Introducing... Your New Party Member [Any]

[Callista]

So you've got an established party, and somebody dies or a new player joins the group.

Which means that you need to, somehow, work the new character into the group... sometimes under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Stuff I've seen done:
--The new PC is found petrified in a medusa's lair.
--The new PC drops from the sky, no explanation. (The game in question was one of those fun/casual type games where you end up with Monty Python every other line. Fun, in its own way, even if you prefer immersive RP.)
--The new PC is hired by the party in exchange for a share of the treasure.
--The new PC is a prisoner of the enemies the PCs are currently fighting.
--The new PC is a prisoner of the PCs' allies who is working off his probation in exchange for a reduced sentence.
--The new PC is assigned to the PCs' team by their superiors.
--The new PC approaches the current party and reveals they have common enemies. They join up.
--The new PC is found immersed in quintessence and floating in the Astral Plane. He has absolutely no memories. (Oddly enough this is the only time I've seen amnesia in a PC, and it was actually not an RP cop-out. The character had a real personality... just no memories.)
--The new PC is traveling on the same dangerous road as the PCs. They decide to team up for safety's sake, and when the new guy reveals he has no particular destination in mind, they realize he can take care of himself in a fight and they could probably use his help.
--The new PC has a vision from his deity. When he follows the directions he's given, he runs straight into the party in a dire situation and tips the balance that lets them escape. Obviously, his deity wants him to help them.
--They all meet in a tavern. Hey, it doesn't all have to be fancy...

Let's have some of the methods you've used, or seen used, to introduce new party members.

[Beelzebub1111]

These have happened in my group:

You run into each-other while traveling in the woods

The main party is famous and the additional member petitions to join up.

Rescued Captive is pretty common...VERY common, in fact.

[Zaydos]

Enemy of my enemy is the most common approach I pull.

[Volthawk]

In the Skype game I'm playing in:

- You return to the inn of the man who'd hiring you, and where you're staying, to find it smashed up and the aforesaid man gone. Two others are in the inn, and two of the party have left, so the two joined us on our rescue mission (when two of the other players couldn't play any more)

- In the next tavern you stay in, the Necropolitan owner goes crazy, and a ghoul comes with you when you take him to the asylum. One of the party who joined up for the rescue has left, so the ghoul stays (one of the two new guys had to stop playing, so we had another new guy)

No actual deaths yet, because we rarely fight (we've had 23 or so sessions, and have only killed 3 enemies, and left one unconscious (I presume he survived since he wasn't where I left him when I took the body and stole his clothes))

[Scarlet-Devil]

One of my characters was a knight (paladin) who the party rescued from a cell; a powerful psion or something had manipulated the populace and organized a coup. The king was killed, but my character was still loyal to the royal family, so he joined the party to try to find and protect the king's brother who was next in line.

[Kol Korran]

hmmmm... usualy in our groups when someone dies, they get to play a side NPC or someone working with the party till there is a place to join him/ her into the party. i try to have a a convenient place/ method every 2-3 sessions. but there have been problematic times. lets see... some of these are fairly usuall, some are not:
1) the new character is part of the enemy's forces, but for some reason decides to switch sides (we usually make it that the character was coerced into service under some threat, and sees the party as the chance to end that threat). this has actually just happened in the last meeting i played.

2) the party's patron scries on the party or has some other way of communication, and he is teleporting a new party member, a little after the old one died/ or because they need reinforcements.

3) in the Mournland (Eberron's twilight/ horror/ anything can happen country), aafter defeating a huge strange fleshy monstrosity, the new character climbes out of it- it has been feeding on the energies of victims it has captured within it's body (homebrew monster, similar to devourer in concept) since the new character is all alone in a strange land, it offers to join. "oh wait, you're looking for X? i just heard it was..." usually also follows up.

all i can think of at the moment.

[soir8]

My all-time favourite PC joined a world-famous adventuring party as a member of the military of a nation they were on friendly terms with. Since they were in need of an espionage and assassination expert, he was assigned to them. It worked really well, as the DM would occasionally give me little side-quests, like acting as ambassador when the party visited a foreign kingdom. Not that a ghost-faced killer who wears his skull mask at all times is the ideal ambassador, but still.

