Let's talk disappointments. Not rage, not lucklessness, not necessarily that guys

I was in a really good D&D 5e campaign with an amazing group, but some serious shit happened to our DM in his personal life and the campaign was abandoned. I was super disappointed, not just because the amazing game ended, but because it ended on such sad circumstances for our DM that were completely out of his control.

I had this happen once and it was awesome. Enemy supersoldier piloting a super-advanced living mech, facing the PCs in upgraded but still regular-mass-produced infantry mecha. She'd jumped a transport ship bringing them supplies, tore up their anti-mech turrets with a forest of tentacle drones, and was posed smugly shooting down their allies, whose even-cheaper mecha could only hurt her by suicide bombing to get through her armor.

Two shots in one of the PCs fries her fusion generator and makes her mech useless, cue victory whooping and one of the PCs becoming a propaganda star. No regrets, bitch went in smug and went out like a thug.

Every time I have played any edition of D&D that isn't fourth because it's the same every fucking time:
>We're not playing AD&D because it's too hard!
>We're not playing 4e because it's a videogaem!
>Don't worry, we're playing 3.5 but I have homeruled it so martials are good! (read I have nerfed the damage output of caster classes instead of buffing martial out of combat usage and not addressed the fucking issue)
>Turns into a mommy mommy may I.... shitfest with the DM
>If 5e add the mommy may I and UA adding shit that should be core rules instead of very limited feats (which are also shit since feats are either very fucking good or very fucking niche and fluffy so if you don't take GWM and the other fighter does now you feel like an idiot in combat)
It's just disappointing it's always the same fucking shit, be honest at least like 4e is.

>inb4 3.5PF&Drones anally anguished and not getting the problem as usual

I believe myself to be the worst GM ever. I don't believe my players when they say I run good games or they say they are having fun. I will never believe I am a good GM. I am constantly disappointed with my games, but I keep doing it because I enjoy it for some reason. I must be a sadomasochist and enjoy making myself feel bad.

Have a guy who's an awesome DM and world builder but a total 3.pf grognard. Every session is dragged down by the shit system. Disappointing because I know we'd all have more fun and get more done playing almost any other system.

Balance isn't the problem, it's DMs who can't control their players.

And AD&D was far better than 4E ever was, there's a reason people are still trying to recreate it in new ways. Fourth was one giant abortion of an edition.

Every edition of D&D is bad. It's not the seventies anymore, hundreds of better systems exist. Play one of them.

Oh boy, here comes the 3aboos!

AD&D wasn't 3E you casual.

I would but first I'd have to filter through all the shitty systems where the writers have their heads so far up their ass that they're seeing daylight and I gotta be honest I don't have the heart for that. There's only a few systems I play and I can't be bothered looking at new ones anymore because 99% of RP systems are trash or just written in an annoyingly obnoxious way by some writer who thinks he's being cute, or alternately, takes himself WAY too seriously.

>ran a dark heresey game
>combat light. For fluff reasons, have the players be ascension level, they are solely in charge of bringing this world to heel. Bring in a pcs space marine at one point.

Most everyone had some good time to shine even though it was only a ten week game. I still feel positive about most of it. I had more content ready to go but they hit a high point fighting a logis daemon that was possessing a bunch of suits of dark angels pre heresey armor. Like thirty or forty or something being held together to form a body for the daemon, all the marines inside dead or turned to goo to feed it. I ripped.the voice samples from.the beast from Cataclysm. It was a fucking amazing setup. Players were 8/10 spooked.

Then they fucking destroyed it in like three rounds because it was my second ascension combat and i can't balance shit. It never even hit them because it rolled like shit too. It was a fucking joke.

>why did i give them anti daemon weapons, they weren't even ordo malleous. They should have got their shit pushed in and come back later to fight it again.

>Opinions!

Try simple ones then, like Savage Worlds.

I've been meaning to look into savage worlds but still haven't got around to it. That and maybe two or three others. But gone are the days where I just pick up a random book at the local.

Good time to do so; if I recall the core book is only $8 or $9 on Amazon. It's found a cozy spot next to my copies of 5e and AD&D.

session on Saturday was awful
Half of the players leave early and the rest leave not soon after.
it was my first chance to gm but the guy who offered to gm said he had a hangover and didn't think of a story in the entire week he had beforehand

Tfw I'm going to have to gm next session

You're the parent. Ground that slut.

My group wanted to run Star Wars RPG instead of finishing Coffin Rock from Deadlands. We didn't even make it to the next day, they just were like "Fuck this, let's go be Jedi." Then no one became a Jedi.

