kitsune9
Adventurer
Maybe you just need a shorter campaign setting. For example, play character A for levels 1-5, player character B for levels 6-10 in another campaign, and so on...
Can't get "into" characters...
- Thread starter Asmor
- Start date
Maybe you just need a shorter campaign setting. For example, play character A for levels 1-5, player character B for levels 6-10 in another campaign, and so on...
They may not want to switch PCs, but the act of you getting to switch can be viewed as an advantage that you get that they do not. That is why I suggested you have a disadvantage in your PCs (such as a level lower) or perhaps they get some bonus.
It really does depend on the mentality of the players.
And, another random thought, you'd have to be careful what loot you take: If you take the nifty magic items only to have that PC rotate out, that will be one less magic item that the rest of the group may have wanted but gave to you (for in character reasons) at the time.
So, yeah, I think going in under the title of DM assistant to run NPCs may be a good general way to approach it. It sets expectations accordingly. Having said that, if your particular group of players wouldn't have a problem with your changing then no need for that fancy title and just do it. Presuming the DM is okay with it as it may disrupt his train of thought if people keep switching in/out and he has to come up with reasons why the old one leaves and why the new one comes and why the new one has a valid reason to hang out with the PCs for the given adventure.
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I'm exactly the same. I'm currently on character number 5... (no wait, six)... in a group where most people were still on their first character until a few weeks ago (when we suffered a near TPK).
It's not so much that I get bored, once I get a character that I like I'll stick with them through thick and thin. It's just a matter that I often make characters who I just don't enjoy playing. It takes a few sessions for me to be sure, by which time the character is usually a part of the group and the other players get annoyed if they leave.
For example I really enjoyed the last character I was playing who died a few sessions ago. My new character is really boring to play because they are extremely overpowered. He can solve every problem that gets thrown at the group and he solves them with the same ability every time.
But he's already become the leader of the group and absolutely essential to the group's functioning. Our current quest is entirely built around this character and if he were to leave we wouldn't be able to succeed or have any current goals.
So now I'm in a catch 22 situation. Keep playing a character that bores me to tears or pretty much screw up the game if I chose to play someone new.
It's not so much that I get bored, once I get a character that I like I'll stick with them through thick and thin. It's just a matter that I often make characters who I just don't enjoy playing. It takes a few sessions for me to be sure, by which time the character is usually a part of the group and the other players get annoyed if they leave.
For example I really enjoyed the last character I was playing who died a few sessions ago. My new character is really boring to play because they are extremely overpowered. He can solve every problem that gets thrown at the group and he solves them with the same ability every time.
But he's already become the leader of the group and absolutely essential to the group's functioning. Our current quest is entirely built around this character and if he were to leave we wouldn't be able to succeed or have any current goals.
So now I'm in a catch 22 situation. Keep playing a character that bores me to tears or pretty much screw up the game if I chose to play someone new.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
What is he?
I get annoyed with players who can't settle on a PC, so this would probably be a great solution. It's a little more work for the DM, but probably worth it.
I wasn't specific because although the game once started as D&D, it's moved through True20 into a completely house-ruled system so I wanted to avoid confusing people.
My character is a scientist and pretty much every problem we encounter can be solved by me saying "I build an invention that does X, Y and Z". Which is resolved by two dice-rolls, a science skill check and a craft skill check. Since it's my characters main focus, I pretty much can't fail these checks.
I didn't realize how versatile and powerful the DM had made science in this system, because the previous scientist character the group had it was more of a secondary focus and they very rarely used it.
Recently the entire human population of the continent was transported to a deserted wasteland full of slaad with no real way of surviving.
My character has built a flying ship to carry us and the refugees in our nearby area. Now we're flying around to find everyone else stranded and invite them to join us, where they're supplied with everything they need by our party. I'm constantly expanding the flying ship to make room for all the new people and building technology to supply any need the rest of the group can't cover (we have a priest who we calculated can feed several hundred thousand with his "feed the hungry" ability and thanks to a water mage we have enough water to supply almost as many people).
