D&D General What are the “boring bits” to you?

[tetrasodium]

The bolded is an attitude that infuriates me as a player.

To me it's not negotiable: a retired or not-currently-adventuring PC is still a PC and still belongs to its player, even if that player has left the game; and if the DM wants to use it for something that player's permission is required first.

Thing is, there's many ways of engaging with the setting other than just by adventuring, and the setting doesn't (usually!) consist of nothing but adventure sites. And so, allowing downtime such that the PCs can engage with non-adventure-related parts of the setting now and then can IMO only lead to a deeper richer campaign.

And if the players only engage with the downtime activities instead of adventuring, you might want to look sideways at the adventuring options you're giving them.

No I think @Rystefn is right on that one. If a player wants to retire. PC-Alice so they can play PC-Bob, PC-Alice is now an NPC they should have no expectation to maintain control over because it is spending its time doing NPC things not suitable for gameplay and PC-Alice's blessings of fate that come with having a player shielded by the social contract have been transferred to PC-Bob.

I saw a recent example of a player needing this reality check in a level up game of mine. The PC in question had a "destiny" that gave some nice powers if they manage to become mayor/governor/etc of an area (I forget the specifics and it's not really relevant enough to crack open the book). Something like one session after being promoted to the ranks of minor mobility and given a figurehead type stamp of leadership over the super remote village the campaign had been in & around for months the player wanted to retire so they could swap their badass fighter(?) For a mage of some kind(again unimportant specifics) almost immediately upon returning to town the player wanted to start doing things like "with newpc I want to research xyz and oldpc is going to help with that by getting the town to do xyz" only to be told no and reminded what retire a PC means.

Similar transfer of control occurs when a player gives their gm with detailed NPCs in their background. If F/Ex Bob tells me he trained under a master $whatever and wants to avenge his death before going off to murderhobo or whatever in a game where death is a revolving door to life he doesn't really have standing to be ticked if master $whatever confronts him on his unbecoming conduct and shrugs out "magic" when "how are you/is he alive?!?!" Comes up. If a player doesn't want the GM to do things with their backstory they shouldn't write that story somewhere away from the table and keep it there because even something as innocuous as "grew up on a farm and left to be an adventurer" is perfectly suitable for the folks back home to reach out with an emergency that needs a band of adventurers to clobber.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is really funny. I've never heard of anyone put this into words. I have a lot of newer players in my group so as we rolled up characters during our first session and names like Barb, Willy, Randy, and Beans were all thrown out, a small part inside of me was like "WTF.. Your silly level one sorceress is going to eventually be a super powerful mage! Do you really want her to be named BARB?!" But I decided to let it go and I'm glad I did. I wonder if Tim the Enchanter from the Holy Grail was actually a silly named sorcerer in some game John Cleese was playing.

Lol yeah that too, though I was referencing the fact that Tiffany is actually a very old name. The Tiffany Problem describes when something historical is falsely viewed as modern/contemporary and thus assumed to be inaccurate if used in a historical setting.

Other names with The Tiffany Problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No I think @Rystefn is right on that one. If a player wants to retire. PC-Alice so they can play PC-Bob, PC-Alice is now an NPC they should have no expectation to maintain control over because it is spending its time doing NPC things not suitable for gameplay and PC-Alice's blessings of fate that come with having a player shielded by the social contract have been transferred to PC-Bob.

I saw a recent example of a player needing this reality check in a level up game of mine. The PC in question had a "destiny" that gave some nice powers if they manage to become mayor/governor/etc of an area (I forget the specifics and it's not really relevant enough to crack open the book). Something like one session after being promoted to the ranks of minor mobility and given a figurehead type stamp of leadership over the super remote village the campaign had been in & around for months the player wanted to retire so they could swap their badass fighter(?) For a mage of some kind(again unimportant specifics) almost immediately upon returning to town the player wanted to start doing things like "with newpc I want to research xyz and oldpc is going to help with that by getting the town to do xyz" only to be told no and reminded what retire a PC means.

