[_Pax_]

I've left games amicably, and I've left games under less-happy circumstances.  There is, quite simply, no one single "best" way to do it.

If the game just isn't fun for me, I'll raise the concern with the group as a whole.  If the rest of the folks are satisfied with the status quo, I'll bid a friendly "maybe next campaign" farewell.

If I have a personal conflict with someone, I'll explain that to the GM (even if they are that someone) in as non-accusatory terms as i can.  A favorite of mine is a line another gamer came up with: "Role playing attracts strong personalities.  Strong personalities often clash."  I'll then suggest I do the graceful thing, and remove myself from the situation so as to preserve everyone else's enjoyment.

...

But, then, sometimes none of that works.  Or something goes so horribly wrong, that I stop caring about making a graceful exit.  Even then, I don't shout, or swear, or hurl insults.  I just quietly pak up my things, stand up, and WALK AWAY.  If I can't trust myself to keep my temper when addressing anyone, I don't address anyone.  Silence is preferable to saying something hurtful.

That happened once, in a game run by a good friend.  Tempers were frayed, things were said (not by me), the GM lost her cool at me ... and ... I'd simply had bloody well enough.  I packed up my things, walked out, and gave it a day or two for things to cool down.  I didn't rejoin that campaign, though, because I'd seen that the group was just too big and problems like those were just going to happen again.

And a couple years later, when the same friend was running several smaller groups, each on different days, I quite happily accepted an invitation to one of them.  Because even though we were both clearly very upset (and I was clearly quite angry with her at the time), I did not let myself say things I would later regret.

...

Plus, you know?  No matter how ticked off I am at someone in a gaming group, I won't hurl petty and puerile insults when leaving a game/group because (a) I don't want to build a reputation among local games as generally being an ass, and (b) reputation or not, I'm just better than that. 

[Kontact]

I just try not to ruin things for other people.
Leaving a group worse off than when you came is a jerk move.

[Imaginos]

I recently bowed out of my group.  I was up front and just said that scheduling was starting to become an issue. If we could schedule another night, I'd be good, but spending every other Saturday afternoon was becoming an issue. Work has increased and I just did not have the spare time on weekend days (Saturday was only day we gamed because one guy had commitments every other day/evening).


But back I'm college when we were playing shadowrun 1st edition, my Mage passed out from a bad summoning. One of the other players was moving but hadn't told anybody. His character volunteered to put me safely in the riggers car trunk, but he passes a note to the GM. GM in turn hands me a note telling me my character was dead - silenced pistol to the head.  He said after the game that he just wanted to mess whoever he could over and was just taking whatever opportunity he could.

[Henzington]

If your gm actually killed your character that was a GM mistake.  Its one thing to have the party disagree on whom they should side with but its quite another to allow one player to kill another.

[Curmudgeon]

I had to leave a game just this week, because I moved. We had all talked about it after every session for the last month or two to try and plan ahead and wrap the current storyline before I left. Didn't happen for various reasons, so I sat down with the GM the night before I left and he told me who the big bad was, and how things had been building up, and then we talked about how to handle my characters (I like to try new stuff frequently so I had three).

I've also had games that I was running end abruptly.

I put together a game set in the Mass Effect universe using the Mutants and Masterminds rules that I never ran a second time because I was trying to play a fairly serious game and the players wanted it to be a comedic, 90's-action-movie-violent game. Also, they complained that it was boring, when I pointed out that they crash landed a tank on a planet after navigating it through a space battle and debris field.

I ran a D&D game for a friend and a couple of his friends once that I sent out a Facebook message ending between sessions when after the second session my friend and the other players got into a huge fight about the game. One guy had asked for more roleplaying and less wargaming, and I tried my best to oblige by throwing hooks at him and literally slowing the game down to give him a shot to roleplay when the simple "what is your character doing" was met with "I dunno... can we skip me?" Those guys stopped being friends over that, which I feel bad about to this day.

I've also played in games that I wasn't a huge fan of.

I played a Top Secret campaign that one player seemed to think he was in charge of. He essentially appointed himself team leader and slowed everything down incessantly. I didn't leave, just toughed it out and made my own fun. Basically, I started playing with a death-wish but never in a disruptive way or when I would hamper the enjoyment of the others with my reckless actions.

The biggest "screw you guys I'm going home" moment I ever had gaming, I was playing in a game using Mutants and Masterminds again, and the GM wrote me out between the penultimate and final sessions. He texted me about 20 minutes before the final session was set to begin and said "Your magic-using character is going to be useless. The final 'dungeon' has an anti-magic field. Just, no magic whatsoever will work there. Do you want to roll up a different character?" I texted him back the word "No," and didn't show up. Very frustrating because the setting used a lot of magic, and we had been playing for about two months and this was designed to be the climactic showdown. In all fairness, however, my magic-user had literally destroyed the Death Star single-handedly the previous session.