Understudies

[icefractal]

I mean, sure? Like if you're with someone you know, at a restaurant you've both been to, you could probably order for them and end up with something they'll enjoy.

And yet, that's not really the norm, is it? Outside of specifically asking for it - "I'm going to be late, order for me" - I'd consider it strange if someone did that. Like, is this a prank, or a weird power-move? And just because I enjoyed a particular dish before, doesn't mean it's what I'm in the mood for at the moment.

I mean, I'm not against having NPCs around that could become future PCs. I'm just against it being mandatory.

[Unoriginal]

I mean, sure? Like if you're with someone you know, at a restaurant you've both been to, you could probably order for them and end up with something they'll enjoy.

And yet, that's not really the norm, is it? Outside of specifically asking for it - "I'm going to be late, order for me" - I'd consider it strange if someone did that. Like, is this a prank, or a weird power-move? And just because I enjoyed a particular dish before, doesn't mean it's what I'm in the mood for at the moment.

I mean, I'm not against having NPCs around that could become future PCs. I'm just against it being mandatory.

Like every special campaign gimmick, it demands players' buy-in at session 0.

Those who want to play with the gimmick play the campaign, those who don't want to play with the gimmick don't play the campaign.

There are plenty of occasions where the food is decided by the one doing the invitation. Ex: an event with a buffet chosen by the host.

[Vahnavoi]

@icefractal: your analogy is leading you astray. If, instead of a restaurant, you're going to someone's home or a buffet, it is completely normal for the host to prepare food with minimal input from the guests. And it is a matter of politeness to eat what is being offered, rather than complain that it isn't exactly what you would've picked or made yourself. This isn't usually a major barrier, since it is entirely possible for a host to make food that is enjoyable or at least acceptable to everybody. It is a matter of skill more than it is a matter of principle.

For such reasons, none of the arguments from analogous norms build an iron-clad case for you, since norms differ by context and, equally importantly, can change. You have to go step further and explain "why these norms?" rather than any of the alternatives.

[icefractal]

See, that's where I'd disagree - I think the analogy works well, because "someone making food for you" is not the same situation as "someone ordering for you in a restaurant where you're splitting the bill".

Making a character is not (for me, obviously YMMV) a thing I have to do to play, it's a thing I want to do. So it's not like someone making one for me (when I'm not asking one) is doing me a favor. And indeed, when I do ask someone else to make me a character, I'm not too picky about what they make.

Again, this is more for ongoing campaigns than one-shots, where I'm generally fine playing a pre-gen.

[Unoriginal]

See, that's where I'd disagree - I think the analogy works well, because "someone making food for you" is not the same situation as "someone ordering for you in a restaurant where you're splitting the bill".

Making a character is not (for me, obviously YMMV) a thing I have to do to play, it's a thing I want to do. So it's not like someone making one for me (when I'm not asking one) is doing me a favor. And indeed, when I do ask someone else to make me a character, I'm not too picky about what they make.

Again, this is more for ongoing campaigns than one-shots, where I'm generally fine playing a pre-gen.

People will have different preferences, and that's a good thing.

The thing is, if a GM pitches a campaign idea where everyone plays pre-gens/former NPCs, going "I'll play, but onlyif I can make my own PCs" would be pretty tone-deaf at best, while politely declining to play such a campaign isn't.

[Catullus64]

I tried pitching two different paradigms to my players: one the Understudy system as described in my original post, and the other closer to an AD&D-style Henchmen system, with those henchmen assumed to be the backup character, but under the broad control of the players (they dictate combat actions, but I do the dice rolling.)

I was expecting them to go in for the latter, and was actually a bit surprised when they inclined more towards the Understudies. What one of them pointed out was that, in terms of maintaining established characters to be backup PCs, henchmen might be less effective because they lack the implicit plot armor of Understudies. But another one pointed out that the henchmen system does offer more opportunities to actually characterize and develop an attachment to the characters before they have a chance to become PCs.

[Unoriginal]

What one of them pointed out was that, in terms of maintaining established characters to be backup PCs, henchmen might be less effective because they lack the implicit plot armor of Understudies.

If a player ever told me they thought any character had "implicit plot armor", I would tell them that this character has explicit lack of plot armor.

They want to take the Understudies into peril and for them survive? They'll have to work for it.

[icefractal]

If a player ever told me they thought any character had "implicit plot armor", I would tell them that this character has explicit lack of plot armor.

They want to take the Understudies into peril and for them survive? They'll have to work for it.

I think it's more that -
Henchmen - accompany the PCs in on-screen dungeon crawling, therefore facing the full risks. Even if they're on the back-line, an enemy Fireball could wipe them out.
Understudies - are somewhere else, having off-screen adventures (which are abstracted rather than played out in detail); therefore unlikely to die.

