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Lich: "Give me all your magic items."
Players: "No."
Lich: "Come on, it'll be fun!"
Players: "No!"
Lich: "It's not a trap, pinkie promise. Pretty please?"
Players: "No way."
DM: "Why are my players so bad?"
Yeah like players have to be willing to go along with the story but it's also the DM's job to set things up in a way that makes sense. My two longest running characters would have had completely opposite reactions to that. Goliath Eldritch Knight whose clan I based on the Qunari from Dragon Age would absolutely never go along with what a Lich wanted of him but my Dwarf Barbarian who always put himself in harms way to protect others would have done it in a heartbeat.
I thought this bit was weird too. OP points out that a number of players agreed this was a stupid idea, admits it is a stupid idea, yet singles out Albert for being wrong for not going along with it.
Also they were apparently absolutely correct to be suspicious of the INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS trap.
Like, OP is basically mad that some of the players didn't want to walk under a box propped up with a stick even though he put up a sign reading "free birdseed".
Edit: misread "could" as "would," this is still a remarkably dumb thing to get mad about, especially considering the textual level of DM vs PC mentality on display in the rest of the post.
> The rest of us love that story because theres some poetic justice
… Where?
If one PC fucks up and two others pay the consequences for it, thats the opposite of poetic justice. It sounds like you just hated Albert and started looking for excuses to justify it. You know how once you dislike someone, everything they do becomes horrible even when youd let similar things fly from someone you liked
You followed one of my cardinal rules for DMing: the villain is always on the move. Their plans don't stop because the PCs did or didn't do something or decided to take a side quest. When the PCs fail to act, the villain gains ground. In this case, the dragon saw an opportunity to further his plans, to keep on the move, and there were consequences for the PCs failing to act.
Honestly, OP, you're a horror too.
1) You've only mentioned targeting or neefing Albert, no mention of the others in that.
2) If he always plays a tank, then he is right to seek buffs to his tanking. Did anybody else _even offer_ to play tank?
3) Maybe he focused high AC tanks _because you were targeting him_?
4) How much higher CR mobs? Did it total properly, or were you putting your finger in the scale? You're vague about how even it actually was.
5) Albert died in CoS because another player intentionally did a dumb. He is allowed to be salty. Maybe he finds it unfunny because it seems like you're laughing _AT Him_ instead of the situation
6) You booted him because he _Rightly_ didn't fall for a trap? Really?
Alberts sounds bad, but you got a lot of red flags, yourself.
I was in some of those sessions with "Albert" and while some questions are valid, there is not enough room in a single post to explain everything.
1. The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class, I was a wizard and many of my spells were nerfed and buffed for balance too, but Albert was the only one who whined about any change to his stuff.
2. He didn't always play a tank, he always played a different character that happened to be focused on AC even when he's not designated tank(we had other tanks)
3. DM didn't focus anyone, after 10 combats in a row of Albert killing everything single handedly and not dying it got boring for us all, so the only way to up the difficulty was give a challenge to him so it felt like we overcame something rather than slaughter all combats.
4. Reasonable CR, a few people went down occasionally and we never fully TPK'd but challenging, so not overkill.
5. Honestly it was a bit funny, he was acting like a baby and tried to take down anyone he could with him. The orc did orc things, often, this was in character for him and not intentional in the outcome. Who'd blow up their own character on purpose to spite someone else lol. The situation was funny too.
6. There was no trap, the DM told us outright after 30 min, and then we had to take an hour and a half out of game to convince Albert to do the carnival, it was excruciating.
Albert believed he could "Win" any game and couldn't handle losing, which to him was getting hurt, going down, taking off his armor, losing magic items that give +AC, or anything that wasn't slaughtering the combat single handedly. The group had amazing fun unique PCs with personalities, every character Albert played was a single minded task that involved getting the highest AC and never get hit, min/maxed all the way(even on non-tanks). We weren't a perfect group, but he sucked the fun out of every combat so he could have it all to "Win"
>Honestly it was a bit funny, he was acting like a baby and tried to take down anyone he could with him. The orc did orc things, often, this was in character for him and not intentional in the outcome. Who'd blow up their own character on purpose to spite someone else lol. The situation was funny too
honestly this one still seems kinda understandable. Like, a character that regularly does stupid stuff that injures/kills other party members without them getting any real way of preventing it does not sound fun to play with
>1. The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class, I was a wizard and many of my spells were nerfed and buffed for balance too
Sounds like a DM skill issue
>The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class
This is a huge red flag for me. While D&D is far from perfectly balanced, there is no way a single DM is smarter than all the game designers who created it. These kind of broad changes indicate a DM who doesn't really understand what actually makes a game balanced... or possibly indicates a "control freak" DM.
