Poll of the Day > My dnd dm just straight up stop showing up after my first game

(+) Yeah! (+)

I showed up last week and he wasnt there. Showed up today and waited for an hour and a half and he didnt show up this week either. Everyone there was PISSED. Especially the mom of the 12 year old kid who sat and waited the entire time.

What is with my luck playing this game? Im either around people who refuse to let me play with their group, or people who ditch after 1 day into the campaign they made.

12 year old kid is a good indication that he may have had an issue with his players. DMing is a lot of work, and I can see not wanting to do it for a group you dont mesh with.

I guess? But to leave with no notice? There were like 5 others who had no idea.

Have you heard from your DM outside of the game?

PK_Spam posted...

I guess? But to leave with no notice? There were like 5 others who had no idea.

I mean, I can also see not wanting to deal with 5 near strangers who are all going to complain that you dont want to do it for them when you could just as easily ghost them and not deal with it.

Not saying it's right, but I get it. I've seen how much work a good DM puts into their job, so I'm pretty sympathetic to the plight.

You'll find a good game if ya keep digging.

One of the last games I was a player in (which have been all online since I moved), the DM just vanished.
The thing is, he had a history of it. He had been a player in the game I DM'd as well and just weeks before, I had to have an awkward conversation (since I was also his player in the other game) telling him I was dropping him from my campaign because he only showed up like 3 times in the last 12 or so sessions, and always without notice he'd not be there. He graciously accepted, and things went on.
On his game's front, he'd often no-show w/o warning and we'd play maybe one out of every 3 weeks, and we just kinda accepted the flaky-ness.
Then a few weeks later, he no-showed w/o warning. And again, week after week. We tried contacting him via private messaging, skype, email etc..., but he never replied. We kept showing up for 2 months before giving up.
I even started googling his name to check if he died or something, I was just plain concerned at that point.
It's been five years now and I still have no idea WTF happened to him. I hope he's ok...

PK_Spam posted...

I showed up last week and he wasnt there. Showed up today and waited for an hour and a half and he didnt show up this week either. Everyone there was PISSED. Especially the mom of the 12 year old kid who sat and waited the entire time.

What is with my luck playing this game? Im either around people who refuse to let me play with their group, or people who ditch after 1 day into the campaign they made.

That's pretty weird, its usually players who don't show up in my experience.

You expected a DM to follow basic social conduct?

PK_Spam posted...

What is with my luck playing this game? Im either around people who refuse to let me play with their group, or people who ditch after 1 day into the campaign they made.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Offer to DM for the group yourself.

Either that, or begin the hunt for one of the mythical Forever GMs that are rare like diamonds and twice as valuable. And hope they aren't already running seven different games already.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Be the change you want to see in the world. Offer to DM for the group yourself.

I cant! My first game was 2 weeks ago.

PK_Spam posted...

I cant! My first game was 2 weeks ago.

Plenty of DMs start having never played the game before. Just buy the DMG and read it.

Then maybe watch some DM advice videos online, come up with a setting/story (or use a prewritten setting and/or stories from one of the various books available), and you're good to go. Stick to a relatively simple game, don't overextend yourself, and be willing to make mistakes and fix things as you gain more experience. You don't really need to worry about being a perfect DM who uses every rule correctly as long as you can help the players have fun.

If I could GM my first game at age 8 having literally never RPed before, you can do it now. Spread your wings and fly!

I've DM'd before and had really bad groups that didn't work. I always gave notice if I was going to stop. I also did that when I was a player (gave notice), even if I only went one time.

Most of the "doesn't work" groups happened when I was a player though since I only DM'd for friends most of the time, and therefore we all knew it would work.

The problem players are sadly often either kids, or those with special needs etc, which happens often in the area where I am at.

Of the various DnD groups I played with, the only one that didn't have at least one "problem player" was the group of friends again, all friends of our DM at least (and eventually friends with each other.

The other groups had people who couldn't talk well, had special needs that disrupted the game, were mentally impared etc. You WANT to be inclusive, you want to let everyone play, but honestly it can really drag a game down when it takes one of the players 15 minutes to do a simple action.

No, I didn't leave those games (because I didn't want to be mean), but god was I happy when they ended and I didn't sign up for the next one.

I did leave a group in Tacoma though as the DM was horrible and all the other players were brand new save one. It was a freaking train wreck and even though I gave it a few times for the DM to get his legs under him and things to get better, it was so mind numbingly boring that I eventually gave up.

I left another group (in the same area) and that was the last time I tried in Tacoma (partially due to covid rolling around) again because the DM was brand new, I was constantly helping him and EVEN after I left he kept texting me/facebook m essing me for advice non-stop (like up till 6 months ago so like 2 years later). I'm nice/polite but dear god, sometimes I wish I was better at just ghosting people or being blunt lol.

When I wanted to move onto DMing, I did a one-off campaign just to get my feet wet before devoting to a full game.
You can always try doing something like that to get a feel for it before committing to DMing a full game.

Notschmendrake posted...

I mean, I can also see not wanting to deal with 5 near strangers who are all going to complain that you dont want to do it for them when you could just as easily ghost them and not deal with it.

Not saying it's right, but I get it. I've seen how much work a good DM puts into their job, so I'm pretty sympathetic to the plight.

You'll find a good game if ya keep digging.

They get paid for that?

How much were you paying them?

Revelation34 posted...

They get paid for that?

Plenty do, sure, but I feel this is more of a situation of you not knowing that the word 'job' has more than 1 definition, and that one of those definitions precludes the necessity for remuneration.

Become the DM and make the kid's fucking year man.

lihlih posted...

When I wanted to move onto DMing, I did a one-off campaign just to get my feet wet before devoting to a full game.
You can always try doing something like that to get a feel for it before committing to DMing a full game.

On top of that, there are a ton of really flexible game systems out there that you can use to build your own one-shots without having to really dig in to the more complex mechanics of DnD. For that matter, there are plenty of GM-less or GM-lite systems where you could get things rolling with a couple of prompts and then just join the game yourself as it sustains itself, so you get the experience of participating in a TTRPG and can build on that to support DMing more formally. So long as you can find a few friends to play with, it doesn't take much to get off the ground.

Personally, I've had good experience with Risus as a flexible system for homebrew one-shots (my first time ever GMing in any capacity, I slapped together a campaign that kept us occupied for a couple hours less than an hour before we were starting, and my group has done a few more games with it), and we had a good time playing Everyone is John as a GM-less option (bonus points where one of our players sketched out everything we did for added hilarity). They won't be as DnD-ish as DnD or other, more robust TTRPG's, but you can still have a good time if you've got a good group that's genuinely interested in having fun with each other.

The 1 time I tried to play dnd my neighbor was DMing and taking all the fun out of it, he was trying to show my brother and me hour to play but wouldn't let us do anything so we just gave up, this dude also bitched about us camping and using noob tunes in CoD even though we pretty much never played and he did all the time so that was the only way to level the playing field

wolfy42 posted...

I'm nice/polite but dear god, sometimes I wish I was better at just ghosting people or being blunt lol.

You're the perfect victim, always willing to be taken advantage of.

lmao your group's shit.

Accrovideogames posted...

You're the perfect victim, always willing to be taken advantage of.

Wat

Revelation34 posted...

Wat

*shhh, I'm ghosting!!!*

ooooooooooooh oooooooooooh!! *Fades away*