Mark,
I appreciate the responses. You did make a few incorrect assumptions, but I think that's my fault. I do actually have some personal feelings on the matter (which you insightfully pointed out), but I tried to leave them out of my description of the problem in an attempt to get unbiased responses. Since I failed to omit them entirely, we'll just spill them and see what they add to the discussion.
The player in question left the gaming group last time on good terms (school was just getting the better of him and he'd just lost his job) with us, but afterwards did a few things having nothing to do with the game that gravely offended myself, the player of the cleric (my fiance), and the player of the wizard. These actions really irked the dwarf's player, but as I said he's the group's peacemaker so "really irked" is pretty severe for him. We haven't spoken to him much since, and then they just showed up at the game the first night of the campaign. No calling to say they were coming or anything. They got their first, and we play at the dwarf player's house, so of course, he wasn't going to turn them away, and I didn't feel it would be kosher refusing to play with them at that point. Angry as I had been several months ago, I'm a forgive person (though not much of a forgetter) and decided to play it out and see if he behaved himself. On the whole, he has behaved, but a few key behaviors stick out at me.
1. The character he chose to make is very unusual for him (which actually delighted me at first) since he usually makes a munchkin cleric. As a side note, he typically refuses to heal the party in the role of cleric, saving all his spells for himself until he knows its safe (like just before they rest for the night). Back on topic, while he's made a couple of good skill uses that have helped out and been a helpful brainstormer (the player is rather bright), his character is really rather hopeless. Since they weren't there for the initial campaign discussion, I told them what we'd decided to do and that they should make capable characters they could have fun with since we would be playing w/o kid gloves. Since I know he can be a munchkin, and I know I told him to make a capable character, I'm rather baffled by his characters total lack of utility.
2. He's twice now waited until I'd got started with the session and then piped up, interrupting, to ask if he could DM instead. The first time, I looked around the table at everyone and said, "Ask them." They turned him down (we've played in his games before, and they're not much fun). The second time, I said, "Do you have anything planned?" "No, I'll just make something up." He says this to me as I'm looking at the 6 pages of maps & notes I've got ready for the evening. This may sound petty, but I've known this guy for over a decade and he's never acted like this.
3. Since I decided to have the PCs handle this themselves, I kept the initial post about things that happened in game. However, when the PCs reached the first trap and he said he couldn't disarm it, they asked why, he fessed up, and they said, why didn't you tell us before we got down here? He says ooc, "Well, I didn't want to have to split treasure and exp with **** (the absent player)." I agree they should have turned around at this point, and I pointed out that making their way through a trap laden dungeon w/o a traps expert would prove difficult, but whatever... This statement however, puts a burr up my butt something serious. It's absolute meta-game thinking.
4. While once very prompt players, his gf and he (they ride together) have started arriving very late (sometimes by over 2 hours). I'm stuck either holding up the game for them stopping right in the middle and catching them up. They're never apologetic about their tardiness.
To the people who suggested I shouldn't have docked any exp from him. I didn't dock it out of his encounter exp. I give bonus exp based on roleplaying your character and "story" exp, how helpful you were in progressing the plot. It's an ad hoc catagory and varies from player to player. I add/subtract points from spellcaster dependent on how they prepared and used their spells, from fighters based on tactics and such, and from the rogues on whether they lived up to their job (would have awarded him full points on this if he'd said "Let's take Milo cuz I'm not much for traps." Just as I've awarded him bonuses in the past for judicious use of gather information and diplomacy.) The whole bonus doesn't come out to much, so he lost maybe 200 points, and he got full exp for contributing to encounters (including the traps)
As for how they know he's a rogue, he admitted to them that the local theives guild tried to recruit him before, so they know that much. Their knowledge that I use traps is both IC and OOC.
Z
