r/DnD & RPG Horror Stories: Asexuality Edition #3

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. Now, today, I had every intention of getting to one of the serious matters on my to-do list, such as discussing recent happenings in the hellscape that is our current political climate, but I just can’t bring myself to do it quite yet. I am in a lot of pain. My body is falling apart. Everything is rebelling against me. It’s not all bad.

Courtney: I went indoor skydiving recently for the very first time and I had a blast. It was a very good time. I kind of wish it was the real thing actually jumping out of a plane, but unfortunately my body was not having it. My legs do not want to stay in their hip sockets after indoor skydiving. I can hardly stand, I can hardly walk. All my joints are falling apart. So naturally, when my body is not working, my brain is also not working all that well. So we are going back to something a little easier. An old, reliable one we actually have not explored since like August of last year. It’s been a hot minute. We are doing, at least some of your favorite, RPG/D&D horror stories, asexuality edition. So let’s get into it. Why don’t we?

Royce: Okay, so the first story we have here is just called ‘My Struggle with RPG Horror Story Syndrome’, which seems like an apt title for the RPG Horror Stories subreddit.

Courtney: I know what the stories are. I can’t wait to find out what the syndrome is.

Royce: It starts: [reading] “Hey y’all, I’ve been a DM for a few years now for Pathfinder, and this was my first time trying 5th edition because of Pathfinder burnout. One of my friends who was a player character joined the Navy so he never had time to play anymore and we had to find a new group– a new member to join the group. The wizard in the party recommended her friend, who, for the story, will be named Gwen. I reach out to Gwen and interview her for the campaign. She seemed like a good fit and so she started to make her character. And this is where the problems start, which is pretty quick. First step: problems. –Me: Hey, what do you have for your character so far? –Gwen: She’s going to be a tiefling wizard. –Me: I’m sorry, but we already have a wizard. –Gwen: Stop being an abusive DM.”

Courtney: Oh, that escalated quickly.

Royce: They went, “–Past me: What? –Gwen: I want to be a wizard, so I’m going to be a wizard. At this point, I fold. I had heard stories about terrible DMs from here that are trying to control their players and what they play, as I did not want to be seen as one of those terrible and creepy DMs before our first session together. The next day, I asked her about her character’s backstory. Gwen says she’s a princess of the underworld and studied magic and got several powerful artifacts because she is very beautiful and has a 20 in charisma. That’s not how character creation works. However, an adult red dragon swooped down and killed her family and then she, by herself, killed the dragon. I am in complete and utter shock at this. First off, she never asked me if she could be a princess and if she could have several magic items because her character is attractive. And the fact that a dragon was in the underworld and she killed it by herself.” That last part is in all caps because, yeah, you don’t do that.

Courtney: No… no.

Royce: For those of you who haven’t played Dungeons & Dragons, there’s a reason why dragons are in the title. They tend to be pretty strong. [resumes reading] “Me: Sorry, Gwen, but I won’t be able to allow that character. Gwen: What? Why? Is this because you have a crush on the wizard player and only want her to be a wizard? Me: I only see wizard player as a friend. I’m sorry you are feeling this way. Gwen: Fine, you can keep the magic items.”

Courtney: [chuckles] Okay.

Royce: [reading] “We came to the agreement that Gwen can keep her character, minus the OP magic items and the fact that she killed an adult dragon by herself. The party was level six.”

Courtney: I wondered what level.

Royce: Yeah, the party together as a whole could probably handle a young dragon at that point, depending on the color, maybe.

Courtney: Depending on the color and, yeah, the age. Uh… It’s iffy.

Royce: [reading] “The session starts, and before we start playing D&D, we always talk for around 25 minutes as we’re all friends outside of the game.”

Courtney: As is customary.

Royce: As is tradition. [reading] “Since Gwen is a new player, I have her explain her character to the party and she includes the dragon part in her backstory. I decide to just ignore this and then I ask her to describe what her character looks like. Gwen says, ‘Hell no.’ Everyone says why. Gwen, speaking directly to me, says, ‘I know that you are attracted to my character and are using her as a fetish, which is why you want to remove the dragon part of her backstory, as you wanted a submissive woman which you can dominate. And the fact that she has killed a dragon, making her a strong and independent woman, ruined your attraction for her.’”

Courtney: What…?

Courtney: [reading] “Everyone is dead quiet before the fighter player bursts into laughter [Courtney laughs] and the wizard messages me saying that Gwen isn’t like this normally. Fighter excuses himself for a moment and I canceled the session. I messaged all the players and asked them if I was a terrible DM and every player unanimously answered no, and the only one to say yes was Gwyn. Talking to wizard, she tells me that Gwen is not like that and she is actually the sweetest person in real life. Why do people get different at a D&D table?”

Courtney: I think in roleplay, very, very real and hidden sides of us come out. So even someone who might have these little toxic elements buried deep down, who might try to hide them in, you know, real life conversations, sometimes, when your inhibitions get lowered, you’re playing a game, you’re really wanting to like, I don’t know, let your alter ego shine. Like it’s harder to hide it, it comes out. I don’t know why.

Royce: I also think that sometimes, when you’re just around friends of varying degrees, particularly friends that are maybe more of the acquaintance variety, like the friends you hang out with and spend time with but don’t really get into too many personal things with, I think it can be easy to miss some of those elements. Because you’re never really in a situation where you’re forced to cooperate around something or are put in a position where one of you needs to, like, push back on the other.

