Changing Control of PCs

[Koro76]

My group and I were changing control of a PC because one of our players wasn't present this weekend, and we discovered that if a player creates a PC in the campaign and assigns it to the GM, the GM can only assign it back to the player who created it, but if a GM created a PC, they could assign it to anyone to play for the session.

This led to a short talk that ended with us contemplating just creating everyone's PC on the GM account so we can actually swap control to other players when they aren't able to make it.

Will the control changing feature remain in its current state, or will it be changed so the GM can always give control to any player later on?

[rob]

There are two sets of behaviors to consider, and we didn't do a very good job of clarifying them and their distinction in the previous release. Hopefully, things are conveyed more clearly in today's release.

The first behavior is "ownership". PCs all have an "owner". In campaigns without content-sharing, this is the only option. Players own their PCs and the GM owns all the NPCs, with GMs optionally also owning PCs if they want. Ownership can currently be transferred from a player to the campaign/GM. We'll soon be adding transfer and from the campaign/GM to a player. There is no player-to-player transfer of ownership at this time, and that's not on our short list for the upcoming weeks. Ownership transfer can only be initiated by its owner - nobody can "take" a PC from someone else.

The second behavior is "control", which is possible within a campaign using content-sharing. PCs that are owned by the campaign/GM can have their control assigned among the members of the campaign. Currently, it is only possible to assign control between a player and the GM - in either direction. Transferring control between players must currently be facilitated by the GM in a two-step process (e.g. player transfers control to the GM and the GM then transfers control to a different player). If a player no-shows for a game, the GM can take control from a player to re-assign it, as the campaign/GM is the actual owner and control is granted at the discretion of the GM.

Transferring control provides a bit more flexibility than the ownership model, but it also confers the constraints of content-sharing. First of all, the players are no longer "owners" of their PCs, as the GM can take control away if s/he chooses. As a safeguard against an unethical GM, anytime control is transferred, the player gets a snapshot copy of the PC automatically created outside the campaign. The second constraint is that the campaign must have content-sharing enabled, which means requires the GM to have a Patron level account. The third constraint is that controlled PCs must be owned by the campaign, which means they only have access to the content purchased by the GM.

Hope that all proves helpful!

EDIT: When content-sharing is employed, all the players can create campaign-controlled PCs directly. The GM does NOT need to create them all for the players. This should be an options during character creation when created from within the campaign. It should also be an option introducing a PC into the campaign that was created outside of it.