Your campaign’s party created story declines when the crude and
troublesome misbehavior of obnoxious players ruins the fun for the other
players; it is up to the rest of the players to ask the obnoxious players to
change their behavior. If the obnoxious players don’t do that, then the
obnoxious players should be asked to leave that campaign. No game master
is bound by any moral or legal rules to keep obnoxious players in their
campaigns.
Why am I telling you this? My friends told me about
several D&D campaigns that have ended before they should have - because of
one or two disruptive players.
These people include:
(1) Murder hobos that spend their time looting the shops
and homes of respectable artisans, merchants, and mayors. They also
murder anyone for their own type of sick, sad, and stupid “amusement”, rather
than spending time talking to them.
(2) Humorless comedians who play their characters
ineptly. They play their characters with clownish antics that they
believe are the pinnacle of humor; but what they do is never amusing.
(3) I’ve seen two clownish brothers whose last names are
Koprowski. They took their boorish, chuckle headed, and goofball behavior
to the extreme, managing to annoy their fellow gamers and gamer masters.
They played their characters so badly that their characters often ended up dead
within hours of being rolled up.
The Koprowski brothers were often called out on how badly they
played their characters. Despite being called numbskulls to reasoned
attempts to make them play their characters better, the Koprowski brothers
never stopped being disruptive players.
Andy, an annoyed game master, playing a lawful good god, did
something creative after a Koprowski brother’s character had died an avoidable
and senseless death. The Koprowski brother’s character had lost an
avoidable and senseless fight with a powerful NPC lady paladin. Andy had
the player’s soul put into a ten foot square room, with a chair and a floor to
ceiling magic mirror. The mirror only repeatedly played the character’s
entire life from birth to death, forever; as a punishment for being such an
extreme dimwit.
I remember one lady game master that kept all the character
sheets of the player characters that had died in her campaign. All her
dead player characters were from these two brothers. Thus, she named her
dead character file as, “The Koprowski morgue”.
Keeping the character sheets of dead characters is a good
idea. The dead characters' families, friends, and mentors could recover
the dead characters’ bodies for burial or bring them back to life by “raise
dead” spells.
The dead player characters’ living family members could also
recover their family heirloom equipment. As a game master, I give my
starting, first level player characters one, minor magical weapon or tool as
their family heirloom equipment. Their family heirloom equipment reminds
the players that their characters have their families to support them when they
are in dealing with tough times. They also have a moral obligation to
return their family heirloom equipment, so it can be used by future generations
of the family.
My advice is to ask such socially inept players to change their
behavior. If these socially inept players continue to be disruptive to
your campaign, then ask them to leave. These people don’t have the right
to play in your group, to ruin the fun of everybody else.
Asking someone to leave your D&D campaign may be hard for
you to do. But, that must be done to keep your campaign ongoing and fun
for the rest of your players and your game master. If you want to keep the story of your
campaign going, all the players must be kind, while playing as a team.
