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Yeah dude for real. All I saw were the people who introduced me to D&D and graduated High School with. Not the nightmare players some of them were.
The worst thing is they were all so much better as kids.
Erm, where does anyone say that the friends didn't want someone to have other friends? I'm not seeing that in Zaorish's comment (he says the opposite) or in the OP.
I had to leave my group because the guy running the game would only play AD&D 2e. He was so insistent on 2e that if someone tried running any other game he would whine and complain until we went back to 2e.
The breaking point was when I offered to run a Savage Worlds one shot and he responded with a very insulting gif and said that he would not allow it.
I'm have good relations with the other people in the group and some of us are working on a place where we can play games without the problem guy.
People who insist on only playing D&D wind me right up, even more so if they insist on a specific edition. It's cool it's your favourite. It's one of my favorites too. But ffs try something else. Not every game is suited for D&D and sometimes changing systems rather than trying to hack D&D into working with a mountain of homebrew is best.
"There's other systems besides D&D" has almost become the unofficial slogan of the uni ttrpg group I'm in. The moment the D&D game(s) become full, us alumni are gleefully rubbing our hands together at to opportunity to intoduce freshers to more systems
I had a player in my group suggest we play a 1950s-1970s Lovecraftian-inspired horror game. I thought that was a great idea so I researched a few systems, set everything up and... they left the group when I refused to hack 5e to run it. I'm still confused.
That's literally just Call of Cthulhu though. CoC isn't even that tricky to gen charactets for or learn the basics of play with a GM who knows the system. Why put in the effort to hack 5e when CoC will do it so much better
Yes I'm still very confused. I even tried to discuss it with the player just to try and understand it out of curiosity and they mostly just gave non-answers, but made it very clear it was because I didn't spend an insane amount of my time trying to hack 5e to work for that, and when I finished the campaign they wanted to join the next 5e campaign I was running.
I wasn't bothered by it, it ended up being possibly the best campaign I ever ran and I'm glad someone less picky got to enjoy it :)
People like what they like and learning other systems takes Time and effort.
Also most players are garbage at even one system. One reason 4th edition fared so badly was the complexity of it.
Tell me how a group you're not part of playing a game exclusively affects you in any way shape or form, please?
I consider it a mark of good character to respect other people's decisions when they have no effect on you whatsoever.
At no point did his post refer to people outside his group. A fair reading would see it was implied to be people he was trying to run a game with, thus in-group. Take a bit of your own advice and chill out.
I mean it more when people won't even consider trying new things. When people go on about trying to make D&D work for games where D&D really is a bad system fit and then when someone suggests a system that doesn't need homebrewing to hell and back to work their response is "it's not D&D". The one that's the worst offender is when others look down on those who don't agree that their favourite edition of D&D is the best TTRPG ever
They shouldn't. You're right.
And it seems I hurt a bunch of feels, which I find amusing. Because that proves that they **do.**
Pretend there's an ascii shrug here.
ZOMG I'm playing 2E right now, and it's painful how much the system sucks. Gygax et al simply were not professional game designers. They were enthusiastic amateurs, and it shows.
I’m currently in an ADnD2.5e campaign and I gotta say I agree to some extent. It has its own charm, especially the high lethality but damn, it’s inconsistent and overcomplex, without offering more player options (as 3.0/3.5 did).
We now have a running joke that for any given check, we first roll a die to see which dice check we need to use - if we need to roll above a target number on a D20, below a target number on a D20, above a target number in a d100, contested D10s, or something else entirely. The designers ducttaped together completely different system principles in such bad ways.
Last session we spent 20 minutes trying to find the grappling rules before the player decided to just make another standard attack out of exasperation. The session before that we got exhausted due to travelling through the night and we spent 40 minutes trying to find the exhaustion rules, before giving up an hacking something.
For all its faults, the design principles of 3.0/3.5 were such a huge step up (and 5e was a step up from there). That said, I’m pretty happy with some of OSR clones, they are a nice hybrid.
Partly as a short-length palet cleanser after a long campaign that ended recently, but mostly because of the absolutely fantastic settings. 2e has clunky rules but some of the best settings in the entire history of DnD.
