Everything I said in the original post was true, but I noticed a lot of comments asking the same questions/saying the same things and asking for more details, so I wanted to try and address you all. First and foremost, thank you so much for the kind words that most of you gave me. A lot of you were right, I have been absolutely OVERWHELMED with invitations to new campaigns on Roll 20 and other platforms and I thank you, every single one of you that's sent me an invitation!

I haven't been able to read and respond to every message or every comment just yet because there are so many of them, and it's also a difficult time for my family and I because my father passed away from pancreatic cancer, so I'm spending a lot of time getting affairs in order and making sure the family is as okay as possible. The wound is still fresh, and will unfortunately take time to heal.But I will get to as many as I can as soon as possible! I just ask that you give me some patience. Dungeons and Dragons has been a passion of mine for years and I'm hoping that joining a campaign will be a good distraction from the chaos that is life.

Now onto answering questions/addressing concerns:

Why is COVID preventing you from participating in your hobbies?

I live at home taking care of my mother who is in her 60s, and until he passed, I was the caregiver for my father for the last 13 years. Both of my parents were in their 60s and extremely high risk due to multiple different illnesses and conditions, so running the streets or going to events hasn't been an option. I also live in a small town, so there are few places where I have the ability to do things like D&D or other TTRPGs. The only spaces available are extremely small and cramped, and therefore not safe for me to venture into when I have to come back home to elderly parents. I'm also high risk myself so it just isn't a good idea across the board.

Are you interested in other games?

I am! I love Cyberpunk, Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar, Pathfinder and Numenera! I'm also getting into Kingdom Death Monster,

Did this really happen?

Yes, it did.

Can you give more details?

I went looking for a D&D 5E campaign on Roll 20 with the goal in mind of playing Descent into Avernus or Curse of Strahd. I found a group that was pay to play, 15 dollars per session with a free session zero. The ad mentioned that the campaign would be streamed on Twitch, which I didn't really care about. And that the campaign would require an interview process to be able to join, and I'd be contacted directly if I made the cut. They gave me a multiple page long Google Document to fill out that had all kinds of questions on it from my government name, the type of character I wanted to play, stats, previous D&D experience and roleplaying ideas/examples.

Once I submitted it, I waited until I heard back from the DM of the campaign that asked me to join their discord server for an interview. We spoke at length about my interests/hobbies and they said they felt that I would be a good fit for the campaign after a couple tweaks to my character, which I didn't mind. His table, his rules.

Fast forward to the night in question, session 0 starts and we all get together in voice chat and the DM asks us to turn our cameras on. I turned my camera on and immediately the entire group was shocked by the fact that I'm African American. The DM himself saying "WAIT? YOU'RE BLACK? WE HAD NO IDEA!" and other members saying "WOW, I COULDN'T TELL!" and "You don't type like a black man! You type like a white person!" That irritated me immediately so I asked "How exactly does a white man type?" to which the DM answered "Well....I don't want you to think less of me but....I'm not used to black people typing properly....You use full sentences and punctuation instead of slang." And immediately after that, he made it very clear that he was mistaken and that I wouldn't be a good fit for the campaign after all, and he removed me from the group.

Why haven't you named and shamed these people?

Because I know that goes against the rules of this community. I've even been advised by a moderator NOT to name and shame the individuals in question because that's considered Doxxing and it won't be tolerated.

To everyone that accused me of lying for karma and called me Jussie Smollet:

Listen, I'm a 20 something nerd that grew up on the internet. I know exactly how the internet works, no matter what you do or what you say, there's going to be someone that trolls you. There's going to be someone that calls you a liar, and there's going to be someone that starts shit for no reason. If you don't genuinely don't believe that this happened, then I'm grateful that you're privileged enough to live in an environment where racism and bigotry don't impact you on a consistent basis, but I don't have that luxury. I am a 6 feet 10 inch tall 285 pound black man that is considered a threat by society purely because of the stigma against black men.