We're partly so exceptionally powerful because we're 19th level now but my previous character at 18th level (more or less a spellthief converted to this system) was nowhere near this absurdly overpowered.
Asmor
First Post
One thing that immediately jumps to mind is where you're getting all the raw materials needed to build, expand and maintain your flying ship... Chemicals or unstable elements for the power sources, building materials, etc. That doesn't seem like the sort of problem you could just "science" away.
You're quite right and that certainly hasn't been ignored. (Though I do have about ten feats that each reduce one of; the cost, time to build, need for tools, etc which makes it infinitely easier than it otherwise would be).
The struggle for resources to build, expand and maintain the flying ship is what's currently behind our adventuring. I can only do what I'm doing because of the constant support and investment of the other PCs.
At the moment we're investigating a heavily radioactive city filled with traps, dangerous robots and some people transplanted here who have a blood vendetta against a group of the refugees already travelling with us.
We have politics to deal with as the NPCs we've taken onto the boat all have their own ideas about how things should be run. We've had attempted mutinies, a violent assault already occurred and covered up on board and a growing political movement opposing the PCs as the leaders of this city.
I don't mean to say that the GM isn't doing a great job. We are getting plenty of challenges.
It's just my share of them generally center around building things. Which admittedly is exactly what this characters role was made to be.
It's just much more boring than I had ever imagined.
Barastrondo
First Post
I can see how other players might not be particularly thrilled with frequent character-swaps. Now, it depends entirely on the players, but to some extent you can get a level of feeling like any sort of bonding they have with your character is a waste of time. So it can lead to a sense that although you're part of the gaming group, your character isn't really part of the team. That can undercut some of the attraction of team-based roleplay — though again, it depends on the players, of course. This can apply to the DM's psychology as well: a short 1-2 level subplot for each of 6 different characters is probably more creative investment than a long 6-12 level subplot for one character. You should probably expect less than what the other players are getting from a pure roleplay standpoint — I'm not certain it's fair, but it's probably realistic.
There's also kind of a mechanical unwritten advantage, and that's of equipment. Unless your DM is very good about adhering to wish lists or he rules that he'll select magic items for a new character instead of you doing it, each new replacement can wind up more carefully tuned to a theme than the long-running PCs. That can feel sort of like a punishment for sticking to one character. (This was even more true in the days of prestige classes, where theoretically you "paid for" the higher power level by enduring lower levels with sub-par feats and skills as prerequisites: a cost that is totally avoided if you create your character at the right level.) The ability to more carefully retune with each new character is a fairly notable edge, even with ideas like retraining and good adherence to wish lists.
Those might be things to look out for. But it really depends on the group if they're even problems at all. If your friends are fine with the social and subplot ramifications of you playing a series of ongoing guest stars, great. If the mechanics of item selection aren't a problem, you should be golden.
There's also kind of a mechanical unwritten advantage, and that's of equipment. Unless your DM is very good about adhering to wish lists or he rules that he'll select magic items for a new character instead of you doing it, each new replacement can wind up more carefully tuned to a theme than the long-running PCs. That can feel sort of like a punishment for sticking to one character. (This was even more true in the days of prestige classes, where theoretically you "paid for" the higher power level by enduring lower levels with sub-par feats and skills as prerequisites: a cost that is totally avoided if you create your character at the right level.) The ability to more carefully retune with each new character is a fairly notable edge, even with ideas like retraining and good adherence to wish lists.
Those might be things to look out for. But it really depends on the group if they're even problems at all. If your friends are fine with the social and subplot ramifications of you playing a series of ongoing guest stars, great. If the mechanics of item selection aren't a problem, you should be golden.
chriton227
Explorer
Our 4e group has a player with character ADD, we are level 8 and he is on at least his 5th character. The background behind the character to justify the constant switching is that he is really a MMO player from our world that is transported to the game world, and when he switches characters in the MMO, his avatar in our game changes. IIRC, "Stanley" has been a druid, a warlock, a wizard, a bard, and a cleric. As another player in the party, I find it very disruptive to the game. We play 4e as a very team oriented game, and having one member of the team in constant flux disrupts the entire party.