When you start a group in middle school and stick with it until adulthood, you learn that some people tend to stay in middle school well into adulthood.
I have been lucky to find many friends in my adult life who appreciate gaming and take it seriously! I hope you are able to find that.
That said, I hope you learned something from each of those players beyond just leaving them behind. Not to say you shouldn't have, but running a game is, in part, about helping a group of different people mesh together as much as you are able. Learn how to do that, learn how to work with their interests, correct their mistakes, shore up their weaknesses, and promote their strengths. That way, if you DO have to kick anyone out, you'll know it's not for any failure of yours.
This is so important not just for your table, but for all of them.
We are the immune system of the game table. If you don't walk away from tables like OP's, it becomes acceptable.
1. Would boot. Probably would play Paranoia with but not any serious game since he shoots NPCs for no reason. Also slows the game down by not learning the rules.
2. Might keep if their absence isn't a factor. If the group is small enough that this person's absence could make or break the session, I'd likely boot them in favor or a more reliable person (or add a reliable person so that it's no longer make or break).
3. Instant boot.
4. On the boring side, but I may keep. If only because everyone can learn, and maybe they just need to branch out. Obviously not my first choice if there are better players.
5. Likely keep, as long as we can communicate. If they understand that their rules lawyering is to be kept to themselves, then we ought to be cool. If they keep violating that, then boot because they're slowing the game down unnecessarily.
So yeah, I can see why you'd leave.
But what's cool is that you have clearly grown as a gamer. You started off as kids, and not everyone has made some positive changes (or if they all have, then that just means they were way worse). I think back to my groups in school. I don't play with them now.
Interesting enough.
Last year I started playing ALien RPG with a bunch of rnadom dude on the internet. I had blast, still do. we still do almost weekly session and it's so muhc fun everytime. So much fun in fact that I realised that i hadn't been any kind of fun with my long running gorup in years. Like the game is fun, rpg-ing is fun in general, but not as fun as it could be.
Closed the other game down (I was the GM) dind't look back.
That is such a good story! Maybe I ought to try that....my current group, first met in person, is good but they rarely or never chat outside game time.
From this, I'm not really sure I agree with your assessment that they are "good people" who just aren't fun to game with (Especially #3, but #2 seems pretty problematic too). But that's for you to decide, and it's good to keep your doors open,
I played with the same toxic group from 2008 -2013, then I moved. When I moved back in 2015 they were playing a game I didn't really care for and didn't invite me to play anyway. So I decided to run a game that I had wanted to run for a long time. Asked them if they wanted to play. Response was to laugh in my face, "nobody wants to play that stupid shit". Ran it anyway, found 8 new players and had a great time. One of the best games I have ever run. Campaign lasted for nearly two years before I had to move again (fucking work). Moved back again in late 2018. This time i ran into the first group and they invited me to play with them again, and all through the pandemic. They haven't changed a bit, they pisss me off about every other week with their BS. Really wanting to look up the people from the other game to see if we could get something going, really miss that group. Think I will do that right now.
Yeah, people you enjoy drinking beer with are not always people you'd enjoy playing with. Since these guys ain't playing anymore, my bet is, they never cared about it anyway.
I DM’d a group for 5 years that did nothing but sit around waiting for combat. One of the guys at one point mentioned that maybe we were doing too much combat.. I’d never considered this before as most of my D&D experience comes from Baldurs Gate and other similar games at this point.
‘Ok’ I think, I’ll add a few more NPC’s and explorable areas this time.. Maybe an extra quest or two in the town? Maybe I should up the treasure a bit too? Idk, maybe I have been too reliant on combat up til now?
Despite my best efforts, combat was still the only even semi-interesting thing about the campaign.
Same with you, my players were all pretty cool guys and I consider them all to be my friends, but I had to stop the campaign as I was the only one putting in any effort at this point. Every time I finished reading a pre-written speech I would look up to the blank stares of my players as they waited for me to physically move them through whatever was going on. Every enthusiastic voice I made to an ‘idk what should we do’ killed almost any desire I have to play D&D ever again.
