[tnone]

"Stop, apologize, until you understand what you did was wrong."

The OPs coworkers are pulling the most obvious high school mean girls routine, and OP must grovel to be let back in? F that. It's just a game, and instead of giving the new person some leeway they close ranks. That work environment sounds terrible, petty and uncooperative.

How about _they_ stop and apologize for being immature children.

[dkersten]

It goes both ways.

"It's just a game" -- a game that the other people were invested in (emotionally and time-wise: he said that they had already played 3 sessions). If you spent three multi-hour sessions doing something and then a new member you invited wrecks it, wouldn't you be unhappy too?

Taking it one step further, he said " the rest was clearly disgusted" and yet didn't think that maybe what he was doing would be a problem? He could have simply asked the group at this point.

Sure, the colleagues didn't react professionally, but this guy messed up big time and seemingly didn't even notice that he did. A very quick and simple solution likely would have been to simply apologise the next day. "Hey, I'm really sorry about last night, I thought I was roleplaying my character and got carried away and didn't realise it would cause heartache." likely would have went a long way to smooth things over.

[tnone]

If they were good sports they could've gotten their revenge in the fictional realm. Or the DM could've intervened. As explained, there was an unspoken rule broken, and the response was to escalate to complete silent treatment and ostracization.

What bugs me most is the idea that OP demonstrated untrustworthiness and therefor the reaction outside the game is justified. The complete opposite is true: the clique demonstrated an inability to separate fiction from reality. If this is how they react, what do you think would happen if something actually goes wrong at work? Do you think they would suddenly drop the backstabby attitude, examine things without pointing fingers, and communicate openly about what needs doing?

I've been down that road before. Complete shitshow. Resentment only builds, and saving face takes priority over putting out fires. If the company starts having 2-3 hour vision meetings in times of trouble instead of making action plans, run away, the cancer has gotten to the brain and is fatal.

[dkersten]

I'm not disagreeing. You're absolutely right that the other people reacted badly or could have done more to prevent things from deteriorating so far. Like I said, it goes both ways and I feel that either side could have defused the situation.

But since the guy was asking for help, I think it's fine to focus on what that guy could do. Perhaps I shouldn't have focused so much on what he should have done in the past.

[namlem]

No, OP was definitely being a dick. Giving him the silent treatment like that is immature, but OP should apologize.

[rhexs]

Agreed. If this is such a big deal to the group (...) have the DM create a magical resurrection quest so they can all get the sticks out of their asses. Let me guess, the "purity" of the game won't let them do that?

The solution here is finding new friends at work. The only thing the poster has lost is time.

[watwut]

It is pretty likely that they just did that and continue as if the session did not happen. They however don't want to play more socialise with him. Likely, and i am just guessing here, the issue is not just characters death, but also the way it played out.

According to his account, he noticed the other players were "disgusted" - something he decided to ignore. I dont know how their diagust manifested, but people who ignore shared disgust for their own fun are no fun to role play with. The disgusted group members likely said things that were ignored by him - did not lead to discussion nor two way attempt to undestand expectations. Their concerns were ignored.

This combined with the fact that he did not tried to talk with them afterwards to explain himself (not the same as apologise) makes me think the dudes social skills are not the best in town. He might have come across way more dismissive or insulting as he thinks.

When one player does his own thing with zero regards to how other players want to play or what they consider fun, the game becomes drainig to everyone else. I would expect conflict after such play and it is quite likely the mentioned disgust was that conflict - and the way it did not solved made people wanna socialize with less difficult people.