There is a player in my party brand new to D&D witch is fine but he made a character without my help and now he has a 2nd level warlock with a -2 constitution 9 HP and +1 charisma. His stats where messed up because he thought he had to enter them in the order he rolled them. He has no idea how to cast spells either. His character’s name is also “a funny man” not even joking. I offered that he could switch around his stats to boost his charisma and constitution but he refused. His character would have literally died within the first 3 minutes of the session had I not bent the rules. I’m not sure if I should just let this character die so I can help them flesh out a much better character or if I should press him to define his background, personality, and give him some items to boost his HP and Charisma. 

I would like some advice on what to do please.

To be honest I have veteran players and they don't know how warlock spell casting works either. 

I would say let him play what he wants and don't pull any punches. I wouldn't artificially give him any items to increase HP or stats. The fact that he has such an unimaginative name suggests to me he is either not invested or has issues with the language. 

Flies with honey and all that - I would take the approach of finding something good about what he did and praise that. Then maybe comment on something he did "wrong" but in a questioning way. "Flanking that enemy was a great idea. What were you hoping for when you cast light on the sole of the enemies shoes?" This then lets you explain mechanics etc in a non-confrontational way. 

Good luck.  

I don't know what your group looks like.  Until it bothers another player, I think I'd lean in to having the central character be a sickly, but strangely charismatic agent of an otherworldly being; one which recognizes its agent's strengths and weaknesses and sends him on missions he's well suited to.

My only concern would be that this guy is going to flake or grow to hate the character and then you have story arc built around something no one wants. 

I do think it is a fantastic idea if everyone knows what they are getting themselves into however. 

Sounds like a tricky one but good suggestion from @Okahey, as to be fair to the rest of your party and help your new player learn and evolve it is best not to carry them with un-fair buffs - in the long run hopefully they will see that and thank you for it

Brand new players sometimes do strange things. If you gently offer some suggestions and they say no, well then, you kind of need to let them take their lumps. This may include the character dying... Maybe next time they will listen to the DM's/experienced players' advice.

As for the name of "a funny man," that is a no-go for me. I like to have serious/realistic games. "A funny man" would be right out for me... go find another person to DM you. Or ask a different player to DM, and I won't be playing with you if that DM allows "a funny man" as a character name. I need to be able to take the character seriously, and "a funny man" is not something that I can take seriously.

Reminds me of the person I use to see in the old Star Wars Galaxies MMO at launch, who was an a RP guild and had himself marked as a roleplayer, but his character name was, I kid you not, "HighFlyTieGuy" -- all one word.

I never RPed with him. I can't even figure out how my Twi'lek dancer could have said his name with an in-character straight face. It's just so far out of them I can't enjoy the game with something like that.

So... you can do what you want with stats, but if you make a name like "HighFlyTieGuy," that won't work with me as a DM. But that's me.

Quote from BioWizard >>

As for the name of "a funny man," that is a no-go for me. I like to have serious/realistic games. "A funny man" would be right out for me... go find another person to DM you. Or ask a different player to DM, and I won't be playing with you if that DM allows "a funny man" as a character name. I need to be able to take the character seriously, and "a funny man" is not something that I can take seriously.

Reminds me of the person I use to see in the old Star Wars Galaxies MMO at launch, who was an a RP guild and had himself marked as a roleplayer, but his character name was, I kid you not, "HighFlyTieGuy" -- all one word.

I never RPed with him. I can't even figure out how my Twi'lek dancer could have said his name with an in-character straight face. It's just so far out of them I can't enjoy the game with something like that.

So... you can do what you want with stats, but if you make a name like "HighFlyTieGuy," that won't work with me as a DM. But that's me.

I dunno.  Ahsoka calling Anakin "Skyguy" was a little endearing.  Maybe the "RPer" just needed some in game affection.  I mean, that is a type or style of MMO play, after all.

