Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rerecros 06-21-07, 11:08 PM	I would like to here about players who intentionally played an insane character. How did you go about it?
darkneolink 06-21-07, 11:35 PM	Well I had this NPC who was a gnome with Wis and Int really low in a nutshell... elves doesn't ecist... if he sees one it's a figment of his imagination Elf: excuse me sir Gnome: I wont speak to you Elf: why? Gnome: because I don't speak with figments of my imagination Party: huh? Well you can guess what happened next
Kouk 06-22-07, 02:02 AM	Try to be subtle about it. If you are a dangerous psychotic, the party will be quite tired after a short time of having you.
DrMorganes 06-22-07, 09:58 AM	Define "insane" first of all. More specifically, define the type of insanity your character suffers. Playing the Joker is unsuitable for any PC, ferinstance, but someone with a major phobia or obsessive compulsion may well make a memorable - and more importantly playable - character. Nab a copy of the DSM V (the book used by mental health professionals to help make a diagnosis) and get reading! :D Alternately, find a copy of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. TONS of good stuff in there on a wide range of things, including insanity. You and your DM will obviously need to work together on the mechanics (if any); any rules presented in the AD&D DMG will likely be incompatible with the 3.5 Edition ruleset.
zelf_gale 06-22-07, 12:00 PM	I find a well role played insane character by a player who does not hold his desire to role play over the desire of everyone else to have fun an acceptable addition to a party. Personally I think this makes insane characters often unacceptable when they have an Evil Alignment. Some in character ways to handle insane characters while preserving group enjoyment. Have the character become easily distracted by other PCs when the insane member is about to perform a self destructive act. "If I get the catapult to throw me past the giant, I can stab it from a flank since Joe's standing in front of it." explains Jack. Sue says, "Oooh look, a copper piece!" Jacks eyes glaze over as he forgets his plan. Have your character perform inner monologues during role playing encounters when needed to not screw over the party. "Why does the kings face look so funny?" thinks Jack. Have the DM work with you to create good results from otherwise insane decisions. Jack pushes you over the wall and says "I'll bet you'll bounce" right before the giant crushes the space you were in with a boulder. You land in pile of hay and hear Jack yell "See I was right!" (Note: This is almost always done better in small amounts with a great amount of comic flair.)
DonThelonious 06-23-07, 01:35 PM	I as a DM have had top deal with a player who insists on having insane characters. Mind you I'm not talking about simple phobic or ocd crazies, Im talking full blown 'American Psycho' crazy. And the thing is he fit really well into the group. The trick is to have the true crazy only come out in doses, like when he gets backed into a corner all alone, or when its just the PC in a given situation. Otherwise let his insanity be played out as more of comic relief. There are times when the whole group is together that would be suitable for the insanity to show, but keep these very limited.
Ayra 06-23-07, 07:38 PM	Be very subtle about it. We had a player in our group that took the alienist prc and slowly turned insane. Besides constantly having nightmares, he also had some other nice tricks. He was always very quiet, but occasionally at the exact right timing he just muttered something strange, made the whole party look at him and then just continue doing what he was doing. Then he looked into the water surface and saw his face slowly melting away (The DM said that). He shouted and the rest of the party ran towards him to find him sitting on the ground with his hands on his face, to make sure it was all still there. Another important aspect is to talk this through with your DM. You don't know how much your DM can help you. At least, this is what happened during an adventure with him where I was DMing: He got lost from the party and started strolling along the empty halls of a ruined underground complex. DM> You have reached the end of the hallway, where the path splits to the left and to the right. You spot a barely hidden chest against the northern wall about 50 feet into the left path. What do you do? Alienist> I follow the left path and examine the chest carefully. DM> You decide to go to the right. Alienist> No, I want to go to the LEFT DM> You are quite unsure what you should do, because you really want to go to the left as well. * Some seconds pass OOC* Alienist> And? DM> You stand there for around 1 minutes convincing yourself you want to go right. Or do you want to go right regardless? Alienist> No, I want to go to the left. DM> Are you sure? Alienist> Yes, absolutely. DM> 3 more minutes pass, but they feel to you as if they were merely seconds. You walk along the left path. You enter a large and empty room with some obscure markings on the wall. What do you do? Alienist> Where's the chest? DM> What chest?
