Whose "property" are the PCs?

[reveal]

Yep

Then by all means, proceed.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

"Right on" right back at ya. Playing a game under a GM is just an agreement that you're both imagining the same thing at the same time.

Now I've got to say I get it, NW. For the most part, I can get behind your theory of PC ownership.

... interesting thread, eh?

 

[Mercule]

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with most of you. The player owns the character, simply put. While the GM may provide the settings and circumstances under which the character is created, it is the player who creates the character, determines his personality and attributes, and ultimately defines his "essence". It's like somebody handing a canvas and paints to an artist.

I can agree with this, with a caveat: It depends on the group's contract (express or implied, which is why I said I spell it out to my players -- no doubts).

With a very broad brush, I tend to divide campaigns into two groups: Serious and Beer & Pretzels. I don't mean to imply one is better than the other, just that there is a difference in attitude.

Serious games tend to be focused on continuity, deep development of characters, and exploration of the setting. The people involved invest themselves deeply in a combined work. Beer & pretzel games tend to be more light-hearted and easy-going. If something doesn't quite fit, it's no big deal. The difference in focus is "create" vs. "have fun".

I tend to run Serious games. That's why it's troublesome for me to see a character played in another game or for a GM to "misplay" a PC turned NPC. In a beer & pretzels game, I have no problem with bizarre jumps from one world to another or parellel existence of PCs. That isn't to say you can't have character development or some deep issues in a beer & pretzels game, just that no one worries about continuity. I'm probably answering exclusively from a "serious" perspective because I can't imagine why anyone would care, otherwise.

And, to be honest, I'm pretty sure that after my current serious game, I'm going to be in the mood for some beer & pretzels.

 

[The_Universe]

So, you're saying that it is no longer the same character once the DM takes control AND that it is the same universe? I'm not sure how these both can be true

Well, see - my buddy used to play this character. And then I moved away and ran another D&D campaign based in the same game world, ostensibly in the same universe. My buddy is half a country away, so I extrapolate things that his character *probably* would have done based on situations that I *probably* would have introduced if the campaign I GMed and he played in continued. I do this for what amounts to a millenia in the game world (which is mine), and I even re-write a few things from that old game to make it make more sense in terms of the new. Is it the same universe? Yep. Is the character exactly the same? No way - my buddy isn't playing him, so he *can't* be the exact same. Since I'm the one who owns "the universe" I get to decide how things happen within it. But it's still his character. If he doesn't like the way thing went in that universe after I left, he's well within his rights to imagine something else. To me, that's an alternate universe. To him, it's the *real* version, and mine is the alternate.

Which of us is right?

Neither. And both. Both are true, and neither conflict unless you assume that to imagine something contrary to one of the contributors wishes or ideas is "invalid." It's not. It might be *annoying* (at worst) but it's not invalid any more than anyone writing Batman comics after Bob Kane quit doing so happens to be.

It would be interesting to know- you state that NW couldn't enforce his version on you. Do you even know what his version is?

Yeah, I've got a decent idea. His version would have involved more prankery with another PC (now NPC) from the old campaign than is actually present in the most recent incarnation of the world, but I got to know how he likes his characters played pretty well over the years so I stuck pretty close to how things might have gone. Let's just say I didn't polymorph his grizzled elven warrior into a fairy princess.

 

[Mercule]

Ah... I grew up reading Michael Moorcock's Multiverse novels, so I see we have a very different perspective. To me there's nothing odd about a PC being 2 different things in 2 different universes.

And I've never read them. Nor do I particularly care for the trope of plane-hopping. There are about as many people in my homebrew that have been to Toril as there are on Earth.

 

[NuclearWookiee]

The player does not own the character. The character is not some great artistic piece of work. It is a game piece created to play a game. It has numbers and stats and (sometimes) a personality.

I'm sorry, but that's a very narrow-minded view of the game. The difference between a novel and a D&D game is simply the number of authors involved. And if you want to argue that there is no such thing as intellectual property rights pertaining to fictional characters... well then you just go ahead and publish your book killing off Luke Skywalker in a hunting accident and we'll see what happens.

Look, all I'm saying here is you can't change a character and claim it's still the same character in the same universe. I'm not saying you can't use a past character. But you're not fooling anybody if you try to claim both. It's like we've already said... imagine whatever you want, that's just not going to have any bearing on what I imagine after my character and your world have parted ways.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Only when the player is actually playing it. Then it is called a non player character.

I would agree with this, if the DM got the player's permission to make the PC into an NPC at the end of a campaign, for use in later games. A player that trusts his DM not to completely break character might easily agree to this.

But I don't believe the DM has the right to take a PC, use him as an NPC, and do whatever he will with him. A PC's story is "written" by the player over the course of the campaign. For a DM to snatch the book away at the end of the game and simply start writing whatever he likes in the final pages is, IMO, outright wrong.

So either a PC fades into the background, or the DM gets the player's permission to "adopt" him into the campaign as an NPC (at which point the player has ceded the "right" to decide the character's future decisions to the DM.)

 

[Belen]

To me, that's an alternate universe. To him, it's the *real* version, and mine is the alternate.

Sophist!

Of course there can be two different characters out there. My argument is that a player cannot dictate how a GM runs their personal game, which seems to be the emphasis of this thread.

I care not what a player does with his/her character outside my game. They are free to do with it what they will.

 

[Rackhir]

If anyone owns a PC, I'd have to say it's the player. They created them and defined them. Sean Connery doesn't own the rights to James Bond, but you can't separate him from what he brought to the role.

Obviously, you can't stop a DM from using the character if they really wish to, anymore than a DM can stop a character from being used in a different campaign.

However, if the DM wants to be using the character then I feel that they have an obligation to at least ask the player if they mind and try to follow how that character would have behaved. Otherwise, what's the point of "using" the character if you are going to make them into something completely different? Just call them by a new name.

 

[Belen]

well then you just go ahead and publish your book killing off Luke Skywalker in a hunting accident and we'll see what happens.

You should refer back to that post and see where I state the difference between public and private use. In my private SW campaign, Luke can be a street walker if I want it to be so.

Look, all I'm saying here is you can't change a character and claim it's still the same character in the same universe. I'm not saying you can't use a past character. But you're not fooling anybody if you try to claim both. It's like we've already said... imagine whatever you want, that's just not going to have any bearing on what I imagine after my character and your world have parted ways.

And I am saying that it is the same character with respects to my campaign world. It may not be the player's vision of the character, but it is the character from the previous story in terms of the current game.

And I have never said that I control what anyone thinks or does outside my game. This entire argument is couched in terms of reusing a character as an NPC in a GM's game and does not determine the definitive version of the character for all the world to see.