Dealing with certain characters.

[Jaystewy]

I have some issues with some of my PC's when it comes to death of their characters, one of the most of all. I'm trying to be more of a, its your character, kind of DM. I'm unsure what to do about someone who creates a character with no fear of death. (i.e he killed himself in a tent he set on fire) just so that he can create a new, more OP, character. I'm trying to stay away from forcing him to continue his character, but I also feel there should be some consequences from making new characters whenever you feel like you want to. He is an experienced player, but has no fear of his character dying due to know he can just create a new one. Any help with PC's like this would be great. I've thought about, forcing new characters to start at level 1, but that is going to negatively effect everyone and not just him. I'm just trying to get him to care more for his character to want to keep him alive and not commit seppuku whenever he wants to make an OP character for chapter or two of the campaign.

[esmdev]

How about tell him if his character dies due to his action or is in some way caused by some dopey choice he makes his next character starts with strait 10s plus racial bonus.

[jasonthelamb]

I think this is one of those "talk to your player" moments. You are the DM, and you can just say... "well, since you did this - you start with ___________ instead". You can do WHATEVER you want, that's the great part about being the DM!

[Atua]

This is a player issue, not a game issue and as such should be handled outside of the game. I would sit down with him outside of the game and discuss his reasoning for doing this and find out what he really wants out of the game. With this sort of behaviour, it looks like he is not really invested in the story as the new character has to get up to speed and does not feel invested enough to stay alive to help with the party goals.

Politely explain to him that this sort of behaviour detracts from the game and, you as the DM's enjoyment of the game. If he doesn't want to change his behaviour maybe you need to seriously think about playing without him. I get the feeling he is only in it for the combat, like this is some sort of computer game.

[Serafyna]

How about tell him if his character dies due to his action or is in some way caused by some dopey choice he makes his next character starts with strait 10s plus racial bonus.

I personally feel like this would be an unfair penalty, despite the player's constant re-rolling of new characters. I find that outright saying to someone that "If you kill your PC again, I'm essentially taking control of the new one's creation" - that'll only make them hate you and the new PC, I think. Try talking to them first, and explain how you feel. Maybe that'll fix the issue before any punishments or penalties need to be brought in? In the F2F group I play with, we have several people (myself included simply because I wanted to test other classes) who re-roll new characters every so often. One of the others does it because the story threads either kill his characters prematurely and we keep running out of scrolls of revivify, with no one in the party knowing the spell, or the story plot means that character has to leave the party. Again, I merely did this, as I was still new to the system and wanted to try the other classes (I've only managed to officially play as 5 classes across 2 campaigns, plus a one-time 6th for a school one-shot battle royale)

The other player who constantly rolls up new characters does it on purpose - at first it was because his character died. Big deal. His second character was killed in glorious battle, I think. But the 1st & 2nd knew the 3rd character, who eventually turned out to be this toxic, hates-the-world, insufferable a$$hat who was on some loner revenge quest. So A-kun (let's call him A-kun for now) purposely kills this character off in the Fey Wilde during the Wild Hunt! all because he was unhappy with how he was playing him. Enter the 4th character; a Tabaxi Rogue who gets dropped into said Fey Wilde, and only has a love for gold. Well.
This did not align with the party's goals. Add in some player meta-gaming in the form of the dead jerk's harpy niece being raised by the parents that threw him away for being a 1/2 elf instead of full high-elf (a neice that he's never met!); said 1/2 elf Bloodhunter somehow knowing a little bit of everything about everything, also he hasa been all over the world in his short 22 years of life; the Tabaxi somehow becoming unselfish and leaving all his equipment to the mysteriously resurrected jerk character that no one remembers (because laws of the Wild Hunt and Fey Wilde); and said newly-resurrected character trying to insinuate himself by making mentions of the party's Big Bad Enemy and the bag of holding he had entrusted to the party's leader, thus digging himself into a grave of "We don't trust you, especially since you said yourself that you were an a$$hat to everyone and made a deal with the Big Bad." Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah. Needless to say, every time one of our group had to roll a new character - be it because of a death, story related plot, or a character's suicidal tendencies - the newly made character was made up at the minimum party level (currently that's 9th, among a party ranging from 9-13th levels), and only gets the basic equipment available to the class (as we don't really focus on the backgrounds, since we run anywhere from 6 to 12 players at once.... poor Fernie, no wonder he split the party...)
Honestly, though, the 'punishment' is entirely up to you. You do have rights as the DM/GM, and you shouldn't let this player bully you - because that's what this borderline is. They know they can get away with it without consequence, so they keep doing it, causing more work to be put on you trying to tie in the new characters. One of my current players (sadly we said goodbye to her today, as her play style differed from the rest of the group) said to me that, "Your happiness as the DM is just as important as the players. You should have as much fun DM'ing us as we do playing." That hit me - I constantly worry, both as a fairly new DM and just my personality in general, that the people around my aren't having as much fun or enjoying themselves as they should. But how can they have fun, if I'm not having fun?
A miserable DM makes for a miserable table - don't be afraid to stand up for yourself! If it turns out that this player needs to be kicked from the group because they aren't respecting your rights as a DM, then maybe they weren't meant to be at your table - no matter how long they've been playing. I hope this helps.

