Switching Characters

[Dextolen]

Our campaign, which has been pretty high on roleplaying, although the basic movement of the plot doesn't hinge on any character, has reached 6th level and some of my players are hankering to give up their current characters for new ones.

My policy on new characters in the group has only applied to new players and players who's characters die and are not raised. I allow them to come in at the lowest level of the party, usually one or two levels below the average. That way they still get to participate (aren't always hiding in the middle of the party) but are still less experienced than the rest.

Now I have two or three (out of 7) players wanting to ditch their current PCs and make new ones. This bothers me. On one hand I want happy players, on the other I want to add some sort of permenancy or importance to the group dynamic that has been created.

If I say no, and then I encounter PCs trying to kill themselves (jumping off cliffs, wading into combats solo, etc.) I will be seriously bummed. Any thoughts ? How do you handle this?

 

[Drawmack]

I generally tell the player that if they can give their current PC good motivation for retiring I will allow it. For example one of my players has a character currently that is only adventuring to find her father so once she finds her father she is going to retire and that player will get a new character.

I do not let them just drop the character and make a new one it must make sense within the plot.

 

[Nightfall]

While I don't care much for people switching characters in midstream, I also don't encourage character sucidice. If the player has a good character concept that they want to try out, and I think it will benefit the party, then yes, it's acceptable. So either I phase out the old character (usually by having them go on quest of some import to them) or general combat death (easier for everyone to take.)

 

[Agback]

G'day

How many rival GMs are you competing with?

If yours is the only game in town, you can probably get away with making other players do play characters they don't enjoy. (Unless you bore or annoy them so much that they take up bowling instead of RPG.)

But if there are other GMs or potential GMs available to your character-players, and unless you outclass those rivals and potential rivals by a decent margin, your players may vote with their feet. Try to make them do something they don't want to do and they may abandon your campaign.

Tread warily,


Agback

 

[Tonguez]

I use factions - groups to whom the PCs are aligned in some way (eg family, Religious Orders, Gulds etc) the PCs can have multiple characters as long as they all come from the same faction. SO I will let the Rogue go home to the farm (for instance) and be replaced by the Druid who is his cousin, the Rogue becoming an NPC.

This helps to come some semblance of continuity - since the new druid knows the rogue and has heard him tell stories of their former adventures and also provides a hook...

 

[Oni]

I say allow it, you want your players to enjoy the game don't you? I can think of a couple of occasions where I've switched characters. In one instance it was because the character had run his course and I just felt like it was time to move onto a new character. He died an arranged death having been captured, he was executed for refusing to fight in a pit battle (against my new character who was summarily freed by the other PC's who had arrived just a moment to late). The other occasion was one where I felt the campaign had taken a direction that wouldn't allow me to really explore the facets of the character i wanted to play and so i wanted to do something more appropriate. The DM and i decided that she had actually been a doppleganger for several sessions who had convincingly infiltrated the party, my new character showed up on the trail of the doppleganger in question. I can think of a third occassion where I would have switched characters if the campaign had not ended at that point, this being because a major event had such a profound effect on the character that he was no longer the person I was interested in roleplaying (he had mistakenly caused the death of a great many innocents based on poorly related intel from another player, destroyed more or less by the telephone game).


Anyway I'm rambling, talk to your players, find out why they want to make the switch, and then have them draw straws (or decide amoung themselves) who wants to go first and replace the characters over several sessions in plausible ways. That's my advice for what it's worth.

 

[Pielorinho]

We're actually getting ready to switch PCs around in RttToEE (no spoilers, don't worry). We've been playing the same characters in the game off and on for over a year now, and we're higher-level than we should be, given where we are in the adventure.

So we're gonna create a whole new adventuring group that's gonna go traipsing through the adventure's various unexplored locales. We'll play lower-level characters, and much more foolhardy characters (no more of this planning-every-battle-out-for-two-hours crap!), and we expect to get a decent body count out of it.

Once we've done that for awhile, we'll go back to playing our normal characters. The break should be fun.

Daniel

 

[Quickbeam]

I would definitely allow the character switch if:
** There's a good reason to make the change.
** Your game will suffer if the swap is not allowed.
** The replacement PC makes sense and won't unbalance the campaign.

However, just make sure that you stress your campaign isn't intended to be a revolving door through which the players run new PCs in and out. The game will suffer drastically without some sense of continuity or group dynamic within the party.

Before I began DMing again for our group, I swapped characters midway through our last adventure. I was playing a gnome cleric/illusionist who was a devotee of Boccob and happened to be a compulsive liar and braggart. This PC was a lot of fun for me to roleplay, and others in the group found him amusing. But by the time we were 6th level or so, it became clear that his behavior was detrimental (overall) to the group and his abilities lacked when compared to the other characters. Our campaign was pretty combat intensive at that time, and I decided it wasn't fair for me to continue playing a PC who couldn't consistently contribute just because he was "fun". The DM and I discussed the issue, and I changed characters. And FWIW, please don't waste time telling me I should have been more creative in attempting to make this PC more effective -- it just wasn't possible given our campaign and DM's style at the time.

 

[Fenes 2]

For me it is clear that any player wanting to switch characters is allowed to. I play and DM this game for fun, and forcing people to keep playing a character even though they don't want to anymore is no-fun.

 

[ced1106]

In Ars Magica, the mage character is more powerful than other classes, so each player has a stable of characters: his mage and the mage companions. Each game session or storyarc has one player's mage, and the other players' companions. So far, no complaints.

The storyline and stable ideas sound good. I'd also suggest have the "retired" PCs become NPCs in your campaigns. You could even have players suggest plots for them.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^