SO! My DnD experience over the past like 7 years or so has been completely isolated in my  personal friend circle, meaning the only DnD I've ever played has been with friends I've known for a long time that I hung out with for non ttrpg reasons for yeeeeears. We've been playing every saturday for several years now in the same 2 rotating campaigns. 

What I've noticed is, the overwhelming majority of people I've seen on this forum seem to view DnD as almost a "pick-up" game like MTG or WH40k or some other tabletop. What I mean by this is I see a lot of DM advice towards difficult players like "if they don't agree, tell them to find another table" as if the table is a group of acquaintances that only assemble and know eachother for DnD. 

I have 2 questions, not specific but rather general:
1. Is your table a group created FOR DND? or Is your group a group of friends who all decided "lets play DND"?
2. How would you handle a difficult player that is a close friend? One that you cant just say "well, find a new table!" like your friends spouse or a long-time best friend?

I don't have any specific problems, just curious of what the DnDBeyond hivemind thinks of this lol

The main three campaigns I am in right now was initially a group that was created to play DnD, two of them strictly people from the place I work. After some time, we all eventually became pretty good friends, and even do things outside of DnD regularly.

The homebrew campaign I run is the latter portion of your first query. I wanted to enjoy this game with friends with whom I've known for several years, and a few nearly my entire life.

As to your second point, I am a pretty strong IRL personality and I have no problem telling a friend to take a hike if they're being unreasonable, but I also approach it with a non-confrontational demeanor. I have had to kick two players in my homebrew campaign out for various reasons, although the one fudged his dice pretty openly and gave himself bonuses to proficiency that didn't exist. I got straight to the point with them, remained concise, and if my friends felt that is something worth throwing away our friendship for, then so be it. I accept responsibility over the outcome just as much as they should.

Our table was one I formed for D&D, and it's the same group that I both DM for, and am a Player in ( rotating DM'ship as I didn't have the time to plan every week ).

My situation is perhaps a bit out on the edge of the bell curve, however, as I'm a 51 year old business professional; not many of my colleagues, social circles, and workmates are likely to play D&D ( although that probability has gone up in the last 10 years or so! ). That said, our table has been pretty stable for 2+ years, so while the people I play D&D with I don't typically socialize with outside of D&D - except for my wife - I wouldn't say they're strangers or casual acquaintances any more, either.

If I had a "difficult Player", I'd do my best to understand their position, what they wanted out of the game, the kind of fun they were looking for, and try to see if elements of what would make them happy ( and presumably less difficult ) would be possible to work into the game, without upsetting removing the fun from the game from others. However - sometimes a compromise position isn't possible, and you do need to ease them out. Fortunately - with social groups formed around the D&D game - this problem is likely to present before you get to know that person super-well, and it's not as traumatic to ease them out.

I've only had to remove one Player, with whom a compromise couldn't be found, and - as StylesStriker - I tried to do it in as non-confrontational and blame-free a manner as possible: this just isn't working, the styles aren't compatible; your approach isn't wrong - it just doesn't mesh with the rest of the group.

I'd likely have the same approach for a friend. We don't have to play D&D to remain friends, so if a compromise wasn't possible, maybe we'd just go back to watching saturday afternoon football together as our social activity.

Most of my gaming in my life has been with a friend group.  Role playing games of various sorts and designs were the thing we did together.  One of my friends was a high school wrestler at the state level, another was kinda a ******, another friend was as solid a person you ever wanted to know.  I was the one that had girlfriends.   Nonetheless, we gamed together.   Outside of our home games we participated in games run out the comics and games shop, or rarely in what were called "private games" run out of a game master's house.   All through this period though, it was clear if someone didn't gel at the table or if the game didn't fit them that something had to go.  This pattern has continued since the 80s.

Occasionally, I find myself in a group of players that just doesn't do it for me.  The last incident was with a husband and wife pair that joined our table.  After an exhaustive and painful Session Zero it was decided that we would play a Guardians of the Galaxy-esque Savage Worlds game.  The husband refused help in building he and his wife's PCs for the game, and compounded the problem with using only a crippled error ridden free version of a character generator to build them.  When it was pointed out that his PC had errors he ignored it.  His wife was worse, she simply did not care what her character was able to do or not.  She never even let the GM look at her sheet, instead just tried to bamboozle everyone with her dramatic roleplaying ability.  That might work in FATE based games, but this was Savage Worlds.  After trying for a month, the game ended because we could never get those two to tow the line.   We don't game with them anymore.

More to your topic, with the game becoming more and more popular and accessable everyday, and with games playable on Discord, FantasyGrounds, Astral, and Roll20, there really is a condition where if something is not working, just find a new group to game with.

Been playing D&D since the 80s. Had some breaks now and then due to the lack of a social group that would be interested or friends schedules just did not line up. When I started to use D&D beyond to find players I found that I could easily have a full group rolling through a campaign long term. I still run into the player who simply cannot make the game do to real life situations but its easy for the most part to find a replacement. 

