Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tremeck Sep 17, 2009 6:23:06	I have a DM of three months with whom things are not going so well. Mainly the group is irritated over the way in which he manages scheduling and he doesn't take criticism well so the situation grew without anyone confronting him until recently. We as a group want someone else to handle the organization of it. But those issues aside I have had issues with his campaign (12th level, 3.5, 6 players). The first dungeon was comprised of a stone tower within a wooden fort, the party had been hired to deliver mail and investigate as to why communication between the fort and the government had been lost. The fort was covered in blood, sans the bodies that had mysteriously disappeared. The tower, under Arcane Sight, registered as "bizarre not magic but still magic" and two high (30+) knowledge arcane checks left both party mages scratching their heads. But when the party tried to go up a stairwell in that tower, having found nothing outside, we found a metal hatch with a moderate abjuration aura blocking the way. The sorcerer tried Disintegrate which mysteriously failed, and then the wizard tried Knock, which did the same. Then the mage cast Light on the hatch and the walls, discovering that the tower just happened to be immune to magic. That was pretty annoying. And additional knowledge arcana checks revealed nothing. So, we had a buff cleric hammer the door and a buff druid hit it with an adamantine (cuts through object hardness) great sword only to discover that it was immune to damage as well. So the tower was apparently just immune to everything, with no explanation. There is no possible way to do that in 3.5 short of house ruling, but even then the DM should allow arcana checks to inform the party about his rule changes. But no. We knew nothing. Attempts to teleport past the door failed, attempts to send a shadow through the door failed, everything failed and we were left with no answers at all. We later found a trap door at the bottom of the stair well which led the rest of the dungeon, but even then, the whole basement was magic and damage immune. The DM later said that it happened to be a retrofitted wizard's tower from thousands of years prior that had been built by an epic mage, but even then, it was ridiculous that he would include something like that and not inform the players whose characters had the arcana skills to guess something like that. Later, the party wizard tried to use planar binding to rescue the party from an enchanting sorceress, but the daemon summoned broke free (he would have had to have rolled a natural twenty to break the trap). Later the DM said it was divine intervention. Later attempts by that wizard to find the demon's proper name (so he could resummon it, to prevent it from wandering the countryside) through Contact Other Plane failed, repeatedly giving him false names, the odds of which were the equivalent of three consecutive 15+ rolls. After using the false names to accidentally summon a super powered homebrew monster that craved caustic substances and a Retriever, which wasn't even possible by the spell because it is a construct and the spell only affects outsiders and elementals (also explained as divine intervention), and trying twice more to summon unsuccessfully the third (false?) name (the wizard received a sense of irritation at each failure, though that's not in the book, nor is it possible by book to trace the origin of a planar binding spell) the wizard apparently upset the "interplanar council" (there had been mention of an interplanar council before as part of one character's back story, but nothing about planar magic resulting in unavoidable prosecution) so much that they teleported him away without warning or save and charged him with disturbing the interplanar peace. And sentenced him to be sent to the arch villain's lair. Alone. Where he spent a session and a half (8-12 hour sessions) as a statue because a twenty-two fort didn't save against a bizarre artifact (flesh to stone [though this effect was admittedly another homebrew] cast from an item should have a DC of 19=10+6+3, the wizard should have made his save against an ordinary magic rod). The sorceress, mean while, had used a mass charm person spell (home brewed that lasted 1/day per CL) on the party after they had been mind fogged and teleported them to her home. The party escaped the next morning by cutting their way out of the underground lair when she was gone, only to discover that they were also nonmagically charmed as well (that was never explained, but they spent the rest of the chapter charmed, even in an antimagic field) (during the escape, they attacked a group of orcs with fireball which the DM decided destroyed the orcs equipment and potentially the keys to some of the doors that they couldn't find anywhere else in the house). The party rushed off the save the wizard and confront the archvillian (they knew of the wizard's fate because the sorcerer had connections with the interplanar council). They began the dungeon crawl, disarming traps from room to room, until they were hit with a total of eight rays of enervation from a trap (which apparently had a search DC of 32+), killing one member out right and severely weakening the rest. They then pulled back to rest outside the dungeon (the DM really complained about this, and said he knew other DMs that would actively punish parties for doing it) and raise the killed member so that they could fight the boss at full strength. After resting and fighting a giant zombie crocodile that attacked them, they finally found the wizard in a statue garden, but were unable to restore him without further resting (no one had known he had be turned to stone) and so decided to finish the dungeon and come back for him. After the boss fight nearly ended in TPK, admittedly the party didn't fight it intelligently, the sorcerer telekinetically grabbed the artifact (which had used an improved and homebrewed version of Harm that had range and additional damage and nearly killed the tank in one hit) and suddenly became an evil god (he was an evil sorcerer). Apparently the artifact contained the essence of a dead evil god, and the DM's plan had been to flash the uber item around in front of us and then have it destroyed cinematically with the final blow against the archvillian, destroying the remnant of an evil god and conveniently preventing PCs from using it, which irked the players about not getting loot. But now the sorcerer became a deity instead. The amount of homebrew and non-book content really bothered me. Especially the volume of "your spell didn't work because of divine intervention or my special homebrew spell" situations. The wizard was too afraid to use planar spells again, the cleric wouldn't use turn undead in the final fight because the arch villain's lair was Desecrated and she thought that her attempts would fail because it would turn out to be some sort of bizarre homebrew Desecration that she couldn't gauge. No one has any idea as to why they are still friendly to the sorcereress, even inside antimagic fields. And the party carried around a barrel of Lye in case the bizarre super monster ever came back. The artifact was ridiculous to fight against. Fireball doesn't destroy equipment. And frankly, invincible walls are stupid. As a player, I am totally confused.