Courtney: Or you don’t see them especially emotionally charged. Like people get very emotionally charged in roleplay scenarios, and even just in their characters that they design, people get really, really attached to them, as is normal, and that’s part of the joy of D&D. But when a very toxic person creates a very toxic character, yeah, the problems come out.

Royce: OP continues, saying, [reading] “Hearing this, I go to this subreddit RPG Horror Stories and read more stories. And this is the conclusion I came to: Gwen suffers from RPG Horror Story Syndrome. I later confirmed with Wizard that Gwen reads and listens to a lot of RPG horror stories. This made a lot of sense to me. Gwen has been reading a lot of horror stories about terrible Dungeon Masters and already assumed that most DMs are like that. She set up her backstory as a trap to catch me in, as she already speculated before talking to me that I was a - quote - ‘sexist creep DM’.”

Royce: Turns out one of the channels with a lot of these sort of horror story videos that she watches frequently has a very popular video where a problem player was being a perv and they asked what will happen next: [reading] “A) will the problem player get into an ill-advised fight; will they, B) rage quit; or will they C) terrorize a female party member? Do you see how this can be problematic? Without a good choice, a lot of people with limited TTRPG experience will think this is how most people act, when in reality it’s a fraction of players and DMs that are actually weird and creepy.”

Royce: And there are a couple of edits here. Edit number one: [reading] “Me and the rest of the party decided we’d kick Gwen out of the group. We decided to be nice about this and explain that she’s just not a good fit for the group. She took this really badly. She responded by saying that I was only doing this because I called her out in front of Wizard, which made OP feel emasculated, and so this is the response. She then says, ‘I’ll be hosting a new campaign and will invite everyone, and no one will play in your campaign anymore.’”

Courtney: Wow, a whole mutiny. Try to steal all of that DM’s players.

Royce: [reading] “However, no one joined the new server. She later got drunk and, during a rant to Wizard, admitted that she, Gwen, was actually the one who had a crush on Wizard.

Courtney: Ah, of course.

Royce: Wizard rejected her and Gwen blocked all of them and cut ties with the entire group. OP felt a weight lifting off their shoulders. So they thank everyone on this thread, who advised them, as again is tradition, that no D&D is better than bad D&D.

Courtney: Ah, the ancient wisdom.

Royce: Edit number two. OP does clarify something. They say that Gwen is openly lesbian, but she’s one of those fun LGBTQ members who for some reason can’t stand non-straight men and calls queer men attention seekers. Which is something that OP didn’t bring up until this point because it wasn’t important to the story. But Wizard is asexual, and Gwen asked Wizard out. Wizard stated that she was asexual and Gwen’s response was: “I don’t believe in asexuality. Has the DM really manipulated you that much? My offer still stands, you can break free.” And this is when the ties were severed between the two of them.

Courtney: Wow…

Royce: So, whole lot of toxic behavior, as you mentioned, coming out at the table when it was kind of just there the whole time.

Courtney: Yeah. I mean, it’s fascinating because we have this overlap of terrible D&D player and acephobe. But it didn’t overlap that much in the story, they just sort of existed side by side.

Royce: It was also like, terrible D&D player from the get go.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: It didn’t sound like they had a good session.

Courtney: No.

Royce: Not a good first session.

Courtney: It’s very interesting because, I suppose, it is possible that someone does get so involved in subreddits like this, or just a very specific online community, that they do become super hypervigilant and then in turn become the problem player because they are waiting for the DM to be a problem. And that’s just not healthy. But I mean that happens in other areas too, right? Like there are queer people, for example, who don’t have an in-person community who see how toxic certain areas of the internet can be and then become terrified to try to connect with people in person, or to come out in person. When maybe there actually are very cool and accepting people around them. And so it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy sometimes.

Royce: And the DM in this case was at least trying to be aware. Was aware enough of, you know, these forums and videos and whatnot to check themselves in case they were doing something. But with these edits it kind of seems like the new character was coming into this trying to leverage known problematic elements to intentionally split up the group to isolate the person that she liked.

Courtney: Yeah, there was an agenda here that was not okay. I do not think you should ever play a role-playing game with the intention of romancing a real life player. That should just probably never, ever happen. Unless you’re, like, already in an established relationship and the two of you, and your DM, and everyone else at the table is okay with you doing that.

Royce: Yeah, it’s- to some extent, it’s kind of like the risk involved with asking out a coworker. Like if they say no, now there’s a significant chance you’re just going to be at this scheduled place together, really awkward around each other.

Courtney: Well, even then, like you can ask someone out innocently and even if you’re rejected it might be awkward. But like if you’re playing a role playing game with an ulterior motive, like what if your characters do start a romance arc and one of you is like using this to try to romance the real person and the other person is like, “No, we’re just playing a game. What did you think this was?”

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: So, there’s like a lot more room, I think, for toxicity in there. You just– just don’t do it. Just don’t do it.

Courtney: Our next story is called: “DM forced romance between child PC and adult. I started playing with my dad and brother young, early teens, maybe 11 to 13. My dad DM’d but didn’t love it. So when we found out the new neighbor played D&D and that their dad was a very experienced DM, we started a new game with them. I’ll note here he was allegedly straight and I was a teenage girl. I flip-flopped between a lot of characters as I went through my edgy phase. We’ve all been there, done that. Until finally I settled on a cheery gnome fighter character who was basically eight. I loved playing her. I could indulge in all the chaos I wanted and she was a lot of fun. Her parents were gone, so she had a semi-maternal relationship with her giant badger mount, which was really sweet. We Awakened the badger after a while.”

