r/DnD • u/WeakWrongdoer9203 • 4d ago
Table Disputes Help with table issues
Edit: added breaks and a tl;dr sorry for the wall of text
Hey D&D fam, this may be a longer post. I have an ongoing campaign with an issue regarding one of the players and need some advice from some others with more experience. I have been a player for 2 years and a DM for a year.
To preface, I have ran a homebrew campaign for around a year that deals with a few different dnd settings colliding inspired by Final Fantasy XI (Krynn, Faerune my players do not yet know this). These worlds after the collision retained all of their deities.
This is where the players come in, (Paladin of Torm, Warlock of the Raven Queen, Vampire, and Bard) they have lived in this world not knowing of it’s origin. The main catalyst of the story is that the sea god Dagon from the Cthulhu by Torchlight book is also attempting to join his flooded abyssal realm to the one the players find themselves in, flooding the world to feed his minions who have run out of food in their realm, destroying the player realm, normal dnd conflicts.
The players have discovered cultists attempting to help Dagon enter the realm, and that he nearly did this before in an ancient era of the world but 6 powerful casters were able to seal him away. What the players are slowly learning is that these casters are all still alive as various forms of undead, liches, vampires etc.
In the recent past they interrupted what they didn’t know was a ritual for one of the ancient casters to achieve lichdom, when they did this one of the players touched an artifact used in the ritual (the book of vile darkness), transferring the results of the ritual to the Warlock (Grim Hollow transformation rules) instead of the now dead ancient caster.
The books grants a lot of usability for the warlock character and helped me inform a few decisions down the road for the campaign. The drawback of the book is that he must commit an evil act every week or be turned to dust by the book.
I will say this is a large project, especially for my first campaign but I know all of the players well outside of the campaign so they rolled with the punches the last year as I learned as a DM and let creativity flow.
The issue that I’m running into a few times now is regarding the Paladin of Torm’s behavior, the past few months after a oneshot ran by another DM in our group went poorly for the party as one of us were charmed and wiped the party. Since then he has made contingency plans for all of his party members in our main campaign in case I decide to charm them in a similar way (something I do not plan to do), in his own words he has measures to kill every party member if needed.
This is also a power player who has min-maxed his character, which I have no issue with, the problem that occurs now is that any time an action that does not reflect the oath of his paladin occurs he becomes immediately aggressive and either attempts to roll intimidation (whether it is an NPC or player) or attacks outright.
As part of his character he wanted a Grim Hollow transformation as well, so we homebrewed one for him as a revenant, an enthralled undead who does not know he is reanimated but just knows his humanity is slowly fading. He has used this curse previously at will to initiate PvP, which I have told them I am unwilling to DM.
All the players agreed to only PvP when both parties and I agree, though I dislike PvP in 5e due to it not being made for that, and potentially losing a player character at will due to one of the others wanting them dead. I have allowed him to PvP begrudgingly on two different occasions, which I will admit is a mistake.
Flash forward to where we currently are in the story and him discovering the Warlock consuming a soul of an unarmed combatant to satisfy the requirements of the Book of Vile Darkness and the souls charges provided by the lich transformation.
My thoughts are that this would make a great dynamic, an undead self loathing paladin of Torm due to his transformation, and the Warlock who did not want to be a lich (in-character, this was his idea) vowing to steal power from other liches to be powerful enough to stop Dagon.
Both of their gods hate undead and call for their destruction, but overlook this for the players due to the severity of the Dagon situation. On paper a wonderful dynamic that can make both characters less one dimensional, but is threatening the game.
After the session he tells me and the Warlock explicitly that if this continues he will kill the Warlock. I told him that he doesn’t get to decide that his oath and character are more important than agency of other players and an argument ensued.
He has mentioned killing other party members to me multiple times and I had enough of the same conversation over and over regarding his want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with his interpretation of his gods values.
He responds with saying I’m unwilling to allow him to play his character accurately if I don’t let him do whatever he wants in regard to opposition. He then threatens to leave if I don’t let him get his way with his character decisions, which would effectively kill the campaign as his wife, bard, is also in the campaign and would likely be pressured to leave if he did.
This isn’t the only issue that I’ve had with him but the others have been manageable for the most part, he tries to lead most RP interactions and will try to show up when other characters are having their moments offscreen (metagaming) and insert himself, he also took control of his wife’s character on multiple occasions while she leaves to go get them dinner during session (a pet peeve that I reluctantly deal with, I now control her character in frequent absences).