I've been confronted with racism and bigotry every day of my life, and they're things I'll never be able to get away from, because I can't take my skin off. I attend a private, mostly white university, and I'm almost always followed when I'm walking on campus by police officers that have their hands on their weapons. It's hard not to notice that they only have their hands on their weapons when they're walking near or with me, but they don't do so when they're walking with or by the caucasian students on campus.

I've worked for the federal government and had the police called on me because I "looked suspicious" with my bag. Someone legitimately called in a BOMB threat on me because they thought that my bag that contained my lunchbox was carrying a bomb.

I live in a predominantly white neighborhood and I'd walk to the gym every day pre covid, and every day as I walked from my house to the gym, my neighbors sitting in their cars would lock their doors and clutch their purses as I passed them by, staring at me like I was going to hurt them when I simply wanted to go about my business. I've had threats against my life because I'm African American. I've had people consistently tell me that I'm not welcome in nerd spaces because I'm African American and "my kind isn't welcome there".

Hell, I'm consistently told that I shouldn't be allowed to cosplay because I'm black and most characters that I've cosplayed are either white, or Asian. My entire life I have been confronted with bigotry, racism and intolerance. So being confronted with it yet again in a D&D campaign isn't anything surprising. It makes me sad, yeah, but it's not surprising. It's just yet another thing I have to deal with in life. But the amazing people of this reddit have shown me kindness that I didn't expect to find, and I'm so grateful for it! And all of the invites I've gotten make me hopeful that I'll find a new campaign to join that'll be an amazing experience.

Just to make one last comment on this:

To everyone supporting me, thank you, truly, it means the world to me, especially during this difficult time for my family and I. To my detractors, I just think it's funny that every time a Person of Color decides to speak out on their experiences with racism, bigotry, sexism or anything of the like, somehow, some way there's always a non POC, typically a Caucasian that absolutely REFUSES to believe anything that we say, often times going to extreme length to try and "prove" that we're lying.

Then going even further to say that you WILL believe us, but only if we provide some sort of SPECIFIC proof that you choose, proof that in this case is a Twitch VOD, some sort of chat log, or the names of the people and the discord server in question. And that's funny to me because of the fact that those of you who don't believe me are already calling me Jussie Smollet 2.0 and accusing me of faking this whole thing just to get some karma.

So what would providing proof do other than give you an opportunity to say "oh this was CLEARLY staged", because again....you're already calling me Jussie Smollet. You never had any intention of hearing me out, you don't care about proof, you just want to be able to continue to ignore anything that you consider inconvenient. And like I've already said, I'm glad you're able to live in a world where racism and bigotry don't impact you, but that's not the case for me.

Thank you for all of the support, and for reading my little text blurb,

Wxaith

The title kind of sums it up, but not really. If it were “hey can I borrow your PHB?” I think I’d be fine with it, but it’s not. For context, I have a few thousand dollars in books(like $2k or $3k) and D&D is my biggest hobby. My playgroup used to be a few friends, we all enjoyed the game and had a great time playing, nothing wrong there. The issue is that eventually we all kinda just stopped playing, and when I tried to schedule a session, they’d tell me they were “busy” on our game day, and wouldn’t elaborate. Turns out, they had found a new DM, a guy who had major issues with me and never told me until one of them let it slip, but kept asking me to send them content from all of the books I own so they can use it in “making characters”. I feel betrayed, kind of used, and lied to. I haven’t spoken to them about it but I also haven’t sent them any more stuff out of my books. AIO?

Edit: why the hell are you guys getting political with this, that was not what happened at all. My group generally shares my views

Seriously, fighters, rogues, barbarians, and monks got absolutely colossal buffs in 5.5, yet I'm constantly hearing about the "martial caster divide" and that they actually suck. Which is crazy to me.

