Retiring PCs without breaking your game

gnunn

Hey all,

I am looking to put some problem-solving minds on a challenge I am facing at the moment.

One of my players, who has been on hiatus during a particularly busy quarter of grad school has announced that she may need to bow out of the game entirely because it looks like her time is just going to get more scarce as school goes on.

I have put it to my group to figure out how to appropriately retire her character and have run into a pretty unique problem. The uber-plot arc my players began over a year ago started when this particular character (a paladin) was charged by her order to find and stop the cause of a blight spreading across the land. Well, the party is just about to enter act III of the adventure with the paladin currently being rolled as an NPC. I raised the option of having the paladin leave the group to either a. train the guards for their keep and look after their new valley, or b. go off on a tangentially related side mission.

The player then voiced her opposition to her character doing anything other than pursuing the "cure the blight" mission. Here's the problem. Some of my other PCs now have a slightly less pressing investment in the blight story. One has realized that a cult to which his hated father belonged is somehow involved. Another is a completionist by nature and a third is about to get a reveal that could fully pull her in as well. Besides, they ALL have just inherited a keep and sworn allegiance to the kingdom affected by the blight. Point is, they have a lot of buy-in for this mission too. The trouble is, my group is currently at 7pcs if you count the paladin. I see the opportunity for her to leave the group as a chance to focus more on the players who are there and to address one of the biggest challenges for keeping my game moving along -group size. If she stays on as an NPC, I feel like it provides an extra roll/role that must be attended to, but that nobody at the table has a direct investment in.

Any recommendations on how to handle this without alienating the player who is bowing out or the rest of my group? We are all close friends in real life as well.

libranchylde

Is there any chance that player will return and wish to pick up that pc again? If not, you could allow the character to make the ultimate sacrifice at some point both forcefully retiring the character permanently and giving the rest of the pcs the drive of vengeance to keep them going. that also assumes you don't have ready access to restoration and resurrection spells

gnunn

That is indeed an added aspect of this challenge. There is still a chance that she could come back. The reason I kept her on as an NPC during this last adventure was because we all thought her hiatus would only be for the past quarter. If I had known it would last longer, I would have had her run off to fight the blight head on while the rest of the group went in search of the legendary McGuffin that is reported to be able to cure it.

libranchylde

Ah. well couldn't you just do the same thing here? the character gets word that a major battle/resurgence of this blight is expected and the character is required to stand at the frontlines to battle it. the rest of the pcs are then tasked with finding this legendary McGuffin you mentioned.

libranchylde

and what kind of blight are we taking here? hordes of undead? general corruption and death of plant and animal life?

gnunn

Right now, I am thinking about restructuring/streamlining the final act of this uber-adventure a bit in hopes that it will provide a solution. There are currently two main things driving the adventure.

1. There is a blight spreading across the kingdom of Cydon. It's source must be found and stopped.
2. Cydon is currently divided by civil war which started with the murder of the king. The more powerful side currently has its focus divided between holding back the blightspawn while simultaneously trying to unify the kingdom under the prince regent. The weaker side, who the PCs currently work for has been awaiting the return of the other prince (who the PCs rescued and are currently traveling with) to come and defend his good name.

Though these two threads are very-much interwoven, I think I can use them to quickly push towards a solution without railroading my players. If the group goes with the prince to face his brother, the paladin could say, "We're wasting time!" and charge off on her own to potentially reappear as an NPC or even *gasp* an adversary. If the group decides to go for the source of the Blight first, I could either run a divided mission with the paladin heading one contingent and the rest of the group the other, or at the very least, I could potentially wrap up the blight thread in a single adventure.

gnunn

As to the blight: I used the rules for taint from Heroes of Horror, but changed the name to "blight" because my super-mature players couldn't stop giggling when I said "taint". Basically, it rots the land and causes living creatures to either go mad or turn undead if they are exposed long enough.

As far as having her shift to the front lines... the group is currently 1 or 2 sessions away from getting the mcguffin, so I wasn't planning on altering anything prior to that. They are, after-all in mid dungeon. Per the post I was writing when you suggested having her go to the front lines... I may have her do just that once the current adventure wraps up.

libranchylde

you said Blightspawn. Is this a Dragon Age game?

gnunn

No, it's not. I came up with the term entirely independently. This might be blasphemy to admit around these parts, but I actually did not enjoy the first Dragon Age game and put it down part way into the section in the swamp immediately after meeting the scantily clad sorceress woman. I felt like it was fantasy for frat boys.

Oddly enough, I decided to give the DA2 demo a try and I have found it to be actually enjoyable.

