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

[Blue]

This thread demonstrates that the default is not as defaulty as some think it is. For an issue as important to some players as "ownership" of a character is, it behooves the player not to leave it as an unspoken default.

Why is that statement more true then:

"This thread demonstrates that the default is not as defaulty as some think it is. For an issue as important to some players as 'ownership' of a character is, it behooves the DM not to leave it as an unspoken default."

 

[Blue]

If they’re not being played by the player, they’re an NPC in that campaign to be used by the DM as the situation necessitates. I don’t see that as particularly controversial.

Considering there is a 17 page (so far) thread discussing it, regardless of your beliefs, it is proven controversial.

If the PCs are never in a position to encounter that character again, fine. If they do, however, the character is now the DM’s responsibility since the player who used to play them is either gone or has moved on to another character that now serves as their PC. Giving up playing a PC, as I see it, automatically relegates them to NPC status for as long as that situation persists.

Please provide support for "Giving up playing a PC, as I see it, automatically relegates them to NPC status for as long as that situation persists." since that is the topic at hand and cannot be accepted by just assertion.

 

[tetrasodium]

166 got posted while I was typing so I adjusted a few things to address that too instead of quoting it & addressing it separate .

Why is that the player's responsibility?

The player is the one with a strong & frankly unreasonable expectation of being able to seal off chunks of their GM's game world. In your question did that player ensure that the group had a session zero or similar so that player with what a few people have openly started to be a red flag? If so how did the group react? -OR- did the player carry the baggage of that undisclosed expectation into their GM's game world without telling anyone until after that player did significant things & stopped playing the PC for whatever reason?

"I expect my GM to create an entirely new world for every session & never pull from events that took place in it during past campaigns or sssions" is a pretty extreme viewpoint for a player to hold & it becomes even moreso if they are not making it clear before they are even allowed to start playing with any GM. For years we've heard "well did you bring it up in session zero" quickly thrown at GMs who need to change a rule or deal with a problem player & more. In this case we have a nonspecific player expressing an extreme view that they would maintain control over parts of the GM's setting.

We all agree from the moment of conception, the character belongs to the player. Heck, there are many players who will recreate the same character in different campaigns or different systems, so that character can belong to the player long before the current campaign, and continue after the campaign.

So we've established the default is that the player owns the character. If there is going to be a transfer, isn't the onus to bring it up on the person who wants to take control of the character?

The GM isn't going out of their way to take control of the former PC. That GM is just running their game in their game world & something the PC accomplished in the world or for itself becomes relevant to events in a future session. The player's claim is trying to deny their GM the ability to manage their own world without significant retcons or gaining control over a second PC they aren't playing. That gain in control carries either the ability to question the GM on things that NPC would know or make use of whatever capabilities that PC might have in its current situation.

This is written assuming that PC -> NPC. Since that is the entire point of this thread, you can't just assert that without any support.

Spoiler: DMG4

Consistency is a key to a believable fictional
world. When the adventurers go back into town for
supplies, they should encounter the same nonplayer
characters (NPCs) they met before. Soon, they'll learn
the barkeep's name, and he or she will remember
theirs as well. Once you have achieved this degree of
consistency, you can provide an occasional change. If
the adventurers come back to buy more horses at the
stables, they might discover that the man who ran the
place went back home to the large city over the hills,
and now his niece runs the family business. That sort of
change-one that has nothing to do with the adventurers
directly, but one that they'll notice-makes the players
feel as though their characters are part of a living world
that changes and grows along with them.

In this case that consistency takes the form of past achievements in that world not being retconned & rebuilt when a PC is retired. If a player is expecting to silently hold the intention of forcing their GM rework their own setting after a PC who accomplished notable things ceases to be played... That player is holding an incredibly unreasonable expectation & acting quite rude by not even bringing it up.

Spoiler: DMG21

FACTIONS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
Temples, guilds, orders, secret societies, and
colleges are important forces in the social order of
any civilization. Their influence might stretch across
multiple towns and cities, with or without a similarly
wide-ranging political authority. Organizations can
play an important part in the lives of player characters,
becoming their patrons, allies, or enemies just like
individual non player characters. When characters join
these organizations, they become part of something
larger than themselves, which can give their adventures
a context in the wider world.

