Everyone has said all the things needed to kick this guy out of a Role Playing Game. But in an office enviro, that can be trouble as he may hang out at the edges and cause problems anyway.
You might consider a boardgame like Arkham Horror or some other game that you have. In something like that, he can't be king of the hill an king of his own little world.
The only problem I can possibly see is him acting weird like you said and acting things out that are not in the game.
You would almost have to find a game that you all liked that was simple enough that He could not Over Kill.
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All you need to deal with this guy is a stern gm style.
Repeatedly Split the party? Repeated Solo-derailment?
Tell him the story is happening where the other players are and he'll get to spend his characters life in a grey blob of uneventfullness till he decides to rejoin the party. If he gets angry his choices are to obey you or decide leave, one way or other, problem solved. This is my favorite because it means the player himself makes the decicion and you dont need to banish him, the decision to obey or leave is his own.
Party conflict?
Tell the other players, with him present, "This character is obviously disruptive to your party, your characters see that, I wnt you to collectively decide a course of action and follw it to the letter." Commonly the resault is some form of banishment or collective bullying, at least the frustrated players get to vent a bit on the problem player and the problem player probably feeds on conflict anyway, if he doesnt like it he allways has the option of leaving, if this happens it again is not your directly ousting him, even he should see that him being harmfull to the party means the party migth harm him back.
Party killing?
What is the premise of the story? Make the players agree on the limits for PvP. If the players agree "no pvp" then he simply cant do it, dont describe a silly in-game forcefiled, just tell him out of game that he just wont be allowed and if he insists tell him that hes just not playing in the right group and should confrom or leave, his choice.
Glory hogging?
Tell him "Shut up please, its not your turn right now, youll get yours again in a moment". If he responds by making his events drawn out and long then just cut into them forcefully with cutscenes and cliffhangers, for example: "Then I vault onto the plank and run up over th-" "And at that moment you fade to black as Chris's character is about to find out what his search of the Prince´s coffort turned up!".
This kind of scene-cutting helps him maintain his own fantasy, by underlining his activites with special effects he might just be content to look forward to his turn again rather then but into his coplayers playtime. If that doesnt work tell him "Dude, you talk so much I cant hear what Chris's character is trying to do! Its his turn so pipe down or something bad will happen to your character!". If he takes offence to your reprimanding him its again his choice to leave, not yours.
Character swapping.
Adopt a loose rule where you wanr your players that introducing new characters will take time. Play it loose at first, but the first time the problem player forces a character change so he can powerplay better make him sit in the "grey zone of inactivity" till you finally decide his guy shows up, making him wait 2-3 hours everytime he introduces a new character should break the habit.
If he takes offence at how you and your players react to him, tell him you dont care outright, tell him its a game, and that hes NOT THE ONLY PLAYER, if he cant play by the GM's rulings then he just cant play. At. All. If he continues being difficult just keep playing it stern. When he finally breaks and makes the desicion to leave the table, there it is, all the reason you need to ban him forever. "You walked away yourself man, you didnt like the way we play then and you wont now." The only reply that youre supposed to listen to then is "Thats OK, I can change my style to fit in." A reply which is next to as good as "Im sorry, I will do better.".
If you know this guy personally I would try and oust him as quickly as possible. People can tire of each other, even close friends, and when that happens you should get some temporary distance between you before the relationship chafes.
We had a guy who did that, and also insisted everything should be either Dr Who themed, or actually involve Dr Who - when it wasn't Star Trek.
I'd be concerned that someone who has that play style would have a similar work style. He does not sound like a team player, from that description.
Everyone has said all the things needed to kick this guy out of a Role Playing Game. But in an office enviro, that can be trouble as he may hang out at the edges and cause problems anyway.
Then you can get him fired, and REALLY not have to put up with his crap anymore.
I'd boot him, be direct. He's not making it fun for anyone.
This maybe my human services background speaking, and I don't mean to offend, but by your description, it almost sounds like he may have Asperger Syndrome.
Ok, i have asburgers syndrome, and i do get like this, to a degree.
I get jealous of other players, insecure and worried about what will happen to them, or that I'm not filling my niche well enough.
Like playing a fighter and being outclassed by the paladin- i instantly feel worthless.
However, i cope. I deal with the issue.
The worst I've done is complain out of Character. My ooc insecurities rarely affect my character.
I have an issue with a player in our group who always seems to be the source of conflict. He creates damaging levels of in party conflict, seems to go out of his way to derail the plot (for our primary GM as well as myself now), takes role-play to a socially awkward almost pathological level, and is also generally difficult to deal with out of game. He's like a power-gaming thespian rules-lawyering antagonist extraordinaire. Normally we'd just not allow him to play anymore, but we have sessions during downtime at work... so it would almost be more awkward to leave him out.
