Currently i'm DMing a game that has been running since December, and while the players seem to be enjoying the game very much, NOBODY seems to want to choose one character and stick with it. Constantly they are remaking their characters and swapping in new ones on a whim, and the party has just now hit level 5. We did recently have a few players drop due to real life circumstances, but even before then they were character swapping too.
I tried having rules in place to discourage this, but it's not slowing them down. The party breakdown is like this:
Player 1: Bard
Player 2: Ranger > Druid
Player 3: Summoner > Monk/Rogue
Player 4: Priest/Paladin > Fighter
Player 5: Cleric > Sorcerer > Warlock > *dropped*
Player 6: Barbarian > Witch > Back to the Barbarian > *dropped*
The players won't stick with a single character and it's driving me batty as a DM, and i'm at the point where I'm sick of it and not even bothering to work new characters into the storyline and just railroad them into the party. "Bob went back to town and doesn't come back, you meet Bill on the road. Introductions, and off to the dungeon."
The only original party member left, the Bard, has even submitted a new character for me to approve for him to swap to at a later date. The dynamic of the group makeup is constantly changing so that no clear strategy can ever be pinned down for the group to use, and as such encounters always evolve into messy affairs. Currently the party has zero healing (Druid rarely memorizes heal spells, as it's not part of his character concept). The added fact that i'm trying to run them through an Adventure Path is making it hard, as soon there will be no original characters left, the original hook is going to be moot. Since the entirely new party will have none of the previous experiences, they can say "Why are we even here doing this?".
It's slowly starting to dissolve the campaign and I don't think they realize it. I want everyone to keep having fun, but this is going too far. How can I get the players to pick a class and stick with it?
Here, Here, Mirror, Mirror.
Additionally, I know I've been a hard-ass before and said basically that everyone had to stick with their character or switch the table they played at. I can be a @#$^% sometimes though.
How can I get the players to pick a class and stick with it?In our groups, we have new people or people swapping characters start 1 level lower than APL. If the Bard swapps, he looses a level. Same with anyone else.
It really discourages that swapping, or really benefits the person who sticks with the same character (since that was APL, not the highest level PC). Eventually, the rest of the party could be the "merry men" of your Bard's "Robin Hood".
That's exactly the rule I use to discourage character swapping. It's not working. :(
I've seen groups where a single player, maybe two, get 'restless' and swap characters sometimes. I've never seen it where nearly the entire group does it frequently.
Do you have a reason to explain their desire to constantly switch? Restless? Trying to optimize to shine more than other players? It just seems very odd to me.
Following on the other suggestions, it seems like you have a few possible courses of action:
1. Make the switching penalty higher. If the 1 Level loss doesn't slow them down, try adding in a stat penalty as well. They must keep their exact scores (but shuffle the order to fit their new class) and lose 1 point to any ability score.
2. Just say "no". Tell them they are all allowed one more switch and that is their final one. If they pick classes that make the party non-viable (i.e. it is a combat heavy campaign and no one decides to take a healer sort) then they will pay the penalty in-game.
3. Call a game hiatus and discuss it with the players. The switching is making it impossible for you as DM to run a consistent and viable campaign - which means you as the DM are having no fun. So the players need to figure out what they want. If its a sandbox where they can switch out characters - someone else needs to DM. If they want a campaign then they need to create characters that work together as a party and accept that NO switching (save a truly 5th wheel character) will be allowed.
Another part of my frustration here is that we are running Rise of the Rune Lords Adventure Path. We're just at the point of fading out from book 1 and into book 2. I've asked them on several occasions if they wanted to switch DM's, do some homebrew, a different module, or stay the course, and they all readily want to keep chugging along RotRL AP. They've been loving it, and several of the characters even developed relationships with the townsfolk. The summoner fell for Vinder's daughter, and turned it around so that he was now courting her with her fathers approval. The bard is fostering a friendship with Amieko. Everyone was on first name basis with Sheriff Hemlock. The healer was working closely with the church. All of these relationships and tie-ins with the town are slowly getting thrown out the door one by one as the characters are remade and leave the party.
The stat penalty idea isn't that great, since I inherited DMship. The previous DM set the standard for stat rolling as 4d6, reroll 1's and 2's, take highest three dice. No point buy. I kept that to keep characters somewhat fair as new players joined and others remade. That leaves some characters with a heroic stat array and a lot of room to keep rerolling characters for some players, not as much for others.
