Where does this rank on a scale of party dysfunction?

[Thetad]

So, the other day, I had this hilarious (at least for me) experience as a DM with players of below average intellect. It resulted in two PCs dying (one to the hands of another PC) and the near-death of another.

The characters:

For the sake of identity protection, I will refer to all of the players by their character names.

Excalibur: A half-elf wizard that can turn into a sword at will. To explain that, he came to me one day requesting that his character have the ability to turn into a sword because he saw it on an anime of the same name. Since I didn't see any inherent problems and it was a good way to explain his absence at sessions (and he was absent a lot.) By saying that he decided to be just a sword that day. He's my best friend but he annoys me sometimes as he gets really passive aggressive about the rules of d&d. He says the game is 'primitive' and 'boring' despite not looking into the rules to see what characters can be capable of. Still, he isn't the worst player of the group.

Frederick: A 7 foot tall human fighter. He doesn't really take the game seriously or role play at all. Despite that, he's still pretty funny and fun to play d&d with.

Asmodean: A half-dragon bard. It's noteworthy that he's neutral evil while the rest of the party is good or just neutral. Another player that doesn't take the game very seriously but is still fun to be around. His character also collects every sword that he comes across, but that's beside the point.

Hitler: As you can tell by him naming his character Hitler, this guy is pretty weird. He wasn't really my friend, but he was Excalibur's and they insisted on hanging out together, even if Hitler didn't originally want to play. He played a human expert. He wouldn't play with us unless his character had a gun, and seeing how it'd be awkward if he just sat there all left out otherwise, I obliged, and made him an expert in gunsmithing and proficient in his own arquebus. He's also a whiner, and any time something doesn't go his way, he instantly decides that it's me rigging it against him.

Boris: A half-orc weretiger ranger/barbarian that was schizophrenic as well as alcoholic. (As you can see, I'm pretty generous as a DM) Another fun guy to be around, but this guy actually took the game very serious and role played very well. One of my favorites of the party, actually.

Phil Ironclad: A dwarf monk. Tried to be the voice of reason of the party, often failing. For a monk, he was surprisingly useful, and was a good role player.

Aramir: A dwarf paladin, played by my brother. He's the only player in the group to know the rules as well as I do. (Which, to be honest, isn't as much as I would like, but I still know the most about the rules compared to the rest of the group.) He can be a jerk, but he was still a good player. He tried to be the leader of the party, but he mostly failed at that.

The situation: So, the players have cleared their way out of a standard dungeon, nothing too special. The last room was large and divided in two with an unstable bridge in between. Under the bridge was a black pudding waiting to devour anyone who fell The players were on one side, two chests and an important quest object on the other. The PCs knew what they had to do, but they were stumped on who to send to cross the bridge.

Then Asmodean had an idea. He wanted to send Frederick over the bridge. Hitler agreed and insisted that this was a good idea to the rest of the party. He even pushed Frederick onto the bridge to start him off.

There was one slight problem with this plan: Frederick was clearly the heaviest of the characters at 300 pounds, and his full plate and gear didn't help his cause. Asmodean only suggested it because he was evil and wanted to start trouble, and Hitler, despite being true neutral, seemed more enthusiastic about the plan than Asmodean was.

Frederick didn't care that much about what happened and reluctantly agreed to cross the bridge. Before he can get to the other side, surprise surprise, the bridge snaps, and he fails to hang on, descending into the black pudding and getting injured in the process. Aramir and Phil come to the rescue, and throw a rope down. He hangs on and gets out alive (I might have fudged the dice in that situation, but whatever.) The group stays composed, despite Frederick's injuries and Aramir's anger. They had a new problem though: they had no bridge.

Phil then came up with a plan: he had a ring of summon water elemental, and he summoned it to extend to the other side and ordered Excalibur to use his magic to freeze it, effectively making it an improvised, though slippery, bridge.

They then needed to decide who to send across once again. Once again, Asmodean and Hitler insisted that Frederick be the one. Aramir became angered at this, but the rest of the party didn't care, and Hitler pushed Fredrick onto the bridge again.

Surprise again, he slips and fails to hang on, and falls into the black pudding for the second time. Phil, Aramir, and Boris tried to rescue him with the rope again, but their effort was futile, and Frederick was devoured.

Aramir was red with anger at this point. He decided that Hitler and Asmodean were being evil for basically forcing Frederick to cross the bridge twice and fall to his death. He thought that, as a paladin, it was his duty to exterminate these two. He drew his sword and threatened Hitler first. Hitler drew his gun. Phil tried to be the voice of reason, and talk them out of killing each other, also trying to convince the others to do the same. This was to no avail, and Hitler fired his gun at Aramir. He missed, and Aramir slashed at him with his sword, critical hitting and sending Hitler into the negatives. He then raised his sword above his head, and coup de graced him, killing Hitler.

Hitler was seething with rage, accusing me of rigging the dice because a was allegedly playing favorites for my brother (which was definitely not the case) and he said a few choice words and stormed off. Somehow, the rest of the party stayed composed, but the fight wasn't over.

