Out with the Old...

[Sammael]

We average about 1.5 character deaths per session

:blink:

And none of the players mind this?

 

[Man-thing]

1.5 character deaths per session? We can handle at least that amount. I have a 50% new players and one player that seems convinced that foolish acts of heroism should make him immune to death (which of course it doesn't).

One of my new players is also suffering from "splat book fevour" where each two or three weeks she get a new book and she wants to play 3 or 4 new character types and her current character dies "accidentily" and she pulls out her new character to join the party at the next time. On one or two occassions this has led to some nasty tpk situations. My vetern players have begun to provide more clear advice to the young'ens and suggest that may a character could retire and be replaced instead of dying.

 

[Delemental]

I tend to do this too, and have to fight the urge sometimes to retire a character and bring a new one in. There's nothing wrong with the character I'm currently playing, and I'm usually not bored with him/her. It's just that usually I start thinking to myself "I should really have a backup character concept ready, just in case". Then, after developing the backup character, I find myself intrigued enough by the potential laying therein that I start feeling the urge to play the character immediately.

I have retired characters that truly had nowhere else to go, RP-wise, in order to bring in a more dynamic character. Where I struggle is when my current character still has potential, and then I have to weigh my options. Usually in these cases, I stick with the current character.

 

[Tonguez]

I allow it but with the requirement that the new character is well known to the old one (a relative or friend) and it that way I can maintain a lot of the former continuity (especially background stuff) and use the same NPCs too. Using relatives also means that the pc can keep any cool magic item the former character had (ie it was given over by the old character).

 

[Crothian]

Treat him like an NPC. There's nothing wrong with players like this, just don't give them the limelight like the other characters since the other characters are the established ones.

 

[Jdvn1]

I have GMs like that. They'll get tired with their own storylines and railroad the game to a completely different story.

The only player in my group who goes through a bunch of character dies all the time. His characters last 3-4 sessions, typically.

 

[painandgreed]

I've had a DM like this. He liked low level campaings so once characters started hitting 7th or 8th level, he'd just say everybody make up new characters, we're starting a new campaign. Once, when he "messed up" and we got more XP than he was expecting and made 4th much sooner than he had planned, he did the same thing. That's when I dropped out. Otherwise, the best DM I've ever had but I don't like spending eight months building up a character, finding his personality, getting confident enough in his abilites to have some fun, only to have to trash him because the DM feels like torturing 1st levels again.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You probably ought to change your PC at least once per campaign. Fighter-types for the low levels, then switch to spellcaster if the game goes beyond 10th level or so.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

My player doesn't have any mechanical or RP problems, as far as everybody else can tell. He just likes changing characters. My guess is that he wants to try out different character concepts and, since this is the only game he participates in, he has to try them out somewhere.

Point him to online gaming. My MUX has had four players occupying Batman since August. When everyone can have four or five role-play-intensive characters at once, it tends to act as an outlet for that kind of thing.

 

[Brain]

Jdvn1: I had not thought of DMs stopping campaigns for a new one to be the same issue, but I guess it is (or at least very similar).

That said, I have seen several players and DMs that fit the bill over my years of gaming. They tend to annoy me because I have the opposite frame of mind. I like to keep my same character or the same campaign and develop and grow.