D&D General Who “owns” a PC after the player stops using them?

[cbwjm]

If you make a character that is antagonistic, antisocial, and decides to wander off away from the rest of the group to solo adventures, the DM is entirely within their rights to go "Congratulations, you're an NPC now. Now either make a character that will be a part of the group, or find another table" rather than running a separate solo adventure for you while the rest of the group sits around doing nothing. This applies equally to "I'm going to sail away to a new continent without the rest of the group," "I'm going to retire from adventuring to start a quaint little B&B," or any other form of choosing not to participate.

In this instance, I probably wouldn't even count the character as an NPC. I do agree that it is important that each player make a character that participates in whatever adventure/campaign is happening. If I had someone who made a character and was all "actually, I'm just gonna open a flower shop" I'd stop and say that isn't the adventure the party is doing, you need to join in, otherwise you aren't playing. The good thing is, I've never had players like that so it really is a hypothetical situation.

 

[Rystefn]

In this instance, I probably wouldn't even count the character as an NPC. I do agree that it is important that each player make a character that participates in whatever adventure/campaign is happening. If I had someone who made a character and was all "actually, I'm just gonna open a flower shop" I'd stop and say that isn't the adventure the party is doing, you need to join in, otherwise you aren't playing. The good thing is, I've never had players like that so it really is a hypothetical situation.

I mean, sure. You can argue that the character in question is neither an NPC nor a PC, but some other thing, if you like. But in the standard paradigm, the whole and entire definition of NPC basically boils down to "everyone that isn't a PC." It's a definition by exclusion. So most people are going to roll that third group into the NPC category anyway. But that's a tangent that we probably don't need to go down.

Whatever you call them, they unfortunately do happen sometimes. I wish it was only hypothetical for me. Luckily, it hasn't come up too often, but it's a thing I've had to deal with on occasion. Most recently, someone constantly hounding me about how to set up a shop even after including both:
1) "Remember, you are here as adventurers. The idea is to get rich by finding lost treasures of Xen'drik. Merchant characters are NPCs." in the campaign rules; and
2) "Your character is required to be an adventurer who is capable of operating in a group and following the bylaws of the Black Tiger Company. Brooding loners, merchants, craftspeople, sadistic psychopaths, and characters who won't take adventuring jobs need not apply." in the character creation rules

 

[cbwjm]

I mean, sure. You can argue that the character in question is neither an NPC nor a PC, but some other thing, if you like. But in the standard paradigm, the whole and entire definition of NPC basically boils down to "everyone that isn't a PC." It's a definition by exclusion. So most people are going to roll that third group into the NPC category anyway. But that's a tangent that we probably don't need to go down.

What I mean is, that new character would have made such little impact on anything because they tried to go off on a tangent that it wouldn't even be worth counting them as anything in the campaign world. I'd just say, make someone new, or shift your thinking so that this one is actually someone useful to the rest of the group.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No one "owns" them, IMO.

I consider it courteous to consult with the associated player before using their character, and when possible, I always do so. If it isn't possible, I try to limit my use of the character to "off-camera" activity, or very minimal active presence.

But, on the flipside? If the player has actively left and I haven't assented to a specific request from them "do not feature my character," I don't actually see any obligation to not do so. The player has left. They will need at least my permission, and probably the permission of the rest of the group, if they wish to rejoin. We'll have to explain what they've been through up to that point regardless. (That said, I've only had one player depart that I wouldn't invite back, and I have no interest in using their character anyway.)

I'm not going to go out of my way to use a departed player's character(s). Indeed, I'm going to do rather the opposite. But I'm also not going to act like someone who has chosen to leave has any right to dictate how the game proceeds. If they wish to continue to participate, they can, y'know, continue to participate.

It's a courtesy to refrain from involving a lapsed player's character(s). It's not a right, but it's not something to just blithely disregard either.

