RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons might be games, but they are serious to the players and can sometimes lead to conflict in the game play.

For this man, he’s well-experienced in D&D and was asked to come help move a game along for his friend. Instead, the group got mad at him and his friend!

Now, he wants to know if he really did something wrong.

Let’s get into it…

AITA for “forcing” other players into tough scenarios in D&D?

For context, I (36m) have been playing D&D and other TTRPGs a long time. An acquaintance that i’ve played with before, who I’ll call Tina, asked me if I could help her with her campaign.

She’s DMing a full campaign for the first time after having run some one-shots, and she’s using a homebrew setting to boot. Most of her players are first-timers and they lost their cleric(healer) a few months prior.

Ever since then, Tina’s players have been avoiding combat at all costs and just dragging their feet in general to avoid moving things forward.

Sounds like they need some help.

Tina thinks they’re just worried about getting their characters killed without a healer. Tina wanted me to come in as a healer and push the narrative and action forward.

I made a healer with high charisma (a celestial warlock) and stepped into the campaign at a point where the players just kind of farting around with escape room-style puzzles in a mansion to get an item they need.

This was the third session of this, with the second session the previous week being nothing but investigating every single thing but doing nothing with the clues and “keys” they were finding.

My character negotiated his way into the group by combining resources. After about 30 minutes the puzzle was solved and two of the other players literally said we need to slow down, which blew my mind.

They seem new to the game…

After leaving the mansion we were attacked by NPCs who wanted the loot. I immediately tried intimidation, but it failed and combat ensued.

The other players acted like this was game over before we had even rolled initiative, complaining that they didn’t even get a chance to try to persuade the NPCs because I immediately tried to intimidate.

We beat the NPCs and I only used one healing spell, so it wasn’t even very difficult.

After that we did narrative stuff and pushed the plot forward, and I took a backseat for most of that because my character is the new guy. I only stepped in when negotiations were happening.

After the session several of the players contacted Tina and said they thought I was too aggressive of a player.

That’s surprising!

We did one more session the following week and less than an hour in there was a big crashout over me pushing the pace and not letting the rest of them take their time or avoid combat.

One of them said I was stealing the spotlight and trying to become the face of the party. When I said I hadn’t even rolled a single charisma check all session I was told that I’m not being respectful of everyone’s feelings.

Tina told them she brought me in to push the pace and get things moving instead of stagnating for session after session. This made the other players very upset and the session ended here.

Afterward, Tina told me that the other players were upset at her for allowing me to “force” my way into the campaign. This is despite her telling them that she invited me.

They will only keep playing if she apologized and I didn’t play anymore.

So am I the a-hole here? I feel like this is crazy.

Let’s get into the comments.

This person doesn’t think he’s in the wrong.

Others think this is far more on Tina than it is on him.

Where others point out that the situation is messy all around!

But overall, Reddit users were sympathetic.

Sometimes it’s just not worth the game!

Time to find a new one.

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