I need some help. (In-party issues)

[Ivor_The_Mad]

In advance I want to say 2 things. 1. sorry for the rant I don't mean to bore you, 2. Brazenburn I would prefer if you didn't post on this

Ok so I need some serous advice. There is some drama going on in the party that is starting to go out of game. Im afraid that this will ruin the good terms i'm on with the people them selves. So heres what happened... After Lazam soled Erdans soul to Cthulhu. Erdan was a bit pissed in real life and plotted to kill Lazam in game even though the whole thing was retconned. So after one of the main goals was achieved he snuck into Lazams room and tried to stab him. (this was after the players argued for like 10 min about wether Lazam deserves to die for his actions.) Then Lazam rolled out of bed and mage handed his items to him and Erdans player was mad saying that this is not plausible in real life so I intervened saying that I am the DM and I have to follow the rules and that is what happens. Then a bit of arguing later the player started to blame me and said that it was DM favoritism.

Was he out of line? What should I do, I don't want to ruin my friendship with the player and I don't to create party conflict so i come to you people of the playgrounds. Any advice?

[Belier]

The players shape the story, go per books rules but as a dm you are free to make anything happen like a violent earthquake interupting the fight or even guards irrupting in the room. I'd say you can do anything but remember they shape the story. If they take it out of game, remind them it is a game, if they don't have fun, perharps they should consider another fresh start or if it's permanent case, may be they just stop playing togheter. They need to be grown ups.

[the_brazenburn]

I'm not planning to post, I'm just getting this so I don't miss it. I want to know what people say too.

And please, Playground, don't give abuse about our party in general. It really isn't helpful and we've heard it all before.

[Quoz]

Rocks fall, everybody dies

In all honesty if the game has spiralled out to this point, it probably needs to be settled out of game. Hopefully you can just talk it out and lower the drama. If that doesn't work you may have to impose a solution that lets off the pressure. That may be a hard reset, switching games for a while. It may be asking one or more players to step away from the table either just for a few sessions or permanently. Or maybe you just need to let them roll it out, set up a duel or other thinly contrived scenario for them to vent it out in character.

Whatever you do, just keep in mind that this is a game, it's supposed to be a fun escape from the drama and BS of everyday life. Don't let one or two players take that from you and the rest of your party.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I'm not planning to post, I'm just getting this so I don't miss it. I want to know what people say too.

And please, Playground, don't give abuse about our party in general. It really isn't helpful and we've heard it all before.

To Brazenburn: The advice given, repeatedly ad nauseam was intended to prevent this situation. Lo and behold, after you denied the possibility that it would happen, it has happened.

To Ivor: It's pretty clear that you do treat Brazenburn favorably when compared to other players, the fact that you didn't veto any of his previous major infractions of PVP and backstabbing make that more than apparent.

That said, I can sympathize. When I first started playing DnD my brother was my DM. I can't be sure if it was his disinterest in the game or my overzealous attitude but our very first session ended in a TPK and everyone involved was pissed about it. I carried those feelings over into a game that I decided to DM afterwards with him as a player and that one quickly fell over flat too. I overcompensated while trying to appease him and keep him interested, made him far too important to the campaigns story and when he inevitably quit the campaign ended up scrapped. I put the group on an "indefinite hiatus" and it was over 6 months before I managed to sort out how I felt about playing DnD. I haven't been able to get him to play with us since though.

If I hadn't been such a hardass as a player making it difficult for him, or treating him so favorably when I was running the game things could have turned out differently.

It might not be too late to fix the problem, but you need to realize that an attitude adjustment is needed for just about everyone involved.

Playing favorites causes too much trouble, it's hard but you need to really think about whether or not you're giving everyone an equal playing field. PvP is banned at a majority of tables for a reason, like many warned in your initial "Rogue steals from Bard" thread, even if you thought at the time that the issue was resolved it ended up with people harboring a grudge. Brazenburn specifically has a bad habit of deflecting blame for frankly horrible table manners and you might have enabled that with soft handed punishments for actions such as castrating an innocent bystander and selling a player characters soul while they're not even at the table. You could also have discouraged the rogue from stealing from his own party since that seems to have caused this whole incident in the first place.

Talk it out, take a break. I hope you can keep up playing in this group because your earlier curse of strahd playthrough was a pretty good read through.

