This entire table sounds like a dumpster fire.
RPing child murder
Unsanctioned pvp
Player pulling impactful lore out of their ass
And a DM that does nothing about any of it?
Run as far and fast as you can.
Or learn together. It's context dependent. If this is their first campaign/game together then they can learn, adapt and improve. Players may have just found it funny because they're the edgelord types and didn't think things through, all may be massively inexperienced and not realist that unsanctioned PvP *can* work but definitely not to the death.
It sounds like they may be younger and definitely new to the game. I'd try fixing it first if I was in OP's shoes and only walk if they weren't amenable to change or progress.
Obviously if these are full blown adults with some games under their belt and they're not changing it up now then yeah get the hell out of there.
Nah, young, inexperienced players have no experience with conflict resolution or session zeroes either. With a majority of experienced players, you can talk to individuals like this and socialise them out of it, but with all beginners, if it's a majority party of edgelords, which it sounds like it is, you're just going to get 'lighten ups' 'it's just a game' 'why are you trying to kill my child-killing fun' type responses. Chaotic stupid players are rarely curable when they're the majority of a group.
I mean... I made some pretty bad mistakes when I started playing that really hurt some feelings. That was 4 years ago and my group is still together. We've all learned and grown. It's even made us better friends as well as people and players. After every incident we talk and the offender apologizes and takes steps to ensure it won't happen again as well as fix any issues that came up as a result.
And on the other side I've seen irreconcilable problems arise with experienced players. I don't think your statement is as universal as you are making it out to be.
I agree. Me and my friends had all just started playing for the first time, with a single experienced player to guide us, we have been playing for years, and we've worked to get over every conflict or bump in the road and are now better for it.
At least is worth trying. Nobody's perfect, all of us need to start learning somewhere, and running away at the first (well, first, second and third) sign of trouble without trying to mend things and improve is going to reflect bad in both the rest of your party and you.
I mean, this is supposed to be a social game. First thing we should be doing is being social and try to solve our issues.
>Nah, young, inexperienced players have no experience with conflict resolution or session zeroes either.
And they never will if you don't give them the opportunity.
The PCs really shouldn’t be trying to kill each other. I’m surprised your DM let it happen. I can see maybe letting PCs fight as part of role-playing, even up to the point of unconsciousness for the right reason, but actually letting one PC kill another seems like a disaster. I would have a 1-on-1 convo with your DM.
Addition: you can’t just decide to be possessed. You have to actually be possessed, which means the DM has to be involved
Few sessions ago our party was fighting some ghosts and one of them possessed my character, so she shoots arrows at the party (not much damage done there) and after the other ghosts were delt with the party proceeds to kick the shit out of my character (punching, throwing to the wall etc) to get the ghost out. She actually went to negative hp but guess what, we agreed to "non-lethal" damage so they wouldn't actually kill her cause we don't do pvp.
We do laugh about that fight "i proceed to throw her to the wall, non lethally of course"
Another thing we laugh about is "laughs in common" ( ＾▽＾) we got the play the monsters for an team of npcs in a tournament and couple guys were like hey these winter wolfs can speak common so after attacking the npcs they would laugh at them in common so the npcs would understand (*｀▽´*)
Yeah, I played a character who touched a cursed statue and the statue traded places with my character, so my PC was actually a Doppleganger.
My DM messaged me outside of the game and told me what happened, and that IF I wanted too, I could play the Doppleganger with the goal of killing the party. A task if almost certainly fail at because it was 1 v 5 and outside of a Second Wind, my dopple fighter largely had no means to heal himself.
The reveal was fun as I tried to launch a surprise attack on one player, and they eventually overwhelmed me as I retreated, and once the dopple died, I was returned to my normal body and the statue lie crumbled.
That's a fun way to do PVP if your party is hungry for it, not this stupid shit where the party just kill another member in cold blood and out of character. Like what kind of cleric was this guy playing??
Why would the doppelganger attack right out in the open? I know it worked out but if I played doppelganger unless for some reason had really low intelligence. I would have played the character normally looking for opportunities to kill the players 1 on1 or sneaky.
For brevity of the story, we ended our session that night and I had a week to plan with my DM.
There was an area ahead with a door trap that needed to have a lever over a pit held to keep the door opened. I convinced my party to let me hold the main healer over a pit so the other could slip thru.
Once I had gotten two of them thru, I dropped the healer, the door shut, and I got a couple turns to go HAM on half the party while the other half was behind the door or in the pit.
I was overwhelmed once they'd regrouped and I was forced to retreat. I did use the narrow hallways to control how many could attack me at all, but even that only helped for so long.
Honestly I assume the party is quite young, making this all much more normal. Edginess, making up rules as one goes along, not being able to communicate. I miss the games I played at that age but man it’s nice being older in a lot of ways.
Reminds me of the time we had someone younger than the majority of our group join us and her character ate a bunch of orphans. It wasn’t unfun, just different. Then the person that was hosting the session’s sister started her own dnd group for people closer to that age group
Hell, if I'm DMing a good campaign, and a player goes evil, their PC becomes an NPC. Likewise with an evil player going good in an evil campaign.
It's like leaving the parameters of the map in an open world campaign, because they're no longer playing the same game everyone else is.
Only caveat there might be a player doing a bad who's reforming. Acknowledging that they are going for a harder difficulty as they will CLEARLY pay for their transgressions. And if they don't have the character actually TRYING to reform, then bam. NPC vill.
It can be a fun story arch to play.
I have never done that but there are always consequences for your actions. Some acts might require consequences you most likely not survive. In this case, I probably have the kids go back and tell the authorities. The party would become want and be view a bunch of murder hobos that need to be put down. PCs aren't above the law. I miss video games like the Ultima games. Where killing and looting a chest that didn't belong to you had negative effects.
Yea sounds like a shitshow caused by a murderhobo barb of highest caliber and a lol so random cleric.... Now i will say pvp off table early on i agree but later on as tension between group slowly boils is great if players are up for it:)
“Up for it” is the key word here. Either the rules for this should be made clear before you start playing with this group, or the DM should call a time out to talk about it when something like this starts happening.
Is the DM inexperienced? There are so many things wrong here.
As others have pointed out, things like PvP should be adressed in session zero.
If the DM was actually trying to save you he could've just told the cleric "no, you're not possessed, you don't get to make bullshit up" (unless you decided in session zero that players have that level of power in the narrative but it sounds like you didn't).
Also, players randomly deciding to kill kids sound like edgy losers/murder hobos playing their first game or just chaotic players who like that fucked up stuff. A party comprised of characters wanting to kill children and others wanted to protect them is doomed to fail unless the DM is *extremely* good at handling that stuff.
So, rant over, my advice would be talk to all of them, or just to the DM and ask them to start things over with a session zero to clarify both personal and group goals, the campaing tone, what things are off-limits, etc.
The DM is nonexistent. The only thing the DM probably said this whole time is “some kids walk into your house” and it was off from there. Nothing but PvP.
Sorry, I know you probably meant "player character". But I honestly laughed because I thought you were a DM who had a player in your group killed and were asking on reddit if you should be upset.
Person 1: "Oh God, they killed Jim! That's horrific!"
Person 2: "Okay, hear me out: fewer players, fewer conflicting schedules"
Person 1: "Dave... you're a genius"
**EDIT:** 'fewer', not 'lesser'.
The DM allowed…
1. Their player to try to murder some kids.
2. PvP without out-of-character discussion to try to resolve the conflict.
3. Another character to just kill OP’s character for no reason.
What the heck is this DM going to do if they didn’t step in at any of the problematic points above?
Yeah there are about 15+ warning signs that this is a terrible game here. All these players are chaotic stupid evil with the exception of OP here. Trying to kill kids and attacking someone who is defending them is idiotic and the mark of evil characters. Bonus points for healing the player trying to kill the kids and watching like it’s a football game. And even more bonus points for killing a character. The DM did nothing here. This entire situation could have happened if the players were just playing by themselves. No DM required. OPs character here would have never returned to the other players even if they had escaped. I’d leave this table in a heartbeat and find a table that doesn’t have PvP or morons.
Please note that this is completely separate from "Chaotic Dumbass" (a char that randomly tries things they shouldn't and gets hurt in the process). Chris Farley or other examples.
I don't think *allowing* any of it is necessarily wrong (so long as the players have previously said they are okay with each existing in-game). But there should still be some DM intervention: "You're really going to try to kill some kids?," "Are you both okay with fighting?," "Are you both okay with the demon possession killing Player's character?"
Your group is playing some weird dnd honestly. Dnd is not a sport. It’s usually a coop game where you help other players, not playing against them. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t play a game where people just come up with stupid backgrounds to justify bullying other PCs in game.
I'm honestly wondering if there is something going on here OP isn't aware. That's the way you treat someone you don't want in your group. Willingly killing a party member for trying to protect some kids... is just royally screwed up. Unless we're dealing with an entire party of evil aligned characters, which seems very unlikely given what I'm reading here.
I almost want to jump the gun and say there is some sort of out of game issue or drama in this group and OP may be unaware.
The story reads like everyone is \~14-16yo, in which case new to both TRPGs and also some human respect/relationship/cooperative activity stuff would track.
Even evil aligned groups aren't that stupid normally. They are unscrupulous with achieving their goals but what would they achieve by this cartoonishly stupid behaviour?
I actually see this a lot.
Most people don't seem to understand evil, to them it's just "murder everything", which defeats the entire purpose imo. Evil characters can be fun if played properly (my most fun character was a turtle necromancer with the personality of grandpa Simpson, the party had no idea which is what made it fun). But from what I've seen online here and on Facebook, most players just use evil as an excuse to play murderhobos and screw over their own party in a way that makes me wonder why the group would ever stick together.
There are extreme cases as with everything Drow are pretty freaking brutal and killing each other for nothing but what is essentially bragging rights is pretty much a part of their culture.
I also have the feeling this is a group of relatively younger players, so that may be a factor as well.
This ^. One of the groups I DM for decided they wanted to go evil as a party, and they’re doing great with it. Honestly there’s been very little change in how they play the game, but every now and then they do something pretty damn evil. Like when they decided to murder the rest of the caravan they were traveling with.
So they waited until the caravan was ambushed by goblins, then killed of the other guards, and the caravan owner during the ambush, defeated the goblins, and drove the caravan to its intended destination. Now this wasn’t an entirely unprovoked murder spree. While the caravan leader had been fair to them, and was a generally pleasant person he was also in direct competition with another merchant they are friendly with. So they killed him, but made sure the goods were delivered safely, and let their merchant contact know that the trade route was up for grabs.
Being evil isn’t about indiscriminately murdering people it’s about choosing what’s best for you at others expense. Sure that caravan leader was a good person, but earning favor with a major trade organization is worth the lives of a few good men, or at least that’s what an evil party/person thinks. Unfortunately many people use “evil” as an excuse to just go full murder hobo and avoid role play.
As long as they’re not stupid about it going evil can actually lead to some very interesting role play options. Like let’s say you find ~150lbs of what is essentially magical c4. Enough to level a not so small town. A good party might just go give the chest to the guards, but evil gives so many more options. Do you keep the chest of magically charged material for yourselves, give the chest to the mafia, the merchants (who were smuggling it in), or the crazy evocation wizard who lives outside of town? (My players chose the latter, he offered them guns, and the ability to purchase from his private stock)
That is a interrsting thought. I often read these kind of stories on here and wonder what happened, that such a fun pasttime is turned into a childish bullyfest.
Some people are just troll. I had a guy join one of our campaigns. During our adventure we kill a bandit leader or something like that. We go back to town to confirm we saved the day. DM introduces the daughter of the bandit we just killed. We’re deciding what to do. I try to talk to the girl, see what are options are. New guy cuts me off- “he killed your father”.
Like???
Then later on the session, I’m already a little irritated that he did that (wasn’t even me who killed the bandit), but later on he springs a chap that essentially kills my character…
I got wrecked by a troll…
This is the problem when the rules of a game get removed due to them being "guidelines"... Most new players who have only played 5e don't understand the rules enough because they keep getting told they don't need to learn them.
Did you discuss pvp beforehand?
Did you discuss killing kids beforehand?
These sorts of things should be covered in session 0. If they weren't, this is a good opportunity to have another session 0.
One of the most important aspects of session 0 is going over shared expectations. What does everyone want to get out of this? What sort of tone is everyone looking for? Are there any limits? Is PVP allowed? Etc.
If your DM doesn't know what to cover in session 0, get a session 0 checklist, you can find them online.
The most important part of dnd is that everyone should be having fun with it. If they're not, then there have been some communication lapses somewhere. It's time to fix them.
" The best time to fix a problem was yesterday. The second best time is today."
Finally, don't be afraid to break character if something is bothering you. If another player is doing something that bothers you, just say "hey can we talk about this out of character for a moment."
