For reference I'm just a random gunslinger playing in this party.

ok, I'm ******* fuming, so we have a power gamer in my dnd party. he was the last person to choose a class when starting the module and is always making new characters that he's constantly talking about wanting to play. so he goes the main tank, I'm a support tank. we have only had 2 encounters with his monk way of the long death. now he sends "I don't like being tank anymore Someone else do it" then "I'm going to start working on a secret character tonight to play when orynthia dies. Y'all can sink or swim without a tank after that, I'm not doing tank again after this character." So I responded to the first quote with, "I think the issue is that I haven't been moving up to the melee, even though I don't have disadvantage with my feat. though last time wasn't really needed, due to us needing to get the chest and I was on the front in every fight last time other than the ghouls and devils both I was carrying the chest." to my current knowledge this is a reasonable response, to which he sends the second quote like Jesus Christ, but he has only gone down ONCE on this char. he almost went down while getting to the encounter that I reference, BECAUSE HE RAN INTO THE CENTER OF 7 SAHUAGIN AND A SAHUAGIN BARON, HE DIDNT EVEN GO DOWN, just down to 10 hp lucky all things considered. then when he went down for the first time on the monk, he was underwater and the DM being a man working for a multi-million dollar company works a 9-5 job, so he was tired at 1130pm, which means that he ****ed the underwater disadvantage rolls on the devils causing a double crit, also only knocking out his monk, that was when pointed out was retconned. Also, this was LITERALLY one round from the END OF ENCOUNTER, MEANING THAT EVERYTHING WAS OK. like dude, I offered a resolution and you spat in my face, I'm gonna ******* tk him and leave if he keeps this up. also EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER HE HAS IS MIN MAXED, WITH NO THOUGHT OF BACKSTORY OR A HINT OF INTEREST IN RP, making talking to his PC almost impossible at times.

Talking to us doesn't fix the problem.  Talk to the other players (including the DM). Does he bother them, too?

--If he does, you all (as a group) should talk to him about the things he does that annoy you and ask him to tone them down. If he doesn't tone them down, the group should feel fine booting him.

--If he doesn't bother them, too, and he only bothers you, perhaps this isn't the group for you to play with.

OK but how do you really feel?

Jokes aside, while I fully appreciate the need to vent, the only reasonable advice is to talk, calmly, with the DM but ultimately, I'm sorry to say, this isn't really an issue for you - you are not the one who has to accommodate his characters or balance encounters for them. This is up to the DM and if the DM is OK with it then that is fine. 

I can only go by what you have put in your post but what you have put is not a big deal at all. He doesn't even come across as a "powergamer" - just somebody who is unhappy with this character and might have low character-loyalty. It happens. He wants to try different characters to get one that feels right to play. This is very common.

So far most of your response seems very much an overreaction to me. I must therefore assume there is more to this than what you have said, but I can't make judgement on what I do not know.

The only thing I see of any concern is that there is a possible misalignment in what players are seeking: he seems uninterested in the narrative RP aspect while you are. This is something the DM should have addressed in a session zero: what people want to get out of the sessions. It is perfectly normal for some players only want to max stats for combat-heavy dungeon crawls since original D&D was precisely that. The first iteration of D&D had rather minimal narrative RP. The deeper RP of characters is something that came later and has seen more increase in each following edition. However, some people prefer combat, others narrative, some need a mix. Most games will have some of each and the DM will strive to provide sessions catering for each type. So while I do urge to have a talk with the DM about your feelings and to ensure everyone is on the same page on what type of gameplay your sessions provide, it must be said that so far, based on what you have said, the other player has not done anything wrong. 

Others have pointed this out, but here is the summary. If you ever have an issue with another player, the best course of action is always going to be either:

1. Talk to the DM
2. Stop playing with them.

D&D is supposed to be fun. If it isn't fun, then you need to either remove the element that is ruining it or remove yourself from the situation if that's not possible. So if the DM is not able to resolve the issue, you may want to look at finding a new group. I highly suggest NOT confronting the player because you likely will not be able to change them.

