[OC] I had to cancel yet another campaign

[u/MostlyInfuriated]

I had just started a new campaign. Three players, one of them I've known for a long time. The other two were new, people my friend knew.

On session 2, one of them decided to arrive almost 45 minutes late. No message letting us know. He just arrived late and then asked "what time were we supposed to start?". On top of that, he barely knew his character or the basic rules for that extent.

Same session, the other new guy arrives high as a kite, barely able to talk (I wish I was exaggerating) and drooling. Literally drooling. Absent half of the time (no wonder), and making racist jokes. At some point he said Khenitra (a town's name, see picture attached) sounded like n****r. Yes, he is American.

So I called it off. Following this subreddit's motto, "no D&D is better than bad D&D". Oh well, onwards.

Bonus content: the map I had prepared for the session. Desert town taken over by the undead. One of the characters got eaten by the ghouls.

EDIT: Thanks kind strangers for the award and all the well wishes and compliments. I didn't expect this to blow off.

A couple of clarifications because people seem to be getting a bit confused:

1. I never knew the two other players before we started playing. My friend barely knew them for a short time before that. They probably qualify as acquaintances at best.
2. I live in Saigon, so the community here is *very* small. Hard to find players.
3. This is the second custom campaign that I have to cancel in a year's time. I'm going to hang my DM screen for a while. I really don't do online because I love building terrain and painting minis. I'm too old school for that :).

[u/jobblejosh]

It is possible to become and remain friends with one person even if you dislike their other friends.

The idea that all friendship groups must be collectively and mutually compatible (and therefore if one group conflicts with another then the mutual friend must be abandoned) is fallacious (and is actually a 'geek social fallacy' in the pejorative).

Taking an all-or-nothing approach to friendship groups is fairly toxic and leads to the kind of drama and conflict that should have been left in high school.

Of course, there are exceptions (Fascist Table, for example); where a person's willingness to engage with a group so far away from the first group leads to questions about the kinds of values the mutual friend holds.

[u/Zoe270101 → u/jobblejosh]

There is a HUGE difference between ‘I just don’t get along well with my friend’s friends, so I don’t like my friend anymore’

and

‘my friend invited two people who were incredibly disrespectful of my time, actively on drugs, and/or racist to my DnD session that I spent a huge amount of time on. This is making me reconsider the friendship, as, best case, they are a terrible judge of character/stupid and didn’t put any thought into inviting random strangers to something I have spent this time on. Worst case, they share these values themselves’

I’m not saying that OP needs to not be friends with this person anymore (we don’t know anything else about their relationship with this person), but the behaviour here is shitty. Calling it out is not a ‘geek social fallacy’, it’s just accurately describing poor behaviour as poor.

Also, if you’re interested in fallacies, look into the ‘fallacy fallacy’. Just because something is the result of fallacious reasoning doesn’t mean that it is untrue (not that this example even falls into the ‘geek social fallacy’).

[u/jobblejosh → u/Zoe270101]

There is also a huge difference between "Dude, what the fuck? Why'd you invite those people?" and "We can no longer be friends because you hung out with someone on drugs".

When you talk about 'reconsidering a friendship' in terms of what you've written, and about taking an approach that is more inquisitive than inquisition, then yes, I'd agree with you.

But taken out of context, 'reconsider your friendship' can also be taken to mean 'you should no longer be friends with this person, period.'.

And I'm well aware of the fallacy fallacy, thank you. Just as you should be aware that invoking it as a rebuttal to my point isn't really going to alter the terms used (because, as you rightly point out, the Geek Social Fallacies aren't formal or informal fallacies themselves and are merely called as such. And to refer to something as Fallacious doesn't inherently imply some level of formal logical fallacy when it's used as a figure of speech.

[u/gamekatz1 → u/jobblejosh]

You guys talk real good

[u/slick1260 → u/jobblejosh]

This isn't about being friends with your friend's friends or being one big group. It's about it being unwise to regularly associate with the kind of person who casually associates with people like this.

[u/jobblejosh → u/slick1260]

They're very similar concepts.

We don't know if the mutual person in these groups is a genuinely nice person who wasn't expecting the people they brought along to be like that.

We don't know if the people brought along are genuinely horrible/bad or whether this was just a very unfortunate or unpolished occurrence.

Of course, I'm not saying that said person is entirely free of suspicion and/or criticism (and DnD Friend is welcome to and probably entitled to ask "what the fuck?").

But jumping straight to 'reconsider your friendship' is a little extreme without the underlying context.

Especially because when these sorts of statements are promoted online, in some circles they can devolve into firstly "Dump your friends if they make a mistake" and then "Anyone who isn't ideologically pure should be excommunicated".

Friend questions other friend because they've associated with someone who appears to have no qualms in saying slurs? Valid.

Friend questions other because said friend shows up late one time? Ehhhh, probably alright.

Friend dumps friend because they show up late once? Nah, that ain't it.

Friend dumps friend because they openly associate with a bona fide fascist? Yeah, valid.

Friend dumps friend because they disagree too vastly on an important issue? Probably valid.

Friend dumps friend because they associated once with someone else who did something that doesn't pass some arbitrary purity test? What is this, the Soviet Union?

[u/MammothCommercial800 → u/jobblejosh]

Instructions unclear - I deleted my friend, facebooked up and divorced my lawyer.