Walking away from a game...

[Piratecat]

Next person who discusses rape gets booted. This is not the place.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Well-reasoned rebuttal deleted so I don't get the banhammer.

Let's just let speculation and rampant misunderstanding ruin my fledgling rep!

 

[SethDrebitko]

A new group. My original group spent so much time bickering/tangenting that I would actually bring books to read or other games to play while waiting for hour or longer arguments to end. After 2 weeks of being in the same empty building I decided to try out a one shot with another local group and we finished an adventure in 1 session.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Back in February of 2005, my friends and I agreed to play an evil aligned campaign using 3.5 rules. Our long standing DM was very passionate about the project and spent many a day crafting a robust world with interesting races and politics. He is an attorney and huge science fiction buff, so, needless to say, his attention to detail was great indeed. I had personally had a couple of problems while playing evil, so I was allowed to make a short-tempered Chaotic Neutral character instead.

The game itself was filled with a wide array of foul and unsavory misdeeds which came in the form of sinister quest lines secretly given to us by the various NPCs who held power over the world. In time, the levels of intrigue we achieved reached unfathomable heights. While exploring the pseudo-scientific origins of the planet and its denizens, we discovered even more profound mysteries about our own character's psyches and motivations. On the surface, we carried out assassinations, theft, betrayal, and a myriad of other heinous acts. However, on a deeper level, we were playing the best campaign of our lives.

The fun times and sense of wonderment was short lived however(about 2 months), when I decided that one of the quests we were given was simply too immoral for me to carry out.

Child Murder.

Yes, that's right! We were actually given a quest which involved us killing a whole temple full of helpless children. Now, to be fair, there was no railroading to found with this DM. He ALWAYS ran sandboxes, and so, for better or worse this quest was optional. I would like to point out, however, that the rewards for completing the quest were too great to ignore. In many ways, I felt cheated because I was playing the only character who wasn't entirely evil. Luckily for me we had to call it a night, so I was able to remove myself from the adventure without causing a scene.

A month later, Star Wars ep3 came out, and I got to see Darth Vader murdering a bunch of helpless children in a temple during his fall from grace. The film was rated PG13.

Wow, I didn't see that coming. I felt like a complete moron for missing out on a golden opportunity to further deepen a great character while playing an amazing game with my friends. I will never forget that lesson. As a funny side-note to this story, I would like to add something. Since that game, all of the other players at the table have gotten happily married with children to call their own.

One man's trash loot is another man's Holy Avenger.

 

[R-Hero]

I walked away from a Dark*Matter game due to a real dick move on the part of the GM. Long story short, I'm a recovering addict, the GM knew this and, for some reason, decided to make my character a drunk by fiat. By which I mean that he decided my character was a raging alcoholic, without my knowledge (I did not purchase the Flaw for this). I did not find out about this decision of his until after play began...

The very first session started in a bar where, despite my not having said that my character was drinking alcohol, the GM made me roll to see if my character was sober. Then, despite my making that roll, he had me roll again - this time with massive penalties - to see if my character could drive after leaving the bar. My character failed the roll, totaled his car and, immediately thereafter, was arrested.

The GM then gloated triumphantly that he had "beat" my character. When I told him where he could shove his game, he accused me of not being a "good sport" and launched into a soliloquy about how I didn't understand his genius and that he was "taking RPGs to a new level" by using the players' own foibles against them (without their permission, of course, and in complete violation of the actual rules).

I never gamed with that guy again.

Wow. Just wow.

I thought I had played with some (swear deleted)-hole gamers.

I'm a laid back/low hasssel type of guy, but I would have put my hands on him if I was in that game.

That's not taking a game to a whole new level, that's just being downright sadistic and cruel. What if you were a father and had lost one of your children in a drowing accident? Would that show up in your character background?

I think you handled it pretty well, I think I would reached across the table and punched the guy in the nose.

