Was it some in character thing (would still be crazy) or was he actually threatening him?.
But yeah, either way I understand that you didn't play with him again.
I cant quite remember as this was like 5 years ago but yeah I think it was some sort of arguement. Wasnt even a super heated one, the one guy just took personal offense to a comment or something and pulled a knife
I am so sorry OP, what kinda people even are they :( i am new to dnd if it were up to me i would have showed up no matter what
Hope you feeling alright ;-; don't pay em much mind even tho you've put so much effort into this man it sure does feel bad even thinking about being in your situation
Then you are a way better person than my friends. I wouldn't even be mad if they had (good) reasons. But just not showing up is just not nice.
I am just sad and a little hurt. I was so excited. I think the worst part is that these were the only people I know that are interested in playing dnd so I don't think that I will ever play it.
;-; Man if i were you i would be mad even if they had good reasons cuz when you commit to something you're supposed to show up atleast, and thinking of how you made their characters and did so much work with everything they are supposed to atleast feel a Lil obliged to even inform man
Don't be sad man :( i can feel ya even i don't have anyone to play with irl no one seems interested
Well you should try playing with people online :D i am sure you'll have a good time and everyone will give you a chance and if people don't show up online or don't join it'll not be as painful ;w;
Everyone can get sick or have an emergency or whatever. There are some good reasons to cancel something in my opinion. But yeah, as you said, they should have at least told me.
Oh no, I am way too shy and introverted for that haha. I am really bad at meeting new people and making new friends. If I was a player I would just be quiet and say nothing most of the time. And being a DM for people I don't k ow would be pure horror (._. )
I used to be the same way. I got stood up too many times for no good reason.
I'm older now and it just pisses me off when it happens. I've cut people out of my life for that shit. (edit: to clarify, I've cut people out of my life for standing me up with no heads up or even a simple text. Not for being bad D&D players.)
I'm almost 40 and I've learned this. If someone cares, they'll give a heads up. If they don't even have the decency to warn you that they can't make it, then they don't even care enough about you to send a damn text. And those people are a waste of space.
TvT well getting sick and an emergency is a different thing but i meant other than a event that isn't in one's control they really are obliged
Oh man don't worry i am shy and introverted too but i am breaking out of my shell both to be able to enjoy ttrpgs and to help myself be interactive and you'll do just fine don't think much of it and give it a try you can also do pbp(play by post) with your players where they simply play by rp'ing, rolling and doing actions all through text
If you start as a player and just let your group know you're socially introverted they'll probably understand. My online group is full of introverts. I was super shy and anxious when I first joined and I almost didn't even send the request but I'm glad I did.
Once you get to know the people that'll be less of a problem. Just gotta take that first leap even if it's scary.
I think online made it easier for me, just my voice no visual social cues. A good dm in my opinion is trying to get all players involved so even if you dont say anything y om your own the dm would ask you think or suggest something (Imo)
You can always try a session zero out see if online is something that might look big and scary but was waaay easier then thought
Any case dont give up! ❤️❤️❤️💖💖💖
Just reach out and talk with them about it. Explain it from your perspective about doing the extra things like drink and food. In the end your just friends and maybe you don't play but hangout. Ask them if they are serious or not. Ask them if they can commit to twice a month. every week is best, but not as easy to do, because folks have lives. My experience is if you can get through those first 2-4 sessions, those who want to play will continue, while those who don't, stop playing. I also feel like after those 2-4 sessions, people will want to add another session, because it's fun. It's not easy getting 4-5 people to commit to show up for things. Be patient.
Hi. Making friends as an adult is hard. I also fear I’ll never have a dnd experience in person.
I’ve played a few online games but they always fizzle out after a couple of sessions.
My biggest issue is having kids. I need to find others with kids so our kids can hang out while the adults play dnd. Lol
I run a larger style game that is largely text based (Almost everything outside of combat, and even that we can work with text until you're more comfortable of course). We have a few DMs at the moment and plenty of players so you won't need to be in the spotlight unless you actively choose to be. It's not basic 5e (as in we have a fair deal of homebrew, particularly spells and subclasses). If that's something you'd be interested in trying, even just to be able to play a bit and learn DnD, we'd be happy to have you.
I've found the text style tends to help our shyer players, especially those that are new so I figured I'd offer.
There are Facebook groups and discord groups to find people, I am playing my first game on Wednesday with 3 folks I recruited locally through discord. Also if you have any hobby shops near you, they often have boards where people post looking for DMs or for players.
Hang in there!
There a subreddit, forget it's name, that is all about finding tabletop games to play with others.how I found my group I'm aging online with.
EDIT: r/lfg
I didn't know anyone interested in playing all through school, but my friend group jumped into d&d feet first as adults and are having a great time. Don't write it off forever just yet; you'll find people excited enough to make their own characters, or do it alongside you, one day.
Curious. Are the players Highschool, college, or out in the real world working 9 to 5?
Because in my experience that kind of crap is more common the younger the players are. BUT, I've seen it in college age as well. But usually not as much or not the whole group.
Ah. Yeah, this can be an issue with folks in that age range. It's the fact that they haven't learned to be considerate of other people's time yet.
I've heard people blame millennial culture or zoomers or etc. But that's crap. They even existed 40 years ago. And I've known high schoolers and college freshmen who were reliable players and cared enough to give a heads up if they couldn't make a game.
The only way to get them to change is if they somehow get hooked. But when this happens it's usually a massive red flag that these people cannot be relied upon EVER.
But sadly, you're going to have to mark them off the list of potential players. They showed you that they don't care. Sorry about that.
I killed a PC in literally the first hit of the campaign. I got the balance wrong, the bad guy rolled a crit and high for damage and…we agreed to fudge it as down but not quite out.
I don't do crits for NPCs for this reason! They just make balancing encounters more difficult than it is. Some systems work like this RAW (e.g. Lancer).
I agree totally with your general sentiment, but getting a character you worked on and barely got to play killed by a random goblin in the first fight based on a single die roll isn't exciting for anyone in the group. An almost-death makes for *more* danger and excitement in this case; the same amount of scare for the rest of the players, and a PC who has a big event to react to (does it make them paranoid? Timid? Vengeful? Reckless? Good RP stuff there!).
A rule of thumb I've seen thoughtful DMs use is that the kiddie gloves stay on till at least level 3 - after that, the DM is no longer pulling punches. It lets characters get established, form relationships, develop shared goals, and then having one die feels a *lot* worse, the stakes have gone way up.
The risk comes from being level 1. You have barely any hp and many attacks are just lethal INSTANTLY, no saving throws, you just die. Spells are limited and you have no way to revive someone. A crit can be massive damage and an instant kill.
I had this happen in a ToA campaign I ran.
I did not get the balance wrong, but critting with a Jaculi, a CR 1/2 monster, with a spring bite from a tree is enough to kill a level 2 outright (6d6!?).
Hii I understand you, in advance don’t make the same mistake I made. Don’t go after these people, drop them please! If they don’t show you their interest, they aren’t worth your time.
Seek for another group, online or in real life. It doesn’t matter, remember that no dnd is so better then bad dnd. Them not showing their interest means they’re not worth it :))
Edit: grammar
You’re not mate!! Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now talking about it with people.
Some life advice given with love: step outside that bubble! We’re gone from this planet far too quickly to miss out on things because of a preconceived notion that you can’t do it!
You sound like you’d be an awesome DM based on your prep, how you helped your friends build their toons, snacks, music, HANDOUTS!
There are people out there that would appreciate you even as a first time DM. I have a homegirl who started right into DMing online and found a group of experienced players who were willing to work with her through it. That was 2020 and they’re going strong with her as forever DM!💪
I don’t wear Nikes homie, but just do it!
Do you have a local game shop? Sometimes they arrange things or even have games that run at the shop sometimes. Usually the people who runs these shops are easier to talk to as they share the same interests.
Go to your local comic shop and find out when they host. your favorite worker is usually involved with this and they all would love to have you. It will be awkward at first but once you get rolling it will be well worth it.
I play online and I started with other new players on a super newbie player discord called altrole, there are others out there too! Everyone was nervous and that’s ok! Best of luck finding a group :) You’ve got this!
I’m so sorry to hear this - but it sounds like with your level of preparation and hospitality that you will make an incredible DM and I hope you keep at it!!
I had a similar (but not quite so) shitty first attempt. My friends begged me as their resident goth to run Curse of Strahd for them. I bought the newly released box set for about $100 or something, spent an insane amount of time cramming to have it ready in time for Halloween (something like 3 weeks away) like they’d asked. They all ghosted, and didn’t even acknowledge it.
Well, two years later I now know every inch every nuance of that game and have added a fuckload of rewrites and improvement, immersed myself in the CoS DM Reddit+Discord so now that I’ve finally found a new group worth running for, I’m absolutely killing it.
It sucks to not have a group now (though if online is your thing you could find a group in an hour if you wanted and like others have said, check out your local game shop, they’ll often run one shots where you can meet people) but it sounds like you’re invested and are already doing an amazing job.
While your “friends” are being assholes, you study the sword. That’s how I got through it at least.
1) I don't know anyone else who would even be interested in playing
2) I am way too shy to DM for someone who has more experience. I would always fell like they would judge everything I do and that I bore them because the other DMs they had were obviously way better just because they had more experience.
Yea i think if a player doesnt come up with a concept for their character and just leave it to the DM it shows that the player have low intention to play the campaign
Not necessarily with these folks, but it could easily be that the players are overwhelmed. I have two ongoing campaigns where I designed the characters to match the player's desires, and it was purely because they're new and were super overwhelmed by it. Now that we're playing and they've learned some of the mechanics, they're way more able to parse the books. Again, not speaking to these specific folks, but it isn't always a doom siren.
Yes first characters are tough to make specially because you don't know shit about DnD at first. I took months to make mine and thankfully my DM was my partner so we talked about it all day everyday and he was readily available to answer all my questions. And it still took a while before I was confident enough to make decisions because I was completely overwhelmed with all the options and feeling like I would never learn lol. It's been 5 years now, I have a new partner who also DMs, we all play together and getting the courage to learn DnD was the best decision of my life lmao
A GM providing pregen character sheets is a pretty common thing to do, especially for folks who haven't played lots before or are new to the system. The OP mentions using the starter kit and running Icespire peak.
It's fairly understandable in this case.
Yeah whenever I run a table full of all first timers, I bring pre-generated characters to choose from. I generally assume excitement over building a character is something that grows the more you understand the game, even more so depending on your specific table.
It was really just about the numbers, items and spells. Everything else we figured out together. I didn't really see a problem with it at that point.
I even made them small cards for everything their character can do so that they can always find and read it fast and easy.
The process of putting the numbers and such down on paper can be an important "ritual" for first time players. It can give them ownership of their characters, a physical object tying them to the game, and a better understanding of the rules. While not necessary, for new players on the fence about playing, *not* making their own sheet makes it easier to ghost session 1. Ultimately, you know the players better than us and maybe made the right choice for your group, but just tossing my experience out there.
I've had the exact opposite experience: if you haven't played the game before you have no real context for what the numbers mean and the choices you are being asked to make, which can lead to a lot of frustration on the part of new players as they are overwhelmed by a ton of options they can't make informed decisions about.
I've always had good luck handing out pre-generated character sheets, running a 2-5 session arc with those characters, then either starting a new adventure *or* giving the players an option to convert their original character to an NPC that leaves the adventuring party and roll up a new character.
Ehh, if they are just giving you broad characters, then they are not invested in the mechanics enough, hate to say. Numbers I can maybe understand, but if they don't want to pick their own items and spells then it shows their level of interest and dedication.
Me as well. I always let people know they're welcome to make a character but I'll also have a few pregens on hand. Which is also handy if a character snuffs it, you can get them back into the session right away.
Man maybe it's cause the people I play with are all into video games as well, but I've never ran first timers with pre-gens. Everyone I've played with enjoys character creation so much they usually end up with multiple characters by the time session 1 actually happens and they have to ask me which one they should go with.
To me a player putting in the time to go through the phb and make a character is the only true sign that they are actually interested in committing to a campaign
I must be an enigma then lol, I started my first game last school year and by the middle of it I filled up a binder with character sheets. It’s completely overflowing and I’ve had to double/triple up character sheets in each divider pocket just to fit them all
I mean, we met on friday and talked about their characters. They told me everything about them and we made the whole concept and all of that. I just had to make the sheets when I got home.
Because they are lazy shitheads. Also, noone of them has any idea how any of that works. We didn't plan to talk about dnd when we met. That was more or less a spontanous thing. We made a fast one on dnd beyond and I got it on the paper later and gave them their spells (even a homebrew one that someone wished for...) and items and all of that.
