How to add a player who joined after the campaign started?

Question

I started running a game, and then a friend of mine expressed interest in playing, so I invited him to join us. He created a character and came along to the next session. As the rest of the party was currently on a quest, it felt awkward to just drop him in and have him join the quest.

I created a side-quest that would require the party to utilise his contacts, but afterwards, they felt that there was no logical reason for his character to continue tagging along, so they left him behind.

There have been further coincidental meet-ups and attempts by me to add him to the party, but either he felt his character wouldn't want to join in on what the party was doing, or the party felt suspicious of his behaviour and didn't want him to join.

It's getting to the point where it's almost ridiculous, "Oh, it's you again! Fancy seeing you here."

(This is my first game, so any advice would be really helpful!)

• Was it wrong of me not to force them to take him when he first started?
• What are some techniques to use for future new players, and to use when existing players die and start over?

In this particular situation, the new character is a noble, and I get the impression that because the other characters often resort to violence/illegal activity to complete missions, his character doesn't want to be associated with people like that.

From the rest of the party's perspective, I guess his refusal to allow them to use such methods makes him a bit of a hindrance, so they can't see any reason why they would accept him as part of the group as all he seems to do is make things harder for them.

It's not that they don't get along outside the game, because they do.

Answer 1

In-Game

It wasn't wrong of you to not force the party to take him, but it did make things a bit harder for you. Without more information on what exactly is going on in your campaign, it's hard to say how exactly you should fold this new guy into the group, but I'll give you a few ideas. You're going to need a few things:

• Get the party to need the new guy.
• Get the new guy to need the party.

Let's imagine the party is off searching for the lost Book of Dragon Stuff, while the new character is back in Bigold City doing something boring -- let's say he's practicing law, but he wishes he were a wealthy merchant instead.

(At this point we've established the party's goal, the new guy's goal, and what everyone is doing.)

The new guy, as a lawyer, knows the local magistrate, who turns out to be a collector of bits of Dragon Stuff, and would love to have a chance to read the Book.

Meanwhile, the party finds out that some Dragon Stuff artifact that they want got taken to Bigold City. The party heads to town and runs into the new guy. The new guy introduces them to the magistrate.

The magistrate tells the party that the item they're looking for was owned by some nobleman who died, and they won't be able to get a look at it until his sons are done arguing over the will. If only we had someone who knew about inheritance law to sort things out!

Now the party needs the new guy to help them out, the new guy has a chance to join in with the party on their quest, and everyone involved would benefit from making friends with the magistrate, which could be done by finding the Book and letting him study it.

Out-of-Game

The methods above are ways to get the in-game party to incorporate the new in-game character.

Equally important is getting the out-of-game party together. Talk to the players sitting around the table. If they're interested in having a new player join, then you might try establishing a rule about adding new characters. Here are a few suggestions:

• All characters are part of the same party, no matter what.
• All characters are part of the same party, unless they become evil, in which case that character is retired (or becomes an NPC) and the player makes a new character.
• New characters must be approved by the party.
• Characters are made jointly by the group.

In our group, we've been using a explicit we're all the same party rule for years now, and it's worked well for us. When a new player joins, we do some in-game stuff to incorporate their character, but we also have a rule out-of-game that the new player is part of the same group.

Answer 2

New characters must be woven into the backstory of the plot or other characters.

Trust is a function of time. Expecting characters to trust without historical basis is silly and leads to moments like these.

Apocalypse world has a method of integrating new characters by establishing a history between them and other characters. Assuming you're not using group character creation, asking the character and one or two of the existing characters to generate a joint backstory should solve the trust issues.

Beyond that, you could ask them, out of character, to find ways to trust this character. Offer to set up situations that they require to build trust. Intercharacter trust is something that cannot be imposed on characters. However, if you work with your players, and your players abide by Wheaton's Law, there should be few problems.

Another problem is far more fundamental. Do the other players want to play with this player? Character problems are an excellent excuse, but you must offer the group veto power (in private, and secretly by individual) over their presence. This may be what your group is trying to express by the IC problems, and it should be dealt with out of game.