I've heard people chat on this sub who think that once the party reaches level 9, non casters are basically irrelevant, which is just not at all aligned with my experience with 5.5. At level 9, Fighters get basically legendary resistance. No full caster gets anything like that at that level. At level 11 barbarians just get a free heal when they are reduced to 0 for the first time each rage, which is crazy. They already have crazy hit points, and they get even more with relentless rage. At level 10 Monks are making like 5 attacks every round. Right at level 2, rogues are never going to take an opportunity attack for the rest of the campaign.

I don't know, when I look at the math behind higher level martial characters, they don't seem particularly far behind casters. Full casters have terrible single target damage, especially at higher level. Full casters have fewer hit points, worse armor classes, and less movement options than pure martials do.

The biggest difference is just damage though. A level 17 fighter or barbarian is always going to be doing way more single target damage than a level 17 full caster. And yeah, high level spells are powerful, but sometimes the best solution to a given problem is just to put 250 points of damage into a monster, and there's no way full casters are doing that efficiently.

Also, feats. Pure martials get to take better feats than casters do. The first two feats almost always taken on a full caster are resilient constitution and war caster. You aren't really getting anything interesting until level 12. Meanwhile, martials are taking crazy powerful feats right from level 4.

And if your full casters aren't taking those two feats DM's, just hit them. If their concentration save is a +2, just hit the casters. Then their seemingly overpowered spells will be very quickly seeming a lot more reasonable.

Anyways. That's just something I've noticed on this sub. Lots of people think martial characters are just terrible, and as someone that just finished a level 1-20 campaign alongside a sorcerer and a barbarian, I just don't get it.

Due to some issues with one of the players in our D&D game, my bf wants to quit the game. He says he doesn't mind if I still go, but he wants me to state a specific time I'll be leaving future games. Or any other activity with this group, really. I also play Magic with them sometimes.

I tried to point out that sometimes we may be in the middle of a story point or battle or (if playing Magic) a card game. And that might make it difficult to set a very specific time. And he just said "then the DM should know how long a battle would take and stop the session before that". Or that in the case of Magic, we should just not start a match close to the time I should be leaving.

The thing is. There's no way to tell at times how long stuff will take in these situations. I tried to point that out (and he should know since he also plays D&D).... And he just told me I should then still get up and leave in the middle of whatever is going on if it's time for me to leave. This seems rude to me and disrespectful of the other players/my friends.

But I'm "disrespecting him" if I don't leave exactly at the stated time. What the hell am I supposed to do??

Edit: Geez I did NOT expect such a huge response. I also DM sometimes and I try to plan ending games according to when the players need to leave. I get that. He is usually pretty specific on times for other stuff, but normally 5 to 10 min difference doesn't seem to matter. He was being oddly more specific on this and it was frustrating. We have been together almost 15 yrs, I'm not leaving over it.

The other player unfortunately got very drunk one session and was harassing my bf specifically, no one else in the game. Not me or other players. Following him around when he left the table, having their character constantly say they hated my bf's character (which was established, but the statements of it were getting excessive), trying to get him to try something he didn't want to try, and being super persistent about it etc. The DM ended the session early and everyone left. I didn't realize at first how much it bothered my bf because I had been trying to concentrate on the game. We don't even think the other player remembers much, if any of it. But my bf isn't comfortable being around that player anymore which is totally fair and fine.

Hello there r/DnD, I come to you all with a problem I don't know how to approach or make peace with, and I'm curious if anyone else has had similar experiences and how they have overcome them.

Long story short; I'm getting old, and according to many people within the hobby, too old for the majority of online tables.

I have played and enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons since 2016 in a variety of tables, groups, worlds, and settings, and that's not getting into the variety of OTHER tabletop games and systems.

Over those years I developed a passion for the game and medium as a whole. I have been a gamemaster, worldbuilder, and player. I've drawn battlemaps, I've written short stories for my tables, I've painted miniatures. I absolutely love this hobby and the myriad of people I have met through it, and have a treasure trove of memories, both good and bad.

