D&D 5E Dealing with a trouble player and a major blow up

[Celtavian]

My point of view pretty much IS my characters point of view with some slight differences. However, it was clear from context that I was discussing ethics in D&D, not in real life. I wouldn't argue real life ethics almost ever. No one can agree on ethics so it's pointless to debate it.

I wish I could give you the entire 30 minute long conversation for context, but the truth is, I don't remember 100% of everything said in the conversation. I just know the question that started it was "I found my character had no reason to go on this adventure and no one in their right mind would want to overthrow a government." And I said "well, the woman in charge is pretty evil and as a good character I felt it was good to get rid of her." And he said "you'd murder the leader of a city just because they were evil?" And I said "Yes, I'd murder anyone who was evil if I could get away with it and I thought it would make the world a better place." And from that point onward I referred to myself in the first person for the whole conversation.

But even if I screwed up the context and called him "not good", that's small. I've had 3 hour long conversations on real life morality that I got sucked in that weren't about D&D at all. In those conversations I was called downright Evil by one of my coworkers. Repeatedly. I'm still friends with that guy and I didn't storm out of the room or slam any doors. Because sometimes arguments get a little personal but you try not to take it the wrong way or lose your temper.

I see you're Canadian. I found this surprising as an American. Most Americans prefer killing an evil person if they know they're 100% doing evil. If you were discussing this at work in America, you might get in trouble for discussing politics and ethics, but most Americans would be in your camp. You get a chance to ice an evil bastard, you do it. I'm in agreement with you on that one. Surprised most of your table wasn't. If you were at my table, everyone there would be in complete agreement with you.

In previous alignment discussions, I've had a bunch of my friends admit to being "Neutral" in real life considering how hard it is to live up to the D&D concept of "Good" in real life. I never considered "Not Good" to be an insult. The vast majority of people in real life are "not good".

What it comes down to is that it was clear to me that I was speaking in character. It was clear to my girlfriend who was there and even before I said anything about this afterwards said "I think the problem is that he thought you were talking about him rather than his character. It was clear to me but I think he didn't understand."

And whether or not I mildly insulted him certainly was no excuse to fly off the handle. He could have said "Wow, that was insulting." and I would have apologized for insulting him and moved on. Instead he ended the conversation in a way that left no room for anyone to disagree with him, ruined everyone's day and made all games we play in the future super awkward. I pretty much don't care what I said to him, nothing warrants that response apart from some seriously horrible behavior.

Edit: besides, he insulted me pretty badly at the beginning with "No one in their right mind would want to go on this adventure". I liked the adventure. It was a lot of fun an I Really did want to go on the adventure. Thus implying I'm not in my right mind.

You two aren't agreeable on about anything. Don't even like the same adventures.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Bbbbbut... That would mean he wouldn't have ANYONE to go to Gen Con with! These are the ONLY friends of his who even said maybe.

Wow...I'm not sure I've seen anyone be that condescending to...well, anyone. Bravo.

 

[Celtavian]

Problem is, his character is Neutral(or maybe even good, I can't remember) and mine is good. He was angry at me because he felt that the author of the adventure was an idiot because he set up a scenario that NO one would agree with. Who would agree with depose the rightful ruler of a country? Especially if you were good. That causes WAY more problems than it solves.

What? Tyrants must be overthrown. They turn people into slaves, cowards, and scum.

I tried to explain that the current High Blade is NOT the rightful ruler of the country. She backstabbed the rightful ruler and imprisoned him. Then she took over. The old High Blade even wanted to take over the city "legally". The laws let you challenge the current High Blade to honorable combat to replace them. He wanted to fight honorably and regain his throne. He just needed our help to get him to the fight without assassins killing him off.

Rightful ruler or not, evil tyrants have to go down. Even a Lawful Good person should seek to bring them down.

Unfortunately, he was playing a "Neutral" noble of the city who had sworn allegiance to the current High Blade. He was perfectly happy with the current situation in the city(the peasants hopelessly oppressed in order to make the nobles rich and fat...which seems pretty evil to me, but...whatever). He said he felt railroaded by the adventure to go on a mission that was stupid. The adventure does tell the DM what to do if the PCs decide to betray the old High Blade and turn him in instead of helping him. He didn't actually try to stop the rest of his group. He just complained that he was OBVIOUSLY being railroaded but since he had no choice at all, he might as well do what the adventure expected of him.

You need to kill him. He's supporting an evil ruler.

Unfortunately, we are playing Adventure's League games. So, we have to follow the character creation rules created by WOTC. Those rules allow all alignments other than NE and CE. So LE is allowed. I can't change that. Though, as I say above, his character wasn't officially Evil. He just was profiteering on the suffering of others and felt that since he wasn't doing it himself, it wasn't evil at all.

Finish him when you get the chance. He serves an evil lord. Use him as a spy. Try to get some of the other players to help you kill his noble that supports an evil ruler.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I see you're Canadian. I found this surprising as an American. Most Americans prefer killing an evil person if they know they're 100% doing evil. If you were discussing this at work in America, you might get in trouble for discussing politics and ethics, but most Americans would be in your camp. You get a chance to ice an evil bastard, you do it. I'm in agreement with you on that one. Surprised most of your table wasn't. If you were at my table, everyone there would be in complete agreement with you.

Honestly. I don't think I feel the same way in real life at all. I prefer a much more measured approach in real life, since real life people aren't 100% Evil. I was purely arguing from the point of view of black and white D&D/movie/tv morality. In those situations, it's often very clear who the bad guy is and removing them is always the right thing to do. Part of why I like fantasy is that the morality tends to be much more black and white than real life.

