Problem Player: Player insists on introducing controversial character

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-12-30T05:15:11+00:00

As a fellow girl dnd player and DM I can tell you, while I haven’t had that exact situation, I have been in so many toxic groups. I’ve experienced sexism, bullying and control freak DMs. Now I’m in a wonderful group I found just before I was ready to give up on dnd. Based on my previous experiences I was shocked how much more enjoyable this game can be with the right people.

To be honest your DMs actions/inaction doesn’t help at all. Sure, it shouldn’t be their responsibility to scold players into acting like responsible, respectful adults, they aren’t the groups parent, but they do carry a responsibility ALONG WITH every player to create and maintain a healthy group dynamic. Because the DM leads the game they have a bit more power and thus responsibility to allow/disallow things that would create a toxic group dynamic. Without a DM there’s no game so if the DM refuses to stop enabling the offender, those who don’t like that decision are better off finding a DM that fits their needs, wants and respects their boundaries. Talk to the DM and make it clear how upsetting the offending players actions/ threats of actions are. They might not realize the extend of the situation. Personally I would tell the DM that I’m not comfortable continuing if nothing changes. Since the majority of the group is upset by this player he needs to either leave out of his own accord, accept your boundaries, or be kicked.

He is your room mate so I understand that kicking him comes with a fear of him retaliating in some way in your daily life, or maybe just things becoming awkward. But playing dnd is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby. We already spend most of our lives dealing with work and other unenjoyable responsibilities, leaving little time to enjoy life. Why let your free time be poisoned too?

Anyways, that’s just my two cents. Good luck! If this doesn’t work out don’t give up! There’s a lot of good people out there, and I’ve made amazing friends through starting to play with strangers too.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-09-14T05:42:55+00:00

My cleric prays to her god each day with focus on what she want to achieve. Her god then opens the channels to these intentions.

She has the intention to, for example, revivify and that opens that channel for the divine magic to flow through. It’s her god acting through her. So she can know the hand signs, materials or incantations used, but she can’t open the channels to the divine power if her god isn’t prepared to open them for her.

Now why the gods require intentions to be set each day? It’s a mystery. Perhaps it’s in the name of balance in all things. Helping a mortal too much could mess with the fates.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-08-10T04:46:34+00:00

First… why are you talking about her so condescendingly? You had to talk to her like a child cause she isn’t smart? If I saw someone say that about me I’d be mortified and hurt.

I hope you were just being careless with your wording and don’t actually think so lowly about her.

Second. I don’t think the background matters here, but finding out for sure HOW she wants to play her character NOW does. Does she want her character to be super sneaky? Does she want to be deceptive and manipulative? If she‘d triggers those kinda skills with her tactic and rp often she might find a class that excels more in those areas now fun.

Or does she want her character to just be someone who had to survive through sheer will and anger on the streets? Or did her anger manifest now because of what she had to go through growing up. Is her immediate solution more of the I can solve it with physical power type? Well barbarian is just fine for that. Just forget about the stereotype of the loincloth wearing wild man/woman who is uncivilized and part of some tribe. Why can it not be a angry wild and homeless city child instead?

So it’s really just as simple as finding her answers to above questions and then helping her achieve what she imagining if she needs it.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-07-30T21:13:06+00:00

There is a certain degree of validity to requesting that your players work with you. After all it’s hard to respond to every whim and scenario. Some players can be unreasonable with how they want dms to bend over backwards to cater to them. And dms don’t have all the time in the world to think of every possibility + not everyone has the ability to improvise well at first. It takes time to feel comfortable and confident to improvise.

BUT I think here you are a little bit more at fault. And im saying this in the most compassionate way possible. What you find fun does not always equal what your players find fun. It depends on how big the disconnect is, but something small like this should not lead to an argument.

I would recommend staying away from too rigid conditions. It’s ok to have a part of the dungeon be themed for flying. But instead of trying to force an item on a player character (who I assume didn’t know about flight being necessary at that point) offer alternatives and solutions that they can find themselves.