Just I would have aimed a little lower.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think all the times I've bailed have been before the game got started. The one that sticks out the most was the prospective DM who said there would be no demi-humans in his AD&D game. Not my first preference, but I figured I'd give it a shot. He was putting a lot of thought into this, and what is the worst that will happen? The game will get boring, and collapse, but I wasn't very busy at the time, and I might learn something.

Then later in this 1-hour conversation, he mentions how no one can play demi-humans correctly. He is adamant about this, and it is counter to my literary sensibilities, informed by "all stories about aliens are read by humans." I think this is kind of cynical as a reason to ban them, but shrug and keep talking. Some of his other stuff sounds reasonably interesting.

Then from something I say, he realizes that I've got a wrong impression and moves to correct it: "Oh, there will be demi-humans in the game. Just no players can play them." Hmm. So he plays NPC elves and dwarves? Oh yes, he does. So I clarify: "So a group of players, none of whom you have yet played a second with, because this is an all new group, are incapable of doing a decent enough job or portraying an elf, when that is their one job in the game, but you can do it well playing a host of NPCs?" He says, "Yes," matter of factly, and goes right on telling me about the campaign.

I let the conversation wind down, wished him luck, and told him I didn't think I'd add very much to his game.

In a separate incident, and the only time I ever expected to walk, it actually worked out. We had a mini-con one weekend in college. This guy known for being a jerk DM planned a 2nd ed. AD&D game. He couldn't get enough people to play, and was hovering around everyone else's table. Well, the game I was running ended much sooner than we were expecting. So about midnight, the rest of the group broke up. My roommate and I had nothing better to do, so we figured we'd play in this guys' game until it self-destructed. (I can enjoy certain foolishness in the wee hours of the morning that I wouldn't tolerate otherwise.) We secretly agreed to watch each others' back, and see how far we could get.

With us, he had enough to get started. He started dicking with all the players immediately, and transparently trying to turn them against each other so that he could trash the characters. We all just kind of looked at each other and went with it. So for the next five hours, six players pretended to let this guy jerk us around, but we'd never actually pull the trigger and stab each other in the back. We kept successfully moving through the (rather tough) adventure, and it got to be kind of fun. Kind of like adventuring with one hand tied behind your back. We were roleplaying friction with each other just to yank the DM's chain.

He didn't know that my roommate and I knew each other. So we could push things such that he just knew that we hated each other, and would be backstabbing any moment. We were in a zone, reading each others' minds. Then the rest of the players caught on and joined in. A couple of the players gave out as the sun came up, and we had to stop. I was a bit sorry, because I wanted to see how far we could go. But it was one of those magic moments that you can't replicate later.

I found out later the DM had asked some of the other guys about the game, because he had dimly sensed something special happening, but didn't know what it was. They honestly tried to explain it to him, without hurting his feelings, but he wasn't able to understand it. He was still young. So I hope he got it later.

 

[Sean-Khan]

This was a well established game, with my friend and I being the only 2 not in it since high school, so maybe the DM was just comfortable with the other players doing what they wanted.

That said, from what I recall, the DM certainly had no problem saying no to EVERYTHING else; part of the reason I bailed.

For example, I built a tracker. Yet in the 3 sessions I was there, despite the fact that our actual mission was tracking someone down, the DM did not once let me successfuly follow a trail; this in spite of the fact that on one of the rolls I got ridiculously lucky and rolled a 45 when an "impossible" check is around 20 (deadlands has exploding dice and I think I just kept rolling 12 after 12), the DM was "generous enough" to tell me magic was blocking any tracking attempt (which in D&D I'll take, Deadlands not so much). He didn't have any qualms about sending us in the wrong direction when I critically fumbled either (can't succeed but can easily fail is a bad recipe in my book!).

This was one of several issues that had me call it quits after 3 sessions.

Sounds like the gm is very railroad-oriented - but even with railroaded adventures, a skill roll that legendary should have let you track perfectly while running/riding, perhaps giving you 'scent' of the covering magic itself. Or something similar.

