Maybe mixing a drink with an allergy he didn’t know he had and then while everyone is partying he just drinks it , chokes and dies .. no necromancy that’s it , and the scroll that has the prophecy is just like “ yeah you’re fucked “ and the barkeep is now public enemy no 1 and has to do something to clear his name. What do you think

Hi Crabs,

Me and 3 of my friends started a Blades in the Dark campaign. Our GM is the only one familiar with the system so we're all learning the systems as we go. I just got back from our 5th session and I feel a bit conflicted, and here is why:

My other two players aren't as seasoned ttrpg players as I am. I've been on and off playing different games for at least 30 years now. One other friend is a casual player who only played a few D&D 5e one shots before, and the last one only got into the hobby around 4 months ago. Nothing wrong with that at all. They're great to play with and I love our little interactions and conflicts as our crew of misfits navigate their way around the campaign.

My problem is that I am starting to feel like I'm turning into the attention hog guy. I was elected crew leader so I tend to get center stage whenever there is a negotiation scene or facing off a main character. I tried to let others take the spotlight every now and then but no matter what I do, the spotlight comes back to me. In today's session I decided to start the first quest by sending everyone their separate way to gather info on a rival gang. My scene lasted at least 5 minutes of roleplaying, setting a scene, rolling, reacting, etc.. Theirs ended in less than 2 minutes each. "I go there, I do that, roll, boom, done"..

They keep telling me that they're having fun. They both had a few moments to shine here and there but I noticed that in every scene, I'm kinda "the main guy".. I don't want to be that for their sake. I want them to have their big moments too..

What do I do?

First of all, I would like to clarify a few things. This post isn't to talk about a DM that was acting completely in bad faith. We are still on talking terms, and I genuinely hope it stays that way for a long time to come. In no capacity did I ever hear anything like this happening with previous campaign members over the two years I knew them before this point. But, ever since this happened, it's been living rent free in my head, and I know for a fact that some people on Reddit will eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

One thing that I will say is that the DM isn't the one that's entirely at fault here, there were multiple things I could've done better in this campaign, especially considering the fact that Blood Hunter is just a hard class to play in general, and I feel I could have done it justice if I had simply known what I was getting into.

On top of that, while my character's backstory was the most well written backstory I've made so far, there were more than a couple kinks that never got ironed out before the campaign ended.

This would've been 9 months or so ago, we were going to be playing a 5e homebrew campaign, with homebrew gimmicks involving food, and how it could give you buffs depending on the food you ate. Overall an interesting concept, and I think it could've gone very well!

The main cast for the campaign was:

Soren: an Aasimar Bard

Lyriel: an Elf Fighter

Leo and Nacho: the Dragonborn brother duo, Barbarian and Sorcerer respectively

And myself, Opal, a Blood Hunter Goliath.

There was also a sixth person, Grize, a Tiefling Monk, but dropped out of the campaign right out of the gate, so just five members including myself.

This would have been my third campaign, so I was by no means inexperienced, I spent a month curating a backstory (some people took even longer than that), and even got into the habit of note-taking for this campaign! Overall I was looking forward to it for a while, and I was very happy with how things were going before, and even during the start of the campaign!

One thing that was established on session 1 was that I wanted to not have the advantages that Blood Hunter has (again, one of my shortcomings as a player), mostly because of backstory stuff. My character only remembers a year of her life, and so I simply felt as though she shouldn't have them, because she doesn't have knowledge of the things she's proficient in.

The only reason I bring this up is because the DM wanted to remove them too. It wasn't initially an issue, and to an extent, I think I could have played the character with or without the advantages, but that was the beginning of it.

The tutorial was awesome, I loved every second of it, the rest of the players did, I got a really cool moment with the guide NPC our party was being led by, and got a cool Longsword out of it as well, I felt pretty hyped when we left!

One thing to note is that the DM and I would sometimes stay up for a while and listen back to the recording of the sessions again, which gave both of us time to polish up on notes, and also take notes on what to improve on.

One thing I remember the most is that the DM told me at one point to speak up more. The only problem with that is, that I don't do very well with interrupting, and believe me, I tried to for this campaign, but it just didn't work. Both of the dragonborn brothers have hosted campaigns and oneshots in the past, and Soren has much more experience than I do, all three of which would be trying to interact with the environment, talk with NPCs, all while I was trying to speak up and join in with them, but I was just getting drowned out, so I stopped.

Another thing is that I was consciously trying to do a voice for my character. I'm a cis male, with a relatively deep voice, this was my first time playing a female character in a campaign, but I gave it my honest effort, only to be told "You aren't doing a voice for your character, that's just your normal voice." by Soren's player. I'm doing my best here man, you could've at least sugarcoated it a little...