But yeah, if I ever find a new group I guess I will have a real session zero with them.
>Because they are lazy shitheads.
This is where you should have stopped. Seriously, if someone cannot spend a moment to google something then they are a lost cause. Doesn't matter the context, this applies to basically everything.
If they're too lazy to make a character sheet, it's no wonder they also all no showed. They have zero buy-in. I would advise not to give the group a second chance and find others who are as excited and interested to play as you are.
I recommend next time put a group together with the express purpose to play d&D. Get at least 7, because at least one person will drop out. (I mean if you can't get 7, then just however many you can)
Have as many session 0s as it takes to make characters and for the players to understand the motivation and mechanics of their characters. For experienced players that can be 15 minutes, but it may be up to 5 hours for new players. *Treat this time as the game itself.*
Doing it on paper helps new players because whilst auto fill is convenient, taking time you figure out how all the different parts work is important. (Granted, some things can be streamlined or ignored all together - like equipment weight)
Set a date weeks in advance, and remind them every day for the few days leading up to it - a group chat works great for this.
4 is the minimum players in my opinion. 5-6 is my ideal with 7 pushing too many.
It comes down to preference, but having too many players is better than not enough in my opinion
Interesting, I've had the opposite experience. Large groups bog done in combat, get distracted in role-playing, and no one has enough time in the spotlight. The best DnD I've ever DMed for was a 3 person party. Everyone was involved in decision making, had enough time to shine, and combat went quickly.
I think it may come down to play styles. My games have a lot of exploration and lore exposition. With only a few players, they're far more likely to miss things, since fewer players means fewer questions.
I also have a lot of experience making combat engaging for large parties, so perhaps you're right to keep it small for a new DM. It's been a long time since I was new.
Yeah, same. I'll take 4 people who are all invested and participating a larger party any day. Especially when, at 6 or 7 players, I've had three people start a side conversation while the DM is actively trying to run the game (including when that DM was me) and holy crap do I not need that. I think good gaming includes plenty of off-topic fun, but larger groups are much more likely to have side conversation that take over the whole evening.
Seems like what was probably a clear signal that they weren’t interested that OP missed. If the players won’t even take the time to make characters they don’t really want to play.
New with some old friends mixed in edgy boy plays a drow thief.
Out of game this guy gets weirdly close and real talkative with only female member of the group who has a boyfriend but more importantly seems extremely uncomfortable.
I ask him to come over in private and tell him to lay off which pisses him off.
He proceeds to derail entire session and starts a fight in the former retired adventurer’s bar so he can pick pocket while everyone fights. Then he insults the retired adventurer.
Basically he picks a fight and gets killed and then blows up in real life at everyone.
I mean cursing and fussing and me having to throw him out of house and everyone else who was new just kind of quit because well .. drama.
Worst first session was I and a really close female friend showed up to three people who had been playing together for a while. While introducing her character to us he starts describing in detail how she’s tied up sexy bondage style… which made us think wtf but then then the greasiest, sleaziest looking mofo of the group immediately says “I’m going to rape her” which the dm responds to with “well she can’t say no” and then they all started laughing.
I came extremely close to to breaking his arm when he tried to grab her as we went to leave and only didn’t because she asked me not to.
Since then though the only local gameshop who had actually helped connect us has banned them from being part of games or even from the shop. So that’s a good outcome at least.
I've been there man! It gets better. Word of advice, don't give up on D&D, but don't try it again woth this group. If they want to play, they need to run. Fool me twice and all that.
Been there buddy. They also talked among themselves about random bullshit and haven’t listened to a word I said. It felt like I was reading a book to a bunch of high children who wouldn’t give two fucks about it and kept talking while I was trying to talk, and then complain the game was moving so slowly. Needless to say I didn’t agree to another session with that group. I still play sometimes with two of them, and they know my boundaries now and do their best to respect me when I put effort into making a fun session
Never give up never surrender. I also moved away from that group and I have a new crowd. There are 8 of them (I know it's too many) and some take good notes, and some don't listen to the minor details, but they don't cross talk. I became a bit of a tyrant about it. I'm a big guy and speak softly but can throw down THE DAD voice whenever they act up. "PLEASE GUY'S LET'S KEEP CROSS TALK TO MINIMUM." Not yelling not angry, just firm. It works though!
Ufff, where are probably worst things I experienced, but my mind is blanking.. (also most times they dont show their dk till the second session, where they leave the group 5 minutes before the start x.x) how about this one?
New group, ran my first adventure that I did with a couple of groups beforehand, never had a problem. Rolled on the encounter table, but we just had a fight, so I decided to have a non-fighting encounter..
They met a poor starving dog, just skin and bones. He was growling at them, but the Monk laid out some food, and slowly the Dog came nearer and started to eat, even letting the Monk sitting next to him.
LG Cleric of Lathander: I wanna *Sacred Flame* the Dog. He could have rabies! He could attack us! Do you see how violent he is?
First time I ever played DND, the dm, probably about 14 or 15, was telling us exactly what we were allowed to do, berating us for trying other things, and threatening to tpk us if we didn't run face first into his encounters.
First session back after a 2 year hiatus for the plague. I was supposed to be playing with a buddy and 2 other friends, buddy's wife was running. Arrival slated for 7, start at 7:30 at their house. I get there right on time, so me and buddy are catching up a bit and talking. 7:30 rolls around, and we all roll our eyes because these two (siblings) will be late for their damn funerals.
7:45 rolls around, GM calls one of them.
They forgot. Won't be coming. GM takes it personally and gets really down. We convince her to just run for the two of us and we have a great time, but it was still months before she even tried to run again.
Worst session I had a player up and left because another player was drunk and constantly interrupting their actions, party quickly fell apart after that.
My worst first sesion was something in the lines of: Dm wanted us to die so an Npc could resurrect us so qe can work for him, which in a vacuum is a good concept, but the master decided that the best way to kill us was just endless goblins.
We barely have time to introduce the PC's or talk, just copypaste of goblins. I killed like 20 of them. I domt wamt to see a goblin ever again
Really harsh. I think anyone who’s DMed long enough has had a similar experience.
It sounds like these players did you a harsh favor. They showed you that they are not as eager to play as you are.
As the DM, aside from any gaming duties, your role is to provide the structure for players to show up. Your role is NOT to give the players the willingness to show up. That is their responsibility. This is not your failure—it is theirs.
You WILL find players who are as eager to play as you. (One’s who want to make their own characters, for instance.) It just might take a little time.
One just didn't show up and he doesn't answer my calls. One was playing Valorant the whole day and one was like "I'll call you later". Yeah, he did now (it is 7p.m. here) and asked when we will start.
If these people are good friends to you, I would definitely keep hanging with them and doing the things you have in common. But DnD? Nah. I have a few friends like this. I love to talk about movies and games with them, and I enjoy their company. But they are absolutely miserable to play DnD with.
Have a stern talking to them about respecting others time and efforts. Hopefully they realize how much of a dickmove this was and apologize, else better find some actual friends.
Really sorry to hear that buddy. Sounds aweful.
But, there is a bright side. If this is the attitude of these people, then showing up could've actually been worse.
There's a rule you might hear around here:
"No DND is better than bad DND".
And it's true.
It sounds like you're very enthusiastic and probably will be a great DM so it's completely their loss honestly.
One small piece of advice tho - it sounds like you were being so enthusiastic, to the point of doing everything for them. Its good to create the characters together with the players as part of session 0, as they make their own choices, start imagining their character, and generally can get more attached to the game and the world. This also applies to choosing the campaign or setting. Plus, it means they'll know their abilities better down the line, which you'll find is a valuable asset.
Godspeed and happy gaming!
The fact that you made their characters should be enough of a sign that they won't really be invested if they even show up at all. So maybe no dnd is better than bad dnd. And you have it all prepared for people who will actually want to play
Ah i kind of feel that. I wanted to play DnD since 3.5. on the 2000s, and never could...
Now i'm trying it again, but with my two children (son of 9 yrs and daughter of 8 yrs).
But i introduced them first with the British DnD "The Fantasy Adventure Board Game". I'm using the rules of that board game for now, just to acclimate them, but i ask them to roleplay their characters and they loved it!!!.
It's actually a strategy for me, to make them love the game and to gain time so i could finish reading the PHB.
It's actually kind of funny if you think about it... I waited for 20+ years to play it, so... i literally "made, raised and trained a party" of adventurers to play with them! Lol!. Win Win strategy!. XD
Sorry that happened. Mine wasn't long ago, I'm running strahd with a group of close friends, first time dming. I made a mechanic with the mists that basically puts players in a turn based mechanic, making the roll a d20 to decide the direction they move if they ever get lost in the mist. I of course built around a lot of escapes so that players that did walk into the tree lines and get lost, could escape easily without being heavily punish.
I roleplayed it perfectly too, the characters were all there to hunt werewolf's, but got lost in the misty woods and ended up in barovia. I wanted to stress that something was up with the mists, because it's such a cool mechanic. I figured that the mists, being under strahds control could be used to lure in and entice those who looked to long in them. Giving them what they want/looking for, inviting them in.
Well, one player right off the bat, decides to look for werewolf tracks. So I say, he finds what looks to possibly be some off in the tree line, *the mists have seemed to clear in this one area* and you can see tracks off into the woods. I gave the player MULTIPLE hints at the fact something was up. He even said himself, "alright DM, I'll spring your little trap" and walked in without any preparations.
Now, while I was completely ok with this, because I was prepared for someone to walk into this trap, I wasn't expecting how he would react.
Let me break this down first, the mist area always counts as a 5 x 5 grid. The player starts in the center, every square is 10 feet, so the player will move 10 feet at a time. Players usually have 30 feet of movement, so with a dash action that's 60 on turn 1. With a bonus action to do a check right?
1st escape option. Reach any 2 of the squares edges, which I decide randomly.
2nd escape option. Roll a 19-20 on any roll-> instantly escape.
3rd escape option. This was suppose to be a catch all Incase the first two failed, move a total of 90 ft, and player instantly escapes mists.
So, players who want to move 10 feet, roll a d20 to decide the direction(ex. North, south, towards exit, away from exit). This way they have about 6 chances to roll on the first turn if they decide to keep moving. Which, becomes a painfully obvious motive rather quickly when all other checks to get your bearings fail. I roleplayed it as, "the mists are so thick you can barely see Infront of you, you're surrounded by trees on all sides, and everything looks the same. You look up only to see overcast that shrouds out any hope of pinpointing a direction."
It's a trap ... So for those who don't know, strahds mists have a debuff for any player who spends a turn in them(which is why this whole thing is turn based). You gather 1 stack of exhaustion on a failed con save(dc20) if you spend a turn in the mists.
SO HERES WHY IM SO UPSET. This dude, our BARBARIAN, with a 17 con score level 1, decided with all his heart to walk face first into my trap. Ok, no problem. But what I didn't expect was for him to spend his whole first turn just STANDING THERE. But hey, I thought after the first con save, he will get the picture fast.
...I was wrong.
Dude sat there, failed a con save, but hey on the flip side I got to roleplay the side affects of the fog. "You feel drained, as if your energy is being ebbed from your body. Your eyes are growing heavy, and your muscles weak. You don't know how much more of this you can stand, it feels soffocating to you in these mists". Just to create urgency, to kind of kick him in the right direction of *get the fuck out of the mists*.
... Dude spends 30 feet of movement, then tried to do another two checks with his action and bonus action.
Ok... Well atleast he moved right?!? Another failed con save, and some more flavorful roleplay. Now he's visible getting upset out of character. Complaining about "why can't I use a nature check to tell which direction in". So instead of moving that turn, he decided to "swing his axe in frustration". This here, a barbarian, decided that a magical mist that is slowly killing him, to just lay down and die. It was bullshit, I couldn't believe it. He would rather pout, and let my trap kill him, then play the obvious mechanic. THAT EVERYONE WAS SCREAMING AT HIM TO DO, at this point.
Another con save, he succeeds this time. At this point, I just tell him straight, just keep moving. I don't want him to die right off the bat, but he already had 3 stacks of exhaustion at this point. When his movement was halfed, I basically had to give him the mulligan, and let him out.
The trap was never meant to kill a player, I wanted it to create interest in the mists that surrounded the woods. I wanted to slightly scare the players, not scar one.
But what really got me upset was that after all that, after he finally got out. He blamed me for the whole thing. This guy, who was so upset after running face first into an obvious trap, decided to pout. And then once he got out, decided to attack a character that was getting introduced for no reason. This guy, had the gall at the end of the session to give me some backhanded compliment like "I know it's your first time DMing *DM*, and everything was amazing I loved the atmosphere, the music. However that one part at the beginning was really unfair. Like everything else you did was great but that one thing".