[MonochromeTiger]

I think it's more that -
Henchmen - accompany the PCs in on-screen dungeon crawling, therefore facing the full risks. Even if they're on the back-line, an enemy Fireball could wipe them out.
Understudies - are somewhere else, having off-screen adventures (which are abstracted rather than played out in detail); therefore unlikely to die.

That's definitely how I read it. If the DM by their own words "likes running high lethality games" and the entire point of the exercise is having a backup character present for quick use when a player's character dies you're going to want to keep them mostly offscreen where the only things that would really get them killed are literally DM fiat.

They follow the characters around and that's just exposing them to all the dangers that the player characters are exposed to, potentially even getting them killed by the same thing that then turns around to kill the player character they were meant to be a replacement for. They stay offscreen most of the time and doing whatever the DM comes up with for them to do to justify them saying close-ish in power and you can generally trust that the DM isn't going to arbitrarily kill the designated backup characters.

Still wouldn't agree to the arrangement myself but if those are the only two options and the main reason behind either of them is "your characters are expected to die in a fight in ways you can't fix" then as much as handing off character development and details sucks it's still the only one of those options that minimizes unnecessary risk. Would I vastly prefer to just make my own new character? Absolutely. Would almost every person I've ever played with prefer to just make a new character on their own? Absolutely. But if I've already agreed to a game with a DM who expects me to take one of those two options and clearly takes the possibility of "any character on screen can die" as a selling point then I'm taking the one that's less likely to end in "oh, your backup is dead too, well that sucks."

[Catullus64]

I think it's more that -
Henchmen - accompany the PCs in on-screen dungeon crawling, therefore facing the full risks. Even if they're on the back-line, an enemy Fireball could wipe them out.
Understudies - are somewhere else, having off-screen adventures (which are abstracted rather than played out in detail); therefore unlikely to die.

That's the essence of it, yes.

[Vahnavoi]

See, that's where I'd disagree - I think the analogy works well, because "someone making food for you" is not the same situation as "someone ordering for you in a restaurant where you're splitting the bill".

Of course they're not the same situation. I'm asking why you think character creation is analogous to one and not the other.

Making a character is not (for me, obviously YMMV) a thing I have to do to play, it's a thing I want to do.

Someone has to make the characters for there to be anything to play in roleplaying game. The overarching point is that no matter how much you feel you want it to be you, as a matter of practice it doesn't have to or need to be you to lead to an enjoyable game - because there are more things to consider than just this limited aspect of game.

Let's take another angle at this: you and some others keep bringing up that pregenerated characters are fine for one-shots but not for campaigns. What are your practical reasons for that?

Consider: the longer a game goes on, the smaller portion character creation is of it. I'd expect other aspects of the game to become more dominant. This includes shaping a character through gameplay actions - this is especially true for old school games where brand new characters are often bare-bones and sketch-like. A player could, reasonably, have a lot of room to make a pregenerated character their own. But I don't think that is how you expect a game to work. Instead, I think you (and several others) think of long-term play as the sort where you, as a player, are attached at the hip to decisions made at level 1 that set the game far into the future.

---

@Catullus64: the choice between secondary characters who actively follow primary characters around and secondary characters who stay behind in safety, is not something you have to lock in at the system level. You can leave that choice for the players to make on case-by-case basis. The main benefit is strategic: the players have a choice to get some extra power for a situation by pulling from reserves, at the cost of risking longer-term success.

[icefractal]

Someone has to make the characters for there to be anything to play in roleplaying game. The overarching point is that no matter how much you feel you want it to be you, as a matter of practice it doesn't have to or need to be you to lead to an enjoyable game - because there are more things to consider than just this limited aspect of game.

Sure, it doesn't need to be me. It doesn't need to be the GM either. I'm saying I have a preference to create my own character, so how is "but it's possible for a GM to create the character instead" a response to that?

It feel like I said: "I prefer hamburgers to hotdogs."
And then keep getting objections like:
"Are you saying not even the greatest chef could make a tasty hotdog?"
"You admit that hotdogs are food, and many people do enjoy them, correct?"
"I bet you'd eat a hotdog if there was no other food available, right?"

Like, feel free to enjoy pre-gen characters - I'm not saying they're inherently bad or something. But that doesn't really change my preference; it was never based on thinking they were impossible.

Let's take another angle at this: you and some others keep bringing up that pregenerated characters are fine for one-shots but not for campaigns. What are your practical reasons for that?

If I'm staying in a hotel for one night, I'm not too worried about the room details as long as it's clean. If I'm staying there for a week, I'm going to be a lot more picky. I'd wear a costume for a few hours at a halloween party that's too ill-fitting to wear for an entire day. And so forth.

