When Two Players Retaliated Against A Horrid DM
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story.
This DM messed with the wrong players.
This is what happens when you try to railroad your players.
If you take away their options the only options they have left is to ruin your game.
Tell us about the time you made a DM regret being “that guy”.
So, this game happened several years ago, so please forgive the story jumping around
a bit and my long winded nature.
A bit of backstory: Back in college, I joined a club that was all about games.
Board games, video games, card games, but most importantly to me, tabletop games.
I played D&D in high school and DM’d a couple of games and was excited to meet more people
who were into D&D and play it on the weekends to decompress from school.
In this “Guild” (yeah, they called themselves a Guild) there were several fantastic people
who I still am friends with to this day, but there were a lot of ‘those players’.
The star of this story was one of ‘those players’, an individual who believed himself
to be a demon, walking amongst the sheep that surrounded him.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know that at the time.
One day, I heard through the nerd-vine that a new game was starting up soon, advertised
to be a gritty, dark, and unforgiving D&D 3.5e game.
I was ecstatic, as this was my preferred edition, and I had not been a player in so long.
I was able to secure a slot and met the rest of our cast.
- The DM
- Myself: An Elf Druid and his pet wolf Truffles, ready to solve the problems of the world.
- The Warforged Soul-Knife: My closest friend, and a soft-spoken individual.
This character was a full robot from another world, sent here after a weird accident.
- The Roommates: Three other players who were the roommates of Demon, well acquainted with
his strange games, and were just along for the ride.
The game starts, and boy oh boy was I excited.
All of our characters introduced ourselves and we were made aware of our scenario.
From what I can remember, the world had seen an increase in demons, darkness, despair,
etc. and we were tasked to head to this long-forgotten ruined city to find the secrets to save the
world.
We pretty much had to get through blinding winds and scorching deserts, fighting demons
and twisted creatures to find the McGuffin.
The first few sessions were alright, roleplay amongst the party, hard fights against dune-like
sand creatures, and other demon folk.
The first issue was when Truffles unfortunately died.
We found a place of rest and I communed with nature for my Druid to ask the nature gods
to supply him with an ally against the darkness.
The DM, by this session, did not like my character’s endless drive to restore nature.
Keep in mind, the entire world is corrupted and becoming a wasteland desert and we were
tasked to, you know, end the problems plaguing everything.
The DM decided that the only creature that the Gods of nature (which were still alive
and going strong, I made sure to ask) would send me was a Demonic Hyena.
It would attack anyone and anything that would provide it meat, killing to get said meat.
No matter what I did, it would never listen to me or create the bond we were supposed
to share, it was a demon creature, the thing we were supposed to be cleansing this world
of.
This would be a point of contention moving forth, and no matter what happened, the Hyena
would never die or be in mortal peril.
We eventually made it to the outskirts of this ruined city and by this point learned
that residing deep inside was a demon that existed before the ruining of the world.
We were supposed to make it through the city, parlay with him, gain information, and move
on in our quest.
The movement through the city began, and boy oh boy was it an awful experience.
What began was what I can only describe as a horror movie cutscene.
To save on words, it was a Silent Hill hellscape.
A horrid clanging echoed throughout the City, and then we were told how we were chased through
the city by a human-like creature dragging a massive sword with a large metal prism attached
to his head.
The world changed from a normal ruin to a gory and metal-caged environment where one
would hear the endless screams of some poor unfortunate souls.
We were not allowed to say our characters were doing X or reacting like Y, the DM explained
how we took everything and how we ran like scared children.
This description went on for more than 30 minutes.
The Roommates were on their phones, used to this, and Warforged and I just looked at each
other, kind of uncomfortable.
Eventually, the script came to an end and we were in an open area and this horrendous
fight began.
Nothing hit the creature.
Every swing hit us.
Warforged took the worst of it and failed some secret Con Save (more on this later).
The only thing that finally succeeded was a Natural 20 from yours truly.
One hit.
Just one, and the creature falls down dead, its massive sword embedding itself into the
ground, hilt facing skyward.
The world goes back to normal, and we are standing in the ruined town square, at the
beginning of a long road leading to a very out-of-place and non-ruined mansion.
The Roommates IMMEDIATELY start trying to grab the sword and take it with them.
It.
Doesn’t.
Budge.
Apparently stuck into the ground forevermore.
The Warforged tries as well, to the same outcome.
Me, being kind of done at this point, just wants to move on, feeling no satisfaction
in the fact that I killed the creature.
The other players will not move on until we take this sword with us, and me being the
only one that hasn’t tried, they pressure me into attempting to pick it up.
I walk up, and the DM describes how I pick it up with one hand, 0 effort, and we move
on.
Weird, but I am just happy to get moving.
Since we have a long walk, and I am low on HP, I wild shape into a cheetah so I can walk
easier and have heightened animal sense to check for danger, a common habit for my character.
During our jaunt to this strange pristine mansion, the Warforged begins to cough.
Yup, the DM said the robot began to cough.
