13 Tabletop RPG Horror Stories We Found This Week That'll Make You Cringe (2024)

From Redditor u/Snoerk22:

So - basically, at the time we were a table of five people, our DM included. We had been playing together for a bunch of years like I said, when one of the other players introduced a new person. I'll call her Rose for the purpose of this post. We had just finished our previous campaign, which had been vampire themed, and were looking into a more classic high fantasy DND adventure, which was why the other player - I'll call him Rogue since that was his class for said new game - decided this was a good time to bring Rose whom he'd known for a while then. Apart from Rose, Rogue and me (I played a Fighter because I like being a tank in-game) there was our DM, and two more guys who played a Bard and a Warlock respectively.This feels like a good moment to mention: All of us at that table were guys, and Rose was the only female player. This will be important, trust me.

So, we made our characters, and got to know each other a bit, and then started playing. Rose's character was a pink tiefling druid (I forget her character's name) who was essentially built up on the premise of “looks like a cinnamon roll, could kill you.” I thought that was a fun concept, especially cause her character was an interesting contrast to our more dirty, gruff, typical high fantasy male characters. Her RP was also great - she'd play that tiefling as super cute and sweet only for her to be the most vicious in fights. I thought it was amazing, but as I came to learn, the others did not agree.

I think we'd been playing for maybe half a year pretty regularly, and I was under the impression that we were all of the same opinion when it came to Rose - that she was nice, fun, and played a cool character. But then the Big Thing happened that taught me better.

About a month before the Big Thing, I noticed that especially Rogue and Warlock started acting sort of ruder toward Rose than I'd previously noticed, but since they'd both just started university I figured it was maybe just stress (feel free to call me an oblivious oaf below cause my god, I was oblivious) and didn't say anything. Rose for what it's worth did not seem too bothered by it either. But then over that month everything became more and more tense and I noticed that our DM seemed to deal her character more damage, but I thought it had to do with something from her characters backstory that would be revealed later or something, since she never brought it up herself. Then, finally, the Big Thing. A fight against a goon that I think was supposed to be our BBEGs like primary minion or something. DM was definitely dealing Rose more damage than usual now and then, suddenly, declared that the goon mind controlled Rogue and Warlock. I expected them to protest, but they really got into it, and when DM had them attack Roses character they seemed more energetic than all that session. Bard and my character resisted the charm of the goon, but when I wanted to step in and defend Roses character, DM said I was too far away. Bard did not step in, claiming his character was too shocked.

Warlock and Rogue under DMs lead punched Roses character to deaths brink and then the mind control of the goon finally let up, but instead of helping Roses character everyone just started attacking the goon. I tried to have my character stop the bleeding and keep Roses character alive til bard could hear her, but the DM said I was "too shocked" to do anything useful. I got mad at him but he sorta just cut me off and turned back to the fight. The party did defeat the goon, and I started calling to the Bard to come heal Rose, but he just said no. Warlock and Rogue didn't say anything when both Rose and I started to argue now. - some context, Rose was really into angsty RP and I think up to that point she at least was in for that, but when she realized the party had turned against her she got, rightfully, mad -

I don't remember how exactly the session ended but basically, the other players let Roses character die and DM did not let me fight them on that nor let me attempt to help since "I was a knight so I can't heal and must focus on the mission" - even though my characters personality was very clichee shining knight gentleman like.

Rose did not return to the table with a new character the next session. When I showed up to our next meeting, the other guys were laughing and mocking her and talking about how they were glad she was gone. I got mad and demanded they explain what the hell that was - no idea why I didn't ask them the previous session, I genuinely don't remember - and they told me they'd been planning to essentially bully Rose out of the game for a while since they apparently did not like that she played a pink character in a flowercrown that did not act cute or "like a girl"? - yeah, I don't know, but I told them they were jerks and left their group there and then.

I am embarrassed that I never noticed how awful these guys were before - and honestly it was probably because before Rose, there hadn't been any other female people in our tiny social circle and since we didn't hang out outside our sessions I'd not seen them act sexist though I am sure the signs were all there and I was just blind to them. I did text Rogue a few days after and asked him why he had even brought Rose to our group if he hated her so and he flat out admitted he hoped she'd play a character he could seduce in game. apparently she had mentioned she wanted to try DND and he had seen a chance or whatever.

So yeah - pretty awful group and i am glad I left. This was like, four or five years ago now btw.

I recently got back in contact with Rose - she happened to be in the same seminar as me in university - and we had a good talk about everything. That is when I asked her if I could post this horror story, and she not only said yes, but told me what became of her after. She participated in some sort of online character swap - if you had a DND character or OC to retire you could swap it for another person's retired character. Sort of like DND adoption. Her character was adopted by someone who used the whole thing of "the party collectively killed the druid" as the tragic backstory, resurrecting the character as a druid and death domain warlock multiclass (if I remember correctly). It sounds cool, and Rose said that other player had a lot of fun with the pink tiefling. Rose herself apparently turned to local LARPs after that, but that isn't my scene so I haven't played with her since.​

I dunno. I feel like I contributed to the bad situation for Rose, even though she told me that out of all the guys "I was at least not a jack*ss" but if anything this experience opened my eyes to how sexist many TTRPG and nerd spaces are towards women. Definitely changed how I interact in fandom spaces now.