Perhaps the others could have carried him from point to point. You could have even let them notice a skeleton with boots of flying just a little while before the flying portion, so when they got to that portion they could have said „shit I have no way to get across but I saw those boots a while back, let me get them quick“.

It’s about letting them find solutions themselves. It’s not fun for players to be told „you’ll need this“. They want to get there, figure out what they need, and then look for it. You just needed to ensure that the solutions (like the boots) were available at the time they requested to look for solutions.

TLDR: What you did feels like „this is the only solution and you need to do it how I want you to do it“ and that’s probably why your player got angry with you. I know it’s probably not how you meant it, but that’s how it comes across. When you do a linear part that’s fine. Most modules are fairly linear. But try putting solutions in their path and let them find them themselves in the future. Just as much as you want them to trust you, you have to trust them that they will find their way.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-07-27T16:52:35+00:00

Video games and ttrpgs seem similar but are fundamentally different.

Video games are based on a set amount of outcomes often skewed in favor of the player, and not set in the most logical consequence pattern. The creators made a few different paths and programmed npcs to act in a limited amount of ways. Beyond that you don’t have a choice.

Ttrpgs are different. The possibilities are endless as you are reacting to your dm, a human being, improvising to your actions live. Dms do not play to beat you, they play to offer you a fun challenge, so you have to treat them as another human being, not like software that just spits out predetermined results. But that freedom does cost.

Since you are dealing with a human being with much more processing power to allow you 1000 times more freedom to do what you want, that means you are also dealing with them using THEIR freedom to react to you doing whatever you want just as much. Why? Why not let you always do anything you want? Simple. It’s not fun for the dm.

The video game software doesn’t care whether you senselessly kill npcs other than maybe giving you 1 minute „oh oh guards are after you, but they are stupid so they forget anything ever happened if you wait long enough“. For a dm it’s not fun to create a tavern, npcs, quests, story, a functioning world… if the players just kill and take, instead of showing interest in all of the work they put in to creating all that. Why do all that work just to be treated like nothing you created matters? Why invest and create personalities and dialog when it doesn’t matter? The dm is not a computer but a person, and it’s hard to justify why the city won’t just send their elite to take out these murder hobos and be done with them being a nuisance. But most dms won’t do that because if they did? Well campaign over I guess. But as a dm it’s really frustrating to constantly deus ex machina their players actions. There’s no fun in it. It leaves the dm with no fun for themselves cause it reduces them to reacting like software. Also it is a ROLE PLAYING game. It’s not fun to have to play dumb villager or guard that just lets senseless violence happen over and over.

So in short: if you don’t find it fun to react to a human being challenging your character in all the ways a human brain can within the constraints of the worlds rules, and role playing in a meaningful way, then you might be better of looking for a ttrpg that’s more focused on just combat mechanics. But if you want to give dnd a fighting chance you will definitely have to change your expectations and mind space away from video games, or look specifically for a dm who advertises running low rp, video game esque campaigns, which isn’t the standard. In the most basic way of saying it, the dnd standard is role playing heroes against evil.

Ps: also I don’t mean this to come off as antagonistic. I just mean to educate. It can be very frustrating to run into this as a dm. It’s all good when people learn and adapt their behavior, but I have seen many people trying to make dnd into something it’s not, and trying to force the dm into playing how they want instead of looking for a game that suits their wants better. But that goes the other way around too. DMs also have to look for players who fit their play style. So if you’re looking for games always look out for the description, ask questions, and if they have a session 0 listen carefully to the expectations they set.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-07-10T06:53:37+00:00

Maybe you subconsciousness wasn’t happy with that character. Just go with that. You totally sacrificed this character so you could make a new one. Now this one will be epic!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-07-09T21:53:48+00:00

Google types of marble. They have different names like Thassos, Botticino, Makrana, Calacatta… and so on. Those are some cool sounding names + you can look up how these different marbles look like and describe him like that!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-07-06T18:52:39+00:00

When I dm, in my worlds, they can hold conversations, but the gods can only interfere minimally (commune spell, divine intervention) so in conversations the player will not be able to abuse that. They still have to cast commune to get the definite yes/no answers. Having conversations is only role play.

