Like the title says, I’ve been running one campaign or another for over 20 years. Recently, I ran into an issue where one player was taking his RP too seriously.

A player (my wife) was playing a cleric of the goddess of luck. Another (my best friend), was playing a warlock. In game, the god of chaos caused the relics of the gods to fall down unto to the world. My players came across several.

The cleric’s god asked her directly to find her artifact and return it to her, and if she happened to give the goddess a couple other relics, she’d be greatly rewarded.

The warlock wanted to bring an end to these so called gods and not return any of the relics. Instead, he wanted to hide them.

The cleric got hold of a couple of the relics and gave them to her goddess, with less than direct means. The warlock flipped! He began accusing her of being against the party and of being stupid and not realizing that the gods were just playing a silly game.

Ok, if done in character, during the game, I get the accusations. But he would come into the session and start trying to gather the other players to his side by calling her out. This became an assault on the cleric’s player, even though he said he wasn’t attacking her directly, just how she played her character.

This lasted over the course of the last three sessions. I had been trying to deal with the warlock and try to get him to back off with the overzealousness and bullying. But last night he blew my phone up with text after text trying to explain his perspective. All, with my wife sitting next to me.

She in turn went out and texted the other players of the group to tell them she was leaving the game. Which then ensued even more texts from the rest of the players all choosing sides.

I obviously failed at being a good enough DM to manage these fires and put them out. And in turn, have pissed off my wife for not defending her enough and kicking him out. And losing a friend because this had been our regular chance to keep in touch. Our circles aren’t anywhere near each other and over the years have only grown farther apart. This was a connection that still kept us regularly in contact.

So, I texted the group last night and chose to step away from the game as I cannot handle this conflict well enough.

Sorry for the rant. Anyone I would have turned to talk to is already involved in the issue.