I was in a great 3.5 Dark Sun campaign for 2 1/2 years. My DM had us all make 3 characters in 3 different groups and would rotate between them at the end of each adventure. It sometimes made it difficult to tell a continuous story for one group, but it gave him the scope of the whole world since we could have characters all over. More importantly we got to try 3 different classes and if we were bored playing, say, a rogue, we just had to tough it out a few more weeks til the end of the adventure. We leveled "off screen" and basically had downtime for our alternate characters so when we got back to playing them there was no fannying about.
I have no idea if this fits with your style of DMing but it worked really well for us.
The stat penalty idea isn't that great, since I inherited DMship. The previous DM set the standard for stat rolling as 4d6, reroll 1's and 2's, take highest three dice. No point buy. I kept that to keep characters somewhat fair as new players joined and others remade. That leaves some characters with a heroic stat array and a lot of room to keep rerolling characters for some players, not as much for others.
If you don't want to do the stat penalty - that is fine. Personally, I wouldn't penalize characters at all - I'd go with option #3. :)
But - inherited or not, the game is YOURS now. You are the DM. Maybe that is the problem - you are shackled by rules set up by the previous DM?
Personally, if I take over DMing, it becomes MY game since I'm investing my time to maintain the campaign... which means I have the right to revisit the rules and conventions and if I find one I don't like, I send it packing.
To me, the basic rule is everyone should be having fun... that includes the DM. If someone isn't happy then your crew should find a middle ground that satisfies everybody.
Well directly related to your problem.
I would make them choose either pick a character and stick with it, and keep playing RotRL, or allow them to switch out characters but play a looser game. either way if you don't feel comfortable running the game then don't. I realize it sounds harsh but you should enjoy the experience as well as the players. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down.
As to why your players keep changing their characters...
...my best guess is that maybe they are getting bored. I assume since you are using a published adventure that leveling is rather slow. This might be the problem. You may just have to dump the AP for something more free form. Another option would be to accelerate the progression of the AP, but that could be more work than you want to do.
I also think you should sit down and talk this over with your players. Explain that what they're doing is making it difficult, if not impossible, for you to run the game properly.
I would not try to houserule the players into a corner in order to solve the problem, because it seems that they do not perceive it as a problem, and so, making up arbitrary rules to hinder their switching will most likely only look restrictive to the players and the problem will not be solved (or even, get worse).
Really, everyone should be having fun, and if the DM is not having fun, it's highly likely that eventually it will rub off on the other players.
well the way I'd personally handle the swapping situation is:
1. you must have a good reason to swap characters, not just "I don't want to be a cleric" an acceptable reason is "I don't want to be a cleic because I tired of being treated like the party's "healing b****""
2. your new character joins the party at the lvl of the lowest lvl party member if every party member is at the same level, if everyone is at the same lvl then you join as 1 lvl under them but at 1/2 exp to next lvl
3. only one change per person unless an even more specific reason is given
tyhings like this can stop excessive swapping before it strts so I'd suggest you think of implementing them
Maybe it's just that PF is still pretty new. I know I'm dying to play an Illusionist ever since I read the thread about how bad they suck. I'm loving my current character though it'll be a while...hopefully.
It seems to me that a lot of your players have the short attention-span MMO disorder. They want to play your game like they would online. After all, why stick with one character when online you can have a stable of eight characters to swap around between whenever you want and still be playing in the same world and doing the same quests and fights.
If you have to, just start over and tell everyone they can make two or three characters in advance that they can switch around between so long as you know in advance they want to make a switch. That way you can include them all in the back story and plot. Or you can even divide them into teams and each have a different quest to do and switch the campaign between the groups as you see fit.
Man is this thread well-timed! My party's doing the same thing. We've got 6 characters made now and only 1 of them is from the original party. We're all new to tabletops, not just PF, so people are wanting to try out new things. I can understand that but it makes it hard on me, the optimistic lad fresh out of GM school, to adjust the encounters to keep them alive. One day they destroy everything, the next day they're dragging each other out of the fight.
I'm fine with it for now but eventually I may let the Law of the Jungle take over. I'll stop trying to adjust the encounters for the party. If they die, they die. It's not my fault. After their hands cramp up from rolling up a few new characters maybe they'll sit down and discuss who does what and how it'll keep them alive.