[Unoriginal]

In advance I want to say 2 things. 1. sorry for the rant I don't mean to bore you, 2. Brazenburn I would prefer if you didn't post on this

Ok so I need some serous advice. There is some drama going on in the party that is starting to go out of game. Im afraid that this will ruin the good terms i'm on with the people them selves. So heres what happened... After Lazam soled Erdans soul to Cthulhu. Erdan was a bit pissed in real life and plotted to kill Lazam in game even though the whole thing was retconned. So after one of the main goals was achieved he snuck into Lazams room and tried to stab him. (this was after the players argued for like 10 min about wether Lazam deserves to die for his actions.) Then Lazam rolled out of bed and mage handed his items to him and Erdans player was mad saying that this is not plausible in real life so I intervened saying that I am the DM and I have to follow the rules and that is what happens. Then a bit of arguing later the player started to blame me and said that it was DM favoritism.

Was he out of line? What should I do, I don't want to ruin my friendship with the player and I don't to create party conflict so i come to you people of the playgrounds. Any advice?

Alright, first, what do you mean by "mage handed his items to him"?

Second, if, say, Edran had decided to castrate Lazam instead, would you have let him do it? Because you let Lazam get away with it.

[FelineArchmage]

In advance I want to say 2 things. 1. sorry for the rant I don't mean to bore you, 2. Brazenburn I would prefer if you didn't post on this

Ok so I need some serous advice. There is some drama going on in the party that is starting to go out of game. Im afraid that this will ruin the good terms i'm on with the people them selves. So heres what happened... After Lazam soled Erdans soul to Cthulhu. Erdan was a bit pissed in real life and plotted to kill Lazam in game even though the whole thing was retconned. So after one of the main goals was achieved he snuck into Lazams room and tried to stab him. (this was after the players argued for like 10 min about wether Lazam deserves to die for his actions.) Then Lazam rolled out of bed and mage handed his items to him and Erdans player was mad saying that this is not plausible in real life so I intervened saying that I am the DM and I have to follow the rules and that is what happens. Then a bit of arguing later the player started to blame me and said that it was DM favoritism.

Was he out of line? What should I do, I don't want to ruin my friendship with the player and I don't to create party conflict so i come to you people of the playgrounds. Any advice?

First, talk everything OOC and figure it out.

Second, my suggestion is to (at least temporarily) dump this goth-y, edgy murder-y campaign and play something along the straight and narrow to give yourselves all a cool-down. Pick up a premade module like Storm King's Thunder or one of the adventures league modules. Roll new characters, choose an alignment on the good axis, and get along - make it very clear that there isn't going to be any kleptomania or castration or the selling of other people's souls. As a DM, you've allowed so much BS that is not fun for all of the players, and I think playing something with set DCs and a set storyline will be a good break for you all. But first, you need to talk everything out not at the table. Go out to lunch or something.

[bc56]

Is this an evil campaign? I always say evil campaigns will never end well.

That said, PVP is a really big problem, and it is always going to spiral to OOC. Just from reading your requests for advice, it sounds like you didn't do anything to prevent PVP, and the players decided it was a-OK. I don't know if it started with the part where one PC sold another's soul, that sort of thing should never happen, especially when the player who is being attacked is not present.

Overall, I would suggest scrapping the campaign and playing the good guys. No evil, no antiheroes, no Belkar immitators. Focus on working as a team.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Alright, first, what do you mean by "mage handed his items to him"?

Second, if, say, Edran had decided to castrate Lazam instead, would you have let him do it? Because you let Lazam get away with it.
Yes I would.
OK seriously I don't know where this favoritism thing is coming from. I am just running the game and if a character decides to do something i would let him (in most cases). If Erdan was the one who soled Lazams soul then i would have let him at the time. I have shown no favoritism as far as I know. Also I LET Erdan face down Lazam.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Thank you all for the advice. I will talk to them both ant try to work this out. I know it is partly my fault that his all happened.

[Unoriginal]

[/B] Yes I would.
OK seriously I don't know where this favoritism thing is coming from. I am just running the game and if a character decides to do something i would let him (in most cases). If Erdan was the one who soled Lazams soul then i would have let him at the time. I have shown no favoritism as far as I know. Also I LET Erdan face down Lazam.

