Hey,

You have all been so helpful in the past. For that I thank you. I have a new conundrum.

I’ve been running Curse of Strahd for 6 players for 8 months. Everyone is having fun and progressing through the story. I was approached by the Gnomish Paladin that he was unhappy and bored with how his character fits in. He wrote an intriguing backstory that would have come out, except the players are not that experienced/savvy to rp internally in order to bring it out. They are a group of mostly D&D noobs.

in short, he wants to start a new character. This stumped me and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to “a dragon comes and carries Sprinkle off into the night”. Does anyone have any suggestions how to manage this player?

Thanks, again!

Can you give their character a natural ending. I had a player that was just feeling a bit limited by some character choices and not enjoying playing them so we sorted out a way for them to be able to find an ending that wasn’t death for them.

I was thinking of that, except they are in Barovia. How do I enable the character to leave Barovia, where the other PCs can’t leave?

Maybe the character could betray the players? Like become an ally of the enemy or be bewitched by them? This could lead to a side goal of rescuing the character from the spell.

I’m of the “don’t overthink it; it’s just a game not the next great fantasy novel” school. One day, gnome paladin walks away and new friend appears. Done. 
Or even new friend appears, retcon that he was always there, who is this gnome paladin? That person never existed. And move on with the game.

Not great for a story, but it lets you just get on with the adventure instead of spending a session on this one player switching characters. 

There’s nothing wrong with the gnome deciding he’ll be more help to Barovia as a town guard or something than as an adventurer. Sure, he’ll probably end up living out his days there (unless the others pick him up at the end of the campaign) but that’s okay.

Just retire the PC and let the player roll up a new one at the same level. 

You might hold a 5 minute conference to let the group know what the deal is and why, then carry on with the game. The details don't matter, just keep the game rolling.

Have you talked to the player about how he wants to end things with the gnome? Maybe the player has some ideas.

They hadn't given me anything. They just lamented how they didn't like where their character was going and had this really cool (it is actually really cool) new character. I got a little frustrated and said they needed to come up with a reason why the Paladin would abandon the hunt for a master vampire.

Also, how do they leave Barovia without Strahd's permission?

Maybe he doesn't.  Maybe he decides to stay and protect the town/church/vineyard/patch of small grass.  Maybe the Dark Powers decide he's too much of a problem for them and whisk him away without Strahd's input and plonk someone else in his stead.  Maybe another paladin rides in through the mist and beseeches him to come with them to fight evil elsewhere, and they have a special talisman that allows them to cross the border freely, or they fight some other evil in Barovia until the party is able to defeat Strahd.

There's all sorts of different ways to handle a character change like this.  Just think on it, and wait and see if your player comes back with any of his own suggestions before moving forward.

So, what guarantees are there that this new character will be ultimately any more satisfactory to the player than the Palladin being played for 8 months?  Where is the character level wise?  In my games, I'm fine with switching around characters up to maybe level 3, sometime even allow subclass experimentation up till level 4.   So maybe that's why I get a little stricter beyond that.  Does the character have a role or function in the party that the new character will as easily fill?  If not, how is the party supposed to adapt?  There's some secret to the gnomes _backstory_, but the game being played in CoS.  Really backstory is supposed to be orientation not something to mine when you're playing an adventure that has more than enough going on.  Is the player's character really deprived in a way that other PC haven't?    

Whenever I discuss a new character with a player, "a thing that should happen because backstory" sometimes come up.  I say, "well, that's a cool background but I can't promise any of this will play out the way you think it will.  I will likely make reference to it as opportunities make sense, but don't go in with a destiny mindset."

I guess I feel like sometimes "backstory fulfillment dissatisfaction" is something similar to folks who delve into method acting and don't get it.  Yes, when building a character in Method you do plunged into scenes and experiences of the character you perform.  Those _inform_ the experience, but you don't put all that stuff on the table.  Then I usually semi digress into Tim Roth's "commode anecdote" in Reservoir dogs and discuss all the work the detective puts into doing deep background work like he almost lived out his undercover identity ... just so he can tell a quick story at a bar about something that happened to him in another bar so he can convince his fellow criminals at the table that he's "one of them."  Backstory is background, it informs actions but shouldn't dictate plot unless you're in a more open world, which CoS isn't.

So I'm being a bit of an intentional contrarian to the rest of the respondents, but if you and the player are putting the failure of this character feeling interesting to the player at the rest of the parties' inability to draw out the backstory, I think there may be some things to discuss before you just hit the reset button and hope the player is happier this time. 

Maybe the party discovers someone being held prisoner in Barovia (the new character) and in the fight to free that person the gnome paladin sacrifices themself in the effort. The paladin gets to die a hero, and the new character has a reason to trust and help the party.

Quote from MarcusYuleren >>

Also, how do they leave Barovia without Strahd's permission?

 That part doesn't matter.

If they got out or not, if they died in the effort or not, none of that matters. Whatever happens to the old PC after the new PC starts up is totally irrelevant.

If the player(s) asks what happened, you just say nobody knows. Because as far as the party is concerned, the Paladin left and the player no longer has control of him.

Since the player hasn't given you an out scenario, one short and sweet way to play it out is the rest of the party wake up to find the Paladin has simply vanished... gives them something to investigate as a little side task and provides you and the player some time to think up an idea that fits in the either the plot or their backstory. 

Alternatively, whilst the Paladin is putting on their armour, one of the group notices something strange about their skin. Digging into the matter they discover that the party member is a doppelganger and the Paladin had been switched out a while ago. The doppelganger may have been a spy working for Strahd or someone else, this potentially give the party someone they could interrogate about a clue they haven't worked out or learn something they missed. 