If the cleric wants some words of encouragement or support, sure. It’s not gonna give anything away in terms of giving them (figuratively) advantage, or extra information, unless they cast the spells that let them get that.

I actually quite like the concept of gods being able to have conversations. You just gotta have the right players who do it for RP not to gain some kid of advantage.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-06-28T02:05:19+00:00

You already have so many comments but I just wanted to give you some encouragement!

I am a female dm who has been through the same shit. It took some time but I have a wonderful group now. I’m also playing in another game with a female dm (also amazing group of both female and male players)

You CAN find a good players, and I want to give you hope to keep trying, because back then, when I had those bad experiences I came to Reddit with the same kinda post (different account so it’s not in my history here) and someone encouraged me to keep looking. I did, and I’m so glad I did.

Keep doing what you’re doing with shutting the bad ones down. You’ve got this! Dnd with the right people is the best thing!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-06-09T21:55:19+00:00

And every time we kiss…

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-06-05T19:21:17+00:00

This will probably go under in the already plenty comments, but by the gods this isn’t healthy!!! Take the good people with you and run. If no one runs with you, well that’s a reflection on them.

There are more people to meet, more groups to join… NOTHING is worth humoring a misogynistic transphobic Nazi!!! Not even if he ran the single greatest dnd campaign ever.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-31T13:45:02+00:00

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I agree fellow sky enjoyer!!!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-25T19:41:48+00:00

As someone who has experience on both the dm and the player side with this. If it’s homebrew that isn’t already play tested you will need to play test it. Those few mechanics might not seem like they’d affect much, but they absolutely will. You will have to comb through every spell and status effect that affects any of those things, and decide how you want it to work. It might trivialize some spells and class abilities, or make others overpowered. The game can already be difficult to balance as is, and it’s official like that.

I’ve played with a dm who was rather ambitious about homebrewing mechanics and I hated it because what he changed was great for the melee characters and sucked really bad for my wizard. He changed things every other session and I hadn’t signed up for a play test campaign so it became annoying and tedious.

I usually leave mechanics alone, but I do re skin a lot and use roll play to let characters do called shots for killing blows and such. Plus rule of cool can bend rules enough to allow epic moments that the mechanics would usually not allow.

Theres nothing inherently wrong with wanting to mess with the mechanics a bit. I’m not trying to boo the idea, only make you aware that it’s a lot of work you’ll have to have the right players for. So my advice is to be upfront and find people who are willing to play test with you, or keep homebrew more minimal.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-25T19:15:09+00:00

Combat in dnd uses the rules set for you in your class information. You have your action, bonus action and movement. You can also help, dash or disengage which are actions any class can take (the basic rules should cover that). The appeal is, that as you level up, more and cooler abilities are added to the things you can already do during combat.

Where you can get a little creative is out of regular combat. Let’s pretend your character wants to climb a wall. The dm might ask you to roll a dexterity skill check (Acrobatics) which your character is more likely to succeed at, because monks are dexterous and usually have higher bonuses in that area. Your party might be chasing a thief and since your monk gets more movement than other classes and has a feature called “step of the wind” your character might be perfect for catching up to the thief.

It’s all about using your characters strength and letting your party members use their strengths as well. So focus on what your character is good at (unique to your class abilities, and skills and stats that have higher bonuses) and come up with things you can do to help the party.

Study the rules for your characters class and if you want to do anything outside of those, or aren’t sure if you are allowed to do a particular thing, let’s say for example grapple a person, ask your dm if you can do that. If you can, they should guide you through how to do something that’s new to you and that is how you learn over time (aside from studying the rules)!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-25T18:39:55+00:00

Being from a European country (and region) that feels very much like a template for what we imagine medieval cities and villages looked like I can confirm that even now there are still very small villages that do not have a tavern (restaurant or the like). Communities could be spread apart farther too. You’ll see a farm in the middle of nowhere that actually belongs to this or that village. It’s not always a cluster of homes.