I wouldn't outright reject "a funny man".  Rather, my first instinct would be do what I can to keep the sound, and maybe spirit (like is the character actually funny?) within my game's naming conventions (which aren't super thought out, some names are significant, other just sound affective).  Maybe it's "A. Funyman (pronounced Fun Ye Men).  With the A. being the initial for their given name but they just go by "A." (and actually in real life I know a man who uses that formation as their writing credit byline and a woman who does it but also goes by "A" conversationally.  Or blow it up to fantasy functional name.  Allan Jokemaker, Alonzo Greatlaughs, etc.  Gently having this conversation will allow you to see if the player gets in on the joke, or opts to do something more "real" in the name game.  

I just don’t want him to hate the game because his character just died

Quote from Sul_Khatesh >>

I just don’t want him to hate the game because his character just died

Yes, and you have tried to prevent his character from dying both by fudging some rolls already, and by trying to recommend to him that he change stats.

But here's the thing -- if you keep fudging things to protect him from his bad stats, he is never going to understand why he needs good ones. If you as a DM let him get away with a wizard having an 8 INT, let's say, and allow him to play it like it is an 18 INT, what's the point of even having stats? He certainly won't see why they matter.

The only way he's going to understand why stats are important, is if his character suffers the consequences of bad stats. This may not need to be death, but could be things like failing skill checks or what have you. "Bad stuff" happening to his character might, perhaps, teach the lesson he has refused to learn.

Also, is he even taking your game seriously enough to care if his PC dies? My experience has been when people don't take the game seriously, they often think it funny when their PC dies.

I realise this is practically a cliché here, but talk to your player(s). 

There's nothing inherently wrong with having a sub-optimal character build (these can actually be a lot more fun than a super-optimised character) or in a character having a silly name - it all depends on what style of game you are running, and what everyone else round the table expects.

From what you have described, it sounds like this player isn't invested in the character or campaign setting.  I think it's important to establish whether that is because they are new and confused about things, or because they just don't care for whatever reason. 

If they are simply new and/or confused, taking a little time to explain what sort of game you want to run and your concerns and then helping them to develop a character that fits better should work wonders.  If you haven't had one already a session zero is a great time to cover things like the tone of the game, to find out what your players want, and set out any ground rules.  Assuming the player is at least slightly mature in their behaviour you should be able to have a productive conversation and hopefully solve your problem.  Explaining that character death is a normal part of playing D&D might help soften the blow if/when it happens. 

The second case is where things might get a bit more tricky.  I can think of a couple reasons why a player might appear to not care, but not out of any sort of malice - plus there is also the possibility that they are just there to be disruptive and/or trolling.  If you suspect that any of these are the case it's important to have a frank conversation with them to find out why they are in the game and what they want to get out of it.  These are a couple of non-malicious examples of behaviour that I can think of off the top of my head:

• The player could just not be confident with roleplay and may struggle to articulate themselves well - having a discussion and helping them to develop the character should resolve the issue. 
• The player may enjoy the mechanical challenge of D&D, but not "get" roleplay - if this is the case then it might actually be better to create a character for them and give it to them to play.  (I have a friend like this who, if left to their own devices, can create exactly one character that is basically a self-insert)

Ultimately, in-game solutions won't fix out-of-game problems, so no amount of killing characters off/giving buff items to "fix" their character is going to do anything except kick this particular can down the road - and we want to avoid that, because that is when D&D tends to stop being fun for everyone involved. 

Thanks 

You’re straying a little close to denying player agency. It’s perfectly legitimate to have a character with unoptimized stats. Of course, your campaign is your campaign, and you’re under no obligation to go easy on them because of their bad choices. If their character dies, they die. Maybe they’ll learn their lesson, or maybe they’ll come back with a new unoptimized character and die quickly again. If you really don’t want that style of play, then talk with them, but try to be tolerant if they’re not disrupting anything for the other players.

I just said straying close.

Player death in the middle of a dungeon is a thing that can always happen. You can either do your chained to the wall trick, or make the player wait until the party leaves the dungeon to get reinforcements.

