Is this a case of GM bias, if so, what to do?

[TheEvil]

Time to put a cap on this thread...

Thanks to everyone for their input.

SO send e-mail offering to drop powers and ability modifiers to balance out the character in a way that could make them both happy. He response e-mails made it very clear that the only room to negotiate would for her to take the Vampire Spawn straight out of the Monster Manual, which only would have given her more abilities, but the same Strength and Dexterity. He also claimed that her character dying was enough to 'take some of the spring out of her step' (though not mine, oddly enough). So decided to just take the changes offered initially, to avoid making waves. Some time to sleep on it and a rereading of the e-mails later, SO decided that she was going to leave the game, and sent a 'it doesn't seem to be working out' e-mail. It goes without saying.


In my opinion, the core problem was never really addressed, but it wasn't my place to do it and I don't think it would have changed the end result, so that is that.

I have answered a couple of the easier points below that have allowed me to vent or make clever jokes, but appreciate everyone who took the time to write something.

Game on!

Hell...bail out and you guys can come join my Sunday night game....

Well, if we left Raleigh, NC early Saturday...
We wouldn't be able to stay long though.

Let me put another spin on what is going on here:
*snip*
Maybe it's that your wife has shown up the GM and made him feel less than knowledgeable by showing how to create an impressive kind of fighter who has not been previously considered. Often, even when there is equal knowledge of the rules, the male half of the couple is very involved in the making of the partner's character. It may be that both by making a cooler characters and demonstrating a superior knowledge of the rules, your wife is threatening the GM as much or more than his wife.

A common GM reaction to a player getting "uppity" is the sort of thing that has just happened -- something that shows who is in authority in an unequivocal way. I have seen people respond this way as a way of giving a social cue to a player than their superior knowledge of rules loopholes will only get them so far. Sometimes such responses have even been directed at me.
*snip*

An interesting possibility I had not considered, but if anyone was going to be spanked for rules arguing, it would be me.
I'm not even talking loopholes here: in addition to the drawing while moving issue in the first game, he refused to accept that spring attack denied the target attacks of opportunity based on movement. There followed a brief, heated debate on the topic, during which I told him that if he ruled I was taking a AoO then he was making house rules on the spot (I didn't say 'again'), to which he replied that he was. I took the AoO (which missed) and we finished for the night. A couple days later, he sent out a group e-mail stating that he had ruled incorrectly on spring attack and that I had been wrong to say that highest dex mod won ties in initiative (I was apparently channeling 3.5 earlier that night). Not me at my most diplomatic, yet still no spanking for me.