Superhero game, my character points were spent pretty much entirely on the power to regenerate after death, down to like 30 seconds. Other than that he just had some sneaky skills and could use a gun alright. Dressing like a sort of government g-man with a gas mask to obscure his identity, the idea was to portray what seemed like a government agency's involvement with agents always around and even if one died there would be one to replace them right away, though secretly it was just one guy the whole time. None of the other players knew this, or my guy's power.

DM was really worried I would abuse the power and kept warning me that if anything was fishy I'd have to change character, and he was always scrutinizing my actions. Well lo and behold, I didn't abuse it, and didn't even use it. I was careful and not reckless enough to ever die the whole game, except at one point at the end.

There was a big inter-party conflict, and the mind controller character whom spent most of the game lording over how powerful he was and how he could easily kill my guy and anyone else really, in a surprise opening round forced my guy to shoot himself in the head, turning the tide of one side of the party against the other. Like that's how the conflict was initiated, he unexpectedly controlled my guy and made him kill himself. I figured though, oh hey, well they'll be in for a surprise when my guy stands back up in 30 seconds now ready to kill the mind controller in revenge. So I wait patiently for my turn to come around after the allotted time, but soon a minute in game time passes, then a few, and finally I try to ask (without revealing the nature of the power) the DM when I'll be getting my turn. He just simply refuses me though, saying I can't, and that what I want to have happen, isn't going to happen. So I'm stuck sitting out while my one and only power proceeds to not do anything, and the team kill one another, my side losing without me or so I like to imagine.

I later asked the DM what's up, maybe there was some anti-power effect I wasn't aware of or something? Nope, he refused me to come back to life because "Your character wasn't important" and that the focus instead was on two other characters whom were fighting mostly. Since my guy couldn't affect their fight it didn't matter, and also it wouldn't have mattered anyway since the mind controller would have just killed my guy again, conveniently forgetting that it wouldn't have worked a second time since that was a flaw of the mind controller's power. Not like I was trying to influence or change the duel between the two "main" characters, but I'd at least have liked to show the mind controller that I could have put up a fight against him and maybe gotten revenge.

I wasn't angry, just disappointed.

I love how he doesn't get the problem and falls into the inb4.

Yesterday.
Smite and purge, friend.

I'm sorry friend. Maybe just... buff the thing's endurance or HP or however the shit Dark Heresy works? Never played, none of my group likes 4deekay.

...

Sorry to hear that user. Sounds like a trash GM with a hardon for two other players.Hell, as a GM, favouritism isn't ever alright - not when its supposed to be a good experience for everyone involved.

As for my own disappointing experience - I once spent a month or so building a world, drawing maps even, creating lore and little bits of mythology for a bunch of cultures and societies. I was about fifteen, so when my players trundled in with their bullshit (wolfman samurai in medieval Europe was one shining example, taught me a good lesson on player control) and a Paladin who ended up going full magical realm pretty much out of the blue? That was a one session game of what was supposed to be a campaign. Thankfully, they've all grown up and I've actually gotten better at not being walked all over as GM.

>running DnD 5e
>party's basically in orc civil war
>time to siege the enemy's fortress
>didn't plan on them partaking much in the actual battle their job would be to beat the other Chieftans either killing or capturing them to break enemy morale
>they decide fuck that shit we're going into the castle to try find McGuffin to let everyone else handle the shit
>their side is getting slaughtered one of the Chieftans is riding an orc and seems to be one of the causes of the massacre
>party splits up half are in castle slaughtering enemy orcs
>other half go to fight giant/orc duo
>planned this fight out to be fun as hell
>party kills both of them in two rounds
>well at least there's two bosses in the castle
>both die in one round
I mean I'm glad in one round but it just felt kinda underwhelming for me that all of them died that quick. They had fun so that's what matters.

>Playing Through the Breach.
>Never had exposure to the Malifaux Setting, but I like it.
>Figure since it's basically the Wild West but with magic, I also enjoy the idea of cheatin' Destiny.
>Even if the card system is a little shit.
>Ended up with a gambler who's love of Russian Roulette was matched only with his love of shooting high-society goons.
>GM's girlfriend gets into the game and begins being passive aggressive to everybody.
>GM clearly wants to do something about it but doesn't want to be the one to start anything.
>Ask GM's gf to just chill out, we're playing a game.
>She explodes horribly.
>GM ends the session and game, right before I was about to cheat destiny and turn the tables for the rest of the group.
Haven't touched the system since.

My party is a disapointment because they're never truly into any I game run, despite my best efforts to get them invested.

Our DM is a dissapointment because even if i want to get in to the game he does a bad job at it

...