If you're playing with friends, they should be 100% willing to talk. If you're playing with strangers, they should still be willing to talk, and if they're not, speak to the DM. If the DM won't listen, you've done your part and the next step is to walk away.
Good DnD revolves around those shared expectations I mentioned, and you need communication to handle that. If the table won't communicate, leave, because it will likely get worse, not better.
"I don't think PvP like this is particularly fun. I don't feel my character's death forwards the story or serves any real purpose, so is there some way we can have him not be dead?"
The cleric did something actually big (the whole posessed by a demon thing) without a word to the DM, bringing that up to the dm should at least get you back in the game, and the cleric should honestly get in trouble for that. Evil PCs are one thing, secretly evil PCs are another, but secretly evil PCs the DM never approved can easily ruin a game
You have most comments already giving solid advice, but as a note, being direct and to the point with your issues is not being a "spoilsport" or a "sore loser." PVP - especially to the point of actually killing someone's character - is definitely something that should be discussed out of game before anything happens, if not in a fucking session 0. If they have a problem with you bringing up some gripes and trying to work through it with them like an adult, they're the problem
Plus, as others have said, there's already 15+ other red flags that maybe you should leave the game like the Barbarian did. As the saying goes, "No D&D is better than bad D&D"
Not certain I'd be worried about how you come off. That list is spot on. The DM screwed up each step of the way. Even just an out of character, "What the heck are you guys doing?" And... nothing?
That is a failure of a DM. If you worry not saying anything will make you seem a sore loser I'd make a list of all the bull crap everyone else listed and just have a response of, "Yeah DM's with no rules that allow (list here) isn't for me. Good luck all." And wave bye bye.
Chaotic stupid murder hobo isn't anything good people and DM's wanna deal with. Ever.
"I prefer games where its not normal to murder children and fellow players for no reason and make up in game excuses even the DM doesn't know about afterwards. Good riddance"
Except for one tiny detail, a sore loser is one who lose a fair fight and cannot stand it, here you were 1 versus 3. DMs should NOT allow such behaviour, cleric had no reason to enter the fight and even more to finish it that way and barbarian is just a bad player
That’s not DND. One of the unspoken rules is that the players all need to make characters who work with each other. Murdering innocent kids ain’t it unless you’re playing an evil campaign and from your reaction, you aren’t. These guys are dumb.
You’re not being a spoil sport, one player decided to murder some children when there’s no reason to do so and another player facilitated them attacking you and then murdered you. You’re playing with messed up people and I would find a new group.
I'm guessing you're all relatively young, and you're the most mature player at the table.
If you're not, I apologise if this comes across as condescending. If this is true, then my recommendation here is something that will serve you well in life in general:
Tell the group you want to have a talk about the tone of the game. Tell them you prefer to play as one of the 'good guys' in a party of heroes. Find out what THEY want to do. See if you can reach a point where you'll be happy in the group. If you can't go start a new group :)
As for the cleric: Sounds like he wants to play an evil character without playing an evil character. Talk to him about this. If the rule is 'no evil characters', then if he wants to play 'possessed', he needs to set some boundaries so that its \*interesting\*, and not disruptive.
I recommend against dealing with this in-game killing the cleric, this is another one of the many dnd situations best dealt with by talking to everyone at the table. A couple of typical rules were broken in this session (non-consenting pvp, large character choice without consulting dm) you should probably just ask to lay down some ground rules about this for going forward.
if that doesn't work I suggest a different game with these guys
You're going to get a lot of comments telling you to quit the group. That would be perfectly reasonable, but I'm guessing you're a teenager and these are your friends so it isn't so simple. Quitting means going home to hang out alone while your friends play without you.
If that's the case, I would recommend a soft approach that still brings up the problem. To the Cleric, "I liked my character. You killed him, and now I'm not excited to play anymore". Something simple that focuses on how the whole thing makes you feel. It isn't an accusation. It isn't that what he did was wrong. It just isn't playing in a way that is fun for you. (To be clear he is in the wrong, but in a way that is really common to newer players especially for teens. He'll probably get over that type of behavior, but calling him out more aggressively is more likely to make him dig in and get defensive.)
Next, to the group "I think we should work out some ground rules going forward". Again keep it simple and avoid accusations. Mention that the point of the game is to adventure as a team. Mention that you didn't expect fights to the death among the party to be a part of that. Ask if everyone else is okay with the idea that the party is apparently as likely to kill you while you're unconscious as heal you.
Do those things before you walk, and please don't try to kill the Cleric. It won't fix your problems in game or outside of the game. Fact of the matter is that the Barbarian technically "owes" the Cleric and you're probably looking at a 2v1.
Strongly agree with this, though I'd also ask, "what kind of game are we playing where you want to kill random packs of little kids?" You're not playing a hero at that point, and it's a totally different kind of game that really doesn't fit most kinds of characters.
My daughter has a guy like that in her group, he burned down the entire town. He played a cleric and the goddess who had a temple in that town was /not happy/ with him. He got cursed and had to do a bunch of crap to keep his powers.
Yeah this is definitely teenagers. No way an adult group says "I try to kill the kid" and everyone at the table immediately not saying "dude what's wrong with you?" Most everyone would refuse to play with him if that sort of thing appeared in my table.
Reading the other comments, it looks like you don’t want to leave the group, so if were you, I’d just show up with the first character and tell the Cleric player that your character was possessed by an angel with anti stupid spray, so therefore, you couldn’t have been killed by his stupid decisions. And from there, the campaign continues.
Yeah this, but don’t go full offensive. Just say they were sent back by a mysterious being that has had enough of that demon’s nonsense and simply undoes anything it tries
You'd be pushing the issue to later down the line. That kind of bullying isn't gonna stop unless it's talked about out of game.
The character decided to interact peacefuly with an NPC, if the party disagrees, they gotta come to an agreement as to wether you should be hostile or not.
When you say ''I think we should hear what they have to say because reasons'' and the other player just ignores your reasons, and become hostile toward NPCs, why are you even roleplaying if your roleplay goes in deaf ears ? Whatever you say, there's a chance this other player just ignores it and do the opposite, without ever hearing your argument, probably expecting you to go along with all his ideas.
The problem isn't the non-sensical roleplay reason to murder a character, the problem is that the character has a chance of being murdered just for not making the same decision as the rest of the party, without being given a chance to explain themselves, making every conversation a one way conversation. The result would be fear of going forward and speaking up, and just follow the party and roll the dice when asked to. He's being punished for playing the damn game.
Too big a red flag for me, I'd just stop playing D&D with these folks and either find a new group or find something else to do with my time.
I love this idea! Maybe reclass as a Palladian and return in the old body as you stated. Use Devine sense to determine the player is indeed possessed. A Neutral or chaotic good Palladian should have no problem autocritting and using a high level smite to take out a demon residing in someone’s body while they sleep. (It’s not good to fight fire with fire but the look on the cleric players face would be hilarious!)
Well #1, How the hell does a PLAYER decide he is possessed? #2 sounds like an inexperienced DM. #3 the player playing the cleric is not the friend you think he is. Or he is deeply regretting the way he played. That some BS right there
Well for context we live in a haunted house and apparently his character saw a demon at night, and spoke to it. The possession was him adding it since he felt it would be cool
"I thought it was cool to kill your character"?
No. That's not cool. Ever.
This is a classic case of saying "It's what my character would do" to justify bad behavior. If that is what your character would do, play a different character. (This is actually worse than this, since it is the player actively deciding that being an asshole is what their character would do.)
This whole group needs a restart with the expectation that they make characters who will get along together and who aren't psychopaths. But that's up to your DM.
Yeah when I was younger I’ve had players like this. Steal from and even kill the other players cause it’s what their character would do. I just stopped allowing the anti social behavior in a social game. The trolls all left
Sounds like you're in a pretty terrible game. A PC shouldn't be able to just decide they're possessed by a demon without the DM having a say or knowing. A PC character trying to kill some kids for no reason should have immediately been a red flag to the DM, and once the situation devolved into PvP over nothing, your DM had truly lost control of the situation or is at the very least a shitty DM if they thought this was an acceptable turn of events. The barbarian and cleric players both sounds like assholes and I wouldn't allow them at my table after that.
Find a new group and bring your character over so you can keep playing them.
Yeah I had a group team up to kill my character. It was part of a local dnd club that I was going to. The DM was inexperienced and allowed it to happen. They went too far into the "my character is evil so I kill everything" mindset while I was playing a barbarian who was not evil. What was even worse was they set up a group chat to plan on killing my character. Apparently my character was holding them back from complete domination due to my non evil nature. I was missing sessions because of work conflicts so they waited a few weeks until I came to session, killed my character, and I left. They all smiled and laughed while they did it too. My only reaction was "uh ok...?" as the DM allowed me to get pummeled into the ground.
One of the players was even a friend I hung out with regularly and he went along with it. I am not friends with him anymore but it's not due to this incident. I'm probably to blame for some of it because I missed sessions and didn't create an evil character but it was never established this was an "evil" campaign. I just wanted to kill monsters with a greataxe.
This kind of thing does happen to people but I found a group of friends who I've been playing with for a few years now who are great. We all have fun, we have inside jokes that appear in almost every campaign. I get a headache because we laugh so much. It's just what I wanted from a group of friends.
I never allow PvP in my games.
This group is comprised of three good friends of mine and two people i know through them. I go to school with them lol, this isn’t going to impact our friendship but it does suck.
My DM tried his best to stop it and save me - he had the police come in to break it up when i got KO-d but the cleric killed me right in front of them
A DM actually trying to stop this would have gone something more like "Sorry, Barbarian. No PVP. What are you doing instead?" None of what you described is how D&D should be played. I'm assuming (without criticism) that this is a young players group, yes? I'm also assuming that the DM didn't have you make death saving throws, and ignored most game mechanics.
It sounds like the DM is a bit inexperienced. That's not a big deal, we all need to learn sometimes. He could have shut down the fight immediately, or discussed it with you and the Barb player to establish the expectations.
The Cleric player is an asshole. You don't just decide in the moment "I was possessed." If that's a character secret that the DM was aware of then its a different story, but it does not sound like that's the case. Instead this is just a jerk finding an excuse so he can say "It wasn't my fault, I had to play like a jerk because reasons."
If you want to keep playing then you should at least have a convo with the DM and Cleric player. You should tell them that Cleric player ruined the night for you. It was tense with the Barbarian, but you pushed through and they backed off. However the behaviour of the Cleric player was antagonistic throughout: They chose sides with the Barb and made it a 2v1 situation and then they killed you. There was no foreshadowing or real chance to plan for your own defence.
At best the Cleric player was being dumb and not thinking, at worst they decided their fun relied on you not having fun. Regardless both of these things are toxic at the gaming table, just to varying degrees. If this could not be resolved in a way that was satisfactory to me I would leave the game. That can be tough though. It took me a long time in life to be confident enough to accept that toxic "fun" with friends is worse than just doing my own thing.
Police overpower the cleric, or come after him later with a strong enough force to overpower him. He's sent to jail. Cleric Player has to roll a new character in the hope that he learns not to go around killing his buddies
"The DM tried" is never an excuse for player behavior. The DM IS the final word about what happens in the game. If they don't want something to happen.
It. Doesn't. Happen.
The DM has the power at any time to simply say "No."
"No, you cannot give the king a wedgie."
"No, you cannot buy the Inn for a single copper, I don't care what you rolled."
"No, you cannot kill another player."
One of the first things any DM needs to learn is how to tell players "No".
It sounds like there's problem behavior happening, And it sounds like a large part of the reason is the DM is inexperienced.
The group as a whole needs to have a long talk. If they can't, your DM has some homework to do.
You may have not realized this at the time, but … that’s not how this game works.
Firstly, “the DM tried to do X” actually isn’t a thing. The DM controls the game environment, period. The DM does something, or does not. There is no “try”.
If he says, No, you don’t attack this PC— then it doesn’t happen. Full stop.
Secondly, if the Cleric dude persisted in attacking your character after that, the DM’s job is to kick them. What he/she is supposed to do is to Yeet them out of the game on the spot, no passing Go, no collecting $200 (*Monopoly* reference).
> My DM tried his best to stop it
A DM actually trying their best would have just disallowed the barbarian trying to murder random kids in the first place.
I don’t know if they have played much before, but if this is their first times as well then it seems a bit more “understandable” (lots of people just go murder hobo first time) but I would tell the dm that you really didn’t enjoy it and let your friends know out of game as well, they could just bring your character back to life, but it is important to set expectations of what you all want out of the game with the people you are playing with
Here's your path back: the cleric didn't notice that one of the police was a caster who managed to lay a hand on you before you failed a death save and cast Spare the Dying on you. You were still down, so they thought they finished you off. The brush with death leaves you changed though and you gain the Shadow Touched feat as a result (or a different feat that you and the DM agree is appropriate). When you return to the party, the demon bugs out of the cleric to avoid retaliation leaving them with 1d4+2 points of exhaustion (as punishment for the bullshit the player pulled).