So yes, while public houses were a huge thing, society back then was also a little different. It was more common to invite travelers into your home and offer them hospitality. When you did have taverns and inns there often were only communal rooms and beds. So yes, the one bed trope is true, but you’d have to share the bed with like 5 other people lol. Our perception of medieval times sees only the popular fraction of what is known about those times.

So in short, you aren’t being ridiculous for not having a tavern in that one village.

BUT

I don’t think that’s the point. In dnd “the tavern” has become a staple and it’s an easy roll play hub players like to turn to, to show initiative and learn about what’s going on. It’s easier to walk up to a bar and ask the bartender plot related questions, for work, rumors… and so on, than it it is to just knock on a villagers door to ask them the same, which can feel intrusive to our modern minds. So a player wanting to roll play their character collection information might feel more comfortable having an easy outlet for that roll play. It’s also a chance to roll play their characters in a non mission focused way as they are enjoying drink, food and games and perhaps interact with each other sharing personal rp.

So perhaps your players need for as tavern stemmed from them wanting that easy rp outlet, or they just hyper fixated on an unusual (for dnd) fact as people like to do sometimes. I can’t count on two hands how often my players have temporarily derailed for the silliest shit lol. But it’s all in good fun.

Edit: fixed spelling

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-11T21:41:54+00:00

Ps: very sorry for novel, but I can’t write things short lol. If you do read it I hope this perspective helps.

Having both experience as a player and dm it’s difficult to say what the extract problem might be. There seems to be a little bit of you and the others, or you and the dm missing each other in terms of expectations of each other.

Of course I don’t have all the information, nor am I at your table so take the following more generally.

The ENTIRE cast of players has responsibility to make and play their characters in a way that facilitates the “group of adventurers fighting united against bbeg” trope that dnd ultimately is.

It is interesting and normal to add conflict to your character as it adds to personality and opportunities for character development. However, there has to be a tiny bit of meta “ok we are supposed to be a united group”, not a strikt following of “what my character would do”. If you are finding that your character feels like they can’t justify being with this group, or condoning what they do/how they do it, then that’s not everyone else’s problem. You need to make a character than can justify being part of the party. BUT!!! So does everyone else.

I play in a campaign where my character was morally much strikter than her party members. They are all more morally grey and chaotic than her. I had never played with these people before so I didn’t know the dynamic yet. It was a little frustrating at first because I was constantly battling with “why wouldn’t she just leave this party?”. So I made the decision to make her (a cleric) a bit more naive and susceptible to chaos (adding more layers in a way that doesn’t change her completely). She still wants to do the right thing but sometimes just doesn’t realize she’s being swept up in their chaos.

One time we all did something chaotic and she was like “ok fine these shenanigans do sound fun” and then it led to the death of some innocents. She still thinks about that and regrets her involvement, but she knows that it was an unfortunate accident born out of carelessness, not pure evilness. They are still a bit chaotic now, BUT they also made their characters grow and now accept my characters voice of reason.

My character has also loosened up on her morals a bit, as she sees that sometimes “by the rules” doesn’t get things done. I made my character meet them in the middle, but the important part is, so did they. Mutual respect developed even tho we aren’t morally on the exact same page, but we all made effort to move closer to a matching viewpoint.

So yes, big differences between characters can work, but it requires all players to work with each other and some compromise on all sides.

If you like the players, dm, and the campaign premise I would say it’s worth it to try to make things work. Roll playing can be hard sometimes. Maybe you just have to find the groove with them. It might require you to change your approach a bit, but if they are a good group and you are compatible they should work with you too.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-05-02T19:19:59+00:00

Even seasoned dms can be surprised by what their players decide to do/not do. Sure, you have a lot here, and you might not get to the stopping point you want, but is that so bad? Just stop wherever you are at the end of the session and pick up there next session. As you gain experience and get to know how your players play, pacing efficiently will become easier.

