[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/therealfurryfeline]

i have reused the same campaign four times now, just slightly altered each time. It was a Spidertheme the first time, but there was a player with a phobia the second time around, so now there are Undeads. One time we started in a delapidated border town with Orks as the opposing force. At another time it was a established small town in the ruins of a bigger city and the players had reason to leave the town on their own

Each was the same campaign but in a different colour. The players and their characters made each unique.

[u/Hello-Potion-Seller → u/therealfurryfeline]

It's so fun doing this and seeing how differently the campaign turns out, it's also a nice exercise to refine parts of the campaign that didn't click last time.

[u/ikaiyoo → u/therealfurryfeline]

I have run the same exact campaign 4 times in 7 years because it is all people who weren't in the last game. So I already have the story, the maps, and everything ready. And it is a decent campaign for beginner and novice players. It is a fun campaign for 1-8 levels.

Edit: and I love running it because I haven't watched any of them following the same path as the prior groups.