Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 126 - When to Leave Your RPG Group

Episode Date: May 22, 2022

It can be hard to find a Dungeons and Dragons group to play with.  When you finally find one, it may be even harder to make the decision to leave the group.  Why should you leave a gaming group?  If you've made the decision, how do you leave your group and find another one?  Tune in this week to find out. #Pathfinder #DungeonsandDragons #DnD #RPGs www.taking20podcast.com

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. RPG groups can be very different, even within the same gaming system. Hell, playing the same adventure, they can be very different. Not all D&D games are Critical Role. Not all Pathfinder games are like Glass Cannon. Not all Starfinder games are like Southern Tomfoolery. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 126 of the Taken20 podcast. How to know when it's time to leave your gaming group.

This week's sponsor, keyboard. Make sure all the keys are there on your keyboard. Otherwise, there may be no escape. If you haven't already, please take a few minutes and give this podcast a review wherever you happen to find it. Spotify, Apple, Podbean, Google, each review helps promote this podcast just a little bit, and it makes it more visible to people who want to learn about the hobby. Now, before I get started on today's episode, I have one news article I'd like to discuss. Bobby, who donated to the podcast over at ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast,

asked for my thoughts about the Wizards of the Coast acquiring D&D Beyond. Honestly, I think it's a great thing. Now, the producer of the books and the producer of the digital character and campaign manager are under the same roof. This means that new content should be available on the digital platform even faster. D&D Beyond is not shutting down. Wizards of the Coast said in the press release that they have no plans to shut down D&D Beyond ever. While ever is a very strong word, I think that Wizards of the Coast understand

that digital tabletop isn't going away anytime soon. Like we talked about last week with Paul Lazaro, sure, getting together physically may make for the best gaming experience for you and your group, but that's not always possible. Many of us like the convenience of the digital tabletop, and God's forbid we have another pandemic, but if we do, we can keep gaming that way. The announcement was clear that everything you previously purchased at D&D Beyond will remain on your account. They still haven't released a lot of details, but here's my bet going forward. For now, the content of the two platforms will remain somewhat separate. Buying a physical book won't necessarily give you instant access to the same content on D&D Beyond.

I could be wrong. Hell, I hope I'm wrong. But long term, I think the two will slowly integrate, even if it's just for sales every now and then, where if you buy the content on one, you eventually get the other for free. My hope is that it eventually becomes like Paizo's integration with Foundry. Buying the digital content in one place automatically gets you access to the other, or at least a discount to the other, but I don't anticipate this in the near term with D&D Beyond. I still think this is a great thing for the hobby. I'm all for giving players and DMs the tools they need to make their game successful, whether sitting around the table together or gaming on screens from half a world away.

As I discussed with Paul a few weeks ago, I prefer gaming together in person, but that's not always possible. There will be groups who live too far away to get together, and digital tabletops will be the difference between gaming and not for them. Bobby, I hope this helped answer your question, and thank you again for listening and for the donation. Now, on with the episode. The idea for this episode came from my wife's book, Resigned, How to Know When It's Time to Go, which is being released July 1st on Amazon. And she has a similar blog called Queen of Quit. Throughout her career, she's worked in HR and in company support. She focuses on careers and jobs and noticed how a lot of us hang on to jobs

long after we should leave for greener pastures. We were discussing her book in the blog the other night, and I thought this would make for a very interesting discussion topic today. This topic as a concept may even be the reverse of what most people expect. Most people are searching for gaming groups, not looking to leave them. Unless they are fairly draconian about their player count, most DMs are running groups bigger than they would like. Therefore, a lot of players have a hard time finding a game, much less a regular group. And if that's the case, then why the hell would I make an episode about leaving a group? Because staying with a bad group can be worse than not having a group at all.

Let's rewind a bit. I understand just how hard it can be for players to find a gaming group. You ask around, but the existing gaming groups are too full to accommodate another player. You find your friend's cousin's third neighbor-in-law's dog's ex-owner's roommate has an opening in their game, and you jump at the chance to join. Yes! Finally, some tasty, tasty Dungeons & Dragons to play. You've been craving it for so long. You show up with your dice, your electronic character sheet, your character backstory, you get introduced to the other players, the game starts, and meh. It's just not what you expected for one reason or another.

You didn't have a great time, but you stick it out, because groups are hard to find. Weeks go by and it gets no better. You start dreading Saturday nights, but go anyway, because at least you have a group. Not everyone's this lucky, right? I don't want to think about how many players I just described. How many players just grit their teeth about gaming nights because, well, I mean, they have a gaming group, but they're just not enjoying gaming. There's a lot of reasons we stay with gaming groups too long.

