Who "Owns" Old PC's?

[Oaken25]

Re: well

Now im watching my niece (3) and my nephew (1). the 3 is crying and screaming because 1 keeps crawlying away with 1 of her blocks.


hrm. i would have put an [OT] on this post, were my subject matter really OT to this subject.


joe b.

Well why did you post that really odd long thread to me?. It has nothing to do with what you quoted.......

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Re: well

Well why did you post that really odd long thread to me?. It has nothing to do with what you quoted.......

OMG--- means Oh My God! What i was trying to say was that i can understand a little bit if he was concerned because he had spent a long long time with his PC and was a bit personally invested in the history/experiences the PC had.

But just the name? The guy said you couldn't use just the NAME? Hahahahahahaha OMG!

also, in my head, i was pretending i was good gollum/bad gollum.

joe b.

 

[Oaken25]

Re: Re: Re: well

OMG--- means Oh My God! What i was trying to say was that i can understand a little bit if he was concerned because he had spent a long long time with his PC and was a bit personally invested in the history/experiences the PC had.

But just the name? The guy said you couldn't use just the NAME? Hahahahahahaha OMG!

also, in my head, i was pretending i was good gollum/bad gollum.

joe b.

Yes I know what OMG means

But I'm not so confused any more now that you explained that, hey it's late and ive had a long day alright. And i've been thinking about this topic off and on since yesterday, and it's finally starting to make me a little batty ok.

I got the Gollum thing also, grin. As I said it's been a long day.....

 

[Kilmore]

I have a different situation with the same elements:

Kilmore: "Hey guys, check it out. I did some more drawing for my comic with my old characters I made just for the comic. Lemmie know what you think while I get tonights adventure ready."

Kilmore's Players: "Ha ha! Very funny, and very nice drawing. But umm..."

Kilmore: "What?"

Kilmore's Players: "Why don't you drop this idea and make a comic of your campaign with our characters? That would make a GREAT story!"

Kilmore: "Umm, I'm not sure I want to get into that..."

 

[Kesh]

Just as not every doodle in a sketch book is truly "art"

Unless it happens to be DaVinci's sketchbook. I think many art collectors would flay each other alive to get stick figure drawn by him.

This whole thing has been about as entertaining as Art 101 in college. We spent a week in groups debating on a good definition of art, and at the end of it all the prof did exactly what I expected: pointed out that no one is going to agree on a good definition for 'art.'

In regards to the original post: if a player told me s/he didn't want me to use their PC in the future, I wouldn't. History would note that an unnamed fighter/wizard/etc took part in the grand crusade against evil. Their deeds are known, but their true name was lost to the ages.

Simple, lets me keep the back history, and it happened in real life plenty of times. We honestly don't know if Lao Tsu or Arthur ever really existed, or who was the man who fired the first shot of the American Revolution. A simple footnote in history is enough, and it saves a lot of RL grief.

 

[jgbrowning]

In regards to the original post: if a player told me s/he didn't want me to use their PC in the future, I wouldn't. History would note that an unnamed fighter/wizard/etc took part in the grand crusade against evil. Their deeds are known, but their true name was lost to the ages.

Simple, lets me keep the back history, and it happened in real life plenty of times. We honestly don't know if Lao Tsu or Arthur ever really existed, or who was the man who fired the first shot of the American Revolution. A simple footnote in history is enough, and it saves a lot of RL grief.

Well, thats exactly what i would do. I'd think what i'd think about the poor guy who's so attached to his name, but i wouldn't use it. Not because i don't think i dont have just as much right, nor because i think he has any "ownership" of the name, but only because i'd rather not hurt someone's feelings when i don't have to.

that, however, is another post entirely....

joe b.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Here's my scenerio.
----------------
player: i don't want you to.
Dm: ok. (Dm then procedes to do so anyway and hopes he doesn't find another nutcase in the new player.)

(after player finds out DM did it anyway)
player: you lied to me!
Dm: yep. And all the time i was playing the PC you didn't feel bad, did you? I guess your feeling bad now about me playing the PC is something personal you need to work on. If my playing a pretend game with a pretend character that you pretended about for a while gives you real emotional distress you have personal issues.
----------------

So, basically, you're just an insensitive ass who (in this scenareo) took some degree of pleasure from betraying someone's faith in your word, and then the sense of betrayal and loss of faith in someone they thought they could trust to basically just not lie to them and laugh behind their back. I'm sorry but your script makes you nothing but a cheap bully, regardless of whether the request made any sense to you (or anyone else) or not, it was nothing short of malicious.

