I became a bad player, and I'm not sure what happened (minor content warning) DnD

(Stop reading if the name Helm Greycastle means anything to you)

I'm crazy about this game. I absolutely cherish all things role-playing, acting, improvising, losing oneself in the fantasy of it all. I DM two campaigns and play in a third. I just had a "bad player" moment in the one I'm a player in, and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

I had joined this campaign about 9 months in, so the DM threw a bunch of stuff into my character's backstory to fit him into his setting, and that included an unrequited love for an elven bard who tragically would die 4-5 sessions in. I wasn't wild about the Woman in Refrigerator trope, but I did my best to play along. I'm a soldier, after all. We deal with loss and move on.

A couple of months later, our party all ended up in individual dream scenarios, where we each tasted our own ideal futures -- for a turn -- before they were ruined. Mine, of course, was to be happily married to the elf, with a little kid playing in the yard, when suddenly a bunch of elf-hating humans break down the door, grab me, and threaten to rape the elf. We could wisdom save out of them, but as we struggled in the dreams, so our characters swung wildly in their real world.

Aaaaand that's where I became a bad player. I said "so be it, I submit to this fate." I think the whole scene just really grossed me out, and I basically decided to call the DM's bluff on the whole rape threat. The love interest was his idea that I went along with, I endured the Refrigerator stuff and was pretty glad that it was over, but bringing her back as a potential rape victim just kind of killed it all for me.

The session kind of came to a halt there -- the DM wasn't willing to accept my reaction, and the rest of the players were having fun with the dream flailing = real swinging mechanic, so I became the stick in the mud who didn't want to play along. Eventually a non-tranced party member started grappling my character, which led to a bunch of strength contests that kept us in a holding pattern until my character snapped out of it.

The DM was bluffing about the rape threat, obviously. And I made some dumb excuse about being upset about the high Wisdom DC (my character's +0) because I didn't want a very open discussion on how rapey a campaign should get.

My character still keeps a lock of Fridge lady's hair. Next session I fully plan on burning the lock to bury her forever. Hell -- that even works in RP -- a soldier as elite as I cannot let himself be so easily broken by the shadows of the past.

I know these posts usually are met with a bunch of "talk to your DMs," but I'm content to have my character burn the lock and move on. Just wanted to get it off of my chest, organize my thoughts, and maybe start a discussion on these sorts of delicate conflicts.

TL;DR: DM pushed a Fridge Woman NPC on my character, keeps parading her corpse around for awkward feels, latest one got rapey, I really didn't want to play along but feel kind of bad about it.

Submitted September 28, 2016 at 11:28PM by PM_ME_GHOST_PROOF http://ift.tt/2cLseMw DnD