Rant about my Party

So, I really need to vent about this, in part because I find it so absurd and weird, and in part because on of the guys seemed shocked that I've played with multiple groups of people. He seems to think my attitudes towards the game indicate I have never played with different groups before, and it has me wondering if despite what I know to be true, this really does look like I'm the one who was acting aberrantly.


I don't think any of them will see this, but this is more about my need to talk about this than anything else.


Our DM is kind of forcing us to play through Curse of Strahd, and it annoys me to a degree because we just came back from a long break, he gave us a quest to save an old companion, then forced us to deal with this other thing, then forced us into Barovia to fight Strahd, and we keep delaying saving the life of someone at least two members of our party considered a friend.

Even if some of the others said it didn't matter if she died because they don't care about her.

Part of forcing us into this came with the departure of one of the players due to RL issues. Incidentally the character he played was like the daughter of the group, we all doted on her and cared deeply for her because she was so innocent and naive. The mist of Barovia ripped out her soul and her body was possessed by a ghost and the only way to save her was to kill Strahd.

By the way, we ranged from level 11-13 and we had some insanely powerful items, from a meta perspective, Strahd even buffed was not a threat we couldn't handle.


To also add some history, we've been gaming for over a year, and we've had a lot of inter-party conflicts. My Gnome Cleric (who I would categorize as Lawful Good, because he was a doctor and a scholar) was at the center of most of them. Things like The Paladin destroying a shrine to my pantheon, the Dwarf shoving me into a pile of mysterious and possibly deadly ooze eggs after we got into a fight about whether or not we should destroy said ooze since it might be the thing we were sent to find, the Paladin enslaving a woman who didn't know she was undead.

After time I recommended patience and restraint I was labeled evil, worshiping devils, and betraying the party. No one wanted the group to break apart, but time and time again it was made clear that for my cleric to fit in with this party, he had to stop caring about the lives of others, the consequences of our actions, and really just be a door mat who does not object to anything.


Back to Barovia, we come to a mansion to talk to the noble who lives there. We knock and the woman inside says she won't open the door for the servants of the Devil (Strahd). Things get confusing pretty fast, I try and explain we aren't servants of Strahd, but before I can get a response the Wizard Barbarian casts Enlarge and breaks through the front of the house. I try to tell her to move back from the door, but I'm not fast enough.

The rogue, who generally was the only other decent person in the group, steps over her in the rubble and she attacks him. He stomps on her arm, she continues to struggle, and he kills her and begins to decapitate her. I tell him to stop, that we are going to far, he justifies it because she was standing in our way and attacked him for no reason. After all, he was stepping over her into her house, clearly he wasn't going to hurt her...... this is an argument I am seen to be in the wrong over. According to the party, the rogue may have overreacted a little, but was clearly justified and besides he is upset about our friend and how dare I try and slow us down from saving her, don't I care.

I cast hold person to stop him, and begin casting Raise Dead to bring this poor woman back from the dead. The dwarf attacks me from behind, I ignore him and continue casting the spell. He gets out of the hold person, tries to steal the head back, which doesn't work because I'm right there, holding it, casting the spell, and they continue into the house.

Incidentally as they try and steal everything in the house, finding nothing of value, and no one else alive. They don't learn anything.

During this time a strange nobleman walks into the house. Out of character, I know it is Strahd, but he ignores my cleric and continues to the top floors to kill the rogue. A fight breaks out, but not suspecting this nobleman to be a serious threat (we are seriously over-powered, we took on an army of devils just a few sessions ago) I continue what I was doing. They scream at me to stop him as he gets back on his horse, and I do throw a 7th level spell, but of course it doesn't stop him and I go back to what I am doing.


They finish exploring the house, the rogue tells me what I am doing is pointless because he's just going to kill this woman again, and I finally bring her back.

