Abusive Party Members

[Professor Chimp]

We once had a player like that in our group. He would use every opportunity to steal from other players, screw them over, betray them, attack them and whatnot. He'd then use the typical "But that's just what my character is like", even though we all knew it was him just wanting to play our his puerile little fantasies of being a callous **** without the risk of getting his ass beaten. We put up with it solely because at the time we only had 4 people and couldn't find any new ones in our dinky little town.

Years later me and another player from that original group had moved to the big city and there was no longer a shortage of potential players. Since we were both DM'ing in a shared setting, we also laid down a set of basic rules for player's interparty behaviour, the 'party pact':

• No stealing from party members. Loot is shared equally for general use stuff or according to need for more specialized stuff.

• No lying to, cheating or betraying party members or withholding information important to the party as a whole (anything pertaining to a single character can be withheld).

• Absolutely no physical in-fighting. Bicker and shout at each other as much as you like, but the moment anyone mentions 'attack', DM intervention will follow.

We're of the idea that a party forms and stays together out of need and mutual benefit. A bundle or arrows is harder to break than a single arrow, so to speak. Even a murderous psychopath should think twice about doing things that will lose him valuable assets. They can interact however they like towards npcs, but within the party, the pact is sacrosanct.