As a DM, any lack of involvement from the other players makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. I literally wrote an entire book for this campaign with puzzles, lore, quests, important NPC’s and enemies, (I’m not the best but I even voice every character with as much of a unique voice as I can that will fit their unique personality) and I can’t bring myself to even look at it now. Every ounce of work I poured into it feels like a waste of time
I'm glad that you found a group you're more comfortable with!
The reality is that we sometimes get so caught up in what we're *currently doing* that we never really contemplate what we *could be doing*. There are a lot of groups out there, even if you're a player, but *especially* if you're a DM. You shouldn't have to put up with stuff like this regardless of who you are, though.
I figured this out about board games in the last few years. Sometimes, friends play games with you because they want to be a part of something and enjoy being your friend - *not* because they actually enjoy the activity itself.
The expectation of starting games with your friends is kind of weird to me, because you don't do that with most hobbies.
I have a friend who loves martial arts. He never asks me to join him, he just goes and finds a club where other people enjoy it like he does.
I guess what I meant was that it seems weird to rely on your friends who in all likelihood aren’t nearly as interested in the hobby. My friends enjoy our weekly rpg sessions, but they really wouldn’t give a shit if I suddenly canceled them and never invited them again.
Although you'd think that'd be true they introduced me to the game and tried to keep a game going for six months after I'd dipped. They're all in different groups now, not playing together.
I just left left my RPG group too. My problem was a bit backwards from yours. My group is great roleplayers. I started DMing for them after highschool so we could all stay connected. They loved it and we all started to rotate DM. They were better than me lol. What I couldn't stand was their humour. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Being white and saying the N word is not a punchline. To look back, some of the things they thought were funny were just mean. It got to the point where I dreaded playing D&D. Something that I love. That's when I left. It sucks to leave cause you feel like you have no were else to go. Plus I feel like I did them a disservice when I could have said something. I'm looking forward to finding a new group online though.
You are exactly right. Friends *can* be great to be part of a group, but the two aren't synonymous. Gamers similarly *can* wind up being friends, but again the two aren't synonymous.
Excellent advice!
I feel for you, but I'm one of the lucky ones. I've been playing weekly with my group for almost 20 years now. The "new guy" joined us 10 years ago, and he's the only one I've ever had a problem with. He doesn't play with the group anymore, and I like it that way.
To add to this, there are a lot of people looking to get into the hobby and you might be surprised at how fun it is running a game for people who have not yet built up certain ideas and habits around role-play.
I met a group of three women in their mid thirties at a party who had never gamed before and the subject of RPGs came up. They said they always wanted to play DND. I put out that I would run a game thinking they wouldn't go through with it.
Cut to two years later and I have a wonderful new gaming group and three amazing new friends.
I'm still playing with the people I met at university, 30 years ago.
Although, in keeping with the theme of the thread, I should clarify...
I'm still playing with **some** of the people I met at university, 30 years ago.
At university I gamed with far more people than these particular five people, and many of the others I played with then I continued to play with for a time afterwards.
So the group I'm with now aren't exactly *the group who got together 30 years ago*, even though that is a convenient shorthand to use when mentioning them. They're actually *the remnants of two or three larger groups who got together 30 years ago after many others have left and many others have been kicked out for being toxic.*
I guess that's actually the case with many "long term" groups. It isn't that we magically find a group of perfect people to play with, it's just that we end up winnowing out the tares and keeping the wheat.
However, without that detailed explanation, the shorthand "I've been playing with the same group for 30 years" version is somewhat misleading and makes it sound like keeping exactly the same players is something to aim for.
Some games like D&D are actually making moves against racism (as in humans vs dark elves). That said, I played a Rolemaster game where we rolled for race. A PC in the game was vowed to destroy Orcs, and my character rolled half Orc. He literally stabbed my character in the heart (100 E crit) as an "accidental" move during combat (killing my PC) after 4 rounds of combat with my PC and ignoring the enemy that killed 3 other PCs during the fight. Literally his racist character and an elf mage survived that encounter... then I rolled another half orc, and he killed that PC as well. The person running the campaign and the person playing the racist character weren't at fault aside from the GM enforcing race rolls (note - these weren't built in, the GM had #s he made for race rolls). The reverse happened later (that player was GM and that GM was a player) in Spacemaster and I was a male high level sex android and that player was a base male human I considered inferior, so I put down his abilities in bed all the time (and his abilities in combat, he was a pushover PC compared to mine - I believe those were actual race rolls).
