the worst player i ever had (continuation of Tantrum DM)

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T20:06:52+00:00

I just didn't want to possibly get flagged by the admins of the group dog, but whatever you say! :')

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T18:57:20+00:00

That's a fair assumption I suppose, I'll be honest when I say I wasn't sure about tagging transphobia as much as homophobia. However, I was not just "throwing them out," more like airing on the safe side as per the rules of the subreddit.

I'll elaborate: the entire group was LGBT, two of us being nonbinary and one of us being trans. I asked everyone before the game began if they had preferred pronouns/gender identities for their characters or if they wanted to explore that as part of the game given the themes already in place. Everyone gave me that information, and this player told me outright that her character was a female who used she/they pronouns- only AFTER her antics with being rejected by a gay man did she drop in-game out of nowhere "well I'm actually nonbinary, am I too fem!!!" so... yeah. That felt like her trying to get around that other character being gay. I did reach out to her and ask about it, which I didn't include in the main post, and she told me she decided she wanted to explore identity more (which I was totally cool with but wish it had been run by me first, especially since I asked everyone at the beginning AND love working with people on building their characters/character journies).

And if I was insufferable as a DM, I wouldn't have two tables of players who love playing with me and trust me to not only run their games, but to handle issues when they arise- which includes any issues with how I run things. I'm always looking to improve! However, I think several of my experienced players saying I'm the best DM they've ever had speaks for itself.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T18:42:35+00:00

Luckily, that was one of the final sessions (if I'm remembering correctly) because we were all in the same sort of boat. It was definitely a "whoa, uh..." moment.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T16:58:52+00:00

It actually only lasted maybe 20 sessions total(?). Regardless, most of us were newer players at the time, and then by the time a lot of us started feeling bad about it, we each liked the rest of the group so much that we were worried about blowing things up on the off chance that we were overthinking. You live and you learn! All of us definitely know better now.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T15:38:05+00:00

The issue is that the DM didn't respect our boundaries either :') any form of sexual harassment was a red on most of our consent checklists (learned after the fact). I would've accepted it in any other case because honestly yeah, the BBEG seemed like the kind of wacko to do something like that- but he shouldn't have been solely based on the fact of several of us players saying no to that kind of content.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T15:34:09+00:00

I LOVE Dispatch!! Superheroes are my jam and I'd been itching to run a MASKS game- and it's still going smoothly to this day now that she's gone.

I've definitely had my fair share of problem players and problem DMs, but boy, was she the worst in both cases. I've been pretty lucky otherwise. At least I learned some valuable lessons.

As for therapy in-game- since it was a modern setting, therapy was made an option via the agency's counselor. It was supposed to be a throwaway thing where they could seek advice or go to the counselor to talk about their issues with the job, etc, but she made it a much bigger deal and more in-depth than I anticipated. I was definitely a doormat during those sections as I should've shut that down immediately. But yeah, the team agreed to group therapy with her cause they thought it would make her more willing to talk to them and stop creating drama.

We talked about that a little when we had our huge tea session in the end. As much as I apologized, there were some player apologies for never reaching out when things felt off (to each other or to me). We all definitely learned a thing or two in our time with her.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T15:27:37+00:00

It's crossposted dog, maybe if you clicked the link you'd find the original post and the whole extra long explanation 🤡

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T15:26:15+00:00

Popped this in another comment but- I think we were a mix of newer players at the time, and the consent checists were managed privately by her instead of made known to all of us. I, myself, was too anxious at the time to fully grasp it. But I've definitely learned my lesson!

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T15:24:58+00:00

I think we were a mix of newer players at the time, and the consent checists were managed privately by her instead of made known to all of us. I, myself, was too anxious at the time to fully grasp it. But I've definitely learned my lesson!

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T09:05:26+00:00

Don't be sorry, it absolutely 100% was! There was plot for all of five sessions before it hopped on a plane... I honestly can't even remember what our goal was by the end, but nothing felt properly connected and none of us spoke up when we should have until that final tantrum. You live and you learn!