#2 makrothumeo Sep 17, 2009 6:52:18	I would sit down and tell your DM, as a group, that while "homebrew" spells and "divine intervention" and so forth are all fine in very rare circumstances, you need to generally have consistency and some predictability in the universe...just because things aren't always going to go as he planned doesn't give him an excuse to ignore the rules of the game to force you into his pattern.  If he can't roll with the punches and improvise within the context of the game, or if his ego is too big to allow the PCs to "win," then you need to find another DM, since you'll never know whether anything you are going to do is going to fall outside his "plan" and therefore be nullified by his ego or inability to improvise.
#3 kraze Sep 17, 2009 6:58:32	If he can't handle criticism...I'm not sure there's a lot you can do.  Is the dm very young or inexperienced?? You might want to find a more experienced DM...and have the current one take a turn as a PC.  With someone a little more experienced he could learn from the new dm, and possibly improve his own style. This could very well just be a clash in style of DM and style of play.
#4 slobo777a Sep 17, 2009 7:56:11	It seems to me, the DM was poorly prepared, and either not willing or not able to ad-lib. Both are probably experience issues. I don't know of anyone who has DM'd for over a year who would run an RPG game in the way you describe. Find a new DM, either within or outside the group, and invite the current DM to play. If you are worried about confrontation, or making it a big deal, just arrange it for a different night. If he does play, and the DM-ing is improved on his version, don't make a deal of it. Trust that he'll pick up one or two pointers, and perhaps if he wants to DM again in a few months, give it a whirl. If this is inexperience he won't suddenly become perfect.
#5 emperorgruumm Sep 17, 2009 8:51:43	If the entire tower is super-duper (not just regular) magic and damage proof how did an abjuration spell/enchantment get cast on the latch in the first place? Hmm? Call him out on it! He'll probably just say that the wizard enchanted all of his junk then made it all "a tower with railroading powers beyond that of a diety's". I think my biggest problem was the "planar council," it seems that this is part of your story and as group an accepted story element. However, I cannot see how a wizard doing three or four summoning rituals would get him punished so harshly. Again, your setting may have elements that answer that but between the three failed rituals to get the demon's name and the final teleport/stone without a chance to save seems like a DM forcing you to solve the quest "his" way. Talk to your DM, but before you do talk to the rest of the group to get their opinions as well (I bet the wizard is especially mad as he seemed the most screwed). Having a character sit out a session and a half and even missing the climax is harsh. He may think it's players vs DM, you have to confront him. Maybe switch DMs for a bit to give him time to cool off and become a team player.