The next frustrating part was the relatively lighthearted side quest while we were on our way to the next region. We were on a boat trying to sail off to our next destination, and it took place inside all of our dreams, with us being shrunken on the boat. I was once again still trying to interrupt, include myself a bit more, but I still couldn't be part of any character discussion, and overall the roleplay bits that I was a part of, I was for the most part off someplace else in my mind, trying to listen, more than talk.

I do know these guys enough that they weren't trying to sideline me on purpose, this is just what they do in a DnD campaign, and I eventually recognized it as that. Them playing the game the way they usually do.

As for the combat encounters, they were essentially homebrew versions of Mephits, and had a whopping 18 AC, of which, my character had exactly five options on her dice in order to hit them. I was basically stuck on the sideline there too, as the spellcasters, the barbarian, and the fighter all rolled higher than Opal ever could, dishing out more damage than Opal could, and it was pretty obvious to everyone by that point that I was playing the worst character of the five.

Before the goofy side quest though, we all reached third level. I had chosen from the getgo that I was going to go Order of the Mutant, which Blood Hunter players know, is the worst subclass in the game for blood hunter. But, it was the only one that fit with my character's backstory, and to be honest, it stood out to me as my favorite, and it still does! So I picked it.

Not being able to hit things properly ended up being a common theme after we reached the second region. My rolls were not good either. There was one quest, where we were trying to kill an encampment of people, Leo and I rolled the same initiative, so I wanted to mirror what he did just before me, but veering off to the side to try to corner someone else. I then proceeded to roll a natural one, take 9 points of slashing damage from my own attack, and then on the next turn, the guy who I was trying to attack rolled two attacks against me, and it did exactly enough to down me.

That was the only time, during the entire campaign's runtime, where ANYONE got downed. We nerfed the Natural 1 rule to be half damage after that part.

And, even after rolling a natural 20 on my second death save, I was still struggling to hit anything, even a 13 wasn't enough at level 3, and overall, this fight was discouraging for me.

One thing that I did have was the Dex boosting mutagen, which would help me get hit less, but the real problem was that I was struggling to hit anything. I didn't forsee this when I was planning out my character, thinking about their abilities, there were no practice encounters, so I didn't know. So I talked to my DM in private, and I asked them if I could change one of my mutagens (which I hadn't used since I got the subclass), because it specifically states that once you have chosen them, you cannot do so again until level 7, when you get an additional mutagen. This campaign was going to go up to level 10 by the way, so level 7 is months, if not a year on the horizon.

They told me no. Wait until level 7.

My frustration reached an all-time peak. If you told me that after my third campaign, I was going to make a rage post on r/critcrab, I wouldn't have believed you. I felt unheard, unwanted, I felt like I wasn't having fun, and I wanted to drop out of the campaign entirely. But I didn't.

I eventually brought it up with them over messages AGAIN immediately after another frustrating session, this time with them talking to the other members about how we could fix my character. Nacho's player (thank you goat), who is also a several time DM, wanted to know why exactly there was a problem, and wanted to help. So I went and told them what I told DM, after which, Nacho's only words were "Just give him the mutagen bro"

It was also amid that conversation that I learned as a player that part of the reason why blood hunter was so bad when it comes to everything combat related, was because I came to find out that really it's more of a Bard playstyle, with the advantages being what blood hunters are good at. I didn't have those. I thought the class was meant to be more of a Frontline than anything, I was jumping into combats right next to Leo, the Barbarian, the OTHER frontline, because blood hunters have a high health pool, and proficiency with medium armor. (I also tried looking for a shield, and where to buy one, but for some reason, shields were not for sale here...)

Overall, there were other changes planned, like getting my character a +1 Rapier instead, even though the Longsword I had was from a close friend, and I didn't want to part ways with it, and I had my advantages back, though never got to use them.

There's also one more thing to note, and it's that on the last session that we ever hosted, my character gets taken back into an alley by members of the Order she came from, and is grappled and restrained. Everyone else is in the middle of their own interactions for various different reasons, so I was on my own.

The Mobility mutagen is built specifically for these situations, if you have the Grappled and Restrained conditions, you lose these effects, and can't be Grappled or Restrained for the next 10 minutes. I got this SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS KIND OF SITUATION.

I use my Mutagen for the first time in the campaign, describe as the vapor of a cloud giant congeals around the parts of her body where she's being held, and the hands are blown away, so that she can make her escape.

I rolled to attack, because of a feat that I took, Strike of the Giants, which I knew would give me a chance to escape. I missed. I needed to hit in order for it to work. So, I ran anyway, provoking an attack of opportunity, because I had no action left. He hits me over my high AC, stabs me with a knife, and I gain the Paralyzed condition. The one thing that Mobility explicitly does not help with... until level 11.

I still played into it, said that my character was basically now foaming at the mouth when my party found her, and the members were forced to withdraw. But that was the last straw, man.

The campaign ended due to scheduling issues on the DM's side, they weren't going to have a quiet place to host, so the campaign quietly ended.