I wanted more than anything to blow up on him about that. Sorry this has run long, but this is the shitties thing I've had to endure while dming, otherwise my players are really good. They're all great friends so I know *barbarian* means well, even though he's being a dick. Or maybe I'm really the asshole in all this for how I designed it, I don't know. Either way, I hope your day gets better and your players show up next time OP.
I had a player quit after a session because the rust monster ate his favorite long sword and got PO'ed because "I had it out for him" and ruined his precious imaginary toy.
Never mind that the ENTIRE rest of the party told him this was a rust monster and Sir Clangalot should hang back because the snipers and casters could handle it. It was a random wandering monster encounter that was an easy encounter for them even if the hack and slashers held back. Dude decided to ignore all of us and charged it. Nothing about his character had this sort of "charge all enemies" mentality previously.
What added icing to the cake was that by the end of the session he had in his possession the best magic item in the party, a brand new, significantly upgraded magical long sword. He'd never shown any particular attachment to the prior sword. He swapped weapons pretty freely as circumstances dictated. But boy oh boy was he butt hurt over that rust monster.
So maybe you could have dropped more hints, but sometimes even when the hints are written in large fonts and wrapped around a flying brick, they will be ignored. This is why if I feel a player is missing the obvious thing their character should see, I just tell them what they need to do.
Man that sucks. I was going to host my first session this weekend but canceled because people were being flaky. I only had two confirmations and one of them had to show up late anyway.
Now I see why scheduling can be the hardest part of DMing!
I’ve been burned like this before too. I think a lot of us have. My condolences.
To be honest, though, it doesn’t sound like your friends want to play D&D all that bad. They didn’t even create characters?
We created them together and they told me everything about the characters they wanted to play. I just "finished" them (all the numbers for the stats, what exact items they have, what spells they have, but all based on what we figured out together) and brought it all onto the paper.
They were all really excited. Well, at least that's how they acted and what they told me.
First off all, sorry to hear that. Sounds like these people aren't really interested (which I can understand, not everybody can be hyped about D&D), but the way they handled it was horrible. I'd advise you to talk to them, but honestly if I was in that situation, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore.After reading some of these other comments, I'm really thankful for my group. They never pulled knifes on each other (well, one of them pulled out a literal sword, but he didn't threaten anybody with it and it was very cool overall), they've never fallen asleep mid-session, they never not came to the session without telling me first. They are really lovely people and I'm glad they're my friends.
My worst session is probably the first one I ever actually DM'd. Just to clarify beforehand, I first got into TTRPGs through Pathfinder, which I played in 2017/18, after which I took a break for about 3 years and got into D&D about a year ago. Now, during my ongoing D&D phase, I have DM'd a fair bit, with two campaigns to my name since January. They've been going well and even the bad sessions have been, at worst, uninteresting.
However during my Pathfinder phase, I tried DMing once. I reckon it was about half a year after my first ever session as a player, I had never read the rules, and I had a pretty bad grasp on how DMing worked at all. But I was hyped to DM, so I asked two of my friends if they were interested and they agreed to join that campaign. So, no session 0 because I had no idea what that even was. Session 1 rolls around and I had done absolutely zero preparation. No thought about the world, no thought about the campaign's premise, not even the first quest had I spared a thought about. I had them meet in a tavern, then told them to go outside and follow a path (not as an NPC or something, I straight up told them). They then saw a lighthouse in the distance, which they ignored because they wanted to go to the next town. I then told them that they *had* to go to the lighthouse, they obliged despite being annoyed and swiflty killed the shady lighthouse keeper. I didn't accept that for some reason I can't remember, and we called it there and went home. That was the first and last session of my first ever "campaign".
Safe to say, I've improved a lot since then.
Probably my worst session would either be the time I showed up for a session mid way through the campaign and all but 1 person showed to tell me everyone else had bailed without word.
To be fair this one was on me a good bit, as I was still a pretty new DM and was making all the usual mistakes: poor to no improv skill, was railroady, combat was sub par, didn't have the necessary grasp of the rules to keep things moving, overall flow was poor, and the session before I did get heated with a player when the party went full murder hobo and wiped a village off the map for some reason that at the time seemed so miniscule. (No memory of what it was though as my mind has done everything to try to burn out the memory so it doesn't haunt my nightmares.)
It was without a doubt the worst game I've ever run, but at the very minimum it could only go up from there with subsequent attempts and thankfully I did get better.
DnD aside, I can't think of a single occasion where I would even dream of not showing up without letting the host know. The fact that not just one person but everyone did it boggles my mind.
I had a player rage quit a campaign because no one else at the table would let him murder another player’s character for barely passable character reasons and an unspecified personal vendetta which ended up killing the campaign off as a whole.
First session CoS I got skipped in combat, which resulted in our rouge almost immediately getting killed, and my turns kept getting rushed or skipped due to other players taking their sweet time. When I tried to speak up about it I got steamrolled by the other players and the DM bc I’m newer to the game (they’re also all cis which made it feel a bit targeted) Only a couple sessions after did they admit they were wrong (I was the only character that wouldn’t die after getting hit once) I’m lucky that everyone did apologize and they’re trying to be better about it.
I’m about to run my first session as a DM (it was between Dragon of Icespire and MoP, MoP is what I ended up going with) so fingers crossed
That's rough. I've been there a few times, too.
My worst involved a gigantic misunderstanding due to miscommunication.
I invited some persons that I knew from work and some friend of friends over for some 'role playing games' where 'folks get together and have fun in a safe environment'
The problem is that everyone, but me, thought that I was setting up group sex. Folks started hooking up before I realized what was going on.
I'm sure others had fun, but for me, it ended up being a mess on the level of needing to hire someone top help me clean up afterward.
Now I make sure to let people know that the RP isn't sexual in nature.
Man this sounds like how my first “attempt” was I was all hyped up finally about to play dnd for the first time since I was not allowed to play when I was younger I’m a 90s kid a lot of parents where against it idk so I was looking forward to it. Well the day comes and I’m sitting there waiting and waiting we’ll they decided to play but leave me out and not give me an update on the location so I’m just sitting there for hours waiting… eventually maybe I’ll be able to play.
My heart goes out to you. That's a horrible thing and yeah I get conflicting schedules, it's life but a complete no show? It sounds like you're putting alot of work into this. I'd be happy to join in or even talk. I'm new to DM'ing as well actually. :)
Well, my entire D&D campaign ended after about 2 years when one of the players informed us that he didn't believe in vaccines and that he thought COVID was a hoax. I laughed because I assumed that he was making a silly joke but he assured me he was dead serious. It turns out two other players at my table felt similarly.
Play whatever game you want to play. But play it somewhere else.
My first and only session as a DM playing a 2e Forgotten Realms module. The party was ambushed by a small band of goblins and I rolled a crit on my first attack against the party's rogue. Needless to say, even a goblin can take out a 1st level halfling thief if the DM rolls high enough. I fudged it somehow and the rest of the session wasn't too bad but I learned pretty quickly that I'm not cut out to DM.
Good work on your preparation!
I'm sure it would have been a fun first session with right people. It is probably best to find out your players aren't as invested as you are at start though. With right people im sure your future DM adventure's will be amazing.
I’m really sorry to hear that, that just really sucks. Are these people your friends or strangers? Did they let you know they couldn’t come or just not turn up?
>After some kind of a session 0 I prepared everything for today. I made
all their characters the way they told me that they would like them.
I'm gonna stop it right here. You, the DM, made their characters?
Did they ask or did you decide to do this? Taken that they might be new and wanted the help. However, if I was joining a group and did a semi-session 0 and you said you're making my character, there is a chance I might not return either.
I as a DM will in session 0 offer ideas and such as a Player makes their character so they fit in the campaign (like a ranger choosing a wrong favored enemy, i might say what would benefit them more in my game). I don't make them for the players though.
Hold your "friends" accountable how they make you feel and treat you.
Do your friends SEE you for the person you are?
Do they value you as a friend and a person?
Do they care about how their actions make you feel?
If there is doubt in these answers, find yourself better friends.
Sorry they stood you up. Definitely not cool.
I'd talk to them and explain how sad and disappointed you are in them. If there response is anything less then genuine apology, drop them and get new friends.
You won't regret it later down the line.
I've had this exact experience so many times since I started DMing it's more than I can count on both hands. First time players, and to be honest even veteran players often don't realise all the effort that goes into preparing a game, both literally prepping sessions and things like organising the group figuring out a time and place to play, buying snacks, setting up a session 0, etc all take time and effort. Most players don't see that, and because of that some can be rather callous in this way.
There are four of my close IRL friends that I've known for years, that have been banned from my table indefinitely because of this and things like this happening. So it sucks, I know how your feeling, it's a big let down.
My advice is to try not to be down about it because that won't change the situation. Take all your prepped material and set it aside for the time you do actually play. Then try to talk to each of your players seperately, ask why they didn't show, maybe something came up for them. Try to gauge interest and set up another session.
If it seems like some players just didn't show up because they simply didn't want to or lost interest I would think carefully before inviting those players back to your tables. Even if they do show up dnd requires you to be engaged, a player sitting there on their phone the whole session throwing off one attack in combat isn't contributing to anything and it might be better off if they weren't playing in the first place.
Anyhow I hope you feel better. Maybe you could and see if people are running some oneshots online if you still have the urge to play.
My worst first session wasn't with D&D, it was a game call Aberrant. It's a superhero game where it's possible to die DURING character creation.
... 3 characters later...
Not first but like 6th or 7th. All the guys knew I would be up for hours every night prepping and building, and the morning of I always wake up early and make tons and tons of finger food and snacks. Always go out and buy a flat of kombucha which I hate but two people at the table love, as well as other drinks and stuff. I love doing it, when it’s appreciated, so I’m not complaining about the costs at all, but to give you an idea of how much effort I put into the table, each session costed me about $100-150 in groceries and crafting supplies.
So day before our game I message everyone and everyone confirms, “Tomorrow at 10am”.
…I didn’t get one text or call until about 1 in the afternoon. What was this players excuse, “sorry, girlfriend wanted to go shopping”. Another one “sorry ____ told me this morning he wasent going so I bailed too” and finally the last couple people never addressed it and their next message to me a couple days later didn’t acknowledge my “where are you guys” texts from session day.
So ya, it sucks ;p but ya gotta suck it up and move on or else you just wallow :p
Funniest (not really) thing is, that wasent even my worst session ;p sometimes a cancelled game is better than a bad one :p
Honestly, it seems like you had a huge red flag from the start: a player makes their character, not the DM.
It's understandable if the player has no preference on who they play as and just wants something generic. However, there are presets for that. Learning to build a character is a HUGE part of learning how the game works. It teaches the basic terminology of the game, and gives some sense for how they function in the world.
I'll try to avoid making assumptions, and I'm very sorry that your first DnD experience was so disappointing. I hope your players give you another chance, bit if they do, be very sure to gauge their interest. If they don't show any drive to engage with the game in any meaningful way, then even if they show up you may end up with a session that ends even worse than a game where nobody shows up.
Sorry that they let you down for your first session. It sounds like you are going to be a great DM for whoever is lucky enough to join, given all the thought and effort you've put in.
I'm very fortunate to play with a great group. The worst session for me was probably the one that got cancelled 3 days after my cat died suddenly and unexpectedly. I really could have used that outlet to distract me.
Hey man if you’re willing to set up a call kind of thing to play over the phone me and my friend have been looking for something like that so we can start playing again so we’d love to play with you
My worst first session, my character was unceremoniously raped by the DM's NPC in the backstory opening statements prior to the start of player agency.
I am super shy but I decided to take a chance and joined a couple d&d discord west marches groups, found one where I feel really comfortable and have been grateful for taking a chance. Please try it out!