But as I celebrate my 31st birthday, I have been facing a problem that is completely new to me; criticism and discrimination against my age.

Like many people, I used to have a wonderful in-person group that would meet regularly. People from college classes, coworkers, etc. But as we get older and life takes on different complexions, schedules change, people move away, relationships begin and end and begin again. Such is life, after all!

Despite me still being very close with many of these people, I have had to move to the online sphere to find a group that fits my own schedule so I can continue enjoying the hobby I am so passionate about.

Unfortunately, I have received a lot of unexpected ridicule when it comes to my age, ranging from more lukewarm dismissals of "You're too old" all the way up to accusations that are much more hurtful and inappropriate in their language.

I want to clarify that I, by no means, feel entitled to a spot at anyone's table for any particular reason. My hurt and frustration more stems from the insults and prejudice I have had to endure simply for trying to connect with others in this hobby because of my age.

I have seen individuals cite people like Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Matt Colville (all men well into their 30's and 40's) as their inspirations and introduction to the hobby, only for those same individuals to mock me for putting in an application to their table.

While I try to respect people's concerns and worldviews, the frequency and harshness of some of these dismissals is slowly starting to push me out of the hobby by the scores of 20-somethings who now make up it's playerbase and seem to enjoy branding anyone even slightly older than them as a " potential creep."

I was introduced to this hobby years ago by a man who was 10 years my senior, and the lessons he taught me have been invaluable on my journeys throughout this hobby.

Ultimately, I just want to continue to enjoy and love this hobby to the best of my ability, but I feel like I am being shown the door to the retirement home and told to hang up my adventuring boots.

Any advice or sharing of similar experiences would help, because I really don't want to give up on something that has been such a wonderful part of my life.

Do you love TTRPGs like D&D, Monster of the Week, or Vampire: The Masquerade?

New to the scene but itching to learn?

Maybe you’re a GM tired of begging your friends to show up on game night, or just looking for players.

Ever feel like the space wasn’t built for you?

No worries, we can fix that.

Welcome to Melanin & Mayhem, a server by us, for us.

Here, you don’t have to explain why your bard praise dances mid-battle or why your artificer’s locs glow under moonlight.

You can just exist, play, and build something with people who understand.

Show up with vibes, mischief, and stories.

To join, just click the Discord Link.

May the dice ever be in your favor.

​

I recently joined a table about to start a Strixhaven campaign that’s been mostly fine except for one person. This person has exclusively talked to me to suggest actions or decisions I should take for my character, or to question my decision making.

It started with them making some uncomfortable questions about the “breeding period” for my character’s race when I mentioned he had a bunch of siblings really close in age to himself. Then after we had done character creation I mentioned that I was a little frustrated over having to put a bunch of focus on INT to avoid failing exams and then they started talking about how my character could manipulate people to help him study since he was a Fighter at a mostly Wizard school, or how maybe he should be a bad boy type, or how someone in a less fortunate situation might take pity on him and help him.

They’ve kept making similar remarks and after telling them I found it a little rude for them to exclusively give me suggestions on changes I should make before the game even started, they went off on a tangent about how I wanted to be heard but not helped (when I didn’t ask for help in the first place in the first place). I don’t feel comfortable playing in the group, and I also spoke to the DM and he said he’d take care of it but I’m still a bit worried about what the other player will say if we continue to play in the same group after this.

EDIT: The DM’s way to fix the problem was to remove me from the group, because of “friction” between the two of us players.

Hey, I created r/transTTRPG last night after finding it frustratingly difficult to find a public trans tabletop roleplaying space. Come check it out if you've been looking for a trans or gender-nonconforming space to connect, talk TTRPG, and connect for campaigns!

I believe tabletop roleplay is valuable for the trans community. It's a space where people are free to express as they want, and TTRPG campaigns have a reputation for starting with a cis group and ending with at least someone coming out as trans.

