Inchoroi
Adventurer
...having read the entire thread...it's time to move on, my friend. You need better friends if they're going to ditch you--given that he literally ditched his girlfriend--then they can go ahead. You'll be happier eventually.
It sounds like there's a lively scene there for D&D where you live. Start a Meetup group,and then start looking on facebook for a better group. Offer to run one-shots for new people. I may not agree with your DMing style, personally, but if its causing so much grief, its really not worth it.
For my purposes, I very much subscribe to the Rule of Awesome school of DMing. That being said, though, the players in my group can try anything they can think up--however, I'll tell them the usual likelihood of it succeeding using colorful euphemisms and then let the dice decide the outcome. If the dice are with them, they'll pull it off. I got lucky in that my group are all long-time DMs and players since 2e (with the exception of my wife, who I taught to play RPGs before we got married). It also helps that they're all well-rounded, mostly sane individuals, I suppose.
It might be that, if you really want to keep the friendship, you should switch games; my group started with Exalted, which is a game where you can kick the world in the baggage and riffle through it's pockets when you want to (not joking; a fairly new character can have the ability to make 12 attacks in a single second). He might be expecting that his character is just that awesome, and should always succeed. D&D isn't anything like that.
Still, though...I admit to being something of a dick, and so I would have told him straight to his face what an ass he is, and then told him that I would never DM for him again. That would be the end of it.
It sounds like there's a lively scene there for D&D where you live. Start a Meetup group,and then start looking on facebook for a better group. Offer to run one-shots for new people. I may not agree with your DMing style, personally, but if its causing so much grief, its really not worth it.
For my purposes, I very much subscribe to the Rule of Awesome school of DMing. That being said, though, the players in my group can try anything they can think up--however, I'll tell them the usual likelihood of it succeeding using colorful euphemisms and then let the dice decide the outcome. If the dice are with them, they'll pull it off. I got lucky in that my group are all long-time DMs and players since 2e (with the exception of my wife, who I taught to play RPGs before we got married). It also helps that they're all well-rounded, mostly sane individuals, I suppose.
It might be that, if you really want to keep the friendship, you should switch games; my group started with Exalted, which is a game where you can kick the world in the baggage and riffle through it's pockets when you want to (not joking; a fairly new character can have the ability to make 12 attacks in a single second). He might be expecting that his character is just that awesome, and should always succeed. D&D isn't anything like that.
Still, though...I admit to being something of a dick, and so I would have told him straight to his face what an ass he is, and then told him that I would never DM for him again. That would be the end of it.