A Player is Unhappy with his character

[SociopathFriend]

So in a campaign a friend of mine is DMing, one of his players is unhappy with their character. The player evidently went into the campaign expecting it to be substantially different than the module turned out to be and wants to swap out to a new character.

The DM is my brother FYI- if you see most any question about DMing from me it's typically something he's asked me about since he knows I go to online forums.

In this case (as he tells me) the player thought it was going to be a campaign based around higher levels so he wanted to be a Champion Fighter. When he realized the campaign was going to be a lower-level one (up to maybe 6 or 7 max) he wanted to change his character to a new one.

The DM was for this idea since the player didn't like his character.
I personally thought this was fine and told him so.
However, the rest of the DM's group apparently disliked that another player was allowed to simply send the old one off to retire while creating a new one.

I guess what I'm asking is- did I advise him wrong?

[StoicLeaf]

It's hard to comment without knowing why they dislike the decision.

In general:
The first rule of D&D is: everyone is there to have fun. I can't think of a good reason why the others are opposing the idea so I'd place a higher value on the player changing his class.

[Kane0]

Theres nothing wrong about being unsatisfied with your character and wanting to play something else, you are playing a game to have fun after all.
I’d have a word to the other players and see what they reckon. They might also appreciate a chance to change characters.

[SociopathFriend]

It's hard to comment without knowing why they dislike the decision.

In general:
The first rule of D&D is: everyone is there to have fun. I can't think of a good reason why the others are opposing the idea so I'd place a higher value on the player changing his class.

Pretty much my stance but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if there's some rule hidden in the DMG that says, "Thou shalt not let the rubes have a character ride off into the sunset to retire and get a new one" that I don't know about. I don't DM. I am not a people person.


According to him the reasons from his players (not ALL of them mind you- I know some of them and know for a fact half or so don't care) seem to vary from, "it's favoritism" to "it shouldn't be allowed".

The former I give no credit to- and not because he's and even when I play with him I don't get special treatment so if I don't- who the hell would?but because he's paladin in mentality in that he hates backstabbing and trickery, plays as bound to the book as you can plausibly be, vigorously enforces rules, and actively asks his players every week or two if there's something they'd like to talk about for the campaign to make it better.
Also according to the DM- nobody else whatsoever said they were unhappy with their characters and would like to change them. He even made a public offer to all of them and they turned it down.

The latter AFAIK seems to be a player thinking, "He made the character, he should suffer and keep playing it even if he doesn't like it," which I frankly didn't even consider as a stance when advising him to allow the player to change his character.

[Vorpalchicken]

What does he want his new character to be? What are the other characters in the party? If he's the only fighter and get wants to switch subclasses that sounds fine. The level 7 champion ability is a little lackluster.

Really, I wouldn't care if an unhappy player completely changed characters, especially if he isn't stepping on another character's toes.

[Ronnocius]

I think that he should be allowed to change characters. One of my players recently asked if they could change their character as they were A) not doing very well mechanically, and B) no longer liked their character's backstory. I asked them to continue using their first character for one or two more sessions. They still wished to change, so I allowed them to change from monk to fighter and I am glad I did. I probably wouldn't allow them to change again without a very good reason, but from my experience if a player is not enjoying their character they will not enjoy the game as a whole as much which can drag everyone down.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

If the other players are unhappy with it then they should be nicer to their friend.

If I was the DM I would kill his PC or make him an offer he can't refuse.
Most of the players don't mind if someone get to change character for story reasons.

[SociopathFriend]

I think that he should be allowed to change characters. One of my players recently asked if they could change their character as they were A) not doing very well mechanically, and B) no longer liked their character's backstory. I asked them to continue using their first character for one or two more sessions. They still wished to change, so I allowed them to change from monk to fighter and I am glad I did. I probably wouldn't allow them to change again without a very good reason, but from my experience if a player is not enjoying their character they will not enjoy the game as a whole as much which can drag everyone down.

