Female monologues disney

Last Monday I posted a quick and dirty RPG horror story about a pay-to-play campaign. This will be a proper attempt at telling the whole story, from the alluring start to my bitter resignation. Spoilers ahead for the beginning portions of Curse of Strahd. Trigger Warning for bullying and mentions of self-harm.
Mondays and Tuesdays are my guaranteed days off, so that is when I am available to enjoy my TTRPG hobby. Typically I am involved in three or four campaigns a week as either a DM or a player. A year-long campaign I was running reached its finale in the middle of March. When that ended and the time slot opened up, I wanted to be a player for a while. So I started looking in all the usual places; Discord servers I am a part of, StartPlaying ads, LFG threads, and the Roll20 boards. I indiscriminately applied for free-to-play and pay-to-play games at 1 PM on Mondays and ultimately got invited to join a Curse of Strahd campaign. I’ve experienced good and bad games in both camps, so this story is not about bashing pay-to-play games. Being a DM requires time, effort, and availability; and I am willing to pay since free games are not typically hosted during that time slot.
The DM hosting this Curse of Strahd campaign presented himself as a knowledgeable Grognard from the Gygaxian era. A retired man who ran D&D games to have fun and get a bit of spending money as a side hustle. He made promises that this campaign was going to be more than just an out-of-the-box 5th edition game. It would run the gambit of Ravenloft’s rich history taking elements from older editions and novels like ‘I Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire’. The game would be going from level 1 to 20, as defeating Strahd and escaping Barovia was just the beginning. He planned on the party visiting other domains of dread and dark places within the shadowfel. During a voice call interview, we spoke about table conduct, civility, respect, lines and veils, and all the things that sold me the idea he was a professional DM and cared about the integrity of his campaign. At no point did this grown-ass old man proclaim anything along the lines of, “This will be like playing D&D with two friends in a basement, and you’re the third wheel who buys our snacks”. If he had, I would not have signed up. We shall call him the Bantering DM for the rest of the story.
Two weeks go by and the game fills with four players: My half-goblin moon druid named Olivia; an elf bladesinger wizard named Cayden; a purple tiefling lore bard named Eternal Cake; lastly the problem player Jormungandr the fallen-aasimar giant barbarian. We have session zero with everyone in the Discord voice channel. The Bantering DM goes over the same points from the interview and has us go around the table so that we can introduce ourselves, our characters, and the lines/veils we’d like to avoid. I don’t like witnessing instances of child abuse, Cayden does not like descriptions of spiders, Eternal Cake does not want the party to torture NPCs, and Jormungandr asks that we be patient with him as he has ADHD. I go above and beyond by making high-resolution character tokens for everyone. As we are chatting and filling out our character sheets, it is revealed that Eternal Cake and Jormungandr are longtime friends of the Bantering DM and are not paying for the sessions like Cayden and myself. Personally, I’d feel more comfortable if all the players either paid a fee or played for free, but I let it slide because everyone seemed nice at the time.
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In session one, unfortunately, Eternal Cake was not able to join us so we had to puppet his purple tiefling. The Bantering DM uses the Creeping Mists introduction. Each of our characters was spirited to Barovia with whatever equipment we had on our person. Cayden and Jormungandr sounded mildly inconvenienced upon discovering that they were kidnapped by magical mist and then plopped into a dark forest. Meanwhile, Olivia was scared out of her mind and avoided the three strange men. She decided to climb a tree to find a road or landmarks. Survival checks were made, she discovered a road not too far away and heard the howling of wolves in the distance. Even though she did not trust these men, she motioned for them to follow her, hopefully, they’d be safe together.
We were ambushed by three wolves on the road. During the surprise round, both Cayden and Eternal Cake were rendered unconscious. Pack tactics caused a critical hit on Cayden, the wolf’s bite attack damage was 13, meaning his wizard with 7 hit points was a single point away from instantly dying. Thankfully, I prepared healing spells for just such an occasion. It was at this point that I got to experience the Bantering DM and Jormungandr’s dynamic.
DM: “At advantage from pack tactics, that is a 17 to hit.”
Barb: “No that does not hit me.”
DM: “Your token is linked to your sheet. You have 15 AC, my guy.”
Barb: “What about with a shield? Ever think about that?”
DM: “Even if you had a shield, that's 17, it meets it beats. But you're using a maul.”
Barb: “Does Cake have silvery barbs? I demand a reroll.”
DM: “Cake is unconscious.”
Me: “Um, I will get him up when it is my turn. Can you drop it?”
Barb: “Fine.”
DM: “That is 7 piercing damage.”
Barb: “7 bullshit damage! I have not even had a turn. I’m not raging so it is FULL!”