It's you who told us that Lazam was still considered "good" despite that kind of stunt and suffered no consequences for them, and for some reason he managed to "roll out of bed and mage handed his items to him" (which you still have not explained what it means) when he was getting stabbed rather than, you know, getting stabbed.

Also, there is the fact that in the other thread, when it was pointed out that the Edran player could quit over this, the_brazenburn responded with something like "eh, we can live without him" and, if you didn't outright agree, you didn't seem very concerned about the possibility.

Now, outside of the question if favoritism is in play or not, your problem seems to be that you let the PCs/players be massive jerks to each others and don't address the underlying causes of such a behavior.

My advice would be to talk to your players and try to see why they're acting like that.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Yes I would.
OK seriously I don't know where this favoritism thing is coming from. I am just running the game and if a character decides to do something i would let him (in most cases). If Erdan was the one who soled Lazams soul then i would have let him at the time. I have shown no favoritism as far as I know. Also I LET Erdan face down Lazam.

It seems to me more like Brazenburn is running the game. He's running away with your unwillingness to say no to a terrible idea and using it to have the rogue player boot himself out of the game all because he lost a handful of gold. The character is still considered neutral and allowed at the table after he's castrated a fellow party member, sold the soul of another and OOC keeps talking poorly about the rogue over a handful of stolen gold.

I don't blame the rogue's player for being upset enough at this point to try and assassinate Lazam, Brazenburn has made a concerted effort to get him out of the game and you've allowed it.

On the bolded note, that's not the issue. The issue is that you let someone do that at all and your initial idea for a punishment was "well you might be evil but probably not". That's ignoring the fact that I don't think you would have without giving Lazam more than one opportunity to skirt himself out of it. He'd probably just mage hand his soul back, because apparently he's a halfling with Trance and was fully aware he was being stabbed in his sleep.

[zinycor]

PvP is a weird thing.

I think that as a Group you need to discuss PvP at the table, because if misshandled, PvP always ends up on this sort of situations.

There are a few ways to treat PvP on a campaign:


1.- No PvP at all; Your typical dungeon crawling game doesn't (or shouldn't) have any PvP at all, after all, these sort of games are more worried on mechanical challenges and probably will end shortly after the dungeon has been cleared.
Now, this seems rather dull on paper, but for a group like yours, a good old session of: "Hey we are all friends here, let's kill some ugly monsters as friends and have jolly good time" might be exactly what you need.
This sort of play requires every player to focus on the "game" aspect, and for the most part, this come at expense of roleplaying opportunities, but comes with benefit of the GM just saying to a player who wants to suddenly PvP: "NO, you don't do that. We agreed that PvP would not be on the game."

2.- No direct PvP: The sort of game where PCs belong to different factions within the world, but are still expected to work together. Fairly typical game, most of the time any differences between the factions are merely there to flesh out the setting and the closer to actual PvP the group ever gets is some party member getting a little bit more gold on a particular treasure, one PC insuting another or messing up woth one another's factions.. The main problem here is that setting may end up feeling a little dull, and factions do not carry as big of a gravitose as many GMs would want. Nonethless, this is a perfect way to play the game.

3.- Duel-like PvP: In the case that PvP comes up, it would need to be approved by all players involved. The far easier way to treat any PvP situation. It does requiere the players to trust one another, but once the players agreed that there would be a PvP situation it comes only to the rules being fair. This can be great fun, since even a defeated player could enjoy it.

4.- Free PvP: The most typical way of PvP, typical of sandbox games, on this any player may come up with whatever reason to turn on the rest of the party. Most problems come from this kind of approach to PvP, and for good reason, since most players are not taking PvP into their considerations. The trick here is to make it clear before and during the campaign that PvP situations are a reality that might happen, make sure that everyone is aware of it and is okay with it. This by far the most complex way too handle PvP, since it requires trust on the players that they won't derail the campaign, won't do it for OoG reasons and won't care if their characters are killed by a fellow player.

5.- Traitor PvP: A game where one of the players is a traitor could be great fun, the most effective way IMX has been with all players being something like the FBI, then comes to their knowledge that one of them is like a KGB agent or something like that, and they must find out who it is before X happens. Great paranoid fun, but only suitable for one- shots or similars.