Quote from pavilionaire >>

You’re straying a little close to denying player agency. It’s perfectly legitimate to have a character with unoptimized stats. Of course, your campaign is your campaign, and you’re under no obligation to go easy on them because of their bad choices. If their character dies, they die. Maybe they’ll learn their lesson, or maybe they’ll come back with a new unoptimized character and die quickly again. If you really don’t want that style of play, then talk with them, but try to be tolerant if they’re not disrupting anything for the other players.

 I don’t think player agency is really the issue here. Implied in that is that the player understands what they are doing and you are denying them choices. In this case, it seems more like it’s that the player doesn’t understand what choices they are making. 

To the OP, what if you tell the player that, while it’s certainly ok to have a non-optimized character, you’ve really been bending the rules to stop him dying. So at this point, either he needs to take you up on that offer of rebuilding the character, or you’re taking off the kid gloves, and his character could easily die. Maybe say it nicer than I’m doing here, but that general gist. 

 I don’t think player agency is really the issue here. Implied in that is that the player understands what they are doing and you are denying them choices. In this case, it seems more like it’s that the player doesn’t understand what choices they are making. 

I'd say it's actually worse than that... the player doesn't understand the choices they are making, and when the DM tries to help and explain, they are blowing the DM off.

Also, I agree with Xalthu that I would say look, if you want to play a character with unusual stats, that's fine, but don't expect me to fudge die rolls to keep you alive or help you succeed at what you are doing. Going against the norm is great (I do it all the time) but you take the consequences when you do that.

You can only do so much. Character names can be disruptive in a way, some people have trouble making the transition from video games to RPGs. They see their name as their Xbox profile name or somesuch so SniperX83 doesn't sound strange to them. They might not know what kinds of names are fantasy-ish or might think fantasy names are silly. 

You can't make them change, just give them suggestions. After that, just play. 

I would have no problem with HighFlyTieGuy. Just treat it as a nickname and leave it at that. I have had quite a few characters with 'funny' names. One of my favourite characters was named Fred Upp. His full name was almost never stated so the joke never really is that prominent. I currently have a Tabaxi going by the name 'Lost,' since his proper Tabaxi name involves gestures and scent and cannot be duplicated by non-Tabaxi, let alone spoken or written. He goes by 'Lost' because, due to an accident involving an inter-planar portal, he was lost and people were mistaking him saying 'I'm Lost' for him saying his name. No one complains about this choice of name.

I also had a Sparrow Hengeyokai  with the name 'Waaa'aat' (or something very similar), silly but intended to sound like a bird's cry. The DM in that campaign ended up deciding that wasn't his real name and he ended up with the name of 'Aefla.' On the other side of that, the DM also evolved my character into a Dragon Hengeyokai. One of my best characters, actually.... paladin/bard, circa 2e or 3e (with a lot of homebrew). 

I also have a Dragonborn character 'RrrrrrRrrgrrrrm,' again, a racial name, but he goes by the much more common-sensible "Roger"

'a funny guy' crosses the line if that is the character's real name. It really depends on how it is played though. If it is a character who simply answers the question 'Who are you?' with 'a funny guy' out of paranoia regarding giving out his actual name, then maybe.... Ditto if it is a case where the actual name sounds vaguely like 'a funny guy' so people think that is what he is saying, or at least the easiest pronunciation of his name in common.

I don't have the full context of Biowizard's situation, but it sounds like HighFlyTieGuy didn't really have much more to say besides, "that's my name."

I don't think anyone would have issues with the names you've listed here because they all have explanations that show you put thought into them. They speak to your characters' race or culture.

The problem with HighFlyTieGuy is that it sounds like a name generated just to get laughs from other people at the table. It carries an implication that this guy is just here for a laugh and will readily break immersion to get laughs/attention (this might be fine for some tables but not others ). Likewise, "a funny guy" sounds like something just written down to fill the space. No thought or backstory there. It might as well be "low effort."

I wouldn't immediately just say no to these guys, but I'd ask a few questions to feel out whether they really put any thought into their characters and make sure they align with the level of character commitment I'm looking for.