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My usual response to this is 'then you've chosen to play the wrong character for this game'. Alternately, 'What my character would do is call for a vote to have yours thrown out of the group'.
I used to run a lot of superhero games, and I would frequently have to deny characters because they didn't fit the type of game I was running. To use more modern examples, if I'm wanting to run an Avengers-style game (globetrotting good-guys), then Deadpool or Wolverine or the Punisher are simply not appropriate.
Now, in something like a Vampire game, backstabbing is acceptable, perhaps even expected. In PF, not so much.
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you can always just turn around and say "our characters don't want to travel with your character" you can in-game kick him out the party. if a character does stupid things, a character will suffer the consequences. you won't work with the party then you work against the party. and the party will punish you for it.
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I've had problems with this phrase before; a player made an elf magus who was chaotic neutral (read: evil lite) and power mad (with a nice God complex to go along too), and decided to try and kill the party after all but one had been KO'd by the boss. Luckily he was stopped and killed by the player that was left, but whilst he was fighting he was told by pretty much everyone that it was a douchebag move, and when asked why he answered something along the lines of "because my character would do this, and he wants the treasure for himself."
I think that when playing Pathfinder, you have to see it as a team game for people to enjoy first and an RP second. If your character is a chaotic evil douchenozzle who would screw over friend and foe, perhaps take into account that they won't be fun for other people to play with, and so you should probably play something else (or risk becoming That Guy). After all, if people aren't having fun, what's the point of the game?
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Damn, it's been a long time since I had d-bag players in my groups who actually used lines like this. I don't miss them.
The last time I gamed with a guy like the CN magus party-killer in Euryale's story, that player (yes player, not character) was invited to find another group.
For less disruptive characters (e.g. troublemakers but not backstabbers), the players grow tired of it very quickly. No character wants to risk his life in the worst, most dangerous occupation on the most dangerous world imaginable, while having to rely on unreliable troublemakers. And most players don't appreciate the distractions to their game time, or the derailments from what the group is really trying to do. The players usually handle it themselves, but I'll step in (privately) and motivate the player to revise his character or make a more compatible one - or perhaps find a different group that better fits his play style.
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This is actually causing problems in a group I am involved with, especially because the group has seven players and most of them are, "Just playing their character." The GM encouraged such behavior at first but after admitting to him that I was thinking about leaving the group he has been rethinking the encouragement.
The solution is being honest with the group about how you want to play the game, how the current state of the game isn't allowing you to do that, and then being willing and open to thinking up ideas on how to fix it.
With my current situation the solutions were leaving the group, having others leave the group, having everyone (including me) change their play style, having people change to characters that better fit the game, and/or changing games. The GM said he was going to try and make adjustments in the game to move everyone back on track, including finding ways of encouraging us to really work as a team.
I don't know what to expect when we get back into the game but I am going to start the session by being real and honest with everyone. If they want to keep playing the way we have been I can leave so that I don't risk ruining their fun. If they are willing to make changes, I can promise to help them have a great time with it.
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This is actually causing problems in a group I am involved with, especially because the group has seven players and most of them are, "Just playing their character." The GM encouraged such behavior at first but after admitting to him that I was thinking about leaving the group he has been rethinking the encouragement.
It sounds like a case where, at the start of the campaign, everybody was not on the same page. Some players wanted to play unscrupulous jerks (encouraged by the GM who seems to be inexperienced enough to think that would lead to a good game) and some players didn't want to play that way.
This was a failure at launch. The group should have made sure everyone was on the same page.
I've been playing this game constantly and consistently for a very long time. Nearly 40 years now. I've seen every kind of group. I can say without reservation that having one player behave this way is disruptive but tolerable - each player, including the GM, must decide if they can handle the disruption or not, but if they can, the game can usually proceed. But having everybody behave this way is a campaign-breaker. It's not conducive to any long-term gaming. Reserve this for a one-off with disposable characters, but don't try this if you want a long campaign because it will cause characters to leave or die, and cause players to leave (but hopefully not die).
Accordingly, the GM should have either made sure everyone knew this was a quick one-shot adventure with 7 jerks trying to stay alive while screwing each other over, or he should have made sure nobody was "encouraged" to play this way.
Either way, all the players should have had input as to what they wanted to do and come to an agreement; those who couldn't should have realized they were in the wrong game from the start.
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I have noticed it in certain types of players. They seem to need to control everything and everyone around them or they are just there for the maximum amount of carnage. They will also use it to justify going against the party for whatever they feel they will gain.
