For many, it sounds very tempting to gather their best friends to experience exciting moments in Dungeons & Dragons. However, a new DM had to learn the hard way that this idea doesn’t always turn out as grand as it initially sounds.
What is the Dungeon Master reporting about? The Reddit user and Dungeon Master justanotterdude reports on Reddit that he had to cancel his first D&D campaign shortly before the finale, which left him quite upset.
The campaign consisted of the DM and a few college friends: a close friend, 2 players from another campaign, and 2 more players from a D&D club at the university.
At first, everything was going well, the DM liked the players’ characters, and everyone seemed very involved. But it didn’t take long for the idyll to start crumbling. Ultimately, the group could not continue under the given circumstances, and the DM had to cancel the campaign just before the finale. In the post, he explains how the experience could go so wrong.
Here you can see the trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:
Too many different ideas of a good experience
What did the group fall apart over? The DM reports various problems within the group that ultimately led to increasing frustration.
According to the DM, some players didn’t really want to put in effort during combat, thought little, and always used the same attacks. Other players refused to play in their roles and let story-relevant moments drift into off-topic conversations.
While the DM explains that not all players behaved this way, he still reports that most players simply did not take the campaign or his style seriously: “I’m a silly guy and had a lot of jokes in my campaign, but I also had moments that were obviously serious, and they couldn’t stay focused for 5 seconds. The few good players I had were quite annoyed by all of this, and so was I.” (justanotterdude on Reddit)
What made the DM cancel the campaign just before the finale? He writes that he wanted to continue the campaign only for the few engaged players. He also admitted that he initially sought the fault within himself, as it was his first campaign as a Dungeon Master.
Ultimately, what changed his opinion on these self-doubts and made him reach his breaking point was the lack of respect for deadlines and the DM’s scheduling. Players canceled minutes before the session, didn’t respond to messages, or simply didn’t show up at all.
Justanotterdude writes that he no longer looked forward to game days and no longer had fun. And that simply made no more sense to him.
In the comments under the Reddit post, many other players report similar experiences.
- “Sadly, you learned the valuable lesson that your close friends in real life might not necessarily be your D&D friends,” writes Vargoroth.
- Cthulhu_on_my_lawn responds: “Play D&D with people who primarily want to play D&D. Not with people who want to hang out with you and say, ‘Yeah, sure, why not.'”
Dungeons & Dragons can be a great experience for existing groups of friends, as long as everyone clarifies what they expect and hope from the experience. However, even in a tight-knit friend group, an inconspicuous spell can cause quite a bit of trouble: An inconspicuous spell in Dungeons & Dragons is so powerful that it can even jeopardize friendships
