GM Dilemma

[Gomez]

Say your starting up a new campaign and the players submit their characters and you HATE them. What do you do?

Here is an example.
You are going to run a Knights of the Round table style game and the characters you get are a Drow Necromancer, a Human Ninja, a Orc Barbarian, and Pirate Rogue. And that is after explaining what the campaign is going to be like.

What do you do?

 

[Mark]

Are you sure you explained what you felt would be appropriate for this game clearly? Are you sure you've found players that are interested in what you are offering as a game?

 

[fusangite]

Say your starting up a new campaign and the players submit their characters and you HATE them. What do you do?

Here is an example.
You are going to run a Knights of the Round table style game and the characters you get are a Drow Necromancer, a Human Ninja, a Orc Barbarian, and Pirate Rogue. And that is after explaining what the campaign is going to be like.

What do you do?

If you've clearly stated what you're looking for and placed clear limits on the classes and races available and they choose to do something directly contradicting this, they're basically saying that they don't want to play in your campaign.

If people refuse to operate within the letter and the spirit of the house rules for your campaign, then let them know that they can either find another GM or make new characters.

What kind of printed background material have you given them so far? Perhaps producing more detailed material will aid in them structuring an appropriate set of characters. But if they genuinely have no interest in playing in a chivalric campaign, find players who do or mothball the campaign.

 

[Crothian]

Sit down with them all and explain thesetting and what characters work and what do not. In this case either you diden't explain well enough or the players ignored you.

 

[BlackMoria]

Restate the campaign premise and ask each player if they are not clear on what a 'Knights of the Round Table' style of campaign is. Ask them how their existing character fits into this concept. Based on the answers you get, you should be able to determine why they chose the characters they did. Discussion should resolve this.

Alternatively, you can ask them to shelf their 'Villains'R'Us' characters for a later campaign and simply tell them the type of characters you are looking for. If they want to do a Villains'R'Us campaign and you don't, have one of them step up to the plate to DM. That should speak volumes about how you feel about the existing characters.

 

[Mouseferatu]

This is exactly why I always tell people, at the start of a campaign, what sort of characters are appropriate. Even if the answer is "anything," I make a point of telling them that.

Saves trouble down the road.

 

[Jdvn1]

Say your starting up a new campaign and the players submit their characters and you HATE them. What do you do?

Here is an example.
You are going to run a Knights of the Round table style game and the characters you get are a Drow Necromancer, a Human Ninja, a Orc Barbarian, and Pirate Rogue. And that is after explaining what the campaign is going to be like.

What do you do?

*looks at the character sheets*
*looks up at the players*
*looks at the character sheets*
*looks up at the players*

"I said Knight of the Round Table."
"But we wan--"
"I said..."
"But my-"
"Knights..."
"The Necr--"
"... of the Round Table!"

 

[Hellefire]

Did you talk to them beforehand about the campaign? If so, then 1)They don't want to play in that kind of campaign or 2)They all want to play something out of the norm and stretch their role-playing. It's interesting to do sometimes, playing a good person in a normally evil race/class. Of course, usually not everybody decides to do it at once. But maybe they talked to each other and decided that. Check alignments, and ask them.


Aaron

 

[billd91]

Say your starting up a new campaign and the players submit their characters and you HATE them. What do you do?

Here is an example.
You are going to run a Knights of the Round table style game and the characters you get are a Drow Necromancer, a Human Ninja, a Orc Barbarian, and Pirate Rogue. And that is after explaining what the campaign is going to be like.

What do you do?

I can see one or two of these fitting into a Knights of the Round Table game. After all, Arthur's men had to contend with somewhat barbarous Saxons (the Barbarian) and would certainly have known of pirates (the Pirate Rogue). But I do think you should follow BlackMoria's advice and pin the players down about what they were thinking and ask how their characters fit into the milieu. If don't have a reasonably plausible explanation, then they should rework until they do or you should all agree to play a different sort of campaign.

 

[gizmo33]

You think communication is important now? Just wait until you start running the game. Your players will tell you that they put the million gold pieces in their backpacks, and you'll tell them that the treasure chest didn't have a million gold pieces, and they'll ignore you and you'll post on ENWorld. They'll say "can I upgrade my +4 sword to a +5 sword" and you'll say "you don't have a +4 sword". It will be glorious.