Do you guys ever made your players play already existing characters from a fiction?

Do you guys ever made your players play already existing characters from a fiction?
Me (the DM) and my group were talking the other day about playing as the Fellowship of the Rings in an alternative scenario where Boromir survived the Amon Hen battle. We were talking about playing Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli as they travel together to Rohan.

So basically this thread has two points:

>Have you ever tried giving already existing characters to roleplay to your players and would you deal with them playing them out of character?
>how different would LOTR be if Boromir didn't die at Amon Hen? How would have Denethor react? Faramir? What role would the Captain of Gondor play in Rohan? How would his relation evolve with Aragorn?

Also should I use the One Ring system? I heard mixed opinions about it.

>how different would LOTR be if Boromir didn't die at Amon Hen?
Gee, man, I mean, it'd be very different, you know?

Considering that at the moment of his death he was days away from succumbing to the lure of The Ring, things might have been quite different actually.

Yeah but how?
Can we expect Aragorn to be received in Minas Tirith as a King?

I wouldn't impose it on anyone, but if the group came up with the idea together and everyone is into it then you should go for it.

I think it would be neat if you started in Rivendell at the forming of the Fellowship and each member made checks at and in between key points in the story to resist the Ring and actually start the game once the dice fall in a way that causes things to deviate from the story.

depends on how close to death he gets.

first point is, does Boromir make his bid for the ring. spurring Frodo (and Sam) to split from the Fellowship?
if no, then he's not seen the error of his pride, and will continue to split the party.

Second point is the horn of gondor - is it sundered or not? Theres a lot of symbolism in that after all.
If yes, then it will be a symbol of the stewards and gondor having been broken, which will indicate an ending of their line. So boromir may well consider that an omen. If no, it may be seen as an enduring symbol of Gondor to rally behind and end up in the hands of Aragorn, as it was carried by the kings.

Third point is boromir' wounding - is he fatally wounded? If not then its possible that while incapacitated, he's going to see the error of his previous direction - as he does while dying, - though that's significantly more emphasised in the film version. Could well be filled with remorse for his actions toward frodo, and so head toward Gondor with a new purpose, rather than solely thinking of weapons, and mustering, as it says in the books.

And the most important point is of course, does he still look like Sean Bean?
If yes, he's always going to be dead.

Agreed. I tend to think that if he just barely survives, and made his bid for the ring, he would see the error of his ways and end up hailing Aragorn as king. He might even go so far as to sunder the Horn himself in front of Dad and Bro if they weren't inclined to listen to Aragorn.

You know what might be a better idea?

If Faramir went to Rivendell and Boromir stayed behind. Faramir's likely to act in a very different manner altogether, which makes the Amon Hen survival much more than just "he didn't die from da orcs lel"

>Have you ever tried giving already existing characters to roleplay to your players and would you deal with them playing them out of character?

I mean, the entire purpose of giving an existing character to someone is to let someone put their own spin on things. If you're going to sperg about what's in character or out of character, you shouldn't hand an existing character off to someone to begin with, because it's no longer your call. Someone else is now running that character, after all.

Have you played Battle For Middle-Earth 1?

It's fucking Child's play to keep Boromir alive through that battle.
The main difference in the story is that he's avaliable in the Siege of the Hornburg, and the Siege of Osgilioth and Minas Tirith, also, Faramir isn't forced to charge Osgilioth.

If your Aragorn suddenly decides to backstab Theoden before allying to Sauron in exchange of the Gondor then I would call him out of character.

Well Faramir was supposed to go to Rivendell, he's the one who had the prophecy; Boromir went in his stead because Boromir was his protective older brother. Hell, if Faramir went the quest probably would've gone as well as things could've gone and Boromir would've been able to deal with things in Gondor better because he was a greater military leader.

Well, you would, but it's also not your call to make anymore, because he's not your character, so tough titties.

And besides that,

>Good man betrays his fellows for a chance at power and control

Wow yeah dude that's just inconceivable, right?

True, although you might run into other problems down the line. If Boromir's in charge of Ithilien and he and his men run into Frodo with the ring, he might try to seize it then.

As far as I know, nobody ever asked Tolkien that question, or at least none of his letters deal with it, it gives me a bit of a sad.

>Good man betrays his fellows for a chance at power and control
Except Aragorn doesn't need a "chance" for power and control?

Even if he wasn't the legitimate king of Gondor, which he is, and anyone said otherwise except Theoden (and nobody did) he's still the Chieftain of the Dúnedain, recognized as royalty by all elves in Middle-Earth and the individually strongest and most powerful human in the world.

This is besides Sauron fucking hating Aragorn's guts and most likely never allowing him in his service.

>Except Sarumon doesn't need a "chance" for power and control?
>Even if he wasn't the legitimate head of the White Council, which he is, and anyone said otherwise except Galadriel (and nobody did) he's still the White Wizard of the Istari, recognized as wisdom incarnate by all elves in Middle-Earth and the individually strongest and most powerful Wizard in the world.
>This is besides Sauron fucking hating Sarumon's guts for being sent by Manwë to foil his plots and most likely never wishing to ally with him.

