Lock That Troll In The Dungeon And Throw Away The Key

I’m an avid player of “Dungeons & Dragons”, and among my group of online friends who play, we rotate who’s the Dungeon Master. It’s currently my turn, and I run a very “no holds barred” style of gameplay. I reward creative planning and encourage goofy roleplay, and when building characters, I allow complete min-max nonsense, with the understanding that threats will be scaled accordingly. Fortunately, they like “big numbers”, so it overall works out.

The current storyline isn’t all that complex; it involves their mercenary group being sent after some pirates. Nautical nonsense and high-seas adventure ensue, there’s some surprisingly clever use of character abilities, and a good time is had by all. At least until after one game, one of the players messages me.

Player: “You gotta stop with the political nonsense.”

Me: “Uh, there’s no politics going on right now? The Kraken you fought wasn’t even a registered voter.”

Player: “You know what I’m talking about! The captain!”

Me: “What’s wrong with them?”

Player: “THAT!”

Me: “…What?”

Player: “Stop saying ‘they’. Use ‘he’ or ‘she’!”

Me: “Oh, that’s going to be confusing in a hurry. You did notice they’re a Changeling, and they shapeshift into a new body basically every scene, half the time swapping genders?”

Player: “Look, I don’t play this to get some woke nonsense shoved down my throat. Just make it normal.”

Me: “Ha, okay! So, you’re okay with the two players whose characters are a gay couple, you’re okay with the ex-stripper-turned-Warlock, and you’re okay with a morally-gray matriarchy, but having a character that is both mentally and physically gender fluid by nature of their species is ‘woke nonsense’?”

Player: “Is this really the hill you’re gonna die on?”

Me: “I’ll tell you what. I’ll message the group and see if everyone else feels the same way. If it’s consensus that I’m being offensive, I’ll apologize and switch.”

Player: “Don’t do that. Just stop it.”

Me: “Oh? Do you think they’ll just call you a bigot?”

Player: “I’m not a bigot. I’m just saying I’m tired of people complaining about pronouns!”

Me: “Seems like you’re the only one complaining. Let me know before Saturday if you’re still playing or not.”

End result: he left the group. Then, it was revealed this person was not actually okay with the gay couple or the sexually-liberated-but-didn’t-screw-literally-everyone warlock; he’d just kept it to PMs. So, now, he’s completely blocked by all of us.