Answer 3

I think you need to sit down and talk with your players about why they are not letting him join the group: It sounds very much like they are being deliberately obtuse, which is often a sign of something else. It could be they don't like the player, or feel his character is a good fit for the party. I'd do this when the new guy isn't around, in case it is something personal about the player. If it is just a character issue, that can probably be resolved by some small alterations to it that both groups agree on.

Secondly (Assuming by "there was logical reason for his character to continue tagging along" you mean "there was not a logical reason") why wasn't there? Was his character not a good fit? Did he not have things to contribute? I'd have a look at his character, and at the party, and suggest alterations to the character so that the party wants him to join. If he has useful skills to the party then I would think they would try and get him to 'keep tagging along'

On how to get new players to join the party: I find you want to get new players into the game as fast as possible: No one likes sitting around with nothing to do. I usually try to give them specific reasons to join the party. They can be specific: 'We are seeking revenge on the same person: Why don't we join forces?" or more general: "I've just been exposed to the Mythos and can't rest quietly while such abominations walk the earth: May I assist you?"

You could even ask a player in your group to offer up a hook to pull the new character in with- I've had lots of 'Sure, I know a guy' moments, which helps. A former colleague, employee, relative of a group member has a skill they need, or needs a job or so on can greatly smooth over the reason for the person joining the group.

Building on this, I often find the best way to get a new character into the group is to ask the existing players to look over his character and suggest ways he can join. This lets them have a bit of control, and encourages cooperation. As a bonus it also saves you work.

I do have a question for you: Have you had this character approach the group and ask to join? Say, he got burned by someone else, and he found them trustworthy when working with them or something like that. Give him a reason to seek out the group and specifically ask to join them. That removes any uncertainty about his intentions and adds a logical reason in one stroke.

I think as long as you ensure there are no real-world issues, you shouldn't have much trouble finding a compromise between your players and the new player. Once you have that down it shouldn't be too much trouble finding a reason for him to join the group.

Answer 4

At this point you really need to step outside of the game and talk to your players, not to their characters. It is simply not reasonable for your group to completely reject the new character's presence and force the new player to get on the bus back home after wasting his Friday night. There are many character issues that can be discussed and handled in-game while you are playing, but this is a question of the new player being allowed to play at all!

As Canageek suggests, it sounds like your players are deliberately refusing to let the new player join in, and that is a situation that cannot be solved with any in-game measures. You need to be clear with them that you are all here to have fun, that you as a GM have put a lot of preparation into the really cool adventure that you are playing tonight, and that the new player has chosen to pass up all the other fun stuff that people do on Friday nights simply because he thinks it would be a blast to roleplay with you.

If you suspect that your players have a problem with the new player personally, ask your players what the deal is (preferably when the new player isn't present, as Canageek suggests). Fixing a bad group dynamic between the players is very difficult—just as difficult as fixing a bad group dynamic between any group of people. If you feel that you have the confidence and authority needed to solve the problem, it might be worth a try, but it's still not guaranteed to work; RPGs can become very difficult to play if the players are not already friends.

If the problem seems to be with the new character itself, ask your players what they dislike about the character. If their grievances are small and the new player is on board with it, simply make a few adjustments to the new character and continue with the game.

If the players are having major issues with the new character, plainly ask them to suspend their disbelief for a while. Explain that you have a whole slew of really exciting adventures planned that will be a lot more fun to play through than spending entire sessions discussing details about why some character doesn't fit into the other players' idea of credibility. This is your first game as a GM (and possibly their first game as players) and it's not the time and place to craft an award-winning screenplay. This time around, it's enough to learn the game, become familiar with the campaign setting, and have some fun.

To summarize: You need to remind your players that this is a game and that you are all people. When the needs of some thought-up character take priority over the desire of you and your players to have fun, things have gone wrong. Resolve any issues outside of the game, get your new player's character into the adventuring party, and start actually playing the game.

Answer 5

From what you describe, I assume the game you're running is a "serious" drama/sim type game, where people don't like doing something just for metagame reasons. "Well, we know he's a new PC, so we should just accept him as a brother." Some people run games like that, that's fine, but I don't prefer that style and it sounds like that's not your game style either, so let's talk how to make it work within a "game fiction first" framework. In that framework, there is never any "force them" to do anything, so you're right to not have done so.