>AD&D
>3E
You're a retard.

how disappointing

This has happened to me a few times. It's just something you have to learn to anticipate and circumvent as a DM. Most of the time the only way to learn is through trial and error, unfortunately.

>Careless Whisper in G Major
hearty kek

I'll never understand why players who want to join a homicidal cult think it would be fun to plan to murder the other players. There are plenty of NPCs to be murderous and evil towards, why not some of them instead?

>At this rate, they'll never solve the mystery, and New Orleans will be overrun by super-powered black people from a strange voodoo cult
There's a very obvious and easy solution to this: the antagonist cult is opposed to their cult's goals, and thus the conflict of the campaign takes the form of a cult war.

Exactly this. 40k isn't even the problem, it's just another setting. It's just that it has the worst fucking fanbase I have ever seen. It's fucking brony tier shit.

>It's just that it has the worst fucking fanbase I have ever seen.
You've obviously not dealt with raging 3aboos.

>build a world from the ground up, thoroughly think it through
>get a bunch of help, make sure it all makes sense to everyone involved
>nature of world/core mystery results in a lot of unknown encounters
>"working out what the enemy can do is half the battle" tier unknown
>was open about this from the start, one of the game's main selling points
>players were cool with it, excited even

>players sometimes get it right, sometimes bumbled through, sometimes had eureka moments
>that's not the disappointment, the latter is what makes me proud of them

>the one player I expected to ace it though, did not
>rather he let small things shit him over time
>not even things I can help, it just shit him when things made him feel stupid
>at first, he started stopping just short of working things out, and then getting shitty over it
>I kept trying to work with him though, and he was generally correct about things
>then he stopped thinking things through and got even more things wrong
>but he must be right, the issue's got to be elsewhere
>and then he begun stopping trying to work things out altogether
>instead focused his attention on becoming the one of the worst players and friends I've ever had
>despite my best and sincere attempts to be open and patient with him on both fronts

>couldn't even be upfront with me enough to just not play the fucking game
>despite me being upfront with him about the difficulties and looking for solutions
>as if I somehow cared about the game more than I did about him

>eventually just fell off the radar and stopped talking to me altogether

are you the guy who thought AD&D was 3.5?

>discover a person I used to look up to, play double concepts with and generally go out of my way to help because he helped me in turn in a group of WAACfags was a manipulative cunt with social phobias

>Players fucking love playing Werewolf
>Decide to have a session based around it
>One of the PC/NPCs has been replaced by a shapeshifting monster, find who it is!
>Game rapidly turns to shit
>PCs hunker down so monster PC can't do anything
>I fuck up making the NPCs suspicious
>Have to pull ridiculous shit to kill off the NPCs as the PCs have gone into lockdown
>When monster PC is revealed, players get pissy he barely did anything, despite not being able to due to their actions
>Bad feelings and frustration everywhere
>mfw my awesome treat session turned out to be my worse

I genuinely feel bad about how disappointing it turned out.

I was in an RPG where we were one session away from ending it and then one of the players got busy with rl stuff and haven't seen him since.

sounds great! Get on with it and make it a world domination campaign. Let her rule at the side of this great old one... well let her think she does ... could be a fine experience to be on the other end of the stick for once. Hunting the hunters not hunting the culstists

>Be me
>Be forever DM for years
>Finally find group that with people who want to DM
>They're shit at it
>Autistic sense of the rules
>Get told you're doing fun wrong whenever something isn't covered by rules
>Can't adapt to anything
>AC is the only worthwhile defense stat because they don't understand combat and can't adapt
> No sense of story structure
>The list goes on

>playing nu-wod
>talk with GM about how I'd love the order of saint ambrose to be less in numbers compared to the Mallaus Malficreum in canon, but to compensate, were like the knights of the round, powerful, wise, and actually a source of good within a shitty world and a morally grey compound filled with zealots
>GM mentions that we could do something with one of the knights
>next session, GM is sick but told another player with GM experience what to do for the session
>mfw he made the cool holy knight concept I told the GM about and turned him into a literal fedora wearing zealot that didn't listen to anything my character said, even though my dude outranked him

To this day I don't know totally what. I did to have him ruin the thing I was looking forward to the most in that game

>join buddy's 5e DND game for some mindless fun
>oops, it's GENUINELY mindless; essentially just DND encounters with the serials filed off
>no real rp, because autistic playerbase
>no real characterization because 5e DND shoehorn role requirements
>no challenge because we steamroll everything with 5 minute workday bullshit
On top of it all, it's monthly, so it's no damn fun, and the feedback cycle is huge, so no real ability to steer it to anything really in depth. Such wasted time scheduling sperging and sucking

I went drunk last week and it still didn't even improve...