Dungeons and Dragons Player Considers Dropping DND Group of 9 Years Following Dragonheist Table Dispute

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
Feb 6, 2024 11:30 AM EST

In order to have a good DnD game, you need a talented Dungeon Master, and those are quite hard to find. As a DM, you need to be good at organizing, planning, storytelling, and above all, you better have excellent people skills. Players don't always get along with their Dungeon Master, but then again, you don't always have to. No need to be besties all the time. Still, it doesn't hurt to enjoy each other's company.

In this case, OP took to r/dnd to complain about their Dungeon Master who according to them, had no idea how to DM. OP was with this DnD group for 9 years, and following a frustrating incident during a game, they were considering quitting. Scroll down to read what happened, and then check out the comments from fellow Dungeons and Dragons players.

Finally, when you're done, here is a critical hit of DnD memes for roleplaying dice rollers.

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  • 01
    "I'm done with you!" 9/ 20
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  • 02
    Had a nightmare of a session last week, now thinking of dropping from my group of 9 years Table Disputes Minor spoilers for Waterdeep Dragonheist
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  • 03
    Ok so for context this group has been playing for a long time now and we are down to 5 members, a DM and 4 players. For the vast majority of the group's lifetime, we have typically had the same DM, we will call him Alex. For the last 2 campaigns, I took the reins and ran RotFM and CoS and now Alex is DMing Dragonheist for us. So we belt out the expectations and make some characters that can get along with each other (this has been coming up as an issue lately) I make a CG
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  • 04
    Bard/Rogue who, similar to the Mask, will have a CN persona that takes over from time to time (it hasn't happened in session yet.) Alex hates bards, but allows it along with a CN Artificer, a N cleric, and a LG fighter. We play for about 4 sessions and everyone is having a good time and making merry, the only gripe I have is whenever I try to do something, nothing happens. For example I Disguise Self as a hooded bandit similar to one we are tailing and combat starts the moment we are seen casual
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  • 05
    because it looked too similar to them.) Or I cast Skywrite to advertise our new tavern and it has no effect at all, DM joked that everyone knows that spell so there are Skywritten graffiti everywhere. I use my Enthralling performance to charm fans into getting more friends to come to our tavern and nothing happens. I insult a bandit captain who is in the middle of fighting the party+ an NPC and everyone in the bar now knows for a fact that I cast the Vicious Mockery Cantrip and am actively tryin
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  • 06
    FFW to last session, we have tracked the culprit of an explosion that ked 11 people to a building with a gated yard. We also had a device that whirs when that culprit is near and it was going crazy the DM said. The fighter and Artificer try the front gate and aren't getting an answer, so the cleric and I check the back. I cast Invisibility on myself first and we find a locked back entrance to some stables. I pick the lock and head in and eventually walk into the yard, where an old man and 2 dogs
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  • 07
    myself here wandering invisibly. Old man tells me to drop the spell and I say "actually I will just be going now bye" and make for the exit. Initiative is rolled and a dog runs up to me and bites me (no disadvantage even though I'm invisible "because he can see me" (the invisible condition has been run as written for 9 years up until this point)) and knocks me to the ground while everyone is still outside. It looks like my character is about to d when the old man casts the Command spell on me, t
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  • 08
    turn order. I open the door leading out and the cleric is standing there so I walk past him like its no big deal. Next round, the man sics the dogs on us and I take the ready action to attack with my rapier if a dog goes after the cleric. A dog dashed up to the cleric "aggressively" and I sted it, k ng it instantly. The old man became intractable and tried to k I me with Inflict Wounds. I immediately said, "buy yourself a new dog" mockingly while flipping him a copper, casting Vicious Mockery,
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  • 09
    but he passed the save so we spent the next 3 rounds trying to talk him down. Eventually the other two arrive and see us trying to smooth things over and the LG Fighter derails the session by getting upset and yelling "I made a mistake thinking I could play a Lawful character with this group" "I'm making a new evil character now because my character would arrest the bard." At this point the DM is listing off all the crimes I committed and their sentences, including damage to property (I apparent
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  • 10