You have two ways to rectify the problem - in game and careful metagame.

In game, you can generate opportunities for these people to meet in a way that they would then naturally ally with each other. I don't know what your campaign is about, but maybe they are threatened by the same force, or have some common cause. But make it all believable within the game. The party/new PCs are both balking because they can't figure out a way to join up that, when viewed from the characters' perspective or from an outside story perspective, makes sense.

With careful metagaming, you need to help the guy craft his new character's background to align well with the party. You can also consider talking frankly outside the game as to what the missing components of trust are, and then using that to feed into your in game approach above. It's fine to run full sim in game, but everyone (player and GM) has to understand that they need to construct their characters/plots/etc. to bring everyone together.

We had a problem like this in a serious game I was in. We were all undercover wizard killers, facing a widespread demonic conspiracy, and we had to maintain strict secrecy. So we get this new gnome character in who is just acting like a total insane spaz all the time. Like to the point that he wouldn't/couldn't answer a normal question. We kept him outside the secret for a little while, just interacting with him via our cover identities, hoping that maybe the crazy thing was just an act and we could find an angle where anyone could take a chance on trusting him. We were feeling the metagame pressure to try to include him somehow, but couldn't find a way to justify it in game. Eventually he happened into our secret when we got attacked. Afterwards we had to have a serious talk with him about our mission, and he would just respond "Wheee, turnips!" We explained very carefully to him that he had two choices - make enough sense that we felt we could trust him and join up, or we would sew him into a weighted sack and throw him into the river, because those were the only options that would allow us to survive. He shaped up. If he hadn't, I trust his next character would have aligned better with the campaign and our group.

For people who are trying to play an immersive game, "forcing them" to take a character basically destroys the value of the game for them. There need to be in game reasons. Now, they shouldn't be complete drama queens about it - "we kinda like him and he seems reliable and he has skills that could help us" is more than enough reason, if they are looking for more then they are being a bit unreasonable. Though heck, you can come through with a vision from someone's deity or something about "his destiny lies with you..." From the player's end, he needs a reason to throw in with them too, and no massive dealbreakers regarding the ability to trust them. This does require some coordinated design on your part (and the characters' part) up front.

If the party dynamic means that they would never trust anyone new they found, or that they would never be trusted by anyone, then that's a bad initial party dynamic - same thing with a new PC. "We are all distrustful loners" won't work well for that, unless you have an in game construct to force it (they all work for the government and are given orders; they are all captured and put on the same slave barge, etc.). And if it comes down to it, as GM you (probably, assuming a trad game) control the weather and NPCs and gods and whatever, you can force them into a potentially bonding situation together if you really have to.

Heck, here's another example. We had a guy join one game of ours. We were a Serenity type group of independent spacers in port. He showed up for a job interview. (We knew there were new PCs to take on, and we could always use more help, so we accommodated the metagame need for new character intake by putting up a job posting.) This guy shows up, and he won't answer any question we have. What do you do? "Things." What skills do you have? "Good ones." What value can you add to our crew? "I take care of problems." What kind of problems? "Big ones." We ended up dis-inviting that player to our game, as his play style was just a poor match for ours. He wasn't a new player to our group either, but his similarly disruptive shenanigans in the past had really diminished the enjoyment of our campaigns for everyone else involved. This was the last straw.

Some groups just get together to hang out, and don't really sweat the logical details of the game fiction. In that case, they'd just welcome him in and set off to kill some orcs. But some games are allergic to "silly" happenings, and in that case you have to find a way via design and the other "knobs" of game fiction to get them together.

Answer 6

The way I do this is to ask everyone in meta game to come up with in-game reasons why a new character would be added. It is simple, makes sure that everyone is happy out and in game, and it side steps all "Trust No One" issues that most characters have once in the middle of a nefarious plot.

Answer 7

I've bumped into this problem before and here's how I handle it: Let the players know that this new player wants to join and ask them to let their characters be a little open about accepting his help. Talk to the new player and let him know what the party is like. Let him know that if he intends to play, he will need to find a way to join the party.

