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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7137587" data-attributes="member: 6787650">My favorite way is to tell players that if they roll up a PC and then want to retire them immediately, they can, but:(1) The PC needs to actually be in a playable state (name, class, distinctive characteristics), and then you need to give that PC to me as DM for use as an NPC;(2) You also need to give me five NPCs rolled up on 3d6 at the same time.The 3d6 NPCs is to keep stat inflation from happening--players are more likely to realize that e.g. Str 14 is actually quite a big deal, making you probably the strongest guy in any given room--while still giving an escape valve for anyone who really hates their PC enough to want to retire it immediately. Furthermore, players are more invested in NPCs that they had a hand in creating. When that armored, masked figure gives off &quot;a whiff of strawberries&quot;, the player who created Jan the Space Genie gets excited--even if Jan never takes off his mask due to the way events play out.Interestingly enough, no one has ever taken me up on this offer yet and given me five NPCs and a PC. They just play the characters that they roll. (I know what I know about NPCs from other occasions when I've had players create NPCs for me.) But it lets me be confident that if I really did have a situation like Oofta describes, where Oofta's wife and friend both hated their PCs enough to want to commit suicide, it wouldn't be an issue at my table because they could just donate those PCs to me instead.And I would then have lots of fun using them as rivals to the party or as villains. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :-)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7137587, member: 6787650"] My favorite way is to tell players that if they roll up a PC and then want to retire them immediately, they can, but: (1) The PC needs to actually be in a playable state (name, class, distinctive characteristics), and then you need to give that PC to me as DM for use as an NPC; (2) You also need to give me five NPCs rolled up on 3d6 at the same time. The 3d6 NPCs is to keep stat inflation from happening--players are more likely to realize that e.g. Str 14 is actually quite a big deal, making you probably the strongest guy in any given room--while still giving an escape valve for anyone who really hates their PC enough to want to retire it immediately. Furthermore, players are more invested in NPCs that they had a hand in creating. When that armored, masked figure gives off "a whiff of strawberries", the player who created Jan the Space Genie gets excited--even if Jan never takes off his mask due to the way events play out. Interestingly enough, no one has ever taken me up on this offer yet and [I]given[/I] me five NPCs and a PC. They just play the characters that they roll. (I know what I know about NPCs from other occasions when I've had players create NPCs for me.) But it lets me be confident that if I really did have a situation like Oofta describes, where Oofta's wife and friend both hated their PCs enough to want to commit suicide, it wouldn't be an issue at my table because they could just donate those PCs to me instead. And I would then have lots of fun using them as rivals to the party or as villains. :-) [/QUOTE]

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