[dsmiles]

I used #2 exclusively in the Gamma World game I was running. Sometimes literally. :smallwink:

[Katana_Geldar]

"Oh, you like a trustworthy person, would you like to go on this adventure with us and fight evil?"

I haven't had PC deaths like that, so I can't say.

[Fallbot]

We had the pleasure of introducing two characters to an established party within one session. This happened after one of the characters being replaced had been revealed as a traitor, and so everyone was on edge and not in a very trusting mood. The DM asked for the two people bringing in characters to come up with some damn good reasons for wanting to join up with a group of monsters and freaks, as well as some good reasons for the rest of the party to accept them.

So the first was an artificer they ran into in town, whose backstory had him as a friend/classmate of the swordmage already in the party, and had him researching an event that three other party members had been directly involved in. The swordmage can vouch for him, and can vouch for the rest of the party and persuade him to overlook their eccentricities. Everything’s good, he joins up and the game moves on.

The second player just couldn’t be bothered. His character hadn't been given anything even approximating a backstory, despite weeks of knowing he needed to do this (he didn't even have a name - in the end the player just switched two letters in the name of his last character and called it a day), so since he'd made a fighter/cleric the DM had us run into him at the temple, where he helped out with the raise dead ritual we bought for the rogue.

Since we play on maptool, the entire scene was preserved for posterity, and I’ve pasted the chatlog here, edited for clarity and to protect the innocent. So here’s now not to introduce a character. Spoilered for being inane and contrived.

Swordmage: Thanks for the assist there, mate
NewPC: *is quizzical*
Ranger: Yeah, thanks.
[A pause as they wait for him to reply to them. He doesn't. He presumably continues to be quizzical though.]
Swordmage: So. We should get back to [NPCfriend's house]
Ranger: Yeah. I guess.
[There is a lot (like really a lot) of dialogue cut here as the party proceed to hang around in the temple making small talk and throwing out references to the various plots they're involved in, waiting for NewPC to latch onto a hook and interact with them. He doesn’t. Finally, after maybe twenty minutes waiting around, they get bored.]
Ranger: We'll probably not be in PORT FERRIX for that long
Ranger: FOR THAT IS WHERE WE ARE GOING
Ranger: TO PORT FERRIX
Swordmage: PORT FERRIX is a pretty big place
NewPC: ahem
Swordmage: I used to live there in PORT FERRIX
NewPC: Port Ferrix you say?
Swordmage: yeah
Ranger: ...Yes?
NewPC: What a coincidence, I happen to be travelling to Port Ferrix my self
Ranger: ...That's nice?
Rogue: *fidgits impatiently*
NewPC: But I don't know the road as well as I should, and wouldn't mind the extra company/safety of fellow adventurers on my travels

[It should be noted that the party consists of a pair of gore covered dark elves, one of whom is currently trying to climb the temple's statue of Pelor and has just been accused of being a demon by the resident priest, as well as a half-naked genasi from an area where they are all but unheard of, and a warlock who isn’t taking part in this conversation because she’s distracted by a handful of insects she's busy crushing. These are not people that inspire feelings of safety.]

Swordmage: uh
Ranger: ...Um...Okay...?
Swordmage: Sorry who are you?
Ranger: What she said
NewPC: Oh sorry. I am [NewPC]
Ranger: ...Um...well met, [NewPC]. But I'm not sure you really want to come with us... There's....stuff. Happening. Really dangerous stuff. Um. [He dumped charisma. You’d never guess.]
Swordmage: shh shh shh. Don't tell him that yet!
Ranger: *Is shhed*
Swordmage: if my friend isn't joining then we could use a cleric. Even if he does have a beard
Ranger: (Oh, he's a cleric? I thought he was part of the temple's community outreach program)
NewPC: Uh? Well yes I do have a beard...?
Ranger: ...[Swordmage]...doesn’t like beards. What are you travelling to Ferrix for?
Swordmage: to the barbers perhaps? or...?
Ranger: *snort*
NewPC: I have friends to meet there, and other errands that need to be run and suchlike
Ranger: ...That's not evasive or suspicious at all!
Ranger: Insight - « 1d20+8 = 15 + 8 = 23 »
NewPC's player: Actually I just haven't thought it through fully [We’d never have guessed]
Ranger: *frown*...He seems legit....
Swordmage: ok well that's great we have a beardy man to help us
Ranger: ...yay...?