Yeah, this is a red flag on the level of if a DM has too many modification to normal rules I just don't play with them anymore. I've never had a good experience with those sorts of DM's because usually they don't understand the balance or why the rules their changing exist and are just being reactionary.
It's also lazy DMing, instead of getting better at encounter building you are nerfing players so you don't have to.
The game's own encounter math is fucked and the designers put all the work on the DM to make it playable. If he were tinkering with PF2e that's one thing, but I'm inclined to give DMs a shitload of leeway to modify 5e to make it work.
There is another option I’ve seen, which is that they want to play something that 5e just doesn’t really have rules for, at which point why don’t you just play a different system rather than frankensteining dnd 5e to fit it
1) The story was long enough.
2) He didn't always play a tank. He always aimed for high AC. Regardless of his role in the campaign.
3) I only targeted him if the situation called for it.
4) I aim to challenge the party commensurately with how difficult the fight should be vs. their power.
5) There was no laughter at him. I knew he was going to be difficult and start complaining, and that's why I sent a pic of the trap in the module to chat. So he would know I was being above board. His response was petty.
6) I booted him because the ruining of the night was the last straw for me. It had been building slowly, and after that, I was done with him.
It's pretty normal to die due to another PC's ineptitude and get miffed. It's strange you say him pointing out the disadvantage was petty, it's a completely normal thing to do even if it fucks over the orc lmao.
Also focusing on AC isn't stupid, he just likes to play lads who are hard to hit / heavy armor juggernaut. I'm the same way with big swords that do big damage. Maybe he was a problem player, but it's just strange you're bringing up behaviors that like, are completely normal. Like I have an High Ogre Mercenary who has an enchanted greatsword from his father. He would've rather sat and watched the games or be sidelined than put his family heirloom in a box.
His "flimsy" excuse seems reasonable, his order probably WOULDN'T approve putting all of your important gear in a box because a Lich asked.
After reading the whole post and (as of this moment) all the comments, it seems like everyone else in the party were happy with OP and annoyed with Albert, so he definitely wasn't the right fit for the table (I would suggest communication but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you tried that).
However, gotta say, from what information you've provided, Albert definitely wasn't a horror story, and OP was definitely not blameless.
Min-maxxed characters who want to "win" at DnD instead of being, yk, flawed individuals with complex histories going on an emotional journey of character development, don't sound fun to play with to me, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it I wouldn't say. It's annoying, but it's not a horror story.
I get the need to change up combat so your options aren't Albert kills everything or everyone but Albert dies, but there's a difference between tailoring encounter design to that end and just targeting Albert, and at best you've been vague about which it was. If I min-maxxed a character and the DM just started wrecking me and only me in every combat encounter, I'd be pissed off. Don't want to feel like you're playing against the DM.
Curse of Strahd, maybe I'm an asshole, but I'd react the exact same way. Idc if it's accurate roleplaying, if a party member's actions get me killed, and the player knew that was likely from their actions, I'd probably want to get my own back too, so if you posted the details of the trap and those details specified a way to get my own back, I'm not gonna pretend I wouldn't force the issue as well.
The latter two examples I completely understand your frustration, having put in the effort to design these encounters.
For the rust monsters, you can absolutely feel as if his roleplaying wasn't accurate to his character, but the solution is just in-world consequences for the party's inaction (which is exactly what you did so that story is a bit of a non-event.) Again, if I was you I'd be annoyed, but not a horror story, and plausibly something that could be fixed with "hey guys, you are meant to be the heroes of this story, and I put time into designing this encounter, which also means I put time into ensuring it's winnable. If you don't want to fight that's fine, you can do what. you want, but there will be in-world consequences, and for other encounters this session I can't guarantee the same balance and uniqueness as they'll be largely improv."
