D&D is certainly a community full of fun, creative, and potentially dramatic individuals.

How would you handle trying to share your love of a game with your kid, but perhaps getting too intense and upsetting them over it?

One Dad recently asked for advice after his wife and daughter had quite emotional reactions to a recent game.

Here’s what went down.

AITA. I made my daughter (11), cry during D&D. Even though everything turned out OK, my wife is still mad.

I have been running a 3 yr D&D game for my daughter (11).

I play all other characters including her party members of 5: started out their adventure as petty thieves but are now heroes, all with their own character growth over time.

Sounds like a pretty creative dad.

Her character learned early that her character was the target of a Dark God that had severed her soul from her body.

She and her band of reformed heroes has spent many sessions thwarting a Hag.

Finally, the hag kidnaps a young girl who is friends with the party.

Seems like the game is turning a little high stakes.

We start our D&D session last night and my wife is present in the room: I narrate the events in her game…

The party finds what they think is the hag lair and is prepared for an epic fight to save the child…

Only to find the lair abandoned with the girl in a magical prison and a letter from the hag.

Oof, a little intense.

The letter indicates that the magical trap will soon destroy the girl and that she (My daughter’s character) must “choose her sorrow”.

The girl will be freed on the condition that 2 of her companions are sacrificed or her life alone to be sacrificed.

They attempt a variety of methods to try to break the trap.

But isn’t he playing all the characters?

Her companions range from efforts to break it, to resignation to be the one to sacrifice.

These are characters I have been playing for my daughter for years and she has grown to love them.

My daughter starts quietly sobbing as she realizes there isn’t anything her character can do.

These are all characters she’s been attached to since she was 8!

My wife sees and hears all of this.

I let her (11) feel the range of emotions as she is in what seems to be an impossible situation.

I tell her that while she does have companions that said they were willing, she could decide that this is where her character’s story ends in a heroic sacrifice.

She starts sobbing.

Sounds like the kid maybe wasn’t ready for all of this.

This would mean a permanent end to a 3yr story.

I ask her if she wants to take a break to think.

She nods and goes to her room.

As if that’s going to help.

My wife then, clearly upset, tells me that I should not have done this and to present her with a solution that doesn’t have consequences.

I didn’t want to cheapen the gravity of the story.

I go to my daughter’s room and ask how she is.

Tearfully she says she knows what she will do.

Maybe put on the Dad hat and not the DM hat dude.

We start the game again and she announces in character that she couldn’t live with herself if she sacrifices her friends, and touches the hag device that will destroy her.

I change the music to an ethereal soundtrack.

And narrate her seeing herself as if outside her body and the sacrifice she was willing to make restores her shattered soul with such magnitude and force that it breaks the Hag’s trap.

And that her character felt an overwhelming sense of wholeness as her soul heals with this act of sacrifice.

Cinematic, but at what cost?

I see my daughters visible shock, relief and then joy as I narrate the captured girl released and her own life and soul intact having broke the Hag’s magic.

She jumps from her chair and hugs me sobbing, I’m crying too.

I’m not sure my wife has forgiven me though. She is really mad I put our daughter through this. AITA?

Seems like this guy might be prioritizing drama over being a dad. Let’s see what Reddit had to say.

Most had empathy but were still firm with the dad.

Some asked for important context.

Others with experience weighed in.

One person considered the wife’s perspective.

The hardships of life don’t always equate to a fictional campaign.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.