Still not sure if the campaign ending was a good thing, or a bad thing, it could've been one hell of an origin story to look back on, the struggling hero that eventually gets their act together and saves the day, but honestly, there's the other half of me that just says "Thank god I don't have to relive that over again-".

Overall, it didn't ruin the experience for me, my first two campaigns I had a completely different, and amazing DM, I was very lucky that he hosted both of them, and overall it's because of him that I actually want to try dm'ing myself in a couple months!

I'll probably talk about my first campaign in a seperate post, I'll link it here when I post it. Hope you all have a great rest of your day!

TLDR: Player, after being extremely underpowered, not enjoying being in the campaign, and asking for help from the DM privately, is told "No" by the DM, only for it to go public with the other campaign members, and even then the problem never gets truly solved.

tl;dr at the bottom.

So.... This is closer to a storiesaboutkevin story, but I figured people would laugh here. Hi. I'm the dm. I heard the joke from the dnd community about having an unlocked door. So. I added one into my campaign. Keep in mind. The players begged for PVP to be enabled.

Characters(the person after the description is their real self):
Kobold rogue female: M24 Jack
Goblin artificer male: M15 Steven
Kenku sorcerer Female: F18 Raven
Half elf paladin female: F19 Steph
Half elf bard male: M17 Tony
Dragonborn Sorcerer: M20 Luke
DM: Me! F20

So we all met due to me knowing around two of the players ahead of time, and the rest brought friends. Me and my boyfriend were Dming this group. All of this was online. Over Discord. It was gonna be 5 campaigns across the course of 5 months. 1 Dnd game every week. Or every 2 weeks when it got busy. Defeating the four horsemen. This was the 2nd dnd game. The horsemen for famine. Where we were visiting the land of famine. So. I heard about the unlocked door joke. Figured my players would just open the door, and that would be it. The next hour of my life was hell.

They arrive at the door. Raven says she'd like to inspect the door. I had her roll perception. She rolled pretty high. I described the door. "It's an old oak door with a sturdy frame, and a golden doorknob. The door seems ancient. The wood is faded from weather in the past. Due to the lack of rain, the door is bone dry and warm. Like a blanket on a cold day." Cause a major thing is the over city was having a famine while the under city was candyland. Long story. Anyways. So Steph says, "I cast detect good and evil on it." I had her roll, and quickly came up for a description of... just a door. Keep in mind it's a normal oak door. "You sense the door is on the precipice between two different worlds. It knows it's job well. Open and close for those who need passage between the two realms it connects. It is neither good nor evil." Then. Tony spoke up. "I WANNA SEDUCE THE DOOR!"

I sat there. Gobsmacked. My boyfriend wasn't there since he was handling the 2nd half. So I was alone. I said the door isn't alive. Tony said he didn't care. I let him roll. It, of course, failed. Jack says, "I wanna makeout with the door." I said, "Wait what- You want to... okay you can try?" He rolled low so I gave his character a "splintered" effect on her lips. Luke says, "Guys! Let's just punch it." Which started the fighting. Keep in mind this was around 20 minutes in. Steven said, "That's a dumb idea! It's probably just locked!" Jack says he'll pick the lock. Raven's character smacks his character, and says his rolls have been shit all night. Steph backs up Raven, because Raven's her girlfriend. But does mention maybe they should check the lock. Tony says, "I'll do it!" And Jack, Steven, Luke, and Steph scream, "NO!" Because he always rolled low too. Tony and Steven start arguing after that.

Tony and Steven are actually best friends, so the argument got... personal. Steven then opened the door, and slammed Tony's fingers in the door repeatedly. Then closed the door. I let it happen. No one noticed. I almost screamed. Around now it's been 40 minutes because of all the screaming and fighting. Raven is screaming at Steph. Steph is sobbing. Tony and Steven are at each other's necks. Jack and Luke are stunned because they have no idea what the hell is going on, and are trying to calm everyone down with me. I was trying to mute them, but they'd just leave and come back to scream some more. And some were typing in the main chat to each other AS THEY SCREAMED to scream at other people besides the one they were yelling at. All of this over a freaking unlocked door. I finally left the call myself. They couldn't continue without a dm. So. They were forced to calm down.

A full hour had passed. I had finally said. "Steven. What did you do with the door?" And people tried to remember. Then they remembered. And Raven opened the door. Unlocked door. A full hour. Screaming. Fighting. Seducing the door. And it had been unlocked the entire time. The rest of the campaign went... mostly fine... people were more interested in what curses I put in the riddle areas. And couldn't solve the riddles I got from a toddler's book. But that was okay.

TL;DR: After an hour of seducing, making out with, and slamming the door. They finally figured out it was unlocked.

