Post/Author/DateTime	Post
†Aeolus† 10-02-07, 04:38 PM	Hi Aeolus! Meh, I think, I need advice or something like that... You know, I do love thinking about possible characters and build I'd like to play. Some of them even get played in campaigns, but after 1 or 2 sessions I get bored and then I want to play something different. It's not just the urge to play different classes, I also grow tired of my characters' backstory. And most of them were quite good, I think. Take my shy archeress, for example. I had a (in my oppinion) good background, a well-planned idea of what feats she'll take and all that stuff. One session after I rolled her actually up, I wanted to play a half-orcish battle-sorcerer (having Bull’s Strength and Cat's Grace and going for DD). The campaign shortly thereafter ended anyway (DM had personal problems..), so I got to play my Half-Orc. Today I got to look at 'Races of the Wild', and I fell in love with the Raptorans, planning to make one eventually.. So basically, I wanted to know, if there is a way to keep my motivation to play a character actually further than to level 6..
Wight_Chocolate 10-02-07, 05:07 PM	Play as a doppelganger with severe multiple personality disorder. Seriously though, (and by "seriously", I of course mean "assuming you can't find a DM that will allow this") this, in my experience, is not something that's easily rectified. Sometimes you just need to let yourself grow out of it. One thing you need to ask yourself is this, though. If, after one session, you get bored of a character and want to play something else, did you really enjoy playing as that character to begin with? If the answer is "no" (and it probably is) then you just need to think more deeply about what sort of character you really want. It's all too easy to see a new class or race and come up with some awesome-sounding concept for it...and it's also all too easy for such concepts to lose their novelty after half an hour of actually playing them. Do not think "I want to play this race and be this class and have these feats." Think of a character, a character as an entity with a personality and a feel and a life as in a work of fiction, not as a block of stats and background as in a game, that you will have fun playing as. Then work out the details. If the answer is "yes" then I don't know. Try Ritalin.
Radijs 10-02-07, 05:21 PM	Well a thing that works for me is to write a concept and personality that interest me. The whole race and class things start to fade into the background of a characters personality. And thats lasts a lot longer. And indeed what Wight said. Good solid advice.
Andorxor 10-02-07, 05:23 PM	Warn your DM and develop a way to swap your character without disturbing the story with him.
Wight_Chocolate 10-02-07, 05:26 PM	You might also want to consider the Factotum class detailed in the Dungeonscape book; the dream of ADHD&Ders everywhere most elegantly realised.
†Aeolus† 10-03-07, 08:15 AM	Hmm I think I'll really try making the character before the mechanics... hope that helps or something. Thanks..
steenan 10-03-07, 08:43 AM	One important thing that strongly affects how long you stay interested in the character you are playing is the backstory. And what I am talking about is not a simple "you should create a backstory". How the backstory is done matters much. If it is only the character's history, describing how he became what he is, it may satisfy a simulationist, but it will not help much. In a good backstory you need to define what are the character's goals and motivations. It is much easier to "feel" your character when you know what he aims for and what is important to him. When you play, it becomes important for you, too. And when you have important things to care for, connected to this character, you are much less likely to want to change the character.
aikimiller 10-03-07, 01:00 PM	I have a strange recomendation. Learn to DM. You say you get bored quickly with one character- well here's your chance to play every possible character you can think up, as well as every monster from the monster manual. You come up with interesting characters, but don't get too attached to them, which is ideal as a DM. seriously, give it a short. I'm the same way, I found I like to DM much better than I like playing, because it's more of a challenge.
†Aeolus† 10-03-07, 01:14 PM	Hmm. I'll ask my friends if they'd fancy a little test campaign.. Thanks for all the advice, I think I'll work on some campaign setting..
Phrennzy 10-03-07, 02:54 PM	Another thing to identify is WHY you become bored with your characters. I DM all the time. I finally had a chance to play, and I rolled a half-orc barbarian. Sounded great. Boring. And did WAY too much damage, and made the rest of the party feel left out or useless. And he was boring to roleplay, cause he was illiterate, and kinda angry, and rude, and it just wasn't fun. So the DM let me replace him with Randall, a human sorcerer. Oh, man, so much more fun for me. High charisma, smart - a party spokesman. It was a blast. I desgined him to aid the party - mage armor for the monk, grease for the rogue to Sneak Attack into, enlarge person for the monk (reach and extra damage for the win). It was enjoyable for everyone. Figure out WHY you grow bored. I will note that Randall didn't have any background. Nothing. I think that maybe his personality was simply an extension of me. But it was fun. More fun than playing Lurek, who had 6 pages of fiction as his background.