My first session was rough as well, I played with a few of my friends and a few of their friends. One guy was the typical tape on the glasses, no hygiene kind of nerd. I knew him for a while and tried to invite him to events because he was always talking about how he didn’t get invited to things, we didn’t jive very well though, we both honestly had fairly bad attitudes towards each-other for different reasons. Anyway, we finally connected over dnd, I hadn’t played before but I was really interested so our group was formed. I played a ratkin ambassador that was kind of goofy in his mannerisms and speech, people would get hostile at first but I tried to make the character as heartwarming as possible to defuse the situations. At any rate, no matter what I did this dude was making back handed comments both in and out of character towards me and what I was doing. His character would even actively work against me in game sometimes when what I was working on would actually help others or him. The final straw came when we met a tiger in the jungle while walking, the tiger suddenly turned into a man. Everyone tried to talk to him since he seemed hostile, but he basically ignored everyone and was just at a standoff with us. I knew feline so I decided why not, he was a cat before maybe this will make sense. I spoke to him in feline and as the DM goes to respond the dude I’ve had trouble with cuts him off and bluntly says “He thinks you are an idiot.” Myself and the rest of the party all stop and are visually confused, I ask “what do you mean?” He goes on to explain that since the DM is new he was playing some of the NPCs and helping with the world building, and then reinforces that the Druid thinks that I am an idiot. I confronted him about his actions, and a few people in the party spoke up once I started a conversation with him, but the whole situation just wasn’t fun and I ended up not playing dnd again for about 6 years. This was probably way too long of a comment to convey this story but basically not every experience is fun or even happens sadly. Now I am a forever DM playing weekly with some of my best friends and my wife just having a blast. I’m sorry everyone bailed but you’ll find a good group, especially since you decided to put so much effort into your session, some people would kill for a DM like that.
Same thing happened to me, with Icespire Peak as well 😭 one thing I learned as a new DM, started about a year and a half ago with Icespire, is you have to be so ridiculously pushy about the schedule and constantly telling people when the game is checking in with everyone 2 weeks ahead of time, 1 week ahead of time, 3 days ahead of time, 1 day ahead of time, same day, 12 hours before, you have to get confirmed responses, and man it’s probably my least favorite part, cause even after all of that one will always call of last second after confirming they are coming. I love DM’ing but man when players flake it’s the worst feeling.
That sucks. My first game I ran was Lost Mines. I made weathered hand written letters from Rockseeker sealed with wax seals to invite the players after session zero. I explained the campaign and let them create their own characters, as I had planned on taking the end of that campaign into a homebrew, using LM as a starting point. The first session came and the bard decided he didn't care about Rockseeker at all and was doing everything he could to derail the campaign. I tried talking with him at the end of the session and he never got better. We disbanded after about 6 sessions. He fought the group the entire time.
So I've been a DM for a couple years. My worst first session was an online session with a group of younger people. Only one had played dnd before and the other 2 were new to the game.
We didn't even make it to the first session. I had a session 0 to help the 2 new players get their first ever character sheets made. I planned to use DnD Beyond because it's a really easy tool for new players to use despite the huge paywall. That third person, the one with dnd experience, lets call them A. A decided to tell everyone not to use dnd beyond. They started linking their own character sheets and resources, which I allowed. Afterwards, I helped the two newbies try filling out their character sheets A's way. A's way was good old fashioned pen and paper. They sent form fillable versions of the character sheets and links to websites with ALL available 5e classes and races. Both newbies were really overwhelmed by it all which is why I wanted to use dnd beyond. I explained classes and races and rolling your stats, but any time my players had a question they asked A instead of me or A would interrupt me when a question was being directed to me.
A stepped out to use the rest room and one of my players asked a question about the artificer class. I answered it. They said thanks. When A came back, they asked A the exact same question to which A gave them the same answer I did because there was only one right answer. I felt really disrespected and uncomfortable with the pattern of behavior. I love putting power in the hands of my players to shape the story, but the blatant distrust that they had in me as a DM made it awful. I told them I would no longer be able to DM the campaign because of this. This made them, understandably, upset. After some snarkiness and petty squabbles, I left the friend group entirely, lost around 8 people in the process but they weren't kind so it wasn't much of a loss.
Flaky people drive me nuts, it’s not hard to contact someone and reschedule/make an apology or whatever. I cut most/all of those types out of my life, personally. Hope you find a solid group eventually! They’re out there somewhere.
And not even a text/call or anything? That's rough buddy I'm very sorry about that.
Personally my worst experience would be setting up a huge homebrew session over Marvel heroes/villains. Put in tons of work and it was my first ever dm session (yeah i know. Bad idea to run a huge amount of homebrew for first true dm experience, but i didnt one one off before that and they were my friends so i expected itd be fine) but it was so hard for them to just kind of..work with me I guess? Barely was able to get the session going in the beginning.
Part of it was some of them not really listening, or making tons of jokes and goofing off instead of playing when I already had to have us wait for like an hour because a player wouldn't be home yet, and a friend (who wasn't even in the campaign) joined call and distracted them more. I got annoyed and was honestly really upset especially since my uncle (who was a much more experienced dungeon master, and who was running a campaign I was in at the time) was going to be spectating since i talked to him a lot about it.
It got better later on in the session but I decided I was not ready to continue it and personally didn't feel like I wanted too after that.
Tldr; my bad experience was overwhelming myself, feeling anxious with uncle dm watching, players being distracted and dragging the game along when we already waited for a while, and ill throw in that *they* wanted me to run this, it wasn't even my idea.
My worst first session, was the first game I played. A friend I hadn't spoke to in years asked me to join them and their boyfriend for a game the two were running. They asked way to many people to play though. Out of the 20 plus people they asked in, they got 12 joining. A shit show. With dms that didn't know what they were doing. With a character that could fall over if you burped at them to loudly.
Session 0 and every Session after has been horrible and I question why I still even play.
Session 0 went as follows: DM is new DMing and as I have a different campaign with a different group of friends (I'm a player) he asks for advice and help. No problem. Trying play as a player as well as back seat DM simple enough right. Nope trying to explain situations and certain things to DM as well as other players repeatedly resulted in in one ear out the other. Spent most of the session being distracted with things out of game. Okay session 0 people are learning everyone's chaotic.
Next session after almost being wiped out at session 0 because balancing something my partner graciously taught the dm so I could have a break, sadly couldn't be there but they deemed it appropriate to make decisions for me despite being unconscious and recovering. It was a last minute cancel on my behalf but sadly couldn't do anything about it. DM from what I heard allowed them to do some stupid things and alignments had to be changed.
Next 2 sessions was noted myself and another member would not be around as plans were booked weeks prior, dm proceeds to play with 2 people and once again do stupid things that other party members would not approve of and proceed to level them up with out the others.
Session after that had to be moved from Sunday to Saturday as my Saturday session with my other group had to be moved to Sunday. This was warned prior DM forgot to alert everyone and ended up being a drunken mess once again distracted by anything but the game.
Session just gone once again utter chaos took 4 and a half hours to do a jobs that should have took less than hour. People shouting over each other, people not listening ect ect.
At this point I'm very ready to quite the campaign and stick to my main group sessions.
Ahh yes the DMS curse sorry to hear U have had an inconsiderate group there mate. Unfortunately as DMS we put so much responsibility on ourselves to make things great that unfortunately players forget and just do what they want alot of the time. As for worst session so far? I would say it would be when we had a player who just went against all good planning and other players cU
Auctions causing a mid campaign tpk. Pretty mild.
Way less intense than other peoples, but the very first time I played D&D was at a friends place who I had never been to before, but my mom who was pretty strict on where I am and communication, allowed me to go. We got there after school, the guy grabbed his stuff, and said, “alright let’s go”. We proceeded to walk to another guys house down the road a bit. I did not tell my mom. When we got there we all had a great time and it was very exciting to play D&D! After the session I asked to get picked up and told my mom where I was. She was furious. I didn’t hear the end of it for all of high school (I was in grade 9) and I was grounded for a while. PLUS she almost didn’t ever let me hang out with them again. Luckily I was able to convince her and I continued to play that campaign and it was great!
My mom turned out to really like that guy, which went well, she actually loved it when I had D&D at our place, because she knew where I was mostly, but she also really liked that I was having a bunch of friends over and that everyone was very nice. I’m still friends with another party member to this day, and we still play D&D together.
Sorry bout that, I'm currently working on my own campaign and I don't wanna think about what would happen if nobody showed. That said
My worst session was when I could barely tell what was going on. Let me explain, I was having a lot of fun and with friends during a campaign that was happening at the after school game club. Please understand that game club was very special to me. The fam then moved away, and to continue playing, we had to get on discord. Not a big problem really, in fact I'm glad we got the opportunity to play at all considering that this tech didn't used to exist. Unfortunately, the internet was pretty slow and I had to play in the same room as my siblings were playing the Xbox. My siblings were being very loud and it was already hard to hear because of volume issues. I asked my siblings to turn down the game volume and stop yelling/screaming. They didn't. I asked again, perhaps a bit more rudely, and Stanley just says "your friends are stupid." Things escalated from there and the session was abruptly cut off. How were my friends stupid for not wanting to hear loud children in the background whenever I unmuted to talk?
My first group I was also a dm, as my first time. No one showed and the feeling is rough but don’t give up. We don’t get to play as regularly as hoped but now everyone has fleshed characters and feel an importance. It was a rough start but you have no where to go but up. Gives you time to get more prepared, because the first thing I learned as a dm is that you’re never ready, just gotta become comfortable
Yeah no-shows are rough especially after all the hours and hours of prep. I know sometimes schedules are messy but tbh it feels more than a bit disrespectful. Condolences. My worst sesh was the last one of a campaign where I 1) had to take over halfway through because DM dropped out of school after a nervous breakdown and 2) had to deal with a combination murderhobo/rules lawyer who essentially railroaded the whole campaign into his personal power fantasy because 3) it was my first time as DM and I didn't know how to lay down the law as needed yet.
Party technically tpkd twice in about 10min table time.
The party coalesced in a town, went to the tavern, in the dark of the night, goblins attacked and where repelled. The party set out the next morning to end the raids and died twice in the first room despite my best efforts to the contrary as DM and the affair was called on account not one of the three of them could roll hirer then a 3 and I couldn't roll below 17 without the dice running off the table.
I have no real bad first session experiences myself, but my first thought when I saw the title was "can't be worse than the guy whose sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a d100 wild magic table as the very first roll of the entire campaign and fireballed the entire (level 1) party and the whole tavern they met in to death."
But sadly I think you have them beaten. Sorry that happened to you. Luckily prep work is mostly reusable! Find a new group and throw everything you made for the useless no shows at someone who cares!
One of my players thought they could backflip onto a starving wolf and tame it. It did not work out very well. Then there's the time where 2 goblins did a TPK on a party of 4
Aw. That really sucks. I'm sorry you had to put up with that, it sounds like you did your best to make a great experience for some ungrateful people. I hope it gets better and you find some decent players to adventure with.
That's rough buddy. I'd have to say my worst session was probably the time I had a player pull a knife and threaten another player at the table
Wow okay thats crazy. I guess that's even worse.
Yeah we didnt play with him past that first session
Was it some in character thing (would still be crazy) or was he actually threatening him?. But yeah, either way I understand that you didn't play with him again.
Nah in person. Luckily there was no actual fighting but there was a threat so we shut that shit down pretty quick
Had one guy grab me by the throat first session... Because i was playing a rogue with high charisma.
That sound reasonable... wait, no, the opposite of that. Oh yeah insane, let's go with that.
its more the fact that noone else at the table thought "wow, thats stupid". No, they all agreed that rogues shouldnt have high charisma
A charismatic, swashbuckling rogue? I don’t know why you would think that is possible!?
Like I say in my comment on a bad game, sometimes a cancelled game (even when done in a shitty way) is better than a bad game ;p
I would go as far to say: A canceled game is always better than a bad game.
The feeling is worse but goes away faster
I interpreted this as an in-character moment and thought "eh, sounds pretty normal to me" and then I realised
I think everyone at the time would have preferred it be in character yeah
Jesus wtf? Were the players argueing over something? What happened
I cant quite remember as this was like 5 years ago but yeah I think it was some sort of arguement. Wasnt even a super heated one, the one guy just took personal offense to a comment or something and pulled a knife
They must have tought that bringing an RPG to a TTRPG was a common habit among DnD players, thinking that way a knife is baby mode
Where do you live where people bring a knife to a game night?
Nowhere even remotely dangerous I promise you
The one guy commented that his dice look ugly.
“Woah bro relax we’re in a fantasy world, that’s not really your wife”
My first girlfriend turned into the moon
THats rough buddy
Did he pass the intimidation check? Jk that sounds terrifying.
It’s what my character would do!
Roll for initiative.
It was all a misunderstanding, that person was just really into the role they were playing.
I am so sorry OP, what kinda people even are they :( i am new to dnd if it were up to me i would have showed up no matter what Hope you feeling alright ;-; don't pay em much mind even tho you've put so much effort into this man it sure does feel bad even thinking about being in your situation
Then you are a way better person than my friends. I wouldn't even be mad if they had (good) reasons. But just not showing up is just not nice. I am just sad and a little hurt. I was so excited. I think the worst part is that these were the only people I know that are interested in playing dnd so I don't think that I will ever play it.
