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

[GrimCo]

Or in my case, they would stare blank in couple of bullet points, some names, some words or phrases and scratch their head in confusion since i mostly improvise in reaction to player agency. Lots of times, i scribble down things while i narrate them since i came up with it on the fly. But if they want, they can use it as they wish and go run their game based on my game. No money out my pocket, i still get to run my own game, still have all my ideas and "prep" work.

After all, they say imitation is highest form of flattery. Also good artist borrow, great artist steal.

 

[SableWyvern]

It must be a bit of a shock to people who are so eager to claim ownership and control of ideas, and truly seem to believe this is healthy and normal and desirable, to see this long line people all explain that they're happy for their ideas to be freely shared and built on, for the enrichment of all. What monsters we are.

 

[Lanefan]

But someone's character is NOT their identity. If they view it as such, that's problematic.

Someone's motorboat is not their identity either, but if you use it without permission you're still in a heap o' trouble.

 

[Lanefan]

Where do we draw the line at disrespecting the inworld character of a player though? Is a character dying in a random encounter also disrespectful because it does not give the player an end that that they had agreed to? Is challenging a PC's personality traits also disrespecting the player since it might reveal that their character does not have the values they profess to have?

To the latter two questions, my answers are 'no' and 'no'. Both those things are tacitly agreed to when signing up for the game, as is (in my case anyway) the allowance for my character to become a QPC (still mine, but someone else plays it true to character and if possible contacts me if something major comes up) if-when I'm not there.

What's not agreed to is the PC's personality being arbitrarily changed - or the PC being arbitrarily killed off - if-when the player misses a session.

 

[Lanefan]

This thread has jumped the shark.

Not yet it hasn't. It asked the shark's permission but the shark said 'no'.

 

[Lanefan]

Question, for those of you who are very particular about the usage of your character after you've stopped playing them.

Imagine that you play in a long term campaign, and your character, Jerry the Gnomish Conjuration Wizard reaches a pretty high level. Like D&D tier 3 or 4. Over the course of the campaign Jerry and his companions have bested evil liches, saved countless orphans, liberated enslaved peoples. They're the kind of heroes that Kings and other world leaders request their audience, and Goblin tribes tell their young boogeyman stories about them.

Maybe over the course of the game you and your DM worked together to come up with a new system of teleportation magic, and the DM wrote up some new spells that Jerry invented.

That campaign came to an end, and a year later the DM reaches out to ask if you'd like to play in their next game. You have other obligations and regretfully decline. The DM mentions that he's setting the new game in the same world, and asks how you'd feel about Jerry showing up as an npc. You respectfully ask him not to use Jerry as well.

A few months later you're meeting with this DM for lunch or something and ask how the new games going, and he tells you about it. You realize that a key PC in his story is essentially just Jerry re-imagined. He's a world renowned Conjuror that has developed a new system of teleportation magic, and has since opened up his own school to share his knowledge. One of the new PCs is actually an apprentice wizard at his academy.

Would this bother you?

Only if the original Jerry had somehow been retroactively excised from the setting's history. But if Jerry's Temporary Teleportation and Jerry's Instant Circle are still known-of spells in the setting, meanwhile new conjurer Ralph has invented Ralph's Unpredictable Portal and Ralph's Runaway Runway, I'm fine with it even if Ralph is pretty much a Jerry clone otherwise.

And as I noted upthread, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

[Lanefan]

But....you can't just assert that. Your 4th level rogue doesn't suddenly gain dimensional breaching powers because you (the player) is moving to Albuquerque.

Why not? If the player asks permission (rather than just flatly stating) to have that character jump from its current setting to a new one (e.g. if the player already has a game lined up in the new city), I'd be surprised if a DM didn't find a way to accommodate this. I would.

And then, in the new game that character can regale everyone with tales of its former life on another world...

 

[Lanefan]

Actually. Something I've been meaning to ask, might have been answered by some people already, has anyone been in a situation where someone left the game and their character was made an NPC and the former player got mad about it?

Yes. I was the player.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm curious. For the people who strongly stand on "i have ownership always, even if i leave table". Why do you care what's going on in a game in which you are no longer participating?

Same reason I might care about what's going on in any other society or group or town etc. that I'm no longer a part of.

 

[Lanefan]

These all seem to be based on the assumption that the player is still playing in the game. If a player is in the game and a former PC from another campaign is encountered, I leave it to the player of that PC to roleplay what the character does. He knows the character best.

Which is great; and yet there's been a poster or two in here who wouldn't even allow thins, as in their eyes the former PC beacme a full-patch NPC the moment it retired from adventuring.

Unlike most intellectual property, a character is made to be shared in the game world.

Ah, now here's a key point of contention: is the character made to be shared in the game world by everyone or shared with the game world by its player?

My answer is the latter.

I've yet to be in a social contract that assumes that if a player leaves the game entirely, the DM can't use the character as an NPC.

For us, it's more that the DM can't have the character do anything rash or out of character if-when it's encoutered later, and preferably that such encounters be in non-adventuring or non-threatening situations. Bumping into ex-PC Jocasta in town and catching up on things is fine; or maybe the party have told their new mage that their old pal Jocasta might be a good source of spells. Stopping by ex-PC Margaret's castle for tea (e.g. her retirement came when she married into nobility, or became nobility herself) is fine. Recruiting either of them to go adventuring, or intentionally putting them in other danger, is not fine; nor is changing anything fundamental about who or what they were (e.g. if Jocasta was always a bit prickly, maybe she tells the party new mage to get lost rather than just passively co-operate).