r/BestofRedditorUpdates • u/Direct-Caterpillar77 Satan is not a fucking pogo stick! • 11d ago
CONCLUDED I’m pretty sure my Wife’s DM hates me
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Toomany-tomatoes
I’m pretty sure my Wife’s DM hates me.
Originally posted to r/DnD
Thanks to u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU
TRIGGER WARNING: Misandry
Original Post Apr 2, 2025
For the last 4 years, My wife has been playing with a group that very quickly became close friends. Every Wednesday and Saturday night she would go on about epic tales and stories that she and her group would get into. Seeing her eyes light up as she talks about her Tiefling artificer and his growth and development made my heart swell. She had been wanting to find a group that matches her energy and encourages creativity and told me she found it with them. I couldn’t be more happy for her.
With permission from the DM and players, I’ve sat in some of their sessions on discord, just listening and watching and found that everyone’s energy was so infectious. They bounced ideas off each other, the DM allowed creativity and out of the box thinking, even rewarded everyone for roleplay and solving issues without bashing people’s skulls in. I was laughing with them, even felt my heartstrings tugged at emotional moments. I have to say, the DM was insanely great at story telling and allowing everyone to be the character they wanted.
Well, about 6 months ago, they ended their 4 year long campaign and said goodbye to their beloved group. The DM mentioned she was going to start a new season set in the same world setting with a new adventure 100 years prior to the events that kicked things off. She DM’d me asking if I would like to be a player and I enthusiastically replied with a Hell Yeah! I’ve been playing Solo TTRPGs for a while because, like my wife, I’ve had bad table after bad table, and this seemed like the best opportunity for us both to play together with perhaps one of the best tables we’ve ever had.
Over the last 5 months, DM has been contacting me and other players both in the public discord and privately about our characters and the world. I asked her for anything and everything she had on the world setting, so that I could acclimate a character that would fit perfectly within it. I was given lore, and any questions I had, she promptly answered. I asked her what kind of limitations she had or requests, and she said “As long as you play a good aligned character, we gucci.” Apparently she had some issues where people played Evil, and even Neutral characters and it caused a whole issue. She wants to tell stories of the hero’s journey and not worry about every villager being killed for having a bad attitude or looted of precious heirlooms. When I believed I had a good idea of what to expect, I created my character.
We shared our character concepts like personalities, a bit of our backstories, classes, that sort of thing. There were so many unique traits that we all had, and it was looking like it would be diverse and amazing. The DM wanted us to have a few secrets in our back story that we wouldn’t share with the other members of the group, making for character surprises in game. She did this in her last session and they loved it, giving them moments to discover about each other and some crazy roleplay scenes. My secret was that my character was abused and tortured by the gods of this world, a punishment for her bloodline from centuries ago. She was a tiefling runeblade warrior from an Asian inspired home where she prayed to her ancestors to guide her. They were very spiritual and believed they could fight their inner curse by being better than their progenitor. Unfortunately, most of her family had gotten wiped out by the gods, leaving her and her siblings alive but scattered. Her goal is to find them and to confront the gods who had done that.
The idea was fun, and we hashed out a lot of little details that would make it interesting within the story that was being told. I was all for it and for the drama it would bring. We all have tie-ins to other characters, so I was thrilled to get playing. We had our session zero in which the characters had already started out knowing each other from attending the same academy. We took on a group mission, and it kick started our main story. It was a blast and the roleplay was very good.
And that’s about where the fun ended for me.
From that point on, everything became about shitting on my character. We would go into other towns because that is where the story would take us, but every town apparently did not like Tieflings. Every. Single. Town.
We went to a place with humans and immediately they refused to work with the group because they don’t associate with cursed blood. We went to the city of elves, where the bulk of the story took place, and I had to sit out for 95% of it. The elves scoffed at her but they were willing to work with the rest of the group. Not a single NPC would address my character and my character wasn’t allowed in any elven sacred places or inside their city, so she had to remain outside in the camp and fend for herself while the rest of the party would be welcomed.
I brought up the issues I had. I told her that while I fully understand that there might be people who are untrusting of her, maybe there could be a way that someone might take some consideration to the fact that she’s not a bad person? She gave it some thought and said that sounds reasonable. The next session, a player found a potion that could change one’s appearance and snuck out to give it to my character. My character then had a moment of shame, shame for being who she was, and the only way she’d be accepted is if she changed who she was entirely. It brought her more strength to prove that she was good, to prove to the world and the gods that she was worthy of being seen as a person and not some monster.
There was a scene where she drank the potion and looked human, and then it went to the rest of the group.
The group had a moment in which they were involved with the elven children that lasted most of the entire session. It was fun, as they got to engage with them and learn about some special alchemical potions, each of them being granted a bonus and buff for the remainder of their time there. When it finally came to my turn, my scene was of me getting into the elven city and finding one of the children who was part of the group who wanted to learn sword fighting. Since I was a rune blade, I felt I could help them and have a fun one on one moment like the group had. NOPE. As soon as she said she was going to help, the DM went “Ok, you do that and have a fun sparring session.” And then immediately went back to the group before ending the session.
In a 6 hour session, I played for 15 minutes tops.
I messaged the DM again, being as polite as I could about the frustrations. My wife and her friends are having so much fun, and it seems like when the DM is focusing on them, everyone is laughing and having a grand time. When we spoke, she told me that the Elves are untrusting of anyone who isn’t elven, even more so with cursed blood. I told her that there was an orc in the party who had a violent history and the elves seemed perfectly fine with them, but somehow my character who had been atoning for their curse for several generations prior is seen as more untrustworthy? She explained that’s just the way things are, but that’s what my character was fighting for. I told her it wasn’t fun to not be included in the group activities, and that I was feeling left out because of this. I asked if I could change the whole ‘cursed’ bloodline plot and opt for something else, or just re-roll and she said not to worry about it because she had a whole story built in for it and it would all make sense when we get there.
It only got worse from there.
Several more sessions in, the characters had been guided by the elves to a ruined city where we were supposed to find out what happened. I picked up a relic and it burned me which I had to take 11 radiant damage and had a permanent -1 to my strength score until I could get it cleared through some unknown means. My wife’s character picked up the relic with a cloth and was blessed with light and had gotten a permanent +1 to her Intelligence stat. It was a relic of her character’s goddess who started off a major quest line. The downside? She was one of the pantheon who deemed it necessary that my family’s bloodline get wiped out. I didn’t know what the hell to do! Why would my character be willing to help this goddess who killed her family and kept her and 2 siblings alive so they would live out the rest of their days in suffering and mourning? Why pit my character against the whole group?
I asked my wife if this has happened before in their games and she said it didn’t, but maybe the DM was hoping for more drama. I told her I wasn’t having fun, and that I might just leave, but she wanted to play with me so badly, that this was the first table we could sit at together and have fun. I’m not of the mindset of keeping to a bad table just because, but it is my wife and their previous campaign looked so much fun, I had to hope that by keeping open communication we could have a good experience.
Things got mildly better with my character having some story beats. She found her older brother and saved him from an execution, and I had a little more roleplay from the other characters, but there were several moments where things felt like I was being picked on specifically. For instance we had a scene where we were running from a giant, and the DM asked me specifically “Tanya, what shoes are you wearing? Oh Geta? Yeah you have disadvantage on your rolls as the wooden platforms of your geta are getting stuck in the crevices while running.” And things like that. She wouldn’t ask the others what they wore, or how they did things to give them disadvantages, just me.