#6 tremeck Sep 17, 2009 16:21:30	In the second chapter, the party (the wizard and the rouge were the only consistent characters, the others made new ones) set out to find the "mace of peace" to preemptively end a war. They approached the ruined city that had the item, and had to approach under fire from the other hostile country. These attacks were opposed by reflex saves, our AC didn't come into play. I don't know why and he didn't really explain other than telling us to roll them. When we got to the mace, and defeated its homebrewed construct defenders (the wizard couldn't use Know: Arcana to identify them, because they apparently were built by a now dead church. They also had a bizarre jumping attack that let them leap out of the area of a multiple round spell effect) we were confronted with an angle, the CR 21 kind, who refused to give us the mace, and wasn't swayed by our quest purpose of halting the war. We asked if there was some other repercussion to taking the mace, and the angle said that humans make stupid wars regardless of efforts to the contrary. Finally we attacked the angle (who, the wizard had discovered with arcane sight, lacked any spell like abilities because his god was dead or something to that extent) and defeated it. A successful know: planes check had determined its type and general abilities to the party, but before dying, it made a bizarre homebrew attack that caused it to jump fifty feat in the air and crash down, causing a massive explosion that dealt 80+ damage on a failed save in more than a thirty foot radius. It killed the bard outright, she went from full health to far negatives in that one homebrewed hit, and damaged the whole party severely. Then as the angle died slowly (and attempts to stabilize it met DM fiat to the contrary) it predicted dire consequences of our actions, but though asked offered nothing specific (the DM later made a cryptic comment that people should listen to angles, which leads me to believe that even though we spent ten full minutes talking to it and trying to determine the correct course of action, asking it's advice and all, we will be the cause of some terrible event that the angle could have warned us about in the beginning). Then a great mage NPC we had been working for teleported to us and was on the brink of telling us something when he was shot (there are firearms in certain countries). He too died slowly with a monologue, and attempts to heal him magically met a DM fiat to the contrary again. The shooter then revealed himself to us, some 200' away and gave a short monologue before leaving. Attempts by the revived bard to use magical means to disable the shooter failed, with the DM pointing out that he didn't even roll a d20 for the will save, effectively saying that it didn't matter what we wanted, he was going to railroad his plot.
#7 Plulop Sep 17, 2009 16:42:50	Your DM is putting his fun and "vision" before that of the group.  If he wants to write a novel, let him write one.  I would praise his creativity, and then point out that although it's no doubt great fun for him, since he knows everything that's going on, it's actually not the game you all signed on for.    As the gentleman(?) above stated, homebrew is a potent elixir, and like ichor, put more than a drop in and you risk instant death.  *grins*   I will happily overrule the books when I deem it fit, but I do so very infrequently.  Without consistency, any attempts by the players to make viable characters comes to naught... as your experiences demonstrate.   I'm sorry to hear your sessions are more chore than thrill!  Perhaps you could suggest a brief, one-session hiatus, where one of you takes the DM's role.  Roll up some new characters, and show him how it should be done.   Just my two cents.
#8 slobo777a Sep 17, 2009 17:00:52	effectively saying that it didn't matter what we wanted, he was going to railroad his plot. This is of course the crux of the matter, even strongly linear plot lines which you will see in many bought modules, allow for a lot more player interaction, choices and control than your the DM is willing to have in this game. The homebrew/houserule stuff is neither here nor there. For example, you could easily explain that a reflex save is sensible mechanic for mass attacks - no one is aiming at you, it's just a hail of arrows (or bullets) - much like a spell effect. In fact I am sure there are spells which fill an area with this sort of effect and call for relfex saves. Many RPGs treat massed attacks differently in this sort of way. Likewise dive-bombing angels or jumping constructs - in fact these are a glimmer of a good imagination showing through the otherwise unimpressive DM-ing. You also appear to be playing at a very high level. This can make situation like this worse - the PCs are probably technically capable of a huge amount of things that the DM has not allowed for. If he's struggling to manage that, and using loads of DM fiat to do so, both you and he would better off playing at lower level so you have less of this to deal with in the first place. However, I still think your best plan is to play with a different DM. Your DM may get better, but it won't be now, during this adventure.
#9 balmas Sep 17, 2009 17:20:31	Try just bringing a laptop or something to the game and explain that since nothing you do can make a difference, you're just gonna play online.
#10 tremeck Sep 17, 2009 18:15:43	But I have to say slobo777a, that homebrewed rules can be fine, but not if the group is kept in the dark about what is being homebrewed and how; there was no discussion with the group before these elements were introduced and when they were introduced they weren't explained. And half the monsters we face are homebrewed, with questionable balancing.
#11 chinaex Sep 18, 2009 0:17:05	Dungeons and Dragons provides you with plenty of rules to homebrew things legitimately. They are rather obviously not being used. [Incidentally, I am another player in this campaign. Good evening, Magus Valaine.] I noted with some dismay that our lack of intercharacter interaction was accounted for by 'lack of time'. This was indicated through the explanation that 'Well, we don't have time, we're trying to get through the campaign'. That's about the time I realized that we were, in fact, being most certainly absolutely rail-roaded. I had no issue with declared rail-roading for the purposes of getting us to the next relevant area of activity, but once it became obvious that it wasn't going to stop, and that that was in fact the structure of the campaign, well. I didn't sign up to narrate a character for a fantasy story. I'm going to give DMing a shot. I hope the group doesn't have to be too patient with me while I learn.