If nothing else maybe we'll get to see them die in interesting ways. Fun!
I'm very much a compulsive character-switcher, so allow me to share a bit of what makes me tick. Your players may not be even remotely like me, but hopefully the insight will help in some way.
The number one reason I switch characters is that I have many more character concepts than I have games. As soon as I play a character for a while, I start to satisfy the reasons I wanted to play that character, but the other concepts I have are still just as unfulfilled as when I came up with them. It doesn't mean my actual character's story is "done", it just means it's closer to done than the other ideas I have.
The second reason I change characters is that assumptions I made about how the GM runs games or how the party behaves turned out to be false. Again, this doesn't have to mean I'm not fitting in and I'm having a rotten time. It's not that I'm not having fun (if that were the case I'd simply leave the game), it's that I see a way in which I could be having more fun.
So really it all comes down to having a surplus of character concepts. I got a lot better about character switching once I became a writer, because suddenly the vast majority of character ideas I had were better suited to something other than gaming.
The lesson in all of this is that if your players have the same motivations as me, harsher penalties aren't going to stop them from changing characters. It may make them leave the game, which I suppose technically stops them from switching, but it doesn't sound like that's what you want. The best solution is to get them playing in more games, but that can be a hefty time-constraint. Basically, find constructive outlets for their other character concepts.
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Like far_wanderer I have a surplus of character concepts, but that's because I'm usually the DM and not the player.
My advice would be to stop sticking to the previous DM's stat generation. Switch it to something much less generous, like 4d6 keep the highest 3.
If the less well-endowed characters combined with level loss don't put at least make them think more carefully about character swapping, then it's time to bust out the real ball-buster: 3d6 in order for all new characters.
One block. You want a new character? Time to spin the wheel of fortune and hope you get the one you want. Once you've rolled the first set of 3d6, your old character is now an NPC and you can't turn back.
This might seem a bit harsh, but in my experience, I have a lot more fun sticking with one character in the long run, no matter how much I want to try out new concepts. Sticking with one character that then becomes memorable and a part of me is a lot more rewarding and I really enjoy bringing the character to life.
Just giving a short story, here, of a game where players decided to switch characters.
As was the tradition in our group, each player came to the game with his character, withough knowing the others' beforehand. That evening, everyone had made a character specialized in melee. While the characters were resting at the inn, a fight erupted, and some of them, not yet allied with the others, decided not to join in. The fight disrupted the scenario hook, and we found ourselves without goal, and without a defined party.
Deciding that we couldn't continue the scenario as it was, we extracted secondary characters from our folders and followed another hook into the same scenario. However, none of our secondary character was really a fighter, and we had to make a tactical retreat...
We could have tried again with a third character, but we didn't have the time to do so.
The gist of our switch was because (1) the characters haven't actually established a party, and (2) the characters' classes were of the same kind.
Is your players' characters' party varied enough? Did they do things together? The group's dynamic might be off, here.
Admittedly, I tend to switch characters a lot, depending on the game. Some games I play in don't have a major story going on(dungeon crawls and such for fun), so I take the opportunity to try out different character concepts. Or, if the party is lacking a crucial role for whatever reason, I tend to fill the gap. If we've got plenty of fighter-types and no healing, I'll step out and make a healer.
If the game has a solid story going on, I tend to stick with one character. I guess in a way, how often I change out characters could be sort indicative of how interesting the story is. But that doesn't sound like the OP's problem, since the players insist on continuing the AP.
Did you ask em why they keep switching? Maybe just telling them it's making it hard for you and you'd rather have them keep to the same character will be enough. Or at least it will give you some insight on why they switch all the time.
If you do need to restrain them, new character generation rules are a good way to do it I believe. Lower levels and stricter stats array might work.
I myself am partial to mandatory backstories. Two pages minimum for a new character into the running game, and it must include motivation and opporunity to join the adventure (subject to your approval for balance / continuity reasons of course).
After all, good for them if they want to start a new character, but it should'nt mean more work for you to introduce them. It will also help them flesh out the caracter's personality, and prevent the "walking numbers array" syndrome that often becomes so common when players constantly switch characters.
84 toons on 2 WoW accounts...I think I should keep my mouth shut.
Well there you go proof is in the posts...
...most of the time all you really need to do is sit down and talk things through with your group.