Though I'm interested more-so in opinions.

I've had a couple encounters where I've been cut out of entire board plots and shunned for wanting to delete or kill my own characters. One particular board actually. I killed of two important characters of mine, but I checked with all the people that had ties to them that it was ok, (the flavor of love had gone from these two. And I didn't appreciate being backed into a corner over a plot that I was forced into) I even went as far as planning and joining two new characters that would smoothly fit into some of the major plots that were involved. Yet, the board owner had a nasty go at me about it, and ended up extrapolating me from the entire board. In the end, I left.

It's not all boards. I've killed of characters with MORE plot, that people have been fine with, as we have sorted out where our excess thread/plotting would go, and we've been for the better for it. I just don't understand why some are so.... clingy with my characters. Please people, remember that the status quo is not necessarily a good thing. Especially on a WAR board where people are MEANT to die.

So.... is it wrong of me to want to delete my own characters, even after I'd set up characters that would substitute so no major plots would be harmed?

ARGH! That's one of the things that manages to tick me off to no end. There are some people who just don't understand that characters are the playthings of their creator and can be used and disposed of as you wish. Some people just get too attached to other people's characters that it's kinda sad in some ways [the way I see it...if half of the books out there had been written in a roleplay fashion with a person for every character....none of the characters would have died.]

Some people just need to learn that SOMETIMES CHARACTERS WILL DIE. And most of the time, it will help move the plot along. Sometimes a character can be more of a benefit dead than alive, and what yo choose to do with said character is your decision.

I won't even go into the being cornered into plots bit...that's a rant and a half right there in and of itself.

Yeah...to sum everything up. If you want to kill off your character and you have a good plan in mind...HAVE AT.

Is it wrong? No...to a point.

Technically speaking these characters are your property and fellow roleplayers should be mature enough to be able to take a character death and run with it. However, it depends on how many you're killing off, how long you're playing them for and your reasons for killing them. For plot furthering? Cool. However, watch that it doesn't become the rules of Boredom because then you'll have to start working on your staying-skills. Sure it's your 'right' to kill off these characters but tread carefully. Depending on how frequently you do it, it could lead to giving you a bad reputation and then you'll be back here complaining that no one will play with you because they're paranoid they'll put work into a plot that you might not have explicitly said, 'no' to, only to have it flushed.

The other point of course, is learn to speak up. If you are unhappy with the way things are going plot-wise then you should be voicing your opinions and offering alternatives, explaining on a one to one basis that this plot is making you want to not play the character and can x, y or z be done instead.

Heh. Yeah. I did. But those in question continued with their plot as though I'd said nothing at all. Backed into a corner much?

But the thing is, when you set it up so that you're not losing out on major plot, then shouldn't it be alright? I wasn't bored with my characters, I did feel that getting rid of them would continue to a better plot. Me being silly, I suppose =3

Everyone loves a status quo. hehe.

Have you considered that maybe they just didn't want you deleting the account and messing up the board and all the previous threads you were in?

Peoples have points! I think a mistake you made (or seemed to from what I've read) is that you didn't talk to the admin about it. I know I'd want to know if someone was planning such a thing, just because there are annoying people out there who will keep churning out clones with slightly different (but still popular) PBs and then kill them off (or have some other way of getting rid of them) when they get bored, only to bring in another clone. Irritating! It ruins all plots they're in and just annoys everyone around. So I'd be bothered if someone randomly killed their character off without even bothering to notify me first, if not ask permission.

Another part of that is that admins like to feel like they know what's up on their boards. Plots that are being held away from the admins' knowledge are sometimes to rebel against the board and they can hurt, because they show that the admin isn't trusted - or the admin would probably feel that way, anyway. I like to know what's going on at my board.

That said, I think people should be allowed to do what they wish with their characters, as long as it doesn't negatively affect others. In roleplaying, doing things which go against the wishes of others (reasonable wishes, that is) is plain stupid, because roleplaying is an interactive and communal 'sport' (yush, it's a sport) and it's kicking yourself in the nuts, really. Not that it has much to do with you, because I don't think you said that.

Man I'm rambly tonight!

I don't really have anything to say that hasn't been said already, but I feel like a rant, so you'll have to tough it out.

I can understand where both you and the admin are coming from. Perhaps you should've made your reasons clearer? Something about calling the two new characters 'substitutes' seems to imply that they're not all that different to the ones that you've axed, and maybe the message you were sending across was one of being bored of the old ones and wanting new toys to play with. It sounds as though you did take the plot and consequences into consideration, but if that wasn't made clear to the admin before you killed them off, then it could come across as making excuses when being said afterwards.

Was it really that people were attached to the characters alone, or might it have had something to do with being attached to the plots they were in and the contributions that they made? It's nice having well-established characters around - as you said, it's the status quo. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. When you know how a character acts and you've watched them grow, you can feel more free to plot with them and trust the player not to disappear and leave you hanging. I'd find killing off a character preferable to leaving them inactive, because at least then no-one has to try not to fall into all those gaping plot holes, but all the time that you've spent roleplaying them could seem a bit futile if it wasn't a truly awesome death. (Well, death isn't 'awesome' as such, but you get my drift.) From the way you've phrased it, I've gathered that it was a case of your wanting to kill them off and then finding a way to work it into the plot, not of the plot calling for those specific deaths - though in a war game, I suppose that there's a general need for death.

