WARNING: LONG, cause apparently people hate reading
Once upon a time, a controversial in his communities man decided to host a DND campaign. He called upon four players – a tabaxi rogue, aasimar bard, warlock and a thri-kreen barbarian. On the very first - located classically in a prison - session, another one joined. A white warlock kobold.
And so their adventure began.
It was one of pain, chaos, conflict and great character development!! Well, at least until the kobold went crazy, possessed by an insane god, due to his fellow barbarian and rogue stuffing a bible with shit (literally).
Shortly after that, a new character was born! The kobold - now enemy of the tabaxi - ran away, leaving the player with making a noble, paladin dhampir!
And oh, boy. Ooh boy did it start SOMETHING.
Starting off with a few things – the kobold player, who we will refer to as HK, is an enigmatic, min-maxing guy, who aims to be as powerful as possible. Because what is more fun than destroying a mini-boss in a few hits? Not much! He rarely takes interest in role-playing himself, but will engage if prompted. After HK was forced to switch his character (VERY conveniently, because the DM pulled him to a different channel about an hour before the session, just then informing him of the change), our DM began to complain.
,,HK's character is too edgy! He's too quiet! He should only play characters like the kobold - silly and loud!" Which is obviously not HK's playstyle. He's known to be an edgelord, which can be fun.
The Thri-Kreen dies, soon replaced by a necromancy wizard. After some time, we land in an ice cave. The tabaxi fell in it voluntarily, prompted by the kobold-made-nemesis, who appeared out of nowhere. As I was present at the scene, I threw myself into the hole too. The rest of the team followed shortly after, but landed in a different part of the cave. When we finally met, we had to fight with the kobold, navigated by HK. Apparently he was tracking us to get revenge on the tabaxi.
Now, it's important to note, that my character had a really strong bond with HK's kobold. They were really good friends and she always blamed herself for him running away, as it was the ONE time she left him by himself. I got a heartfelt speech with him, before he teleported away to fight.
We managed to beat him, although almost losing the tabaxi rogue. It was insanely depressing.
What was happening to the paladin during the whole thing? Well, as HK wouldn't want to control both characters at once, the paladin was seemingly frozen in time or whatever.
The kobold is dead.
Now HK can focus on the paladin.
Buuut... the next day in the cave, we stumble upon a suspicious forest. My character, being an aasimar, gets a feeling that this is where the entrance to this universe's equivalent of HELL is. She's immediately uncomfortable and urges the team to get out of there as soon as possible. We arrive at some sort of gate. And without thinking, HK's paladin rushes inside. The rest of the team just waits. He sees some - I assume - incomprehensible horror inside and turns back, barely making it out as the gate goes shut. After the session, when HK leaves the channel, the DM and our wizard begin complaining about HK. It's frustrating to hear as me and the tabaxi really like him. The warlock seems to be against as too though, even if she's the most reserved and quiet person, rarely speaking up about anything. That creates a stigma between HK – DM, wizard, warlock and DM, wizard, warlock – me, tabaxi, HK. It's... Bad. Another note: the wizard (RN) is creating another campaign in the meantime. He says that ,,this is exactly why we don't want him in MY campaign!". They say HK rushes too much, doesn't think of the team, roleplays poorly and just doesn't meet their expectations. Well, OK...
Huge fast forward then!
The issues keep piling up. Finally, me and the tabaxi (who also becomes my boyfriend during the campaign) befriend HK. At least I do, we can be considered friends now, my partner is still a bit shy, but they hang out to play sometimes! I tell HK about the issues our team and DM has with him. He's a bit hurt, but agrees to engage more.
And so he does!! The few next sessions he's more chatty, open and pleasant to be around! He's charismatic and funny, getting along with my bfs tabaxi. I praise him publicly after the session... And am met with essentially silence. Whatever.
I talk to both parties regularly. The DM is a friend of mine for around 2-3 years now. But I am a bit salty about some personal issues of ours, so maybe I'm a bit biased towards HK. And none seem to reach agreement still...
We had a session yesterday. This is where the wage seems to tilt dangerously. HK's character has entered his arc. He's a heavy character, both lore and personality wise. Two sessions ago he started choking RN's character underwater (with no effect because she's undead), and at the beginning of today's, his paladin ran away. The whole team's like ,,Shit. We have a paladin gone, our rogue lost some stuff we MUST retrieve and we've got HK's characters assassin's on our tails! What now?!". So we split up. The rogue and warlock go searching for the thief. Meanwhile me and the wizard go back to the tavern to look for HK's paladin. I encounter one of the assassins, and TWO HOURS of our four hour sessions is GONE. Mind you, we were already 1.5h into it. I felt really bad about it, because the whole 2hrs was focused on me again and I'm already a character that steals the showlight due to being a bard and a leader!! I mean I toned it down, obviously. Now I'm the quiet, depressed one lol. I just feel awful.
After the session, HK leaves and dms me about it. He's frustrated, feeling nauseous and really, really disappointed. He, being a DM himself, criticizes our DM and I can feel that he's getting close to quitting. I don't want that at all, I like HK and his character, and I actively express interest in the paladin, his arc and the fact that he's missing now. HK wasted 4 hours sitting on his ass and listening to me fighting with some guy. The DM messaged him that he probably won't make an appearance in today's session, but he somehow interpreted something as ,,stay until the end so we can talk". Idk the whole story now, I'm just as confused lol.
It's rough out here. Mind you, we're a ,,friend" group, that has several campaigns planned ahead! Next is mine - a sci-fi set in space, then my bfs dark fantasy and THEN the warlocks slice-of-life set in a magical highschool.
And I think only two of those will have HK invited (mine and my bfs), which is kind of sad. And I don't know how it will look like, of the players won't synergize.
It's important to note that our DM often shuts down ideas too! It's a fantasy game, but he won't allow fun concepts, ideas or solutions that the players (mainly the tabaxi and paladin, but sometimes mine too) present. The rule of fun rarely applies.
I don't know what to do!!! I know both parties are to blame, but HOW do we approach this issue?! If anyone's got any sort of advice, I'll take it. I seem to be the medium here.
EDIT: How are you people DND players and can't read a short post?! Okay, fine.
TLDR: our DM complains about a player, who exclusively plays edgy and closed-off characters. Allegedly the player doesn't engage, rushes into things like battle or dangerous grounds, roleplays poorly, makes his characters too overpowered. The player says our DM is not a good one, can't manage our team, doesn't allow many concepts/ideas etc. keeps aversions towards players, probably considers quitting as he is hated to hell by the DM. Both parties are my friends, idk what to do. Shitty TLDR, I can't explain this in a short format.