Introducing new PCs

[tim01300]

So I'm wondering if you guys have any tricks or really good ideas from times you have introduced new players into your game or old players that refused a raise dead and are joining the party as a new PC. I have always felt that the group finding a new member ether locked in a dungeon or outnumbered in a fight is a simple way to get the new player and the group working together. But one of my players has complained that it is bad role playing and he would never want someone in the party who got themselves locked up in the first place because they are clearly weak. To me this is just being silly but I figured I would see if you guys had any other ideas.

I've tried inducing other characters just meeting the group on the road, or in a tavern and the same thing ALWAYS happens. My groups "roleplaying" always ends up with them saying they have no reason to trust this new guy trying to join up with them and I have to tell them out of game, "Well he is sitting here and we are obviously going to play together so make it work".

Right now my players are trapped in a interdimensional dungeon that is run by a lich. Last session a character died and decided to roll a new character. I know my players are they will "roleplay" that no matter how they meet him they won't want to work with this new PC they find. Simply waiting til they are out of the dungeon isn't an option because it is going to take several sessions before they finish.

Any ideas? Is this a problem for anyone else?

[Spore]

Being weak has NOTHING to do with being caught. You could have the strongest guy on earth. He fails one save and there he is. Imprisoned in an soul trapping mirror. Keep in mind you play mortal heroes and there are items, artifacts and characters that can simply overpower singular guys. Still if you want a solid reason, have the new character be trapped in this area for a long period of time and give his character extensive background info that eases up the fights considerably (of course scale the fights up for that reason). This is what one of my fellow players does when he introduces a new PC.

His cleric was the right hand of the lich we soon tried to attack. She held a grudge against her and had enough power to lead the lich into a trap. His witch is a reknown member of the local mage's guidl of which we need entrance to get infos from the library. His rogue was an agent for a secret cult working against our BBEG trying to kill a god and trapping its remains.

So have your new PC know all the things you can do on that lich created demiplane. Including the exit of which he cannot use because reasons. Of which the location he will not tell if the party doesn't help him. And he cannot use it without the heroes.

[Vogonjeltz]

So I'm wondering if you guys have any tricks or really good ideas from times you have introduced new players into your game or old players that refused a raise dead and are joining the party as a new PC. I have always felt that the group finding a new member ether locked in a dungeon or outnumbered in a fight is a simple way to get the new player and the group working together. But one of my players has complained that it is bad role playing and he would never want someone in the party who got themselves locked up in the first place because they are clearly weak. To me this is just being silly but I figured I would see if you guys had any other ideas.

I've tried inducing other characters just meeting the group on the road, or in a tavern and the same thing ALWAYS happens. My groups "roleplaying" always ends up with them saying they have no reason to trust this new guy trying to join up with them and I have to tell them out of game, "Well he is sitting here and we are obviously going to play together so make it work".

Right now my players are trapped in a interdimensional dungeon that is run by a lich. Last session a character died and decided to roll a new character. I know my players are they will "roleplay" that no matter how they meet him they won't want to work with this new PC they find. Simply waiting til they are out of the dungeon isn't an option because it is going to take several sessions before they finish.

Any ideas? Is this a problem for anyone else?

Two potential solutions for you:

1) Tell the PCs there's a known adventurers guild nearby. They go looking for a new member for their party and actively recruit one. This makes the person a bonafide (and relatively trustworthy) adventurer.

2) Kidnap the players so that it is they who need rescuing. The new player rescues them via some skill. They must be amazing right? This should serve to defang the players who are suspicious for no actual reason.

*you also might ask the players: What do you think a good reason to trust a new member would be?

[Spore]

Keep in mind this might be masked animosity towards the practice of rerolling instead of reviving.

[sideswipe]

Keep in mind this might be masked animosity towards the practice of rerolling instead of reviving.

in all the games i play re-rolling is usually preferred over reviving.

[Spore]

in all the games i play re-rolling is usually preferred over reviving.

I know I prefer it myself unless it is a really vital important and insanely fun character. Still, some people are like that.

[WeaselGuy]

Last Sunday, when my Samurai died, I decided to make a Knight as my next character. We were on a simple scouting mission, so when the party returned to the Baron to give their report, he told them that their next task was to retake the tower. Here's a squad of light infantry, heavy infantry, and heavy cavalry. Here's a lieutenant to lead the infantry and this Knight here is gonna lead the cavalry. If y'all survive, he can help you further.

In the past, my beguiler was killed off and we wanted to bring in a new player. I chose to play a Halfling Outrider, who had points in cartography and mapmaking, with a wizard and his cleric cohort as muscle. When the party arrived at the Inn where we had set up out map-selling shop, there was a call put out to take care of a gnoll infestation some ways out in the country. What do you know, I happen to have maps of that area, and you guys seem to be short a few adventurers. I was going to be heading that direction anyways, so boom, Bob's your uncle, I'm with you guys!

