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SilverClawShift
2007-08-18, 10:24 PM
I have two questions intended for general gaming community.

How do your characters end? By which, specifically, I mean, what happens when you retire them? Do you play until they finally bite the dust in some magnificent fashion? Do you just hang onto the character sheet and remember them? Do you feel like they've acheived some form of closure in their lives and their stories? Do you let your favorite characters adventure-hop when applicable, hitching a ride into some new story rather than tucking them away? (That's... that's a lot of questions. Okay, but they're all sub-questions of the first question).
I ask because, normally, my group tries to sum up what happens to our characters in a vague sense, and we tuck them away and move on. But we're planning to start a massive campaign soon, and before we do that we've decided we want to wrap up loose ends. Or at least push them further along.
So we're going Epic. Everyone's picking their favorite 20th level character (who's still alive), and we're starting from there, hoping to wrap up where these characters end up in various senses.
Should be fun, but it leaves me dying to know what endings other people (and DMs) bring to their characters.

Second question is less important, but it's about visual aides. How do you go about visually representing your character? Minis? Taking pictures from other sources? Real or drawn? Personal sketches?
A friend of mine sketched out the character I'm using for the 'epic' game for unrelated reasons, but I like it enough that I'm printing it out and keeping it with my character sheets. The Legacy Umbrella Totin' Sorceress (http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x284/SilverClawShift/Jitty.jpg) But it feels a little odd, because it's certainly the most 'cartoonish' picture I've ever used for something like this.
So what does everyone else use for visualizing their characters?

Skjaldbakka
2007-08-18, 10:32 PM
I like to take the really memorable characters I have played cameo as shopkeeper or bartender NPCs in campaigns that I run.

I also re-cast NPCs alot in new campaigns. Similar to the way Clamp re-casts characters in their anime..

Kultrum
2007-08-18, 10:34 PM
I never play the same char for more than one campaign. After the campaign has drawn to an end I copy the char sheet and burn it.... I put A LOT of time into my chars and see that as a tribute to time spent and the fun they have brought. as for visuals I lucked out that im a descent artist and can draw my chars the way i envision them.

Accountant
2007-08-18, 10:44 PM
Similar to the way Clamp re-casts characters in their anime..

Or the transition between Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask!

horseboy
2007-08-18, 10:47 PM
Hmm, well technically only one of my characters ever really retired. Usually we got side tracked with another campaign, real life or what have you for the campaign to have ended.

The first time Aentona retired he was "lord" of a tropical island. Turned out the local water cursed you with immortality, though. So eventually he ended up back home, where he married the local tavern wench, started a ranch. Then a business partner with a palaentier and the Staff of the Earth. We had to stop an animist with an army of possums. Yeah, every time we tried to retire those characters the DM came up with another idea for them, so we would play them, retire, play again, retire some more. I think eventually he ended up going over the seas with the elves.

I've never really drawn most of my characters. It's actually something I've started recently.

valadil
2007-08-18, 11:49 PM
My characters end with the campaign. If they were particularly interesting characters and we play in that setting again, sometimes they graduate and ascend to NPCdom. I used to think it was cheesy for a DM to recycle like that, but sometimes you want to pull out a celebrity who already has a personality that the players are familiar with.

I did have a character who was forced into retirement midgame. He was a delusional old man. In spite of a dozen cleric levels he believed he was a wizard, and set about proving his arcaneliness to everyone in sight (anyspell + force domain w/ domain spontaneity). This was fine except that he somehow became party leader. Mainly because he was a dominant character who did what he wanted and the others had to keep him out of trouble. Anyway, this made for a broken party and his temple intervened and took my cleric back to the temple to be reprogrammed. That's the only character I've really ever retired.

knightsaline
2007-08-19, 12:13 AM
One thing I dream of doing with a fighter or other martial character is for him/her to retire into a forest and open a fighting dojo. That way, I can carry on the legacy of my fighter to other characters I make. A plot hook can be that the rival to my fighter appears in the dojo and tries to arrange a fight between his best student and my fighters best student. This seems fitting for retiring a ToB character that uses the "lesser" or "variant" disciplines of the Sublime Way. I mean, powerful fighter schools have to start somewhere! (must convince the DM to allow the UA training rules for the end of a feat tree)

dyslexicfaser
2007-08-19, 12:52 AM
How do your characters end?
On the point of a sword, usually.

