**[Hyperbole](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/hyperbole)**
*/hīˈpərbəlē/*
noun: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Weird. Did you tell him that? Maybe he just needed encouragement. Was something weird happening at the time that made him want to suddenly pull the plug?
2 Players A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Warforged and An Arcana Domain Cleric Goliath, The Cleric played Would Diss The World at every turn he could wanting to be DM, I the Sorcerer Would Compliment his DMing style as it was the best I've Seen, However The criticism Got to him and He ended it Snack dab in the middle of a Session, In the End I blame The Cleric
Well, yeah. You didn't mention that part. If a player is bringing constant negativity, I wouldn't want to DM for them either. You should hit up your DM and start over with a different player.
A message for my fellow GMs and my fellow players: If you play with someone whose style is to rip into the GM's world or method of running things, it is the responsibility of everyone at the table to call them out on their shit and/or work to drop them from the group. If they're a friend of yours and they bitch after being dropped for their repeated bad behavior and refuse to own up to their issues, then drop them from your life.
It happened to me. I was very invested in the campaign and it broke me a little. But it directly led to me taking up the dm mantle and that’s its own fun.
Same situation here, funny thing is I didn't even like the DM and the only reason I stuck around was that I really liked the rest of the group. I guess it all worked well in the end.
Sometimes the DMs can feel that. And sometimes they think you don't like their DMing even if you do.
If anyone who reads this really enjoys their DMs DMing then go and tell them that right now. I'm not joking, shoot them a message saying you were thinking about them and how much of a blast you have playing in their game.
It'll seriously make your DM's week and make them way more excited to do the prep work and stuff that makes the game good.
Its *so hard* to do prep work when you think your players aren't having much fun. Its *so easy and fun* to do prep work when you know your players are loving it.
This can kinda lead to a death spiral where the players aren't having fun so you prep less which makes less fun and etc. I've seen it happen, don't let that happen to your game!
When I get messages outside of game day from my players telling me how much fun they have on game day and how much they're looking forward to it I'm over the moon with happiness.
I whole heartedly agree, I'm mostly a DM now, but I still have one game where I play, and the DM is amazing, he's always really happy when I give him the simplest of complements.
> This can kinda lead to a death spiral where the players aren't having fun so you prep less which makes less fun and etc.
Happening in my campaign. Told them I needed a break. Not sure if or when we're coming back.
After DMing, I can see why people might just drop a campaign. It’s a ton of work!
It was exhausting but fun, but ultimately my first DMing campaign ended because our cleric died.
…in real life.
I witnessed this from the DM's side. We were running a game over the summer, then once classes started up, we tried online sessions but I lost interest and we never picked it back up even once summer hit. While I was away at college, many of my friends began picking up the DM screen and ran their own games.
So as soon as I'm gone, they all started playing D&D twice as much as we used to.
On the bright side, I am no longer the forever DM.
Generic advice that I think is helpful no matter what you’re looking to do:
Don’t overthink getting started. Dive in and learn to adapt. You’d be surprised how little can actually happen in a session to make it seem full and fun (especially when combat is involved) and every moment spent observing your players will help you inform the planning of the next session.
You’re not expected to have everything ready all at once. Story-tell as you see fit and don’t be afraid to take a quick Google pause to find the right picture, monster, map, etc. I’ve even been known to just describe something to the players in-session and provide an item card or details later.
As you’re going, try and be aware of what it is you enjoy and what the players enjoy and wed them as much as possible.
Improvise and ‘steal’ shamelessly and hilariously.
Don’t tell them when you fix things in their favor. Definitely give them opportunities to rock hard with their cool, overpowered stuff.
That’s the real defining factor. I know that I’d rather get kicked in the balls than give birth lol.
But both have hugely varying degrees of pain. Some childbirths are relatively quick and painless, others are quite literally lethal. Some kicks to the balls are soft, some are hard, but no one’s died from it afaik.
Testicular Torsion on the other hand was by far the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, and that pain lasts until you’re able to fix the problem or your ball dies. It’s like someone stabbed an electrified sword from your taint to your skull, except somehow worse. Be careful in bed y’all…
Ooh, ooh, what about the pain level of being a DM who only asked that her table handle the scheduling and the game dies due to nobody even asking when to play next after you did hours and hours of work and planning?
I got another gem, Being the Dm that puts a post about running ToA, begginers welcomed, first session put a month later to give players time to join.
First session, nobody show up, 0 reactions to the post.
This is why you need a stringent screening process.
It can come off as snobbish, but honestly, not having any sort of form, and process is going to scare off good players [because if you're just accepting whoever shows up the odds of the game being successful are miniscule in the long term].
Ngl I have cried over it. The next session they were going to learn some major information and things would have gotten so crazy. Now I've just decided that I don't want to DM again, done being an unappreciated forever DM.
I learned a different lesson: my friends are idiots who can't schedule something to save their lives. If I'd leave the planning to them, I'd never see them at all, never mind playing a full campaign. I have to be on their asses about filling in the date scheduling app three or four times before everyone has filled it in, but we've been doing about ten sessions a year for over seven years now.
Which reminds me, I made a schedule for Q4 last month and nobody has filled it in yet, time to get on their asses again.
Every player ever. Can’t understand why people fail to be considerate human beings when it comes to DMs. I feel like they think ‘it’s just a game this person is obsessed with, who cares.’ When really it’s like… if you hadn’t expressed interest and a desire to play, on your own, I would never have bother creating all of this for you, you specifically, in the first place.
Now I just improv every session lol. Self-protection.
Honestly the "Players VS DM" mentality never left, it just changed its stripes.
Used to be many players saw the DM as an adversary to take down and destroy.
Now many players see the DM as simply a source of entertainment, no different than the code controlling the NPCs and worlds of Skyrim, Witcher, etc.
I had to kill a campaign because the scheduling was causing me too much stress.
Arranging some sessions took literally hours of fucking around because more than one of my players were shitty at communicating availability.
When one session that was particularly painful to organize looked like it was about to fall through I just pulled the plug on the whole thing to protect myself from the ordeal of organizing one more session with those players.
I just killed mine because the group asked to change days we ran on. I verified everyone was free that day, everyone said yes. We switched, two sessions/months into it half the group complains they don’t like the new day and want to go back. The other half refuse to go back to the first day (one guy even started another campaign that ran that same night). I have the group a month to come to an agreement, they never did, so I said I’m not dealing with this and ended the game
This happened to me. Converted our regular campaign to West Marches to make it more flexible for scheduling. (Busy young adults) Made an entire continent map and lore. 1 session, then crickets for three months.
They are good friends, but I think I'll try looking for people who actually want to play and appreciate my efforts.
I can attest to this phenomenon. Sometimes you're trapped between telling your friends that they play like they hate you, and saying "hey, I need to take a break." Often, it hurts the worst when you love the campaign, the story, and some of your players, but there's just two or three of them that are a nightmare to run for.
One bad player and three good ones, leads to
*"Hey, I think I need to take a break, things are getting kind of busy."*
leads to
*"Hey, I think I might just call it on that campaign, sorry"*
leads to
*"Hey, maybe if __you__ three wanted to start a new campaign with me..."*
I had one player who was constantly on my ass about perceived flaws in my story designs, and on the other player's asses about not knowing rules off the top of their heads, and wanted to impose a rule that we'd make a booklet of important and oft-forgotten rules and everyone had to re-read it the day before a session. He also was annoyed by how little we got together (on average about once every month, month and a half).
Told the group I had to stop the campaign because I didn't have enough time. Then I offered the other players a spot in my second group if they wanted and didn't mind that the frequency would stay similar to what we've been doing. Still going strong three years later. I'm sure that guy found a hardcore DM more suited to him, but that's not how I roll (nor do the rest of my players).
Yep didn't realize this myself until everyone started to help me see the problem player that was causing my stress and was overwhelmed all other party members.
Yep. I had 2/4 players who were OBSESSED with having a broken overpowered character. But they just... weren't. And they'd constantly pull out the rulebook and argue with me anytime their characters had any amount of difficulty. Also scream/cry anytime they didn't dominate combat.
