Again, i want to thank you all for the responses, i really didnt expect this much!
You were all right along. I talked to my player again, and what i can conclude is basicaly that he preffers to see someone else character dies if that helps him to make the group understand that he's NOT A HEALER.
I tried to make him understand that, even if he's not the healer of the group, he can try to save the others, even more if he's the one of the party thats full HP and full resources in the middle of a fight. He said NO, and told me that he was disturbed about the "invencibility" feeling settled on the group, because they have never lost vs any foe.
Told him that the idea of D&D DM'ng is not defeating the group but creating interesting and passionate storys, and also have fun, there's allways room for encounters like: "oh, shiet, so this is our enemy and we are f*ked up. But not every combat can be like that IMO.
Nothing, stills stays in the "rather dead that beign a nurse".
Big problem incoming? My campaign includes "Issues ongoing" in the realm of Kelemvor, the astral plane, and the dead character managed to scape that plane making a deal with a powerfull beign, because the story allows them to do so in this part of the adventure. However, he's stuck in the exit of the astral plane due to a guardian of "the door" that will not allow him to go back untill someone comes and give him reasons to do so.
I wonder if this player will go to help, or rather will stay where he's and try to convince the group to abandon the other player. I will update it to you when it happens, probably next week. I think we can turn this thread into an interesting post about how we DM'S feel when players goes radical. I guess i can go with the flow too? maybe a group that decide to abandon a friend and find in the future that they are the evil guys can be a blow!
So his goa is he wants someone to die? I think you just got your first pc volunteer to die and sit there watching on the sidelines for 3 to 4 hours while they do the side quest to bring him back from the dead some how or until you reach the introduction of plot point you have that new pc join.
Once he has to sit there waiting for hours, maybe he might see why dms try not to kill PCs unless absolutely necessary or because they just made to many bad decisions leaving there dm no choice.
then after explain to him about dnd is about having fun with your friends and point out how much fun he did not have because of that.
Ok, fine. You don't have to use all your spell slots to heal people. Don't prepare healing spells, then. It would be up to the DM, at that point, to tailor encounters to account for the lack of a dedicated healer in the group (like the last campaign I DMed).
However, that absolutely does NOT mean to hoard all the healing potions (potions should be for the party, regardless of who's carrying them), not use them on people who need them, or do something other than simple healing to try and save someone.
Again, not being a healer is one thing, but actively neglecting your party is something else entirely. This isn't a player I would allow at my table.
Sounds like he has a personal issue with your DM style and is trying to make the game bend to his will. From his statements he is saying "I don't want there to be any option to heal because it would raise the stakes for everyone and make the game more challenging", but from what you are saying, you actually want to run a game that is story/RP based and not focused on TPK.
In that case, give him the Death Curse. Ask him if he wants Meat Grinder mode. Tell him Health Potions will now deal damage to his PC due to the Curse, but that healing spells can be used on him by his team mates (if he's gracious). Why? A God watched him abandon his party and his friends, and this is his punishment. If he can shift his alignment to Good, then it will be lifted.
No one else needs to have it except for him since he wants the more challenging experience and roleplay opportunity.
If he says "That's not fair, everyone should have it", you can tell him no other player has complained about the challenge level of your game being too low for them. He said he wanted to roleplay more, not that he wanted more power/perks than anyone else so he can stay alive longer and feel better than other people.
Ok, I was cutting this guy too much slack. I agree with dragonbride in that it sounds like he prefers a different style of game. That's fine an all - to each their own. But however you play, even if you play a highly adversarial style of dnd, it's still a collaborative experience. It takes a special level of egotism and immaturity to sabotage the whole game and everyone else's fun rather than, you know, talk about it. Use your words for chrissakes! What is he still in kindergarten?
And then the obstinacy when confronted?! "No, the game should be how I want! Me, me, me!".
He's got an out-of-character issue with the style of game you're running that he's decided, unilaterally, to deal with using in-character play, and then he's demanding everyone else respond exclusively in-character. That's not simply 'bad role-playing'. That's not even role-playing at all. That's just being a manipulative jerk.
I'm not sure what the out-of-game interpersonal relationships are amongst your group, because that can certainly complicate things, but I would be tempted to just boot him. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm just not willing anymore to waste my time and talents on unhelpful destructive little asshats.