Ultimately, roleplaying is a joint story-telling session, where everyone pitches in to make the story fun. We add rules and fun stuff like minis to spice it up, but in the end, it's team story-telling time.

If the party is unwilling to let the new PC join, you need to speak with everyone (party and new guy together) to find out what needs to change.

If the new guy is unwilling to find a reason for his PC to join the party, tell him to make a new one! The old PC, who really only wants to be with the party every once in a while, can become an NPC contact.

Remember that it is not all up to you to make this work. It'll be more fun and fulfilling for your party this way too.

A lot of the above posts say something similar and I think you've got a lot of good solid advice. Now you just need to level it at your party and see how they take it.

Answer 8

I feel that you should only ask people to roleplay something if there's a meaningful choice for them to make. If you've already decided that "new character joins the party" is the outcome you want, then don't ask them to roleplay making that decision: it will feel artificial and wooden to them. Just tell them what happened.

Here's what I do when a new player joins the party: I narrate that the new character was there all along. When you fought that red dragon, she was shooting arrows at it from the back rank. When you were searching for the assassin at the Harvest Festival, he was shadowing the Duke, watching the crowd. When you got ambushed by the necromancer circle, she charged straight at the leader. When you fell down the Chasm of Fools and nearly died, she got there to heal you back up. He was there all along! How could you have forgotten?

(And, likewise, if a player has to miss a session, I narrate that their character has never existed.)

I've found this is a good way to handle things, except when somebody wants to play an evil or untrustworthy character. If someone does want to do that, it actually becomes very important to make sure the player characters have agency over who to accept as an ally. My solution to this is just to have a rule that you can't play an evil or untrustworthy character.

Answer 9

Additions to the party should never be a forced occurrence, but sometimes a character is simply unable to mesh with a current party. A good example might be a paladin in a group that tends to be rather neutral in activities; (s)he simply does not mesh as well. In the Star Wars campaign I'm running, we have run into this with one of my players several times. He creates very interesting player concepts, but he has yet to make one that meshes comfortably with the rest of the party. His first was downright adversarial, he tried to steal the prized artifact of the party for the glory of the Empire (and then got it stolen by someone else)! His second was a slave who loved his sensual job. We tried to shoehorn him in by starting him as a passenger who would grow to enjoy his time with the party, but he decided to abandon that once we hit Corellia. The point is, the player might have to create a new character, one who would have incentive to join the party!

... Or you could create some rather sinister background wheeling and dealing with the new player that the party at large isn't privy to. Maybe the character is trying to take some important item of the party (Chaotic) or is seeking evidence that the party members are criminals (Lawful), or maybe he knows something about the fate of the party that provides another incentive to tag along (Neutral). Whatever the case, the new player has a reason to try and barge into the party. The other PCs very well might be suspicious, and that's fine. Let him prove himself by aiding the party, just know that you might have to find other ways to recompense the player since the party very well might not split the loot with him. Explain it away by having him have access to a cache of gold where the party is headed, or the PC's paycheck, or maybe a magical artifact that furthers the mysterious machinations.

Either way, adding this player to the party very well might require some secret discussions. Encourage the player to keep his mysteries about him and develop cover stories for why he is doing what he does and you could end up with a dynamic relationship that settles into a fast friendship forged through the fires of conflict.

Before, we considered prejudices of the senior party members against the junior, but remember to play up the reverse as well. In a recent chapter of World of Darkness, a group I'm in welcomed two new members in a rather tumultuous turn of events. My character had just killed one of the original members of the party due to perceived crimes after he was ambushed by the same, so the newer members held prejudice against my character (admittedly for good reason). The other living member of the original party triad understood, but the rest considered the PC a dangerous enigma. Talk with the new player and encourage him to develop his PC's opinions based on his observations of the party, not on what he knows out of character. A righteous barbarian might look like a raving lunatic, a devil incarnate might appear as Lawful Good when he is actually using the law to corrupt and damn new souls, and Robin Hood very much looks like an ordinary rogue to a casual observer.