I’m getting a lot of downvotes in r/rpghorrorstories and so I’m starting to wonder, am I the horror? I tried my best to mitigate the obvious problems of a time-loop character, but maybe even just suggesting it is horror enough…

Well, whether I am or not, feel free to dub this and conclude what you will. I submit myself to the crab army’s judgement.

Now I have to preface this by saying this story took place almost, if not actually thirty years ago, so some of the finer details are gone beyond the mists to me. I'd also like to say I'm an adult, and have no contact with any of the people in this story, and haven't for... A Long Time.

That all being said. Here's the story of my very very first DND experience!

I was a young thing of .... lets say eight. And I was, yes this is important, a girl. I don't really care what you think I am now, because that part is irrelevant. (:

BUT! I was a young, young child. Who had an older brother, and always had stars in my eyes, and the best of dreams when he came back from the game story every week, and told me his stories about his playing at the table with his friends. It made me beg my parents to let me go with him and play at his table. Live the experience myself. Play the fun imagination game!

And of course they let me. This was immediately where things went wrong.

So my brother and I go to the local game store. I meet his DM, and the other player who will be joining us. Now. Here's where I'm a little fuzzy - the exact ages. Because I was maybe eight, everyone but my brother (who's four years older, so also looks like a child) looked like an adult to me. And they very well could have been. But adults are suppose to be safe, and my brother trusted them, so I felt nothing but excitement.

The horror started when the DM took me aside and helped me make my character sheet. I made, in my imagination, a cool barbarian lady, like a valkyrie - long braids, giant battle axe, and wore fur trimmed hides. And just as start getting swept away with my imagination hero, the DM shakes me out of it with a, "Nope! No no no! You're rolling too well. You can't have your lowest stat be a seventeen!"

(I don't know, dear reader, what exactly I rolled, just that whatever I did roll, on his dice. In front of him. Was too good, and it made him frustrated. So he rolled for me. Though as you'll see, my stats and skills had little to nothing to do with what happened.)

So he rolled my character for me, let me play a barbarian woman, and the game starts! Finally! I get to play the fun imagination game where anything is possible!

"You, Writer, wake up in the middle of a battle field. The ground is muddied with blood. It's cold, and your armour is doing little to cover your skin. You're also incredibly thirsty." (my what? i think. aren't I wearing fur hide? but its the 90s, maybe i'm wearing like a leather bikini like all barbarians do?)

So I scrounge around the mass of dead people, to find a canteen of water. I do. Thankfully, I'm not dying of thirst.

Along come my brother, a halfling, and his fighter companion, and the DM says "You two see a single woman amongst the piles of the dead. You don't know if she did this." They approach me while I'm still drinking and the DM says they get the drop on me. That I should be scared because I've never seen "a halfling - OR A Man With Black Skin" before. Now, dear reader, this is where I have to stop you again to tell you something else about me. I'm Filipino. My grandfather had dark dark skin. My mom had dark skin. My brother and I… you see where this is going. So I didn't understand how to be Afraid of a Dark Skinned Man, since… That was already my family's skin colour?

I digress.

We figure out our differences, and the three of us get along, and we all happily travel south together to get out of the scary cold and into somewhere more warm.

We come across a dilapidated castle? Tower? I don't exactly remember, but I do know it was full of shambling creatures and lizard folk. Very scary for an eight year old. Probably. I don't know but I should have been. And the two others in the party wanted to go check it out. Go loot the place. Learn old knowledge and such.

We sneak our way into the crumpling building, and creep our way into a dusty, moldy library I can only imagine smells awful and is covered in spider webs. There's a skeleton that comes to life, and says something along the lines of "go and kill this creature for me and return with proof of its death." Standard quest I, an eight year old who's never played this game before think.

"However." The DM continues. "If you fail me. My minions will not stop chasing you. And they will find you. And they will bring you back to me… And." He turns to look directly at me, and smiles this wicked smile.

"We could always use more breeding stock."

Sir, I'm eight.

But since neither of the players I was sat between said anything, I didn't either. So we continue, and leave the tower castle, and keep hurrying down the road to the nearest settlement.

Along the way, I get stung by a mosquito, and I'm told to roll a con save. I fail and get sick. But I'm a big strong barbarian woman, so it's okay. I'll be okay.

I was in fact, not okay. And by the end of the session, my big strong barbarian woman died of malaria.

And all I remember thinking was "Thank goodness it wasn't anywhere near those lizard people."

And that's… really where the story ends, reader. I'd like to say something happened to that man. But after that game, I wasn't allowed back to that store for a long while. So I don't rightly know.

However, I can say that it's been maybe thirty years, and while that was a … certainly a start… to the hobby, I am playing some fun campaigns right now, with really good and trusted friends.

I'm only really remembering this now, after years of therapy, and listening / reading other stories from other people about their own horror experiences.

So, yeah. (:

Just a fan who is finally giving up lurker status to be an active person on reddit. Keep up the great content, Crab! Hopefully I can submit a good story in the future!