Anyway, PvP will always be a complex matter but the things that you always have to look out for are conscent from the players, maturity and rules clarity. Don't be afraid to put your feet down and say that certain PvP actions are not allowed if these conditions are not met.

For the current problem, I would say just leave the current game and play something more cooperative in nature.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

It seems to me more like Brazenburn is running the game. He's running away with your unwillingness to say no to a terrible idea and using it to have the rogue player boot himself out of the game all because he lost a handful of gold. The character is still considered neutral and allowed at the table after he's castrated a fellow party member, sold the soul of another and OOC keeps talking poorly about the rogue over a handful of stolen gold.

I don't blame the rogue's player for being upset enough at this point to try and assassinate Lazam, Brazenburn has made a concerted effort to get him out of the game and you've allowed it.

On the bolded note, that's not the issue. The issue is that you let someone do that at all and your initial idea for a punishment was "well you might be evil but probably not". That's ignoring the fact that I don't think you would have without giving Lazam more than one opportunity to skirt himself out of it. He'd probably just mage hand his soul back, because apparently he's a halfling with Trance and was fully aware he was being stabbed in his sleep.
Ok first of all I know I have been bad at saying NO and I have now started to take charge. Also I will add that I was answering a question from one of the other players when Thokk was castrated and that it did not officially happen. And one other thing, Lazams punisment for selling the soul would have been his. If he had soled Erdans soul he would become evil and his soul would have been taken and destroyed. A soul for a soul. I WAS going to punish him but instead I retconned the whole thing. Lastly I am in NO WAY Favoring Lazam in this fight of giving him an advantage. He starts of the fight with 18 less health from his max, he can't heal with out resting AND the rogue gets to attack again. To top it off they are in a dark room where the rogue can easily hide and strike at Lazam.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Also because I don't want either to die I will probably intervene. They can kill each other at the end of the dungeon for all i care because I am not a fan of either of their characters. Neither of them like their characters either.

[zinycor]

Also because I don't want either to die I will probably intervene. They can kill each other at the end of the dungeon for all i care because I am not a fan of either of their characters. Neither of them like their characters either.

Then why are you even playing the game? Just start a new game, come to an agreement to how PvP situations will be treated now and have fun.

[bc56]

FYI
Brazen just posted this thread, which seems to indicate that he plans to off the rogue next session.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?554127-Anti-Rogue-Tactics-for-a-Bard

In order to keep your game from going up in flames over these PLAYERS' actions, you're going to have to resolve it, fast.

[Xihirli]

Also I will add that I was answering a question from one of the other players when Thokk was castrated and that it did not officially happen. And one other thing, Lazams punisment for selling the soul would have been his. If he had soled Erdans soul he would become evil and his soul would have been taken and destroyed. A soul for a soul. I WAS going to punish him but instead I retconned the whole thing. Lastly I am in NO WAY Favoring Lazam in this fight of giving him an advantage. He starts of the fight with 18 less health from his max, he can't heal with out resting AND the rogue gets to attack again. To top it off they are in a dark room where the rogue can easily hide and strike at Lazam.

A: If your players are of the mind that they can do that sort of thing without your approval that's a big problem.
B: What's the point of selling someone else's soul then? Are you saying Lazam would have lost his soul for selling another person's soul?

If someone had tried to sell someone else's soul to Cthulu, I would have just had Cthulu/Mouthpiece Thereof insist "no you can't give me a soul you don't have that's not how giving works. If we could just take people's souls why would we bargain for them?"
C: What does "roll out of bed and mage handed his items to him" mean?

[the_brazenburn]

FYI
Brazen just posted this thread, which seems to indicate that he plans to off the rogue next session.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?554127-Anti-Rogue-Tactics-for-a-Bard

In order to keep your game from going up in flames over these PLAYERS' actions, you're going to have to resolve it, fast.

The rogue is attempting to kill me in my sleep!

I know I promised not to post, but this is ridiculous. I'm not "planning to off the rogue", I'm asking for advice on how to defend myself against an enemy who is actively in the process of attacking me!

[ProsecutorGodot]

The rogue is attempting to kill me in my sleep!