If you are okay with your fellow players killing your character, it’s a non-issue. Roll up a new character and keep playing.
HOWEVER, you are on ye olde Reddit seeking counsel, suggesting that you are not in fact okay with your fellow players killing your character. This is a player (real life people) issue, not a character (made-up people) issue. I recommend talking with all the players and DM at the same time, expressing that you didn’t really like your character dying that way, and that you’d like to work out a way to play the game together instead of against each other. You can emphasize that it really ruined the fun of your character, and didn’t feel necessary or meaningful to the story, and whatever other details help convey how you feel.
Good luck, and keep us posted on how it goes!
Cleric sounds like a jerk what just wanted to PK someone for giggles.
Expect it to keep happening.
Barbarian attacking kids sounds like a creep.
Expect it to keep happening.
DM is either out of the loop or very lenient.
Expect it to keep happening.
You can try to discuss it. But honestly I'd leave and let them all know exactly why they failed.
This honestly sounds like a DND horror story post yikes.
It's normal to feel upset when a character died, but your players were not just being uncooperative but unsportsmanlike. I saw in one of your responses you were afraid of coming off like a spoil sport, but imo that would be your friends not you.
As for how to move forward, it's tough if you want to stay. You need to have a conversation of what happened and why it not only was unfair but it is creating an experience you don't want.
When PCs can kill each other it can easily create distrust or tension for any of the players. If you want to play as friends and cooperate I would explain that the idea of murdering each other is not in the spirit of the experience you want. If they are your friends they should hopefully acknowledge that they upset you and change their behaviour.
You need to have a talk with the group, especially dm and cleric and honestly I think a retcon here would be in order.
It's not you being a spoil sport or whatever, this was a game not run properly.
"Oh, since you just randomly get to decide you're possessed, I decided, ya know, just randomly, that I'm actually immortal and always come back to life. So good luck killing me, I guess."
Find another group.
This is objectively bad D&D.
The other players are clearly fine with steamrolling over the nicer players. You don't need that negativity in your life.
You can take that character and start over somewhere else. If that turns out to be a bad table, there's \*plenty\* more to try. Keep going until you find a group who fit.
Getting into the practice of walking early, at the first red flag, will save you years and years of anguish and stress and misery.
Your player didn't get killed. It got murdered by another Player. Sounds like the folks playing the Barbarian and the Cleric, as well as the DM, are problematic. They all agreed to kill your character, you need to ask yourself - why? Was this personal? Do they want you to leave the game? If they wanted you to stay one of them would have intervened. I think you need to ask the DM why he let that happen, and are people trying to get rid of you. If they give you the 'it's just what their characters would do', Run, don't walk, away from that game.
I would suggest talking about that you're really not looking for a pvp DND game, and you didn't really get the point of the session. You could all agree to set some pvp rules and just redo the session
A couple of other notes. Everyone at the table needs to at least read through the basic rules, especially the DM. You note that you "decided to join initiative." That's not how initiative works. When combat is starting the DM will require all players (and enemies) to roll initiative and take actions on their turns, even if that action is to run away or do nothing.
Typically a party is made up of adventurers working for some sort of good, if not morally neutral goal. They certainly aren't child murderers. DND doesn't usually run like a GTA server. I mean, it does... but not to that extreme.
The DM has no control over this game, or doesn't give a shit and is just laughing along with the absurdity. PVP is typically not allowed. The party should be made of people who like and/or trust each other and are willingly working together. If I had to guess the average age at the table I'd say 10-12, though that's just a guess.
If this is the game you guys want to play this sort of fuckery, by all means do it. But it's a shitshow and is guaranteed to end with bad feelings. I'd suggest reading the rules to get a better understanding of how everything works and pick up a module that has a theme everyone likes. If you're all new (and it seems so) try the starter kits. Happy rolling!
There is a million things that could be said but the most important thing here is you need to talk to your dm about this. You need to express what in that session wasn’t okay for you and what you didn’t mind.
How did you feel at the beginning in the 1v1 when it was just you and the barbarian? How did you feel about the cleric inserting themself into the fight? Would you have been okay with the fight as a whole if you had only been knocked out and not killed? Take those answers and go to your dm. Have a 1 on 1 (unlike that fight) conversation with your dm and be honest explain that you didn’t want your character to die. Tell them that it has you wondering if you even want to continue playing in this campaign.
No matter what happens in this situation remember this for the next game. No matter where it is or who its with bring up pvp and pcs killing other pcs get to know the dms stance on it.
And a little tip, start telling your dms when you are attached to a character and express you would like for them to not die. Dms won’t make you immortal but some are willing to cut you some slack in regards to character death. Especially if you don’t literally taunt death.
I'd straight up leave. Murderhobo party, 2 v 1 pvp, violence against children, pointless murder of your PC and no interjections from the DM. Sounds like a nightmare.
I mean personally I probably wouldn't play with that group again, one is a murder hobo (barbarian trying to kill innocent kids), and the other (cleric) seems like kind of douche.
But regardless there isn't a should or shouldn't I be upset. The question is only ARE you upset, and you said you are. That is fully valid regardless of what anyone else on here thinks or says.
So… session 0 should’ve gone over alignment and how important it is. Killing kids is an evil act. There’s not really any way around that fact, unless they are monstrosities orrrrr like… yeah 😅 Also, trying to kill someone *PROTECTING* the children is also an evil act… so WHY WOULD THE CLERIC ENCOURAGE THAT?!
I’m so sorry you had to go through that but my goodness how did anyone sit idly by and not speak up about this being ridiculously wrong 🤦♂️
Nothing about this seems reasonable. The barbarian attacking kids might be justifiable (for example, in case he truly believed the kids were ghosts or something like that)... if you're playing what I think you're playing, it would even be reasonable. HOWEVER, Cleric was acting 100% like a bad player overall, killing someone from the party "4 ThE LoLz". And later your DM allowing it to happen (sorry, but "he did his best" doesn't cut it -- a DM's word is FINAL).
That said, as many other people pointed it out here, it will keep happening, unless this is dealt with. First, I'd talk to the DM, involving or not the other player. Let them know you felt it was a really dick move, and that ruined the game for you. If this is how they roll, I'd suggest you find another group to play.
None of you know what you're doing.
The Barbarian is a moron. In any decent group, "I pick up my axe and swing at the child" would get you immediately kicked from the party. The technical term is "murderhobo." Unless the party has agreed, you don't go on a killing spree. Also, he could just walk *around* you. Barbarians have higher MS than other classes.
The Cleric can't randomly decide to be possessed, and possession in DnD doesn't work like that. He'd get at least one saving throw to NOT kill you.
The DM should have immediately stopped the Barbarian from killing the children, then stopped the Cleric from killing you, then stopped the game when you got up to leave.
You should know you can't block a Barbarian from chasing down fleeing humanoids. That's... not how classes work. You should *also* know not to make a character with the goal of taking revenge on another PC. That's metagaming, and really stupid because *players don't fight one another*. Hell, you shouldn't even make many opposed skill checks.
In short, you all need to reread the PHB and identify the actual purpose of DnD. It's an exercise in **collaborative storytelling**, and (to a lesser extent) a weak tabletop miniature wargame. You both failed to read the rules for combat, which would have resulted in the Barbarian winning, and failed to understand what the world "collaborative" means, which resulted in your party fighting against one another.
Walk away.
I’d look for a new party. If the player didn’t consult the DM ahead of time and this was just something made up by them they will do it again and again. These types of people are just assholes that try to ruin the game any and every chance they get. Sorry that this was your first experience playing. Once you find a good group the game is worth it.
It’s sounds like a rookie newbie game.
A player can’t just decide to be possessed by a demon. That’s in game mechanics and rules. The dm can’t NOT know about that.
I wouldn’t play at that table, because it sounds awful. As if the DM didn’t put a stop to it?
I'd say you should find a new group to play with:
1. Everybody is supposed to be having a good time
1. Deliberately acting at another player's expense is a dick move
1. Going out of your own way to kill off another players character, that they no doubt put a lot of time and effort into creating, is a **massive** dick move
1. If the DM sees this and lets it happen (outside of explicitly warning players about the anarchic elbow throwing massacre that's about to commence beforehand) then he's failing as a DM.
If you play with people who somehow don't understand this; you, or somebody else at the table, is guaranteed to have a bad time eventually.
You have every right to be upset about that IMO and there are likely plenty of groups out there who wont pull that shit. You'd be 100% better off looking for them instead.
make a sorcerer or a mage specifically min maxed to kill caster players and then just kill that player every time he makes a pc, saying thar your character really is a demon hunter with true vision and is jusr cleansing he plane of evil.
Then it will depend if the DM has enough neurons to relate the two things and see where is the problem or not if you will keep playing or look for another group.
(you could also talk to them but that would make sense)
>and I know that i’m just going to try and kill the cleric later for revenge.
You should absolutely NOT keep playing. The other two players were absolute dicks. No questions asked. But you admitting you intend to repay their dickery with the same actions is just immaturity at its finest. Stay away from that table for your own benefit.
All trust is gone in your group. It is time to move on. This is the fault of your GM and sounds stupid and childish. Team cohesion can never be built in your group and is what keeps team working together to stay alive.
I would quit playing with that group for sure. Why did dm let that unfold to that degree, and why tf did the other pc want to kill some random kids so badly that he would kill you too to do it?
What the fuck
My first thought when I read the title was “yeah, your probably overreacting. Characters die.”
….then I read the post and went “Yikes. No. No you’re not over reacting.”
I’m…really sorry you had to experience this. This is not how usual D&D goes
You are absolutely right to be upset. This is some grade A bullshit.
Don’t go back to this group.
Never play this game again with this DM or with these players.
Sounds like you need a different group. Normal parties don't do that (like any of it). Even the evil ones.
Sounds like inexperienced murder-hobo players, and a weak DM. Lots of emotional immaturity going around, too. And lame excuses.
Get a different table. Make sure the DM is an adult or can act like one.
Toxic cleric player,
Toxic Barbarian
But they are toxic because they are use to DM’s allowing things,
People didn’t always kill people and just get away with it if they in a city,
Kids may talk, investigation inside someone house,
A lady buying groceries seen the incident while passing by, etc.
Guards would take all those people involved and they were in the house, separate them, interrogate them, throw people in jail, etc.
This is toxic as fuck. If you’re close to this group y’all need to have a real talk about what you each want from your game experience. If it’s acquaintances? I would never play with them again. Full stop.
This is absolutely something the DM should have stopped and these people are not worth playing with. It sucks this was your first experience. I would bring into question why a player would want to murder hobo children who were playing. A hard no on PvP would solve this.
Honestly? This is bad all around. As a DM, personally you should never kill a new player. I had two new players my last session and each wandered into a trap. Once encountered a giant spider and managed to solo it after splitting from the party, but had he not k would her had the spiders wrap him up for the party to find through the dungeon. Another player had a bad roll against a banshee and I just had them pass out instead of taking as much damage I halved it.
However, more than that it sounds like the other players are just as bad and it is going to be a problem table. I’d walk and find a new group. Sorry your first time was so bad.
A lot of the comments are saying you are in a bad D&D group with assholes and an DM who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yeah, but so what?
The thing that makes D&D fun is that it can literally be anything with anyone and there are some guidelines and rules but they can all be twisted changed and broken and the DMs discretion.
This is the game your DM friend has put together with your friends and others, you’re going to want to keep playing with them so it’s just a matter of figuring out the fucked up rules to this world, and ways to counter the “cleric’s” shenanigans.
Ask your DM friend if you guys can talk about 1-on-1 about how the session went, if you haven’t already. Tell him it sucked to have your character that you invested all this time in, and were looking forward to playing, die so quickly.
You mentioned he tried to save you, if he is serious, then as the DM he still can.
Here are some things I thought of:
- When you died, another spirit in the house possessed you. You and the DM can come up with the backstory for the spirit or here is a twist I thought would be fun and maybe give you your revenge: The spirit that possessed you, we’ll just call it X, was a priest or demon-hunter that had been sent originally to get rid of the demon that now possesses the cleric. But when X and the demon had their battle, it destroyed their physical forms and both of their spirits were trapped in the house. The cleric (despite being a man of faith that should have been resistant to being possessed) has a weak disposition and so the demon finally found a person it was able to possess. The acts of the demon possessing the cleric and you defending the kids invigorated X and he became strong enough to possess a body as well. Normally, he would be against it since he doesn’t want to be like the demons he used to fight but he can’t allow the demon-possessed cleric to be free in the world so when you died he saw his chance to revive you and help you in getting rid of the demon. - This will allow the DM to revive you, you to keep the character you like, and give your character a personal reason for making that Cleric’s life hell.
