I've never done this to a character. I have spoken to players who are running characters in a way I have an issue with, to see if we can work towards a solution (generally the issue is that I find it offensive in some way).
Normally if I don't like someone, and it's enough to cause me enough irritation to actually bring me to the point of feeling I need to do something about it, it's not the character I remove, it's the player. Admittedly this generally only works when you're the GM, but given that's the situation the OP references, I feel it's relevant.
I had to do this recently, removing the same player from two games, one that I run, one that I don't. To be fair, I made sure to talk to the other players and explain why I was doing this... and both games are hosted at my house, and I had simply reached the point where I wasn't willing to have this person in my personal space anymore. Note that the fact that the game is hosted in my house is the only reason I felt that it was reasonable for me to outright declare that a player is not welcome in a game I don't actually run.
I have occasionally had to take a player aside and have a chat about how the character was woring out in the group. So far, this has been due to either a PC that was running on a different power level than the rest of the party (either relatively overpowered or underpowered, which was sowing some level of discontent with the other players), or was making roleplaying decisions that was causing friction (like the "lone wolf" PC that doesn't play well with others.) I've almost always been able to sort this out in an out-of-game meeting with the player in question, and the player recognized my concerns and adjusted accordingly.
A recent example: In my current Pathfinder game, I have one player who is pretty big on system mastery, while the rest of the players are more interested in designing the character around style and RP choices. This meant that the one highly-optimized character was greatly overpowering the other PCs in combat, causing him to really hog the spotlight. I had to work with him to make a roleplaying choice that caused him to make some non-optimal combat decisions. It worked out pretty well in the end.
I've only had to ask a player to leave once. It was about 15 years ago. The player was a friend of a friend that I hadn't ever gamed with before, but since my friend vouched for him, I let him into my game. The guy couldn't stop using foul and sexist language in my house, even after I had repeatedly asked him not to. He also regularly broke into off-topic (and off-color) jokes during times when I was trying to be very serious in-game, derailing the mood. I tried talking to him out-of-game. While he said that he'd try, he definitely copped the attitude that he thought my concerns were kind of dumb. After one more session, he totally broke the mood of a horror scene I had worked very hard to establish. I could tell that my other players weren't happy with this guy, given the daggers they were shooting him during play. After the session was over, I asked him to wait a moment after the other players had left. I told him that I didn't think his play style was compatible with that of the rest of the group, and that he seemed unwilling to adapt to ours. I said that I didn't think it was working out, and that I didn't think we should continue gaming together. He seemed pretty surprised that I was kicking him out, despite mentioning that he'd been kicked out of two other gaming groups!
Afterward, the friend who'd vouched for him apologized for bringing him into the game. "That guy seemed pretty cool at work, but he sure was an A-hole at the table!"
I have occasionally had to take a player aside and have a chat about how the character was woring out in the group.
I'll have you know that as a dyslexic man, I cannot, for the life of me, casually read that sentence correctly, and it's difficult to force it into a "proper" meaning.
I'm presuming you mean "wearing out the group."
'Cause my mind keeps trying to add a "h" to that word...
(Heheh... what? Yeah, I'm twelve*, deal with it!)
Anyway, I am not sure what you mean be "sanctioned" a PC exactly, but I usually try to talk to my people before something happens in-game.
But I once had a player who was so obnoxious as to randomly kill NPCs in the street and was confused when his character was able to be arrested. In a fit of "he's new, we'll work with him" I allowed the whole thing to be an "terrible misunderstanding" which, when the fellow PCs made bail (pure metagaming: they had no reason to do so, he just showed up) he went back to attacking anyone that stood in their way for any reason whatsoever.
or
They were interested in investigating some murders: "You can't come in here, this is a crime scene and investigation into a murd-erk!" *officer falls over dead from the arrow in his eye*
Didn't help that the guy had the most uncanny ability to roll natural 20s repeatedly and on most attacks. And it wasn't a problem with the dice: he had none, and used those from our group.
That was the first session he was in. His character was pretty much killed by the officers, and the PCs helped subdue him. He left.
He came back later, and we decided to allow him back in the game (a terrible decision, really). His previous character had been reincarnated as a kobold that had been "used" as a sacrifice to an evil blood-drinking sentient shadow tree (they were merely executing his long-delayed death-sentence, really) that the PCs were distracting long enough to get information before "rescuing" the kobold; they got their information, and decided to attack the tree (not a bad thing, really). He returned at the beginning of this session, and took control of his character (the group convinced him to fight instead of commit suicide). He died pretty quickly, so, being kind and not wanting him to sit bored, I permitted him to take control of a GMPC (the players of nearly every group I run work really hard at making those for me) until the end of the one combat until the group could rest and he could create a new character, and I could introduce it. Unsatisfied with the GMPC as a character (even temporarily), he immediately proclaimed he committed suicide. When everyone thought he was joking, he explained he took the blades the character was wielding and slit his own throat ("I, what'a'ya-call-it 'coo-dee-grays' - yeah, that's the word! - myself and choose to fail my save! I die!"). When I looked at him in confusion trying to figure what the heck?, he then looks at me and asks what his new character is, explaining that he killed his character because didn't like this one and wanted a new one instead.
