I've noticed it is fairly common, enough that I've encountered it multiple times as a player and as a GM, for players to erase their characters from the game as much as they are able before exiting the game. They remove descriptions, delete character sheets (when they have access), and even remove their character portrait.

Sure, there are steps you could take as a GM, making copies of everything, to lessen the impact to the game if you plan on continuing to use the character until you can naturally walk them out of the story (or continue with them as an NPC ally or party nemesis). My question is, in terms of gaming/RPOL etiquette, do you find these actions kosher or are these players just being petty?

I think it depends on the situation, but it could also be considered the same as a GM marking his game as Sole Ownership, meaning that the player is not necessarily being petty, but just doesn't want someone else playing as his/her character

There have been times on RPoL that a GM has been so arbitrary, so contrary to his own Rules, and just so plain mean, that that is the only way for a player to get closure.

Wow.  Normally players just vanish into the aether or leave with apologies for not being able to continue.

When I first played games in PbP, and got fed up and quit, some GMs would retaliate with disgusting R and X rated stuff, then execute my character in a degrading manner.

Whether or not the game is marked sole ownership, as per the RPOL rules, the GM is allowed to keep the players character if they deem it fit to do so. So whether or not you don't want someone using your character, it's a moot point sadly. I usually remove characters when a player quits my games, but not always does that happen and it's not expected to happen. The GM can choose to keep the character...

In reply to KR4G3N (msg # 2):

The problem with that is that the character is already a part of the broader story being told.  The player can't delete the character entirely, but it is possible to catch a GM unaware and already have the character sheet and description deleted before they know anything is up. I know, because this has happened to me in the past.

In reply to azzuri (msg # 3 & 5):

Getting closure by vindictively deleting everything you can? How does doing this prevent an equally vindictive GM from retaliating by degrading your character?

In reply to drewalt (msg # 4):

Sure, 9 times out of 10 the player vanished or quietly exits. I've even had players in the past ask to have their character removed, and depending on the situation I've done so at the earliest convenience to the story.

In reply to fireflights (msg # 6):

Why is the point moot? Yes, the GM can continue with the character, but in the case of not knowing what the character's stats were or what items they had, it can be disruptive to the game, which seems to be the primary intent.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:36, Wed 24 Aug 2016.

It is petty.

Oh, sure, there are times that it's petty in retaliation for the GM's pettiness, but it's still petty.

Over the years, I've learned that I much prefer not to waste time on a situation I'm done with.  What a GM does with a character after I leave a game is not my concern.  Whether they retire them gracefully or give them a horrific death, I just consider that some alternate universe that I'll never visit.

It doesn't affect my memories, or what I do with the character afterward.

In the end, it's just a game.  I'm there to have fun, and when I'm not having fun anymore, I'm done wasting time on it.

This is why as a GM I copy everything. I've been burned by petty players previously. If I need the info, it's on an offline word file, cataloged and dated. Game is over? Word file deleted.

This also allows me to pass along the information to a player who was removed before they could copy their stuff as well.

I understand loving your characters, I am quite attached to some I've played as a player. But if you enter a game you have to be ready to abandon your character, in a manner befitting a mature player (not destroying the game for others in your wake)

In reply to Lancebreaker (msg # 7):

I suppose it depends on the group and some GM's copy everything including what you are allowed to have as a character. For my games, it's freeform so I don't deal with systems and such. *shrugs*

I've kept a list of disingenuous to psychotic GMs. :)

Proper exit etiquette - thank the GM for his time, regretfully inform him that you have to leave, and ask him to remove you from the game.

Because unless you do that the game is going to keep coming back to haunt you for as long as people are posting in it.

I have a list of players as well that I steer clear of. Players and GMs that I will not under any circumstances be in a game with.

I think we all have that list forming regardless of the names on each list. Some people just don't mesh well with others.

In reply to Grimmond (msg # 13):

I lost my list as it was on my computer. So starting a game soon will be interesting to say the least. But yeah, I agree with the BBR here. When joining a game you accept that your character is part of someone elses world, you just control it. Even if you feel it is yours, it belongs to the game.