And im not pretending here. There is some things that need to be addresed in this guy's life if he gives a rat's butt about a pretend character, in a pretend world, that he pretends to have ownership over, in a pretending game.

And so it's your job to treat him like crap until he does what you think, whether that request makes any sense to him (or anyone else) or not.

I'm sorry, but I know of too many gamers who got treated exactly like this in school by the "cool kids" for me to believe that this is how gamers treat each other.

 

[Oaken25]

Last time I'm going to say this The PC did not have a problem with me keeping the PC in the game as a NPC, the problem was that they did not want the PC's name to be used, cause the name was special to them in some manner. At the time me and the PC had this discussion (which was before I even posted my first message on the boards about it), I was going to say No, I ain't changing a PC over a name, that's all it is, it's just a name, but after awhile and we both cooled off, I changed my mind and we discussed it and it was fixed yesterday (or 2 day's ago if your on the east coast, like I am, or if you live farther east, then the east coast. ). Then I posted about the topic to see if any one else who DM's has ever run into some one really being that picky about a DM reusing old PC's as NPC's.

To my shock and horror, it seems a lot of people really hate that DM's do this. Why? I have no idea, well at that time I didn't but now since some of you have commented why, I've read some pretty interesting arguements for and against it. So I guess I learned a lesson about this and from now on I'm going to tell PC's upfront that I reuse their characters in my world and it's history. If they have a problem with it then I won't ever use thier PC's as part of my games history but I also won't really "include" that PC into my game because it would be a static character that would never really accomplish much cause as soon as they leave the game the PC would want everything that was changed to be ignored. But I still feel I really don't have to even ask them because D&D is a dual venture as I've said before the PC's help make the world, but as does the DM. So it's really hard to say who is has the "ownership" of a character, and as I also said technically the only one who "owns" a character is WOTC cause we all use thier books to play D&D. Other wise we all would just be writting out our own stories, and then this would never be a problem, cause then every one would own thier own characters, but there would be no roleplaying between a DM and PC's.

 

[jdavis]

Well, thats exactly what i would do. I'd think what i'd think about the poor guy who's so attached to his name, but i wouldn't use it. Not because i don't think i dont have just as much right, nor because i think he has any "ownership" of the name, but only because i'd rather not hurt someone's feelings when i don't have to.

that, however, is another post entirely....

joe b.

Wait that's almost like you are agreeing with what I said earlier............ and here I had given up.

 

[Wolv0rine]

The other thing people seem to be missing and maybe I didn't add it in the orignal post on this board was that the person didnt care about the character, it was that they didn't want the characters NAME to be reused cause the NAME was special to them. Other wise they didn't give a monkeys bum about the character itself, just it's name. But as I said a few times me and the PC straightened it out yesterday, but I kept this thread open cause it was a interesting discussion about how PC's and DM's feel about the reuse of old PC's in campaigns.

Yes, and this really is a bit different than the idea of the charatcer en toto as has been the primary focus of the thread, here. If all you have to do is change a name, then geez that's really nothing, because as the DM you did not put any time into identifying with that name enough to feel like you could ROLEPLAY under that name. I wouldn't want someone to go around making up and telling stories to strangers wherein the main character had my name, that's usually called "Rumors" after a few re-tellings.

Also as some on posted earlier, what if the DM wrote a story for the Story Hour board about the PC's. Is that allowed by PC's who don't allow DM's copies of thier PC's? This topic has a lot of ramifications then most people think.

If a former DM of mine wanted to post how a game session that I played a character in went, that's just dandy. That would be a re-telling of how I played my character (my character not because of that +4 ghost-touch battleaxe, but because I was the one who formed the personality that is the important part behind that piece of paper with numbers written on it). I think a good part of the reason that some people are uncomfortable with their characters being used as NPCs is because so very often the DM just simply cannot play the character the way the player who played him did. I've seen old players come into a game where some NPPs were their old characters, and invariably that player at multple points says something to the effect of "You know you're playing him all wrong, don't you?" And, knowing that someone's off somewhere mangling what is supposed to be your old character really does make me squirm just a little. If he'd just change the name, so it wasn't supposed to be the same character, then I'd be dis-associated from it, it'd just be a knock-off of my old character -- which are usually bad, and it's to be expected.