I mean, you start high and low, and once you find one, you fall into the trap that this is the only gaming group that is or ever will be. Logically, you know that's not the case, but it takes effort to find another group, and maybe you don't want to spend that amount of social and emotional capital to find and connect to a different group. Sometimes we get trapped by the sunk cost fallacy. We've been with this group for so long, we have so much history,

we've gamed together so many times, that even though you're not having a good time, you stick it out because of the effort that you've had and the number of times that you've gotten together and so forth. Or maybe you're friends with a GM or one of the players and you don't want to leave because you think that would hurt their feelings. Now that we've talked about reasons we stay too long, let's talk about the real reasons I think you should leave a gaming group. First things first, leaving a group should not be your first response. I don't like something, fuck it, I'm gone. No, that's not where you want to go. If you're having problems, talk to the DM, talk to the players, find out if others feel the same.

Maybe the DM thinks you want a Game of Thrones, high intrigue, political, maybe way the hell too much incest for your liking, and designed a campaign around that. Maybe they didn't have a session zero to discuss expectations, and they really aren't tailoring the game to what the players want. So why leave a gaming group? Because it's not the type of game you want. RPG groups can be very different even within the same gaming system. Hell, playing the same adventure, they can be very different. Not all D&D games are critical role. Not all Pathfinder games are like Glass Cannon. Not all Starfinder games are like Southern Tomfoolery. Maybe the game you're looking for has too much

action or too little action or too much roleplaying, or too little roleplaying. The game is politically focused, not combat focused. So maybe it's just not the type of game you expected and the game you would enjoy. Maybe the group is too big. Most pre-built adventures are built for about four PCs, and maybe your group is six, eight players, or maybe even more. It makes combat slow and painful. You don't get a lot of time to talk or role play. It's hard to get the spotlight and you feel lost

in the crowd. Another reason you may want to leave a gaming group is you as a player don't feel comfortable at the table. Maybe the jokes that the players are cracking are too sexual or risque or violent for your liking. People are hitting on each other like they're drunken prom dates. You're not made to feel welcome at the table and you feel like an outsider. Or maybe there's a game element at the table that's highly disruptive. The way the other players are running their characters don't make you feel comfortable. That player who is full-on role-playing something seriously racist.

The player that's trying to sleep with everything that moves. The player that makes jokes when it's supposed to be a serious campaign. Or the player that keeps bringing up those uncomfortable topics that we all know and hate. Maybe you have another player who keeps metagaming, and another player that keeps hijacking the game to try to railroad it to what they want, not what the DM has designed. Another possible reason for leaving is the way the DM is running the game doesn't make you feel comfortable and isn't enjoyable for you. The DM promised a sandbox, and they're running a solid railroad.

You bring up problems to DMs, and the DM doesn't do anything about it. They let these problems fester and compound upon themselves. They allow that player to speak over everybody else. They encourage troublesome topics and concepts after being told that they bother one or more of the players. Or maybe you have a GM that takes away player agency. We'd like to leave the city and go north. You can't go north. You have to go east. Okay, I guess we're going east then. Or maybe the problem isn't with the DM, it's with the campaign. You signed up for one type of campaign and the campaign changes in the middle.

Your nice city adventure becomes a sewer dungeon crawl, or your political intrigue campaign becomes nothing but a tactical battle map nightmare. Maybe those parts of the campaign, though, are only temporary. This is why you talk to the DM. One of my GMs was running us through the Pathfinder Adventure Path, Curse of the Crimson Throne. There was one part that was largely just a trap-filled dungeon crawl with big bads that were just perpetual carrots at the end of the stick that we could never catch. When we finally did catch them at the end of the book, they were absolutely stupid hard

to defeat. At the time, I was playing a fighter. I had one ability and I was built around it. Hit things really hard and do lots of damage. Outside of combat, I was damn near useless, but melee fights were my character's jam. We finally caught up to the two big bads and engaged in combat. Now I'm going to be ready. I rolled a natural 19 to hit, which meant I hit an AC 29 and the DM said, miss. Excuse me? I said 29. He said, I know that's a miss. I looked at my sheet, looked at my buffs, looked at my attack roll and back at the party and said, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to be useless this fight

unless I roll a natural 20. After the session, I had a one-on-one with my DM about the feeling of helplessness and that I hadn't had fun in the campaign in months. He admitted that he had buffed the big bads and then said maybe he had buffed them a little bit too much and said, please stick with the campaign

because it opens up after this back to more of a city-based adventure. So I stuck it out, and the rest of the campaign was much more enjoyable. So start by communicating. If that doesn't work, and if it looks like the game won't change in a way you'd enjoy it, maybe it's time to consider leaving. Another reason you may want to leave is that it feels like the campaign is aimless, purposeless, going nowhere. The campaign becomes a giant grind. It's a series of disconnected encounters that there's no real common thread. Or maybe it's a homebrew that started out with a great idea and now it's just flailing around. There's no hero's journey. There's

