I have a That Guy that has proclaimed that, because of his folk hero background and story...

I have a That Guy that has proclaimed that, because of his folk hero background and story, that from leading a militia against a tyrant, he now has a castle, lotso money, horses, and a warship. The campaign takes place in a valley, in which no one can leave safely because of a recent natural disaster, and he has said that he only has his starting gold with him in the valley. (We came to this agreement after a bit of arguing.)

What can I do to take his ill-gotten castle away, in a way to cause the most lulz? He's new, but he has so little regard for the rules, and refuses to use actual dice and paper, doing everything from some "Squire" app on his phone. My current idea is to have a raven reach him as soon as he reaches a civilized portion of the valley, and have it drop him a note detailing how almost as soon as he left, a rival sabotaged his warship, beseiged and captured his poorly-staffed castle, slaughtered his horses, and now hold his family for ransom. Since the caravan that took the players to this valley took a while to reach it, I also plan on having the message dated for 2-4 weeks before the in-game date.

I feel like letting the lot of you control the mind of the servant that wrote this letter to actually write the letter yourselves will produce a far better result than anything I could think of. The letter should be addressed to "Arcadius."

First of all, what's the servant's name?

Why not just make it part of the quest?

The tyrant he overthrew was just a local bandit boss, the warship is just the smallest ship that might qualify as a warship and would probably be of more value as merchant guard or merchant ship itself.

Throw politics at him and the rest of the players. The real boss Lord of the place will let you keep the castle as long as you pay the rent/tithe.


If you answer nothing else, what kind of story o you want to tell?

You want to enact some kind of petty revenge, because a PC settled down and rose above the status of murderhobo? Fucking bravo.

If you didn't want him to have all that shit you should have told him from the beginning. Instead you acquiesced and are trying some underhanded bullshit to take it away on the back end, in other words you're being a little bitch about this.

Get a better handle on your group.

>refuses to use actual dice and paper, doing everything from some "Squire" app on his phone
You realize that he's cheating, right?

This, really

>What can I do to take his ill-gotten castle away
Why the fuck did you give him a castle in the first place if you were only going to take it away from him?
Furthermore, why the fuck did you accept his procalaimation?
You're a shitty GM.

Why have a servant write him?

"Dear and great hero Arcadius:

I am so sorry I didn't get to see you off when you left, so I thought I might just let you know how we are doing back here without your impeccable leadership.

Everything is going swimmingly. Well, not for your glorious warship. It would seem that the shipwright overlooked some minor problems with the hull and now it is resting piecefully underwater just a little ways off the shore.

The castle is doing great, especially since I took the liberty of redecorating the place a little and changing the guard. The people you left in charge simply felt a little... overwhelmed by the weight of their responsibilities.

Now, I know how much you love your horses, so I made sure your personal quarters have a nice view of them. You just need to look up and there they are, staring back down at you. Fitting all of these noble animals into your quarters was rather challenging, but I have found a cutting-edge solution that I know you will enjoy.

I look forward to your return.

You know who I am.

P.S.: Your family says to say hello. They also say many other things that are not fit to be written down in a letter. It would appear they are in some kind of pickle that requires quite a bit of gold. If you could take care of that, they would be ever so grateful."

Don't encourage him, make him man up and actually talk to his group

It's obvious that he's a lost cause if he can't even explain to a player that a starting character can't have the kind of shit he demanded.
I figured I'd just take the writing prompt.

All of this.

Also, as tends to be the case, OP makes a 'that guy' thread, while not realizing that he is in fact that guy.

Why not just give him some kind of terrible Midas touch power? Have him receive some sort of magical bracelet that only works on non-living things from one of his castle-horses with an inscription warning him that with great power comes great responsibility. Once per day, an object is randomly turned into gold. At first it seems helpful, and hopefully he has fun zapping things into literal money, but slowly things that shouldn't be gold start turning into gold. His powers activate more frequently, and it gets to the point where he accidentally turns one of his friends into gold while he's sleeping.

Turns out, a hand demon has possessed his hand, and the more he uses the gold power, the more it starts corrupting his body. He either needs to hack off his gold-giving-gauntlet or become a statue, like the previous owner. If he chops off his hand, have it periodically scuttle back and turn important quest items into gold, rendering them useless, until the spare hand grows another body and he has to fight himself, but fancier and golden.

Well you did a pretty good job with the prompt I'll give you that

the fuck does that have to do with the situation at hand tho

Why, thank you.

Eeeeyyyyy

It's a Sisyphean punishment for the guy who wants to start as a rich asshole. Instead of taking away all his riches, you give him too many riches and make him reconsider his life choices. If he uses the power responsibly, which I doubt he would, it would be mildly helpful and kind of neat for the party. If he abuses it like a dick, like he certainly will, everything quickly devolves where he's the dick with the golden touch, and his disembodied hand haunts the party with the legacy of his dickitry.