When this happens too much with one player I will just stop playing with them.
I am lucky in that I get about 8+ games a month with widely varied groups so I can Make this choice and not stop gaming entirely.
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you're that guy that made the power tier thread...
on topic: usually this is followed by me as GM saying "and i'm just contacting the anvil plane to gate in an anvil above your character."
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"OH GOD, THE WALLS OF REALITY HAVE SUNDERED UNDER THE WITHERING GAZE OF INFINITY! MY VERY THOUGHTS ARE FORFEIT TO THE UNRELENTING MADNESS THAT DWELLS IN THE CRACKS OF TIME! ALL IS DUST!" *gibbering ensues*
"I'm just playing my character, ftagn."
(I may or may not have played characters that let things in that shouldn't be let in, to the detriment of the party)
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This is actually causing problems in a group I am involved with, especially because the group has seven players and most of them are, "Just playing their character." The GM encouraged such behavior at first but after admitting to him that I was thinking about leaving the group he has been rethinking the encouragement.It sounds like a case where, at the start of the campaign, everybody was not on the same page. Some players wanted to play unscrupulous jerks (encouraged by the GM who seems to be inexperienced enough to think that would lead to a good game) and some players didn't want to play that way.
This was a failure at launch. The group should have made sure everyone was on the same page.
I've been playing this game constantly and consistently for a very long time. Nearly 40 years now. I've seen every kind of group. I can say without reservation that having one player behave this way is disruptive but tolerable - each player, including the GM, must decide if they can handle the disruption or not, but if they can, the game can usually proceed. But having everybody behave this way is a campaign-breaker. It's not conducive to any long-term gaming. Reserve this for a one-off with disposable characters, but don't try this if you want a long campaign because it will cause characters to leave or die, and cause players to leave (but hopefully not die).
Accordingly, the GM should have either made sure everyone knew this was a quick one-shot adventure with 7 jerks trying to stay alive while screwing each other over, or he should have made sure nobody was "encouraged" to play this way.
Either way, all the players should have had input as to what they wanted to do and come to an agreement; those who couldn't should have realized they were in the wrong game from the start.
You totally got it right there. A large part of the problem was a lack of expectations being voiced and discussed. I had thought I made myself clear on the type of game I wanted to play, but it became clear in recent sessions that I didn't make those expectations clear enough.
But, I think the game can still be saved. I talked to a few of the players and they agreed with me that things need to change. The GM agreed that there was a problem and said he wanted to find a solution.
A problem like this is only deadly when you have someone unwilling to compromise, someone unwilling to discuss the problem, or both. I am pretty sure everyone is willing to listen and work something here.
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There's also a lot of flip side to this as well.
Sure you've got the Jerk-off who uses a character who he just goes on about how he's just "Playing his character" while screwing with the rest of the party. But you've also go the other guy with a character thats LG cleric of the god of mercy from the lands of mercy, who's every little bit of back story and feats are about how merciful they are.. And yet they're setting everything on fire and killing orphans brutally in the streets.
Extreme hyberbole I know, But it does happen.
In one of my games (Shadowrun), I've been constantly told not to get stuck in "Playing my character." which happens every single time I start to deviate from the rails that the GM and other players set up. To the point I've nearly stopped playing my character and just let everyone else play it for me. Because clearly, what I want to do, either as what I'd feel what my guy would do (Not go blindly charging into a group of orc gangers armed with only a smoke grenade while the rest of the party fails to negotiate to pull them out of the hole they dug) Or things I'd want to do as a player (Deliver a car bomb to the ganger's hide out later) clearly are bad wrong no good terrible.
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There's also a lot of flip side to this as well.
Sure you've got the Jerk-off who uses a character who he just goes on about how he's just "Playing his character" while screwing with the rest of the party. But you've also go the other guy with a character thats LG cleric of the god of mercy from the lands of mercy, who's every little bit of back story and feats are about how merciful they are.. And yet they're setting everything on fire and killing orphans brutally in the streets.
Extreme hyberbole I know, But it does happen.
Kind of happened the last time I played Vampire. Humanity os the system's alignment, rated on a scale of 10 (saint) to 0 (mindless monster.) My character was a Good Person to the group's average of Serial Killer. Made for an interesting dynamic until they had a... falling out. My replacement character had a bit of a Harley Quinn thing going on, and she fit right in.
