D&D Players, Has a DM ever made a ruling that instantly made you walk away from the table? 🅿️2 #dnd

"You cannot use Insight against anyone that you do not know. Its unrealistic." Instantly my Inquisitive Rogue was completely useless in the campaign, who relied on his Insight for combat. I explained as much, he said to bad... I left the group.

I once had a DM who asked me to "roll for spell effectiveness" for a Wish spell. My wish? As a Paladin, to be able to cast Spirit Guardians once a day at its lowest level, following all other spellcasting rules. A very reasonable request. I rolled low, and he ruled that I only had one instance of it ever. But apparently flying cows with lightning udders that attack the party and self replicating hats are okay. The kicker? I saw him write down that the next monster we fought was immune to radiant damage, and it wasn't anything heavenly we fought

I'm not sure if you'd call an alignment question a ruling, but I had a DM tell me that I was being "too evil" in an evil campaign and that I should "stop instigating with the other players" despite the fact I had gone through a rather extensive check to see if everyone was fine with me playing a Starscream type villain. The entire game devolved into everyone being too nice to play actual villains and me getting alienated cause of it, so I just walked. We still play regular games as good characters, that was just the one that made me realize trying to play a villain with them was going absolutely nowhere.

Had a dm rule that my otherwise squishy magic user was stripped of all magical and racial abilities by a ring and then said that a 19 base role plus my con modifier wasn't enough to remove said ring and that I wasn't able to cut it off or tell the others something about it. Yea that was the last time I ever played with that dm

My DM forced my giant shark polymorphed pc to rise to the surface of the water because the cleric previously casted water walk. I argued it granted the ability, but he would not hear me out and I didn't want to intrude on the session too much. He even said "you will not be able to convince me otherwise". I showed him the verbiage in the spell and then said ok, all abilities are forced to be used every turn, to which he quickly stepped aside and said that is how his 1st edition dm used to run the spell and he never thought about it.

DMs who go overkill on racial drawbacks. "I want to attack." "roll disadvantage." "why?" "sunlight sensitivity." "we're underground." "you're in bright light." "You said this place is all dim light." "this room has a skylight." "but we're like 20 feet underground." "and there's a skylight. roll disadvantage." drives me insane....

Before my group dropped their foreverDM, he had the mindset of "Death isn't a punishment, it's a release." This mindset basically meant that stupid decisions wouldn't result in the logical consequence of the character winning a Darwin Award. One such instance that made me stand up and walk out from the group until he was dropped, was his tendency to torment one particular player by punishing his foolish and reckless actions with other things, such as destroying a plot-important quest item, or openly branding his "true name", which- when spoken- forces the PC to follow the speaker's instructions. In front of the entire party. I once had a character in a "Devil Beasts" setting (still have no clue what it was about, everything in the games were pretty much homebrew), that was made to be unlucky. But just so I could do that, the DM said I had to roll luck on every single basic action. While a few moments were funny and are joked about to this day (Breaking a futuristic unbreakable chair just trying to sit down on it for example), I checked out the moment the DM turned my punishments towards other players, making my bad luck awaken a character's Devil Beast transformation, which they had successfully suppressed for several sessions before I joined. There was a lot of bitter tension in the air, and I just walked out after several more sessions of me being constantly sidelined and or humiliated by the DM every chance he got when I failed these luck rolls. It was hell. I still play with this group and ever since the DM was removed, things have been so much better.

We had a group at Gen-Con one year, and the GM we landed was notorious for TPKs, he would chant '5 go in, none come out' and had a group of GMs doing that with him. After being stuck in one of his campaigns before, when we landed him again, he 'started' the adventure, and the whole group decided to do a clam bake on the beach and screw 'saving the world'.

Fighting on a thin bridge over a moat of lava. "I want to push the other guy off of the bridge." "Uhh... You can't do that. You can only push someone directly backwards." I couldn't leave the table there since that would have involved making my ride take me home at the time, but whew lad. That was the moment I left that group.

my paranormal investigator who could literally call forth images of things that happened in a location, could literally talk to the walls was told 'you dont find anything' but the guy who rolled mid happened to find a clue. had to walk away from that one and explain to the DM that if my super specialised character couldnt do the one thing he's good at then what was the point of playing him?

the first DM admiting he did something completely wrong and didn't try to justify himself with BS is kinda a rare thing to hear. He sound he will become a great DM

Had a DM who set up a main quest encounter at level 2 against a dozen salamanders in an enclosed space and then had the gall to be indignant when people pointed out that there was no way ANYONE was ready for that kinda fight and all it achieved was forcing most the party to roll up new characters. The ruling/remark that actually made me and most of the the players walk away was the "You're not allowed to question the DM" anymore and "Y'all just suck at this". If there was a plot related reason for everyone to perish in that fight that's one thing. But his responses made it clear that wasn't the case. He was just a bad DM with a complex and an attitude.