Come on user, at least try to have some sort of imagination.

Do nothing.
A castle, warship, horses are pretty useless in a typical dungeon crawl.
For the money just say
>yeah you have some wealth. Roll the starting gold for your class and that's what you have.

I like your approach user. If I ever hand someone too much wealth and regret it, I may use this approach.

Perhaps, OP, you could have famine come to his region? As a result, the cost of food becomes grossly inflated due to obvious limited and rapidly dwindling supply. Outside merchants see this as nothing short of an opportunity to make significant coin, especially from such a wealthy client, and refuse to sell without gouging prices. Make the famine linger long enough and severe enough that he is ultimately forced to decide whether he sells his holdings to keep his family fed, or they perish of starvation.

Added complications may include hunger riots as attacks on his property by mobs of peasantry, or perhaps the trade routes to his holdings are particularly dangerous, and food shipments are ransacked along the way by beasts and highwaymen.

Or you could just fucking talk to him like a goddamn adult, but I realize this is too fucking hard for your tiny, broken brain to comprehend.

If you give him an inch, he'll take a mile.

Don't give him everything he wants and then punish him for it like a stupid twat or else later down the line he might try to trick you into giving him more shit and making the campaign revolve around him.

Just tell him that you aren't going to let him start out already above the other PCs

No problem user, my dream job is in the ironic punishments division of hell.

>this guy
Show me on the doll where the DM touched you. I just thought it would be a neat way to avoid awkwardly slapping gums with an autist who will get offended. You never know, with my approach he might realize that as a result of his greed, bad shit happened.

Someone's feelings got hurt.

>shit that never happened
>op is that guy and was kicked out

No, OP, you are the faggot. That other guy might be one too, but you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Let him keep the castle and warship, if you don't want those to be an advantage just don't do anything that would make them so. As for the gold, it's tied up in his fiefdoms economy and isn't really accessible. You have to pay your staff, keep maintenance up on your buildings, ect. The for the horses? Most of them are needed by the people at his castle and there would be serious issues if you took more than a few away.

Yes, don't act like an adult, just be a passive aggressive little shit. All your approach will do is waste time for everyone involved, including the other players who don't deserve to have to deal with this stupid shit.

How about just say no?

One of the GM's jobs is to make sure the players don't go crazy or overboard in the first place, not necessarily to punish them when they suddenly declare that they somehow have access to a dragon's hoard of gold and artifacts.

>Yes, don't act like an adult, just be a passive aggressive little shit.
That was the most passive aggressive way to call someone passive aggressive that I've ever seen.

Anyways, you post on here, your time is effectively worthless. Just because you have a dumb opinion doesn't mean it's accurate, and you couldn't pull something like that off with tact and panache. Who wouldn't be jazzed to fight a BBEG that the most dickish member of your party unleashed by virtue of their sheer dickitry, particularly when it's an identical golden clone? I'd be pretty hype.

OP here. I feel like I should've explained a bit more.

This guy's an annoying shit that I can't simply kick out of my group if I wished, but I would if I could, long ago. He's extremely difficult to deal with, trying to control people's actions, and with one of my favorite quotes from him, I think I can explain his bullshit rather clearly.
> "I know how to play the game!"
> "Yeah, basic combat, but there's still a lot more."
> "I know how to play the game, and I'm gonna play the game the way I know how to play it!"

It took me nearly an hour to finally argue with him to change his character to level one, and another 20 minutes to get him to adjust his stats to normal ones. (21 strength in 5e is not possible for a 1st level player with no magic items.)

I ran a short scenario, and told him that nothing in it would be canon, nothing in it would carry over to the other game. He still added a bunch of gold to his character via the app without telling me.

So now, in the middle of the game, during a conversation, he casually mentions that he has a castle, warship, and plenty of gold. I say that he doesn't and couldn't, that he only has what he has from his starting equipment. He argued that he does, because his background and stuff. So after arguing, I did finally say that he has all that, but immediately after, I shot this idea to my co-DM and he loved it. I'm fairly certain that no one in the group likes the guy, and we all want him out, but we can't kick him out, like I said before.

So I'm doing this to have fun at his expense. I'm being an asshole, because I'm frustrated with him.

Just make a bunch of enemies that scale in damage based on how much gold he has and don't tell him until something pathetic oneshots him.

Why can't you kick him out? He sounds toxic as both a player and a person. He's completely disrespecting you as a GM, blatantly cheating and not even trying to hide some of it, and I'm sure the rest of the group isn't amused- what's he got on you? Pictures from that Christmas party?

