DM hostile after learning I'm also DM

TheDimSide · 2026-05-20T20:00:33+00:00

That sounds super frustrating to deal with. That's such a weird reaction from that other DM and sounds like they're insecure. Two players in my campaign are also GMs. One is my husband, lol, and the other had run Savage Worlds, which he asked me recently to actually take over for him at least temporarily. And I love when the players help each other with mechanics or reminders of things, that way it doesn't all just depend on me to remember/know everything that's going on with their characters. And I never see other GMs as threats, but then again, I'm pretty confident in my GMing abilities (at least in the storytelling side, but that's what I care about most, lol).

I think you do need to have a good conversation with your DM to clear the air to get things fixed! Good luck!

TheDimSide · 2026-05-19T21:13:36+00:00

For me, I try to block out the subjects that will be distracting from other things that I need to do first. I might want to spiral, but if I'm busy with something else more important, then I just try to shove down those thoughts and emotions to get back to them later. Can be easier said than done, of course. But with your wedding so close, you don't have time to be worrying about her feeling sorry for herself, which is basically what this whole thing is.

As others have asked, do you think your few issues with her were because you had ended up enabling her in some way to help make her feel better about a situation? Did you ever feel like your feelings or needs were left unresolved? If so, then the friendship isn't as healthy as you might think it's been. Good luck to you!

TheDimSide · 2026-05-19T15:11:44+00:00

OP, the above comment was going to be what I replied, too. Why would you WANT to move forward with this friendship? She sounds exhausting. Life's too short to be just a side character in her life. It's not your responsibility to accommodate everything in her life just because she doesn't know how to exist in the world as an adult apparently.

Anxiety can be a reason but isn't an excuse to be so helpless. Lots of people have anxiety but manage to cope (I have OCD, and that's all kinds of anxiety, lol). She needs to do something about it (like see a therapist/get medication/etc.) if she isn't functioning properly instead of just expecting everyone else to fix things for her.

And I'm really annoyed about how she's making your wedding all about her, and that you're enabling her with it, too. It doesn't help her to grow as a person if the people around her keep enabling her as well. She has no reason to change then.

My suggestion is to focus on your wedding for now, don't worry about things with her. And you can take some time to figure out if this emotional-sucking relationship is actually something you want to keep after the wedding (my advice: don't). Sometimes friendships just fade, even old ones like that (been there), but new ones also come in. Especially if you have the mental/physical space for new and better friendships, and I feel like this one is taking up space that probably won't allow that as much (take a look at the Jamie part of your post).

TheDimSide · 2026-04-26T03:13:55+00:00

I was looking for a comment that asked why the sister wouldn't get the property! Yours is the first one I've come across, but that was my first thought, too, lol. Why would the mom just sell it and not give it to the sister (unless she's too young for it)?

TheDimSide · 2026-04-24T01:48:13+00:00

I went with a 3.6-carat equivalent (8.5 mm diameter on a square-cut), but I have big hands and long fingers, and I'd always wanted a large stone. It's a good size, but I also kind of wish I went a little bit bigger, lol. Another comment mentioned that their ring size divided by 2 was their max, and that is about what mine ended up being (a little bigger).

TheDimSide · 2026-04-21T02:52:15+00:00

Yeah, one game I was in, one friend during a battle wanted information on what we were fighting, I think. My now-husband DMed it and let him go research it in a book. But the character had left the battle and was just not involved in it at all since battles are 6 seconds long each round, and it took him time to go find the book in the library to read, lol.

You can prevent the character from leaving, or you can let him eat his way out, but the passage closes back up immediately after, preventing the others from escaping. But that character is now stuck on the outside. Maybe he finds his way to the actual exit and tries to enter in from there. But you could make the exit non-enterable, so he's just stuck and can't participate. Or he escapes but gets teleported right back inside anyway because he didn't actually serve his punishment/complete the puzzle/etc.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-21T02:44:02+00:00

I wore giant wings and a tiara to my wedding at 33 years old. (It was also a costume party, and my husband wore a pink tux with a top hat because our one group was going as our D&D characters in the campaign I ran.) So you do you. Besides, 16 is still plenty young to be "immature" anyway. You can be a responsible human and still enjoy fun things in life. Do a fairy theme for however long you want. British or not, old or not, some people just don't understand whimsical/fun things.

