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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 2413550" data-attributes="member: 32740">No it isn't like that because an artist in your analogy starts with a blank canvas and is constrained by nothing.  A D&D character is created in and played against the backdrop of a campaign world that the player had nothing to do with.  The development of that character then takes place amid the inputs not just of the game world as-is, but with the constant interaction of the DM and the other players and their characters.  That means that the "creation" of that character is INDELIBLY influenced by everyone else at the table and thus you couldn't possibly hope to claim "ownership" of that character at any point. If your DM has a copy of your character sheet and one day you simply walk away from the game and never come back the DM doesn't suddenly say to himself, "Golly, now I'm really screwed because I don't actually OWN that character and I can't run my campaign without Player X even though I have the character sheet!" If you want to talk about taking that character and PUBLISHING it in some way for profit, especially if you're also taking sole credit for it and/or failing to acknowledge that someone else is in some part responsible for the origination of the character that's different than simply saying, "I OWN this character therefore you are not even legally allowed to continue to use him in any form in your game around the kitchen table."  That's bunk.Nonsense.  The player assumedly walks away from the game with his character sheet intact and all the memories of that characters development.  From that point on the player has his "work of art" perfectly preserved.  But that doesn't mean that he is allowed to, much less capable of, mind controlling the DM and other players to wipe that character from the continuing campaign and the memory of the game up to that point.You most certainly CAN.  It'd be rude or at least silly, but you most certainly MAY legally and ethically.  If a DM has a copy of that character sheet (as a good DM should in the first place) he can do whatever he wants with that character sheet and EVERYTHING IT REPRESENTS.Purely a matter of semantics.  A D&D character is a set of numbers and data on a piece of paper along with a purely subjective idea of aspects of characterization associated with it.  Two people - ANY two people - can take that information and do whatever the hell they want with it and are perfectly correct to claim "it's the same character."  A player can spend the rest of his life waving that character sheet around and saying, "this is MY character" and all others, even with the same numbers and concepts attached are but pale imitiations because _I_ created it." and that would be true too.  But he can't stop me as a DM from allowing another player to take a carbon copy of that character sheet and pick up right where the "original owner" of the character left off, and having that new player similary say, "this is MY character AND NOONE ELSES because from this point on I control decisions for this character the same as if I had rolled it up from scratch."Absolutely true.  But it still doesn't give the player absolute control or remote control of that characters fate in that DM's campaign once he leaves the game no matter how much personal effort went into that characters creation and development.  It simply doesn't work that way and it is manifestly obvious.</blockquote>

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