As the title says, how do you feel about switching your character to something else? Maybe it's just me, but after playing a character for a while (normally a few months) I'm up for a change of pace. I just like to make new builds and personalities to play (probably plan out a completely new character once a week, even though I never actually play most)... think the longest I actually played a single character was around 8 or 9 months into what would be a year and a half campaign with my second most played character being his replacement that played out the remainder of that game. But yeah, about about you guys? Do you tend to stick with a character for the long haul or do like to change out characters mid-campaign as well?
I generally like to stay with on character, unless it is not working out as planned.
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I have what, in online games, is called 'Alt-itis.' I want to play *everything.* Now!
So I bounce back and forth between characters with great abandon. Other friends have a 'main' character that they've devoted all their time and energy towards, I have to make characters on six other servers, because I want to try one of everything (and two or three of the things I really like!).
In tabletop games, that sort of thing is rarely tolerated (and it's totally useless for Organized Play, which pretty much requires focus on a single character), but we had one GURPS 'reunion game' where we brought our oldest and longest-played characters out of retirement and had a game designed for such ultra-powerful characters. Everyone else was between 275 and 300 CP (in a game that starts with 100 CP and gains an average of 2 or 3 CP a game session!), and my most advanced character was just over 150.
I love making new characters. One of my GMs regularly dismisses the first character sheet I hand him automatically, figuring that the second or third choice will be more palatable. (I usually have four to six prepared for whatever D&D campaign has been proposed, and, literally, *hundreds* for various super-hero RPGs, which are my true love.)
I'm much more likely to stick with a character because I like the personality or the way it's interacting with the rest of the group, than because I want to 'level it some more.' All of my characters are designed to work at 1st level. No late-blooming builds for me, because if it's a late-bloomer, I'll probably lose interest long before it blossoms... (Same thing with online games. I'll 'level' a healer because the guild needs it, not because I am burning with desire to get that next spell that does the same thing as the last spell, but 7.5% better. Woopty-craptity-doo.)
I have swapped characters before, but that only happened when the character became unplayable.
What this sounds like to me, is that you need to DM a game, it is the perfect way to introduce a character, and then drop them if you dont like them, or build on them if you do.
I'm much more likely to stick with a character because I like the personality or the way it's interacting with the rest of the group, than because I want to 'level it some more.' All of my characters are designed to work at 1st level. No late-blooming builds for me, because if it's a late-bloomer, I'll probably lose interest long before it blossoms...
Yeah having a character with interactions you enjoy really does go a long way to wanting to keep it, but mechanically when it seems like I've reached a dead end I have a hard time keeping it going. In that campaign I mentioned I was an Ranger/Deepwood Sniper archer for so long. I was the main damage dealer, I enjoyed the roleplay with the character, and had what seemed like a character story plothook to keep things involved (short story: character's mentor was a druid, and infected with the dread curse of lycanthropy. Infected my character for the chaotic evil lulz but used spells to make him keep his same mentality eg no alignment shift. Thought it was cool as hell and a really tasteful nerf as it meant the DM could hit me and force me to will or be a much less effective melee fighter).. and I realized all I was ever going to be able to do was stand there mostly unmoving and rapid shot. It kind of killed it for me and I made a new character though in retrospect it would have been cool to repurpose the character with DM consent as a melee monster (literally!).
I have swapped characters before, but that only happened when the character became unplayable.
What this sounds like to me, is that you need to DM a game, it is the perfect way to introduce a character, and then drop them if you dont like them, or build on them if you do.
I haven't DM'd in a long time, last time I had some people that half my friends didn't want to play with (hosting at gamestore) and they got tired of them eventually dropped out and I ended it (though I made a lot of mistakes so that probably contributed to it as well). Still I've been thinking about trying to run again just for the reason you gave.
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I have what, in online games, is called 'Alt-itis.' I want to play *everything.* Now!
So I bounce back and forth between characters with great abandon. Other friends have a 'main' character that they've devoted all their time and energy towards, I have to make characters on six other servers, because I want to try one of everything (and two or three of the things I really like!).
In tabletop games, that sort of thing is rarely tolerated (and it's totally useless for Organized Play, which pretty much requires focus on a single character), but we had one GURPS 'reunion game' where we brought our oldest and longest-played characters out of retirement and had a game designed for such ultra-powerful characters. Everyone else was between 275 and 300 CP (in a game that starts with 100 CP and gains an average of 2 or 3 CP a game session!), and my most advanced character was just over 150.
