New player, existing character...

[garhkal]

Say you have a game going on a while, one of your players drops out, and his character(s), become sort of 'party npcs, anyone else can run if they need to. One day a new player joins in, and wants to take OVER One of those 'npcs', for his character, rather than make up a new guy fresh.

Do YOU as dm, let him change anything ON said character? Like say he was initially a specialist in the blaster - Pistols, but the new player wants him to be a Rifle specialist?
Or say, he was Fluent in say Gammorean, but the new player wants to change that to hutteese?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Mamatried]

Depending on how of the this exPC 's story so far can chage sime when needed, if the role played is not the make or break the game, then I would let this person play the vcharacter.

Now if need be I woul talk to the player about what ever is needed to know before playing the charcater as to mostly his personality, motivations, and to some extent his memeory.

However in most cases this is never an issue and I would see little to no issue in letting a player use an expc turned NPC for his character, but I may ask politely again if neede if the name can gance, basically making it another pc

[KageRyu]

I would not. I would also require him to play the personality established for said character. That is the trade off when taking over an existing character. You get a pre-made character, possibly with some existing XP and Gear you might not otherwise have, but you take what you get.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[garhkal]

[KageRyu]

Having played under GMs who actually would meet that description, I do not consider this even close to qualifying (now a D&D Game where an Elven Ranger in non-metal armor cant't even hide in the forest because the GM wasn't prepared for it...that's a dick).

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess those people on those forums are either in the much younger and newer crowd of RP games which are being designed to cater to munchkinism, or perhaps have been those players you sometimes run into that are always a problem.

As a GM and player alike, I would be prepared for restrictions if I asked to take over an existing character. The only way I might consider it possibly unfair was if the GM was forcing me to take over an existing character instead of creating a fresh one (been here too).
In the Spirit of Easing your conscience, you might allow the player to change or alter...say... 3 items (that is 3 changes...or changing 3D of skill allocation, or 3 pieces of equipment. or 3 details about the physical or personality) or mix and match, but there should be an explanation for why the character suddenly changed to retcon it. Also you could let the rest of the group have a say on whether it is fair or not too.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[Mamatried]

restrictions is imo a part of roleplaying and making things challenging, I can see limiting character movement to within the starship and letting the entorie mission/session take place there is IMO great. so is limiting the choises of templates even, all depending on the goal.

As to actively taking over an NPC I amd inclined to allow "mirror" meaning yes, take the template, change the personla info, and then join the crew, even you are "technically" just a copy of the other.

however I would not normally allow anyone to play "joe the mechanic" after he became an NPC, but I would allow someone to become "marcus the engineer, using the exact same stats

[Whill]

[garhkal]

[Whill]

[Mamatried]

[garhkal]