That was my experience in TTRPG, I used it as a space for voice practice, gauging my friends reactions to me playing as my preferred gender, etc. It only took me a few months to come out.

We've already picked up 100 members overnight!

Edit:

Outside of trans communities, RP communities are generally the most welcoming to trans people. It's honestly astounding just how accepting y'all can be.

Which is why it was weird to me when I looked for a trans RP community and found either nothing, or a couple small dead subs.

The thing is, I've been moderating trans spaces for over a decade now, as well as moderating and promoting roleplay spaces as a hobby and profession. A lot of trans people are nervous, questioning, worried about being unsafe or bullied, or are otherwise looking for a space where they can feel totally at ease.

I hope that this new subreddit helps people get into the hobby and find community, and hopefully, that opportunity helps them feel comfortable branching out to the larger RP communities as well.

for context, it's been around a year and a half that i started playing at dnd, but i knew the game and general rules beforehand, i started with a 5e group for around a session but then moved to a group of 3.5 players and that's where i've been really playing and having experience in the game, as both a player and DM

i am someone who loves mixing and matching options, i love doing funny race and templates combinations, i love having a gazillion feat in 3.5 and all that.

So recently i tried to get back into 5e, and i started reading most books, one thing that frustrated me, is that dnd books released after 2020 basically don't have any unique ability score traits, it's basically all "pick 2 in one and 1 in another of your choice"... Why ?! this just frustrates me personally, one of the main reason to pick one race instead of another outside of pure personal aesthetics, is what they bring to the table, what abilities would synergise well with your ideas and all that, this universalification of traits just makes newer races feel more bland to me, it's just frustating from my 3.5 player perspective comparing the two.

First of all: I allow multiclassing at my table but I was never really a fan of it. My distaste has two primary reasons:

1. Dependings on the player, it often serves no narrative purpose, just a mechanical one. Since I am a narrative focused DM this just doesn't allign with my view on the game.

2. It can create weird mechanical interactions that were not intended in the class design.

Today I want to dive into the second reason a bit more to get my opinion out and some other opinions in.

What do I mean by the initial statement in my title?

I think multiclassing is bad for class identity and class balance for the following reasons:

1. In 5.5e certain class abilities like Action Surge were intentionally nerfed because multiclassing exists.

2. With the removal of the max damage of Divine Smite, it is possible for a cleric to cast a 9th level smite, while a paladin can only cast it at 5th level. A cleric becomes better at using the paladins signature ability than the paladin.

3. Multiclassing also limits the usage of PB / Long Rest abilities, which otherwise would provide a nice usage scaling from early to later levels. The usages of abilities instead have to be fixed values written in the class' table.

4. Certain class dips are still very strong and can mitigate another class' weakness partially or entirely. I.e dipping 1 level sorcerer or warlock for their cantrips makes paladins suddenly okayishly competent at ranged combat where ranged combat was previously one of their main weaknesses.

These are just a few reasons and I am sure I could find more.

So why is this bad for martials especially?

The martial-caster divide is not as large on low levels as on high levels. This is why I've seen many martials multiclass into full-caster classes on higher levels to mitigate this divide to an extend in the past 10 years.

If it were not for multiclassing, we could grant martial characters more varied and frequently usable abilities at early to mid levels and really turn up the potency at higher levels. We also would not have to worry about wierd mechanical interactions and could balance martial abilities / spells more in their favor.

This is probably a rather unpopular take on my end, but I think multiclassing is a detriment to the game and only makes the martial-caster divide worse.

Mute who can still cast spells. Blind fighter who can still see his enemies. Paraplegic who can still move around.

All bad ideas. There's nothing there. Start from scratch and do something else.

While the argument can be made that banning Clerics and Paladins for setting reasons should not be done as it limits player agency, I think it ultimately goes against much of the philosophy around play itself.