Royce: That’s fun.

Courtney: It’s really fun! This is cute.

Royce: Awaken is a great spell.

Courtney: [reading] “At some point, she got into a situation and died, as did her Awakened badger. We decided to get their bones back and reincarnate them. When we did, the badger turned into a human.” What is this spell? A reincarnate spell?

Royce: Yeah, I should clarify earlier, for the people who don’t play D&D, Awaken takes an animal or possibly an object– I don’t– can’t remember the bounds of the spell, but it makes them sentient, like intelligent.

Courtney: You can like Awaken plants, like–

Courtney: Royce;

Courtney: Yeah.

Courtney: Trees, yeah.

Royce: So the giant badger became a person.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: Yeah. And the reincarnate spell, if you run it as written, you roll a dice and it determines, like, what kind of character you are reincarnated into.

Courtney: Oh, there is a reincarnate spell. I have never played or witnessed a game with that spell, so I guess I forgot that it existed. I mean, I know there’s all kinds of necromancy things, like there are ways to raise the dead, and– But usually when things like that happen, you get to keep your same self.

Royce: I think in most cases you’re either powerful enough that you can do that or you’re not powerful enough to cast the reincarnation spell. It’s kind of a weird one.

Courtney: Yeah, yeah.

Royce: Because I think a lot of– I mean, some people might be fine with it, but a lot of people would just want their character resurrected.

Courtney: Right. Or if you have concluded this character in a satisfying way, you might want to just create your own new character. So that is an interesting one. So they got reincarnated. [reading] “When we did, the badger turned into a human. My character became a half-elf, but she was still eight. The badger behaved like she was 30-ish. Then the badger/human developed a crush on my eight-year-old character, courtesy of the DM.” Oh no. [reading] “I was uncomfortable with this because I was still trying to outgrow the homophobia I was raised with. I was a closeted asexual and didn’t want to roleplay that. And the character was a child. After a few sessions of everyone at the table except the DM, especially me, giving signals that we were uncomfortable with this, he ended a session with the badger kissing my character non-consensually.”

Courtney: “To recap, the badger was an adult, the badger was an animal. Neither I as a player nor my character consented to this. And the session ended right after, so I never had a chance to respond with any of the absolutely nuts that I wanted to. All of us players responded with horror, but he seemed to be pleased because I guess he thought he got us emotionally invested and we were reacting or something. Also, I should say I was 16 at the time. After that, I literally gave her a crush on a figment of her imagination. Which again, closeted asexual just trying to figure myself out. I didn’t want to do that so that it wouldn’t happen again. Also, it was specifically a boy because I was working through internalized homophobia. Though a couple years later I made her daughter a character sheet and she’s trans, so I did work through it. I think he also had an NPC hitting on his nine-year-old daughter’s character and she was playing an adult, so we didn’t notice. Though his daughter was very uncomfortable with it. Same, actually, with my brother’s character.”

Courtney: “There was a recurring villain who tried to seduce the character, which he hated. We teased him about it instead of standing up for him though. He’s a year and a half younger than I am and I was 16-ish when the three-year campaign ended. My dad was also playing with us, and I don’t remember any weird interactions happening with his character, though he didn’t roleplay as much. Anyway, he’s in jail now for messaging a 13 year old from the elementary school he worked at. And I’m really uncomfortable thinking about the times I was alone with him as a minor. I was even uncomfortable then, actually. I just thought I was being weird because of how women are conditioned to be wary of older men. Rightfully so, as it turns out.”

Royce: What a weird scenario. And I’m really surprised the dad didn’t pick up on any of that. Particularly considering he had a lot of DM experience.

Courtney: That’s what I’m thinking, like I– I think it’s really special when families are able to play D&D together. Like I– I know some folks who, like, play D&D with their teenage kids, and that’s super cool. I love that. But if I was a parent with a teenager who is playing an even younger character at a table and, like, my neighbor, and friend, was DMing and started adding elements of this…? No, that game is getting shut down immediately. We are having a conversation now. Pull them off to the side, take them into another room. Like this– I’m amazed it didn’t get shut down. So, yeah, gross!

Royce: This next one is titled: “Felt Bad for the Bandit. So my early D&D games were kind of bad. Rough start with my one and only game in high school that was a thinly veiled ripoff of New Vegas I attempted to DM, but was a learning experience. The second game I ever ran was a couple of years after graduating and figured it could help me with socializing by having the more socially inept family members all play together. There’s me – OP says – most socially inept; my second oldest niece, who yo-yo’s back and forth between being socially inept and antisocial; and my oldest niece who is a social butterfly. My sisters are a couple decades older than me, so I fall into the same age range as my nieces, so they’re closer to cousins than anything else. Figured I’d start off simple with some basic stuff. There’s a village besieged by bandits who are robbing supply wagons and the two player characters meet in a tavern and take the same job. My second oldest niece was playing a rogue because she liked sneaky, stabby stuff. That’s what rogues do. My oldest ‘neef’ played a tiefling bard.”

Courtney: Did you say neef?

Royce: Maybe.

Courtney: ‘My neef played a teasling.’ [chuckles]

Royce: [reading] “If alarm bells are ringing now, you got good instincts.” Tieflings are popular.

Courtney: They’re some of my favorite.