We had a pretty solid collection of roleplayers, though. It helps a ton.
It's going to happen because rpg's are a chance for people to play out (act out) in ways they normally can't.
Whether that's good or bad it totally situational and depends on many factors. It's not inherently bad. And as other have posted above, there is a flip side to it where those who role-play more than roll-play can sometimes be judged or attempted to be shut down by other players &/or GM's who don't: agree with/understand your character. Especially when it is at odds with what they want to have happen.
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The counterpoint to this, is that characters should have built in drawbacks and issues.
Otherwise you end up in a game of Dungeons and Engineers where people constantly try to get the 'most gain' instead of RP correctly.
The cleric from the example, that's a bit backwards yes, but my own campaign setting has a requirement on its death goddess' followers that they properly bury (in the ocean) sentient dead creatures.
As such, barring severe issues, sapient creature's bodies have to be recovered and disposed of properly.
Post adventure: Those bandits, orcs, that dead chimera? You better have brought a cart.
Is it a pain in the butt? At times, but the important thing is that character concepts give benefits as well as drawbacks.
I'm all for 'don't be a jerk' but if the thing is if the argument against my character's actions are something like 'this is more efficient, ergo your character's deep seated beliefs or theological requirements should change' I'm going to ignore you.
I actually ran into this. I was playing a low wisdom, very lawful knight in a 3.5 game. The officials from the kingdom show up to request I surrender and submit to a trial. The party members think that something is up, and suspect corruption and so forth. My guy looks at the paperwork, its in order, he looks at the guy arresting him, he's a good guy, and promptly surrenders.
Apparently even the DM thought I was going to start something.
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The counterpoint to this, is that characters should have built in drawbacks and issues.
Otherwise you end up in a game of Dungeons and Engineers where people constantly try to get the 'most gain' instead of RP correctly.
The cleric from the example, that's a bit backwards yes, but my own campaign setting has a requirement on its death goddess' followers that they properly bury (in the ocean) sentient dead creatures.
As such, barring severe issues, sapient creature's bodies have to be recovered and disposed of properly.
Sure-- and that's all well and good. But to tie it back to the example, this is what the Cleric was doing:
1. Give the dead their last rites
2. Watch them get raised as skeletons
3. Smash the bones of those who had just been slain, in the process desecrating the hell out of their corpse
4. Kill the necromancer.Instead, he could...
1. Kill the necromancer
2. Give the dead their last rites.With a little patience, he can still carry out everything his character wants to do, but better since no smashing skeletons.
Similarly, for your death goddess' followers, I would fully anticipate that he keep a cart or similar handy and insist on making arrangements for the bodies to be sent to the ocean. And I would understand and approve of that.
If, in the middle of a fight, he starts loading bodies into the cart and then trundles off toward the ocean because "my goddess insists I do this", then there's going to be one more body in that cart. He can wait three minutes to act on his beliefs with a modicum of intelligence.
On the flip side, yes, if another party member got onto him about following his beliefs, so long as he wasn't doing so disruptively, I would be quick to defend him-- he's acting as a good follower would.
But really, I can stand a lot of 'this is what my deity demands' in RP without much drama, unless the player's really taking it way too far. Where the "I'm just playing my character" issue comes up more often is with people...
Yeah, example cleric was a jerk. We seem to be in agreement here. I was just attempting to pre-emptively point out that having character goals, outlooks or the like which rub the party the wrong way aren't always necessarilly an indicator that the player is being a jerk.
You can set out to make life difficult for everybody.
You can set out to do something and by happenstance make life difficult for everybody.
Both will defend themselves by saying 'Its what my character would do.'
Essentially its the old abusus non tolit usum thing. Abuse does not negate use.
And yeah, most of those death goddess followers in past games make sure to have a cart, or the like (current party's cleric has a bag of holding variant that literally dumps bodies into the ocean allowing for funerals-on-the-go.) The party usually groans when they just had to cleave through like hordes of zombies and now they have to attend to like 300+ corpses post-adventure, but they expect it, and the cleric's not a jerk about it (just very insistent).
I bring up that example though because in a previous game with a player of the same deity, we had a player who tried to browbeat the player into having his character abandon the faith because it "was inefficient" and would repeatedly bemoan anything the pious LG cleric said that disagreed with his vision of 'efficiency' as 'just arguing 'what my character would do.'' He didn't last long with us, thankfully.
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"I'm just playing my character" --> Oki-doki. As you wish.
