I have a player who constantly shifts characters in any campaign we play. We've found ways to address this relatively well that keeps the whole party happy but the 2 issues I have as DM are these:
1. We run an RP heavy game (minus the one character in question) so introducing a character in a way that fits and makes grows more and more difficult with each level so I'm reaching out to my fellow DM's on creative ways to fluidly introduce a character.
2. With so many NPC's many whom have been there since the beginning of the kingdom. How do you bump a PC into the leadership spots over NPC's without meta-gaming it.
Kingmaker really doesn't work with a lot of party-switching unless your players are really willing to suspend a LOT of disbelief and you as a GM are willing to let NPC reactions to things like this fly loose. It's really one of the games where, more so than any other campaign I've played in, it's important to try and keep as much of the original party as possible.
I personally would tell the guy that he should try to stick to one character, or else he risks not being able to hold a kingdom position with his new one. Alternatively, if he must switch, you could promote an NPC currently on the council (Akiros, Kesten, Chief Sootscale, Mikmek, Jhod, or whoever else they have) to full PC status and let him run that character, but that limits his options pretty severely and he might not be happy with the available choices.
Ways around your problem:
1) Create more positions, see my rules thread if you're short on ideas. The Brevic system is flexible and could actually function well with extra positions.
2) Make him take 1 background trait that makes him an appointee in Brevoy, whenever his character dies or retires Brevoy sends another rep (his new character.)
|
Understudies, like a political campaign manager who can take over if a councilor passes. I've also had new players introduced as good friends from one of the major institutions (like the Academy). Our earliest addition (before any academy) was a dwarf wizard who had been researching the mines for years and improving production.
Alternately, maybe the new character needs to earn the leadership position.
|
Make him the court jester, with all the funny costumes and makeup, no one will notice the difference. j/k
Mechanically, you could switch rulers and every other position every kingdom turn. Storywise, this would make for a schizophrenic kingdom. I would tell him he gets one character switch, after that he doesn't get on the council unless someone dies or quits. Like Orthos said, this AP doesn't really work for party switching. And to be quite honest, most APs dont.
Find out why he wants to switch all the time, perhaps he needs to become more invested in a character emotionally to stick with it. If that is the case, perhaps working with him to craft an indepth background, or running an introductory solo game would do the trick.
The problem is, he is not a roleplayer, at all. The rest of my group is. He gets tired of the character after a few months. Granted he only switches about twice a year but its still complex.
Thus a complex background does no good as I would have to craft it for him, I've tried to draw him into roleplay but hes just not interested. It doesn't cause an issue at the table as hes content to wait while everyone else does roleplay (we've had multiple times where we've gone a month or two IRL in a 4 hour a week game without a single combat) and he doesn't mind. The rest of my group has the issue of fitting him in, as "why are we bringing this guy we don't even know who he is".
I hate to say it but it really just seems like he's gonna have to deal with not holding a position. His characters won't stay - everyone knows it, at least OOCly - and he's obviously not going to RP any connection to or performance of his position if he does have one, if your statement about him not RPing at all is accurate.
Seems nonsensical to have a guy who's going to slot-change every few months, and everyone knows his character is just a vagrant waiting for an excuse to wander off or for things to cease being entertaining, and offer him an important RP position.
A)
Why does the new character even need a council position? His old character can still hold the position even if you play now his old character as an NSC.
You can give him a position in the army or palace guards. Or he is a mercenary/bodyguard. So that he can without any problems go on traveling/exploring/graveropping with the other players.
My players in my Kingmaker campaign all have at least 2 characters. The original ones have the highest position in the counsil (king, master of ocmmons, treasury, magister etc). The new characters have secondary positions (jester, spymaster, cook etc), are in the army (works great for rogues/ninjas, fighters, cavaliers, samurays etc) or got otherwise appointed. Like the new druid who got a mission from the local dryad to watch over the PC's xD
Ditto. If he doesn't care about RP, then he probably doesn't care about not being on the council. If he does, then leave his old character on the council. For council business, he's playing the old character.
Why would they go adventure with some new guy? He's a red shirt.
Aww no, not again.....