When another player builds a clone of your character.

[darjr]

I did this. I needed to fill a spot at a table and ran a clone half-orc fighter. I got permission first. Said it was his long lost twin brother sold to the arena as a child.

his char said, “yea, I know, I sold you”

 

[Salthorae]

Generally, haven't had to deal with it because concepts are discussed in a session 0 and overlap is usually handled there in some "story" way if both are insistent on it.

If it's mechanically cloned (i.e. same class/skills/etc) it's usually fine... so long as the personality isn't also a clone. If the personalities are cloned, then it's hard because then you're splitting the spotlight when it's time for "big dumb fighter social faux pax" or "seductive bard/sorcerer to do their thing and gather information", etc.

If it's an AL table somewhere, I'd try to talk to the player to see what can be done to differentiate the characters and I'd ask the DM to allow for some rebuilds on background or skills or something to differentiate once that talk has happened.

You could do that at any table I guess.

 

[aramis erak]

Have you guys ever been in this situation? You roll up a character with a fairly standard archetype -- big dumb guy with greatsword; snarky necromancer; etc. -- only to find that another player is horning in on the same conceptual space. Is this a "stop copying me" problem, or do you feel like there's enough room in the campaign for similar character types? And if the players in questions do feel like, "I called shotgun on seductive bard," how did you resolve it?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

While I have never had it happen, I've seen it happen in games Iv'e run. In many games, it's not a problem, as they will typically grow apart in game.

The Big Dumb Fighter in D&D is not even a problem unless the players choose to make it one - D&D the personality of fighter generally is irrelevant to mechanics, unless it's cowardly or equivalent.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Session Zero has always solved this for me. Occasionally people come with a similar idea, but if it's clear that two players are going to overlap in spotlight time, it's pretty obvious and people talk it out and come up with new ideas.

 

[RobertK]

I can't imagine caring.

 

[cbwjm]

Wouldn't bother me. If I'd created a big dumb barbarian and someone else had done the same I'd be all "excellent, we can be the barbarian bros!"

 

[Arnwolf666]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be a
Wizard in an adventuring party with a
20 intelligence and everyone else has an 8 intelligence.
My point is that with the standard array I see the same attribute distribution being used almost everything for a given class.

 

[Salthorae]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be a
Wizard in an adventuring party with a
20 intelligence and everyone else has an 8 intelligence.
My point is that with the standard array I see the same attribute distribution being used almost everything for a given class.

Probably not much different being a 20 Int wizard in a party where everyone else has 14 Int, but sure I get your point. Standard Array leads to homogeneity in stats.

How does this point about standard array speak to the OP's question?

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

After all the years I’ve been playing, I‘ve tried all the cliches. But now, I tend to design more unusual concepts.

So I haven’t had it happen accidentally*, but I’ve been party to doing it deliberately.

As In, another player and I were talking about what we’d like to play in an upcoming GURPS game, and we had semi-related ideas. So we decided to go whole hog, and designed identical twin sorceress/warriors from a Barbarian tribe.

Had a blast.




* There was one 2Ed D&D campaign in which we used the Players’ Option books. Another player and I both designed characters that melded fighter, clerical, and magic-user elements, but in radically different ways. Before we even rolled dice, the other player complained about my “Superman”. His whining annoyed me enough that I shredded my character up in his face- NOT my proudest moment- and rolled up a vanilla PHB Thief in a few minutes.

Months later, I ran that same “Superman” character in another campaign involving some of the same players (but not the complainer)...and he was one-shotted by a greatsword-wielding skeleton who rolled a nat20. Those players who had been in that prior campaign openly wondered what the earlier fuss had been about.