A player who wants to ensure that their PC never shows up being "part of something greater than themselves" in the future should go out of their way to avoid becoming part of something or make their unreasonable expectation known immediately to the table should that happen during play. Should a player make that clear before they "become part of something larger than themselves" I'd be happy to tell them that this is probably not the table for them & that they should find some other GM. Waiting till it comes up in a future session just creates a big disruption & unreasonable extra work.

 

[Longspeak]

If the character is woven into the action, it becomes mine to continue or tease out as needed.

If the character is not part of the action (like a story is done, we're in downtime), the departing player should 100% get to decide if his character sticks around, but I 100% get to decide if I want to deal with it, or just write them out. I generally don't love to NPC PCs, even former PCs, and most of the time, they fade away.

RL Examples

K wanted a new PC, and we wrote her PC going off on a personal quest. Later, I asked permission, and received it, to bring her back as an NPC, now taking leadership or their Mercenary company. She's now a Major NPC in the tale.

K (Same initial, different person) bailed with no notice mid-scene. I used his last few interactions to build a model in my head, and RPed his character also bailing. It might sound like a jerk move, but that's where the RP was leading. Made me wonder how sudden the departure was.

H had an RL thing come out to take her out for the foreseeable... In game, H finished out the battle, then had a thing come up to take her out of play.

A person I don't even remember the initial of ghosted mid-session. He was like ten sessions in, but I still just had his PCs ghost at the first opportunity.


I guess... I come down on the side of the Player when the player leaves room for it. Otherwise, I come down on the side of the story.

 

[Campbell]

I don't think there's anything to argue or prove. Just different ways to handle the situation, which should likely be discussed. One of the ways I prefer to approach my gaming is to view everything as shared. That includes the setting as well as the characters. During character creation and play your character is not just yours to do what you will with. There are certain expectations that I have of my fellow players:

• Build in connections with your fellow player characters and NPCs that are important to them. Become friends or rivals with their love interests. Find reasons to back their causes. Provide favors for favors.
• During play transfer the spotlight to other player characters, involve them in your plans, spend time with them.
• Respect what other players are trying to do with their characters.
• Be flexible about setting details you contribute. We all need to make this work together.

In a number of the games that we play I have had discussions with another of the GMs in my group (who is also my best friend). A lot of how the settings we use in play has shifted changed come from contributions we both had made, along with other people who have played with us. I have as much ownership over the setting for some of our games I am player in then the characters I am a custodian of. And I really feel like I am just their custodian. Like I cannot just out of the blue start playing a character differently or disregard things we have established or relationships we have built.

Any defaults that exist are cultural and not all play, even all D&D play, exists within a monoculture.

I have also touched on it in another thread one of the unspoken assumptions my group had which is now actively spoken to is not bringing in characters (including character concepts) from other games. I'm not looking for anyone to chase the dragon with a former PC or especially a LARP character after some of the bad experience I have had with both.

 

[Blue]

The player is the one with a strong & frankly unreasonable expectation of being able to seal off chunks of their GM's game world.

The player isn't sealing off anything of the "GM's game world". The "GM's game world" and the "shared game world" are not the same concept. Limiting it to just what the GM control's with the term "GM's game world" means everything in the world except the characters. The players control their characters.

This idea that everything belongs to the GM may be the root of your misunderstanding.

In your question did that player ensure that the group had a session zero or similar so that player with what a few people have openly started to be a red flag? If so how did the group react? -OR- did the player carry the baggage of that undisclosed expectation into their GM's game world without telling anyone until after that player did significant things & stopped playing the PC for whatever reason?

Again, answer the flip - why does the GM get to carry an "undisclosed expectation" that they can take the player's concept and use it after the player leaves without permission.

Since the beginning of RPGs it has been established players characters are not part of what the GM controls, so that's the far mroe reasonable question.

"I expect my GM to create an entirely new world for every session & never pull from events that took place in it during past campaigns or sssions" is a pretty extreme viewpoint for a player to hold & it becomes even moreso if they are not making it clear before they are even allowed to start playing with any GM.

Logical fallacy, Reductio ad absurdum. That is not what is being suggested, just that the character belonging to the player is written out of the story. Everything else still exists.

For years we've heard "well did you bring it up in session zero" quickly thrown at GMs who need to change a rule or deal with a problem player & more. In this case we have a nonspecific player expressing an extreme view that they would maintain control over parts of the GM's setting.

Again, PCs are not part of the "GM's setting". They are part of the shared story told by everyone around the table, which is not solely owned by the GM.