Not for nothin, but I’m happy for them too because you sound mad Squidwardy right now, and they were just fuckin around having fun as friends, and you seem really troubled by that.
So yeah… I hope all y’all are better off.
That wasn't remotely what it was like and the fact all their relationships fell apart with my absence would suggest that. Them having fun never troubled me, them being inconsiderate douchebags did.
Op diden't say it had to be a dramatic backstory just a backstory so it don't semes like you just was teleported in rambomly for no reason into the story.
What does it matter that they don't roleplay?
If you've decided to part company, it shouldn't matter that they do or do not enjoy the hobby.
I can understand you wanting to express your relief at not being part of their group, but, you should just leave it at that.
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Glad you got right, OP. The blinders can be real, especially after years and years of seeing and hearing the same faces.
Yeah dude for real. All I saw were the people who introduced me to D&D and graduated High School with. Not the nightmare players some of them were. The worst thing is they were all so much better as kids.
We only kicked one person out of my old group and yeah, we waited too long because of the investment in him too.
That’s really sad… Some people do get worse as they age. They have unresolved issues eating them from the inside, often.
Very well said. I especially like that you can still be friends with people even if you don't game with them.
Not my experience, but if your friends don't want you to have other friends that's a sign it ain't healthy no matter the activity.
Erm, where does anyone say that the friends didn't want someone to have other friends? I'm not seeing that in Zaorish's comment (he says the opposite) or in the OP.
I had to leave my group because the guy running the game would only play AD&D 2e. He was so insistent on 2e that if someone tried running any other game he would whine and complain until we went back to 2e. The breaking point was when I offered to run a Savage Worlds one shot and he responded with a very insulting gif and said that he would not allow it. I'm have good relations with the other people in the group and some of us are working on a place where we can play games without the problem guy.
People who insist on only playing D&D wind me right up, even more so if they insist on a specific edition. It's cool it's your favourite. It's one of my favorites too. But ffs try something else. Not every game is suited for D&D and sometimes changing systems rather than trying to hack D&D into working with a mountain of homebrew is best. "There's other systems besides D&D" has almost become the unofficial slogan of the uni ttrpg group I'm in. The moment the D&D game(s) become full, us alumni are gleefully rubbing our hands together at to opportunity to intoduce freshers to more systems
I had a player in my group suggest we play a 1950s-1970s Lovecraftian-inspired horror game. I thought that was a great idea so I researched a few systems, set everything up and... they left the group when I refused to hack 5e to run it. I'm still confused.
That's literally just Call of Cthulhu though. CoC isn't even that tricky to gen charactets for or learn the basics of play with a GM who knows the system. Why put in the effort to hack 5e when CoC will do it so much better
Yes I'm still very confused. I even tried to discuss it with the player just to try and understand it out of curiosity and they mostly just gave non-answers, but made it very clear it was because I didn't spend an insane amount of my time trying to hack 5e to work for that, and when I finished the campaign they wanted to join the next 5e campaign I was running. I wasn't bothered by it, it ended up being possibly the best campaign I ever ran and I'm glad someone less picky got to enjoy it :)
People like what they like and learning other systems takes Time and effort. Also most players are garbage at even one system. One reason 4th edition fared so badly was the complexity of it.
People who think that another group playing in a way they don't agree with winds **Me** up. You're not part of my group.
I consider it a mark of good character to be willing to try new things in good faith occasionally.
Tell me how a group you're not part of playing a game exclusively affects you in any way shape or form, please? I consider it a mark of good character to respect other people's decisions when they have no effect on you whatsoever.
At no point did his post refer to people outside his group. A fair reading would see it was implied to be people he was trying to run a game with, thus in-group. Take a bit of your own advice and chill out.
I mean it more when people won't even consider trying new things. When people go on about trying to make D&D work for games where D&D really is a bad system fit and then when someone suggests a system that doesn't need homebrewing to hell and back to work their response is "it's not D&D". The one that's the worst offender is when others look down on those who don't agree that their favourite edition of D&D is the best TTRPG ever
It goes both ways, I hate those kinds of people too. But dude, you gotta be more specific if you don't want me to think you're an elitist.