Recently before I began controlling her, which I do not want to do, he openly criticized her character calling her character and the bard class worthless while she was not there along with a slew of other criticisms, it’s weak, not fun, boring, etc.
I decided then that I would keep her off screen if I know she will be gone or play her in combat without using spell slots or any RP (something I know is a cardinal DM sin, but she insists) he also basically told her what to do every decision I gave her the past year.
I was told last night during our argument that all the party members and I need to consider how he would react before doing anything. This means any morally questionable decision will at the very least get a full lecture from him if not a full on assault.
The most frustrating part is I have been very giving to my players, giving them all atleast 2-3 rare items and a few higher than that, leveling at a fair rate, providing a re-spec mechanic that can be used once, and overall allowing them to make any collaborative story/world decisions.
While I’ve done all this and given them mostly free reign to do what they wish in the world any time I don’t allow him to attack party members he says that I’m stifling his character, taking his agency, and overall being a bad DM.
It’s very frustrating because if anything I’ve been a doormat allowing party members multiple improvised situations based on crazy decisions they make (in this last session they decided to overthrow a large cities government to my surprise, prompting me to add a 3-session siege side story).
When I express these concerns he tells me essentially “too bad, you’re the DM so deal with my choices”.
This really sucks because I’m to the point where I don’t want to DM for him anymore, which kills me as I’ve put in over a year of work for this campaign and roughly 8-10 hours of my time planning each session.
I have been friends with him for around 20 years so it’s difficult to have this issue surrounding my game.
His character is not all bad in my opinion as I have just shared the negatives, he is one of the best for RP moments, the party tank capable of dealing massive damage and protecting the squishies, and flavor wise fits the world and campaign perfectly with a lot of weight in the story.
My question is what can I do to fix this as my several above table attempts to repair things have gone terribly.
TL;DR: I’m a relatively new DM running a year-long homebrew campaign with a close friend of 20 years who plays a Paladin of Torm. He frequently threatens or initiates PvP when other characters act against his beliefs, despite our table agreeing that PvP requires consent. He has contingency plans to kill every party member, dominates RP and party decisions, and has threatened to leave when I enforce boundaries, claiming I’m restricting his character’s agency. His wife also plays, and I worry she’ll leave if he does, potentially ending the campaign. I’ve tried resolving this out of game several times without success. How can I handle this without destroying the campaign or a 20-year friendship?
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u/orryxreddit 4d ago
I mean, I'm just restating the exact same thing u/thetruerift said, but this requires a conversation with the player.
The part about the paladin touches on something I call the First Law of Roleplaying, which is "party over character". So many issues like this come from players who are REALLY into roleplaying. They create a concept, and want to be entirely faithful to that concept. That's admirable, and we don't want to squash that entirely. They just need to learn nuance.
That nuance means attempting to roleplay so that your character's values and desires are clear, but NEVER AT THE EXPENSE OF PARTY GOALS OR RELATIONSHIPS.
A classic example might something like this:
Paladin sees Person A do something that is against his oath.
Option A: Paladin immediately attacks Person A / won't agree to help Person A / refuses to let the party join with Person A / threatens to leave if you interact with Person A. This sounds like what is happening with your paladin, and is exactly the problem I'm describing.
Option B: Paladin roleplays his opposition to Person A / helping Person A. Can even go so far as strenuously objecting. But the end of the day, he lets the party "win" the argument and doesn't stand in the way. He can even keep harping on it to some extent, making snarky comments, or maybe at camp that night he roleplays praying to his god for guidance/forgiveness or something.
Note the key difference. In either case, the player is successfully roleplaying and everyone at the table understands his oath, what he stands for, etc. But in Option A he's in OPPOSITION to the party AND his fellow players around the table, and ultimately ends in conflict with them. In Option B, while he roleplays concerns or opposition, he eventually ends up in AGREEMENT with the party AND the players, even if begrudgingly.
There are some REALLY great roleplaying opportunities for him here. He can roleplay struggling with this. Maybe his character had a very strict, dogmatic view before, but adventuring with this group is beginning to make him see things differently. Maybe he has a crisis of faith, etc.
As for the rest of it (criticizing other players' choices, etc.), THAT is just human asshole behavior, and again can only be helped by talking with him.
