me telling you to fuck off.

You roll your dice within view of two players who aren't you standard. You roll them neatly and you roll them on the table. Failing to do these three things will auto fail whatever roll you did. Arguing that you actually rolled validly when you clearly didn’t is an automatic critical fail.

Instant death traps and mechanics are coming into place. If you call these things unfair moving forward, I will laugh at you and tell you to fuck off and cry some more.

I will not give you random magical items and vendors will not stock them. They are meant to be rare and hard to acquire.

Random encounters in the form of random dragons or strange mysterious road trader or a band of goblin prostitutes isn't going to happen. Go play baldurs gate 3.

I don't give two fucks what reddit said about x or y ruling.

I actually give less of a fuck about what your mate's dnd group did

Saying anything to me about other players not liking me doing x or y without them saying it directly to me will result in me kicking you out of the group. Don't use someone else to push your own agenda.

You're not to sit down and have a two hour discussion about what Samson from Bundoora secondary did three weeks ago when you come to play. Take the 15-20 minutes I use to set up and review my notes to talk to eachother, then sit down to play.

Saying Shit like "guys come on we're not here to have fun we're here to play dnd, this is serious business” is rude and dismissive of how much work I put into this. I will simply go home if I hear this shit.

Don't fucking order food randomly. We will eat together at a specific time or not at all. I don't want food shit all over my things.

No food or drinks near any of my dnd gear. If you wreck something you can pay for it. I let one person trash my dm screen once and I never had it replaced by them. In fact I had that person attempt to gaslight me into believing they didn't wreck my shit at all. I'm not stupid, you're an adult. Accept responsibility.

Arguments between party members outside of roleplay will be resolved by me giving the definite ruling. If you don't like it, fuck off back home.

I don't give a fuck what they did in critical role or what that one guy on reddit said or if you think that it's all make believe so you can do what you want. The world I run works on internal rulings and lore I created specifically for it.

Every single person in this chat is having debuffs applied to their characters that should have occurred a long time ago. This will be specific to characters.

If you don’t bring your sheet, you don’t play.

If you don't bring dice, borrow some.

When we play dnd I'm not your friend. That doesn't mean you treat me like an enemy during the game. It means I'm no longer “being nice”.

If you treat me poorly in any way shape or form after or during or before the game due to something that happened in the game, you're out. If you cannot seperate a game from reality, I think you are a fucking moron, and I have little time to deal with that energy.

You will submit your spelllists daily (in game). If you do not give me a spell list each in game day, you will not be allowed to cast a single spell or cantrip in combat. I do not trust you guys to not use this against me.

If you do not mark off spell slots or you say something like "I remember what I'm at” as a way to justify it, I will simply fail your spell, deal half your health in damage to you and say you have no spells to cast for the rest of the day.

If you break literally anything you can buy the replacement that day or not attend till you do.

If you complain about the choice of music I fully expect you to bring the whole playlist the next session or to shut the fuck up.

Cannot stress enough how little I care about how you feel about my rulings from now on.

Oh and rule 44. I'm never just threatening you. I'm promising you.

[andi-o-geyser]

okay, but like, calling the group Team Fuck Around And Find Out is so funny on its own considering how the last battle went, but it’s also straight up a perfect representation of 95% of dnd parties and plans. no thoughts head empty, and certainly no strategy in sight. “is there a weak point?” “yeah, our plan”. i love them. rampent dumbassary.

[wiseowlforest]

Im lookin for some blogs to follow. Like if you post

Pokemon (more into the games)

Animal crossing

Cute/dumb animals (any animals really. I also like reptiles and bugs)

Crochet

Lackadaisy

Horror stories

DnD

Sorry if I don't follow right away.

[aibari]

struck once again by the incredible horror potential of farcille

[thetealhummingbird]

Luther X Sir Reynard 💔

@prince-jelli-fish characters

[fantastictalesofadventure]

We're back with stories by the fire!

There's a time and a place for everything, but it's never a good time to be a jerk like in this story entitled 'Is It Bad To Joke Around Too Much?' from r/rpghorrorstories.

[leftsidebonfire]

Western One Shot Horrors: How a Forever-DM can still make for a shitty player.

Im venting here, about what happened last night. Full context and all.

As far as this story goes, it's not the worst horror story in terms of creepy behavior, but this just happened, and it was easily the most frustrated I've ever felt while playing dnd.

For context, our dnd group plays with the main story for 3 weeks, but then the fourth week, one of the players takes a turn running a one-shot so the Forever-DM can have a break from writing and play. There are 7 of us in total and we rotate one shots so everyone gets a chance to show off their DM skill and it's always fun.