Royce: [reading] “Despite my rogue niece’s demeanor, she opened up a bit and found herself interacting with the world more than you’d think. Talked to the bartender about local jobs, learned how often supplies come in, learned about the local crop rotations. The bard niece was too busy trying to get information from the locals, but didn’t think to determine who would be good to get that information from. Now, because I was new to DMing and inexperienced, I only really had two NPCs that were worth a damn to talk to in the tavern, the bartender and a gruff ranger in the corner who knew the area well enough but couldn’t walk due to having his legs chewed off by a kobold.” Okay.

Courtney: I– Do– What? What did you do to that kobold?

Royce: [reading] “The bard niece decides to try and seduce other tavern goers to see if they knew anything. I figured rol to persuade worked best and she got zilch. Yeah, tavern randos may not know much. Bard niece took offense and tried again with another person in the bar. Still nothing. At that point the rogue niece decided to ask why she’s trying to seduce them in the first place and the bard just replies: ‘Because I get what I want and no one can resist me.’”

Courtney: Oh no, this tiefling bard is the other kind of horny, not like head-horns. That’s a shame.

Royce: [reading] “The rogue left the tavern to start, you know, playing the game, tracking down the bandits, and you know, using some of the tips from in town. Meanwhile, the bard asked who was running the village. She found him and the very next thing she wanted to do was roll to seduce him. Of course I asked why, and she said she wanted to get into his good graces, to have a power base in the village. I said: ‘Seducing a married man won’t do that, especially since you’re just trying to. It’s just a persuasion check.’ And she replied without missing a beat, ‘I don’t want to persuade him, I want to sleep with him.’” The DM moved on.

Courtney: You still need to persuade someone to do that.

Royce: Yeah, the DM moved on and fast-tracked to the forest where they were tracking down bandits. [reading] “For a short while I was trying to think of why she wanted to outright sleep with the man in the first place, since that wouldn’t have accomplished anything. Yes, I know of the horny bard stereotype at the time, but didn’t think she did. After some tracking they find the bandit hideout. There’s a guard out front. The rogue wants to assassinate him Assassin’s Creed style, but the bard has a different plan in mind and rolls seduction again. Now I felt like a smartass because I decide, in that moment, that the bandit is gay and he will not be into her, no matter how hard she tries. She looks me dead in the eyes and says, ‘All it’ll take is one fuck to change him.’ And I just about threw up.”

Courtney: No… [groans]

Royce: [reading] “For reference. I’m demisexual, a microlabel associated to asexuality. But at the time I thought I was just ace. I tell her out of the game then and there that that’s not how that works, you can’t just change someone’s sexuality and that it’s homophobic. It turned into a shouting match. The rogue was uncomfortable as hell. I had just wanted to have normal games, since I had never run one before that. And the Rogue even asked the Bard at one point, ‘Can we please try something else?’” The Bard left in a huff, leaving the DM and the Rogue just sitting there trying to process and cope that their own family is problematic. And it hit OP at that point that a part of the reason why they were uncomfortable throughout all this is because of their own fears for, you know, people interacting with them the exact same way. To this day, OP says, “I don’t know why she was trying to seduce everything that moved and I don’t want to know. Never played with her again.”

Courtney: I don’t care who you are, how old you are, what your relationship is to the DM, if you’re playing a character where your only goal is to seduce everyone, you are so boring. You are so boring and gross.

Royce: Some of the comments are also saying, like, playing a horny bard is obnoxious in its own right, but there’s a little extra layer of weird when it’s a family game.

Courtney: Yes, it really is. Honestly, it’s so shocking that like, the niece would do that.

Royce: Like OP clarified. Uh, they were 20 and the bard was 18.

Courtney: I mean, yeah, you’re an adult, whatever. But like most people I feel like would be a little more reserved around family than friends or acquaintances.

Royce: That was my thinking. Also there’s just so much more to a fantasy world than rolling to see if you can sleep with someone.

Courtney: I know! It’s like the least interesting thing you could do. But also like poor demi DM. Poor demisexual DM with a horny bard who is your niece.

Royce: Hopefully they actually found a decent group eventually, because that was their first time trying to DM and before that they had a bad game, or at least a rough game.

Courtney: The next story is called: “You Made Your Druid Asexual? Ha. No, She Isn’t!” [sighs] At this point– Tale as old as time. [reading] “I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, but some recent stories reminded me of it. This story contains a character pressured into a sexual situation and mentions of bestiality. None of this content is graphic. I was home for the summer from college and some old friends invited me to guest in their game for a few sessions. I put it off for a while at the warning of another friend that the DM was a little weird, but I eventually ran out of excuses and, being a non-confrontational individual, said yes.”

Royce: Bad start…

Courtney: Heed the warnings if another person is like, “Watch out for that DM. That DM’s weird.” Steer clear! [reading] “As I said, this was a while ago and I was still relatively new to the hobby. I’d only ever played druid and sorcerer. So I rolled up a druid wood elf for his campaign and wrote something of a paragraph of backstory for the DM. I figured I was just a guest so we wouldn’t be focusing on that. At most I thought I’d make it to three sessions before I had to go back to college. I don’t remember how I was introduced to the party or what our goal was. All I know is that the party immediately tried to use me and the other female character to seduce our way into the room of some bad guy, and that the DM tried to force me to graphically describe what my character was doing with her body while she was flirting with him.”