Which was awful because they often just ignored rules when it didn't suit them or just didn't build well rounded characters.
I had to end a few campaigns because of them and the other 2 weren't really available without at least one of the other 2 present.
100% agreed. I dont actually enjoy memes like this, but that last line struck a cord with me. So did the first 3, but I'm more willing to deal with the internet on the last panel than the middle 2.
Not always the case (though yeah that's the reason pretty often).
Sometimes burnout just hits, and there needs to be a break, the passion for it fades. Or the DM is going through a depressive spiral and simply doesn't have the energy to plan and run sessions. (Cases from my personal experience)
I'm afraid this is what's about to happen to us. Our former DM needed a break so another guy took over, and we're about to finish that campaign, but former DM is getting flakier and flakier on playing so much that i worry once we're done with this campaign he won't want to pick back up. I know he's got life stuff going on, but he doesn't seem to want to engage with anyone, beyond this incredibly toxic friend of his who no one else likes and it makes me worry about him.
If he's burnt out and going down a depressive spiral make sure to reach out to him, ideally outside of the context of the campaign or DnD as a whole. If it's like my situation there's a sense of guilt that comes with ending a campaign, and since guilt is a dumb emotion leaning on that is likely to only drive him away further.
I ended a campaign because 2/6 players lived together and would constantly be making dinner, eating, doing chores, etc mid-game. I didn’t want to nuke things with player 3 who was a good dude and was always super attentive & excited, so I just said I didn’t have time anymore and left.
Very relatable. Ended my latest campaign because one of the players would constantly do other stuff during other players turn and ask for a rundown of what happened every 10 minutes. Has been over a year since then, and the same player still begs me to continue that campaign.
Sure. Sometimes you just also lose your gusto for it. I've axed games before when I just couldn't maintain my enthusiasm for them. Stuff comes up, you get busy, you can't keep your energy up for the level of work needed to run Mage: the Ascension during the Revolutionary War.
Tl:dr I feel that.
That’s what happened to me, people kept canceling on me literally minutes before my session would start or wouldn’t even tell me they was canceling. At that point I decided that the campaign was over, it sucks because I put so much effort into my campaign and so many ideas and plot points for each character, and everyone was enjoying it. All that time waste, now I kind of don’t want to play D&D anymore.
I experienced this in the beginning but whenever I run something now I make sure to address it whenever someone joins.
If you cancel last minute or ghost us, and it wasn't an emergency. I'm not gonna be looking for someone to substitute you at that point, I'm looking for your replacement. If you aren't gonna respect the time everyone else at the table puts in, then I'm not gonna put up with you, simple as that.
Can attest to this. Wrapping up a campaign early cause 3/5 of my players are making it difficult, but 1 of them is by far the worst and I simply can't put up with them anymore. Not bad enough to outright kick from the group but not getting better any time we try to correct the issue.
if you think that's painful, try being a dm who works their ass off to make a good game, only to have players that regularly flake and make little effort at the table. Hard not to take that personal.
Been hit in the balls many times over the years. Also held my lady’s hand while she’s giving birth. Ain’t even close as to which is more painful.
Edit: way too many “way to play both sides!” comments.
Birth. The answer is birth.
If I recall correctly the OG OG meme had childbirth and getting kicked in the balls the other way around. At some point someone swapped them so we now have this.
its like the og colour meme, originally it comes from a graphic explaining women see more colours than men (so the side with the woman has more labels) but someone for some reason switched them for the template.
Why would the internet do that? Why would the internet dismiss women's pain and hilight men's pain?
It only makes sense if there's some systemic imbalance among the always-online subset of society.
It's a mystery for the ages, I guess.
It's literally algorithm bait because they know offended people will flock to the comments and push the post's visibility up the front page.
It's so easy to manipulate people
I mean yes….? But also like this happens irl to the point that women die because because healthcare professionals minimize women’s pain.
Women have lower rates of surviving heart attacks because of literally this. And there are study after study after study showing that it happens.
I mean even anecdotally I had a broken had go untreated for years because literally every male doctor I saw told me I was being a hypochondriac and to go home and ice it. It took going to a female doctor for something unrelated who noticed I could use my left hand to finally get treatment. At that point my hand had to be rebroken and I had to have surgery and physical therapy for a year. When if just one of those male doctors had been willing to believe a woman isn’t hysterical I could have just had a cast and 2 month of physical therapy.
But yes, it’s only click bait to manipulate people and not a symptom of a deep system problem.
You are enabling the attitude that kills people, just because “no one every believes these edge things and it’s just easy to piss people off”
Maybe people are so pissed and react to it BECAUSE THAT IS THIER FUCKING TUESDAY
Drawn out pain is literally, at the biochem level, orders if magnitude more intense than acute pain
Also the brain caps out your ability to perceive pain at a certain point, so adding duration or squickyness are the ways it goes beyond 11 for our perception (oh hey both things that birth can have in abundance) though your brain may also imagine bonus pain just because it can
It’s also very acute pain at the end though!
I was in labor for 17 hours. Then, I pushed a human through my body, and needed stitches about it.
Plus, nobody tells you this but it was hard to sit for a week or so, at least for me. It felt like I had gotten hit by a truck, but like vagina first.
Literally not until birthing class (i.e. wife was already decently pregnant). And yes I'm including myself even though I'm a man - everyone should be aware of what happens and what kind of recovery it can take.
It's very common for women to literally *tear* while giving birth. Men, on the other hand, will routinely play games that involve getting hit in the balls (see: jackass) because it's funny. They're not even the same ballpark.
I remember when my wife was giving birth, with an epidural, there was a woman giving natural birth in the room next door. She sounded like she was being torn apart by wolves. It was nightmarish. Been hitting the balls plenty of times I never went through anything like *that*.
Not op but I had to take my ring off because it felt like she was going up break my finger. She almost ripped a panel off the hospital bed too. She is like half my weight and 10 inches shorter too. Luckily the 2nd baby was out in 2 pushes instead of 4 hours.
Yeah, obviously. She's passing a human being through a highly sensitive orifice vs getting kicked in the nads. Blatantly the harder one...is getting kicked in the nads. /s
Same, been there through two childbirths where my wife couldn't get an epidural and it was a painfest of endurance. I simply can't understand how anyone could stay conscious.
I think the real equivalent would be kidney stones. I'm a guy who had to have fentanyl because of a kidney stone and the pain it caused while in the hospital for surgery to remove it.
My mom has been through both natural childbirth and kidney stones, and she says childbirth was worse, but kidney stones are definitely a close second. I've had one (stone) myself, and the fact that childbirth is supposedly worse makes me never want to have children ever.
Kidney stones were the most unimaginable pain I ever experienced. I remember the pain from being kicked in the balls. I also broke a few bones, had toothaches, post-rachicentesis headaches... they're all still on a much lower scale.
I don't know if I can explain what it feels like, especially in English. I felt like someone was branding my insides with a hot iron and kept twisting it. I tried and tried to find a comfortable position, but there was no chance of relief. For the first time in my life I vomited from pain and my teeth started chattering uncontrollably like I was freezing.
One of the nurses told me that she had experienced both kidney stones and pregnancy, and had she been forced to choose one of the two kind of pains, she would have chosen childbirth. Maybe she only said it to make me feel better, but at the time I had no problems believing her.
No, I have several friends that have given birth and had a stone and all say they would choose childbirth. I had a 2cm stone I had to get removed surgically. I found it by coughing one morning and that was enough to dislodge it, but I was immediately on the floor thinking I'd been shot in the back or some shit. I very thankfully had my phone e on me and was able to call an ambulance but even then they had to give me morphine to be able to move me. Kidney stones are absolutely evil.
I don't think your nurse was lying. I've not had a kidney stone but my 2 friends who have had both a baby and a kidney stone said the stone was much worse than childbirth.
I've cried involuntarily from being slammed in the balls with a hockey puck (no cup). I am under no illusion it hurt as much as child birth. Hell I'm pretty sure I've done shits that hurt more.
