When have you had players walk away from a Game?

[Iwasforger03]

As the DM or a player, when have you had other people walk away from a game where they consider it your fault?

This was inspired by Atemu's thread.


As a DM, the only time I've had a player walk away from a game is when his incomplete character was killed in combat by orcs after rolling low on an acrobatics check to escape them. He rolled a base 8 and missed his DC by 1, got AoOed to death, and walked off. Worse, he had a freaking teleport magic item handy that would have gotten him out of there. Also worse, he failed to use the withdraw action, because most of these people have never actually READ the Core rulebook (this was PF game). Instead, he was gonna CHARGE an orc far removed from the fight. However, the two things I don't appreciate from him (though I do not consider myself faultless, I was very aggro that day) is that he blames me for his unfinished character dying.

I explicitly told every single member of this campaign two things. #1: PCs will die. This may not be tomb of horrors, but PCs will die. Expect it, have backups ready. #2: I want you to have everything except your stats ready when we meet to roll stats and then hold first session. He was not prepared. Others were. He was not. This was a group of players I considered to have enough experience to theory build an entire character without knowing exact ability scores, then integrate those scores after rolling them. I expected them to have all their feats selected (excepting a few they might not qualify for without the right stats) and to have backups. I expected some skills finished, to know what magic items they would have, and to know their probable attack bonuses, AC, saves, and HP, in so far as one can without knowing strength, dex, or con.

The rest of my players brought theory built characters needing only their ability Scores. He brought me characters (he had a cohort) with only a partial feat selection, equipment selection, and without knowing basics like AC or his skills or attack bonuses or even what some of his most basic class abilities did.

[Crake]

To be fair, as the DM, if the player is unaware of a rule that would likely be the course of action he would like to take, I think it's kind of a **** move to not tell the player about it. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, players may forget things that their characters would otherwise be well aware of, such as the withdraw action, or the teleport item that they're wearing. I'd honestly say at least part of that was your bad.

Another thing, designing a character THEN rolling stats? Really?

[Iwasforger03]

Normally I do. That was the second character death i've had in a game in... ever (discounting the time I decided to end the game). I started Dungeon Mastering back in 2010, four years ago. I've been running the game this guy was originally from for... 2 years now?

I started up a new game, a short holiday one shot where I told people their characters were going to die. That I was not going to be my usual merciful self, and remind them of all the things they forget about that keep from from getting killed, that they had to do it themselves.

That said? This one is partly my fault. I was very Aggro, but then, I honestly expected them to handle 2 orc barbarians three levels below their own, and a scattering of orc warriors even lower leveled than that. And yes, design the character before rolling stats. As noted? He was the only player who didn't manage it. And I've played in plenty of groups where we get stats rolled up after designing the character. I know multiple other people who've done that, it really isn't all that difficult.

[Crake]

Normally I do. That was the second character death i've had in a game in... ever (discounting the time I decided to end the game). I started Dungeon Mastering back in 2010, four years ago. I've been running the game this guy was originally from for... 2 years now?

I started up a new game, a short holiday one shot where I told people their characters were going to die. That I was not going to be my usual merciful self, and remind them of all the things they forget about that keep from from getting killed, that they had to do it themselves.

That said? This one is partly my fault. I was very Aggro, but then, I honestly expected them to handle 2 orc barbarians three levels below their own, and a scattering of orc warriors even lower leveled than that. And yes, design the character before rolling stats. As noted? He was the only player who didn't manage it. And I've played in plenty of groups where we get stats rolled up after designing the character. I know multiple other people who've done that, it really isn't all that difficult.

I suppose it's more my own personal distaste toward the idea, that said, I could probably throw together a character pretty quickly after rolling stats anyway, so that's not really an excuse for the player. And yeah, fair enough, if you specifically said no DM help as part of the game's design, then that's also fair.

[Feddlefew]

I had someone literally say "I'm bored.", get up, and wander out of the room to play Halo. I don't blame him- I was a freshman in highschool running the first game any of us had ever played, and the poor kid got sent over from next door by his mom to do "the dragon game" with us, so I gave him the pre-stated sorcerer character I had on hand to use as an NPC and he just didn't enjoy himself.

I heard he started playing 4e around the time I left for college.

[Oddman80]

I walked from a game when it was clear the DM just didn't have the time to devote to it. Though details were fuzzy - it was clear he had a lot going on in his life (game day had moved due to original day now being needed for he and his wife to go to counseling). More often than not, games were cancelled within an hour of scheduled start time. Those sessions that he did show up for - he was not prepared - he would spend a ton of time prepping while players just chatted... the DM changed the campaign we were playing and the starting level of the campaign just hours before the first session began. He claimed he was running a game right out of a published module, but he kept bumping up the abilities of all of the enemies, despite the group being low op... it was just a huge train wreck... Everyone wanted to bail - but nobody wanted to be the first to do so - so i took the plunge. I was very civil about it - and the DM actually agreed that he should take a break until his life got back on track.

Its crazy that, even when all signs are pointing to "THIS IS BAD, WE SHOULD STOP", it can still be really difficult to walk away.

[Jermz]

I had someone literally say "I'm bored.", get up, and wander out of the room to play Halo. I don't blame him- I was a freshman in highschool running the first game any of us had ever played, and the poor kid got sent over from next door by his mom to do "the dragon game" with us, so I gave him the pre-stated sorcerer character I had on hand to use as an NPC and he just didn't enjoy himself.

This is hilarious!

I don't have anything to really contribute other than that. I've been gaming with the same guys for years now and these things don't tend to happen.

Oh, wait, one time I was the one who got up and left. This was back in high-school (20-odd years ago), 2E, playing a dwarf fighter/cleric. Wow, 2E multiclass was so overpowered - 11th level fighter, or 10/10 fighter cleric, anyone? Anyway, I had a magical warhammer, one of those weapons that defines a character. The dwarf was really tied to this weapon. We got sent to some layer of the abyss and were fighting these creatures which forced weapons to save vs. spell whenever the weapon hit the creature.

My +5 hammer was reduced to +2 by the end of the fight. I got so angry I threw my d20 at the DM, missed him, cracked the window behind him and ruined my die. I was so embarrassed afterwards I just got up and left, practically in tears.

Edit - silly me, this probably should have been posted in atemu's thread. Oh well.

[Crake]

Its crazy that, even when all signs are pointing to "THIS IS BAD, WE SHOULD STOP", it can still be really difficult to walk away.

I can definitely relate to that, one of the games i quit is still going because all the others still feel too invested in it and cant bring themselves to stop, despite their lack of enjoyment of the game.

[atemu1234]

I can definitely relate to that, one of the games i quit is still going because all the others still feel too invested in it and cant bring themselves to stop, despite their lack of enjoyment of the game.

-Insert Marriage Joke Here-

[Madara]

A buddy of mine told a tale about a DM who used a player's serious arachnophobia at their table. Sure, I get the scaring players and making it intense thing, but poor guy vowed off DnD for a year.

[StoneCipher]

Multiple times people have walked away from my table for simply being surprised by an unexpected reaction. Like when I had a sorcerer trick the PCs into reading explosive runes.

Paladin picks up the piece of paper and without examining it further "I CAST READ MAGIC" then when I told him to make a reflex save, he was like NO WAIT I WANT TO TAKE THAT BACK I DIDNT KNOW IT WAS GOING TO EXPLODE...after arguing with him that that was the point of the whole exercise, he just said "I'm done" and had a pouty fit.