As a GM do you use a penalty for a player who decides to make up a new character because the old one had some corruption points?

When a player change his character because he wants something new is it good in your opinion to start his character with fewer xp points than the other,older,members of the party?

Also,do you force the players to buy their whole starting equipment with the starting money based on the creation points they spent?

MoonShadow said:

That would be a replacement character in my group, meaning he would start from scratch with no advances and then earn double experience points until he catches up to the others.

I think it might depend on exactly why he wants to change the character. If he doesn't like playing with any corruption points then it sounds like you might be on different pages. You have to wonder what will happen next time he gains some. Should he even be playing WFRP, or should you be giving out corruption?

As above, that would either be:

- you were new to system, didn't understand choices etc., call it "trading in during the return period" (3 sessions for me, I use that in any system - you can switch character, redo choices from start, swap out something in same character), no penalty. Only available when new to the system in question.

- you're just changing per se, which is the same as bringing in a PC after one dies so whatever rule is used for new character after a PC death then that rule applies here too.

Rob

monkeylite said:

What I was thinking. If he's going to be changing characters everytime the character gets any kind of negative effects, he's going to be wanting to make a new character quite often.

I impose a 10% loss of x.p. unless there is nothing "negative" about the character. I actually encourage people to try out new characters as not every character is suited to every adventure and it can get pretty boring being stuck with the same character every game.

I believe that it is crucial for GMs to have a decent house rulebook covering stuff like this.

jh

When I've had new players to the Warhammer World I have tried to impress upon them the hard "realities" of the setting. They WILL have some negative effects in place if they survive long term (missing limbs, diseases, mutations, insanities, etc). Replacement characters for me have typically come in at lesser XP in previous editions and I don't foresee any change in 3rd. Gallows' method is pretty good for player death replacements (and free of complex calculations or circumstantial bias). However, if you have a player who is trying to get some sort of medal for a "perfect game" then they are missing the boat someplace.

On the Corruption thing, would it be easier on your players if you kept their corruption points hidden from them? Sometimes out of sight can be out of mind. It would make waking up with an eye blinking at you from your palm a bit more shocking. YMMV

This also could be rectified by changing players.

I take the GM job as host of the game, and as host I want to ensure that my guests have fun. At the same time, bad guests get the boot.

If he's a friend and you want him to have a good time and continue, I'd get a sense to why he's concerned about the corruption. Bad stuff is part of the fun of WH. Most PC's are going to be carrying around bad stuff. Insanity, disease, corruption, etc., but that's what makes it fun. Maybe there's a fun way to incorporate it into the game that he would enjoy. For example, one of my corrupted players get these feelings in his guts that get him to act differently, another is plagued by dreams which he trys to decipher. Both are presented in secret to the other players and both add to the story.

Also, I don't tell folks they're corrupted. I explain corruption as a game mechanic, but as a GM I say for example, this experience with the demon has brought on feelings or self-doubt and depression. You're just not yourself and you can't shake it. Let them guess how bad it is. My wizard who was corrupted by Tzeenth got, "Since your last encounter, lately every time you tap into the winds you want to push further and further like a voice is calling you. Its turning into an obession." I may in the future if they get more corruption, add an additional power or two to represent the corruption as an addiction.

Depending on how they were corrupted may affect game play. Throw out an extra fortune dice during a specific action so they're actually corrupted by the corruption and begin to like playing with it. Then wham-o horns on the head. Who wouldn't want that?

And remember, if folks feel the need to purge the chaos out of their system. You can always have them pay for it in some way or another. A trip to the temple of Shallya and paying for a cleansing for example. Not that exciting, but its an option. Or maybe the priestess give him a quest or something such as going out to help to feed the lepers. Then you can introduce disease too!

Good luck!

My son has a similar issue, although he isn't usually switching characters because he's had something bad happen. He just has alt-itis/character ADD. Always has. He loves making up characters and has *way* more free time than the rest of the group. As a general rule I don't penalize him for it, but his new character does retain whatever issues the previous one had. And any adventuring-acquired goodies too, for that matter. If Chad the Righteous had a magical shield and happened to have a case of Black Legge at the time he switched, I tend to give the new guy a similarly powered item plus the Black Legge (or a disease of similar rank). The same would apply to corruption, mutations, wounds, whatever.

On the other hand, I don't dock people experience when they switch. I think this is a holdover from my long-running D&D4e game where it's helpful/useful to keep characters within a narrow band of proficiency (for the sake of encounter balance and all). Plus I find that players, as a general rule, don't like feeling like they're being left behind -- however illusory that feeling may be. It would be way less of an issue with WFRP methinks, given that there can be some pretty significant disparity in character power anyway, but I still would rather have fun than bean-count.

I'd have them create a character from scratch, then give them enough xp to reach the same rank (just) as the other players. Any equipment they have has to be bought using creation points as normal.