That's a lot of text to say "I should have kicked this player ages ago". Seriously, I got to the part about loudly playing video games during sessions and stopped reading. That would have been the last straw for me.

"Poly drama derails campaign" is a headline that I could have run plenty of times in a news paper about my life.

• Dude brings new girlfriend to GURPS Battletech game. Girlfriend makes lecherous female mechanic who attempts to fuck every male PC. That's all the roleplaying she's doing and it's kinda uncomfortable and also SUPER disruptive to the actual game. Dude then freaks out at girlfriend semipublicly for "hitting on all his friends" (I'm not sure that's what she was doing but wtf). Dude's wife then freaks out at dude for making a scene. Game had run almost a year, lasted two more sessions. Dude's marriage lasts about three more months.

• Guy dates girl who's supposed to be his dom, but she's polysaturated and is dating 8 people. She's also going to school and working 20 hours a week. They only see each other at D&D pirate game, because she has zero time. Guy is clearly pissed that girl doesn't spend enough time with him but just sits on it. Then starts back stabbing and undermining her character at every turn, up to and including setting fire to a ship that she's on. When the party confronts his character he tries to initiate party combat, causing DM to call a time out and try to talk things out. Ends with guy raging about how girl has no time for him, how she's supposed to be his dom, but isn't in charge of anything, finally storms out and slams door. THAT'S NOT THE END! Guy then proceeds to sabotage 3 OTHER GAMING GROUPS AND LOSE LONG TERM FRIENDS (including me, he was one of the groomsmen at my wedding, but I haven't talked to him in years). In another D&D game, he plays a racist elf that tries to murder all the humans in his party, then quits when they ask him out of game to stop. In a Nobilis game he starts a war with another PC, betrays the party at the climax of our big fight with the bad guy and tries to join the Excrucian side before storming out of the game IRL. In a Star Trek mercinaries game I'm running, he's playing a Tellerite engineer who gets into an in character argument with another player who's an exFederation special forces guy and pulls a plasma torch on him (wizard pulls dagger on fighter and goes hand to hand wtf?). Other player says "Stand down or I will phaser you on high power." Tellerite goes berserk, exFed phasers him, guy screams "Fuck you I don't like you, I don't want to be your friend anymore and I don't want to play with you ever again!" and storms out of game. Guy had been exFed's apparently very friendly roommate for two years previously. Don't know what happened to him, he set his life on fire and completely disappeared.

It's not clear from my narrative... this all happened over the course of like... 3 weeks.

• Girl dating two guys insists on one vagina policy. Is extremely jealous and controlling to both of them for years. They both stick with her FOR YEARS for some reason... anyway, running Star Wars game, turns out guy1 is cheating on girl with other girl they both work with... other girl thinks things are fine because "they're poly" so guy is lying to her. Almost don't blame him (but please, break up the fuck up with toxic people instead of cheating on them). Anyway, Star Wars game is just over. Also, years later guy2 ends up cheating on her with a girl who thinks it's fine because they're poly. My opinion: guy2 did wrong, but girl has some responsibility for situation too... which she DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE. Just gender reverse the scenario and think about what we all think of a jealous controlling man with a one penis policy...I'm still good friends with guy2, don't talk to girl anymore.

• Super ADHD bubbly girl who I'm dating is also dating a really chill, cool guy with massively low self esteem who is married to CRAZY WOMAN who diagnoses everyone around her with really extreme mental disorders they totally don't have and then tries to "help" them. Me is running Changling game with everyone in it, CRAZY WOMAN starts figuring out what mental disorders all the players have and then talking to me about it like I have some responsibility to act. When I'm luke warm to this, she tells me her husband is a sociopath who would be a serial killer if she wasn't there to stop him and that my girlfriend who is also her metamore has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and she's going to turn on me and she wants husband to break up with her before she turns on him. I lose interest in game and tell my players I don't have time to keep running it. Fortunately, husband becomes exhusband who is totally not a sociopath, and girlfriend does NOT have NPD.

That favor economy sounds really cool. I'm sorry that Warlock didn't get it. Also sorry about all the rest of the drama.

One would think that somebody who is poly and plays DnD knows how to communicate and handle their emotions. If I would haven been in your position I would probably have started a campaign without them much sooner.

I'm going to be open here about the fact that I do not grok poly relationships. I'm happy for poly people, and I certainly don't judge, but the amount of social juggling and interpersonal communication makes my squish meay processor scream out in terror and die.

I say this because my "barely can maintain more than 3 friendships at a time" brain immediately hones in on Warlock's dating behaviour not as what I understand (or, more likely, misunderstand) polyamory to be, but rather as naked serial monogamy.

Serial monogamists set up their next relationship before their last one has ended, and that often means starting the process of dating a new partner before the old one is actually informed of the breakup.

To my eye, Warlock seems to have decided that the poly community is ripe for the picking and exploiting. The idea that going on a date with someone new is an accepted part of many poly relationships just disguises the fact that it's a signal that the relationship is dying.

It is kind of puzzling that they seem to like to use your table as the chopping block, though.

Also, the fact that some of these people have been labelled as their fiancees is even more of a red flag here, though, I admit, my mind wants to assign a concrete timeline here where I don't think any has been given, and that timeline is not excessively long. In this light, it raises the possibility of love bombing, which is a highly manipulative, controlling, and psychologically damaging behaviour.

Warlock sounds like someone who needs some kind of treatment (this type of behaviour is associated most strongly with cluster b personality disorders (which themelves appear to have a strong overlap with untreated cPTSD)), not a game they clearly don't acre about and further contact with their victims.

I can only hope they receive some, eventually.

Skimming through it, this person is showing clear signs of being on the spectrum. They do not recognize the problem, and in your comments, even after you explained (in a very gentle way), they cannot wrap their heads around it because the concept is so foreign to them.

It's not a problem to have people like that - hell that's half of the people I know.

But it's absolutely a problem when they are a ass about it. And I think that's the reason to boot them. Games are supposed to be fun, and they are killing it.

I didn't read all of it, so perhaps I am missing some bits but this is a lot of drama. Seems like there are a lot of people looking for a game on places like Reddit (I know I know, Reddit is the devil) for you not to be able to find at least one more party member there. But vetting members in the future is going to be necessary I think to avoid these same kinds of players.

Hey. I realize this post is 5 months olf so probably not relevant anymore... But I wanna say that the setting sounds really cool for the campaign. I would like to find out more about the story of the setting, so if you'd still want to run at least one session then I'd like to join in for at least a session if that's fine. If you do still look for a player do know that I am relatively new to D&D and TTRPGs in general, only played a few one-shots.

Also, this whole post was a great read, even if not an uplifting one. Unfortunately, I cannot contribute at all about who I think was in the right and who wasn't, I don't like making a judgement when hearing a story from one person's perspective. Sorry about that.

Im actually looking for a new campaign. Mine canceled twice so 2 months with no session...

Is there a lemmy instance for LFG?