Courtney: “I didn’t know how to say no, so I said I don’t know how to describe it and we blessedly moved on. Anyways, we did in fact manage to seduce our way into this guy’s room, not with great rolls or good roleplay. The DM was just horny. And when he’s trying to undress and get with us, the DM was way too descriptive. We start fighting back and the rest of the party bursts in. They killed him, I think, but I honestly don’t remember. I know I was heavily shaken in the moment by how graphic the DM was getting with his descriptions. My character makes known her discomfort in being used like this and says she is asexual. And the DM looks at me and says that ‘if I was living in the forest alone for 300 years, I must have gotten bored and had a romp with some of the wildlife in or out of my wild shape.’ This time I did object, ‘No, my character does not practice bestiality.’ And the DM had the gall to laugh and say there was no way anyone could go that long without having sex with someone.”

Courtney: “I dearly wish I’d just gotten up and left then, but I stayed for the rest of the session and went back one more time. We’re not friends anymore and I now happily play with people who don’t force fetishes on my character. I’ve also learned to say no when I’m uncomfortable with the situation and that I can leave if I want to, although I haven’t had to since. If I had to assign a moral to this story, it’d be: listen to your friends when they say, ‘Hey, that DM is weird.’”

Royce: Yes.

Courtney: “Especially when you’ve been away at college all year. Or don’t decide to force a fetish on a character after they say they’re asexual, or on anyone! Because that’s just fucked up.” You know the amazing thing, I played a wood elf druid who was also asexual and also aromantic and was alone in a swamp wilderness for many hundreds of years, and I’ve played with her with two different DMs, couple of different campaign settings, and never once has that happened.

Royce: Never once did that even remotely come up.

Courtney: Never once. So it’s really not that hard to just not be gross with your players. One of those DMs was actually not a very good DM. That DM did plenty of things that were actually worthy of this subreddit, but at least we can say he didn’t do that.

Royce: Yeah, uncomfortable role playing situations wasn’t really the issue in those campaigns. I just had to reread back over the trying to get into a room by seducing, but you’re a druid, why don’t you just like, turn into a spider and crawl under the door?

Courtney: I mean, that’s what I do when I play a druid. I use my wild shape as often as possible, especially out of combat. Out of combat uses of wild shape, fantastic. It’s also so interesting because it varies, right? Like, not every person who creates an asexual character is themselves asexual, but a lot of them are. But for me, like, if I’m going to give a character of mine a sexuality that isn’t asexual, I have to think about it very hard and go out of my way to do it. And I have before. Not every single one of the characters I’ve made are asexual, but they’re all kind of asexual by default as a baseline. Because it’s just such an uninteresting component of a character to me most of the time.

Royce: I hadn’t really thought about that, but I have never created a character who had a relationship as part of their backstory.

Courtney: No.

Royce: I have never even thought about it.

Courtney: And the only characters I have, like, given a sexuality that wasn’t ace, it’s because of a relationship from their past or that actually actively still in. Like, nobody has a sexuality and is looking. Like doesn’t have a partner but would be open to one. Because that’s just– Not only can I not relate to it, but I don’t find it personally fulfilling to put myself in the shoes of a character in that situation.

Royce: Yeah, that’s not what I’m here to play. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned on microphone, but the reason why I like D&D is because it’s a fantasy world with RPG elements but the structure and the, you know, the framework of the game is open-ended by definition, because it’s conversational in so many ways. So that you can get really unique experiences that you can’t get in a video game. That’s also why I don’t play, I guess, more mechanically heavy war game type of TTRPGs, older versions of D&D, Pathfinder. Because if I wanted something more mechanically heavy I would play a video game.

Courtney: Yeah, and I do like video games and mechanics. But yeah, when I sit down at a tabletop game, like, I want that role playing element. Like hello, I come from an improv background. I was on an improv troupe. I like just playing pretend and doing collaborative storytelling with people. And it’s probably that element too that makes me more reluctant to play, I guess, single characters of different sexualities. Because I’ve done plenty of acting. I’ve been in plays. I’ve been in relationships on stage. If it is scripted and I am playing a scripted role, I can do that and I usually do not mind it. But for something unscripted where I get to help drive the story, I just don’t personally get much out of it. I will say I’ve never made a straight D&D character. I think that would be the least relatable D&D character to me.

Royce: So this next story is a little long. [reading] “Triple threat players turn D&D campaign into main character syndrome, uncomfortable advances, and guilt-tripping jealousy. But just wait and see how the DM reveals a secret fantasy that had us all appalled.”

Courtney: Oh, I can’t wait.

Royce: “For some brief context, this was D&D set in the Magic the Gathering world of Ixalan. It was a fun, pirate-themed campaign. Despite all the ups and downs, this campaign still holds a special place in my heart. But not every moment was fun and we never came to a definitive end. No hate to those involved. I haven’t spoken to them in years, I hope they are doing well.”

Royce: Now that is already a bit of a different setup than most of these stories that we hear. Usually it’s one bad session and then everyone rightfully goes their separate ways or at least kicks one person out. [reading] “These are multiple cases that happened between three different players and the DM on different occasions within the same campaign. Let’s just say things are wild. Let’s break it down. Number one: Spaceboy from where? So honestly, I forget the character’s name at this point, so we’re calling him Spaceboy. When we started a campaign, the player was very adamant about inserting essentially a fan character based on a video game they loved.” I’ve heard jokes about that, about people just taking someone from some form of media and remaking them in D&D.

Courtney: I mean, we kinda did that with one of the NPCs in the game that we wrote together.

Royce: Oh yeah.

Courtney: What was the name of that game? The Letter? Was that what it was?