But also just because there's less need for pre-gens in an extended campaign, so the cost/benefit ratio is worse. In a one-shot, a certain amount of "you need to be aligned with this premise and biting this hook right at the start" is expected so that we can get things going quickly. In a campaign, there's enough time to set things up more organically.

[Vahnavoi]

See, that's where I'd disagree - I think the analogy works well, because "someone making food for you" is not the same situation as "someone ordering for you in a restaurant where you're splitting the bill".

Of course they're not the same situation. I'm asking why you think character creation is analogous to one and not the other.

Making a character is not (for me, obviously YMMV) a thing I have to do to play, it's a thing I want to do.

Someone has to make the characters for there to be anything to play in roleplaying game. The overarching point is that no matter how much you feel you want it to be you, as a matter of practice it doesn't have to or need to be you to lead to an enjoyable game - because there are more things to consider than just this limited aspect of game.

Let's take another angle at this: you and some others keep bringing up that pregenerated characters are fine for one-shots but not for campaigns. What are your practical reasons for that?

Consider: the longer a game goes on, the smaller portion character creation is of it. I'd expect other aspects of the game to become more dominant. This includes shaping a character through gameplay actions - this is especially true for old school games where brand new characters are often bare-bones and sketch-like. A player could, reasonably, have a lot of room to make a pregenerated character their own. But I don't think that is how you expect a game to work. Instead, I think you (and several others) think of long-term play as the sort where you, as a player, are attached at the hip to decisions made at level 1 that set the game far into the future.

---

@Catullus64: the choice between secondary characters who actively follow primary characters around and secondary characters who stay behind in safety, is not something you have to lock in at the system level. You can leave that choice for the players to make on case-by-case basis. The main benefit is strategic: the players have a choice to get some extra power for a situation by pulling from reserves, at the cost of risking longer-term success.

[gbaji]

They follow the characters around and that's just exposing them to all the dangers that the player characters are exposed to, potentially even getting them killed by the same thing that then turns around to kill the player character they were meant to be a replacement for. They stay offscreen most of the time and doing whatever the DM comes up with for them to do to justify them saying close-ish in power and you can generally trust that the DM isn't going to arbitrarily kill the designated backup characters.

I guess I'll repeat a point I've made previously: Why make the understudies NPCs in the first place? Why not just have the player make their main character, and a back up characters, and just have the player decide what their backup character is doing "in the background, and not actively on the adventure" at any given time?

Is this just a game system and/or technical issue? Most game systems have some means for creating or maintaining PC characters at a given power level if needed. Is this some kind of hard "all PCs must be actively played" issue. Cause that's just the GM (or players) deciding that (and could just as easily decide otherwise). I guess I"m still a bit confused why the player can't have a character (or multiple characters) that exist in the game setting, but are not actively on the current adventure. That way, you have the best of both words. The players have a backup that is a charcter they created and managed and one that is available to be pulled into the active adventure if/when needed.

It just seems to be like the whole "all charcters are NPCs unless they are actively being played in the current adventure" seems to be a strange condition. But that seems like it's a condition that is required for the need described in the OP to exist in the first place.

Consider: the longer a game goes on, the smaller portion character creation is of it. I'd expect other aspects of the game to become more dominant. This includes shaping a character through gameplay actions - this is especially true for old school games where brand new characters are often bare-bones and sketch-like. A player could, reasonably, have a lot of room to make a pregenerated character their own. But I don't think that is how you expect a game to work. Instead, I think you (and several others) think of long-term play as the sort where you, as a player, are attached at the hip to decisions made at level 1 that set the game far into the future.

This is something I completely agere with. I do get, however, that there is some (significant) disagreement on this issue though. Some players really do want to map out the entire character growth and story arc from the point of character creation, and expect the GM to facilitate that in the game. For them, that's what "creating a character" means.

For me and the folks I play with? Character creation is the most basic starting point. There's very little there other than a name, where they come from, their starting class/skills/whatever, and maybe a very small amoiunt of personality/history stuff. The character grows and becomes whomever they end up being, over time, while being played.

I personally find the latter process to be much more satisfying. In the former, you're basically writing your characters future history when you create it. In the latter, you are discovering that future, as you play it. You, just like the character itself, have no clue what's in store in the future. I have a character I run (only rarely these days though) who literally got captured by a pirate (along with the rest of the party), kinda fell in love with the guy (he was pretty darn charming!), then helped the party escape by taking advantage of his affection (we were on an important mission), but then later came back, married him, had children with him, and now she is the "Pirate Queen", and has a brood of children forming the core of a whole new pirate organization. Did I plan that? Nope. Did I write that in my character plan when creating the character? Not even remotely.

