Best way to kill a problematic fellow player character? [closed]

Question

In my D&D game I play with some friends, I appear to have come across a problem. Every time we pass by a tavern our Dragonborn who is a chaotic evil Druid keeps burning them down, is wanted, and kills people for no reason because "it's how his character is played". Frankly, I'm not a big fan of someone going around killing people randomly — and I'm not even joking either. My character is Good aligned and he was also an Ex-Royal Guard, so one of his men breaking laws is something he doesn't like to see.

Now that I have enough reason to kill him, the debriefing!

He's metagaming hard, and I'm not sure if our DM is going to do anything about it (Personally, I don't really like our DM's playstyle. But I give him a chance for he's new.) His character is really strong, so I plan to kill him in his sleep. But because of this, now his character is going to "stay awake until my character goes to sleep, and when I do sleep, my pet wolf is going to watch me during the night". First off, this is reeking metagame. Secondly, even though my character is really nice to his character and he doesn't have any trust issues with my character because of this, he says he's allowed to kill me because "Chaotic Evil can do anything they want no matter what."

Anyhow, I plan to get some meat and fill/coat it with some kind of narcotic to make the wolf pass out. That way I can kill his character off in his sleep.

But since I feel like he's somehow going to maneuver around this, I'd like to know: How can I be sure of killing this character?

Answer 1

The obvious solution would be to go to the authorities (the city guard?) with your evidence. They're certainly searching for the villain who burned down all those inns and killed all those people. Come back with twenty or thirty NPC archers and shoot him full of arrows.

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If you try doing this, you're going to have two problems. The first problem is that this guy is going to be listening to you talking to the DM, and he'll come up with some reason why his character isn't there when your archers show up.

The second is the other party members. If push comes to shove, will they ally with you or with him?

In general I recommend solving this problem by roleplaying correctly. We have two characters who clearly hate and mistrust each other; why are they still adventuring together? If this were happening in real life, one of you would have long since said: "Screw this, I'm going to go find some actual friends to hang out with." And that's what you should do: have your character leave the party. Invite the other party members to join your party instead of his.

If most of the other party members decide to come with you, now you're in a good position: you can argue that the DM should have the focus of narration follow your group and not the other guy. If they stay with the other guy, now you have a choice: you can bring in a new character who's just as murderous and psychopathic as the other guy, or you can just leave the game.

I'm a big fan of this article by Bankuei. Here's an excerpt:

Imagine if you sat down with your friends to play “Cards”… one of you is playing Poker, another is playing Hearts, and the last person is playing Go Fish.

You’re all playing cards, right?

It’s not going to work. No one is going to get the game they want. The problem is that no one agreed to a common set of rules and no one is organized with each other. The common group activity that makes anything a game, doesn’t exist.

You don’t see this with cards because everyone understands you have to be playing the same game for it to work.

But you see that in roleplaying all the time.

“OH GOD POWERGAMERS.” Wait. That’s like going, “OH GOD GO FISH” at a Poker table. It’s a discussion that shouldn’t even have to happen- someone wants a different game – why are they playing this game with you?

In this case, some of the players at your table want to play a game in which characters are psychopathic and evil and metagaming is totally appropriate. It sounds like you don't want to play that game at all. You should speak out-of-character with the other players and the DM and figure out which sort of game your table is playing.

Answer 2

How To Kill Your Fellow Player-Character

Wait until an opportunity presents itself... in a dungeon or town or whatever. Whether by pulling out the rest of the party and not assisting the druid, or actively hindering him, his death or capture becomes inevitable.

Party enters room with four challenging monsters... rest of the party leaves and bars the door.

The druid nukes another bar. Have your character join with the town guard to capture and maybe execute the murder.

Then post an ad in the local paper for a moral adventurer.

Why this probably won't help

This player is suffering from a terminal case of My Guy Syndrome, and doesn't see anything wrong with what he's doing. As such, he sees your actions as unwarranted. This is more liable to start a huge drama then it is to resolve things.

An actual solution

See if you can't sit down with the DM and this player, and talk about your concerns. Both about his metagaming, and about his choice to create and play a character whose philosophy (not alignment, as CE in a mixed group can be done... if it's done well) and actions make it hard to give in game justifications for not helping the city guard against him.