Royce: Yeah, you incorporated some horror elements from that.

Courtney: Yeah, we kinda, we kinda– It was, it was loose adaptation, it was more inspired by than directly inserting. But yeah, we did that for a minor NPC.

Royce: One of your non-ace characters that you played as for a bit was also from a video game.

Courtney: Oh shit, you’re right! I’m guilty of this. Yeah, I did. Also inspired by… What was that game?

Royce: Coffee Talk

Courtney: Coffee Talk! Yeah, the orc who fell in love with the mermaid, love her.

Royce: [reading] “Instead of translating it over to the D&D races and relevancy, making it easier on the DM and fitting him into the lore, he pressured the DM into making a homebrew race just to accommodate him, despite there already being something that matched the existing criteria. On top of that, they wanted their character to be a time traveler coming from outer space, even though that was not in the plot nor relevant to the theme. We were all close friends with this player, so, even though it was confusing and inconvenient, the DM let it slide and made it work.”

Royce: This is something that I get anxious about sometimes, because my gut reaction is, “I don’t want that, just do something else.” And then I have to go like, “Well, how bad can it be? Maybe it’s fine, maybe, maybe it won’t actually be a big deal.” But apparently sometimes it is a big deal. [resumes reading] “However, this led to many confusing character interactions, and he was trying to hail otherworldly high-tech knowledge and very big main character syndrome habits. The funniest part though, they refused to use a character sheet, which what? Oh. Instead of using an online or physical sheet, they threw all the stats into Google Slides, and it was all disorganized, making no sense, was hard to edit and keep track of.”

Courtney: Google Slides?

Royce: Yeah, the PowerPoint?

Courtney: Like, the PowerPoint?

Royce: Of all the Google Doc platform programs you could have chosen.

Courtney: I was like, “All right, Google Doc, fine. Google Sheets even, okay.” Wow.

Royce: I glazed– I glazed over that and had to reread the word because I assumed Sheets, because I spreadsheet characters.

Courtney: Yes, you do. That’s why that feels so normal to me.

Royce: [reading] “This was also stressful for the DM. We asked multiple times to move to D&D Beyond with us, but they refused and got defensive. Thankfully, they only lasted about five sessions before skipping and not showing up to the point where we had to confront them and kick them out of the campaign.” I’m surprised it went on that long and also that they left of their own volition. I don’t think I would be able to handle too many mid-combat stalls because someone hasn’t made a cheat sheet for their own character.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: Or just, you know, knows the abilities offhand.

Courtney: A cheat slide.

Royce: Every time their turn comes around in combat they have to, like, fiddle with a projector remote, like, “Hold on a moment, one moment, we’ll get it back up. We need to call the IT department in.”

Courtney: [chuckles] I’m sure at a D&D table someone there is a qualified IT professional.

Royce: Probably.

Courtney: That seems reasonable.

Royce: But then the IT professional goes to help them with the PowerPoint stat block and doesn’t have time to think through their own turn. So then, once they get that character situated, then they have to get back to their own character sheet and be like, “Wait a minute, what was I doing?”

Courtney: It’s a disaster.

Royce: Everyone needs to be on point in combat or the whole thing breaks down.

Courtney: And not on power point.

Royce: Yes, that’s the wrong kind of point. [reading] “Event number two: tThe Tiberius Meltdown and Midnight Advances. Trigger warning for mention of non-consensual advances. Arguably our most troubled player was the one who played Tiberius/Midnight. This was a player who we had met and were recently becoming friends with. He was in a previous campaign with me, so we invited him over. In session one, he was revealed to be playing Tiberius, the character he had previously played with me. However, upon seeing all our new characters, he changed his mind quickly. In our first fight he decided to have his character jump off the ship into his water to off himself. Immediately we were like, ‘Whoa whoa, whoa whoa!’ And the DM reversed the action and explained that’s not okay. If he wants to change the character, just talk to me after the session. This was the first red flag.” Yeah, you could just have, like, your person leave, like you dock at the port, “Okay, I’m gonna go somewhere else.” Very, very simple.

Courtney: Or just like even if you want your character to die as a send-off to them, like you can facilitate that with the DM too, like just

Royce: Pick a good monster, though.

Courtney: Say, like, “Yeah, I am going to sacrifice myself in this combat to save the people.” Or something.

Royce: [reading] “He came back as the character Midnight who would cause issue after issue in the campaign. He was playing a woman with high nobility and the stereotypical snotty, insufferable attitude. She would trash talk us, slapped one of us, and caused issues due to wavering loyalty. Of course this would lead to the characters not liking her and we’re a role-play and story-heavy campaign, but that just made the player irritated. Then, on top of that, he would overly sexualize the character, even role-playing her lusting over vampires biting her chest. This made us all uncomfortable, especially as he was a man playing a woman. This lust spread past his own character, though. Unfortunately, I was the target.”

Royce: “I was playing a handsome half-orc rogue who was the captain of the ship. The player insisted on having a romance between the two, ignoring the fact that she’s always rude to his friends and generally passive-aggressive to him. So my character wasn’t having it, but she didn’t take no for an answer, despite displaying discomfort in character and explaining out of character that it wouldn’t work. He continued to make advances and even touched and kissed my character without consent. At this point a foot was put down that, hey, you can’t do that. Out of character, he had been making us uncomfortable by being overly lustful and he took the in-game rejection as me rejecting him because he had a crush on me IRL that was not reciprocated. After a firm talking to, he decided things wouldn’t work out and left the campaign because he believed that no one liked him.” Which may have been true at that point.