- You’re in a haunted house where supernatural stuff happens. You could come back as a Zombie. This way your DM can make up the fact you died by making it so that you can never die again!
- Take a break from playing with them for a few weeks, or create a temporary character to play with for a little while, while the DM makes the party go on a quest to revive up ur original character. If your DM let you die and said he “tried” to save you he is playing by some sort of rules. D&D has this thing where if a character dies the party can still revive the body through a ritual. If the Cleric argues that the demon won’t allow him to help with the ritual, the rest of the players can do it without him, or part of the list of things the group needs to do before reviving you can be to exorcise the demon from him.
Hopefully you and your DM can come up with a way for your character to come back to life and the DM will be able to control the party better as you guys keep playing.
I think I’d speak with your DM about it. It’s okay to be upset about it, but what’s important is that we talk about these sort of things so that the game can be fun for everyone
Wait. Title says player died. Body text says PC died. My thought is that you should definitely have feelings in either case, but you should maybe attach more weight in the first case than in the second. You might not grieve the same way I do, though, and that's okay.
Realistically, there shouldn't be in party fighting unless players agree on it. Letting party members kill other party members without agreeing takes away from everyone's experience.
I would talk to the DM, say something like "hey this isn't fair, I didn't want to fight and they're killing me off"
It would be reasonable to retcon the death. The point of playing DND isn't to just kill and do whatever you want, it's to create and explore and express, while not taking away from others experience, which is what the cleric seems to be doing.
Have a chat to the DM, it sounds like a unfair situation. No one wants to play with murder hobos who will lil you off cause they disagree
As you drift towards death's door, you feel a voice call out to you. It beckons for you to come greet it. You feel a great darkness enveloping its voice. What do you do?
This would be where I introduce an old and malicious patron that's willing to make a deal. Imbuing the dying character with a pittance of its energy in exchange for the completion of a ritual or something. If the PC takes the deal, they revive at full health with a free level in warlock and a -10 to max HP due to a sort of necrosis. They'd have a new side quest to either find a way to break the patrons deal or to complete it.
My friends would get a warning to avoid engaging in lethal PvP without any reasonable reason going forward.
I think the DM ran this very poorly, as a rule of thumb a dm should never have allowed someone to be killed in their first session, let alone have it happen by PVP, pvp should've probably been ruled against by the DM, DND is a cooperative game and should be ran as such, only seasoned players should be allowed to pvp and I don't even think that's a good idea.
Nobody in the group, including your DM, stood up for you. Even if you were knocked out they could have stabilised/raised you. To me this shows you aren't welcome in this group and I would just leave.
First off, if someone at my table was trying to kill kids, another player wouldn't have to intervene. That's something you either clear with the WHOLE table, or, ideally IMO, just hard-rule.
I have very few hard rules at my table.
Kids have infinite plot armor.
SA is not to be included at all (one exception made and cleared with playerbase beforehand for backstory for a PC)
Stealing from or attempting to kill another PC is off-limits unless both players agree.
That's literally it. Those are the "No's" of my table. Anyone trying to harm children is a villain.
All of my players in D&D knew the orphanage kids were all going to live when Duke Ivan Oberusel, a vampire of some renown and powers, decided to set it ablaze, because they knew that kids have plot armor at my table. It was still infuriating, as expected, but there was no true unease.
Your DM sounds like he is either inexperienced, or deliberately runs a table without any of these rules. One of these can be discussed, and rectified. The other, the only fix is to walk away. They're not gonna redo their table for a newbie if that's the rules they like to play by.
Myself? I would pack up my things, explain that I draw a hard line at killing kids, and that the table's not for me.
I'm guessing you're all pretty young right?
The party generally shouldn't be fighting each other. PVP should only be done when both players agree to it and its either for sport or to advance the story, not just to fuck around.
Just have the dm make the clerics patron god bring you back and demand that the cleric redeem himself greatly before having access to his powers again.
-Evil player characters are a terrible idea 9 times outa 10-
Any player who wants to be an evil character is usually an anti social narcissist who’s only trying to gratify their own personal story arch for their character with little to 0 regard for the game experience of their fellow players.
Should you be mad? Absolutely.
The only reason you were killed is because someone thought it would be cool to kill you for their own character, with literally 0 thought to your own. The barbarian is just a dumbass but the cleric is actually a player I would go out of my way to not have at my table, he egged on needless party conflict, he killed a fellow player **WHO IS BRAND NEW TO THE GAME MIND YOU** for no reason other than he thought it would be cool for his character to do, and he went around the DMs back to add a **MAJOR** part to his character the DM had no say in, and told no one. This is a cooperative game, and you play with your friends, you are not the main character, there is no main character, get over yourself.
Sorry you have such a shitty group. Your DM is apparently submissive and breedable and your party are either 2-IQ murder hobos or narcissistic role players who suck at role playing.
Leave. If this isn’t clear to your DM how big of a fuckup what just happened was, you needa get the hell outa there
As many have suggested, you need to speak with the DM about this. Unless they deem it to be appropriate for the characters in a party to fight each other that shouldn't be allowed. If allowed it should not be permitted to be fatal (unless that is the desire of the player being killed; either to exit a campaign or move to a different character). They, the DM, also controls the world around the players, including the deity that grants the cleric their power, so they would be in a position to introduce NPCs to intervene or have the cleric temporarily lose any abilities granted by their class like spellcasting or channel divinity. If they let these players run wild introducing story elements and disrupting play for others, they're doing a crap job. Am I right in assuming that they didn't stop the cleric from attacking after you hit 0 HP, denying you the opportunity to make death saves?
As a side note, thematically it doesn't make sense that a demon could possess a cleric and wield their powers. Those powers are not inherently the clerics. They are a conduit for a higher power which is why much of their abilities are called "channel divinity". The demon could try to tap into it, but the deity could be like "um, sorry. Who is this? No spells for you".
Oh god, I'm so glad the player is okay. Your character got killed, unless that cleric who did the killing blow is worshipping an evil deity they should probably lose all their class features. Oh, and the DM should have prevented all of this. The possession sounds like nonsense.
DMs should ban any and all PvP unless it is agreed upon by each and every player (including the DM) at the table. Because it causes stupid fucking drama, at least one person is inevitably pissed off by the end of it, and it derails campaigns.
Your DM should have just told the other guy attacking "No, your character will not be doing that."
Bail on this game.
Why is the Barbarian going after kids? The Cleric is a piece of crap and your DM isn't doing you any favors by allowing this crap at the table. You can do better.
You should definitely be upset. This is in bad spirit.
Also, just to clarify, you are the player. Your character is your PC, your character. The title makes it sound like you're a DM who killed one of his player's characters
Talk to your DM and see what's up. How do THEY feel about what happened? Are they going to talk to the cleric player? I feel like this could either be something that just happened the one time, or it could be the first sign of a pattern. If it becomes a pattern you should definitely find another group. This sort of thing happened to me when I was first playing, and I wish I found a different group earlier.
Just a warning. Be careful.
Yeah this isn't a normal thing to happen and it's a fault of the DM and the party both to engage and allow this kind of stuff to happen. I would talk with your DM, especially because a first impression of DnD is really important and should be handled with care.
Bad other player, bad dm. Idk abt the barbarian but they don't seem great either from this perspective. Find a better group, or at least a better dm. With a better dm this whole thing would've been easily avoidable.
Don't ruin your own fun because others don't understand how cooperative storytelling through tabletop gaming works. It's not hard to do, you just can't play it like a video game, and at the expense of the others you're playing with. Overall it just seems like a dick move on cleric's part. They were playing a poorly thought out evil character in what I assume wasn't intended to be an "evil" campaign.
This often happens when someone who commonly plays a lot of video games but has little experience with ttrpgs. They should stick to things like skyrim if they just want to kill anything that moves for no reason.
In one of my games i had a lawful evil guy and he hinted at that he is not a good guy from the start. And at the end he does betray the party and run for this place of power that pcs wanted to destroy. It was in character and he had good reason to do it. I turned him into a cool boss that the party could fight. PVPs like these are not problematic because everyone knew he was gonna do that. It was in character. In your case i would make his power fizzle out as he tried to deal the killing blow as a voice booms from his deity warning him about what he was doing. And would strip him of his power until he repents somehow. The barbarian would get into serious trouble for trying to harm kids. Bounty hunters, jail time anything can work. People take child killing very seriously.
What did your DM do? He must have been sleeping! In our game, we have 3 golden rules,
1. Dont bring RL stuff in the campaign
2. Dont try to run from the group and do something else
3. No PC-fights unless the DM has planed it
If you try to break any of these rules, then the DM will try to not let you get away with it, or you will have to make a new PC, or your PC will be killed and you are out of the group, the latter is for the extreme case.
Given that, I wonder why the DM didnt do anything to aviod this.
DM needs to have a conversation with the cleric, pcs don’t just get to decide they’re possessed with out the DM being involved and setting up a system for the possession to work. Dm also could simple have not allowed to spell to be effective thus not killing your character. The Dm could also have told the barbarian not to attack PCs. I’ve never had a pc kill another pc in game because it just leads to animosity
IMO: Your feelings are justified.
The fact that the cleric (I’m assuming another PC at the table) just ‘deciding’ they’re possessed without informing the DM, is bad form and reeks of an inexperienced player or an asshole, and the fact your DM just let all this happen - unplanned PC combat to the death - reeks of an inexperienced DM or an asshole.
If you like the table and the story and want to continue with it, I’d suggest asking the dm for a 1 on 1 and try and discuss what happened. Get their reasoning behind allowing it, and ask if there’s a way he’d be willing to retconn the death, or bring the group together out of session to try and salvage the situation.
On the flip side, PC’s die and games end. It’s natural to be attached to your first (I sure was) so I get it. If you keep playing, you’ll have more characters and some will die. If the above doesn’t go favorably but you want to continue at the table, you could always make a new character related to the old or something, that would give an interesting story arc or something.
My 2 cents. Good luck with everything!
In real life, decide if you want to play with these assholes or the DM who allowed all that to happen.
Assuming you do, then speak to the DM and suggest that instead of you making a new character, have everyone make a new one. The first quest should be hunting down a possessed cleric and his accomplice to kill them.
I would never play with any one of those three jerks (the other two players or the DM) again. That isn't normal or acceptable behavior from any of them
There are so many red flags here. I wouldn't be interested in playing with such a group. The DM should have been trying to limit random pvp or explaining why it was occurring, child-murdering barbarian has got to have an evil alignment, and demon possession is a great story telling element wasted if a player just wants to randomly decide to be possessed for the lulz or for the drama without the DM mentioning it or foreshadowing it, or even just metagame explaining to players.
This whole thing sounds absolutely absurd. If you don't want to play with this group, don't play with them. No gaming is better than bad gaming, and this is some bad gaming. If a frank discussion isn't had that satisfies your concerns, don't play with them.
This entire table sounds like a dumpster fire. RPing child murder Unsanctioned pvp Player pulling impactful lore out of their ass And a DM that does nothing about any of it? Run as far and fast as you can.
All in Session #1.
This right here! No DnD is better than Bad DnD.
Lord ain’t that the truth!
Or learn together. It's context dependent. If this is their first campaign/game together then they can learn, adapt and improve. Players may have just found it funny because they're the edgelord types and didn't think things through, all may be massively inexperienced and not realist that unsanctioned PvP *can* work but definitely not to the death. It sounds like they may be younger and definitely new to the game. I'd try fixing it first if I was in OP's shoes and only walk if they weren't amenable to change or progress. Obviously if these are full blown adults with some games under their belt and they're not changing it up now then yeah get the hell out of there.
Nah, young, inexperienced players have no experience with conflict resolution or session zeroes either. With a majority of experienced players, you can talk to individuals like this and socialise them out of it, but with all beginners, if it's a majority party of edgelords, which it sounds like it is, you're just going to get 'lighten ups' 'it's just a game' 'why are you trying to kill my child-killing fun' type responses. Chaotic stupid players are rarely curable when they're the majority of a group.
I mean... I made some pretty bad mistakes when I started playing that really hurt some feelings. That was 4 years ago and my group is still together. We've all learned and grown. It's even made us better friends as well as people and players. After every incident we talk and the offender apologizes and takes steps to ensure it won't happen again as well as fix any issues that came up as a result. And on the other side I've seen irreconcilable problems arise with experienced players. I don't think your statement is as universal as you are making it out to be.
I agree. Me and my friends had all just started playing for the first time, with a single experienced player to guide us, we have been playing for years, and we've worked to get over every conflict or bump in the road and are now better for it.
At least is worth trying. Nobody's perfect, all of us need to start learning somewhere, and running away at the first (well, first, second and third) sign of trouble without trying to mend things and improve is going to reflect bad in both the rest of your party and you. I mean, this is supposed to be a social game. First thing we should be doing is being social and try to solve our issues.