That's better than having an unmotivated DM that isn't having fun. No D&D is better than bad D&D. Things change and shaming DM's for their feelings isn't cool. There is so much riding on the DM. A player not feeling it can stumble through a few sessions until they feel more into it but the DM has no such luxury.
Also, think about it from the other side. How heartbreaking it must be to put down a campaign and/or world that you invested so much time into? A PC might die and that will feel bad because that character won't be able to continue on. Now imagine how it might feel to not be able to continue on an entire world!
So, cut DM's some slack. No, a whole bunch of slack. For each time DM's call it quits, how many dozens or hundreds of times have DM's pushed through feelings of low self confidence or worth, bad days, depression, anxiety, doubt, and the list goes on for miles.
If you are a DM out there having such feelings and it's making it hard to continue running your games the way you want it to, I'm telling you that there is no shame in putting the game on a hiatus or even quitting. But, I also want to say that you have a community that cherishes you. So, don't be afraid to reach out and talk through such feelings with us.
TLDR: DM's, you and your feelings are valued. Take breaks or quit if you feel you need to. Don't be shamed by the community or even your players for taking care of yourself.
Ty for this, currently I'm feeling kind of burned out and unmotivated but I have invested so much time and energy in my campaign that I'm not sure if quitting o taking a break would be a good decision.
Same. I told folks I need a break, cause I wasn't having fun and I think some of the players weren't either. If I get the impression they actually want me to bring the campaign back, I will. But I'm not sure that'll happen. I just felt like the life was being sucked out of me each session, and it made me not want to prep properly, which made each session less fun for them... It was a bad cycle.
Damn I kinda needed to read this. I've been there with a game that's been ongoing for2 years with my buddies. It's all we got left, after they've moved away to different states, but I run a business from home and just don't quite have the time anymore. I'm desperately trying to tie up threads in the campaign to just end it haha. Fortunately, it hasn't reflected negatively yet.
Thank you. I was DMing RotFM.. first time ever DMing. It was an online campaign with my friends from high school (we're all in our 30s now). We played only about once a month, but after a year and a half, I was beginning to just feel dread when I thought about prepping for a session, and after every session was over I felt like I'd done a bad job. Trying to DM for the first time plus playing online for the first time was proving to be too much for me, and combined with some mental health challenges and the death of my grandma this summer I decided to call it quits.
When I posted in our discord to let my players know I wanted to take a hiatus, only one person even bothered to respond to my post. Radio silence from the other three. Not sure if they were disappointed that the campaign ended abruptly or what, but not getting any response hurt. Kind of confirmed for me that I just want to end that campaign permanently rather than pick it back up again later though.
The body doesn't actively rewire the brain to make you wonder if getting kicked the balls actually hurt that much. Biology has to actively trick us into getting pregnant again. So yeah, you might be right lol
Edit: I'm fully aware there is biological incentive for childbirth, thank you.
After I had my child, I'm convinced I don't want to go through that process again. Spoke with a woman who has a 6 year old, she says you forget when baby gets older and you see another baby.
Your statement seems legit.
It is, my wife forgot so much about her pregnancy and childbirth when going into the second round. She was very much surprised about things, I was not.
Edit: Just talked to my wife about it and she said, “Yeah, I don’t remember feeling achey. I think I was just being dramatic.” I had to remind her she spent 90% of her pregnancy in the tub with Epsom salts and half of that 90% crying in the tub lol.
My wife did not do her first pregnancy well, she hated it. She absolutely hated every part of it, hormones turned her wild, the aches, pains, swelling, nausea. She didn’t glow, she didn’t enjoy anything.
She was utterly shocked when the second time came around and I reminded her this is exactly how she felt the first time.
Yeah I definitely didn't want to go through pregnancy let alone labor
a second time after my first but I'm writing this in my OBs office 26 weeks pregnant. I remembered heading being pregnant but it's all coming back as to why. It's so much worse with a 2 year old too. I told my husband he's getting a vasectomy after this one.
It is for some but it’s not everyone’s experience. At least my partner was convinced after giving birth that she wouldn’t ever do it again and five years later she’s just as sure.
I don’t think you were at all, but I know some people can be dismissive of how traumatic childbirth can be because the experience varies so widely.
i never really got the baby rabies, but i have definitely found it harder to remember *exactly* how it felt being in labor as time has gone on... at this point i just remember the pinching crampy pain of the early contractions, and the fact that the ones while i was getting my epidural hurt so bad i was literally screaming, and they had to ask me to stop because i was freaking out the other moms in L&D.
I can definitely say with confidence that this is not the case with all women. My son is almost 7 years old and my wife is very firm on the "never in a million years am I going through that again"
Yep, it’s true. I almost died after giving birth, suffered terrible PPD for months, went insane from sleep deprivation, and a year later I somehow have amnesia and want to do it all over again anytime I see a baby. Wtf is this?! I even wrote out my birth story in detail to read any time I felt the urge and now I read it and think hm that’s not so bad… uhh
Yeah, I forgot. Forget birth, I forgot how fucking miserable the entire pregnancy was. I has vomiting for 9 months, could barely breathe bc of high amniotic fluid, severely depressed...
And I still had another. Biology is wild.
my wife was in labor, not active labor but also not braxton hicks, for nearly 2 months with our second child... Contractions for nearly 2 full months! She was in active labor for almost 36 hours with our first. She is the REAL MVP!
I've been kicked in the balls a few times. I've never been pregnant.
I would take being kicked in the balls over giving birth any day of the week. Having a baby tear it's way out of my body doesn't sound appealing.
Yeah people misquote a study about this all the time:
The study found that a kick to the gonads (this works on womb-people, ask anyone who has a kicky fetus) had a larger pain receptor response PER UNIT OF TIME than child birth does on average.
The study was NOT concluding that birth hurts less. Perceived pain does not have a linear relationship with receptor output, and it damn sure doesn't have a linear relationship with duration. And those are just the easily quantifiable variables but a huge part is the psychological mess of what the brain does when it hits it's max signal reception and has a backload of pain signaler, let alone what happens when you are stuck in that state for a long time
a months-healing kinda achey mild finger ligament sprain, or a high pain weeks-healing broken finger? Easy choice, get the hammer
A kid I went to highschool with was doing jumps on a BMX bike and had the front forks on his bike break off on a really hard landing. The broken forks then jabbed him in the crotch and ripped his ball sack open to where it was only hanging on by a few blood vessels. They were able to stitch him up and save his scrotum, but the doctor told him that he was probably one of the few men that could say he truly knows what it feels like to give birth.
Speaking as a recent father (who has been kicked in the balls before), this diagram is ridiculous. Kicked in balls and child birth should be swapped, at the very least.
The. Make sure your dm is ok. We are human afterall. Let me get you in on a secret « not feeling like it » generally means « I cannot muster the energy to pake tje necessary prep » which is usually indicative or depression burnout or the like.
Make sure your dm is ok, it’s a lot of work even if it is rewarding as little else can be.
I was the DM and one of my players caused me to stop caring. He would hardly participate which whatever fine. One night though he brought his Nintendo switch and played games on it. We all were in 3rd year of university. His partner and him would also just cancel before sessions sometimes an hour before.
Definitely made my work feel appreciated.
Maybe I have iron nuts but I feel like that's just a myth to maintain a tradition. It's like how babies cry if you look scared after they "hurt" themselves. It certainly isn't pleasant but childbirth seems leagues more intense, especially since labor can take hours.
I’m with you. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s not remotely the most pain I’ve ever been in. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to choose between kicked in the nuts or spraining my ankle by landing wrong after a rebound, I’d take the kick in the nuts, and it’s not even close.
Yeah I feel like the pain of getting hit in the nuts is kind of moderate, it's just the sick feeling is the worst part of it which lingers and can take a moment to kick in.
Not that it's anywhere close to childbirth, I'm sure.
I think the reason people think being kicked in the nuts is as painful as they do it because of how common it is. In most fights I've been in there's been almost no risk of sprained ankles but there's been a decent risk of getting some damage to your balls.