I keep wanting to retire my characters, give them a happy ending... it's just that they usually end up dying on me, the sissies.

skywalker
2007-08-19, 12:55 AM
I have never had a character retire. I've never reached the level of closure required. All of my characters are still sitting in the stable(that is, they're on my computer) ready to go. If they did reach a certain level of closure, I would like for them to die in a manner best befitting the way they lived. The Paladin, heroically. The swordsage, peacefully. The wizard, quietly in his sleep. The sorcerer, in a blaze of glory. So on and so forth. As for how I represent them, I pretty much just imagine them in my head. Although, if I ever do make a stab at being an artist, I should very much like to draw my alter-egos.

knightsaline
2007-08-19, 12:59 AM
On the point of a sword, usually.

I keep wanting to retire my characters, give them a happy ending... it's just that they usually end up dying on me, the sissies.

Then why not ask DeeEm if he or she can be moved into the NPC files and be rezzed. You could make up a story for such a chara. I can imagine it now

"Hey, aren't you dead?"
"I got better"

as long as he/she does not fight or mess with the events of the campaign, your old PCs can live for a long time. Or they could influence the story, but not directly (teacher of the Sublime Way, Monk with many Vows like Vow of non-conflict and vow of non-violence, one of the many rogues of the Brotherhood of Shadow. )I could go on and on. Just convince DeeEm to let you move your legendary PCs into the realms of NPCdom

KillianHawkeye
2007-08-19, 06:13 PM
In the most memorable campaign I ever played in, my character (a 3.0 psion who I'd raised to from 1st to 12th level) was killed by a phantasmal killer spell (taking the form of a colossal fire elemental, because my parents had died in a fire) at the climax of that part of the adventure. I usually develop personality traits and backstories for all my characters, and my DM at the time was a superb storyteller and loved to incorporate stuff like that into the game.

My second character in that campaign hooked up with one of the PCs and they had a kid together. That campaign also had an eqilogue-style part after the adventure that gave closure for all the PCs.

Counterpower
2007-08-19, 06:23 PM
Well, most of the time we just let a campaign fade into the background. We haven't finished a single campaign yet, because we get something new that we want to incorporate, or we all want to try new characters, or... whatever, you get the idea. The one character we have retired to date was a half-dragon who finally met his true dragon father, and is now staying with said dragon in his lair. Still, though, even he isn't really retired, because he will come back and help out his old party again later. "Later" defined as "when his player is no longer 800 miles away and thus unavailable for regular D&D meetings."

tobian
2007-08-19, 08:58 PM
I loled.

873 miles to be precise. (Thank you google earth for that one :smallamused:)

But yea, I am (my character) currently retired. I plan on coming back winter break for some, but otherwise the campaign goes on without me. Counterpower is right though, we have yet to finish a campaign. It's all good though-we have fun with the characters we do create in the time that we have. And if someone leaves, then everyone else can go on.

Though, I will be making a comeback tour come winter break hehe

Tokahfang
2007-08-19, 09:45 PM
As a DM, when a campaign comes to a satisfying close we spend the last session talking through the rest of the character's life. Based on the kind of person they were when they were played, each of the players and I decide what kind of things they would have done, what world events they would have been involved in or stayed out of, etc. Most times, they go home knowing how their PC's died eventually - anything from peacefully in bed once their first grandchild was born to dying heroically saving some white dragon hatchlings.

My own most satisfying character retirement was that of my 1st ed (Dragon article) monk, who became a great-great-grandaddy, the Grandmaster of Flowers and then ascended finally.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-08-19, 09:55 PM
We usually incorporate retired characters as powerful or important npcs in our home brew campaign. Its actually proven to be a lot of fun.

Aximili
2007-08-19, 10:08 PM
Do you just hang onto the character sheet and remember them?
I do that for every character I've played (not necessarily remembering all of them).
For those few that actually finished their campaign (2 in total), Well... Let's just say that they are carefully protected not only between 2 sheets of plastic but also in my heart.:smallbiggrin:

In respect to them, I no longer play them in any campaign. It would be like asking tolkien to write a Lord of the rings: Sauron Returns,:smalltongue: some things are best the way they are now.

EDIT: These characters, however, have made appearances once or twice as enigmatic NPCs (I'd never risk doing that in a campaign of mine, but the DM who did it was good enough to honor their memory).

