Rerolling characters midway through campaign

[Stark464 13]

Has anyone considered letting their players reroll their characters? 

 

I feel like my players are saying "****, next time I'll know" a lot as they learn more of the rules and how good and useful certain traits and skills are. I don't want to end our current campaign but have you ever let players rebuild their character now they know more what they want to be in the game?

[Gregorius21778 249]

Hi there,
 

no matter which RPG system I introduce my players to, I always allowed “a second try” later in the game. Introducing new PC is difficult in some games (in WhiteWolf/Vampire games, it turned out to be tricky to explain a new vampire ending up in an established “coterie”), but in a mission-style game like DarkHeresy, it shall not be a problem to explain some “mid-season replacements” as long as the player is fine with waiting till the next “downtime” for his swap of PC. Agent X got re-directed to another cell (or got “retired”), Agent Z is now included in the cell.

Edited February 22, 2016 by Gregorius21778

[Vorzakk 1,211]

Do you mean replacing their characters with new ones or re-building the characters they're already playing?  If the former; yes, they can replace their character whenever they want.  If the later, it's a bit more complicated...

 

If the player is new to the campaign, I generally give a grace period of one rotation (12-14 sessions) to re-tool their character (no matter how much-ramp up you get, you never truly know what a campaign is going to be like until you play it).  

 

Also; if a new supplement comes out with options which are more appropriate for a given character than the ones which they originally took, then I'll probably allow a rebuild (but only to accommodate the new material).  I actually did do this when Enemies Within came out; allowing a player to rebuild with Adepta Sororitas as her background instead of Adeptus Ministorum.

 

On the other hand; if it's a long-running character and the player just decides that they want to take them in a new direction or they realize that there was something more 'optimal' that they could have done, then I'd tell them that they're out of luck but can make a new character if they so desire. 

[Jolly P 118]

It can work.

 

I'm assuming you're talking about keeping the same characters, just adjusting their stats, right? Or do you mean replacement characters?

 

If the former, then be sure to have a downtime (re-)training montage, followed by a reintroduction scene where everyone can show off their new abilities. Get your players to write or describe how or why they're different;

- "I was involved in a horrific accident, but they rebuilt me; they had the technology." +Strength, +Agility

- "Our Lord Inquisitor sent me back to Boot. ****, the shame of it when I got there; I was surrounded by kids. It got my fitness back up to scratch, though and I learned a thing or two about humility" +Toughness, +Fellowship

- "I spent some time at the track; won some, lost some, but got a big windfall. Spent most of the cash on fast cars, heavy drugs and loose women...or was it the other way around? Anyways, I met some interesting people and I've got some mad connections now" +Inf, change from Outcaste to Ad.Admin.

 

If the latter, then it's no different from introducing new characters after a PC death.

[frid 8]

My group(s) we generally play through a starter adventure to get everyone into the character's mind and get a feel for the system - if it's a new one. 

 

After that, if people aren't happy with their characters, or things don't run how they had envisaged them to, we remake - or totally replace - that character.

 

Saves people getting bored or growing disheartened at a game - particularly if it's going to be quite a long one.

[Stark464 13]

Good suggestions! I would imagine they wouldn't mind just redoing stats, its not the characters themselves who are the issue. Some people found they preferred melee over ballistic, or would prefer a different psyker tree. We've had 9 sessions so far, 7 being the first mission and 2 in the current one. I would think they are about to reach the end of this story arc in a couple of sessions, so may breach the topic now and see what they want to do. We can always do a '6 months later' after the sniper has had extensive WS training or whatever.

[InquisitorAlexel 244]

End the part you're in the campaign at the moment ang give to those that really needs it (or everyone, whatever) the chance to remake their characters, as long as the principa concept is respected.

[Rationalinsanity 129]

I'm pretty flexible on this front, especially in the early part of a campaign. If you want to switch characters that's fine, but I get your old one as an NPC. As for swapping out talents or powers, I'll let them redo non social talents/skills/etc (you can't go back on Peer and stuff like that) after a session or two if they want to, it doesn't really impact things much. But I find that most talents are useful enough that its best to bite the bullet and save up for other stuff, I try to make every skill useful.

 

I only get annoyed if players try to switch out a character that has become important to the bigger plot, but my players generally don't pull that stunt.