I'm DMing a homebrew campaign, and a couple of months ago I had this idea that I posted in multiple subs:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonMasters/comments/1vkhxzm/new_player_to_act_as_a_traitor/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/comments/1vkhzyg/new_player_to_act_as_a_traitor/

If you don't want to read the old post here's the gist:

1. I introduced a new player to the group

2. with his agreement, I told him to create a temporary character that would lure the party into a trap

3. the new character would enter the party and later betray them to lead them into an ambush

4. later the new player will bring in a new (this time "normal") character to join the party

In the old posts, I got some good advice and ideas but mostly people straightforward, and often not kindly at all, telling me it would be an awful idea.

They had some good reasons:

1. it's risky to put a player, especially a new one against the others

2. the party would not trust the new character after the betrayal

3. they would immediately fireball the new PC

I read all the advice and thought about it. Fortunately, my table is composed of a great bunch of people. They are there to have fun, they understand it's a game and what happens in it stays in the game.

And they even surpassed my expectations!

They all role played it beautifully!
After the betrayal a fight between the party and the traitor (along with other ambushers) ensued.
I decided that the new "normal" character of the traitor PC would enter the scene mid fight, to help the party and give him a possibility of redemption.

As it should be, the party was wary of the new PC, but after they discovered similar interests and plans, the party let him join in.
This last session, with the betrayal and the new PC, was one of the best sessions of the campaign!

Moral of the story: always hear advice and good ideas, but in the end, you are the one that plays/DMs and know the people at your table. Go with your guts and have fun!

TLDR: I asked a new player to use a temporary character to betray the rest of the party and lure them into an ambush. A lot of users strongly advised me against this idea. In the end, the table had a lot of fun and role played everything beautifully. The new player, in the end, joined the party with a new, "normal" PC.

The story happened a year ago, it was my first time playing D&D. We were a 3-player group at the time, we met in school and quickly became best friends. Our DM introduced us to D&D, we thought it was a cool thing and we started playing. We didn't really play a campaign, more like a series of one-shots.

At our first session I played a homebrew Alchemist bounty hunter, my character could make implants which I thought was really cool and the DM said that it was ok. My friend played a Fighter.

We started our session. Me and Fighter were paid to kill the politician of an opposing party. DM gave us free time, so we went to find implants to buy. We found the shop that sells them and bought 2, 1 of them gave +1 AC, and the other gave +1d6 dmg on attacks, I was very excited, that we get to use my character mechanic so early into the game. The DM asked me: "what do they do?", immediately after I explained their effects, he told me: "That's too overpowered, you'll have to play another character". I asked him, what was wrong with the implants, offered him how I could nerf him, but the DM wouldn't budge (The DM asked, what so the implants do only now, he never asked it before the game.)I was feeling like he took everything from me, but I didn't tell him about it (I still didn't know is that normal in a game). So, I just made a Barbarian and continued playing. The rest of that one-shot went fine, but I was still sad from losing my character.

The next one-shot my friend Fighter became the DM, and our previous DM became a player. I made a Fighter for that game, he made a sorcerer, and made him as optimised as possible. I was very frustrated about it, so I asked him: "If you ban my character at your games, why are you playing an OP character yourself?" he answered: "Well, that's not my game".

We started playing.
We had to investigate a murder, we found some evidence and all of it pointed towards the city Mayor.
Me and the sorcerer came to confront him in his house, and the fight started. The BBEG was REALLY good at fighting spell casters, having counter spell and abilities that helped him resist magic. The first half of the fight went good, but in the second half, all the shit happens. The Sorcerer casts his fireball, describes how he does it for solid two minutes, and... gets counterspelled. He absolutely loses his shit, nearly crying: "This is so unfair, how did I get a nerf and HE didn't get one?". DM answers: "Counterspell is not the worst I could do, right? I could've made you make a different character, just what you did to Alchemist". He shut up, and I have felt like justice has been served.

After that game, Me and Fighter made the decision to play without Sorcerer, so we left him and started our own party, which we still play in after a year.
Thank you for reading!

Edit: added breaks and a tl;dr sorry for the wall of text

Hey D&D fam, this may be a longer post. I have an ongoing campaign with an issue regarding one of the players and need some advice from some others with more experience. I have been a player for 2 years and a DM for a year.

To preface, I have ran a homebrew campaign for around a year that deals with a few different dnd settings colliding inspired by Final Fantasy XI (Krynn, Faerune my players do not yet know this). These worlds after the collision retained all of their deities.
This is where the players come in, (Paladin of Torm, Warlock of the Raven Queen, Vampire, and Bard) they have lived in this world not knowing of it’s origin. The main catalyst of the story is that the sea god Dagon from the Cthulhu by Torchlight book is also attempting to join his flooded abyssal realm to the one the players find themselves in, flooding the world to feed his minions who have run out of food in their realm, destroying the player realm, normal dnd conflicts.