Kiren
2007-08-19, 10:23 PM
In my first campaign with my first character, I nearly get my character killed all the time, and when i once yelled out in draconic for a dragon or kobolds to kill my party........ The kobolds answered. While running away the party cleric killed me, and the kobolds dragged away my charactors body........they made me the kobold king, does that count?

Ravyn
2007-08-19, 11:19 PM
I've only retired a character once or twice--and the most notable of those ended up as a semi-background NPC in one of my other games because she hadn't finished story-arcing but had given me an interesting idea for another concept. Had one character reincarnation, but that was because he was an excellent concept with a flaky (and rather dubious) GM, and someone else came up with a campaign about a year later that fit him perfectly. The rest's games just sort of peter out, and depending on the type they may or may not end up as NPCs in my game.

As for visualizations: For a while I used an avatar-maker one of my friends found for me, but it was a bit too modern for my tastes. Then I got up the nerve to start sketching (okay, I started with tracing the pose and then altering the clothing, but I'm better now); now I have a pretty decent stable of PC and NPC sketches. It tends to be selective, though, depending on how well I can visualize the character and how artistic I'm feeling--and whether I have access to a reference pic if I'm having too much trouble with the pose.

wadledo
2007-08-19, 11:33 PM
I usually have all my characters related to one another through complex series of story's and campaigns(I love genealogy). My current character is a half elf who is the prince of 6 kingdoms, 3 planer realms, the head of 5 churches, and has to go to an out of the way shrine every year or he dies. When he has lost his usefulness I plan on marrying him to the princess of a kingdom that is exactly across from the most powerful and hostile empire on the plane.
...
...
...
Gods, I love my DM.

For art I usually sketch a rough picture, and then find something professional that looks more like what I think the character should look like than mine does.

LongVin
2007-08-19, 11:34 PM
If the character turns out to be memorable we normally turn it into an NPC that will make appearances in other games in varying roles sometimes important and other times just cameos. Even if said character died a horrible, horrible death we will claim "Alternate Universe" and slip him in. This even extends to particulary memorable NPCs.


Characters that have made the cut:

Sheriff Bemin from VtM: The Tremere Sheriff of NYC. A thousand year old Vampire who started out as an NPC(became a character in an elder campaign later on.) He gave the players assignments and threatened to give them final death if they didn't listen to him. In character he was hated above all us, out of character everyone wanted Bemin to show up. Even though he was a complete pain, he was a good NPC and wound up helping the Party. He showed up as a villian in a mage campaign and an ally again in another Vampire game. Also made cameo appearances in a few other vampire games.

Dr. Worm: Was a character in our first Vampire game. He was a Malkavian dentist from the 19th century who carried around one of the first gas powered saws and electrical drills. In his free time he practiced dentistry in the most painful matter possible then used dominate on his clients to make them forget the session...he was actually a pretty damn good dentist. He was the official torturer of the group(and managed to get everyone blood bonded to him.) He was brought back as the official torturer in the NYC vampire world working in the backroom of a bookstore called "Botch Books"(owned by Bemin)

Suicide Kid: A mage character who just wanted to die, but couldn't commit suicide since he didn't want to go to hell. So instead he would get himself into extremely dangerous situations where his avatar would cast spells to get him out of. He should of died within 3 sessions but our DM for that campaign refused to kill anyone off. After we finished that campaign he made cameos as a NPC who would be about 3 seconds late to a situation that could kill him and would start cursing. When we had the Apocalypse and almost all the mages were killed I ended with a scene of him standing on the street cursing God.

Roog
2007-08-20, 12:03 AM
How do your characters end? By which, specifically, I mean, what happens when you retire them? Do you play until they finally bite the dust in some magnificent fashion? Do you just hang onto the character sheet and remember them? Do you feel like they've acheived some form of closure in their lives and their stories? Do you let your favorite characters adventure-hop when applicable, hitching a ride into some new story rather than tucking them away? (That's... that's a lot of questions. Okay, but they're all sub-questions of the first question).
My characters end in the following ways...

Unexpected death - I don't think any explanation is needed.

Story related death - either the character has a (preplanned) natural story arc that ends with their death at the appropriate time, or (uncommonly) the character sees an appropriate opportunity and dies heroically.

Shift of Story Focus - when the focus of the game diverges sufficiently from the characters focus the character leaves the game. They player may give some indication of their plans etc, but that is all. Sometime later that campaign or a new one may bring the focus back to them, and at that point their off-screen history is resolved.

