[RPG] How to deal with DM favoritism toward a player who is able to silence other players in order to avoid being constantly overruled by the group

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I've been in a campaign for the past 4 months with a very controlling DM and a player who has been dubbed their favorite.

The DM in question is very flexible with anything in their game… as long as it benefits their favorite. Since I don't want to use their real name, I'll call her Hannah.

We are currently level 6 in D&D 5e and Hannah has obtained a sword with 4d6+2d4 damage with every strike, while the second most damaging weapon goes to my player with a total of 2d6 damage. Every game session they add more damage dice onto their sword.

The DM has backed this up and is the one who caused their weapon to grow more powerful for no reason other than they said so. This makes fights less enjoyable because Hannah kills every opponent in 2 strikes and leaves the rest of the players annoyed and bummed out.

Hannah also has a way to silence players that she doesn't approve of. Her character has a bunch of tranquilizer darts and, when it hits another player's character, will silence a player for 15 minutes of talking in real-time. She does this sporadically and refuses to let plans be anything but ones she 100% approves of. Quite a lot of these ideas nearly caused multiple TPKs which has made everyone but her go through 2 other characters in the campaign.

The rest of the party has been trying to plan to kill Hannah's character and I'm pretty sure that it's going to make the situation worse if it happens. Hannah really does love her character and I don't want to get rid of her, I just want to fix the situation so there's no more favoritism.


I realized that leaving things out about the dynamic of the rest of the party puts Hannah in a light that makes her seem like she's being mean for the sake of annoying the rest of the party but that's not really true.

The logic behind the Tranquilizer darts is that she got normal darts at the beginning of the game and later filled them with Sleeping Draught. She's a Lawful Good and likes to talk things out while the rest of the party is a bunch of murder hobos. This clash of alignments makes Hannah's voice not heard as much since her morals don't commonly align with the rest of the party. If a player has an idea that she 100% is fully against, she tranqs them. the most recent silencing was when the rest of the party was planning to seduce and then kill the King's Lord of Finances in order to get money and learn the Kingdom's secrets. The Character of the player is then unconscious and unable to do anything and the DM won't let the player have a say in planning for 15 min. Her views make our ideas clash and if she removes the person who's making the most outrageous idea, the playing field is more even for her.

She isn't tranqing every player left and right. She mostly feels left out because her ideas are usually vetoed. And in the end, we usually incorporate some of her plans into the overall goal. (We didn't kill the Lord of Finances, we locked him in his own dungeon and interrogated him instead.)

She is a friend of the DM whilst the rest of the party are acquaintances, this closer connection makes the DM sympathize with her more. Most of the party is female, including myself and the DM. If an argument springs up about how Hannah is ruining the party it's going to turn into a yelling match extremely fast. I really hate conflict so I've been trying my best to avoid arguments as much as possible. I hope that this helps with your advice on how to stop this from happening.


How do I tell the DM and Hannah that the favoritism and refusal for other players' ideas is making the campaign close to unbearable? And how can we fix the favoritism issue so everyone is treated fairly and equally?

Best Answer

This problem must be solved out-of-game

The DM showing favouritism towards a specific player at the expense of everyone else's fun is not a problem with the narrative, it's a problem with the social contract. I would recommend not plotting to kill her character as this would likely just provoke massive social fallout. Instead, there are a few things I'd suggest:

Talk to the DM/group about the current problems

Since this problem is of the DM's doing (or at the very least, was allowed by the DM), the DM is the only one who can fix it. I'd recommend telling the DM what you've told us, but try not to do so in an accusatory tone. Focus on how your fun is being impacted by feeling like a spare wheel in the party, rather than blaming the DM for showing favouritism (even though that's actually what's happening), since confronting the DM with that detail will definitely just result in the DM getting defensive, then all communication breaks down.

Better still if you can discuss this with the party beforehand (minus Hannah at this stage; this is just to get a feel for how the other non-favourite players feel) to see how many of them will back you up, even discussing this with the DM as a group (including Hannah this time, since she might not be aware of how badly her actions are affecting everyone else), but again, with the focus being that you guys don't feel like you're having fun, not to accuse the DM of favouritism (nor to accuse Hannah of misusing the power she's been given, since this will again result in defensiveness).

A group conversation with Hannah about previous problems

With the additional context you've given, this puts a very different spin on things. The overpowered sword is still a problem, and the silent darts are still the worst way to have gone about solving the original problem, but I don't think it's too late for the original problem to be solved the way it should have been. With an out-of-character conversation.

Essentially, this is what's called session 0, and although it is typically had before the first session to make sure everyone agrees with the kind of game everyone wants to play, it can be held at any point during the campaign (and more than once, if needed) to help address any issues that are coming up that are impacting the fun of one or more of the players.

I would suggest having a conversation with the group about how Hannah's darts are a serious detriment towards the group's fun, but since you already have the awareness of why they became the "solution" to the previous problem, I would also then explain that you understand that the original problem was a real problem. Then, the original problem should be explored. This involves understanding her point of view whilst also trying to find a way forward that her voice can be heard without (literally) silencing everyone else, such that everyone has an equal say in what happens.

In fact, alignment clashes can be played for some good in-character drama that the players can all enjoy (even if the characters don't). This, again, needs to be discussed beforehand so that everyone is on the same page, since that only works in certain games where the overall tone supports such character drama. But ultimately, the end goal of such a conversation is that all of you feel heard, that you're all having fun, and that the current "solutions" are replaced with a real way forward, as a group.

However, if it turns out that Hannah's character is a bad fit for the current party, and there will always be a clash that can't really be reconciled with the current characters, another solution might be for her to park her character, make a new one who can be a goofball with the rest of the party, then for the next game, everyone can agree (in a session 0) to play a more serious game where she can play her original character again, but everyone else can play a character who won't clash (these new characters don't have to just be echoes of her character, but characters that at least would fit the tone of the overall game, even if they're Chaotic Neutral again). This, of course, requires the other players to be up for that other style of game (or at least enough players to make a group), since no one should be forced to play a game they aren't interested in.

Consider leaving the group... or forming a new one

"No D&D is better than bad D&D", as they say here, so if the situation doesn't improve (or if you've had enough already), and you cannot see any way at this point for the situation to be repaired, it might be worth leaving this group and finding a new one (although judging by your edit, it doesn't look like it's reached this point yet, but it is still an option).

If the rest of the group (minus the DM and Hannah) aren't enjoying this game, and the DM and/or Hannah don't seem to improve after trying the above, then it might be best to consider all leaving this game and starting a new game without them. If you don't want to burn bridges, it might be the case that you form a new game including them, but with someone else as the DM, someone else who presumably does not want to repeat the current DM's mistakes (i.e. won't show favouritism).