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08:58, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Leave Games/Remove your own character.

Posted by Gluttony
Gluttony
member, 12 posts
Thu 8 May 2014
at 22:16
  • msg #1

Leave Games/Remove your own character

It's my intellectual property, if I want to leave a game or remove my own character from it, why do I need to have someone else do it?

GM's can add you, why can't you remove you?
Evil Empryss
member, 981 posts
Dark is the suede
that mows like a harvest
Thu 8 May 2014
at 22:25
  • msg #2

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

Unless your character sheet is locked, you are free to delete everything related to your character if you so choose (PMs, Cast Page info, character sheet, etc.)

It'd be bad form to delete game threads, but that's there, too.

And if you plan to delete PMs, don't just hit delete as the GM still has a copy.  Go into each one and delete the content of each post in the PM.

The only thing you can't do is kick yourself out of the game.

But even after all that, you have no guarantee that the GM didn't already store a copy of your character offline.
Gluttony
member, 13 posts
Thu 8 May 2014
at 22:35
  • msg #3

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

Oh.

And yeah, deleting game threads would be bad form. No argument there.

Also yes, there's no guarantee the GM didn't store a copy, my concern was more everyone else that comes later :)

Kicking yourself out of a game is kind of important though. Unless there is some other way to keep games your in from constantly popping up on your games list even after you remove them in the preferences.

And if it's locked, there should still be a 'totally delete' button, you can't use 'wipe my sheet from existence' to cheat and change your sheet... I mean, you could and remake it different, but to me it seems like you could just put the button somewhere that 'I hit it on accident' is total bull. Especially if you add a confirmation button.
Evil Empryss
member, 982 posts
Dark is the suede
that mows like a harvest
Thu 8 May 2014
at 22:57
  • msg #4

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

If you have told your GM to remove you from the game and they haven't done so after a week, you're supposed to contact the Mods and they will remove you.

As a GM, I am very glad people can't remove themselves for multiple reasons.  The first is the hotheaded temper tantrum "hissy-quit"*, which is usually regretted when tempers cool.  Another is the passive-aggressive player who would delete themselves without ever letting the GM know.  That would leave major holes in my games if people's characters just disappeared.  Yet another is the destructive player who will delete things they shouldn't delete on the way out -- some of my players have NPCs they're running for me, and if they left they would delete my NPCs, too.

Since there is a perfectly reasonable backup to requesting to leave a game, it seems more trouble than it's worth to allow players to remove themselves.  Imagine the opposite, if people could just add themselves to your game without a GM's permission.  Think of the chaos that would create.

*Hissy-quit is a term a friend of mine here used recently, and was just too perfect a term to not share  :)
bigbadron
moderator, 14341 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Fri 9 May 2014
at 04:50

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

In reply to Gluttony (msg # 1):

Only the GM controls who is part of their game.  Only they can add players, and only they can remove them.  We will not give players the ability to remove themselves from a game any more than we would give them the ability to add themselves to one.  If you want access, or to end your access, you need to speak to the GM.

In addition, while you may consider that your character is your intellectual property, we consider that once you join a game, the character becomes part of that game.  If you decide you want to quit, the character becomes the property of the GM.  This is so that the GM can, for example, continue to run that character until they reach a convenient exit point (so the character doesn't mysteriously vanish in the middle of a conversation).
quote:
Note, specifically, that anything posted in a game, including a character concept, is considered part of that game.  No GM is under any obligation to delete a player's posts or to refrain from using their character concept as that GM sees fit should the player depart the game, no matter the circumstances.
          link to a message in another game

And yes, if you want out of a game, send a PM and ask the GM to remove you from it.  If he has not responded within a week, contact us via rMail, and include a link to the thread where you asked to be removed.
matthewfenn
member, 344 posts
www.nj-pbem.com
Northern Journey PBeM DM
Tue 10 Jun 2014
at 06:21
  • msg #6

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

As a GM, I'd consider myself to have seriously failed in my job if one of my players felt he wanted to up and leave without messaging me about it first - and since all the characters in my long running game have each had multiple owners over the years as players have come and gone, I'd certainly hate for a player to suddenly delete everything related to their character and just disappear.  It isn't because I've any intention to "steal their intellectual property" and publish a book someday, but simply because I want to maintain consistency of the cast members in the story the game is weaving - for the enhanced fun of all the players who participate within it.
Merevel
member, 323 posts
Gaming :-)
Very unlucky
Tue 10 Jun 2014
at 13:58
  • msg #7

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

Things I never thought about for 500 alex.
Usualy when I leave the game I just delete my messages and wipe the character sheet. It is a reflection of how I handle people leaving my game.(usualy with a killed off or walking away depending on whats going on)
But I think I will leave the character sheet from now on. It is a good point that the character is part of their world. I just never thought of it that way.

As for intellectual property? I am never worried about that lol. Less I program a game one day and find it in another form online, then I will throw a fit.
LoreGuard
member, 533 posts
Tue 10 Jun 2014
at 16:32
  • msg #8

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

I would suggest that probably a more descriptive way of describing the situation is while acknowledging that what you write is your IP, by its nature.  (or at least by US laws)  However, by using it in a game, you are allowing its use within and for that game, and its continued use would likely fall into fair use, even after that point, as long as content after the separation was driven/authored by a new person.  [Yes, going and stealing new updated description that you make in another game for the same character, and using that for that character would certainly be wrong if done without your permission.  However, I have a hard time imagining anyone would ever bother to do that.]

I suppose that if you wanted, you could request the GM to cease using the character that you provided them.  However, I for one would if having to adjudicate anything pertaining it, would at a minimum allow them to have time to write them out of the story.

As a GM, I think I would try to honor such requests, but also would do more from the perspective of it being the right, and respectful thing, more than the required thing.  Someone being belligerent about it with me would probably find me being less flexible.  Someone being polite and making a request respectfully, I think I would try to do anything I could that wouldn't cause undue issues with the game.  [I might even write them out of the game, if they weren't in it long enough, or were not exposed to the story enough to not be able to be Ret-Con in some manner.]  Significant Ret-Con changes, I would probably run by my other players however, as it could affect them.

I would probably normally NPC a character until a good time for them to exit stage right, unless they were central to the story somehow.  Then I imagine I might look for someone willing to pick them up, or potentially would maintain them as an NPC.
steelsmiter
member, 913 posts
GURPS, FFd6, Pathfinder
NO FREEFORM!
Tue 10 Jun 2014
at 18:40
  • msg #9

Re: Leave Games/Remove your own character

LoreGuard:
Someone being belligerent about it with me would probably find me being less flexible.

Absolutely. On the most part, requests are to be respected, but if the player leaves on bad terms, they can't expect anything to go their way. One of my games will have a funeral within a few game days.
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