The cleric spent the rest of the session simply following the rest of the party around and not talking to anyone, until the player had to leave 2 hours early. We still don't know anything about him, despite our prodding, and the rest of the party treat him like a big doofy St Bernard that follows them around and dispenses booze healing.

[TurtleKing]

One character I played met the party by being dropped of by a Valkyrie on a Pegasus. My character was an Einherjar giving up his divinity to become an Aasimar to go on a divine quest. This was done by drinking the elixir that made him puking up most of the divinity.

[Mastikator]

You all meet in a tavern boat and decide to team up.

You're stuck and lost in an enchanted forest, you meet a guy who's also stuck.

You're a friend to one of the PC's from before he decided to team up with the current party.

It's winter and you're stuck in a village in a vale and there's trolls in the woods, the party is investigating the trolls, and you meet a new guy who has nothing better to do.

The party is walking through the woods, suddenly they see a unconscious naked man covered in blood next to a disemboweled deer (with no memory of last night's events), and decide to team up.

Yeah the last one is a bit freaky, and it's also a reminder that party + a dude who is a werewolf = bad idea.

[Nerocite]

"A paladin steps out of the woods. Want to explain what's going on?"-DM
"Evil Lord DarkGrim is evil and stuff. Wanna go kill him?"-Me

[Waker]

One thing that I've been meaning to do, but haven't had the opportunity to since I'm almost always the DM, is introducing a PC as an NPC. What I would do is write up a character, hand it to the DM and let him run it for a session to introduce them to the party. The reason I would do this is that players often metagame a bit and let people join their parties simply because they know another player is behind it. But if it's an NPC, they react how their characters would act. Of course, this runs the risk of having my character killed, but you gotta take chances sometimes.

[TinselCat]

I ended up pitting one new PC against the other two less-than-lawful types who were trying to steal some useless shiny object "for the challenge". The new PC was hired by shiny object's owner to stop thieves, naturally. They were interrupted in the middle of a heated negotiation-nearing-battle by another trap set for thieves: a hungry dire lion that broke out of its pen and was starved enough to attack indiscriminately. They kill it, make it down the tower, the two thief PCs make a break for the woods with the new PC in pursuit. In the woods, they encounter a nice shiny plot hook. Since the dire lion interrupted the would-be thieves so they didn't actually succeed, the new PC is able to forgive them (they're pretty young as well) and work together - especially since he'll be able to stop them from stealing everything in sight. Three allied PCs, and one acting as the handler for the wild card? A good balance, if I must say so.

[Zaq]

Honestly, I find "you cast Detect PC and the new guy pings" to be less immersion-breaking than some painstakingly crafted set of coincidences that just happens to lead to the group wanting and accepting this new person with perfect harmony.

[Telasi]

My favorites introductions for PCs I was playing were:

The time I was nearly burnt at the stake. I wanted to play a drow rogue, and the DM decided to pull a variant on the old prisoner intro. The party, consisting of a human paladin, changeling rogue, and wolf druid are going through a village when they hear the locals making a commotion. Naturally, they investigate, finding a half-drunk mob tying a bound and semi-conscious drow to a stake. For whatever reason, the paladin gets the idea that he's going to convince the mob to sell him their prisoner (aka my character). After some negotiation, the villagers agreed, and the party continued on with a confused drow in tow.

Another good character introduction was for my longtooth shifter fighter. My character was a member of the city guard at the time, with a reputation for being a stubborn, drunken bastard. He was also an old war buddy of one of the city councilmen, who directed the party to my character to help them root out a gang. Naturally, the party opts to send the half-orc barbarian, well known for his subtlety and tact (/sarcasm), to find me. One exchange of insults later, the conversation devolves into an armed battle. The barbarian, who started the fight, got arrested, and I got suspended. At my friend the councilman's request, I helped the party anyway, and the adventure went on from there.

[TheCountAlucard]

The party is walking through the woods, suddenly they see a unconscious naked man covered in blood next to a disemboweled deer (with no memory of last night's events), and decide to team up.The poor deer! :smalleek: Disemboweled, and has amnesia! :smalltongue:

[panaikhan]

This is amusing (for me anyway) because last night, the party I am DMing lost their cleric in a battle with Dr. Phibes-style character - who liked torturing and experimenting on things.
In the cages just happened to be a centaur and a unicorn...

