Get back in touch with an old player and good friend

>Get back in touch with an old player and good friend
>He's moved back to the area and wants to play in a game like the good old days
>Invite him to join my current group, all players who joined on after he left
>During the session, I have his old PC from five years back show up as an NPC
>He's looking for something in the dungeon they're about to delve and offers to tag along
>Friend gets really excited
>All of the other players don't realize that this is his old character of his I slipped in as a cameo
>Before either of us can mention it, they all decide they fucking hate this guy
>Antagonize him, threaten him
>Eventually I have him back off and leave so the other players don't attack him and completely ruin the night
>Friend too embarrassed to say that was an old character of his that he really liked from back in the day
>Spends the rest of the night looking kind of bummed
>He leaves at the end of the night without saying a word
>Hasn't responded to my skype messages or texts
>Didn't show up to session last night

D-did I do something wrong, Veeky Forums? I feel fucking terrible.

You did nothing wrong, user.

Always remember that no plan, even cameos, survives contact with the players.

I deal with shit like this more than I'd care to admit. If he's not responding, I'd explain the situation to the other players who antagonize him, maybe encourage them to send an apology. If you want to keep messaging him as well, just make it very clear this whole scenario came about because of a mistake, but that you're still apologetic. Don't blame yourself, you couldn't have forseen this result. Good luck man. I know how much it sucks when someone won't hear out your side of the story.

No he just didn't mesh with your other players, granted your other players sound like shit without more context.

Players, especially ones who don't have a lot of normie characteristics, tend to be very insular and xenophobic when it comes to "outsiders" and their group. While they may have been OK with your friend returning (a friend-of-a-friend already into the hobby has potential and is already vetted by one approved member of the group, and thus has less of an outsider status), the NPC they saw was totally unknown.

Because of this, their more passive or fully suppresed resentment of the outsider expressed itself on this NPC, as he both isn't a real person (and thus is fair game) and an outside force, which they resent in general.

Play with normies, OP. You won't have as much trouble with this shit.

You did nothing wrong. Players can be the most vindictive, sociopathic spergs when it comes to interaction with NPCs.

Never plan anything around the expectation that your players won't be irrationally antagonistic, while simultaneously feeling completely justified in their actions.

I thin it's in player nature to randomly designate NPC's to hate. I have two players who want to kill a tavern owner for no good reason. They talk about burning their tavern to the ground in and out of the game.

>>Before either of us can mention it,
You mean you didn't clear that up ASAP? Before the session started, even?

This makes me thankful for my completely random roll20 group: we always try to talk our way out of a fight if we can help it. When we happened upon four drakes in a village, our dragonborn addressed the alpha, through whom the green dragon was speaking and we left without anyone killing anything.

The bandits that jumped us, though, were unfortunately decimated. Only one survived

Probably wanted to surprise the player. The OP made a fatal mistake of being too kind for the world of murdehobos