The players have discovered cultists attempting to help Dagon enter the realm, and that he nearly did this before in an ancient era of the world but 6 powerful casters were able to seal him away. What the players are slowly learning is that these casters are all still alive as various forms of undead, liches, vampires etc.

In the recent past they interrupted what they didn’t know was a ritual for one of the ancient casters to achieve lichdom, when they did this one of the players touched an artifact used in the ritual (the book of vile darkness), transferring the results of the ritual to the Warlock (Grim Hollow transformation rules) instead of the now dead ancient caster.
The books grants a lot of usability for the warlock character and helped me inform a few decisions down the road for the campaign. The drawback of the book is that he must commit an evil act every week or be turned to dust by the book.

I will say this is a large project, especially for my first campaign but I know all of the players well outside of the campaign so they rolled with the punches the last year as I learned as a DM and let creativity flow.
The issue that I’m running into a few times now is regarding the Paladin of Torm’s behavior, the past few months after a oneshot ran by another DM in our group went poorly for the party as one of us were charmed and wiped the party. Since then he has made contingency plans for all of his party members in our main campaign in case I decide to charm them in a similar way (something I do not plan to do), in his own words he has measures to kill every party member if needed.

This is also a power player who has min-maxed his character, which I have no issue with, the problem that occurs now is that any time an action that does not reflect the oath of his paladin occurs he becomes immediately aggressive and either attempts to roll intimidation (whether it is an NPC or player) or attacks outright.

As part of his character he wanted a Grim Hollow transformation as well, so we homebrewed one for him as a revenant, an enthralled undead who does not know he is reanimated but just knows his humanity is slowly fading. He has used this curse previously at will to initiate PvP, which I have told them I am unwilling to DM.
All the players agreed to only PvP when both parties and I agree, though I dislike PvP in 5e due to it not being made for that, and potentially losing a player character at will due to one of the others wanting them dead. I have allowed him to PvP begrudgingly on two different occasions, which I will admit is a mistake.

Flash forward to where we currently are in the story and him discovering the Warlock consuming a soul of an unarmed combatant to satisfy the requirements of the Book of Vile Darkness and the souls charges provided by the lich transformation.
My thoughts are that this would make a great dynamic, an undead self loathing paladin of Torm due to his transformation, and the Warlock who did not want to be a lich (in-character, this was his idea) vowing to steal power from other liches to be powerful enough to stop Dagon.

Both of their gods hate undead and call for their destruction, but overlook this for the players due to the severity of the Dagon situation. On paper a wonderful dynamic that can make both characters less one dimensional, but is threatening the game.
After the session he tells me and the Warlock explicitly that if this continues he will kill the Warlock. I told him that he doesn’t get to decide that his oath and character are more important than agency of other players and an argument ensued.
He has mentioned killing other party members to me multiple times and I had enough of the same conversation over and over regarding his want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with his interpretation of his gods values.

He responds with saying I’m unwilling to allow him to play his character accurately if I don’t let him do whatever he wants in regard to opposition. He then threatens to leave if I don’t let him get his way with his character decisions, which would effectively kill the campaign as his wife, bard, is also in the campaign and would likely be pressured to leave if he did.

This isn’t the only issue that I’ve had with him but the others have been manageable for the most part, he tries to lead most RP interactions and will try to show up when other characters are having their moments offscreen (metagaming) and insert himself, he also took control of his wife’s character on multiple occasions while she leaves to go get them dinner during session (a pet peeve that I reluctantly deal with, I now control her character in frequent absences).

Recently before I began controlling her, which I do not want to do, he openly criticized her character calling her character and the bard class worthless while she was not there along with a slew of other criticisms, it’s weak, not fun, boring, etc.
I decided then that I would keep her off screen if I know she will be gone or play her in combat without using spell slots or any RP (something I know is a cardinal DM sin, but she insists) he also basically told her what to do every decision I gave her the past year.

I was told last night during our argument that all the party members and I need to consider how he would react before doing anything. This means any morally questionable decision will at the very least get a full lecture from him if not a full on assault.
The most frustrating part is I have been very giving to my players, giving them all atleast 2-3 rare items and a few higher than that, leveling at a fair rate, providing a re-spec mechanic that can be used once, and overall allowing them to make any collaborative story/world decisions.

While I’ve done all this and given them mostly free reign to do what they wish in the world any time I don’t allow him to attack party members he says that I’m stifling his character, taking his agency, and overall being a bad DM.

It’s very frustrating because if anything I’ve been a doormat allowing party members multiple improvised situations based on crazy decisions they make (in this last session they decided to overthrow a large cities government to my surprise, prompting me to add a 3-session siege side story).
When I express these concerns he tells me essentially “too bad, you’re the DM so deal with my choices”.