That's kinda my angle, the player didn't ask again so far as I know so presumably he's alright with what he has now. Adventurers DO sometimes stop adventuring:
They retire
They decide the life isn't for them
They reach some temporary goal they want to maintain (I've done this one myself, played a Deep Gnome trying to go home, managed to go home, left him there because it's what he wanted)
They find a new mission/cause that isn't what the campaign is based around
And the always popular maimed/killed option

My thoughts were if the player really didn't like his character then he'd not take care of them, the PC would die at some point, and then he'd be rolling up a new one anyways so why prevent him from doing so in the first place? It's not like making a story-reason for a PC to bow out is hard (or so I imagine).

[ATHATH]

+1 to the "let the player change, replace, and/or rebuild his character" thing.

[Ronnocius]

That's kinda my angle, the player didn't ask again so far as I know so presumably he's alright with what he has now. Adventurers DO sometimes stop adventuring:
They retire
They decide the life isn't for them
They reach some temporary goal they want to maintain (I've done this one myself, played a Deep Gnome trying to go home, managed to go home, left him there because it's what he wanted)
They find a new mission/cause that isn't what the campaign is based around
And the always popular maimed/killed option

My thoughts were if the player really didn't like his character then he'd not take care of them, the PC would die at some point, and then he'd be rolling up a new one anyways so why prevent him from doing so in the first place? It's not like making a story-reason for a PC to bow out is hard (or so I imagine).

Yeah this sums it up perfectly. It just breaks immersion when a player wants to kill their character and thus has them rush headfirst into every battle desperately trying to die. The player in my game ended up working for a dragon the adventurers had been negotiating with. In my opinion it was a more realistic scenario than the character dying after rushing into combat or hanging himself etc.

There are exceptions (for example maybe one of the other players had a backstory linked to the one character; doubt that is an applicable factor in this case) but I see no reason why the other players should be upset at someone else's character change.

[Greywander]

According to him the reasons from his players (not ALL of them mind you- I know some of them and know for a fact half or so don't care) seem to vary from, "it's favoritism" to "it shouldn't be allowed".
He can offer to let them change their builds if they'd like to. And when they are the DM they can dictate what is and isn't allowed.

It's tough to know what's really going on based on the meager info you've given us, but it sounds like they're being ungrateful to their DM and may have some issues with the player in question. Favoritism can be an issue, but this player is still their teammate, and it's only good for them if he can rebuild his character based his new understanding of the campaign. In fact, I'd say it's pretty normal to allow players to rebuild their characters early on in a campaign, and players should always have the option to retire a character (temporarily or permanently) and build a new one.

It also sounds like maybe you didn't have a session 0, or at least the DM didn't effectively communicate his expectations for the campaign to this player (and vice versa).

Without knowing more, the best advice I can give is for the DM to gently explain that everyone is there to have fun, and he's willing to work with anyone who isn't having fun to help get them back into the fun zone. This player wasn't having fun, so the DM offered a simple solution. If they would also like to tweak their builds, he's more than happy to let them. If they're not having fun, he's willing to work with them to find a solution to their problems. Otherwise, it's just a game, so let's all have fun together, eh?

It might also be helpful to dig a bit deeper and find why this would upset them.

I suppose one last piece of advice might be to work the character change into the story, so that the player's previous character doesn't simply cease to exist, and his new one doesn't just pop into being, already part of the party. Have the old character leave organically, and possibly become an NPC who might show up later, and have the new character join up organically.

[SociopathFriend]

He can offer to let them change their builds if they'd like to. And when they are the DM they can dictate what is and isn't allowed.

It's tough to know what's really going on based on the meager info you've given us, but it sounds like they're being ungrateful to their DM and may have some issues with the player in question. Favoritism can be an issue, but this player is still their teammate, and it's only good for them if he can rebuild his character based his new understanding of the campaign. In fact, I'd say it's pretty normal to allow players to rebuild their characters early on in a campaign, and players should always have the option to retire a character (temporarily or permanently) and build a new one.

Basically I was just curious if it's an individual player hang-up (which seems to be the case) or there's some DMG rule that is broken by letting someone make a new character. I'd feel bad for advising him otherwise if the latter was true. I can't exactly give deep insights to begin with since everything is secondhand. I can't fix his group for him nor do I very much want to. I've told him if they don't like how he runs things- I'm certain whatever building they play in has a door.




It also sounds like maybe you didn't have a session 0, or at least the DM didn't effectively communicate his expectations for the campaign to this player (and vice versa).

