I hate when this happens.

[Scipio]

Today I had to do what to me is the worst offense as a DM. I booted a longterm player from my game. To give some background concerning this player:
When I say longterm, I mean he was part of my original group 10 years ago, he brought me into RPGs and even taught me how to DM.

But recently I noticed that in the games he's been a major disruption. He intentionally breaks characters and then says that we should all thank him for not breaking them worse. For instance when we were playing the Buffy RPG he had a combat character who legally had all 8s in his combat scores, but said "At least I didn't give myself all 12s, I know how to do that legally." Then he complained that other players had some qualities with supernatural powers. For instance the player whose character can use telekinesis on electrical equipment.

I should mention he's done a lot more to kill the game for the other players and myself, but I don't want to seem like I'm just complaining about him.

I know that booting him after I got complaints from all the other players, and talked to him repeatedly was the right thing to do. But why is it I still feel so bad about it. Anybody else had similar experiences? Any advice on how better to deal with this type of player?

[JinnTolser]

I've talked to you about this before, but I'll just reiterate that I think you did the only thing you could do under the circumstances. When somebody goes that far out of their way, where it seems they're almost deliberately trying to ruin the game, you don't really have any other choice.

If you haven't already, you should try to make it clear to your former player that you still want to be friends with him (assuming that you do, anyway), but that you just can't have that going on in your gaming group. A veteran gamer like that should understand and not take it personally, but then you'd think he'd also know better than to do what he did. So even if your friend gets mad at you, don't let him make you feel guilty because you didn't do this to him; he did it to himself.

[Scipio]

Yeah, we're still friends. Heck, he even asked me to keep him up to date on how the story goes now that he's not in it. The only thing that irks me, he still doesnt seem to get why he got booted.

[Lord_Pruitt]

I believe, from what you've shared here, that you did the right thing. But, if this has been an ongoing problem, what caused it? Sounds like there might be something external that is troubling your friend. Either that, or for some reason or other, he didn't want to game any more.

[cpt_machine]

I find that theres alot of layers to any issue like this but someone who is disruptive should be booted, the object of our hobby is to have fun and if someones idea of fun is to ruin it for everyone else then he/she has to go.

My issue is the personal habits of players, I had a player who unfortunlity likes to take drugs when hes out at the pub however it has lead to him being in the 'wrong' crowd and now he wants to come back to the group everyone is pretty much saying no as they think hes no a safety/trust issue.

[Snake]

Hey Scipio, how have things been going? Yeah that sucks man, but you did the right thing imo.

[steveflam]

I find that theres alot of layers to any issue like this but someone who is disruptive should be booted, the object of our hobby is to have fun and if someones idea of fun is to ruin it for everyone else then he/she has to go.

My issue is the personal habits of players, I had a player who unfortunlity likes to take drugs when hes out at the pub however it has lead to him being in the 'wrong' crowd and now he wants to come back to the group everyone is pretty much saying no as they think hes no a safety/trust issue.

I agree with you cpt_machine