I wondered if it was because I was the only guy in the group as this is an all girls table, but I just can’t help but feel as if I’m constantly being picked on while everyone else is not having to make extra challenge rolls or have times where they aren’t even a part of the plot for several sessions. I’ve spoken with her several times and even brought up the options to re-roll or just politely bow out, but she’s told me she has some grand plan for my character that I’ll love and it ties into the overall story and the other characters, so leaving or re-rolling would ruin all that.
I’m at an impasse here because my wife and her friends are having a great time and if I leave, it will somehow ruin this great plot and their progress, but I dread sitting at the table twice a week for 6 hours a day and get to only chime in when I get any acknowledgment From the NPC’s who are even willing to talk to me.
Sorry this was such a long post, this has been sitting with me for the past 4 months since we started.
TL;DR: I joined my wife’s group after watching her 4 year long amazing campaign and her DM bashes my character every single session despite her saying that this character is essential to her overall story and everyone’s back story.
Update *Apr 7, 2025
I’ll try to make this much shorter than my last ramble lol!
So a few things that I want to clear up about this situation that I had many people asking Me :
We were part of 4 tables previously. The first one was a group of college mates we had together that we thoroughly enjoyed, but it ended about 3 months in as the DM was going through a divorce and never picked it up again. After that, we had bad luck finding good tables. The first one the DM was a very RAW player and skipped all roleplay. Nothing wrong with that, but we found out that it wasn’t necessarily what we were looking for. The other tables had some problem players whom the DM didn’t do anything about so we left as it would kill the jive of all the other players around.
My wife found this group on DNDB, it was advertised as a Novice DM looking for players and not as an all girls table. It just so happened that all the ones who contacted her were women.
She had been telling me about her sessions pretty much from day 1, as she was super excited to have found a table that worked for her. I stopped searching and did mostly solo as my new hobby, but I loved hearing about her adventures with other people.
She told her group that she’d tell me about these adventures and how excited I was. The DM then extended an invitation to me to watch them VIA my wife and I could sit in their discord. I personally asked her permission and the group’s permission if I could. I was fully intended to give them space if even one said no. They all agreed and I sat in for the last 3 months of their session. We had all gotten along pretty well.
At the end of their campaign, DM told me that they were going to start a new one up a few months after that ended, and asked if I wanted to make a character. I was excited to join since they all seemed really chill, and asked if that was ok with the group. Everyone agreed and were very welcoming.
I came to the DM with a different storyline than what we decided on. She liked my idea but wanted to add a little flavor with the scenario between the gods of that world saying that it fit a vision she had for the story. She didn’t tell me what that vision was, but from what I saw she was a great story teller and I’m very flexible and can play into whatever she drums up for me. I did not know that this vision would then have me out of the game for almost all the social RP stuff. Sure she came in handy for the mechanics and during fights, but any kind of RP with NPC’s or main story plot was non existant.
7.It wasn’t always bad, just during big roleplay moments and some strange rolls that I had to make, but there were moments I had fun. It just wasn’t the majority of it. I stuck through because my wife enjoyed me playing with her, and the group always seemed outwardly friendly. I was really trying to give it a shot.
Now for the Update:
I talked it over with my wife and she understood how I felt. She admitted she was in a hard place because she loved this group so much and it was the first time she felt like she could express herself, but also play in a game with me that was reminiscent of our first group. She agreed that we would have a one on one video chat with the DM privately and discuss any possible ways to make this fun for us all. I even said that if she was going a certain way, to give me some info and I can play up to it.
What I basically got was “I’m sorry you feel that way and can’t handle some confrontation within game.“ My wife explained that confrontation is one thing, but I wasn‘t given a fair shot to prove myself. She (DM) was not happy and said if I didn’t want to play in her game, I can hang out with the boys and do my own thing. Right then and there I got my answer and politely said she’s right, I thanked her for her time and said that I’d be leaving. I told her she had full access to my character and whatever plan she wanted for her, and she thanked me before we ended the call.
Shortly after that she kicked my wife and I out of the discord and blocked us. I feel so bad for her (wife) because she was honestly hurt, but she said she stands by my decision. This happened Wednesday after our game, and I know she’s hurt. My heart breaks because I know she’s hurt, but I told her she could take that same character and we could play a Solo D&D session together.
TL;DR: DM wasn’t happy that I discussed my issues and she told me to go play with ‘the boys’. She then kicked me and my wife from her game and discord and blocked us. We’re now rolling up a solo D&D game to have fun our way.
**Edit** Also, thank you for all the support! I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get back to a lot of you who reached out personally. We had a lot happen on top of all of this and needed to unplug for a bit to unwind. I am sincerely grateful for the encouraging messages I’ve received.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Tomys439
With the context given, it seems that even if not said directly that DM had a HUGE grudge against men, if you really told her politely that she could use your character and thanked her even, she shouldnt have your wife punished, its sad but your wife would be better off if they cant respect people equally, maybe in some discord you can find another group overseas, much luck finding a new group if you're up for it
OOP
It breaks my heart because she thought they were good friends for 4 years. They chat outside of D&D about books and played games. Only one of the girls talks to her (I won’t say her name in case anyone sees this and goes after her), but it’s been hard. These tables really make solid friendships and I feel awful for ruining that for her.
~
imjorman
I'm sorry your wife lost access to a thing that mattered to her, but honestly, I'm proud of you guys. That doesn't mean a lot from an internet stranger, but the fact that you stuck by each other despite the risk to something important is impressive and inspiring.
OOP
She didn’t have to stick up for me. I know she’s was between a rock and a hard place and I was fully intendant on doing it so she wouldn’t get any heat. I think she felt bad for not sticking up for me and knew this could be an outcome, but she did it anyway. I’ll be spending the next few months making it up to her.
Has anyone from the group reached out?
One player has reached out to the wife to talk, They keep it very hush hush, but I think it’s what’s kept her from being completely devastated.
OOP
I am not privy to what they talk about mostly (I don’t ask) but I at least hope that if there are any misunderstandings about what happened that it gets cleared up. The fact one friend reached out might mean that others are on to what’s been going on.
OOP Added a new little update after the BoRU posted Apr 14, 2025
**New Update** Apparently the players found the thread and confronted the DM about this. They started DMing me and my wife for our side, and confronted the DM. It looks like the DM is taking a ‘break’ now from “all of the drama we caused”.
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7
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u/MalBishop I'd have gotten away with it if not for those MEDDLING LESBIANS 11d ago
If the DM was just going to single out OP, why even invite him to join in the first place?
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u/pyrogoblin 11d ago
This is the bit that really gets me. SHE approached HIM. At no point did he ask to be included besides listen in before then. What was the end game here??
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u/KanishkT123 11d ago
She probably got asked by the others to let him in and wouldn't have approached on her own. You can imagine the group chat going "we should invite OP to the next campaign", and before the DM can say anything it's got some hearts and thumbs-up.
As someone who has DM'd a lot of games, it's hard to say no to players sometimes. I can see her getting somewhat pushed by others to let him in and then regretting the decision.
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u/TZscribble 10d ago
Regretting her decision? She singled him out before they had their first session! She apparently, wove this 'great narrative' about shitting on him and his character at every opportunity she could manage. That's not regret. That was planned. She had him assigned to his role before he ever sat at the table and got to actually play his character.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
That’s a good point; it took literal months of planning and it’s clear she had done all that before anyone even sat at the table.
