D&D General Who “owns” a PC after the player stops using them?

[Vaalingrade]

It's not stealing in any meaningful sense legally or morally. Right now I could design and run an adventure for my group where the PCs take on the roles of Doctor Doom, Doc Savage, Doctor Jones, Doctor McCoy, and Doctor Steel fighting against the World Crime League after they've kidnapped Buckaroo Bonzai and that's perfectly fine.

Not morally? Let's ignore stuff created by people you don't know that's entered popular culture.

Someone who is in theory a friend you played D&D with says 'please don't use my creation' and the DM's like 'lol, no'?

 

[MNblockhead]

Thinking over the past 10 years, this has only kinda been an issue one time. I have a core group that attends nearly every session. But I've had other who join only occasionally, or who had to drop out. Generally, there characters just kinda fade out of existance. If they join again and want to play the same PC, we level up the character to be closer to the rest of the active PCs levels. I ask them what there character has been doing while they were away, generally far from the area of the current adventure, and what brought them back.

As for active players who want to switch PCs, that generally doesn't come up, except when there is a PC death, or, in my last campaign where most players had a second PC who survived the first session funnel, where the inactive PCs were just taking care of the stronghold while the other PCs were out doing missions.

The one time a situation like what is being discussed in these threads came up is when an active player who had played for the first year of the campaign had to drop out because of work and life conflicts. The issue was that his characters back story was tied heavily into the background of the stronghold the players took over and their rights to it. I asked him if he was okay with his PC still being used in game as an NPC who would basically be the castellan of the party's stronghold. He was okay with that. When he returned later in the campaign, he has the option of playing with his old PC but instead rolled up a new character.

If he hadn't agreed to that, for some reason, while I don't feel I have any duty to not to use his character as NPC, I most likely would have had the character leave the area and disappear from the campaign. If I ever run into the situation where a player leaves the gaem but still wants to dictate what that PC is doing in a campaign the player is no longer active in, expect that PC find himself mysteriously plane shifted. Where do? Don't know. That's up to the ex-player to determine in his own campaign.

If an active player wanted to run a new PC, I would probably work with the player and what he wants the old PC to be doing in the background.

This bigger issue has been when a player of an active PC has to miss a session. Depending on the campaign it can often be easy to have the PC go off on its own. But there are times when a session ends in a spot where that just doesn't make sense. Especially in the rare case where a session ends mid-combat. With my current group, there is a husband wife team where if one can't make it the other with play the missing spouse's PC. The other players are generally not comfortable playing two PCs, so I'll play the missing person's PC as GM, but I try to find a way to get the PC to leave the group at the earliest opportunity that it makes sense.

 

[MGibster]

Someone who is in theory a friend you played D&D with says 'please don't use my creation' and the DM's like 'lol, no'?

Like I said in my first post, it's such a bizarre idea to me that I can scarcely conceive of someone asking such a question. I suppose if a friend asked me then I'd simply follow their wishes. But then I don't typically turn PCs into NPCs anyway, so they'd be asking me to avoid doing something I wasn't likely to do in the first place.

 

[tetrasodium]

You ever read through a thread and wonder to yourself, "Just how is this even an issue?" It's just utterly bizarre to me that someone would be offended by a GM continuing to use their character once they left a campaign. That said, I'm hard pressed to think of any example where I've done such a thing. As a GM, I wouldn't hesitate to do it if having the PC leave abruptly would disrupt the campaign. i.e. Let's say one PC was the wealthy benefactor whose patronage allowed the PCs to investigate supernatural cases in 1930s London? If the player left I'd continue using the former PC though he wouldn't participate directly in investigations anymore. I'm not sure how I'd react if the former player was upset. Probably just shrug my shoulders.

By the way, if you ever play in one of my homebrew campaigns I'm not going to be upset if you borrow elements for your own game. Why not? For my all dwarf campaign I stole borrowed from D&D, World of Warcraft, Aristophanes, 19th century U.S. women's history, and even Time Bandits. Go nuts, people!

IME metagaming efforts & ROLEplay vrs ROLLplay taken to an extreme. I've seen it a few times over the years & it's far more common now than in earlier editions. Here are the genericized circumstances behind the why of a couple times I've seen it come up. Once it happens it's easy to form a strong proactive problem-solving outlook with the question

• Bob plays in Beth's Wednesday campaign and bis PC has become mayor of $city or similar. Either Bob's PC is retired or the campaign ended but now the group needs to interact with the mayor of that same $city and now that Andy's PC is asking the mayor a question Bob causes a kerfuffle trying to force the GM's hand by jumping in to answer Andy's question or takes it as an opportunity for player-Bob to be told what Bob's old-PC would know about current local events.

• Alice plays in Andy's tuesday campaign but goes off and writes stories about her PC when board or has private roleplay interactions away from the table with that character with people who may or may not even be members of the table & aside from the occasional odd comment it never really comes up with much more weight than your mild case of stereotypical "well I'm a roleplayer and MY character ..." disruption since nobody at the table is bothered by what Alice does in her free time & most or all of them firmly believe the reason they weren't invited is a good one knowing Alice. During the campaign Alice became a notable figure at a noteworthy guild/dragonmark house/etc in $city. During a later campaign someone other than Alice suggests going to that guild while the party is in $city for reasons that seem relevant to the adventure. Given the ample worldbuilding that everyone at the table is familiar with the GM uses Alice's old PC in her old role with the guild adapting to the circumstances caused by this campaign's BBEG, That's a problem for Alice because she's still writing those stories and engaging in those private roleplays with that character and she doesn't want to ignore the set quick interaction or update those stories and private roleplays most of the table has nothing to do with.