Have you talked to the other players? How are they feeling about things? It might be worth having an out of character conversation about game expectations together.
How about the player whose character died? I like that you have a quest to return the character to life, but what will the player do in the meantime? If you haven’t already, I think you should find a way they can continue to actively play during the quest. Maybe a backup character, maybe help with monsters, etc depending on what interests them.
If the remaining characters choose to ditch the Druid, I wouldn’t get it the way of that. If the druid’s player objects, I’d tell them, “I didn’t protect [wizard] from your decision not to help, I’m not going to protect [druid] from the party’s decision to part ways.” I ‘d probably let the player roll up another character, but only if there was an out of game conversation about expectations and cooperative play that came to an common agreement. If the game expectations are not reconcilable, and everyone but the druid‘s player is on basically the same page, that player either needs to adjust their play style for this game or go elsewhere.
Days have passed and we have not played again, but i want to respond to you all, because i know that taking the time to write your hints and suggestions is not allways easy.
First of all; i want you to know that i've read all your comments, and they have been very, VERY helpfull. My biggest problem here is that i of course cannot boot this player from my table, because this player is my brother and we reunite in his home to play. Yeah, he's stubborn and i know, as you said, that he may be trying to manipulate the situation ingame to get close to the game style he likes.
We will play again after summer, and based on all your tips i talked to the rest of the party. Some of them didnt like what happened, some of them saw it as a good move since i didnt forbid them to act as they wanted, and that gave them a "strong and raw" sensation of pure roleplaying. "We felt like anything can happen, and that any kind of personality had place in the world". So, surprise for me, they felt that beign a stubborn, almost psychopath guy and dont die for it meant that the world was more interesting and open.
That said, i dont know if they will like it when THEIR characters are on the line and the psycho-druid looks at them smiling and thinking "im not gonna lift a finger for you, corpse dude".
We will see. THANKS TO EVERYBODY, from the bottom of my heart. I would love to sit at your tables one day and see how other groups are!
First of all, apologies to you for insulting your brother. I don't retract any of the sentiment - it does seem that, consciously or otherwise, he was being a jerk. But it must have felt weird for you, to have a random stranger on the internet talk about your brother like that. So apologies for that, I could have been more diplomatic.
Playing DnD with family and friends can be the most amazing, rewarding experience. It's has to just about be my favourite thing in the universe. But it does bring its own challenges. Long-standing inter-personal dynamics, for better or worse, naturally seep into the game. I suppose the key is to just make it more better and less worse :)
No-one on the other end of the inter-tubes can have a better idea how to do that for your family and friends than you. But with that caveat in place, here are some ideas that, if you think they're appropriate, you could consider:
- It is his place. He could be of the mindset, quite reasonably, that it's "My house, My rules". If so, maybe if you confirmed that, out-of-game, that absolutely holds. He wants shoes off at the door? Of course. He wants all drinks on coasters? Absolutely 100%. But in-game? That's your house.
- Maybe, if he has strong ideas about the game, the two of you could collaborate on some form of co-DM arrangement. It may be worth considering or it may just give him license to run roughshod over everything, I don't know.
- Try a one-shot or two. One-shots are a great way to try out game-styles or characters without players or DMs feeling they have to commit to the idea for the long haul campaign. If the team hits on something they really like, it can always be developed further.
Whatever you do, it's definitely a good idea to make sure everyone is on the same page. In the end, most everyone can have fun with a wide variety of game styles provided they know what they're signing up for, and they know their boundaries will be respected.
This seems kind of tame in my experiences with some heavy roleplaying groups.
I would take a different angle then most here. Going with older lore, Druids tried to keep balance and take a neutral stance in the world. law chaos and good and evil are extremes.
what are the motivations for the druids god or gods? being a druid is a calling its not like a fighter or wizard. this is an agent of nature in the game of the gods. Is this falling within the ethos of that force? is there a repercussion for allowing the forces of the negative plane taking his companion? for me this sounds like a whole hell of a great hook. don't be afraid to change his alignment for him. let the party actively break up or keep him close. what about the aquatic character you talked about? did he play out remorse for not saving the wizard?