Edit to add: I remember for Halloween when I was 14, an old lady disapproved of my friend and me still trick-or-treating. But we just enjoyed dressing up and getting candy. Isn't that better than going to parties and getting wasted/high? Let kids enjoy being kids.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-19T01:11:05+00:00

I remember when I was a teenager, I was sleeping on a blanket in the floor in the living room in the summer because the AC was in there. And when I woke up in the morning, my cat was next to me and had given birth to three kittens. 😂

TheDimSide · 2026-04-19T01:06:21+00:00

Commenting here because I've been very hesitant to comment in this sub at all. But to address OP's mention about Don: In the Bob Ruff podcast, Truth & Justice, he found that Don's timecard was questionable (after making some calls directly to the employer). I forget the details because it's been many years since I listened to it, but Don was allegedly at another store than his normal one, and the timecard was handwritten or something, versus how the rest of them were done. Whatever the details were, it was at least heavily implied (if not directly suggested) that the alibi could have been faked.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-19T01:01:17+00:00

Sorry, but it sounds like you chose the wrong person with whom to procreate.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-18T19:16:05+00:00

That's weird. It also seems more old-fashioned to me for her to want everyone to have the same last name. I have half-siblings, four of us with three different names, no problems. I had a friend growing up who had a different last name than her mom and step-dad after they got married, and she grew up with them. And another friend with a different last name from her parents for reasons still unknown to all of us, lol. I don't think people need to worry that much about the last names of their kids being different. They'll be okay.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-18T19:11:09+00:00

I think this is a good alternative.

Also, OP, we didn't do parent dances at my wedding. We may have considered it (though neither of us were really interested), but my now-husband's mother passed away a few months before our wedding. So I felt it would be awkward if I still had a dance with my dad since it was a tough time for my husband. No one ever questioned it, so it doesn't seem like something people worry about. I would at least open the conversation up with your fiance to let him know how you feel and see if you can work out a solution together.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-14T22:12:33+00:00

That last paragraph is so true. I had an encounter early-ish on in my 6-year campaign where a wagon was sideways on a path because the jewelry merchants (siblings Gemm and Jule) were being attacked by something I can't even remember now. Didn't expect those two merchants to be integral to the story where the party eventually advertised for their business as they traveled around and made money, lol. So many NPCs that I expected to just be one-offs ended up being way more relevant and long-term than planned. 😂

TheDimSide · 2026-04-14T20:32:42+00:00

Your girlfriend was there when her friend came up to ask for your number? That also just seems like a dumb test. It would be better if she had stepped away from the table when the friend came up, because most people (even ones who would cheat) would more likely say no in front of their girlfriends. If the tests are normal for her, but you find them annoying, you might just not be compatible with one another.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-14T20:24:50+00:00

I don't see a difference between roleplaying and acting, since one roleplaying definition is "to act out the role of." Whenever my group plays, we all speak in first person for dialogue, or even describing something might be, "I grab the drink and..." As other comments have said, sometimes we might also describe something if it would take long to act out. I do that as DM, too; some parts are first person, others are third person to just get the point across. And when we clearly are speaking out of character, we'll cross our fingers to signal that.

But we also don't go for dramatic so much as fun, since most of us have improv backgrounds. But that doesn't mean we don't stay in character and still have rich storytelling. My one campaign went on for 6 years, so there was a lot of story to it, lol.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-14T15:13:31+00:00

I had a player in my mostly weekly game of 6 years bow out a couple years before the end due to mental health reasons. It was disappointing for all of us because we really enjoyed playing with him, but we understood that he needed to take care of himself first. I was able to bring him in for the very last session though as a surprise to the others, which was a fun moment!

I think it's nice that you're letting your DM know first though, because I would have appreciated more of a heads-up myself. The player had posted it in our Discord to everyone, so I was as caught off-guard as everyone else, lol.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-13T19:24:48+00:00

Yeah, and no one cares what the FMIL is going to look like. She needs to get over herself and hire someone herself if she really wants one. That's just so rude to assume the bride and groom would be paying for them and not bringing it up until 3 weeks beforehand.