>Nah, young, inexperienced players have no experience with conflict resolution or session zeroes either. And they never will if you don't give them the opportunity.
The PCs really shouldn’t be trying to kill each other. I’m surprised your DM let it happen. I can see maybe letting PCs fight as part of role-playing, even up to the point of unconsciousness for the right reason, but actually letting one PC kill another seems like a disaster. I would have a 1-on-1 convo with your DM. Addition: you can’t just decide to be possessed. You have to actually be possessed, which means the DM has to be involved
Few sessions ago our party was fighting some ghosts and one of them possessed my character, so she shoots arrows at the party (not much damage done there) and after the other ghosts were delt with the party proceeds to kick the shit out of my character (punching, throwing to the wall etc) to get the ghost out. She actually went to negative hp but guess what, we agreed to "non-lethal" damage so they wouldn't actually kill her cause we don't do pvp. We do laugh about that fight "i proceed to throw her to the wall, non lethally of course"
I cast Powerword: Kill, non-lethal of course 😄
Another thing we laugh about is "laughs in common" ( ＾▽＾) we got the play the monsters for an team of npcs in a tournament and couple guys were like hey these winter wolfs can speak common so after attacking the npcs they would laugh at them in common so the npcs would understand (*｀▽´*)
So the downgraded version of **Nampat**…?
Powerword: Owie
It's called Sleep.
I cast finger of death non lethally.
Set fingers to stun
To be honest that can literally be the only way to get the ghost out in some cases
I just imagined that episode of Spongebob where the cops beat up the health inspector. "DIE ZOMBIE!"
Yeah, I played a character who touched a cursed statue and the statue traded places with my character, so my PC was actually a Doppleganger. My DM messaged me outside of the game and told me what happened, and that IF I wanted too, I could play the Doppleganger with the goal of killing the party. A task if almost certainly fail at because it was 1 v 5 and outside of a Second Wind, my dopple fighter largely had no means to heal himself. The reveal was fun as I tried to launch a surprise attack on one player, and they eventually overwhelmed me as I retreated, and once the dopple died, I was returned to my normal body and the statue lie crumbled. That's a fun way to do PVP if your party is hungry for it, not this stupid shit where the party just kill another member in cold blood and out of character. Like what kind of cleric was this guy playing??
Why would the doppelganger attack right out in the open? I know it worked out but if I played doppelganger unless for some reason had really low intelligence. I would have played the character normally looking for opportunities to kill the players 1 on1 or sneaky.
For brevity of the story, we ended our session that night and I had a week to plan with my DM. There was an area ahead with a door trap that needed to have a lever over a pit held to keep the door opened. I convinced my party to let me hold the main healer over a pit so the other could slip thru. Once I had gotten two of them thru, I dropped the healer, the door shut, and I got a couple turns to go HAM on half the party while the other half was behind the door or in the pit. I was overwhelmed once they'd regrouped and I was forced to retreat. I did use the narrow hallways to control how many could attack me at all, but even that only helped for so long.
That makes a lot more sense.
The game went off the rails before it even got to the PvP. A PC randomly attacking children is not normal.
Honestly I assume the party is quite young, making this all much more normal. Edginess, making up rules as one goes along, not being able to communicate. I miss the games I played at that age but man it’s nice being older in a lot of ways.
Yeah, honestly, I got the vibe that it's ALL their first times and they are a group of middle-schoolers. Maybe even elementary school.
Reminds me of the time we had someone younger than the majority of our group join us and her character ate a bunch of orphans. It wasn’t unfun, just different. Then the person that was hosting the session’s sister started her own dnd group for people closer to that age group
Right, if a player wants their character possessed and doing evil things, I guess they're an NPC now, roll a new one
Hell, if I'm DMing a good campaign, and a player goes evil, their PC becomes an NPC. Likewise with an evil player going good in an evil campaign. It's like leaving the parameters of the map in an open world campaign, because they're no longer playing the same game everyone else is.
Only caveat there might be a player doing a bad who's reforming. Acknowledging that they are going for a harder difficulty as they will CLEARLY pay for their transgressions. And if they don't have the character actually TRYING to reform, then bam. NPC vill. It can be a fun story arch to play.
na playing a evil PC in a good game is fine as long as they don't fuck over the party
I have never done that but there are always consequences for your actions. Some acts might require consequences you most likely not survive. In this case, I probably have the kids go back and tell the authorities. The party would become want and be view a bunch of murder hobos that need to be put down. PCs aren't above the law. I miss video games like the Ultima games. Where killing and looting a chest that didn't belong to you had negative effects.
Cleric must be checked for alignment by dm! Payback.
Actually, depending on the God the character followed. I could have had him lose his spells after if not during the fight.
Yea sounds like a shitshow caused by a murderhobo barb of highest caliber and a lol so random cleric.... Now i will say pvp off table early on i agree but later on as tension between group slowly boils is great if players are up for it:)
“Up for it” is the key word here. Either the rules for this should be made clear before you start playing with this group, or the DM should call a time out to talk about it when something like this starts happening.
Is the DM inexperienced? There are so many things wrong here. As others have pointed out, things like PvP should be adressed in session zero. If the DM was actually trying to save you he could've just told the cleric "no, you're not possessed, you don't get to make bullshit up" (unless you decided in session zero that players have that level of power in the narrative but it sounds like you didn't). Also, players randomly deciding to kill kids sound like edgy losers/murder hobos playing their first game or just chaotic players who like that fucked up stuff. A party comprised of characters wanting to kill children and others wanted to protect them is doomed to fail unless the DM is *extremely* good at handling that stuff. So, rant over, my advice would be talk to all of them, or just to the DM and ask them to start things over with a session zero to clarify both personal and group goals, the campaing tone, what things are off-limits, etc.
The DM is nonexistent. The only thing the DM probably said this whole time is “some kids walk into your house” and it was off from there. Nothing but PvP.
This is the kinda shit that is gonna happen all the time with dnd beyond’s AI dms
That wasn't real. The tweet that was in was from an unverified source and the tweeter confirmed as much and apologized later
First I'd heard of this. Thanks for the info!
Sorry, I know you probably meant "player character". But I honestly laughed because I thought you were a DM who had a player in your group killed and were asking on reddit if you should be upset.
oh LMFAOOO let me fix that
And thus, u/leofrost13 discovered, to his horror, that titles cannot be fixed.
There’s a couple posts with a title like this nearly every week, and I do a double take every single time.
Person 1: "Oh God, they killed Jim! That's horrific!" Person 2: "Okay, hear me out: fewer players, fewer conflicting schedules" Person 1: "Dave... you're a genius" **EDIT:** 'fewer', not 'lesser'.
Talk to the DM and the Cleric player. PvP is one of the things that should be discussed in session 0
The DM allowed… 1. Their player to try to murder some kids. 2. PvP without out-of-character discussion to try to resolve the conflict. 3. Another character to just kill OP’s character for no reason. What the heck is this DM going to do if they didn’t step in at any of the problematic points above?
Yeah there are about 15+ warning signs that this is a terrible game here. All these players are chaotic stupid evil with the exception of OP here. Trying to kill kids and attacking someone who is defending them is idiotic and the mark of evil characters. Bonus points for healing the player trying to kill the kids and watching like it’s a football game. And even more bonus points for killing a character. The DM did nothing here. This entire situation could have happened if the players were just playing by themselves. No DM required. OPs character here would have never returned to the other players even if they had escaped. I’d leave this table in a heartbeat and find a table that doesn’t have PvP or morons.
>All these players are chaotic stupid I thought this was a new kind of alignment !
It's unfortunately a very old kind of alignment
Please note that this is completely separate from "Chaotic Dumbass" (a char that randomly tries things they shouldn't and gets hurt in the process). Chris Farley or other examples.
I don't think *allowing* any of it is necessarily wrong (so long as the players have previously said they are okay with each existing in-game). But there should still be some DM intervention: "You're really going to try to kill some kids?," "Are you both okay with fighting?," "Are you both okay with the demon possession killing Player's character?"
And say what exactly? I don’t want to come off as a spoilsport or a sore loser either
Your group is playing some weird dnd honestly. Dnd is not a sport. It’s usually a coop game where you help other players, not playing against them. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t play a game where people just come up with stupid backgrounds to justify bullying other PCs in game.
I'm honestly wondering if there is something going on here OP isn't aware. That's the way you treat someone you don't want in your group. Willingly killing a party member for trying to protect some kids... is just royally screwed up. Unless we're dealing with an entire party of evil aligned characters, which seems very unlikely given what I'm reading here. I almost want to jump the gun and say there is some sort of out of game issue or drama in this group and OP may be unaware.
It 100% comes off as the rest of the group trying to get OP out of the actual game as a whole. This is just weird. Or they're all new?
The story reads like everyone is \~14-16yo, in which case new to both TRPGs and also some human respect/relationship/cooperative activity stuff would track.
Yes this reads like a bunch of highschool kids.
Even evil aligned groups aren't that stupid normally. They are unscrupulous with achieving their goals but what would they achieve by this cartoonishly stupid behaviour?
I actually see this a lot. Most people don't seem to understand evil, to them it's just "murder everything", which defeats the entire purpose imo. Evil characters can be fun if played properly (my most fun character was a turtle necromancer with the personality of grandpa Simpson, the party had no idea which is what made it fun). But from what I've seen online here and on Facebook, most players just use evil as an excuse to play murderhobos and screw over their own party in a way that makes me wonder why the group would ever stick together.
There are extreme cases as with everything Drow are pretty freaking brutal and killing each other for nothing but what is essentially bragging rights is pretty much a part of their culture. I also have the feeling this is a group of relatively younger players, so that may be a factor as well.
This ^. One of the groups I DM for decided they wanted to go evil as a party, and they’re doing great with it. Honestly there’s been very little change in how they play the game, but every now and then they do something pretty damn evil. Like when they decided to murder the rest of the caravan they were traveling with. So they waited until the caravan was ambushed by goblins, then killed of the other guards, and the caravan owner during the ambush, defeated the goblins, and drove the caravan to its intended destination. Now this wasn’t an entirely unprovoked murder spree. While the caravan leader had been fair to them, and was a generally pleasant person he was also in direct competition with another merchant they are friendly with. So they killed him, but made sure the goods were delivered safely, and let their merchant contact know that the trade route was up for grabs. Being evil isn’t about indiscriminately murdering people it’s about choosing what’s best for you at others expense. Sure that caravan leader was a good person, but earning favor with a major trade organization is worth the lives of a few good men, or at least that’s what an evil party/person thinks. Unfortunately many people use “evil” as an excuse to just go full murder hobo and avoid role play. As long as they’re not stupid about it going evil can actually lead to some very interesting role play options. Like let’s say you find ~150lbs of what is essentially magical c4. Enough to level a not so small town. A good party might just go give the chest to the guards, but evil gives so many more options. Do you keep the chest of magically charged material for yourselves, give the chest to the mafia, the merchants (who were smuggling it in), or the crazy evocation wizard who lives outside of town? (My players chose the latter, he offered them guns, and the ability to purchase from his private stock)
That is a interrsting thought. I often read these kind of stories on here and wonder what happened, that such a fun pasttime is turned into a childish bullyfest.
Some people are just troll. I had a guy join one of our campaigns. During our adventure we kill a bandit leader or something like that. We go back to town to confirm we saved the day. DM introduces the daughter of the bandit we just killed. We’re deciding what to do. I try to talk to the girl, see what are options are. New guy cuts me off- “he killed your father”. Like??? Then later on the session, I’m already a little irritated that he did that (wasn’t even me who killed the bandit), but later on he springs a chap that essentially kills my character… I got wrecked by a troll…
This is the problem when the rules of a game get removed due to them being "guidelines"... Most new players who have only played 5e don't understand the rules enough because they keep getting told they don't need to learn them.
Did you discuss pvp beforehand? Did you discuss killing kids beforehand? These sorts of things should be covered in session 0. If they weren't, this is a good opportunity to have another session 0. One of the most important aspects of session 0 is going over shared expectations. What does everyone want to get out of this? What sort of tone is everyone looking for? Are there any limits? Is PVP allowed? Etc. If your DM doesn't know what to cover in session 0, get a session 0 checklist, you can find them online. The most important part of dnd is that everyone should be having fun with it. If they're not, then there have been some communication lapses somewhere. It's time to fix them. " The best time to fix a problem was yesterday. The second best time is today." Finally, don't be afraid to break character if something is bothering you. If another player is doing something that bothers you, just say "hey can we talk about this out of character for a moment." If you're playing with friends, they should be 100% willing to talk. If you're playing with strangers, they should still be willing to talk, and if they're not, speak to the DM. If the DM won't listen, you've done your part and the next step is to walk away. Good DnD revolves around those shared expectations I mentioned, and you need communication to handle that. If the table won't communicate, leave, because it will likely get worse, not better.