Almost. I finally bit the bullet and tried my hand at DMing. I had a fun idea of using the Commoner "class" for 5e (10s in 4 stats, 12 in one, 8 in last, get to level 5 and evolve into level 2 PC with bonus HP) and the twist is the players are children who go on imaginary adventures (revealed after all but one were slaughtered by a band of goblins). After a handful of sessions, the shoe dropped. The BBEG burned their village down and killed their families. They survived by "chance" (playing in the forest as usual). Fast forward 15 years, in game, and now they are full-fledged adventurers and hear rumor of a chimera (the BBEG's mount and pet) sighted by a nearby village. They arrive and it turns out the Baroness of the village has the people under her control. ("Rolled and Told"'s vampress Baroness adventure.) They make it to her castle, trigger a fight that leaves them battered and on the brink of death. Then, one of the players (the one who had been DMing) goes to move some debris, which housed a swarm of centipedes. This swarm proceeded to kick their asses worse (a trap literally in the book) but they beat it. Now hanging on a thread, they short rest and leave everything alone (good thing as there was 2 or 3 more swarms hidden). They go into a room they KNOW houses sleeping vampire spawn with the plan to stake as many as they can. Now, there are 4 PCs (5th was AWOL) and 8 or 9 Spawn. So I have them roll Stealth vs the Passive Perceptions of the Spawn (which I clearly said). They roll okay... but one rolls bad. Really, really bad. So I described how it jolted up and howled in death (as seen in every vampire movie) and did a check for all the vampire spawn to see if they woke. They did. The party is then wiped out and the Paladin (who the mad Baroness believed was her husband) was merely knocked out and dragged to her. The other DM (who was playing a Fighter iirc) rolled his Death Saves and got a Nat 20. Rather than escape, he followed the Spawn to "save his friend". Instead, he watched the Baroness turn his friend... who then came to turn him. Fighter then fled, swearing he would save his friend. Now, I was planning to have him find a new group of adventurers to continue the story... other DM instead had a complete fit, openly complaining about calls I made (even though nearly all were following the adventure, specifically the trap he set off). He then demanded to DM again and run his homebrew world. Okay, I prefer to play. I tell him about a Paladin I made that he loved the idea of a month prior (Half-Troll raided by a Cleric and so becomes a Devotion Paladin). "Sorry, my world doesn't have trolls because regeneration doesn't exist in the real world, so it would make the species go extinct." Never mind that in the real world, we literally have animals that regenerate limbs or even their entire bodies from their heads. Fine, I will make him Half-Orc. Whatever. Mission is to clear out undead, AWESOME! My Pally can shine here, and does. Too bad it is a gambling den, and the DM tries to say I would be breaking my Oath as an LG to even enter or accept money (payment for the job). I post out that I wouldn't know if the place is run legitimately or if they heat people, nor is it my concern. It isn't my place to judge people, just protect them. (For the record, I am a Christian and my DM doesn't like Christians due to understandable baggage.) We move on and on the road get ambushed by a Gorgon, which tries to petrify me, I succeeded the save with a Nat 20 (DM implied I cheated). Later that day, we make camp and just after dawn are attacked (on my watch) by a rust monster. Above ground. So to save my armor, I mounted my horse and threw a cast iron pot, the most ferrous item we have as I know the lore of them and how ironic their favorite meal. The RM ignores the pot that is 5 feet away and charges the mounted Paladin 30 feet away. Even with it missing its attack, he ruled my armor was damaged and AC dropped by 1. I was done after that. Thankfully, another player wanted to DM so 'other DM' played in this Tal'Dorei set game... as a Bard who had to be the focus at all times. The game only lasted a few more months, then 'other DM' and his partner got new jobs and moved across the state.