Off-topic, can a unicorn take class levels?
I've got this week to turn either the centaur or the unicorn into a heal-bot to replace the cleric...

-edit- the module states the centaur is a paladin, but that won't fly with the party (two LE members) so thinking Cleric of Pelor or Cuthbert.

[BayardSPSR]

Let's see, what have I done...
-You all walk into town. This other guy walks into town five minutes later.
-Shipwreck on the coast.
-After the battle, this other other guy walks into town.
-You encounter the sacred guardian of the holy portal who has just happened to wake up due to a demonic disturbance.
-You're traveling down the river. You see someone on the bank. Say hello.
-Hey, look! Somebody ELSE had a shipwreck too.

[Roc Ness]

PC hiding and watching party is discovered after falling out of a tree.

[Raistlin82]

As a DM of a large number of players, I had to do this a lot:

1) Campaign just started with low level characters, one more late player joins the fray... the party finds his character prisoner of the goblins... is that it? Of course not... he's tied upside down to the ceiling of a very high cave, naked and hilariously body-painted. Getting him down without killing him was actually a hard encounter for a low level party. The things you can do when you have a player with a sense of humour... :smallwink: ;
2) a PC is unjustly accused of murder and imprisoned. The party try to prove that the PC is innocent (the player "temporarily" controls his leadership cohort to that end). They fail. The cohort becomes the new PC;
3) high level party, our broken druid tragically dies from a surprisingly hard to detect trap (whoops :smalltongue: )... the party is famous and the Church of CustomDivinity offers our leader (a Paladin) the services of their most experienced cleric (same player, new char);
4) New party, new campaign, new D&D edition (4E). This one tied onto my campaign story pretty well. The whole campaign is about getting some McGuffins left behind by the previous PC party after an ("off-panel") epic battle. Along the way they have to discover what happened to those heroes of the past in the last 50 years (they're now mostly dead, but an old woman and a pair of elves still live). There is a new player who has already played a long D&D campagin in the past: his old character was a Wizard (3.5), his new character is a Wizard (4E)... so... his new character turns out to be a disciple of his old character, who just happened to fight alongside the famous party in that epic "off-panel" fight 50 years ago. The informations his mentor left him led him to contact the PC party.

[Badgerish]

Player retired one character and brought in another:
The PC felt he had lost his honour and left the party in disgrace, then he got captured by bandits and kept with another captive. The two captives talked and realised that the party must be informed of new information. The old PC attacks the bandits as a distraction, the new PC running to the party to warn them, and the old PC dies.
(this was done in collaboration with the player, he suggested the old PC dying)


Brand new player and character: The following is a meta-game conversation that pretty much sums it up
OtherPlayer: so, what's up with the new guy?
ME: you remember last session, when we rescued that human Artificer and how he would follow us about and help outside of combat?
OP: sure
ME: well actually he was a Drow, not an Artificer and will be helping us IN combat.
OP: okay then. What is he though?
ME: Leather, scimitar and wand? I think that's playtest-assassin.


Party gets a bit famous and the new PC wants to join, we let him but keep referring to him as an 'intern'.


Party discusses in-character about how they could do with more damage-dealing in the party. A couple of minutes later they encounter a whirling barbarian being surrounded by thugs on a bridge, 12 seconds later he has killed most of them. The PCs actively recruit the barbarian.


doing LFR modules with a pretty stable group. New player joins as a Halfling Rogue, I explain that the party camped for the night and when they woke up there was a halfling cooking breakfast. There is a short discussion about how Halflings don't have children like other races, they just spawn fully grown in campsites and kitchens.


again LFR, half the party are established characters, half the party are brand new. I pitch the following idea to the players of the new characters and they accept it.
The new PCs are city guards who actually yearn for adventure, they volunteer for a task that involves dealing with adventurers, with the idea that if they like it, they can muster out of the guards and join the PCs.
However the adventure goes horribly wrong and the group fails to stop a mass poisoning/mass spread of disease and they get exiled instead.


One I have planned: Party is hired to kidnap somebody, told it's not for evil reasons. The kidnapee is the new PC and proves that he was kidnapped for totally evil reasons. They team up vs the quest-giver.