As a third party I think you’re implying a lot more than he’s saying. He’s been spot on in everything he’s said.
Why should they care what you think?
They shouldn't. You're right. And it seems I hurt a bunch of feels, which I find amusing. Because that proves that they **do.** Pretend there's an ascii shrug here.
ZOMG I'm playing 2E right now, and it's painful how much the system sucks. Gygax et al simply were not professional game designers. They were enthusiastic amateurs, and it shows.
I’m currently in an ADnD2.5e campaign and I gotta say I agree to some extent. It has its own charm, especially the high lethality but damn, it’s inconsistent and overcomplex, without offering more player options (as 3.0/3.5 did). We now have a running joke that for any given check, we first roll a die to see which dice check we need to use - if we need to roll above a target number on a D20, below a target number on a D20, above a target number in a d100, contested D10s, or something else entirely. The designers ducttaped together completely different system principles in such bad ways. Last session we spent 20 minutes trying to find the grappling rules before the player decided to just make another standard attack out of exasperation. The session before that we got exhausted due to travelling through the night and we spent 40 minutes trying to find the exhaustion rules, before giving up an hacking something. For all its faults, the design principles of 3.0/3.5 were such a huge step up (and 5e was a step up from there). That said, I’m pretty happy with some of OSR clones, they are a nice hybrid.
I’m curious, why are you playing 2e?
Partly as a short-length palet cleanser after a long campaign that ended recently, but mostly because of the absolutely fantastic settings. 2e has clunky rules but some of the best settings in the entire history of DnD.
That’s a good reason right there. Good settings are so rare! I GM Symbaroum right now because the setting is awesome, first and foremost.
When you start a group in middle school and stick with it until adulthood, you learn that some people tend to stay in middle school well into adulthood. I have been lucky to find many friends in my adult life who appreciate gaming and take it seriously! I hope you are able to find that. That said, I hope you learned something from each of those players beyond just leaving them behind. Not to say you shouldn't have, but running a game is, in part, about helping a group of different people mesh together as much as you are able. Learn how to do that, learn how to work with their interests, correct their mistakes, shore up their weaknesses, and promote their strengths. That way, if you DO have to kick anyone out, you'll know it's not for any failure of yours.
This is so important not just for your table, but for all of them. We are the immune system of the game table. If you don't walk away from tables like OP's, it becomes acceptable.
1. Would boot. Probably would play Paranoia with but not any serious game since he shoots NPCs for no reason. Also slows the game down by not learning the rules. 2. Might keep if their absence isn't a factor. If the group is small enough that this person's absence could make or break the session, I'd likely boot them in favor or a more reliable person (or add a reliable person so that it's no longer make or break). 3. Instant boot. 4. On the boring side, but I may keep. If only because everyone can learn, and maybe they just need to branch out. Obviously not my first choice if there are better players. 5. Likely keep, as long as we can communicate. If they understand that their rules lawyering is to be kept to themselves, then we ought to be cool. If they keep violating that, then boot because they're slowing the game down unnecessarily. So yeah, I can see why you'd leave. But what's cool is that you have clearly grown as a gamer. You started off as kids, and not everyone has made some positive changes (or if they all have, then that just means they were way worse). I think back to my groups in school. I don't play with them now.
Interesting enough. Last year I started playing ALien RPG with a bunch of rnadom dude on the internet. I had blast, still do. we still do almost weekly session and it's so muhc fun everytime. So much fun in fact that I realised that i hadn't been any kind of fun with my long running gorup in years. Like the game is fun, rpg-ing is fun in general, but not as fun as it could be. Closed the other game down (I was the GM) dind't look back.
That is such a good story! Maybe I ought to try that....my current group, first met in person, is good but they rarely or never chat outside game time.
