Do named characters ever appear in your campaigns?

[TheCrowing1432]

Drizzt, Elminster, any characters from the books, do you ever have them appear?

And if they do, what do you do with them?

Do you put them there as target practice to vent your hatred for them?

Do you put them there as sort of a set peace, doing their thing but somewhere far off where the PC's arent? Or do you make them a big part of your campaign/quest line?

Is there proper etiquette in using book characters? Is it frowned upon?

What does the playground think?

[Red Fel]

I try not to bring in named characters, except by name. For example, a PC might perform some astounding feat of magic, leading a witness to exclaim, "Are you Elminster?" The only other exception I make is when gods are involved; obviously, they're named characters. Even so, I prefer to avoid employing them directly, because as a rule, once I've established that impossibly powerful beings exist and are active in my setting, the rational question is why they aren't doing everything themselves.

I've been in campaigns with named PCs. One in particular comes to mind. Short version, the DMPC was friends with all of them, and they all adored him, grumble grumble, hate DMPCs, grumble grumble.

[TheCrowing1432]

I try not to bring in named characters, except by name. For example, a PC might perform some astounding feat of magic, leading a witness to exclaim, "Are you Elminster?" The only other exception I make is when gods are involved; obviously, they're named characters. Even so, I prefer to avoid employing them directly, because as a rule, once I've established that impossibly powerful beings exist and are active in my setting, the rational question is why they aren't doing everything themselves.

I've been in campaigns with named PCs. One in particular comes to mind. Short version, the DMPC was friends with all of them, and they all adored him, grumble grumble, hate DMPCs, grumble grumble.

Yeah but I mean town guards starts out as usually level 5 or higher, why arent they clearing out the goblin cave? Even without name dropping legendary people like Drizzt or Elminster you can find tons of reasons to make the low level PC's useless.

And even when there are higher levels in play, The PC's sure as hell arent the first ones in the history of the realm to hit 20. Why arent these previous level 20's solving problems?

[Fax Celestis]

"Canon" characters don't show up in my campaigns, though my PCs show up as NPCs. My players flipped out once when they found out the mercenary captain glowering at them from across the bar was Damocles Spyridon, and the draconic woman sitting with him was Xochiquetzal Tehaczuatontli. They weren't major players or anything, but their cameo helped bring continuity and depth to the game table.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yeah but I mean town guards starts out as usually level 5 or higher, why arent they clearing out the goblin cave? Even without name dropping legendary people like Drizzt or Elminster you can find tons of reasons to make the low level PC's useless.

And even when there are higher levels in play, The PC's sure as hell arent the first ones in the history of the realm to hit 20. Why arent these previous level 20's solving problems?

Because there are more problems than there are high level movers and shakers to solve them, nevermind the high level enemies they have that would just -love- for them to go do something trivial and stop paying attention for a few figurative moments.


As for me, hells no. I run campaigns in my own world so there aren't any anyway but even if I did something in the realms or eberron I'd avoid them as extraneous. I'm perfectly capable of making interesting characters all by myself, thank you very much. :smallcool:

[atemu1234]

No, mostly because I run a homebrewed campaign setting.

[nedz]

Never.

I run games in my own world and can create my own NPCs thank you very much. It's always more fun to create a new character than to recycle someone else's ideas. There is a small chance I might lampshade one, but that would be strictly for laughs and to be honest: I can think of better jokes.

[Curmudgeon]

Never. Nearly all NPCs in the books have problems (don't follow the rules), so it's not worth the effort to try to use them.

[Sylthia]

I use a continuous homebrew world for my campaigns. So fictional characters created from other authors, no.

However, I will use NPCs from old campaigns, or old PCs as NPCs.

[Faily]

Only in Legend of the Five Rings have I used canon-characters as NPCs repeatedly, but then again, that setting has such a huge history and personality-gallery, it saves so much trouble with coming up with each and every one of them.

Don't think I've come across any canon characters in other settings though.

[Palanan]

Our first 3.5 campaign was in the Forgotten Realms, and after our DM suckered us into Undermountain we ran across Halaster Blackcloak, or at least an aspect of him. More of a cameo than anything (and I was the only player who recognized him, simply because I'd read the FRCS) but it was a nice reference to the wider setting.

For my own campaigns in the Realms, I've never brought in any of the flagship NPCs, only made sparing references. Most of my players didn't know much about the Realms anyhow, and my campaigns were in out-of-the-way spots, so I had neither the interest nor the need.

[(Un)Inspired]

The only non-home brewed setting I've ever run was Mask of the Red Death and I did include Dracula but he was an entirely off-screen background character.

[Averis Vol]

I use a continuous homebrew world for my campaigns. So fictional characters created from other authors, no.

However, I will use NPCs from old campaigns, or old PCs as NPCs.

This is basically how my game runs. The two names all players in my world know are Aleister Crowley and Mathias, though Orion the Hunter and Bregga Malleus are also pretty well known.

[Elkad]

I've had a few Greyhawk characters show up at town functions, or be seen briefly of the patron of a patron.

Mainly members of the Circle and/or Citadel of Eight.

[jedipotter]

Drizzt, Elminster, any characters from the books, do you ever have them appear?

Yes, all the time.



And if they do, what do you do with them?

Anything really. Some times they pass through. Some times they help. Some times they harm. Some times they provide comedy. Sometimes they save the day.



Do you put them there as target practice to vent your hatred for them?

Nope.



Do you put them there as sort of a set peace, doing their thing but somewhere far off where the PC's arent? Or do you make them a big part of your campaign/quest line?

Depends where...and when...the PC's are in the world. They are no bigger part of the game then any other NPC.



Is there proper etiquette in using book characters? Is it frowned upon?

No? Yes, lots of players don't like it.


Named characters are a great way to get the feel of the setting. It can be great fun meeting them. And in the game world, most of the characters are not such ''big stars''. Take Drizzt. He is just a dark elf ranger with a cat..as far as 99% of the world knows or cares. Other NPC's might have heard a story or two about him....but nothing very special. Very little of what he has ever done is all that ''amazing''.