Or, maybe he really was just favouring his 'own' players or tired of arguing with them - too bad.

 

[Siuis]

game where the DM had a story to tell and everyone was riding the train down the tracks, but when it left the tracks and the players decided to have a spirited in character "aggressive negotiation" about what to do, the DM blew up the world and threw a temper tantrum cause it ruined his story he was trying to tell. He came back to not just one, but several fewer players when he decided to have the world ret-coned to not being blown up

had a DM like that. He made the mistake of telling us he had learned from his mistakes and was starting a new game he wanted us in one time too many. we ended up booting the DM after he stopped combat to inject a cutscene where everything was made right by the NPCs. We booted the DM, though, and are finishing up the campaign.

most of the groups in my area seem to balk at the idea that I'd play 4E without using the character builder or a Dungeons & Dragons Insider account. I've been told that it's too complex of a game for me to understand and that I NEED a computer to perform basic arithmetic for me.

Man. Now THAT is a horror story. Stars and Fire, but these kids can be dense. "ugh, I shouldn't have missed that target-- adding a plus two bonus is haaaard!!!"

Interesting to see the greener grass in person though. A lot of these foibles, I can see how they look from the other side of the table. Doesn't mean they are justified by any means, but that's some special insight right there, to hear this story of the most raging jerk you've ever heard tell of, and you look at the DM seat and...
You remember that time that you did that (or something close to it) and how perfectly reasonable it seemed at the time. The worst is when as a Player, you're fed up with all these rails, but as a DM, you wish just once the players would trust you. Got a lot to think about now, thanks folks :3

 

[Odhanan]

Edited. Move on.

 

[Dodavehu]

I think I've only left one game.

It was about a year ago. I'd been playing in a M&M game with a GM for a couple years and he said he was interested in starting up a side game. This one was based on the Firefly TV show. He was going to use the Serenity rules but decided to go with d20 instead.

I loved the show and space opera stuff in general so I was really excited. His games focused on more RPing (which is my cup of tea) so I wrote up a page or two of backstory for a swarthy pilot who had played both sides in the war, but was kind of ashamed afterward.

The first thing was that the GM was in love with critical failures. They're not as big a deal in M&M since we don't roll all that often, but I crashed the ship not once, but twice, in the handful of sessions because I rolled 1s despite my huge pilot skill bonus. I pointed out that a world where every spaceship had a 5% chance of crashing every time it took off or landed would mean that no one would ride spaceships.

That was mearly annoying, but the thing that pushed me over the edge was one of the other players. The GM's roommate PC was based on a character from a movie called Smoking Aces (a movie I've never seen, and now probably never will). He was a big dumb gunner that made Jayne look reserved. Aside from not being my favorite archetype, there wasn't anything inherently wrong with that character. As we played though, things got really annoying.

We would get these jobs where everyone would make these elaborate sneaky plans to get the most profit, but his character would nod off and then strap on a rocket-launcher for a stealth mission.

The final straw was when we had infiltrated a criminal-owned anti-aircraft bunker (which a PCs younger brother had gotten involved with and asked us to get him out of the gang). We planned out a detailed strategy, but the Smoking Aces character quickly made them all fall apart. Near the end I was riding up an elevator with two guards I'd just stripped (to get their uniforms) and was holding at gun point.

The doors open on the room the other character was supposed to secure. He had killed everyone in a bloody massacre out of a horror movie. When he saw us he ripped off random guard's head with his bare hands and roared at the two guards I had captive.

The GM had me roll a constitution check which failed, making me simultaneously vomit and literally poop my pants. I pointed out that my character was a war vet and had seen this same character do similar things on other missions. The worst was that the GM decided that the two guards would react the same way I did, and since they weren't wearing pants, all of their "fear" when right on me.

The whole table laughed for about a half hour and I tried to smile along with them, but when I got home I emailed the GM and politely said I wouldn't be returning.
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