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Added part about looking up and following rules
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Anagkai
Anagkai
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The GM is responsible for the game foremost, which does not mean that the players should not make it easy on them. You suggest the fact that the GM is the problem player's girlfriend is irrelevant. But if that player is favored by the GM that fact is probably part of the problem. People have a tendency to favor their close ones. It is totally possible that she doesn't even notice and that it happens unconsciously. You should talk to the GM, preferably alone, and clearly but nicely communicate the problems. You should tell her it's normal that her games are not perfect as she has just started her GM career. And you should provide counsel or feedback. If you have GM experience, providing some counsel on what might work better might be very helpful for her. In any case you should make sure that your input is not perceived as a personal reproach. It is in the responsibility of the GM to know, look up and enforce rules. Although, ideally the player should make this easy for the GM as well by knowing or looking up and respecting the rules themselves that are associated to their character. If you think that the GM does not do this enough,you should tell them so while making sure that you do not sound accusatory. Looking up rules yourself is also a valid option. If you do not want to disrupt the gamebor to be perceived as a rules lawyer, you should tell the respective player and / or the GM about rules problems outside of the game. When I run a game, I try to know all necessary rules which mostly works but I also make it clear that players can and should indicate potential problems in the cases where it does not work. You should also tell your friend that you are not having much fun with his playstyle even if it is no longer a homebrewed built.

The GM is responsible for the game foremost, which does not mean that the players should not make it easy on them. You suggest the fact that the GM is the problem player's girlfriend is irrelevant. But if that player is favored by the GM that fact is probably part of the problem. People have a tendency to favor their close ones. It is totally possible that she doesn't even notice and that it happens unconsciously. You should talk to the GM, preferably alone, and clearly but nicely communicate the problems. You should tell her it's normal that her games are not perfect as she has just started her GM career. And you should provide counsel or feedback. If you have GM experience, providing some counsel on what might work better might be very helpful for her. In any case you should make sure that your input is not perceived as a personal reproach. You should also tell your friend that you are not having much fun with his playstyle even if it is no longer a homebrewed built.

The GM is responsible for the game foremost, which does not mean that the players should not make it easy on them. You suggest the fact that the GM is the problem player's girlfriend is irrelevant. But if that player is favored by the GM that fact is probably part of the problem. People have a tendency to favor their close ones. It is totally possible that she doesn't even notice and that it happens unconsciously. You should talk to the GM, preferably alone, and clearly but nicely communicate the problems. You should tell her it's normal that her games are not perfect as she has just started her GM career. And you should provide counsel or feedback. If you have GM experience, providing some counsel on what might work better might be very helpful for her. In any case you should make sure that your input is not perceived as a personal reproach. It is in the responsibility of the GM to know, look up and enforce rules. Although, ideally the player should make this easy for the GM as well by knowing or looking up and respecting the rules themselves that are associated to their character. If you think that the GM does not do this enough,you should tell them so while making sure that you do not sound accusatory. Looking up rules yourself is also a valid option. If you do not want to disrupt the gamebor to be perceived as a rules lawyer, you should tell the respective player and / or the GM about rules problems outside of the game. When I run a game, I try to know all necessary rules which mostly works but I also make it clear that players can and should indicate potential problems in the cases where it does not work. You should also tell your friend that you are not having much fun with his playstyle even if it is no longer a homebrewed built.

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Anagkai
Anagkai
  • 16.6k
  • 6
  • 66
  • 133

You should not try to solve out-of-game problems in game.

The problems that you describe are with how your fellow player behaves and how the GM handles this. Therefore you should resolve these problems outside of play. RPGs have the premise of bringing fun to everyone. For you, this clearly does not work, so you need to talk to the others involved. You already did that as you said, but retrying with a different focus in the discussion will be better than attempted in-game resolution.

It is the GM's task to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

The GM is responsible for the game foremost, which does not mean that the players should not make it easy on them. You suggest the fact that the GM is the problem player's girlfriend is irrelevant. But if that player is favored by the GM that fact is probably part of the problem. People have a tendency to favor their close ones. It is totally possible that she doesn't even notice and that it happens unconsciously. You should talk to the GM, preferably alone, and clearly but nicely communicate the problems. You should tell her it's normal that her games are not perfect as she has just started her GM career. And you should provide counsel or feedback. If you have GM experience, providing some counsel on what might work better might be very helpful for her. In any case you should make sure that your input is not perceived as a personal reproach. You should also tell your friend that you are not having much fun with his playstyle even if it is no longer a homebrewed built.

There is probably a problem of balance or similar.

If there is such a huge discrepancy in power level, that suggests that there a problem in the way the character generation features are combined or used. Especially so, if you yourself are a min-maxer. You could research this or ask another question here. It does seem strange that problems got worse as the Homebrew was removed. So you should thoroughly check if there is not still something off. One thing that is definitely problematic is giving different amounts of XP to the players. This can create problems of power level in the first place or aggravate them (the latter seems to be the case here). You should tell your GM this. I know there are different opinions on this, but I equally distribute all XP, even if someone misses a session, and it helps me avoid such problems.

Play another campaign. Finding another play group should be your last resort, but suggesting starting a new campaign seems like a good idea. Probably the power situation cannot be easily repaired. To make sure that the new campaign works better, you should a) give counsel to the GM (vide infra), b) talk to the problem player about the problems you perceive in his playstyle and c) potentially play without the supplement, since the problem built came from there. You could do all this without restarting the campaign, but a clear cut is good, especially for learning GMs, which I know from experience. You could also suggest playing a short campaign (a few sessions) so the GM can get more experience without a drastic long-term investment. She can even continue the old campaign as Single-Player campaign for your friend.