The irony of this, is that the DM is the biggest problem player that we have. I love playing in his campaign each week, but when it comes to him as a player in someone else's game, he becomes extremely annoying. I understand wanting to break free and let loose once a month, maybe cause some chaos in a fun little one shot, but I'm talking about the full murderhobo character, Every. Single. Time. He always needs to destroy the town were in by the end of it, or brutalize the enemy. There was even one time he kept interrupting the other players to butt in about how he was going to kill the villain. It's one shots, so it's never a *huge* problem, but it does get annoying.

But the biggest frustration happened just last night. The only people who have any part in this story are me, the DM for the night, and him.

B=Problem Player, playing a Fire Genasi Rogue.

I created a homebrew world for my one shot. It's themed to be the old west with cowboys and guns, and I even created homebrew subclasses for them to try out for a little extra flavor, as well as hand drawn maps, with the idea that they will finish in one city and then decide where to go, so the next time it comes around to my turn, I'll have time to plan and prepare for the city they choose to explore. I have very few rules for the game, but one of them is to play it a bit more seriously. No joke characters. To be clear, I want my characters to have fun and joke around, but just to play it a bit more seriously, like a regular campaign.

We start the game and everything is going great, the group is absolutely loving exploring my town and Gambling, but B continues to go off away from the party. It's not inherently bad at first, but it is kind of annoying when I wrangle everyone together so I can continue and he just disappears again.

B and another player try to talk to the Sheriff NPC, but he's got a certain time that he's supposed to come in, and that's later. I let them talk to a receptionist at the Sheriff's office and tell them that he's out patrolling right now and will be back in later if they're looking for him. Basically my way of saying “this quest is not available yet, go find something else to do.”

Then B decides to go try and get some money "for gambling" by doing chores around the stables, but his real plan was just to shovel horse manure over the fence so he could collect it. He takes two balls of manure, goes over to the church in town (the plot point for later, where the battle was going to take place) Lights them on fire, and hurls them at the church.

Now I had two options for what might happen at the church. If the group were to investigate, they could learn some history about the town and the door would be locked. Or, if they tried to break in or destroy the church at all, it would rouse the sheriff. The plan was that once they meet the Sheriff, he asks them to help on night watch, which then pushes them right into the next plot point where they see creepy things happening at night. If the sheriff was angry, then he would offer to sweep it under the rug if they agreed to help.

I thought I had planned for everything. Clearly, I had not.

So, I come in as the sheriff, asking him what he thinks he's doing setting the church on fire. And then I propose the deal that we can put this all behind us if B and his group can help on Night Watch.

And B is absolutely not accepting it. He argues with me for probably 20 minutes of real time. I absolutely cannot make it any clearer that he is supposed to take this plot point. I repeat myself over and over. I threaten him with a night in jail for trying to vandalize the church and burn it down? He always says “You can TRY to hold me.” All smug. I tell him his only options are either a night in prison, or night watch. He keeps trying to say I'm a bad sheriff for not being around when he went to the Sheriff's office. I explain AGAIN why the sheriff was away, and he just tries to claim that he was summoning him here and it worked.

The reason he was even TRYING to summon the Sheriff was so that the OTHER PLAYER could talk to him! Not even him! And I told him that they'd all be able to talk on the night watch and they could ask any questions they wanted. He kept arguing saying it “wasn't his decision to make.”The entire time, B kept acting like he had anything to negotiate with. As if he wasn't the one hurling FLAMING HORSE MANURE AT THE CHURCH. There was seriously nothing I could do to get this to move along. Putting my foot down didn't even work. I was holding my ground about this and he still found a way to undermine me. I just kept repeating the ultimatum of “do this quest (the plot) or you go to jail for destruction of property” and he RUNS AWAY. He runs back to the gambling hall to “bring the sheriff to where the group was.”

I really didn't want to concede to this, but I did, and I snapped at him a bit, kind of implying that the sheriff only follows him and doesn't attack him for running away because we've got a **plot** we still have to follow. (And B tells me to calm down under his breath). I push past the argument and just continue to read the plot as written but B seems really checked out for the rest of the session. He wasted probably 20 minutes of actual game time trying to argue with me about the plot and wouldn't take my No for an answer. Not once did he ever take the hint. 

Now, let me make one thing very clear. If this were a long-standing campaign, I would have been more open to it. Maybe some drama, arresting him, letting the group do a jailbreak plot. But this was a one shot. We had 4 hours to get through what I had in mind and then it was done, for good. Sometimes a bit of light railroading is necessary, and I still was trying to let people have their fun. I'd spent a month planning this one shot and putting in all my hard work, so I don't think it was too much to ask that the players follow my storyline.