I love making new characters. One of my GMs regularly dismisses the first character sheet I hand him automatically, figuring that the second or third choice will be more palatable. (I usually have four to six prepared for whatever D&D campaign has been proposed, and, literally, *hundreds* for various super-hero RPGs, which are my true love.)
I'm much more likely to stick with a character because I like the personality or the way it's interacting with the rest of the group, than because I want to 'level it some more.' All of my characters are designed to work at 1st level. No late-blooming builds for me, because if it's a late-bloomer, I'll probably lose interest long before it blossoms... (Same thing with online games. I'll 'level' a healer because the guild needs it, not because I am burning with desire to get that next spell that does the same thing as the last spell, but 7.5% better. Woopty-craptity-doo.)
Wow, people can actually stand GURPS for that long? ^^
I have very much the same problem. I've been playing PFS for 9 months or so now, and I have 8 characters. It's gotten a bit ridiculous. I played LFR for about a year, and I have more than 20 characters there.
I usually come up with a new character build about once a week, as do many people I play with. My group had a tendency of homemade adventures that were single objective and would last three to five sessions. The GMs knew that everyone would want to change characters by that point anyway, so why even try for a longer game. In any case, recently this same group has been trying the published Pathfinder Adventure paths, and so there has been a little bit more character fidelity. I still get bored though playing the same character for more than a couple of levels, so I am trying my hand a GMing Jade Regent, hoping all of the NPCs will keep my character ADD in check.
I've actually never played the same character through an entire campaign- though not by my own design.
I've either come in late (9th level sorc) and gone on to high levels (campaign came to a close raound 29 or so, took approx year, year and a half or so)
Next campaign I got into same deal- enter at 9th level, disintegrated around 13th (the campaign, not my character.. the lil halfling wizard lives on in memory at least).
Current RotL:
Intro character died to getting flanked by shadows.
Subsequent melee bard died to a big nasty that killed all but one in the group.
I'm on character 3..
The group's cleric and fighter are the only two originals of the party who are still around. Two of the "beginners" left completely, (the players) and everyone else is on at least their 2nd character.
Now as for your actual question- I have no real issue with someone changing characters if they want to, as long as its not a weekly thing. Adventuring is at least somewhat like a typical job world. No one really wants a revolving door of new people coming in. But if you, say, change every 6 or 10 levels or something that wouldnt' be terribly awkward- especially if you informed the DM of it ahead of time so he coul work it into the story. Heck he could even appreciate it.. Your death could be come the thing that galvanizes the party and gives it direction.
Hope I did't ramble overly much.
-S
When we start a new campaign I give myself three insanities from the PALLADIUM RPG SYSTEM. They are never the same, but always keep my character fresh. I love seeing the party sweat bcause their rogue is scared of magic, or sticky things, hates bing touched, etc etc.
I had a 13 LV cleric who had a GOD complex, had to be the face of the party/in charge/ number one decision maker, and always seeked out vengence for the most minor of crimes against him.
Its the little things that make you look back and say, "Wow. That was a fun guy to play." I'll try to find a link for the chart that they made for insanities. Its just to awesome not to share.
Normally, I get attached to my characters and want to develop them -- even if I've got a million other concepts I want to try, I'd usually stick to the character I start with.
If a character was not working out, or if the party turned out not to be working well without a PC with a certain skillset not represented, I might consider switching, though.
As a GM, I don't mind someone switching on occasion. I did run one campaign where I let one player switch to a new character because the old one wasn't working for him, and suddenly most of the group wanted to rebuild their characters or play new ones. And suddenly, I had a bucketload of issues trying to write new characters into the current story, get them to rebuild rapport with the party beyond "you look like a trusty adventurer," etc. I established a 1-switch rule -- you can change your character ONCE, so think good and hard about whether you want to switch and what you want to switch to. And also, when you level, you are allowed a SIMPLE rebuild -- i.e., you really regret taking this spell instead of that spell, so yes, when you level, you can trade the two. (Some classes have that sort of as a class feature anyway.) It seemed to work fine--gives the players a chance to back out of something that doesn't work but doesn't create a lot of extra work for me either.
If I like a pc I can play it for a long time.
But sometimes I notice, that a pc wasn't the right one after some sessions. Sometimes I just try to chenge a little something but most of the time it is better to just build a new one.
In one ravenloft game I played in recently (yes, with 2nd ed rules) I'd built a barbarian/ bard because I thought it would be rather role play heavy.