In a home brew game this can be some of the best stuff. I would stay out of OOC politicaling this other than to tell the players to think on what the characters would do in that situation. I've ran games that devolved into pure evil and the fun is normally in the journey. everyone at the table seems to be aware that consequences could happen. you need to think about if they should.
I know this thread is more or less finished, even though i would realy be interested in hearing how all things play out at the end, but:
I still want to comment on the original situation and on the way for the future.
There were 2 things that imho went wrong at the dm side of the table and i realy don't mean it in a harsh way (especialy since i was not there and couldn't possibly know all the details). So please take it in good spirit.
1. As it was already mentioned 30'/r going down is a lot. Water has mass too. On the other hand, the distance might have been inconsequential for the overall outcome. maybe something to keep in mind for the future
2. If i understood the battlefield correctly you had a big broken in icepool, most characters at the border of it and the wizzard + scout pulled quite a bit back. Correct?
Now an undead ogre decided to dive underneath all of the fighting, right where the wizzard was, break through the ice and drown him. How and moreso why?
Ogres are not the smartest bunch to begin with and he is undead. Unless there was a necromancer overseeing the battlefied the ogre should have just wanderd out of the water to attack the party. We are not talking liches, vampires or any other undead with agency here i guess. And even then it would be hard to locate the wizzard through a thick sheet of ice.
The situation feals to me like you wanted to make it more cinematic, incuded a zombie movie trope and granting the monsters dm knowledge. That's dicy.
With that said, if the party had worked as a party everything would have been fine. Now i wonder how they managed to endure the challenges before that point if the druid never healed them and why they never recogniced that before.
Into the future:
Your brother and his home...to be honest, that sucks and i can not give you advice on how to deal with the first part. That is something ony you can know.
For the second part however there is a solution. Since you only start playing again after summer, there should be time to find a new location. As my grandma always said. you can find space in the smallest hut. So why not rotate playlocations at first. That way eveybody gets to spare the journey once, but has to host. You get the odd "but i have small children and we are to loud" situation sure, but chances are you can get at least 1-2 new locations to play in.
Here comes the kicker. Your players are saying they are fine with it, but i have seen to often how people don't speak their mind because they feel dependent of someone. All of them are aware that they play at his house and that can highly influence their decisions. And if they realy mean it, then all you have done is spread the workload over everybody, which is a fair thing in of itself. So you wouldn't realy lose anything, but in case the party decides to have enough from the druids shenanigans you already have a backup plan in place.
I saw a campaign were an evil PC wanted to throw herself in front of the certain party members to shield them from the full force of an impending explosion, using her resistance to keep her safe. The player stopped and said, "Wait. Why would I do that?" She thought about it and decided that her character was shielding the nice stuff they were carrying that could be damaged by the blast. From an evil IC point of view, she managed to do what was best for the party as a side effect of her greedy nature. As evil PCs go, she manages to leverage her character's traits to the benefit of the party while still being decidedly evil. She often ignores well-laid plans if the plans aren't cruel enough or go against her personal goals, but she never lets her roleplay directly harm the party. Some of the other players have learned to use her evil nature to the party's advantage.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
For one you need to talk with all the players and set the ground rules/expectations from the start.
I got a cleric in the party that hasn't healed or revived anyone since the the start of the campaign. If he's in a good mood he might send his dog over, which carries 4 potions, allowing the other characters to take one. He also used Hold Person on another party member while contemplating a possible deal with a hag. However he also sacrificed his magical item to break a very powerful magical mirror with a lvl9 Gate spell on it. In due time He'll even denounce his god and align himself with Asmodeus, or so he said to me in private. I warned him of the possibility that his character might not be part of the group at some point. Needing him to make a new one, while I turn his cleric into a bad guy NPC. The player is fine with that. And until that point in time arrives...we got a lot of material to work with in regards to inner party drama and challenges leading into story elements.
As DM all you have to worry about is to present possibilities where the goals of each Party member alligns, even if their personalities and such clash big time. Other then that... just let it play out as long as it doesn't impact the actual atmosphere around the table. So what if ingame PC's die. That's part of it as well.
He'd probably get resentful at the action, and just doubledown on douchiness.
I once had a difficult player
My peace of mind had not a prayer
But I fixed up this dude
and his player so rude
with a sudden attack by a mind flayer
Hi guys!
