As it happens in PbPs, one of my players has vanished without explanation. I've been contacted by another player interested in joining the game, and they've suggested simply taking over the PC rather than rolling up a new one and going through the struggle of writing characters in and out of the campaign in a way that feels organic and not forced.
I'm not sure what the proper etiquette for this is. I've opened the discussion with the rest of the group, but I'd also like to open it up here as well to get some feedback. Thanks!
This happened to me once. A character in a PbP just left, and the DM asked me to take over, as they were in the middle of a short dungeon and it was easier to just continue, for a while, with the current character and once the group got to a place where the old character could leave and my new character come in.
The only "issue" would be that the alias is already taken, so the new person would have to make a new alias similar enough to the old one as not to confuse everyone.
-- david
As long as the rest of the group is cool with it, there shouldn't be any problems.
I had this happen in two separate tables I DMed. Both times, I gave the new player the opportunity to tweak the existing PC's stats and personality a little (since it would be almost impossible for them to perfectly replicate the old PC)
For the first, the PC has suffered a traumatic injury, and the new player made him much more cautious. For the second, a little more dramatic, the player elected to go through some alchemical shenanigans to go from a barbarian to an alchemist.