Courtney: That may have been true.

Royce: This post is just checking all the boxes. All of the story beats from other posts.

Courtney: All of them.

Royce: [reading] “Number three is: Aaron, the background character. This was sort of an awkward situation that had us feeling helpless. The player in question was a very close friend but was drifting due to some life stuff and some of it got dragged into the campaign. They were new to D&D and felt very awkward at times. She was not quick to jump into conversations as the character Aaron, and if she did, it was just repeating what someone said and not really getting anywhere. This was frustrating because she just sort of trailed in the background, did nothing, contributed nothing and we had no clue who the character was basically. However, when confronted in or out of character, she took major defense and said that we were cornering her, was going to vomit, – I assume that is an anxiety response – and how we’re ruining everything for her. So huge response for a simple nudge to join the role play.”

Royce: “When she realized that my character was becoming close friends with her IRL best friend’s character, she became really jealous. She’d sit there and glare at us, make passive-aggressive remarks, and let it interfere with her ability to pay attention and actually play. We had a session in a public space and she verbally blew up and stormed out in front of not only us but other people and a teacher. It was a very awkward situation and made us feel really helpless because we really wanted her to join the fun and play, but she was just having us drag her everywhere and was messing up fights by not really knowing what was going on. At this point, the only players left were her, another player, and myself. We moved online during the pandemic and her behavior only got worse as she began to threaten us and tried to guilt trip us. This just led to her leaving the campaign and blocking the whole group, throwing away a long childhood friendship altogether because she thought she was being replaced.” So that is another don’t bring the drama of interpersonal relationships to the table, sort of a thing.

Courtney: Yeah, that one makes me sad. Because I mean, without getting an actual play-by-play of who said what and how this reads like there’s a chance this was someone who just is very socially anxious and isn’t maybe very talkative in role play, and maybe that could have been fixed if everyone involved was better at communicating. But–

Royce: It could have been. When it got to the mentions of jealousy, though?

Courtney: Oh yeah, I mean, it was not handled appropriately.

Royce: And for the last bad event of this long-running campaign was the secret DM fantasy reveal. Another trigger warning for non-consensual encounters. [reading] “So while all the other situations were stressful and uncomfortable, nothing would top this single session for worst D&D moment ever. To this day it makes me uncomfortable when I think about it. This DM was one of our best friends and we had a great relationship. Nothing had really gone wrong up till that point. No red flags whatsoever.”

Royce: “So this ended up coming completely out of the blue. My character and my best friend’s character, separated from the party on a side mission, we had a session with just the two of us and the DM at their house. Had our snacks, music, laughs and were excited. However, in the midst of the session we got kidnapped by another pirate crew who brings us on board to meet their captain. For whatever reason they believed our characters were newlyweds and we just went with it because it seemed better if the pirates thought that. We were totally wrong. The pirate captain explains that he brings newlywed couples to his ship’s bedroom to do the deed in front of him as he watches and takes notes for an erotic novel he is writing.”

Courtney: [laughs] Oh no… I’m not laughing because I like it. I’m laughing because I don’t know–

Royce: What else to do?

Courtney: What else to do with this information.

Royce: [reading] “What? So we were put into a situation where our characters are supposed to have an intimate encounter with one another or get attacked. We are not in a relationship, do not have any romantic interest and the other player is asexual. We immediately felt disgusted and nervous because it was so out of the blue. It’s not something our characters or us would consent to, and it put us in a bad position. Since it was just the two of us and anxiety spiked, we felt too scared and stuck to say something, and just had to act it out.”

Royce: “I ended up summoning a nymph in place of her character and basically all that happened. It was a very what-the-hell-just-happened moment by the end of the session. When we regained our composure and reflected on it together, we confronted the DM later on, who felt very embarrassed, ashamed and - quote - ‘didn’t know what came over them.’ Since that day, whenever brought up, they always felt horrified by their past actions. Safe to say that the DM had a bit of a lustful fantasy and thought that the encounter would be funny, but it wasn’t. Yuck. So that’s that. What a wild ride in just one campaign. Despite all these situations, the rest of the campaign was a lot of fun and there are a lot of good memories.”

Royce: “But it’s so disgusting that some of these situations happened. I feel in the moment that we didn’t understand the severity of some of the things being done, particularly by the DM in that last one, and can now more deeply look back at it and go, ‘What the fuck?’ The majority was a great time, though, and I choose to focus on those times. Unfortunately, moving online made it more difficult to play, and the DM was unable to play at their best, which caused issues with us not being able to really get anything accomplished and to not have the freedom to explore out the main plot. Came to a mutual agreement one day to just stop the campaign.”

Courtney: It is so interesting that sometimes a campaign is just like clearly the wrong time, and place, and players, and DM. And it’s just like you– you now have a laundry list of problems.

Royce: Yeah, I thought this situation was interesting. I mean, there– I feel like I’ve talked to people who have said, you know, campaign was going pretty well for the most part, but there was like one bad session where one person was having a rough time and they accidentally brought it to the table, and like got angry or upset or something, and it made for a really bad session that night.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: But didn’t campaign– didn’t tank the entire campaign. But in this one here, three of the problems were new people that weren’t a part of the core group, who came in for a moment, caused problems, and then left. And I have no idea how to explain that last one.