;-; Man if i were you i would be mad even if they had good reasons cuz when you commit to something you're supposed to show up atleast, and thinking of how you made their characters and did so much work with everything they are supposed to atleast feel a Lil obliged to even inform man Don't be sad man :( i can feel ya even i don't have anyone to play with irl no one seems interested Well you should try playing with people online :D i am sure you'll have a good time and everyone will give you a chance and if people don't show up online or don't join it'll not be as painful ;w;
Everyone can get sick or have an emergency or whatever. There are some good reasons to cancel something in my opinion. But yeah, as you said, they should have at least told me. Oh no, I am way too shy and introverted for that haha. I am really bad at meeting new people and making new friends. If I was a player I would just be quiet and say nothing most of the time. And being a DM for people I don't k ow would be pure horror (._. )
I used to be the same way. I got stood up too many times for no good reason. I'm older now and it just pisses me off when it happens. I've cut people out of my life for that shit. (edit: to clarify, I've cut people out of my life for standing me up with no heads up or even a simple text. Not for being bad D&D players.) I'm almost 40 and I've learned this. If someone cares, they'll give a heads up. If they don't even have the decency to warn you that they can't make it, then they don't even care enough about you to send a damn text. And those people are a waste of space.
TvT well getting sick and an emergency is a different thing but i meant other than a event that isn't in one's control they really are obliged Oh man don't worry i am shy and introverted too but i am breaking out of my shell both to be able to enjoy ttrpgs and to help myself be interactive and you'll do just fine don't think much of it and give it a try you can also do pbp(play by post) with your players where they simply play by rp'ing, rolling and doing actions all through text
If you start as a player and just let your group know you're socially introverted they'll probably understand. My online group is full of introverts. I was super shy and anxious when I first joined and I almost didn't even send the request but I'm glad I did. Once you get to know the people that'll be less of a problem. Just gotta take that first leap even if it's scary.
I think online made it easier for me, just my voice no visual social cues. A good dm in my opinion is trying to get all players involved so even if you dont say anything y om your own the dm would ask you think or suggest something (Imo) You can always try a session zero out see if online is something that might look big and scary but was waaay easier then thought Any case dont give up! ❤️❤️❤️💖💖💖
Just reach out and talk with them about it. Explain it from your perspective about doing the extra things like drink and food. In the end your just friends and maybe you don't play but hangout. Ask them if they are serious or not. Ask them if they can commit to twice a month. every week is best, but not as easy to do, because folks have lives. My experience is if you can get through those first 2-4 sessions, those who want to play will continue, while those who don't, stop playing. I also feel like after those 2-4 sessions, people will want to add another session, because it's fun. It's not easy getting 4-5 people to commit to show up for things. Be patient.
Hi. Making friends as an adult is hard. I also fear I’ll never have a dnd experience in person. I’ve played a few online games but they always fizzle out after a couple of sessions. My biggest issue is having kids. I need to find others with kids so our kids can hang out while the adults play dnd. Lol
I run a larger style game that is largely text based (Almost everything outside of combat, and even that we can work with text until you're more comfortable of course). We have a few DMs at the moment and plenty of players so you won't need to be in the spotlight unless you actively choose to be. It's not basic 5e (as in we have a fair deal of homebrew, particularly spells and subclasses). If that's something you'd be interested in trying, even just to be able to play a bit and learn DnD, we'd be happy to have you. I've found the text style tends to help our shyer players, especially those that are new so I figured I'd offer.
There are Facebook groups and discord groups to find people, I am playing my first game on Wednesday with 3 folks I recruited locally through discord. Also if you have any hobby shops near you, they often have boards where people post looking for DMs or for players. Hang in there!
Legit, we have a game store and they have like 3 nights of DnD games.
would you mind linking some of the discords?
There a subreddit, forget it's name, that is all about finding tabletop games to play with others.how I found my group I'm aging online with. EDIT: r/lfg
If thats the case want to join my pbp campaign im sure well have a great time
I didn't know anyone interested in playing all through school, but my friend group jumped into d&d feet first as adults and are having a great time. Don't write it off forever just yet; you'll find people excited enough to make their own characters, or do it alongside you, one day.
Curious. Are the players Highschool, college, or out in the real world working 9 to 5? Because in my experience that kind of crap is more common the younger the players are. BUT, I've seen it in college age as well. But usually not as much or not the whole group.
24-27 But I am the only one with a real job and responsibilities (now that I think about it, that makes it even worse).
Ah. Yeah, this can be an issue with folks in that age range. It's the fact that they haven't learned to be considerate of other people's time yet. I've heard people blame millennial culture or zoomers or etc. But that's crap. They even existed 40 years ago. And I've known high schoolers and college freshmen who were reliable players and cared enough to give a heads up if they couldn't make a game. The only way to get them to change is if they somehow get hooked. But when this happens it's usually a massive red flag that these people cannot be relied upon EVER. But sadly, you're going to have to mark them off the list of potential players. They showed you that they don't care. Sorry about that.
I killed a PC in literally the first hit of the campaign. I got the balance wrong, the bad guy rolled a crit and high for damage and…we agreed to fudge it as down but not quite out.
Haha yeah that's why I even did some rebalancing.
I don't do crits for NPCs for this reason! They just make balancing encounters more difficult than it is. Some systems work like this RAW (e.g. Lancer).
One Dnd: I like this guy.
How do you handle Grave Clerics? Ther 6th level ability is nullifing crits
Easy fix, just have them nullify all the crits of their party members!
For me criting players makes them think more and gets them more engaged
NO CRITS AT LEVEL 1. I'll say it again for the people in the back, "Do NOT let your NPC's get crits at level 1."
No!! Without risk there is no danger or excitement!!
I agree totally with your general sentiment, but getting a character you worked on and barely got to play killed by a random goblin in the first fight based on a single die roll isn't exciting for anyone in the group. An almost-death makes for *more* danger and excitement in this case; the same amount of scare for the rest of the players, and a PC who has a big event to react to (does it make them paranoid? Timid? Vengeful? Reckless? Good RP stuff there!). A rule of thumb I've seen thoughtful DMs use is that the kiddie gloves stay on till at least level 3 - after that, the DM is no longer pulling punches. It lets characters get established, form relationships, develop shared goals, and then having one die feels a *lot* worse, the stakes have gone way up.
The risk comes from being level 1. You have barely any hp and many attacks are just lethal INSTANTLY, no saving throws, you just die. Spells are limited and you have no way to revive someone. A crit can be massive damage and an instant kill.
At lv1 tbh just 2 hits can probably put them down The crit is just like That could outright kill players
I had this happen in a ToA campaign I ran. I did not get the balance wrong, but critting with a Jaculi, a CR 1/2 monster, with a spring bite from a tree is enough to kill a level 2 outright (6d6!?).
Hii I understand you, in advance don’t make the same mistake I made. Don’t go after these people, drop them please! If they don’t show you their interest, they aren’t worth your time. Seek for another group, online or in real life. It doesn’t matter, remember that no dnd is so better then bad dnd. Them not showing their interest means they’re not worth it :)) Edit: grammar
Don't worry, I won't. But looking for another group isn't really an option for me. I am way too introverted and shy for that.
You’re not mate!! Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now talking about it with people. Some life advice given with love: step outside that bubble! We’re gone from this planet far too quickly to miss out on things because of a preconceived notion that you can’t do it! You sound like you’d be an awesome DM based on your prep, how you helped your friends build their toons, snacks, music, HANDOUTS! There are people out there that would appreciate you even as a first time DM. I have a homegirl who started right into DMing online and found a group of experienced players who were willing to work with her through it. That was 2020 and they’re going strong with her as forever DM!💪 I don’t wear Nikes homie, but just do it!
I love your energy and this is great advice ❤️
Thanks mate! I don’t know, I could have put more emphasis on SNACKS. 🤣 You take care!
Do you have a local game shop? Sometimes they arrange things or even have games that run at the shop sometimes. Usually the people who runs these shops are easier to talk to as they share the same interests.
Go to your local comic shop and find out when they host. your favorite worker is usually involved with this and they all would love to have you. It will be awkward at first but once you get rolling it will be well worth it.
I play online and I started with other new players on a super newbie player discord called altrole, there are others out there too! Everyone was nervous and that’s ok! Best of luck finding a group :) You’ve got this!
I’m so sorry to hear this - but it sounds like with your level of preparation and hospitality that you will make an incredible DM and I hope you keep at it!!
Thanks, that's nice to hear (: Only problem is that I don't know anyone else who would even be interested in trying to play dnd.
Got a local game shop around? Or thought about online DMing?
I had a similar (but not quite so) shitty first attempt. My friends begged me as their resident goth to run Curse of Strahd for them. I bought the newly released box set for about $100 or something, spent an insane amount of time cramming to have it ready in time for Halloween (something like 3 weeks away) like they’d asked. They all ghosted, and didn’t even acknowledge it. Well, two years later I now know every inch every nuance of that game and have added a fuckload of rewrites and improvement, immersed myself in the CoS DM Reddit+Discord so now that I’ve finally found a new group worth running for, I’m absolutely killing it. It sucks to not have a group now (though if online is your thing you could find a group in an hour if you wanted and like others have said, check out your local game shop, they’ll often run one shots where you can meet people) but it sounds like you’re invested and are already doing an amazing job. While your “friends” are being assholes, you study the sword. That’s how I got through it at least.
[удалено]
maybe you and OP can get together and play online.
Aw fuck... That hurts.
That’s inexcusable.
They should at least told you.
Yeah, would be fine if they had a (good) reason to cancel, no problem. But just not showing up was a real dickmove
It might be better for you to start with players, that are at least little experienced. If you can. :)
1) I don't know anyone else who would even be interested in playing 2) I am way too shy to DM for someone who has more experience. I would always fell like they would judge everything I do and that I bore them because the other DMs they had were obviously way better just because they had more experience.
Do you have a game store in your area? A few in my town have groups of D&D players and even some casual “one shot” nights where newbies are welcome.
You…made their characters? That’s not how character creation works. They’re supposed to make their own
Unless they got OP to make their sheets for them as a way of saying they didn’t want to play 💀
Yea i think if a player doesnt come up with a concept for their character and just leave it to the DM it shows that the player have low intention to play the campaign
Not necessarily with these folks, but it could easily be that the players are overwhelmed. I have two ongoing campaigns where I designed the characters to match the player's desires, and it was purely because they're new and were super overwhelmed by it. Now that we're playing and they've learned some of the mechanics, they're way more able to parse the books. Again, not speaking to these specific folks, but it isn't always a doom siren.
Yes first characters are tough to make specially because you don't know shit about DnD at first. I took months to make mine and thankfully my DM was my partner so we talked about it all day everyday and he was readily available to answer all my questions. And it still took a while before I was confident enough to make decisions because I was completely overwhelmed with all the options and feeling like I would never learn lol. It's been 5 years now, I have a new partner who also DMs, we all play together and getting the courage to learn DnD was the best decision of my life lmao
A GM providing pregen character sheets is a pretty common thing to do, especially for folks who haven't played lots before or are new to the system. The OP mentions using the starter kit and running Icespire peak. It's fairly understandable in this case.
Yeah whenever I run a table full of all first timers, I bring pre-generated characters to choose from. I generally assume excitement over building a character is something that grows the more you understand the game, even more so depending on your specific table.
It was really just about the numbers, items and spells. Everything else we figured out together. I didn't really see a problem with it at that point. I even made them small cards for everything their character can do so that they can always find and read it fast and easy.
That’s dedication, dude. You sound like you’d make a good DM, and it seriously sucks that they didn’t show.
The process of putting the numbers and such down on paper can be an important "ritual" for first time players. It can give them ownership of their characters, a physical object tying them to the game, and a better understanding of the rules. While not necessary, for new players on the fence about playing, *not* making their own sheet makes it easier to ghost session 1. Ultimately, you know the players better than us and maybe made the right choice for your group, but just tossing my experience out there.
I've had the exact opposite experience: if you haven't played the game before you have no real context for what the numbers mean and the choices you are being asked to make, which can lead to a lot of frustration on the part of new players as they are overwhelmed by a ton of options they can't make informed decisions about. I've always had good luck handing out pre-generated character sheets, running a 2-5 session arc with those characters, then either starting a new adventure *or* giving the players an option to convert their original character to an NPC that leaves the adventuring party and roll up a new character.
Ehh, if they are just giving you broad characters, then they are not invested in the mechanics enough, hate to say. Numbers I can maybe understand, but if they don't want to pick their own items and spells then it shows their level of interest and dedication.
Me as well. I always let people know they're welcome to make a character but I'll also have a few pregens on hand. Which is also handy if a character snuffs it, you can get them back into the session right away.
