I'm currently engaged in a Pathfinder game online, on a forum. I've been playing on this forum for a year now, and this is my second (third if you count IRL) RPG campaign. Never had a problem, since my previous fellow players were all cooperating to make the game work.
I'm playing a half-elven ranger in this Pathfinder campaign. It's a large campaign with two parties in it (our group of eight split into two parties). We are having problems with a player who tends to mix OOC and IC: he takes it personally every time we disagree with him, and gets angry inside and outside the game.
For example: The campaign has PvP aspects. All eight players agreed and made an official rule that forbade us to fight each other (yet). But when I once disagreed with his character, he almost beat mine to death and insulted me OOC. He has been warned by the GM, who saved my character — I couldn't defend myself at the time.
He has no longer the right to talk to us OOC, and GM and players agree that he is a PITA. In retaliation, he decided to be even more annoying in-game.
He doesn't care about our RP and plays on his own, which lead to really incoherent situations.
(I suggested a plan to take care of a pack of zombies. He disagreed, called me an an "idiot" — to put it politely — and then proposed the exact same plan.)
I'm looking for advice on how to deal with this type of player. I can't kill his PC, as the campaign rules just mean he will reroll a character; he's in the campaign until the GM kicks him out. I've tried to be amicable, polite, indifferent… But he is really working on my last nerve. He doesn't seem to follow reason.
The forum has forbid us to insult each other, and encourage to keep relationships between player as amicable as possible. These rules apply to the campaign, but we can be as merciless as we want IC – as long as it's not meta (I can't kill his character only because I don't appreciate him as a player).
Is there a way to get along with this player — or a least, play with him, without having him ruining the mood — without killing him in game, or going crying to GM (he has to stay impartial and I don't want to ask him more — as he already saved me, due to disrespect from the other player)?
2 years later, what actually happened
Sometimes, there is not much you can do. This person became toxic enough for all the players to report to the forum's administrators, who issued a warning. Then he kept his toxicity in game, so we just all ended up killing his character.
It wasn't rewarding. Or relieving. It was a sad, bitter execution in a cellar. It's not fun to play with such a person, and it's not fun kicking them out. But if you're not willing to play with the group, then you have nothing to do at the table.
After this execution, we moved on with our IC & OOC lives. We (the players) made clear he wasn't welcome at the table with such a behaviour, and we would murder his new character without a second thought if the need arises. As the GM wanted to stay neutral, we couldn't forbid him to play, but we didn't allow the problem to remain. Eventually, he cursed at us, and refused to reroll, and so we went on amazing adventures with a troll down.
TL;DR – You're as much a part of the game as your GM. And if the GM doesn't take actions, it's up to you to find a solution – including leaving the game, if it come to that.
Best Answer
You should talk with the GM. The GM should kick the player out. The situation is clearly beyond the 'talking to people' point and several intermediate measures have been tried. The person the group unanimously doesn't want to play with is an jerk and you shouldn't play with them. Further intermediate measures will only allow him to damage the game further.
In a non-in-person RPG group like you are playing in, kicking players is hard but it still occasionally needs to be done and it is the GM's responsibility. Consider sharing the 5 Geek Social Fallacies page with your GM, as he may benefit from it. Consider having a group discussion on how bad someone needs to be for your group to kick them to give the GM some space to talk about why he or she hasn't kicked them in a non-defensive manner and you some space to explain that the group expects them to kick people like this if it comes up again in the future.