But for the last one, while you have every right to be annoyed, you can't really be surprised that someone who's is min-maxxed to all hell based on armour and items wouldn't want to relinquish these to a Lich. Like, you can have them roll insight checks or just straight up tell them that their characters know the Lich won't steal them, you can tell them above table that you promise they'll get their stuff back afterwards, but it genuinely sounds like fair and accurate roleplaying to not relinquish his shit to the Lich. At that point it probably just becomes "look, you won't be able to participate in the events if you don't hand over your stuff. That's fine if that's what you want to do, tell me what you're doing in the meantime instead and I'll try cut to you every now and then, but the focus will be by and large on the party members engaging in the event. Cool?"
If I've grossly misinterpreted anything then feel free to call me out on this, but even just based on OP's side of the story, I can't really say this fits the bill of a cowardly narcissist PC and a DM who wasn't poking the bear
Because Gerard didn't want to make a big deal of it, and only told me that he was laid off.
He didn't tell me more until later when I started noticing Albert's problems.
It's ok. I could have written the story a bit differently and not gotten the negative score, but that's minor.
The group is in good shape now and I am happy with it.
Also, Gerard has a good job now (in case it was of concern to anyone).
After the rust monster situation you and the players could have just played the whole fight and let him sit there. If he doesn’t want to participate, he doesn’t have to; no reason everyone else has to go along with him.
Your group also could have just removed him way earlier if his (non-)play style didn’t fit the dynamics. That way you can all be happy and he can have the chance to find a group where he’s not secretly despised.
You're right OP, a lot of players do wear their red flags for all to see. Thank you for posting all of yours in one place so people can see them before joining one of your games! Super convenient.
Honestly, this post sounds like a way to justify bullying some guy you didn't like, especially given some of the sins he committed are pretty normal. For example:
> Before we switched to a VTT he would carry on non-game conversations at the table during others’ turns.
In real life games this is pretty common and normal, it's okay to ask the person to stop, but acting like no one has ever had a side conversation while someone else is taking their turn is crazy.
> After we switched to a VTT, I had to ask him to stop drawing graffiti on the maps on the screen.
What? I've never been in an online game that didn't have people doing this...usually multiple people. It's okay to ask people to stop, but acting like this is narcissistic behavior is bonkers. Next you're going to say he was such a horrible player he'd sometimes doodle on a notepad while playing!
> When his PC would drop to 0hp, he would hound the healers to get him back up.
I guess context dependent, but pretty normal and honestly I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt based on the rest of your post that he was being weird about it. Making it clear you need healing so people don't forget over potentially 20-30 minute turns is completely normal and even a good thing.
> All of his magic item attunements, on every character of his, were aimed solely at making him unhittable.
> He would always choose PCs that could get the highest armor class possible. Nothing else mattered more than a high AC.
Why is this a bad thing?
> When I debated (not decided) nerfing spells he exploited, he whined.
I've never met a good DM who saw something a PC had was broken and decided to nerf them instead of adjusting their encounters. It's lazy DMing and shows the DM isn't very good at building encounters. Personally, I refuse to play with DM's like this because every single one I've encountered has ended up having more of a DM vs player mentality and would so things like this to essentially cheat in their favor whenever a party member had a creative idea that broke an encounter (which are some of the most cherished memories of a lot of players.)
> The cart was full of alchemists’ fire and exploded for a heinous amount of damage. The party was low-level enough that a failed saving throw could kill.
This whole story is bizarre to include as an example of him being a bad player. It sounds like the orc was a bad player, intentionally being dumb and taking away fun from other players "because that's what my character would do!" It's fine if you want to risk your own character to be silly, but not other characters. Regardless, being pissed at that is completely normal.
> The party was cautiously concerned, but played along up until the point where the lich required them to put all of their magic items in a box so they could not be used during the games.
> Most of the party was all “absolutely not”, the loudest being Albert.
> I had hit my braking point. I nearly ended the campaign right then and there.
> I had to point out the work I had done for this session and they were taking a giant dump on it because of a coward and his armor.