She tells us everything we want to know. She is terrified, broken from the death of her father, her fears about Strahd, and just generally a mess. I know the party isn't just going to leave, they are going to try and kill her again. So as we go to leave I begin casting sanctuary to protect her, right as the rogue goes to kill her again. The paladin gets involved by casting counter-spell on my sanctuary. She is murdered again, and really there isn't an explanation they give me, except that when they killed her the first time, Strahd came and attacked us, so clearly she is connected to him and therefore clearly she is evil... despite the very mention of his name causing her to curl up and freak out. Oh, also she is clearly soulless like those grey people outside... despite not being grey and I couldn't raise her from the dead if she didn't have a soul...

But clearly I am in the wrong.


Now, at this point, I will admit I should have done things differently. My character lost it, and attacked the group, and I told them. He isn't going to stop, I know he's going to die, we can just fast forward through this. I should have just had him leave, but having him leave such clearly depraved and evil individuals didn't make sense in the moment. Strahd returns again and fully kills the rogue while I'm bound and gagged on the ground, I break free and start casting my stuff right as they drop Strahd to 0 and he goes mist. Meta we discuss that I won't pursue them if they leave, so they do so, calling me a traitor and evil, yet again (seriously, they have been convinced I was evil ever since I killed an imp they were torturing ad wanted to keep as a pet, or the time I said we should let the stragglers of the lizard man army just leave, because killing 70 of them was enough. Clearly my plots of demonic influence ran deep). The dwarf throws a fireball with the explicit purpose of destroying the woman's corpse to the point I cannot revive her (I'm immune to fire and can cast resurrection... so pointless, but making his statement) and my character leaves the party.



They think I'm too rigid, that the person who says that's what my character would do is always at fault, because I am my character and therefore I should be more flexible and make it work. The party is more important, keeping the group together is more important, and I should be making concessions for their actions. Clearly this no-name NPC (we never bothered to ask her name since we killed her in the first 20 seconds of meeting her) was evil and blocking our path to saving our friend and how could I justify betraying the entire party instead of doing everything I could to find where strahd was and kill him.

Of course, we had no idea about his castle until the woman I brought back to life told us. Or that we should talk to the Vistani. And I could have helped with either Strahd fight, which wouldn't have happened because he did come to avenge his bride to be, if I hadn't been busy casting Raise Dead.

And, this idea that the party members are somehow a different class of person than the NPCs is one I reject. I don't draw that line, the NPCs are people in the world, they aren't soulless meat puppets we interact with, they matter just as much.


I just.... Am I really in the minority here? Is this really such a strange thing that my Lawful Good Cleric is not able to stand cold-blooded murder? I mean, I was even willing to forgive the first time she was murdered. It was the second that I couldn't stand because it was for no reason except they had killed her once before.

I even mentioned my new character would have to be more blood thirsty and evil to fit into the group, and they said I was crazy, that they aren't blood thirsty, after all they I can't name a different time we murdered someone in cold blood... not that we haven't caused destruction in a lot of different places.


I'm not crazy here, right?

Sounds like everybody just needs to chill out a bit and agree how they want to play the game. You're supposed to be enjoying it, not getting stressed about it.

Different groups like different amounts of roleplaying fidelity; it sounds like you enjoy more than the rest of your group. Both approaches are perfectly common; I've enjoyed both with different groups. Not that it'd binary thing - it's a scale, so perhaps you guys can reach a compromise?

One thing I do know is that intra-party conflict usually isn't fun.

Just because a player's character is Lawful Good, doesn't mean they still can't throw off the game by saying "I'm just doing what my character would do!"

If your PC was Chaotic Neutral and you continually tried to stop or reject what the rest of the group wanted to do, refusing to participate in the group dynamic as it stood, and generally was disruptive to their ideas and plans, everyone here would say you were in the wrong. The group has decided this is how they want to play this campaign and you are refusing to honor the social contract by trying to do your own thing at the expense of everyone else.

