Have you had a problem with "character dumping"

[haakon1]

Nope. I, as the DM, automatically "inherit" any dumped PCs.

All retired PC's become NPC's in my campaign.

But I work with the player to decide what the PC is doing in retirement, and I don't try to change the nature of the character at all.

Occasionally, the PC's will encounter one of the retired characters, often from another another campaign that most/all of them might not have participated in. It adds a lived in feeling of verisimilitude to the campaign: for example, when I had a plot where the PC's are sent to rescue missing adventurers, the players were quite concerned, as they thought it was a real, live party of PC's that had been TPK'd in another campaign. It wasn't, but it was nice to have them take the premise seriously.

Another time, another party was trying to rescue the long lost remains of a dead PC to get him resurrected. Definitely a cool plot!

 

[haakon1]

To somewhat discourage dumping, I don't force players to play a bad set of rolled stats. My new approach is that player rolls normally (best 3 of 4d6 x6, arrange as desired) but if they don't like the results they can use the default array 15 14 13 12 10 8 instead.

I do one set of 4d6, but they can reroll the whole set if they get any stat below 8 -- saying they failed their draft physical. If they want, they can choose a "4F" set of stats if they want, but no one ever has.

And I think stats are more or less relative, so as long as everyone follows the same rules, it's fine.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I said earlier that I haven't seen much in the way of character dumping.

Some additional reflection has revealed one factor that operates in my campaigns- I've been using the DarkSun Character Trees for some time, but not in the usual fashion.

I often let players maintain a stable of PCs of various levels in the campaign world. In my longest running campaign- dating back to 1985 or so- players have 1st level, 3rd level, 10th level and "epic" (20+) level PCs active in the campaign world, and usually several at any given tier.

Players can't choose to drop a PC mid-adventure, but perhaps when the party goes to resupply, he gets "called away" and another PC joins in. The other PCs are still available to play at any time (at the appropriate level, of course).

That Guy hasn't exactly showed up to play, but if he did, I'd probably have his horde of PCs represent an extended family or guild or "known associates" of some kind.

 

[Greg K]

All retired PC's become NPC's in my campaign.

But I work with the player to decide what the PC is doing in retirement, and I don't try to change the nature of the character at all!

Same here.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

And, for a lot of groups, having one person constantly character dumping is not fun.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one"

If it is indeed making it not fun for the rest of the group then the character dumper may need to find their fun elsewhere. However, IME the fun that I have with my character has never been so closely tied to another player's character that I'd not have fun if they dumped their character no matter how frequently they did it. Even now I am playing a Dragonborn Cleric who is the sidekick of another player's paladin. If that player dumped his paladin I'd still stick with my character... it wouldn't affect my decision to keep having fun with my cleric at all.

 

[S'mon]

I do one set of 4d6, but they can reroll the whole set if they get any stat below 8 -- saying they failed their draft physical. If they want, they can choose a "4F" set of stats if they want, but no one ever has.

I used to do "bad stats allow reroll" but it can lead to whining with the marginal cases, say a player with net +3 mods demanding reroll for the chance to get +8 or +10.

I first brought in a "You get at least average" rule for hit points - each hit die, PCs get at least half the maximum roll. It worked so well and improved the game so much that I'm bringing it in for PCs too. I'm using Default Array rather than point buy to avoid wasting time with number crunching; the Default Array gives a reasonable but not hugely powerful PC.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

And, for a lot of groups, having one person constantly character dumping is not fun.

True...but there is a large grey/gray area between "You aren't allowed to change your character" and "You can change your character every week without penalty".

If I was in a game that penalized me because I wrote my character out of a story (which I just did with my 4e paladin I played from 3-8th level) to try something new I would be much less invested in that game.

DS

 

[Dragon Snack]

I should add, after the really bad That Guy left the group, we instituted a mulligan rule. You got to change your character once per campaign without penalty, so nobody got stuck with a PC they didn't want to play.

 

[haakon1]

I first brought in a "You get at least average" rule for hit points - each hit die, PCs get at least half the maximum roll.

My rule max hit points at 1st level (I'm running 3.5e) and then roll, with a re-roll if you roll a 1. Yes, that rule proportionally advantages Wizards (average HP/level goes from 2.5 to 3) more than Fighters (average HP/level goes from 5.5 to 6), but I'm fine with that.

In general, as long as a rule is there from the beginning, people seem to accept it and move on. Maybe I've just been lucky in my players.