>Giving your player something just to take it away
Don't do this. It fucking sucks. If you didn't want him to have it you should have said so in the first place.

>Using his family being in danger as a motivator
Don't do this either. It's lazy. Very, very lazy.

I know it's hard when you have all the power to not fuck around with your player's shit, but please listen. For the sake of your group let them have nice things and let them enjoy nice things. DMs who give shit just to take it away or destroy it piss players off more than anything. If they buy a horse, don't go out of your way to fucking kill/steal it. If they have a family, don't make them get kidnapped/raped/murdered/whatever. If they make a friend with a random NPC you never wanted to become a major player, restrain yourself from killing him just because. Stop fucking with your player's shit. Stop it.

Seriously, I'm with here. What dirt has he got on you? Is he screwing one of your players so politics are involved? Is the gaming space his? Will he throw hands if he's told no?

How the flying fuck am I being passive? I'm telling to act like a fucking adult and just say no rather then being a little shitstain.

Funny how the story changes. And no, you CAN just kick him out of the group. Stop being a fucking pussy.

OP here.

It's part of a highschool club. The teacher running the club is pretty chill, and probably wouldn't accept kicking him out, not to mention that I'm not at all sure if we could kick him out, as he's not breaking any school rules, he's just being a shitter in the club. Not only that, but the club is pretty starved for people, and even if we do kick him out, I might not be able to continue my campaign for another two or three weeks as we desperately recruit other nerds.

Give OP a sec. I wanna see what he says as to why he hasn't curbed this fuckhead already. That shit HAS to be good.

Then stop playing. Holy fucking shit, what is wrong with you. If he's causing that much un-fun for you all, and you magically can't kick him out, STOP PLAYING IN THE SHITTY CLUB AND JUST GO MEET AT SOMEONE'S HOUSE.

>internet tough guying this hard

>this guy doesn't understand rhetorical tense as a means of deflecting criticism
I wish you were in my group. I would elect you as a representative dignitary for a noble cause. With your powers of logic and rhetoric, you would attempt to convince the crumbling polis to shift for the better. Over time, compromises would have to be made, and with each compromise you'd get further and further from accomplishing your goal. In the end, you'd wind up a raving lunatic, screaming stupid opinions in vain, or you'd accept the nature of the world is to have stupid opinions and keep them to yourself. The choice is yours.

Take it to the teacher, but also organize it outside of school. Is the teacher present for any of the sessions? If so, he'll have seen this behavior, and if he's interested enough to help run the club, he'll probably be involved enough in the hobby to understand.

Start organizing the game outside of school with the players, and talk to the teacher. If he agrees that the problem player should be removed, great. If not, let him know the measures you're taking, and that there are no hard feelings between you and him, but the player is ruining the experience for everyone.

what

wat

The fuck, man

Everyone else in the club are amazing people, and we've 3 different campaigns running at once.

One campaign, the teacher's running for the new people. The other two are being run in the same world/region as a good/evil campaign that has the main goal of having an ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny between the players as the climax of it. My friend's running the evil campaign, and of course it gets all the attention because edgy teenagers are finally allowed to go on a genocide crusade. I'm running the good-guy campaign and get stuck with a borderline autist (he's pretty cool though) and crackbaby mcThat Guy. Both of them are hard to deal with in the game, so I have another friend that wants to learn how to DM helping me run my part of the campaign.

It's a fun hangout for me and my friends, and I don't want to let this one ass drive me away from it.

Holy shit, his post reminded me of the time I flew to of one of the running. It wasn't not all too unfunny but parts were become and becoming into the and/or so we had to take our us to the the them place of the them.

Good times.

What, exactly, is preventing you guys from organizing your own game that takes place privately? I mean, jeez, just don't invite him to the sessions.

...what? Are we just seeing who can win the award for nonsensibility now?

We do have our own private game on fridays, but the club is on tuesdays, and we all still want to play on both days with the people we don't know as much from the school. Not all of our players are able to go to someone else's house every week, but they're still able to stay after school for a club.

How many marijuanas have you injected?

DM, why did you give your player permission to have it if you're so bitter about it that the first thing on your agenda is a plan to find a way to rip it away from him?

Why did you agree to let him have something if you don't intend to actually let him have it?

The That Guy here is you.

>Folk Hero
>Castle. Warship. horses. Money.
>Folk. hero.

Fuck... those are some balls on him. I play a Noble and i went out of my way to assuage the GM that i was only a Viscount (Read: Glorified Landlord) whose "rich guy" finances were entirely tied up in residential and commercial real estate which i don't live in and a city that I am fiercely overprotective of. I was "money rich, cash poor", and only had whatever finances i acquired legitimately as a paladin.