[Temmpest]

Why not have the party raise the character from the dead? There are a variety of ways to get this done.

[Serafyna]

Why not have the party raise the character from the dead? There are a variety of ways to get this done.

A good example of this is Puffin Forest's video ->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT9HgcufRQk

[LordEntrails]

As others have mentioned, this is a player issue, not a character issues, deal it with it out of character. If the player doesn't want to play the same type of game as everyone else, then ask the player to leave the group.

Sometimes people grow out of something. Even among friends, we are not always at the same place in our lives and interests. Maybe it's time for that player to take a sabbatical.

[esmdev]

I personally feel like this would be an unfair penalty, despite the player's constant re-rolling of new characters. I find that outright saying to someone that "If you kill your PC again, I'm essentially taking control of the new one's creation" - that'll only make them hate you and the new PC, I think. Try talking to them first, and explain how you feel. Maybe that'll fix the issue before any punishments or penalties need to be brought in? In the F2F group I play with, we have several people (myself included simply because I wanted to test other classes) who re-roll new characters every so often. One of the others does it because the story threads either kill his characters prematurely and we keep running out of scrolls of revivify, with no one in the party knowing the spell, or the story plot means that character has to leave the party. Again, I merely did this, as I was still new to the system and wanted to try the other classes (I've only managed to officially play as 5 classes across 2 campaigns, plus a one-time 6th for a school one-shot battle royale)

As opposed to a player who is literally taking control of the campaign by sidelining it every time he wants to switch out to something that would be optimal for whatever the next game section is? If someone did this in my game they'd be vote off the island by the players, I wouldn't even need to do anything. Fortunately my group has been together for over 20 years so everyone knows what to expect from everyone.

The original poster said that is what he is doing. Lighting his own tent on fire to change a character to be over powered for the next section of the campaign.

He asked for an option to provide incentive to continue to play the original character without demanding he roll a new level 1 character so as not to overly hurt the rest of the group. The player is not just rerolling to try out new classes, he is rerolling to be awesome min-max optimal for a specific segment of a campaign. I'm assuming that he is also the kind of player that reads or has play the games several times in order to know what he needs to be to do this (though I cannot be sure this is the case).

[Targas]

During Pen & Paper times when Players rolled their new chars mid-game, for us they could just rejoin next session. You know, GM checking if the player did create his char right, finding a suitable opening to bring him back into the game. If your player misses your gaming session, because of intentionally creating a new one just because of optimizing, he might feel stupid missing half of the fun. As well of being inpolite to the other gamers and generating more effort for the GM to switch between group sizes and matching encounters, there is no sense in utmost optimizing, as it will just increase the overall difficulty level for the whole group.