looking a ttrpg horror story's for my friends podcast and need some ttrpg horror stories to react to. so please feel free to share something that happened at your table. I'm specifically looking for table drama (bad dms, jerk players, est.). [ ooc ]

WARNING: mentions of suicice

I've been a DM for nearly five years. I got into the game during the beginning of the pandemic and have been running games ever since, but most of my friends at that time had never even heard of D&D. So, to get more people into my campaign I was running after school, I put up some posters and got one of my teachers to run the club since my school requires a chaperone for every afterschool activity. at this point, I had been playing and DMing for quite a long time, but I had never had too many problem players. since afterschool programs can only go for about an hour and a half at my school, I figured it would be best to find people who were already interested in the game and knew how to play, so the posters said, 'for experienced players only.' when I got together with the group on the first day, everyone seemed pretty nice, and most of the players were eager to interact with each other and character creation. there was one kid who didn't seem to want to talk with the group or collaborate during session zero since he was in the corner making his character, but I shrugged it off, assuming he was just socially awkward. we'll call him Bob. Even though some of the people in the campaign had never played, they all knew the rules and how to play. the following week when we met up again for the first story session, Bob was talking and interacting with the party, which I was glad about. The campaign I had planned took place in the feywild, and the first couple of sessions we're supposed to follow the character getting embroiled in a war between the moonlit king's watch and a gang of redcaps. the first session started with a fight with a few bandits. during the fight, I told Bob it was his turn, and he rolled an attack with his longsword. Bob was playing a fighter, and when he rolled a 22 on his first attack, I thought he was just lucky (these characters are at 1st level, mind you), but then he told me he had rolled a 23 for damage, and I demanded he showed me his character sheet. It was madness. he had an intelligence, wisdom, and charisma score of 1, his dexterity and constitution were 30, and his strength was 40, which I think is impossible, even at 20th level. his backstory was something about being a scientist who got trapped in a robotic body. I calmly explained that he would have to make a new character, but in response, he started crying and explaining that his scores 'made sense' because of his robotic body, but when I still told him he couldn't have such high ability scores, he started screaming and saying he couldn't do anything right, threatening to kill himself if I didn't let him play the character. the noise attracted the chaperone, who we'll call Jerry. Jerry asked what was going on, and I explained the situation. Jerry said that they didn't have any experience with the game, so they couldn't do anything, but that we couldn't exclude Bob, who took a couple of minutes to calm down. eventually, I said that he could play with his character, hoping I could bring the issue up with a different staff member. Halfway through the session, we were in a cave fighting a redcap, and one of the other players, who we'll call Tom, got into an argument with Bob after Bob rerolled an attack when he wasn't supposed to. I was about to intervene when Bob pulled Tom's hair causing him to fall backwards off his seat. after Tom told Jerry, Bob started crying again, and Jerry eventually had to cut the session short. I was sad my new players had such a bad experience with their first session of D&D, but I was sure the principal would kick Bob out of the club, but when I asked, they told me, 'We'll do what we can.' the next week, Bob was there again, and the process repeated for a couple of weeks. eventually, all of my players, and eventually me, quit the club. that was about a year ago, and I haven't tried to put together another afterschool campaign, but hopefully I can soon, and Bob won't be there.

DM adding a flaky player to a full group is going to create a bit of group tension.

Artificer seemingly taking ownership of the DMs project is an odd one but something I have encountered outside of d&d. I had a very involved personal project and had enlisted family and friends to assist. One person got very agitated along the journey with my apparent lack of attention to detail. I had to explain to them that my priority was having key elements complete prior to a fixed date, good enough was what I needed, top quality could be achieved later. I had to let them walk away from it as they wouldn't cooperate with me. The lack of comes baffles me though. Talk to the people who can action things about the issues you have https://100001****/  https://1921681254.mx/

The DM dropping the whole thing is shit as well. Throwing all of it on everyone.

I would have quit the after school club and made private online sessions with the good players. Bob wouldn't ever have to know and if he did he can't tell you what to do in your free time (which is what I would have told him when he threatened to hurt himself lol). Bob sounds like a bit of a psychopath. I had a sister who was one and did a lot of the same things in my day to day life.

thats brother     -_-

I have a plethora of horror stories in my time, but have some of these ones because they're kinda tied to one another.