Teh_Darkness 06-23-07, 10:21 PM	I once played a Gestalt Fighter/Wizard with Scizophrenia in which the alternate personality was a NE serial killer that was a Gestalt Assasin/Fighter (The Assassin was a 20lvl variant from some splat book..It wasnt the prestige class.) The DM basically choose when and where the the evil side would take over and the good side would be left in the shadows, usually taking hold in situations of extreme anxiety or anger. The character was kinda interesting in that the good personality was hunting for the man that violently killed his wife and children. (I think you can guess who killed them.) The trick to playing him well was that the the good character often displayed mannerisms of the evil side without realising it. Like fondling locks of hair his evil personality cut from his victims running in between his thumb and forefingers. And the evil personality was smart enough to lead his good personality leaving him clues for him to follow that only the good personality would notice. The ultimate twist was that the good personality truly didnt believe he was his families murderer on the surface because he repressed the memories as a form of denial. A little note of how truly twisted the evil personality was, He sang "Amazing Grace" while slaughtering clerics of Pelor in there own Cathedral. Thats one heck of an intimidate check.
Jaith 06-23-07, 10:25 PM	We had a character in our groop back in 3.0 who had multiple personality disorder. He was written up like any other character stat-wise, (If I recall correctly he was a Duergar psion/ranger that duel wielded heavy picks...) He also had profession baker... The fun part was what happened every morning when he woke up. The dm would role 2 d10. First d10 results would show alignment 1-LG 2-NG 3-CG 4-LN 5-TN 6-CN 7-LE 8-NE 9-CE 10-DM'S CHOICE The Second D10 would be a random quirk 1-Pyromaniac 2-Kleptomaniac 3-Racist(dm would determine the race that day) 4-Homosexual 5-God's gift to women 6-Obsessive Compulsive 7-Extreme ADHD 8-Extreme Paranoia 9-Sane 10-dm's choice IT was a lot of fun to watch him play that character.
Zicka 06-23-07, 11:24 PM	I played a schizio is that spelled right? anyway it was fun, I had 2 personalities, LG and CN. it was fairly fun
azoth72 06-24-07, 01:25 AM	I had a player one time who was obsessed with stealing everything that was shiny. Even worse off, she had a bag of holding with her. She wasted her time looting a battlefield of dead corpses taking everything shiny they had off of them and then throwing it into her bag. Her character also had crazy voices in her head that told her random things. She brought a lot of laughs to the game.
zzo38 06-24-07, 01:42 PM	We had a character in our groop back in 3.0 who had multiple personality disorder. He was written up like any other character stat-wise, (If I recall correctly he was a Duergar psion/ranger that duel wielded heavy picks...) He also had profession baker... The fun part was what happened every morning when he woke up. The dm would role 2 d10. First d10 results would show alignment 1-LG 2-NG 3-CG 4-LN 5-TN 6-CN 7-LE 8-NE 9-CE 10-DM'S CHOICE The Second D10 would be a random quirk 1-Pyromaniac 2-Kleptomaniac 3-Racist(dm would determine the race that day) 4-Homosexual 5-God's gift to women 6-Obsessive Compulsive 7-Extreme ADHD 8-Extreme Paranoia 9-Sane 10-dm's choice IT was a lot of fun to watch him play that character. This would make the game interesting, maybe also have some class abilities and stuff randomized as well, then you can play a different class on one day (but with the same equipment as always, so it might be hard unless you purchase more equipment)
Zousha_Omenohu 06-24-07, 05:52 PM	I think it would probably be more advisable for the character to play as a class where alignment restrictions are not an issue. If a paladin character wake up to a Chaotic Evil alignment in the morning, he's going to feel pretty impotent.
Paladin_Hiroshi 06-24-07, 06:46 PM	I play a Sorcerer level 3 , who is convinced that Nerull lives solely inside HIS HEAD. This is very amusing, especially when he gets into fights, usually because he is incredibly arrogant... Dwarf: You're in my seat. Caine: Oh? Dwarf: *Pulls out axe* Move. Caine: Oh right, very very sorry... *gets up and moves to the bar* Dwarf: *Mutters something under his breath* Caine: *SPINS ROUND AND THROWS SPEAR ACROSS THE ROOM* *WHACK* He then proceeded to shift the corpse over, take his seat back, and buy the corpse a drink. Best thing to do, is to be random without being too detrimental on the party. They're there to have fun too.