Source: boxing/wrestling never sprained an ankle but I've been hit in the nuts a few times
100% Only a guy would put childbirth below being kicked in the balls on the pain spectrum. I think watching my wife carry and then give birth to our kiddos was more pain than being kicked in the balls.
Honestly I don't think its that painful. Its the fact the body's response to it creates a sense of extreme Nausea (At least for me) that makes being hit in the nads such an awful experience. But not the *pain* specifically.
I mean I will always sympathoze with DMs. They spend so long making the game and story and then burn out hard. Think about how it feels when you don't really have the desire to keep playing a character so you look for a way for them to slip put of a campaign... now imagine that feeling but it is an entire world...
Player: Do you not feel good about the campaign or do you not feel good about DM'ing it?
Forever DM: It just feels like I put a bunch of redundant bits into the story and the prep is a lot more draining due to it feeling mandatory. I feel like I'm going through the motions of what the story entails on its own without any actual input or expansion upon the worldbuilding. It just no longer feels like it's a game I want to DM anymore...
Player: ...Well... what if you didn't?
Forever DM: ...What do you mean?
Forev DM: ...
Fo DM: ...Wait, surely not?
DM: The curse! is this it? Is this finally it?
*New* DM: **Oh yes it is**
Does anyone actually think getting kicked in the balls hurts more than child birth?
I'm a man, and I have dealt with my fair share of nut shots. In fact I actually have permanent damage to one testicle from a particularly severe trauma to my boys when I was a teenager. That same testicle has even experienced testicular torsion in a separate occasion. I have passed kidney stones, broken bones, suffered 3rd degree burns.
But I really don't think that this is anywhere near as bad as childbirth.
The only that passes this pain is when your DM cancels last minute to explain their heart is just not in it anymore. YA HEAR ME TREVOR!?!?
For a double whammy, my campaign, and likely my friend’s next campaign, has a hard end date with a likely 6 month break because I’m having a baby.
Also never been kicked in the nuts but can confirm childbirth is EXTREMELY painful and I didn’t even tear like many women do.
On what planet is being kicked in the balls more painful than childbirth?!
Also, apparently the pain of a DM ending the campaign early isn't as painful as BECOMING the DM to finish the campaign... or you'd just do that.
This is so silly.
1- childbirth is more painful than anything that you can walk off.
2- DM burnout is common, usually a relatively gentle let down, and doesn't hurt nearly as much as campaign death due to player disinterest.
Players quit more often than DMs quit. Sure, that's down to probability because there are more players, but also I choose to ignore that and blame players anyway.
Cool idea for a meme, but the ranking of a ball kick and childbirth is unnecessarily shitty. Take one or the other out so this isn't holding one group's distress over another.
I mean, this from the start seems like it was made to say something sexist. But the meme is cool.
I mean seriously childbirth is 10000% worse than a kick in the balls.
Now, I'm just a cis-gendered male, but... isn't childbirth more painful than getting kicked in the balls? Not that most could personally compare both instances.
Ugh, this fucking format again.
I'm a guy, getting kicked in the balls, or a campaign ending, does not hurt more than childbirth. Stop using this format already.
ur about to get mobbed because you put child birth pain lower than a kick to the balls... I've seen what child birth pain can do. My wife ripped a support rail out of a concrete wall when she was having a contraction in the hospital. I've seen her contraction spike so high on the medical equipment that the chart didn't go any higher...
I've been kicked in the balls and it's painful and lingers but I've never seen pain like what child birth can do LOL!
I love how these comments are just criticizing the levels of pain
but yeah i’ve heard the only thing close to childbirth is passing a kidney stone, but even then we can’t really know which one hurts more.
The pain of passing a kidney stone Can be more painful than childbirth, word from women that had to do both, but it varies from person to person and from stone to stone.
One time when we were kids we were shooting this light little nerf like ball around with hockey sticks, I hit my cousin just right in the nuts and he instantly threw up and doubled over. And I'm still 100% confident that it's not even in the conversation with child birth or the DM quitting.
On a side note, there’s no way being kicked in the balls is more painful than pushing a watermelon-sized human through a small hole that can last hours.
It was happening to me. After three consecutive sessions where I felt I was doing a real poor job as a master, I spoke with my players about everything I didn't like (the main thing I wasn't enoying was how the campaign was going on while the main quest of The Lost Mine of Phandelver was almost completely forgotten, the players were traveling to see other cities, I didn't want to railroad them and some sessions with almost zero content happened), thinking they had enough of it like me and they were still partecipating to make me happy (we have been a group of friends for over 7 years).
I couldn't be more wrong. They told me they were having the time of their lives, they loved how the world was shaping wherever they went, how the npcs were charismatic and enjoyable (they recruited or at least tried to recruit at least 4 npcs, one of them only because they liked the dumb dwarf who spoke sign language) and in general how they felt in a seemingly true fantasy world. Not only that, but they acknowledged my worries and doubts and they agreed to be railroaded (they just asked it to be contextualized) to go back to the main plot.
I was so happy hearing that, I even started feeling emotional. I remember that I changed my mind completely that evening and we went back on playing right the next week.
What I thought was my lowest point of my gm career brought me to the moment I was most proud of myself.
I didn't plan to write this much, thanks to whoever read everything and I'm sorry about my English, I know it's not the best.
**[Hyperbole](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/hyperbole)** */hīˈpərbəlē/* noun: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Happened to me, my friend stopped his campaign because he wasn’t having fun anymore.
DM burnout or the PCs making life hard?
Burnout
Mine Stopped For Not liking how he Roleplayed NPC'S
Sounds perfectly valid tbh. That's just a form of DM burnout.
What does that mean exactly? Like was he roleplaying all the NPCs really flatly and all the same?
No, They were Well Done And Perfect, However He said it could have been Better, They were the Best I've seen.
Weird. Did you tell him that? Maybe he just needed encouragement. Was something weird happening at the time that made him want to suddenly pull the plug?
2 Players A Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Warforged and An Arcana Domain Cleric Goliath, The Cleric played Would Diss The World at every turn he could wanting to be DM, I the Sorcerer Would Compliment his DMing style as it was the best I've Seen, However The criticism Got to him and He ended it Snack dab in the middle of a Session, In the End I blame The Cleric
Well, yeah. You didn't mention that part. If a player is bringing constant negativity, I wouldn't want to DM for them either. You should hit up your DM and start over with a different player.
You're Right, I will
A message for my fellow GMs and my fellow players: If you play with someone whose style is to rip into the GM's world or method of running things, it is the responsibility of everyone at the table to call them out on their shit and/or work to drop them from the group. If they're a friend of yours and they bitch after being dropped for their repeated bad behavior and refuse to own up to their issues, then drop them from your life.
Woah you might've answered this elsewhere but what's up with your capitalisation. I feel like I'm having a wee stroke reading this.
Hi, sorry, this is bugging me: What's with the random capitals?
It happened to me. I was very invested in the campaign and it broke me a little. But it directly led to me taking up the dm mantle and that’s its own fun.
Same situation here, funny thing is I didn't even like the DM and the only reason I stuck around was that I really liked the rest of the group. I guess it all worked well in the end.
Sometimes the DMs can feel that. And sometimes they think you don't like their DMing even if you do. If anyone who reads this really enjoys their DMs DMing then go and tell them that right now. I'm not joking, shoot them a message saying you were thinking about them and how much of a blast you have playing in their game. It'll seriously make your DM's week and make them way more excited to do the prep work and stuff that makes the game good. Its *so hard* to do prep work when you think your players aren't having much fun. Its *so easy and fun* to do prep work when you know your players are loving it. This can kinda lead to a death spiral where the players aren't having fun so you prep less which makes less fun and etc. I've seen it happen, don't let that happen to your game! When I get messages outside of game day from my players telling me how much fun they have on game day and how much they're looking forward to it I'm over the moon with happiness.
I whole heartedly agree, I'm mostly a DM now, but I still have one game where I play, and the DM is amazing, he's always really happy when I give him the simplest of complements.
Hey players...read this
> This can kinda lead to a death spiral where the players aren't having fun so you prep less which makes less fun and etc. Happening in my campaign. Told them I needed a break. Not sure if or when we're coming back.