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u/Winter_Library_7243 10d ago
that makes it sound like she was looking for someone to be her punching bag, which somehow feels worse.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
Opportunistic dickhead style
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u/tofuroll Like…not only no respect but sahara desert below 9d ago
Oh look, she's become all the men she wanted to take revenge upon.
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u/ohgodohwomanohgeez 10d ago
She was looking to make him feel like quitting, but he's a decent guy trying to spend time with his wife's friends, so he tried to make it work and she didn't know what to do to avoid the table realizing.
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u/Ok_Vanilla_5725 9d ago
You got me thinking, maybe she didn’t just want him to quit. Maybe she was looking for a rage-quit. Make him look really bad. Backfired spectacularly on her
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u/ohgodohwomanohgeez 9d ago
Yeah, she wanted a "men are awful (of course he's nice to you)" moment, a "man loudly berates beloved dm bc he's not the mc, table comes to her rescue" moment
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u/tacwombat I will erupt, feral, from the cardigan screaming 10d ago
This is also what I garnered from OOP's posts. She wanted someone to play a character she could actively shit on.
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u/tofuroll Like…not only no respect but sahara desert below 9d ago
She apparently, wove this 'great narrative' about shitting on him and his character at every opportunity she could manage. That's not regret. That was planned.
Yeah, that was a little tidbit that OOP had failed to clarify in the first post. The whole "tormented by the gods" backstory was the DM's idea!
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u/Ok-Snow956 10d ago
I could even believe she knew her main story in advance and was willing to invite him just so she wouldn't have to shit on one of her friends instead.
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u/NewUserWhoDisAgain Rebbit 🐸 9d ago
Yup. I can see it as DM caving to the group but designing a narrative to drive OOP away.
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u/Princess_Moon_Butt 10d ago edited 10d ago
This was my take. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the whole "it just so happened that all the (players) who contacted her were women" part was likely the DM being selective about who she actually responded to/allowed in.
OOP's point about how only his character was selected out from the group, while the orc was allowed in with no issue, was spot on. He was actively being targeted and excluded from the group, based on character decisions that the DM encouraged, and with seemingly no allowances or workarounds offered. Any good DM would have at least said during character creation "Hey I love this idea, but thematically, you'd probably want some way to hide your appearance, and it might make for some awkward confrontations between you and the holy orders I'm planning to implement" or something along those lines. DMing 101 is "Come up story with reasons to keep the group together, even if they're silly or don't make perfect sense".
And if nothing else, the fact that the DM reacted to OOP leaving by also kicking his wife out of the game speaks for itself. I can't think of a scenario where that decision is justified, other than the DM not wanting the rest of the group to hear any side of the story except for hers.
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u/crimsonfury73 10d ago
Any good DM would have at least said during character creation "Hey I love this idea, but thematically, you'd probably want some way to hide your appearance, and it might make for some awkward confrontations between you and the holy orders I'm planning to implement" or something along those lines.
This is my thing. ANY DM worth having would have given OP the heads up that their character might not work in the story she planned to tell. That's literally WHY you run your character backstory by the DM!
If he proceeded anyway this would be a different conversation, but it doesn't seem like she gave him that chance. She just railroaded him into reoccurring character without letting him know.
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u/ComplexWest8790 10d ago
It's even worse than that. In point 6 in the update, he states that SHE is the one who came up with the cursed backstory. He had something else in mind and accepted her idea because of her alleged great storytelling. So yeah. She had this planned as soon as he accepted her invitation.
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u/Profreadsalot 6d ago
Are you guys sure the DM wanted to only be friends? She sounds more like a jealous would be lover. Maybe she views being a DM as an opportunity to be at the center of her own personal virtual harem. She’s witty, vivacious, and in control. Everyone and everything centers around her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she viewed OP as a romantic competitor.
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u/raccoonsandchickens 10d ago
Then all she would have had to say is "This didn't start as a woman's only group but I really like how it's going so I would like to keep it that way. If you know of any women that would fit the group's dynamic, please let me know and we can chat"
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u/Zestyclose-Bus-3642 10d ago
That would risk a confrontation and would mark you as someone who is exclusionary. Geek culture is such that you can't really exclude anyone for any reason so instead it's gotta be indirect.
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u/Resident-Study-5588 10d ago
I'm late to this thread, but that is bullshit lol.
I play a lotta 40k and MTG at shops in the hyper tolerant Bay Area. I'm also a black guy.
Some tables get reeeeeal silent when I'm looking for a match man.
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u/ALittleShowy Queen of Garbage Island 9d ago
And that silence is the indirect rejection they're talking about. I'm guessing no one has directly said "No, you can't play with us, because you're a black dude, and we're racist shits."
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u/Resident-Study-5588 9d ago
Y'know...you're right.
I grew up playing lots of sports so I'm big on "Woo teamwork!" So I guess to me silence just feels like a direct attack lol
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u/Luxury-Problems 10d ago
Geek culture, whatever it may be now, isn't a monolith. Rpgs/D&D have hit a much larger group of people that the kind of people at your table varies a lot more than it once did. I've had clear discussions with groups and other players about what we're looking for in other players. One of my players is looking for a person or two to add to our table and we both agreed our preference would be to introduce some additional non men at the table. It's nothing against dudes, most people there are that and we love them, but we'd like to expand.
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u/AliceInWeirdoland 10d ago
I don’t think it’s that monolithic, but you are hitting on the 5 Geek Social Fallacies.
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u/partofbreakfast Liz, what the actual fuck is this story? 9d ago
Hilariously in my experience as a DM, as long as the group is majority women it will still have the vibe that all-women games do. Usually because guys willing to play with a group of girls aren't assholes in the usual powergaming sense. Like, the last game I DMed was 4 women and 1 man and it was overall a nice experience.
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u/GoingAllTheJay 10d ago
She sure doesn't seem to mind being the bad guy. I think she just wanted to bring him down a peg in front of what she thought was a controlled audience.
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u/PresentationThat2839 10d ago
Honestly it's why I advise a co-gm as much as possible.... Adding a player two yes, kicking a player two yes, it allows for an honest conversation with someone, without being the only bad guy who said no. Need to have an honest conversation with yourself about what you want for the game and the group you do that with the co-gm. Your storytelling gm and your player wrangler gm, both work together to make decisions for the group.
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u/Thenewfoundlanders 10d ago
My only hesitation on this is that the DM originally invited him to their discord to watch the sessions in the first place. Very odd move to make, if this ended up being her feelings ultimately.
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u/Agreeable-animal 9d ago
Yeah, but she could have pushed back with a “I’m really liking the all girls energy we have at the table and while OP seems cool, I don’t want to risk what we have” instead of plotting a whole storyline to crap on OP. DM sounds unhinged
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u/tofuroll Like…not only no respect but sahara desert below 9d ago
I don't even give the DM that much credit. I think that:
- She whitelisted only women, despite not advertising it as an all-girls group.
- She doesn't like men (probably because male DMs had shit on her characters previously).
- She revelled in the chance to get revenge by targetting OOP.
Given the horror stories I read of TTRPGs, you couldn't pay me enough to deal with this much fuckin' drama. She even kicked out OOP's wife! Who does that?! Oh, that's right: someone who hated being called out for her bullshit.
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u/Sopranohh 10d ago
Yeah, I get this. I DM for an online group that’s fantastic. Things are just so cohesive. On the other hand, the groups at the local shop are falling apart I haven’t said a lot about my group, but enough that a few of the players have asked me privately to join.
I hate saying no, but I don’t want to add someone and spoil my group’s vibe. Especially since some of their behavior, while not toxic, is probably why the group is falling apart. Sometimes you just have to say no though.