He doesn't typically have a session 0, no, or at least I've never seen him have one so I won't assume he does. Admittedly this isn't normally a problem so I don't hold it against him.




It might also be helpful to dig a bit deeper and find why this would upset them.

I suppose one last piece of advice might be to work the character change into the story, so that the player's previous character doesn't simply cease to exist, and his new one doesn't just pop into being, already part of the party. Have the old character leave organically, and possibly become an NPC who might show up later, and have the new character join up organically.

I'm 90% sure some of his players (the ones upset about the change) are just whining since it's not his entire group and they don't all even have the same reason for disliking the change. If they want to be unhappy- they'll be unhappy no matter what he does. That's why I don't feel bad if they complain- I feel bad if I misled him.

The DM did have some sort of organic leave- the character found a boat with others from his homeland sailing around and decided he'd rather go with them than the party. I'd buy that as a legit reason to leave a group in a hostile land different from your own.
Introducing the new character I imagine is harder but that's something you have to deal with when people die anyways.

[Laserlight]

If a player wanted to swap characters, I might ask them to continue with the original for a session or two to make the transition smooth.

On one occasion I asked the DM for a heroic death. The rest of the party had to operate the McGuffin while I "happened" to be the one who had to hold off the grossly overpowered demon. Except the demon had a hard time catching me, and when he did guess right, he only once
managed to roll higher than a 3. The rest of the party eventually completed their task and the DM had to improvise "the demon explodes" to finish me off.

[Guy Lombard-O]

If a player wanted to swap characters, I might ask them to continue with the original for a session or two to make the transition smooth.

On one occasion I asked the DM for a heroic death. The rest of the party had to operate the McGuffin while I "happened" to be the one who had to hold off the grossly overpowered demon. Except the demon had a hard time catching me, and when he did guess right, he only once
managed to roll higher than a 3. The rest of the party eventually completed their task and the DM had to improvise "the demon explodes" to finish me off.

I recently had a character exit under similar circumstances. I'd held off bringing up my dissatisfaction with playing him for 4-5 sessions, because I'd originally made a complex backstory and my DM went and incorporated it into the campaign. He'd done a good job of giving me what I'd basically for, and then I found I really didn't like playing the character. So...my bad. But eventually I brought it up, and the DM decided he'd keep the big bads in my backstory for the rest of the group, and have them kill me off, thus demonstrating how bad-ass they were.

Well, it was actually pretty awesome, although I'd describe my character's death as being more pathetic than epic (which was fine!). He managed to advance both my original backstory villains, while also evolving another subplot he seems to have going as well (good job!). One thing I hadn't anticipated was that one of my fellow PCs came very, very close to dying with me. The DM's awesome death scene nearly got way too awesome for the other PCs (I was afraid to admit afterward that I'd actually brought this misery upon the party with my request).

Point being, I think it's pretty standard to let the players switch out their characters when desired at least once per campaign. Two other players at our table did so during our last campaign, although their characters both retired and went off to deal with personal quests. I felt a little bad that those character left the party, but I kept it to myself and we all went on to have great fun with the new group. I'd suggest that your group just press on and basically ignore the griping (since they were already allowed to air their grievances), and they'll probably quickly adjust and move on.

[tieren]

I could see an issue if the fighter was the only tank and wanted to switch to being another squishy. That might make the other players feel like one of them has to leave their preferred playstyle to cover the role.

It's a misconception each classic role has to be covered, there are multiple ways around every problem (become stealth party, hire henchmen, use summons, adjust tactics). Rather than drag someone along not having fun the group should discuss the new party make up and how they will adjust.

[JNAProductions]

Have a talk. Ask the player why they're not satisfied, get the DM involved, and work something out.

Ideally, you could probably just let their current character move on-say something like they get a message from family, and have to go help them, or their mentor requires their help, or even they're tired of the adventuring life and want to retire. Then, at the next possible opportunity, let a new character come in.

[ImproperJustice]

I really struggle with the mentality that in a voluntary, fun, hobby that anyone would think that someone should be forced to suffer through playing anything.....

Could you imagine sitting down to play Monopoly and mid game someone says:
My bad, I chose that dog but didn’t see that slick car in the box. I think I am gonna switch tokens.

