Not sure how to approach player issue

[AeroDm]

In addition to talking to the disgruntled player in private, you should ask the other players in private as well. People are often reticent to reveal their true feelings when you ask by a show of hands "Who isn't liking the campaign?" Maybe they want to protect your feelings, maybe they don't want to disappoint others at the table, or maybe they are on the fence and just go with the majority because they don't want to abstain. Asking in private lets them formulate their thoughts and give a measured response that they are comfortable with.

 

[Umbran]

Opinions?

I would normally sit down and have a chat with him (without other players present - no peer pressure!) and ask him to be more specific. It is possible that one or more problems you could deal with and make the game fun for him are being covered over by "I hate 4e".

Maybe he hates some small aspect of 4e. Maybe he doesn't have the same mastery of 4e that he had of previous editions, so he feels like he can't play as successfully as before. Maybe he hates something else about the campaign, and he's interpreting that as a problem with a system instead of a problem with how your particular game runs - for example, maybe he hates long, grinding combats, which you coudl fix by designing your encounters differently.

The trick here is to not be confrontational about it. You're there to try to make things better for him, you are looking for smaller changes you can make that would help him have a god time at the table.

 

[S'mon]

Tell him he shouldn't play a game he doesn't like playing.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

My group is almost all old friends and if they dont like something tough.
If the majority like it, then keep with it. In the long run your better off without someone whose not enjoying the game.

 

[Janx]

Tell him he shouldn't play a game he doesn't like playing.

The same also applies to the OP. He shouldn't RUN a game he doesn't enjoy.

Though I find it odd that he can't stand 3e. My theory being, unless he is new to D&D, he had to have played a prior edition. Therefore, he would have probably liked that edition (most people like the edition they started on). Unless he skipped 3e, he would have tried it and most people liked it relatively speaking (at least didn't hate it, except for Diaglo). None of this matters, it's just unexpected.

In any event, the GM calls the shots on what to run, so long as he has players. So the game should stay 4e and he should keep running the campaign.

What the OP needs to watch out for is this:
couples in a group tend to vote together, so expect 2 votes for whatever his position is. This is because outside of the group, they will discuss and tend to come to the same conclusion (with the person who doesn't care as much deferring to the one who does, in this case, the guy).

The guy is going to make excuses to get his way. So he's going to complain about the campaign as well as the ruleset. Unless you're a really bad DM, you're not going to get anything from him that isn't just nit-picking to support his argument that he's not getting his way.

The safe way to get through this is diplomatically stick to your guns on what you're running, and suggest he sit this campaign out, and that he consider running the next one as 3e.