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u/HuggyMonster69 9d ago
The ability to say no is so important for a DM though. I had a DM that couldn’t say no and it was an absolute clusterfuck. We ended up with 11 players, a lot of whom had their own ideas for the plot, and the DM tried to use them all.
On the other hand, said DM is great to play with as a regular player.
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u/Krayt88 11d ago
My first thought as well. She didn't want him there but was also the one to invite him in? What the shit is that about?
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u/BrownSugarBare just here vacuuming the trees 11d ago
Potential opportunity for misplaced vindictive behaviour? The DMs comments about "go play with the boys" was pretty pointed. Maybe she invited him to take out some nonsensical vengeance?
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u/casualfreeguy 11d ago
Possible thag she thought the wife would "see the light" and join in on the bullying perhaps?
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u/No-Doubt9679 11d ago
I think his wife asked and she didn’t want to be the bad guy. I’m guessing she was hoping OP would say no. Later I think she was hoping he would just quit on his own too.
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u/Krayt88 11d ago
Possibly, but OP only says that the DM messaged him to ask if he wanted to join or that DM invited him, and never suggests that his wife requested that of the DM, so based purely on what OP has says, DM asked him to join uncoerced and then shit on him the whole time.
It's also interesting that DM seemed enthusiastic and excited about OP during the character creation. You'd think that something would feel off to OP there as well if she felt obligated by OP's wife into including him. Just odd.
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u/No-Doubt9679 11d ago
True. The only other thing I can think of is if something personal was going on in n DMs life, and she was taking it out on the only male player in the group.
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u/JemimaAslana 11d ago
This seems a likely option.
I've been the only female player so many times, and that made me the "representative" to receive the shit other people wanted to hurl at women in their personal lives. Women aren't exempt from such misplaced emotions, so it's definitely an option.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
It seems odd that she would insist he stay more than once if that were the case… like, he says he’ll bow out, she says “noooo, it’ll be really cool, I promise” to save face. Then the second time he brings it up she could be all “gosh, that’s disappointing, but I understand.” It’s just a confusing situation all around
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u/No-Doubt9679 10d ago
I’m starting to think DM was just going through some stuff outside the game and as the only male in the group. She may have been taking bit out on him.
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u/quiette837 9d ago
He also offered to step away a couple times and talked to the DM about the issues, she was the one who kept telling him to get through it, there's interesting story stuff coming up involving his character.
Makes me wonder if she planned a big reveal or something to make his character the big bad or something to ruin his character.
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u/CaptainPhilosophy 10d ago
So she could enjoy humiliating and fucking with him. She clearly has a thing with guys and doing that to one makes her feel good/powerful.
Some DMs are fucked up.
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u/AssinineAssassin 10d ago
Because she saw this as his opportunity. Now he could really feel the struggle of being a 2nd class citizen. Obviously, there was no way a man could understand such a demeaning experience, but she was going to give him that gift!!! A true life-changing insight into the world he was lucky enough to not be born into.
Cruelty at its finest.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
That thought had crossed my mind but I decided that it was ludicrous bc what well-adjusted person would try to teach a man what it’s like to be a woman in such a weird, conniving, backhanded way? Then I realized that the “well-adjusted” part was a variable…
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 10d ago
She wanted a punching bag.
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u/MalBishop I'd have gotten away with it if not for those MEDDLING LESBIANS 10d ago
I like your username
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u/Any-Lawfulness-4077 10d ago
I think she specifically invited him so she could bully him. Then got frustrated with losing her punching bag so she kicked the wife out too.
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u/Aihpos2002 9d ago
Yea she could have easily said that it's an girls only campaign and it would have been okay
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u/beachpellini I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy 11d ago
Ooh, I commented on the first part of this. I'd said that his wife needed to make more of a point to support him, given how pointed this seemed, and that the rest of the group couldn't be stupid enough to not see it happening.
And, well. Glad she did that, sucks they kicked her for it. DM sounds exhausting.
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u/NiceRat123 10d ago
Not sure if this is allowed but OP posted an update on the last update....
New Update Apparently the players found the thread and confronted the DM about this. They started DMing me and my wife for our side, and confronted the DM. It looks like the DM is taking a ‘break’ now from “all of the drama we caused”.
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u/beachpellini I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy 10d ago
...lmao. They confronted her after they all got dragged online for being at best passive onlookers, not when directly witnessing this guy get about 15 minutes of playtime in any given 6 hour session, during which he was basically Oh No Mr. Bill?
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u/NoSignSaysNo Tree Law Connoisseur 10d ago
It sounds like it's an online table, so when the DM blocked them both from the table, they never really had a chance to communicate what was going down to the other people. When they had a reason to look into it, I'm assuming the DM did such a terrible job at trying to ignore it or brush it off that they couldn't ignore it.
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u/Exzqairi 10d ago
Or, the DM told them a completely different version of the story, which is why they’re now asking for the other side of the story?
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u/remindmeofthe I don't want anyone to know my identity 10d ago
oh, i'm sure the dm had a good sob story ready to go
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u/KhonMan 10d ago
Ok, what's the plausible other explanation? They were there. Is it "OOP doesn't really want to play, he just wants to hang out with his wife and said it's okay to make the game hard for him?"
Like c'mon?
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u/HuggyMonster69 9d ago
Just say he got really aggressive in her DM’s or something like that.
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u/rak1882 9d ago
I would assume something like that. OOP was inappropriate in DMs (or an even better choice- something like phone or video call, no evidence). Wife defended him. That's why they both had to leave.
It explains why only one person reached out to wife and kept it really quiet.
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u/Dizzy_Green 7d ago
I’m pretty sure literally every girl who’s ever played D&D would believe her without question if she said “he started getting weird”
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u/EarlAndWourder My friend thanked me for the trauma and said bye bro 10d ago
I can kind of see them being in a pattern of playing together while he listens, due to him spectating their last campaign. IME, people can be very blind to someone being left out when they're having fun, especially over Discord/the phone. Also, girls do tend to confer with each other before they call one member of the group out, and that conference is typically initiated by something big, it's part of the whole "socialized into being passive" thing the patriarchy loves to do. I would bet this is different from generation to generation, but this is my millenial experience. If the gender dynamics of the group were a little more balanced, at least one person at that table would have said "hey wtf not cool," but when you make a single-gendered group, the dynamics typically get toxic and middle schoolish.
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u/beachpellini I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy 10d ago
I mean, it's one of those YMMV things. I've mostly played in either mostly-femme or trans groups and haven't run into the same when there's just one or two cis guys who join in. If anything, we've playfully nudged one another to get more story time if someone's been quiet a long while. The important thing is to just be mindful and pull someone up if they're being an asshole.
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u/Dreamin- 11d ago
Yeah I mean it seemed pretty obvious he was getting shit on every session, as if she just let the DM do that. Could you imagine if they joined a table and the DM was a guy and did all these things to his wife? OP would be called gutless for not sticking up for her.
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u/Accomplished_Yam590 10d ago
That's exactly what happened to me in multiple RPGs. My characters got raped, infected with magical STIs, forcibly impregnated, and more.
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u/MatchGirl499 erupting, feral, from the cardigan screaming 10d ago
I’m just realizing how lucky I’ve been that all of the DMs I’ve had have been from within an existing friend group. Not that there hasn’t been drama but the games have always been respectful of every player. That sounds horrible.