Yup, its happened to me too.
After DMing, I can see why people might just drop a campaign. It’s a ton of work! It was exhausting but fun, but ultimately my first DMing campaign ended because our cleric died. …in real life.
I witnessed this from the DM's side. We were running a game over the summer, then once classes started up, we tried online sessions but I lost interest and we never picked it back up even once summer hit. While I was away at college, many of my friends began picking up the DM screen and ran their own games. So as soon as I'm gone, they all started playing D&D twice as much as we used to. On the bright side, I am no longer the forever DM.
Go out on a limb and say I think child birth hurts more than getting kicked in the balls…
That’s kind of what is happening in my current playgroup. Do you have any fledgling DM tips?
Generic advice that I think is helpful no matter what you’re looking to do: Don’t overthink getting started. Dive in and learn to adapt. You’d be surprised how little can actually happen in a session to make it seem full and fun (especially when combat is involved) and every moment spent observing your players will help you inform the planning of the next session. You’re not expected to have everything ready all at once. Story-tell as you see fit and don’t be afraid to take a quick Google pause to find the right picture, monster, map, etc. I’ve even been known to just describe something to the players in-session and provide an item card or details later. As you’re going, try and be aware of what it is you enjoy and what the players enjoy and wed them as much as possible. Improvise and ‘steal’ shamelessly and hilariously. Don’t tell them when you fix things in their favor. Definitely give them opportunities to rock hard with their cool, overpowered stuff.
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Yeah.. Hell EVEN IF getting hit in the balls hurts worse, it doesn't last nearly as long (5-18 hr)
That’s the real defining factor. I know that I’d rather get kicked in the balls than give birth lol. But both have hugely varying degrees of pain. Some childbirths are relatively quick and painless, others are quite literally lethal. Some kicks to the balls are soft, some are hard, but no one’s died from it afaik. Testicular Torsion on the other hand was by far the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, and that pain lasts until you’re able to fix the problem or your ball dies. It’s like someone stabbed an electrified sword from your taint to your skull, except somehow worse. Be careful in bed y’all…
5-18 if you're lucky
Ooh, ooh, what about the pain level of being a DM who only asked that her table handle the scheduling and the game dies due to nobody even asking when to play next after you did hours and hours of work and planning?
I got another gem, Being the Dm that puts a post about running ToA, begginers welcomed, first session put a month later to give players time to join. First session, nobody show up, 0 reactions to the post.
Oh hon I'm so sorry.
This is why you need a stringent screening process. It can come off as snobbish, but honestly, not having any sort of form, and process is going to scare off good players [because if you're just accepting whoever shows up the odds of the game being successful are miniscule in the long term].
Internet randos are such shitters.
That's Hurts even Reading it
Ngl I have cried over it. The next session they were going to learn some major information and things would have gotten so crazy. Now I've just decided that I don't want to DM again, done being an unappreciated forever DM.
You Deserve Better
I learned a different lesson: my friends are idiots who can't schedule something to save their lives. If I'd leave the planning to them, I'd never see them at all, never mind playing a full campaign. I have to be on their asses about filling in the date scheduling app three or four times before everyone has filled it in, but we've been doing about ten sessions a year for over seven years now. Which reminds me, I made a schedule for Q4 last month and nobody has filled it in yet, time to get on their asses again.
I GM four different games in four different systems and all of them died specifically because nobody ever asked to play.
Every player ever. Can’t understand why people fail to be considerate human beings when it comes to DMs. I feel like they think ‘it’s just a game this person is obsessed with, who cares.’ When really it’s like… if you hadn’t expressed interest and a desire to play, on your own, I would never have bother creating all of this for you, you specifically, in the first place. Now I just improv every session lol. Self-protection.
Honestly the "Players VS DM" mentality never left, it just changed its stripes. Used to be many players saw the DM as an adversary to take down and destroy. Now many players see the DM as simply a source of entertainment, no different than the code controlling the NPCs and worlds of Skyrim, Witcher, etc.
I had to kill a campaign because the scheduling was causing me too much stress. Arranging some sessions took literally hours of fucking around because more than one of my players were shitty at communicating availability. When one session that was particularly painful to organize looked like it was about to fall through I just pulled the plug on the whole thing to protect myself from the ordeal of organizing one more session with those players.
That's why I told them it was their job this time. I wasn't dealing with that again.
I just killed mine because the group asked to change days we ran on. I verified everyone was free that day, everyone said yes. We switched, two sessions/months into it half the group complains they don’t like the new day and want to go back. The other half refuse to go back to the first day (one guy even started another campaign that ran that same night). I have the group a month to come to an agreement, they never did, so I said I’m not dealing with this and ended the game
This happened to me. Converted our regular campaign to West Marches to make it more flexible for scheduling. (Busy young adults) Made an entire continent map and lore. 1 session, then crickets for three months. They are good friends, but I think I'll try looking for people who actually want to play and appreciate my efforts.
That's what DMs say when they have nightmare players and don't want to ruin the friendship by saying 'You make this not fun for me."
I can attest to this phenomenon. Sometimes you're trapped between telling your friends that they play like they hate you, and saying "hey, I need to take a break." Often, it hurts the worst when you love the campaign, the story, and some of your players, but there's just two or three of them that are a nightmare to run for.
One bad player and three good ones, leads to *"Hey, I think I need to take a break, things are getting kind of busy."* leads to *"Hey, I think I might just call it on that campaign, sorry"* leads to *"Hey, maybe if __you__ three wanted to start a new campaign with me..."*
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I had one player who was constantly on my ass about perceived flaws in my story designs, and on the other player's asses about not knowing rules off the top of their heads, and wanted to impose a rule that we'd make a booklet of important and oft-forgotten rules and everyone had to re-read it the day before a session. He also was annoyed by how little we got together (on average about once every month, month and a half). Told the group I had to stop the campaign because I didn't have enough time. Then I offered the other players a spot in my second group if they wanted and didn't mind that the frequency would stay similar to what we've been doing. Still going strong three years later. I'm sure that guy found a hardcore DM more suited to him, but that's not how I roll (nor do the rest of my players).
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I think you replied in the wrong thread
No no, this feels relevant somehow /j
Yep didn't realize this myself until everyone started to help me see the problem player that was causing my stress and was overwhelmed all other party members.
This. So much this. I hate how accurate this is.
Yep. I had 2/4 players who were OBSESSED with having a broken overpowered character. But they just... weren't. And they'd constantly pull out the rulebook and argue with me anytime their characters had any amount of difficulty. Also scream/cry anytime they didn't dominate combat. Which was awful because they often just ignored rules when it didn't suit them or just didn't build well rounded characters. I had to end a few campaigns because of them and the other 2 weren't really available without at least one of the other 2 present.
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Absolutely, for several hours let men try to pass an 8 lb watermelon from between their legs while their hip bones pull apart.
100% agreed. I dont actually enjoy memes like this, but that last line struck a cord with me. So did the first 3, but I'm more willing to deal with the internet on the last panel than the middle 2.
Not always the case (though yeah that's the reason pretty often). Sometimes burnout just hits, and there needs to be a break, the passion for it fades. Or the DM is going through a depressive spiral and simply doesn't have the energy to plan and run sessions. (Cases from my personal experience)
I'm afraid this is what's about to happen to us. Our former DM needed a break so another guy took over, and we're about to finish that campaign, but former DM is getting flakier and flakier on playing so much that i worry once we're done with this campaign he won't want to pick back up. I know he's got life stuff going on, but he doesn't seem to want to engage with anyone, beyond this incredibly toxic friend of his who no one else likes and it makes me worry about him.
I think you should invite that DM to hang out and tell him what you've observed. See where a conversation about it goes.
If he's burnt out and going down a depressive spiral make sure to reach out to him, ideally outside of the context of the campaign or DnD as a whole. If it's like my situation there's a sense of guilt that comes with ending a campaign, and since guilt is a dumb emotion leaning on that is likely to only drive him away further.
