Hey guys, new DM here. And thanks for taking time to read this. About 2 10 hour sessions into a campaign, one of my players was inflicted with a curse (that could be lifted) that makes it very difficult to communicate with others. He then proceeds to kill himself to then make another character that is the exact same as before (same race, class, personality), but without the curse. So I kinda...force him to play as his old character because it feels like hes just reloading a save so he wont have consequences. And I don't think it fits very well with his character anyway because he was a hermit who very rarely talked to anyone.
I don't think you are "a bad DM" for not letting this player Xerox their character. If they wanted to make a new character, I'd let them, but I wouldn't let them just copy the old one.
Nah, I don't think you're a bad DM for this, he's kinda being a jerk IMO. I would implement a house rule though that if your character dies your new one is of a different race & class.
And hey, maybe he somehow picks up the curse again with the added curse of not being able to die by his or a friends' hands?
He gets taken in for questioning at some point in the near future by local officials/gang and the inquisitor doesn’t like his answers. Says something like “So, you think you’re the smartest one in the room huh? And proceeds to cut his tongue out. And now he still has a hard time communicating with others...weird. If I was a player at the table I would be fully supportive of this if he pressed the issue on his “new” character.
To answer your original question, no you are not a bad DM for not allowing this. You are a good DM for not letting him do a poor attempt of a work around for dying
I agree with the others. What the player did was very meta, in the wrong sense of the word. If you guys, beforehand agreed that your campaign wouldn't be too serious and more of a beer&pretzel group... then it won't matter. If you want to go for a more serious adventure then what the player did is just unacceptable. DnD is not a video game where you just save-scum your way to victory. If the death was not roleplay explainable, then you made the right call.
You did the right thing of setting the correct boundaries of what is, and isn't acceptable. If you would've let him get away with this crap he'd just try to walk over you more and more in due time.
Also use this opportunity to create a house rule to prevent people from re-creating the same character upon death and just writing a different name at the top.
First of all, "killing yourself" in a strictly rules sense is not easy, ironically, since getting yourself killed is rather easy. You don't describe how he killed himself, but if it was something like "I take my sword and stab myself," or similar, I would have responded with "roll for damage" or even cheekier, "roll to hit." And anything he does to drop to 0 hp, he now has to fail 3 death saves.
And other strictly protocol reasons to give for him not doing that, is that he will lose his items and gold. Make him go to back to starting equipment (if he didn't have much, this won't help).
If those don't work then either forcing him to change something or not allowing it, as others have stated, is also an option. Really, as DM, you have a lot of options.
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Hey guys, new DM here. And thanks for taking time to read this. About 2 10 hour sessions into a campaign, one of my players was inflicted with a curse (that could be lifted) that makes it very difficult to communicate with others. He then proceeds to kill himself to then make another character that is the exact same as before (same race, class, personality), but without the curse. So I kinda...force him to play as his old character because it feels like hes just reloading a save so he wont have consequences. And I don't think it fits very well with his character anyway because he was a hermit who very rarely talked to anyone.
I don't think you are "a bad DM" for not letting this player Xerox their character. If they wanted to make a new character, I'd let them, but I wouldn't let them just copy the old one.
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Nah, I don't think you're a bad DM for this, he's kinda being a jerk IMO. I would implement a house rule though that if your character dies your new one is of a different race & class.
And hey, maybe he somehow picks up the curse again with the added curse of not being able to die by his or a friends' hands?
Or....and I’m just spitballing here :)
He gets taken in for questioning at some point in the near future by local officials/gang and the inquisitor doesn’t like his answers. Says something like “So, you think you’re the smartest one in the room huh? And proceeds to cut his tongue out. And now he still has a hard time communicating with others...weird. If I was a player at the table I would be fully supportive of this if he pressed the issue on his “new” character.
To answer your original question, no you are not a bad DM for not allowing this. You are a good DM for not letting him do a poor attempt of a work around for dying
I agree with the others. What the player did was very meta, in the wrong sense of the word. If you guys, beforehand agreed that your campaign wouldn't be too serious and more of a beer&pretzel group... then it won't matter. If you want to go for a more serious adventure then what the player did is just unacceptable. DnD is not a video game where you just save-scum your way to victory. If the death was not roleplay explainable, then you made the right call.
You did the right thing of setting the correct boundaries of what is, and isn't acceptable. If you would've let him get away with this crap he'd just try to walk over you more and more in due time.
Also use this opportunity to create a house rule to prevent people from re-creating the same character upon death and just writing a different name at the top.
First of all, "killing yourself" in a strictly rules sense is not easy, ironically, since getting yourself killed is rather easy. You don't describe how he killed himself, but if it was something like "I take my sword and stab myself," or similar, I would have responded with "roll for damage" or even cheekier, "roll to hit." And anything he does to drop to 0 hp, he now has to fail 3 death saves.
And other strictly protocol reasons to give for him not doing that, is that he will lose his items and gold. Make him go to back to starting equipment (if he didn't have much, this won't help).
If those don't work then either forcing him to change something or not allowing it, as others have stated, is also an option. Really, as DM, you have a lot of options.