Abusive Party Members

[Bartmanhomer]

I have a question to ask anyone. Have anyone been to a roleplaying game where a party member been verbally and physically abuse other party members by in character only? I know it mostly done by evil characters and sometimes neutral characters. I just want to know have any one ever experience that situation before?

[RazorChain]

Yes but it usually ends badly if it hasnt been dealt with OOC. RPG's are usually based on cooperation and if one character is a bully then the others will usually see no reason to include him in the party. It might even end in his demise if the others get fed up.

If one PC is ruining the fun for the others then it has to be dealt with.

This often takes the form of
Stealing from other PC's
Betraying the other PC's
Verbally and Physically abusing other PC's

[Freed]

While I've had arguments in character, I think that if it can be qualified as abuse, it's a little too far.

[Pex]

Yes, and I've long since lost tolerance of them. "It's what my character would do." or "I'm just roleplaying" is never the right response when questioned on being a donkey cavity. The player chose to be one. More often it's not about the character but the player himself/herself. (I have experienced male and female jerks.) The player just doesn't given a damn about you and only cares about his/her fun to accomplish whatever personal goals he/she has for the character. Your fun is irrelevant. It only gets worse if the DM enables it either through approving of such behavior or thinking being neutral about it is the proper thing to do.

Should you have such a player in your group you could try speaking to him/her, but it usually doesn't work. You get the "I'm just roleplaying" pablum and accusations of you being a whiner. Talk to the DM. If the DM doesn't stop it, leave the game. It's not worth it. I've had quit games because of such players, but sometimes it was the jerk who quit.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm of a mind that it doesn't bother me if a PC is someone who (c)an't (u)nderstand (n)ormal (t)hinking when dealing with NPC's. I've got thick skin.

You cross the line with other PC's, you get a warning. Couple warnings and I eject you from the game... whether I'm the DM or not.

[Lance Tankmen]

Hm when I DM there is friendly banter and teasing . Verbal abuse such as outright hostility that should be dealt with by the PC or the party. Example being the half in player is taunting the half orc constantly. Well the orc player is probably going to respond with violence. If the member in question is hostile to all its even simpler. You aren't forced to be friends, murder him. Chance are it's him vs you or more. And. As for you saying his character was physically abusive how is he still breathing ???


When I'm a playing I generally play a racist human noble fighter or rogue. And constantly speak of the greatness of humanity while making remarks on any elves in the group or nonhuman's . Dwarfs are fine though. Otherwise I play a dwarf who dislikes only elves not half elfs but full blooded

[Mr Beer]

Depends on context. Is everyone having fun or only the mouthy player? If it's the latter, they get told to knock it off and if they don't, they get kicked out. There's not enough time for jerkface players.

[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.

[Doug Lampert]

Yes, and I've long since lost tolerance of them. "It's what my character would do." or "I'm just roleplaying"

My response to "It's what my character would do" is that my character is a member of a gang that breaks into the homes of people they think are guilty of some offense, kills them, and takes their stuff. My character is quite sure your character is guilty of a rather serious offense, plus he's annoying so I don't give him a pass. DIE! (What? I'm just acting in character and role-playing. What in the world did you expect a bunch of murder-hobos to do?)

That's the thing about people who "role-play" jerks, they don't want to role-play the obvious logical consequence if everyone else is also allowed to role-play their characters.

Character design is inherently meta-game: Make a character who has some reason to work with the rest of the party, and who could plausibly live past the age of five. That or go home. THEN you can role-play your character even if it leads to intraparty conflict, but start with a character designed to be functional in an adventuring party.

I've got a player in my current game who ADMITS he's made a deliberate jerk character in his other game, and that he doesn't do that with us because he's quite sure that his character would die if he did.

