I feel your post is not necessarily addressing the real issues with the player and instead you're looking at isolated roleplaying incidents and excusing them because it suits your playstyle or your table's playstyle.Count me as one such.That said, it's easy to go overboard on the sub-optimal ability scores.
That's excellent! Love it! And of course any zombies caught in the web take x-amount of fire damage.
Web + torch = poor man's fireball, after all.
Now we're getting into problematic territory.
Again, bravo!
I did the same thing to my crew - threw a Hill Giant at their 1st level party (1e-variant game) to see what they'd do with it in a situation where they had every opportunity to safely ignore it - which is what I thought they'd do. So of course they face-charged the thing, and much to my utter amazement managed to kill it at cost of only three characters out of seven.
I can see the player being annoyed that the party left his Dwarf hung out to dry like that...but at the same time the player had to see that possibility coming, particularly if the party didn't otherwise have the chops to take on a Giant (you don't mention the edition, thus I've no idea how tough a Giant is relative to what seems like a low-level crew). As for the "killer DM" chirp, that's uncalled for; though he then turns around and makes a valid point about the typical Dwarf reaction to seeing a Giant.
Invaild complaints, in that the DM did the right thing and the system rewarded his good play as one would expect: he played his character straight into the grave. And I say "good play" in all sincerity there; I just love what he did with that Dwarf - and just imagine if he'd somehow managed to defeat that thing!
Personally, other than the complaining piece I find players like this are often the heart and soul of what makes this game fun: their characters are almost invariably entertaining, you never know what they'll do next, and they lead the party into all sorts of wonderful mayhem just by doing what they would do.
I had a player of a CN character "randomly" decide to kill the party in their sleep. She was an unpleasant, controlling person and I wasn't having any of it so she thought she'd ruing everyone's fun because she was THAT person.I don't think two wrongs make a right, but that did make me laugh.
I think both are valid ways to play.Sorry, @Blue , but this sort of metagame stuff is exactly why I try to have players roll up characters (at campaign start, anyway) without telling each other what they're playing; so each can play what they in fact want to play. If two or more players end up playing the same thing it's not a question of stepping on each other's toes*, it just means the party is really good at whatever it is those characters do and probably has a hole somewhere else in its lineup (for the filling of which they can always recruit an NPC if they so desire).
* - where does this dumb notion come from anyway? Just 'cause I'm playing a Thief doesn't and shouldn't exclude anyone else from playing one at the same time; never mind that when (not if!) my character dies I might want to come back with something different, and then we won't have a Thief in the crew.
I feel like the core distinction here in play preferences is that the metagame aspect of looking for synergies, making sure the party has bases covered, and no one concept is overshadowing another can also be considered fun, in and of itself. I like thinking up concepts that play well with what someone else might be playing.Sorry, @Blue , but this sort of metagame stuff is exactly why I try to have players roll up characters (at campaign start, anyway) without telling each other what they're playing; so each can play what they in fact want to play. If two or more players end up playing the same thing it's not a question of stepping on each other's toes*, it just means the party is really good at whatever it is those characters do and probably has a hole somewhere else in its lineup (for the filling of which they can always recruit an NPC if they so desire).
I've been in this situation before, and it's a hard place to be. But here is the harsh reality:I've known this guy for awhile and I consider him a friend, but what can I say to him to get him to realize that "good roleplaying" doesn't necessarily mean "sabotage your character, then try to blame everything else for your bad decisions"?