Adding Characters Mid Game

Stories often need new characters.  Sometimes the directions a story needs to take requires someone to take it in that direction.  Sometimes there's a gap that needs filling in the party.  Games often need new players.  Sometimes people find that a game doesn't fit into their life or that the style isn't a great match, or sometimes, it's just time to expand.  But adding new characters requires thought and care so they don't get lost in the shuffle or find the game inaccessible because they don't have established connections.  There are a few guidelines to follow that help make sure that new characters are able to become part of the game and have a good experience while not taking too much focus from the ongoing narrative.

Build In Opportunities for Natural Additions

Ongoing games can be tricky to add characters to.  In a tabletop dungeon crawl, it's hard to justify a new adventurer just happening to be in the same dungeon on the same mission.  So it's important to think about potential openings and let those openings be part of the process of bringing in new players.  This generally requires a bit of pre-planning and may involve a bit of waiting.  Don't rush a new player in whenever, make it an event, and when planning out a plot structure, think about those events as part of the greater plot structure.

In my current LARP, there are a few structured times where new characters can come in, and these times represent narrative shifts to the world as a whole in a way that makes new characters something special.  Which brings up the next guideline.

Have the New Bring In Something New

New character should add something missing or new to an ongoing game.  Coming in without bringing something new can make things difficult for a new player.  How can they compete with established characters who have established connections that make them more involved in the ongoing narrative.  So the solution is to have new characters come in with new connections that are interesting an appealing and help them get involved.

This can be a matter of introducing a new plot, being part of a new faction that shakes up the status quo, or bringing some new direction or power to the table.  A character that other characters are intrigued by and see as something new is one that has a path into the game, allowing them to get involved without displacing established characters.  Because the secondary aspect of this is that new characters should not try to displace existing characters.  You don't want to overhighlight the new at the expense of the existing, but find ways to let both games be improved.

Create Connections to the Ongoing

One way to do this is to create character connections for new characters that link them to ongoing characters and plots.  Leaving backstory hooks open can be a good opportunity to bring in new characters as contacts, relations, friends, enemies, etc. of existing characters in a way that makes the addition of the new characters into an event for both.  This can be a way of working with existing players who may need hooking back into the plot, or activating loose plot threads that have been dropped. 

These connections help make things more natural for the incorporation of new characters.  It can be very difficult as a new player to make connections, but having that first connection can be very useful for building others, as that gives someone to give introductions and a bit of personal momentum towards relationships.

Don't Start Characters Behind

One thing that I have seen in a lot of games and that I disagree with vehemently is the idea of starting characters behind in experience or power.  The idea that all characters need to start at some base power level and that characters that have been in game will be more powerful is a sure method to make new characters feel irrelevant.  Because how could they be more useful or interesting than characters that are much more advanced than they are?

You can have a sliding scale that characters follow, so that they don't overpower existing PCs(there's a big difference in a point spend system between 100 XP spent 5 at a time over 2 years and 100 XP spent all at once), but new characters should not be penalized for being new.

All in all, the key to the guidelines is letting new characters be a tool to add narrative momentum to games, to help create new relationships and deepen or transform old ones, to bring in new information and to expand the community.  These are people who you want to be part of the game, make sure they feel welcome.