[Red Fel]

Is your party towing a Maguffin? The new PC was drawn here in pursuit of the Maguffin. Perhaps you can have a comic series of misunderstandings as the party mistakes him/ he mistakes the party for bad guys who have wrongfully taken it. Perhaps he's on some kind of sacred quest, or having weird dreams, or just knows it somehow.

Alternatively, the Maguffin is drawing the party towards the new PC. Maybe the Maguffin is intelligent, maybe it's not, or maybe it has just enough sapience to know that it needs certain people for certain things, and is gathering them - the party included - to accomplish its purpose. (Which is a plot arc in and of itself.)

By way of anecdote, in that Dragonlance campaign to which I often refer, we were carting around one of the titular weapons. When my LE Minotaur Samurai got killed off, I brought in a Noble Draconian (the Good clones of the Evil clones of the Good dragons - don't ask). He had been drawn there by the holy power of the Lance, sacred quests, visions, etc. Amusingly, because the party was a bunch of freaking murderhobos (honestly, my LE Samurai was one of the more moral ones), the quest involving the Lance was really the only thing keeping him with them.

PCs don't have to be rescued or meet you in a tavern, is all I'm saying.

[Alaris]

I generally, as a DM, TRY to give the PCs a reason to work together, but on more than on occasion, I just let them figure it out.

Infact, the newest character I'll be introducing will simply be running into the party towards the end of their dungeon crawl. They'll work out why he will travel with them I'm sure. Or not, their call.

[Regissoma]

I usually have my PC who wants to intergrate into the group decide how he/she wants to do it, and it usually plays out really well. A few examples were when the DFI bard was found buffing a group of level 1 commoners against an orc raid and the group were like we need you, the time that we had an actual insane personality artificer who they met when his lab blew up and saw him laughing madly because he succeeded in making his newest potion, or the time when they met Arc the wandering sellsword. Arc was especially fun, because he was one of my DM tools at times for he did anything that would make him money while maintaining his one rule, "Any contract I have accepted and been paid for will be carried out for as long as I can walk this plane, and I shall not take any contract that conflicts with any current ones I have."

[Zaq]

We have a rule called "Detect PC." Basically, all PCs have Detect PC as a spell-like ability, usable at will. (No, this doesn't ever come up in the case of doppelganger attacks or what have you. Stay with me.) We all know that if you ping on Detect PC, then you're trustworthy and should be allowed into the party.

Now, this sounds like we're just being flippant and silly, but actually, I find that in practice, it lends itself better to verisimilitude than the equivalent scenario in groups that don't use Detect PC. See, Detect PC is a relatively small immersion-breaker, and it's an immersion-breaker that exists specifically because we're all friends spending our limited free time gaming with each other, and it's an integral part of the social contract that everyone gets to be part of the game, even if they have to bring in a new character.

To me, it's a very small break in the game to say "I cast Detect PC. He pings? Cool, welcome aboard." And it makes it very fast to get to the good parts, whether the good parts are combat, in-depth dialogue, dungeon crawling, or whatever. In contrast, it's a huge break in the game for the adventuring party, who risks death multiple times a day and who must trust their comrades with their lives, to have to come up with some contrived reason why this random person is going to be suddenly accepted by them as a full ally, with all the trust, responsibility, and treasure that comes with being a full group member. But it's absolutely critical that we DO come up with a reason for that, because while the character is a random stranger, the player is our good friend Sam, and it's not fair that Sam be forced to sit out while the rest of the group bickers about whether to accept this newbie. Sam's gaming time is just as limited as the rest of ours is, and Sam wants to get back in the action just as much as we do.

So without Detect PC, you either get a really contrived reason why the new person's motives just happen to align perfectly with the party's ("We're off to slay the evil lich Zygon." "Really? Zygon once told me that I look ugly in orange. I'm with you!"), or you get a random person who would realistically never work with the group and who would never be trusted by the group nonetheless becoming an instant member of the group. Or else the game grinds to a halt while you punish your real-life friend Sam for having a new character. None of those three scenarios are as acceptable to me as simply saying "He pings? He's in. Welcome aboard; let's get back to the good stuff."

Because I don't care WHY the PCs are working together. I really don't. Nearly any explanation that seeks to explain why your typical adventuring party (especially if you have esoteric races or classes, but even with your vanilla dwarf Fighter, elf Wizard, human Cleric, and halfling Rogue or whatever) is working together is going to be either contrived or cliché. I care what happens once the PCs ARE working together. It's critical that they are in fact working together, but once that's established by the minor immersion-break of Detect PC, we can get to the good stuff.

For the record, I'm okay with a small bit of group friction, as long as everyone's into it and having fun. That can be part of "the good stuff." But it has to be group friction within the context of a functional party, not group friction that drives the party apart. But we can't have group friction within the context of a functional party until we have a functional party, and that's where Detect PC comes in.