I am telling you this from experience: It is better not to play at all if the alternative is to force yourself to play with someone that will ruin the game for you.

I'll agree with everyone else, and add one more: You can't make other people play the game the way you prefer. This is why some folks are telling you to find a new group to play with -- because if this person, as stated, likes to keep making up new characters and switching to them, then you can't make him stop. You can either play with him and accept this trait, or not play with him if you can't accept it. Additionally, if he doesn't like tanking, all the reasoning in the world about how you don't think he should mind it so much, isn't going to help.

Quote from Braegan123 >>

now he sends "I don't like being tank anymore Someone else do it" then "I'm going to start working on a secret character tonight to play when orynthia dies. Y'all can sink or swim without a tank after that, I'm not doing tank again after this character."

The party knows Orynthia.  This person sounds like the sort to roll up a new character and just expect the PCs to metagame and thereby accept him, but if all of you play your characters straight, he'll show up as some random stranger asking you to trust him with your lives.  It's reasonable at that point to say, "no".

Session 0, when you set up your backstories, is the only time you're omnipotent enough to just mash characters together into a party.  Once the campaign is under way, new characters have to manually earn the trust of the existing party if they want in.  Make him earn his way in with roleplay, and maybe this will help with your concern about his lack of backstory and RP.

The party knows Orynthia.  This person sounds like the sort to roll up a new character and just expect the PCs to metagame and thereby accept him, but if all of you play your characters straight, he'll show up as some random stranger asking you to trust him with your lives.  It's reasonable at that point to say, "no".

Although this is reasonable in-character... if you know, as a player, that someone isn't having fun playing the character, it is uncooperative to insist on RPing that your PC would not accept the new character into the party, however "in character" it may be for your PC to do this.

Tabletop RPGs have been one-line defined before as "cooperative storytelling." Although I think that 2-word definition probably leaves too much out to truly define RPGs properly, one cannot have a (long lasting) RPG campaign without the cooperative element.

If the table wants to keep playing with this person, then the only way to have that happen is to let him play the character he wants. If you're not satisfied with that, tell him so and he can leave the table. But punishing him by having the PCs mistrust and not want to adventure with his new PC is not going to work. It's uncooperative, and it won't make him want to play the character he no longer wants to play.

Sometimes... no, let me say lots of times... we have to bend on the absolute literal perfection of playing our character "how the character would act," in deference to the fact that this is a cooperative game, and that if we all did that, 99% of parties would not stay together and would not go on adventures, because most characters played to the hilt correctly, would be doing something else. But the something else is not interesting, and adventuring together is, so we have to bend a little to make that happen. Refusing to be flexible about this is not going to make the game more fun -- it's going to make the table break up.

Got to admit that, reading through your post, it sounds like:

• the player is playing a tank, who is tanking well (only gone down once).
• The player doesn't like playing the tank, and wants to play something else instead.
• The player is giving the party fair warning that if their character dies, they will not be getting a direct replacement of a new tank.

He's not said he wants to stop playing the tank because his tank isn't working (as most of your frustration about "he has only gone down once" seems in response to), he's saying he wants to play something else. That something else, by the sounds of it, will be squishier as he's explicitly stated that he's not playing tank again.

In short, it sounds like either we're not getting the whole story, or you're overreacting to something which you're interpreting as wrong.

Abstract Comparison: your friend drives a fast car {plays a tank}. You say "they are such a speed fiend!" {such a powergamer} because their car is fast. They then say "when I sell this car, I'm getting something different, I don't want a fast car any more" {I'm not playing tank again}, and you then appear to be positively frothing about how their old car was so fast and why do they think their fast car isn't fast enough they're such a speed fiend, and how bad it is that they don't want a fast car any more when their old car was so fast {his tank has only gone down once}.

