lemmy.dbzer0.comHomophobic bully gets kicked from the worst group I've ever played in - Divisions by zeroThe funniest Out of Game moment I have ever had at the table was in my previous
IRL group. We rotated who was in the DM chair, but this session our host, lets
call him Phillip Barker, was running his Pathfinder campaign. The problem
player, a hustlebro i shall name Emmett Roe, decides to flirt with an NPC.
Phillip reciprocates but reveals the character is asexual. Emmett lost his shit,
calling Phillip r♡♡♡♡♡♡d and asking “why are there f♡♡♡♡ts everywhere now” and
yelling something dumb about genders and mental illness. Phillip calmly pulls
down one of his zweihanders from a display rack and unsheathes it, walks over to
him, and tells him “You’re going to leave now.” Emmett leaves, Phillip sits back
down, and we continue the game as if Emmet was never there. This group, by the
way, was the worst I have ever been in. I have never felt so lonely in a crowded
room before. I’ve provided bios of the players below, including myself, with
fake names taken from famous people. Have fun figuring out which one is me! 1.
Phillip Barker (19): Does not smoke, but drinks and pretends to be a wine snob.
Ran Shadowrun 5e and a homebrew PF1e campaign, and uses an old-school impartial
referee mindset behind the screen. Hes also autistic, which mainly shows in him
through rigid ethics about fairness. As a player, he was the Heart of the group,
and kept our in-game squabbles from getting the game off-track or spilling over
to real life. His Pathfinder campaign had lots of diverse groups that were
fairly represented, and whenever an NPC judged one of our rainbow-flavored party
members it was clear that this was the character being an asshole, not him. He
put a lot of work into his sessions, sometimes extending to making a whole
soundboard for background music, and he made sure to incorporate each of our
characters into the plot in an organic way. Out of game, he was an aspiring
catholic priest, and boy was he living up to the stereotype. He made a
suspicious number of jokes about being both a nationalist and a socialist and
therefore being a national socialist (he definitely was not a socialist), was a
big fan of several ““alt-right”” personalities, made several very racist and
homophobic jokes in public, tried to flirt with another player’s underage little
sister, and tries to hide the fact that he thinks most of the other players are
going to hell for their sexuality. But he’s also super hot, so at the time I
thought that balanced out. 2. Emmett Roe (19): Shadowrun DM, is a bit of a
railroader. Looked like he was about 12 years old. Bullied me in high school,
and has not significantly changed. After being kicked out, he cofounded a FLGS
with his dad, but at this time his gigachad sigma male grindset was flipping
Funko Pops. 3. Dave Arneston (19): The main Shadowrun DM, uses a “DM as
Ringmaster/Entertainer” mindset. Autistic bisexual twink, and a hot one at that.
Smokes, drinks, deals drugs. Dropped out of college, possibly because of the
drugs. Is the reason Phillip has a “no smoking indoors” rule. Ran horror
sessions that literally gave me nightmares. Dude method acts his characters.
When he’s playing, you are going to be sitting at the table with his character
until the session is over. 4. Pablo Pineda (21): An AuDHD Shadowrun DM, uses a
“DM as mediator/collaborator” mindset. Bisexual, but in denial about it even
though he was dating a guy at the time. Does not drink or do any chemically
addictive drugs. Dropped out of college after 1 semester because he didn’t do
any classwork and expected to just coast through, but maintains he’s just “on a
gap year” when questioned about it. Cannot stick with one fucking character for
longer than a fucking month. Preferred to run heists with unusual stakes,
locations, or macguffins. Had no social life outside of the game and was still
doing the job he had in high school. Would engage in distracting sensory-seeking
behaviors during game sessions; for example, during one session he wedged a d4
up his nose and had to go to urgent care to get it out. Overall, I would say
that Pablo ruined my enjoyment of the actual game the most. 5. Henry Cavendish
(19): Audience member. Does not smoke, drink, express feelings, or roleplay.