1) Each time he switched, any tactics that involved his character have to be at least modified, if not abandoned and completely replaced with new tactics.
2) While he is figuring out his new character, most of our party efforts and resources are directed towards saving him as he discovers the flaws in his build. For example, he learned that his high mobility druid really shouldn't run out ahead of our low mobility party when fighting against 60 vampire spawn.
3) Since his abilities change so often, the rest of the party can't count on him being able to do anything. For example, even though he had played a cleric and a bard, my warlord still had to stay focused on healing because we never knew when he was going to switch again to a character without any healing ability.
4) Things slow down at the table a lot as he looks up his new abilities and how they work and interact with the other members of the party, and as we ask him about what he now can and cannot do.
5) The constant switching has caused two different developments as far as the roleplay goes:
a) Constantly having to spend time reintroducing his character to the recurring NPCs
b) To justify his constant switching, major plot elements of the campaign and game world revolve around his character. At the beginning of the game, it felt like the "Stanley and friends" show because of how central a role his character background was to the campaign world.
Item #5 is specific to our campaign and how it is run, but I think #1-4 would apply in most situations where you have one player constantly switching characters.
1) Each time he switched, any tactics that involved his character have to be at least modified, if not abandoned and completely replaced with new tactics.
2) While he is figuring out his new character, most of our party efforts and resources are directed towards saving him as he discovers the flaws in his build. For example, he learned that his high mobility druid really shouldn't run out ahead of our low mobility party when fighting against 60 vampire spawn.
3) Since his abilities change so often, the rest of the party can't count on him being able to do anything. For example, even though he had played a cleric and a bard, my warlord still had to stay focused on healing because we never knew when he was going to switch again to a character without any healing ability.
4) Things slow down at the table a lot as he looks up his new abilities and how they work and interact with the other members of the party, and as we ask him about what he now can and cannot do.
5) The constant switching has caused two different developments as far as the roleplay goes:
a) Constantly having to spend time reintroducing his character to the recurring NPCs
b) To justify his constant switching, major plot elements of the campaign and game world revolve around his character. At the beginning of the game, it felt like the "Stanley and friends" show because of how central a role his character background was to the campaign world.
Item #5 is specific to our campaign and how it is run, but I think #1-4 would apply in most situations where you have one player constantly switching characters.
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I have PC-ADD as well.
I can't say I actually get bored with the PCs I'm playing, but I definitely have a constant stream of PC designs flowing through my brain.
My solution has been to actually design the PCs and put them in a file. This means I have lots of PCs just sitting around- handy if a PC gets killed- but it takes up space.
However, since I bought a PDA a couple of years ago, I've just been typing them into the thing. I'm now up to around 150 of them- divided between 3.0/3.5 D&D, HERO, and M&M.
Its a technique I learned before getting into RPGs actually. Among other things, I'm an artist, designer and musician. If I'm not careful, an idea that pops up in my head for something new may just run around in there, dominating my concentration...and thus, distracting me from other important things.
Once I started doing quick renderings of those ideas in some concrete form (a sketch, a note, a chord progression), however, my mind can get back to the job at hand.
I can't say I actually get bored with the PCs I'm playing, but I definitely have a constant stream of PC designs flowing through my brain.
My solution has been to actually design the PCs and put them in a file. This means I have lots of PCs just sitting around- handy if a PC gets killed- but it takes up space.
However, since I bought a PDA a couple of years ago, I've just been typing them into the thing. I'm now up to around 150 of them- divided between 3.0/3.5 D&D, HERO, and M&M.
Its a technique I learned before getting into RPGs actually. Among other things, I'm an artist, designer and musician. If I'm not careful, an idea that pops up in my head for something new may just run around in there, dominating my concentration...and thus, distracting me from other important things.
Once I started doing quick renderings of those ideas in some concrete form (a sketch, a note, a chord progression), however, my mind can get back to the job at hand.
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