I could have started out telling the GM "this is what I want to have happen with this character". And the GM could have contrived things in the game to make it happen. But IMPO, that would not have been nearly as fun or satisfying.


I think there is a balance point here. Obviously, the player should have a say about what kind of character they want to play. Race, class, sex, personality, etc. Player creates that (but honestly, that's pretty easy really). But beyond that? Let the actual play at the table determine that. So if the player says "I'm going to have a backup character that is <list of basic characteristics>", then that should be plenty sufficient for this sort of scenario we're talking about here. I guess the flip side of this, is that there's no need to be dogmatic in the other direction, by having the GM hand the player a character sheet with those base characteristics and say "here's your next character". That's kinda unnecessary IMO.

But yeah. I do agree on the concept that if what the player thinks character creation involves is a mapped out sequence of events that this character is going to have occur in their life, that's maybe a bit too much as well.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's simply a preference for playing with something you yourself made rather than something someone else made. If nothing else, it's more akin to makers culture: doing something yourself has implicit value.

Yeah, I get that, we are mostly in agreement.

[icefractal]

Weird, I made this post yesterday but it seems to have vanished. Anyway, TL;DR -

Someone has to make the characters for there to be anything to play in roleplaying game. The overarching point is that no matter how much you feel you want it to be you, as a matter of practice it doesn't have to or need to be you to lead to an enjoyable game - because there are more things to consider than just this limited aspect of game.

Sure, it doesn't need to be me. It doesn't need to be the GM either. The question is who should make the characters, not who can make them.

Like yes, I am aware that pre-gen characters are possible and some people prefer them. That's fine. I still have a preference for making my own, and IDK why anyone would think "but the GM could make them" would change that preference.

Let's take another angle at this: you and some others keep bringing up that pregenerated characters are fine for one-shots but not for campaigns. What are your practical reasons for that?

Much like with clothing, I have higher standards for how well something "fits" if I'm going to be sticking with it for months than if it's just for one day.

Also, there's less need for "hitting the ground running" in a longer campaign, so the cost/benefit ratio is worse.

[MonochromeTiger]

I guess I'll repeat a point I've made previously: Why make the understudies NPCs in the first place? Why not just have the player make their main character, and a back up characters, and just have the player decide what their backup character is doing "in the background, and not actively on the adventure" at any given time?

Is this just a game system and/or technical issue? Most game systems have some means for creating or maintaining PC characters at a given power level if needed. Is this some kind of hard "all PCs must be actively played" issue. Cause that's just the GM (or players) deciding that (and could just as easily decide otherwise). I guess I"m still a bit confused why the player can't have a character (or multiple characters) that exist in the game setting, but are not actively on the current adventure. That way, you have the best of both words. The players have a backup that is a charcter they created and managed and one that is available to be pulled into the active adventure if/when needed.

It just seems to be like the whole "all charcters are NPCs unless they are actively being played in the current adventure" seems to be a strange condition. But that seems like it's a condition that is required for the need described in the OP to exist in the first place.

Personally, the simple approach of "just have some backup characters ready if the campaign is a meatgrinder" is what I'd go with. As far as I can tell the reasoning behind the idea, and I hope Catullus64 corrects me if I'm wrong here, is partially down to trying for an approach where their presence makes more sense in the story?

Simply having a backup character planned and leaving it up to the player how they get there is both easier to manage and less restrictive to both DM and player in terms of managing those characters. It is by far the solution I'd go with first. But then I've also seen the "understudies" thing being proposed in this thread get used before and it gave an overwhelmingly bad impression because of how and why it was used so I have a bit of a bias on the matter, that case was entirely down to DM issues rather than the idea itself but a bad enough impression may still mean I'm being less than fair without really being fully aware of it. Since I'm neither in charge of nor even involved in their campaign all I can really say is that from an outside perspective it looks like adding complications for the sake of solving what might not even be a problem.

More work is put on the DM to constantly think of stories to explain why those characters are there when it could be solved easily with the player just saying they were off doing something else and only learned of what was happening recently or something. More restrictions are put on the players because by doing all of that the character's backstory is set, even if they have veto rights over the DM saying they do something too far out of character they're still giving up the details and anything that is done is now something they're going to have hanging in the character's background if they actually engage in the roleplaying part of the game. Both are equally constrained by having to work within the other's expectations while one is distant enough from actual involvement that they may not even realize they don't like something until they have the character in front of them to deal with the consequences. Yes there's still room for character growth after the fact but to a degree the point that growth starts from does matter because you're going to have a much harder time with something like "my character is more confident after we killed a dangerous hydra" when in the background they've been killing off things just as dangerous to stay even in xp with the party and only just showed up now cause the original character died.

