Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: Disclaimer: Every person mentioned here, including myself, are second-year college students (19-20), and as the title says, this involves Dungeons and Dragons, so if you need me to explain any of the DnD jargon, I can happily explain (though hopefully the sentiment is apparent without too many definitions).

Also, writing on mobile at 3 AM, so please bear with me. I apologize in advance for my many-word-itis. **TL;DR at bottom.**


So, as a semi-novice DnD player myself, I thought it would be fun to kick of my Dungeon-master career with my group of friends at college who’ve never played before. We sit down one night, I help them craft out their characters, and that’s about all we have time for. Cool, no worries. 

For the first couple of sessions, I spit out some random one-off adventures, like they have to break out of prison, fight some goblins, investigate a spooky drug mansion, etc. It seems as though everybody is having a good time, and so am I. I enjoy seeing them have fun in their characters.

It’s important to note at this point that as a group we did not have what many DMs call a “session zero” — effectively a pre-campaign sit-down where we discuss our expectations for playing together - how heavily we role-play, how we want to schedule it, and, most importantly, attendance. My thought was that, since it was a modest group, we’d schedule for when we would all be there, because I thought we were all equally invested in the game and were willing to make time for it with our college schedules.

So I decided after the first few sessions that I wanted to do a real campaign, like a fully-blown months-long, continent-traversing campaign with evil gods, cults, and the whole shebang. As you can imagine, this takes a lot of planning, determining the plot points A through Z and how the characters will hop from point to point, creating NPCs to fill the world, creating the environment and buildings, and all the rest. If you don’t know, rest assured it’s a lot.

Just as we’re picking up steam in the campaign is when this whole AITA situation comes in.

Basically, one of the players continuously gives excuses for why he can’t play the game. It’s things like “I have a party I’m going to,” or, “I have an exam/paper I need to study for/work on,” or others. The former is a matter of priorities, which I will get to later, but it’s the latter that frustrates me to no end.

You see, I can understand if you have an exam or paper to work on. There’s even another person in the group using this excuse this week, and I completely understand, as she’s overworked and stressed and wants to do well. That’s fine, I get it.

But this guy, he’s a procrastinator like you’ve never seen. Like, writing a 10-page final paper the day that it’s due. Putting off work until the last ten minutes. Not reading assigned readings for his classes and acting like he had (this last part doesn’t really matter to me but helps paint the picture of him). 

So I already don’t have a speck of pity for him complaining about papers or giving me excuses for not being able to play DnD, but then he has the audacity to send a Snapchat to our group the day before DnD was scheduled  of him going on a trip to the nearby harbor (about a 20 minute bus ride) “because he was bored” for the afternoon, when he had cited an essay due Sunday as the reason he couldn’t play with us.

Rightfully (or so I thought), I was pissed. At this point it seems clear to me that he has shitty time management skills and clearly would rather go (alone) on a casual trip to the harbor than finish other work early to spend time with his friends playing a fun game.

To put icing on this metaphorical cake, when I originally asked him why he couldn’t join us, his response was word-for-word “I think the answer to that is pretty obvious lol”, and after his harbor escapade we mention getting dinner and he says “I’m getting pho with [insert club group he’s in] because you all never want to get pho with me.” At this point, I’m internally fuming, because there was such an air of apathy for the game that I care about, that I put a lot of effort into making fun for him and the others, and I just couldn’t stand it, and then he berates US for not wanting to do something HE wants to do.

So, in typical me fashion, I vent about it to my friends over dinner, saying that he was being disrespectful of me and the effort that I put into this game, and that he clearly doesn’t want to play and should just tell me, and that I have no pity for him if he can’t be smart about how he spends his time.

I’m immediately met with arguments from my other friend about how I’m overreacting, that I can’t control how he spends his time, that I’m being over dramatic, that if DnD isn’t his priority I shouldn’t care, and that I should just let it go (I will say it was the second time I’ve ranted about this particular issues to them in two days). Meanwhile my girlfriend, who hates confrontation, sits there awkwardly and eventually leaves the table early, telling me later in a phone call that “I just don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to you.”

So they basically say that I’m a dick for being frustrated at this guy for having a shit excuse for not playing DnD and having an even shittier way of delivering that to me. I thought his attitude was super disrespectful to me and my hobby, and I’m pissed that he doesn’t give the same consideration and sacrifice that the rest of the group gives to play the game that, as far as I’m aware, everybody enjoys playing.

So, I apologize for the long rant (make that third time I’ve ranted about this), and I humbly ask,

AITA?

**TL;DR — Friend says that he has a paper to write as an excuse to miss DnD, but then turns around and sends Snapchats of him going on an afternoon (~4 hour) trip “because he’s bored”. Also responds to question asking him why he can’t go with an attitude of “that’s a dumb question and you’re an idiot for asking it lol”. I rant about it twice to my other friends at dinner, but I’m the jerk for trying to control his time and being over dramatic over just a game.**

being frustrated with a friend for constantly bailing on dnd for poor time management skills and for his attitude