After some time I figured out it was just gonna be roll play with a bit flavor added and at that my pc sucked. More so as I spend some time arranging to take part in a music contest and instead of roleplaying it the GM just had me do a perform roll, I rolled a 3 and thus f~##ed up and the whole contest was over with one bad roll.
I talked with the GM about it but he didn't want to chenge his style and he didn't want to let me change my pc.
For the next couple of sessions I tried hard to get my pc killed but the GM prevented it every time.
That wasn't fun.
But as my significant other played, too (and had fun) and we were hosting the game I went along with it.
The last metric I apply to a char before I introduce it into a session is "How long before I think this starts to get old?"
We're playing a long term campaign that from what I gather started back in 3.0 days (before I joined the group). There is a certain amount of chopping and changing of chars that is necessary over that sort of time period, but we try to introduce characters that are going to be there for the long haul. Even when a char leaves, they might be woven into the back story of the world (eg. We've recruited an ex-PC to look after managing the defences of a town we just liberated). That means that, if the stars are right, if you just want a 'break' from a char that your getting stale on for something else for a time, then get back to the 'primary' if your really attached to it.
But in general, I've never seen someone have a char that they wouldn't be able to stomach playing for at least 6 months. By that point you've had enough of a time to work out the bugs, work out the issues with the rest of the party, build up some further depth to the personality (that for me at least only seems to develop after about the 5th game) and where you fit in with the rest of the party, plus potentially look to others for working out how to deal with things that don't seem to quite gel or sit right. The only reason I'd pull a char before that mark is if everything is going wrong with it (not fitting with group or having too much trouble giving them those final few sparks of life) and even then, it would be after dragging a couple of the guys aside and saying "Here's my problem. Is that what your seeing as well or am I being overly critical, and any thoughts on how to fix it?"
I've been playing in that group for probably going on 6 years, and can still count the PCs I've played in it on one hand. Every now and then we do 'breakout' games where it's in the same world, but completely different party / idea / whatever which also helps break things up if people are getting stale.
sometimes i swap characters if im really not getting on with the the one im playing why stick with unfun
this is why i dont write much background until i know i like the character, then i will go and fill in the gaps
Originally I thought you were talking about switching characters with other players. My response would have been 'never on a first date', but then again, I am a married man.
Now that I have read what it is actually about I should answer differently. I prefer to stay with the same character for the long haul.
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I put a rather large amount of thought and effort into my characters' histories, backstories, thoughts, goals, and general psychologies, and thus usually get pretty emotionally invested in them.
I'm also good enough with mechanics that I've never made a character who wasn't mechanically useful and fun enough that I can continue to play them and continue to contribute.
So I pretty much play them until they die, retire, or the game ends. Sometimes longer.
As a DM, I encourage my players to swap if they don't appear to be enjoying the class/character they're playing.
Though it is at a price. The current character leaves with all their stuff, the new character gets base GP for a character their level, which is probably less than they actually had.
I have this issue. I love every character I come up with. I meticulously plan their builds, write backstories, incorporate them into the party or campaign...and then three or four sessions in I have a new idea. Oops!
I switched to GMing and now run a different "guest party member" every couple sessions. I get to exercise my creative character muscles and none of them stick around long enough to steal the spotlight from the PCs. I even interweave some in as spies for the enemy or reoccurring contacts. It works well. Gives the game an old-school Final Fantasy 4 kinda feel. Just got used Kain running with you? Bye Kain, welcome Rydia. As oops, Tellah's dead, Rosa's way better anyway.
Sometimes swapping out characters keeps a game from becoming a chore.
I'm in the process of swapping out my character in one of my weekly games as it turns out that I don't enjoy playing a synthesist. Being basically unharmed after boss fights makes for a not so interesting game.
As a player i like to stick with a character.
As a GM i only accept changes whith good arguments. If someone played a figheter at level 1-5 and askes me to change to a wizerd or sorcer at level 6 i say no!, skip the hardl levels for a caster! But if the same player askes for a ranger or rogue because he veels troubled with the lousy skills i will allow it.
Volker
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As a DM, I encourage my players to swap if they don't appear to be enjoying the class/character they're playing.
Though it is at a price. The current character leaves with all their stuff, the new character gets base GP for a character their level, which is probably less than they actually had.
That is fair though. I feel the same and let people change freely. Its a game after all. If you aren't having fun then why play the same guy. Expecially in Tabletop. Alot of times what looks fun on paper becomes anything but when you actually get into the game.
