Dungeon Master -

Players and DMs often share "horror stories" about sessions gone wrong on forums like Reddit.

There are many ways to approach a story about a Dungeon Master (DM), ranging from the real-life creators of D&D to fictional explorations of the "DM from hell." Famous Real-Life Stories Dungeon Master

: One DM shared a story about a player who wrote a tragic backstory for her character's twin sister. In response, the DM had a lich raise the sister as a death knight, forcing the player to kill her again with no chance for redemption—a classic example of a "cruel" DM move [33]. Players and DMs often share "horror stories" about

: In 1979, a teenage computer genius vanished from his dorm. A private investigator, William Dear, believed the boy had become mentally unhinged while playing "live" Dungeons & Dragons in university steam tunnels. This real-life mystery, detailed in the book The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III , helped spark the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s [4, 6]. Popular Fictional Stories : In 1979, a teenage computer genius vanished from his dorm

: Published in The New Yorker , this short story follows a group of high school boys and their tyrannical DM. He uses the game as a tool to teach his players that "life is disappointment," often killing off their characters in undignified or accidental ways. It’s a dark, humorous look at the power dynamics within a group of social misfits [1, 7, 18, 19].

: The history of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson is a story in itself. They co-created the game in the mid-1970s, starting from a basement in Lake Geneva and eventually fueling the multi-billion dollar video game industry. You can find a detailed account of this journey in Rise of the Dungeon Master [8, 34].

: Another DM recounted a session where they intended for the Cheshire Cat to be a guide, but the players panicked and stabbed it to death instead [25].