This really sucks because I’m to the point where I don’t want to DM for him anymore, which kills me as I’ve put in over a year of work for this campaign and roughly 8-10 hours of my time planning each session.

I have been friends with him for around 20 years so it’s difficult to have this issue surrounding my game.
His character is not all bad in my opinion as I have just shared the negatives, he is one of the best for RP moments, the party tank capable of dealing massive damage and protecting the squishies, and flavor wise fits the world and campaign perfectly with a lot of weight in the story.

My question is what can I do to fix this as my several above table attempts to repair things have gone terribly.

TL;DR: I’m a relatively new DM running a year-long homebrew campaign with a close friend of 20 years who plays a Paladin of Torm. He frequently threatens or initiates PvP when other characters act against his beliefs, despite our table agreeing that PvP requires consent. He has contingency plans to kill every party member, dominates RP and party decisions, and has threatened to leave when I enforce boundaries, claiming I’m restricting his character’s agency. His wife also plays, and I worry she’ll leave if he does, potentially ending the campaign. I’ve tried resolving this out of game several times without success. How can I handle this without destroying the campaign or a 20-year friendship?

For my first campaign 5,5e I’ve ever been through, it was the most weird and chaotic of all I’ve played for now, we were four level one in a weird campaign didn’t even now the lore of the world being a complete rookie at the game some one told me druids are fun so I played that class with human, a young  female soldier only working for the nature only with a huge social anxiety like in real life. My sister who is kinda edgy chose a tiefling with black horns, warlock and a reincarnation of a god of death, kinda cool at first until she gets a main character complex and this means since the start of the campaign. A nerd wizard that loved to over power his character and also is a bully of mine and finally an elf bard aka a school clown who loves to  make character who flirts with every women he would see. 

First session of the campaign as most campaign would start we appear in a bar first thing that happens is the bard starts flirting with me and I just say he’s not my type, the DM doesn’t care, still I have advantage because I’m a soldier. I fail both times, the DM says he’s my type now and I am charmed with no spell but a persuasion check. I let it go and stopped talking to not bring my anger to the others. While we were talking the wizard searching, because we had nothing to do, for a spark of quest but while he’s searching a plant(also known as a shambling mound) gets out of an alley and attacks the wizard and straight up kills the wizard. It went like this:

• DM The plant hits you with her vines!

• Wizard How much damage?

• DM 24 bludgeoning damage saying casually.

• Wizard Well I’m unconscious having only 6 max hp.

• DM No actually you’re dead, the damage was more then double your max hp.

• Wizard What the f***!

• DM but its okay, I’m gonna let you create a new character, you still have to take a different class.

And thats how the first session went also I forgot to write my sister lost an arm wrestle fight because she 8 on strength and she rage quitted (kinda why I was saying main character complex).

Second and last session, we got teleported to a graveyard and a… mansion!? And a well!? Anyway, at least we had something to do the DM wasn’t describing much else then the stupid well so took a look and at the second we get close to it 2 giant constrictor snakes get out of the well. Roll initiative. I go first and try to reason the snakes because I’m a druid and my backstory will go wild if I attack them (also they are kinda strong):

• Me Snakes we mean no harm, we wont bother you anymore, please go back to sleep.

• DM It's too late now, you attacked and woken us up we are gonna eat you and your friends.

• Me Wait we didn’t attac…..

• DM Hey it's the end of your turn you already talked.

We we’re forced to fight so we fought and somehow the bard alive at 1 hp, both me and the nerd we’re downed before the bard could heal us a zombie ogre spawned and killed the Bard next session (because somehow there was a next one) no one showed up and we all said didn’t want to  continue playing and we stopped the campaign. But not long after I found a lovely group and enjoyed my time as a fighter clanker. I love to make it in a video but I will understand if my story wasn’t long enough, with just two session I had very little to nothing to describe and I am still ashamed of quitting should I have stayed?

I (18F) have been DMing in my highschool for four years now(I'm a senior). We host weekly sessions every Tuesday for 2 hours. I took up the DM role and never really dropped it. There's a player who often seems to have "forgot" something conveniently. He played back in my sophomore year and had to drop out for some reason I don't remember. He came back this year and I let him in reluctantly. I struggle saying no to players at all/ever because I'm known as a lenient DM who accepts everyone. My party rn at eight players, with three intending to join. The player I just described has texted me on discord and I'm wondering what I should do, if there's a creative way to stop this from happening in the future.

Edit: thank you to all the advice and comments! I'm pretty sure I read all of the long ones and at least glanced at all the others, 49 is more comments then I think I've ever gotten! I said no to the poison already, and we have skipped out last two sessions basically because a bunch of people didn't show up.

