Here it is out of order, the first half of the D&D post from the other day.

From the way the dramatic retelling of events ended, it would be safe to assume that Dram left the party of adventurers.

Which mirrors the decision that I’ve come to, and that is I’m leaving our D&D group.

It wasn’t an easy decision. But after sleeping on it I know it’s the right decision.

So why or how did I come to this decision?

A couple weeks back the person playing Sarmyar left due to a change in life events. Which is fair enough. Life changes, stuff happens. It meant our group went from 6 in the party to 5 (not including the DM).

Last session I turn up to our scheduled session and there at the table was a new player. It was obvious that those there already knew all about this. It was a bit of a shock. And I thought a bit rude. I don’t think the player of Nick was comfortable with it either when he arrived. And also obvious that he knew nothing of it either.

It also puts you in an awkward situation. That isn’t fair.

Which brings me on to group dynamics before returning to this initial point.

Our play group is clearly split into two. One group plays a second D&D game on an alternate night and other boardgames/videogames together. Which is fine, not a problem. While the rest don’t. But it’s starting to seem cliquey.

The ones that knew about the new player were the ones in the group that plays together outside our session. In fact the new player was the girlfriend of one of them.

I thought I was being unreasonable thinking before a new person joined the group having it discussed and being asked how I felt. So in the middle of the night I checked with a group of DM’s on a discord server I belong to. It turns out it’s not unreasonable to be notified before hand at the least.

I know and accept that as a part of the hobby people leave and join a group through out a campaign especially if it’s one that has been running for a long time. It’s inevitable. But especially when some-one new is joining for whatever reason it should be discussed before hand.

It felt like game/group decisions were being made by a handful and not the whole.

At the end of the session one of the group then proceeded to congratulate me on participating more this session. I was so glad to have his approval, and said so sarcastically. But the only players he seems to rate on their playing seem to be ones not in the other gaming group. Because the other one he commented on was the only other none member of that group. No other players were commented on, despite one of his gaming group this week participating less than the rest of us.

I wouldn’t mind such comments if I felt they were justified, or he was some amazing role player. But like the majority of us he’s new to RPG’s and boy does he meta game. This session was super meta gaming. And by that I mean his character was doing stuff that was based on information it would not know. For me that kind of ruins a session a bit.

I’ll come back to this participating thing. Sometimes people have off weeks, or they don’t feel that session has the opportunities for their character. And if you feel that the person is not participating you chat to them away from the group, check that they are ok. There may be stuff going on in their life you have no idea about. They may as I said have felt the sessions are not giving their character the chance to shine.

I think this public praise thing at the end may be intended as being positive. But it’s not coming across as that especially with the “you played well but…” feel to it.

I feel better having said this. It’s a bit more in-depth than the bullet points I gave our DM when I broke the news to him.

Naturally there are two sides to everything, and my interpretation of events will differ from others involved. I try and be as factual as possible and remove the emotional side. But sometimes that’s harder to do at times. This being one of them. I also try and not make it personal and that is not always successful either. And as they say the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I am happy how I wrote him out of the adventure. We haven’t seen the last of Dram. I’m sure we will be hearing about his escapades on the blog from time to time.