Really makes you think.

>Sauron fucking hating Aragorn's guts and most likely never allowing him in his service
Actually I think that Sauron would have an orgasm just by the idea of giving orders to Aragorn. Though if there's one person in the worl who would be able to overthrow Sauron, that would be Aragorn (Sarumane would have failed HARD)

Taking corrupted Maiar is par for the course for Sauron. He used to have legions of werewolves and vampires serving him. Taking the heir of Elendil who was raised by Elves, had been opposing his efforts at attacking Middle-Earth for his whole life, had already stared him down with his mind with a Palantir and carried the reforged blade of Narsil with a magical scabbard that made it so it could never be broken again was not. It's repeatedly stated that Sauron is scared shitless of Aragorn

Except that if Boromir didn't drive Sam and Frodo away, you have a whole mess of other problems. Keep in mind that Frodo was unwilling to insist everyone follow him to Mordor to begin with - that's why he was out alone. If he's stuck deliberating too long, he's *still there* when the orcs appear. It's entirely possible he's carried off by the uruks along with Merry and Pippin, especially if they don't have Boromir there to help (Faramir's not as good a fighter)

>Sauron
>Not accepting the service of one of the last Dunedain and a King of Men with a claim to the throne of his arch-enemy in the Third Age

Sauron ain't stupid, man. He made nine rings already to snare the kings of men, he'd take a tenth for free like a motherfucker.

The bottom line, friendo, is that when you hand an established character to a new player, it's his to do with as he will. If you don't like it, tough titties.

Anything makes sense if you're willing to figure out why it's explainable. Because the books already established Sarumon as being corrupted from the start, you take that for granted, but I imagine if you had been exposed to the character when he was once a truly good man, you would have quite a different perspective on things, and be far more willing to argue that he would never have betrayed Gandalf and the White Council in the middle of a theoretically-unwritten story about how a hobbit carries a ring to Mordor.

Anyone can poke holes in stories, and you're not intelligent for doing so. Figure out why it makes sense, instead. Your games will be better off and you'll suffer from less autism.

>The bottom line, friendo, is that when you hand an established character to a new player, it's his to do with as he will.
This is just one reason why you SHOULDN'T give established characters to new players, or at least important ones. Whatever is achieved by doing that can be done better by having them build their own character, besides saving a enormous amount of cringe to everyone in the table unless everyone absolutely nails that character or is good enough to convincingly depict a shift in characterization. It's essentially fanfiction with all the complications that come with it, with the added difficulty of acting
>Anyone can poke holes in stories, and you're not intelligent for doing so
Like you're doing, you mean?

>Like you're doing, you mean?

I am explaining why something *could* happen.

You are attempting to explain why it *could not* happen.

There is a key difference. Shutting ideas down takes us nowhere. Letting a game evolve based on someone's ideas is the literal foundation of p&p gaming.

I am sorry you can't seem to appreciate this.

I agree with both of you and you're not really contradicting each other.

Then he would be with Merry and Pippin at Fangorn? Would that mean no Gollum?

Perhaps, but seems to think his headcanon is more important than another player's decisions made over his character.

I find such an attitude quite intolerable. Everyone has an opinion on how a character "should" act, but it's the player who decides it with finality. It's backseat gaming at its worst.

>headcanon
>his character.
user...

>Premise is that an established character is given to a player to be played by him
>Greentexting "his character" when it is literally the character he is now responsible for playing

user... Your thoughts on how someone should roleplay their character is worthless and unwelcome autism.

>LOTR
>plate armor

Yes, I read your posts, thank you for summarizing. You apparently haven't read mine, though

>"B-b-but you can't do that! That doesn't make sense, your character would never do that!"

No, I have, you just don't seem to like the conclusions I've drawn from them.

Unless of course you're some random guy barging into the conversation to speak up for , in which case you have only yourself to blame for taking his place in the argument and thus having his words attributed to you.

I greentexted "headcanon" because that doesn't make any sense in this context.

I greentexted "his character" because you seem to completely misunderstand WHAT I am taking issue with. I was arguing why your justification for Aragorn's betrayal was dumb, and only that. Then you went on about people using established characters, so I gave you my opinion on that too, and you claimed I was "poking holes in stories" in that same post, which I also responded to because it was equally applicable to both sides and not an argument.

In other words: What I did say was that YOUR IDEA SPECIFICALLY was bad unless you were willing to shit on canon which is generally thought to be undesirable, and then added that giving players established characters ON THE FIRST PLACE (before taking anything else into account, disregarding the rest of the argument for the moment) was bad because it made people come up with half assed explanations like that, which would be awkward for the table unless the players were godly roleplayers.

I am not , by the way

Frodo might have never left if Boromir hadn't tried to take the ring

I'm pretty sure he was thinking about it since the beginning.

I really need to re-read them.