JellyPooga 06-24-07, 07:41 PM	Aren't most PCs insane? I mean, a bunch of guys and gals wandering around, seemingly at random, performing all manner of deadly "missions" whilst simultaneously trying to save the world (usually), all the while killing almost everything in sight that is not of their own race and culture, with little to no regard for those they have so righteously decided deserve to die in the name of , [insert city/nation here] and/or mums good old [insert regional dish here]. To top it all off, they obtain vast amounts of wealth every month of their lives, far more than any normal person could dream of accumulating in their entire lifetime and spend it not on comfortable living or investing it or anything, but on more equipment, most of which is primarily designed for the mass destruction of anything that even remotely happens to be between where they are and where they are going. If that's not some kind of insane, I don't know what is. At least the Bad Guy usually has a life (or un-life) plan that is in [I]some way constructive. Sorry about that...I've been overdue a rant for a while now...:P
WilwarinAndamar 06-24-07, 08:45 PM	One player wants to create a character named Harry Kari Potter on a Stick. He's a ventriloquist Wizard who speaks ONLY through a doll...on a stick. I'm letting her play it, too. :P
Gideon_Gideonson 06-25-07, 10:52 AM	I played a Multiple Personality Drow Wilder for a while: One LG, one CE. And the CE one hated the LG one, and they would argue for hours. The really interesting part was one PC's amazing solution. I was sitting there, arguing with myself about which way to go, when he came up and said "Kellan? Avalar? How about you two play the silent game? First one to talk loses." And, since Kellan Avalar always tried to outdo himself in everything, he was silent for two hours until his evil side could no longer constrain himself.
RobbyPants 06-25-07, 11:19 AM	I would like to here about players who intentionally played an insane character. How did you go about it? It really depends on what you're looking for. Sometimes, you don't even need game mechanics to help. Although, the Wisdom score can often be linked fairly well with sanity. I ran an interesting NPC back in a 3.0 game: he was a psion (kinetisist). So he had all these psionic powers (primarily involved with manipulating the world around him). The catch was that he didn't believe the world around him existed. He was trying to figure out if he was trapped in some sort of a semi-lucid dream (that he could somewhat control with his powers), or if he was the only thing that existed, period. So, basically, his whole life was a set of cruel experiments where he would do any number of wierd things to other people to see how they reacted, and to see if he could glean any further insight to his situation. He was fascinated by people who were powerful enough to resist him, and always wanted to know why. Did they too exist? Had he just not learned how to control that part of his dream? Was he falsely limiting himself? So if he ran into some strong resistance, he'd be even more determined to try to gain control over them! It was a really interesting idea for the villian. The PCs were baffleled by him at first, as he wasn't a "typical" evil. Really, the most "evil" thing about him was his utterly selfish nature in not thinking that others existed. He'd best be described as a sociopath, who lacked the ability to empathise with others, or to realize that he was hurting people.
RealSorceror 06-25-07, 12:07 PM	The only truly insane character I've ever played was Famine, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocolypse (in his defense, the other three are also a few gp short of a full purse). His most depraved act was to rip a Cleric of Pelor and Kord in half, and use their disembowled corpses as hand puppets. The following conversation ensued: Famine (as Pelor): Hey puppet-pal Kord, you think theres any bears in that cave? Famine (as Kord): I do not know, puppet-pal Pelor, I think we should go check it out! Famine (as bear): Rarrarr! (bites neck of dead Cleric) It was the funniest thing evar, despite the fact that a church was on fire and dead people where everywhere. Ah, good times. :D Btw, the Four Horsemen templates we used are the most ripped non-epic things I've ever seen.
Namation 06-25-07, 12:46 PM	The key to playing an insane character is in making it interesting without annoying the rest of the party. I once played a gnomish bard who was convinced he wasn’t a gnome at all, in-fact he thought he was a human, a rather tall one at that. He would even go as far as to duck when going through doors and he always complained about how his armour was to small and he needed to get it refitted, whenever someone would reefer to him as the gnome, he would promptly dismiss them as insane, and thus the party had quickly found it easier to simply pretend he was a human. The funniest episode i had with the guy happened in a bar while the party was looking for information - The parties fighter, an alcoholic who had ended up turning undead and thus could no longer get drunk, yelled out the immortal words "Drink's are on the gnome!" a small practical joke to be sure, but when my character noticed no gnome was complaining – He immediately went by the ancient saying of “He who does not speak – Concurs” so needless to say he started drinking - A couple of hours later everyone was hammered the taverns stocks of beer were empty and thus people decided to go to bed, it wasn’t until the next day that my “character” to his horror discovered that that awful gnome had pegged his enormous debt on him! The party promptly skipped town. Fearing for their lives and the enormous amount of dishes they would have to clean to pay of the debt. Funny thing - he never really did find out he was the guy who pegged the debt on himself.
Namation 06-25-07, 12:59 PM	Double Post - Sorry.