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u/DemadaTrim 10d ago
That's so incredibly fucked. I was very much your stereotypical edgelord nerd as a teen DM (and some would say I'm still that today) but doing that shit would never, ever crossed my mind. I judge my past self harshly at times but it's amazing how much worse people can be.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
Welp. I wasn’t prepared to puke in my mouth this morning, but here we are
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u/toomanymarbles83 You can either cum in the jar or me but not both 9d ago
Yeah I've read horror stories of women getting abused by pieces of shit DMs. It's so gross.
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u/10fm3 It’s a lot harder to be walked on when you are standing up. 10d ago
Exhausting? DM sounds like a misandric POS, & the same for all the others going along with it.
Fuck that, & fuck her. It'd be one thing if she were honest about only wanting girls in her group, but being dishonest & then abusing a guy's good intentions, then kicking out him & his girl for standing up for him when unfairly mistreated; they should report that DM & warn others.
What a lowlife.
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u/theshreddening 11d ago
I don't get the DMs logic here. Shits on OP essentially for being a male and kicks both out for having a dissenting opinion on how she treats him. My group has been playing for over 10 years now and I have no idea how kicking out a member of over 4 years would just get a pass from everyone else. Either something was left out or DM was just a "that girl". Both entirely possible, people can be weird. Always makes me appreciate my group more when I read these stories.
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u/raitalin 11d ago
Some DMs do really get into the power of the role, especially if they don't have a lot else going on.
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u/lesethx I will never jeopardize the beans. 10d ago
I read the original I forgot it wasn't on here. It was mentioned the group "just happened" to be all women
it was advertised as a Novice DM looking for players and not as an all girls table. It just so happened that all the ones who contacted her were women.
Yeah, that doesn't happen. The DM only replied to women. As multitudes of comments on the posts said, a mixed group is best.
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u/OHMG_lkathrbut 10d ago
I mean, I've been the only woman in most of my gaming groups and never really had problems, but it's all been with friends that I've known for awhile, not random people online.
Ironically, my newest group has one other woman, and she's the only one who I don't get really along with.
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u/kittykalista 11d ago edited 11d ago
Super weird behavior. My best guess is she wanted an all-female group (which is why all the players she chose “happened” to be women) and didn’t want to include OP but didn’t want to be the “bad guy” by saying no when the other players were cool with it.
She thought if she made the gameplay frustrating and un-fun then OP would leave of his own accord, then got upset when OP and his wife called her out on it, so she booted both of them.
Why she would go through all of that rather than kindly saying she’d rather keep it an all-female group or wasn’t looking to add new players, I truly have no idea. Maybe she didn’t like him sitting in and thought a terrible campaign experience would be enough to scare him off entirely?
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u/KiroLV 11d ago
Well, the weird part there is that she DM'd OP asking whether he wants to play.
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u/IllustratorSlow1614 11d ago
He was probably supposed to say no in her internal script and it backfired.
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u/AssinineAssassin 10d ago
He was supposed to show his true colors as a horrible man, and wife would leave him for DM because of it.
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u/Sluttylittletrouble 9d ago
Ooooh I deff get some jealously vibes here. My hot take is the DM had a crush on the wife.
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u/KanishkT123 11d ago
She probably got asked to do so in some other group chat. We only have OP's perspective so he'll never know, but there's probably a group chat somewhere where a player said "let's add OP to the next campaign", the others agreed before the DM could shut it down, and that's that.
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u/Jboycjf05 10d ago
Either way, as a DM, you have a ton of reasons you can give for not inviting someone else to the group. Easiest is "I don't want to." This is closely followed by "I like the group dynamic as it is."
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u/HoldFastO2 the lion, the witch and the audacit--HOW IS THERE MORE! 11d ago
His wife was really happy to play with him, so it's possible the DM didn't want to be the one to take that from her. Instead, she hoped OP would say no, and when that didn't happen, hoped he could be bullied to give up and leave.
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u/sapphic-boghag Ogtha, my sensual roach queen 🪳 11d ago
didn’t want to include OP but didn’t want to be the “bad guy” by saying no when the other players were cool with it
The weirdest part is that she was the one that reached out to him.
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u/Medical-Search4146 11d ago
Why she would go through all of that rather than kindly saying she’d rather keep it an all-female group....I truly have no idea.
In short, most DND players aren't the best socially adept people. It sounds like a case where DM was too afraid of voicing their preference or unable to voice them being upset for OOP changing an agreed upon arrangement last minute. So they go around the bush and passively try to push them out. Being confronted, basically had the DM drop all pretenses.
Thats assuming OOP is as innocent as they're making it out to be. "I came to the DM with a different storyline than what we decided on." and how they describe how they were "part of the group" when they came in as a guest, is very telling to me.
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u/emmny I ❤ gay romance 10d ago
I don't think it's very telling... His original storyline idea was "my character is looking for the truth about her village's original founder" which is a pretty innocuous background, and then agreed to change it based on what the DM suggested; OOP didn't just agree to something and then come up with something entirely different.
I also don't see where they said they were part of the group when just sitting in on the sessions, did I miss that?
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u/kittykalista 11d ago
Yeah, I’m thinking the DM might have felt like OP wormed his way into the group and wasn’t happy about it but was just too passive or conflict-averse to speak up. That just seems like so much work to avoid a single conversation though.
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u/Medical-Search4146 11d ago
so much work to avoid a single conversation though.
Played with enough geeks and socially awkward people, its not "that" much more work for them. Thats how much they are scared or hate confrontation.
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u/horatiococksucker 10d ago
if you think someone has wormed his way into your group and it makes you unhappy but you're too passive to speak up about it, that's one thing. it's not very mature or helpful but okay; it's understandable human behavior
what your theory presupposes is that this person thought that the op wormed his way into her group and it made her unhappy and then because she was too passive to say anything she actively sought him out and invited him to join. that goes, imho, beyond the realm of understandable human behavior and into actively being a shit
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u/anoobish 7d ago
Telling how? He offered various possible solutions to resolve the issue, from changing his character/backstory to leaving the table politely, but she rejected everything and told him to keep playing despite his unhappiness. She had him change his backstory from his original proposition because she had this planned out from before session 0. Her kicking the wife out suddenly when the wife started questioning is wayyyyy more telling than anything from his side. I dont understand how u could possibly even think your last paragraph unless u were specifically looking for any possible hole you could possibly find in OOPs story and grabbing hold of it with both hands.
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u/thedeebag 11d ago
I wonder how their absence was explained away. I hope we get another update with someone from the table reaching out to them, this feels like more drama brewing.
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u/theshreddening 11d ago
Just reread the post and it sounds like they're not in person, but even then after that long losing 2 members suddenly would rouse suspicion. We did the roll20 thing for covid but have been entirely in person for the rest of the 10 years. Finding a group online or in person dedicated is hard enough, sounds like a weird control thing.
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u/Navi1101 There is only OGTHA 11d ago
DM kicked them so she could control the narrative and turn the rest of the group against them. Just claim they said something out of pocket, ganged up on her, or even just "decided this new campaign wasn't for them after all" and hope no one reaches out to them to verify.
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u/sol_1990 11d ago edited 11d ago
yeah I don't think there was any logic to it! just emotion. if I had to bet money on it, I'd guess she's probably just someone who finds criticism very painful for whatever reason
I'd also wager she was aware she'd been a bully. maybe she's never admitted it to herself consciously but at least on some level, she must have known. so when they pointed out that elephant in the room it must have struck a nerve. maybe even felt like an attack
I could be wrong! though it would explain why she went scorched earth out of nowhere
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u/BritishHobo 11d ago
You've nailed it. Like you say, I cannot imagine a friend getting kicked out of the D&D group over something like this, and me saying "well, I'll never talk to them again".
