I don't feel the need to stop playing just because of tension between players. I know I have historically been able to play well in games even when I had issues with other players in the game, even if I end up being more negative than usual.
I guess the way I'm looking at it is that this isn't just tension between players. Past games always have that and we do get through fine.
This is more tension from the high activity, getting used to the play styles of the new players (and possibly continued runoff from earlier in the game), tensions from new players not adapting to the game well as well as the amount of inactivity we get, tension from the overall amount of players where we've had to already replace 4 just within/after the first phase as well as actually
modkill a couple of inactives...
And then the tension from arguing on top of all of that causing some players to just hit their emotional peak.
I hate saying this as a usual host myself, but at this point I'm mainly just waiting for another heated argument to happen or for even more people to say that they're quitting because of emotional fatigue...and don't think I didn't ponder it myself at first (But because I was supposed to be represnting us in the Championships, I tried to hold it down).
At this point, it might just be better if we step away...but since that usually kills the game in its tracks anyways, stepping away for good and revisiting the idea in the future seems the most logical.
On the note of Laurentus's added bit, a few days respite could work too, just give people a chance to wind down a bit.