Your entire argument seems to be that his character is really tanky, against him saying "I don't want to play a tank". It's his decision, and he sounds more like someone indecisive than a powergamer. Let him play until he gets a character he connects with, and he might start roleplaying. There's nothing worse than playing a character you just don't enjoy playing.

Quote from BioWizard >>

The party knows Orynthia.  This person sounds like the sort to roll up a new character and just expect the PCs to metagame and thereby accept him, but if all of you play your characters straight, he'll show up as some random stranger asking you to trust him with your lives.  It's reasonable at that point to say, "no".

Although this is reasonable in-character... if you know, as a player, that someone isn't having fun playing the character, it is uncooperative to insist on RPing that your PC would not accept the new character into the party, however "in character" it may be for your PC to do this.

Tabletop RPGs have been one-line defined before as "cooperative storytelling." Although I think that 2-word definition probably leaves too much out to truly define RPGs properly, one cannot have a (long lasting) RPG campaign without the cooperative element.

I agree 100%, but cooperation is a two-way street.  It's unreasonable for your PC to flatly refuse anyone new into the party at all under any circumstances ever.  However, it's exactly equally unreasonable for the other PC to show up with literally no RP at all and just assume they're in.  Cooperative storytelling only works if you cooperate to tell a story.  One of OP's complaints is that this person does not do this.

The PC party is going to want to replace their missing member, so it's not like there's no way to hook this plot.  There are myriad ways to do this, depending on the local setting.  I'm just saying, it's fundamentally reasonable to demand the new character do their part to engage in said hook.

Quote from quindraco >>

Quote from BioWizard >>

The party knows Orynthia.  This person sounds like the sort to roll up a new character and just expect the PCs to metagame and thereby accept him, but if all of you play your characters straight, he'll show up as some random stranger asking you to trust him with your lives.  It's reasonable at that point to say, "no".

Although this is reasonable in-character... if you know, as a player, that someone isn't having fun playing the character, it is uncooperative to insist on RPing that your PC would not accept the new character into the party, however "in character" it may be for your PC to do this.

Tabletop RPGs have been one-line defined before as "cooperative storytelling." Although I think that 2-word definition probably leaves too much out to truly define RPGs properly, one cannot have a (long lasting) RPG campaign without the cooperative element.

 

I agree 100%, but cooperation is a two-way street.  It's unreasonable for your PC to flatly refuse anyone new into the party at all under any circumstances ever.  However, it's exactly equally unreasonable for the other PC to show up with literally no RP at all and just assume they're in.  Cooperative storytelling only works if you cooperate to tell a story.  One of OP's complaints is that this person does not do this.

The PC party is going to want to replace their missing member, so it's not like there's no way to hook this plot.  There are myriad ways to do this, depending on the local setting.  I'm just saying, it's fundamentally reasonable to demand the new character do their part to engage in said hook.

I kinda disagree. Now sure, this is perfectly acceptable if this was deliberately a RP-heavy game. But D&D can be for all kinds. Not everyone wants to show up with a big backstory. They have stats, they want to hit things. End. And there's nothing wrong with this. It's not my cup of tea, but it's fine and it can even work even if the rest of the group have big backstories and RP their character. Some people are happy to just wait around until they get to hit things and in meantime enjoy watching how the rest of the group RP their way through situations (probably secretly hoping they screw up so some punches get flying).  I've been in games where a PC would barely say anything or RP, but when it came to combat hoo-boy they really opened up with very engaging descriptions of their fighting. And in the same game some who were sub-optimal in combat situations but really shone when in RP social interactions even earning OOC praise from other players. Both enjoyed the games. 

Newbie: "oh you seem like adventurers, need help? I got skills and need money."
Group: "We just lost a member, we could do with the help. We'll see how you fare."

And done.

