killem2
2016-11-14, 12:07 PM
I apologize this is going to be very long-winded but just bear with me. I'm the DM here, dealing with two current players.
So I have an Unwritten rule the rule doesn't come into question very often I think it's only came into contention 4 times in the last 6 years before this post. The first two or a pair of 19 year olds who wanted join our group and I let them and after one session they wanted to know if their girlfriends could come play as well I told each of them I can't do that.
The Fallout from dating and DND is not something I wanted to deal with. They took it well but eventually after a couple more sessions they left. The third person who had been playing with the group since pretty much 2011 asking me the same thing in 2014. I told him no and even though he was 20 years old he was actually very mature about it he understood where I was coming from and for a lack of better words you don't s*** where you eat.
And that player stayed with us Faithfully until the beginning of 2016 when he had to move away.
Now we get to one of my friends ) Let's just call him Bob who I've known for a very long time (since 1998) who moved from another state (after a divorce and custody of two kids being arranged) and brought a girl with and Bob swore she just a roommate they were just friends and I was okay with that. She was a cool person and grasp pathfinder very easily. Those two join the group well technically Bob had already been playing but Bob was playing remote so she was a new person. And everything was fine for about 6 months. Now they were pretty flirty with each other outside of work outside of the DND group. Sometimes it bled into their characters but nothing real bad.
They had a seriously bad fall out. It was then I learned I was lied to and they did have a "friends with benefits" sort of thing going on. Not sure who wanted more out of it but it wasn't going to happen, and thus downward spiral began. I of course said you both can still come to dnd, just leave your baggage at the door. You are adults. I also told Bob I wasn't cool with him hiding that from me, because I would have told Bob you can't bring her if this is the case. Of course at the end of it, and a lot of I won't come if she is coming so I will gracefully pull away from the group and vice versa and in the end. Bob stayed she didn't want it to be awkward even though it already was.
Now, we move to present day. Which is not even a month since Bob's roommate has left his apt and our group for good. We have a woman lets call her Susie who has played with the group for almost 3 years took a break because of a divorce, which Susie is still dealing with and custody of 2 kids and so forth. Now that her scummy ex-husband has to actually watch his own kids Susie has some free time every other weekend. I invited her back, and all was well. The first session was this last weekend since she has played.
At first nothing seemed out of the norm. About 2 hours in to our session which ran from 11 am to 7 pm, I get text saying I think Bob is hitting on me. Now, I'm in the middle of the adventures right now and trying not to break this all up. I simply replied to her to tell Bob to **** off (jokingly). I let it go. I notice they are taking smoke breaks a bit more often, and I had to repeatedly get their attentions when their turns came up. They were clearly messaging on facebook or something secretly. Bob changed, clearly acting a bit more how to put it, cutesy. Awwing over puppy videos, (no sound but I could see it), and when my daughter (4 years old) would come down who he normally gives no **** about or attention to, suddenly dusts off his dad hat and is playing with her. Ok whatever, i'm like /rollseyes.
After it was all said and done, I finally had a chance to message Susie and told her I already told Bob that I don't allow non-committed relationships (engagement/marriage) at my dnd table. Susie told me a move has been made and she isn't sure where to go from here:
I sent them both this message:
You are free to make any adult decision you like. I'm not saying you can't date. I'm saying if you do, this is what happens. It's a rule i've always had. I'm not trying to control or manipulate you and susie. It's my rule that non-married couples are not going to play at my dnd table. I didn't say you can't come to my party, or game night if I have one. Or go to movie nights I host somewhere else, or parties I might have.
So don't try that guilt trip **** on me it won't work. And you know this. I hate the fact that I have to be a Dutch Uncle and be so damn blunt.. I know from experience and from countless other people in position who had DM groups that it does interfere with d&d , if it didn't you could do what ever you want with my blessing. It's a very small group and we don't it to get smaller we don't want to deal with fall out from broken friendships.
Basically, she said they are just friends now, he says they are platonic friends, and I told bob, that the relationship that i have with susie is Platonic. I care about her family and her, I would do anything for her and her family but sex is off the table. Any relationship aspects along those lines are OFF THE TABLE and never were on the table. Because I don't think he knew really what that meant.
Of course, he was not happy with me, he asked me if he's not allowed to hang out with people outside of dnd (which seriously is such a spin on this it is not even funny). He made some cold past tense usage comments with friendship. And the only thing he has sent to me since was, You should invite lets call her Judy (the ex-roomate) back.
I simply replied with:
I think I'm going to stick with what I got. I've had so much change to this group, I'm going to Keep it with person 1, person 2, and person 3 for the foreseeable future, and if you and susie are just friends then there isn't any reason to not have you two. And if person 2 turns out not to be able to play often and it's just person 1 and person 3 , then it's person 1 and person 3.
I've ran sessions for years on just person 1 and his son
nothing since.
My wife and I seem to be in agreement, and person 1 who has been playing with me since 2011, agreed that, it was very hard dealing with Judy and Bob's break up and the fall out was bad for the group.
I have my own reasons for not allowing dating couples. Because, it makes my life as a DM very hard to deal with changes like this when I have people committing. You affect the group, encounters, and story. That is one part. It's not the only part. The friendships that get hurt also is a reason.
I own opinion about Bob and Susie I have not shared with either of them as they both share needs for advice with me. I don't think it would work long term but that's not for me to decide. I keep protect the dnd group nothing more.
Am I just dead wrong? I hate doing it, but the only difference here is they went ahead and started something. Even though Bob was well aware of my rule now. She seems fine and was cheerful to me when I last saw her yesterday in person, he of course isn't speaking to me.
How do any of you deal with dating in your gaming circles? Do you leave it up for maturity to decide? What's done is done, but i feel like adults (both over 30 at this point) should understand where I'm coming from.