There are a couple of options;

• Re-spec;  I personally stress that, as long as PC's can work it into the narrative, they can re-specialise if needs must.  This is not always a freebie; it might require a cost or time spent training.  Tasha's goes briefly over this.  In CoS there could be a multitude of reasons why a PC might re-spec - not least of which would be if they made a dark pact.  If the PC likes the character but dislikes the class this could be an option.
• Retirement; As others have already alluded to.  In my PoB CoS campaign I had a player unfortunately have to drop out.  In this case there was, due to the PC's backstory, a real opportunity for the PC to 'give up' on adventuring and choose a life away from that.  I had the PC choose to spend time with Father Donavich and help him out; it was mutually beneficial as Donavich was able to provide the PC with a level of solace and the PC was able to provide Donavich with companionship and protection.  This option enabled the player to return should situations change.

It's always worth discussing with the player what they would like to do and how they envision their new character.  In many cases it can 'shake things up' to retire or voluntarily kill-off PCs.  I would however try and keep it to a minimum, as it can be highly disruptive to keep changing out characters.  Additionally, expect that if you do this with one PC, the others might well want to follow suit and then you have a whole new party.

Quote from MarcusYuleren >>

They hadn't given me anything. They just lamented how they didn't like where their character was going and had this really cool (it is actually really cool) new character. I got a little frustrated and said they needed to come up with a reason why the Paladin would abandon the hunt for a master vampire. 

Rather than approach it that way ("If you want out, you have to come up with a reason why..."), instead ask if they have any cool ideas on how their paladin could leave the party... Do they want to die a glorious death? Do they want to have him go off on his own? Maybe some other side-quest could occupy him for some reason... and so on. Perhaps the player will have some ideas.

Likewise, maybe the player can help you come up with some good ideas about how to get the new character into it. Try to make it a collaboration, rather than "You can't have this unless you come up with an idea I like."

In CoS, the mists deliver and the mists can take away, I presume.  If you want to indulge the players desire to change characters (though my other post has thoughts on that), as its been mentioned there's not much reason to dwell to making the character's departure "work right" if the player didn't think the character was working anyway.  The mists float through and the Palladin is gone and a new character hitherto not connected to the story in any way is now where the Palladin was standing.  It's weird, but it's a Domain of Dread so stuff can happen.  Plus it's sorta a meta in game commentary on what just happened to the playing of the game.  Anything further and you're belaboring and endeavoring to repair disappointment on the players part which I don't think is entirely warranted based on how things have been laid out.  

Or the players come to a Vistani encampment/bivouac.  The PC enters a wagon on the outskirts of the camp alone.  The new PC emerges from the wagon.  Maybe the new character acts like they'd been with the PCs all this time (sorta the Dawn Summers effect).  When the PCs are done role arguing what's real and look up, the wagon in question isn't even there.  You can go surreal / David Lynch weird and have some "wha?" moments that never get answered.  Gothic horror has space for that. (I mean given the way the adventure ends as written, the players don't have Bovaria figured out so perplexing moments like that foreshadow their lack of understanding of where they are).

I guess an unexamined possible consequence of doing "justice" to the dissappointed character I the swap out instead of a quick a dirty presto change-o, is the more you dwell on this event, the more likely "me too"s are going to want some of this bandwagon.  

The Mists eat bob the gnome. The next morning the Mists spit out Robert the half orc. Remember D&D is game so don't worry about Story reasons when PCs are swapped out. 

So, I didn't know it was about Curse of Strahd at first, i'm currently playing it as a player so I won't be reading any responses or other replies because I don't want it spoiled for me. We are however in the later parts of the campaign with some very dramatic changes.. it's a long story by now but without knowing where you are in the story, remember there is always the almighty strahd there. 

He could simply pop down, just for the lolz, and vampire-smite the living bejeebus out of the paladin in front of the party, laugh about it then leave. If nothing else it will make the rest of the party be a bit wary. 

I lost my main character a few levels in, he came back as a vampire which could also be a nice touch for later (npc vampire spawn, we had a fight). I also kinda lost another character to the dark stuff in some way, we are just now fighting him in the amber temple.. corrupted by the dark force there. That might be another option.

But I'd try to work out some scary variant of it, either something corrupting the paladin or just strahd showing off and the paladin perhaps later returning as a thrall to him. It'll make for some good scenes + let the player change. 

good luck

They hadn't given me anything. They just lamented how they didn't like where their character was going and had this really cool (it is actually really cool) new character. I got a little frustrated and said they needed to come up with a reason why the Paladin would abandon the hunt for a master vampire.

Maybe the hunt requires a sacrifice? Some key macguffin that is needed for good to prevail is at the bottom of a deadly poisoned chalice and someone needs to drink it. Something like that which allows him to die in service of the greater goal. Just make it very clear that it's a final death so the rest of the party isn't scrambling to bring him back.

So I'm being a bit of an intentional contrarian to the rest of the respondents, but if you and the player are putting the failure of this character feeling interesting to the player at the rest of the parties' inability to draw out the backstory, I think there may be some things to discuss before you just hit the reset button and hope the player is happier this time.

More discussion is fine, but I've never been able to convince someone who's not having fun that they actually were having fun all along and the reason they think they're not having fun isn't the real reason they're not having fun. It sounds condescending. Sometimes you're just done with a character. Every time I've seen DM resistance to this, the player just turns into Leeroy McSuicide because their hand has been forced to do it the hard way.