Both of those cases avoid all of the problems caused at the table if the GM owns/controls the character turned NPC once Alice & Bob are no longer playing them as a PC. If Alice and Bob are expected to bring up that they want to maintain control/authority/ownership over that PC should it become an NPC in session zero or sooner it gives ample time for the GM (or group) to tell them to make a different character or find a different table before it becomes an issue. The other way around creates more work for the GM by freezing chunks of the game world in carbonite or requires others to become Alice's number one reader after she brings in a character with hidden undisclosed baggage that never should have been brought in.

 

[TwoSix]

Someone who is in theory a friend you played D&D with says 'please don't use my creation' and the DM's like 'lol, no'?

Honestly, unless they had a really good reason, that would make want to use it more. It probably wouldn't have crossed my mind till you went and made it weird.

 

[lall]

I personally don’t think people own ideas, so I think the DM and the player can each do whatever they want. As a player, all of my characters end up with happy endings, regardless of what the DM does. For example, if my character dies in some other DM’s campaign, I just bring him into my campaign (where it’s just me as the DM and no players) and the character gets fixed, finishes his career, and successfully retires. So from my perspective as a player, whatever the original DM continues to do with my character is ultimately fake news.

 

[Lanefan]

Why should your wishes be honoured, if you are no longer participating in the game?

Following that line of questioning very quickly leads to asking why we should honour the wishes of the dead as expressed in their wills. You sure that's the tack you want to take?

Why? If you're not at the table, and never coming back, why should the group be expected to pretend you're still there?

Because even though I'm not there, my character is. If you don't want to have to pretend I'm still there, leave my character "off-screen".

It's only deceitful if we've promised not to play your character after you leave the game.

Maybe that's where we differ: I assume that promise to be the unspoken default if nothing else is said.

I can understand the need to set and agree on expectations in a situation where it's feasible that the player may return to use that character again. However, you seem pretty clearly to be suggesting you have a right to dictate if and how that character is played, even in situations where it's known that you will not be returning for the life of the campaign. If that's not the case, all good. As I've stated, my objections mostly revolve around players who have left permanently.

IME there's almost no such thing as permanently. The way I see it, anyone who has left the game should be reasonably able to expect that if they ever return to that same game their character(s) will be waiting for them, largely unchanged since last played. That's in part why I-as-DM tend to keep character sheets; so they too will be waiting if needed.

And if I know for sure that someone really has left forever (usually meaning they've been kicked out), it's trivially easy to have their character(s) retire if such hasn't already been done, and simply become non-adventuring members of the setting's population or go off on (unplayed) adventures of their own that have nothing to do with anything the PCs are involved with.

 

[billd91]

Following that line of questioning very quickly leads to asking why we should honour the wishes of the dead as expressed in their wills. You sure that's the tack you want to take?

No it doesn't. The slope isn't that slippery.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Honestly, unless they had a really good reason, that would make want to use it more. It probably wouldn't have crossed my mind till you went and made it weird.

Just like those banks putting money in vaults. It's just begging people to take it.

 

[Lanefan]

So this spun off partly from one of my comments, so I guess I should probably weigh in here. First, I very strongly believe that your character is your character. If you invented it, you retain ownership and control unless and until you choose to give it up. I will here note that there are explicitly times within the D&D rules (and many other ttRPG systems) when you will lose control of your character, either temporarily or permanently, and when you choose to participate in the game, you are agreeing to hand over control under those circumstances unless it's been otherwise specified that your group won't be using those rules. The most immediate examples of this are if your character becomes a vampire spawn or something of that nature.

Completely agree thus far.

That said, the specific example this conversation spun off from was of a character choosing not to participate in the activity the game is explicitly about and thereby becoming an NPC. And this is a different beast entirely. Every player at the table has a responsibility to make a character that is going to participate in the game. This is a pretty non-controversial statement, in general. If you make a character that is antagonistic, antisocial, and decides to wander off away from the rest of the group to solo adventures, the DM is entirely within their rights to go "Congratulations, you're an NPC now. Now either make a character that will be a part of the group, or find another table" rather than running a separate solo adventure for you while the rest of the group sits around doing nothing. This applies equally to "I'm going to sail away to a new continent without the rest of the group," "I'm going to retire from adventuring to start a quaint little B&B," or any other form of choosing not to participate.

There's two different things being (IMO wrongly) conflated here:

1. The character doesn't go along with the group but instead sails away or opens a barber shop.
2. The character becomes an NPC.

That the character isn't participating in the primary group activity (party-based adventuring, usually) has nothing at all to do with who that character belongs to. When my character decides to leave the party to open a barber shop then if I want to keep playing I need to roll up a replacement; that seems both obvious and uncontroversial. But that barber-shop owner is still my character, not an NPC; and it's still my choice as to whether I later have him chuck the barbering and return to adventuring, be it with the same party or another.

Also, as a DM I see it as being part of my job to update these characters either at the player's request or (in the case of still-active players) my own, usually done in off-cycle sessions (pubs are handy for these). Big long campaigns like what I run tend to build up a whole bunch of these retired or quasi-retired characters; right now I've a list of about 20 that I'd like to update over the next little while, and that's just for the currently-active players.

Claiming ownership of that NPC and using them in ways contrary to the creator's vision or even in ways entirely in keeping with that vision but without permission is a dick move. But they aren't a player character anymore, since no one is playing that character, ego: NPC. If the former player is cool with it, then yes, it can be awesome to have them turn up here and there in game afterwards. Or to become a major recurring character. But that's a load-bearing "if" right there.

I disagree with the bolded. It's still a player character until and unless that player hands it over to the DM; and if that hand-over never happens then the character's really not in good faith available to use IMO.