[Frozen_Feet]

All the time. The difference being that in my games, this:

My response to "It's what my character would do" is that my character is a member of a gang that breaks into the homes of people they think are guilty of some offense, kills them, and takes their stuff. My character is quite sure your character is guilty of a rather serious offense, plus he's annoying so I don't give him a pass. DIE! (What? I'm just acting in character and role-playing. What in the world did you expect a bunch of murder-hobos to do?)

Is the default, expected and allowed reply to it. Being whatever as "in-character only", when it really is "in character only", is allowed, in fact, it is the main appeal of roleplaying. However, the obvious corollary is that the other players can respond in whatever in-character way too. Tit-for-tat is basics of game theory and works wonders to enforce co-operation.

Occasionally, such as in freeform games, the character abuse is (and has to be) agreed to by both players beforehand. A case study can be found in this thread, starting from post #371 and going forward. Now, my characters and King539's characters are not exactly party members - rather, if contrasted with tabletop gaming, I could be seen as the GM or antagonist, while he is a player or protagonist - but we, as players, are still co-operating to have all this happen.

This can be done in traditional tabletop games easy enough. You just got to remember few basic things:

1) Players being friends does not mean their characters are friends.
2) Players being friends does not mean their character have to be friends.
3) Players playing the game together does not have to mean their characters have to be acting together.
4) No group or party of characters is unconditionally obligated to stick together. You can split the party.
5) Sometimes you should split the party.
6) Any arguments to the contrary, whether based on GM or player convenience, are based on a very limited view of what roleplaying games can be.
7) Acknowledging the above as true does not mean you ought to act contrary to that limited view if you, as a player, signed to play in such a limited way.
8) Acknowledging the above as true does not mean that in-character actions can't be used as means of bullying towards another player. It just means that in order to recognize bullying, you need evidence above and beyong in-character actions of a single character.

[Pugwampy]

My group literally broke apart this year because a jerk bard player decided to try to mutilate a catfolk player by trying to chop off his tail .

And yes he tried to insult my intelligence by saying its evil and he is roleplaying his character .

Unhappy and frustrated players tend to be naughty ingame and ruin everyones fun .
Other players are uber upset and dont want to play for a bit . I try to fix things by tossing the bum but thats upsets everyone even more . The outsider DM,s have no tossing power it seems .

I have no idea if I am ever going to play with them again . I would like to but somehow i have become the bad guy in all this to the benefit of that jerk who of course is a very nice charismatic guy outside of the game .

This is the second time its happened in my life . Good thing i am not a doctor . Cutting out cancer seems to get my games killed . I am not going to bother kicking anyone next time . I wrote that in my DND diary.

[Sariel Vailo]

as a abused player whos taken to being a paladin. i just dont heal my abuser with magical means. i use medicine. and tell the dm i make the medicine check as slow and painful as possible dont mess with DR. DROW. I Kevorkiand one of our evil pplayers for he had attempted to switch sides nd kill the party, later with my oath of vengence as he was bleeding out at oone hitpoint i said rest now.....shhhhhhhhh? it will be all right. dead player not mad but i told him that night in character and out of character please dont be mad but im a do what i have to do soon.

[Darth Ultron]

Sure all the time. I generally have a zero tolerance policy for it though. It is a quick way for someone to leave my game.

The only way I allow it is with a group of good friends, so that is rare.

[veti]

Hm when I DM there is friendly banter and teasing .

The trouble is, not everyone will agree on where the dividing line is between "friendly banter and teasing" and "abuse".

Obviously we can all talk about examples that are clearly one thing or the other. But as soon as you separate into two categories, you implicitly create a dividing line between them, and that creates the scope for differences of opinion about more marginal cases. Personally I'm OK with (in-character) namecalling, mockery, sneering, jeering, racism, sexism, size-ism, ageism, class-ism, alignment-ism... as long as it's all verbal, these things are part of common give and take within a group of people who are forced to rely on one another. So long as they can, in fact, rely on one another, I see no problem.

If you think another PC is overstepping the line, enlist the help of your fellow PCs and retaliate. That will probably mean much more than just verbal retaliation: feel free to withhold healing, take his share of the loot, or eject him from the party. And remember, violence is always an option.