Suddenly the other players rise up and shout:
NO!!!!! You chose the doggie and so the doggie you must remain until the game is complete. Let this be your teachable moment not to rush through the process of choosing tokens in the future!

Heavens, let everyone play whatever they want and just enjoy the game.....

[DarkKnightJin]

Yeah, sounds like it's just some people whining for the sale of whining.
If they were the only tank in the party(which would be kinda strange, but whatever), I could see them being a bit apprehensive.

Somewhat related: My Eldritch Knight is fun to play, but after their second death.. I feel it makes sense in the narrative for him to start having doubts about the adventuring life maybe not being cut out for him.
He's travelling with the party for a bit longer, but I have also printed a new character sheet for the replacement in case he dies again, or a chance shows up for him to decide "You know, as much as I like you guys.. I don't think the gods want me being an adventurer, so I'm gonna go home.", leave his magical swag for the new guy since he won't be needing it anymore, and make room for the Paladin that I've prepped.
Which, hopefully, isn't needed for quite a while yet.

Tl;dr: Sometimes the player still likes the character, but the narrative calls for them to retire, and possibly become an allied NPC later on in the story.

[Temperjoke]

Well, it's largely been said already, but I agree with the general idea that the player should be allowed to change his character. That being said, I think it would be a good idea to create limitations around it. I mean, I'd hate for people to just randomly switch characters during a story that's been tied to each of them, for example. I'm a bigger fan of retconning a character's subclass as opposed to trying to shoehorn another character in and explain why the original left as well.

[ImproperJustice]

Yeah, sounds like it's just some people whining for the sale of whining.
If they were the only tank in the party(which would be kinda strange, but whatever), I could see them being a bit apprehensive.

Somewhat related: My Eldritch Knight is fun to play, but after their second death.. I feel it makes sense in the narrative for him to start having doubts about the adventuring life maybe not being cut out for him.
He's travelling with the party for a bit longer, but I have also printed a new character sheet for the replacement in case he dies again, or a chance shows up for him to decide "You know, as much as I like you guys.. I don't think the gods want me being an adventurer, so I'm gonna go home.", leave his magical swag for the new guy since he won't be needing it anymore, and make room for the Paladin that I've prepped.
Which, hopefully, isn't needed for quite a while yet.

Tl;dr: Sometimes the player still likes the character, but the narrative calls for them to retire, and possibly become an allied NPC later on in the story.

I had a similar situation where I ran a wizard you sent the proceeds of his adventuring career back home to his sister to share with the orphanage where she resided. It was a very Dark themed game following a great war, and it was a big deal that they had shelter of any kind. Having money meant they could take in more needy families and children and hire protectors.

The GM who was not terribly good (unbalanced encounters, favoritism, didn’t know how the rules worked, etc....), decided it would be interesting to have my character’s sister be hauled into the town square and burned as a witch, while my character watched.

I remember him looking at me with a gleeful expression as he asked, so what fo you do?

I think he expected me to go on some murder hobo rampage.

Instead I just looked at him reall seriously and said.
“Nothing. My character does nothing. All he hever cared for and cherished just died in the most terrible way imaginable. He drops his spellbook and staff where he stands, turns around and leaves. His sole motivation for adventuring is smoldering in a pile of ash.”

I and four other players left the game after that session and formed a new group that lasted for years.

Adventuring has gotta be a hard business. Maybe sometimes your character needs to go farm dirt for awhile instead, or go back to the family business.

[Honest Tiefling]

I really struggle with the mentality that in a voluntary, fun, hobby that anyone would think that someone should be forced to suffer through playing anything.....

Pretty much this. Ask the other players if they'd prefer to make their own friend not enjoy the game or leave because 'it shouldn't be done'. Which is a silly reason, I have never heard of it NEVER being an option for a game.

Perhaps find some passages in the DMG/PHB about people having fun, and use that as an argument against it 'never being done'.

Through I do worry some people want a tank/frontliner, and are worried about the game going south because of a lack of one, as was previously mentioned. What class is the guy considering.

[Tanarii]

To my knowledge, there is nothing in the DMG saying a DM shouldn't allow a player to retire a PC and bring in a replacement character at the same level. If there was, people would have been up in arms about it. So no, you didn't give misleading advice.