[Catullus64]

Since I'm neither in charge of nor even involved in their campaign all I can really say is that from an outside perspective it looks like adding complications for the sake of solving what might not even be a problem.

To say a few more words on why I think there's a problem in need of solving: the problem, as I perceive it, is how the 'standard' approach to character replacement can cheapen the experience of leveling a character in a high-lethality game.

The reason I value high lethality in a lot of games is that I feel it makes those characters who do survive to high level feel all the more precious; their increased power feels earned in a way that it doesn't in a game where survival and leveling up is the expected norm. But as characters do level up, player death presents more and more of a challenge.

On one hand, you can replace them with new characters of the same level. There are narrative troubles associated with that, but more significantly, I feel it cheapens the richness of having a character survive to that level in the first place.

On the other hand, you can have players start over with 1st-level characters. In a lot of systems, that imposes challenges on adventure design. Mixed-level parties are not impossible to design around, but they are difficult, the more so the wider that level gap is.

This is the problem I'm mainly seeking to address. It's actually why, on more reflection, I'm probably leaning more towards Henchmen-as-backups than I am towards the Understudies as described in the OP: a sense that, at least indirectly, you have earned that higher-level backup by keeping them alive through your adventures.

[MonochromeTiger]

To say a few more words on why I think there's a problem in need of solving: the problem, as I perceive it, is how the 'standard' approach to character replacement can cheapen the experience of leveling a character in a high-lethality game.

The reason I value high lethality in a lot of games is that I feel it makes those characters who do survive to high level feel all the more precious; their increased power feels earned in a way that it doesn't in a game where survival and leveling up is the expected norm. But as characters do level up, player death presents more and more of a challenge.

On one hand, you can replace them with new characters of the same level. There are narrative troubles associated with that, but more significantly, I feel it cheapens the richness of having a character survive to that level in the first place.

On the other hand, you can have players start over with 1st-level characters. In a lot of systems, that imposes challenges on adventure design. Mixed-level parties are not impossible to design around, but they are difficult, the more so the wider that level gap is.

This is the problem I'm mainly seeking to address. It's actually why, on more reflection, I'm probably leaning more towards Henchmen-as-backups than I am towards the Understudies as described in the OP: a sense that, at least indirectly, you have earned that higher-level backup by keeping them alive through your adventures.

So the driving force behind all of this is the feeling of it? I can understand that even if I wouldn't reach the same conclusions. I'm assuming, since you went as far as asking your players a preferred approach out of the two you brought up, that you've already got them onboard before making a sweeping decision? Big changes for the sake of how a campaign feels are much easier to sell when you're sure everyone involved is up for them after all.

If I seem overly critical in any of this I do genuinely apologize, like I mentioned in my previous post the idea of "understudies" as you originally described them is one I've seen used before and it ended up very badly. That wasn't necessarily a flaw in the idea so much as it was a series of bad circumstances wrapped up in a case of a DM who really shouldn't have been on that side of the screen at the time. It's entirely possible it can go much better with a group that's onboard and a DM that's doing it with the intent of making the game more enjoyable and taking player criticism into account. Honestly you're already doing better just by acknowledging that "you died, your new character is level one" is an experience that sucks to play and to DM unless you've got a very hardcore/oldschool oriented group.

[gbaji]

To say a few more words on why I think there's a problem in need of solving: the problem, as I perceive it, is how the 'standard' approach to character replacement can cheapen the experience of leveling a character in a high-lethality game.

The reason I value high lethality in a lot of games is that I feel it makes those characters who do survive to high level feel all the more precious; their increased power feels earned in a way that it doesn't in a game where survival and leveling up is the expected norm. But as characters do level up, player death presents more and more of a challenge.

On one hand, you can replace them with new characters of the same level. There are narrative troubles associated with that, but more significantly, I feel it cheapens the richness of having a character survive to that level in the first place.

On the other hand, you can have players start over with 1st-level characters. In a lot of systems, that imposes challenges on adventure design. Mixed-level parties are not impossible to design around, but they are difficult, the more so the wider that level gap is.

This is the problem I'm mainly seeking to address. It's actually why, on more reflection, I'm probably leaning more towards Henchmen-as-backups than I am towards the Understudies as described in the OP: a sense that, at least indirectly, you have earned that higher-level backup by keeping them alive through your adventures.

Ok. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems like the problem is still not solved though.

Whether it's a understudy, hanging out in the background, or henchman, doing the same, or a PC that shows up when needed, at the end of the day, if we are concerned with the need to have those new characters be level appropriate, we're always going to have the "they haven't been played through the risk to get here" problem. Unless, of course, we're actually putting our understudies through the risks (and actively running the henchmen as well).

