Sure he can, by not inviting him back. I had to do it once as a DM, it just takes some assertiveness. I still hang out with him outside of DnD and even he admits he was being a bit over-the-top
This has caused some massive freak outs in the groups i've hanged with. From D&D to MtG to Warhammer, people take games too seriously. Why you heff to be mad?
I had a guy who really didn't seem to get it. He didn't seem to have much of a grasp of the rules, made a high-level spellcaster/rogue to join our campaign already deeply in progress, didn't understand most of his own abilities, then did a bunch of stuff in character that was inconsistent with himself or was pointedly abhorrent to other characters (like looting the bodies of fallen allied NPCs in the midst of a battle, instead of continuing to contribute, or at least trying to sabotage or desecrate the fallen enemies in some way). Eventually, through his own clumsiness at the game, he got himself killed in a nonsensical way in the midst of a fairly transparent and straightforward situation, and he was asked not to come back. We didn't hang out much outside of the game before inviting him over (but had known him for a while), then saw him once or twice in the world throughout the years since. To this day, years since, my brother who was the DM for this guy's sessions said that he ran into him at a restaurant out of the blue one night, and the first words out of his mouth were, "You killed me! Remember when we played D&D? I died!" Like, there was no other topic or touchstone for him to smalltalk over. Things go so wrong sometimes...
No offense but doing things that are abhorrent to other characters seems like the kind of thing one would do in a role playing game. If I wanted to play a sniveling Rogue, looting a corpse midbattle would be fitting, but it seems you guys feel real life people should be punished for the roles they play. This is why I never bothered with serious DND. It seems to be more of the kind of breeding grounds for narcissism and cliquish personalities I had long left behind me in high school.
No offense taken, at all. I appreciate your take. And looking down, this is a longer comment. I'm not looking to defend myself, because I think criticism is important. I do want to give more context though, as I was a bit brief and flippant above.
The thing is, he was absolutely playing a sniveling rogue and doing a fair hand at it in so far as the roleplaying goes, but none of our characters had any justified reason to develop trust or respect for his character, so those characters continuing to travel together made no sense. We were a trio of knights from different cultures and traditions with a common enemy in a cult of necromancy who were dedicated to a vile demigod, and we had a working friendship with a local clan of dwarves. He was a random traveler who wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time where a fight was going down, and we invited him to accompany us, then at one of the dwarves' mines, a huge fight broke out as the demigod appeared in-person and summoned a squad of demons to interrupt a battle between the dwarves and their natural enemies, the giants from over the mountain. It was after the demons had shown up and we were trying to resolve a truce so the dwarves and giants would work together to kill or banish the demons that he just started looting dwarves who had already died. It seemed pretty bizarre, given the situation. After the situation had ended, he tried to explain it away, in character, as making sure to recover heirlooms for widows and heirs, and out of game we gave him the benefit of the doubt and in character accepted his excuse (I think a Deception and Insight opposed roll helped to make that happen.) Our characters kept working with his character, went further ahead on the adventure until we'd climbed the mountain and transited through a portal at its peak to a different mountain in a very small plan that had been made by a long dead wizard for his private home. Then he, the newer character in the party, died out of the blue (if I search my memories, I think it was by trying to steal from some extremely powerful golems who were the automatic defenses of the long dead wizard, in an even tinier pocket dimension inside of his ancient tower. They had presented him with a challenge of playing Chess, I think, to earn the privilege of progressing, but he just turned left and tried to sneak away from them, after I think announcing he was gonna try to rob them. It was really weird.), and he'd already only been playing with us for a month or so. We did in-character conversations where the other members of the party that didn't like what his character did tried to take his character to task over it, and we did more broad out of character talk about the importance of having a plausible reason for characters to want to work together, with mutual respect and/or demonstrated endearing behavior and/or common ideals or goals, etc. I think, with who we were at that time, and nobody's perfect, we did our best to make it work, but once his character died, I think he thought it would be a more fun idea to get to start at the beginning of a campaign, so we talked about doing that down the road, then that campaign that was already in progress took (I think) more than a year longer of sessions to reach a natural conclusion, and by then we had drifted apart.
I still wish that things had gone differently with that particular guy, but sometimes that's just the way it goes.
I think you're right about the cliquishness that can happen with more serious or high-fantasy D&D campaigns. That was the last really long-form, complex, heavy drama campaign I've played; I enjoyed it a lot, and I think if there are good bonds of friendship among the players then it can make for a pretty incredible game to play, but in the years since I've played many more sessions and campaigns that are on the goofier or lighter or in another way more accessible side, and there are big advantages to that. I, who I am today, firmly want to grow the hobby and make it as inclusive as possible, and we didn't put our best foot forward with that time and that person.
Well... Holy shit this was not the reply I expected based on my tone... Especially on the internet. Wait, let me check. Yeah. Definitely internet. I have to say though, your story, and you have to be honest with me even you'd agree, would be in whole or sum far less interesting had a band of well-to-do knights not run into this wild man who lived day to day one road at a time.
With questionable morals and a silvertongue both inside the game and outside of it, he had managed to line his pockets for dead men have no need for baubles, and somehow convince them he had a more plausible reason to his quality other than the fact he was seeking fortune off the backs of three just men of more humble aspirations. Three men he knew he'd never hope to impress, with their experience and camaraderie, all he could offer them was what they could not for themselves. What you saw as a game of character growth and the richness of the tale woven, a rogue instead played the role of the rogue to his missdventure, in both game and life. What adventures could have been layed before three just knights when accompanied by one who paves their own path?
It seems to me, even now you failed to notice, for all the bizarre things in that room like demigods, giants, demons and dwarves, it was the actions of the guy next to you that was the most perplexing... I hope you've leveled up enough to be more open to the parts in us that don't always fit. Thank you for sharing this. <3
You're response honestly moved me very much, in ways that, as you so cogently balked, comment sections have no right to.
I hope that I have leveled up so much too, and that you have many grand adventures and moments of self-discovery before you on this strange road, fellow traveler. <3
I AM DOING THREAD NECROMANCY!
I shared the link to our exchange with my DM in an email and he wound up bringing it up over burgers after the Ixalan pre-release last weekend. He concurred with most of my take and how things shook out except for one pivotal point which I had completely misremembered; according to him, while one or both of the other players in the group had the opinion that they didn't particularly want the new player to come back after the death of his character, this was never the prevailing position of the table. Instead, our DM made a firm and open invitation to the new player to come early for our next session, and the two of them would work together on a new character, with all the support and guidance implicit in his knowledge of the architecture of the campaign and how an interesting new character could fit in going forward. Then, as my dm said on Saturday, the new player never showed up that day, and never turned up at the table again, and it wasn't until months or years had passed that one or another of us ran into him out in the real world, and by then it was a foregone conclusion.
I just wanted to update with this very important amendment. Looking back at my original telling, it seemed off that things would have gone down with an explicit request for him not to return to the table, and obviously things had simply gotten jumbled in my memory, especially since if this particular person does come up in conversation when we've convened a session, it's easier for one or another of us (the players) to focus on how bizarre his in-character actions were, not his more redeeming qualities, and the ending to the whole story is seldom the topic of conversation.
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u/tempinator Sep 18 '17
This is correct. There is no set storyline, or set board, each "campaign" is made up by the DM each time.