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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 2383081" data-attributes="member: 9053">Under normal circumstances I would agree with you here. I run a high level D20 Modern "crossing universes" game where characters get introduced routinely that have absolutely bizarre backgrounds. The problems in this case are that the characters this player creates are not even remotely similar to the rest of the group. As an example, his most recent character was a wizard who had some kind of sentient undead template from Libris Mortis as well as the Spellstitched template from the same book. That was actually the least complicated character my GM received from him.  The first thing we had to do was figure out how to balance out all of those features to make a reasonable character. This is a character coming in who is going to be 4th level and has an ECL adjustment of +2 (after we worked out the rules issues). That was going to be trouble in and of itself. We managed to work it out, however. Once that happened, we had to figure out a way to make the character's background fit with the group. I was not a part of that (since I'm playing in the game and only help with rules issues) but from what I know about the campaign it was no small trick to accomplish. After they worked it out, the character would have made an excellent addition to the group since dealing with the undead has become quite the focus for the game. At the end of the first session, we had the opportunity to be transported to anywhere we wanted to go. Our group chose to go to a place we have been trying to get to for the entire campaign but have been unable to reach. The new character decided to go back to his home base to report on what he had just learned, leaving us. Now we had learned a lot, but leaving us like this meant that the character who had just been introduced would be gone. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief when characters like this are introduced frequently into a game, only to leave it. From my perspective as the resident "rules reference" it is frustrating because I have to look at extremely complex character builds and then negotiate with the GM to make sure he's okay with the results. Hmmn, I guess this has turned into a little bit of a rant. I guess the real problem ends up being that there are all of these great characters that end up not being played, and stories that are begun and never allowed to finish themselves. Still, these have been some excellent suggestions, everyone! --Steve</blockquote>

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