Sure it stretches a little for characters to be so open, but this where you being co-operative as players comes in. It is not fair for the player who isn't big on RP to be forced to RP and spend however-long to justify their new character. I mean, seriously, who gives a shit? It's a game. Just get intros done and move the fluff along with the adventure so you can get back to playing.

I've been in games where everyone changed characters multiple times. It was a lot of fun. And we've had games, actually the same group of players, where nobody changed characters, also a lot of fun. It's not a big deal and isn't fun to make it one. It's a game. It's not an acting class. 

This guy sounds like doesn’t want to actually play D&D, he just wants min/max his char and kill something, and not make a fun experience for himself and others, have some serious table talk with this person, if he refuses to contribute, then give him the boot, if he admits he’s being deconstructive, then help him get better.                                                  Also, how are you going about support tanking with a gunslinger?, I’m interested in hearing how you worked this out.                   

This has me wondering about something to cater to players with little interest in RP but who are interested in regularly changing characters...

What if there's some kind of mercenary organization that the party regularly works with, and between adventures they regularly hire different people to travel with them? This would be a simple explanation to justify why one party member keeps getting swapped out with different people... the mercenary backstory justifies why the party would willingly be traveling with a new person every couple weeks, and it would give some justification for the player who's not particularly interested in RP to kind of hang out in the back during those times, since they're technically just a hired hand that's along for the ride.

I don't know if that will resolve the problem in this particular case, but it would be an interesting outlet for an indecisive gamer who just wants to try out all their different character builds for combat.

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

This guy sounds like doesn’t want to actually play D&D, he just wants min/max his char and kill something, ...   

That's still D&D. It my not be your way of playing D&D, and more importantly it may not be the way Braegan123's group wants to play D&D, but it's still D&D. It's quite frankly not the kind of player I'm hoping for to join a group of mine either, but that's not the worst thing that can happen either. Depending on the other side of this story we've gotten just one perspective on, it might not even really be a bad thing. Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic, that's been known to happen, but I think this possibly just needs a session zero point five so everyone can get a better idea of what everyone else is thinking or expects from the game.

Quote from pangurjan >>

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

This guy sounds like doesn’t want to actually play D&D, he just wants min/max his char and kill something, ...   

That's still D&D. It my not be your way of playing D&D, and more importantly it may not be the way Braegan123's group wants to play D&D, but it's still D&D. It's quite frankly not the kind of player I'm hoping for to join a group of mine either, but that's not the worst thing that can happen either. Depending on the other side of this story we've gotten just one perspective on, it might not even really be a bad thing. Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic, that's been known to happen, but I think this possibly just needs a session zero point five so everyone can get a better idea of what everyone else is thinking or expects from the game.

 Sorry, I said that a little bit wrong, what I meant was he wants live out some sort of power fantasy, not explore a world imagination and have fun with others, so what I meant was he wants to play bad DND, I respect wargaming, but this guy just wants to play builds, and not a character.

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

 Sorry, I said that a little bit wrong, what I meant was he wants live out some sort of power fantasy, not explore a world imagination and have fun with others, so what I meant was he wants to play bad DND, I respect wargaming, but this guy just wants to play builds, and not a character.

With all due respect, that is still a valid way of playing D&D. Everyone plays for different reasons, and every kind of reason for playing is the right reason.

The only right way to play D&D is "having fun with the group." The only wrong way to play is "disrupting the group's fun." As long as you're having fun and not ruining someone else's? Then its all D&D. 

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

Quote from pangurjan >>

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

This guy sounds like doesn’t want to actually play D&D, he just wants min/max his char and kill something, ...   

That's still D&D. It my not be your way of playing D&D, and more importantly it may not be the way Braegan123's group wants to play D&D, but it's still D&D. It's quite frankly not the kind of player I'm hoping for to join a group of mine either, but that's not the worst thing that can happen either. Depending on the other side of this story we've gotten just one perspective on, it might not even really be a bad thing. Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic, that's been known to happen, but I think this possibly just needs a session zero point five so everyone can get a better idea of what everyone else is thinking or expects from the game.