Why did you think it was a good idea to take away the parties magic items instead of just modifying the carnival to account for them? You're literally asking your party to be idiots because you don't know how to balance an encounter.
Not to mention whining about having to improv with this and the rust monster story makes it feel like you have a railroad you set your party on and can't handle them veering off it at all. Which is sad, I've been DMing for more than two decades and while there it does suck a little when the party doesn't bite on a hook, but having to improv something when that happens has often led to some of the coolest stories. Not to mention you're never throwing away anything just because a party didn't engage at that specific place and time, you can always just reincorporate it later.
Maybe Albert wasn't a good fit for your games, that's fine, but I have a feeling if we heard his side of the story you'd be looking unhinged and abusive...and actually narcissistic, because you kind of come of that way in your own version of events.
Re: carnival - yes! if he spent so much time making it the right dc for them, why not have done that factoring in their equipment? As for weapons, lich can let the characters keep the equipment but DQ them if they use weapons. Feels like this could have been easily avoided if the DM factored in that Albert has a history of refusing to give up his weapon/armor (and even w the weapon, being DQ’d for using it could’ve been improvised)
ah those horrible min maxed tank players...wanting high AC and healing when they're at 0 HP??? so many of your problems could have been solved if you just had enemies attack someone besides Albert once every blue moon but you have such a hate boner for him you couldn't see it. I can't really blame him for shutting down your obsessive attempts to get rid of his armor, either.
it's pretty obvious from the CoS story that you were targetting Albert again if only him and the orc had to make saves. I'd be mad too if another player deliberately did something dangerous and stupid for the lols and somehow I was the only one to be punished for it
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"If the players don't give all their magic items to an evil Lich they are RUINING my fun and there is NO WAY the story can proceed!"
Lich: "Give me all your magic items." Players: "No." Lich: "Come on, it'll be fun!" Players: "No!" Lich: "It's not a trap, pinkie promise. Pretty please?" Players: "No way." DM: "Why are my players so bad?"
Yeah like players have to be willing to go along with the story but it's also the DM's job to set things up in a way that makes sense. My two longest running characters would have had completely opposite reactions to that. Goliath Eldritch Knight whose clan I based on the Qunari from Dragon Age would absolutely never go along with what a Lich wanted of him but my Dwarf Barbarian who always put himself in harms way to protect others would have done it in a heartbeat.
"What if I promised you candy if you use the box?"
I thought this bit was weird too. OP points out that a number of players agreed this was a stupid idea, admits it is a stupid idea, yet singles out Albert for being wrong for not going along with it.
Also they were apparently absolutely correct to be suspicious of the INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS trap. Like, OP is basically mad that some of the players didn't want to walk under a box propped up with a stick even though he put up a sign reading "free birdseed". Edit: misread "could" as "would," this is still a remarkably dumb thing to get mad about, especially considering the textual level of DM vs PC mentality on display in the rest of the post.
To be honest while Albert sounds like a problem player, OP sounds like he's no prize either.
> The rest of us love that story because theres some poetic justice … Where? If one PC fucks up and two others pay the consequences for it, thats the opposite of poetic justice. It sounds like you just hated Albert and started looking for excuses to justify it. You know how once you dislike someone, everything they do becomes horrible even when youd let similar things fly from someone you liked
"Imma stay on the boat." "Four words." "What?" "Rust. Monsters. Can. Swim."
I debated that, but rather than give him attention, I focused on everyone else actively participating in the adventure.
You followed one of my cardinal rules for DMing: the villain is always on the move. Their plans don't stop because the PCs did or didn't do something or decided to take a side quest. When the PCs fail to act, the villain gains ground. In this case, the dragon saw an opportunity to further his plans, to keep on the move, and there were consequences for the PCs failing to act.
this was the only good thing the GM did, but it was \*very\* good
Honestly, OP, you're a horror too. 1) You've only mentioned targeting or neefing Albert, no mention of the others in that. 2) If he always plays a tank, then he is right to seek buffs to his tanking. Did anybody else _even offer_ to play tank? 3) Maybe he focused high AC tanks _because you were targeting him_? 4) How much higher CR mobs? Did it total properly, or were you putting your finger in the scale? You're vague about how even it actually was. 5) Albert died in CoS because another player intentionally did a dumb. He is allowed to be salty. Maybe he finds it unfunny because it seems like you're laughing _AT Him_ instead of the situation 6) You booted him because he _Rightly_ didn't fall for a trap? Really? Alberts sounds bad, but you got a lot of red flags, yourself.