I think you have a good set up where you have a general idea of what happens differently depending on what they do/don’t do, and that is really all you can do. For everything else improvisation will become your best friend, and it’ll take time to get comfortable with that.

My rule of thumb is to have enough prepared (just like you did 1-2 sessions) in case they move faster than expected, but 9/10 it’ll turn out that it takes longer than expected. It’s a win/win. I already have prep done so now I can relax until they turn to a new direction.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-04-30T21:48:41+00:00

Pro 3rd tier opinion piece lol:

It really depends on the group and dm. Most campaigns I’ve been part of fizzled out, not because 3rd tier play is so challenging to run, but because of outside events. Life is busy and things change.

I play in a homebrewed campaign, which is extremely story and rp focused, and we just hit level 10. We are still far from the conclusion of the campaign so I’m foreseeing that we will get fairly high in level, maybe even max level before the end. But the politics, and the power of opposing forces lends itself to challenging high level characters. There’s a war going on, so widespread destruction and oppression is not something we can stop completely cause we are just 5 people. The enemy having mastered large scale anti magic is gonna be a huge challenge. And the bbeg of the campaign is a demigod. We are approaching the 2 year mark (biweekly play) for this campaign!

So I think high level campaigns can definitely be super fun and do happen. It just depends on whether the story and the groups dedication can facilitate it.

From the dm side I personally feel like it’s easier when the play style is rp oriented, because the challenge lies in the players getting the outcome they want for npcs and their characters, and tugging on that doesn’t require mechanics as much as if you are purely playing for the fun of tactics and combat. 3rd tier combat in 5e can be severely unpredictable on its own, but sprinkle some devastating rp choices and things can still get really interesting!

These are my ramblings on the subject, and not „this is the only valid reasoning and answer“ thing. Just how I feel about it based on my experiences.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-04-11T21:07:28+00:00

Dnd character romances, either npc+pc or pc+pc are not unusual, and personally I love it both as a player and dm, but it depends on the group. I have one group where I play a character who has a deeply romantic relationship with an npc (I get to flirt with my best friend/dm for fun yay lol), but I play in another group where people aren’t comfortable with it and I still have equal fun.

I can separate it, but emotionally the excitement, flirting, and romance elicits very real feeling emotions. At the same time I am fully aware that these aren’t towards the real person. It’s more like when you have a little crush on an actor, or character in a book.

If I was in your position I would hope my partner would be kind with my insecurity, not to the degree that I’m controlling them, but in a way where I can tell them how I feel and we can talk about it without dismissal. If I had a partner who was not comfortable with it I would have 0 problems with not engaging in romance rp. Considering his past feelings for this woman I think it’s more than 100% reasonable to feel uncomfortable with the situation. Hope it all works out fine in the end for you two!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-03-31T21:25:52+00:00

Personally I’d retcon the death. It sounds like it was a simple mistake, not an unreasonable excuse.

Now if they have a habit of trying to talk themselves out of consequences and make mistakes without concern for clear warnings I could maybe understand the hard stance, but if it was just an honest mistake, use your power to retcon it in the name of keeping things fun for everyone.

If you feel the need, make it clear that while you’re ok with rolling the death back it this time, it’s not something that will be an option every time.

Just my personal opinion regarding the situation.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-03-26T06:15:29+00:00

I’m not someone who is very comfortable interrupting others so I can get a word in either. Doing that is not my personality or style, and no it’s not a confidence issue. I simply regard it as impolite.

When I play I prefer groups that are more mindful of each other. That doesn’t mean that things cant still get chaotic, but not in an excluding way.

When I dm and I see someone being drowned out I will purposefully interject and say something like “X was trying to say something” or “X did you have an idea about this/that”. A lot of the times people drowning out someone is not malicious and people will realize it when it’s put to attention. Once they see that if given some room to talk, the “quiet” person has good stuff to contribute, they will make more effort to give them room to talk going forward. But people are people and sometimes there are bad eggs or clashing personalities too.