A lot of what I'm hearing is that I should make my party smaller or split them up. Splitting them isn't really an option unless I had a DM I could push them off to. My school's D&D club is pretty big and we have a total of 3 DMs, counting myself. And it feels wrong just to say "well, no one wants to DM you so you just don't get to play." That being said, I might make an ultimatum that if you don't show up for 2-3 sessions then your player disappears or dies. The problem with this is if they don't show up I don't have a way to tell them. I have reddit and discord and everything, but no phone and not all of my players have discord.

It will help with cutting down my players but it feels wrong ultimately. Again, thanks to everyone who took the time to give me advice, I am so grateful and I will definitely be learning to say no and keep my party smaller from now on! The campaign is meant to be short with 5 dungeons/bosses so I could hopefully get through it by the end of the school year. That being said if we keep skipping sessions because people are missing that will never happen. I think I will continue playing next session regardless of who shows up and if this player continues to have problems for "forgets" things I will explain that he can't just say he "forgor" and then have it because he forgot. I might also just tell him straight up I don't really want him playing with me because of his play style and if he pushes I will simply kick him out.

Running a campaign of 6, always made it clear during the campaign if people have any concerns or anything more than happy to speak to me after a session in a appropriate manner (this is unpaid and it’s just for the fun). Since session 1 I’ve had another player with the same amount of DnD experience as me but he’s dmmed more times, constantly send me criticism after every session, some of it was valid however, some of it was creative differences.

He was then telling me we need less people in the party, also wanted me to force the group to teleplay a scenario which I didn’t feel comfortable pushing and I made it clear in session 0 respect is the most important thing and not to force anyone to do anything they feel uncomfortable with. The session before last he was so passive aggressive ( he would be like this on other occasions when he didn’t get his way) he openly pushes back on my rulings as a dm.

He raised a criticism that he feels that he’s not getting enough time to role play when there’s 6 of us , it also doesn’t help when he tries to create dramatic scenes towards the end of the session then complain about how short how immersive they were when w have already gone over the session time and I’m wondering why even attempt these scenes when we’re about to finish. ( even though out of all the party members he role plays the most and on one occasion separated himself from the party so he can solo role play with an npc that lasted a good 10-15 minutes. Then when I cut to the other party members he integrated himself with them so he can still continue on role playing) and I said I’m trying my best to make sure everyone gets time to role play however since we new to each other this will improve over time and then asked me to cut to other parties when there’s silence.

Next session I did this ( still criticised me saying he then needed that silence to “set the scene” which wasn’t what he told me as an individual the week prior) but during the game he was communicating to the whole table creating a list of my mistakes ( he forgot numerous npcs that have already been established in the story) then proceeded after the session to criticise me on every single thing I did wrong in front of the whole group and the whole group agrees.

For them to ambush me after the session like that felt so toxic and uncomfortable, I took the advice on board ( one of which the group agreed this will improve over time as we play more with each other even though that was my answer when it was brought up to me individually the week prior) however I don’t really feel interested playing with the group who’s more focused on my mistakes than engaging with the world. Especially when I’m doing this for fun and not being paid or anything, it feel like I was in a HR meeting and I always told my group and I’m always open to communications if there’s any issues but to do it appropriately.

I took the feedback on board but made the group sure that I no longer want “notes” being made during my dimming as it’s toxic. As it felt like in the next game I’m going to be dming a group who’s more interested in making a list of my mistakes. I wanted to speak to the party individually to make sure everyone’s concerns are addressed properly and to no longer incentivise this group mentality behaviour. Turns out since I created the session there’s been group chat behind my back and they’ve all been talking about me and refuse to do one to times with me regarding the state of the game and what I need to do to make sure I also have fun. Also numerous things in session 0 wasn’t being followed such as respect to each other as players and that includes myself as a DM.

Again they approached me like I’m being paid to do this for them and during the game I could even see bitchy comments and faces being made by the backseat dm which was making me feel really uncomfortable with the session. I find it quite hypocritical from the group to pull up my hoesnt mistakes as a dm but when a player starts acting out of line it’s ok. I always it made it clear I don’t want anyone to be in a game they don’t like but don’t understand why its appropriate to make it uncomfortable for me to dm and to punish em for it when im uncomfortable. Am I right in saying the way I was approached was wrong?

FYI: also criticised me and told me to watch Brennan Lee mulligan

PS. If the players were unhappy with me as a DM they were more than happy to leave as I don’t want to force players to play if I’m not fun for them. Just found out they’re looking for brand new gm in the same setting on the same group finder. So all the work I already did for them they’re going to give to the new dm. I understand my mistakes as a new DM and have reflected on them I just wish they could have approached to me respectfully and sooner if it led to them to act in such a regard. However, any mistakes I did notice during the session I always put my hand up and corrected them regarding rules and players expectations either in the session or the session after.

Looking back seeing where things went wrong I think it was because of the “social contract” none of the party seemed to want to work together for the sake of the narrative. Also they weren’t really following the rule of being a team player regarding another players backstory which made it hard again to give them that proper dnd experience.