But - and this is important - if your fellow PCs don't agree with you, then you're wrong. Language is a consensus thing, and if they don't think what's happening is 'abuse', then it isn't. Accept it and move on.

[Friv]

In general, I've played both versions. We had a group in which two players didn't like each other, neither one was willing to quit, and we were still teenagers so we weren't mature enough to talk it out. One player restricted herself to IC abuse and asshattery, so that when the other player blew up OOC she could say, "Oh, it was just my character". The other player tended to rapidly escalate to OOC insults and yelling. It was a bad scene all around.

I also played in a game relatively recently in which what I'd thought was relatively controlled IC disagreements blew up abruptly when one player accused another of deliberately sabotaging his characters' goals due to hating him OOC. We had to stop the game and very carefully talk it out, and it really left a shadow over the campaign.

On the flip side, I've played in games in which a degree of verbal or physical abuse of a character was both expected and actually enjoyed by the players involved. The key is whether they're talking about it out of character, and in every case when it works the player roleplaying an abusive character is being very careful and checking in whether they're pushing too far.

But - and this is important - if your fellow PCs don't agree with you, then you're wrong. Language is a consensus thing, and if they don't think what's happening is 'abuse', then it isn't. Accept it and move on.

Alternately, it means that you're the punching bag for an abusive group, which is totally possible.

[Tzonarin]

Oh, heck yes. I had one of these about two years ago. We had to eject a player because:

1) He grossly disrespected a female player who was less mature, saying his character "would ___-ing kill hers if she did such and such". She shut down for the rest of the night. (explicative notwithstanding)

2) He regularly fought with the DM because he never understood the concept that there is no "winning" or "losing" in D&D. He regularly would try to argue his points OOC, rather than solving the problems in-game. To me, that's basically cheating at D&D.

3) He regularly blew up over something that happened in game, by launching his dice into the wall or something. Granted this all OOC, but his OOC reaction came because he couldn't manage the IC/OOC barrier.

At the end of the day, a "win" is - did the players have a good time playing the game? If a player goes home feeling personally slighted and angry because another player was being a jerk, well, that right there indicates a RL problem.

Intercharacter banter etc etc, to me, is okay so long as the *players* aren't taking it personally. When that happens, there may be some maturity/coaching to happen. If players can get up and shake hands after a rather stressful interparty squabble, then I'd say, that's good RP.

Here's another one:

About a few months ago, the same female player from earlier walked off the game because she got into it with another player. Her character resented my wife's character because my wife was playing a Cleric of Tyr. She, herself, is an atheist and hates any representations of religion. She rattled apart because my wife's cleric was being a cleric...praying, seeking Tyr's blessing and favor, everything you'd expect from a Cleric. So the female player shuts down and basically rage-quits because she feels she's being personally attacked (which she wasn't - she considers any religious expression a personal attack on herself (maturity). So she demanded an apology or she would quit the table.

No apology was given. It was her inability to manage the IC/OOC barrier, like in scenario one.

The sad thing, people often break that fourth wall much to easily in game. Maybe it's because of the investment in the character. This is why I like tools like HeroLab, where I can make a character in 10 minutes and be back in the game. No particular heart-felt loyalty to them (unless I played them for a long while).

Tzo

[Bartmanhomer]

Oh, heck yes. I had one of these about two years ago. We had to eject a player because:

1) He grossly disrespected a female player who was less mature, saying his character "would effing kill hers if she did such and such". She shut down for the rest of the night.

2) He regularly fought with the DM because he never understood the concept that there is no "winning" or "losing" in D&D. He regularly would try to argue his points OOC, rather than solving the problems in-game. To me, that's basically cheating at D&D.

3) He regularly blew up over something that happened in game, by launching his dice into the wall or something. Granted this all OOC, but his OOC reaction came because he couldn't manage the IC/OOC barrier.

