Hello all! I (30, F) recently finished a campaign of Rime of the Frostmaiden. I’ve been listening to a lot of RPG Horror Stories (Crispy, Drake, Critcrab, et. al.) and I think this story would fit in well here. I have played D&D on and off since college. I have also DMed some Pathfinder 1, but mostly 5E.

This is a very long story covering problem players, rules lawyers, inter-party conflict, DM favoritism, and old-fashioned bad luck. I recommend getting a snack, a drink, and getting cozy for this one. I do not claim to have no ownership in some of the issues at play here, but I’ll let you judge what the real problem was here. There will be major spoilers for Rime of the Frostmaiden ahead.

Our Cast of Characters:

DM - a newer DM running their first full-scale campaign

Me - A female drow Ranger

Barbarian - A Shifter Barbarian who later takes levels in Druid, a low-int build with a twist

Paladin - A Hobgoblin Paladin who later takes levels in Sorcerer, played like a surfer bro

Artificer - A half-drow Artificer

Monk - A human Monk

Rogue - A Rogue who I think was a tiefling, who later left due to scheduling conflicts

Problem - The replacement player for the Rogue, played a Wizard and then a Ranger/Fighter

Part I - The Ballad of the Badbarian

This campaign started like many others. A group assembled online for a game of Rime of the Frostmaiden. I played the Infinity Engine Icewind Dale games as a kid, and was super stoked when this module released as I’ve maintained an interest in the lore of the region. I was eager to run it for my home game, but wanted to experience it as a player first. When I saw a group looking for players, I jumped at it, and even though I didn’t get to play the race/class I originally had in mind, I was incredibly excited.

We had a session 0 where we established a baseline for optional/house rules, finalized our character concepts, and set up in-game expectations. We also had some light roleplay to explain how the party came together, and everything was off to a promising start.

However, very early on there were some red flags with the Barbarian. While he role played his character to a fault, this often meant stepping on the toes of other characters and players in the process. Characters built for stealth and recon (Myself and the Rogue) were often sidelined for the Barbarian to take charge of those activities. Now, a lot of the time, there’s nothing wrong with every character attempting certain checks to maximize the party’s chances of success, but I started to feel like my character was just supposed to stand at the back and shoot, and otherwise shut up.

The Barbarian also had a tendency to just run into battle without warning, even if we were successfully in stealth or had not been noticed by potential hostiles yet. Often, we did not even know if the NPCs were going to BE hostile. He would just run into battle, not allowing the party to take up tactical positions, or even decide whether or not to attack at all. By this time we were level three, and I had taken Gloomstalker as my subclass. Because of the Barbarian’s escalating antics, some of my abilities or advantages were nullified. I often did not get to use my Dread Ambusher extra attack, or would have to do so at disadvantage, and I did not get to make the stealthy, surprise attacks that my build was made for. I felt like such a diva, being upset that I could not use my character’s features and skills, but this was happening nearly every encounter.

This also caused other tactical issues for the group. Melee fighters would often go down before making it to encounters because their speed was slower than the Barbarian’s, and they were not able to take advantage of tactics like flanking and cover, which had been agreed upon in Session 0.

While I originally dismissed this as growing pains of a party who realistically does not know each other’s strengths and weaknesses yet, things started escalating more when we got to the Duergar Outpost in the quest “The Unseen” out of Caer Konig. Basically, the premise is tracking a group of “invisible dwarves” to their outpost and returning stolen property to the townsfolk. We were able to sneak into the fortress and had a climactic battle against the dwarves in the main room of the outpost. The Monk and the Paladin both went down, but we finished the fight in time to bring them back up. In the case of the Paladin, I brought him up at 1HP by feeding him a Goodberry.

The party discusses taking a short rest. I was at full health, and the Barbarian and Artificer looked pretty okay so we justified being able to take a rest here because there were characters able to keep watch and even set up a rudimentary barricade of this area to prevent the Duergar from taking advantage of their invisibility. Keep in mind that 2/6 characters were at single-digit HP, and we knew we had at least two hallways to explore. Obviously, it would have been fair for the DM to have another group of Duergar happen upon us just chilling in the middle of their outpost, but we thought we had enough deterrents set up to give us a good chance of getting a successful rest for those who needed it.

The Barbarian was having none of it. In character, he goes on about how the other characters must be bad people if we don’t want to go after bullies and bad guys and how “you guys must not be very good at this.” This to my Ranger, who has been sidelined at almost every opportunity to use the skills and abilities she actually IS good at. I say as much in character, and try to explain the logic of going in well-prepared.