So I have an Unwritten rule the rule doesn't come into question very often I think it's only came into contention 4 times in the last 6 years before this post. The first two or a pair of 19 year olds who wanted join our group and I let them and after one session they wanted to know if their girlfriends could come play as well I told each of them I can't do that.
The Fallout from dating and DND is not something I wanted to deal with. They took it well but eventually after a couple more sessions they left. The third person who had been playing with the group since pretty much 2011 asking me the same thing in 2014. I told him no and even though he was 20 years old he was actually very mature about it he understood where I was coming from and for a lack of better words you don't s*** where you eat.
And that player stayed with us Faithfully until the beginning of 2016 when he had to move away.
Now we get to one of my friends ) Let's just call him Bob who I've known for a very long time (since 1998) who moved from another state (after a divorce and custody of two kids being arranged) and brought a girl with and Bob swore she just a roommate they were just friends and I was okay with that. She was a cool person and grasp pathfinder very easily. Those two join the group well technically Bob had already been playing but Bob was playing remote so she was a new person. And everything was fine for about 6 months. Now they were pretty flirty with each other outside of work outside of the DND group. Sometimes it bled into their characters but nothing real bad.
They had a seriously bad fall out. It was then I learned I was lied to and they did have a "friends with benefits" sort of thing going on. Not sure who wanted more out of it but it wasn't going to happen, and thus downward spiral began. I of course said you both can still come to dnd, just leave your baggage at the door. You are adults. I also told Bob I wasn't cool with him hiding that from me, because I would have told Bob you can't bring her if this is the case. Of course at the end of it, and a lot of I won't come if she is coming so I will gracefully pull away from the group and vice versa and in the end. Bob stayed she didn't want it to be awkward even though it already was.
Now, we move to present day. Which is not even a month since Bob's roommate has left his apt and our group for good. We have a woman lets call her Susie who has played with the group for almost 3 years took a break because of a divorce, which Susie is still dealing with and custody of 2 kids and so forth. Now that her scummy ex-husband has to actually watch his own kids Susie has some free time every other weekend. I invited her back, and all was well. The first session was this last weekend since she has played.
At first nothing seemed out of the norm. About 2 hours in to our session which ran from 11 am to 7 pm, I get text saying I think Bob is hitting on me. Now, I'm in the middle of the adventures right now and trying not to break this all up. I simply replied to her to tell Bob to **** off (jokingly). I let it go. I notice they are taking smoke breaks a bit more often, and I had to repeatedly get their attentions when their turns came up. They were clearly messaging on facebook or something secretly. Bob changed, clearly acting a bit more how to put it, cutesy. Awwing over puppy videos, (no sound but I could see it), and when my daughter (4 years old) would come down who he normally gives no **** about or attention to, suddenly dusts off his dad hat and is playing with her. Ok whatever, i'm like /rollseyes.
After it was all said and done, I finally had a chance to message Susie and told her I already told Bob that I don't allow non-committed relationships (engagement/marriage) at my dnd table. Susie told me a move has been made and she isn't sure where to go from here:
I sent them both this message:
You are free to make any adult decision you like. I'm not saying you can't date. I'm saying if you do, this is what happens. It's a rule i've always had. I'm not trying to control or manipulate you and susie. It's my rule that non-married couples are not going to play at my dnd table. I didn't say you can't come to my party, or game night if I have one. Or go to movie nights I host somewhere else, or parties I might have.
So don't try that guilt trip **** on me it won't work. And you know this. I hate the fact that I have to be a Dutch Uncle and be so damn blunt.. I know from experience and from countless other people in position who had DM groups that it does interfere with d&d , if it didn't you could do what ever you want with my blessing. It's a very small group and we don't it to get smaller we don't want to deal with fall out from broken friendships.
Basically, she said they are just friends now, he says they are platonic friends, and I told bob, that the relationship that i have with susie is Platonic. I care about her family and her, I would do anything for her and her family but sex is off the table. Any relationship aspects along those lines are OFF THE TABLE and never were on the table. Because I don't think he knew really what that meant.
Of course, he was not happy with me, he asked me if he's not allowed to hang out with people outside of dnd (which seriously is such a spin on this it is not even funny). He made some cold past tense usage comments with friendship. And the only thing he has sent to me since was, You should invite lets call her Judy (the ex-roomate) back.
I simply replied with:
I think I'm going to stick with what I got. I've had so much change to this group, I'm going to Keep it with person 1, person 2, and person 3 for the foreseeable future, and if you and susie are just friends then there isn't any reason to not have you two. And if person 2 turns out not to be able to play often and it's just person 1 and person 3 , then it's person 1 and person 3.
I've ran sessions for years on just person 1 and his son
nothing since.
My wife and I seem to be in agreement, and person 1 who has been playing with me since 2011, agreed that, it was very hard dealing with Judy and Bob's break up and the fall out was bad for the group.
I have my own reasons for not allowing dating couples. Because, it makes my life as a DM very hard to deal with changes like this when I have people committing. You affect the group, encounters, and story. That is one part. It's not the only part. The friendships that get hurt also is a reason.
I own opinion about Bob and Susie I have not shared with either of them as they both share needs for advice with me. I don't think it would work long term but that's not for me to decide. I keep protect the dnd group nothing more.
Am I just dead wrong? I hate doing it, but the only difference here is they went ahead and started something. Even though Bob was well aware of my rule now. She seems fine and was cheerful to me when I last saw her yesterday in person, he of course isn't speaking to me.
How do any of you deal with dating in your gaming circles? Do you leave it up for maturity to decide? What's done is done, but i feel like adults (both over 30 at this point) should understand where I'm coming from.