So we were given a plot hook to recover a baby treant that was kidnapped by orcs as it was being born. We spent the best part of five sessions tracking down the orcs responsible in order to recover the thing, and had already given it a nickname within the party despite never having met it. When we finally reach the altar where the treant is being sacrificed, the odds are stacked against us, but I manage to slip past the front line of orcs and interfere with the sacrifice - barely surviving against the orc chieften by myself, but at least screwing up the ritual so that it couldn't be carried out, and surviving long enough for the rest of the party to get past the orcs and save my ass, along with the treant. Now, in retrospect, I get what happened next, and I understand why the odds were so heavily stacked against us. However, in the moment, none of us were aware that the DM was planning for us to fail, as it was part of the plot. By succeeding, we had completely screwed up his plans, so in order to get things back on track, he ruled that as the sorcerer (wild magic, who had already been causing all sorts of chaos throughout the campaign) stepped up to the altar to free the treant, the ritual interacted with his magic and suddenly completed, obliterating the baby treant we had spent ages and risked our lives to rescue, and leaving behind a magic staff which was presumably the key to the next part of the campaign. I say presumably, because we never got that far. The whole party sat in stunned silence for a few moments, before one of them asked if there was any chance of saving the treant, and the DM awkwardly said that it had been blown to splinters. Another party member asked if there was any chance of reviving it, and the DM reiterated that all that's left is the extremely powerful and plot-relevant staff, and a few inert chunks of wood. Of course no one actually cared about the staff, as we were far too bummed out about the fact that we had effectively failed, and allowed a newborn to be destroyed - and worse, we were somehow complicit in the act, as the sorcerer's magic was what did the deed in the end. To his credit, the DM offered to walk it back and undo things, but clearly didn't want to change the way the plot was going, and frankly it had already killed any enthusiasm. I'd already had enough things happen that meant I was thinking of dropping out anyway, and a week later the first lockdown basically put the nail in the campaign anyway. Lesson to be learned there: Never ever make your plot entirely dependent on your players failing; they'll find a way to succeed against all the odds. For that matter, never make it entirely dependent on succeeding, because they will absolutely screw things up.

I had a DM once try to just strait up remove magic from the game. Long story short we didn't play that campaign.

In the 1980's I played in a AD&D campaign where we made characters inspired by fictional characters from other media. I chose to make a character inspired by Lion-O from the ThunderCats (my friend made one inspired by Mario). We took turns DMing and would design adventures so the characters would slowly acquire the abilities and equipment that the fictional ones had, and the themes often included villains from their stories. We were having a blast until "problem DM" decided to run a game. I can't remember what his character's theme was, but immediately the DMPC and his brother are gifted +6 weapons and armor from the quest giver along with some artifact level magic items. By this point my character had gained powered down versions of the Sword and Gauntlet of Omens and the ability to communicate with and command cats of all sizes. So I thought he just felt like his characters hadn't powered up at the same rate as me and my friend. We meet the BBEG and he has two entire prides of lions in cages around him. I figure "Hey, this is my time to shine!" I ask the lions for help and agree to free them. They IMMEDIATELY ATTACK ONLY ME. I figure they must be under some kind of magical control, but no, the DM says that they want to kill me because ThunderCats are "gay" and the Sword of Omens is stupid. The DM and his brother then side with the BBEG and turn on us. That group never played together again. I still played with my friend though.

GM from a Pathfinder kept telling me my spells failed to cast. Why you ask? Because he wanted to get with the new player who joined us a few sessions in. She wanted to play an illusion focused Sorcerer and hated the fact my wizard was an illusionist (even though I had been there since the beginning of the campaing). That GM didn't seem to get why I didn't want to come back.

Not me, but one of my players. I tried to get back into TTRPG, so I decided to get together with some friends who lived an hour away from where I lived. The group was pretty small, so I made a short Pathfinder campaign based on my novels' world as a setting. Character-wise, there was Raltz - a Human Monk -, Markus - a Half-elf Hexblade Assassin - and another character, but that player didn't stay very long due to living further away and not being able to visit often. To help round up the party, I added my story's main character - Karyana, a human Spellblade. During the quest, Raltz decided to take an Oath of Silence as part of his monastery's teachings (though it may have been a misread on his part, as he was new to the game), and spent less time at the table and more around it. Given it was his house, we kept the story going, but I figured that it was best to wrap it up quickly, as our host was becoming less interested in playing. It turns out that he just wanted us to hang around, and didn't care all that much about the game. It pretty much killed TTRPG for me after that...

I had a few close "walk-away" moments, but it would take a lot for me to walk away from the table. It would have to be absolutely fucked up for a ruling for me to walk away from a table.

Me and my friends are a pretty well established dnd group. One day, our dm's father suggested to hold a campaign for us. We all agreed and made our characters. However when we got into our first encounter we realized that he made a weird house rule. It was a change to how opportunity attacks worked. Basically instead of opportunity attacks being provoked when you walk out of enemies reach without disengaging, they would be provoked when you walked in ANY DIRECTION without disengaging even if you don't leave the enemies reach. This meant that whenever we ended up within 5 feet of an enemy we were literary locked in place until 1 of us died or disengaged. Otherwise we would have to tank the opportunity attack. His explanation was that when we move in any direction, it takes time and during that time the enemy has a chance to attack us. The campaign lasted for only 2 sessions but not because of the rule, it was just some real life stuff that left him no time to continue being our dm.