It's actually fairly common for small tables that insist all characters in a party must be the same level. Even though the game doesn't require that mechanically, the players perceptions mean they need it for things to feel "fair" to them.

Conversely, there is definitely a large segment of players that don't feel it's fair to bring in a character with "unearned" levels, where it hasn't been earned for the character with table time playing that character.

That's my personal bias, but I don't care strongly enough I'd try to make another player unhappy. Especially not in this case. Your brother is in an unfortunate situation. Maybe he could point out to the objecting players: it's only intended to be a short campaign anyway, so maybe everyone can calm their mammaries, and let the guy who's unhappy have fun with a different character for a few levels.

(As a side note, in any open table or shared campaign, this would actually be bad advice, unless they explicitly have an AL-like rebuild rule. Because in those campaigns, you do earn character XP for specific characters with table time. But obviously that consideration doesn't apply here.)

[SociopathFriend]

Pretty much this. Ask the other players if they'd prefer to make their own friend not enjoy the game or leave because 'it shouldn't be done'. Which is a silly reason, I have never heard of it NEVER being an option for a game.

Perhaps find some passages in the DMG/PHB about people having fun, and use that as an argument against it 'never being done'.

Through I do worry some people want a tank/frontliner, and are worried about the game going south because of a lack of one, as was previously mentioned. What class is the guy considering.

I investigated further and it seems like it was based more on his backstory/character than his actual class (I think). He went from Fighter to Ranger in terms of class- which doesn't seem all that different to me. I know their party is full of Barbarians and at least one of our shared friends is a Paladin so needing a tank doesn't seem like the reason for the others to be annoyed at him. Or at least not a reason that makes sense.

[Merudo]

According to him the reasons from his players (not ALL of them mind you- I know some of them and know for a fact half or so don't care) seem to vary from, "it's favoritism".

I think the "favoritism" aspect can be negated if you make clear, consistent rules on how players are allowed to change their characters.

[Mordaedil]

If you have not started playing yet, just switch characters, it's between the DM and your other player if he gets to switch or not. And if he doesn't want to play something, you are better off letting the player switch, otherwise you get situations where they start to work against the party or throwing themselves to their deaths.

If the game is currently ongoing, work with the DM to give that PC a reason to leave over staying with the party at the earliest convenient opportunity, maybe even while they meet the new character he's going to play. The players can make their arguments in character, but if the player still decides to leave, then that is that.

[furby076]

The players current PC "Screw you guys, I;m going home", and queue the new PC.

If someone is unhappy, they should change. If others get bent, let them stay bent.

[R.Shackleford]

So in a campaign a friend of mine is DMing, one of his players is unhappy with their character. The player evidently went into the campaign expecting it to be substantially different than the module turned out to be and wants to swap out to a new character.

The DM is my brother FYI- if you see most any question about DMing from me it's typically something he's asked me about since he knows I go to online forums.

In this case (as he tells me) the player thought it was going to be a campaign based around higher levels so he wanted to be a Champion Fighter. When he realized the campaign was going to be a lower-level one (up to maybe 6 or 7 max) he wanted to change his character to a new one.

The DM was for this idea since the player didn't like his character.
I personally thought this was fine and told him so.
However, the rest of the DM's group apparently disliked that another player was allowed to simply send the old one off to retire while creating a new one.

I guess what I'm asking is- did I advise him wrong?

Nope.

It ain't their character and if their enjoyment for the game stems from someone else NOT enjoying the game... Well, sucks to be them.

Character retirement is just another potential ending. Every character has an ending. Some characters die, some ride off into the sun set with their family, some get their brain eaten and replaced with a outsider-spawn, and some retire and just fade away.

[WeaselGuy]

I'm a rather severe altaholic. In my time here on the Playground, I've done quite a few character creation challenges to fuel this addiction, but every now and then, I get obsessed with a concept that I must absolutely try out in a game. My DM has usually been pretty accommodating with me wanting to change characters, but he usually only gives me 1 free one. What that means is, I have to come up with a reason why my character decides to leave the party. I've had one just abandon everybody while he was on guard duty at night (he was on the south side of the alignment grid) because he was summoned by his household, I've had one who, after nearly dying in combat, decided it was more conducive to his life expectancy to become a blacksmith. Generally, it's something along those lines.