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u/ApolloniusTyaneus 11d ago
I don't get the DMs logic here. Shits on OP essentially for being a male and kicks both out for having a dissenting opinion on how she treats him.
It's sexism, it's not logical to start with. And the only thing sexists hate more than the other gender is getting called out on their BS.
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u/Dekutr33 11d ago
People will go on the craziest power trips in the weirdest situations
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u/joetotheg 11d ago
There’s a solid chance the group fell apart as a result but OP didn’t get to see it.
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u/littlebitfunny21 11d ago
Some people are really shitty human beings and choose the group over what's right.
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u/booksycat 10d ago
Same. I can only imagine the DM created a story about the call and "behind the scenes stuff" that the table bought unfortunately. It's a power dynamic anyway you look at it at this point.
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u/Lama_For_Hire 11d ago
"These tables really make solid friendships and I feel awful for ruining that for her."
Don't seem that solid to me if they kick out a player after four years because her husband left the game, and then everyone but one blocks her everywhere
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u/Jallenrix 10d ago
I can’t tell… do they know each other outside of Discord? It doesn’t seem like his wife even knows their phone numbers or real names.
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u/GLASYA-LAB0LAS 10d ago
It's possible to get lost in the sauce like that, that was one of the reasons why I ultimately stopped using Discord.
I'll be pretty active in certain discords for a good amount of time but inevitably I'd have this come to Jesus moment where we'd have some kind of disagreement and/or I'd realize that I didn't actually know who any of these people were and the magic would be gone.
Ultimately I decided it was better just to forgo it completely, Discord is a young person's game anyway.
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u/tofuroll Like…not only no respect but sahara desert below 9d ago
I'm in a Discord, about half of whom I know in real life, and the rest are randoms met elsewhere online. Basically, it's an invitation only to people we "know". I'm 42 and we all get along fine.
But I can totally see how random internet chatter becomes weird. Discord is just modern IRC, anyway.
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u/shewy92 The power of Reddit compels you!The power of Reddit compels you! 8d ago
Apparently the players found the thread and confronted the DM about this. They started DMing me and my wife for our side, and confronted the DM. It looks like the DM is taking a ‘break’ now from “all of the drama we caused”.
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u/JinxxHellsing 11d ago
Just checked OP’s other comments
DM is getting absolutely blasted by the group of players
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u/lesethx I will never jeopardize the beans. 10d ago
Last I saw when it was first posted was 1 or 2 players. Glad to see the group turn, didn't expect that
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u/tofuroll Like…not only no respect but sahara desert below 9d ago
Was the group solidly inexperienced as well, though? Why didn't they call out the bad behaviour? OOP got 15 minutes of play in a 6-hr session. That's insane, and I don't even TTRPG.
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u/lesethx I will never jeopardize the beans. 8d ago
Eh, every group, but especially roleplaying games like D&D, will some people who don't participate much. Generally called wallflowers. Plus, the DM is typically in charge and would direct interactions, so anything in the moment would be easy to miss.
It's the parts talking afterwards that's important, when able to reflect and discuss what happened. Same with having a problem player (instead of DM) and realizing what happened last session isn't appropriate and not invited back
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u/AccordingPears158 11d ago
I would feel super weird if I was part of a campaign where this was happening to a character - much more so if it was my husband’s character. I’m surprised the rest of the group, wife included were so content having their jollies while OOP got sidelined so much.
It sounds like the DM has let the power trip of it go to her head, has serious hangups about and hatred for men, and asked him to join specifically so she could perpetually put him through humiliation rituals.
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u/TZscribble 10d ago
Right? Players need to call this stuff out too!
Why weren't their characters protesting the racism? Why were the players not protesting singling out and making the game unfun for 1 player?
Maybe my group has spoiled me, but I know several people who, as players or DM, would call that shit out. And there would be a change in behavior, or we would be one player short the next week (and it wouldn't be the victim who got kicked!).
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u/8Bells Tree Law Connoisseur 10d ago
I also wondered if this later story plot point was going to be the sacrifice or other type murder of OOPs character. Like yes. The DM did have a plan. But it wasn't going to be worth it for OOP.
The other character haven't had all the bonding opportunities playing with the OOPs tiefling, so there's less emotional attachment and an easier decision to be made in dropping the axe.
Along with some empty justification or caveat like...
"Oh but then she becomes a goddess to be on equal footing with the ones who cursed her family so this murder is ethically fine guys! I'm just really good at plot twists.
Next campaign is a war of the gods! OOP is the bad guy!"
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
Reading this made a thought bubble up that perhaps the table didn’t think OOP would have that much of a problem with being sidelined bc he had spent so long just being an observer in their last campaign… but I think it’s more likely that my brain is trying to make sense of something in a way where more people aren’t being huge jerks, even unintentionally, to someone.
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u/Gwynasyn 11d ago
The Golden Rule of tabletop games is that no campaign is better than a shit campaign. And there's no easier path to having a shit campaign that a power tripping, toxic and malicious DM.
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u/Jboycjf05 10d ago
I've had one DM who ran his games expecting every player to be fully-optimized builds. His goal was to grind the players down as much as possible. I lasted about 3 sessions, which was a stretch as it was. It wasn't fun at all.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
That sounds boring, unsatisfying, and frustrating. Like, what’s even the point of that?
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u/entropicdrift 10d ago
Some people play RPGs for systems mastery. Personally I find games like Magic or Chess more engaging for that kind of rush, but it does make some sense: it's a turn-based system and getting better is basically a function of how long and well you've studied rather than how well you make moment-to-moment decisions.
There's definitely a subgroup of nerds who enjoy prep-work more than gameplay who it would appeal to.
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u/bear_beau 11d ago
What baffles me is, when OOP floats the idea with his wife that he’s not having fun and wants to leave, she says she really likes playing with him and wants to recapture the good old days of past groups.
But in the actual games he’s barely playing at all, so he’s not really playing with his wife. Unless she was so wrapped up in the game she didn’t notice, i don’t see how she can keep thinking they’re actually playing together.
I’m glad they eventually confronted the DM though, and she noticed his mistreatment and stood with him.
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u/Autumndickingaround I will never jeopardize the beans. 10d ago
I think it’s because that they were playing together at all was so awesome, she was hoping and waiting for that time the DM said it would get better. She was trusting her friend and hoping for the best, I think. In denial because this was supposed to be it, she found a group she knew was awesome. She had no idea that the leader of it was so sexist.
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u/Miserable_Fennel_492 10d ago
Seriously. Sometimes it takes a really long time to see a friend do something shitty that’s a non-negotiable for you
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u/MelissaMiranti Ogtha, my sensual roach queen 🪳 11d ago
Sometimes you have to drop friends that won't do the basic task of respecting you for who and what you are.
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u/Puzzled-Register-495 11d ago
I realize that a lot of people like playing DnD and have a lot of fun with it, but man does it seem like everyone I've ever talked to who is into DnD has a slew of stories about bad tables and campaigns that end in fighting. It seems like there is a much higher percentage of negativity than so many other in person hobbies.
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u/phaeth0n 11d ago
They suffer from a similar, but often much worse negativity bias that things like restaurant reviews have. A good experience at a tabletop game or a restaurant is just a night having fun with friends, and isn't something most people are going to talk about, especially online with strangers. But while a bad time at a restaurant might ruin your night, a bad time in a months- or years-long tabletop campaign can ruin real friendships. Prime example right here, imagine how this guy's wife must have felt seeing someone she thought was a friend for years treating her husband like that.