And even then, I'm not sure what the point is. The GM is running those characters, so the player has no sense of "this is a risk I took, making choices I made" at any point along the way anyway. I guess I just don't see where this solves anything.

And yeah. This is a problem with high lethality games. I think I mentioned earlier that if you are going to do that then you need to have a large number of "short" adventurers, with lots of logical insertion points for replacements. To me, that's the better way to address this. Just assume that these replacements have been off doing other things all along, and insert them in as new characters. Running a group though a long galloping quest, with travel all over the place, taking years of in game time, with no stopping spots or returns to "safe spaces" where one could reasonably pick up replacments, should really be run as a relatively low lethality game. If you want high lethality, then there almost needs to be very regular "return to home" type elements to it, or you're going to run into problems pretty much no matter how you manage it.

Or.... You just accept the whole "these people who we never mentioned before, and were never relevant to the adventure before, have actually been following along the whole time". I'm not sure there's a way around that issue.

[Kardwill]

Let's take another angle at this: you and some others keep bringing up that pregenerated characters are fine for one-shots but not for campaigns. What are your practical reasons for that?

For me, it's not about the technical stuff (frankly, the "distribute points and select powers/equiment" stuff bore me. My friends often make fun of the fact I forgot to spend my XP). It's all about "who is this person I'm playing?"

For one-shots, an ill-fitting character is less of a problem to me. Sure, I may not be confortable in playing that particular person, but it can be a nice change, a roleplaying challenge, exploring that character's story for a few sessions. And if I actually dislike the character, I can still have my fun by crashing it in a spectacular way, NPC-style ^^

If I have to play the same character for month/years, though... Maybe it's lazy, but I will fit more confortably in a character of my own making. I have to actually like my character to maintain my engagement in a campaign. It can be done with a pregen, sure, but it's more likely to happen if I had at least some say in its creation.

I'm not closed to a composite approach, though. If the GM tells me "Well, your archeologist died, but you can play either the museum curator you were escorting or the pilot that brought you here", I would probably have no problem making them long-term PCs as long as I can inject enough stuff into their backstories, personalities and abilities to make them "mine".

[gbaji]

I'm not closed to a composite approach, though. If the GM tells me "Well, your archeologist died, but you can play either the museum curator you were escorting or the pilot that brought you here", I would probably have no problem making them long-term PCs as long as I can inject enough stuff into their backstories, personalities and abilities to make them "mine".

Right. I think this is key. I think that most players can be handed a character with race, stats, class, skills, whatever and make it their own, as long as they get to decide the details in terms of personality, background, etc, and have no issues with feelng this is "my character". Some might get stuck on "but I really wanted to play <something else>" though. To me, it's those personal details that matter more in terms of roleplay than the stats written on the sheet.

But even for those other stat based details, I guess the question is "why does this matter for the GM either?". It kinda goes both ways. If the player does say "I want to play <insert some race, class, stats, skills list>", as long as that's something that could be available in the game, why is that any more dificult for the GM to manage than any other combination of such things that the GM would otherwise hand to the player to play?

I guess maybe it depends on what exactly is going on. If it's entirely possible to just declare there to be some nebulous and undefined set of "people" in the area, any of which could become a replacement PC, then just let the player create a new character and retroactively say that's been one of those "people" hanging around, all along. I really only see a problem here if the GM is artificially constraining things, and insists on a specific list of every single person in the area who might be available to become a PC, including all stats, capabilities, what they're doing the whole time, etc.

To me, that's just an exhausting amount of detail that serves no purpose other than to create blocks in the game. Maybe just... don't do that? Then everyone is happy.


Honestly, the way I handle this is pretty straightforward. I generally do not run adventures where there are gobs of NPCs following the party around. So if a PC dies, and they are out in the middle of nowhere, there are no replacement characters available. Period. Once they arrive somewhere where there may be people around, any of which could be recruited to join the group, then the player may create a new character, with whatever restrictions would logically apply based on where they actually are. The player is perfectly free to wait as long as they want to replace their character, based on whether they like the restrictions based on what "people" are in the potential pool for replacements. So yeah, if for some reason they are traveling with a group of NPC merchants, then the pool is really small. Could be a merchant, or one of the guards traveling with them, or maybe someonne traveling along with the caravan or whatever. If they are in a small fishing village, then the options are based on whomever might be living or visiting that small villiage at that moment. In a larger town, especially if it's part of a larger trade network, the pool gets much much larger.