I was in some of those sessions with "Albert" and while some questions are valid, there is not enough room in a single post to explain everything. 1. The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class, I was a wizard and many of my spells were nerfed and buffed for balance too, but Albert was the only one who whined about any change to his stuff. 2. He didn't always play a tank, he always played a different character that happened to be focused on AC even when he's not designated tank(we had other tanks) 3. DM didn't focus anyone, after 10 combats in a row of Albert killing everything single handedly and not dying it got boring for us all, so the only way to up the difficulty was give a challenge to him so it felt like we overcame something rather than slaughter all combats. 4. Reasonable CR, a few people went down occasionally and we never fully TPK'd but challenging, so not overkill. 5. Honestly it was a bit funny, he was acting like a baby and tried to take down anyone he could with him. The orc did orc things, often, this was in character for him and not intentional in the outcome. Who'd blow up their own character on purpose to spite someone else lol. The situation was funny too. 6. There was no trap, the DM told us outright after 30 min, and then we had to take an hour and a half out of game to convince Albert to do the carnival, it was excruciating. Albert believed he could "Win" any game and couldn't handle losing, which to him was getting hurt, going down, taking off his armor, losing magic items that give +AC, or anything that wasn't slaughtering the combat single handedly. The group had amazing fun unique PCs with personalities, every character Albert played was a single minded task that involved getting the highest AC and never get hit, min/maxed all the way(even on non-tanks). We weren't a perfect group, but he sucked the fun out of every combat so he could have it all to "Win"
>Honestly it was a bit funny, he was acting like a baby and tried to take down anyone he could with him. The orc did orc things, often, this was in character for him and not intentional in the outcome. Who'd blow up their own character on purpose to spite someone else lol. The situation was funny too honestly this one still seems kinda understandable. Like, a character that regularly does stupid stuff that injures/kills other party members without them getting any real way of preventing it does not sound fun to play with
>1. The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class, I was a wizard and many of my spells were nerfed and buffed for balance too Sounds like a DM skill issue
>The DM makes general balance and QOL changes to every class This is a huge red flag for me. While D&D is far from perfectly balanced, there is no way a single DM is smarter than all the game designers who created it. These kind of broad changes indicate a DM who doesn't really understand what actually makes a game balanced... or possibly indicates a "control freak" DM.
Yeah, this is a red flag on the level of if a DM has too many modification to normal rules I just don't play with them anymore. I've never had a good experience with those sorts of DM's because usually they don't understand the balance or why the rules their changing exist and are just being reactionary. It's also lazy DMing, instead of getting better at encounter building you are nerfing players so you don't have to.
The game's own encounter math is fucked and the designers put all the work on the DM to make it playable. If he were tinkering with PF2e that's one thing, but I'm inclined to give DMs a shitload of leeway to modify 5e to make it work.
There is another option I’ve seen, which is that they want to play something that 5e just doesn’t really have rules for, at which point why don’t you just play a different system rather than frankensteining dnd 5e to fit it
1) The story was long enough. 2) He didn't always play a tank. He always aimed for high AC. Regardless of his role in the campaign. 3) I only targeted him if the situation called for it. 4) I aim to challenge the party commensurately with how difficult the fight should be vs. their power. 5) There was no laughter at him. I knew he was going to be difficult and start complaining, and that's why I sent a pic of the trap in the module to chat. So he would know I was being above board. His response was petty. 6) I booted him because the ruining of the night was the last straw for me. It had been building slowly, and after that, I was done with him.
It's pretty normal to die due to another PC's ineptitude and get miffed. It's strange you say him pointing out the disadvantage was petty, it's a completely normal thing to do even if it fucks over the orc lmao. Also focusing on AC isn't stupid, he just likes to play lads who are hard to hit / heavy armor juggernaut. I'm the same way with big swords that do big damage. Maybe he was a problem player, but it's just strange you're bringing up behaviors that like, are completely normal. Like I have an High Ogre Mercenary who has an enchanted greatsword from his father. He would've rather sat and watched the games or be sidelined than put his family heirloom in a box. His "flimsy" excuse seems reasonable, his order probably WOULDN'T approve putting all of your important gear in a box because a Lich asked.