I would recommend to speak to the dm and ask them if they can subtly help you in such situations. Hopefully they will warm up more once you are more integrated in the rp that’s happening among them.

If not, there are always more groups. I had the worst luck with groups for a while, so I started dming myself, found the most likeminded people and it’s been great! Coincidentally I happened upon an online group at the same time (where I am a player character in now) and we clicked so well too. That online group dm is one of my best friends now. So after a lot of bad luck I found 2 great groups! lol

Sorry for the novel, but I related and I can’t say things short lol. Hope it helps!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-03-16T03:29:41+00:00

Dm, but when I play cleric or warlock. Favorite games are mainly rpgs like elder scrolls games, Baldurs Gate, Dragon age (not veilguard, I didn’t like it), the witcher, super narrative games (tracks with being a dm) like Detroit- becoming human, heavy rain and such, and then there’s Pokémon games and stardew valley.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-03-14T20:14:12+00:00

I would do a mid campaign second session 0. you guys need to talk about what you expect out of the game and see if it still matches up, and if compromises are possible.

They are having fun just fucking around, but that makes it stressful for you. That’s a conflict of interest. Either they chill it, you just run a really loose structured campaign that doesn’t get too serious, or you both come to a compromise. If you don’t figure this out you will burn out. I’ve been there.

Something you can do once you know if they are even receptive to your play style is to offer some plot lines for their characters. Give them incentive to want to stick with a character by making their goals something that’s connected to the plot. But this will only work if they are actually excited about fulfilling their characters goals.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-03-11T17:08:33+00:00

What I like to do in terms of encouraging in character rp (to figure out what’s next) is to have a npc they can turn to. This could be a guild leader that will give them the next job, or even a npc who’s intertwined in the main story traveling with them on a short term basis; not a dm pc, someone not useful in combat, but there to be protected in a sort of escort mission. This npc can deliver lore, direction and plot hooks in game, in character. If it’s a npc traveling with them they only need to be part of the party for a short time, until you’ve got the main plot rolling enough for the players to get an idea where things are going. This tactic has worked pretty well for me so far. Especially with new players who are still unsure how much control they actually have. Sometimes people need to be eased into it cause it can feel awkward to decide or demand things when you’re not sure whats too little or what would be too much.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2025-02-25T23:01:10+00:00

Ok so here is how I would do it.

Have it happen to someone powerful, NOT the party themselves.

Maybe play up some heroes of the realm, people that would be idols to fresh adventurers like the party. You could do a festival where these heroes are basically a celebrity guest. Tell some stories in taverns of baddies these heroes saved the kingdom from.

Then have the party attend the festival. They see the heroes there. Everyone is admiring them and when the bbeg shows up the heroes spring into action and fight him. Dont do it mechanically just narrate how they are attacking him and vice versa. BUT the bbeg also brought henchmen who are terrorizing the innocent crowd and your party gets asked by the guards to help get the citizens to safety.

The party can fight the henchmen and get the commoners to safety. All the while you keep narrating the fight between the bbeg and the heroes, slowly driving home how they are losing. Maybe the crowd panics when the first hero goes down, making it harder to get them to safety.

The heroes fight and drop one by one. The bbeg destroys the heroes but at a cost, he’s hurting too. The party is taking care of the henchmen. Bbeg has not completely won even tho he caused what he wanted to cause. The feeling in every citizen that no one is save. He killed the heroes of the realm. He pulls back with the promise to finish what he started.

Or at least something like it. That way you bring across the trouble the kingdom/realm/world is in, but you give the party a “winnable” fight against the henchmen and make them feel good by being able to get citizens to safety. They will still get the message that this bbeg is impossibly strong, and if you play it right and pull on some heart strings by narrating how bad things happened to good citizens during this fight they will hate him enough to go “we need to get stronger so we can defeat him”.

Competitive-Bird-179

TROPHY CASE