Seriously, do you know what a folk hero is? Johnny Appleseed is a folk hero. he walked across the country planting trees. Paul Bunyan is a Folk Hero: He was tall and chopped down trees... also made a lot of pancakes at once.

Your player isn't a folk hero, he's a military coupe.

this is one clever son of a gun.

Where do I hire you to write villainous dialogue for me?

Ahh genuine laughter was produced.

As for the whole castle bit, make his liege hike his taxes and manpower tithe for some war effort, and then have the war go terribly wrong over time slowly bankrupting him.

If you own all this shit then you have to maintain said shit, can't maintain shit without a steady supply of income, which he entirely lacks.

>He still added a bunch of gold to his character via the app without telling me

Tell him no more app, pen and paper only at your tables, and that you'll keep track of the sheet for everyone.

absolutely this. take it to the teacher.
have him say he's gotten a lot of complaints about the guy from various students and that he either needs to slow his roll or he'll be asked to leave.

Easy as that.

Hostility deflected towards the teacher, who is a big enough man to not live in fear of it, and you either have the guy chill because actual authority figures have gotten involved, with actual consequences, or else the kid gets kicked out.

Easy as that. None of this becoming a ThatGuy to fight a ThatGuy. If you're gonna DM, you're acting as a leader. And being a leader requires you man up and be more mature than the ones you lead. No stooping to their level.

also, ProTip: might not wanna make your underage status so obvious. Mods might be looking.

Is this a Monty Python reference i'm missing?
A Copy Pasta?
Magical Realm?
Please elaborate.

Alright thanks, I'll actually take your guys' advice and seek better ways to get him removed if he's still such a problem.

Otherwise, I still have that well-written message in the back pocket.

Have you ever heard the phrase "No gaming is better than bad gaming"?

And learn how to say "No" with no further discussion. Helps in life.

Still doesn't make any sense.
If someone were to cheat in a chess club, would there be a problem kicking the cheater out of the club?
If That Guy is cheating as obviously as you are saying, then it's the same damn thing. He's cheating at the game. He should be kicked out. This is an easy fucking case, you're just a beta idiot.

Sounds more like you're afraid of the club disbanding for lack of members than you actually not being able to kick him out.

So either he's carrying that hoard of gold or it's "back home" where he has no access to it (unless he walks back).
Srsly, have fun dragging around a bag of gold like you're Pyramid Head.

>implying that character headcanon castles are safe from conquer
>implying he'd hear word of it when out in bumfuck nowhere adventure land

Dearest Arcadius,

I have burned your castle, sunk your battleship, personally raped every soldier in your ranks to death, and smeared cheeto dust on your rarest cards

Sincerely, Decapotholus: the Decapitator

Dearest Arcadius,
This is your DM speaking. Stop being a douchebag.
Sincerely, everyone at the table.

Hey OP

Disputes with players are always better resolved OOC than IC.

Out of character, you're both people playing a game. In character, they're an insignificant ant under the gaze of an omnipotent god.

If you've tried talking to him and he won't listen, kick him out. Ask him to leave. If he doesn't, just refuse to acknowledge his moves. Either he'll make an idiot of himself trying to flip the table, or he'll get the message.

If someone complains, you kicked him out for cheating... which happens to be the truth.

Alternatively, any time he mentions something like "I bribe them off with my fortune" just respond with "you don't have one"

"Oh but it's here on my character sheet!"

"But user, I'm holding your character sheet right here."

What's he going to do, hold a gun to your head to force you to acknowledge his imaginary castle? If the DM didn't give it to him, he never had it.

I like it.

It's not petty revenge if its a legitimate plot hook.

Okay, the horses and the warship are probably petty revenge, but eh.

Here. Ask for the Rival of Arcadius, using an image from Log Horizon, ideally at a time of day you would expect someone from Central Europe to be awake and hope that I see the thread.

If any shmuck like this guy can have a castle and welth, then let's have ourselves a good 'oil stock market crash.

But only for his native money

Make the monatary value of the other parties skyrocket while he's left in the dust with his now worthless castle. Now for him a piece of bread costs as much as a greatsword, and he'll have to fork over a small fortune to feed himself, let alone his horses

Then when he starts losing cash, he'll start scrounging for pennies in the new land. Have his """"noble"""" background be a burden, as no one gives to a bragging ex-rich boy, who talked high and mighty and lost his wealth.

Of course the other players can help...if they want that is. One of their coppers could be worth 50 of his gold. Suddenly to him, everyone else is the rich guy. Put him in the shoes of the common man to better appreciate hard work for, to his old self hopefully, very little pay

Now I really want to know why you can't kick him out.