[Lawless III]

When I first joined my current group, they were already a few sessions in, and one of the players had pissed off quite a few people in town. So, the other new player and I were bounty-hunters the mob had sent after them. One of the people in the party managed to convince us (after only a bit of blood shed) that helping them would be far more lucrative if we helped them pull off their coup.

[Asheram]

One of my favorites was when my character had recently become Satrap (sort of govenor) over a quite large desert area and hired the new PC on as an artificer architect for the rebuilding of a quite impressive manor that were on my lands. And then the ogres invaded.

[Lord_Gareth]

I gotta say, my favorite method of introducing a new player is to have them established as someone competent and then give the party a reason to want them around without necessarily trusting them. Ideas to that end include introducing them as rival treasure hunters, folks interested in the party's growing fame and wealth, and my personal favorite, having them attempt to assassinate a member of the party (those ones can be tense).

Though in all honesty, my absolute favorite had to be the disguised succubus who seduced the party paladin and tagged along until the entire party had turned evil (and wasn't all that surprised when she turned out to be a succubus).

[Maho-Tsukai]

Here's a few I've done in the past...

-The new PC is originally a high ranking minion of the BBEG whom is known to stay in the shadows/the BBEG keeps in the shadows.(Hence why the heroes have never before met them in combat) The heroes go to face said villain only to find that he is not actually evil but netural and actually a somewhat nice(though still a bit dark) person. After finding out his goals the PCs convince him that he can better get what he wants by working with them. Instant new party member in a not overused way.

-The new PC is a minion of the BBEG/some other evil force and is sent to infiltrate the party as a mole. They meat him in some cliche' place(a tavern, for example) and he joins in the normal fashion, offering his services ect... While selfish and scheming at first, through all the challenges the party goes though he becomes close to them and decided to fight on behalf of the party rather then the BBEG/his master while still pretending to be loyal to the BBEG.(Like sending him false intelligence on the party's activities ect...)

Yeah, as you can see I like making new party members minions of the BBEG who have a heel face turn and turn out to be a true "hero" in the end.

[bokodasu]

Wow, y'all are creative; 98% of the time, I go with, "what do you mean, you don't remember a wizard being in the party? He's been with you the whole time, just, um, absorbed in doing wizard things. Very quietly." (Replace character class as appropriate.)

One of the few times I didn't the new PC was a messenger who faced so many dangers getting to the party that he refused to go back without their protection. But mostly, yeah, the first one. (At least I don't make them meet in taverns any more.)

[BlckDv]

A method we have used (requires a stable party and players who are able to retain interest in a concept over long periods) is to make an initial larger party (say 3 times the number of players) and have it worked into the background that the other 2/3 of the group are pursuing other leads, doing legwork, etc. You have to hand wave why you don't rotate out the optimal PCs for each situation (unless you are OK with a rotating roster), but when a PC dies, you have a ready pool of characters who in game already know and trust each other and are reasonably up to speed on the party goals.

Other methods that we have used include the classic captive scenario, the survivors from multiple groups merge to form a new group (when you have more than one new PC to introduce at one time), the PCs actively recruiting a new partner either formally or while on the road, and in a more lighthearted vein, looking for someone named 'Baynar Felf' as we once had a player who named each PC Baynar Felf (but made very diff. PCs), but worked in a backstory in which there was a secret cabal naming chosen children Baynar Felf to mark them for their destiny to adventure rather than leaving it as an unexplained quirk.

[Waker]

Off-topic, can a unicorn take class levels?
I've got this week to turn either the centaur or the unicorn into a heal-bot to replace the cleric...
Yes, any creature with at least Int 3 can take class levels. The MM Unicorn even has an advanced unicorn with Cleric class levels.

[TalonDemonKing]

For my Supers campaign, since the players are apart of a larger organization (MAGI), I use that organization to rotate players in and out. Recently, we've had a dude in a power suit armor to join up to 'watch' over the group (As they've suceeded in wrecking a walgreens-type shop and breaking and entering, as well as open combat in the middle of the road).

[Arutema]

New Dwarf in town has heard of our exploits, asks if there's an interview process to join our group. Our party leader (me) suggests fisticuffs to test his combat abilities.

2 rounds later I'm nearly KOed, and the Dwarven Monk is accepted into our party as my bodyguard.