#12 bronski113 Sep 18, 2009 0:24:27	Just talk to the group and then the DM.  Hoefully the DM will listen and change things so everyone is having fun. I never really got the point of completely railroading the group.  Half the fun of the game is seeing what the players do with the situation.  If you want the story told in a certain way then you are better off writing a book.
#13 chinaex Sep 18, 2009 0:33:04	Just talk to the group and then the DM.  Hoefully the DM will listen and change things so everyone is having fun. The group generally agreeing that someone else doing the scheduling would work out pretty well better ultimately resulted in what was considered a conspiracy to 'strip him of his DM power to schedule'. I won't go off into a personal rant, as that would not be even remotely appropriate, but suffice to say that attempting to rectify this as such would not result in anything but drama.
#14 tigereye504 Sep 18, 2009 0:58:10	wow. I think it sucks when my DM lines every dungeon with  magiced steel so I can't spam passwall to tunnel past his many roadblocks... your DM scares me! Ask him why he is so determined to render all your characters powers moot. if he coninues to railroad, hand him a pad of paper and tell him to write out the novel he's making you act out while you and the others play some DnD.
#15 sueil Sep 18, 2009 2:00:54	People in this thread are being a bit diplomatic. I am not going to be. Your DM is horrible. He needs to be smacked across the face the next time he tries to do that and just told NO. If he can't stop, he should never DM again.
#16 shadowkire Sep 18, 2009 2:00:55	The way I see it you have a few options: 1) the tactful approach Get everyone together and tell him in the most sugar coated way possible that you don't like how the game is being run. A great option if this guy is a treasured friend that you wish to keep. Note: if, during the execution of any of these solutions, he starts going off about 'conspiracies' to take away his DMing power step in with a quick jab about he creates worlds that conspire against your characters so that they can't do anything he doesn't want them to do, essentially taking away your power as players   2) the 'take a hint' approach Get all the other players to agree to do nothing, don't attempt to advance the plot at all. Just sit in a tavern sipping ale. When your DM asks what you are trying to do, (probably after trying to boot you around in-game) just tell him that the plot seems to advance toward a certain outcome regardless of your actions so it is just easier and more delightful to sit around and relax. A line about how if he wants to railroad his game he can as long as you get to stay in the passenger car instead of pulling the engine would fit here.   3) burn the bridge I suggest this if you and your friends don't care about him at all, and even then only if all other options have been exhausted. Shut him out, call everyone except him together for a new game and never contact him again. You may be thinking 'surely we can invite him to the new game as long as he isn't the DM.' But think about this: he throws around the word conspiracy when you guys want to change his schedule, if you start a new game with him a only as a player do you really think he is going to play nicely?
#17 Draco_Whitewind Sep 18, 2009 3:19:06	he needs to be shot, in the face, with a hammer. Seriously, this is worthy of him being punched in the face over. Not only do you need to explain what the idea of "choice" in D&D is, but balance as well is, as well as how stupid the effects like nonmagic charm, and more are, as well as how godawful his story is. Sorry, he gets no sympathy. freaking LEVEL him with it all.
#18 slobo777a Sep 18, 2009 4:28:35	I'm going to give DMing a shot. I hope the group doesn't have to be too patient with me while I learn. Start low level. Honestly, the more character powers and options available, the more difficult it is to run the game. Doubly true in 3.5, where the magic system contains 100s of "gotcha, solved the adventure" spells. An experienced DM will know more situations and story lines that can challenge high-level PCs. Part of your DMs problem appears to be that he expected a locked door to stop a (I'm guessing) 12th level party. Instead, the wizards tower should have been an open book to the group, barring any monster encounters - if the DM needs some clues or locations unavailable, they should not have been in the tower at all, or should require some other plot stage to comprehend decipher or access. At high level, the simple trope of lock/key to access the next clue or stage of plot needs to resolve around situations that use the powers that the group has access to. That's why the players have those powers. For instance, if you have passwall, then a map or clue that shows the wizard has a secret disconnected cave below the tower, and the only way to get there is to use passwall or similar (perhaps the mage himself used Teleport, and thought 20' of rock was a deep enough bunker). Thinking like this involves knowing a lot of the PHB, because the players probably have access to 50% of the entire spell list. This takes time effort and preparation, and is best done in stages (i.e. playing or DM-ing the lower levels first).
