Am I the a**hole in my former game? Part 2

Link to the first part: [Am I the a**hole in my former game? : r/dndhorrorstories](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndhorrorstories/comments/1rt5oma/am_i_the_ahole_in_my_former_game/)

My new character was introduced without too much trouble. They met the party during a mission to rescue someone, although the mission ultimately ended with the person we were trying to save being taken far away. With this new character, I tried leaning more into the chaotic style the rest of the party seemed to enjoy, hoping it would help me fit in better. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to make much difference. At that point, it felt like one player in particular had it out for me.

During one mission, the party discovered that my character was a shifter. In this homebrew setting, shifters were extremely rare and considered valuable creatures. I didn’t actually know that when I created the character. Because of that discovery, the party became suspicious of my character for keeping it secret. During that mission they threatened my character and nearly killed them over it. To be fair, I understood why they might be suspicious and didn’t have a problem with that part. However, this is where things really started going downhill.

After that incident, the insults and criticism kept coming. The same player in particular would repeatedly insult my character in-game while also making comments out of game such as “Play your character right” or “Why didn’t you do that instead?” It happened often enough that even the DM commented that it seemed excessive. I tried to stay constructive and never insulted anyone when I offered advice. In-game, I focused mostly on helping the party, healing people, and supporting the group. Despite that, the hostility toward my character continued.

Even months after the secret about my character being a shifter had come out—and after we had fought many battles together—the same character kept insulting and threatening mine. Throughout all of that, my character continued helping them in fights, healing them, and supporting the party despite the constant hostility. Eventually my character reached their breaking point and finally snapped back at them in character.

Their response was to throw my character off a moving boat in the middle of the ocean. I barely managed to roll high enough to catch the edge of the boat and pull myself back up. As soon as I did, they started threatening my character again. I told them to stop, but instead they drew their weapon and threatened to kill my character. At that point, I used a polymorph spell to turn them into a turtle (or something similar). I wasn’t trying to harm them—I was simply trying to stop them from attacking while I explained to the rest of the party that I was tired of being harassed constantly.

Instead of addressing the situation, the rest of the party immediately jumped to his defense and threatened to kill my character unless I turned him back. I agreed to reverse the spell on the condition that he stop harassing my character every few minutes. The whole situation made me feel even more like an outsider. No one seemed to care that my character had been harassed for months, and the player who had been threatening to kill my character faced no consequences for it. On top of that, they were ready to kill my character after he had thrown me off a boat and left me to drown, and no one had even tried to help my character back onto the ship. It was especially frustrating because I had spent a lot of time trying to fit in with the group—using spells for helpful or even mundane tasks, giving people items, buying things for the party, and trying to create character moments—yet it constantly felt like I was hitting a wall.

Eventually the party somewhat begrudgingly admitted that he had been acting like an ass and agreed to try to stop the harassment. I turned him back, and while the player still gave me a hard time, his character did mellow out a bit afterward. For a while, things started to feel a little more like a normal party dynamic.

Around that same time, some real-life issues began affecting my ability to attend sessions regularly. When I was late or missed a game, I allowed the rest of the group to control my character so the party would still have a full group in-game. Not long after that, we switched to a new tabletop site to play on. Unlike D&D Beyond, where only the DM could edit character sheets, this new site allowed other players to move or edit things on sheets as well.

Eventually we traveled to a new city. On the way there, the same player from earlier—let’s call him Bill—was given the opportunity to DM a few sessions. During that time, he gave himself a loyal magical beast companion. I thought it was a pretty cool idea and assumed maybe the whole party might eventually get companions like that. However, when I asked questions about it or tried to interact with the creature like a party pet, Bill made it clear that the beast was only for him.

Later, when we reached a town, I bought my own beast companion, and a few other players did the same. Not long after that, we were attacked in our sleep during another mission, and my companion died during the fight. That’s when the teasing started again. Bill repeatedly mocked me about my pet dying, both in-game and out of game. Eventually I told the DM it was getting old, especially since Bill’s beast companion almost died in nearly every battle and the only reason it was still alive was because I had healed it several times and even cast Revivify on it more than once.

Later in the campaign we discovered the location of an ancient dragon’s hideout. In character, I suggested that we should plan things out and buy more healing items before attempting something like that. Once again, I was told I was “overthinking it,” and the party decided to go anyway. We fought our way through a maze filled with monsters and an army of kobolds before finally reaching the dragon. By that point we were exhausted, badly injured, and nearly out of resources. I again suggested that we rest or at least heal before fighting the dragon, but my advice was ignored and the party charged in. The result was predictable—half the party was one-shot almost immediately.

I did my best to grab people and drag them out so we could escape and heal. I was hoping that risking my character’s life to save the group might help build some trust and connection within the party. It actually seemed to help a little.

Not long after that, we became involved with a shady arena run by people we suspected were part of a cult. We joined the arena to gather information, and after several days of fighting match after match we decided to break into the arena owner’s quarters to look for evidence. Unfortunately, we had just finished another brutal fight and were already low on resources. The party wanted to break in immediately after returning to our rooms, but I argued that it was a bad idea and that we should at least take a short rest and come up with a plan first. At that point we didn’t even know how we were going to get into the room.

Bill didn’t care and wanted to go right away. The rest of the group spent almost thirty minutes pushing me to go with him so the plan would “work better,” and eventually I gave in. I even suggested we could long rest and try the next morning while everyone else was busy fighting in the arena, but that idea was dismissed as well.

Using my character’s abilities, I managed to sneak past the guards and help Bill get inside undetected. Unfortunately, the place was filled with traps, several of which hit us pretty hard. We pushed through anyway until we reached the main area outside the owner’s chambers, where there were even more traps and guards. Bill ended up accidentally alerting them, forcing us into a fight.

At that point I still had spells that could have teleported us out or stopped the guards from fighting. However, Bill didn’t want to leave empty-handed and charged further inside, leaving me to deal with the guards alone. I used most of my spells just to survive the fight, which meant teleporting us out was no longer an option. Eventually Bill grabbed some evidence, but by then we were both too weak to keep fighting. I healed him and we tried to escape.

My character ended up dying to a disintegration spell while we were running.

I didn’t feel great about it, especially since I had been practically forced into the mission in the first place, but I tried to roll with it. However, as soon as the session ended, Bill immediately started telling me it was my fault my character died and that I should have “planned better.”
Part 3 coming