End of Characters Story at the Campaign Conclusion - If a character's (or party's) story is sufficiently satisfying at the end of a campaign, then a choice is made to leave it at that high point and not return to them, a sequel would be a letdown.

Ordinary Campaign Conclusion - This is treated the same way as a shift of story focus.

Character Retirement - When a character reaches a natural conclusion to their desire to "adventure" they tend to settle down to a normal life. Depending on the character's motivation this may occur as early as 2nd level. Characters who have officially retired generally make no more than a cameo appearance in a later story, and require the players agreement for the GM to inflict serious woes upon them.



Second question is less important, but it's about visual aides. How do you go about visually representing your character? Minis? Taking pictures from other sources? Real or drawn? Personal sketches?

Normally we have a verbal description or use "Who would play the character in a movie?". Sometimes we use pictures from other sources or sketches, but generally only to illustrate the character's style of dress, as these generally don't do justice to facial features. However we do occasionally use them for facial features as well.

#Edit
As for remembering them, I have a file box with almost all of my old character sheets and other relevant character resources.

BardicDuelist
2007-08-20, 12:14 AM
Our characters become powerful NPCs in our world. My bard has become the herald of the kingdom we tend to operate in and has a large bardic colledge. My friend's paladin is the marshal of the kingdom, etc. They tend to make cameos often.

Curmudgeon
2007-08-20, 01:08 PM
My characters don't "retire". If they live, at some point other DMs just stop running a game at a high enough level for them to play. I like Epic games, but they're not easy to run in such a way to challenge all the PCs but not make it impossible for some of them to contribute. Let me give an example.

I had an Epic Rogue that I'd eagerly anticipated playing in a Con game. The game started and the party was instantly under attack from flying monsters with DR 30 and immunity to critical hits. There was nothing other than combat for the next 10 hours. In all of it, my Rogue did 1 point against one of the wimpier monsters by rolling max damage on a single bowshot. I wasted the whole day by staying there. With a high AC and Evasion my Rogue didn't receive any damage at all, so his presence basically had no effect at all.

The DM didn't ask for a single skill roll in that entire game, either. No sneak attacks were possible, and there was absolutely no call for a skill monkey. It was my very worst D&D experience, and a glaring example of a DM who didn't think to make an adventure that would be interesting and challenging to multiple types of characters.

DraPrime
2007-08-20, 02:05 PM
Whenever we finish a campaign in my local group we take all of our characters and just have them all fight each other in a massive high level blood bath. Last character standing gets monsters from the DM until they die. Last time we did this the battle had the following results.

There's 5 characters in the party. We're all about level 26 There's the Barbarian (me), Swordsage, Beguiler, and the Sorcerer. So the battle starts with me attacking the Swordsage and scoring a crit on him. I rolled maximum damage and thanks to some of the magical abilities that my greatsword had I instantly killed the swordsage. Next the beguiler casts some spell that makes me his slave so I attack the sorcerer. The sorcerer meteor storms the beguiler but doesn't kill him. I get to the sorcerer and begin stabbing him. The beguiler drinks a healing potion, but the sorcerer splits his meteor swarm between me and the beguiler. The beguiler dies and I'm left injured standing next to an almost dead sorcerer. For the next 2 rounds I roll a natural 1 one my attack rolls and end up dying. The sorcerer then gets to go up against a demon hoard. As far as we know he still lies dead on top of a pile of bodies.

Xuincherguixe
2007-08-20, 02:23 PM
Most of my characters never really did get an end. But with Galgeron it was pretty hard. Mind you this was also on a MUSH that had really gone down hill, the guy had a lot of missed potential really. But I can just use the guy again next Shadowrun game, try and iron out the guy a bit more.

In the end, he ended up getting married and just vanished off the face of the earth. Sounds lame, but the guy had some fear of intimacy issues and didn't really deal with women very well.

Other ways I debated having him go? Offed at random by some mook. Saying more or less that your desires and wants don't matter. The power of the self? Nothing at all.

Or he could have saved the world from a bunch of BBEGs, sacrificing himself. The world that frankly deserves to burn, that only served to hold him down.


... No he wasn't a very happy character. Why do you ask?

(Tempting to try and get some kind of novel or something out of the guy. Galgeron was by far my best character and it doesn't seem right to just let him sit there.)

Arakune
2007-08-20, 02:26 PM
Whenever we finish a campaign in my local group we take all of our characters and just have them all fight each other in a massive high level blood bath. Last character standing gets monsters from the DM until they die. Last time we did this the battle had the following results.

