Whose "property" are the PCs?

[fusangite]

Dannyalcatraz,

You have produced a bunch more stuff stating that the act of writing down a character turns him into your own intellectual property, something I had already conceded in my previous post. What you have not demonstrated is that to discuss someone else's intellectual property with your friends in a social setting around a table, itself, constitutes infringement thereof.

Unless the DM's input is significant (which is a jury question in the extremely unlikely event something like this came to trial), the PC belongs to the player.

Well, in any campaign I ran, I have the feeling that it would be pretty tough for the player to state his character was "all his."

While it is true that I have not had much DM participation in PC creation (take THAT Jesse Jackson!), it isn't because of DM dullards or uninteresting campaigns, its because I have no need for their input, other than the odd name of the appropriate region of origin for my PC.

I just don't see how this is possible. Wouldn't you find it difficult to talk about your character's family, for example, if you don't know if the society is matriarchal or patriarchal, if you don't know how large family units are and how property passes between members, whether the household is the locus of economic production, etc.? Similarly, if the character is sleeping with women when he is adventuring, and has a wife at home, is that transgressive or expected? Should he feel guilty about it?

Well, if it were my character you were yanking around after I had retired it, and you didn't respect my objection, you would find me walking out of your door. (And no, I wouldn't sue.)

Well, that's something. I think you're missing out on a great experience, though. I have had some of my best laughs when a GM has sprung a surprise appearance of my old character on me.

 

[S'mon]

Dannyalcatraz,

You have produced a bunch more stuff stating that the act of writing down a character turns him into your own intellectual property, something I had already conceded in my previous post. What you have not demonstrated is that to discuss someone else's intellectual property with your friends in a social setting around a table, itself, constitutes infringement thereof.

It isn't (& I think/hope Danny would agree!). OTOH anything written down about the PC technically could potentially be copyright infringement - this issue is likeliest to arise in PBEMs and other text-based play formats.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How are you going to feel watching your great barbarian lord who forged an empire then retired die of leprosy?

About the same as if any other character had it happened to me, not really caring. The character stopped being mine when I stopped playing him. I'm not control of him any more so I don't really care what happened to him.

I don't worry about things I can't control. I can't control what the DM does with my character once I stop playing him, so I don't worry about it.

I have played a character named Majoru Oakheart in no less than 5 or 6 D&D games (and 2 MMORPGs). I also played the son of Majoru Oakheart in another game. Sometimes Majoru switches classes, sometimes he switches abilities slightly. I'm sure at least one of those DMs had something happen to Majoru after I left their game. I have no idea what it is, though, nor do I care. Some alternate version of Majoru did something while I wasn't controlling him? Well, that's not my problem, I'm busy playing a NEW Majoru Oakheart with a slightly different background, different friends, and a different quest. The character is always very similar to his old selves, but never exactly the same anyways.

I like to think that Majoru is seperate from me, what he does is independant of me. I may control his actions for a while, but he is not me nor am I him. He had a history that I may have invented before I started playing the game, but I didn't have control over him during that time, he lived his own life. Now I control him, then when I stop, someone else might control him. That is the way of characters in a role playing game.

I like him enough as a character, that even if he fell to evil, became sour and went on a killing rampage, I'd still find a challenge and an interest in playing or hearing about THAT version of Majoru.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Once again- this is cooperative, within the game- and no one objected.

If a player had objected- maybe even threatened to leave- what would you have done?

I would have done the same thing that we're about to do whenever someone whines about stupid things, we tell them if they have a problem with it, feel free to leave, but I'm the DM and I only report what happens in the game and I'm not going to make nothing unpleasant happen just because one player has a problem with it. Vampires have the abilites to do that, and there was one there. No players were there to stop them, they succeed. It's that simple. The "laws of physics" or personality of my villians don't change based on the whims of the players.

The reason I say "like we're about to do" is because right now, in one of our games, we have a player who tends to whine whenever something doesn't go his way. He based his character around a weapon he had. It got sundered on the first battle the character played in. During the last session he said "fine then, I'll roll up a new character who has the exact same stats and name and has the item back and my old character can retire." Sadly enough, he's serious. He's also the type that when the DM tells him "No, I'm not allowing that, it's stupid", he'll threaten to leave the game. So, we'll likely have to either call his bluff or find a new player.

And yes, I consider the second example every bit as bad as the first. Things happen to your character that you can't control. Get used to it. Sometimes, you can't undo them.

