From the outside it’s easy.  We see a relationship on the rocks and wonder at why people would stay.  Our friend confides in us the things that are happening in their life and, like watching a game of chess, the answer seems so simple to us.  “Why don’t you just break up?”  The reality is, it’s always harder than that.  From the outside you never see the tangled net of interlocking lives, and the pain of extricating it all.  Then there’s the inside, where you often don’t see the glaring red flags screaming at you to get out.  They were white flags once, that slowly faded through pink into red.  Like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water, we never noticed until we were boiling to death.

But this isn’t about romantic relationships.

This is about Dungeons and Dragons.

There is an old adage running in tabletop role playing circles.  It says “no D&D is better than bad D&D.”  This is true, not that you need to settle for no D&D.  If you want to play, you can make that happen (more on that here).  This is about the Bad Campaigns, and the reasons why it’s so hard to quit them.

It used to be so good

There was a time when this campaign was everything you looked for in a TTRPG (tabletop role playing game).  The party came together, and held each other up, feeding into each others’ narratives, providing supporting characters and the occasional comic relief.  You fought monsters together, suffered hardship together, celebrated triumph together.  You were a family.  Then, somewhere down the line, things changed.  Who knows when it soured, but it did, and it isn’t fun anymore.

All campaigns change, and every player might not be a fan of how they change, but this is about changes that ruin the game for you (and maybe everyone else, too).  If you’re not having fun, and haven’t been having fun for months this might be a good time to bow out.  Continuing to go back week after week chasing “the way it used to be” is at best futile and, at worst, self destructive.  You owe it to yourself to be in a campaign you enjoy.  This is your free time, spend it on something you actually want to do.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

This is an easy trap to fall into.  Whether it’s because you’ve spent years playing with this team, and you’ve got your tactics down, or because you’ve been building this story for so long that you need to see how it ends, sometimes it’s just not worth it.  Maybe you’ve finally gotten to that combination of abilities and magic items you’ve been after since you first started playing the game.  Or this campaign has gone on long enough that you’ve hit that most elusive of beasts, level 20.  Whatever the reason, you’ve put hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of your life into this campaign.  You can’t quit now.

You can.  And if you’re making this argument to yourself or to anyone else, you probably should.  You’ve spent this much time on the campaign, so there’s no way you aren’t heavily invested in it.  If it’s gone bad, do you really want to trust this rotting corpse of a campaign with the story & hero you’ve spent so much time perfecting?  Do you trust this group to do right by your character and their legacy?  Get out, my friend.  Get out now.

Loss of the Friend Group

This one’s rough.  Real rough.  Maybe this is the only consistent time that this group of friends can get together.  Maybe you’ve all grown apart, and this is the last bastion of interaction still available to you.  Maybe you really get along with one or two people, but they’re locked in with the rest of the group.  All of these are possibilities and, even if you don’t burn the bridge on the way out, stopping your participation in this game will mean that you won’t get to see these folks nearly as often.

I don’t have an easy answer for this one.  You can always grit your teeth and stick it out for your friends if you think it’s worth it.  The hard part is doing any sort of mathematics when your friends are on one side of the scale.  Personally, I’d bail.  There are other ways to hang out, and it doesn’t have to be in a setting that you hate.  Keep in touch with your friend group outside of the game.  Sure you might not see them as often as you like, but it’ll be under better circumstances.

Honey I can Change

This one is interesting, because it means you (or someone/something else) has made the group aware of the badness, and a promise has been made to improve.  It can be enticing to stick around and see if things get better, but it’s also an easy cycle to get stuck into, ad infinitum.  You don’t want to be hanging on for years in a bad campaign, waiting for promised improvements that never come.

The reality is, a desire for change is something that needs to come from within.  If you are the one suggesting change from the outside, it’s less than likely to take hold, and you might want to consider whether or not you’re trying to change this D&D group against their will.  The campaign might just be bad for you.  If everyone else is having a grande olde time, maybe bow out and let them have their fun.

That said, if the campaign isn’t going well for anyone, and everyone has agreed to make a change and improve the game, give them a session.  Two sessions, max.  Again, this is all under the caveat that you really want to give them a chance.  I would recommend bowing out rather than trying to fix it.  You can’t change someone, and you definitely can’t change three to five other someone’s.

Taking the Plunge

So, assuming you’ve decided to leave the bad campaign behind you, what’s the best way forward?  Do you go scorched earth, or demure with a few well placed exaggerations about how busy your life has become?

The biggest piece of advice I have for you is this: Don’t burn your bridges if you don’t have to.  Sure, you may never want to play with these people again, but that shouldn’t give you license to be hurtful.  Try to step away as kindly as possible.  It’s fine to gild the truth here, too.  Sure, you’re leaving because you weren’t having fun, but they don’t need to know that.  It’s fine to fall back on the age old, “it’s not you, it’s me” trope.

Of course, all of that is under the assumption that this group just wasn’t a great fit.  If the other players or the Dungeon Master have done something terrible, mean spirited, bigoted and/or offensive, by all means give them a piece of your mind.  My only advice on that front would be to make sure you do it in a way that you aren’t endangering yourself.  Terrible people need to be told off, but do it safely.

Well, there you have it.  Hopefully this has been helpful, if not mildly diverting for you.  If you think I’ve left anything out, or have something to add, feel free to toss a comment down below or send me a message.  Also, if you’ve got a horror story of your own you’d like to share, feel free to do so!  Take care, and may all your campaigns be excellent.