Walking away from a game...

[lamia]

I think the first group I left, I've posted here about before. But it was my very first game.
I was handed a character sheet when I showed up, without getting any say in the matter. It was a barbarian lady with a chainmail bikini.

Nobody had any books, and when I tried to inquire about the rules, I was told that it was too complicated and girls are bad at math so they can't do THAC0. They would just tell me to roll dice when appropriate and calculate it all for me.

They also mostly ignored me, except for to make inappropriate comments and make me super uncomfortable. This did not exclude the one adult in the group, even though I was at the time 14.

The second game I ran from was advertised as a heavy RP, light combat sandbox game. We had 5 sessions of pretty much nothing but combat, and every time I attempted to do anything other than follow the string of combat I was just told no. I never did figure out where the RP was supposed to be happening, as I just gave up!

 

[ggroy]

I've walked out of games where the players and/or DM were always drunk and/or stoned all the time. All kinds of weird stuff going on such as one of the players getting really angry and beating up the DM, such as punching the DM in the face.

 

[amnuxoll]

A Ray of Hope

Just to help those who may be reading this thread with despair: I've been playing for 25+ years and I've never left a game for anything but mundane reasons like moving or schedule conflict. Sure, some games have been better than others but none were so bad that I left solely because I wasn't enjoying them.

 

[Dykstrav]

I was handed a character sheet when I showed up, without getting any say in the matter. It was a barbarian lady with a chainmail bikini.

Nobody had any books, and when I tried to inquire about the rules, I was told that it was too complicated and girls are bad at math so they can't do THAC0. They would just tell me to roll dice when appropriate and calculate it all for me.

Unfortunately... I've seen people treat female gamers like this before. Shelly Mazzanoble even addressed a question from someone about female gamers in her column this month. That sort of thing sometimes leads me to think that tabletop RPGs are perhaps the vast final frontier of idiocy in terms of social awareness.

I'm glad that you were able to find other gamers that you can enjoy the game with.

 

[C_M2008]

The best one I have isn't even me. Me and three other friends(2 of which are brothers) are playing, back in the 2e days. One of the two brothers is the DM, the other is playing a skills & powers cleric, that can cast evocation spells. As brothers are wont to do they have been having petty squabbles through most of the day some of which have bled into the game. The cleric - showing the frustration of his player unleashes a lightning bolt against a group of goblins in a hallway that is much shorter than anticipated (the torch was extinguished and we cockily just went on) - true to the form of the time the lightning bolt bounced off the far wall and fried the now wounded cleric - killing him outright.

In frustration the cleric player, gets up, looks his brother the GM in the eye and says " Thats it, I Quit" and promptly proceeds to rip the character sheet in half.

The other player then pipes up "But why did Luke have to die too?" - the quitting player had ripped up the mage's character sheet by mistake.

We all had a good laugh about it and got back to playing.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I walked away from a Dark*Matter game due to a real dick move on the part of the GM. Long story short

--snip--

Yeah. I was in a similar situation. Well, I had a similar GM once. It didn't quite go the same way, but still, there has been no contact for... I don't know, years now. He was basically doing very similar things, in particular with lifepaths, and backgrounds in general. But just overall, as well.

I'm glad I managed to communicate - quite clearly, IIRC! - just how much of an asshat he really is, before leaving, never to return.

Otherwise, I'd quite possibly still be wishing I had. I mean, if/when the topic ever came up. Like now, say.

 

[Wik]

I imagine someone will be posting a link to that problem player thread - the one with the Brazilian Death Squad and other great stories? It's always a great thread to read, and makes many of these stories pale in comparison.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My only real experience walking out of a face to face game (I have done it online many times for different reasons) was in college. I was a newbie to the school and hooked up with my roommate's game which was run by a friend of his. WEll, we did a bit of exploring a ruin, but they ha no time to tell me what was going on at all, or where we were, or why or who the otehr characters were.

Fun, huh?

SO we go into this room and the DM tells me that the gas in the room made me fall asleep...... for a thousand years.

Ok, well, I assume we would find a way to wake me up. After 4 hours of that session and 6+ the next session the other newbie and I quit and started our own games, me running Fridays and him Saturdays (separate campaigns)

Worked out well for everyone.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Long time ago... I had a DM who was a complete mess as a person, but a great DM. He had unbearable problems to hold any promise or keep any schedule whatsoever.

After he had agreed and canceled several sessions for frivolous reasons (hangover, didn't manage return back to city, forgot) I told him that this is it. I refuse to keep my weekends open for gaming, just to notice at the last moment that we are not playing. That was it for me.

Then he told me that next weekend we would play for real. I said no, but he told me this:
"If we don't play next weekend, I will pay you 2000 euros."
So I agreed.

One day before the game he called me.
The game is off, because he's meeting some girl. I tell him that he owes me two thousand euros, but he laughs it off and says it was a misunderstanding, he ment to say 200 euros. Without hesitation I tell him that it's fine, 200 is good enough for me. Then he got really angry and told me that he will not pay anything. We didn't play for over one year and our friendship was off for that time.

When we re-started gaming, he was much better. Really. But the story of 2000 euros is always a great story to tell during off-game.

 

[Oryan77]

I've only played under a few DMs and they were all my friends (all 4 of them). So I don't have any stories about leaving groups.

But I usually DM and I've had all kinds of players leave my game. I suppose I could complain about myself.

1. Had a player leave because she didn't understand the setting and could not figure out how to imagine the environment around her character even though I would describe the scenes in game. When I suggested that she read the published player's guides because it might help her (optional books for players that are interested), she got mad and accused me of giving her homework. She also hated the fact that I read boxed text from published adventures because her previous DM never did that.

2. A college friend stayed for 1 session and never came back. I'm pretty sure the girl mentioned above weirded him out.

3. One player left after a couple of sessions because he "felt bad for worshiping false gods" even though it was his choice to play a cleric, he knew I ran a Planescape game, and he was not new to D&D or to Planescape. He also may have left because we questioned how he seemed to always have the right scroll for the right situation and I did not remember him buying them when he created the PC. I didn't accuse him of cheating, I just kept seeming surprised when he'd pull out yet another scroll. I was not the only one in the group to notice this. Although I did get on to him more than once about him metagaming in order to cheat during roleplaying moments. Maybe he left because of that.

4. A player got mad because I don't allow players to dictate to me how the published settings world works (so sue me). That's the DMs job if that is the kind of game the DM is running. She also wanted to turn the mood of the campaign into a childish slapstick setting, which I am not a fan of and I try to run a more serious game (with grownup humor). So she accused me of being a controlling DM and left. To be honest, I nudged her out the door.

5. I've had a couple players leave that I honestly don't know why they left. They just never responded to emails about whether they could make the next session. It could be anything, didn't fit in, didn't enjoy the session, didn't want to commute, who knows.