I know I promised not to post, but this is ridiculous. I'm not "planning to off the rogue", I'm asking for advice on how to defend myself against an enemy who is actively in the process of attacking me!

That's right, because you already offed the rogue and had to have that entire situation retconned because it exploded in your face. You shouldn't defend yourself because your actions so far are indefensible.

Literally sold his soul while he was away from the table and you're still not seeing your own fault in the situation.

This campaign is dead, but if you take a break and make a fresh start without this PvP nonsense you can salvage the group.

[Iados]

The rogue is attempting to kill me in my sleep!

I know I promised not to post, but this is ridiculous. I'm not "planning to off the rogue", I'm asking for advice on how to defend myself against an enemy who is actively in the process of attacking me!

Rocks fall. Everybody dies. Roll up new characters for a new campaign, because this one has gotten out of hand.

[TheYell]

If the players don't like their own characters and are getting to the point where they don't care if other players quit you might want to stop playing this adventure and pick another one where the PvP hijinks are banned outright.

@ Brazenburn

as I recall, and as a paralegal I'm trained to follow the thread of a dispute

You: We did X to Y
Us: That's crazy
You: The table's ok with that
Us: Your table is crazy

That's what the "abuse of party" amounts to. And it turns out your table wasn't ok with it.

[bc56]

Rocks fall. Everybody dies. Roll up new characters for a new campaign, because this one has gotten out of hand.

Honestly probably the best option.

But OOC grudges will carry over to the new game, which is why that needs to be resolved no matter what.

[Unoriginal]

C: What does "roll out of bed and mage handed his items to him" mean?

Seriously, this. I have no idea what this could mean aside from "use mage hand to throw items belonging to the Bard or to the Rogue", with is against the rules, or "used mage hand to grab his own items"

[the_brazenburn]

Seriously, this. I have no idea what this could mean aside from "use mage hand to throw items belonging to the Bard or to the Rogue", with is against the rules, or "used mage hand to grab his own items"

It's the second. The rogue took his items away and put them in the corner.

[Sigreid]

This is some messed up, mental ward drama here.

My genuine advice is to burn the dungeon and characters, agree to never speak of this campaign again, and start a new campaign where everyone agrees that the characters are objectively good guys and friends at the start. If that can't be done, burn the characters and dungeon and agree that you all shouldn't be playing together at all

[TheYell]

This is some messed up, mental ward drama here.

I've been in mental wards. They're better than this. You can actually have a nice game going in a mental ward...

[Ivor_The_Mad]

I just talked to some of the party members and they all agree to, when this campaign ends to start fresh with new PCs and less randomness. Also to take the game more seriously. They person playing Erdan agreed to forget the whole thing and finish the dungeon.

[zinycor]

I just talked to some of the party members and they all agree to, when this campaign ends to start fresh with new PCs and less randomness. Also to take the game more seriously. They person playing Erdan agreed to forget the whole thing and finish the dungeon.

Nice! It's nice to see that people can be mature :smallsmile:

[ProsecutorGodot]

I just talked to some of the party members and they all agree to, when this campaign ends to start fresh with new PCs and less randomness. Also to take the game more seriously. They person playing Erdan agreed to forget the whole thing and finish the dungeon.

I really do hope this works out for you, but I'm going to say for the last time that I firmly believe that you would be better off scrapping this campaign immediately.

This would the the third time that you've "solved" a major issue in this manner and the problem has only compounded since.

[Sigreid]

I've been in mental wards. They're better than this. You can actually have a nice game going in a mental ward...

I apologize to any mental ward I may have offended. 😊

[zinycor]

I really do hope this works out for you, but I'm going to say for the last time that I firmly believe that you would be better off scrapping this campaign immediately.

This would the the third time that you've "solved" a major issue in this manner and the problem has only compounded since.

Good point there.

[MadBear]

Ok, I was super snarky in the last post, but I'll try to be more helpful this time.

Assuming you have good intent, here's what I recommend.

1. Put the entire game on hold. You need to have a talk with the entire party.

2. A big part of having this conversation start is by taking ownership of mistakes you made. Admit that you have made some major errors in the way you're been allowing parts of your campaign to run. While you might not feel that you favored anyone, obviously one of your players and some on this board see it that way.

