Skoll Shorties

However, it was clear very early on that his character was a power fantasy, one that he not so subtly used our characters as blocks for. Often in his events, the plots would revolve around his character's development, while we were just kind of... there. Not participating.

Most obstacles before us were solved by his character. Villains that came up chose him as a nemesis, even if he wasn't playing the villain. When he wasn't DMing, he was psting other players (sometimes the DM) to request they do something so he could react. We felt steamrolled.

Towards the end of one of our campaigns, our characters had recovered a very powerful artifact (a crown) that we had spent months looking for. It was a big deal to the story. This guy, very briefly after, messaged me and another DM requesting we let his character put it on.

Now this was a DIFFERENT character (a female) of his this time, but one that was very similar to his Valarjar. We had spent entire events revolving around her - her empowerment, her death, her resurrection, RANDOMYL TIME TRAVELING TO THE FUCKING PAST TO SEE HER STORY...

So needless to say, when he messaged us about having another major plot point go to her, we put our foot down. We had bent so much of the plot around his char, probably too much, and we no longer wanted the plot to cater solely to her. She would NOT be wearing the crown.

He didn't take kindly to this. He told us that by keeping his character from taking the crown, we were stifling him from RP. Mind you, we'd MADE many things happen for his RP, and now he was crying foul when we prevented this one. It was a long fight, but we stood our ground.

While I think about the grimdark DM often, I think about the Valarjar more. He was a cautionary tale for myself and my guild, almost to where we're too afraid to make our characters powerful. A lot of times when talking over our characters, we say how we "don't want to be [him]."

There's a balance inbetween. For both the DM and player. I, for instance, consider Ben to be a very powerful and capable figure, but I know his limits. And even if he is in a situation that he reasonably could solo, I tend to hold off on doing so for the sake of others involved.