There's 5 characters in the party. We're all about level 26 There's the Barbarian (me), Swordsage, Beguiler, and the Sorcerer. So the battle starts with me attacking the Swordsage and scoring a crit on him. I rolled maximum damage and thanks to some of the magical abilities that my greatsword had I instantly killed the swordsage. Next the beguiler casts some spell that makes me his slave so I attack the sorcerer. The sorcerer meteor storms the beguiler but doesn't kill him. I get to the sorcerer and begin stabbing him. The beguiler drinks a healing potion, but the sorcerer splits his meteor swarm between me and the beguiler. The beguiler dies and I'm left injured standing next to an almost dead sorcerer. For the next 2 rounds I roll a natural 1 one my attack rolls and end up dying. The sorcerer then gets to go up against a demon hoard. As far as we know he still lies dead on top of a pile of bodies.

what if you character are unkillable (a.k.a survived long enough and the DM become bored), he become some kind of god?

Tormsskull
2007-08-20, 02:58 PM
Most of the characters I play end when they die, or the campaign unexpectedly ends. If the campaign ends and my character is still alive, I sometimes write up little after thoughts for them, but not usually.

One character I had, a dwarven wizard who always memorized gaseous cloud, fled when the party was obviously going to die. He ended up being the only surviving member of the party of 5 players. The other players were more upset that I fled then the fact that they died. Of course, my dwarf was an anomally for first being a wizard and second for being chaotic, so it fit his personality.

Matthew
2007-08-21, 07:49 AM
I have six or seven surviving Characters. In general, they are the product of a Campaign or Adventure having ended. I don't usually treat a Character as an absolute constant. I would be happy, for instance, to take my Level 6 Paladin and reduce his level to 3 (including wealth and such) for a Level 3 adventure, rather than creating yet another Paladin Character.

Sir Enigma
2007-08-21, 08:01 AM
Most of my characters either died in-campaign or, more often, just got shelved when a campaign ended. One of my best campaigns, though, did end with some kind of story - my character and a couple others ended up subduing a rather treacherous party member and returning to work for the demon we'd made a bargain with and then tried to run away from (bad idea, I know), while another party member kept running and eventually turned into a cow due to a curse he was under.

DraPrime
2007-08-21, 08:29 AM
what if you character are unkillable (a.k.a survived long enough and the DM become bored), he become some kind of god?

We did have that problem once. So the DM sent sent the lords of the nine after him. So basically, your character will die no matter what.

AKA_Bait
2007-08-21, 09:37 AM
Let's see... most of the time I DM but the few characters I've hadin campagins where it didn't just fizzle or I had to drop out for real life reasons:

Anaximander Genoble (1/2 half elf Rouge/Sorcerrer/Arcane Trickster) married one of the major NPC's and retired to teach 'sneaky stuff' at the magical academy that her father (Deus Ex NPC) was headmaster of.

Pascal (Human Cleric of Hextor) turned on the party at Hextor's command (forcing the other players to continue on the plot that the DM had planned) and fled after Questing them. He was later NPCed by the DM when I wasn't around and killed in his manor/temple by the party. I was less than thrilled with this since the DM didn't even ask me about it first or offer to let me play the character in that encounter.

Malebranch (Bard/Cleric/Paladin of Freedom of Sharess). He's technically still alive. He was supposed to go down bluffing Lolth as the party and a whole bunch of slaves escaped but the rest of the group, DM included, demanded his return. His replacment character just faded into the background at that point.

Those are really the only ones that come to mind.

Swooper
2007-08-21, 09:54 AM
Depends entirely on the character and the campaign.

My epic paladin: At the end of the campaign, he flew through the portal that was letting 'demons' into the world on his celestial white griffon, and in single combat defeated the source - a supercomputer... He was then rescued from the mechanical hell by his goddess, and entered a new world through a blinding white light. Sir Abraham Taramilis is out there somewhere still, unable to return to his home due to a dimensional barrier once again blocking it from planar access.

My 'samurai' (really just a fighter, it was in 3.0): When the story arc about his part of the world ended, he decided it wasn't his place to travel the seas with the rest of the group. He had paid back his life-debt and could settle down with a wife and kids.

My elven druid (the character that I played instead of the samurai) went with a good friend of hers (an NPC) back to the friend's home to help her recover from a near-complete brainwash.

Can't remember anyone else who wasn't either killed or was part of a group that was never played again.