(I’m a huge tabletop RPG gamer; I play D&D and everything like it. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of folks around that like to play; fortunately, I DO have a lot of online communities I’m part of. I end up joining a friend-of-a-friend’s campaign, and we’re discussing character creation in PMs.)

Me: “Since nobody made a party face yet, I’m going to make a Tiefling warlock.”

Dungeon Master: “No.”

Me: “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Dungeon Master: “I don’t allow evil characters in my campaigns.

Me: “Good thing he’s not evil.”

Dungeon Master: “He’s a devil, who gets his powers from devils; of course, he’s evil. You’re not allowed to play a ‘good’ character that still does evil nonsense all the time.”

Me: “Can I at least explain the character to you?”

Dungeon Master: “I don’t want to hear about your edge-lord nonsense. You’re just going to try to justify your trash.”

Me: “He’s a serene, downright zen individual, who actually has a very soft laugh and a warm smile. He takes after his father, a human male, who was seduced by his Tiefling mother. Bounded by a pact at birth, he has no choice but to have these powers. He later swore a solemn oath to several good gods to never strike harm against an innocent or take a life of one who could be spared. He ended up touched by the Undying Light, replacing what would have been a fiend-pact, allowing him to bring healing and peace rather than fire and death.”

Dungeon Master: “Okay, that’s actually all right, but he’s going to be under intense scrutiny all the time.”

Me: “No, he’s not. I mean, I would have expected that, but I refuse to play with someone who in the first few sentences has already dubbed someone ‘trash.’”

(And with that, the Dungeon Master blocked me. I left well enough alone, just told my friend who introduced me that “it didn’t work out.” I heard about a month later that the DM kicked everyone out of the game and blocked everyone; I think I dodged a bullet there.)

(After Thanksgiving dinner, my family and I always play games together. One year, my mom, my sister, two of my nieces, my daughter, and my brother and I are playing a game where you have to get your teammates to guess a word by giving clues. The category is technology and it is my turn to get my team to guess a word. My word is “Facebook.” I can’t say “social media,” and a few other things. Looking around the group, I figure this will be easy as I have the perfect clue.)

Me: “You use this to reconnect with people you used to know. Everyone at this table has one except [Brother].”

(My sister, who wasn’t even on my team, got all excited and screamed out, “Vagina!” We all burst out laughing and, of course, the timer ran out. My brother turned bright red and my sister was so proud of herself. The best part was that my sister was 50, and one of the nieces playing was her 14-year-old granddaughter who was mortified that her grandma had just yelled that.)

I used to work for an escape room, which is a room where there are puzzles that lead to clues that people must solve to escape it. I’m having a lot of fun. Then, I get this woman. She is lazy and doesn’t want to try to figure out the clues, and insists that I do it for her. We are allowed to only give hints, and I do, but she is so thick that anything but saying the answer confuses her.

Finally, frustrated, she screams, “Well, I guess I’m just too dumb for this! How dare you make me feel dumb?!” and throws a fit. She leaves a horrible review and my boss, who is the one who designed the puzzles, blames and fires me.

And that’s the story of me getting fired because a woman was too dumb and lazy. And the boss was an idiot but in a different way. The moral of the story is: if you’re too poor at logic and deduction skills, go do something else. Oh, and don’t work for someone who blames you for things that aren’t your fault. Plenty of people have failed and didn’t leave bad reviews.

(I’m a producer for a video game publishing company, attending a well-known gaming convention on behalf of my company. We have a few upcoming games on display, and we like to chat with and answer questions for players. A lot of the time, you get questions that might seem sort of silly or naive because people don’t understand the nuts and bolts of what’s actually involved in making a game, but I never mind answering. I’m talking to a guy who is a fan of one of our older games.)

Guy: “I just don’t get why you guys haven’t made a sequel.”

Me: “Well, it would be nice to consider one day if we had a good plan for it! Right now all our resources are tied up in these games, plus a few other projects we haven’t announced yet, but maybe one day!”

Guy: *scoffs* “So, just make it free.”

Me: “The… game you’re talking about?”

Guy: “No, make a free sequel. Free to play.”

Me: “Well, I mean… like I said, we’re committed to other projects right now, so it’ll be some time before we could even consider additional work.”

Guy: *staring at me as if I’m an idiot* “But it would be free.”

Bystander: “Games that are free-to-play still cost money and take time and people and other resources to make, dude.”

Guy: *still looking at me* “But it would be a free game.”

(We went back and forth like this a bit, and being that I was there representing our brand and trying to be professional I couldn’t say what I wanted to which was, “Is this a f****** joke? Are you deliberately messing with me?” To this day, I’m still not sure if he legitimately thought a game being free to play would somehow negate all the human and financial cost required to create it, as if it would be farted out of the ether, but he eventually just walked off looking annoyed. I still love conventions and interacting with fans, but some of them definitely really make you earn that round of drinks at the end of the day.)

(I’m in my apartment with my girlfriend playing a medieval MMO. She’s on her laptop out in the kitchen, while I’m in my office on my desktop. We’re hanging out in the starting town when a random low-level player starts following me. Note: I’m 30 and she’s 27, and we’ve both been playing this game together since high school.)

Random Player: “Hey, [My Username]!”

Me: “Yes?”

Random Player: “Free money, please?”

Me: “You can make money by killing goblins or cows, or by fishing or mining.”

Random Player: “I don’t want to do that! Give me 500k or I’ll do your mom in bed!”

Me: “Okay, that’s actually very disturbing.”

Random Player: “What, can’t handle me sleeping with your mom?”

Girlfriend: “No, he means it’s disturbing that you’re turned on by sixty-year-old married women.”

(The random player briefly stands there, silent, and then runs off without saying another word.)

Me: *shouting out of my office to my girlfriend* “You’re definitely a keeper, babe!”

(She responded by making her avatar blow my avatar a kiss in-game. A moment later, she waltzed into my office and gave me a kiss on the cheek. We have now been married for three years, and we still play that MMO together from time to time.)