Courtney: Something just came over them! So let’s end on a bad note. [chuckles]

Royce: I think that’s what we do on these episodes. I think it’s a pretty continuous bad note, but an especially bad one you want to end on?

Courtney: Well, if you’ve listened to our other episodes from these subreddits, you know the patterns. You know what happens. The title of this one is: “Player Attempts to Rape Asexual NPC, and then hides behind his alignment. So roll call: me artificer, monk, and warlock. Okay, so the session started off in a tavern – ah, classic, old reliable, surprise surprise – where there was a stage with a play, a table of drunk dwarves and an elf lady in the corner. The artificer went up to the people doing the play and asked if they needed help, since he liked to sing himself. The monk immediately ran over to the elf girl and started hitting on her. Then the warlock, who was across the tavern brooding in a corner, also decides to talk to the elf lady and flirt with her too. It was all well intended, though. Although I should take time to say that the warlock was apparently an ancient spirit trapped in a sword that possessed the body of a gnome dude.”

Courtney: Yeah, I mean, sometimes that happens. [reading] “And this ancient spirit, whose only concern is escaping the sword, is also apparently out for some ass too. She tells them that this guy killed her adventuring partner and is now hiding out in this dungeon. So they go to the dungeon and kill the guy and come back with his scythe for proof of the kill. When they come back to the tavern the monk wants to make one last persuasion check to get with her. Harmless. He rolls like a 12 and she basically says, ‘Nice try, kid.’

Courtney: And that would have been a nice way to end the session, but the warlock wanted to try too. She basically rejected him too. And the artificer sees what’s going on and realizes she’s asexual. He asks me if she is and I say yes. So then the warlock recommends getting her drunk and raping her. And the monk agrees. Then the warlock hides behind the chaotic evil alignment and basically just says, ‘It’s what my character would do!’” So yeah.

Royce: This is why a lot of people say don’t let your players choose a chaotic evil alignment.

Courtney: I feel like it’s not impossible, but you need not only a good person, but a really seasoned D&D player to actually tread that line well. Because I mean, talk about ulterior motives. People who come in for, like, romantic or sexual reasons. Those are ulterior motives. That’s bad. I think a lot of people also play chaotic evil characters with an ulterior motive and that translates to being a problem for everyone else. Not fun.

Courtney: Top comment is: “My character alignment is rapist.”

Royce: Yeah, the OP here says that they were DMing and they shut this down immediately. And the warlock started arguing with them a bit and at one point asks, “So what? Just since it’s your game, you can change whatever you want?” And the DM says, “Yes, it’s my game.”

Courtney: I like this conversation in the comments. My personal favorite is, “The target is actually a polymorphed dragon. Roll initiative.” Follow-up comment: “Is actually a polymorphed swarm of Tiamats.”

Royce: Pretty sure the plural noun of Tiamat is an “Oh, fuck.”

Courtney: An oh fuck of Tiamats! [laughs] See, as a DM, sometimes you gotta think on your feet, and that means swift and harsh punishment for someone who steps way too far out of line, way too quickly. I was actually thinking during an earlier one, like, oh, this character touched my character without consent, like, all right, roll initiative, you just assaulted a party member.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: The party can fight you if they choose, and also like town guards on their way, like something.

Royce: One comment: “This is why I find players that want to play [insert game title] rather than act out their sexual repression in every tavern.”

Courtney: [laughs] Yeah.

Royce: There is an old God in my setting, beyond the realms of knowable reality, if anyone tries to sexually assault someone else, they are eaten by this ancient being. There is an above the table warning before playing, but this is the in-universe explanation.

Courtney: Outstanding. See, that is a fabulous house rule.

Royce: Yeah, their existence is nullified, their past actions explained away with a hand wave and the player is told to not show up next game.

Courtney: [laughs] See, harsh and swift punishment.

Royce: Which is also what a swarm of Tiamats would be.

Courtney: You mean an “oh fuck,” an “oh fuck” of Tiamats.

Royce: Player: it’s what my character would do. DM: has player character beheaded by the guards on the spot because it’s what a medieval justice system would do.

Courtney: [laughs] Yeah, don’t try the DM. If they really want, they can just plop a Tarrasque down right then and there. But on that note we are going to end for today. So I would love to give a great big shout out to today’s featured MarketplACE vendor: Maggie’s Magical Punagerie, where you can find inclusive and silly stickers and merch designed by a neurodivergent, demisexual train wreck. And there are some very nice things here. I ordered a We Will Not Be Discarded, a little hand holding a pack of playing cards, specifically aces. Of course you can also get some Pride colored lava lamps. Very cool. And I don’t know if this is new or if I just missed it the first time I was looking through this shop, but there are some designs here that say Kitchen Witch’n, which is a pun that I– It’s not even a pun, it’s just a rhyme that I have used in my personal life. So I like that a lot and I’m sad that I didn’t see it until just now.

Courtney: But yes, very cute little RedBubble shop. We’ve got some Pride things, we’ve got some gothy things, some witchy things, some couple of fandom-y things, all sorts of stuff. For sure, check it out. Actually, since we’re talking about Dungeons & Dragons, I just saw a My Horde sticker of an adorable little dragon sleeping on a horde of books. Great stuff. So, as always, the links to find our featured MarketplACE vendor will be in the show notes on our website, as well as the description on YouTube. And if you want to check out any of the individual posts that we went over today on r/dndhorrorstories and r/rpghorrorstories, those links will also be in both of those places. And that’s all we have for today. So thank you all, as always, for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.