Olivia played cautiously, healing the downed party members and using ranged cantrips. Jormungandr did big damage with his maul but complained and argued with the Bantering DM, extending each of his turns longer than they needed to be. Injured, but grateful to be alive, we travel down the muddy road.
The party makes it to the village of Barovia. We wander the streets and eventually find the Blood of the Vine tavern. Cayden and Jormungandr do the majority of the talking, as Olivia is unsure if the villagers will be hostile or welcoming to a goblin like her. The Bantering DM laced the expositional dialog with a lot of profanity, personal attacks, and spitting on the floor. The barkeep explained that spitting was a Barovian custom, that if an evil thing is expressed one must spit quickly otherwise demons will possess the soul. The insults were primarily based on our characters' appearances. Cayden was called a knife-ear, short, girly man, hairless, and physically weak. Jormungandr was mocked for being stupid, a savage brute, and likely to get struck by lightning as he had a metal pauldron. Eternal Cake was spared as he was not at the session, though I imagine the Bantering DM had plenty to say about a purple devil man. The barkeep called Olivia an ugly greenskin, asked where the rest of her clothes were, if she was like goblins in fairytales that hide under children's beds to eat their toes, and that I may as well “get it over with as it will happen sooner or later”, implying that I should kill myself. When he said that, Olivia spat and glared at the man. Through that abuse, we learned the leader of the town recently died. His son Ismark was now in charge, but no one liked him. There was a cursed child with red hair named Ireena, taken in by the prior burgomaster. The ruler of this valley is called The Devil and he’s been sending monsters to torment the village recently. The priest of the local church had gone mad when his son died in a recent attack. Finally, there is a town further down the road called Vallaki. We rent a room and end the session with a milestone level up.
After the game wrapped up, we were still in the voice call and I expressed a couple of concerns I had about the banter during combat. Saying that it made the fight drag on for longer. I also said that I could handle rude or unlikeable NPCs and that I understand Barovia is a bleak atmosphere, but I felt the barkeep overstepped into abusive language with his comments. The Bantering DM apologized, said that it was all just in character, and excused the innkeeper by saying he is scared, small-minded, and considered us a bad omen on top of recent terrible events. I chalked it up to adjusting to a new group. This will be the only time that the Bantering DM will apologize or engage with my concerns and criticisms. After this, he would ignore what I had to say.
For session two Eternal Cake is unable to play again. The party woke up and left the inn. Immediately we are confronted by Ismark, he puffs himself up and banishes us from the town. Yelling for us to get out, that we were harming his people, we were unwelcome, and no merchant was legally allowed to trade with us. Then he stomped off unwilling to talk about whether or not we could help his people. Now, I’ve run Curse of Strahd before, I have meta-knowledge about things we can do in this village. There is content to explore, stuff to do, and ways to better the village. Some of which was hinted at by the barkeep last session. However, in character, Olivia was told to kill herself and a few hours later got banished. She does not belong here, she is not wanted, so the true neutral thing to do is leave. But in-character and out-of-character are very different beasts because I know that leaving would mean abandoning the story's most pivotal character Ireena. Jormungandr and Cayden both agree, well screw this town if everyone is going to be a jerk. I’m panicking, internally screaming, trying to come up with an in-character reason to force us to meet Ireena, but drawing a blank.
Then as we are about one hundred paces outside of town, we hear a young woman calling out after us. It is Ireena. She is running after us, short of breath and begging us to stop for a second. She explains that we are the heroes of prophecy. Asking if she could travel with us to Vallaki. The way that Bantering DM is playing Ireena, makes me mad, as he is putting on a stereotypical airhead voice and making her sound dumb. Cayden and Jormungandr pick up on this and ask a few questions. Ireena explains that she was never allowed out of the house and that this is the furthest she’s been outside of the village. She found her dad's old breastplate and rapier, but she’d never used them before. That she’s never been in a fight. Later on, the Bantering DM would show this by having her routinely make dexterity saving throws in combat to not trip and fall prone. Describing her as swinging wildly and whenever she did hit an enemy made it sound like an accident. Nor does she seem to have any bonds with her village, or care to say goodbye to her brother. The biggest problem is never mentioned out loud, but through meta-knowledge I know that her father has not been buried yet. This means that the Bantering DM chose to cut the funeral from the module, or that it still needs to be done but Ireena does not care about laying her father to rest.
We travel down the road and come to the gallows at the crossroads. It just so happens that Olivia sees the apparition of her own body dangling from the noose. She expresses sorrow and I hint at backstory trauma, calling the event “probably a bad memory of the last time I had a rope around my neck”. Then the Bantering DM performs the final part of Ireena’s character assassination. Ireena kneels down, looks Olivia in the eye, and says, “You must have gone mad”, then laughs at her. This is not Ireena, this is a careless fool with no empathy. I don’t know why the Bantering DM made these changes. Because he is sexist? To be funny? Is it because he considers the village portion of Barovia boring? Is he ignorant or malicious? I cannot answer these questions, nor will I pretend to be a mind reader. I am just laying out what he did.