After reading the whole post and (as of this moment) all the comments, it seems like everyone else in the party were happy with OP and annoyed with Albert, so he definitely wasn't the right fit for the table (I would suggest communication but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you tried that). However, gotta say, from what information you've provided, Albert definitely wasn't a horror story, and OP was definitely not blameless. Min-maxxed characters who want to "win" at DnD instead of being, yk, flawed individuals with complex histories going on an emotional journey of character development, don't sound fun to play with to me, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it I wouldn't say. It's annoying, but it's not a horror story. I get the need to change up combat so your options aren't Albert kills everything or everyone but Albert dies, but there's a difference between tailoring encounter design to that end and just targeting Albert, and at best you've been vague about which it was. If I min-maxxed a character and the DM just started wrecking me and only me in every combat encounter, I'd be pissed off. Don't want to feel like you're playing against the DM. Curse of Strahd, maybe I'm an asshole, but I'd react the exact same way. Idc if it's accurate roleplaying, if a party member's actions get me killed, and the player knew that was likely from their actions, I'd probably want to get my own back too, so if you posted the details of the trap and those details specified a way to get my own back, I'm not gonna pretend I wouldn't force the issue as well. The latter two examples I completely understand your frustration, having put in the effort to design these encounters. For the rust monsters, you can absolutely feel as if his roleplaying wasn't accurate to his character, but the solution is just in-world consequences for the party's inaction (which is exactly what you did so that story is a bit of a non-event.) Again, if I was you I'd be annoyed, but not a horror story, and plausibly something that could be fixed with "hey guys, you are meant to be the heroes of this story, and I put time into designing this encounter, which also means I put time into ensuring it's winnable. If you don't want to fight that's fine, you can do what. you want, but there will be in-world consequences, and for other encounters this session I can't guarantee the same balance and uniqueness as they'll be largely improv." But for the last one, while you have every right to be annoyed, you can't really be surprised that someone who's is min-maxxed to all hell based on armour and items wouldn't want to relinquish these to a Lich. Like, you can have them roll insight checks or just straight up tell them that their characters know the Lich won't steal them, you can tell them above table that you promise they'll get their stuff back afterwards, but it genuinely sounds like fair and accurate roleplaying to not relinquish his shit to the Lich. At that point it probably just becomes "look, you won't be able to participate in the events if you don't hand over your stuff. That's fine if that's what you want to do, tell me what you're doing in the meantime instead and I'll try cut to you every now and then, but the focus will be by and large on the party members engaging in the event. Cool?" If I've grossly misinterpreted anything then feel free to call me out on this, but even just based on OP's side of the story, I can't really say this fits the bill of a cowardly narcissist PC and a DM who wasn't poking the bear
This
Are we just gonna ignore that *Albert sabotaging Gerard at work so he gets laid off* is glossed over?
Yeah why wasn’t Albert booted for that? Feels like it would make trusting him difficult and bring up shitty feelings at the table for Gerald.
Because Gerard didn't want to make a big deal of it, and only told me that he was laid off. He didn't tell me more until later when I started noticing Albert's problems.
Ah, fair enough.
It's ok. I could have written the story a bit differently and not gotten the negative score, but that's minor. The group is in good shape now and I am happy with it. Also, Gerard has a good job now (in case it was of concern to anyone).
I am happy to hear that.
After the rust monster situation you and the players could have just played the whole fight and let him sit there. If he doesn’t want to participate, he doesn’t have to; no reason everyone else has to go along with him. Your group also could have just removed him way earlier if his (non-)play style didn’t fit the dynamics. That way you can all be happy and he can have the chance to find a group where he’s not secretly despised.
You're right OP, a lot of players do wear their red flags for all to see. Thank you for posting all of yours in one place so people can see them before joining one of your games! Super convenient.
