D&D General Who “owns” a PC after the player stops using them?

[Irlo]

The bolded is in fact exactly how I've always viewed it, and I don't consider it an insane theory. So yes, the character is being taken from one world and dropped into another.

And it's not a multiverse theory, it's a universe theory: uni means 'one'. Makes a lot of things way simpler to grok, at least for me. When my character stands outside at night on its game world and looks up into the sky, the stars he sees might very well have other DMs' game worlds orbiting around them.

I got this idea from my first DM, who was doing his masters in astronomy at the time, when he showed us a picture of a real star and said "that's where my setting's planet is". I think he even tried designing star charts and constellations based on what you'd see if looking from that location in space, though I'm not sure how far he ever got with it. I just took this concept one step further by thinking "well, if his world can be out there, wny can't all of them?", and went from there.

I'll just point out that you didn't ask my permission to imagine my entire campaign world (and, not incidentally, all my players' PCs in it) to be part of your game universe. Fortunately, what you imagine in your game doesn't affect what I and my players imagine in my game, so you're on solid ethical and legal ground.

 

[MNblockhead]

The days of the dm taking a sheet and ripping it up are hopefully not a thing.

Of course. I can afford a shredder now.

 

[MNblockhead]

"couldn't use the character". Mate, they killed him off, the characters encountered the body and had a whole episode of how sad it was that he died. (All after the player had left).

Meanwhile the original player claims his character teleported away, so in this case it looks like Mercer took the character in a completely different direction to what the player wanted? I mean, we were told that was what the player wanted, sure...

Oh, interesting. I didn't know the whole story. I thought there were some IP issues that prevented them from using the character later in the campaign, other campaigns, in their cartoon, etc.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And yet they belong to you anyway, like it or not.

More to the point, I don't believe it. I also don't think outside of a financial or legal sense, anyone else does. People can make counter-claims all they want, but at best, I care only mildly.

(In case the above doesn't make it clear, I'm not talking legal issues here; I don't consider them for the most part relevant in this context).

 

[Lanefan]

You don't get to control my game or dictate what I can or can't do, though. If you make a PC in my game, it's a part of my game world and that doesn't end when you get up and go. Nor am I forbidden from accessing that part of my game.

I get to control my character in your game, though; and that control extends beyond my time at the table.

 

[greymist]

Unless the DM who used that character has an insane multiverse theory that their game is always interconnected with all the other D&D worlds and your PC was literally plopped down from their home world and transported into theirs, what you have is always a copy or clone situation.

I agree fully that this ‘theory’ is bizarre, at best.

You don't get to control my game or dictate what I can or can't do, though. If you make a PC in my game, it's a part of my game world and that doesn't end when you get up and go. Nor am I forbidden from accessing that part of my game.

Again, I agree fully.

Perhaps because I have been playing this game for a long time (46 years , give or take) and I default to more old school views, I have a lot of difficulty understanding the concept of ‘owning’ a make-believe character that consists of some numbers and scrawls on a sheet of paper.

I recall reading about character sheets being torn up by the DM when a character died, but I don’t recall ever seeing that happen. I would find that disrespectful because some players (me) spent way too much time getting their home made sheets to be just right; but more importantly, that character sheet would go into the binder to possibly be used in another game. Maybe even with the same DM, just not in the game where they died. This was typical for my gaming in the late 70’s and 80’s.

If a player ghosts my game, I NPC the character until there is a convenient point to remove it from the game. And that might mean the character retires to a farm, or a 10 tonne rock falls on him, or possibly having them become the new BBEG, depends on my needs for the game.

If a player advises they are leaving the game I will let them remove their character as they see fit; this has most often been a glorious death. In that case the PC is gone. Unless I need a friendly ghost.

If a player wants to play the exact same character in another game while playing it in my game; I don’t care, and unless I was involved in the other game, how would I know? The player would just have to make sure they keep the version of the character in my game consistent.

It’s just a make-believe character in a make-believe world, in a game of make-believe.

 

[Ondath]

The bolded is in fact exactly how I've always viewed it, and I don't consider it an insane theory. So yes, the character is being taken from one world and dropped into another.

And it's not a multiverse theory, it's a universe theory: uni means 'one'. Makes a lot of things way simpler to grok, at least for me. When my character stands outside at night on its game world and looks up into the sky, the stars he sees might very well have other DMs' game worlds orbiting around them.

I got this idea from my first DM, who was doing his masters in astronomy at the time, when he showed us a picture of a real star and said "that's where my setting's planet is". I think he even tried designing star charts and constellations based on what you'd see if looking from that location in space, though I'm not sure how far he ever got with it. I just took this concept one step further by thinking "well, if his world can be out there, wny can't all of them?", and went from there.

While I respect whichever cosmology you use for your games, you have to admit this is a very strange and uncommonly held ontology for fiction. Batman has a thousand different variations (Silver Age, New 52, Modern, 90s Animated Series, Nolan, Snyderverse, Arkhamverse...) and nobody thinks it's the same Batman that's plopped from one universe to another in each adventure. People realise there are different canons, and I think the mainstream view of D&D universes is that each GM has a different canon. Nobody says your Greyhawk can't have a sane and happy Mordenkainen because he shows up mad and amnesiac in an official 5e adventure. Are we infringing on Gygax's wishes when we have Mordenkainen appear as an NPC in our adventures?

If anything, I'd say that the idea of an official, unchanging lore for characters is really a modern thing with the advent of copyright laws. With folk stories, it's common to have a thousand stories about the same character that contradict each other. Because there was no "copyright holder" to establish which version of the character was "canon", but people just kept telling the stories that were liked and the bad ones fell into irrelevance.

 

[tetrasodium]

I get to control my character in your game, though; and that control extends beyond my time at the table.

That applies in reverse to the gm's game world. Nothing in the phb or dmg suggests otherwise in any form that doesn't require gm telepathy. Absent mind reading it's on a player to reveal that they expect the GM to give up that reversed application and be ready to walk or be told to walk for that particular red flag if the gm is unwilling to give up having that courtesy returned.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I run an ongoing campaign world, it's been going for decades. When a PC retires at the end of a campaign they usually have attained a position of power and importance in the game. I find it mindboggling that if Bob the Fighter becomes King Bob that the best option is to have him never appear in any future campaign? If any player had that sort of request of me I'd be, "Sure, if that's what you want. But it means your character's only outcome is either death or wandering off and never being heard of again." I just can't square the idea of "my character should impact the world he exists in" with "I don't want him to ever appear if I can't play him as a PC".

 

[Maxperson]

I get to control my character in your game, though; and that control extends beyond my time at the table.

In fact, it doesn't extend beyond that time. You get to control your current and retired PCs only while you are at the table. The instant you leave my game and cease being a player in it, they are characters not controlled by a player and there are only two categories. Characters controlled by a player are PCs. Characters not controlled by a player are NPCs.