Again, i want to thank you all for the responses, i really didnt expect this much!
You were all right along. I talked to my player again, and what i can conclude is basicaly that he preffers to see someone else character dies if that helps him to make the group understand that he's NOT A HEALER.
I tried to make him understand that, even if he's not the healer of the group, he can try to save the others, even more if he's the one of the party thats full HP and full resources in the middle of a fight. He said NO, and told me that he was disturbed about the "invencibility" feeling settled on the group, because they have never lost vs any foe.
Told him that the idea of D&D DM'ng is not defeating the group but creating interesting and passionate storys, and also have fun, there's allways room for encounters like: "oh, shiet, so this is our enemy and we are f*ked up. But not every combat can be like that IMO.
Nothing, stills stays in the "rather dead that beign a nurse".
Big problem incoming? My campaign includes "Issues ongoing" in the realm of Kelemvor, the astral plane, and the dead character managed to scape that plane making a deal with a powerfull beign, because the story allows them to do so in this part of the adventure. However, he's stuck in the exit of the astral plane due to a guardian of "the door" that will not allow him to go back untill someone comes and give him reasons to do so.
I wonder if this player will go to help, or rather will stay where he's and try to convince the group to abandon the other player. I will update it to you when it happens, probably next week. I think we can turn this thread into an interesting post about how we DM'S feel when players goes radical. I guess i can go with the flow too? maybe a group that decide to abandon a friend and find in the future that they are the evil guys can be a blow!
wish me luck!
So his goa is he wants someone to die? I think you just got your first pc volunteer to die and sit there watching on the sidelines for 3 to 4 hours while they do the side quest to bring him back from the dead some how or until you reach the introduction of plot point you have that new pc join.
Once he has to sit there waiting for hours, maybe he might see why dms try not to kill PCs unless absolutely necessary or because they just made to many bad decisions leaving there dm no choice.
then after explain to him about dnd is about having fun with your friends and point out how much fun he did not have because of that.
I mean, not being a healer is one thing.
Ok, fine. You don't have to use all your spell slots to heal people. Don't prepare healing spells, then. It would be up to the DM, at that point, to tailor encounters to account for the lack of a dedicated healer in the group (like the last campaign I DMed).
However, that absolutely does NOT mean to hoard all the healing potions (potions should be for the party, regardless of who's carrying them), not use them on people who need them, or do something other than simple healing to try and save someone.
Again, not being a healer is one thing, but actively neglecting your party is something else entirely. This isn't a player I would allow at my table.
Sounds like he has a personal issue with your DM style and is trying to make the game bend to his will. From his statements he is saying "I don't want there to be any option to heal because it would raise the stakes for everyone and make the game more challenging", but from what you are saying, you actually want to run a game that is story/RP based and not focused on TPK.
In that case, give him the Death Curse. Ask him if he wants Meat Grinder mode. Tell him Health Potions will now deal damage to his PC due to the Curse, but that healing spells can be used on him by his team mates (if he's gracious). Why? A God watched him abandon his party and his friends, and this is his punishment. If he can shift his alignment to Good, then it will be lifted.
No one else needs to have it except for him since he wants the more challenging experience and roleplay opportunity.
If he says "That's not fair, everyone should have it", you can tell him no other player has complained about the challenge level of your game being too low for them. He said he wanted to roleplay more, not that he wanted more power/perks than anyone else so he can stay alive longer and feel better than other people.
Ok, I was cutting this guy too much slack. I agree with dragonbride in that it sounds like he prefers a different style of game. That's fine an all - to each their own. But however you play, even if you play a highly adversarial style of dnd, it's still a collaborative experience. It takes a special level of egotism and immaturity to sabotage the whole game and everyone else's fun rather than, you know, talk about it. Use your words for chrissakes! What is he still in kindergarten?
And then the obstinacy when confronted?! "No, the game should be how I want! Me, me, me!".
He's got an out-of-character issue with the style of game you're running that he's decided, unilaterally, to deal with using in-character play, and then he's demanding everyone else respond exclusively in-character. That's not simply 'bad role-playing'. That's not even role-playing at all. That's just being a manipulative jerk.
I'm not sure what the out-of-game interpersonal relationships are amongst your group, because that can certainly complicate things, but I would be tempted to just boot him. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm just not willing anymore to waste my time and talents on unhelpful destructive little asshats.
