Trading Characters

[SnowleopardVK]

There's always a degree of danger in letting someone else play your character. Of course there's also always a degree of danger in playing your character yourself, but something unfortunate happens to them in someone else's hands, the feeling is worse.

Despite this, I let my DM play my bard for a level when he wanted to, and I took over as temporary DM. Four encounters later he had gotten my character diseased and she was slowly mutating into a tentacled outsider. By the time they levelled, which was when I resumed control of her, she'd lost all her hair. Fortunately the disease had been healed before she'd begun growing face-tentacles.

So in this case, she just adopted an attitude of "it's just hair, it'll grow back". After all, they saved a man's soul by not abandoning their mission to seek healing the moment she contracted the disease. As my character though, her design is essentially changed now.

That's just one example of something happening when you let someone else play your character. Anyone have other stories? Or do you not let other people touch your characters no matter what?

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

As a rule of thumb, we usually just either leave them behind safe and sound at an inn, or play them as an NPC if someone is missing that session. If they are being played by someone else I think it comes down to the DM "taking it easy" on that character so as to not kill it off and having the Player coming back to a dead character.

I've never traded my PC to another player to DM or vice versa, it's just something I wouldn't do. I'd have a temporary character ready to go instead of doing it and have the PC go off on an errand that earns them the same XP, but w/o the danger of dying because someone isn't playing them.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

We had a player come in as our Cleric and he played pretty well for the two sessions he showed up two. As our group was a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Rogue, and a Monk, we needed the Cleric, so I took over the Cleric's character, under the assumption that the player was coming back. He did not.

We leveled after the first sessions I ran the Cleric, so I didn't do anything drastic. When the player stopped answering emails about the gaming sessions, I basically took over the character as my own. Instead of being a straight HealBot, he's also becoming something of a summoner whose favorite animal to summon is a celestial wolverine, which has been dubbed 'the honey badgers,' because it gives no f*cks about what's in front of it.

In my 3/3.5 campaign, I had been running a Dwarven Cleric and I had to miss a session because I was sick. In my absence, the party almost killed him because there were no other spellcasters in the party, so nobody had any idea on how or when to cast spells like flame strike. He turned into a HealBot and that was it and the entire party got their asses kicked. After that, I said that if I missed a session, my character missed it too.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

We had a player come in as our Cleric and he played pretty well for the two sessions he showed up two. As our group was a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Rogue, and a Monk, we needed the Cleric, so I took over the Cleric's character, under the assumption that the player was coming back. He did not.

We leveled after the first sessions I ran the Cleric, so I didn't do anything drastic. When the player stopped answering emails about the gaming sessions, I basically took over the character as my own. Instead of being a straight HealBot, he's also becoming something of a summoner whose favorite animal to summon is a celestial wolverine, which has been dubbed 'the honey badgers,' because it gives no f*cks about what's in front of it.

In my 3/3.5 campaign, I had been running a Dwarven Cleric and I had to miss a session because I was sick. In my absence, the party almost killed him because there were no other spellcasters in the party, so nobody had any idea on how or when to cast spells like flame strike. He turned into a HealBot and that was it and the entire party got their asses kicked. After that, I said that if I missed a session, my character missed it too.

Was going to give you XP, but apparently I gave you some in a diff post. I'll have to just say that I may have to steal that character idea of using a "honey badger" for my cleric when he can summon monster III! Sounds like a lot of fun because right now he's just a bit of comic relief and the healbot.

 

[SiderisAnon]

In college I had a fighter-type who carried a blade that had been passed down through his family. It wasn't magical, just a sword with story. I may have paid extra to make it fancier. (This was before masterwork.)

I missed a session and when I came back the sword was shattered because the GM had been running the character and had him use it to chop through a log in a competition to prove manhood to some NPCs or some such. (Not a single swipe, but the kind of thing that requires multiple minutes of chopping.) I was rather angry about that.



