D&D General Do you re-use characters?

[jasper]

Not only to I reuse some pc concepts. I clone pcs to other play in other campaigns.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not often, because I’m constantly coming up with PC ideas, but...

...if I wrote a ton of backstory, had lots of stuff planned, only for Timmy to get critted by a goblin at level 2. I'm sure as hell reusing them. Not in the same game, or even with the same group. And possibly reworked heavily to fit in the setting. But I'll be reusing the core principles as it would essentially be a character I was excited to play, and didn't get to.

This kind of scenario is the most likely catalyst for me doing so, closely followed by recycling concepts used in 1-shots (like tournaments or the like).

One very specific exception was when I was in a group in which we were playing in multiple campaigns simultaneously. We needed PCs for a wide variety of RPG systems. I made a particular character concept I could be happy playing in a wide variety of systems, and statted him out in at least 6 of them. Amusingly, I’ve never played that concept in ANY system.

 

[tetrasodium]

I wouldn't intentionally refuse a character and dont get to play instead of gm often enough to have that really a thing. One of my players does it All. The. Time. To an obnoxious degree right down to bringing up family or events in other campaigns and I freaking hate it for how it results in one pc wanting to ignore the campaign being played so they can get back to something else.

 

[ccs]

As long as they aren't dead* I will.
The next game they get used in just continues their story.

Of course the game also has to support them. For example;

*My 1/2ling Warlock, Bree - consecutively she's been an NPC, a PC through about 3/4 of CoS, a PC in several short-lived PBP efforts, made a few NPC cameos in two other campaigns I've run (the campaigns are all different, just occurring at the same world/time game-wise. The players simply went to where she was at that time....}, made a very brief cameo as a 2nd PC in a Desert of Desolation campaign I was in, and is currently being used as a PC in a PF AP {stated out nearly identical but as a Summoner - I'm missing 1! spell} that fills in the story gap between her exit from Barovia & her surprise appearance the end of the Desolation campaign.
After the PF AP wraps, though I love playing her, I envision retiring her for a while. But, to steal & paraphrase a line from the early Marvel movies, "Bree Burrfoot will return...."
Whenever that is though she'll just be a few years older & the game & story will have to support a 9th lv 1/2ling Feylock. If it doesn't, then she stays in the file.

*My 18th lv Chellaxin Chevelier/Hellknight with 8 lvs of Mythic Power from our one PF campaign though....
It'd be pretty hard to work him into something. Sure, he's alive. But when the campaign wrapped he (and a decent sized army) was last seen heading south to Chelliax to wage war on the devil worshiping nobility wich controls his homeland. And after that he intends to take the fight right to Asmodeus's door step - in Hell - and end the devil.
I don't really expect to ever run him again. But if a DM would like to run that specific quest line for me.

* Remember up top where I said death was the limiting factor in bring back a character? Well, I've even got one for whom death needn't be the end.
I have a 5e Warforged Eldritch Knight, MK.7, who was made by some gnomes (his retainers from the Nobel background) & was being field tested when they got embroiled in the Tyrrany of Dragons adventure.
In what turned out to be our last session (the group fell apart) Mk.7 got his head crushed flat (killed).
But his gnome retainers survived!
They hauled him off to a lab/workshop & began repairing him. The plan was to bring in Mk.8 - same mini, different helmet..... But the game fell apart & that was that.
Mk.8 will make his entrance one of these days....

So yeah, sometimes I'll continue using a character from a previous game.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I have two particular character concepts that I really enjoy playing and I tend to have only slight variations that I carry into other campaigns.

1) The Cleric who was once an arrogant jerk who is exiled/castout into the wild to administer to the less fortunate until he learns humility.
2) The happy-go-lucky Rogue who is just glad to be out and about. This character usually has a strange skill (Toymaker was my last one).

I vastly prefer support roles that don't require me to have much spotlight time but can do memorable things. When I want a game that has me mostly in the spotlight, I DM.

If it's a Bring Your Own Character kind of group, I just bring the exact characters I've already been using. I don't find exploring new characters particularly enjoyable when I'm a player. It's really the group interaction and seeing what the others bring to the table that I enjoy.

 

[MarkB]

No, never. For me, part of the excitement of starting a new campaign is building a character to suit the setting and the set-up. And once a character is dead, they're dead (barring resurrection) - I've no interest in rehashing them as their identical twin.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I reuse them sometimes as NPCs when I DM, as it can be both fun to revisit an old character and saves a lot of trouble in developing more interesting NPCs.

The downside is that, since they are themselves a capable adventurer, you need to have a strong reason why they can't or won't join the group or the group may try and recruit them and get you locked into a DMPC situation.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I reuse them sometimes as NPCs when I DM, as it can be both fun to revisit an old character and saves a lot of trouble in developing more interesting NPCs.

The downside is that, since they are themselves a capable adventurer, you need to have a strong reason why they can't or won't join the group or the group may try and recruit them and get you locked into a DMPC situation.

I was literally just about to come in here and say basically exactly that!

How I sometimes solve that problem is by either making them a villain, making them have bigger problems to deal with, or making them just lose their drive for adventure and retire (kind of like Luke in the Last Jedi, but in a less awful manner).

The first character I ever played, the High Elf Necromancer Theren Liadon, is a BBEG that my players have crossed a couple times.

 

[Oofta]

I reuse them sometimes as NPCs when I DM, as it can be both fun to revisit an old character and saves a lot of trouble in developing more interesting NPCs.

The downside is that, since they are themselves a capable adventurer, you need to have a strong reason why they can't or won't join the group or the group may try and recruit them and get you locked into a DMPC situation.

I do that now and then (not just my own PCs). I just say that they have other priorities or commitments. Can be anything from "research" to political or business responsibilities.

 

[jgsugden]

At times, yes. I played a human fighter that dual classed into a wizard in the 1980s. I played him as a Valor Bard in 5E.

I started a Vuman Monk in a game at a game store - and then had him walk away from the setting after the first session because his goal was to see strange new things and there was an opportunity to do so that he would never pass up. I then used the character idea in he next campaign I played.

I usually have 10 characters 'in queue' that are ready to go when an opportunity arises to play (so that I can pick the idea that best suites the opportunity, unless there is something specific to the setting that excites me). Of those, 4 are retreads of characters that didn't have a satisfying end.