However, I agree that the characters are yours, and that you should be free to abuse them or malign them or dress them up in ridiculous clownsuits insofar as it doesn't affect the board at large. You say that you cleared it with all the players who were deeply involved with the characters, but would there have been knock-on consequences for the rest of the lot? They were apparently important, so I'd imagine so. Well, whatever. Regardless of whether you should or shouldn't have killed them, it was definitely wrong to shun you ('Shun the non-believer, Charlie!') If the admin hadn't even attempted to clearly state why they had a problem with character death instead of yelling, then it's their loss, not yours. That might not be how they behaved, I'm just inferring from what you've stated, but... alright, I will seriously put the keyboard down and back away slowly, NOW. Sorry!

Hell no, there's nothing wrong with you deleting your characters. (I've run into something like this in the past and it ended up with me being frustrated and the board taunting. Bleh.)

As for the killing, it depends upon the type of board. I can see where people would be frustrated if you're killing off high school students on a normal high school board, but if it's horror or RL in a city or something and the death fits the genre, then I see nothing wrong with it at all.

Oh I think people often have problems in comprehending that characters can die. When I was going to give my character cancer people were panicking. (and I didn't even say I was going to kill her!)

But more annoying is that when another character pushes the limits against another character who is murderous and powerful. Seriously. They were challenging the powerful character who could have killed them. I was playing the murderous one and I really had hard time coming up with excuses why exactly wouldn't my character just seriously kill them. Their character was a bit of a pushover but the player should know what's too much. After a while it just wasn't realistic anymore that my character didn't kill theirs. Though technically another person cannot kill off another person's character just like that you should still think things through. I felt like I wasn't in my character anymore in the end.

I believe its your character, you should be able to do what you want in that regard. If you want your character dead then no one should be able to stop you from causing that death.

And Ive faced the problem of weaker characters going against characters way beyond their ability. So I (with popular vote I might add) added a Death Request system. Its more of a warning and reminder that your character CAN die then anything else but its worked marvelously o.O

ANYWAYS

The site I run is set in a fantasy world and people can and do die, there are combats and various problems that people come up against such as childbirth and the like. I have no objection to someone killing their character off or indeed their character being killed. I would expect people to finish up their character threads before they died, and seeing as they have control over their character and when/how they die I don't see that as a hard task.

I don't think an Admin has any right to tell you that you can or cannot kill your character with the obvious exception of major canons or in the case of original RPs, plot characters that they have created. For example, if the lady that plays the Queen on my site decided to kill her tomorrow it would leave a massive hole in the whole plot of the site rendering it all pretty much pointless.

In extremes they should have the ability to put a stop to something, but in that case if the flare has gone from playing a plot or canon then it can always be adopted by someone else. I think in your case you had tied up your plots with others and checked that no one was going to be annoyed so you did everything right.

Personally as an Admin, i'd have had no problem with your actions.

I think you have every right to delete/kill your own characters whenever you so choose. I mean, you gave them "life" you can surely decide when their life ends. And you seem to have done almost everything right. You clearly took plots and threads into consideration. Kudos for taking the time to do that. I know people who would say "Okay, I don't like you anymore so you die" and then that would be the end of it. All I would say is next time, discuss it over with the admin and make sure they know what you're doing.

To kill or not to kill.

Go ahead.

As an admin and as a role player, I feel every person has the authority to kill off their own characters. As long as you haven't made future plots or promises to anyone, do it up. It creates more plot, it thickens already going plots (especially in the romance spectrum), it's also just your decision. I would advise against it if you have thirty open threads going on, all of them active, but I wouldn't stop you. I'd think twice about accepting your next character but that's just common sense. However, if you aren't seriously involved anymore and you don't like what's going on with your character, by all means, kill them. RP is supposed to be fun, not a chore. When you're backed into a corner, it often does feel like one.

Funny enough, I dealt with this exact thing today. I killed off my character and I was AMBUSHED. Was she in any threads? None at all. Not a single one but the one she died in. Was she an asset to the site? Not particularly. Was there any reason for her not to die? Nope. The people on the site just weren't happy and therefore tried to convince me out of it. (By the way, they eventually did. I compromised. She's dying later.)

From an admin stand point I can see where it would get annoying if someone repeatedly deleted their characters and then made up new ones. However, if it's just one or two who are no longer fun for them to play, I don't see how it's a big deal.

From a player stand point I can completely sympathize. Some people like to think that just because you're on their site they own everything that you create. That bothers me. That's called being power hungry.

Not at all! It's your character. Do whatever you want with it. I suppose the only time you shouldn't kill off a character and simply drop them is when they are a canon on a non-original rpg. So if it's a HP site, just drop HP and let someone else pick him up.

If it's some sort of canon not vital to the board, sure, it's your character. To be honest, I've never seen the point of creating 'canon' characters in the sense that most people do. They create a name, gender age, and say 'YOU HAVE TO PLAY HIM NO MATTER WHAT' when they ban originals, which makes me go 'o_______o?' since that never made any sense to me.

BUT ANYWAYS.

You should totally be able to kill your character off.

I have a friend who joined 'Souls with a character, and promptly killed him off in the first thread she had with him. She didn't like him, didn't want him anymore.

Killing off characters can be fun sometimes, too! I have a crazy character who has killed four other character ic'ily and one character that he killed, but we didn't roleplay it out. :3

And... if someone starts bugging you about killing off your character, that's harassment like whoah. I mean... why would they even bother bothering you? I mean, sure they might be losing a member, but maybe not if you rejoin with a new character. Then there shouldn't be any issue.

And I mean, sure they're dead, but people randomly disappear and drop characters left right and center, so those may as well be dead for all the plotholes they leave behind. At least you tied things up with a death thread/ plot.