 

[Falkus]

All that means is that you've written up an absolutely generic character as it has no ties to the campaign world

Please. Pretty much all campaign worlds are similar on a social level. There are rich people, there are poor people. Some people are gender or racially bigoted, some people aren't, etc.

In a way, it does. When a company sits down and says "Ok, we need an idea for a new game that will sell well, give me some ideas" if an employee suggests something that would likely get too high a rating, it may be shot down. Then, during the actual process of making the game, graphics may be changed to stay withing a certain rating.

Which just reinforces my point. The GM only provides restrictions on what characters he'll accept, he has little to do with the actual creation process.

 

[Mallus]

The GM only provides restrictions on what characters he'll accept, he has little to do with the actual creation process.

That just doesn't match my personal experience. In the majority of campaigns I've played character creation was a collaborative process which went beyond a simple set of GM-imposed restrictions.

For instance, playing a cleric meant getting a sense of the faith's ethos and worldview from the GM. It meant figuring out how and why said clerics acted, in parternership with the GM. Not merely haggling over raw mechanics.

And let me say off the top of my head this whole copyright argument seems insane. Could the creators of a published, copyrighted intellectual property (say Square/Enix) sue a gamer over his angst-ridden young PC who toted around a sword several feet longer than his body, on the grounds that some day he might try and publish some kind of material featuring said angsty sword-toter? Is that what DannyA is saying?

 

[fusangite]

Please. Pretty much all campaign worlds are similar on a social level. There are rich people, there are poor people. Some people are gender or racially bigoted, some people aren't, etc.

So, all the campaign worlds you have ever seen are modernity in medieval drag. That sucks, man. You are missing out on some great gaming opportunities.

 

[Odhanan]

While I've never really posted before, I've been lurking for awhile and have read that a lot of DMs like their own home-brewed worlds. And, in reading I've come up with a question (it hasn't happened in any of the games I run, but I suspect it might soon). If a DM creates a world and the players create PCs for adventures within it and then the campaign ends, if the DM wants to run another campaign in that world at a later time-period, can he/she decide what happens to the PCs? In other words, are the PCs the creation of the players and thus their personalities and decisions are under their control. Or, can the DM just "decide" that after the campaign ended that this PC becomes evil, this one dies, etc. What do you guys think?

I think this should be discussed prior to the use of said character. At best, this should be agreed that the PC, once it is retired, becomes part of the world and therefore part of the creative domain the DM uses. At least discuss about it before the character retires.

Then, when the character pops up later in the game as a NPC, avoid any intentional caricature or parody. Try to recreate the character's behavior. The PC should then accept this portrayal of the character by the DM. If there is an issue, discuss it after the game.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Please. Pretty much all campaign worlds are similar on a social level. There are rich people, there are poor people. Some people are gender or racially bigoted, some people aren't, etc.

I'll give you that a lot of worlds are similar....some aren't.

Which just reinforces my point. The GM only provides restrictions on what characters he'll accept, he has little to do with the actual creation process.

But that IS part of the character creation process. Your great halfling rogue that you created might have been a grey elf wizard if only your DM allowed grey elves. Your rogue might have been the leader of his own thieves guild if only your DM told you that the concept of a thieves guild didn't exist in this world. You would have grown up in a small, farming town if only the DM didn't run a world where all food was magically created and there was no such thing as farming.

So, your ideas are shaped and changed by the restrictions put before you, making it a collaberation.

I think I'm beginning to understand that this issue has a lot more to do with an "artistic" mindset than anything else. For instance, artists draw something on a piece of paper and then expect people to pay money for it. I'm not insulting artists, I just can't think that way. If I scribble something on a piece of paper, even if it somehow turned out to be good (which it wouldn't), I wouldn't somehow think there was value inherant in it.

When I think up an idea for a character, I don't think "Look at this great character I came up with". I think "It's a character, it's nothing that anyone else here wouldn't have been able to think up. It's not that special." Plus, I can come up with another idea that is likely just as special as the first one within minutes. It's just not worth worry about an idea like that. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

 

[Odhanan]

One point I didn't stress out either is the necessity of the player's consent. The player should agree with this. On an intellectual property level, and simply when the DM tries to use good sense. It saves countless arguments, and you'll most probably get a "yes". If "no" is the answer, the DM should also comply.

Another thing too: I wrote that the DM should discuss the issue with the PC before the character's retirement. Either at this moment or just after said retirement, discussing the character's "future" from there is important. What happens to the PC? Then use the PC's input on the situation. You'll feel as a DM what matters the most to the player, and you'll have to use these elements if you don't want the player frustrated with what you do later with the NPC.