In reply to azzuri (msg # 5):

That is kind of sick.

bbr is absolutely correct (naturally) and that is the only way I quit a game, whatever the reason.

As a GM I keep copies of every character's information offline against sudden loss. If I neglected that, however, and a departing player deleted everything, it would be very little trouble to create a new PC/NPC to replace her/him and continue the game. I don't need an exact copy with all the details, just a reasonable facsimile until the story allows an appropriate exit.

I agree. There are a lot of sickos out there sitting alone in front of their computer terminals. You've been lucky.

And, what happens when the GM refuses to delete you and pile on? One then goes through a moderator just to escape.

I do try to keep RTJs in games to keep the names straight. They usually have the character information. I have over 150 RTJs in one game alone, and several years worth were inadvertently deleted. :(
This message was last edited by the user at 05:58, Thu 25 Aug 2016.

Why can't we all just play nicely together?

I'm with Shannara. It's just a game, the whole thing is an alternate reality. If you're not having fun, politely excuse yourself and move on.

There's enough hassle in RL without creating more here.

I draw the line at spoiling the game for others, though. Players deleting characters, or GMs deleting games, while others want to have fun. That's simply not right.

If you don't want to play that character any more, leave it behind for the GM to ease it out gradually, and use it in a different game/reality if you want to.

If you don't want to run that game any more, leave it behind for a co-GM to run on behalf of the players, and start another.

I've done both, and I've taken over characters and games to preserve them.

As for black lists - again, are you doing it for self-protection or for vindictiveness?
I'll usually give anyone a second chance, and almost certainly a third. Some wear out their welcome, though.

There are perhaps only two people I wouldn't game with again - without some very strong assurances.

One was a guy who started out with helpful suggestions but gradually got more demanding and eventually even tried to dictate how much time I should spend helping newcomers - he quit the day I was going to evict him (he felt he wasn't appreciated). He also deleted his character, but I always keep back-ups.

The other was a serial vanisher who was either the unluckiest woman on the planet, or a psychology student deliberately trying to mess with my head. She would vanish without a word for days, weeks or months, then come back, then vanish again - always with a good excuse, her child was sick, her computer died, her house burned down (twice!) I gave her the benefit of the doubt for as long as I could, but it was disrupting the game and eventually I gave her an ultimatum. I haven't heard from her since.

Do as you would be done by. It's really that simple.

I guess I'm fairly lucky I've never had this problem here. Sure, I'm willing to bet there's some members who will never play under me again, just like there's members I will never play under (though, they don't seem to be here any more), but I've never rage quit a game or had anyone rage quit on me.

I think the worst experience I've ever had as a player was the ST didn't reveal their horrible house rules until after the game started, so I left. A couple of days later I asked back in because I REALLY wanted to play my Promethean character, but the ST said I was a psycho. I tried to get an admin to remove my character, but was informed admins don't get involved. So I sucked it up and moved on. As someone said earlier, it's no longer my concern what happens after I leave.

As a DM/ST, I've never had anyone be so petty. Sure, I suffer the occasional rude comment if a game fails, but I can't help it if someone can't understand that a game just didn't work.

Speak of the Devil! Why haven't you released me from ------------- after all of these months? And, let's keep this G rated and not speak of the other game that you refused to return to me. :)
This message was last edited by the user at 12:20, Thu 25 Aug 2016.

My black list was for GM/players I did not get along with. Not just minor differences either. This could range from, continual overlooking of my posts, all the way to flat out favoritism against my characters. Honestly it is just a few gms that I can think of. The players I recon could get another chance since it has been some time. One even moved the game off site, and refused to tell me how to get to it saying I should know where to find it. @.@

That reminds me of a weird pm I got once where the player claimed he was just going to steal the settings and characters of the game for a book???
This message was last edited by the user at 11:50, Thu 25 Aug 2016.

In reply to azzuri (msg # 20):

Sorry, Azzuri, I thought I'd deleted you. It's done now. :)
This message was last edited by the user at 17:36, Thu 25 Aug 2016.