3. Let the players know the issues that you're seeing in the game. This should come after you own up to your mistakes. This will help model the kind of behavior you want to see (in other words, your not just blaming everyone else, but asking them to think about what they're doing).

4. Decide whether you want to run a group that has PVP. If you do, see if your players want to run a group that has PVP. If they do, lay down some ground rules. A really good one being that you can't kill a character who wasn't there. Brainstorm and come to a consensus on what's fair. I can't help you too much here, because my group bans PVP as being too toxic and not very fun.

5. work out any other issues that popped up in #3

There are many mistakes made on all sides in your game. There is no good in-game solution, this needs to be handled in real life. You might find that some players/friends are not a good fit for your table. In that case, either you don't play D&D with them, or you have your group play something else that everyone can enjoy (Decent mimics D&D well without needing to stress about the issues your group has for instance).

[bc56]

I just talked to some of the party members and they all agree to, when this campaign ends to start fresh with new PCs and less randomness. Also to take the game more seriously. They person playing Erdan agreed to forget the whole thing and finish the dungeon.

Good, that'll do very well to fix the problem.

[GlenSmash!]

In my Session 0s I explain that I put in a lot of work preparing Scenarios for players to interact with, and while they are free to interact with them in anyway they choose, one thing that won't fly is ignoring them and fighting each other.

So at my table, there is no PvP. For the simple reason that it is a waste of my time.

Apparently this is wise, because all this other crap can happen too.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

I really do hope this works out for you, but I'm going to say for the last time that I firmly believe that you would be better off scrapping this campaign immediately.

This would the the third time that you've "solved" a major issue in this manner and the problem has only compounded since.

Ok if next session it doesn't work out i'll scrap the campaign. I think that that might be the best option.

[ErHo]

1. New campaign.

2. You said it was RetConned, sounds like its his problem getting over it.

3. You do seem to favor Brazenbum, perhaps unconciously

[Fire Tarrasque]

Theres another option that these people haven't discussed: Embrace the party's conflict.
Not a great option, but it is present.
(I DM a group with a lot of interparty conflict ((there are players who have had more characters murdered then the TOTAL number of characters i've ever killed,)) and we have accepted it as a part of the game at this point. None of us take it too seriously.)

[Tubben]

I am not sure if being trolled :-)
Atleast your stories are a great entertainment :-)

[strangebloke]

If the players don't like their own characters and are getting to the point where they don't care if other players quit you might want to stop playing this adventure and pick another one where the PvP hijinks are banned outright.

@ Brazenburn

as I recall, and as a paralegal I'm trained to follow the thread of a dispute

You: We did X to Y
Us: That's crazy
You: The table's ok with that
Us: Your table is crazy

That's what the "abuse of party" amounts to. And it turns out your table wasn't ok with it.

I'm going to add to this:

You: The table is not ok with it, please help! Don't say we're crazy!

[BrainFreeze]

I'm going to add to this:

You: The table is not ok with it, please help! Don't say we're crazy!

You forgot the, "we don't actually want your advice, we want you to help us justify our current positions!1!!!".

[Bobbyjackcorn]

Well, seems like another thread from Ivor and Brazenburn's "Adventures in Favoritism." I look forward to seeing you all at the next thread, likely named something like "Lazam Cannibalizes an Entire Orphanage of Children Erdan Got Attached To. What Boon Should I Give Him For Being Such An All-Star Player?"

[Pex]

The campaign is over. Players have out-of-game hostility. It CANNOT be solved in game. The players need to come to an agreement to drop it. No one wins the argument. No one loses the argument. The argument is simply ended. The campaign is over because the characters cannot get along, ret-conned or not. If the group is to remain together you need a new campaign with new characters that has no relation to the previous group. The new game will have NO PLAYER VS PLAYER at all. None. Zilch. Characters can disagree, but no one attacks another, harms another, steals from another, plot against another, nor instigate another to get them riled up.

[ErHo]

Well, seems like another thread from Ivor and Brazenburn's "Adventures in Favoritism." I look forward to seeing you all at the next thread, likely named something like "Lazam Cannibalizes an Entire Orphanage of Children Erdan Got Attached To. What Boon Should I Give Him For Being Such An All-Star Player?"

This.

You guys must secretly despise each other, but cant stay away long enough to stop being "friends"