His characters are always min-maxed to the extreme. While the rest of the group is content with above average fantasy adventurer status, he always wants to be like a demigod. If he fails at anything he starts to get petulant and look for ways to off the character or remove them from the party... usually at the expense of other players (he's very fond of murdering our characters in their sleep.)
He uses every little excuse he can find to cause conflict and always goes from zero to sixty. You're character talks down to him: "How dare you, I'm going to kill you." You accidentally set of a trap: "You tried to kill me! Better not go to sleep tonight!" You heal somebody else first: "I guess I'm not important to you, see if I help you when you need it." The party doesn't go where he wants: "I'm going to go off on my own." And every single loot drop is a knockdown drag out argument that nearly gets somebody killed. Every. Single. One.
His RP is also weird and extreme... he always makes characters that have some sort of companion and then likes to have drawn-out sidebar conversations with them, out loud, in front of the group, often in a made up language, and acts like we're ruining his day if we don't entertain his odd asides... as if his make believe conversations are somehow world changing.
He also rules lawyers to the extreme... everyone else just rolls with it if our normal GM or I fudges something for story purposes or makes up...
That does sound like a frustrating and awkward situation. The combination of the weird RP like that mixed with the focus on mechanics and other elements seems like a bit of an unusual combination of behavioral features as well. What are your (or if you've spoken to him about it, what are his) thoughts about the motivation behind these behaviors?
And when you said he's difficult to deal with out of game, does that extend to the professional/work domain as well as the social domain?
I'd boot him, be direct. He's not making it fun for anyone.
This maybe my human services background speaking, and I don't mean to offend, but by your description, it almost sounds like he may have Asperger Syndrome.
Ok, i have asburgers syndrome, and i do get like this, to a degree.
I get jealous of other players, insecure and worried about what will happen to them, or that I'm not filling my niche well enough.
Like playing a fighter and being outclassed by the paladin- i instantly feel worthless.
However, i cope. I deal with the issue.
The worst I've done is complain out of Character. My ooc insecurities rarely affect my character.
I apologize if I made you feel singled-out. However, people are unique and react differently to various 'things'.
The individual described in the OP could very well just be a dick.
The OP just reminded me of case studies and couldn't help myself. Not excusable, but it is what happened.
Yeah i have to agree with everyone saying if this guy is as immature as he seems, i would advocate just ceasing to play at work instead of excluding him from the work games, There is no end to the amount of drama that he could cause if you actually just said he wasn't allowed to play there anymore.
Maybe pick up something else to entertain yourselves with your downtime, and leave the Roleplaying among the rest of your group out of work? a board game or something? maybe have a friend bring in an Xbox if that's allowed?
Many people above suggest talking to him first, aside, out of game.
I disagree. In most cases I would agree, but this guy is clearly a jack-wagon who cannot be reasoned with. No amount of talking will smooth his roughness.
My buddies have a pretty large group of friends who all roleplay and we've crystallized our preferred group from among that group. There are a couple of our buddies who simply can't play nice. LOTS of what you described above resembles a couple of our gaming friends. We simply do not play with them anymore. You can't change people.
Bad habits die hard. One or two behaviors you might could attempt to address. All of the things you mentioned in the original post? No way.
Tell him straight up "you are not welcome to play in my game anymore. You are too selfish and you don't play well in a group"
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Seeing posts like this makes me happy I've been gaming with pretty much the same group of people for 25+ years. (give or take the new boyfriend/girlfriend/wife)
I've had only a single incident with a truly BAD player, and that player's character was killed by a more experienced player's character (after said player tried to sneakily attack her)in the game and he was ejected from play permanently. When he "Cleaned up his act" and tried to rejoin months later, it was put to a group vote, and it was decided that we had much more fun playing without him and he pretty much had himself to blame.
Sometimes you have to be the "Bad Guy" and deal with the problem at its source, and this guy seems pretty useless at every aspect of team play.
Its time to send him packing.
The man goes out purposely to derail and grief the other players, his aim is to be disruptive and realise he is bullying your other players with threats/actions.
These actions are unacceptable in any other activity, why should he get away with it in Pathfinder. Give him the ultimatum shape up or ship out, ask the group to see where they stand.
The fact of life is there are people who should not be invited to certain events.
different people look for different things in a game. Some look for silliness, some more serious. It REALLy sounds like he's a bad fit for the group. Still... I'd let him know up front that he's making the game 'difficult' for the rest.
Ohhh
and 'killing people in their sleep' is flat out being a jerk. He MAY not realize that some people actually put time and energy into making a character... Some people don't!