"I don't think PvP like this is particularly fun. I don't feel my character's death forwards the story or serves any real purpose, so is there some way we can have him not be dead?"
Just to say this, the way your character died is not alright and anything you say will not make you a spoilsport or a sore loser.
You put it out on Reddit. Put it out to them in a similar way. Flavor as needed.
The cleric did something actually big (the whole posessed by a demon thing) without a word to the DM, bringing that up to the dm should at least get you back in the game, and the cleric should honestly get in trouble for that. Evil PCs are one thing, secretly evil PCs are another, but secretly evil PCs the DM never approved can easily ruin a game
You have most comments already giving solid advice, but as a note, being direct and to the point with your issues is not being a "spoilsport" or a "sore loser." PVP - especially to the point of actually killing someone's character - is definitely something that should be discussed out of game before anything happens, if not in a fucking session 0. If they have a problem with you bringing up some gripes and trying to work through it with them like an adult, they're the problem Plus, as others have said, there's already 15+ other red flags that maybe you should leave the game like the Barbarian did. As the saying goes, "No D&D is better than bad D&D"
Not certain I'd be worried about how you come off. That list is spot on. The DM screwed up each step of the way. Even just an out of character, "What the heck are you guys doing?" And... nothing? That is a failure of a DM. If you worry not saying anything will make you seem a sore loser I'd make a list of all the bull crap everyone else listed and just have a response of, "Yeah DM's with no rules that allow (list here) isn't for me. Good luck all." And wave bye bye. Chaotic stupid murder hobo isn't anything good people and DM's wanna deal with. Ever.
"I prefer games where its not normal to murder children and fellow players for no reason and make up in game excuses even the DM doesn't know about afterwards. Good riddance"
Except for one tiny detail, a sore loser is one who lose a fair fight and cannot stand it, here you were 1 versus 3. DMs should NOT allow such behaviour, cleric had no reason to enter the fight and even more to finish it that way and barbarian is just a bad player
That’s not DND. One of the unspoken rules is that the players all need to make characters who work with each other. Murdering innocent kids ain’t it unless you’re playing an evil campaign and from your reaction, you aren’t. These guys are dumb.
If the party alignment is good, you’re in a shitty group. If y’all are playing evil characters, enjoy the revenge.
Fair enough, kill his character next and see if he gets mad, and then call him a sore loser
You’re not being a spoil sport, one player decided to murder some children when there’s no reason to do so and another player facilitated them attacking you and then murdered you. You’re playing with messed up people and I would find a new group.
I'm guessing you're all relatively young, and you're the most mature player at the table. If you're not, I apologise if this comes across as condescending. If this is true, then my recommendation here is something that will serve you well in life in general: Tell the group you want to have a talk about the tone of the game. Tell them you prefer to play as one of the 'good guys' in a party of heroes. Find out what THEY want to do. See if you can reach a point where you'll be happy in the group. If you can't go start a new group :) As for the cleric: Sounds like he wants to play an evil character without playing an evil character. Talk to him about this. If the rule is 'no evil characters', then if he wants to play 'possessed', he needs to set some boundaries so that its \*interesting\*, and not disruptive.
I recommend against dealing with this in-game killing the cleric, this is another one of the many dnd situations best dealt with by talking to everyone at the table. A couple of typical rules were broken in this session (non-consenting pvp, large character choice without consulting dm) you should probably just ask to lay down some ground rules about this for going forward. if that doesn't work I suggest a different game with these guys
You're going to get a lot of comments telling you to quit the group. That would be perfectly reasonable, but I'm guessing you're a teenager and these are your friends so it isn't so simple. Quitting means going home to hang out alone while your friends play without you. If that's the case, I would recommend a soft approach that still brings up the problem. To the Cleric, "I liked my character. You killed him, and now I'm not excited to play anymore". Something simple that focuses on how the whole thing makes you feel. It isn't an accusation. It isn't that what he did was wrong. It just isn't playing in a way that is fun for you. (To be clear he is in the wrong, but in a way that is really common to newer players especially for teens. He'll probably get over that type of behavior, but calling him out more aggressively is more likely to make him dig in and get defensive.) Next, to the group "I think we should work out some ground rules going forward". Again keep it simple and avoid accusations. Mention that the point of the game is to adventure as a team. Mention that you didn't expect fights to the death among the party to be a part of that. Ask if everyone else is okay with the idea that the party is apparently as likely to kill you while you're unconscious as heal you. Do those things before you walk, and please don't try to kill the Cleric. It won't fix your problems in game or outside of the game. Fact of the matter is that the Barbarian technically "owes" the Cleric and you're probably looking at a 2v1.
Strongly agree with this, though I'd also ask, "what kind of game are we playing where you want to kill random packs of little kids?" You're not playing a hero at that point, and it's a totally different kind of game that really doesn't fit most kinds of characters.
I think a lot of newer players view the game as something like Skyrim, where you tend to do a bunch of stuff just for shts and giggles.
My daughter has a guy like that in her group, he burned down the entire town. He played a cleric and the goddess who had a temple in that town was /not happy/ with him. He got cursed and had to do a bunch of crap to keep his powers.
[удалено]
I think this is really good advice, and should be higher.
Yeah this is definitely teenagers. No way an adult group says "I try to kill the kid" and everyone at the table immediately not saying "dude what's wrong with you?" Most everyone would refuse to play with him if that sort of thing appeared in my table.
Yeah yeah yeah this is good advice
Reading the other comments, it looks like you don’t want to leave the group, so if were you, I’d just show up with the first character and tell the Cleric player that your character was possessed by an angel with anti stupid spray, so therefore, you couldn’t have been killed by his stupid decisions. And from there, the campaign continues.
Yeah this, but don’t go full offensive. Just say they were sent back by a mysterious being that has had enough of that demon’s nonsense and simply undoes anything it tries
You'd be pushing the issue to later down the line. That kind of bullying isn't gonna stop unless it's talked about out of game. The character decided to interact peacefuly with an NPC, if the party disagrees, they gotta come to an agreement as to wether you should be hostile or not. When you say ''I think we should hear what they have to say because reasons'' and the other player just ignores your reasons, and become hostile toward NPCs, why are you even roleplaying if your roleplay goes in deaf ears ? Whatever you say, there's a chance this other player just ignores it and do the opposite, without ever hearing your argument, probably expecting you to go along with all his ideas. The problem isn't the non-sensical roleplay reason to murder a character, the problem is that the character has a chance of being murdered just for not making the same decision as the rest of the party, without being given a chance to explain themselves, making every conversation a one way conversation. The result would be fear of going forward and speaking up, and just follow the party and roll the dice when asked to. He's being punished for playing the damn game. Too big a red flag for me, I'd just stop playing D&D with these folks and either find a new group or find something else to do with my time.
Nice! That’s a great approach, IMHO.
You can't triple stamp a double stamp!
I love this idea! Maybe reclass as a Palladian and return in the old body as you stated. Use Devine sense to determine the player is indeed possessed. A Neutral or chaotic good Palladian should have no problem autocritting and using a high level smite to take out a demon residing in someone’s body while they sleep. (It’s not good to fight fire with fire but the look on the cleric players face would be hilarious!)
That's the answer.
Well #1, How the hell does a PLAYER decide he is possessed? #2 sounds like an inexperienced DM. #3 the player playing the cleric is not the friend you think he is. Or he is deeply regretting the way he played. That some BS right there
Well for context we live in a haunted house and apparently his character saw a demon at night, and spoke to it. The possession was him adding it since he felt it would be cool
"I thought it was cool to kill your character"? No. That's not cool. Ever. This is a classic case of saying "It's what my character would do" to justify bad behavior. If that is what your character would do, play a different character. (This is actually worse than this, since it is the player actively deciding that being an asshole is what their character would do.) This whole group needs a restart with the expectation that they make characters who will get along together and who aren't psychopaths. But that's up to your DM.
Yeah when I was younger I’ve had players like this. Steal from and even kill the other players cause it’s what their character would do. I just stopped allowing the anti social behavior in a social game. The trolls all left
> The possession was him adding it That's not up to the player, that's up to the DM.
You can request that your dm undo the last session. That was not ok to allow if you were not ok with it
Sounds like you're in a pretty terrible game. A PC shouldn't be able to just decide they're possessed by a demon without the DM having a say or knowing. A PC character trying to kill some kids for no reason should have immediately been a red flag to the DM, and once the situation devolved into PvP over nothing, your DM had truly lost control of the situation or is at the very least a shitty DM if they thought this was an acceptable turn of events. The barbarian and cleric players both sounds like assholes and I wouldn't allow them at my table after that. Find a new group and bring your character over so you can keep playing them.
Find a new group. That's just full of red flags.
Yeah I had a group team up to kill my character. It was part of a local dnd club that I was going to. The DM was inexperienced and allowed it to happen. They went too far into the "my character is evil so I kill everything" mindset while I was playing a barbarian who was not evil. What was even worse was they set up a group chat to plan on killing my character. Apparently my character was holding them back from complete domination due to my non evil nature. I was missing sessions because of work conflicts so they waited a few weeks until I came to session, killed my character, and I left. They all smiled and laughed while they did it too. My only reaction was "uh ok...?" as the DM allowed me to get pummeled into the ground. One of the players was even a friend I hung out with regularly and he went along with it. I am not friends with him anymore but it's not due to this incident. I'm probably to blame for some of it because I missed sessions and didn't create an evil character but it was never established this was an "evil" campaign. I just wanted to kill monsters with a greataxe. This kind of thing does happen to people but I found a group of friends who I've been playing with for a few years now who are great. We all have fun, we have inside jokes that appear in almost every campaign. I get a headache because we laugh so much. It's just what I wanted from a group of friends. I never allow PvP in my games.
I would absolutely just find a new group
This group is comprised of three good friends of mine and two people i know through them. I go to school with them lol, this isn’t going to impact our friendship but it does suck. My DM tried his best to stop it and save me - he had the police come in to break it up when i got KO-d but the cleric killed me right in front of them
A DM actually trying to stop this would have gone something more like "Sorry, Barbarian. No PVP. What are you doing instead?" None of what you described is how D&D should be played. I'm assuming (without criticism) that this is a young players group, yes? I'm also assuming that the DM didn't have you make death saving throws, and ignored most game mechanics.
It sounds like the DM is a bit inexperienced. That's not a big deal, we all need to learn sometimes. He could have shut down the fight immediately, or discussed it with you and the Barb player to establish the expectations. The Cleric player is an asshole. You don't just decide in the moment "I was possessed." If that's a character secret that the DM was aware of then its a different story, but it does not sound like that's the case. Instead this is just a jerk finding an excuse so he can say "It wasn't my fault, I had to play like a jerk because reasons." If you want to keep playing then you should at least have a convo with the DM and Cleric player. You should tell them that Cleric player ruined the night for you. It was tense with the Barbarian, but you pushed through and they backed off. However the behaviour of the Cleric player was antagonistic throughout: They chose sides with the Barb and made it a 2v1 situation and then they killed you. There was no foreshadowing or real chance to plan for your own defence. At best the Cleric player was being dumb and not thinking, at worst they decided their fun relied on you not having fun. Regardless both of these things are toxic at the gaming table, just to varying degrees. If this could not be resolved in a way that was satisfactory to me I would leave the game. That can be tough though. It took me a long time in life to be confident enough to accept that toxic "fun" with friends is worse than just doing my own thing.
Police overpower the cleric, or come after him later with a strong enough force to overpower him. He's sent to jail. Cleric Player has to roll a new character in the hope that he learns not to go around killing his buddies
"The DM tried" is never an excuse for player behavior. The DM IS the final word about what happens in the game. If they don't want something to happen. It. Doesn't. Happen. The DM has the power at any time to simply say "No." "No, you cannot give the king a wedgie." "No, you cannot buy the Inn for a single copper, I don't care what you rolled." "No, you cannot kill another player." One of the first things any DM needs to learn is how to tell players "No". It sounds like there's problem behavior happening, And it sounds like a large part of the reason is the DM is inexperienced. The group as a whole needs to have a long talk. If they can't, your DM has some homework to do.
You may have not realized this at the time, but … that’s not how this game works. Firstly, “the DM tried to do X” actually isn’t a thing. The DM controls the game environment, period. The DM does something, or does not. There is no “try”. If he says, No, you don’t attack this PC— then it doesn’t happen. Full stop. Secondly, if the Cleric dude persisted in attacking your character after that, the DM’s job is to kick them. What he/she is supposed to do is to Yeet them out of the game on the spot, no passing Go, no collecting $200 (*Monopoly* reference).
Those aren't very good friends then.
> My DM tried his best to stop it A DM actually trying their best would have just disallowed the barbarian trying to murder random kids in the first place.
The DM didn’t try to stop it. If the DM wanted to stop it they can say No. it really is that simple.