This needs to be handled carefully, as the question of what would character X do about charater Y? isn't really as important as what can we do to make sure this game is enjoyable for everyone?

Answer 3

This is one of those problems that cannot be solved by mechanics and in-game action.

One of your friends is ruining the fun of you and your other friends. They are a jerk.

Ok, maybe they aren't being a total jerk, but this is jerky behavior. The way you solve this kind of issue with your friends is the same way you solve it when you go to a sporting event, or go bowling, or do anything else social with someone and they are being consistently a jerk - You talk with them, explaining why their behavior is a problem. You also listen to their response. If talking to your friends like they are your friends isn't making hanging out with your friends any more fun, reconsider who you call your friends.

Answer 4

Killing him.

• Make plans with the GM privately before the game. Have the city guard be ringing the campsite when he wakes up, bows aimed. Say 'Sorry, Jim. It had to be done.' Let him have a combat scene as he dies fighting.
• Poison him. Good people can use poison if it is to defeat someone who would kill them in hand to hand combat, and who is evil. Find/buy some poison, put it into food you bring him. Again - arrange this with the GM before the game, and via handed note that you're actually doing it. He might get a spot check to see you putting the poison in, but nothing more.
• Rally the group to your cause (killing him), and take him down/drive him off, as a team.

Fixing the actual problem.

Sit down and talk with your GM about having consequences applied for actions. Tell him that it is more dickish in the long run NOT to have there be things that happen if people kill people and burn down inns, than if he has adventurers come after them and soldiers show up to arrest them, and the like. The world doesn't exist in a vacuum, and by letting people just do whatever, he is ruining their chance to roleplay interesting characters - god-like mary-sue characters that get away with whatever they try are boring, both to play, and to watch.

He probably feels it's mean to put the chaotic evil druid into bad situations because he's doing these things - tell him it's an opportunity for the druid to roleplay his situation and fight against the odds, and that he's letting the druid's player down by not making this possible for the player.

Answer 5

I do believe that the only way to solve your problem is having a honest conversation with your GM and your group. The premiss in RPG is that everyone is having fun playing the game. Every book I've read has the same golden rule: if the rules don't fit for your group, ignore or change them for the sake of the fun and joy. The same applies for the behavior of the players in or off-game.

It´s important to discuss this with the entire group, including the problematic player, so he can realize how his actions are ruining the fun. Of course, I'm considering that all your fellows have the same feeling. If this is not the case, and for them there is no problem at all, you may have to consider leaving the game (or even the group).

One important thing before you start to fill in the character sheet is determine the theme and tone of the campaign. If your group had had this kind of conversation before, maybe it would have been clear to everyone what the whole group was expecting from the game.

Answer 6

LOL! haven't played AD&D for a decade or two, but the answer is simple - play your character in character. You say he is good aligned and also 'one of his men' suggest he's meant to be the boss. He needs to act not sneak about like gollum. The downside of this is that he might get killed... but hey, that happens some times.

And if it's his band why did he recruit a psycho? And if it isn't his band why did he join one with a psycho in it?

Answer 7

I am not saying that the druid is a good character or a good player.
But two wrongs do not make a right.

You complain that he has the my dude syndrome and uses alignment as an excuse. Yet shortly afterwards you say:

I'm not a big fan of someone going around killing people randomly — and I'm not even joking either. My character is Good aligned and he was also an Ex-Royal Guard, so one of his men breaking laws is something he doesn't like to see.

Just because your guy is "good" does not make it better. An argument could be made if everyone in the party is good (in which case, why is the druid a member?) but otherwise it could be that you are the one that is disturbing the balance.

Then you complain about metagaming. Yet, unless your character patiently observed the druid's sleeping habits for a couple of nights, you are metagaming yourself. And, unless the druid stated IC that he would not hesitate to kill your character, allowing this to influence your character's decisions is also metagaming.

The situation is messy. But if the druid was always like this, it is far more realistic and convenient for the game that there is a reason the party tolerates him. In which case, your character also has a reason for tolerating him; or he should leave.