Duskreign

Gnunn, my advice is to have the character just disappear one day, out of the blue. The night before, everyone went to sleep, and the next morning, the Paladin is just gone. DIdn't pack up their stuff, didn't leave a note, no signs of struggle. It was as if the character just got up and walked away, vanishing without a trace. Then, a few weeks later, the heroes hear tell of someone matching the character's description passing through, mumbling to themselves about "the mission." If the player comes back, they just wake up with the group again, as if they were never gone, with no memory of having left, but a few new scars, and perhaps a few new enemies made. Turns out a very powerful astral being, perhaps even the paladin's god, borrowed her mortal body for a while.

As for Dragon Age: Origins, you never got past Ostagar?! Morrigan's attire aside, you should reconsider giving that game another chance.

DarkMagus

That's a tough spot to be in Gnunn, I don't envy you.

I was in a similar situation when two of my four players in the Ilumnos Series took a road trip which ended up with them moving out of state, and for the final chapter of the game! I had them "disappear", and the chapter turned into a search for their characters, so I had to rewrite the story so that the major plot could exist alongside this new search for their PCs.

Whatever you do, good luck!

whodo_voodoo

If the blight is big enough to threaten an entire kingdom then I'd set it up that events are too big for the group to be only following up one lead at a time. If they're not aware of the location or nature of the source then have a few conflicting rumours pop up. They could go and investigate each of them as a single group but in order to find the source as quickly as possible have the Paladin go off with a group of NPCs to investigate one rumour while the PCs go in a separate direction. If the player doesn't return then the PC group happens to be the one that follows the correct path, if the player returns then the Paladin can return, perhaps in possession of some vital piece of information from their little sidequest.

Poutine_Paladin

I'm with whodo or Dusk. Both situations provide the player's character to still be focused on the quest at hand, and have an impact in the world surrounding them, while not taking anything away from the group of players that are still there (except their paladin, I guess) and both situations allow for a fairly seamless re-integration if the player ends up returning at another time, or easy excuse if they don't.

I gotta lean towards Dusk's suggestion, though. Partially because I like the divine intervention aspect of it all on it's own, but it could also make a good link to a later adventure. "Hey....you guys remember when our Paladin just up and disappeared? Maybe now that this blight is taken care of we should look into what happened there." And then you can incorporate whatever that diety (or whatever was possessing the character) was trying to accomplish...or actually affected.

gnunn

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! I'm still mulling over what to do, but many of my continuing players recommended solutions very similar to the ones brought up here. A couple seemed particularly interested in a "mysterious disappearance" which could then lead to "Scooby Doo-style" clue gathering.

The other important thing is that my players have expressly mentioned an interest in continuing the current campaign thread through to completion, largely thanks to the personal hooks I set in other PCs through their backstories and in the group as a whole through the bestowing of land and a keep.

igornappovich

There is always the ever popular Edict from your Deity. Especially for a paladin-- did she commit ANY sort of act, however slight, that might be off alignment? Maybe its come down from on high in a vision from her diety that she has to take a vow of poverty and tend to the needs of the huddled masses for a stretch of time until she has earned her penance. How long the stretch is depends on whether the player ever comes back to resume control of the PC. In the meantime, she will be too busy washing feet, scrubbing clothes, cooking gruel, toting water, etc in her new digs in the slums to worry about questing. But she would be available in a pinch (or if the person showed up randomly for one session) to rejoin the group at any time. Plus that gives the character a Mother Theresa appeal, maybe a good way to retire the PC if it comes to that (the player never rejoins).

FemmeLegion

If the other PCs aren't involved in this church order, then perhaps the paladin character gets called away to another blight-related investigative mission that can't be trusted to outsiders. They can pursue the paths they've already got before them, and the paladin is being pulled off to the side - still working toward the same goal, but needed to collaborate with others in the faith instead of the current party members.

One advantage to this is it's a convenient excuse to info-dump once in a while - the other PCs can get a missive from the paladin with discoveries she's made. It also gives you good reason to advance her character level as the rest of the party levels too - she's not merely absent and sitting idly.

If there are other members of the order in the party, then maybe talk with their players ahead of time to explain why this pally would be called away and they wouldn't, so the characters are already amenable with it when the point arises in the game.

Poutine_Paladin

Oooooh, I like Femme's now. Still like the divine "borrowing the Paladin's body for a while" idea of Dusk's, but I like Femme's aspect of information-feeding, too. Now I'm conflicted.

FrankSirmarco

Pretty easy - just replace the old character with a new character that looks slightly similar. It worked on Bewitched, when they replaced Dick York with Dick Sargent...