Also, after a 17 page thread on it, declaring that it is an "extreme view" is just rhetoric. Look at all the discussion and realize this is not extreme, and is common in a bunch of games. Please don't mischaracterize it as such.

The GM isn't going out of their way to take control of the former PC. That GM is just running their game in their game world & something the PC accomplished in the world or for itself becomes relevant to events in a future session. The player's claim is trying to deny their GM the ability to manage their own world without significant retcons or gaining control over a second PC they aren't playing.

This isn't a point under discussion, not sure why you bring it up. Of course you can refer to prior events that happened while the character was there. It's about turning them into an NPC without permission and running them in future sessions. Please don't try to muddy the issue, or bring up unrelated points trying to make an argument.

Everything else you wrote was a continuation under the mistaken opinion that people are arguing against the history of the game that was played, which no one was. I'm leaving it out as it's not a point under discussion, everyone is fine with the character having had an effect on the world when played. This topic is about the DM deciding to take control of a PC without permission.

 

[TwoSix]

I have a friend who got a tattoo of his favorite character. He's recreated him across multiple campaigns and even multiple systems. The idea that it is his "former" character is bizarre to me. It's his character, nothing former to it.

Unless the player is just taking a short break for a few sessions, if they're not in the game, their opinions on what's happening in the game have zero weight.

A character is just an image, a fragment of narrative. If I use that image in my game, and you remake that character in someone else's game, then that image is just being used in two places. They have no impact on each other. You can't carry around the character's "core" with you like it's some kind of NFT.

 

[Blue]

Unless the player is just taking a short break for a few sessions, if they're not in the game, their opinions on what's happening in the game have zero weight.

A character is just an image, a fragment of narrative. If I use that image in my game, and you remake that character in someone else's game, then that image is just being used in two places. They have no impact on each other. You can't carry around the character's "core" with you like it's some kind of NFT.

You know, artists ask each other permission to draw each other's Original Characters. Not because "it can't affect them", but from simple courtesy.

The idea of "I can take this creator's works and use it without permission because it doesn't hurt them" seems the opposite. Especially when it's not just for personal use but for performative among a small group of others whom are familiar with the original source.

Why not ask permission? That's all this argument really breaks down to.

 

[TwoSix]

If the character is woven into the action, it becomes mine to continue or tease out as needed.

If the character is not part of the action (like a story is done, we're in downtime), the departing player should 100% get to decide if his character sticks around, but I 100% get to decide if I want to deal with it, or just write them out. I generally don't love to NPC PCs, even former PCs, and most of the time, they fade away.

RL Examples

K wanted a new PC, and we wrote her PC going off on a personal quest. Later, I asked permission, and received it, to bring her back as an NPC, now taking leadership or their Mercenary company. She's now a Major NPC in the tale.

K (Same initial, different person) bailed with no notice mid-scene. I used his last few interactions to build a model in my head, and RPed his character also bailing. It might sound like a jerk move, but that's where the RP was leading. Made me wonder how sudden the departure was.

H had an RL thing come out to take her out for the foreseeable... In game, H finished out the battle, then had a thing come up to take her out of play.

A person I don't even remember the initial of ghosted mid-session. He was like ten sessions in, but I still just had his PCs ghost at the first opportunity.


I guess... I come down on the side of the Player when the player leaves room for it. Otherwise, I come down on the side of the story.

In contrast, I fairly recently had 2 PCs who had a strong, interconnected story (they were estranged brothers). When the player of one of them had to leave for IRL reasons, once I confirmed that the player wasn't coming back for a long time (at least a year), his character left the party and then reappeared later in the campaign as one of the primary antagonists.

It never even occurred to me to ask permission, because he wasn't coming back and because the character was integral to the ongoing narrative. And as a happy ending, when he found out later on that his character had been killed by the other player's character (his brother in the narrative), he was thrilled that he gone out in a cool way that contributed to a great ending.

 

[TwoSix]

You know, artists ask each other permission to draw each other's Original Characters. Not because "it can't affect them", but from simple courtesy.

The idea of "I can take this creator's works and use it without permission because it doesn't hurt them" seems the opposite. Especially when it's not just for personal use but for performative among a small group of others whom are familiar with the original source.

Why not ask permission? That's all this argument really breaks down to.

Because asking permission would imply some sort of explicit or implicit ownership of that character image that I don't acknowledge as existing.

If I liked a character you made in a game five years ago, and I make that same character (same name, same build) in someone else's game, I don't owe you a phone call to ask.