Similar transfer of control occurs when a player gives their gm with detailed NPCs in their background. If F/Ex Bob tells me he trained under a master $whatever and wants to avenge his death before going off to murderhobo or whatever in a game where death is a revolving door to life he doesn't really have standing to be ticked if master $whatever confronts him on his unbecoming conduct and shrugs out "magic" when "how are you/is he alive?!?!" Comes up. If a player doesn't want the GM to do things with their backstory they shouldn't write that story somewhere away from the table and keep it there because even something as innocuous as "grew up on a farm and left to be an adventurer" is perfectly suitable for the folks back home to reach out with an emergency that needs a band of adventurers to clobber.

The only real issue I have with this is the idea there are such things as, "NPC things not suitable for play". I can't imagine what that would constitute.

 

[tetrasodium]

The only real issue I have with this is the idea there are such things as, "NPC things not suitable for play". I can't imagine what that would constitute.

Sim City/cities sdkylines/day to day village head politics/etc type stuff but in d&d through a retired character nobody is playing. I'm sure someone somewhere made a city/village building ttrpg at some point, but I'm sure as heck not going to track it down & run or invent it so a player can play a second private game engaging in that it to aid their new character. Nobody should be forced to spend d&d session time on that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sim City/cities sdkylines/day to day village head politics/etc type stuff but in d&d through a retired character nobody is playing. I'm sure someone somewhere made a city/village building ttrpg at some point, but I'm sure as heck not going to track it down & run or invent it so a player can play a second private game engaging in that it to aid their new character. Nobody should be forced to spend d&d session time on that.

I agree no one should be forced, but that isn't happening. Just because you don't care about some aspects of playing a character in a fantasy world doesn't mean your opinions should be applied to the game as a whole. You're making unwarranted assumptions here with your agenda.

 

[tetrasodium]

I agree no one should be forced, but that isn't happening. Just because you don't care about some aspects of playing a character in a fantasy world doesn't mean your opinions should be applied to the game as a whole. You're making unwarranted assumptions here with your agenda.

Did you miss that...

• A: I was the GM, that means my opinion very much applied to the game I was running as a whole
• B: The player said they wanted to retire PC-A to come in with PC-B
• C: The player was told what retire a PC means & quickly decided that they wanted to retire it and use that to be the only player playing two PCs at the table

I'm not sure where you are finding room for fault in me the GM saying no to the player wanting to multi*PC d&d because retired pc means retired not the ttrpg equivalent of multiboxing. I would have been happy to have the player continue running PC-A & was even prepared with some vague adventure threads that applied to the local baronet*, but those threads required the baronet to be a PC

* AFAIK baronet is pretty much the lowest title a noble could have & the players knew that was the meaning.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Did you miss that...

• A: I was the GM, that means my opinion very much applied to the game I was running as a whole
• B: The player said they wanted to retire PC-A to come in with PC-B
• C: The player was told what retire a PC means & quickly decided that they wanted to retire it and use that to be the only player playing two PCs at the table

I'm not sure where you are finding room for fault in me the GM saying no to the player wanting to multi*PC d&d because retired pc means retired not the ttrpg equivalent of multiboxing. I would have been happy to have the player continue running PC-A & was even prepared with some vague adventure threads that applied to the local baronet*, but those threads required the baronet to be a PC

* AFAIK baronet is pretty much the lowest title a noble could have & the players knew that was the meaning.

I suppose I did miss that, sorry. Not a fan of players running more than one PC in your campaign then?

 

[tetrasodium]

I suppose I did miss that, sorry. Not a fan of players running more than one PC in your campaign then?

Depends on the game & campaign. It works great in a game like a DCC funnel. Pretty sure I ran a westmarches type game centered around the new members of an adventurer's guild at one point back in the day that had some PC swapping to acco,idate work schedule conflicts among the group too. Those are kinda different from a player suddenly expecting to do it with a retired tier3 PC they leveled from first level over several months and a second newly created tier3 PC that was appropriately geared up by generous GM-fiat a session or two back.

 

[Lanefan]

Even if I agreed that you have any right to do this (I don't), I just don't see how it works on any practical level.

Are we obligated to continue to acknowledge your character's history as well? Can we write them out of the game, as if they never were or do we need your permission for that as well? If the history up until the moment you leave the game must remain, how are we allowed to deal with the fact the character has just ceased to exist?

What happens if the PCs meet an NPC who interacted with your character (assuming the character hasn't been written out of the game)? What if things happened of screen with your character, that didn't matter then, but do matter now? Are we never allowed to discover what happened?