Definitely of the Death Curse or his character getting killed early and having to sit around lesson. He's being selfish.
Have you talked to the other players? How are they feeling about things? It might be worth having an out of character conversation about game expectations together.
How about the player whose character died? I like that you have a quest to return the character to life, but what will the player do in the meantime? If you haven’t already, I think you should find a way they can continue to actively play during the quest. Maybe a backup character, maybe help with monsters, etc depending on what interests them.
If the remaining characters choose to ditch the Druid, I wouldn’t get it the way of that. If the druid’s player objects, I’d tell them, “I didn’t protect [wizard] from your decision not to help, I’m not going to protect [druid] from the party’s decision to part ways.” I ‘d probably let the player roll up another character, but only if there was an out of game conversation about expectations and cooperative play that came to an common agreement. If the game expectations are not reconcilable, and everyone but the druid‘s player is on basically the same page, that player either needs to adjust their play style for this game or go elsewhere.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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Hi people!
Days have passed and we have not played again, but i want to respond to you all, because i know that taking the time to write your hints and suggestions is not allways easy.
First of all; i want you to know that i've read all your comments, and they have been very, VERY helpfull. My biggest problem here is that i of course cannot boot this player from my table, because this player is my brother and we reunite in his home to play. Yeah, he's stubborn and i know, as you said, that he may be trying to manipulate the situation ingame to get close to the game style he likes.
We will play again after summer, and based on all your tips i talked to the rest of the party. Some of them didnt like what happened, some of them saw it as a good move since i didnt forbid them to act as they wanted, and that gave them a "strong and raw" sensation of pure roleplaying. "We felt like anything can happen, and that any kind of personality had place in the world". So, surprise for me, they felt that beign a stubborn, almost psychopath guy and dont die for it meant that the world was more interesting and open.
That said, i dont know if they will like it when THEIR characters are on the line and the psycho-druid looks at them smiling and thinking "im not gonna lift a finger for you, corpse dude".
We will see. THANKS TO EVERYBODY, from the bottom of my heart. I would love to sit at your tables one day and see how other groups are!
Hi BolivartheGreat,
First of all, apologies to you for insulting your brother. I don't retract any of the sentiment - it does seem that, consciously or otherwise, he was being a jerk. But it must have felt weird for you, to have a random stranger on the internet talk about your brother like that. So apologies for that, I could have been more diplomatic.
Playing DnD with family and friends can be the most amazing, rewarding experience. It's has to just about be my favourite thing in the universe. But it does bring its own challenges. Long-standing inter-personal dynamics, for better or worse, naturally seep into the game. I suppose the key is to just make it more better and less worse :)
No-one on the other end of the inter-tubes can have a better idea how to do that for your family and friends than you. But with that caveat in place, here are some ideas that, if you think they're appropriate, you could consider:
- It is his place. He could be of the mindset, quite reasonably, that it's "My house, My rules". If so, maybe if you confirmed that, out-of-game, that absolutely holds. He wants shoes off at the door? Of course. He wants all drinks on coasters? Absolutely 100%. But in-game? That's your house.
- Maybe, if he has strong ideas about the game, the two of you could collaborate on some form of co-DM arrangement. It may be worth considering or it may just give him license to run roughshod over everything, I don't know.
- Try a one-shot or two. One-shots are a great way to try out game-styles or characters without players or DMs feeling they have to commit to the idea for the long haul campaign. If the team hits on something they really like, it can always be developed further.
Whatever you do, it's definitely a good idea to make sure everyone is on the same page. In the end, most everyone can have fun with a wide variety of game styles provided they know what they're signing up for, and they know their boundaries will be respected.
And remember Rule Zero: Have Fun!
This seems kind of tame in my experiences with some heavy roleplaying groups.
I would take a different angle then most here. Going with older lore, Druids tried to keep balance and take a neutral stance in the world. law chaos and good and evil are extremes.
what are the motivations for the druids god or gods? being a druid is a calling its not like a fighter or wizard. this is an agent of nature in the game of the gods. Is this falling within the ethos of that force? is there a repercussion for allowing the forces of the negative plane taking his companion? for me this sounds like a whole hell of a great hook. don't be afraid to change his alignment for him. let the party actively break up or keep him close. what about the aquatic character you talked about? did he play out remorse for not saving the wizard?