 Sorry, I said that a little bit wrong, what I meant was he wants live out some sort of power fantasy, not explore a world imagination and have fun with others, so what I meant was he wants to play bad DND, I respect wargaming, but this guy just wants to play builds, and not a character.

That's... still D&D. And in fact something absolutely every player I know has done at some point, myself included. Matt Colvile admits to having been a powergamer in the past. And it's something I've come to expect from new players even more after 15+ years of WoW, Dark Age of Camelot and sundry other fantasy MMOs and many more years of CRPGs. And it's still not necessarily a bad thing. Even knowing next to nothing about the whole situation (because that first post's info amounts to next to nothing, really), I'm inclined to believe 90% of the problem is people at the same table having different expectations and not understanding one another enough to find some common ground. 

One must always play with games styles and people who you tolerate. As a DM I have tossed players who did not fit my style (took 2 decades to do so). As a player I have walked away from a session 22 minutes in.  And as a player I have not sat down at a table because BOB was there. 

To the OP.

I suggest you take a deep breath, re-formulate your post since it's very ranty and block of texty, difficult to follow your story.

After that, perhaps you all need to consider what you want out of this campaign, as it's legitimate to want to play mainly for the strategic combat, or mainly for roleplay, or for both. Just as long as everyone agrees and are having fun.

From a combat strategic point of view. If he keeps switching roles, then you can't count on him in your skeleton crew. That means that if you need the holy trinity of tank, healer and damage dealer, then the rest of you need to set this up. Ignore what he picks as a class, and ignore him when he says "guys, you don't need a healer, I'll be your healer" or whatever he might say, because he's going to switch it up again soon, forcing the rest of you to go without that role covered.

From a D&D perspective. No D&D is better than bad D&D. Always talk to your group about what you want out of the game, and make sure your goals and desires intersect so everyone gets fun out of the experience.

From a social interaction perspective. Try to avoid people that are sore losers, can't handle resistance and generally spread unpleasant toxic feelings.

Quote from Mephista >>

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

 Sorry, I said that a little bit wrong, what I meant was he wants live out some sort of power fantasy, not explore a world imagination and have fun with others, so what I meant was he wants to play bad DND, I respect wargaming, but this guy just wants to play builds, and not a character.

With all due respect, that is still a valid way of playing D&D. Everyone plays for different reasons, and every kind of reason for playing is the right reason.

The only right way to play D&D is "having fun with the group." The only wrong way to play is "disrupting the group's fun." As long as you're having fun and not ruining someone else's? Then its all D&D. 

 You're right, there's no wrong way to play D&D as long as the whole table's having fun, but I guess this guy in the OP's game rubs me the wrong way a little. 

To quote Kaneda "No D&D is better than bad D&D."  Truer words were never spoken.  I've played in, and DM'd for, power gamers.  I do not like the play style.  It's disruptive to the group as a whole.

One of my closest friends often looks for the optimal min/max, studying Youtube videos to find that one over powered melee class to play.  They seldom fail saving throws, their to-hits are constantly 18+, and damage rolls are well over average.  For the rest of the group, they struggle with the fickle God of Dice Rolls, hoping for a good roll.  When its not the power gamers turn they are on their phones/tablets, or distracted by something else and not paying attention to the game.  You can often see the frustration in the eyes and expressions of the other players.  They don't like it either...

As for my personal friends case, I have worked with him to help him become more blended with the group, to pay more attention, and to help him realize that its not the min/max that matters most, but the memories the game creates.  He has made a lot of progress.  Now if I can just get him to RP more :)

Anywho, traditionally D&D is a team sport, not a solo adventure, and yet, with those power gamers its all about ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!  If the player can't be persuaded to adjust their play style, it may be time to ask them to step out before the group loses one or more better balanced players.  Its easy to find bad players.  Not so with good ones...