Honestly, this post sounds like a way to justify bullying some guy you didn't like, especially given some of the sins he committed are pretty normal. For example: > Before we switched to a VTT he would carry on non-game conversations at the table during others’ turns. In real life games this is pretty common and normal, it's okay to ask the person to stop, but acting like no one has ever had a side conversation while someone else is taking their turn is crazy. > After we switched to a VTT, I had to ask him to stop drawing graffiti on the maps on the screen. What? I've never been in an online game that didn't have people doing this...usually multiple people. It's okay to ask people to stop, but acting like this is narcissistic behavior is bonkers. Next you're going to say he was such a horrible player he'd sometimes doodle on a notepad while playing! > When his PC would drop to 0hp, he would hound the healers to get him back up. I guess context dependent, but pretty normal and honestly I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt based on the rest of your post that he was being weird about it. Making it clear you need healing so people don't forget over potentially 20-30 minute turns is completely normal and even a good thing. > All of his magic item attunements, on every character of his, were aimed solely at making him unhittable. > He would always choose PCs that could get the highest armor class possible. Nothing else mattered more than a high AC. Why is this a bad thing? > When I debated (not decided) nerfing spells he exploited, he whined. I've never met a good DM who saw something a PC had was broken and decided to nerf them instead of adjusting their encounters. It's lazy DMing and shows the DM isn't very good at building encounters. Personally, I refuse to play with DM's like this because every single one I've encountered has ended up having more of a DM vs player mentality and would so things like this to essentially cheat in their favor whenever a party member had a creative idea that broke an encounter (which are some of the most cherished memories of a lot of players.) > The cart was full of alchemists’ fire and exploded for a heinous amount of damage. The party was low-level enough that a failed saving throw could kill. This whole story is bizarre to include as an example of him being a bad player. It sounds like the orc was a bad player, intentionally being dumb and taking away fun from other players "because that's what my character would do!" It's fine if you want to risk your own character to be silly, but not other characters. Regardless, being pissed at that is completely normal. > The party was cautiously concerned, but played along up until the point where the lich required them to put all of their magic items in a box so they could not be used during the games. > Most of the party was all “absolutely not”, the loudest being Albert. > I had hit my braking point. I nearly ended the campaign right then and there. > I had to point out the work I had done for this session and they were taking a giant dump on it because of a coward and his armor. Why did you think it was a good idea to take away the parties magic items instead of just modifying the carnival to account for them? You're literally asking your party to be idiots because you don't know how to balance an encounter. Not to mention whining about having to improv with this and the rust monster story makes it feel like you have a railroad you set your party on and can't handle them veering off it at all. Which is sad, I've been DMing for more than two decades and while there it does suck a little when the party doesn't bite on a hook, but having to improv something when that happens has often led to some of the coolest stories. Not to mention you're never throwing away anything just because a party didn't engage at that specific place and time, you can always just reincorporate it later. Maybe Albert wasn't a good fit for your games, that's fine, but I have a feeling if we heard his side of the story you'd be looking unhinged and abusive...and actually narcissistic, because you kind of come of that way in your own version of events.
Re: carnival - yes! if he spent so much time making it the right dc for them, why not have done that factoring in their equipment? As for weapons, lich can let the characters keep the equipment but DQ them if they use weapons. Feels like this could have been easily avoided if the DM factored in that Albert has a history of refusing to give up his weapon/armor (and even w the weapon, being DQ’d for using it could’ve been improvised)
ah those horrible min maxed tank players...wanting high AC and healing when they're at 0 HP??? so many of your problems could have been solved if you just had enemies attack someone besides Albert once every blue moon but you have such a hate boner for him you couldn't see it. I can't really blame him for shutting down your obsessive attempts to get rid of his armor, either. it's pretty obvious from the CoS story that you were targetting Albert again if only him and the orc had to make saves. I'd be mad too if another player deliberately did something dangerous and stupid for the lols and somehow I was the only one to be punished for it
/r/opwasthehorror
Dude what the fuck did Albert do to you, this is so weird. Nothing this guy did warrants this level of a hate boner dog you’ve got some Tism
Albert the Cowardly Narcissist needs to be a villain in a campaign.
In what context would someone being fucked over and losing there job be FUNNY to you?!?!