We had a guy in our group who would find any and every reason to bail or show up late or leave a session early. When he would show up, he would just goes rogue (usually playing a rogue) and do his best to ruin the game for everyone else. There was a campaign a while back where I was playing a changeling and he/his PC knew. We were sneaking through a dungeon, my character changed into a goblin or whatever the enemies were to do some recon. He knew what clothes I was wearing and we had agreed on a signal. Also, most dungeon goblins aren't wearing cool sparkly robes. He proceeded to sneak and kill my character saying "There was no way of knowing which was which". It brought the whole good down. The DM said I could just bring the same character back, bla bla bla, but it just soured the game for me. I never understood why he acted like that, because it never seemed like he was having fun and it's not like the rest of us were.
The other "that guy" that I know has gotten better, but he had a really bad habit of taking advantage of homebrew material and hiding or fudging stats/rules. He'd always argue that he could do this or that and would fight with the DM over how much damage he could do. It was just weird, because I never got the mindset of cheating in dnd. We're all supposed to be playing the same game, chill out my dude.
Wow! Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I actually bought the Alexandrian Remix and ended up getting more intimidated than I was before, so it's comforting to know that it might be too much.
I've been on the fence between running Xanathar or the Casselanters as the villain and I think you might have pushed me towards the Casselanters. I really like the story flavor that you described. Also, the sheer amount of villains/factions have been bogging me down quite a bit and it's nice to know that I don't need to deal with all of them. That seemed way too cumbersome.
Either way, I really appreciate the advice. Thanks!
After my group finishes Ghosts of Saltmarsh in a few sessions, I will be DMing my first legit campaign and the rest of the group decided on WD: Dragon Heist. I have Dmed one beginner campaign for some of my wife's family, but it was mostly theater of the mind and messing around without much weight on strict rules. It also was fairly linear, because I was worried I'd mess something up by deviating too much from the story.
Anybody have tips on how to keep the game going smoothly without accidentally railroading? I have tweaked a few parts of the module to fit the groups play style and I think I have things set up to be a fun world, I am just worried about improvising if(when) the party undoubtedly tries some silly hoodrat nonsense.