#19 willpell Sep 18, 2009 4:44:31	I am both sympathetic toward and deeply irritated with your GM based on these descriptions.  It sounds to me as if he has serious misapprehensions.  Assuming you don't just want to cut him out of your life (which might involve police and a restraining order from your description), he needs to have it seriously pointed out that he's ruining your fun, that you didn't sign on to play D&D because you wanted someone to control you and make you play tricks for his amusement.  If he's just a really socially-inept guy who thinks what he's doing is for the best, tell him that you're not happy and he'll realize he's failing (note: do NOT tell him that he is failing; instead, figure out how to lead him to arrive at that conclusion himself); at that point the very ego you're currently struggling against should compell him to improve his own performance.  Then again, if he thinks its' somehow acceptible to accuse his players of conspiring against him, as if he was actually in a position superior to theirs, maybe I'm being far too charitable toward him. I suggest that you sit down and talk through the following questions with him: what does he think the purpose of you all playing D&D is?  What is he trying to accomplish?  Does he understand that you have a right to your fun, as he does to his?  Is he willing to try and work with you on uniting the two?  He needs to be made to understand that he's not different from you just because he takes a different role in structuring the campaign.
#20 nowiwantmydmg Sep 18, 2009 9:53:58	Is he relatively new to DMing----this has brand new first time, written all over it. I usually don't mind this sort of thing at first if the DM in question is amenable to some advice and improving their style. If not, I won't play or take over the DM chair myself and show them how it should be done.
#21 voidraithe Sep 18, 2009 12:02:30	I played with a "story writer" DM and my experiences were similar to yours. But not only was he a person that wouldn't let his storyline be tampered with he was paranoid and would felt he knew our characters better than we did. It got to a point I was so frustrated with his game that I just gave up let him kill my character and started my own campaign with two of the other four players in his game plus another two who were interested. He blamed me for destroying his campaign not that cared. Of course I did schedual my play nights on the same night as his. Yeah thas a jerk thing to do.
#22 tremeck Sep 18, 2009 16:42:26	To clarify this, in response to many of these comments, he has played DnD and been a DM for years, though not with us. He is also older than most of the group, and has a tendency to be a little bit patronizing in general and especially with DnD, even towards the one member that is older than he is. The plot of his campaign was good, better than that of the campaign that I ran previous to his current one, but his use of the rules (as if they're optional for NPCs) and his lack of knowledge of DnD rules in general (less than several of the members' knowledge at times, even though the rest of the group has only played for less than a year) was obnoxious to players (I wouln't really mind this if his approach to situations in which he didn't know the rules wasn't to make up new ones on the spot, without careful balancing, consideration, or forewaring). Also, he doesn't take criticism well, and has several times accused others of insulting him, even though this has never been the case. He seems to take disagreement as a personal affront (he once became angry when two of our members argued that Star Trek: Next Generation began in the late 80's and not the early 90's). We tried to tell him that we wanted another member to handle scheduling, and now he is apparently very angry at us (According to the last member who spoke to him, I'm apparently some kind of liar?) for conspiring to take away his "DM power to schedule."
#23 nowiwantmydmg Sep 18, 2009 16:50:26	To clarify this, in response to many of these comments, he has played DnD and been a DM for years, though not with us. He is also older than most of the group, and has a tendency to be a bit patronizing in general and especially with DnD, even towards the one member that is older than he is. . The plot of his campaign was good, better than that of the campaign that I ran previous to the his current one, but his use of the rules (like they're optional for NPCs) and his lack of knowledge of DnD rules in general (less than several of the members' knowledge at times, even though the rest of the group has only played for less than a year) is obnoxious to players. Also, he doesn't take criticism well, and has several times accused others of insulting him, even though this has never been the case. He seems to take disagreement as a personal affront (he once became angry when two of our members argued that Star Trek: Next Generation began in the late 80's and not the early 90's). We tried to tell him that we wanted another member to handle scheduling, and now he is apparently very angry at us (According to the last member who spoke to him, I'm apparently some kind of liar?) for conspiring to take away his "DM power to schedule." Is it possible he is not a fan of whatever edition you're playing? Or prefers another gaming system entirely? For your description he just seems like an angry control freak in general.........