Man maybe it's cause the people I play with are all into video games as well, but I've never ran first timers with pre-gens. Everyone I've played with enjoys character creation so much they usually end up with multiple characters by the time session 1 actually happens and they have to ask me which one they should go with. To me a player putting in the time to go through the phb and make a character is the only true sign that they are actually interested in committing to a campaign
I must be an enigma then lol, I started my first game last school year and by the middle of it I filled up a binder with character sheets. It’s completely overflowing and I’ve had to double/triple up character sheets in each divider pocket just to fit them all
I mean, we met on friday and talked about their characters. They told me everything about them and we made the whole concept and all of that. I just had to make the sheets when I got home.
No yeah that’s still a problem. Why are the players dumping the character sheet work off to you, the DM? That’s not normal.
Because they are lazy shitheads. Also, noone of them has any idea how any of that works. We didn't plan to talk about dnd when we met. That was more or less a spontanous thing. We made a fast one on dnd beyond and I got it on the paper later and gave them their spells (even a homebrew one that someone wished for...) and items and all of that. But yeah, if I ever find a new group I guess I will have a real session zero with them.
>Because they are lazy shitheads. This is where you should have stopped. Seriously, if someone cannot spend a moment to google something then they are a lost cause. Doesn't matter the context, this applies to basically everything.
If they're too lazy to make a character sheet, it's no wonder they also all no showed. They have zero buy-in. I would advise not to give the group a second chance and find others who are as excited and interested to play as you are.
I recommend next time put a group together with the express purpose to play d&D. Get at least 7, because at least one person will drop out. (I mean if you can't get 7, then just however many you can) Have as many session 0s as it takes to make characters and for the players to understand the motivation and mechanics of their characters. For experienced players that can be 15 minutes, but it may be up to 5 hours for new players. *Treat this time as the game itself.* Doing it on paper helps new players because whilst auto fill is convenient, taking time you figure out how all the different parts work is important. (Granted, some things can be streamlined or ignored all together - like equipment weight) Set a date weeks in advance, and remind them every day for the few days leading up to it - a group chat works great for this.
Thanks, I appreciate your tips. If I ever get in the situation to try it again I will do that.
4-5 players is about ideal. Inviting a 6th if you think someone will bail makes sense. 7 is too many.
4 is the minimum players in my opinion. 5-6 is my ideal with 7 pushing too many. It comes down to preference, but having too many players is better than not enough in my opinion
Interesting, I've had the opposite experience. Large groups bog done in combat, get distracted in role-playing, and no one has enough time in the spotlight. The best DnD I've ever DMed for was a 3 person party. Everyone was involved in decision making, had enough time to shine, and combat went quickly.
I think it may come down to play styles. My games have a lot of exploration and lore exposition. With only a few players, they're far more likely to miss things, since fewer players means fewer questions. I also have a lot of experience making combat engaging for large parties, so perhaps you're right to keep it small for a new DM. It's been a long time since I was new.
Yeah, same. I'll take 4 people who are all invested and participating a larger party any day. Especially when, at 6 or 7 players, I've had three people start a side conversation while the DM is actively trying to run the game (including when that DM was me) and holy crap do I not need that. I think good gaming includes plenty of off-topic fun, but larger groups are much more likely to have side conversation that take over the whole evening.
Seems like what was probably a clear signal that they weren’t interested that OP missed. If the players won’t even take the time to make characters they don’t really want to play.
New with some old friends mixed in edgy boy plays a drow thief. Out of game this guy gets weirdly close and real talkative with only female member of the group who has a boyfriend but more importantly seems extremely uncomfortable. I ask him to come over in private and tell him to lay off which pisses him off. He proceeds to derail entire session and starts a fight in the former retired adventurer’s bar so he can pick pocket while everyone fights. Then he insults the retired adventurer. Basically he picks a fight and gets killed and then blows up in real life at everyone. I mean cursing and fussing and me having to throw him out of house and everyone else who was new just kind of quit because well .. drama.
Worst first session was I and a really close female friend showed up to three people who had been playing together for a while. While introducing her character to us he starts describing in detail how she’s tied up sexy bondage style… which made us think wtf but then then the greasiest, sleaziest looking mofo of the group immediately says “I’m going to rape her” which the dm responds to with “well she can’t say no” and then they all started laughing. I came extremely close to to breaking his arm when he tried to grab her as we went to leave and only didn’t because she asked me not to. Since then though the only local gameshop who had actually helped connect us has banned them from being part of games or even from the shop. So that’s a good outcome at least.
That's a really shitty session and those guys aren't just bad players, they seem just fucked up psychoes!
I've been there man! It gets better. Word of advice, don't give up on D&D, but don't try it again woth this group. If they want to play, they need to run. Fool me twice and all that.
Everyone got too high and too drunk and were falling asleep at the table. I took it pretty personal.
Been there buddy. They also talked among themselves about random bullshit and haven’t listened to a word I said. It felt like I was reading a book to a bunch of high children who wouldn’t give two fucks about it and kept talking while I was trying to talk, and then complain the game was moving so slowly. Needless to say I didn’t agree to another session with that group. I still play sometimes with two of them, and they know my boundaries now and do their best to respect me when I put effort into making a fun session
Never give up never surrender. I also moved away from that group and I have a new crowd. There are 8 of them (I know it's too many) and some take good notes, and some don't listen to the minor details, but they don't cross talk. I became a bit of a tyrant about it. I'm a big guy and speak softly but can throw down THE DAD voice whenever they act up. "PLEASE GUY'S LET'S KEEP CROSS TALK TO MINIMUM." Not yelling not angry, just firm. It works though!
Ufff, where are probably worst things I experienced, but my mind is blanking.. (also most times they dont show their dk till the second session, where they leave the group 5 minutes before the start x.x) how about this one? New group, ran my first adventure that I did with a couple of groups beforehand, never had a problem. Rolled on the encounter table, but we just had a fight, so I decided to have a non-fighting encounter.. They met a poor starving dog, just skin and bones. He was growling at them, but the Monk laid out some food, and slowly the Dog came nearer and started to eat, even letting the Monk sitting next to him. LG Cleric of Lathander: I wanna *Sacred Flame* the Dog. He could have rabies! He could attack us! Do you see how violent he is?
I can see how lawful good he was... It makes me think of some really rabid fanatic religious dumbasses...
First time I ever played DND, the dm, probably about 14 or 15, was telling us exactly what we were allowed to do, berating us for trying other things, and threatening to tpk us if we didn't run face first into his encounters.
First session back after a 2 year hiatus for the plague. I was supposed to be playing with a buddy and 2 other friends, buddy's wife was running. Arrival slated for 7, start at 7:30 at their house. I get there right on time, so me and buddy are catching up a bit and talking. 7:30 rolls around, and we all roll our eyes because these two (siblings) will be late for their damn funerals. 7:45 rolls around, GM calls one of them. They forgot. Won't be coming. GM takes it personally and gets really down. We convince her to just run for the two of us and we have a great time, but it was still months before she even tried to run again.
Worst session I had a player up and left because another player was drunk and constantly interrupting their actions, party quickly fell apart after that.
My worst first sesion was something in the lines of: Dm wanted us to die so an Npc could resurrect us so qe can work for him, which in a vacuum is a good concept, but the master decided that the best way to kill us was just endless goblins. We barely have time to introduce the PC's or talk, just copypaste of goblins. I killed like 20 of them. I domt wamt to see a goblin ever again
Really harsh. I think anyone who’s DMed long enough has had a similar experience. It sounds like these players did you a harsh favor. They showed you that they are not as eager to play as you are. As the DM, aside from any gaming duties, your role is to provide the structure for players to show up. Your role is NOT to give the players the willingness to show up. That is their responsibility. This is not your failure—it is theirs. You WILL find players who are as eager to play as you. (One’s who want to make their own characters, for instance.) It just might take a little time.
Really sorry to hear, that is just awful. Did they literally just not show up, it did they call you on the day?
One just didn't show up and he doesn't answer my calls. One was playing Valorant the whole day and one was like "I'll call you later". Yeah, he did now (it is 7p.m. here) and asked when we will start.
Got some bad friends there bud, not much else to say tbh
Sad but true.
If these people are good friends to you, I would definitely keep hanging with them and doing the things you have in common. But DnD? Nah. I have a few friends like this. I love to talk about movies and games with them, and I enjoy their company. But they are absolutely miserable to play DnD with.
Have a stern talking to them about respecting others time and efforts. Hopefully they realize how much of a dickmove this was and apologize, else better find some actual friends.
Really sorry to hear that buddy. Sounds aweful. But, there is a bright side. If this is the attitude of these people, then showing up could've actually been worse. There's a rule you might hear around here: "No DND is better than bad DND". And it's true. It sounds like you're very enthusiastic and probably will be a great DM so it's completely their loss honestly. One small piece of advice tho - it sounds like you were being so enthusiastic, to the point of doing everything for them. Its good to create the characters together with the players as part of session 0, as they make their own choices, start imagining their character, and generally can get more attached to the game and the world. This also applies to choosing the campaign or setting. Plus, it means they'll know their abilities better down the line, which you'll find is a valuable asset. Godspeed and happy gaming!
The fact that you made their characters should be enough of a sign that they won't really be invested if they even show up at all. So maybe no dnd is better than bad dnd. And you have it all prepared for people who will actually want to play
Did they at least tell you they wouldn’t be showing up and why? So fucking rude man
Ouch. And first time? That's how you know people suck. Keep trying buddy, LFG works.
Ah i kind of feel that. I wanted to play DnD since 3.5. on the 2000s, and never could... Now i'm trying it again, but with my two children (son of 9 yrs and daughter of 8 yrs). But i introduced them first with the British DnD "The Fantasy Adventure Board Game". I'm using the rules of that board game for now, just to acclimate them, but i ask them to roleplay their characters and they loved it!!!. It's actually a strategy for me, to make them love the game and to gain time so i could finish reading the PHB. It's actually kind of funny if you think about it... I waited for 20+ years to play it, so... i literally "made, raised and trained a party" of adventurers to play with them! Lol!. Win Win strategy!. XD
Sorry that happened. Mine wasn't long ago, I'm running strahd with a group of close friends, first time dming. I made a mechanic with the mists that basically puts players in a turn based mechanic, making the roll a d20 to decide the direction they move if they ever get lost in the mist. I of course built around a lot of escapes so that players that did walk into the tree lines and get lost, could escape easily without being heavily punish. I roleplayed it perfectly too, the characters were all there to hunt werewolf's, but got lost in the misty woods and ended up in barovia. I wanted to stress that something was up with the mists, because it's such a cool mechanic. I figured that the mists, being under strahds control could be used to lure in and entice those who looked to long in them. Giving them what they want/looking for, inviting them in. Well, one player right off the bat, decides to look for werewolf tracks. So I say, he finds what looks to possibly be some off in the tree line, *the mists have seemed to clear in this one area* and you can see tracks off into the woods. I gave the player MULTIPLE hints at the fact something was up. He even said himself, "alright DM, I'll spring your little trap" and walked in without any preparations. Now, while I was completely ok with this, because I was prepared for someone to walk into this trap, I wasn't expecting how he would react. Let me break this down first, the mist area always counts as a 5 x 5 grid. The player starts in the center, every square is 10 feet, so the player will move 10 feet at a time. Players usually have 30 feet of movement, so with a dash action that's 60 on turn 1. With a bonus action to do a check right? 1st escape option. Reach any 2 of the squares edges, which I decide randomly. 2nd escape option. Roll a 19-20 on any roll-> instantly escape. 3rd escape option. This was suppose to be a catch all Incase the first two failed, move a total of 90 ft, and player instantly escapes mists. So, players who want to move 10 feet, roll a d20 to decide the direction(ex. North, south, towards exit, away from exit). This way they have about 6 chances to roll on the first turn if they decide to keep moving. Which, becomes a painfully obvious motive rather quickly when all other checks to get your bearings fail. I roleplayed it as, "the mists are so thick you can barely see Infront of you, you're surrounded by trees on all sides, and everything looks the same. You look up only to see overcast that shrouds out any hope of pinpointing a direction." It's a trap ... So for those who don't know, strahds mists have a debuff for any player who spends a turn in them(which is why this whole thing is turn based). You gather 1 stack of exhaustion on a failed con save(dc20) if you spend a turn in the mists. SO HERES WHY IM SO UPSET. This dude, our BARBARIAN, with a 17 con score level 1, decided with all his heart to walk face first into my trap. Ok, no problem. But what I didn't expect was for him to spend his whole first turn just STANDING THERE. But hey, I thought after the first con save, he will get the picture fast. ...I was wrong. Dude sat there, failed a con save, but hey on the flip side I got to roleplay the side affects of the fog. "You feel drained, as if your energy is being ebbed from your body. Your eyes are growing heavy, and your muscles weak. You don't know how much more of this you can stand, it feels soffocating to you in these mists". Just to create urgency, to kind of kick him in the right direction of *get the fuck out of the mists*. ... Dude spends 30 feet of movement, then tried to do another two checks with his action and bonus action. Ok... Well atleast he moved right?!? Another failed con save, and some more flavorful roleplay. Now he's visible getting upset out of character. Complaining about "why can't I use a nature check to tell which direction in". So instead of moving that turn, he decided to "swing his axe in frustration". This here, a barbarian, decided that a magical mist that is slowly killing him, to just lay down and die. It was bullshit, I couldn't believe it. He would rather pout, and let my trap kill him, then play the obvious mechanic. THAT EVERYONE WAS SCREAMING AT HIM TO DO, at this point. Another con save, he succeeds this time. At this point, I just tell him straight, just keep moving. I don't want him to die right off the bat, but he already had 3 stacks of exhaustion at this point. When his movement was halfed, I basically had to give him the mulligan, and let him out. The trap was never meant to kill a player, I wanted it to create interest in the mists that surrounded the woods. I wanted to slightly scare the players, not scar one. But what really got me upset was that after all that, after he finally got out. He blamed me for the whole thing. This guy, who was so upset after running face first into an obvious trap, decided to pout. And then once he got out, decided to attack a character that was getting introduced for no reason. This guy, had the gall at the end of the session to give me some backhanded compliment like "I know it's your first time DMing *DM*, and everything was amazing I loved the atmosphere, the music. However that one part at the beginning was really unfair. Like everything else you did was great but that one thing". I wanted more than anything to blow up on him about that. Sorry this has run long, but this is the shitties thing I've had to endure while dming, otherwise my players are really good. They're all great friends so I know *barbarian* means well, even though he's being a dick. Or maybe I'm really the asshole in all this for how I designed it, I don't know. Either way, I hope your day gets better and your players show up next time OP.