At the end of the day, a "win" is - did the players have a good time playing the game? If a player goes home feeling personally slighted and angry because another player was being a jerk, well, that right there indicates a RL problem.

Intercharacter banter etc etc, to me, is okay so long as the *players* aren't taking it personally. When that happens, there may be some maturity/coaching to happen. If players can get up and shake hands after a rather stressful interparty squabble, then I'd say, that's good RP.

Here's another one:

About a few months ago, the same female player from earlier walked off the game because she got into it with another player. Her character resented my wife's character because my wife was playing a Cleric of Tyr. She, herself, is an atheist and hates any representations of religion. She rattled apart because my wife's cleric was being a cleric...praying, seeking Tyr's blessing and favor, everything you'd expect from a Cleric. So the female player shuts down and basically rage-quits because she feels she's being personally attacked (which she wasn't - she considers any religious expression a personal attack on herself (maturity). So she demanded an apology or she would quit the table.

No apology was given. It was her inability to manage the IC/OOC barrier, like in scenario one.

The sad thing, people often break that fourth wall much to easily in game. Maybe it's because of the investment in the character. This is why I like tools like HeroLab, where I can make a character in 10 minutes and be back in the game. No particular heart-felt loyalty to them (unless I played them for a long while).

Tzo

Whoa! That's crazy!

[oxybe]

I've had to deal with these people as players. As a GM, i make it known that either you're going to bring a PC who's a team player or you're bringing in an NPC in the making. I have no time for bad gaming.

Last time I had to suffer this as a player was when a pick up group occurred when a small group of friends were looking for a GM and extra player, I joined them as a player and a guy I knew was their GM.

The first session I filed it away as "growing pains". They were more murderhobo then what I and GM was used to and my character didn't mesh with that style. GM felt kinda weird but he did the same, filed it as growing pains and being a new group thing.

The second session where I came with a more murderhobo-styled character they continued being a donkey cavity, heaping verbal abuse and overall disdain at my new PC (while leaving the others alone), up to and including letting me die after I went to save another PC. At the end of the session I thanked the GM and the non-donkey cavity people (who were, in all truth really nice and friendly in and out of the game) for the opportunity and told Mr.DonkeyCavity as politely as I could how I appreciated his conduct.

He fed me the obvious pablum: "It's what my character would do!" to which I shut him up with a quick "Then why did you willingly choose to bring a Donkey Cavity of a character?". He stuttered, I left and the GM broke the group up soon after citing creative differences (IE: he didn't really care for unrestrained murderhobos who picked on his friend).

[veti]

Alternately, it means that you're the punching bag for an abusive group, which is totally possible.

Then you're in the wrong group. You're probably not adding to their enjoyment, and they're certainly not adding to yours - why exactly are you turning up at all?

[Solaris]

Yes, and I've long since lost tolerance of them. "It's what my character would do." or "I'm just roleplaying" is never the right response when questioned on being a donkey cavity. The player chose to be one. More often it's not about the character but the player himself/herself. (I have experienced male and female jerks.) The player just doesn't given a damn about you and only cares about his/her fun to accomplish whatever personal goals he/she has for the character. Your fun is irrelevant. It only gets worse if the DM enables it either through approving of such behavior or thinking being neutral about it is the proper thing to do.

Should you have such a player in your group you could try speaking to him/her, but it usually doesn't work. You get the "I'm just roleplaying" pablum and accusations of you being a whiner. Talk to the DM. If the DM doesn't stop it, leave the game. It's not worth it. I've had quit games because of such players, but sometimes it was the jerk who quit.

^ This. Emphasis mine; I can negotiate with hostile local nationals, I can negotiate with pissed off employees, I can negotiate with incredibly irate staff officers who were last told "No" sometime in the Reagan Administration. I cannot, for the life of me, get jerk players to quit misbehaving. This is speaking as both a player and a GM.