Real life tends to be filled with difficult decisions...like whether to write off friends that you've seen twice a week for nearly 10 years over something as mundane as a discussion on D&D morality. There's no clear right or wrong despite what some people in this thread would have you believe. Which is why I have trouble with these kinds of decisions.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Rightful ruler or not, evil tyrants have to go down. Even a Lawful Good person should seek to bring them down.

In D&D, I 100% agree. No one would really want to keep the current ruler around in that adventure unless they were evil themselves. Which is they point I was trying to make. And...he didn't appreciate that suggestion because his real life morality told him that deposing a leader causes chaos, even more evil regimes taking control, and people hating you and starting wars over your efforts to "liberate" them. He didn't actually say any of those things during our conversation, but that's the impression I get he was arguing from.

You need to kill him. He's supporting an evil ruler. Finish him when you get the chance. He serves an evil lord. Use him as a spy. Try to get some of the other players to help you kill his noble that supports an evil ruler.

Meh, even I wouldn't quite go that far. I MIGHT imprison him but he's not directly supporting the evil regime. He just wanted to stay out of the battle and didn't seem to understand the pain he was causing the common folk by supporting the city. Being an idiot isn't something even my righteous character kills over. But I did disagree with him and was disappointed with him.

Besides, the campaign was Organized Play. There's a rule about attacking or killing other PCs...you can never do it. Which means no matter how much I may disagree with his character, I can do nothing about it. I didn't even play the adventure with him. My entire party agreed that we needed to overthrow the High Blade.

I was unaware of his problem with the adventure until Sunday, nearly 2 weeks after we had played it since he hadn't brought it up. But once it was brought up, he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he disagreed with the entire premise of the adventure. Possibly because he disagrees with some real life historical actions similar to that in a very passionate way.

 

[Celtavian]

Honestly. I don't think I feel the same way in real life at all. I prefer a much more measured approach in real life, since real life people aren't 100% Evil. I was purely arguing from the point of view of black and white D&D/movie/tv morality. In those situations, it's often very clear who the bad guy is and removing them is always the right thing to do. Part of why I like fantasy is that the morality tends to be much more black and white than real life.

Real life tends to be filled with difficult decisions...like whether to write off friends that you've seen twice a week for nearly 10 years over something as mundane as a discussion on D&D morality. There's no clear right or wrong despite what some people in this thread would have you believe. Which is why I have trouble with these kinds of decisions.

I've had fun discussions with Canadians on many topics such as this. Europeans and Canadians definitely tend to have a very different worldview than Americans. Then again it's mostly out of the hands of common citizens, so it's often a pointless discussion. If you got the juice, you can generally do what you want until someone with more juice comes along and stops you. That's one of the reasons I like fantasy games. In fantasy games PCs have the juice to stop evil pieces of garbage, whereas in real life we have to watch the evil happen and hope it gets taken care of properly, even though that is often not the case.

I've walked away from some gaming groups due to a player I didn't care for, especially now that I'm older. I don't have the patience to tolerate behavior I don't care for any longer.

All you have to ask yourself is are you having enough fun to tolerate an occasional outburst from this guy. If the answer is yes, you stay. If no, you go. If I was in your position, I'd probably antagonize the guy on occasion, but mostly ignore him focusing on players that I enjoy playing with. If I'm DMing, I'd give him something to do on occasion to make him happy and placate him, then keep on running the people I actually have fun with.

If these are your gaming friends, learn to tune the guy out as much as possible. Let the occasional outburst die down. Keep on gaming. Even with these outbursts, it seems like you're mostly having fun and still enjoy hanging out with most of your group. It's nearly impossible to find a gaming group where everyone gets along. Learning to tolerate and associate with people you don't care for is part of life, especially in social group activities. Just suck it up. Vent on here every once in a while. Keep on gaming with your buds.

 

[Celtavian]

In D&D, I 100% agree. No one would really want to keep the current ruler around in that adventure unless they were evil themselves. Which is they point I was trying to make. And...he didn't appreciate that suggestion because his real life morality told him that deposing a leader causes chaos, even more evil regimes taking control, and people hating you and starting wars over your efforts to "liberate" them. He didn't actually say any of those things during our conversation, but that's the impression I get he was arguing from.

I'm a big believer in the old adage, "I'd rather die on my feet, then live on my knees" and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Like you, I often carry my real life morality into D&D because it's very hard to separate the two. Screw evil tyrants. Take that bastard in Mulmaster down.

 

[Rabbitbait]

...like whether to write off friends that you've seen twice a week for nearly 10 years over something as mundane as a discussion on D&D morality.

Except that this is not about one discussion. This is about an ongoing antagonism between the two of you that constantly simmers under the surface and occassionally comes out in completely unreasonable arguments.

It is obvious that you don't like him and that he doesn't like you, but neither of you have whatever it is that most people have that makes them walk away from disfunctional relationships.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION]: I'm just gonna leave this here ... Kick Them Out!

 

[Matthan]

Here's what I would do in your situation for whatever it's worth. I would stop playing RPGs with this gentleman. I would have a gracious conversation where I took the blame for any issues (assuming you want to continue the friendship), and say that you care to much about their friendship to keep playing D&D with them when you know that it will cause conflict due to your different playstyles. Offer to hang out with them and play board games, watch movies, etc... But not D&D. Tell them at AL events, you don't think it is wise to play at the same table and that you will also be stepping back from any session zero events to keep things peaceful. Offer a specific time for a first board game night to show your sincere. Don't try to accuse others or seek an apology. If they offer one fine, but don't change the plan. D&D is not a healthy activity for your friendship with this group.

Next, I would try and recruit a new group from AL or online. If you willing to play online, I know you can find a group. There are probably people in this thread that would invite you to play (I run a WotBS game in 5E online and I can check with my group if they're open to a new player). Reddit has an active LFG. Enworld even has one.

As for Gencon, I would reach out to friends on Enworld to find people to go/room with and game with.