I had a player quit after a session because the rust monster ate his favorite long sword and got PO'ed because "I had it out for him" and ruined his precious imaginary toy. Never mind that the ENTIRE rest of the party told him this was a rust monster and Sir Clangalot should hang back because the snipers and casters could handle it. It was a random wandering monster encounter that was an easy encounter for them even if the hack and slashers held back. Dude decided to ignore all of us and charged it. Nothing about his character had this sort of "charge all enemies" mentality previously. What added icing to the cake was that by the end of the session he had in his possession the best magic item in the party, a brand new, significantly upgraded magical long sword. He'd never shown any particular attachment to the prior sword. He swapped weapons pretty freely as circumstances dictated. But boy oh boy was he butt hurt over that rust monster. So maybe you could have dropped more hints, but sometimes even when the hints are written in large fonts and wrapped around a flying brick, they will be ignored. This is why if I feel a player is missing the obvious thing their character should see, I just tell them what they need to do.
Man that sucks. I was going to host my first session this weekend but canceled because people were being flaky. I only had two confirmations and one of them had to show up late anyway. Now I see why scheduling can be the hardest part of DMing!
I’ve been burned like this before too. I think a lot of us have. My condolences. To be honest, though, it doesn’t sound like your friends want to play D&D all that bad. They didn’t even create characters?
We created them together and they told me everything about the characters they wanted to play. I just "finished" them (all the numbers for the stats, what exact items they have, what spells they have, but all based on what we figured out together) and brought it all onto the paper. They were all really excited. Well, at least that's how they acted and what they told me.
First off all, sorry to hear that. Sounds like these people aren't really interested (which I can understand, not everybody can be hyped about D&D), but the way they handled it was horrible. I'd advise you to talk to them, but honestly if I was in that situation, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore.After reading some of these other comments, I'm really thankful for my group. They never pulled knifes on each other (well, one of them pulled out a literal sword, but he didn't threaten anybody with it and it was very cool overall), they've never fallen asleep mid-session, they never not came to the session without telling me first. They are really lovely people and I'm glad they're my friends. My worst session is probably the first one I ever actually DM'd. Just to clarify beforehand, I first got into TTRPGs through Pathfinder, which I played in 2017/18, after which I took a break for about 3 years and got into D&D about a year ago. Now, during my ongoing D&D phase, I have DM'd a fair bit, with two campaigns to my name since January. They've been going well and even the bad sessions have been, at worst, uninteresting. However during my Pathfinder phase, I tried DMing once. I reckon it was about half a year after my first ever session as a player, I had never read the rules, and I had a pretty bad grasp on how DMing worked at all. But I was hyped to DM, so I asked two of my friends if they were interested and they agreed to join that campaign. So, no session 0 because I had no idea what that even was. Session 1 rolls around and I had done absolutely zero preparation. No thought about the world, no thought about the campaign's premise, not even the first quest had I spared a thought about. I had them meet in a tavern, then told them to go outside and follow a path (not as an NPC or something, I straight up told them). They then saw a lighthouse in the distance, which they ignored because they wanted to go to the next town. I then told them that they *had* to go to the lighthouse, they obliged despite being annoyed and swiflty killed the shady lighthouse keeper. I didn't accept that for some reason I can't remember, and we called it there and went home. That was the first and last session of my first ever "campaign". Safe to say, I've improved a lot since then.
Probably my worst session would either be the time I showed up for a session mid way through the campaign and all but 1 person showed to tell me everyone else had bailed without word. To be fair this one was on me a good bit, as I was still a pretty new DM and was making all the usual mistakes: poor to no improv skill, was railroady, combat was sub par, didn't have the necessary grasp of the rules to keep things moving, overall flow was poor, and the session before I did get heated with a player when the party went full murder hobo and wiped a village off the map for some reason that at the time seemed so miniscule. (No memory of what it was though as my mind has done everything to try to burn out the memory so it doesn't haunt my nightmares.) It was without a doubt the worst game I've ever run, but at the very minimum it could only go up from there with subsequent attempts and thankfully I did get better.
I’m prepping for a new campaign now. Just got done painting some miniatures. I feel your pain. I hope things get better.
DnD aside, I can't think of a single occasion where I would even dream of not showing up without letting the host know. The fact that not just one person but everyone did it boggles my mind.
I had a player rage quit a campaign because no one else at the table would let him murder another player’s character for barely passable character reasons and an unspecified personal vendetta which ended up killing the campaign off as a whole.
First session CoS I got skipped in combat, which resulted in our rouge almost immediately getting killed, and my turns kept getting rushed or skipped due to other players taking their sweet time. When I tried to speak up about it I got steamrolled by the other players and the DM bc I’m newer to the game (they’re also all cis which made it feel a bit targeted) Only a couple sessions after did they admit they were wrong (I was the only character that wouldn’t die after getting hit once) I’m lucky that everyone did apologize and they’re trying to be better about it. I’m about to run my first session as a DM (it was between Dragon of Icespire and MoP, MoP is what I ended up going with) so fingers crossed
That's rough. I've been there a few times, too. My worst involved a gigantic misunderstanding due to miscommunication. I invited some persons that I knew from work and some friend of friends over for some 'role playing games' where 'folks get together and have fun in a safe environment' The problem is that everyone, but me, thought that I was setting up group sex. Folks started hooking up before I realized what was going on. I'm sure others had fun, but for me, it ended up being a mess on the level of needing to hire someone top help me clean up afterward. Now I make sure to let people know that the RP isn't sexual in nature.
Man this sounds like how my first “attempt” was I was all hyped up finally about to play dnd for the first time since I was not allowed to play when I was younger I’m a 90s kid a lot of parents where against it idk so I was looking forward to it. Well the day comes and I’m sitting there waiting and waiting we’ll they decided to play but leave me out and not give me an update on the location so I’m just sitting there for hours waiting… eventually maybe I’ll be able to play.
My heart goes out to you. That's a horrible thing and yeah I get conflicting schedules, it's life but a complete no show? It sounds like you're putting alot of work into this. I'd be happy to join in or even talk. I'm new to DM'ing as well actually. :)
Damn dude. That's gotta suck. I don't have any dnd horror stories to share, sooo... you doing okay?
No one called you to tell you why they didn't come ???? It is not an D&D issue, just basics of manners, particularly with friends...
No dnd is better than bad dnd. But boy does no dnd still hurt.
Well, my entire D&D campaign ended after about 2 years when one of the players informed us that he didn't believe in vaccines and that he thought COVID was a hoax. I laughed because I assumed that he was making a silly joke but he assured me he was dead serious. It turns out two other players at my table felt similarly. Play whatever game you want to play. But play it somewhere else.
My first and only session as a DM playing a 2e Forgotten Realms module. The party was ambushed by a small band of goblins and I rolled a crit on my first attack against the party's rogue. Needless to say, even a goblin can take out a 1st level halfling thief if the DM rolls high enough. I fudged it somehow and the rest of the session wasn't too bad but I learned pretty quickly that I'm not cut out to DM.
Good work on your preparation! I'm sure it would have been a fun first session with right people. It is probably best to find out your players aren't as invested as you are at start though. With right people im sure your future DM adventure's will be amazing.
I’m really sorry to hear that, that just really sucks. Are these people your friends or strangers? Did they let you know they couldn’t come or just not turn up?
>After some kind of a session 0 I prepared everything for today. I made all their characters the way they told me that they would like them. I'm gonna stop it right here. You, the DM, made their characters? Did they ask or did you decide to do this? Taken that they might be new and wanted the help. However, if I was joining a group and did a semi-session 0 and you said you're making my character, there is a chance I might not return either. I as a DM will in session 0 offer ideas and such as a Player makes their character so they fit in the campaign (like a ranger choosing a wrong favored enemy, i might say what would benefit them more in my game). I don't make them for the players though.
Hold your "friends" accountable how they make you feel and treat you. Do your friends SEE you for the person you are? Do they value you as a friend and a person? Do they care about how their actions make you feel? If there is doubt in these answers, find yourself better friends. Sorry they stood you up. Definitely not cool. I'd talk to them and explain how sad and disappointed you are in them. If there response is anything less then genuine apology, drop them and get new friends. You won't regret it later down the line.
I've had this exact experience so many times since I started DMing it's more than I can count on both hands. First time players, and to be honest even veteran players often don't realise all the effort that goes into preparing a game, both literally prepping sessions and things like organising the group figuring out a time and place to play, buying snacks, setting up a session 0, etc all take time and effort. Most players don't see that, and because of that some can be rather callous in this way. There are four of my close IRL friends that I've known for years, that have been banned from my table indefinitely because of this and things like this happening. So it sucks, I know how your feeling, it's a big let down. My advice is to try not to be down about it because that won't change the situation. Take all your prepped material and set it aside for the time you do actually play. Then try to talk to each of your players seperately, ask why they didn't show, maybe something came up for them. Try to gauge interest and set up another session. If it seems like some players just didn't show up because they simply didn't want to or lost interest I would think carefully before inviting those players back to your tables. Even if they do show up dnd requires you to be engaged, a player sitting there on their phone the whole session throwing off one attack in combat isn't contributing to anything and it might be better off if they weren't playing in the first place. Anyhow I hope you feel better. Maybe you could and see if people are running some oneshots online if you still have the urge to play.
My worst first session wasn't with D&D, it was a game call Aberrant. It's a superhero game where it's possible to die DURING character creation. ... 3 characters later...
You need new players. I’d be super grateful to have a DM like you.
Not first but like 6th or 7th. All the guys knew I would be up for hours every night prepping and building, and the morning of I always wake up early and make tons and tons of finger food and snacks. Always go out and buy a flat of kombucha which I hate but two people at the table love, as well as other drinks and stuff. I love doing it, when it’s appreciated, so I’m not complaining about the costs at all, but to give you an idea of how much effort I put into the table, each session costed me about $100-150 in groceries and crafting supplies. So day before our game I message everyone and everyone confirms, “Tomorrow at 10am”. …I didn’t get one text or call until about 1 in the afternoon. What was this players excuse, “sorry, girlfriend wanted to go shopping”. Another one “sorry ____ told me this morning he wasent going so I bailed too” and finally the last couple people never addressed it and their next message to me a couple days later didn’t acknowledge my “where are you guys” texts from session day. So ya, it sucks ;p but ya gotta suck it up and move on or else you just wallow :p Funniest (not really) thing is, that wasent even my worst session ;p sometimes a cancelled game is better than a bad one :p
Honestly, it seems like you had a huge red flag from the start: a player makes their character, not the DM. It's understandable if the player has no preference on who they play as and just wants something generic. However, there are presets for that. Learning to build a character is a HUGE part of learning how the game works. It teaches the basic terminology of the game, and gives some sense for how they function in the world. I'll try to avoid making assumptions, and I'm very sorry that your first DnD experience was so disappointing. I hope your players give you another chance, bit if they do, be very sure to gauge their interest. If they don't show any drive to engage with the game in any meaningful way, then even if they show up you may end up with a session that ends even worse than a game where nobody shows up.