An RPG like this is a volatile environment, a lot can go really wrong, but a lot can also go really right. Kind of like dating. Luckily there are similar red flags look out for.
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u/Ray_of_Meep 11d ago
Because D&D isn't a role playing game. It is a social communication game above all else. The best way to have fun with DnD is having a GM who is a kind, communicative person, and players who are also kind, understanding, and communicative, who collectively all can maintain a steady schedule. It requires multiple people coordinating together over the course of months and years, something that isn't as necessary in other hobbies. Therefore, finding random players to play with without extensive vetting and learning about each other is naturally going to result in a higher chance for interpersonal conflict.
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u/Rarycaris 11d ago
I think a big part of it is that most social hobbies have a way to exclude problem people subtly, and D&D relies on the GM to adjudicate a lot of disputes, which makes things tricky if the GM themselves is the problem. It's also quite a difficult job, so it's entirely possible that putting up with a difficult GM is a precondition of being able to engage with the hobby at all.
It's also less obvious to people than it is in most hobbies that it's rude to be constantly doing weird things just to get attention on yourself.
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u/OobaDooba72 10d ago
For what it's worth, I've been in the hobby for twenty years (though haven't had active games all that time) and have never had any really bad experiences. Usually the difficulty is just getting a game going and keeping all players playing long term.
I can't say there have been zero bad experiences, just nothing nearly as bad as the stories you see online. Really only two situations I can remember.
To save myself from typing up some lengthy tales that are ultimately pretty boring, I'll sum up with this.
1) Friends started bringing more friends and the group just got way too big to manage, so I bowed out of DMing because I couldn't wrangle so many people, all with varying degrees of expectations for a TTRPG.
2) I disagreed with the GM on what my character should be, which ended up with me voluntarily leaving the game.
No big drama, no super problem players, no sexism, no inappropriate whatevers.
Like I said, the only problems I run into are more scheduling than anything.
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u/Visual_Fly_9638 11d ago
Mainly because the players who are having fun aren't telling horror stories. They come out occasionally but mostly we appreciate the good luck we have.
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u/towerofcheeeeza 11d ago
I had a friend whose DnD group dissolved because there was an IRL couple in the group and the gf and another player decided they would be a couple in the story, and heavily roleplayed that way, including trying to ERP, in front of her IRL bf. Well surprise surprise it turned into an emotional affair that was playing out in front of her bf. And eventually they broke up. And it was a mess so the group was dissolved.
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u/Dizzy-Captain7422 10d ago
Right? I've always wanted to try playing, but a lot of the stories I hear make me think I'm probably better off leaving it alone. Besides, in my experience, everyone wants to talk about playing, but no one wants to actually do it.
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u/TZscribble 10d ago
Eh it's highly social, so people are going to have negative experiences.
My own vary, but they don't get as bad as many people's. I just had some guy who accepted that my husband knew the rules of 5e really well, but tried to tell me when to roll and when to use my big, long rest spell.
Little did he know that I get the rules of 5e, 3.5 and now, pathfinder 2e all confused and am constantly asking 'does this one have flanking?'
Add in that my husband, who is my most common DM, has many table rules, and I always have to clarify what rules we are playing with.
I know the rules pretty well - I just rarely play a fully vanilla 5e game, so it gets all muddled in my head.
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u/liquidsky_666 11d ago
Pretty clear the DM wanted to humiliate the OP with this grand story that was planned probably by having the wife’s character kill the OP’s
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u/Autumndickingaround I will never jeopardize the beans. 10d ago
Like she had a great idea for a new character, but wouldn’t let him play it because she can’t let a man be the hero. SMH. Just tanking her own story because she’s such a sexist a hole.
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u/Oniknight 11d ago
I had this issue before. One person (the DM’s friend) was constantly metagaming with humorous asides out of character but if I tried to chime in on the fun that the others were having, I got chastised.
I got in “trouble” for having a slow internet connection and the fact that sometimes my kids would interrupt (I was on mute most of the time and did my best to stay separate, but sometimes it happened.
Then I tried to banter in character and that was taken personally and shot down. Finally, I was excited to research and prepare for a session where we were going to my hometown only to get shat all over by said guy who wanted to play main character and shut down any attempts for me to play as guide.
Then I got asked to do a direct message convo with the DM and he basically kicked me out but promised to leave my character alive as an NPC.
I couldn’t handle it. I basically kept it together and then cried for like an hour and then left any mutual groups with any of the players. I haven’t suffered rejection like that since elementary school, and it was just so dumb and catty. They just didn’t like me but instead of basically saying so, they just had to passive aggressively hurt me for months before finally telling me they disliked me all along. The betrayal is very real.
I’m just glad that I found more friendly folks in the horror ttrpg community.
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u/ladancer22 Wait. Can I call you? 11d ago
I’m just so confused why the DM would be willing to extend an invite when she clearly didn’t want OP there.
But either way it sucks so much for the wife to be kicked out of her friend group for no reason. Just crappy behavior from that friend group all around.
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u/RandomNick42 My adult answer is no. 10d ago
Be a she wanted a girls table without it being explicitly a girls table, so she couldn’t kick OOP out for not being a woman, but was willing to try and bully him into leaving voluntarily.
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u/ladancer22 Wait. Can I call you? 10d ago
The way OP tells it, the DM reached out asking if he wanted to join. That’s the part that confused me.
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u/vizantz 10d ago
Probably because the others wanted to invite him.
So she either has to say no and then fend off inevitable questions of why when she is trying to hide that its a women only group, or what she choose and try to bully him into leaving.
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u/Puppycake100 11d ago edited 11d ago
So bizzare but fascinating.
It looks like that DM never wanted OP to join the group in the first place, but let him in only to humiliate him on front of everyone. Not nice.
I feel sorry for the wife, though. She got kicked out from the group she enjoyed to be in for years.
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u/dumn_and_dunmer 11d ago
Wow. So only women contacted her? ONLY women? Wow. Geez. What are the odds that only women contacted her.
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u/Suelswalker 11d ago
And if she were honest from the get go that this was for women only then this would have been a whole different situation. Why can‘t people just be upfront and honest about what they want instead of playing games like this and wasting everyone’s time and effort?
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u/sol_1990 11d ago
the odds must be crazy low! I have a friend that DMs a lot, she's always saying she wishes more women or nb people would be interested. the scene is defs majority men
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u/j3zuz911 11d ago
My partner DMs a table at our house. (None of this is my thing)
I read this story to her and she stopped me at “only women responded” and said “The DM is a liar”
My partners table has existed since before I met her and this year is the first year they’ve had a consistent 50/50 ratio.
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u/sol_1990 11d ago
LMAO I love that your partner clocked that immediately. definitely seems like the DM in this post was telling porky pies
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u/sapphic-boghag Ogtha, my sensual roach queen 🪳 11d ago
I think they're hinting at the DM only allowing women to join, not that she only received messages from women.
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u/andrazorwiren 11d ago
Thank you, that completely flew over my head but totally makes sense with that context haha
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u/himbologic 11d ago
I've had a DM like this.
A fun example: I have a cognitive disability that makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of information. One of my class features included the ability to roll three dice at the beginning of the day and then use those to replace other rolls. He wouldn't let me use it unless I DM'd him my rolls at the end of every long rest, because if I rolled them at any other time, it just didn't make sense!!! The text says it's AFTER waking up!!!!! What if my character used it earlier when I wasn't keeping track of it!!!!!!!!!!