We get to the mansion and are greeted by the owner, this is when I was finally able to
see the crimson flag flying over the DMs head.
He described this character just like himself and introduced himself as a level 25 Demon
that was here to help us.
He diagnosed the Warforged with some kind of sickness, and that he would help him.
At this point, I revert to my Elf form, only to find out that Pyramid Head’s sword has
now melded with my body, and I have demon traits.
No save, no nothing, I am just turning into a demon-folk now.
The Demon says he can help me too and welcomes us into his home, gives us rooms and food.
The Warforged agreed to be helped by the demon, and he was led away, I decided to wait and
try and figure out what the hell is going on, cause I didn’t trust this guy at all
and didn’t want the party to be fully separated, so I waited for the Warforged to return.
What a bad decision that was.
The DM takes Warforged outside of the room to describe what’s going on, and when they
come back, Warforged looks upset and begins rolling dice.
We are informed that he is rolling up a new character.
Warforged told me later that the DM didn’t think his character fit in the game and that
Pyramid Head’s attacks inflicted a disease on him that would only affect him, and the
Demon told us that the only cure was for him to go into a quarantine chamber for some time.
Little did he know, the room he walked into was a portal out of this world, and out of
the game, permanently.
No save, no conversation, the DM just ripped his character away from him.
So, Warforged begins rolling his new stats and rolls a 16, a 10, and four 13’s in a
row.
In this group, what you roll is what you get, and the DM decides since he rolled four 13’s,
he has to play a Nezumi, a rat person.
Warforged protests, but the DM insists heavily and says he has no choice.
Warforged, being soft-spoken, quietly accepts and works on his character to join us shortly.
While the Warforged was being sent off to who knows where, my character was slowly losing
his mind, as the DM described to me since I didn’t go with the Demon, metal began
sprouting from my head, as I jump out the window into the street below, and he promptly
takes my character sheet away from me.
Since I didn’t go with the Demon, and I picked up the sword that only I could pick
up, I was now an evil NPC about to gain the job of the new totally not Pyramid Head.
The Roommates run outside to try and get me, and my character begins killing them.
During this fight, the DM asks if Warforged is done with his new Nezumi character, and
he nods, saying he is ready to join in the fight.
From several building roofs over, Warforged rolls an attack, getting a 15 on the die.
The DM proclaims that it misses, until Warforged says it’s a critical hit.
Warforged explains that he has made a sniper, using 3.5e rules, being able to roll a critical
hit on a 15 or higher, and if he confirms the critical hit, it deals 6 times normal
damage.
He rolls a second d20 to confirm, and on this die rolls a natural 20.
I am extremely happy that Warforged kills my character, and the DM is fuming.
That is until he realizes he finally has killed my character as well.
I cannot be revived as my soul is corrupted, and I am almost defeated in and out of the
game.
That is until Warforged shares a look with me that I will never forget.
Warforged just made one of the most broken characters I had ever seen, and that look
was an invitation to join him in retribution as to what was just done to us.
I began rolling dice and created what I can only describe to you as the Napalm Cleric.
My Cleric Worshiped Pelor, and was tired of the demonic and evil influence on this world.
He believed the only way to fix this world was through holy fire.
For the next few sessions, Warforged and I killed everything that was placed in front
of us.
I lit buildings on fire that had our enemies inside, Warforged was able to see and shoot
accurately from over a mile away and killed enemies before they even knew where we were.
We trusted no NPC, fearing they would just take us out to the back shed and we would
never be seen again.
On more than one occasion, Warforged and I just shared a look and declared we would be
attacking whoever we were talking to since we got a bad vibe.
This went on for about 3 sessions before the DM declared that he wouldn’t continue the
game any longer.
Epilogue: This DM would constantly invite me back to games, making it no secret that
his goal was to ‘beat me’ in playing D&D, pretty much trying to get me to quit.
It wasn’t long until most people never joined his games and very few people would invite
him to their games.
I did invite him to a couple games that I ran after this incident to try and give him
a second chance, and it ended exactly how you think it would.
I finally dropped him after I was planning on running a game starting at level 1, and
he wanted to play a level 25 Demon but he swore he would only use level one abilities.
This game lives in infamy in my table-top history.
I had never before encountered a DM this narcissistic and it seemed as though his roommates and
other people from the Guild just went along with his craziness because apparently, he
had a bad temper in real life.
I also learned that many of his regular players were also ‘those people’, but they had
just graduated the year before I arrived and he was looking for new meat.
I recognize how juvenile I was back then but regret nothing since this was the event that
led to Warforged and I being friends till this day, bonding over horrid DM’s and tabletop
stories.
If this story would happen again today, I would’ve left the table rather than indulging
in his horrid game but I would be lying if I said that ruining his game wasn’t extremely
satisfying.
I wouldn’t feel bad at all.
He got what he deserved.
Imagine just deleting someone’s character for “reasons” and then being upset when
they come back to spite your horrible game.
Good on you two and I hope you’re still gaming together.
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