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If your character is more annoyig or a hinderance, instead of an outright danger to the group ill have a vote of "Me or Him" with the rest of the party and thrown the idiot out.
Or if he is outright dangerous then dont be surprised how my character will react to a psychotic dick who has shown that i and/or my friends might very well be the next with a dagger in the back, mindslaved, sacrificed or lolrandumb murderd. You gloat, feeling so great that you intimidated all those "little sheep" that call themself fellow adventurers. Then your psycho-character goes to sleep and my character will unceremonously slit your characters throat. One more Evil defeated on the way to rescue princess Goldilocks from the evil Bandit King.
This is why i have a TN and not a NG on my character sheet.
Two can play the game of ""I'm just playing my character".
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1) Every character has a range of reactions to every situation. No you aren't limited on only putting an axe in the head of the guy you hate. You could also say some nasty epithet and stalk off to take out your aggressions somewhere else.
2) My table has a rule - all IC character conflict needs an OOC check. Every once in a while we check to see is everybody is okay with this as players. If it's getting stressful or annoying on the player side, then the IC conflict needs some modification. I also usually do this on PBP to make sure it's adding to the game.
3) Everybody needs to think about why this group is still together. If one person has a problem, then the others would probably shun them. If that person has a need to stay with the other, then they'd better learn to modify their behavior. This applies on both a character and player level.
4) In some cases you might want to do something, but if you do it in such a way that the other characters can stop you it satisfies both your needs and the group needs. The barbarian goes for his axe, but the cleric grabs his wrist before he can draw it.
About the only phrase which competes with it is "I'm a roleplayer, not a roll-player". (Generally it seems to be code for - 'my character is horribly gimped, and I'll be just as horribly offended if you either overshadow him or mention his issues'.)
*sigh* like the ranger who won't wear armor because his character pic doesn't have armor on.
This prevents not only slit throats and daggers in the back, but also duals, arrests, ejections from the party, and righteous smiting.
I believe you meant 'duels'.
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It's amusing how often this sentence is employed form players whose character's alignment is Chaotic Douche
Of course, people who never play their character can also be annoying.
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Awrite...so there I was, in one of the best 3.5 campaigns I'd ever played. I was playing a monk/kensai with a chip on his shoulder. Lots of brooding and stuff, obviously not the kind of guy to be overly jocular with. I loved all my fellow players and their characters, save one. This guy decided he wanted to play a Kender. This character existed, seemingly solely, to cause trouble. Whenever things got stupid, he'd say he was "just playing my character how she'd act." This behavior culminated when, on a long sea voyage, the Kender thought it'd be funny to steal the pouce containing my character's sister's ashes. I then proceeded to "play my character." The Kender jumped overboard to get away, and I launched myself at full monk speed off the gunwale and land on her. She was opperating with freedom of movement, so I couldn't actually choke the life out of her, but I did beat seven shades of holy hell out of her, break her limbs, and leave her to drown. The others rescued her out of principle, but she later managed to get eaten by a kraken before the voyage was over.
In conclusion: if someone is "just playing their character," feel free to return the favor. It's endlessly satisfying.
I think that having a basic "No PvP" rule can solve most of these problems, especially if it extends to not performing actions which would almost certainly result in PvP action. I don't think that a game of, "You slit my old PC's throat so now my new PC is dominating you and forcing you to eat yourself piece by piece" would make for a fun campaign. I guess if your entire group feels like dealing with that maybe that's great for you, but honestly if even one person is uncomfortable with such situations it might not be worth it.
Getting upset because somebody murdered or mutilated your character in a game might seem "immature" to some people, but it happens. Then you could have sour feelings around the table, and I don't think the freedom to play one's PC without boundaries is worth making people upset and angry.
I don't think most rational players are going to propose abandoning all characterization in the name of efficiency.
A fair number of players I know abandon most characterization for no particular reason at all.
What about situational aspects where the behavior is disruptive to the party but not intentionally douche-like?
For example, I once played a cleric in a Scarred Lands game that had a fear of spiders. It had been a while since the phobia had come up, and the GM forgot... until he threw us up against a tribe of spider goblins worshiping a colossal spider. Rather than follow standard tactics, my cleric goes berserk and charges the enemy. The GM did not expect this. My party did not expect this. And since we had a spellcaster moonlighting as a poor fighter, it really made the encounter difficult for the party. Now, this was "playing my character" but should my cleric have instead acted reasonably and rationally in this situation when he had gone berserk in far less threatening situations?