Aramir looked menacingly at Asmodean. Before Asmodean could talk him down, he was bull rushed off of the cliff and into the black pudding. The rest of the party used the rope for a third time to save him, and were successful, minor injuries notwithstanding.

The party decided to stop fighting for the time being, as they still made no progress in the problem they were trying to solve. Boris had enough of everyone else at this point, and demanded that Excalibur turn into a sword, telling him to just trust him. He did, and Boris threw him across the gap, successfully having him land on the other side. Excalibur then took the chests and the quest item one by one, almost slipping a couple times. Fortunately he never fell, and everyone got the treasure except for the dead ones.

After the chaos, Frederick was surprisingly calm about his character dying, but Hitler was still enraged, specifically at me and Aramir. My brother wasn't exactly happy either, but he acted civil, and everyone eventually moved on.

But how dysfunctional/hilarious was this entire situation?

[Harlot]

Dysfunctional? - absolutely, groupwise.
Hilarious? - not at all.

IMO the whole idea of gaming is for the group to have a lot of fun. Yes, there might be conflict and yelling, discussions about rules and verdicts, but:

Forcing other PC's into certain death (why?! And twice?) is not OK.
Why couldn't that player just flatly refuse?
Did you run opposed willpower checks or some other sort of coersion? Strength checks - as he seems the strongest player.

Letting the PC's kill each other is not good DM'ing if this is due to the players fighting IRL. (It's ofcourse OK if it happens because of screw-ups, oopses, treason or some other in-game stuff.)

As a DM it's mainly your responsibility to make the game fun and challenging for everyone. What happened here was borderline bullying. IRL.

When people start getting angry OFF game, simply say:
"You guys, lets just take a breather for, say, 15 minutes, before any of you do anything rash. We don't want anyone upset (this is just a game after all) and we don't want any characters to die because you are mad. Timeout. Regroup."

What you are describing is not hilarious, it's bad DM'ing.

[Ceaon]

Where does this rank on a scale of party dysfunction?
High.

It also ranks high on the "trying to solve out-of-game problems in-game" scale. What are you going to do next?

[Zubrowka74]

That Hitler guy is really living up to his namesake. I imagine him as physically weak and socially akward. The kind of guy that collects dead prostitutes in his garden shed.

On the surface he seems to be the only problem.

[Thetad]

I'll admit, I could have interviened, but these were the decisions that the players made themselves. To be honest, I was playing up the anger a bit too much. Nobody was really MAD at each other, besides Hitler. The reason I didn't interviene when he raged was because this wasn't the first time he's done something like this. He's done stupid things in the campaign before (like abandoned the rest of the party to go mine rock despite not having any equipment.) This time he got killed for it.

And don't get me wrong, I've talked to him about this out of character, and he always instantly dismisses it. There's only so much I can do. He wasn't all that mad after a few minutes, anyway.

As for Frederick being put to certain death twice, it was because he agreed to it. Like I said, he doesn't really take the game seriously, and was only a little disappointed when he died.

The way I see it, a couple characters did something stupid that resulted in a death, the paladin saw it as evil, and acted. I didn't stop it from happening because it seemed justifiable to me.

I'm not saying I'm not to blame, I'm just saying that it really wasn't as big a deal as you're making it out to be.

[Shining Wrath]

I see two real dysfunctions.
1) A player should care whether or not their PC dies. Frederik should have told Hitler and Asmodeus to protect the bridges from solar radiation by sticking them ... well, anyway
2) A supposedly neutral character actively trying to get another PC killed for a lark. Hitler deserves, IMNHO, an involuntary alignment change. If that makes him rage-quit the game I don't see it as a great loss. As an expert it wouldn't cost him too much except for the occasional "detect evil" spell ping.

[mangosta71]

Let me get this straight - Aramir rolled his d20, presumably in the open where everyone could see, got a critical hit, and you somehow rigged the roll? What, does Hitler think you passed him a loaded d20 for the attack?

Frankly, with the attitude you described, he sounds like he shouldn't be playing the game at all - he's obviously not having fun and the presence of someone that's obviously not having fun drags down the morale of the entire table. And the type of person that would choose such a character name is someone that I would prefer to avoid under any circumstances to begin with. I'm guessing that there's a reason he doesn't have any other friends he can hang out with while you're playing D&D.

Now, then. If Frederick agreed to trying to cross both times, that's on him. But why didn't anyone else step forward and say, "This is a bad idea"? Everyone in the party should have known that he was the worst choice, though I can see an evil character making the suggestion. Not a very particularly smart evil character, since killing allies while they're still being useful is a bad idea even for evil characters. (Frankly, I'd say that both character deaths happened at the hands of other PCs.) I'm also somewhat surprised that Aramir allowed the rest of the party to rescue Asmodean - if cutting Hitler down was due to IC anger (which I could understand, especially from a paladin), Asmodean should have died as well.

[Harlot]

I'm not saying I'm not to blame, I'm just saying that it really wasn't as big a deal as you're making it out to be.

