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ello, I'm a pretty new DM, and a while ago a group of players reached out to me. Their DM couldn't run sessions anymore and they needed a DM. They are friends with each other, so I also don't want to mess with their friendship dynamic too much. Anyways, the player who reached out to me initially asked me if I would have complex villains that aren't fundamentally evil, and I said yes and kept that in mind. One house rule I have, especially for new characters is no evil PCs allowed, since I think it leads to selfish characters most of the time. I've set up a conflict between elves and humans where neither are exactly evil, and both have some justification. So this guy creates an elven wizard who hates humans, believes they are evil, and wants to go to war to take over human land. I figure this could be interesting as I show elves can also be evil and later will give him chances to empathize with humans, but he has shown no inclination towards that. But it's his character and he can go in the direction he wants, and as long as he doesn't end up burning down human orphanages I'm not too fussed. omegle xender

The main issue is that the character keeps doing selfish things to steer the party where he wants. For instance, the party wanted to short rest and then cross a river, he wanted to long rest and cross the river the next day, so he sent out his familiar, saw no monsters, then told everyone he saw some ogres and they should probably rest there. Or he convinced the party to use a significant portion of party funds to get him new armor, and he has yet to enter melee (he's a wizard). The one thing I did talk to the group about (not calling him out in particular) is his habit of, both in and out of character, constantly telling other PCs what to do. Not suggestions or requests just "you should get closer"; "You should heal me"; "take my horse across" etc. I mentioned it near the end of last session, and he was receptive to it, so I do have hope. I'm just not sure if the issue is that he's playing a certain kind of character that isn't my preference and as DM I just have to get over it? Or is it something I need to address? My thought would be to do it privately, but I'm not sure if it would be good to ask the other players about it first. I don't want to bring it up if none of the other players are bothered, but it also feels weird to talk about him with other people, especially since they're all friends.

I think the key is a distinction between in-character bossiness and out-of-character bossiness. It also depends on the meekness of the other players.

If he's bossing them around out of character (EG "you should heal me") then that's bad. If he's in character and shouting "I need some healing over here!" then that's fine, though it may need some tuning if the other players are meek and do what he says even if their characters are supposed to be equals.

pretending there are ogres is all fine as it's role playing. But what the party does when they find a lack of ogres, or evidence of ogres, is potentially a gateway to inter-party conflict. Maybe just explain to the player that he is supposed to be working in a team, and if they kick him out of the team he'll need to roll a new character because you can't DM 2 things at once.

It sounds like this is forcing the campaign into a space where you are conflicted and not having fun.  The DM is allowed to expect to have as much fun during the campaign as the players.  Talk to him privately, if possible, and explain that you don't want to be put into this position of facilitating his private agenda and lying to the party.

You could bring his agenda to the forefront through plothooks - get the party moving in that direction, get him closure and then see if he's happy to move on with the rest of the campaign. If the character is drawing too much aside by having an endless desire to go to war and kill humans, then give them an ultimatum - have a platoon of elves marching the other way meet the party, and declare that they are marching to war to kill humans, and invite the party to go along. If the whole party wants to go, then that's a new mission to work with. If the party refuses then the elf player has to decide whether his character would rather kill humans or continue to be in the party. Have the elf platoon have closed wagon in the back which contains one person, which will be the players new character, who will join the party as the old character goes to war. Smoothly remove either the conflict or the character and keep the game flowing. You might find the whole party wants to go to war, at which point the elf will be happy with the way things are going as well.