That's why I have the general policy of booting people who even begin to show the tendencies. Not once has giving someone a second or third chance ended well if they're willing to behave so awfully to people they've just met. If they're that maladjusted, you're not fixing them.

Corollary to that, of course, is if you see someone in your group being abusive and you don't intervene, you're just as guilty as the abuser because you're enabling it.

[Friv]

Then you're in the wrong group. You're probably not adding to their enjoyment, and they're certainly not adding to yours - why exactly are you turning up at all?

I mean... yes?

That was sort of the point that I was making. Sometimes, when everyone in your group tells you that you're overreacting and that you just can't take a joke, the correct solution is not to say, "Oh, well, my feelings probably aren't valid", but rather to get the hell out of there.

[Velaryon]

I've had PCs who hated each other on at least two occasions that I can think of, but the conflicts were purely in-character.

First was a Star Wars d20 game that I was GM'ing. After several players leaving and other players joining, we had a party consisting of a Rebel pilot, a Jedi, a smuggler, and the Jedi's apprentice. The pilot and the Jedi were basically good guys (the Jedi had toyed with going dark earlier in the campaign but ended up pulling back and staying with the light), while the smuggler was a fairly amoral criminal the the apprentice basically roleplaying a chaotic stupid D&D barbarian with Force powers.

Eventually the team fractured into two factions, with two of them (I bet you'll never guess which ones!) joining the Empire, specifically a subsection of Imperial Intelligence heavily modeled on the Turks from Final Fantasy 7. When the group imploded I thought the game was done for, but the players surprised me. We ended up splitting the sessions between their two factions who were working at cross purposes, though I did add a third faction that both sides could oppose. The climactic final battle of the campaign had them sort of working together along with the two groups' respective allies to defeat the third faction, and then they turned on each other. The whole thing ended when the Jedi (who was a true prodigy with the Move Object power) ripped open the outer wall of the Death Star, exposing the entire group (along with Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine) to the vacuum of space.

And believe it or not, the players loved it. There were a few veiled accusations of players using OOC knowledge to avoid each other, but nothing serious. Everyone was still friends, even if their characters had become mortal enemies.

---------

The second was a D&D 3.5 game I was in. We had two wizards who were complete polar opposites in personality and abilities, but were also students at the same magic academy. My abjurer was a lower-class guy with a rough upbringing whose family had managed to scrimp and save up just enough to get him admitted to the academy. He was becoming a man-of-the-people type of heroic character who wanted to use his magic in conjunction with his martial skills (which were looked down on by many in the academy) in order to protect people.

My friend played a necromancer, member of a powerful noble family with important connections all over the city, who had every door opened to him and was every bit as arrogant and unlikeable as you can imagine.

It happened that both of us had banned each other's schools when specializing, so we decided that they were rivals in particular. They only ever became members of the same party because of circumstances - the city was overrun by demons and we were among the very few that escaped alive, and had to work together in order to survive.

For the entire campaign, we traded insults, barbs, and threats, but never came to blows. The necromancer eventually got the last laugh, because of a crappy situation in which the party imploded. This one session, one of our players was missing and so his character was not present (naturally, it was our cleric). Another player had just brought in a new PC who was not particularly attached to our group yet. At this time, some enemies we had made earlier in the campaign caught up to us, and after hearing their grievances the new PC decided they had a point and betrayed us to join them (personally I think the player was wrong to do this, but there wasn't anything I could do about it). The rest of our party members went down, with me getting knocked out while trying to rescue someone else thanks to being badly outnumbered and having awful dice rolls. The necromancer, seeing he was the last one standing, shrugged his shoulders and teleported out, leaving the rest of us to die. Campaign over. Though realistically, he couldn't have won the fight all by himself anyway so it made sense from a survival perspective anyway.

The ending sucked, but it was more the fault of the DM and the other player, not because of our two characters who hated each other. Had the DM scaled down the difficulty to account for us being shorthanded and without a healer, or had the other PC not betrayed the party on what seemed like a thin pretext to me, it would have been fine.