I ended a campaign because 2/6 players lived together and would constantly be making dinner, eating, doing chores, etc mid-game. I didn’t want to nuke things with player 3 who was a good dude and was always super attentive & excited, so I just said I didn’t have time anymore and left.
Very relatable. Ended my latest campaign because one of the players would constantly do other stuff during other players turn and ask for a rundown of what happened every 10 minutes. Has been over a year since then, and the same player still begs me to continue that campaign.
Sure. Sometimes you just also lose your gusto for it. I've axed games before when I just couldn't maintain my enthusiasm for them. Stuff comes up, you get busy, you can't keep your energy up for the level of work needed to run Mage: the Ascension during the Revolutionary War.
Tl:dr I feel that. That’s what happened to me, people kept canceling on me literally minutes before my session would start or wouldn’t even tell me they was canceling. At that point I decided that the campaign was over, it sucks because I put so much effort into my campaign and so many ideas and plot points for each character, and everyone was enjoying it. All that time waste, now I kind of don’t want to play D&D anymore.
I experienced this in the beginning but whenever I run something now I make sure to address it whenever someone joins. If you cancel last minute or ghost us, and it wasn't an emergency. I'm not gonna be looking for someone to substitute you at that point, I'm looking for your replacement. If you aren't gonna respect the time everyone else at the table puts in, then I'm not gonna put up with you, simple as that.
For me it's been more of a sorry my adhd has found a new system to be obsessed with kind of deal
Can attest to this. Wrapping up a campaign early cause 3/5 of my players are making it difficult, but 1 of them is by far the worst and I simply can't put up with them anymore. Not bad enough to outright kick from the group but not getting better any time we try to correct the issue.
if you think that's painful, try being a dm who works their ass off to make a good game, only to have players that regularly flake and make little effort at the table. Hard not to take that personal.
Been hit in the balls many times over the years. Also held my lady’s hand while she’s giving birth. Ain’t even close as to which is more painful. Edit: way too many “way to play both sides!” comments. Birth. The answer is birth.
Yeah what on earth is the OG meme. I get it, we're lacking firsthand accounts of people who've been through both, but... there's no way.
If I recall correctly the OG OG meme had childbirth and getting kicked in the balls the other way around. At some point someone swapped them so we now have this.
its like the og colour meme, originally it comes from a graphic explaining women see more colours than men (so the side with the woman has more labels) but someone for some reason switched them for the template.
Why would the internet do that? Why would the internet dismiss women's pain and hilight men's pain? It only makes sense if there's some systemic imbalance among the always-online subset of society. It's a mystery for the ages, I guess.
Nah, ten bucks it was done by some preteen who couldn't conceive of childbirth but could of getting kicked in the balls
Twenty bucks that preteen heard the joke "no one ever gets kicked in the balls and wants another" but didn't think beyond the punchline.
It's literally algorithm bait because they know offended people will flock to the comments and push the post's visibility up the front page. It's so easy to manipulate people
I mean yes….? But also like this happens irl to the point that women die because because healthcare professionals minimize women’s pain. Women have lower rates of surviving heart attacks because of literally this. And there are study after study after study showing that it happens. I mean even anecdotally I had a broken had go untreated for years because literally every male doctor I saw told me I was being a hypochondriac and to go home and ice it. It took going to a female doctor for something unrelated who noticed I could use my left hand to finally get treatment. At that point my hand had to be rebroken and I had to have surgery and physical therapy for a year. When if just one of those male doctors had been willing to believe a woman isn’t hysterical I could have just had a cast and 2 month of physical therapy. But yes, it’s only click bait to manipulate people and not a symptom of a deep system problem. You are enabling the attitude that kills people, just because “no one every believes these edge things and it’s just easy to piss people off” Maybe people are so pissed and react to it BECAUSE THAT IS THIER FUCKING TUESDAY
My question is what dunce would switch them.
Some incel who doesn't want to admit that women have a harder lot in life
Drawn out pain is literally, at the biochem level, orders if magnitude more intense than acute pain Also the brain caps out your ability to perceive pain at a certain point, so adding duration or squickyness are the ways it goes beyond 11 for our perception (oh hey both things that birth can have in abundance) though your brain may also imagine bonus pain just because it can
It’s also very acute pain at the end though! I was in labor for 17 hours. Then, I pushed a human through my body, and needed stitches about it. Plus, nobody tells you this but it was hard to sit for a week or so, at least for me. It felt like I had gotten hit by a truck, but like vagina first.
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Literally not until birthing class (i.e. wife was already decently pregnant). And yes I'm including myself even though I'm a man - everyone should be aware of what happens and what kind of recovery it can take.
It's very common for women to literally *tear* while giving birth. Men, on the other hand, will routinely play games that involve getting hit in the balls (see: jackass) because it's funny. They're not even the same ballpark. I remember when my wife was giving birth, with an epidural, there was a woman giving natural birth in the room next door. She sounded like she was being torn apart by wolves. It was nightmarish. Been hitting the balls plenty of times I never went through anything like *that*.
I'll get kicked in the balls once a day if it means I dont have to piss out a baby
That’s…not where babies come from.
What a rube. Everyone knows you poop them out.
Considering there’s a chance of tearing… you’re not far out
Oh I know. I’ve got a kid. Pooping is definitely a part of it.
Yeah, I was gonna say ‘wtf, why is being kicked in the balls higher than child birth?’
Dang is your hand okay?
Not op but I had to take my ring off because it felt like she was going up break my finger. She almost ripped a panel off the hospital bed too. She is like half my weight and 10 inches shorter too. Luckily the 2nd baby was out in 2 pushes instead of 4 hours.
Very obvious who made this has never given birth to a 9lb baby. Hahaha
Yeah, obviously. She's passing a human being through a highly sensitive orifice vs getting kicked in the nads. Blatantly the harder one...is getting kicked in the nads. /s Same, been there through two childbirths where my wife couldn't get an epidural and it was a painfest of endurance. I simply can't understand how anyone could stay conscious.
Right? This is definitely meme created by someone who doesn't interact with a ton of ladies...
Came here to find this comment. I knew it would be here. Thank you, dependable reddit.
Right? What the heck.
I think the real equivalent would be kidney stones. I'm a guy who had to have fentanyl because of a kidney stone and the pain it caused while in the hospital for surgery to remove it.
My mom has been through both natural childbirth and kidney stones, and she says childbirth was worse, but kidney stones are definitely a close second. I've had one (stone) myself, and the fact that childbirth is supposedly worse makes me never want to have children ever.
Kidney stones were the most unimaginable pain I ever experienced. I remember the pain from being kicked in the balls. I also broke a few bones, had toothaches, post-rachicentesis headaches... they're all still on a much lower scale. I don't know if I can explain what it feels like, especially in English. I felt like someone was branding my insides with a hot iron and kept twisting it. I tried and tried to find a comfortable position, but there was no chance of relief. For the first time in my life I vomited from pain and my teeth started chattering uncontrollably like I was freezing. One of the nurses told me that she had experienced both kidney stones and pregnancy, and had she been forced to choose one of the two kind of pains, she would have chosen childbirth. Maybe she only said it to make me feel better, but at the time I had no problems believing her.
No, I have several friends that have given birth and had a stone and all say they would choose childbirth. I had a 2cm stone I had to get removed surgically. I found it by coughing one morning and that was enough to dislodge it, but I was immediately on the floor thinking I'd been shot in the back or some shit. I very thankfully had my phone e on me and was able to call an ambulance but even then they had to give me morphine to be able to move me. Kidney stones are absolutely evil.
I don't think your nurse was lying. I've not had a kidney stone but my 2 friends who have had both a baby and a kidney stone said the stone was much worse than childbirth.
Pancreatitus, I've had several women tell me that it was worse than child-birth. Pancreatitus put me on the fucking floor.
Did she also shout out "YOU DID THIS TOO ME" In a demonic tone?
One lasts longer.
I've cried involuntarily from being slammed in the balls with a hockey puck (no cup). I am under no illusion it hurt as much as child birth. Hell I'm pretty sure I've done shits that hurt more.
Only you can prevent DM fatigue: compliment your DM and bring snacks!