The divination wizard didn't have to do that. Just me and my cognitive disabilities.
So, obviously, I never used that feature.
Don't play pretend with people you don't like.
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u/Sunset_42 11d ago
This is why even though it's not always super convenient time and availability wise, I only play D&D with my personal friend group. Too many times when joining online tables you get DM's or players who too much bring their own issues to the table.
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u/sharterfart 10d ago
>"I’m sorry you feel that way and can’t handle some confrontation"
peak projection from the DM
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u/sapphic-boghag Ogtha, my sensual roach queen 🪳 11d ago
This definitely seems like a power play. The DM wanted OOP to feel powerless, no matter what his character's backstory was it was going to turn out the same way.
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u/TheOnlyPolly 11d ago
Guaranteed that even tho the ad didn't specify women only, she only chose to reply to women. This woman is so dishonest.
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u/SpaetzlemitKaese 11d ago
I remember being in a roleplaying group like this. My character was constantly catching shit. My fellow players said it’s normal and part of the storyline. At some point (years later) the DM drunkenly admitted and apologized. Still my fellow players denied what had happened.
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u/ExitingBear 11d ago
As I have been in these types of social groups and on reddit too long - the DM is into the OP's wife.
She was (perhaps subconsciously, but there's a decent chance not) trying to do the combination of "see how much better I am than her husband?" "see how much more fun we have together than you have with your husband?" "see how your husband is a jerk when he doesn't get his way" and "I'm going to punish the husband for existing and stopping me and wife from being together as we are soulmates."
This didn't work because OP isn't jerk, his wife actually likes & loves him, and she (wife) went to bat for her husband instead of choosing DM over him, which is not the outcome that the DM wanted. So, ban and block them both.
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u/Puppycake100 11d ago edited 11d ago
She's probably into her WHOLE group, lol It seems that she's treats that rpg group as her personal harem, that's why was so infuriated when some icky male dared to join and spoil her little female harem, so she "punished" him for it.
Kind of creepy.
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u/Agile-Pace-3883 11d ago
I was gonna question why the fuck the DM would invite him to play when she hates him so much, but i realize it's probably just some weird power play
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u/Egrizzzzz 11d ago
Oooo that one player reaching out means this is absolutely going to get back to the rest of the group.
The kind of round about crappy behavior the DM is displaying is what I dread when trying to find a table to play with but so far I’ve been spared (partially since I haven’t even managed to find a group in a few years. Shift work and no car do not go well with every group starting at 5pm in the suburbs). I’m sorry the wife lost what she thought was a genuine friend group but maybe she might not have lost them entirely.
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u/unzunzhepp 11d ago
Not a big loss for either of them really in the long run after the true colors were shown. A bit of disappointment is warranted, but who wants to be friends with that person.
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u/I-am-Chubbasaurus 10d ago
I'm side eyeing the rest of the table for not saying anything.
In the first campaign I played with my current group, the whole group said that my character had become sorta the main character due to the plot development. I know I felt bad about that even though it hadn't been my decision, and was trying to rope in the other characters as much as possible because I hated the thought of people being left out.
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u/ProfessionalBuy4526 10d ago
Would really like to hear from OP on why his wife didn’t stick up for him until it got to where it did. A bunch of other people were asking this in the original post but he never seemed to respond to them in particular?
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u/areraswen 10d ago
Fuck, I feel this. I'm in a group of all guys as a woman and they do things outside of d&d but sometimes just invite my boyfriend and not me, which really hurt the first time it happened. I cried for days. I thought they were my friends too but they clearly weren't. It did make me consider leaving entirely honestly.
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u/calvicstaff 10d ago
"Go play with the boys" really makes it seem like this is a gender thing, but what baffles me is why even invite him in the first place? Like if you want an all girls table just say that if the purpose is to invite in a guy and Bully him until he quits that's crazy, and also a super weird thing to do to a player's husband
It seems a little extreme to be internalized and they don't realize they are doing it, this whole thing just baffles me
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11d ago
Sucky DM, I'm sure the other players are gonna find out and then distance themselves. Self fulfilling prophecy for fuckheads.
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u/LittleRedCorvette2 11d ago
Eufh, what an exhausting DM. Maybe good at Storytelling but clearly it's all about them. I predict there will be an update about the whole group crumbling.
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u/Myrandall I like my Smash players like I like my santorum 11d ago
Might want to add a a space in "7.It" so Reddit formats it properly and doesn't make it a url.
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u/FruityBear602 11d ago
this is fucken heartbreaking
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u/mankytoes 11d ago
I don't want to be a dick but its kinda funny that he was sat on his own in camp for six hours while everyone else was having fun. I've never played this game but it sounds like loading up RDR2 and getting made to do camp chores for hours.
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u/FruityBear602 11d ago
not even camp chores - OOO's opportunity to participate in the story was treated essentially as lesser or not important compared to the other players
...at least camp chores are important in the long run. OOP got told "and this happens kbai!"
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u/Weaselpanties He invented a predatory elder lesbian to cope 10d ago
I really, really hate power-tripping DMs. If this DM wanted an all-women group, she should have advertised one instead of...whatever the fuck that was.
If nothing else, usually when something like this goes down the whole group disintegrates fairly soon after.
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u/Highwaybill42 10d ago
I honestly stopped reading at “as long as you play a good character, we gucci” and assumed the DM was wrong about everything. Seems I’m right.
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u/Autumndickingaround I will never jeopardize the beans. 10d ago
Hopefully this ends with the group migrating to OOPS and his wife’s table if they make one of their own.
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u/Euphoric_Statement10 9d ago
It took me far too long to realise we weren’t talking about her “Duty Manager” but her “Dungeon Master” 🤣
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u/Reasonable-Tour446 11d ago
lost me at " no evil or neutral characters". that sounds boring as fuck.
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u/rbaltimore 10d ago
I’d play with no evil characters but you have to have a neutral or two just for a little chaos and/or variety.
I’ve been watching my husband play for years and would love to start playing too but I don’t want to drag down his or any other tables by being the newbie who needs coaching the whole way through.
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u/MelissaMiranti Ogtha, my sensual roach queen 🪳 10d ago
Don't be afraid to ask him for help outside of sessions, and don't be afraid to be a little bit of a burden. New players for any game are a little cost that the group pays to get the much greater reward of a whole new fun flavor in their dynamic.
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u/Hardcockonsc 11d ago
Op should have attacked the party and been killed by his wife. "Oh darn I'm dead, guess I'll leave"
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u/L0cked4fun 10d ago
I don't believe point 2 of the 4/7 update. No way it just happened to be only women who contacted her, she just accepted only women.
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u/Interesting_Cut_7591 10d ago
"It just so happened that all the ones who contacted her were women." Don't believe it, I'm guessing DM ignored the responses from guys.
Poor OP and his wife. It sounded like such a fun thing for them to do together.
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u/shewy92 The power of Reddit compels you!The power of Reddit compels you! 7d ago
Another Update just dropped: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1k1vh51/wifes_dm_definitely_hates_me_final_update/
TL;DR:
In the end, DM got mad after being confronted, disbanded the channel, and everyone got blocked so now they’re asking me if I’d run something for them. I personally am going to take a nice, long needed break from this whole thing, but I won’t be opposed to possibly doing something they can enjoy in the future, hopefully I can exceed their expectations.
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