I am not a professional DM. I've run a couple of one shots before and that's about it. I've been playing for years, but only rarely DMing, so I don't always have the ability to think on the fly like that. As I look back on it, I see how I could have handled it differently, like going out of character to just tell him outright that he needs to listen to me, or something like that. But I was determined to resolve it in character, thinking there was no way he would keep fighting me about this for that long. Every time I tried to get him back on the right track, he found another way around it. And not only that, he also is very bad at taking criticism in the past, so I feel like this situation would have gone bad either way. I had a million things running through my mind at that point and of course, I always think of what I could have done differently after I've had time to reflect.

I had thought I'd lost my temper, but my cousin who was also playing told me later she thought I handled it very well and I seemed calm and level headed about it. That made me feel a bit better about things. I have an entire world with 9 more cities everyone is excited to explore, but this experience has really made me not want to DM for B as a player anymore. The rest of the group was wonderful, and I really like them all. And I (usually) like B as a DM, too. But this one thing has really shown me a lot about B as a player, and if he's going to act like that, then I don't want him playing in my games just to purposely ruin them or be difficult.

He told me later he was “trying to speed things along” but all he proved to do was grind us to a completely impassable roadblock. I wish he would have just listened to me and trusted my story. I tell him “be a bit more serious for this world” and he throws around flaming horse poop and won't listen to me.

Anyway, this was honestly mostly a way to vent my frustrations, because I had been having a wonderful time that night until that useless argument kind of just ruined my fun.

[chuchotements-de-le-radiateur]

DnD character concept: Artificer

So, despite my interest in DnD I have never had a chance to play it. This means jack shit to my fantasy, which immediately latched to the whole concept and started imagining characters, locations, etc.

So i just decided to go through the classes and come up with some interesting concepts for them. Let's go alphabetically and start with the Artificer.

"The clockwork heart"

Cracked glass and bent gears. Pocket watch dropped by a careless nobleman, stomped and forgotten, picked up and traded by a curious kid. Traded for what — you don't remember. The glass is removed, the shards are melted and cover is reformed anew. The gears are taken out one by one, by steady hands holding the tiniest of pincers. There is rhythm and order to things. You know that. You feel that. Hands keep moving, pick up the pieces and slot them into their place. A clank of metal, a tug of a spring, a turn of a screw. Then another. Three more and the hands rest. The ticking is rhythmical, steady, but something is amiss. Your eyes follow the hands with curiosity, watching what they will do next. After a brief pause the cover is removed again, the edge of a spring is bent just a tiny amount and everything is covered again. And pause. The ticking continues, but there is a note there now, one that you feel more than hear. All is right. Your hands rest. For now, the panic subsides. But soon the the chaos will become to much again, demanding to be ordered, to be fixed, and the hands will start moving again. You hope you will find something to fix by then. The ticking inside you used to be soothing, calming, reassuring, but lately you can barely sleep, as it grows louder and louder with each passing day, and subsides ever slower.

There was an explosion. Or so you've been told. You were an apprentice to a talented artificer, helping them make their ambitions a reality, push the limits of what is possible, weaving magic and technology together in ways you couldn't imagine. You weren't as well educated, as experienced, as driven, but you were talented and willing to put in the work. They inspired you, and though it was hard, you kept working. But days, weeks, even months prior to that day turned into a blur, with shattered fragments flashing in the dark. Fire. Pain. Sound. Hands. Their voice. You were found in the smoking ruins of their laboratory, alive but covered in bruises, cuts and burns. One wound was different — a big scar on your chest, almost healed, but one that was not there just a day ago. And the artificer was nowhere to be seen.

Days spent trying to remember what happened, you finally realized: whatever you did together, whoever made a mistake, you paid for it with your life. You remember dying. And then their hands, their voice, arguing with someone. You don't know what your master did to save you, but you are alive, and they are gone. And where you once heard heartbeat, you now hear ticking of gears and twisting of springs.

But as the days kept flowing, you understood that that's not all that changed. You see the world differently, understand it more clearly, sharper, ideas filling your head and your hands being more precise than ever. You build things you never thought you could. Except that you are getting less and less certain, if it is an ability, or a compulsion.

What you don't know, is that your master did not save you, or build the heart that keeps you alive. You were not a victim, You were a sacrifice. A price that your master paid for their communion and ascension with something beyond your comprehension. But whatever it was, it wanted you alive. It gave you this heart, it filled your head with ideas and kept your hands steady. And as you encounter more danger and make mistakes, as you fall in battle and come close to death again, even after your allies bring you back, even after you heal, you feel the ticking getting louder. And one day, as an dagger cut your hand deep as it could, as you were pushing the assassin away, you could swear that instead of the white bone, under the blood flowing from your hand you saw a dull shine of bronze and gold.