Voran 10-03-07, 05:41 PM	You have a few options in my opinion. They pretty much end up being out-of-game efforts, as opposed to how things can work out in-game. Its kinda like a relationship issue. Its like saying "I get bored dating the same girl more than a couple times. What can I do to make it more interesting so I can play around longer?" It suggests either you haven't found the 'right girl' or that you have some sorta underlying commitment issue that makes you presently incapable of sustaining a relationship. Now, I'm not passing judgement on either situation. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'not finding the right girl' or 'not capable of long term relationship', but in the context of the game, unless you're in a 1:1 thing with just you and the DM, you need to consider that you're playing with a group and your changes and patterns may impact the fun of the other players. Especially if other players/chars have gotten connected to your char. By keep switching it up, you run the risk the others in the playergroup will no longer care what you play, and effectively eliminate you from any plans they make, assuming (perhaps rightly so) that your char can't be counted on to even BE there, so why project long term RP plans? So anyhoo.. I'm thinking you need to figure out: Is this a "I haven't found the right <girl>" , a "I like making chars, but I don't actually like playing.", or a "I don't like playing <with this group>"
Wight_Chocolate 10-03-07, 05:45 PM	You have a few options in my opinion. They pretty much end up being out-of-game efforts, as opposed to how things can work out in-game. Its kinda like a relationship issue. Its like saying "I get bored dating the same girl more than a couple times. What can I do to make it more interesting so I can play around longer?" It suggests either you haven't found the 'right girl' or that you have some sorta underlying commitment issue that makes you presently incapable of sustaining a relationship. A sound analogy. Just do not take this to mean that you should start creating characters with whom you'd like to have a romantic relationship. This is Unhealthy Behaviour.
Holy_Beholder 10-03-07, 05:56 PM	I think that DMing is probably your best shot. Either that of finding a group that loves short one shot campaigns.
trapspringer 10-03-07, 06:25 PM	Archers are mechanically boring to play. You need to build a character with versatility and personality, in that order. A guy who has options on the battlefield, who takes advantage of his opponent's weakness, is a fun character to play.
FoulQ 10-03-07, 10:43 PM	Besides the obvious roleplaying/personality aspects, game-wise I think it would be best to play a full spellcaster (druid/cleric/sorcerer/wizard etc.). This will give you a lot more options on the battlefield and what to do and will probably make it funner with all the versatility. For personality, I believe steenan makes the best point. You should have goals and motivation. This might even help your DM! :cool:
TheJackOfSpades 10-04-07, 12:53 AM	First off, I would like to tell FoulQ that "funner" is not a word. The phrase would be "more fun". Second off, I would like to say that no, I am no grammar expert. He just stumbled upon the error that I constantly feel the need to correct. Now that that's out of the way; I have the same problem. I find it hard to believe yours is any worse than mine. I have literally played a different character per session for 5 sessions straight. This also ****** off my group. Big time. I find the biggest problem I have is that EVERYTIME I open a book I see something that looks sweet, and I have to play it. My group has actually joked (half-serious, I'm sure) about not letting me touch the books any more, because of this. Unfortunately, I know the rules better than the DM, and where to find the rules, and have more time to look them up without disrupting the game then the DM does. This lack of attention span actually carries over to when I try to DM, with new plot hooks getting thrown in the middle of a quest because they sound more fun than the current one. My best advice- Tell the group what's going on. Maybe they will be more understanding.
