Jaune Chat's Life, the Universe, and Everything

Well, it turned out to be not as quite as bad as I had anticipated. We had a long discussion on Saturday, when we game our other game (same group, minus my dad, playing Shadowrun), and cleared the air about many things.

I knew Brian was under a certain amount of stress - he's in school and thusly not earning a paycheck right now, he and his wife Jane are living with Jane's parents at present, he is butting heads with Jane's father but doesn't say much while living under his roof, Jane and him are looking for a house of their own, and Jane's father is taking an involuntary 20% pay cut (due to the whole government sequester financial mess they can't seem to fix) and thusly Jane's parents are concerned they won't even be able to pay their bills, which just adds to the stress.

So, in short, after a confrontation with Jane's father atop all these other stresses, Brian's temper was exceedingly short. And he said he chose to leave the gaming session while he was still able to talk calmly rather than remain, try to explain, and end up exploding in a fit of yelling and name calling. (He has explained to all of us some years prior that, like over half the group, he's struggled with mental health issues much of his life. In his case, depression and temper. He didn't want to subject any of us to an outburst.)

He'd discussed his specific issues with the dark creeper confrontation with Jane, and then discussed them with us on Saturday. We had another member of the group who has since moved, whom I'll call George, that Brian had issue with. George was an assertive gamer, and often liked to (from Brian's point of view) dictate how we were going to do things during the game, which Brian resented greatly. Paula's actions brought up this old sore point, apparently.

Also, Brian and Jane were unaware that Paula's character was Chaotic Neutral (they thought she was True Neutral), and so her actions seemed less chaotic and more crazy to them. When Paula explained they'd misremembered her alignment, it was like a lightbulb went on.

Paula, Jane, Brian, and Mr. Chat discussed what they wanted out of the dark creeper encounter, and what had brought the session to such a screeching halt. During the dark creeper encounter, Paula's character had discussed her intentions in a language only half the party spoke (Mr. Chat and Jane's character), which had added to the impression that she was going about things randomly to Brian's character.

With everyone's intentions and the consequences for each thing fully explained (everyone hadn't realized that turning the dark creeper over to either the Shadow Thieves or the Watch would result in exposing the party's secrets), the group had a much better idea of how they would go about handling their prisoner.

Everything thusly discussed, I said I'd rewind the encounter to when they first start talking about what to do with the dark creeper, and we'd go from there. A do-over. And everyone seemed good with that.

Also, I received apologies from Paula, Jane, and Brian for the whole situation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need a drink.

*flops on the floor*