We continued to travel down the road, eventually meeting an old woman with a cart headed toward the village. Ireena seemed to know this woman, calling her Granny, and spoke louder to imply the older woman was hard of hearing. She greeted us and offered pies for sale. With meta-knowledge I know that this is Morgantha, a night hag who kills people and grinds their bones at her windmill aptly named Bonegrinder. But I would never act on this knowledge nor spoil the surprise for anyone else. Jormungandr then asked, “Are the pies made of people?”, without any suspicious behavior or provocation. Granny said ‘no, of course not’. But then Jormungandr started to question the old lady intensely. Why are you traveling all by yourself? Are you not scared of wolves? How big is this woman DM? Does she look like she has an arcane focus? Is there anything weird about her cart? Can I do an insight check to sense her motivations? He hardly even let the DM answer the damn question before firing off another one. So I break character and say. “Stop meta-gaming! Knock it off!” Confronting Jormungandr seemed to get him to stop, but this should be the job of the DM, especially one who laid out a list of table etiquette during session zero. Once we resumed, in character I ran defense for the hag. Saying that as a druid I could talk to animals and giving them food often lets them know you are friendly. Just because she is an old woman, does not mean she was incapable of taking care of herself. To which the hag agreed and gave me a free pie.
After that, we got to the Vistani camp and Madame Eva’s fortune-telling. The cards we got were the best pulls I’ve ever seen, super thematic, and a great fated ally. The Sunsword would be at the beacon of Agronvostholt after we light it. The Tome is hidden in Baba Lysaga’s hut, makes sense that she’d keep her darling son's diary safe. The Holy Symbol is behind the sun at St. Markovia, so we have to confront a fallen angel to retrieve an amulet of faith. And we got the G.O.A.T. - Ezmerelda d'Avenir, we could run into her at a bunch of different places. All of this was meta-knowledge, of course, and unlike Jormungandr I did not intend to start demanding we go to these places to speedrun win D&D. We ended the session at that point, and once again we got a milestone level up.
I left the voice call, took a few days to cool off, and then carefully wrote out a respectful message detailing my frustrations to the Bantering DM. Both about Jormungandr’s meta-gaming outburst during the hag interaction and how he chose to portray Ireena Kolyana. I explained that she was coming across as an unempathetic ditz. The way she was acting made it difficult for my character to like or trust her. Hammering on the points about the funeral as well as her mocking Olivia at the gallows. I wrote that I understand there are many ways the community around Curse of Strahd has characterized Ireena. Ranging from Palidoozy’s disney princess version to Dragnacarta’s complete rework of her character into an arc to recover her memories. Sometimes she is a damsel in distress, other times the light that Barovia desperately needs. I never got a response to my criticisms. Perhaps I was out of line? I did not want my comments to come across as backseat DMing. I never interrupted the flow of the session, waiting until afterward to try and communicate my concerns. I felt like my issues were tangible and explainable. I did consider leaving the game if things did not improve. In hindsight, I think that it was the insane fortune pulls that got me to stay.
In the third session, Eternal Cake could play with us, but Cayden could not. Also, we got a new player added to the roster. A paladin named Paul. The party travels down the road until they come across a kidnapping in progress. Several men were tying up a young woman and stuffing her into a burlap sack. We charged in, and the DM puppeted Cayden. Paul was introduced in this fight. He emerged from the bushes and went after the bandits, ready to smite evil and save a damsel. Eternal Cake passed out inspiration like candy and used spells like bless and command. Jormungandr became a big angry boy and smashed his way through the bandits. Olivia got to show off her higher AC from taking a level dip into monk. Blowing everyone’s mind when I explained how these features stacked with wildshape. However, once again this combat brought out the worst in Bantering DM and Jormungandr.
DM: “The bandit disengages and runs over here. Then he fires a crossbow at George-Munger.”
Barb: “Jormungandr.”
DM: “That is what I said, Gorge-Gander.”
Barb: “Say my name right. Jormungandr.”
DM: “Your Muh Ganger.”
Barb: “George is my cat. He is a milk puddle. But I am not George.”
Me: “Can we please keep combat going?”
Barb: “No one asked you.”
Me: “Whatever…”
DM: “Anyway, a 13 misses your AC. Then it is this bandit’s turn. And he kills Jormungandr instantly.”
Barb: “You haven't even rolled yet.”