In a home brew game this can be some of the best stuff. I would stay out of OOC politicaling this other than to tell the players to think on what the characters would do in that situation. I've ran games that devolved into pure evil and the fun is normally in the journey. everyone at the table seems to be aware that consequences could happen. you need to think about if they should.
Howdee.
I know this thread is more or less finished, even though i would realy be interested in hearing how all things play out at the end, but:
I still want to comment on the original situation and on the way for the future.
There were 2 things that imho went wrong at the dm side of the table and i realy don't mean it in a harsh way (especialy since i was not there and couldn't possibly know all the details). So please take it in good spirit.
1. As it was already mentioned 30'/r going down is a lot. Water has mass too. On the other hand, the distance might have been inconsequential for the overall outcome. maybe something to keep in mind for the future
2. If i understood the battlefield correctly you had a big broken in icepool, most characters at the border of it and the wizzard + scout pulled quite a bit back. Correct?
Now an undead ogre decided to dive underneath all of the fighting, right where the wizzard was, break through the ice and drown him. How and moreso why?
Ogres are not the smartest bunch to begin with and he is undead. Unless there was a necromancer overseeing the battlefied the ogre should have just wanderd out of the water to attack the party. We are not talking liches, vampires or any other undead with agency here i guess. And even then it would be hard to locate the wizzard through a thick sheet of ice.
The situation feals to me like you wanted to make it more cinematic, incuded a zombie movie trope and granting the monsters dm knowledge. That's dicy.
With that said, if the party had worked as a party everything would have been fine. Now i wonder how they managed to endure the challenges before that point if the druid never healed them and why they never recogniced that before.
Into the future:
Your brother and his home...to be honest, that sucks and i can not give you advice on how to deal with the first part. That is something ony you can know.
For the second part however there is a solution. Since you only start playing again after summer, there should be time to find a new location. As my grandma always said. you can find space in the smallest hut. So why not rotate playlocations at first. That way eveybody gets to spare the journey once, but has to host. You get the odd "but i have small children and we are to loud" situation sure, but chances are you can get at least 1-2 new locations to play in.
Here comes the kicker. Your players are saying they are fine with it, but i have seen to often how people don't speak their mind because they feel dependent of someone. All of them are aware that they play at his house and that can highly influence their decisions. And if they realy mean it, then all you have done is spread the workload over everybody, which is a fair thing in of itself. So you wouldn't realy lose anything, but in case the party decides to have enough from the druids shenanigans you already have a backup plan in place.
I saw a campaign were an evil PC wanted to throw herself in front of the certain party members to shield them from the full force of an impending explosion, using her resistance to keep her safe. The player stopped and said, "Wait. Why would I do that?" She thought about it and decided that her character was shielding the nice stuff they were carrying that could be damaged by the blast. From an evil IC point of view, she managed to do what was best for the party as a side effect of her greedy nature. As evil PCs go, she manages to leverage her character's traits to the benefit of the party while still being decidedly evil. She often ignores well-laid plans if the plans aren't cruel enough or go against her personal goals, but she never lets her roleplay directly harm the party. Some of the other players have learned to use her evil nature to the party's advantage.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
For one you need to talk with all the players and set the ground rules/expectations from the start.
I got a cleric in the party that hasn't healed or revived anyone since the the start of the campaign. If he's in a good mood he might send his dog over, which carries 4 potions, allowing the other characters to take one. He also used Hold Person on another party member while contemplating a possible deal with a hag. However he also sacrificed his magical item to break a very powerful magical mirror with a lvl9 Gate spell on it. In due time He'll even denounce his god and align himself with Asmodeus, or so he said to me in private. I warned him of the possibility that his character might not be part of the group at some point. Needing him to make a new one, while I turn his cleric into a bad guy NPC. The player is fine with that. And until that point in time arrives...we got a lot of material to work with in regards to inner party drama and challenges leading into story elements.
As DM all you have to worry about is to present possibilities where the goals of each Party member alligns, even if their personalities and such clash big time. Other then that... just let it play out as long as it doesn't impact the actual atmosphere around the table. So what if ingame PC's die. That's part of it as well.