    with thieves tools with a 25 and didn't hear about it until now), Using magic to influence a citizen (I cast Invisibility), Damaging livestock (fair enough), Alt (Vicious Mockery which is explicitly subtle as per the spell description), Intimidating (we offered to pay 150g for the dog and settle outside of court), and M 'er without justification (1 point of damage from Vicious Mockery and the guy is still alive currently). Alex the DM has had a penchant for being an adversarial DM before, and th
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  • 11
    now considered a serious crime makes me not want to play his game anymore. The LG fighter typically throws a fit like this once per campaign no matter who is DMing or playing so I'm not really upset aside from whatever his new character will do. We talked for about an hour after sesh and Alex left without saying much of anything. Everyone agreed he doesn't let me do anything and all we did is talk about the intricacies of the alignment chart and didn't really get anywhere.
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  • 12
    So next session, we will probably be taken out of our current situation and told what happened while we weren't in control of our characters. I am at the point where I don't want to play a session where I defend my character in court to not lose him forever. Especially since the descriptions of the spells that got me in trouble are prone to changing at the whim of our draconian DM explicitly to f k me over. The sad part is, they will likely not want to play as a party of 3 and me leaving will de
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  • 13
    TL;DR We broke into a place housing a to 'st/mass m rer and ked a dog, now my character is facing 50 years in prison due to be hit DMing and I don't feel like playing that game anymore.
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  • 14
    Thunderscump • 20h ago DM You should let your DM know how dire you're feeling about his spiteful attitude toward your character and by your description, it does seem to be spite. It's kind of you to not want to break your group up, but you can't let that hold you hostage to it. What you're listing here is a lack of respect as a player, and that translates to a lack of respect as a person. If there's no room for compromise based only on your class, I don't imagine things will get better over time
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  • 15
    GhettoGepetto OP • 17h ago I just sent a note to him now. I thought things would get better after some time, but you're right, the issue is not likely to suddenly turn around just because I tell him I'm tired of being disrespected like this. 222 Reply Share ...
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  • 16
    os OkMarsupial 17h ago It's too bad that you and your DM aren't seeing eye to eye, but I will say that I played Dragonheist with a DM, who I generally don't find to be so adversarial, and we still contended with some similar types of conflicts. I think that module is just written to focus on conflicts with the law, which I think a lot of players do not find fun. And then a lot of players do find fun, which actually makes it even worse. It's like, the plot of the module requires you to break the
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  • 17
    played Dragonheist, we were often expected to read between the lines. Like certain stuff would be illegal, but we were supposed to do it to advance the plot, and then other stuff that was also illegal and also advanced the plot, would land us in jail, and we were expect to somehow just "know" the difference. 96 Reply Share ...
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  • 18
    GhettoGepetto OP. 16h ago I did mention that I felt like we were being written into this situation, but the DM said we should have just asked our faction representatives first and they would have told us everything we needed to know. Also brought up the fact that the campaign is called Waterdeep Dragon -Heist- so we could reasonably assume that we will be at odds with the law at some point as the Code Legal has stiff sentences for robbery. And I can see where fun can be had circumventing the law
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  • 19
    SatisfactionSpecial2 • 18h ago I became exhausted just reading about it. My first DM ever was like that. The final straw was when we were trying to sneak through an enemy goblin camp. He found my character, who was disguised as a goblin with disguise self, hidden under a pile of leaves with a 40 stealth check, pretending to be sleeping with an also crazy bluff check. They found me not with a perception check, but because they were "cleaning the leaves". In a forest.
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  • 20
    The first thing they did when they found me was to ask me my ID number. As a goblin, in a goblin camp with thousands of goblins. I bu. ed my way out of that and they get me to report to the commander why I was slacking. Then the commander decided to use a zone of truth. The funny part is we had nothing to do with the camp. We just had to go through because the DM had declared it was too big of a camp to circle around. Our original plan was to fly over it, but apparently our spell run out midway,
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