As far as difficult players. Well they are out there. Hell, I had a friend of mine who I knew for a good number of years who was a real issue at the table. In fact that group disband because of him really and getting a replacement was not going to happen considering it was just a small group of us who wanted to play. After about 10 sessions everyone vented their frustrations before I could at least have a chat with the player who was causing all the issues. Had issues with the same guy later on when a couple of us invited him to play 40k at a local place. He lasted 2 games. 

I do think that there are some out there that are simply trolling games when it comes to playing over the net. I will not deal with that at all. It just sucks when you have several players lined up then end up with the troll. Often times the search starts all over again. Another thing that I see is something similar to online MMO gaming. Players might jump in a game simply for the sake of finding on and being invited into it only to find that its not what they were looking for and end up dropping within a short time. Or there are those who just want a group for a few gaming sessions then soon also leave. Then there is that wonderful player who wants the game to be about their character and the rest simply goes along with them. In that situation I drop them like a bad habit real quick. In the end though I think most players just want a group where everyone plays nice together.

I've never played DND as a player. So I started a campaign a few months ago to just play DND as the DM. Since then they have become friends and we now have our sessions at my home.

I've never had a problem in our group. I've been blessed to have such great people.

Sort of both? I DM from a group that I found among my friends, but I probably wouldn't see them anywhere near as much if we weren't playing D&D.

1. Is your table a group created FOR DND? or Is your group a group of friends who all decided "lets play DND"?
2. How would you handle a difficult player that is a close friend? One that you cant just say "well, find a new table!" like your friends spouse or a long-time best friend?

1. The current table started a bit haphazardly. Hadn't seen or spoken with two friends for a few years. Then they contacted me since they were playing with an idea for a vacation. Survival in the wilderness. Having to gather and hunt for our daily food and stuff. Then we also started talking about other stuff and they mentioned D&D and how they knew a guy that was making his homebrew campaign. That they were planning a test session with 8 players. So I immediately wanted to get on-board as a player. Hadn't played properly since the 3.5 days. After we all got together, and most went home again, we were sitting around with 3 of us. They had reservations about the upcoming campaign. If it would even get off the ground....or even be fun. So they asked me to DM a campaign. And a few weeks later we started playing. That group grew over time since word of mouth spread about me being a good dm. Even though I'm rusty as ****. For the past 2 years I've been DM'ng again.

It is mostly a group of friends. With some outside additions over time. We also get together on non-DnD days to play other games, watch movies, go to concerts, some of us workout together during the week etc etc.

In the past I joined, played / DM'ed, in other groups that weren't friends. Just groups that found each other specifically for D&D. Worked well enough as well. Rarely had issues either.

2. I make no exceptions whether it be friend or not. Only difference with friends is that we know each other well enough that we also trust and respect each other. Meaning that a lot can be talked about. Leading to agreeable solutions. Last night we had our first talk about something that happened ingame. We got together and found a solution that everyone agreed with. If the solution could not be reached then that player, whether friend or not, had to go. We're mature enough to not let that ruin our overall relationship. And would still hang out doing other stuff.  If that friend would be immature... then I wouldn't even be a friend with them to begin with and just dump them by the side of the road without any remorse.

I'm similar to StylesStryker. I got no time for bullshit. Seen it all in my day and it just isn't worth the trouble. At my table its all about consistency, respect and openness. And we are hard and straight forward and honest about it. Last time I had to remove a player or two was over a decade ago though. During the 3.5 era.

I have two tables, both are groups of pre-existing friends who were interested in playing D&D but needed a DM. One is every week/every other week I'm running through LMOP, the other lives further away so I run longer one-shots for them.

I'm a little anxious about finding a table soley for D&D as the kind of games I run are story-focused and fun, there's no worry about min-maxing or devising crazy multi-class builds etc., which at this point (been playing for nearly a year) I would find too intimidating.

I'd like to be a player though, as whilst I love dming for my friends it'd be great to step to the other side of the screen!

I've had both! :-)

My last group was one I found of people playing D&D, actually spun off of adventurer's league. I never get to play, so it was nice.

My current campaign are a bunch of friends who all wanted to play in one of my campaigns. Started with just two players, grew to five.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not just one or the other.

I've played at a physical table with all friends, I've played at a physical table with all strangers, and I've played at an online table with all strangers.

I love my friends to death but they don't want to play if someone is missing, so we get postponed a lot. My online group has been going strong for almost two years (in January 2020) on the same campaign which is coming to a head soon.

All these groups got together to play DnD. As for handling a problem with a close friend, or even a stranger, you gotta approach them respectfully and calmly. "Hey man, I noticed the past couple games this has been going on and it doesn't seem right/causing a disturbance at the table. Can we talk to try to fix that?"

What people mean when they say "find a new table" - or at least what I mean when I say it - is that if everyone at your table is not on board, the game doesn't work.  Pretty much end of story.

Trying to squeeze all of your friends into the game is a way to strain friendships.  If somebody wants to play a different kind of game, or if they don't fit at your D&D table even despite being your friend, then you're in the awkward, nasty position of needing to get that guy away from your table without killing the friendship.  Having bee in this position myself, it sucks...but you can have one big problem all at once, or your entire game can be strained and increasingly unfun for months.  

The former is better.  Trust me, the former is better.