JaceSummers

I think whatever you ultimately decide to do, minimize the paladin as much as possible. You sound like your shining the spot light on enough players without having to deal with a player that's not even at the table. I suggest putting the character into one of two roles that serve the same purpose, in defiantly suspending the character and motivating everyone else.

1 - Stalemate her. She find her self in some mythological position where she can't stop what shes doing, but can't adventure with everyone else. The Greek's put Atlas in this place, doomed to forever hold the world. Your Paladin would have to stay in constant prayer or be doomed to forever martyr herself at the Blight's door, only to resurrect again at dawn. This make the character accessable, and accountable, but still a vicitm and a hook for your players who've been with her for sometime.

2 - Martyr her. I once introduced a Deck of Many Things in a game. Some players got lucky, one didn't. To spice up his impending doom I had the player sglimpse his fate as he was puleld into it, suspended in cure light would potion in the lair of their enemy, perpetually drowning. Later saved, the player(s) were very motivated to finish their former ally's goal.

Or my favorite, the third option...

3 - Turn her. I love two things. Turning bad guys good and good guys bad. Blight can take her, she becomes a champion of the evil she campaigned against. This new villain can also be a powerful motivator for your players to finish that mission. If the player returns to the table she can return as an echo of her former self, the innocent reflection of what was left of her cast out by the Blightadin, a future/past version of her sent through time. Or leave it a hanging question and really get your player's thinking.

I hope that you find these ideas inspirational, and good luck.

-Jace

Falchen

Hay Gnunn, I have had this problem (It killed my last campaign) and I spent alot of time working on ideas so it would not happen again.

Kill them: this can go many ways, from the heroic (Gandolf) sacrefice, to the dieing in battle (Boromir). To do this, you have to make it complete, and different enough that you are not copying a book death, it is the least effective but most decsicive.

Promote them: Is this paladin decently high level? if they are, then you can have the untimly blight death of the current head of the order which means that it would be this ones duty to go and lead the order. this would alow you to still use her as an npc, and as a friend of the party provide aid sometimes, clues or even show back up at the climactic battle.

Disgrace them: leverage an old action, or make one up, that will imprison or cause the charictor to be banished. This leaves a side quest the party can do to help clear the name of their old friend, but even if her name is cleared it takes time before the punishment or shame has been absolved or forgotten.

Turn them: like jacesummers said, with your blight, undead evil paladin, always a great bad guy.

hope it helps,

Falchen

Duskreign

My games always overflow with NPCs that latch onto the core PC group in rotating droves. When an NPC returns to the fold after a long absence, bearing notable scars or having a charged attitude toward another NPC that wasn't there before, it makes my players feel that the world moves and lives around them, and without needing their interaction to spark change and conflict. It might be a good idea to have a group of high-ranking members of the Paladin's order arrive in the night, while the party camps, and deliver a writ of conscripture from the leader of the church, listing the paladin among those that are now called to do battle in some far away place. If the player returns, it could be after some adventures of his own (keeping the character's experience levels balanced with the rest of the group), and maybe a few new rivals to branch the story outward from your main plot, if that is something you desire to do.

FrankSirmarco

In all seriousness (because I'm sure you weren't taking my Dick York/Dick Sargent advice), your player/friend should understand that her inability to commit the schedule has painted you in to a corner. Without actually killing off her character (because, as you said, she may be able to join the campaign at a later date), you should be allowed to do with her as you will - you're the GM, after all. As long as you don't sully the spirit that your player played their character, I would hope they wouldn't fault you for making lemonade out of the gigantic lemon you were given.

Although they often travel in adventuring parties, paladins are true to one thing above anything else - their deity. Her order or her god could easily redefine her role in the campaign by simply ordering her somewhere else. Perhaps the order must act as one to rid the land of the blight, and the paladin is called back to fight a new battle. Perhaps her deity has other plans for her. Whatever the case, you can make the details of her leaving as descriptive or vague as you wish.

It certainly is not a decision you ever want to make, but you're the GM and the rest of your players who have committed to the game schedule should be your concern moving forward.

PartyPanda

I have to agree with FrankSirmarco.

If a player isn't there for a session or two it's one thing, But long term NPCing of the character make the Paladin *your* character, not hers. What if you make some decision that she, as a player, would never make?

The best thing to do is have the character disappear if you think the player will come back some day. Asking your GM to do anything else is completely inconsiderate to everyone else in your group. It also makes it easier for you if they never come back at all.

Good luck!

JonathonVolkmer

I think FrankSirmarco and PartyPanda have summed up my position on this sort of thing. You've got enough on your plate managing the other players without having to play this person's character indefinitely. Depending on the player, a lot of options here might be fun, but if she's invested in keeping this one alive, sane, and otherwise relatively undamaged, being called off to other duties is the only option she's left you.