The only thing I caution my players on is that those characters that stick to the same character will probably have a slight advantage in gear, and will probably be more vested in the game.
Ex: I played in a 3 year Campaign that took us into epic level (3.X). I started a Barbarian and played him the entire game. I never changed. There was also a Paladin/Fighter in our group that also stuck around the whole game. Last there was a Monk who was there almost as long as the two of us. We started a church that worshiped Thor (a dead God in the DM's world), and eventually converted enough people to have Thor come back (Though he was a minor God). The story started to revolve alot around our church and our rivalry with the church of Bane and Orcus. It never failed that every few game sessions another player would complain about the focus our characters recieved or the amount of prestige we had in the area, or the loot we had.
The DM simply looked at them as said, "These guys have played their character for over 3 years. They fully invested in the RP and story I built around them. You change characters every other month. What do you expect? Of course they will be seen as more important by the NPCs. Those 3 are the ones that continually show up to save the day. Your character they have known for all of 2 or 3 weeks. Stick to a character and you will get the same."
Pretty much how I DM too (Though I dont dock them a level and let new characters come in at the same level as the party).
Another option is what I call the "Divine Respec".
Allows you to keep the character while changing the class/ability layout. Again, if you go from mage to fighter your gear won't be any use, but if you switched from paladin to fighter you may not be that bad off.
But this kind of respec requires divine assistance, so it's usually a quest within itself.
And I explain it as a god basically getting knuckle deep in your brain and reconnecting stuff, and gods aren't perfect, so I sometimes cause the character to develop permanent odd quirks, or synethesia, or other such things.
One of my players just decided to respec from Barb to Fighter and RPed the character as having no short term memory from that point forward.
I've never actually been a player in a game from 1-20, usually my first character ends up getting killed off or the campaign fizzles, so I don't have the itch that others have to swap out characters before their death or retirement. I'd actually really like to be able to play my current character up to level 20 w/o him dying or retiring early. We've been playing for a bit over a year and he's now level 7.
If I like the character, I want to stay on. If not, I'll change. Simple as that.
What will make me dislike my character?
- Not contributing enough
- Not being "among the best" at his field (within his concept: If I play a full on dedicated melee fighter, I darn well expect to be a great melee combatant)
- Being irrelevant. Playing a social/mind-affecting bard then going into an endless undead-/construct-/otherwise-immune-to-me-dungeon game with no social encounters. Or if the GM "undoes" me with houserules or unfair rulings.
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I have what, in online games, is called 'Alt-itis.' I want to play *everything.* Now!
So I bounce back and forth between characters with great abandon. Other friends have a 'main' character that they've devoted all their time and energy towards, I have to make characters on six other servers, because I want to try one of everything (and two or three of the things I really like!).
In tabletop games, that sort of thing is rarely tolerated (and it's totally useless for Organized Play, which pretty much requires focus on a single character), but we had one GURPS 'reunion game' where we brought our oldest and longest-played characters out of retirement and had a game designed for such ultra-powerful characters. Everyone else was between 275 and 300 CP (in a game that starts with 100 CP and gains an average of 2 or 3 CP a game session!), and my most advanced character was just over 150.
I love making new characters. One of my GMs regularly dismisses the first character sheet I hand him automatically, figuring that the second or third choice will be more palatable. (I usually have four to six prepared for whatever D&D campaign has been proposed, and, literally, *hundreds* for various super-hero RPGs, which are my true love.)
I'm much more likely to stick with a character because I like the personality or the way it's interacting with the rest of the group, than because I want to 'level it some more.' All of my characters are designed to work at 1st level. No late-blooming builds for me, because if it's a late-bloomer, I'll probably lose interest long before it blossoms... (Same thing with online games. I'll 'level' a healer because the guild needs it, not because I am burning with desire to get that next spell that does the same thing as the last spell, but 7.5% better. Woopty-craptity-doo.)
This. One of my favorite things is to come up with build ideas, make them, and then at least try them in a few sessions. If the idea works, awesome, if not, I have a new concept the next week to try out. :-D
I don't think I have ever changed out a character in the middle of a campaign unless my character dies.
I'm of the school that the more you invest in a character the more fun he will be to play.
I dislike people that character bounce because it stretches the credulity of the story. Why will your 5th or 6th character have the same goals or know anything of the history required to complete this campaign?