Another example. I was playing a cowardly goblin genius with a knowledge fixation. We entered a lich's library, and my character observed other characters picking up books and reading them with no problem. So he starts shoveling books into his bag of holding. Turns out picking up one book was fine, but more than one book turned the library into an animated book swarm. Party was killed. Now, it was acting in character for me to try to steal the books, but the party argued that I should have known better. Is this a case where acting in character was being a douche? Should my character have gotten some kind of Wisdom check? (Note that he was highly intelligent but had a low wisdom, so that may not have helped.) Or is there some burden on the GM not to create situations where acting in (well established) character would get the party killed?
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I think that having a basic "No PvP" rule can solve most of these problems, especially if it extends to not performing actions which would almost certainly result in PvP action.
I would rephrase that to say "ONLY if it extends to not performing actions which would almost certainly result in PvP action." Because no PvP rules only benefit the griefer unless you manage to curtail their behavior. If a character is going to do something that would get themselves beat down, they deserve to be beat down.
If you need to say, "I'm just playing my character[,]" you are probably not playing your character.
This made me remember a level 20 tournament I played in years ago, where each match was one PC vs another. There was a guy who used his three rounds of preparation at the beginning of each match to summon the three largest grappling monsters he could. This was a very effective strategy, especially against other spellcasters. His matches ended very quickly, and the other player would be visibly annoyed, to which he would mutter "Its legal... It's fair..." In the final match of the day, his monk opponent simply teleported and grappled him in the first round. The match was over very quickly but he finally lost, to which he muttered "Thats not fair..."
One person's view of what would cause PvP action could vary wildly from another's, so ultimately you'll still have to talk things out a bit. Some people will shave off your eyebrows while you're passed out. Other people find that very annoying. If you shoot somebody for shaving off your eyebrows most of your peers will likely think you've overreacted though, and the police certainly won't be amused. What is funny, tolerable, or a complete outrage will vary from table to table and player to player.
Flipping out and using poor tactics is the sort of thing which likely should make PCs mad at other PCs. Whether players should get mad at other players too might depend on the frequency and degree of the transgressions. We have one game with a guy who pretty much always charges wildly into battle while my slower melee PC in heavy armor can't even get there and participate, much less buff and wait for the enemy to come to him (as he'd prefer). The player is so enthusiastic about the PC's ability to jump that the DM sometimes puts in cliffs or ledges with monsters on them since the PC will almost certainly leap up onto them before anybody else can get there. We don't get mad as players. We just also don't put our PCs into a lot of extra danger to bail him out. He ended up unconscious almost every session until around 10th level, leaving us with just two PCs to handle the rest of the enemies. At this point he seems like nearly an unstoppable powerhouse, but I figure he'll rush into a bad situation and get squashed again soon enough.
The books in the library attacking and killing the PCs before they could escape sounds more like a bad trap/encounter than a bad move by the PC, but if there were dire warnings in the game maybe it makes sense that the other players got annoyed.
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the Kender thought it'd be funny to steal the pouch containing my character's sister's ashes. I then proceeded to "play my character."I call bullcrap, such an item would make a kender cry, in fact a kender would have no desire to take such a burden of sadness from anyone.
The Kender didn't actually know what was in the bag, only that I carried it everywhere and was very solemn about it. The player, on the other hand, knew exactly what it was.
The Kender's "justification" was that she thought that my character needed cheering up and that pranks were her way of trying to do that. The player was just trying to make himself a nuisance.
What about situational aspects where the behavior is disruptive to the party but not intentionally douche-like?
For example, I once played a cleric in a Scarred Lands game that had a fear of spiders. It had been a while since the phobia had come up, and the GM forgot... until he threw us up against a tribe of spider goblins worshiping a colossal spider. Rather than follow standard tactics, my cleric goes berserk and charges the enemy. The GM did not expect this. My party did not expect this. And since we had a spellcaster moonlighting as a poor fighter, it really made the encounter difficult for the party. Now, this was "playing my character" but should my cleric have instead acted reasonably and rationally in this situation when he had gone berserk in far less threatening situations?