In the middle of a major boss fight.
Third time he played with us.
He then told me to hurry up, and his new one needed to be "cooler" because "kobolds are dumb" (the GMPC recruited by the players was a jann) - in retrospect, I'm really not sure if he knew that).
I kind of stared blankly at him, I think, mouth agape. Several other players stood, nodded at each other, and walked him out of the Barnes & Noble cafe we were playing at, saying they needed to talk to him. He did not return to our table, and I never asked, though since we both worked at B&N at the time, I saw him occasionally, and he was pretty much unchanged, so I dunno.
When the other two guys returned, I suggested a retcon of the last three rounds, they agreed, and we pretended the whole thing never happened. The kobold was left dead this time.
Otherwise, there are three things that may fall into that category, but I'm unsure if they fit what you mean.
Two were with another player I had. He kept doing things illegally in the area he was and was too impatient to wait to get his stuff, even if it was promised him. Three times he defied forces in intense negotiations that, as I warned, were too big for him - I'd suggested this in character to all the PCs and gave him several out of character warnings, too - the constabulary of a city (he was breaking into a vault that I think he presumed had plot-important treasure), a hidden circle of extremely dangerous and violent-prone druids who were negotiating with the group (the PCs were trespassing with intent to pass through and enter a ruined cursed city the druids were guarding to ensure its evil did not escape - the PCs wanted to destroy the evil), and a large number of mixed race (including drow) constabulary in a city on the plane of shadow... as he was trying to loot drow bodies (he wanted to get the treasure before the constabulary "stole" it from him). He had his head handed to him each time.**
Once, fairly recently, I stopped the game and told a player that, frankly, I didn't know how to continue the AP if they went through with a particular (likely to succeed) action. It was very disappointing, and not only did I realize how, but I realized how much better it would have worked out, but there it is, and it's too late to ret-con now.
*
** Generally the other players, if present, just went, "Hey, man, we're not getting involved in that, it's a stupid idea." recognizing that GM hints of the magnitude of, "Really?! AGAIN?! Look, I'll tell you straight out: you can't beat these guys when they're all gathered together like this at full strength. If you really want to kill them or if you don't trust them not to give you all the stuff, you might be able to be clever about it or something later and investigate or kill them when they're not all focused on possibly fighting you at once, if you really feel the need to, though these guys are not supposed to be long-term enemies. Just don't attack or antagonize them right now, and, once you're not in this situation, you may well be able to get away with murder if you really want to." as relatively straight-forward enough. He seemed to think that, as the GM, I didn't know what I was talking about. :/
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When I was running Carrion Crown, we had a player who missed about half of our sessions, and wasn't fitting well with the rest of the group. When his barbarian leeeeroy jenkins'd it into the trolls at Caromarc and died, we asked him not to roll up a new character. He seemed a bit PO'd, but left on amicable terms.
Right now I'm one more reroll request from booting a player from my game because he's on character #5, the third in as many sessions. Don't know how well that one's gonna go.
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wait what is the missing word in the title, because filling it in will probably have an effect on my answer
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Define "sanction" in this context please.
I guessed, based on context, to give my best answer.
"DMs: Have you ever sanctioned a PC because you didn't (????) him / her or the player?"
Like? hate? have relations with? shake hands? rub noses?
"sanction"? = Kill? Kick out? Blackball? Not allow treats?
My friend and I sanctioned two players and a GM once. Not for any reason other that we were young and obnoxious jerks. I’m not proud of it…but we did it.
The GM brought in two other gamers who we had not met. Since I had not met them I decided that my con artist thief would portray himself as a squire. Soon the other players were allowing my con-artist to carry bags and even tipping me on occasion. My friend was playing a mage. The other two gamers were playing melee classes of some sort.
Anyway our GM was a big time Dragonlance fan and my god he loved him some Kenders. He awkwardly brought in Tasslehoff Burrfoot to the game for no reason. My friend and I not being fans of Kenders decided to assassinate Tasslehoff just because we were selfish 18 year old pricks. We pulled it off, and the GM was furious. We had murdered his literary hero.
At that point the GM railroaded us into a module called the Arena of Thyatis (of something like that). My friend and I made a escape using the other two players to cover our retreat to the outer edge of the arena. Seems like we only had enough feather fall for two. So we floated out of the module while the other two players and GM watched on. Me the “squire” was holding all their gear and valuables.
It was the end of that particular game as I never saw those two gamers again and the GM did not talk to us for weeks.
How obnoxious…totally a^$ hattery.
-MD
I have occasionally had to take a player aside and have a chat about how the character was woring out in the group.I'll have you know that as a dyslexic man, I cannot, for the life of me, casually read that sentence correctly, and it's difficult to force it into a "proper" meaning.