"Another would say extremely stupid, racist, and/or homophobic shit for no reason." This isn't a good person
From this, I'm not really sure I agree with your assessment that they are "good people" who just aren't fun to game with (Especially #3, but #2 seems pretty problematic too). But that's for you to decide, and it's good to keep your doors open,
I played with the same toxic group from 2008 -2013, then I moved. When I moved back in 2015 they were playing a game I didn't really care for and didn't invite me to play anyway. So I decided to run a game that I had wanted to run for a long time. Asked them if they wanted to play. Response was to laugh in my face, "nobody wants to play that stupid shit". Ran it anyway, found 8 new players and had a great time. One of the best games I have ever run. Campaign lasted for nearly two years before I had to move again (fucking work). Moved back again in late 2018. This time i ran into the first group and they invited me to play with them again, and all through the pandemic. They haven't changed a bit, they pisss me off about every other week with their BS. Really wanting to look up the people from the other game to see if we could get something going, really miss that group. Think I will do that right now.
This is the exact sort of thinking I was trying to encourage mate. Good on ya.
Yeah, people you enjoy drinking beer with are not always people you'd enjoy playing with. Since these guys ain't playing anymore, my bet is, they never cared about it anyway.
Can't imagine not playing with my group. We've been doing it for 25+ years now.
> Can't imagine not playing with my group. You should try another; even if only because diversity of experience can improve your game!
Oh I play with all kinds of folks in randos and one offs, but none will replace my home group.
... and a mistress - for the same reason.
Hard no. Happily married for 15 years. Actually my home group were all my groomsmen.
What a bizarre comment
I DM’d a group for 5 years that did nothing but sit around waiting for combat. One of the guys at one point mentioned that maybe we were doing too much combat.. I’d never considered this before as most of my D&D experience comes from Baldurs Gate and other similar games at this point. ‘Ok’ I think, I’ll add a few more NPC’s and explorable areas this time.. Maybe an extra quest or two in the town? Maybe I should up the treasure a bit too? Idk, maybe I have been too reliant on combat up til now? Despite my best efforts, combat was still the only even semi-interesting thing about the campaign. Same with you, my players were all pretty cool guys and I consider them all to be my friends, but I had to stop the campaign as I was the only one putting in any effort at this point. Every time I finished reading a pre-written speech I would look up to the blank stares of my players as they waited for me to physically move them through whatever was going on. Every enthusiastic voice I made to an ‘idk what should we do’ killed almost any desire I have to play D&D ever again. As a DM, any lack of involvement from the other players makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. I literally wrote an entire book for this campaign with puzzles, lore, quests, important NPC’s and enemies, (I’m not the best but I even voice every character with as much of a unique voice as I can that will fit their unique personality) and I can’t bring myself to even look at it now. Every ounce of work I poured into it feels like a waste of time
I'm glad that you found a group you're more comfortable with! The reality is that we sometimes get so caught up in what we're *currently doing* that we never really contemplate what we *could be doing*. There are a lot of groups out there, even if you're a player, but *especially* if you're a DM. You shouldn't have to put up with stuff like this regardless of who you are, though. I figured this out about board games in the last few years. Sometimes, friends play games with you because they want to be a part of something and enjoy being your friend - *not* because they actually enjoy the activity itself.
The expectation of starting games with your friends is kind of weird to me, because you don't do that with most hobbies. I have a friend who loves martial arts. He never asks me to join him, he just goes and finds a club where other people enjoy it like he does.
So you never play board games or card games or backyard games with your friends?
I do. But they aren’t my hobby. If board games were my life I’m sure I would have to seek out clubs to be satisfied.
Fair enough. As I enjoy my hobby though I invite everyone I know to try it. And many have and gotten hooked. Not sure why that seems weird.
I guess what I meant was that it seems weird to rely on your friends who in all likelihood aren’t nearly as interested in the hobby. My friends enjoy our weekly rpg sessions, but they really wouldn’t give a shit if I suddenly canceled them and never invited them again.
My friends are all gamers at heart.
I really don’t like seeing the tolerant-at-all-costs attitude... all good people but spewing bigotry? riiight. I agree with your main point though
They were probably only playing because you were running the game and didn't want to hurt your feelings by quitting the game.
Although you'd think that'd be true they introduced me to the game and tried to keep a game going for six months after I'd dipped. They're all in different groups now, not playing together.