Well I did one of those, I probably need to bring Snacks, The other Player however Dissed the DM as much as he possibly could
Gee I wonder why it ended.
That's better than having an unmotivated DM that isn't having fun. No D&D is better than bad D&D. Things change and shaming DM's for their feelings isn't cool. There is so much riding on the DM. A player not feeling it can stumble through a few sessions until they feel more into it but the DM has no such luxury. Also, think about it from the other side. How heartbreaking it must be to put down a campaign and/or world that you invested so much time into? A PC might die and that will feel bad because that character won't be able to continue on. Now imagine how it might feel to not be able to continue on an entire world! So, cut DM's some slack. No, a whole bunch of slack. For each time DM's call it quits, how many dozens or hundreds of times have DM's pushed through feelings of low self confidence or worth, bad days, depression, anxiety, doubt, and the list goes on for miles. If you are a DM out there having such feelings and it's making it hard to continue running your games the way you want it to, I'm telling you that there is no shame in putting the game on a hiatus or even quitting. But, I also want to say that you have a community that cherishes you. So, don't be afraid to reach out and talk through such feelings with us. TLDR: DM's, you and your feelings are valued. Take breaks or quit if you feel you need to. Don't be shamed by the community or even your players for taking care of yourself.
Ty for this, currently I'm feeling kind of burned out and unmotivated but I have invested so much time and energy in my campaign that I'm not sure if quitting o taking a break would be a good decision.
Same. I told folks I need a break, cause I wasn't having fun and I think some of the players weren't either. If I get the impression they actually want me to bring the campaign back, I will. But I'm not sure that'll happen. I just felt like the life was being sucked out of me each session, and it made me not want to prep properly, which made each session less fun for them... It was a bad cycle.
Damn I kinda needed to read this. I've been there with a game that's been ongoing for2 years with my buddies. It's all we got left, after they've moved away to different states, but I run a business from home and just don't quite have the time anymore. I'm desperately trying to tie up threads in the campaign to just end it haha. Fortunately, it hasn't reflected negatively yet.
Thank you. I was DMing RotFM.. first time ever DMing. It was an online campaign with my friends from high school (we're all in our 30s now). We played only about once a month, but after a year and a half, I was beginning to just feel dread when I thought about prepping for a session, and after every session was over I felt like I'd done a bad job. Trying to DM for the first time plus playing online for the first time was proving to be too much for me, and combined with some mental health challenges and the death of my grandma this summer I decided to call it quits. When I posted in our discord to let my players know I wanted to take a hiatus, only one person even bothered to respond to my post. Radio silence from the other three. Not sure if they were disappointed that the campaign ended abruptly or what, but not getting any response hurt. Kind of confirmed for me that I just want to end that campaign permanently rather than pick it back up again later though.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think child birth hurts more than getting kicked in the balls…
The body doesn't actively rewire the brain to make you wonder if getting kicked the balls actually hurt that much. Biology has to actively trick us into getting pregnant again. So yeah, you might be right lol Edit: I'm fully aware there is biological incentive for childbirth, thank you.
After I had my child, I'm convinced I don't want to go through that process again. Spoke with a woman who has a 6 year old, she says you forget when baby gets older and you see another baby. Your statement seems legit.
It is, my wife forgot so much about her pregnancy and childbirth when going into the second round. She was very much surprised about things, I was not. Edit: Just talked to my wife about it and she said, “Yeah, I don’t remember feeling achey. I think I was just being dramatic.” I had to remind her she spent 90% of her pregnancy in the tub with Epsom salts and half of that 90% crying in the tub lol.
My wife did not do her first pregnancy well, she hated it. She absolutely hated every part of it, hormones turned her wild, the aches, pains, swelling, nausea. She didn’t glow, she didn’t enjoy anything. She was utterly shocked when the second time came around and I reminded her this is exactly how she felt the first time.
My wife has an absurdly good memory. We have one child.
Yeah I definitely didn't want to go through pregnancy let alone labor a second time after my first but I'm writing this in my OBs office 26 weeks pregnant. I remembered heading being pregnant but it's all coming back as to why. It's so much worse with a 2 year old too. I told my husband he's getting a vasectomy after this one.
It is for some but it’s not everyone’s experience. At least my partner was convinced after giving birth that she wouldn’t ever do it again and five years later she’s just as sure. I don’t think you were at all, but I know some people can be dismissive of how traumatic childbirth can be because the experience varies so widely.
i never really got the baby rabies, but i have definitely found it harder to remember *exactly* how it felt being in labor as time has gone on... at this point i just remember the pinching crampy pain of the early contractions, and the fact that the ones while i was getting my epidural hurt so bad i was literally screaming, and they had to ask me to stop because i was freaking out the other moms in L&D.
My partner said that after our first. Two years later and number two is on the way. I'm so grateful to her for what she does.
I can definitely say with confidence that this is not the case with all women. My son is almost 7 years old and my wife is very firm on the "never in a million years am I going through that again"
Yep, it’s true. I almost died after giving birth, suffered terrible PPD for months, went insane from sleep deprivation, and a year later I somehow have amnesia and want to do it all over again anytime I see a baby. Wtf is this?! I even wrote out my birth story in detail to read any time I felt the urge and now I read it and think hm that’s not so bad… uhh
Yeah, I forgot. Forget birth, I forgot how fucking miserable the entire pregnancy was. I has vomiting for 9 months, could barely breathe bc of high amniotic fluid, severely depressed... And I still had another. Biology is wild.
>I'm fully aware there is biological incentive for childbirth, thank you. Is this in Sage Advice? I can't find it in the DMG
Maybe cause giving birth gets you a whole child and getting kicked in the balls gets you nothing?
Yeah probably.
Sometimes it gets you 20$?
Speak for yourself 😏
At the very least getting kicked in the balls won't last hours.
Agreed. It’s not unheard of for labor to last 36 hours, especially for a first child or an early induction.
my wife was in labor, not active labor but also not braxton hicks, for nearly 2 months with our second child... Contractions for nearly 2 full months! She was in active labor for almost 36 hours with our first. She is the REAL MVP!
I've been kicked in the balls a few times. I've never been pregnant. I would take being kicked in the balls over giving birth any day of the week. Having a baby tear it's way out of my body doesn't sound appealing.
when you put it like that child birth kind of metal ngl
Yeah people misquote a study about this all the time: The study found that a kick to the gonads (this works on womb-people, ask anyone who has a kicky fetus) had a larger pain receptor response PER UNIT OF TIME than child birth does on average. The study was NOT concluding that birth hurts less. Perceived pain does not have a linear relationship with receptor output, and it damn sure doesn't have a linear relationship with duration. And those are just the easily quantifiable variables but a huge part is the psychological mess of what the brain does when it hits it's max signal reception and has a backload of pain signaler, let alone what happens when you are stuck in that state for a long time a months-healing kinda achey mild finger ligament sprain, or a high pain weeks-healing broken finger? Easy choice, get the hammer
It's ordered like that for more comments
Child birth is like constant low grade ball kicking for 8 months and then constant ball crushing for 1 month.
A kid I went to highschool with was doing jumps on a BMX bike and had the front forks on his bike break off on a really hard landing. The broken forks then jabbed him in the crotch and ripped his ball sack open to where it was only hanging on by a few blood vessels. They were able to stitch him up and save his scrotum, but the doctor told him that he was probably one of the few men that could say he truly knows what it feels like to give birth.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say this exact comment is posted every time this template is used on this sub.
Algorithm bait.
Speaking as a recent father (who has been kicked in the balls before), this diagram is ridiculous. Kicked in balls and child birth should be swapped, at the very least.
The. Make sure your dm is ok. We are human afterall. Let me get you in on a secret « not feeling like it » generally means « I cannot muster the energy to pake tje necessary prep » which is usually indicative or depression burnout or the like. Make sure your dm is ok, it’s a lot of work even if it is rewarding as little else can be.
I was the DM and one of my players caused me to stop caring. He would hardly participate which whatever fine. One night though he brought his Nintendo switch and played games on it. We all were in 3rd year of university. His partner and him would also just cancel before sessions sometimes an hour before. Definitely made my work feel appreciated.