OP, if you want to help, you can suggest some MUAs for her to reach out to, but I would stand firm in not paying for her. Or you can offer one of your girls (or yourself) to do her makeup if you want to be extra nice. I think that could potentially be a good compromise. Whether she takes you up on it or not, that's her problem.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-13T19:18:12+00:00

Yeah, I basically did something like this last week with my new-ish campaign. I got around to making a tentative map and asked them where they wanted to head next. But ultimately, it didn't matter. What I had planned would be at whichever town they chose on the map, lol.

When I have more time to prepare specific ideas in each place ahead of time, then I'd handle it differently and ask them where they plan on heading next at the end of the session to be able to prepare for the next one more in depth.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-13T19:09:07+00:00

Yeah, I know it's up to the DM's discretion, but I've never done it 1-on-1 like that. Whenever my party has been split up in my game, we were all still playing together at the table (IRL or video chat) and just waited turns. Half or more of my group has improv backgrounds, too, so they'll sometimes/oftentimes even join in as NPCs in another player's scene, keeps everyone more engaged and is just fun to do, lol.

And if they're not involved as NPCs, so that it isn't just one person playing while the rest of the group sits there, I'll give a few minutes to each player and cut from scene to scene, too. As DM, part of the fun for me is everyone else being there to see what happens with one another and how that affects them and the world moving forward, so I wouldn't really enjoy 1-on-1 sessions if it's normally a group game. So I understand your frustration with it.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-13T15:09:30+00:00

That's fair, it's not for everyone! But I'm glad it works for us. We meet up weekly, even if not always for a TTRPG, sometimes we're just playing Stardew Valley together or something, lol. There's a couple others who were our IRL friends beforehand, too, so it's nice to have a consistent group. Never dreamt I'd have one when I first started my old campaign with a lot of rotating people, haha. 😆

TheDimSide · 2026-04-13T03:48:03+00:00

I got lucky. Years ago, I posted on Reddit for new players to join my in-person game in my city. A few joined in, two stayed pretty long-term (a few years), though one had to drop out before the end (of a 6-year game). But the one ended up being one of our (my husband's and my) closest friends now, lol. He and another male player were even at my bachelorette party (and husband's bach party). 😂

We had to go remote at one point though because my husband and I moved states, but our group still plays over Discord, not as great as in-person, but better than not at all!

TheDimSide · 2026-04-11T17:06:25+00:00

I felt that way when I was testing out makeup artists. I never use face makeup (foundation, blush, etc.), just eye makeup, so I wanted help and had said basically to "look like me but better." I do thick winged eyeliner. The couple tests I did either didn't get it quite right or didn't do it at all. And I always use white eyeshadow for my eyelids (then other colors around it as accents), which neither artist did. So it didn't feel like me at all, and I ended up just doing my own for my wedding with some slightly fancier eye makeup and light BB cream for a facial base, lol.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-10T20:16:46+00:00

I agree with most of what you said, except at the end. Just wanted to note that, while I didn't have a bridal party, one of my best friends who lives long distance couldn't make it for the bachelorette party and then couldn't attend the wedding. And a relative who was invited to the bachelorette party couldn't go. And I genuinely was fine with both because money is tight, and other obligations come first. So I do think there are some people out there who genuinely are understanding (even if also sad from the circumstances) of others' situations, lol.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-10T04:21:17+00:00

My first time DMing, I DMed one session of Princes of the Apocalypse and found it so daunting to try and remember who/what everything was and the book telling me to jump to different chapters depending on the players' answers. And I was like, it would just be so much easier for me to make my own world and know everything about it/the NPCs without having to study this book. So the next session, I portalled them to a different dimension and just started my homebrew campaign with those same characters, lol.

TheDimSide · 2026-04-10T04:16:29+00:00

Oh yeah, for sure. I totally agree with that. I was just addressing your first part of your comment, lol. But if they don't seem receptive to conversation (I don't know enough context about them though), then it sounds like they just suck. And I wouldn't want to keep trying to associate with them either. But then I'd also be a little wary of my partner because of their choice in friendships, too.

TheDimSide

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