Stereotypical autist. Plays a human fighter whenever possible. Keeps breaking up
with Amy and getting back together. Usually a helpful person. On that sigma
grindset with his long-term life plan. 6. Amy Winehouse (18): Femme-presenting
nonbinary pansexual disaster. (she/them, prefers femme pronouns) Smoked weed to
self-medicate, often while driving since driving scares her. As a result, she
was generally too blasted during game sessions to read her character sheet or
the tiny numbers on the dice. Also had trouble with maintaining a job, which
resulted in periodic homelessness. 7. Theresa Berkley (19): Was Amy’s best
friend, and was invited by Amy. Vapes and drinks. The dudes all very much liked
her gigantic tiddies her personality. Unfortunately, no actual horror stories
happened in this group. There were bad moments, and there were horrifying
moments, but thats all they were: moments. So, here’s a short list of the
moments i can remember: ● As stated above, Henry and Amy would break up and get
together repeatedly. When they were together, they would sit together snuggling,
and Henry would help out Amy when her high ass needed support. When they were
broken up, Amy was on her own. This resulted in a sad space of time when Henry
had helped Amy make an Alchemist which exploited some complex rules
interactions, but then let her just flounder after they broke up. He also went
well out of his way to scare off any potential partner that might replace him
when they broke up; Amy has told me about how she would be at a rave flirting
with some hottie and suddenly Henry is right there calling her Babe and Honey
until his competitor backs off. Apparently he used to only chase off men, but
after Amy called him on this he worked on his internalized homophobia and now he
walls her off from all partners equally. (Good for him, I guess?) This
effectively made him the only option, and when they got back together he would
smother her with appreciation and love. Carrot and stick, like a fucking cult
leader. ● In our Shadowrun campaign, Emmett founded a Corp for our runners to
work for. Normally, this would be mostly fine, especially for a group like ours.
What wasn’t fine was all the times an in-game argument would be resolved with
Emmett’s character saying “You work for me!”. ● Dave had a habit of not prepping
for his sessions. Fair, he’s got a life, he’s hustling the good stuff and
holding down a day job too. But this is Shadowrun! You have the material plane,
the astral plane, and the Matrix to keep track of! You’ve got one player that
has a bow that can shoot through walls, one player with a high-specced cyberdeck
and a lot of experience using it, a vampire that can turn into mist and astral
project, a guy who is basically We Have Tony Stark At Home, and a character who
gets closer to being Robocop with every paycheck. You can’t show up and wing it,
because there are 5-6 of us and one of you. We can both outsmart you and
outstupid you at the same time! ● Pablo’s characters tend to make the table
uncomfortable or be awkward to play with. Examples: ○ A human fighter going
through a midlife crisis. He has a wife and child at home who think he is going
on a business trip, when in reality he is putting his life in danger on a daily
basis and bedding any woman he can seduce. This character was actually pretty
similar to many of the other players’ actual parents, and was retired
unceremoniously after he made Amy cry. ○ A dissonant technomancer. In Shadowrun,
technomancers work their computer magic through Resonance, which is essentially
the light side of the force. Dissonance is like the dark side, which encourages
destruction, chaos, and insanity. Importantly, the compulsion to destroy
vanishes the moment you unplug. Pablo spent a lot of time thinking about how to
manage what is in effect a chronic illness when buying equipment. This made Amy
uncomfortable because she plays to escape the reality of having a chronic
illness. Phillip, on the other hand, was made uncomfortable by the murder hobo
hacker they had to work with, since this caused interparty conflict and he Is
Not Down With That. ○ His first Shadowrun character was a troll who had a very
chaotic relationship with his size queen orc girlfriend. Their on-and-off
relationship prompted the rest of the group to make fun of Amy and Henry for a
bit. He also got some criticism from Phillip for establishing that the orc
girlfriend was only dating him because he had a massive dong with subdermal
cartilaginous bumps and ridges, but Dave LOVED role-playing the GF and made her
existence a part of several sessions until Amy told him that sex stuff made her
uncomfortable at the table. ● Pablo also used his (metal) dice as fidget toys,
often loudly, sometimes disruptively. There were multiple times he has flung a
d6 across the table in the middle if tense rp, and multiple times he had to be
asked to stop shaking and rolling his (metal) dice when his characters weren’t
active. He also tended to chew on his nonmetal dice, especially his d20s. ●
Pablo had a serious caffeine addiction. Like, it was actually a problem. He