It's entirely up to the player's own willingness to balance their own desire for the "perfect replacement character" against "how long will it take to get somewhere where that may be available". And this has really never been that much of an issue. We can usually figure out something that satisfies everyone without resorting to special rules or anything. Dunno. Just feels like the more you formalize this sort of thing, the more difficult you make it for everyone. And sure, that may occasionally leave us scratching our heads wondering why this highly skilled mercenary warrior of a rare class, and rare race for these parts, just happened to debark from a ship and plop himself down in the same bar our party shows up in, mere hours before the party arrived in town, and is totally willing to join up with them.

Eh... Does that really matter? I mean, when we get that far in, how did the party form in the first place? I kinda go with the assumption that there's a set of people in the game setting with the "adventurer mindset", who actually seek out opportunities to risk life and limb for various obscure causes and hoped for treasure, and those people tend to recognize each other even with just a brief meeting. Tropish? Sure. Save time? Absolutely. It just feels like in trying to make this "more realistic", we're actually creating even more things in the game that are less realistic (to me anyway). And at the very least, those methods require far more effort and work than I'm willing to do, when "yeah, that replacement character looks good, and I know just where/when to introduce him/her/it" has worked perfectly well for me for as long as I've been running RPGs. In the grand scheme of "things I want to spend time on", this is way down the list.

[icefractal]

And sure, that may occasionally leave us scratching our heads wondering why this highly skilled mercenary warrior of a rare class, and rare race for these parts, just happened to debark from a ship and plop himself down in the same bar our party shows up in, mere hours before the party arrived in town, and is totally willing to join up with them.

Eh... Does that really matter? I mean, when we get that far in, how did the party form in the first place?

Pretty much. And I think that a "high lethality" game premise is going to require a general explanation for replacement members anyway. Like, even with understudies, you have to explain where the next understudy comes from.

In fact I'd go farther - while it's sometimes possible to have a party retain an identity "Ship of Theseus" style through a lot of turnover, there's no guarantee that the deaths line up that way - it's just as possible for the members providing continuity at a given point to be the ones who die. Or the ones who retire because all their friends died. So for a high-lethality premise, I think there already needs to be some organization / purpose with an identity beyond the individual members, which answers where replacements are coming from - they've heard about it and want to join.


Incidentally, I think it's possible to have the best of both worlds here, just by dropping the "once you start playing a character you're stuck with it" factor. When a PC dies, if there are henchmen or other NPCs handy, the player can switch to playing one of them. When there's an opportunity for a new character to join, they can do so (if they want), the NPC becoming an NPC again. Minimizes time spent twiddling thumbs while also avoiding the need to rush a character in.

That's more for the "integration makes sense IC" aspect though, not the "build up from L1" aspect. The latter's not usually what I'm looking for in TTRPGs, so YMMV.

[Kardwill]

It's entirely up to the player's own willingness to balance their own desire for the "perfect replacement character" against "how long will it take to get somewhere where that may be available". And this has really never been that much of an issue. We can usually figure out something that satisfies everyone without resorting to special rules or anything. Dunno. Just feels like the more you formalize this sort of thing, the more difficult you make it for everyone. And sure, that may occasionally leave us scratching our heads wondering why this highly skilled mercenary warrior of a rare class, and rare race for these parts, just happened to debark from a ship and plop himself down in the same bar our party shows up in, mere hours before the party arrived in town, and is totally willing to join up with them.

Yeah, nowadays, when a player tells me his bard is boring and he would like to switch to a halfling monk in our Curse of Strahd campaign, my go-to answer is "OK. Just tell me how your new character got stuck in Ravenloft, and why they will join the group, and we'll introduce your monk next session."
If the players (both the one with a new PC, and the rest of the group) are willing to make it work and arrange a few details, there are usually few situations where it cannot be arranged, and few characters that won't fit. The PCs are exploring a drifting spaceship in the middle of nowhere? Well, maybe there was another pirate salvage crew that got butchered 2 weeks ago, with a lone survivor stuck here? Or maybe there's a live cryopod in the infirmary, sleeping here for 45 years? Or maybe the pilot of the PCs shuttle is an adventurous/helpful soul? You can even ask the other players why their characters will open that cryopod right here, right now, to avoid the old "why would we take in that complete stranger?" question. ("Well, the ship's power grid must be running low, since we've been reactivating compuiters and doors all across the wreck, right? No way we would let someone just thaw up and die in a failing cryopod, especially if its stored energy is depleted because of us")
The bonus is that the player's explanation can become a plot hook in its own right, you just have to ask some questions to players willing to play along ("Why were you on that ship? Was there someone important to you in the ship when they put you in that cryopod, 45 years ago?" "Is there another pirate ship prowling around? And why would you help the group against your old crewmates?")

