>>97075120
Start playing solo faggot and on the meanwhile keep looking for groups.

>>97075120
>i start partaking
Imagine becoming a drug addict just to fit in a group you don't even like.

>>97075120
DM a non-D&D 5e game and announce it on Roll20 and/or some Discord server. I'm playing 3 different non-5e games right now, and 2 of them are full of chuds. Just don't be retarded and you can do it too, it's not rocket science.

>>97075120
Move to a different town/city

>>97075120
>despite that they will ONLY play dnd5e exclusively
First mistake
>have to spoonfeed everything
Second mistake
>constant drug use and at some point i start partaking as well because i might as well try and have some fun
Third and worst mistake

While I definitely sympathize, this is what happens when you lower yourself to the level of animals out of desperation. The best way to get a game going that's not D&D 5e online at this point is to run it yourself and find a soul willing to try it, since at least they will be willing to do shit other than 5e including maybe letting you play. Maybe.

>>97075120
If they knew nothing about the rules, couldn't you have played Pathfinder and called it "DnD"?

>>97075120
>about to continue on about how they would wake up in a cell
This happened with one of my players. The whole party was acting like retards while trying to steal some confiscated goods, stumbling into random rooms, didn't plan an escape, wasted time instead of running away when they burned down a warehouse, then one player got unlucky on his rolls to jump a fence and got so mad he quit. The rest of the party went on a quest to break out the other member who got caught.

>>97076251
You're not thinking big enough, he could have run palladium fantasy, dragon's bane, warriors and warlocks (MnM), SotDL, ACKS etc... basically any other ttrpg that uses a d20. Wasted (no pun intended) opportunity.

>>97075343
This

>>97075120
>setting ive been writing for years turns bitter in my mouth
Your complaints about your group have merit and hating 5e is perfectly fair, but I wanted to address this point as someone who’s been working on and running the same setting for a decade and a half.

Now, my situation isn’t exactly the same as yours - my setting initially grew organically from campaigns that I was running for my friends - but that also meant I was highly invested in their participation in it. And, something like eight years ago, I had a falling out with one of them over roleplaying. It was dumb, we were in our twenties, and we even patched things up for the friendship overall, but it still soured me on the world that we’d been building. For the span of three years or so, I couldn’t even look at the material I’d written or the art I’d commissioned. The whole thing just felt pointless, like I’d wasted everybody’s time.

Eventually, there was a hole in our schedule and I felt obligated to fill it. I dug things out of the cabinet where I’d buried them and ran a short campaign for a smaller subset of our friend group, excluding the one I’d had the fight with. It felt a little like coming home, but still tinged with a bit of embarrassment.

Almost four years ago now, I decided to try again. I included the guy I’d fought with and sketched out a pretty barebones campaign premise. And he was totally invested, both in the characters and in the world. What was supposed to be a short, ten-session vignette ended up stretching out over three and a half years and reignited my passion for the setting.

What I’m saying is don’t ever throw it away. Even if you completely overhaul and rewrite things later, the skeleton can still serve you well. And time spent on a work of passion is never time wasted.

>>97076424
thanks anon, ill take your advice :)

>>97075120
Especially for online play. Explain the setting and tell them they have to make a Character and submit before being allowed in. As well as pick something not 5e/one. Also if you do anything in person, don't allow drugs during gametime.

>>97075120
I know that feeling OP. I haven't run a game in my setting for like 4 years. Half our party moved to the big city two hours from our town, and a bunch of people have kids now or are married. No one wants to dedicate even 1 night per fortnight to playing a ttrpg. We had a bit of renewed resurgence two years ago when I ran a Cyberpunk RED campaign, but the same issues crept up of standard scheduling issues.

Also half my friends are autistic and refuse to play online, (literally saying they rather wouldn't play, no matter how elaborate the set up and VTT is) so we're just stuck in this rut where everyone complains about not playing anymore but no one actually wants to make the effort to commit to a campaign and regular sessions. I think I've tried to start about 3 campaigns since and they all fizzled after 1 session. It got the point where I just told them that I'll DM the whole thing if they just organise themselves, and they've never done it.

Now I'm DMing a campaign for a new group of people in my town, with 1 of my old players but like 4 people who have never played before. I can only pray that they get hooked on that initial novelty to keep them playing for a longer campaign, but already I have doubts. I just miss my fuckin' setting man.

>>97075120
>> write my own setting while looking for a group for YEARS

You are a retard and deserve the rest.

>>97075343
Or like.. just do what he's doing and play online.

>>97078692
Kekkle