How far do your players go to accomodate a new character?

[mmu1]

Some of the events of a game I played in today started me thinking - how far out of their way do people usually go to let new PCs (you know, those strangers that for some reason have a large red "Trust me" glyph floating above their heads ) be introduced into the party?

As a bit of background, the campaign I'm in has been in an urban setting, and centered (so far) on two rather hard-boiled professional mercenary / ex-military types that are, by standard D&D rules, pretty thoroughly evil.

We've knocked people senseless and dropped them into canals to get rid of them quietly, assassinated most of a (fairly small-time and generally not deserving of capital punishment) street gang to get rid of witnesses, set a city block on fire to destroy evidence and cover our tracks, cut a man's arm off to be able to turn in the rather distinctive tattoo he had for a reward and still have him pay us for letting him leave town alive, beaten and tortured a lot of people for information, and slapped one small child unconscious - all while providing invaluable service to king and country in the best tradition of black-ops operatives everywhere.

Enter the new PC - a shifty street-urchin type and a pathological liar. We run across him at what's basically a mass-murder scene (he had witnessed some of it, and had information that was valuable to us). He loses initiative, gets braced by two very serious-looking men with large weapons - and what followed was actually the funniest 1/2 hour of D&D we've had in a long time, as we tried to see through his truly extravagant line of BS (the new player was doing a great role-playing job) and get some reliable info out of him.

The problem was, these are characters who'd probably gag the poor guy at the first sign of non-cooperation, cut off one finger, let him think about it for a minute, then cut another one off without giving him a chance to talk just to make sure he knew they were serious - and then ask their questions again. Which you really don't want to do to another PC, and so the whole thing, while fun, obviously involved breaking character in a serious way.

Which isn't a major problem, really, but it leaves me wondering how hard a DM should work to make the integration of a new character as painless as possible, whether it's fair to expect other players to break character at certain times, and how much onus in there on the new guy to make a character that'll get along with the party. (while balancing that against letting people play what they're happy with) Opinions?

 

[italianranma]

I go all the way

Dude, I didn't even read your post; I just integrated an entire theiving network complete with a hundred year history, and three major NPCs for this newguy because he wanted that kind of thing in my game.

DMing isn't about you having fun, or power (heh, power IS nice tho..) it's a promise to create a believable world for unbelievable friends.

 

[Savage Wombat]

You remind me of an old character -

She was a mystic, with a weird "destiny sense" power that was mostly GM-controlled. One way this manifested was her ability to, as we called it, "detect PC" - she could tell when someone was important to the party and should join up. We joked that she could see the letters "PC" tattooed on their forehead.

 

[babomb]

Have you ever seen The Gamers? We're like that.

DM:You a young man standing at the ruins. He's dressed in flowing wizard robes, and he has an air of mystery about him.

Player 1 (OOC): Dude, is this your new character?

Player 2 (OOC): Yeah!

DM: Guys, please, I want you to roleplay this. Remember, you never met this guy before, the last guys you met tried to kill you, and you're standing in the ruins of an evil, cursed castle. Just...act appropriately.

Player 2: Hello, I'm Magellean, a travelling mage. I notice your group has no wizard.

Player 3: You seem trustworthy. Would you like to join us in our noble quest?

Player 2: Yes. Yes, I would.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

You remind me of an old character -

She was a mystic, with a weird "destiny sense" power that was mostly GM-controlled. One way this manifested was her ability to, as we called it, "detect PC" - she could tell when someone was important to the party and should join up. We joked that she could see the letters "PC" tattooed on their forehead.

I used a similar trick in my last campaign. One of the PCs was a cleric of the Dreamweaver, so when he first joined the party I wrote out a long, complicated dream sequence he had, which led him to the party. Later when another PC joined, I passed him a note that he'd seen the new PC in that previous dream, and that he was somehow important to their quest.

I can't really help the original poster, because I never touch evil stuff. But as a general rule from a good campaign running DM, I do expect the players to break character at times. Introducing a new PC is one of those times. Now, I'm not saying the players have to take The Gamers' route (funny as that was,) but they need to get around to at least a working relationship fairly quickly. It's the new PC's player's game, too.

 

[Brain]

I've seen both extremes of this issue. One disasterous game session basically involved the new character basically stalking the party, but never meeting them because they didn't share a language.

Of course most party integrations I've seen have gone way too smoothly because of ooc reasons. People want to accept their friend into the party and then move on.

When I started one campaign, I was introduced to the PCs as an NPC villain that they had defeated in the past and had escaped. Needless to say, I was immediately in danger of being killed, but roleplaying my way out of it was a lot of fun.

I think that in certain instances, it can be more interesting when people who wouldn't normally get along at first glance are thrown together by circumstance and must work together.

 

[Ourph]

Someone in our group tried to bring in a Drow PC.

I killed him with an empowered fireball.

I pretended it was IC and that my PC thought it as a Drow assassin sent to kill us (we'd just been attacked by an evil drow priestess of Lloth a few sessions ago).

But really, it was just because I can't stand Drow PCs.

 

[Fenes]

I usually work out the integration of a character while the character is created - so, I try to make sure there are no stumbling blocks ("But I hate all evels") and that I already have a reason to have the character join and be received. Last new character was simply hired as a guard for the priestess of the party.

 

[rushlight]

IMC the PCs are all the Chosen of an ancient god - and are working to revive him. Thus, each bears a divine mark - and allows easy identification of those the god trusts.

 

[Seonaid]

For me, it depends on how badly I want the campaign to work. I'll break character with no argument and at the drop of a hat if I really want the new character to be there, or if I'm really enjoying the campaign and want to see it continue in that vein (or if I like the new player).

One thing that gets me, though, is integrating a character midway through a campaign (or even just a few sessions into it) by saying, "Oh yeah, this is my cousin Bob whom I haven't seen in months, but he's going to join us now." That seems too hokey for me. If the new character has ties to the group without the group having ties to the new character, it's okay, but if suddenly there's more backstory or history with one or two characters, it feels wrong and I don't like it. This is even more of a problem for me if, as hinted above, I don't know the new player very well.

I think my main problem with D&D (and this specifically) is that I like D&D to be an epic novel, and that just isn't possible. Accomodations need to be made and there generally isn't time for sweeping backstories and detailed PC interaction. I've been doing a lot of message board gaming recently, and though it's much different than tabletop, it's still hard to get the right mix of politics (in-party and out) and still keep the game moving.

In general, I like the GM to make a credible effort at integrating the new character as sensibly and in-character as possible, but in the end, I recognize that this is a game and that if players (I) don't make an effort as well, nothing would work.