I want to see the progression of the farm boy into the savior of the world. I want to build on what has happened before to deepen my relationships with my party companions. I know what my mage can do and what I can expect from the snarky rogue. I can't be expected to fully trust every freaking new character that rubber boy makes when they are only going to be around a few months of game time. For all I know it's a plot to infiltrate my group...
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Though it is at a price. The current character leaves with all their stuff, the new character gets base GP for a character their level, which is probably less than they actually had.
I don't know why this happens, but it's always the opposite for me.
4th level rolls around, my character still has their 70 gp worth of starting equipment and something lame like 'store credit' at some NPC shop that's equal to maybe 500 gp, and some new player shows up as a replacement with 6000 gp. worth of gear, and I feel a quiet urge to have my character stab themself in the face, so that I can roll up something that actually has a magic item and some drinking money.
Even when a character does have a couple magic items by that level, they are random crap that 'dropped' (a potion of levitation and the ioun stone that lets me go without breathing? Woo!) and not nearly as well fitted to the character as being able to choose gear appropriate to my class / concept.
Though it is at a price. The current character leaves with all their stuff, the new character gets base GP for a character their level, which is probably less than they actually had.I don't know why this happens, but it's always the opposite for me.
4th level rolls around, my character still has their 70 gp worth of starting equipment and something lame like 'store credit' at some NPC shop that's equal to maybe 500 gp, and some new player shows up as a replacement with 6000 gp. worth of gear, and I feel a quiet urge to have my character stab themself in the face, so that I can roll up something that actually has a magic item and some drinking money.
Even when a character does have a couple magic items by that level, they are random crap that 'dropped' (a potion of levitation and the ioun stone that lets me go without breathing? Woo!) and not nearly as well fitted to the character as being able to choose gear appropriate to my class / concept.
Ah, you have a cheap DM. I used to be one, it's usually a knee-jerk reaction after realizing that you're a loot-haul DM.
Have you ever bought it up to him that your characters are very under geared for their level?
As I'm normally on the GM side of the screen, the few times I've gotten to play I've stuck with the character. I've only died once playerside - my Half-Orc Alchemist took an orc spear to the chest, I think - and that was immediately reversed in-game due to plotline shenanigans. (Same had happened to another party member earlier, can't remember if it was the rogue or the witch, so we kind of were expecting it.)
I've dealt with it from my players though, big time in my year-long Savage Tide game. Most generally had good IC reasons as well as OOC complaints that initiated the switch, but a few were just off the wall and unexpected. Thankfully it's not a common thing.
(DM here)
My baseline expectation is for players to keep a character unless it dies.
That said, if the player is not having fun, it is acceptable to switch. Story and continuity are important to my enjoyment of the game, so I might ask the player to wait a session or two, so we can get the new character in gracefully.
Ahh... I have switched characters mid-stream once, as the GM had started the campaign with one expectation expressed so I built a character to that. The other players decided they wanted to go in another direction that deviated from what I felt that character would do... so he left the alignmently challenged group. If he had stayed, I'd have had to change his entire premise and it would have felt contrived so I just came back in with a character that suited the new story and all was well.
I didn't like it but it was that or inter-party combat.
I dislike the "He has a PC glow about hims he should be our friend" encounters with new PCs that is the general intro. As a GM I try and make the introduction of a new PC make sense and give a reason for him to be included...
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I put a rather large amount of thought and effort into my characters' histories, backstories, thoughts, goals, and general psychologies, and thus usually get pretty emotionally invested in them.
Testify.
I get tired of playing in games where every other week, someone's bored of the specific class they just started playing and decides to just switch characters. We had two of those in my former Saturday group. "I'm not having fun playing this half-dragon, half-drow magus so I'm gonna play this Zen Archer now because we're 5th level." I always wonder why they don't say "I'm tired of playing Flora the Swift-minded and I'd like to bring in a new character." Are the characters really secondary to the builds with these folks?
I will switch character if I feel like I am no longer contributing to the Campaign or if it fits the story for some reason.
There was one Campaign I played in a few years back where I went through several characters as I could not seem to fit in or contribute no matter what I played, so I guess I was "that guy" who always switched characters. No one seemed to complain though.
I don't think I have a campiagn last long enough yet for someone to want to only changes in characters were really from deaths.
I've switched characters once or twice in 30 years, but it was never because of losing interest in the character.
I have a really stupid habit of rolling up "strong, silent type" characters and then remembering after a level or two that I HATE playing them - they're no fun. Unfortunately, my group isn't real keen on switching characters unless they die. I've played a lot of character longer than I'd like to have played them.