no call to adventure. There's no meaningful conflict. Now, if that sounds like your campaign, see episodes 15 through 21, where I talk about the basics of homebrewing. Another reason to leave a gaming group is that real life is getting in the way. We all have seasons in our lives where our free time is almost completely eliminated. Work, family, school, they can all pull time away from gaming, and sometimes you need to let something go for your own physical or mental health. gaming and sometimes you need to let something go for your own physical or mental health. You hate to step away from a gaming group, but as a GM or DM, I really appreciate players that open up and let me know that they're not going to be able to game with us and step away for a

little bit rather than be flaky and show up sometimes when you've got time and feel like it. Maybe you make one session out of five. It's hard as a DM to plan around players like that. So suppose you do have to leave your group. How do you leave a group gracefully? I've got five tips for you. One, if you've decided to leave, let the DM know in advance of the next session. Have a conversation with the DM,

Discord, face-to-face, however you can. But before you have that conversation, you need to make a decision. You should decide if you're going to allow the DM to change your mind. It's the same strategy for me as turning in a resignation letter to your boss at work. If you're leaving a job, you should know before you ever start writing the letter if you're going to accept a counteroffer. Similarly, before you let the DM know you're leaving, you need to decide if you would stay with the game if they can address your concerns. Have this discussion one-on-one. I'm not having fun at the game because Y. I feel uncomfortable at the table because X. And give

them a chance to answer and possibly address your concerns. If you've decided to stick around, if they can possibly address your concerns, now's the time to have that conversation and make the decision if you want to stay. Tip number two, be honest with the gaming group without being brutally so. It does no one any good to use this time to be malicious. Your game sucks shouldn't leave your mouth, even if you think it's true. You're a bad GM should stay out of this conversation. It serves no value here. You players solve everything by killing it,

and I think you're all damaged. Wait a minute. Are my characters contributing to this problem in the gaming groups where I play? My characters kill like a lot of things. Even my druid was closer to a blaster caster than a peace, love, natural order of things kind of person. I'm sorry, everyone. I need to take a minute and do some self-reflection.

Tip number three, be polite, but still be direct. Don't shy away from saying why you're leaving, but still look for a way to be polite. Tip four, stick around and answer any questions they may have. Some of the other players or GM may have questions for you. Answer any reasonable questions they may have while keeping rules one and two in mind. And tip number five, most importantly, do not burn bridges. The player pool for tabletop RPGs,

even the juggernaut that is fifth edition, is smaller than you think. You may run into these players or DM again, and you don't want them to say, oh yeah, I remember you. You're the asshole that said my game was stupid and full of crap. If the group is fine, but it's just not the group for you, say that. If the game is fine, but it's just not the game that you want or enjoy, just say that. And if you're not having fun, just say that. None of these should be controversial,

especially for experienced players and DMs that have played with multiple groups. I know as a DM, I'd rather my players enjoy my game than feel like they're being held hostage by it. Wish those players the best. Leave without making enemies. If you do feel guilt about leaving the group, and if you know any of the players or the GM outside of the game, reach out to them one-on-one after the game because they're going to think it's their fault. They may feel guilty that you're leaving their game. Even if they contributed to the reasons you're leaving the table, have this conversation with your friend or colleague or somebody that you know away from the gaming table.

Let them know why that you're leaving and the type of game that you're looking for. But what if you're a player and this happens to your group? First and foremost, do not take it personally. Everybody's looking for something different. To quote, I believe it was Dita Von Teese, don't look her up, it's not safe for work, you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and there's still going to be someone

who doesn't like peaches. If someone leaves your group, discuss it as a group with this warning. Now is not the time to cast aspersions on the person who left. If they were mature about the way they left the group, the group should be mature about discussing their feedback. They just left because they suck. No. Consider what they said,

back, they just left because they suck. No. Consider what they said, especially if they say they did not feel comfortable at your table and told you why. What can you do to be more welcoming as a group? If the problem was with the play style, are you willing to change? If not, that's fine. You just may need to let future prospective players know that, hey, this is a role play heavy campaign and you need a character voice, or our group is a bunch of psychopaths, and while Jeremy's a nice guy away from the table, his gunslinger may have a bullet with your character's name on it just because she's having a bad Tuesday, or whatever the stated problem was. Now, what if you're a GM and this happens to you? Similarly, don't take it personally. Listen to their feedback and consider whether you need to change your DM style. It happened to me recently. I had a player leave. One of my

beloved players had to step away because of real-world problems. Like I always do, I asked her one-on-one if it was a problem with the game or other players, and she said no to both. She'd had to pull out of one other game and mine because she didn't have time for RPGs at the moment. It was just one of those seasons of her life. I simply told my friend I love her. She knows she's welcome back at my table anytime life calms down for her. Even though it's a little bit outside the range of topic, I do want to very briefly talk about how to find a group again.