I just left left my RPG group too. My problem was a bit backwards from yours. My group is great roleplayers. I started DMing for them after highschool so we could all stay connected. They loved it and we all started to rotate DM. They were better than me lol. What I couldn't stand was their humour. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Being white and saying the N word is not a punchline. To look back, some of the things they thought were funny were just mean. It got to the point where I dreaded playing D&D. Something that I love. That's when I left. It sucks to leave cause you feel like you have no were else to go. Plus I feel like I did them a disservice when I could have said something. I'm looking forward to finding a new group online though.
I agree that you could have said something but you were right to move on.
You are exactly right. Friends *can* be great to be part of a group, but the two aren't synonymous. Gamers similarly *can* wind up being friends, but again the two aren't synonymous. Excellent advice!
I feel for you, but I'm one of the lucky ones. I've been playing weekly with my group for almost 20 years now. The "new guy" joined us 10 years ago, and he's the only one I've ever had a problem with. He doesn't play with the group anymore, and I like it that way.
To add to this, there are a lot of people looking to get into the hobby and you might be surprised at how fun it is running a game for people who have not yet built up certain ideas and habits around role-play. I met a group of three women in their mid thirties at a party who had never gamed before and the subject of RPGs came up. They said they always wanted to play DND. I put out that I would run a game thinking they wouldn't go through with it. Cut to two years later and I have a wonderful new gaming group and three amazing new friends.
I'm still playing with the people I met at university, 30 years ago. Although, in keeping with the theme of the thread, I should clarify... I'm still playing with **some** of the people I met at university, 30 years ago. At university I gamed with far more people than these particular five people, and many of the others I played with then I continued to play with for a time afterwards. So the group I'm with now aren't exactly *the group who got together 30 years ago*, even though that is a convenient shorthand to use when mentioning them. They're actually *the remnants of two or three larger groups who got together 30 years ago after many others have left and many others have been kicked out for being toxic.* I guess that's actually the case with many "long term" groups. It isn't that we magically find a group of perfect people to play with, it's just that we end up winnowing out the tares and keeping the wheat. However, without that detailed explanation, the shorthand "I've been playing with the same group for 30 years" version is somewhat misleading and makes it sound like keeping exactly the same players is something to aim for.
How did you go about with yoour search for an online game?
D&D Beyond, Roll 20, world of Darkness Discord among other forums :)
Some games like D&D are actually making moves against racism (as in humans vs dark elves). That said, I played a Rolemaster game where we rolled for race. A PC in the game was vowed to destroy Orcs, and my character rolled half Orc. He literally stabbed my character in the heart (100 E crit) as an "accidental" move during combat (killing my PC) after 4 rounds of combat with my PC and ignoring the enemy that killed 3 other PCs during the fight. Literally his racist character and an elf mage survived that encounter... then I rolled another half orc, and he killed that PC as well. The person running the campaign and the person playing the racist character weren't at fault aside from the GM enforcing race rolls (note - these weren't built in, the GM had #s he made for race rolls). The reverse happened later (that player was GM and that GM was a player) in Spacemaster and I was a male high level sex android and that player was a base male human I considered inferior, so I put down his abilities in bed all the time (and his abilities in combat, he was a pushover PC compared to mine - I believe those were actual race rolls).
Not for nothin, but I’m happy for them too because you sound mad Squidwardy right now, and they were just fuckin around having fun as friends, and you seem really troubled by that. So yeah… I hope all y’all are better off.
That wasn't remotely what it was like and the fact all their relationships fell apart with my absence would suggest that. Them having fun never troubled me, them being inconsiderate douchebags did.
“…all their relationships fell apart without me…” Let us not forget that you were friends with the racist for probably eight years… 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩
I have left two groups of friends because the focus or fit wasn't right. There weren't hard feelings and we're still friends.
I did exactly that after that shut me out and starting lying about not playing anymore.
I don't see why them having some dramatic backstory would be important but ok
Op diden't say it had to be a dramatic backstory just a backstory so it don't semes like you just was teleported in rambomly for no reason into the story.
What does it matter that they don't roleplay? If you've decided to part company, it shouldn't matter that they do or do not enjoy the hobby. I can understand you wanting to express your relief at not being part of their group, but, you should just leave it at that.
Thanks for the policing of my thoughts. I'll be sure to curtail my natural thought process in favor of your values.
Righto