[Astofel]

I haven't had any real experience with an abusive character myself, but I've played an evil character in the past and it's not at all difficult to not be a horrible person to play with. My character only really cares about himself, it's his survival he's concerned with, and that's why he's sticking with the party, they increase his odds of not dying. It's also why he didn't rush to the aid of the wizard who got brought down by a fire giant and subsequently died (two nat 1 death saves in a row), because doing so would have meant an incredible risk to him. The wizard's player was a bit annoyed, but we talked about it and everything was fine. My character is still kind of an ass, but not to the point of abusiveness, he's just far more likely to make a snarky comment if someone does something a bit silly, or to ponder why we're helping out these people. Despite that, he's also slowly but surely becoming more friendly with the party cleric.

Honestly it takes effort to be an abusive evil character, and you should always remember that it's entirely possible to make an evil character who doesn't sabotage the party, and that people who do make asshat characters and claim that 'they're just playing their character' also deliberately made the choice to make and asshat character, and I think that says something about them as a person. There's some leniency for new players who don't know all the etiquette, but if they're confronted about it and don't stop alarm bells should be going off.

[Frozen_Feet]

I mean... yes?

That was sort of the point that I was making. Sometimes, when everyone in your group tells you that you're overreacting and that you just can't take a joke, the correct solution is not to say, "Oh, well, my feelings probably aren't valid", but rather to get the hell out of there.

Except when it is a correct solution, because you are overreacting and your feelings are making you act like an idiot, like with the person in this example:

About a few months ago, the same female player from earlier walked off the game because she got into it with another player. Her character resented my wife's character because my wife was playing a Cleric of Tyr. She, herself, is an atheist and hates any representations of religion. She rattled apart because my wife's cleric was being a cleric...praying, seeking Tyr's blessing and favor, everything you'd expect from a Cleric. So the female player shuts down and basically rage-quits because she feels she's being personally attacked (which she wasn't - she considers any religious expression a personal attack on herself (maturity). So she demanded an apology or she would quit the table.

Of course, just waiting for the person to calm down and come to the realization themselves might be ineffective, so the GM might want to act as a brige-builder as things start winding down.

I dunno. Maybe I just have more faith in humanity than some, because I believe people can be taught to control their emotions and engage in a wider range of roleplaying excersises. Especially when they are literally immature, as in children or teenagers, because it's possible and even likely for them to naturally grow out of the stupid. Booting those people out, or letting them leave unchallenged, because of an over-reaction is what makes people drop out of the hobby.

[BWR]

Doesn't usually happen because we are decent, sensible people. The times it has happened there have been very good IC reasons and the players agreed it was an interesting development.

And as a general rule, as has been pointed out several times already:
If the players are OK with something, it's OK and an IC problem. If players aren't OK with something it's not OK and is an OOC problem.

[Stealth Marmot]

^ This. Emphasis mine; I can negotiate with hostile local nationals, I can negotiate with pissed off employees, I can negotiate with incredibly irate staff officers who were last told "No" sometime in the Reagan Administration. I cannot, for the life of me, get jerk players to quit misbehaving. This is speaking as both a player and a GM.

Uh, what is it you do for a living? Or is that classified?

[Solaris]

Uh, what is it you do for a living? Or is that classified?

Used to be in the Army. I'm presently an operations manager for a package handling company.

And no, I don't tend to refer to things that are classified in online conversations. Anyone who makes oblique references to classified material trying to sound cool, like as not, never held a classification in real life. It's simply not done on account of it often providing data that can be used to acquire the classified information.

[Dire Roc]

We did have one. He was playing a paladin, I like paladins.

I'd played with the guy before, but his previous character was an angsty wayang loner stealth specialist, so when his character refused to meaningfully interact with the party for long enough everyone just stopped trying. The lack of interaction fit his concept well enough, although he would occasionally break out of it to yell distaste for the party kitsune's shape-shifting abilities.