On the flip side, in an evil game I was running that came to an end right before the end of the year, the guy who had missed several sessions while he was out of town effectively "won the campaign" while he was gone. One of the PCs had been assassinated by the party early in the night, so I had him play the out of town player's PC in a fight against some big monsters that were attacking. (They really didn't want to down both their two biggest damage dealers for that fight.) One of the other PCs decided that the end of the battle, with everyone badly damaged, was the perfect time to assassinate a few more people between him and the throne. This backfired and the PC of the guy who wasn't at the game was the last one standing, with one hit point left.

He took the crown and won the campaign.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

Was going to give you XP, but apparently I gave you some in a diff post. I'll have to just say that I may have to steal that character idea of using a "honey badger" for my cleric when he can summon monster III! Sounds like a lot of fun because right now he's just a bit of comic relief and the healbot.

Yeah, I've summoned the 'honey badger' a couple of times. The first time was awesome, because it appeared behind a mid-level guy and his henchman and managed to claw/claw/bite one of the henchmen into kibble and the DM decided that the wolverine's arrival left the bad guys flat-footed. That next round was full of win for us.

The second time was not so awesome. We're playing Rise of the Runelords and there's a hill or stone giant (it's been a while since our last session) and I decided sure, why not? Unfortunately, it really couldn't hit the giant's AC without a critical hit and the giant hit it once and it went kersplat.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Yeah, I've summoned the 'honey badger' a couple of times. The first time was awesome, because it appeared behind a mid-level guy and his henchman and managed to claw/claw/bite one of the henchmen into kibble and the DM decided that the wolverine's arrival left the bad guys flat-footed. That next round was full of win for us.

The second time was not so awesome. We're playing Rise of the Runelords and there's a hill or stone giant (it's been a while since our last session) and I decided sure, why not? Unfortunately, it really couldn't hit the giant's AC without a critical hit and the giant hit it once and it went kersplat.

That was cool of the DM to give the flat footed to the first group of enemies w/ the honey badger.

We have a druid in our group that likes to summon a lot, he usually summons dogs though and they actually really helped us out in one of our major battles last session. They go kersplat pretty easy though! I say better the summoned creatures than the PCs.

 

[Virel]

I have done this many times with mixed results. Often it's not much of an issue with a melee type PC. The real problems only happened with the caster type PC's.

2004 - AD&D - Marina
Another player was running my PC. The player had my PC try on a necklace found in the treasure. It was a necklace of strangulation. Dead 1st level pc. The DM being the nice guy he was allowed a Resurrection to return the PC to life...and I only had to payback the 100000gp bill. This took four real years of playing about ten of game time. A few players actually had their PC's help my PC pay the debt back otherwise it would have taken longer. This PC knows the meaning of being poor. The PC is still one of my active PC's. Now a 13th level assassin/18th level magic user. Sometimes the player mentioned below will end up controling this PC but that's pretty rare these days. He almost got her killed last month.

2007-AD&D-Alathane
I was DMing Against the Giant's. The players wanted my PC a cleric/magic user to go along as the heal bot. The player careless left the C/M exposed in the open when the rest of the party hid. Missle fire killed the C/M. They tried to raise him but he later failed resurrection roll.

2008-AD&D-Agathon
Replace PC also a C/M. We had wrapped up Dragon Mountain. My coDM had ran it over several months. To allow her a chance to play, I DM'd the return trip home. A nasty encounter occured. The player that had gotten the 1st C/M killed was controlling this one. I assumed wrongly he would be careful. The C/M was played aggressively and ended up in melee. He died. They were on a different plane and Agathon had defied his deity in going on the Dragon Mountain adventure. Resurrection disallowed due to conflict with deity.

 

[S'mon]

As DM I strongly discourage or prevent any use of PCs when the player is not present. Something happens which means the PC is not active that session.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I need to go find my old issues of Knights of the Dinner Table when the Untouchable Trio (Bob, Dave, and Brian) controlled Sara's barbarian Zayre when she was absent for a session.