I'm presuming you mean "wearing out the group."
Sorry, that was a typo. Meant to say:
I have occasionally had to take a player aside and have a chat about how the character was working out in the group.
The dangers of posting from a smartphone.
I had to throw a player out of my game about a month ago. Player, not PC.
The group I'm in has multiple DMs (each with a campaign) and no "leader". We generally game together because we're friends and not because our gaming styles coincide. Therefore most games only have most, not all players, as inevitably there's someone who doesn't like FATE, 4e, Pathfinder, or whatever other game is being run. Unless the DM takes a strong hand, personality differences will make our PCs drift. Anytime I run a game these days, I post a document about what kinds of non-game attributes PCs need for the game (eg no evil PCs and all must be ex-slaves from a particular group for my last campaign, all lawful evil for my current campaign) and avoid sandboxing because our every attempt to do so has been a disaster.
The player in question sometimes DMs. Probably half the group DMs at some points. He's run one long successful campaign, his first, and a bunch of shorter ones, never D&D. He plays "gotcha games" unfortunately and continually makes certain elementary errors that he won't learn from (his last two campaigns fell apart because the PCs didn't know each other ahead of time, so had no real reason to hang together, and I know not to make that mistake because I did that as a DM before, learned from it, and tell all the other DMs in my group about it). He's amazing at playing NPCs and is great at multitasking. He has lots of brains, which unfortunately fuels the "gotcha" play and makes his inability to learn how to put a group of PCs together puzzling.
Good DMs are not always good players, and good players are not always good DMs. It probably took me a long time to realize this because his first campaign as a DM had been really good, leaving me starry-eyed. He seems good at "killing the morale" of a game (he's charismatic in real life and can get people to feel the same way he does) and never seems to play a PC for more than three sessions before switching. In our last Kingmaker game, he literally looked up the stats of the iron golem that we were fighting (very obvious metagaming and disrespect of the DM) and his next PC was built without consulting the DM at all and he showed up as a wizard with ridiculously high save DCs, smashed a couple of encounters single-handedly and really pissed of the DM.
He wasn't as bad in my last campaign but some elements where there. (I told the players to play heroic characters and he didn't get the message.) The last time was really bad though. Constant complaints about the game we were playing (4e, mainly involving the character that he built), the campaign (an ENNIE-nominated one) and my gaming style (always in a passive-aggressive way). It was so bad other players finally complained. I didn't think he would show up again and foolishly said nothing. He showed up in session 2. Same behavior, if less of it. I told him I wouldn't DM for him after that. Showing up to a game that you don't like and damaging everyone else's fun just makes no sense.
"Sanction" means "kill off."
I think both, though, were pretty clear from context.
Not clear enough, sadly. I presumed you meant remove from the game, yes, but I did not get the context of "killed the character" at all.
In either case no I have not.
No, I've never killed anyone off because I didn't like them. If it got to that point, I'd just ask them not to play with the group any longer, which has been the case a handful of times over the years. It's faster and easier (for me) than subjecting myself or my group to any sort of silliness like described in many of the examples above.
Since an unintelligent monsters is as likely to go after PC X as he is PC Y or Z, if PC X just HAPPENS to be the guy who's bringing down the game who's to say?
Fortunately I've never had to deal with running with a player that I didn't like. I don't let people join my games that I haven't at least met and had a conversation with. Because I take on freshman/transfer students every couple semesters or so it may happen, but I would say if the player is being a problem, killing the character is not going to solve it. They will make another PC and you will still dislike the player.
A problem PC on the other hand, well, the things that end up bringing down the fun (stealing from PCs, killing NPCs other players like, etc.) have a lot of potential consequences that you can selectively introduce to teach the player to show some restraint.
Off and on over the 30+ years of DMing/GMing, I've had to do this a few times, but 100% of the time it's a player not a character issue. Some have been as simple as you're not a fit others have been a huge issue because I was socially required to still interact with the people. I try hard to make sure that if someone isn't a fit I figure it out as quickly as possible without resorting to killing their characters over and over (and over and over).
Come to think of it I've never had a player who's stayed with my group make a character that just doesn't fit with the party. Now I've DMed parties that specifically don't get along, but the group gets along outside of the game.
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I'd expect higher standards at age 19, since in this country you've already been a presumed adult for a year."Sanction" means "kill off."
I think both, though, were pretty clear from context.
Not clear enough, sadly. I presumed you meant remove from the game, yes, but I did not get the context of "killed the character" at all.
In either case no I have not.
I was trying to be a bit colorful with "sanction." That'll learn me.
In any case, I'm not proud of the occasions (there were two) in which I did such a thing. Still, I was nineteen and 22, so ... please, all, allow for the fact that I left such ass-hattery behind long, long ago.
Now that's not being fair. It isn't the best way to handle the situation but if you can honestly say you have never made a less-than-optimal decision because of your emotions after you flipped the magic switch on your 18th birthday you are either lying or a robot.