Nope. He runs off down the next hallway to scout ahead. The Rogue has some ownership in this as well because he did scout with the Barbarian at this stage, even though he was also in need of rolling hit dice. The rest of us stay behind, wanting to complete a rest. However, before we can successfully rest, we hear the sounds of battle from down the hall. The Barbarian has discovered a room full of Miconid-type creatures and a sleeping Duergar, and was not able to sneak past the miconid’s successfully. I think that if the Barbarian had been alone, we might have left him to his fate, but since the Rogue had gone with him, we all reluctantly followed. The Paladin wistfully used his last spell slot to cast Cure Wounds on himself since he obviously wasn’t going to be given any other options.

Combat goes smoothly here and the party returns to the room with the sleeping Duergar, only to discover that he’s gone! Because of our tactics in the previous room, it is unlikely, if not impossible, for the Duergar to have passed us, even while invisible, so he has to either be still in the room, or has gone through a trap door. My Ranger wants to thoroughly investigate the room for secret doors, or any other signs of the Duergar still being in the room. The Artificer sits down to ritual cast Alarm, so that, at the very least, this area can’t be used to surprise us or ambush us. The idea of a short rest is floated again. This is an even better place to rest as it’s more advantageous in the event of an attack.

Again, the Barbarian refuses to cooperate with this. As my Ranger is investigating, the Barbarian begins trashing the entire room. Overturning tables, beds, chairs and other furniture. When this turns up nothing, the Barbarian proceeds to go running through the hallways and other adjacent rooms, swinging his axe like a madman in case there are any “invisible dwarves”. The artificer gives up trying to ritual cast and all other party activities are completely sidelined as we all have little choice but to follow the Barbarian.

Down another hallway he goes, swinging his axe along the way, no attempt to stealth, check for traps or group up. Again, there’s a huge spread among the party, so we can’t fight effectively once he inevitably gets into conflict.

We had been discussing taking prisoners so that we could ask further questions about the Duergar’s movements. We had been given clues indicating that they have been active all over Icewind Dale, and this outpost is only a part of the overall operation. So the Artificer, Monk, and Paladin all make points of doing non-lethal damage, and the Rogue and I both avoid attacking enemies that are low or near death so we don’t kill them. However, in the multiple times we take prisoners, the Barbarian continues attacking or interrupts our interrogation attempts by killing enemies in cold blood without the consent of the party.

So you may be wondering, what was the DM doing during all of this? You could tell they were hesitant to impede player agency and just tell the Barbarian to stop, or that he could not do what he was doing. But at the same time, I’m not sure they knew, being a newer DM, how to handle this kind of party conflict out of game. I have no idea if any discussions were had with the player outside of the game. I know that other players mentioned to the DM that they were frustrated by the Barbarian’s behavior. I know this because I mentioned it to the Artificer over direct message while trying to make sure I was not just being a brat and that I was not the only person who had a problem with this behavior. If I had been, I probably would have just left the game. But the Artificer said that they had talked to the DM about it a bit.

So I decided to give it a few more sessions. If things did not improve, I’d be out. We finished the outpost without too much more incident, though our Rogue got ahold of an amulet that placed a curse on him, which we eventually had reversed.

Things got worse again at Caer Dineval, where the party was sent to investigate a cult of Levistus. We arrived in town around nightfall and decided to investigate and make camp in a ruined inn, suspecting that it may be tied to the Duergar shenanigans. When we proved correct, we once again strategized to keep a prisoner to question. The Barbarian, once again, was not willing to allow this, and as he moved to strike a killing blow on the unconscious Duergar, the party attacked the Barbarian. We also chose to do non-lethal damage and merely knocked the Barbarian out for the duration of the interrogation, at which point we helped him back to consciousness.

A lengthy party debate happens, during which, in character, we discuss with the Barbarian the importance of working together as a party. He does not seem receptive to us at first, again talking about how he does not like inaction against bullies. My character in particular makes several analogies about hunting and survival in the wild that speak to the importance of patience and working together, however, and though he pouts, we feel like we may have made some progress.

This part of the Horror Story actually has a happy ending. After this session, I got an IM from the Barbarian asking what he can do better. I’ve never confirmed if he sent this to everyone or just to me, but it sounded like a message that he sent to everyone. Out of character, I express that while I appreciate both his enthusiasm and his dedication to playing his character, there are several pain points that are making this situation not much fun. We also talked about balancing playing your character, and letting everyone have moments to shine. And he actually ended up taking this criticism really well! Instead of trying to take over most checks himself, he started including the other party members most of the time, looking to the other characters for the go-ahead to start combat. He has since become a great RP partner, and our characters became very close. They fish together in downtime and share backstory details and plans.

However, our story is not over. This lays the groundwork for what came next.

TL;DR: Rime of the Frostmaiden Barbarian takes over every check, refuses to let party rest, ignores party's plans for stealthy combat or taking prisoners. Runs down a hallway swinging an axe to find duergar. Conflict escalates into PVP. Barbarian ends up taking criticism and becomes a great player. But the problems aren't over.

PART 2