Meep326 10-04-07, 01:14 AM	I read the first couple posts, decided not to read the rest (too much to read, so late at night). I have a problem with this too, I've got 20-30 character concepts I wanna play right now, but no characters that are gonna leave a game soon. You could try DM'ing and then writing up whatever you wanted to play and 'test' it on the players (I did this... it scared mine :( CR 9's aren't ment to have 30 str and 26 con with no magic, 5 attacks all at the highest BAB, and be able to rip the two party tanks apart in one round each respectivly). There's a couple classes that'll work as well, Factotum (I think that's it) base class from Dungeonscape, or the Chemeleon PRC from Races of Destiny, as someone else said earlier with a Multiple Personality Disorder character, you can 'change' characters when you kinda want to, they both afford you lots of leeway in what your character can do. With the Chemeleon 'I wake up and decide I wanna cast, or I wanna sneak, or I wanna fight up front', at around 5th level in the PRC (around 10th or 11th overall) you can do two at the same time. With the Factotum, you get a bit more pliability, you can change your attack methods round by round with it, so much fun. I still really hate to play the same character week after week (especially casters), but I find that a goofy character concept, or even a outright stupid one (but still great), can liven things up.
metalmayhem80110 10-04-07, 04:17 AM	I can totally understand where you're coming from, I use to be like that too. What I found really helpful was to just make a character with a ridiculous amount of abilities (therefore a lot of options). Something like a Rogue 2/Psi Warrior 2/ Warlock 2/ and than start hitting splat prc's. Basically I would be a part caster, sneaky, and have a long lasting blast ability. I could switch parts in the group whenever I wanted to (from melee to casting to backstabbing) Druids work well for that too. You get to decide, well hmmm, nuke you with spells or charge you as a dire bear. It's a hard decision, but kept me entertained :D
MrCustomer 10-04-07, 01:19 PM	You keep trying to find an interesting character that will keep your interest? Some itresting combination of class/race/background that will keep camptivating you? There isn't one. Backgrounds and character concepts, regardless of if they are interesting, comical, intriguing, heroic, epic, complicated or simple, are really only the very smallest of beginings for any character. What really makes a character is how they grow and continue after you start playing them. This is what should be exciting. You are likely getting bored from a lack of change, thats what you really want is change. You therefore need your character to change as well. Someone below mentioned a half orc barbarian that was illiterate, rude, angry and did too much damage. This got boring as you can well expect. Why because dispite advancing in levels, adventuring with others, etc, the half orc barabarian was still dumb, rude and angry, he never changed. His background was 6 pages long, his subsequent adventures were 100s of pages and yet he was the same half orc? If you don't want to get bored playing such a character then change him. It's time the barbarian got civilized, took anger management lessens and learned some manners, got respectful. Could the Half Orc become interested in a religion? He hears the "word" and becomes so zealous in his beleifs that he takes his next class level in Cleric, learning how to write. His former barabarious ways are behind him and he uses his strengths as a melee class to back his divine powers. That is just one of many, many possibilities to make your character fresh again. This is what prestige classes are also for, to change the direction that your character is going in, making an old character into a fresh concept. Long backgrounds are not nearly as important as how your character grows and develops as you play
†Aeolus† 10-04-07, 02:47 PM	Wow, thanks for all the really good advice here. My exact problem is, that I quickly get bored with the abilities I can use. This doesn't only affect DnD, this is also true for Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic and many more games, that offer possibilities.. I guess, taking many different classes with one character helps a bit, but there would be two problems to occour: I'd be not that effective for anything and I also grow tired of classes I've already played (so playing a cleric once means I don't really want to play a cleric again..). Maybe I just have to overcome your inner temptations and force myself to keep playing my Orcish Sorcerer.. I'd like to thank you all (again) for your help..
R4za 10-04-07, 09:00 PM	Wow, thanks for all the really good advice here. My exact problem is, that I quickly get bored with the abilities I can use. This doesn't only affect DnD, this is also true for Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic and many more games, that offer possibilities.. I guess, taking many different classes with one character helps a bit, but there would be two problems to occour: I'd be not that effective for anything and I also grow tired of classes I've already played (so playing a cleric once means I don't really want to play a cleric again..). Maybe I just have to overcome your inner temptations and force myself to keep playing my Orcish Sorcerer.. I'd like to thank you all (again) for your help.. Hey, versatile characters can be some of the most effective in the game. You just don't do it by taking a level of everything. You could go factotum, like someone suggested, they can take pretty much any role... chameleon prestige class with it, and you're set. Or you could go for open-ended classes like artificer, wizard or achrivist, which could add many of the abilities you find in a new splatbook to their repertoire after creation - and getting them (the part you seem to enjoy most) would be done by playing them, rather than just writing it up.