Instead, what we have here is a party of murderhobos just sandblasting their way through every encounter and scene... and you are deliberately playing a character to run counter to everything they are doing and how they want to play. Why? You know this is what the group wants to do and how they wish to play... there is nothing wrong with what the group wants to do and how they wish to play... and you are continually trying to stop them. For what reason? And I'm talking out-of-game here. In-game we know why... your PC is Lawful Good. But out-of-game, why are you, the player, playing this character in particular? Why are you deliberately playing a PC that is disruptive to the game? What is your reasoning? Why haven't you put this character on the shelf and made a new one that fits in to the group dynamic?

I mean... at the end of the day, it comes down to what each of you at the table want to do to have fun. And if you aren't having fun playing this character because the other PCs do not respect him, listen to him, and get genuinely upset when he tries to stop them... why are you still playing him?

There's nothing wrong with making new characters if your old one doesn't fit in with the game. And there's also nothing wrong with leaving a game if the style of play at the table doesn't work for you. If you don't want to play at being murderhobos, then just step away from the game and play in the next one. Better that than continually banging your head against the wall playing against party type and getting shat on because of it.

Find a more sensible group

When the personal intrudes into the fictional it is time to go. Inter-party conflict can work, I suppose, when everyone is in the spirit of things, but that takes an exceptional group. As a DM I almost never like to see inter- party conflict happen and with emotionally mature gamers it rarely does. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. It sounds like after a year of gaming some people have personal axes to grind. More to the point, it doesn't sound like you're having much fun. There are a lot of cool, emotionally mature people playing 5e out there, find them.

Morrus said:

Sounds like everybody just needs to chill out a bit and agree how they want to play the game. You're supposed to be enjoying it, not getting stressed about it.

Different groups like different amounts of roleplaying fidelity; it sounds like you enjoy more than the rest of your group. Both approaches are perfectly common; I've enjoyed both with different groups. Not that it'd binary thing - it's a scale, so perhaps you guys can reach a compromise?

One thing I do know is that intra-party conflict usually isn't fun.

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Yeah, everyone enjoyed it at first. I often apologized to everyone after the game about causing problems but they all blew it off.

Then this last time it just exploded.

I’m not sure what we’re going to end up doing going forward. I am making a new character, A fiendlock who wants to escape Barovia and is really only going to be concerned about himself… that way he won’t interfere with how they act towards the NPCs but I just figure it’s going to cause it’s own set of problems.

Love the game and the guys I play with, just hard to make it work for some reason.

DEFCON 1 said:

Just because a player's character is Lawful Good, doesn't mean they still can't throw off the game by saying "I'm just doing what my character would do!"

If your PC was Chaotic Neutral and you continually tried to stop or reject what the rest of the group wanted to do, refusing to participate in the group dynamic as it stood, and generally was disruptive to their ideas and plans, everyone here would say you were in the wrong. The group has decided this is how they want to play this campaign and you are refusing to honor the social contract by trying to do your own thing at the expense of everyone else.

Instead, what we have here is a party of murderhobos just sandblasting their way through every encounter and scene... and you are deliberately playing a character to run counter to everything they are doing and how they want to play. Why? You know this is what the group wants to do and how they wish to play... there is nothing wrong with what the group wants to do and how they wish to play... and you are continually trying to stop them. For what reason? And I'm talking out-of-game here. In-game we know why... your PC is Lawful Good. But out-of-game, why are you, the player, playing this character in particular? Why are you deliberately playing a PC that is disruptive to the game? What is your reasoning? Why haven't you put this character on the shelf and made a new one that fits in to the group dynamic?

I mean... at the end of the day, it comes down to what each of you at the table want to do to have fun. And if you aren't having fun playing this character because the other PCs do not respect him, listen to him, and get genuinely upset when he tries to stop them... why are you still playing him?

There's nothing wrong with making new characters if your old one doesn't fit in with the game. And there's also nothing wrong with leaving a game if the style of play at the table doesn't work for you. If you don't want to play at being murderhobos, then just step away from the game and play in the next one. Better that than continually banging your head against the wall playing against party type and getting shat on because of it.

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I joined a session after everyone else, and when I talked to the DM (who is a buddy of mine from before this group) about my character, there was no indication there would be a problem.

