Ex-PC's?

[alsih2o]

I noticed that in my homebrew game and in others I have run I tend to use PC's from previous games as NPC's. When I need a powerful bard I fall back on Boroo the Bard, a PC a friend had form a previous game, of Drayne Bamage, the pwerful and selfish wizard I ran in Jr. High.

Does anyoen else do this regularly? Maybe even turn players old PC's on them?

 

[MarauderX]

I noticed that in my homebrew game and in others I have run I tend to use PC's from previous games as NPC's. When I need a powerful bard I fall back on Boroo the Bard, a PC a friend had form a previous game, of Drayne Bamage, the pwerful and selfish wizard I ran in Jr. High.

Does anyoen else do this regularly? Maybe even turn players old PC's on them?

A lot. I do it because I am already familiar with them, and know what tricks they would pull, how they would think in a role-playing or combat situation, and how they would try to get what they wanted. It's easy and saves me set-up time as a DM, and once you have a good number of them you can pull them out as the unexpected plot hook the PCs seem to be overly interested in. Granted the levels and abilities need to be ramped up & down to meet the current party level, but the idea of who the character is, is already there.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

A while back I had a ruling that any player who wants to switch characters in mid-campaign would be turning their old character over to me. Nobody really minded until they started seeing their min-maxed uber characters being used against them. That put the worry in 'em!

 

[Alynnalizza]

Once in a great while I will, usually as a subplot device. What usually happens... and keep in mind I only have 3 players, is somewhere at a predetermined point in the adventure the current PC's encounter a group of former PC's that they've played. For one or two sessions, they play both their current and the old.
These sessions are also the ones I inform the group that I am purposely out to kill! (Boy the love that). In general, they enjoy it for the short time they are together.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'll use them from time to time, if it seems appropriate. I don't have them make major changes in personality/alignment/alliegances without some checking with the original player - I still view the player as having some "ownership" of a PC even after they're retired. I make an effort to play them as the original player would have, to give them that same personality they had when they were a PC.

 

[the Jester]

Yep, I've been known to do this.

Many an old pc has reappeared later, in one way or another; and often the 'current' pcs from different groups will overlap in minor ways.

 

[eris404]

I noticed that in my homebrew game and in others I have run I tend to use PC's from previous games as NPC's. When I need a powerful bard I fall back on Boroo the Bard, a PC a friend had form a previous game, of Drayne Bamage, the pwerful and selfish wizard I ran in Jr. High.

Does anyoen else do this regularly? Maybe even turn players old PC's on them?

Sort of. One DM in our group is running a game that occurs in the same campaign setting he used a couple of years ago. When he ended the old campaign, he asked us what our characters would do, what goals they would have, etc. He started the new campaign 100 years after the first. Most of our old PCs are dead, with the exception of a couple of elves, but each made a lasting contribution to the world (not always in a good way - one of them was turned into a Devourer at some point). We have yet to interact with our old (whether living or undead) PCs directly and I think the DM is reluctant to do so. As a teenager, he played in too many games where the old, more powerful PCs would suddenly show up and either act as the bad guys or the deus ex machina. He felt cheated by the experience.

However, the DM is also running a second game in the same setting and timeline with a group of newbies. He has no problem using our old PCs as NPCs in their game, simply because they have no history with them. He told me it makes him smile to hear them speak of these characters with awe, as if they were legends. I have to admit it makes me smile, too.

 

[TroyXavier]

I do it sometimes, some of my 2nd ed characters have made it into my 3 and 3.5 campaigns.

 

[Mercule]

Very rarely in the 'foreground'. Maybe a tale or political move, or some such. I don't like the idea of someone doing it with my character, so I don't do it with others'. Also, I worry about getting the characterization quite right.

Now, if it's something that was played for only a session or two, or was totally brain-dead, then it might make a reappearance.

 

[kuje31]

I've done this for years, and actually about a year or so back I had a thread like this and many posters complained that DM's should not take thier old PC's and build them into the world since the players feel that they own those characters.