Another example. I was playing a cowardly goblin genius with a knowledge fixation. We entered a lich's library, and my character observed other characters picking up books and reading them with no problem. So he starts shoveling books into his bag of holding. Turns out picking up one book was fine, but more than one book turned the library into an animated book swarm. Party was killed. Now, it was acting in character for me to try to steal the books, but the party argued that I should have known better. Is this a case where acting in character was being a douche? Should my character have gotten some kind of Wisdom check? (Note that he was highly intelligent but had a low wisdom, so that may not have helped.) Or is there some burden on the GM not to create situations where acting in (well established) character would get the party killed?
Situation 1: Was it an isolated incident? If so, definitely not. If it wasn't... maybe.
Situation 2: Was there a reason you should have known better? If you ignored obvious clues, then yeah, I'd be annoyed. If not, then I'd be annoyed at the GM because yes, creating such a scenario is kind of a dick move.
Sadly. the logic was, "It was a lich's library, you should have known bad things would happen." Which is why I waited until I saw other people picking up and reading the books, but no, there was no clue given.
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What about situational aspects where the behavior is disruptive to the party but not intentionally douche-like?
For example, <snip>
Situation 1: Was it an isolated incident? If so, definitely not. If it wasn't... maybe.
Situation 2: Was there a reason you should have known better? If you ignored obvious clues, then yeah, I'd be annoyed. If not, then I'd be annoyed at the GM because yes, creating such a scenario is kind of a dick move.
Situation 1: I think this is key: frequency. If a character (or, more specifically, a player) is being disruptive or stupid on a recurring basis, then there is a problem. But a character SHOULD act rashly or illogically sometimes, it's part of the game (plus the berserk button is a time-honored trope in fiction). But, if the the character is doing it every single time, there' a problem.
Sadly. the logic was, "It was a lich's library, you should have known bad things would happen." Which is why I waited until I saw other people picking up and reading the books, but no, there was no clue given.
Then the party shouldn't be getting pissed off at you. They should either be pissed off at the GM, or pissed off at the trapfinder/whoever's supposed to be detecting magic for not noticing the magical trap.
You know, I wouldn't sit there and blame the player who rolled up a "problem-character".
I'd blame the GM who allowed the player to roll up a "problem-character" in the first place.
After all, if you guys hate characters who take detrimental actions because of how that character was designed to act, then the GM would've been smart enough to say "No, everyone else at the table will hate it and not want to play, either make something more suited to the party or GTFO of my table." Or hell, you guys would've been smart enough to at least say something to the GM, and then the above would've ensued.
And if that didn't happen, well, it sounds like that table has to be scrapped for parts.
Additionally, I don't get why inter-party conflict is such a bad thing; if done right, it can make for a great plot. If your issue is that it's executed poorly, that's a different issue from "This player is ruining my game." (Which, by the way, is also technically his game too.)
You know, I wouldn't sit there and blame the player who rolled up a "problem-character".
I'd blame the GM who allowed the player to roll up a "problem-character" in the first place.
After all, if you guys hate characters who take detrimental actions because of how that character was designed to act, then the GM would've been smart enough to say "No, everyone else at the table will hate it and not want to play, either make something more suited to the party or GTFO of my table." Or hell, you guys would've been smart enough to at least say something to the GM, and then the above would've ensued.
And if that didn't happen, well, it sounds like that table has to be scrapped for parts.
Additionally, I don't get why inter-party conflict is such a bad thing; if done right, it can make for a great plot. If your issue is that it's executed poorly, that's a different issue from "This player is ruining my game." (Which, by the way, is also technically his game too.)
Speaking from the GM perspective, you can't always catch how a character is going to act from the get-go, especially if you're dealing with some new people in the group that you haven't actually played with before. When I'm looking over characters, I'm generally going from a mechanics standpoint first to see what sort of challenges I can actually throw at them without a wholesale slaughter. The story stuff is mostly secondary and generally developed during the course of the game itself, so beyond grabbing some good tidbits from backstory, I generally just let it through.
As for players... Well, sometimes it's easier to hope that the problem goes away rather than confronting a person about their decisions. Believe it or not, us RPG players aren't always the most socially adjusted of people, and don't want to be put into the position where we have to go through an uncomfortable social situation with someone we're probably a friend with outside of the game.
Finally, we come to inter-party conflict. While there can be good inter-party conflict, it's one of those things that often just turns out to be far too much of a hassle and just stops the story in its tracks. I'll admit it can be done right, but it's hard as hell to manage that. Personally, in order to curtail this myself, every player in my group is given the provision that "Your characters should get along with the other people in the party at least most of the time." Incidentally, this came to be after one particularly disruptive player graced (and was fired from) my group.