 

[Ondath]

Boring answer, but I agree with the others who say that it's a co-ownership situation. When it's the exact same character, in the exact same setting, and I want to use the character in a way that changes their status quo (say it turned out that a character got married in their epilogue but I want to make them a bitter divorced man in a follow-up game set 10 years later), I'll at least consult the player and get their blessing if possible. People live as these characters for a considerable amount of time (if you played your campaign for 4 hours every week in a year, your player lived in their character's shoes for 208 hours!), so if you suddenly change up that character's life and upend it in a way the player was not expecting, they can get understandably upset.

However, if the player left the table and is no longer playing with me in any capacity, I'll allow myself more freedom in using that character. But even in those cases I just try to extract the character from the campaign and let the story move on without them most of the time. For instance, I had one player who had drama with others, and for a campaign's continuation set 30 years later, we didn't want to invite him. So I just said that his character died peacefully in their sleep sometime during the timeskip.

Lastly, if I as the DM get inspiration from my former characters in a new setting, I think that's mostly fair game. I reuse PC names, personalities and backstories from former players freely, and I feel like that's less "taking someone else's character in a different direction" and more a "homage".

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Okay, now you are just goading me into instigating a lawsuit between me and my players, just so I can start a new crazy-D&D-related-lawsuit thread--mainly so I can read more exasperated posts by @Snarf Zagyg explaining how the law and litigation really works.

 

[aco175]

I recall a game back in 2e days where one campaign ended and another took place a few years later in the same world where the old PCs were the local Duke, quest giving mage, and set up a temple on the frontier cleric. The new PCs were out adventuring when one died and a player thought to go to a temple for healing and thought to seek out this one by the old cleric since he 'heard' that there was a powerful cleric there.

Unfortunately, the cleric there was turned to stone and was a statue now. The new party needed to go on a side quest to fix the cleric before being able to get the raise dead.

Another story was the 2e characters had a fighter who became king of the land and went on to bring peace to the kingdom by killing the dragon and ushered in an age of prosperity. Blah, Blah, Blah. Sometime in 3e several years later in real time and what became 100 years in game time, the new party now lives in the land overcome by evil and only remnants of the past are recalled. The new Pcs had to find the elf that adventured with the old party to locate the lost sword of the king to bring right to the land once again. It was a bit like the Matt Colville stories if one watched his videos, but now as cool as his seem.

I also think that the DM had made a lot of locations and maps and such that he just wanted to reuse most of it and was able to have a another campaign with less work, which was fine since some of us knew some of the locations and the old stories that only were partly true.

 

[Li Shenron]

Breaking out a tangent in the “boring bits” thread with its own thread.

Seems a fairly simply question, but there are some strong feelings about it.

So, as per the title: who “owns” a PC after the player stops using them?

I generally use the "fade to background" approach, and assume the PC has decided to continue on its own. I won't normally use it as an NPC. Maybe we could occasionally mention that the PC is doing something somewhere but I would not add anything significant to their story.

 

[Meech17]

I'm sort of surprised with how divisive this is. I guess this just shows that I've never thought about it all that deeply.

I mean, if you want to play your old character in someone else's campaign, why (or how) would I stop you? That doesn't impact what I might do in my own campaign world.

Any other DM's campaign isn't some other world in the same multiverse, they're all separate instances (in MMO terms), unless the DM embraces the idea of the connection. You copying your character to another server doesn't make any ripples on mine.

This is how I've always viewed it. I have an NPC in my current campaign I'm running that started out as a Magician I played in Everquest, then a Warlock in EverQuest2, then he became a Wizard in D&D 3.5e, and 4e. I played him as a wizard in a 5e one-shot.

I know that my brother used him as a villain in a game he ran. I wouldn't have played it this way, but ultimately I enjoyed hearing about his heel turn and conquest for power even though it ended in his demise.

Now he's a wizard NPC who identifies items for my players.

It's the same character, while also being a different character. It's fun to think of these "What if" situations and the different ways his story could play out.

I can see now that I appear to have a much more open attitude to this than a lot of people, and I'll have to keep that in mind as I make NPCs in my campaign inspired by PCs I've played with in the past.

 

[aco175]

"This isn't Bob the Third, your fighter from 3 campaigns ago meeting the PCs."
"This Faux-b Jr Jr the fighter who may resemble and talk like your old character, and happens to have many of the same items."