What happens if the character is replaced by a clone? Are you claiming ownership of the clone as well?

At a practical level, the character just rides off into the sunset. It's still out there, and could be scried or even chatted with, but anything more than that e.g. adventuring, killing it off, etc., can't happen without the player's OK. The history of what the character did while in play remains unchanged, including off-screen activities that may hold later relevance. (the clone question is a bridge I'll blow up if and when I ever get to it; the only cloned PC I can think of where the clone lasted longer than a single combat immediately following the cloning is one of mine-as-player, and that story's been going for 40 years now...)

In part this is to preserve the character(s) in case that player someday returns to the game, which happens now and then (and in fact happens for me, in theory, this Sunday).

In my current setting I've got loads of such characters.

What it means in practice is that if I-as-DM find I suddenly need an NPC Fighter for some reason then I'm going to roll up a new one (or use a pre-existing NPC) rather than recycle Falstaffe*, who was John*'s PC before he left the game.

And IME getting that permission is usually fairly easy if I'm still in touch with the player.

The one exception I'll make, as they can't affect the "real" character, are dream sequences.

* - names changed to protect the guilty.

If we want to, we can include (imaginary versions of) actual, real people in our game, without their permission. How do you conclude that you have more rights to the representation of an imaginary person that existed in a shared imaginary space, than real people do to their imaginary likenesses? What about characters from other sources of fiction -- should I get permission from an author before using their characters in my game?

In what way do you feel you are being negatively affected if the character is being used without your permission? What about if you never know your character is being used?

What I don't know won't hurt me; but if I were ever to find out, there'd be some harsh and unpleasant words said.

Is there any kind of time limit on your ownership, after which the character enters the public domain?

Well, I ain't likely to care after I'm dead. Other than that, all you gotta do is ask permission - is that really so hard?

Edit: From a very practical perspective, looking at how this might actually work in reality, no discussion about the future of a character would be likely to come up before the player left, but the PC would not continue to play a major part in my game. Probably, some vague comment would be made about how the PC went off to rule his barony in his manor, and we'd continue. I'm not sure if you'd consider making that decision for the character a breach of your rights, but that would probably be the end of it. However, it may happen than five sessions later, one of the players says, "Oh, Lanefan's characters barony is not far from here -- we should drop in and see if he knows anything about what's going on in the area, and catch up for old time's sake." If that did happen, I would absolutely not pause the session to call you looking for permission. We would play out the scene, and I can't imagine any reasonable person having a problem with that -- although, most likely, you'd never know it happened, and would thus have no reason to care, anyway.

That's all fine and reasonable, and I too wouldn't have any issue with it. Where it would cross the line for me is if the DM allowed the party to successfully recruit my old character to go adventuring again, or were they to loot his castle while visiting, or kill him in his sleep, etc.

Also, I only DM for people I know, thus just because someone's left the game usually doesn't mean I've lost all contact with them. In your example here (but I'll flip the players around), if I-as-DM had any warning the PCs were about to visit your old character for an important conversation, during the week I might call you up, briefly explain the situation, and get some basic feedback from you as to what your character might do or say. And if during that call you told me something like "I don't care, do what you will with him" then you've given me permission to play the character as seems fitting, and that permission is all I'm asking for.

And a further edit: The version of your character that exists in your imagination is yours, and only yours. No one can do anything with it, other than you. The version of your character that exists in the imaginations of the other participants? That's at least as much theirs as it is yours, and you have no more authority over those versions than they do over what goes on in your imagination, especially if you are no longer participating in or engaging with the shared imaginary space were those versions exist. Any authority you ever had over the version of your character that exists in the imagination of the other participants, you only had because they elected to give you that authority (and if they were actually imagining your character in a way that's at odds with your own vision, even while you were participating, that's their right, as long as they weren't being disruptive about it).

Here I disagree. As it's my character, my imagination of that character (as best as I can express it during play) trumps everyone else's imagination of that character. They don't get to re-imagine my character in any major way just because I'm no longer there.

If you approach it from the perspective that the player might at any point return and take up playing that character again and that all you're doing in the meantime is in effect holding the charcter in escrow until that happens, my views might make more sense.

 

[overgeeked]

Here's a thread for the who “owns” an unused PC tangent.