In fact, for the first few months, there was no problem. Me and the paladin who hated the gods butted heads a little, but it was more the “why do you continue to believe in them” sort of discussions.

Then, as the game went on the cracks grew bigger and bigger. I’ve talked more than once about abandoning the character and doing something else, but no one wanted me to. Everyone kept saying they enjoyed the game, the DM was struggling to make it work, I of course didn’t want to lose my character.

So, every time I thought “This is it, my character couldn’t stand for this sort of action” they convinced me to find a way to try and make it work. Part of my growing frustration with the group was that I was always the one trying to find the compromise, trying to find the way to make the party stick together, because my character was the source of a lot of the friction.

And I could kind of make it work, because the Rogue and the Person who left’s character were dear friends of my character, and generally acted rationally. He could stay and deal with the Paladin and Dwarf, because of them

Then that guy left and his character was wrecked by the DM in an attempt to prevent them from just disappearing with us having no knowledge of what happened. And she was the lynchpin of the group, everyone doted on that character and loved her like a daughter or a sister. Her loss was huge, and we gave the DM crap about his choice for a week, and then the events from above happened.


So, to answer your question of why I played this character?

It wasn’t a problem when I joined, and even as it slowly became a problem they insisted I stay and figure out a way to make it work. We didn’t start murderhoboing until later in the game, and by that point I had established my character and had already had a few “your character is actually evil” jokes thrown my way. It felt like a betrayal to suddenly go from the guy who offered mercy to his enemies into the guy who wouldn’t blink twice at slavery and murder.

I know it went against the party, and if I had known this is where the party would end up I would have played a different character, but once my character had a few months of game time under his belt, turning around and throwing his morality out the window just because the party decided to do something goes against my instincts.

Maybe I am too strict in my gameplay, but no one wanted me to have to retire my character, least of all me.

Over the Hill Gamer said:

When the personal intrudes into the fictional it is time to go. Inter-party conflict can work, I suppose, when everyone is in the spirit of things, but that takes an exceptional group. As a DM I almost never like to see inter- party conflict happen and with emotionally mature gamers it rarely does. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. It sounds like after a year of gaming some people have personal axes to grind. More to the point, it doesn't sound like you're having much fun. There are a lot of cool, emotionally mature people playing 5e out there, find them.

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That was one of the things I found so odd about the whole situation.

One of them, the Paladin’s player, asked if I had simply played with the same group for years and years. He was shocked that I’ve actually played with multiple groups, probably close to 20 different individuals over the last few years.

We have a second game on hiatus right now, different DM , and we’ve had a few similar rough points. We saved some farmers from some giants, and they wanted to blackmail them in paying us over 500 gold, way more than these poor farmers had, equal to all of their property almost. I negotiated the price down and some of them got upset with me for butting in and taking the farmer’s side. And instead of chasing whatever rumor reaches our ear, my character wants to head back to our home base and deal with the responsibilities we’ve accrued there.

I know it is a difference in playstyle between me and them, but is this sort of “Screw the world we only care about the Party” type of mentality more the norm? Is the idea of just chasing whatever random suggestion the DM off-handedly mentions instead of following logic of our situation normal to most groups?

I know people do this sort of thing in one off games, but this is two separate long running campaigns where I’m being indicated that caring about NPCs is weird and makes no sense.

If 4 out of 5 players agree that what they are doing is OK, and the 5th says "Hey my character wouldn't do that" my default answer is "Than make a character that will and switch" but is sounds like you already are.

I've seen this problem from both sides of the screen (DM and Player) and I've even been the player who had to reroll a new character. the truth is it sucks at every level.

I hated the time my buddy drew up a cleric of Pelor and I was a Necromancer, and our other buddy was an Assasine, and the other 2 PCs were rather 'neutral' indeviduals.... I mean I wanted to use undead, and the DM had powerful necromancer items in the game I wanted to use...so Manny had to have his cleric leave and bring in his Psion.