We manage to win the fight and have one enemy restrained in my entangle spell. During combat, we decided as a group to spare one of the kidnappers so that we could question him. Untying the young woman and pulling her from the sack. Then the girl casts produce flame and murders the bandit. Everyone is miffed, as it felt like the Bantering DM took away our opportunity to gain information. The girl explained that she was a Vistana named Arabella. Asking for us to guide her back to her camp, it is not far from Vallaki. We do so, and I don’t remember much of what happened during this session. I was upset about the bantering and that our group agency was taken away. I disassociated from the conversations but got the gist of it
Like with Ismark and the barkeep, the Vistani people insulted us. They gave the party a cloak of protection as a reward for saving Arabella. The Bantering DM said that we should argue over who gets to wear it. The Vistani name-dropped Strahd and called themselves his allies. Telling us that we may as well give up any hope of escaping. He briefly mentions dusk elves also being in the camp. At one point, the Bantering DM realized I was not contributing to the conversation. So Arrigal asked if Olivia was for sale. I flatly said, “I am free, don’t ever say something like that to me again!” The lines between in and out-of-character blurred. When it was about ten minutes till, I wanted to do something else. I said that I would be interested in speaking with the dusk elves. The Bantering DM said, “They are prisoners and the Vistani told you to not bother them”. I asked if I could make a stealth check. He said, “There are like 300 Vistani in this camp and someone will spot you.” On the one hand, he did not make me roll for something I could not succeed in, but it still felt shitty to be told no it is impossible. We ended the session with a milestone level-up. I did not write the Bantering DM between sessions. I should not have returned for another game.
Fourth session, Eternal Cake is once again missing in action. I had hoped that in this session everyone would be able to play and we could finally all get on the same page. We were also supposed to go into the town of Vallaki. However, once we started walking down the path a dusk elf appeared. She, yes a female dusk elf named Kassy-Mira no less, asked us to go to a haunted fort to find one of her sisters named Savida. My meta-knowledge goes into overload wondering what in the hell did this Bantering DM do. For those of you in the know, I am looking forward to responses and speculations in the comments section. Kassy-Mira explains that Savida is the keeper of their lore and history, an elven leader who must be recovered. I ask a couple of clarifying questions because at this point I have no idea what is going on. The elves are prisoners of the Vistani, yet a leader was able to escape? Why did no one else escape? Where is this fort? If the fort is haunted why would they flee there? Why are the dusk elves prisoners anyway? Did you escape Miss Kassy-Mira? Do the elves want to revolt against the Vistani? But I only got answers that the fort was to the west and that returning their leader was paramount. Then she rushed back to voluntarily go back into dusk elf prison, I guess. So instead of going to Vallaki like I was hoping, I guess we are going to the house of the silver dragon. My only theory is that the Bantering DM wanted us to get started on the questline to retrieve the skull, so he shoe-horned in a way for us to redirect to Argonvostholt. But in doing so he also revealed whatever he did to the dusk elf lore. I’m guessing he reversed the gender of the events before the campaign started. Which makes me wonder, did he gender-bend Rahadin too?
We wander down the road and find the haunted mansion atop the muddy hill. Seeing the statue and for whatever reason we decide to check out the collapsed stables first. The rest of the session was a combat encounter against a dozen giant spiders. Two of the three hours were dedicated to this, mostly because the Bantering DM and Jormungandr took forever to keep the turns moving along. And they were particularly toxic during this combat because Jormungandr hated that his rage did not resist poison. I knew that once the session was over, I’d be writing up my farewell message. Every time it was my turn, I simply stated what actions I took and quickly did it. Elaborating if questioned on my abilities.
DM: "Make a Con save against poison".
Barb: "No, make me."
DM: "Do it bitch."
Barb: "Fine. 21."
DM: "You failed."
Barb: "It says DC 11 for spider DM."
DM: "Yeah, well, fuck you."
Me: “I use multiattack, bite, claw, bonus action unarmed strike. 21 to hit, for 7 piercing damage. 18 to hit, for 15 slashing damage. 24 to hit, for 5 bludgeoning damage.”
Barb: “You can do three attacks? That is bullshit.”
Me: “Brown Bear has multiattack, monk grants martial arts.”
After the fight, we had just enough time to enter the mansion and find Savida. Olivia still had some spell slots, so I tended to her injuries. The Bantering DM said that the party would question her at the start of the next session. Once we ended the call, I wrote up a few things. First I left a message in the general chat thanking the players and wishing them well. I learned from Cayden later on that my farewell message was deleted by the DM. Then I wrote my final criticisms and sent them to the Bantering DM privately, letting him know I would not be returning.
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The punchline to this joke of a campaign. A week later, today, Cayden tells me that the Bantering DM canceled the session because neither of his buddies showed up to play. Eternal Flake, Geogreinanger, and the Bantering DM, despite all my complaints I hope they continue to have fun. Maybe next time though, don’t play favorites and charge people for a “fun time in Grandpa’s basement”.
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