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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elephant" data-source="post: 2887335" data-attributes="member: 17431">I'm currently running a game for my D&D group, and I'm running into attitude issues with one of the players.There are seven people in the group, and three of us are comfortable running games on a fairly long-term basis.  Another (the problem player) has run a couple of one-shots.  I have very little experience with running games (perhaps 6 months worth between the two groups I game with), and I'm trying to avoid problems I've seen pop up in past campaigns.The initial DM for our group said "Anything WOTC is fine, anything else, check with me." ... and never veto'd material from other sources when I asked.  He ran into issues where he statted up "CR-appropriate" encounters that had no chance of challenging the party.The second DM was also quite generous in material he allowed, and he later told me that he ended up using higher-CR creatures vs. the party in order to keep up the challenge.I want to avoid this sort of nonsense, so my initial restriction is "PHB only, anything else, check with me, first."I also requested that players get their character sheets (or at least a statblock) to me via email.  I wanted a chance to review characters before the game in order to get an idea of what the party would be like.Most of my players have been really good about both of these things, but one has a serious attitude problem.  Everyone was supposed to bring in two PCs at the beginning; he only sent me one set of stats before the game (and this *after* the deadline I'd tried to set).  This degraded the game because his character was undefined (and I had all characters present for the initial scene).Later, after one of his initial characters died (first-level PCs fighting a fiendish owlbear is NOT pretty - they stumbled into the wrong part of the dungeon), he told me that he tore up both character sheets and couldn't play his backup.  While reviewing the new PC he wanted to play, I noticed that he still had that set of stats - he had used that printout as a template and written notes for his new character on it.  Some of the numbers were partially obscured, but it looked usable to me.During the most recent session, I told him that his new character was not usable in that session and offered him an NPC to run so he could still take part in the game.  He got very upset and said he didn't want to run the NPC, he wanted to run his (unreviewed and unapproved) character, and he went upstairs, out of the gaming room.  Since we were gaming at his house, I didn't feel comfortable going on without him, so I followed him and talked to him.He basically said that he couldn't have any fun running a core-only PC, that people enjoy having a lot of books and using material from them, and gave several examples of people using non-core material.  He also said something like "If I can bring in a deck of many things into the game I ran to make things fun for the PCs, you can handle extra material in your game."I ended up caving in and allowing his character for that session (I took 10 minutes to review it before starting the game, and the stats didn't bother me), and it ended up being a lot of fun.  His character played a key role in the game that day, and it was a lot of fun for the whole group.However, I feel like I should not have caved.  It's not about character stats, it's about this player not respecting me or my rules.  I don't want to be unable to keep up with new material, especially new material from books I don't own.The most awkward part is, the problem player hosts the games, so I don't feel like I can lay down the law as much as I'd like to.  If necessary, I can probably see about someone else hosting the game, but I'd prefer not to do so.Does anyone have any advice on how I can resolve this conflict?UPDATE:  It looks like the matter has come to a head.  I posted more at<a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2890379#post2890374" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2890379#post2890374</a>UPDATE 2:  The problem player has very definitely stated that I'm no longer welcome in his house.  He's also been directing his replies to my emails to the full group, painting me in a bad light.</blockquote>

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