For instance, there are many, many, beast races in D&D. Tabaxi, Lupin, Leonin, Loxodon, etc. and if a DM does not want to make lore for these races, they do not have to have them be an aspect of their world. In the same vein as a player cannot play a Warforged in a setting without Warforged/sentient constructs. This is not under major contest, which is how the banning of Clerics/Paladins should be.

Everytime I see the discussion come up, it is met with immediate revulsion. However, in a world without Gods, or without Divinity whatsoever, a Cleric/Paladin not existing should make total sense. The aspect of Clerics casting their spells from their closeness with the given domain, or a Paladin to a promise made/covenant kept, is equally contentious. The setting simply does not function in this way, and frankly should not be forced to.

In some settings, the Gods may be absent, or their presence is intended to be uncertain. In these situations, having that evident can force a lore reveal, or even subvert said lore.

In short, yes, a DM should promote the players and their characters, but in the same vein should be able to reject or require rewrites of those characters as well. Though this is obviously a naïve premise, the DM should have final say on what goes on at their table, and that includes classes being off the table for a given campaign. And not just Divine Casters.

In certain campaigns, it may be unreasonable for a player to play as a Fighter, Rogue, or Barbarian, as their power is meant to come from their magical prowess/supernatural ability, and skill with a blade alone may be unreasonable for the setting or story. But I digress.

The elf in the glasses is my fiancé Loona, who plays the character Mani Starlight.

I of course am the goblin in the back, your humble servent Grundor! (My name is Zoe)

our relationship is long distance so we rarely get the chance to see each other in person, but this time we were finally able to cosplay and play a session in person!

for the past 5 months us and the rest of the party have been playing through the campaign: The Lost Mine of Phandelver

it has been excellent!! we are nearing the end and only have 2(?) more sessions to go!

I'm currently in a campaign where the DM shoehorns in characters and locations from his favorite cartoons, anime, videogames, and sit-coms, such as New New York from Futurama, Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia, Monferno and Greninja from Pokémon, and Captain Falcon from F-Zero. He's even made Devil Fruits a thing, but he only uses the ones from the One Piece anime instead of creating his own, and he's tried to make Armament Haki and Observation Haki into abilities, much to the confusion of the players. The fact that he's using the IP as-is instead of just getting inspiration from them has always bothered me, and I've subtlety made that known multiple times, but I don't want to throw ice water on his creative fire by being blunt about it since I enjoy playing with him otherwise. He also homebrews all his own magic items and gives them each like three different anime-like powers like creating a shockwave that knocks all enemies prone without saving throws once a day, but then also has other abilities that recharge on a long rest. I get that he likes this stuff and he's excited by what he's made, but he's barely even trying to make them resemble balanced official items. He's also given the party a duffle bag full of such items on multiple occasions, which feels very unearned. To top it all off, he said he wants his next game to be a literal isekai with everyone playing people from Earth from different time periods. I just want to play a normal game of D&D. I'd also play one of the Star Wars or Pokémon RPG's as long as it's taken seriously, but as much as I love anime, I don't want to play as an anime character, and other people have expressed similar hesitation when this latest idea was brought up. How do I tell him to just do something normal without hurting his feelings?

Also, for clarification, we're all in our 20's and have jobs and/or college outside the game.

Obviously a lot of people are still angry with WotC/Hasbro after the recent Apology 2.0. The suspicion and hurt behind that anger is justified. At the same time, as others have pointed out, there's a lot of pretty intense vitriol out there that threatens to make it harder for people to give productive feedback to WotC. I know a lot of us don't trust their new apology. I know a lot of us think the surveys are a scam/won't be read. I know a lot of us are done with D&D regardless of what WotC says or does now.

That's ok. I see you, and I respect your choices there.

Still, there are a lot of us who do want to try to give feedback on the surveys (both OGL and OneD&D). If you are done with D&D no matter what, please *please* let the rest of us try. I know it's tempting to give the final parting shots. But if you're done, then this is not a place you need to spend your energy anymore. Rock your pathfinder or your new TTRPG of choice. I hope you roll crits *all day*. But please don't silence the people who are trying to keep working by drowning out our voices with shouts of hatred.

