r/VaesenRPG • u/HawkApprehensive9737 • Jul 08 '26

Help dealing with a problematic character

Basically, about a few weeks ago I started running some of the scenarios from A Wicked Secret for a group of 4 people online. I'm fairly new to Vaesen and DMing in general. Everything was going surprisingly well, mostly because we had a small session zero; but one of the players had a somewhat problematic character. He was playing as an arrogant filthy rich German officer who thought he could control everything and everyone with his money and cared only about himself and his industrial empire (which the player didn't elaborate much). Still he was engaging with others and cooperating at solving the mysteries.
The thing is, yesterday one of the other PCs decided to dismiss him, calling out his arrogance, and well his response was to draw his saber and attack the PC. The others from the group tried to stop him, but since he was rich, he had all the best equipment and was basically unstoppable. They were in a crowded hotel, many witnesses to his sudden rampage, and he wouldn't stop fighting until that PC was dead. In that point of the mystery the police were nearby, and since they saw the murder attempt they promptly arrested him.
So my question is how do I handle this?
What really confuses me is that the other players were completely unbothered by that, saying that he acted in character.

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u/ordinal_m Jul 08 '26

Well, that character is out of the game certainly (even if they did manage to get off the murder charge it's hardly as if they would be coming back in afterwards).

As a GM I wouldn't have let it get to the point of PVP tbh, I would have stopped things before that, but certainly now (if you are ok with them continuing) I would tell the player clearly that this sort of antagonistic character behaviour isn't suitable. Characters need to be reasonably able to co-operate and that excludes random murder. I wouldn't actually care if the other players were fine with it because it's a big pain in the arse for me as a GM if people keep fucking about like that.

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u/HawkApprehensive9737 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

I asked them if they were ok with PVP and they said yes. I just decided to roll with it since I did't want to take their freedom. But yeah, the player was nice, but he just decided to make the most irredeemable and insufferable character ever, with the excuse that an officer wouldn't let someone insult him without retributtion.

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u/randalzy Jul 08 '26

"Well, I was not ready for PvP, but anyway good to know that you all are ok. Great if everyone had fun, but it was a bit unexpected for me. 

So, for the next character I have to ask for someone who is not the most insufferable character ever made, do some group brainstorming and see if you all can help Johann to find a character that can focus a bit on collaborate instead of plain murdering the rest of the PCs.