needed an intervention. The games often started at 7, 8, or 9 PM, and would show
up with one or two thermoses of black coffee and drink it all before the session
was over. He was often so jittery from the coffee that he couldn’t focus during
RP, and he often went without sleep (which probably made everything worse) to
the point where he was hallucinating quite often. He bragged about this, like it
was something to be proud of. Thankfully, when Covid hit he went cold turkey for
all of quarantine, which fixed the problem. ● During one of Amy’s unhoused
periods, Phillip let her stay in his spare room in exchange for sex. She took
him up on this, because what the fuck was she supposed to do? She had no job and
no car at the time! So, she accepts, and Henry finds out and dumps her for it. ●
Around the time that Amy invited Theresa to the table, they started renting a
house together. For context, Amy had previously gotten back together with Henry
after he forgave her for the previous story, but have at the time of this story
once again broken up. Amy and Theresa had some problems with the basement. They
would hear bumps, bangs, and the sounds of movement. This freaks them out so
much one night that they call Henry, who tells them “You’re not my gf so you’re
not my problem”. Amy then calls Pablo, who drives over at 2 AM and helps them
clear out their basement until they feel safe. They continue having problems,
and eventually determine that there is something evil down there. To fix this,
they get Phillip to come over and exorcise their demonic basement, which works.
Basement is no longer evil. They eventually lose the house because Theresa made
all the bills Amy’s responsibility to pay and did not contribute anything other
than drama. ● You may notice I sound like I hate Theresa as a person, which
would be an accurate statement. As a DM, she was infuriating to run for, mainly
because she was so dependant on her vape that she would ask for a smoke break
what felt like every five minutes. Made me question my abilities as a
storyteller whenever she would interrupt to whine “fuuck I need a smoooke 😭”.
As a person, it quickly became obvious that she was terrible to everyone. Her
dating habits were especially horrendous; she had a toxic ass rebound boyfriend,
but would preferentially bed men that Amy had expressed an interest in,
including Henry. At the table she initially focused her attention on Phillip
because he is a solid 12/10, but he got pissed right the fuck off with her
constant smoke breaks so she ended up plowing furrows in her mattress with Dave
a lot. Thankfully she left after we all got frustrated enough with her to stop
giving her preferential treatment. All in all, we were losers and stuck together
because we were losers. I stayed for as long as I did because I thought I didn’t
deserve better. Besides, bad D&D is better than no D&D, right? Thankfully I know
better now. I left the group after Covid, and I almost immediately started
making real progress. I got a better (but smaller) group of friends I play D&D
with now. I also am no longer dependant on the magic bean to function, found my
passion and have an actual big boy job now, and went back to college and am
actually doing well this time! I honestly think keeping these losers in my life
just held me back socially and emotionally. In case you are as slow on the
uptake as me, I am Pablo. If you are also a Pablo, don’t be so hard on yourself.
You’ll grow at your own pace. At the time this story took place, I believed that
I had peaked in middle school, and that it was all downhill from there, that I
had missed my shot to be a complete person and no one would love me for me,
least of all myself. It’s easy to forget that your story is not over, because
that story never existed. You likely define yourself in reaction to how others
react to you, mixed with your memories. None of that is “real”. Your friends
likely only remember you by the first impression you made on them, plus a few
highlights. They aren’t gonna remember your stutters and fumbles unless they are
hilarious, and what they do remember will be broad strokes. On the other hand,
your (non-traumatic) memories change slightly every time you access them until
they are completely unusable. A good chunk of your memories are likely so
mutated that they might as well be completely made-up. “You” is not a solid
concept. “You” changes on a month to month basis. So take advantage of that. You
can practice making a good first impression on people by going out and meeting
lots of people. Pick up some new skills and hobbies. Make new friends, drop
toxic ones, and don’t look back. Keep trying new things. Nobody is going to
remember how bad you were at it in the beginning, and you’re not even going to
remember your fuckups after a few months or years. That said, keep records of
the stuff you did. You can’t see how far you’ve come if you can’t compare it to
the garbage you made when you were a beginner, and we just established that your
memories are not accurate. That’s my advice. Go out and grow!