However, the most effective way to get to play a new character, is to get the old one killed. I can't think of a single DM who tells the party "If your character dies, you can't play anymore", and most of them also don't say something like "If your elf wizard named Blasty dies, then you have to come back as another elf wizard named Ytsalb". In my experience, it's always "Yeah, if you die, you can come make a new character of the same level as the average party level (usually, we're all the same level, so it doesn't matter), with the DMG standard amount of wealth for a character of that level. We'll do our best to get you incorporated back into the party as soon as possible".

In 5e, I did have a warlock turned into stone by a basilisk once. The party took me back to our base and set my statue up in the courtyard as a lawn ornament "for safekeeping, until we can learn Stone to Flesh". Those jerks.

[Tanarii]

However, the most effective way to get to play a new character, is to get the old one killed. I can't think of a single DM who tells the party "If your character dies, you can't play anymore", and most of them also don't say something like "If your elf wizard named Blasty dies, then you have to come back as another elf wizard named Ytsalb". In my experience, it's always "Yeah, if you die, you can come make a new character of the same level as the average party level (usually, we're all the same level, so it doesn't matter), with the DMG standard amount of wealth for a character of that level. We'll do our best to get you incorporated back into the party as soon as possible".If I was runni ng a series of single party adventure-arc games for 5e, as opposed to an open table campaign, I'd probably set the replacement rule for perma-death / retirement as "start at bottom of the current Tier, no magic items". 5e parties can easily handle mixed levels in the same Tier and no magic items. So that gives incentives and rewards for not retiring and avoiding perma-death.

[SociopathFriend]

However, the most effective way to get to play a new character, is to get the old one killed. I can't think of a single DM who tells the party "If your character dies, you can't play anymore", and most of them also don't say something like "If your elf wizard named Blasty dies, then you have to come back as another elf wizard named Ytsalb". In my experience, it's always "Yeah, if you die, you can come make a new character of the same level as the average party level (usually, we're all the same level, so it doesn't matter), with the DMG standard amount of wealth for a character of that level. We'll do our best to get you incorporated back into the party as soon as possible".


I mean, I can think of such a DM but in his defense several players were being Pickpocketing the head guard even when informed he was surrounded by other guards, splitting off from the party when hostile ghosts were attacking and the person had no way of hurting them, making every action in combat "I throw a rock", jumping into lava to try and grab a magical item, trying to sneak past a Beholder that was looking right at him with their characters and went through three of them in as many sessions. That's the only time I've ever witnessed a DM outright say, "If you die again you're not coming back."

[GlenSmash!]

Obligatory reminder that a good Session 0 could have stopped this problem before it ever became a problem.

Still I would never make a player play a character they dislike.

[SociopathFriend]

Obligatory reminder that a good Session 0 could have stopped this problem before it ever became a problem.

Still I would never make a player play a character they dislike.

Eh I don't know if the player disliked the character from 'birth' or just grew to dislike the character over time. Session 0 only would've stopped the former- not the latter. At some point he clearly must've liked the concept since he made it.

Admittedly I may be biased as I've never experienced a Session 0.

[GlenSmash!]

Eh I don't know if the player disliked the character from 'birth' or just grew to dislike the character over time. Session 0 only would've stopped the former- not the latter. At some point he clearly must've liked the concept since he made it.

Admittedly I may be biased as I've never experienced a Session 0.

It seemed to me from the OP that what level the campaign was going to directly effected his choice. That's exactly the kind of thing you talk about in a Session 0.

Did I misread the OP?

[SociopathFriend]

You read the OP correctly.

However I did mention his change was apparently desired not only for mechanical, but roleplay reasons of not liking his character.

The level and class presumably played a part but given that he went from Fighter to Ranger, I frankly don't think the main reason was class given the two aren't very different at low levels. And roleplaying problems generally wouldn't be found out at session 0 unless it's something very blatant like Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil party members.

[GlenSmash!]

You read the OP correctly.

However I did mention his change was apparently desired not only for mechanical, but roleplay reasons of not liking his character.

The level and class presumably played a part but given that he went from Fighter to Ranger, I frankly don't think the main reason was class given the two aren't very different at low levels. And roleplaying problems generally wouldn't be found out at session 0 unless it's something very blatant like Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil party members.

You're right that does sound more likely.