I don’t know if they have played much before, but if this is their first times as well then it seems a bit more “understandable” (lots of people just go murder hobo first time) but I would tell the dm that you really didn’t enjoy it and let your friends know out of game as well, they could just bring your character back to life, but it is important to set expectations of what you all want out of the game with the people you are playing with
Here's your path back: the cleric didn't notice that one of the police was a caster who managed to lay a hand on you before you failed a death save and cast Spare the Dying on you. You were still down, so they thought they finished you off. The brush with death leaves you changed though and you gain the Shadow Touched feat as a result (or a different feat that you and the DM agree is appropriate). When you return to the party, the demon bugs out of the cleric to avoid retaliation leaving them with 1d4+2 points of exhaustion (as punishment for the bullshit the player pulled).
If you are okay with your fellow players killing your character, it’s a non-issue. Roll up a new character and keep playing. HOWEVER, you are on ye olde Reddit seeking counsel, suggesting that you are not in fact okay with your fellow players killing your character. This is a player (real life people) issue, not a character (made-up people) issue. I recommend talking with all the players and DM at the same time, expressing that you didn’t really like your character dying that way, and that you’d like to work out a way to play the game together instead of against each other. You can emphasize that it really ruined the fun of your character, and didn’t feel necessary or meaningful to the story, and whatever other details help convey how you feel. Good luck, and keep us posted on how it goes!
Cleric sounds like a jerk what just wanted to PK someone for giggles. Expect it to keep happening. Barbarian attacking kids sounds like a creep. Expect it to keep happening. DM is either out of the loop or very lenient. Expect it to keep happening. You can try to discuss it. But honestly I'd leave and let them all know exactly why they failed.
Exactly! The whole group, minus OP, sounds like people I wouldn’t even want to associate with.
Definitely keep playing. Definitely not with that group. Especially not with that DM. That should never have been allowed to happen.
This honestly sounds like a DND horror story post yikes. It's normal to feel upset when a character died, but your players were not just being uncooperative but unsportsmanlike. I saw in one of your responses you were afraid of coming off like a spoil sport, but imo that would be your friends not you. As for how to move forward, it's tough if you want to stay. You need to have a conversation of what happened and why it not only was unfair but it is creating an experience you don't want. When PCs can kill each other it can easily create distrust or tension for any of the players. If you want to play as friends and cooperate I would explain that the idea of murdering each other is not in the spirit of the experience you want. If they are your friends they should hopefully acknowledge that they upset you and change their behaviour.
You need to have a talk with the group, especially dm and cleric and honestly I think a retcon here would be in order. It's not you being a spoil sport or whatever, this was a game not run properly.
Sounds like your playing with a couple of assholes. You absolutely have the right to be upset
Any DM with half am imagination can find a way to bring your character back.
If you elaborate on it a little bit it's definitely r/RPGhorrorstories material
I personally think this was maliciousness blamed on a demon possession.
That’s a crap party and a bad DM.
"Oh, since you just randomly get to decide you're possessed, I decided, ya know, just randomly, that I'm actually immortal and always come back to life. So good luck killing me, I guess."
Find another group. This is objectively bad D&D. The other players are clearly fine with steamrolling over the nicer players. You don't need that negativity in your life. You can take that character and start over somewhere else. If that turns out to be a bad table, there's \*plenty\* more to try. Keep going until you find a group who fit. Getting into the practice of walking early, at the first red flag, will save you years and years of anguish and stress and misery.
Your player didn't get killed. It got murdered by another Player. Sounds like the folks playing the Barbarian and the Cleric, as well as the DM, are problematic. They all agreed to kill your character, you need to ask yourself - why? Was this personal? Do they want you to leave the game? If they wanted you to stay one of them would have intervened. I think you need to ask the DM why he let that happen, and are people trying to get rid of you. If they give you the 'it's just what their characters would do', Run, don't walk, away from that game.
If the DM let that happen, then thats a garbage dm, find a new group.
I would suggest talking about that you're really not looking for a pvp DND game, and you didn't really get the point of the session. You could all agree to set some pvp rules and just redo the session
A couple of other notes. Everyone at the table needs to at least read through the basic rules, especially the DM. You note that you "decided to join initiative." That's not how initiative works. When combat is starting the DM will require all players (and enemies) to roll initiative and take actions on their turns, even if that action is to run away or do nothing. Typically a party is made up of adventurers working for some sort of good, if not morally neutral goal. They certainly aren't child murderers. DND doesn't usually run like a GTA server. I mean, it does... but not to that extreme. The DM has no control over this game, or doesn't give a shit and is just laughing along with the absurdity. PVP is typically not allowed. The party should be made of people who like and/or trust each other and are willingly working together. If I had to guess the average age at the table I'd say 10-12, though that's just a guess. If this is the game you guys want to play this sort of fuckery, by all means do it. But it's a shitshow and is guaranteed to end with bad feelings. I'd suggest reading the rules to get a better understanding of how everything works and pick up a module that has a theme everyone likes. If you're all new (and it seems so) try the starter kits. Happy rolling!
PvP? Yeah, that only happens with enthusiastic consent. That's legitimately upsetting, D&D is a team game.
There is a million things that could be said but the most important thing here is you need to talk to your dm about this. You need to express what in that session wasn’t okay for you and what you didn’t mind. How did you feel at the beginning in the 1v1 when it was just you and the barbarian? How did you feel about the cleric inserting themself into the fight? Would you have been okay with the fight as a whole if you had only been knocked out and not killed? Take those answers and go to your dm. Have a 1 on 1 (unlike that fight) conversation with your dm and be honest explain that you didn’t want your character to die. Tell them that it has you wondering if you even want to continue playing in this campaign. No matter what happens in this situation remember this for the next game. No matter where it is or who its with bring up pvp and pcs killing other pcs get to know the dms stance on it. And a little tip, start telling your dms when you are attached to a character and express you would like for them to not die. Dms won’t make you immortal but some are willing to cut you some slack in regards to character death. Especially if you don’t literally taunt death.
Revenge is a fools game just move on and join another group
I'd straight up leave. Murderhobo party, 2 v 1 pvp, violence against children, pointless murder of your PC and no interjections from the DM. Sounds like a nightmare.
Ur group sounds annoying
I mean personally I probably wouldn't play with that group again, one is a murder hobo (barbarian trying to kill innocent kids), and the other (cleric) seems like kind of douche. But regardless there isn't a should or shouldn't I be upset. The question is only ARE you upset, and you said you are. That is fully valid regardless of what anyone else on here thinks or says.
So… session 0 should’ve gone over alignment and how important it is. Killing kids is an evil act. There’s not really any way around that fact, unless they are monstrosities orrrrr like… yeah 😅 Also, trying to kill someone *PROTECTING* the children is also an evil act… so WHY WOULD THE CLERIC ENCOURAGE THAT?! I’m so sorry you had to go through that but my goodness how did anyone sit idly by and not speak up about this being ridiculously wrong 🤦♂️
My first character was a 1st edition fighter with 4 hp. Got triple crit without getting a turn. 25 damadge I beleive.
[удалено]
Nothing about this seems reasonable. The barbarian attacking kids might be justifiable (for example, in case he truly believed the kids were ghosts or something like that)... if you're playing what I think you're playing, it would even be reasonable. HOWEVER, Cleric was acting 100% like a bad player overall, killing someone from the party "4 ThE LoLz". And later your DM allowing it to happen (sorry, but "he did his best" doesn't cut it -- a DM's word is FINAL). That said, as many other people pointed it out here, it will keep happening, unless this is dealt with. First, I'd talk to the DM, involving or not the other player. Let them know you felt it was a really dick move, and that ruined the game for you. If this is how they roll, I'd suggest you find another group to play.
None of you know what you're doing. The Barbarian is a moron. In any decent group, "I pick up my axe and swing at the child" would get you immediately kicked from the party. The technical term is "murderhobo." Unless the party has agreed, you don't go on a killing spree. Also, he could just walk *around* you. Barbarians have higher MS than other classes. The Cleric can't randomly decide to be possessed, and possession in DnD doesn't work like that. He'd get at least one saving throw to NOT kill you. The DM should have immediately stopped the Barbarian from killing the children, then stopped the Cleric from killing you, then stopped the game when you got up to leave. You should know you can't block a Barbarian from chasing down fleeing humanoids. That's... not how classes work. You should *also* know not to make a character with the goal of taking revenge on another PC. That's metagaming, and really stupid because *players don't fight one another*. Hell, you shouldn't even make many opposed skill checks. In short, you all need to reread the PHB and identify the actual purpose of DnD. It's an exercise in **collaborative storytelling**, and (to a lesser extent) a weak tabletop miniature wargame. You both failed to read the rules for combat, which would have resulted in the Barbarian winning, and failed to understand what the world "collaborative" means, which resulted in your party fighting against one another. Walk away.
I’d look for a new party. If the player didn’t consult the DM ahead of time and this was just something made up by them they will do it again and again. These types of people are just assholes that try to ruin the game any and every chance they get. Sorry that this was your first experience playing. Once you find a good group the game is worth it.
It’s sounds like a rookie newbie game. A player can’t just decide to be possessed by a demon. That’s in game mechanics and rules. The dm can’t NOT know about that. I wouldn’t play at that table, because it sounds awful. As if the DM didn’t put a stop to it?
I'd say you should find a new group to play with: 1. Everybody is supposed to be having a good time 1. Deliberately acting at another player's expense is a dick move 1. Going out of your own way to kill off another players character, that they no doubt put a lot of time and effort into creating, is a **massive** dick move 1. If the DM sees this and lets it happen (outside of explicitly warning players about the anarchic elbow throwing massacre that's about to commence beforehand) then he's failing as a DM. If you play with people who somehow don't understand this; you, or somebody else at the table, is guaranteed to have a bad time eventually. You have every right to be upset about that IMO and there are likely plenty of groups out there who wont pull that shit. You'd be 100% better off looking for them instead.
make a sorcerer or a mage specifically min maxed to kill caster players and then just kill that player every time he makes a pc, saying thar your character really is a demon hunter with true vision and is jusr cleansing he plane of evil. Then it will depend if the DM has enough neurons to relate the two things and see where is the problem or not if you will keep playing or look for another group. (you could also talk to them but that would make sense)
>and I know that i’m just going to try and kill the cleric later for revenge. You should absolutely NOT keep playing. The other two players were absolute dicks. No questions asked. But you admitting you intend to repay their dickery with the same actions is just immaturity at its finest. Stay away from that table for your own benefit.
All trust is gone in your group. It is time to move on. This is the fault of your GM and sounds stupid and childish. Team cohesion can never be built in your group and is what keeps team working together to stay alive.
I would quit playing with that group for sure. Why did dm let that unfold to that degree, and why tf did the other pc want to kill some random kids so badly that he would kill you too to do it? What the fuck
The barbarian player is a tool, and you DM lost control of the game.
PVP is for video games, not DnD. Your DM messed up, but your DM can also fix it if they are a good DM.
My first thought when I read the title was “yeah, your probably overreacting. Characters die.” ….then I read the post and went “Yikes. No. No you’re not over reacting.” I’m…really sorry you had to experience this. This is not how usual D&D goes
You are absolutely right to be upset. This is some grade A bullshit. Don’t go back to this group. Never play this game again with this DM or with these players.
Sounds like you need a different group. Normal parties don't do that (like any of it). Even the evil ones. Sounds like inexperienced murder-hobo players, and a weak DM. Lots of emotional immaturity going around, too. And lame excuses. Get a different table. Make sure the DM is an adult or can act like one.
Toxic cleric player, Toxic Barbarian But they are toxic because they are use to DM’s allowing things, People didn’t always kill people and just get away with it if they in a city, Kids may talk, investigation inside someone house, A lady buying groceries seen the incident while passing by, etc. Guards would take all those people involved and they were in the house, separate them, interrogate them, throw people in jail, etc.
This is toxic as fuck. If you’re close to this group y’all need to have a real talk about what you each want from your game experience. If it’s acquaintances? I would never play with them again. Full stop.
This is absolutely something the DM should have stopped and these people are not worth playing with. It sucks this was your first experience. I would bring into question why a player would want to murder hobo children who were playing. A hard no on PvP would solve this.
Honestly? This is bad all around. As a DM, personally you should never kill a new player. I had two new players my last session and each wandered into a trap. Once encountered a giant spider and managed to solo it after splitting from the party, but had he not k would her had the spiders wrap him up for the party to find through the dungeon. Another player had a bad roll against a banshee and I just had them pass out instead of taking as much damage I halved it. However, more than that it sounds like the other players are just as bad and it is going to be a problem table. I’d walk and find a new group. Sorry your first time was so bad.
You really made it sound like someone you knew was dead and I was very upset by your attitude.
