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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pdzoch" data-source="post: 7025483" data-attributes="member: 80982">Ultimately, this is your campaign and your friends and you know your group better than any of us. You will know how they will react to your adjudication and how it will affect your game and the group relationship.But I will share how I approach this problem.  MANY MANY years ago, I would have bristled at players wanting to change characters mid-story. Mostly because it disrupted plans I had for the campaign.Nowadays, I have no restrictions.  If the players are bored with their characters and want to change their character, I allow them to do so.  I encourage them to come up with a good reason for the character to leave the group (higher paying group elsewhere, elevation to politics or business, retire, study abroad, whatever).  I also encourage them to come up with a reason the new character would join the group (recommended by outgoing character, relative, protege, some tie to the current plot line, whatever).  New character comes in at the same level as the outgoing character. And the game continues. If there is a mass effort to change characters, I would feel that the problem may be with my campaign, and I would ask them if they want to continue the current campaign or if they want to start a new one. It has happened.However, if a players feels he is being railroaded into continuing to play a character he has become bored with, there is some unfortunate events that could occur.  Those players may become reckless, seeking death in the game so they could switch, which puts the rest of the players in a bad spot, probably at the worst time, and risk a TPK.  Or they may begin to start not caring about the campaign and actively seek to disrupt it.  Or, they may be good players and continue to play, but only until absolutely necessary, and may miss a session or two, or the next campaign altogether.I consider character switching simply a part of turnover in a high mortality rate industry (adventuring).  It does make the campaign planning hard.  But campaigns reliant on certain characters usually compel a player to continue playing the character.  If not,  then the campaign simply might not be that interesting to them, and that is a problem I have to fix.  I have started secondary campaigns for some groups.  It may be an opportunity for someone else in the group to start a new campaign that the player can play the character they would like to try out. But I will still look to my campaign to see what was wrong with my story.I do not mind character penalties, as long as they are game related (loss of level, limb, abilities, etc as a result of in-game decisions --- these are what the game is about, glory at great risk).  But I would not penalize the character for a player decision.  I am not sure a group of experienced adventurers would replace a key member lost with a lower quality new hire.  They would replace the member lost with one of equal or close to equal capability. Such penalties to a character penalizes the entire group.As soon as the players start to not have fun, or feel forced, they might start not playing or leave. And no one wants that.The above is based on personal experience and not hypothetical. Just my experience that informs my approach now.  For your consideration.In the end, your game, your players, your decision.</blockquote>

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