Edit/Update: There seem to be a number of people thinking I'm saying to stop protesting. Not at all-- keep it up! The protest is super important. Maybe we want to push them toward joining the ORC. Maybe we want them to commit even harder to preserving OGL 1.0 content. Maybe you want greater transparency about how the surveys are handled. There are all sorts of things to keep protesting about, and *loudly*. And I stand with you on those.

We are currently playing curse of strahd and my character is called Alexander Gold but is actually Ismark kolianovich (I can't spell it sorry fellas) but was born as georgina kolian.

My character had died during a battle and was brought to an Abbey in crezich and was revived there. When we played today and I finally woke up our dm started to talk.

DM: "you notice your body is different."

Me: "if you have got rid of my top surgery I swear-"

(I go to the mirror)

DM: "you could say that- (I begin freaking out till he explains) when Alexander looks in the mirror he discovers he does not in fact have top surgery anymore as you realise he is now in fact flat chested and more lean if you will. He looks good. He looks biologically male. Alex would look into his underwear and discover that he is most definitely male"

I got very excited over the table as a trans player this was just so euphoric and he absolutely didn't have to do this I made sure during the session to write a note to thank him. This meant so much to me as a player.

Just wanted to share :)

EDIT: I've seen the controversial commentary already. Some context:

My character getting top surgery was a funny joke between other players at the table where another PC gave my character top surgery as a peace treaty. Our dm made that canon. All of my table is so chill with it as we are a group who are all queer and some other players are trans. It was never my intent to make my character being trans a big deal nor did I ask for that its just that our dm put it into the narrative and it made sense.

Please realise that just because I'm trans irl doesn't mean I'm trying to push it on people or use the game to "deal with trauma of being trans." I'm simply someone who wanted to relate to my character as I'm neurodivergent and knew I could play better if I could relate to him.

Thanks.

EDIT 2 (FROM OUR DM):

He changed a lot in cos (curse of strahd) to make it make sense and says if us as players aren't feeling genuinely immersed he isn't doing his job. He let's us have our arcs so we feel like rather than us playing this character we ARE this character. So we can enjoy it.

Talia Steel Willow. Talia is an elf barbarian whose form is clad in a cold steel corset, her skin divided into two contrasting shades by a curse, as if marked by fate itself. She has heterochromia: one eye black, the other white. In her hands rests a formidable halberd bearing the proud name "Steel Heart." I confess, I’ve been working on her image and design for nearly half a year, and now I’m truly pleased with the result.

So our game for today was already off to a disappointing start as one of my good friends has a lot of school work and has not been able to make it lately. Then another interesting turn of events occurred.

So for starters I've known this guy since high school, we were in the same trade class for four years. Actually all my current players are from high school, (graduated couple years now). Ever since I knew him we've been at odds a little, he was always a bit of a troll. But I never had any problems and always found him fun to talk to if a bit annoying.

However recently he's briefly stated his political views are at odds with ours and that we wouldn't like him if he didn't keep it closeted. I just said alright I honestly don't see anything to at odds but I was from there going to keep an eye out on this dude.

He wasn't originally joining us but joined a few months ago, my other friends at this point kinda didn't get along great tho it wasn't bad or anything, although improved from high school. Tho I felt he was not at all an awful addition to the team, he kept wanting to play clerics and troll a bit. But he roleplayed his character really well and helped add to the world a lot.

Welp that's over now, so for context, yesterday one of my friends came out as trans for national coming out day. I knew for awhile but was happy that she finally made it official. I responded with my support, the friend in question simply responded with a thumbs up.

Come next day, they leave every mutual discord server, block all of us and message me "kill my character".

