I have been a part of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for almost a year now (I am not the DM) and we have a player (in his early 30s) who has, within the past few months, quickly become very difficult to deal with.
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He is notoriously late, often an hour to an hour and a half regardless if we met online or in person. When he finally showed up, he would get on his phone to watch unrelated videos with the volume up loud, carry on conversations in the middle of a battle, and not pay attention until it was his turn. When it was his turn he would ask "alright, so what's happening?" and proceed to reiterate everything that happened while he wasn't paying attention. If it wasn't his turn, he would attempt to force the story back onto him.
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While we met online, we noticed was that this player suddenly starting rolling really high for someone in a single digit level and succeeding in everything that he wanted his character to do. When we met back in person, he started hiding his dice behind a "plastic bag fortress" and grabbing the dice before we could confirm the number and call out "Nat 20!" (which in our campaign is an automatic success and a 5% chance of rolling it per game, let alone an individual session). This made the rest of us annoyed because we couldn't prove it and obviously couldn't do anything against him. (but come on, players don't need to hide their dice!)
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His character is a gunslinger and therefore, before the rest of us got a chance to do anything, he would take out his gun and shoot anyone who disagreed with him, regardless if it was an NPC or another player. And his alignment would change with whatever he felt his character needed to do in that moment. This would naturally lead into sometimes an unwanted initiative where he would be unstoppable thanks to his suspiciously high rolls.
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Our DM's younger sister (she is only 14) joined us for a brief period with two young (female) characters, one a rogue, the other a sorcerer. This player decided that his character would take them "under his wing". In other words, tell the rogue she wasn't allowed to steal from people and tell the sorcerer to train to use a sword and not wield her magic. He went after multiple female NPCs (and a couple of player's female characters) to try and force in-game relationships that (while fun) were quite unnecessary.
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Despite his high rolls and ability to succeed, he constantly asked where his initiative modifier was located on his sheet, he didn't know which one was the six-sided dice, and refused to call characters by their real name (because he didn't try to remember them). He claims that the out-of-game arguments are "playful banter". Also, that he has been under a lot of stress (which is no excuse to cheat!). Everyone in our campaign uses D&D to de-stress and he takes the fun out of playing and ends up causing more stress to the evening. He has even caused two members of our group to quit.
Our DM has put up with his antics for a lot longer than he should have. While these are obvious red flags, he wasn't like this at the start of the campaign. It felt like once we started meeting online he took it as an opportunity to mess with us and it carried over when we met back in person. We don't know if he understands how much stress he is causing or is simply ignoring it in order to feel better about himself. We know that if we do confront him he will oppose the charges, or, if he does change, will only revert back when we become comfortable in our game-play.
We can't deal with his cheating, manipulative, disruptive behavior any more. How do we gently (or not-so-gently) tell him that he straight up needs to leave?
I do have to point out that we, as a group, have discussed this issue multiple times with one another and the DM, and we all feel the same way. The above issues are something all of us noticed, not just myself.
Best Answer
TL;DR: Talk to your group and consider if it’s really a good idea to have him as a player.
I get how you feel right now; I, as a GM, have some similar stuff going on in our virtual games.
To start with
Talking to the other players could help, but since you are also a player, I suggest you talk to your GM, especially if other players agree with you. Tell the GM that it’s not fun for you any more; I would presume, from you saying this player has caused 2 people to quit, that everyone else is also not happy with him. Use that against him.
When I had a problem player that others brought concerns about to me, I talked to all the other players without them and we agreed on what behavior was causing the problem. When we then, as a whole group, confronted them, we could give an ultimatum: change these things about your behavior or leave.
Important note:
It’s okay to ask problematic players to leave if they truly impact everyone’s enjoyment. However, the whole group needs to be in agreement about that decision (possibly with the exception of the player in question). Otherwise, he may use the split in the group to argue that he can stay, and not change behavior.
With that out of the way, I have a bit more advice on specific behaviors.
Specifics
Dice roll hiding
The bane of my existence as a GM is when players don’t roll in front of everyone and then cheat. This is a bit of a double standard, as GMs are expected and often need to secretly roll, but players are supposed to be honest.
This is where a virtual tabletop or dice roller, like roll20, comes in handy. By default, everyone sees all rolls. This prevents cheating to an extent; it’s hard to lie and say that 3 was a 20 when everyone sees you rolled a 3.
Not paying attention or putting effort into the game
This is a clear sign he’s not willing to work with everyone else. Everyone I know loses track of some important stuff at times (including me... has anyone seen my math homework this week?), but the biggest warning sign I know of to spot a player who isn’t invested in the game is that they don’t try to remember.
If they aren’t trying at least a little, I’d call it a clear sign they don’t really want to be playing the same game you do. This might be a behavioral issue to discuss with the group if you feel it would be best to kick him out.
For next time
On that note, if your group doesn’t make a habit of starting campaigns with a Session 0, now might be a good time to start. Some of the problem sounds to me like he’s being a jerk, but some may be that he wants to be playing a different game than the rest of you. In that case, I would suggest using the Same Page Tool to try to reconcile that kind of miscommunication before there’s a next time.
(I believe you that he’s a problem and should be dealt with. I’m mostly putting that as advice for future people who want to avoid this kind of problem ahead of time.)
I wish you all the luck in trying to resolve this!