#24 Cyber-Dave Sep 18, 2009 19:27:43	Talk to the rest of the group, not including your DM. Get the other member of your group, who has stated in this thread that he/she will give DMing a try, to be the new DM. And don't invite the DM. When he tries to figure out when the next D&D game day is, tell him there isn't one. Explain, politely, why. Inform him that the group did not enjoy his antics, and considered his behavior to be anti-social. Let him know that due to his behavior, the group is not interested in playing with him. Hopefully he will learn a valuable life lesson from this. Based on how you are describing him, probably not.
#25 chaosturtle Sep 19, 2009 1:29:58	The next time you guys play, just sit down and look at him.  When he asks what your characters do or prompts you, etc. Just say it clearly doesn't matter what you do anyway so he might as well just say what happens.   Okay, don't actually do that because its incredibly immature.  The best thing you could do is just confront him about it...yeah, he might not take critisiscm well, but there's no other magical solution, he's not going to read your mind and realize how unhappy you are about things, plus you're probably confronting him a bunch anyway with each of these railroaded rulings.  If it still doesn't seem like they'll be any improvement...the only thing you can do is get a new dm.
#26 slobo777a Sep 19, 2009 1:51:04	To clarify this, in response to many of these comments, he has played DnD and been a DM for years, though not with us. He is also older than most of the group, and has a tendency to be a bit patronizing in general and especially with DnD, even towards the one member that is older than he is. . The plot of his campaign was good, better than that of the campaign that I ran previous to the his current one, but his use of the rules (like they're optional for NPCs) and his lack of knowledge of DnD rules in general (less than several of the members' knowledge at times, even though the rest of the group has only played for less than a year) is obnoxious to players. Also, he doesn't take criticism well, and has several times accused others of insulting him, even though this has never been the case. He seems to take disagreement as a personal affront (he once became angry when two of our members argued that Star Trek: Next Generation began in the late 80's and not the early 90's). We tried to tell him that we wanted another member to handle scheduling, and now he is apparently very angry at us (According to the last member who spoke to him, I'm apparently some kind of liar?) for conspiring to take away his "DM power to schedule." That seals it for me. Bail out. Do it calmly, nicely but firmly. If he's a friend, remain a friend. He's not a DM I could see any group wanting to play with. He may still be able to change, but if he has been doing this style for a long time, it will take a lot of effort on his part and to be honest I really don't think there is a practical approach you could take that would see results that you want.
#27 dmsdelight Sep 19, 2009 2:02:16	I am also sympathetic to you...I have two DM's I game with that take this approach...And I don't play much in either of them. One of them even carries this over in 4E...I think he's more of a power-freak/control-freak type.  And that he wants to "Wow you with teh awesome powers of DMing!!!1!" It's completely unacceptable, and to be honest, I've seen this mostly in the gamers in my group who have played earlier editions (1e/2e) or play a lot of other systems.  DM Fiat is a tool to use only when the whole adventure may be completely blown, but most DM's turn this into an adventure point rather than an arbitrary ruling (ie- The doors are locked magically, and prevent spells from functioning on them...you think that the whatever is inside may be powerful enough to generate this effect, although a more mundane lock-picking may actually do the trick). Problem solved.  My players stop wasting their spells, and the rogue gets a chance to shine over the mages.  Maybe he can even add a little RP opportunity (perhaps the doors speak, and although the doors are magicked, a correct passcode obtained through riddle or even negotiating with the door) My point being that he obviously wants things done a certain way, and in a D&D game that is totally unacceptable...unless he turns that problem into an opportunity.  Knowledge checks should aid in knowing how to proceed, even if the DC is high, and there should always be more than one solution to a problem.  If he cannot handle this...tell him that you refuse to game with him until he can be nicer to the players who play the game.  If everyon threatens to leave, he may just get mad and leave the group.  This is okay, because if he can't handle that and won't be your friend anymore, than you don't need him as a friend.  Take it from years of experience and years of handling people. Case in point:  I have a friend who admittedly has some social problems (diagnosed with some mental/social disorder) who is normally a great guy to game with...but he's now getting to the point that he is unbearable to game with, detracting my other players fun.  I told him quite simply:  Hey man, I like you as a friend and all, but if you don't like the way I run my games (or anyone else's for that matter, as he is doing this in EVERYBODY'S game and unreasonably so) then there's the door, you don't have to come.  Sure he was mad at me, but we are friends, so he decided to shape up, and I rewarded him with some RP thing that he really wanted.   Anyway, that's my 2 copper, I'm going to stop posting such long messages.