Answer 8

Hoist him on his own petard; set a trap he won't be able to resist. One of the classics is to disguise a cursed item as a treasure. Don't say out loud what it is you're doing--pass notes to the GM, for example--so he can't metagame it. A few ideas to get you started: Darths & Droids's interpretation of the "it's not wise to upset a Wookie" scene. The Head of Vecna. Or one that happened in real life:

I once heard a lady talk about a similar situation. She had 3 sisters and one brother; the brother was the oldest and the biggest, and he was a bit of a bully when they were kids. He would always insist that the coolest and best toys were his, swiping stuff from his sisters if necessary, and then torment his sisters about having cooler stuff.

Every year at Easter, their parents would set up an Easter Egg hunt, and he'd spoil it by running around and finding the bulk of the hidden eggs before his smaller sisters could reach them. So one year, they decided to get back at him.

He had decided that helping to dye the eggs with the rest of the family was beneath him--that's girl stuff! So they went and dyed the eggs all by themselves, dyeing most of them a simple blue or pink or green, but there was one special egg that they dyed as fancy as they could, with multiple colors and swirls and everything. They had their mom, (who was in on it,) hide that egg in a special place, up high enough that only big brother would be able to reach it.

When the day came, he did his usual thing, running around and grabbing every egg he could get his hands on. He was elated to find the "secret hiding place" containing the coolest egg of all, and he made sure to rub his sisters' noses in it, bragging to them about finding a better egg than any of them did. After gloating in his triumph, he sat down to enjoy his trophy, knocking the egg on his knee to crack the shell...

...and it broke in a big gooey mess all over his leg, because they had not boiled that particular egg!

Answer 9

This is brilliant. Your friend is playing a Chaotic Evil character brilliantly. CE basically means unhinged and borderline insane. This is not the kind of person that anyone wants to be around. You need to capture him, tie him up and hand him over to the authorities.

You say your character is good aligned (you don't say if Lawful or not) then you say

His character is really strong, so I plan to kill him in his sleep.

I'm not sure how many good aligned characters would trully plan to murder an aquaintance in their sleep. I think you are the one not playing in character.

For your game issue, you need to deal with the character who is ruining your game. Get him arrested and sent to prison or hung and then ask the player to role a new character.

Answer 10

If your DM allows evil aligned characters and major intraparty conflicts, then stick to your alignment as your fellow does to his.

To be honest, he plays CE alignment totally correctly, that's not metagaming. There are in fact few people enjoying such a playstyle, because even in a all evil party things like intraparty treachery, theft and violence are always possible.

So, if your character is LG, stabbing your character is not an option. NG is the same. In my opinion it's allowable for CG alignment. Those other good alignments require different RP solutions. LG goes to the authorities. NG challenges him to a duel to the death. Other players in your group sharing your good alignment should support you in this, or change their alignment. In many legal systems taking part in a crime even in the form of witnessing it and not contacting the authorities is also punishable.

Answer 11

If he is meta gaming, anything he does because of out-of-character knowledge is void. I'm suggesting you chloroform his character and bury him. No amount of metagaming can get him out of that, as then he is poisoned, helpless, unconscious, prone, and suffocating all at once. He also can't immediately wake up.

Answer 12

If you really want to kill him, don't feel bad.

1. oison him by poisoning his drink and food. This works.
2. Be walking through a closed spaced, nod to your fellow PCs and stab him in the back.

Answer 13

Just chuck dynamite in the tent and shout Fetch

Or challenge him to fisticuffs and pull out a sleep dart

Or shove him off something tall and body slam him (I accidentally dropped my bud off a tree whilst he was unconscious and accidentally body slammed him, WWE style)

OR convince him that a lit stick of dynamite is a sausage

OR paint it white and have him use it as a candle for meditation

OR Tattletale

OR use a potion to change him into a worm, whilst in a bird shop

OR use handcuffs to chain him to something in the woods at night, whilst he is smeared with meat (use half to distract the dog)

You just need to be C R E A T I V E !

Crazy is the best way to kill someone. I've accidentally (not lying!) killed a friend whilst bringing him to a healer just by being crazy (stairs).

Ask DM to give him a 4th wall ability that will allow meta gaming but only 3 times a day MAX (then try to kill him lots and have him use them all)