I mean, I get it. You've made your decision, you've said your goodbyes, and you left your group. It's the next Friday night, and you're sitting in a dark room eating a pint of Rocky Road ice cream, listening to Billie Eilish, wondering if you made a mistake leaving the group.

You get over it, though, and you decide you're going to get back on the horse and find a new group again. You loved once. That means you can love again, right? You pull out your dice, polish your d20s, and now what? How do you find a group? This could be a 20-minute episode all its own, but here's a very brief set of tips and tricks maybe for finding another group. With a caveat,

some of these will require you getting out of your comfort zone if you don't like talking to strangers. But fortune favors the bold, so do what I do and do what I did as an introvert. Say fuck your fear and put yourself out there until you find the right group. One, use local resources. Especially if you like playing in person, your friendly local gaming store is a great resource. A lot of times they have bulletin boards with electronic and physical that can announce games that are coming up that they are hosting. Ask them about open games and game nights. If they have a night where they host gaming sessions, plan on being there that night with a few characters in hand and ready.

And you know what? Try out a few games, if there's any available. 2. Stop by conventions. Yes, conventions are crowded, but many of them have gaming sessions where DMs, such as myself, will run people through games. You know what? I really need to do a convention gaming episode, because those are just different. Look for that episode in the coming weeks. 3. Ask your friends if they want to play. There are some people, including a few of my friends, that don't readily disclose that they play Dungeons & Dragons or Starfinder or Call of Cthulhu. You may already have friends who love to play, and they've never talked to you about it because they're secretive.

Years ago, I think it was about the D&D 3.0 days, one of my gaming groups had a player who was embarrassed to let his coworkers know that he played Dungeons & Dragons. So he referred to our gaming nights as, quote, dinner parties, end quote. As in, I can't go to the bar with you guys tonight. I have a dinner party. We love him. We kept his secret. We did tease him about it just a little bit, but that's okay because we loved him and he knew we loved him. But you may have friends, co-workers, colleagues who enjoy D&D or have been looking to play and not know where to start. Reach out. Ask for interest on social media or other ways to connect with people. You might be pleasantly surprised how many responses you get.

Hell, by making my social media image a D20, I've had no less than half a dozen people reach out to me that say, Oh, I didn't know you played Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, I run a fucking podcast about it. So, you know, I guess you could say I've bought into the gaming lifestyle and I do enjoy to roll the D20 every now and then. Anyway, online resources are there too. Meetup.com has a thriving community of people looking for RPGs of all types. Reddit's Looking for Group subreddit is constantly busy with players looking for DMs, GMs looking for players, like-minded people looking for games. Give that a shot.

There's a lot of games advertised on Roll20. Sign up for one of those. A lot of them are even open signups, so search for one there and join with a group. Give it a try. D&D Beyond forums constantly have posts looking for players and DMs. Fantasygrounds.com has a looking for group forum. Various Discord servers where players can meet. There's all sorts of online resources to find a game. And if all else fails, hire a professional DM. Prices will vary widely, so ask for references and make sure your group wants to commit to hiring a DM,

whether that's for a session or an entire gaming adventure path. Some resources for that include startplaying.games has a long list of DMs who are looking to run a game for you. Fiverr even has some professional DMs that advertise there and are looking to run games for groups as well. And there's always the Looking for group premium on Reddit. There's a lot of professional DMs that are advertising there as well. In summary, leaving a gaming group is always a hard decision and should only be undertaken if you've attempted to address any issues that you have and you just can't find the fun with the group. Let the DM know in advance. Be honest with the group without being brutally so. Be polite. Be direct. Answer any reasonable questions the group may have and don't

burn any bridges on the way out. You never know when you'll be at another table with one of these players again. Neither side of the decision and neither side of the DM screen should take this decision personally. Sometimes a player and a game are just not a good fit. Take a break, figure out what kind of game you'd like to join, figure out as a DM what type of game you want to run, make sure all the players have bought in and know that. Players, hit your local and online resources

to find that next game where you and the people you play with can all have fun doing it. If you like this podcast, please consider helping me spread the word by sharing social media posts on Insta, Facebook, and Twitter. Tune in next week when I'll talk to DMs about how to keep those fragile first-level characters alive. And more importantly,

there's going to be an announcement of the first official sponsor of this podcast. Oh, and a giveaway. I hope you tune in next week to learn all about that. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, keyboards. I dropped a little bit of a potato chip into my keyboard yesterday, but don't worry, it's under control. This has been episode 126, How to Know When It's Time to Leave Your Gaming Group. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.

The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.