There's only one character that I've ever had to completely and totally purge and it was due to the GM and co-GMs complete and total backpedaling and, eventually, their abandonment. I was writing a fantasy novel at the time and there was an ad in the Wanted: Players forum for a freeform game that was a perfect fit for the main character of the novel. I thought it was a great chance to explore the mindset of that character and maybe flesh him out a little more, giving him substantially more depth than I would have been able to just from writing. I sent that GM a PM and laid out my thoughts and we agreed it was an excellent idea and that he was, surprisingly, a good fit. She also expressed her gratitude that I was bringing in a character that had some actual DEPTH because all the other characters that she'd been submitted were the one-dimensional Mary Sue/Author Avatar-types that those types of games reel in.

I had one stipulation to diving in to the game and that was the caveat that, if the game should fold or she was thinking about jumping ship, she'd allow me to bow the character out of the game, remove all identifying information about him, and change the character's name (in order to protect my future, potential IP). She agreed and I joined up. All was well for about two months when she suddenly elected to retire from her GM duties and pass the buck along to a new GM. Before she left, we had a conversation between the three of us (myself, the old GM, and the new one) where I reiterated my stipulation and, again, received assurances that I'd be given a fair and proper chance to excise my character if the need arises.

Two and a half months after the regime change, the game had completely changed focus. Rather than being a multiversal adventure full of fun, quirky, and interesting new worlds, it became a spherical yank, if you catch my drift, of Mary Sues trying to out-perfect each other. We had a white dragon goddess arguing the truth of divinity with a half-vampire Super Saiyan who had visited Midgar and collected the Life, Meteor, and Neo Bahamut Materias. We had an immortal werewolf with bi-polar disorder pursuing a romantic relationship with a half-Japanese, half-Kryptonian cyborg from a dimension where everybody had shapeshifting powers.

Meanwhile, my poor Elven Ranger-Captain was just slogging around in the background because everybody else was too busy playing fantasy footsie with each other to bother with an adventure.

I honestly had flashbacks to being in Rhy'Din again.

I submitted my Exit Request to both the new GM and the old (who still had an active PC in the game) and said, "Look, I just don't think this is going to work anymore. I've tried to engage other players and characters and I'm just being roundly ignored. The focus of this game has shifted from "explore strange, new worlds" to "find the darkest, shadowiest corner in the tavern and do nothing but brood". I'd like to leave this game and, per our agreement, bow [My Character] out."

I was met with a stonewalled silence. No recognition of what I said, no response, no removal. For two weeks, I quietly (not that anybody paid any attention) roleplayed out the agreed-upon Exit Scenario that we'd devised, simultaneously introducing his replacement - a secondary PC that I'd created solely for that purpose to avoid overly burdening the other PCs by a drop-out. After the Exit Scenario played out, I sent another request, this time making it known that "Hey, I know you two are busy and everything, but [First Character] has been taken out of play, per our agreement and [Second Character] is now in play. Can you do me a favor and delete [First Character] now?"

Silence. Again.

I eventually (about three MONTHS!! later) took matters into my own hands and just wiped his Character Sheet, his description, everything. The new GM noticed and then jumped on me about "disrupting" the RP by arbitrarily removing a "key" character from the game. A "key" character, mind you, that hadn't posted in three months and not a single, solitary soul noticed or even mentioned. My intended replacement character never even got a 'Hello' from other PCs or either GMs' characters.

That game did eventually fold and my character was STILL NOT DELETED.

Sorry for the essay, everybody, but it just kind of poured out of the old sieve. Sometimes when all other options have been exhausted, I feel it's okay to take your ball and go home.

In reply to EightBitEighties (msg # 23):

Ouch. Sounds like a pretty harsh experience. I would consider this more along the lines of "proper exit etiquette" considering the initial stipulations and your having gone out of your way to make sure that it wasn't a disruption.

Eightbiteighties, that sounds like some of the gms on my blacklist. I feel your pain man. At least they removed me from the game with no fuss.