Of course, if the premise of the game is that the PCs are members or associates of an organisation (Orlanthi tribe, Monster hunting secret society, knightly order), then the new PCs should fit in that premise. But in that case, everybody agreed to the premise, the game has a PC replacement excuse (the organisation), and "associates" can cover a lot of ground to explain some exotic PCs.
"The tribe has deals with the troll caravans that cross its lands, so we have a Xiola Umbar shrine and a few friendly trolls on tribesland"
"Well, yes, a Gentleman's Club kinda implies older, rich men. But one of the regulars just happens to have a daredevil aviatrix daughter that knows everything about our adventures"
"I'm one of the FBI agents the group saved in the Werewolf case. He's been kinda obsessed with the supernatural since that day, and has tried to make contact with the Society, and especially with the PCs."
"Yeah, the Annointed Knights of the Ever Empire are not welcome in the Kingdom of Nowhere. But I'm a squire who survived the battle of the Ashland Flats. I've been hiding among criminals ever since"
"Hi, dad!"


My players are often smarter than me, and know what character they want to play. I let them do the busywork of "Why the hell are we sticking together?" ^^

[gbaji]

Yeah. Pretty much. I'd rather focus my time and energy as a GM on the actual adventure I'm running and keeping things fun and interesting for the players. I'm generally plenty willing to handwave stuff like "how the heck did your character get here?". As long as the character fits into the setting, and the player can come up with a reasonable explanation, why the heck would I block that? That's effort spent making things less fun and interesting for the players, which is kinda moving in the opposite direction.

That's not to say I wont put my foot down if a player comes up with something completely incompatible with the setting or adventure I'm running, but that's pretty much the only hard restriction I put in there. A player asking me to let them play their Jakaleel the Witch character in the aforementioned "Folks working for/with an Orlanthi tribal organization", would likely be met with "Um... You do realize that they will basically kill you on sight, right? Maybe save that for when we decide to run a Lunar campaign...".

Then again, if you can successfully hide such things, then maybe? I did once play a Krarsht initiate as a character in a land mostly populated by Storm Bull and Orlanthi. That was... tricky. But even with that one, it was the result of a specific GM plot/adventure (some characters who were somewhat evil/chaos, arriving to try to prevent something far more evil/chaotic from happening, while also trying to conceal their own nature/origins in the process of trying to help and work with folks who would normally kill them on sight). The real trick came with figuring out how to continue playing the character, in that same area, after the original plot was resolved.

I'll usually warn and try to wave off PC ideas that wont fit well (they "fit" into the setting, but in a way that will likely get them targeted, possibly by their own party members). But if they really really want to do this? I'll consider it. I do tend to frown on inter-party conflict though, so if they're doing this to create disruption, I'm going to push back hard. But if they are making an effort to "figure out how to make this character actually work in/with this party", I'll let them try it. But yeah, just like with running an assassin in a party with a paladin, if the PC actions force a confrontation and give the other party members no reasonable out? That may not end well.

[Vogie]

There's a myriad of ways to introduce new PCs, although a lot of the choice should be baked into the conceit of the encounter loop.

One thing to just pick up and use, Strongholds & Followers from MCDM Productions has Follower and Retainer System.

If your group is a handful of people creeping through a dungeon, the new player could be found half dead in a pit trap or otherwise separated from their former adventure party. Maybe they were an adventurer wannabe who snuck in to follow the party, watching them for tips and secondhand experience, or maybe just wanting free loot if they TPK.

If you want the 'understudies' to be actively cultivated by the players, take a page from the West Marches handbook. Allow your players to create an XCOM-esque collection of characters that they can pick and choose who goes out on any given trip away from their "home base", whether that be a city, building, ship, caravan, or whatever.

Another way to do something similar is creating an entourage for the PCs that are eternally off-screen. You don't find a case of potions, you rescue an alchemist who occasionally makes potions. Instead of mundane armor and weapon upgrades and repairs, you now have a blacksmith that does those things for you. While the party is doing the adventuring thing, there's a hunter who went out & brought home dinner for the next long rest. A young kid who will occasionally run messages for the party. As PCs die, you have these relatively blank individuals that have been accumulated along the way, and just choose one to flesh out. We already joke that the shopkeepers are secret adventurers (so you can't just kill them and take what you want) or the tavern keeper has barbarian levels - this is just the next logical step from that trope.

As a side note, Traveler is a great system for something like this. The way character creation works in that system is that you start as a late teen with your initial stats, then zip forward in 4 year chunks to roll out what happened to that character. Normally this happens in Session Zero, and everyone is tied together. However, when a PC dies, and another one comes in, the mechanical process of building a character is almost like a new character is introduced in a television show, complete with dramatic flashback. The reason this is so hilarious is because those story beats are rolled, the character backstory can be really surprising. "I'm going to take this guy down in engineering" Rolls a couple times "This guy isn't an engineer and is a terrible mechanic, that lying little ****"