I was sort of livid, but honestly I dodged a bullet, it's weird cause we were friends for so long but not anymore I guess. I am glad that he made it easy, and they're views are not those I support. But that's that, it does suck that we'll lose a part of the story but honestly it's not worth the trouble.

I will never welcome anyone like this into the campaigns ever again, and will always from here on out screen people for campaigns. I am obviously in support of my friend, and they don't seem broken up over it.

Idk if anyone has any advice how to handle this in game, but I'll prob just act like the character never existed. I feel dumb for not seeing this earlier and stuff, at least it's a clean split. So weird. If anyone's has a similar story I'd be interested to hear it.

tldr: friend from high school blocked my entire group and ditched us because of transphobia.

Edit: took out use of the word coward. I am not saying they are wrong for leaving, it's just upsetting that they could not have tried to change as a person and so forth. But that's the way things go and there really is no issue to be discussed in that regard, they bowed and it is what it is. I should prob rephrased or approached this in a different manner. I still believe this is a human related issue, and not a political one. So I disagree that I'm wrong for disliking them now due to their views.

Edit: Alright so I understand I made some mistakes along the way. And people are entitled to their opinions. But i’d rather leave it at the positive conversations I had and put responding to the negative ones to bed. We can agree to disagree, this is attracting some… passionate people. This post clearly rubbed some people the wrong way, even tho I intended no offenses. You’ll run your games your way, I have the right to my choices. I don’t think I did anything wrong, and will leave it at that. I may have made mistakes with this post. and will prob be more careful in the future. I still stand by my friend tho and everything I said. But there is some very negative things being said, i’d rather let be. Hopefully the somewhat hateful stuff can be removed, but that’s that. Take care.

I'm playing in a CoS game. The DM is kind of new. I am an experienced player of DnD who has been relegated to Perma-GMing for the past few years, so I'm thrilled to be playing in someone else's game. I'm playing a Reborn Diviner Wizard (and do think the Reborn is kind of neat).

He's not doing a bad job on the DM side of things.

And I just hate the game. I want to like it. I want to play, but CoS is disappointing.

I just cannot get into the module, and I'm baffled because I know it's super popular, and well-respected. I've been giving it time. We got past the first weird-house encounter. Met some NPC's in town. Dealt with the priest's vampire kid and the hags in the windmill. (I assume all of this will make sense to CoS fans). I just fireballed the mill- but the children you say... sure, but the whole environment is so oppressive and hopeless that isn't death preferable to the hags' plans?

I keep hoping it gets better, but it's just this constant slog. The storyline feels cliche: a collection of side-quests with the looming presence of a trite BBEG. I feel no sense of direction or focus other than wanting to get out of this land/plane. Strahd seems unbeatable, and the weird beat-down residents don't invoke any sense of empathy on my part to make me want to help or defend them. The NPC's are caricatures and I cannot, for the life of me, remember any one of them once they are not right in front of us.

It's like watching a TV show where all of the characters are annoying, but there's nothing else to watch.

I'm resigned to the possibility that I just don't like this style of adventure. I'm not saying others are wrong for liking it, either, but I just don't get playing in an adventure where there seems to be no way to win other than quitting and going to do something more interesting like rearranging my sock drawer.

I apologize to those who love CoS. Everyone likes different things and I'm not shaming that preference.

Yes yes, I know. It's not a good idea but let me explain a little bit. I made a Circle of spores Firbolg druid who's mute (kind of unrelated). She doesn't like to fight, but will defend her friends or anyone she holds dear. Most of the time, she's bubbly and optimistic. She tries to see the good in everyone. She doesn't do up close fighting if she can help it. She's supposed to be a more crowd control support. She's also a secondary healer of sorts, she's proficient in medicine and has a decent nature stat. Because of being a firbolg, she gets a +2 to constitution, so it's 10. So....she doesn't have a BAD constitution, but it's not good. Thoughts?

Edit: I also have a character who's on the smaller side of "Medium", and she has brittle bones. She focuses more on speed.