I had a rogue kobold, who is my favorite character to this day, despite what happened. For this character to work, I had his backstory be kinda typical for a kobold admittedly, but your standard "Enslaved to a tyrannical dragon, escaped, and vowed vengeance against them!" sort of deal. To help fit into the world, I brought this up to the DM, and asked them what dragon would fit for this to work. I am given the name of a Greatwyrm in the world, a blue Greatwyrm, said to be ruthless and uncaring.
Perfect, I thought, and continued playing the character as this quirky, ambitious, and shady little gremlin bent on slaying his former master, and anyone else who dared lord their power over others. Fast forward a few months, and this little kobold is given the opportunity to do something cool. The game offered a downtime system, where you could make an ability check, and earn gold depending on how well you rolled, or suffer great consequences on a crit fail. The DM, offered to let me make my Downtime, stealing other kobolds from my former master, taking kobolds instead of gold. Absolutely I jumped on this, and began freeing my friends. After gathering almost 200 kobolds after awhile though, the DM put in a new rule, that the Greatwyrm was now aware of my actions, and would be more aware. Now, every time I made a downtime roll it would be at disadvantage, and I could not use reliable talent for these rolls. And if I ever was to roll a 1, something would happen. Presumably, the Greatwyrm spotting my rogue and an encounter ensuing, most likely leading to certain death.
I still roll with this, thinking it cool, and damn if this little guy didn't have INSANE luck. Went an entire year without rolling a 1. Saved 1135 kobolds in total.

We were allowed to make additional characters, and I had an idea in mind.
I made a warlock for the first time, that was originally meant to be a villain/heel to one of my rogue. She was also a kobold, who lived under the Greatwyrm, but unlike Rogue, she was loyal to her master to a fault. Wanting to put an end to these thefts in the night, she pretends to be one of these "rescues" and tags along with rogue, planning fully on assassinating him the moment she gets a chance. Of course, this is difficult with the rest of the characters being friends with him. So its the long deception game.

Long story short, Warlock ends up bonding with a few party members, and starting to see that her master doesn't care about her at all. On a mission, the truth is revealed by one of the monsters we face, a sphinx, who tells the party exactly what shes here for, and where her loyalties lie. She figures this is the end, and OOC I'm thinking this too. I always intended for this character to be turned on eventually and killed, so I figure this is the moment. She braces for what she sees as inevitable death. But instead, the party actually stands up for her, defending her, and calling the sphinx a liar, because clearly their friend would never do that. For the first time, she experiences genuine care for her being, and instantly falls apart. Crying and admitting the truth, and that she doesn't deserve their defense and words. The party, again, does not react in anger or violence, they instead give her a hug, and a second chance, telling her that she's one of them now, and she doesn't have to listen to anything her master says. That her life is hers to choose now.

I see this as a turning point, and decide to have her abandon her mission, and want to stay with her new friends who actually care about her, than work herself to death for someone who wouldn't care if she succeeded or died. The server offered a free character change feature, where you could alter anything about your character once. (Class, subclass, ability scores, feats, etc.) So, I ask the DM if I can use this feature, as a cool character moment, to change my warlock levels, to sorcerer ones. As she disavows her patron and chooses the party instead.
Another DM, tells me No, I cannot do that, because that is not how warlocks work. A patron can only give you power, not take it away. That said, they can choose to not give you any further power, but you're stuck with whatever warlock levels you took permanently.

I had never played a warlock before, and this DM had a warlock character themselves, so, I shrug it off and accept it as a weight on her shoulders she'll forever try to move past. Taking the rest of her levels in storm sorcery.

Flash forward about a year later, and this same DM who told me you can't get rid of warlock levels, decides to do, just that, and get rid of all 20 of her warlock levels to change to barbarian levels. I got no explanation on to why it was okay for them to do that with their character, but I couldn't with mine. I was just told to, among my many other complaints with similar stories and rulings on the server, told to "Stop your (my) whiny *****ing".

But what happened to Rogue, you ask? Well that's the second part of this story.
After being asked to make a DC 20 history check to remember how to read thieves can't as a lv 20 rogue, the DM then goes on to explain to me and my character, that his entire backstory is actually a lie. The Greatwyrm never actually harmed, killed or mistreated anyone. My rogue is just a crazy idiot, who misinterpreted everything. The Greatwyrm is actually very caring for everyone under her, but she just wants to be left alone, so actively chooses to let anyone who doesn't want to be there leave. So everything I did, my rogues entire adventure and reason for training and questing, became invalidated in an instant. Technically warlock as well, because of this revelation, because I guess she was in the right all along, because Rogue was stupid and doing this for nothing, and she was actually serving a good dragon who treated her well? (But still called her a tool).

The Magnus Archives is my forever favorite, but I’m actually finding the sequel podcast, The Magnus Protocol, to be more viscerally scary. I know not everyone agrees but to me a lot of the stories have made me feel a deep sense of dread.