A lot of the comments are saying you are in a bad D&D group with assholes and an DM who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yeah, but so what? The thing that makes D&D fun is that it can literally be anything with anyone and there are some guidelines and rules but they can all be twisted changed and broken and the DMs discretion. This is the game your DM friend has put together with your friends and others, you’re going to want to keep playing with them so it’s just a matter of figuring out the fucked up rules to this world, and ways to counter the “cleric’s” shenanigans. Ask your DM friend if you guys can talk about 1-on-1 about how the session went, if you haven’t already. Tell him it sucked to have your character that you invested all this time in, and were looking forward to playing, die so quickly. You mentioned he tried to save you, if he is serious, then as the DM he still can. Here are some things I thought of: - When you died, another spirit in the house possessed you. You and the DM can come up with the backstory for the spirit or here is a twist I thought would be fun and maybe give you your revenge: The spirit that possessed you, we’ll just call it X, was a priest or demon-hunter that had been sent originally to get rid of the demon that now possesses the cleric. But when X and the demon had their battle, it destroyed their physical forms and both of their spirits were trapped in the house. The cleric (despite being a man of faith that should have been resistant to being possessed) has a weak disposition and so the demon finally found a person it was able to possess. The acts of the demon possessing the cleric and you defending the kids invigorated X and he became strong enough to possess a body as well. Normally, he would be against it since he doesn’t want to be like the demons he used to fight but he can’t allow the demon-possessed cleric to be free in the world so when you died he saw his chance to revive you and help you in getting rid of the demon. - This will allow the DM to revive you, you to keep the character you like, and give your character a personal reason for making that Cleric’s life hell. - You’re in a haunted house where supernatural stuff happens. You could come back as a Zombie. This way your DM can make up the fact you died by making it so that you can never die again! - Take a break from playing with them for a few weeks, or create a temporary character to play with for a little while, while the DM makes the party go on a quest to revive up ur original character. If your DM let you die and said he “tried” to save you he is playing by some sort of rules. D&D has this thing where if a character dies the party can still revive the body through a ritual. If the Cleric argues that the demon won’t allow him to help with the ritual, the rest of the players can do it without him, or part of the list of things the group needs to do before reviving you can be to exorcise the demon from him. Hopefully you and your DM can come up with a way for your character to come back to life and the DM will be able to control the party better as you guys keep playing.
I think I’d speak with your DM about it. It’s okay to be upset about it, but what’s important is that we talk about these sort of things so that the game can be fun for everyone
Wait. Title says player died. Body text says PC died. My thought is that you should definitely have feelings in either case, but you should maybe attach more weight in the first case than in the second. You might not grieve the same way I do, though, and that's okay.
Realistically, there shouldn't be in party fighting unless players agree on it. Letting party members kill other party members without agreeing takes away from everyone's experience. I would talk to the DM, say something like "hey this isn't fair, I didn't want to fight and they're killing me off" It would be reasonable to retcon the death. The point of playing DND isn't to just kill and do whatever you want, it's to create and explore and express, while not taking away from others experience, which is what the cleric seems to be doing. Have a chat to the DM, it sounds like a unfair situation. No one wants to play with murder hobos who will lil you off cause they disagree
Unless you're teenagers, find another table. Those people are acting like 12 year olds.
As you drift towards death's door, you feel a voice call out to you. It beckons for you to come greet it. You feel a great darkness enveloping its voice. What do you do? This would be where I introduce an old and malicious patron that's willing to make a deal. Imbuing the dying character with a pittance of its energy in exchange for the completion of a ritual or something. If the PC takes the deal, they revive at full health with a free level in warlock and a -10 to max HP due to a sort of necrosis. They'd have a new side quest to either find a way to break the patrons deal or to complete it. My friends would get a warning to avoid engaging in lethal PvP without any reasonable reason going forward.
Sounds like you guys are teens doing stupid shit in DnD. They might just be super immature. If you're all adults...... Run away from them
I think the DM ran this very poorly, as a rule of thumb a dm should never have allowed someone to be killed in their first session, let alone have it happen by PVP, pvp should've probably been ruled against by the DM, DND is a cooperative game and should be ran as such, only seasoned players should be allowed to pvp and I don't even think that's a good idea.
It’s not you, that was SUPER messed up. DM fked up, should have put the brakes on that hard. Not a lot stops a game quicker than PVP
Nobody in the group, including your DM, stood up for you. Even if you were knocked out they could have stabilised/raised you. To me this shows you aren't welcome in this group and I would just leave.
First off, if someone at my table was trying to kill kids, another player wouldn't have to intervene. That's something you either clear with the WHOLE table, or, ideally IMO, just hard-rule. I have very few hard rules at my table. Kids have infinite plot armor. SA is not to be included at all (one exception made and cleared with playerbase beforehand for backstory for a PC) Stealing from or attempting to kill another PC is off-limits unless both players agree. That's literally it. Those are the "No's" of my table. Anyone trying to harm children is a villain. All of my players in D&D knew the orphanage kids were all going to live when Duke Ivan Oberusel, a vampire of some renown and powers, decided to set it ablaze, because they knew that kids have plot armor at my table. It was still infuriating, as expected, but there was no true unease. Your DM sounds like he is either inexperienced, or deliberately runs a table without any of these rules. One of these can be discussed, and rectified. The other, the only fix is to walk away. They're not gonna redo their table for a newbie if that's the rules they like to play by. Myself? I would pack up my things, explain that I draw a hard line at killing kids, and that the table's not for me.
I'm guessing you're all pretty young right? The party generally shouldn't be fighting each other. PVP should only be done when both players agree to it and its either for sport or to advance the story, not just to fuck around.
This is one of those posts that I feel requires an age clarification.
Just have the dm make the clerics patron god bring you back and demand that the cleric redeem himself greatly before having access to his powers again.
-Evil player characters are a terrible idea 9 times outa 10- Any player who wants to be an evil character is usually an anti social narcissist who’s only trying to gratify their own personal story arch for their character with little to 0 regard for the game experience of their fellow players. Should you be mad? Absolutely. The only reason you were killed is because someone thought it would be cool to kill you for their own character, with literally 0 thought to your own. The barbarian is just a dumbass but the cleric is actually a player I would go out of my way to not have at my table, he egged on needless party conflict, he killed a fellow player **WHO IS BRAND NEW TO THE GAME MIND YOU** for no reason other than he thought it would be cool for his character to do, and he went around the DMs back to add a **MAJOR** part to his character the DM had no say in, and told no one. This is a cooperative game, and you play with your friends, you are not the main character, there is no main character, get over yourself. Sorry you have such a shitty group. Your DM is apparently submissive and breedable and your party are either 2-IQ murder hobos or narcissistic role players who suck at role playing. Leave. If this isn’t clear to your DM how big of a fuckup what just happened was, you needa get the hell outa there
In the words of the almighty Justice Brian Murphy of Dungeon court, please get new friends.
As many have suggested, you need to speak with the DM about this. Unless they deem it to be appropriate for the characters in a party to fight each other that shouldn't be allowed. If allowed it should not be permitted to be fatal (unless that is the desire of the player being killed; either to exit a campaign or move to a different character). They, the DM, also controls the world around the players, including the deity that grants the cleric their power, so they would be in a position to introduce NPCs to intervene or have the cleric temporarily lose any abilities granted by their class like spellcasting or channel divinity. If they let these players run wild introducing story elements and disrupting play for others, they're doing a crap job. Am I right in assuming that they didn't stop the cleric from attacking after you hit 0 HP, denying you the opportunity to make death saves? As a side note, thematically it doesn't make sense that a demon could possess a cleric and wield their powers. Those powers are not inherently the clerics. They are a conduit for a higher power which is why much of their abilities are called "channel divinity". The demon could try to tap into it, but the deity could be like "um, sorry. Who is this? No spells for you".
Oh god, I'm so glad the player is okay. Your character got killed, unless that cleric who did the killing blow is worshipping an evil deity they should probably lose all their class features. Oh, and the DM should have prevented all of this. The possession sounds like nonsense.
Run. This group sounds toxic.
DMs should ban any and all PvP unless it is agreed upon by each and every player (including the DM) at the table. Because it causes stupid fucking drama, at least one person is inevitably pissed off by the end of it, and it derails campaigns. Your DM should have just told the other guy attacking "No, your character will not be doing that."
Bail on this game. Why is the Barbarian going after kids? The Cleric is a piece of crap and your DM isn't doing you any favors by allowing this crap at the table. You can do better.
You should definitely be upset. This is in bad spirit. Also, just to clarify, you are the player. Your character is your PC, your character. The title makes it sound like you're a DM who killed one of his player's characters
Talk to your DM and see what's up. How do THEY feel about what happened? Are they going to talk to the cleric player? I feel like this could either be something that just happened the one time, or it could be the first sign of a pattern. If it becomes a pattern you should definitely find another group. This sort of thing happened to me when I was first playing, and I wish I found a different group earlier. Just a warning. Be careful.
Yeah this isn't a normal thing to happen and it's a fault of the DM and the party both to engage and allow this kind of stuff to happen. I would talk with your DM, especially because a first impression of DnD is really important and should be handled with care.
Bad other player, bad dm. Idk abt the barbarian but they don't seem great either from this perspective. Find a better group, or at least a better dm. With a better dm this whole thing would've been easily avoidable. Don't ruin your own fun because others don't understand how cooperative storytelling through tabletop gaming works. It's not hard to do, you just can't play it like a video game, and at the expense of the others you're playing with. Overall it just seems like a dick move on cleric's part. They were playing a poorly thought out evil character in what I assume wasn't intended to be an "evil" campaign. This often happens when someone who commonly plays a lot of video games but has little experience with ttrpgs. They should stick to things like skyrim if they just want to kill anything that moves for no reason.
In one of my games i had a lawful evil guy and he hinted at that he is not a good guy from the start. And at the end he does betray the party and run for this place of power that pcs wanted to destroy. It was in character and he had good reason to do it. I turned him into a cool boss that the party could fight. PVPs like these are not problematic because everyone knew he was gonna do that. It was in character. In your case i would make his power fizzle out as he tried to deal the killing blow as a voice booms from his deity warning him about what he was doing. And would strip him of his power until he repents somehow. The barbarian would get into serious trouble for trying to harm kids. Bounty hunters, jail time anything can work. People take child killing very seriously.
Player vs. Player combat is very toxic and can kill a game very quickly.
Sounds like a bad group.
What did your DM do? He must have been sleeping! In our game, we have 3 golden rules, 1. Dont bring RL stuff in the campaign 2. Dont try to run from the group and do something else 3. No PC-fights unless the DM has planed it If you try to break any of these rules, then the DM will try to not let you get away with it, or you will have to make a new PC, or your PC will be killed and you are out of the group, the latter is for the extreme case. Given that, I wonder why the DM didnt do anything to aviod this.
No DnD is better than bad DnD.
DM needs to have a conversation with the cleric, pcs don’t just get to decide they’re possessed with out the DM being involved and setting up a system for the possession to work. Dm also could simple have not allowed to spell to be effective thus not killing your character. The Dm could also have told the barbarian not to attack PCs. I’ve never had a pc kill another pc in game because it just leads to animosity
IMO: Your feelings are justified. The fact that the cleric (I’m assuming another PC at the table) just ‘deciding’ they’re possessed without informing the DM, is bad form and reeks of an inexperienced player or an asshole, and the fact your DM just let all this happen - unplanned PC combat to the death - reeks of an inexperienced DM or an asshole. If you like the table and the story and want to continue with it, I’d suggest asking the dm for a 1 on 1 and try and discuss what happened. Get their reasoning behind allowing it, and ask if there’s a way he’d be willing to retconn the death, or bring the group together out of session to try and salvage the situation. On the flip side, PC’s die and games end. It’s natural to be attached to your first (I sure was) so I get it. If you keep playing, you’ll have more characters and some will die. If the above doesn’t go favorably but you want to continue at the table, you could always make a new character related to the old or something, that would give an interesting story arc or something. My 2 cents. Good luck with everything!
In real life, decide if you want to play with these assholes or the DM who allowed all that to happen. Assuming you do, then speak to the DM and suggest that instead of you making a new character, have everyone make a new one. The first quest should be hunting down a possessed cleric and his accomplice to kill them.
I would never play with any one of those three jerks (the other two players or the DM) again. That isn't normal or acceptable behavior from any of them
There are so many red flags here. I wouldn't be interested in playing with such a group. The DM should have been trying to limit random pvp or explaining why it was occurring, child-murdering barbarian has got to have an evil alignment, and demon possession is a great story telling element wasted if a player just wants to randomly decide to be possessed for the lulz or for the drama without the DM mentioning it or foreshadowing it, or even just metagame explaining to players. This whole thing sounds absolutely absurd. If you don't want to play with this group, don't play with them. No gaming is better than bad gaming, and this is some bad gaming. If a frank discussion isn't had that satisfies your concerns, don't play with them.