I hated even more the time I was running the game where a PC was playing what I thought was the picture perfect Paladin (something I have only seen 3 times in the last 20+ years) but when the Swordmage of the party went evil, and the Assassin was already the 'belkair' of the group My buddy Jon had to retire the character, he could not keep traviling with these people.

The worst though was not even in D&D. It was a Deadlands game. It was bad...I mean trigger warning messed up stuff that doesn't belong in a game bad... That set of actions ended the game because we couldn't move past the fact that some in the group thought the actions fine and others were horrified by them...and one female character was the target of it...

GMforPowergamers said:

If 4 out of 5 players agree that what they are doing is OK, and the 5th says "Hey my character wouldn't do that" my default answer is "Than make a character that will and switch" but is sounds like you already are.

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To potentially turn this into more than just me venting and ranting, how quickly should that be the answer?


This is something I'm struggling with as I think towards the future and games that may involve other online groups. If I end up in a similar situation and after 4 months 4 of the 5 players say "Hey lets burn down an orphanage" or something equally dumb and stupid, should I immediately say "Okay, Garret leaves the party, I'll see you guys next week with my new character Drago Bloodfist the 4th." Or do I try and struggle to keep the character even when it causes friction in the group? Do you ever press for alternative answers to the situation?


I mean, like you said the answer almost always is "Bring a character who does what the party wants" but that is a lot harder once you've got an established party and story as compared to session zero.

Chaosmancer said:

To potentially turn this into more than just me venting and ranting, how quickly should that be the answer?


This is something I'm struggling with as I think towards the future and games that may involve other online groups. If I end up in a similar situation and after 4 months 4 of the 5 players say "Hey lets burn down an orphanage" or something equally dumb and stupid, should I immediately say "Okay, Garret leaves the party, I'll see you guys next week with my new character Drago Bloodfist the 4th." Or do I try and struggle to keep the character even when it causes friction in the group? Do you ever press for alternative answers to the situation?

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I mean, do you want to burn down orphanages? Imagining myself in a similar position, I don't think switching characters would be a satisfactory answer for me. I want my D&D character to be a hero of some sort. Sure, maintaining the party matters, but if the party is playing a game that you (the player not the character) don't enjoy, then what is the point of playing a game that's no fun just to keep the game going? Find another game with people who want to be the good guys. If it's an issue that these are IRL friends who you don't want to ditch, I can understand that. But in that case you should be able to talk through it out of character.

I guess the problem lies within the meta and your inter-personal relationships. And this is manifesting IC in your group.

So if I understood you correctly, you had this one player who played the character who tied your group together. And everything went downhill after he left. I don't think this is too uncommon, I've seen and read of a lot of groups who struggle when their "leader" or central figure goes missing as this completely changes group dynamics.

On top of that it seems like all of your players were not really satisfied with how your GM solved the problem of the other player's (and his character's) departure. From your description I read that the campaign basically lost meaning for some of your players after the GM's decision to "forcefully" rip out the girl's soul and therefore "forcing" you to play Curse of Strahd. Some of your group's actions can be seen as acts of frustration which they turn on the DM (through his and the adventure's NPC).

Now, from my PoV you seem like the only player who doesn't let his OOC troubles influence his character's actions. At least not if it is your party's conducts which changed and not yours. But this makes you the "GM's collaborator" in their eyes.

I may be over-analyzing your situation here, but a lot of IC problems are more meta than one might actually think

texastoast said:

I mean, do you want to burn down orphanages? Imagining myself in a similar position, I don't think switching characters would be a satisfactory answer for me. I want my D&D character to be a hero of some sort. Sure, maintaining the party matters, but if the party is playing a game that you (the player not the character) don't enjoy, then what is the point of playing a game that's no fun just to keep the game going? Find another game with people who want to be the good guys. If it's an issue that these are IRL friends who you don't want to ditch, I can understand that. But in that case you should be able to talk through it out of character.

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I would definitely not. I've played evil characters who killed without remorse, but they always had a bigger agenda than just "hey let's destroy things that pose no real threat whatsoever!"

But that's just me.