In reply to Lancebreaker (msg # 24):

Well, I certainly appreciate being unintentionally allowed to vent about that situation. I did struggle for a while with feelings of guilt for quitting that particular game because I'm one of those "nice guys" who will keep giving inches until the mile is gone and then go look for another ruler, but I eventually made peace with having to protect myself and my character.

Merevel - I actually have both of the GMs on my Blacklist under a REAL SPECIFIC heading. I feel like I could have ALMOST tolerated the whole situation if they'd both just up and vanished because shouting into a vacuum is a lot better, in my opinion, than being stonewalled with apathy and indifference.

As a GM, I'm okay with the idea.  If the player isn't involved anymore, then what does it matter?  If the character has story-canon events behind them, then that involvement stands.  I don't need the player stats/info to play the character as a NPC, especially if I'm simply working to shuffle the character out of the story.

As a player, though, I might considering doing something like this if I've put a lot of work into the character and the character hadn't seen much play... I didn't invest all that time and energy so someone else could play him.

I've had the curious experience of seeing one of my characters from a game I left behind years ago held up and mocked on a separate website... with a backstory that had a lot of extra stuff added on to it after my exit.  While I obviously can't say for certain, it looked like the character was either adopted out or NPCd by the GM for a long time after, and taken in a completely different direction than I would have taken.

You should feel no obligation to be courteous to a person who has not been courteous to you. Refusing to remove you from a game after politely being asked is fairly discourteous. That being said, since games are a collaborative effort, your character belongs as much to the gm and the other players in the game as it does to you once you start posting, unless you've made specific alternate agreements. It can be fairly disruptive for characters to suddenly vanish that way. I'd suggest that you not use material that you intend to be private intellectual property on a public forum operated under Creative Commons.

I disagree completely, while the world may belong to the GM the player characters are in my opinion the intellectual property of the player who designed, fleshed out, and progressed the character.
For a GM to steal said character from a player for any reason is nothing short of plagerism and intellectual theft.

In reply to chas0105 (msg # 29):

Your opinion is yours to have, but the site's rules disagree with you.

But it isn't though. That's what Creative Commons means. Basically, unless you make another contract with your gm, all material in the game is essentially shared property. This is what allows players to make"copycat" games when the original game closes or goes inactive. If Creative Commons wasn't in force, all of those games that use material from previous games (even defunct ones) wouldn't be able to operate. Unfortunately, this also applies to characters designed by players. Can't have it both ways I'm afraid.

In reply to Jordan Task (msg # 31):

Which is why it clearly states if a DM marks a game as sole propery, everything in the game, including PCs, belong to the DM.

Yes, there's that as well. But even that doesn't prevent someone from starting a copycat game using the original content in question if the original goes defunct. It just prevents others from asking the mods to resurrect it when it's dead.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:49, Thu 25 Aug 2016.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that RPoL runs under Creative Commons.  There was a poll to see if it should, but with no clear majority in favour of it, the idea was dropped.  link to a message in another game

I'm  a fairly slow posting GM in my games, but I keep up with my players and honor any requests for removal. I've always taken the polite path when it was available in my own requests for removal and have had just one very rude player who I removed from a game recently.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 34):

Hmm. Fair enough.

In reply to Grimmond (msg # 13):

i know what you mean! there seems to be one player in particular i have tussled with. and the beef either seems to be jealousy over my charactor, compared to theirs, or because of my more moral behaviors i exibit with my charactors. i thought it was just a clash of charactor personality, which is good roleplaying! but then, i have made other charactors within the same game, and so have they, and now we have two different charactors, yet they are still being douchy towards my charactor!! hahaha

*character

In reply to Raygun

Some children just don't play well with others ! I am a grand father now, and in both the real world and here I see it ALL the time. In RL I run a few games a month at a local shop, and I am ALWAYS leery about allowing anyone without grey hair at my table. Maybe as we get older we just don't make so many waves and the competitiveness of RL is not allowed so much into our down time.  :)

I play in several monthly games, some with just adults, some with high school kids and a 50 year age spread.

Age is rarely an indicator of maturity or concern for others. It's how the parents brought them up, whether they are 18 or 68 year olds!