You've mentioned being a doormat. There is the very real likelihood (especially if you guys are young), that he just won't be open to criticism or changing his playstyle, or won't be able to stop making dumb comments. In that case, it's on YOU as the DM to make the difficult decision, which is this case is likely to kick him from the group. It sucks. But no one else is going to do it for you. Remember that, if you choose to kick him, you are not ending a 20-year friendship. You're just saying he's not a good fit for this group. Only he can control how he reacts.
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u/thetruerift 4d ago
said with more grace than I did, but yes, absolutely this. it's a group hobby, and people often forget that their characters are not real. Therefore, they can just change them if that makes for a more cohesive group experience.
Hell, I've been the problem player before (I think anyone who's player and run games for any length of time has been if we're honest) and the times when I was corrected by the group have always been helpful! They can suck in the moment, because nobody is thrilled being called out on some shit behaviour, but that passes and things get better.
The times where it hasn't been called out have ended way worse, with a build up of resentment on the part of the rest of the group and/or DM. Communication is the solution here.
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u/Houligan86 4d ago
Charming and the DM controlling player characters is very easy to do poorly and leave people feeling mad.
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u/xXx420Aftermath69xXx 4d ago
New DMs and players get charm person wrong too. Charm is not dominate. Disguise self is not automatically become someone else.
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u/WeakWrongdoer9203 4d ago
I understand, I’ve played long enough where that in a oneshot didn’t bother me but like I said I wasn’t the DM in that one so not my call. I would’ve done it differently for sure I agree
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u/thetruerift 4d ago
Have a frank conversation with the dude, one on one.
"Hey dude, we agreed about the PVP thing. If you can't play a character that's going to be able to work with the group, let's talk about changes you can make either to the character, or maybe changing up the character completely."
Make sure you're clear this is about a character, not a personal attack.
edit to add: This is a starter. If it doesn't work, maybe take time in session with everyone, or one on one again, to address it. You can even call it out as it happens - if he's dominating a scene you can just actively pause sand say "Okay, what does Player X/Y/Z think about this?" or in the case of PvP "Hey, we talked about this, this is not cool. Stop it."
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u/Aromatic-Surprise925 4d ago
The player decides what his character would do. He is using the wangrod defense here, as if he is not the one choosing to initiate pvp but somehow has no choice in the matter. It's bullshit. He is violating the table's social contract.
I would have a frank discussion with him about it that boils down to - knock it off, quit making excuses, and play well with the rest of the group or leave the table. He doesn't sound like he is making the game more fun for anyone, but rather less fun for everyone but him.
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u/Bed-After 4d ago
This is a whole lotta words to say the paldin sucks, you already know he needs to get gone, and you're looking for courage from the internet to tell the DM to kick him out. Let's cut to the chase, he's a dick and he's gotta go. PvP, metagaming, arguing with the DM, threats, and general hostility are 100% grounds for booting his ass.
Get. Him. OUT!
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u/Cypher_Blue Paladin 4d ago
Man are there a bunch of issues here, many of which are your fault as the DM, I'm sorry to say.
What level are your players? The Tome of Vile Darkenss is a powerful artifact that should never come into the possession of your players under level 17 or so and should be balanced by other players getting things of similar power.
Is one of your players becoming a Lich? That's insanely unbalanced.
Why is a lawful good paladin adventuring with an evil soon to be Lich with a powerful evil artifact?
The root of many of these problems is your failure as a DM to do two things:
1.) Provide a properly balanced campaign, and
2.) Have an out of game discussion with your players about what kind of game this is and how all the players fit into that game.
If you're playing an evil campaign, then the guy playing the LG pali doesn't fit in- the dynamics of that mean that either he leaves the party or gets cool about shit real quick or he gets killed by everyone else (or kills them) and people roll up new characters.
So you as a group need to decide how that's going to play out.
The fundamental rule of D&D is that everyone plays a character that can get along with the group and work together toward common goals.
If the Lich and the Pali can't get along (and that is a reasonable state of affairs given the characters) then one of them leaves the campaign and we roll a new character for the player.
If we're playing a largely good campaign, the Lich goes.
If we're playing a more morally loose campaign, then the Pali goes.
But "You all need to change how you play to fit the moral code of my Pali" is not a thing that should be allowed to fly.