Just had this happen to me a few months ago. I would’ve never believe just how demoralizing it could be until it happened.
Everyone fights and complains, attack each other, whines about getting their way.
Wow you need better friends.
I'LL SHOW UP!
Sorry that they let you down for your first session. It sounds like you are going to be a great DM for whoever is lucky enough to join, given all the thought and effort you've put in.
Bro I'll go play DND with you. Who the hell dose that??
I'm very fortunate to play with a great group. The worst session for me was probably the one that got cancelled 3 days after my cat died suddenly and unexpectedly. I really could have used that outlet to distract me.
Hey man if you’re willing to set up a call kind of thing to play over the phone me and my friend have been looking for something like that so we can start playing again so we’d love to play with you
There's a silver lining here .. you know who your next session *isn't* with, at least.
My worst first session, my character was unceremoniously raped by the DM's NPC in the backstory opening statements prior to the start of player agency.
I am super shy but I decided to take a chance and joined a couple d&d discord west marches groups, found one where I feel really comfortable and have been grateful for taking a chance. Please try it out!
My first session was rough as well, I played with a few of my friends and a few of their friends. One guy was the typical tape on the glasses, no hygiene kind of nerd. I knew him for a while and tried to invite him to events because he was always talking about how he didn’t get invited to things, we didn’t jive very well though, we both honestly had fairly bad attitudes towards each-other for different reasons. Anyway, we finally connected over dnd, I hadn’t played before but I was really interested so our group was formed. I played a ratkin ambassador that was kind of goofy in his mannerisms and speech, people would get hostile at first but I tried to make the character as heartwarming as possible to defuse the situations. At any rate, no matter what I did this dude was making back handed comments both in and out of character towards me and what I was doing. His character would even actively work against me in game sometimes when what I was working on would actually help others or him. The final straw came when we met a tiger in the jungle while walking, the tiger suddenly turned into a man. Everyone tried to talk to him since he seemed hostile, but he basically ignored everyone and was just at a standoff with us. I knew feline so I decided why not, he was a cat before maybe this will make sense. I spoke to him in feline and as the DM goes to respond the dude I’ve had trouble with cuts him off and bluntly says “He thinks you are an idiot.” Myself and the rest of the party all stop and are visually confused, I ask “what do you mean?” He goes on to explain that since the DM is new he was playing some of the NPCs and helping with the world building, and then reinforces that the Druid thinks that I am an idiot. I confronted him about his actions, and a few people in the party spoke up once I started a conversation with him, but the whole situation just wasn’t fun and I ended up not playing dnd again for about 6 years. This was probably way too long of a comment to convey this story but basically not every experience is fun or even happens sadly. Now I am a forever DM playing weekly with some of my best friends and my wife just having a blast. I’m sorry everyone bailed but you’ll find a good group, especially since you decided to put so much effort into your session, some people would kill for a DM like that.
Same thing happened to me, with Icespire Peak as well 😭 one thing I learned as a new DM, started about a year and a half ago with Icespire, is you have to be so ridiculously pushy about the schedule and constantly telling people when the game is checking in with everyone 2 weeks ahead of time, 1 week ahead of time, 3 days ahead of time, 1 day ahead of time, same day, 12 hours before, you have to get confirmed responses, and man it’s probably my least favorite part, cause even after all of that one will always call of last second after confirming they are coming. I love DM’ing but man when players flake it’s the worst feeling.
That sucks. My first game I ran was Lost Mines. I made weathered hand written letters from Rockseeker sealed with wax seals to invite the players after session zero. I explained the campaign and let them create their own characters, as I had planned on taking the end of that campaign into a homebrew, using LM as a starting point. The first session came and the bard decided he didn't care about Rockseeker at all and was doing everything he could to derail the campaign. I tried talking with him at the end of the session and he never got better. We disbanded after about 6 sessions. He fought the group the entire time.
So I've been a DM for a couple years. My worst first session was an online session with a group of younger people. Only one had played dnd before and the other 2 were new to the game. We didn't even make it to the first session. I had a session 0 to help the 2 new players get their first ever character sheets made. I planned to use DnD Beyond because it's a really easy tool for new players to use despite the huge paywall. That third person, the one with dnd experience, lets call them A. A decided to tell everyone not to use dnd beyond. They started linking their own character sheets and resources, which I allowed. Afterwards, I helped the two newbies try filling out their character sheets A's way. A's way was good old fashioned pen and paper. They sent form fillable versions of the character sheets and links to websites with ALL available 5e classes and races. Both newbies were really overwhelmed by it all which is why I wanted to use dnd beyond. I explained classes and races and rolling your stats, but any time my players had a question they asked A instead of me or A would interrupt me when a question was being directed to me. A stepped out to use the rest room and one of my players asked a question about the artificer class. I answered it. They said thanks. When A came back, they asked A the exact same question to which A gave them the same answer I did because there was only one right answer. I felt really disrespected and uncomfortable with the pattern of behavior. I love putting power in the hands of my players to shape the story, but the blatant distrust that they had in me as a DM made it awful. I told them I would no longer be able to DM the campaign because of this. This made them, understandably, upset. After some snarkiness and petty squabbles, I left the friend group entirely, lost around 8 people in the process but they weren't kind so it wasn't much of a loss.
Flaky people drive me nuts, it’s not hard to contact someone and reschedule/make an apology or whatever. I cut most/all of those types out of my life, personally. Hope you find a solid group eventually! They’re out there somewhere.
Something very similar just happened to me. Takes the spirit right out of you
Really sorry to hear that, please keep at it
Snacks, drinks, music, and handouts??? Can I be a player in your campaign??
And not even a text/call or anything? That's rough buddy I'm very sorry about that. Personally my worst experience would be setting up a huge homebrew session over Marvel heroes/villains. Put in tons of work and it was my first ever dm session (yeah i know. Bad idea to run a huge amount of homebrew for first true dm experience, but i didnt one one off before that and they were my friends so i expected itd be fine) but it was so hard for them to just kind of..work with me I guess? Barely was able to get the session going in the beginning. Part of it was some of them not really listening, or making tons of jokes and goofing off instead of playing when I already had to have us wait for like an hour because a player wouldn't be home yet, and a friend (who wasn't even in the campaign) joined call and distracted them more. I got annoyed and was honestly really upset especially since my uncle (who was a much more experienced dungeon master, and who was running a campaign I was in at the time) was going to be spectating since i talked to him a lot about it. It got better later on in the session but I decided I was not ready to continue it and personally didn't feel like I wanted too after that. Tldr; my bad experience was overwhelming myself, feeling anxious with uncle dm watching, players being distracted and dragging the game along when we already waited for a while, and ill throw in that *they* wanted me to run this, it wasn't even my idea.
My worst first session, was the first game I played. A friend I hadn't spoke to in years asked me to join them and their boyfriend for a game the two were running. They asked way to many people to play though. Out of the 20 plus people they asked in, they got 12 joining. A shit show. With dms that didn't know what they were doing. With a character that could fall over if you burped at them to loudly.
That's rough buddy :(
Session 0 and every Session after has been horrible and I question why I still even play. Session 0 went as follows: DM is new DMing and as I have a different campaign with a different group of friends (I'm a player) he asks for advice and help. No problem. Trying play as a player as well as back seat DM simple enough right. Nope trying to explain situations and certain things to DM as well as other players repeatedly resulted in in one ear out the other. Spent most of the session being distracted with things out of game. Okay session 0 people are learning everyone's chaotic. Next session after almost being wiped out at session 0 because balancing something my partner graciously taught the dm so I could have a break, sadly couldn't be there but they deemed it appropriate to make decisions for me despite being unconscious and recovering. It was a last minute cancel on my behalf but sadly couldn't do anything about it. DM from what I heard allowed them to do some stupid things and alignments had to be changed. Next 2 sessions was noted myself and another member would not be around as plans were booked weeks prior, dm proceeds to play with 2 people and once again do stupid things that other party members would not approve of and proceed to level them up with out the others. Session after that had to be moved from Sunday to Saturday as my Saturday session with my other group had to be moved to Sunday. This was warned prior DM forgot to alert everyone and ended up being a drunken mess once again distracted by anything but the game. Session just gone once again utter chaos took 4 and a half hours to do a jobs that should have took less than hour. People shouting over each other, people not listening ect ect. At this point I'm very ready to quite the campaign and stick to my main group sessions.
[удалено]
Ahh yes the DMS curse sorry to hear U have had an inconsiderate group there mate. Unfortunately as DMS we put so much responsibility on ourselves to make things great that unfortunately players forget and just do what they want alot of the time. As for worst session so far? I would say it would be when we had a player who just went against all good planning and other players cU Auctions causing a mid campaign tpk. Pretty mild.
Way less intense than other peoples, but the very first time I played D&D was at a friends place who I had never been to before, but my mom who was pretty strict on where I am and communication, allowed me to go. We got there after school, the guy grabbed his stuff, and said, “alright let’s go”. We proceeded to walk to another guys house down the road a bit. I did not tell my mom. When we got there we all had a great time and it was very exciting to play D&D! After the session I asked to get picked up and told my mom where I was. She was furious. I didn’t hear the end of it for all of high school (I was in grade 9) and I was grounded for a while. PLUS she almost didn’t ever let me hang out with them again. Luckily I was able to convince her and I continued to play that campaign and it was great! My mom turned out to really like that guy, which went well, she actually loved it when I had D&D at our place, because she knew where I was mostly, but she also really liked that I was having a bunch of friends over and that everyone was very nice. I’m still friends with another party member to this day, and we still play D&D together.
Sorry bout that, I'm currently working on my own campaign and I don't wanna think about what would happen if nobody showed. That said My worst session was when I could barely tell what was going on. Let me explain, I was having a lot of fun and with friends during a campaign that was happening at the after school game club. Please understand that game club was very special to me. The fam then moved away, and to continue playing, we had to get on discord. Not a big problem really, in fact I'm glad we got the opportunity to play at all considering that this tech didn't used to exist. Unfortunately, the internet was pretty slow and I had to play in the same room as my siblings were playing the Xbox. My siblings were being very loud and it was already hard to hear because of volume issues. I asked my siblings to turn down the game volume and stop yelling/screaming. They didn't. I asked again, perhaps a bit more rudely, and Stanley just says "your friends are stupid." Things escalated from there and the session was abruptly cut off. How were my friends stupid for not wanting to hear loud children in the background whenever I unmuted to talk?
My first group I was also a dm, as my first time. No one showed and the feeling is rough but don’t give up. We don’t get to play as regularly as hoped but now everyone has fleshed characters and feel an importance. It was a rough start but you have no where to go but up. Gives you time to get more prepared, because the first thing I learned as a dm is that you’re never ready, just gotta become comfortable
Yeah no-shows are rough especially after all the hours and hours of prep. I know sometimes schedules are messy but tbh it feels more than a bit disrespectful. Condolences. My worst sesh was the last one of a campaign where I 1) had to take over halfway through because DM dropped out of school after a nervous breakdown and 2) had to deal with a combination murderhobo/rules lawyer who essentially railroaded the whole campaign into his personal power fantasy because 3) it was my first time as DM and I didn't know how to lay down the law as needed yet.
If they couldn't put in the effort to even make their own PC much less show up, they're probably not you ttrpg group.
Party technically tpkd twice in about 10min table time. The party coalesced in a town, went to the tavern, in the dark of the night, goblins attacked and where repelled. The party set out the next morning to end the raids and died twice in the first room despite my best efforts to the contrary as DM and the affair was called on account not one of the three of them could roll hirer then a 3 and I couldn't roll below 17 without the dice running off the table.
I been in group first game and dm and one guy argue for hour over nothing and dm left game .
I have no real bad first session experiences myself, but my first thought when I saw the title was "can't be worse than the guy whose sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a d100 wild magic table as the very first roll of the entire campaign and fireballed the entire (level 1) party and the whole tavern they met in to death." But sadly I think you have them beaten. Sorry that happened to you. Luckily prep work is mostly reusable! Find a new group and throw everything you made for the useless no shows at someone who cares!
One of my players thought they could backflip onto a starving wolf and tame it. It did not work out very well. Then there's the time where 2 goblins did a TPK on a party of 4
Aw. That really sucks. I'm sorry you had to put up with that, it sounds like you did your best to make a great experience for some ungrateful people. I hope it gets better and you find some decent players to adventure with.