A year later the same player came to a new campaign with his tiefling paladin raised by dwarves, he likes unusual races that are discriminated against, I assume to justify his typical character personalities. He introduced himself to the party by breaking public property and accusing another PC of prostitution. This could have been an interesting conflict had he been more varied in his insults towards said character, but as it was he simply made accusations about her sexuality when the conversation allowed.

His character was also racist against elves and half-elves, i.e. half the party. This led to him in the first session claiming his character would not help make plans if the elves were involved. Being a rather large party, we accepted his proposal and carried on without him. He also loudly and repeatedly mentioned his disdain and hatred for such party members. Several sessions later he detained the party for half the session to rant about how he wasn't included in any plans, and demand to be included on any plans and secrets in the future ... other than him it was an interesting and fun campaign.

[GungHo]

We did have one. He was playing a paladin, I like paladins.

I'd played with the guy before, but his previous character was an angsty wayang loner stealth specialist, so when his character refused to meaningfully interact with the party for long enough everyone just stopped trying. The lack of interaction fit his concept well enough, although he would occasionally break out of it to yell distaste for the party kitsune's shape-shifting abilities.

A year later the same player came to a new campaign with his tiefling paladin raised by dwarves, he likes unusual races that are discriminated against, I assume to justify his typical character personalities. He introduced himself to the party by breaking public property and accusing another PC of prostitution. This could have been an interesting conflict had he been more varied in his insults towards said character, but as it was he simply made accusations about her sexuality when the conversation allowed.

His character was also racist against elves and half-elves, i.e. half the party. This led to him in the first session claiming his character would not help make plans if the elves were involved. Being a rather large party, we accepted his proposal and carried on without him. He also loudly and repeatedly mentioned his disdain and hatred for such party members. Several sessions later he detained the party for half the session to rant about how he wasn't included in any plans, and demand to be included on any plans and secrets in the future ... other than him it was an interesting and fun campaign.

There are times where you just tell folks "hey, this just isn't going to work, your guy is going to be put on a bus to Cleveland. Someone else will be getting off of that same bus. That person needs to get along with the group that exists now. The bus arrives in 30 minutes and the new guy begins his audition then. I don't care if the stat sheet looks the same, but this guy well-treated as a child, understand?"

[Segev]

Yes, and I've long since lost tolerance of them. "It's what my character would do." or "I'm just roleplaying" is never the right response when questioned on being a donkey cavity.

In truth, the proper response to such people is this:

Hm when I DM there is friendly banter and teasing . Verbal abuse such as outright hostility that should be dealt with by the PC or the party. Example being the half in player is taunting the half orc constantly. Well the orc player is probably going to respond with violence. If the member in question is hostile to all its even simpler. You aren't forced to be friends, murder him. Chance are it's him vs you or more. And. As for you saying his character was physically abusive how is he still breathing ???

My response to "It's what my character would do" is that my character is a member of a gang that breaks into the homes of people they think are guilty of some offense, kills them, and takes their stuff. My character is quite sure your character is guilty of a rather serious offense, plus he's annoying so I don't give him a pass. DIE! (What? I'm just acting in character and role-playing. What in the world did you expect a bunch of murder-hobos to do?)

That's the thing about people who "role-play" jerks, they don't want to role-play the obvious logical consequence if everyone else is also allowed to role-play their characters.

If they want to say "it's what my character would do," they don't get to complain when what MY character would do is to punish theirs for it. And I'm playing somebody just as capable of causing grievous harm as they are.


One of the more fun iterations of my namesake PC was in a party with an elf who absolutely loathed him. My PC didn't take it personally, but was a cold person with a sardonic wit that he delivered extremely dryly, and he took great pleasure in needling the elf whenever the elf chose to try to be insulting.

Both players involved enjoyed it, as did the rest of the party of players (including the GM). So maybe that's not really "abusive players."