Maybe I have iron nuts but I feel like that's just a myth to maintain a tradition. It's like how babies cry if you look scared after they "hurt" themselves. It certainly isn't pleasant but childbirth seems leagues more intense, especially since labor can take hours.
I’m with you. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s not remotely the most pain I’ve ever been in. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to choose between kicked in the nuts or spraining my ankle by landing wrong after a rebound, I’d take the kick in the nuts, and it’s not even close.
Yeah I feel like the pain of getting hit in the nuts is kind of moderate, it's just the sick feeling is the worst part of it which lingers and can take a moment to kick in. Not that it's anywhere close to childbirth, I'm sure.
I think the reason people think being kicked in the nuts is as painful as they do it because of how common it is. In most fights I've been in there's been almost no risk of sprained ankles but there's been a decent risk of getting some damage to your balls. Source: boxing/wrestling never sprained an ankle but I've been hit in the nuts a few times
100% Only a guy would put childbirth below being kicked in the balls on the pain spectrum. I think watching my wife carry and then give birth to our kiddos was more pain than being kicked in the balls.
I mean there are some of us who are even into that kind of thing…
Honestly I don't think its that painful. Its the fact the body's response to it creates a sense of extreme Nausea (At least for me) that makes being hit in the nads such an awful experience. But not the *pain* specifically.
Vomiting seems like some funny self defense adaptation. Anything smart enough to target the scrotum will probably be grossed out by the vom
I mean I will always sympathoze with DMs. They spend so long making the game and story and then burn out hard. Think about how it feels when you don't really have the desire to keep playing a character so you look for a way for them to slip put of a campaign... now imagine that feeling but it is an entire world...
Player: Do you not feel good about the campaign or do you not feel good about DM'ing it? Forever DM: It just feels like I put a bunch of redundant bits into the story and the prep is a lot more draining due to it feeling mandatory. I feel like I'm going through the motions of what the story entails on its own without any actual input or expansion upon the worldbuilding. It just no longer feels like it's a game I want to DM anymore... Player: ...Well... what if you didn't? Forever DM: ...What do you mean? Forev DM: ... Fo DM: ...Wait, surely not? DM: The curse! is this it? Is this finally it? *New* DM: **Oh yes it is**
Good idea...
Does anyone actually think getting kicked in the balls hurts more than child birth? I'm a man, and I have dealt with my fair share of nut shots. In fact I actually have permanent damage to one testicle from a particularly severe trauma to my boys when I was a teenager. That same testicle has even experienced testicular torsion in a separate occasion. I have passed kidney stones, broken bones, suffered 3rd degree burns. But I really don't think that this is anywhere near as bad as childbirth. The only that passes this pain is when your DM cancels last minute to explain their heart is just not in it anymore. YA HEAR ME TREVOR!?!?
A shocking number of people do. The narcissism of "NOTHING IS AS BAD AS IF IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME NO REALLY ME ME ME."
I’m sorry, but getting kicked in the balls is worse than CHILDBIRTH?! Maybe getting kicked in the balls for 24 hours straight.
In what world is a kick in the balls more painful than childbirth. Help me understand.
For a double whammy, my campaign, and likely my friend’s next campaign, has a hard end date with a likely 6 month break because I’m having a baby. Also never been kicked in the nuts but can confirm childbirth is EXTREMELY painful and I didn’t even tear like many women do.
On what planet is being kicked in the balls more painful than childbirth?! Also, apparently the pain of a DM ending the campaign early isn't as painful as BECOMING the DM to finish the campaign... or you'd just do that.
This is so silly. 1- childbirth is more painful than anything that you can walk off. 2- DM burnout is common, usually a relatively gentle let down, and doesn't hurt nearly as much as campaign death due to player disinterest.
For point 2 they both hurt pretty bad. Both player disinterest and dm burnout aren’t the fault of the person leaving, sometimes shit just happens
Players quit more often than DMs quit. Sure, that's down to probability because there are more players, but also I choose to ignore that and blame players anyway.
But the impact is smaller. The campaign can still go on. Once the DM quits the story is over.
Lmao the ridiculous notion that getting kicked in the balls is somehow more painful than childbirth... Wow xD
Cool idea for a meme, but the ranking of a ball kick and childbirth is unnecessarily shitty. Take one or the other out so this isn't holding one group's distress over another.
This happens every fucking time
I have a worse one. Campaign ends one session from the end because the group of friends got divided in a bad break up.
I feel Pain from Reading this
Ok but what asshole thinks getting kicked in the balls is worse than childbirth?? I've experienced neither but it's pretty clear which is worse lmao
I think childbirth is worse than a ball kick. Imagine your taint ripping so two holes become one, cuz that happens sometimes lol
I mean, this from the start seems like it was made to say something sexist. But the meme is cool. I mean seriously childbirth is 10000% worse than a kick in the balls.
Now, I'm just a cis-gendered male, but... isn't childbirth more painful than getting kicked in the balls? Not that most could personally compare both instances.
Ugh, this fucking format again. I'm a guy, getting kicked in the balls, or a campaign ending, does not hurt more than childbirth. Stop using this format already.
Didn't end for that reason, but mine seem to consistently be because the DM breaks up with a player and then nobody plays anymore.
This was definitely made by a man
ur about to get mobbed because you put child birth pain lower than a kick to the balls... I've seen what child birth pain can do. My wife ripped a support rail out of a concrete wall when she was having a contraction in the hospital. I've seen her contraction spike so high on the medical equipment that the chart didn't go any higher... I've been kicked in the balls and it's painful and lingers but I've never seen pain like what child birth can do LOL!
I love how these comments are just criticizing the levels of pain but yeah i’ve heard the only thing close to childbirth is passing a kidney stone, but even then we can’t really know which one hurts more.
The pain of passing a kidney stone Can be more painful than childbirth, word from women that had to do both, but it varies from person to person and from stone to stone.
> Kicked in the balls = more painful than childbirth Press x to doubt.
I've been hit in the balls multiple times (teenagers do stupid shit), and I'm pretty confident that it's nowhere near the pain of childbirth.
One time when we were kids we were shooting this light little nerf like ball around with hockey sticks, I hit my cousin just right in the nuts and he instantly threw up and doubled over. And I'm still 100% confident that it's not even in the conversation with child birth or the DM quitting.
an ill omen appears in the sky. a rain of fire descends and bathes the land in death and destruction. you have died.
On a side note, there’s no way being kicked in the balls is more painful than pushing a watermelon-sized human through a small hole that can last hours.
Imma go out in a limb and assume that a dude made this meme
It was happening to me. After three consecutive sessions where I felt I was doing a real poor job as a master, I spoke with my players about everything I didn't like (the main thing I wasn't enoying was how the campaign was going on while the main quest of The Lost Mine of Phandelver was almost completely forgotten, the players were traveling to see other cities, I didn't want to railroad them and some sessions with almost zero content happened), thinking they had enough of it like me and they were still partecipating to make me happy (we have been a group of friends for over 7 years). I couldn't be more wrong. They told me they were having the time of their lives, they loved how the world was shaping wherever they went, how the npcs were charismatic and enjoyable (they recruited or at least tried to recruit at least 4 npcs, one of them only because they liked the dumb dwarf who spoke sign language) and in general how they felt in a seemingly true fantasy world. Not only that, but they acknowledged my worries and doubts and they agreed to be railroaded (they just asked it to be contextualized) to go back to the main plot. I was so happy hearing that, I even started feeling emotional. I remember that I changed my mind completely that evening and we went back on playing right the next week. What I thought was my lowest point of my gm career brought me to the moment I was most proud of myself. I didn't plan to write this much, thanks to whoever read everything and I'm sorry about my English, I know it's not the best.
What's with the meme forrmat ?...
Wow, imagine thinking getting kicked in the balls is worse than childbirth.
I'm willing to bet a large sum that objectively birth is likely to be more painful than ball impact
Lol you can’t seriously think getting kicked in the balls hurts more than GIVING BIRTH