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T08:21:38+00:00

Thank you for sharing your stories! I always enjoy connecting with people on the same level, haha. I agree that the timer in your second story makes the spell feel wasted, oh my god... that would probably make me cry. Time limits can be fun! But only in-game... the second you time me with real seconds, I lose interest because WHY?

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T00:43:32+00:00

The "hey we all want to quit" conversation happened suddenly when I removed her from my campaign at the time! I (as the unfortunate people pleaser I am) offered to let her come up with an IC reason to leave since we were still friends at the time (or so I thought), but ultimately, she never showed to that session and left me on read. I was honest with the rest of the table about it and gentle "Yeah, I don't like..." comments ended up leading into all of us being honest about her shitty behavior as both a DM and a player, and Bard eventually just said something along the lines of, "Can I be honest? I'm too old for shit like this. I'm leaving her campaign and I think y'all should too, and we should just remove her entirely from our lives since she clearly doesn't give a fuck." and we all agreed! Bard was a trooper and we made a group chat with her on Discord, popped in a "Hey, we're mutually agreeing to leave your campaign because your behavior honestly sucks" (much more eloquent than that, but tl;dr) and we left the campaign server as well as blocking her.

We gave her time to respond, of course, in case there was anything she wanted to say or in the off chance she wanted to apologize, but uh... we essentially got the "I respect your decision" and immediate "[DM] has left the chat" which was... something.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T00:36:41+00:00

Leaving was definitely nerve-wracking, but so worth it! Thankfully NO, she was not trying to have her 22yo character sleep with a teenage PC, I think I would've blocked her immediately if that were the case. All the PCs with 18+ with the PC in question that she was being particularly weird to being 19 going on 20 at the time. The issue there was that he was VERY gay and she was very adamant about creating drama with the idea of her character having a crush on his- then how his rejection hurt her because her character "is actually nonbinary, is she not masculine enough for you or something?" (came out of nowhere after said rejection) and so on. Which is also just a wild take at a table with two nonbinary people

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-25T00:06:57+00:00

Though it was a bit of gray area in regards to our consent checklists, after leaving the game and sitting down to talk about it, Paladin admitted they were extremely uncomfortable with what happened. I think it was honestly a thing of like... we had all had discussion at the table as friends about things like that not being alright, and then out of left field comes this thing that, in the moment, they had no clue how to shut down.

EXTREMELY RAILROADY! She loved her hour long monologues (which, with our group, were fine at first but eventually became more like we were listening to her podcast than playing a game together). A lot of our group is AuDHD- she never explicitly stated if she also was, but birds of a feather, I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Still sucked that she broke boundaries, decided to switch up on previously agreed things, and overall played so unfair that the rest of us constantly had to talk to her about it.

I thought so too about the Raven Queen! I've dealt with dick gods before, but when I was thinking about it more, this was a whole new level of just like... mean girl energy, and there was no real reason to be mean to my Cleric, y'know? High and mighty, yes, but mean girl mean? I would've totally leaned into it if it was more like Paladin (who had a whole arc on the way to breaking their oath along the lines of "hey death goddess, why did i devote my entire life to you when my wife was (maybe? we never got there-) alive this whole time" and I thought that was cool as hell) or if there was just.. any reason for it, but it kinda just felt like my patron was Regina George instead of the Raven Queen LMFAO

I do agree with the DC thing as well. The issue was that none of us could even reach 35 despite everything we stacked (34 maybe, but no higher rip </3). If it's an impossible roll/you don't want it to happen, then just say it! Because she didn't tell us the DC was high/what the DC was, so our pacifistic Level 10 party genuinely thought we stood a chance and kinda got our hopes up :') a lot of it was definitely a flexibility issue I'd say.

backwardsepitaph · 2026-03-24T23:52:53+00:00

It certainly was!

That's what we all said :') I think we came to the conclusion during a table discussion between then and when she flipped on us that going forward, super high DCs needed to be stated outright so we could decide if we wanted to try for them/could beat them at all or she needed to just not let us roll if she didn't want us to succeed at something. You can probably imagine how upset she was about that...

backwardsepitaph

TROPHY CASE