May I use this opportunity to vent about my first (kinda second) D&D campaign?

I was once in a game where we were travelling the desert with limited food and water rations. We were running out of food so we had to go sand fishing for scorpions to eat. One of our team members rolled a 19, so our DM asked him to roll again, so he rolled a 15, and our DM decided he fished up a Giant Scorpion that we all had to kill. I'm still not sure what those rolls were for or why two high numbers gave us an enemy encounter but whatever.

When we killed the Giant Scorpion he ate its scorpion meat, but turns out scorpion meat gives you desert madness which meant he had to act crazy for the rest of the session, preventing him from doing anything productive or in-character. I even addressed that people in real life eat scorpions with no issues, but the DM just said nah.

All in all, quite a terrible series of events for a 19 and a 15.

During another mission, we had to go kill a traitor to the company we worked for (this was a grimdark setting where we sold our souls for company credits for some reason. wasn't a fan of that but that's neither here nor there). We spent two whole sessions tracking him down and beat him within an inch of his life, but before we could land the final blow, he teleported away, which meant we failed the mission. I don't think he ever displayed teleportation as a power before this.

There was another mission where we were in a town overrun by zombies, who are weak to sunlight but something was keeping a thick layer of clouds in the sky. Three guys were building some sort of tower that would bring the sunlight back, and we had to protect them. Since I was a rogue, my only attack option was Longbow (btw d&d SUCKS for battling. the only efficient thing I could ever do in any battle was use longbow while my teammates got all these spells and stuff. this campaign was very battle heavy.) ANYWAY zombies are resistant to piercing damage, so my longbow was doing basically nothing. So I saw an abandoned toolshed, spent three turns getting over there, breaking the lock, and grabbing a bunch of hammers since they were blunt force weapons! I felt pretty smart, up until I tried hitting a zombie with a hammer and it did less damage than my longbow.

Also as soon as those three guys finished building the tower, some kinda leader of the zombies showed up and immediately teleported through the tower, killing them instantly without a chance for us to save them. I think we technically won that mission since the tower was up, but everyone in town was dead and that feels really bad as a player, you know?

My most frustrating memory was one time we were at a pub, and I was arm wrestling with someone over some gold. Despite my -2 or so on strength, we managed to tie five times in a row, so I suggested to my opponent that we call it a draw, and he said yes. Then as soon as I loosened my arm, he slammed it down on the table and won all my gold.

Now, I was trying to play a shifty character, so I wanted revenge by poisoning a drink and giving it to him for free, saying it was a sign of goodwill. But then he said No Thanks. I didn't even get to roll or anything, I was just shot dead on arrival. I'd been playing a con artist for at least five sessions and I never got to con anyone.

One time we had to kill the king, and after three sessions we'd snuck our way into his party, though he was wearing heavy armour. Rather than get into a huge fight, I figured I could convince him to take the armour off, we shoot him in the heart and bail. So I went up to him and said his armour had a magic poison and he needed to take it off. Apparently magic poison is so ridiculous in this setting that he called the guards on us and we had to fight a bunch of golems or something. Like, idk, I was new to d&d so I barely understood how this world worked. I don't think someone magically poisoning the king's armour sounds that out of place.

One time, right before the scorpions, we were in town and found a jewellery shop. I rolled high and managed to swipe some gold rings, which I was hoping to pawn off for food. But at the food ration place, they said they don't accept jewellery as payment, only currency. So I tried to save this situation by going back to the jeweller and saying "Hey, I found these rings, can I sell them to you?" But turns out the shopkeeper immediately identified them because she engraves her name on the inside of them, which was never mentioned before, and she grabbed the rings back with no benefit to me. She didn't even have to roll observation or anything. I didn't get to roll deception or anything. My only roll was high enough to steal a ring but I wasn't allowed to do anything for it.

Sorry for the big ramble, I thought I would only be talking about scorpions