Azzuri said "Age is rarely an indicator of maturity"

And I do quite agree. However, I just do not have much in common with a 16 year old and things go smoother for my group when we are all grey haired. Maybe it's us ? Maybe it's just our perception. Maybe it's that we don't play Pokémon Go.  :)

Disruptive players occur in all demographic groups. I don't think age (or the presence of gray hair) has anything to do with it. It comes down to personality types and how those different personalities mesh with one another.

The last game I ran face-to-face consisted of players ranging from 19 years old (the baby of the group) to early 50s, with most being in their mid to late 20s. The nice thing about playing with different generations is you get different ideas and ways to approach the game. Younger players sometimes come up with interesting ways to take the game in a whole new direction, but it can require some patience at times.

On the flip side, older players sometimes are jaded (been there done that).

In the end, these are both generalizations. People are people and come in many different flavors. The important thing is finding a group that works well together, and age is only one small factor in that equation.

:)

Frankly, I have more to speak about to one of the 18 year olds than to most of those a generation or two older.

He's still in school and can speak about many things. Many of the oldsters can't seem to think much beyond their jobs, health, or sex life.

So...I have rarely used the power of blackballing people, and I have vayring degrees of that as well. Someone who rage quits, meh I figure we just didn't mesh. So long as they don't do a table flip (physical or otherwise) I will generally just say something along the lines of "I'd rather not play with this individual, if possible."
I have had a couple of individuals who attempted a lot of stuff that I'll just say *mumble* (not allowed on rpol) that took me right to the edge of "I won't play with that person, in their games, nor will I GM them." I also warn people away from them because of these actions that they do frequently.
I think the key is, whatever disagreements can happen, try to keep it private as much as possible. Sometimes it isnt, but attempting to do so is for the best.
Now, let me not say that I'm the best of that at all times. But, the attempt, I think is the best way to go with it, as long as it's possible.

I had a GM that was, in my opinion, cheating so I said good bye to the players and then the GM.

I had a player who thought the same of me, but after I booted them for arguing I copied the dice log and revealed that I was following the published rules to the T, including the recently released errata. Being that I was a co-gm, they could have asked the head gm and gotten the same answer, I had privated every step I took in the combat to gm so they could see what I was doing.

A player cannot claim to be a rules lawyer if they don't know the rules xD

In reply to karuoun (msg # 46):

I get the impression he was talking about someone breaking the rules, not just fudging dice rolls. Those are two different arguments.

In reply to willvr (msg # 47):

The player had accused me of breaking the rules and of fudging the rolls when the fight wasn't going his way

After a lengthy argument I removed him from the game for his terrible attitude, he PMd me through his RTJ thread to gloat about being right in his accusations ( I didn't ban him, just removed him)

I then proceeded to show that not only did I not fudge the rolls, I was followimg the published rules to the T.

The player didn't respond after being shown the dice log and the chat log and linked SRD for the rules and RAW.

:/
This message was last edited by the user at 07:13, Sun 11 Sept 2016.

had a time when we were playing d&d 3rd ed, just a few yrs ago. mid 20's and early 30's comprised the group, and our DM was late 40's. but he started acting weird, belittled other players, and put my character on a pedestal. which was very uncomfortable, to say the least.. after some discussion with the other players, we decided we didn't wanna play with him anymore. when we finally told him, aw man! imagine seeing a 400 lb grey haired man throw a tantrum. he shook, and hollered, and crumpled up his dungeon master screen, folders, and threw his dice in the trash can. hehehehe.... weirdo.

Sounds like he was really emotionally invested in the game,

Maybe he was upset you didn't bring your grievances to him first before conspiring with the rest of the table

yeah. he was, but a little too much so. We were desperate to play, so we all put up with it for a few months. i was bard, and we had a cleric, and a ranger, and a thief. the ranger and thief quit eventually, and the cleric and i hung on in quiet desperation just because we wanted to play, and he wasn't a bad DM in other respects, lots of good, old school-type ideas, good range of doing different voices for NPC's etc. finally, it just got too weird as we lost 2 people, the sheer bias was glaringly obvious at that point.

i felt like i was being attempted to be made into his lap dog.