A question I've had simmering in the back of my mind for a couple decades

[Hypersmurf]

The first half of my gaming career was an interesting time - same group, 3 or 4 rotating DM's, same campaign world. We all had 2 or 3 (or some of us, more) rotating characters in a couple genres, which we would play depending on how we felt. Most of our characters, even a new one we wanted to start up, started at first level and were just nursemaided along until they caught up to a reasonable level of competence.

That sounds a lot like the group I started with... my parents' group, in fact. (I look back and cannot believe a bunch of people in their mid-twenties - early thirties tolerated a six year old playing with them!)

Except the concept of a "campaign world" didn't really exist. Basically, someone would run a module or a homebrew adventure, and when they got to within a session or two of the end, someone else would say "I've got something I want to run - it's 5th to 7th level", and when the current adventure ended, the DM role would pass, and everyone would find a character in their folder who probably wouldn't die in a 5th-7th level adventure.

Characters always worked their way up from 1st level. So since I was new, I ended up taking a 1st level fighter through a 5th level module... and actually survived until the last combat, where the BBEG dropped a fireball. Made my save, and ended up on -13 anyway.

I also adopted a 4th level cleric that had been played by several players in the past... so after a few years both the original (raised) fighter and the cleric were in the 7th-9th range, and I had a couple of 3rd-4ths, and obviously an inexhaustible supply for the low-level adventures.

It never seemed weird to us that there would be a group of eight characters in the Desert of Desolation one week, and then the next week three of those characters and five completely different characters would be heading into a swamp together. Since there was no campaign, there was no need for campaign continuity...

But I don't think I could play the same way any more. Times have changed, somehow.

-Hyp.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Have you ever experienced this? Does this practice continue?

Quasqueton

Yep. And no so much. I have a player who's GMing a PC from another campaign right now, but in that particular instance I know the character, the player, and his old GM (who's now playing in MY game). Mind you, his back story has changed, but the stats are the same.

Even then though, I reviewed the character first, before giving my full go ahead. I NEVER let anyone's character's in unreviewed - for all the reasons stated.

 

[Matafuego]

It happenned while I was a player and it went awfully wrong... The DM degenerate a totally normal campaign into a quest for power and pretty much all of it was because of the DM's disregard of the actual rules (I was an 8th level wizard who could cast 8th level spels...) and the Guy who joined was a Uber-High Level immune to everything and with infinite wishes and bags of recharging and bags of duplicating and stacking rings of multiplying damage...
It was awful...

On another campaign I played and 11th level wizard with some 7/9th party and it went ok (I had more roleplaying experiences than the rest of the group and even the DM who was one of my best friends and players) but I just stood there giving advices and eventually blasting big things off...

And as a DM I would love to import another character, maybe through some plane hopping thing... just to see how it works out (although the only time someone tried to do that it was with an almost all 18 elf... I said no, appearently he rolled 4 18's and 2 17's, I believe that but IMC it's a no no unless I witness every dice roll =\)

 

[tarchon]

Yeah, I remember it. It always seemed to make for some really goofy PCs.
"I'd like to bring my psionicist into your game."
"Well, we don't use psionics."
"She could be from another dimension."
"Hrm... uh... er.... I guess."

 

[milotha]

We did this fairly frequently back in 1ed and 2ed. I gamed with several groups of gamers and we all pretty much knew eachother's gaming stye and characters. You could bring in another character from another campaign as long as you had played it up from 1st level. The player would show the character sheet to the GM who was allowed to over-rule any power or item that the character had that they felt would be unbalancing. The player was then allowed to decide if the still wanted to play the character with those changes. This didn't happen very often, but it prevented party inbalances.

The advantage of allowing characters in from other campaigns is that you get more characters with more fleshed out backgrounds and specific experiences, and the player already knows how to run the character. I haven't seen this practice in 3ed so far.

 

[Altalazar]

I did that a lot in my earlier days, when I gamed a lot in college.

That was all pretty much 1E. People had their characters of various levels and someone would run an adventure and we'd all just sort of bring our characters together and play with them.

Nobody really cheated or anything - not that it would matter that much - we just had fun playing.

After a while, we had been doing it so long that pretty much all of our "stock" of characters had played with just about every one elses' at one time or another. And we were all familiar with everyone's characters, even though we still didn't have a set "group."

When 2E came out, I started a new campaign with all characters made together. We still played 1E too, under the old "mix-and-match." Pretty much since then, that is how we've done it for all new campaigns - characters all made together, with backgrounds meshing, as part of starting a new campaign. I like that best and would only play that way now - but I still did enjoy the 1E days of using various characters.

 

[jstater]

A different time

When I began playing in the 1980's, D&D was still very much about dungeons. Greyhawk and the Known World were there, but took a backing role in the game to "the Dungeon". It was more about DM's inventing increasingly nasty dungeons, getting harder each level you went down, where characters would gain XP and treasure. Why were the monsters and treasure there? Didn't really matter. It was more roll- then role-playing, which was perfect for 12 to 15 year old kids. I think that this style of D&D has now been transferred to computer games, which are more prize- and combat- oriented. When a CPU is your DM, there's not usually much room for acting. This has left the pen & paper games more focused on playing a role and interacting with a world, thus making immigrant characters a less attractive (to the DM, anyways) option. Anyhow, just my opinion.

 

[BlackMoria]

I did it and still do it. I have a binder of some 60 odd characters that I have played over some 25+ years.

If I play in a 'one shot' or as a short term guest at a table (I travelled alot in the past and had a knack for finding a game to sit in on), I would offer a existing character for the DM's approval with the following caveat - the DM approved the character (stats, level, etc) and the DM approved what equipment the character was allowed to retain for the adventure.

As to why? - one factor is convience. Why roll up a character of level X and equipment and come up with a character history when I got a character 'hot' out of the binder. But the main reason for me is that I hated rolling up a character of whatever level and then had to make up whatever answers to the usual questions players have their characters ask of the 'new guy'. I know the history of all the characters I have played. So if I was allowed to play character 'X' and character 'X' was allowed to keep his Frost Brand; I could explain exactly how character 'X' acquired the Frost Brand and who his companions were and what foes were defeated in acquiring said Frost Brand.

Part of it was a form of personal conceit - I pride myself on playing characters that started at 1st level. I just don't like being told to create a character of level 'X', because that character, to me, is not as 'geninue' as a character 'hard worked' up from 1st level.

But that is my reasons. Others who do this may have other motivations....

 

[Mark]

Edena of Neith...

Edena of Neith...

Please, pick up the nearest courtesy phone...

Edena of Neith...

 

[Steverooo]

This happened all the time, and still does, today... Especially in online play. Since I have a character that I had to type in (again) at 7th level, I also have him at 1-6th, as well. Soon, I should have him at 8th, as well.

Online, especially, there is almost no difference between PCs created for this game, and ones imported from elsewhere... The only problems occur with "Prestige" Classes (which I avoid), new spells and/or Feats (likewise), DM fiats (special powers, etc.; which I note, but allow the new GM to disallow), the occasional differences in rules interpretations, and campaign-specific items. The only unavoidable problems are the rules interpretation types.

Since character development is a major part of the game, for me, creating new PCs for every game is detrimental to my enjoyment. If I have to create a new PC for a D&D game (when I already have one or more of appropriate level), it just isn't worth it, to me, to play. I'll just wait for another game...