OK: So aside for the players fighting each other in + off game, there's no problem...

'Hitler' is acting like a jerk, very aptly named. I don't know how to handle him exept for kicking him out of the group. Why don't you? Yes, he's your best friend Excaliburs homie, but would you damage your friendship with Excalibur if you kicked 'Hitler' out of the group?

I mean, really: Not a team player, aggressive on and off game, can't be reasoned with, feels that the DM is unfair toward him, and only him, accuses the DM of cheating ... (which, by the way a DM can CHOOSE to do because he is GOD!)

I don't know why you bother. I wouldn't.

[Hyena]

Uh, seriously, what did you expect when a guy named "Hitler" appeared in your game? People don't name themselves after famous power-hungry dictators because they liked the sound of it.

[Mutazoia]

I'm also somewhat surprised that Aramir allowed the rest of the party to rescue Asmodean - if cutting Hitler down was due to IC anger (which I could understand, especially from a paladin), Asmodean should have died as well.

This I could understand. Asmodean may deserve to die for his actions, but a Paladin wouldn't condem some one to a slow torturous death (such as getting slowly eaten alive) for any reason.

Otherwise I would echo that "Hitler" is your problem. He has basically been forced to play, is obviously not enjoying the game very much and is doing random crap just to screw the game over. Maybe just point him at your Xbox (or PS3..whatever) and let him vedge out while you guys play. I've had players in old groups that insisted that the DM was out to get them if something didn't go exactly the way they planned. They just disrupt the game...if "Hitler" is going to continue with his persicution complex despite being told otherwise you'll have to cut him loose or be prepaired for more events like this.

[Deathcharge01]

I'd be honest. After reading the small synopsis on all the chars I thought that after reading the situation that Excalibur would have been thrown across and a fight broke out over the loot. I never expected what unfolded.

As fars as dysfunction goes, yes there is some, but more than dysfunction I think there is a lack of imagination (as this was a very easy obstacle to overcome, yet two people died) or very nefarious intents on the part of some members.

Its when things like this happen I encourage the paladin to read up and take levels in Shadowbane Inquisitor, so death is dealt to those who need it without much fuss, it helps keep people in line.

[Spuddles]

Did no one else find this amusing?

"He drew his sword and threatened Hitler first. Hitler drew his gun."

I find that hilarious.

[Fey mood]

I wouldn't like playing a sort of game like the one you've been describing, but my playstyle is not everyone's.

[GoodPilgrim]

Yes, I find it hilarious, and yes dysfunctional. On a scale of 1-10, for Hilarity: 5, Dysfunctionality: 11.

I think just about anything I say here will echo what most have already said on this post. Personally, Hitler would be out for me. The goal of the game is to have fun, and Hitler just seems like his goal is the opposite for everyone else. That being said, I understand how difficult it is to just kick someone out.

I think the explosive situation in which these two characters died was perhaps one of the best ways you as DM could have dealt with the dysfunctional group. You threw a very simple situation at them, and on account of their poor dynamic, they failed. The personality of Hitler in blaming you is wholly irrational, and he irrationally will not realize the irrationality. The fact that Frederick took it so well makes me want to give him props. He was apparently a team player, and, seeing that no one else would pose an alternative to him being the one to go across, he followed the majority vote. Now, I don't know all the circumstances, but I'd suggest giving his next character (or the resurrected Frederick, however that comes about) some sort of RP bonus. Hitler, on the other hand, should be out.

But again, I don't know all the details.

[RoyVG]

I certainly think Hitler is your main problem in this equation, it feels like he is forced to play along and he takes nothing serious. Now I know that in terms of rolepay, i dont offer much to my own group, but that is because of personal reasons, and my DM and fellow playrs know this. At least i try to make it fun. This hitler is almost delibertly ruining the game. I commend Aramir for staying in character, even attempting to revenge-kill his own party members, but still, I assume he has detect evil, why did he stay with Asmodean in the first place? Getting pissed in-game is one thing, actually getting pissed IRL is something else entirely.

Tl;dr
Dysfunctional: yes
Hilarious: not even close

[nedz]

So, the other day, I had this hilarious (at least for me) experience as a DM with players of below average intellect. It resulted in two PCs dying (one to the hands of another PC) and the near-death of another.
Most PC deaths are caused by PC's doing stupid things — it doesn't mean that the players are stupid.

I don't see any bad DMing, but we only have one side of the story. You do all seem to be a little immature though, but that's probably just an age thing.

This was amusing though.


, and Hitler fired his gun at Aramir. He missed, and Aramir slashed at him with his sword, critical hitting and sending Hitler into the negatives. He then raised his sword above his head, and coup de graced him, killing Hitler.

Never bring a sword to a gun fight, ..., or then again.

[Sith_Happens]

Bad players and party dysfunction aside, this, ladies and gentlemen of the Playground, is why you always prepare Fly.

[AuraTwilight]

This wasn't so much party dysfunction so much as Hitler being a complete and utter ******* who deserved what happened to him and had no business being in the game whatsoever.

Seriously, letting him into the game was the only mistake you made.