Thubby 10-04-07, 09:20 PM	heres an idea, DON'T think out the character's progression, and keep the backstory as vague as possible. try playing that chameleon class thing from the races of destiny. i had that problem, i knew what my character would do and how he would be before i even finished writing it. so i ended up with a character that was 2 steps behind my idea. seeing your machine work is fun, staring at it for 3 hours is not.
Torack 10-05-07, 06:28 AM	The problem here is pretty self-evident. I've had the same problem in the past, but corrected for it after I realized its core issue. For me, and I'm guessing for everyone whose claimed to have these problems, the core issue was options. There are simply too many classes/prestige classes/spells/feats/skills and items out there for me to wrap my head around. I wanted to play everything all at once (This ofcourse is almost impossible to do). Basically I ended up with an option-overload dilemma. Here's how I solved it. First, I decided to look at what parts I really enjoyed and really hated about each character I had made uptil that point. To me it boiled down to the following list: - I liked my magic characters because they could cast spells - I liked my warrior characters because they could stand-toe-to-toe in a fight and get knocked. - I liked my stealthy characters because they had all these options that they could use all the time (in contrast to a caster). Things I didn't like were the fact that the warrior types couldn't cast spells, the magic types had sucky hitpoints and the stealthy characters were only fun in the beginning. After a while they all ended up boring as heck. So from here-on in I deduced that a) I didn't like playing stealthy characters as much as I had thought. b) I needed a class that could bring the pain both in terms of magic and in terms of raw melee power. So armed with that insight I had another look at the different books that dealt with the options and I made a list of all the classes/prestige classes that fell in line with my true desires. Having done that, I decided to play one and see how it went. Since then I never looked back, and am now capable of playing any character for any length of time as I kicked the option-overload habit.
Phrennzy 10-05-07, 11:40 AM	The problem here is pretty self-evident. I've had the same problem in the past, but corrected for it after I realized its core issue. For me, and I'm guessing for everyone whose claimed to have these problems, the core issue was options. There are simply too many classes/prestige classes/spells/feats/skills and items out there for me to wrap my head around. I wanted to play everything all at once (This ofcourse is almost impossible to do). Basically I ended up with an option-overload dilemma. Here's how I solved it. First, I decided to look at what parts I really enjoyed and really hated about each character I had made uptil that point. To me it boiled down to the following list: - I liked my magic characters because they could cast spells - I liked my warrior characters because they could stand-toe-to-toe in a fight and get knocked. - I liked my stealthy characters because they had all these options that they could use all the time (in contrast to a caster). Things I didn't like were the fact that the warrior types couldn't cast spells, the magic types had sucky hitpoints and the stealthy characters were only fun in the beginning. After a while they all ended up boring as heck. So from here-on in I deduced that a) I didn't like playing stealthy characters as much as I had thought. b) I needed a class that could bring the pain both in terms of magic and in terms of raw melee power. So armed with that insight I had another look at the different books that dealt with the options and I made a list of all the classes/prestige classes that fell in line with my true desires. Having done that, I decided to play one and see how it went. Since then I never looked back, and am now capable of playing any character for any length of time as I kicked the option-overload habit. Exactly. You have to know yourself. Your likes and dislikes. I NEED to play a character with a good charisma. Its what I have fun playing. I have to be able to use my brains and natural charisma in the game or its boring. The underlying problem with the half-orc was roleplaying his charisma. It was 6. That was the problem. Sticking to the ability score. (and originally, I was going to be a much more charming half-orc rogue with a higher charisma, but another player wanted the rogue spot. Dammit.)
EvilVegan 10-05-07, 12:32 PM	I know it was jokingly suggested, but it does work. Changeling rogue3/barbarian1/cleric1/Chameleon10/Master of Masks 5. Back story: multiple personality disorder / tribe of one (many souls fighting for control in one body) / super-spy . Pick 3 or so "characters" and play as those. Same basic character and stats, vastly different abilities from day to day. Starts fully realizing abilities at 6th, but the concept works at 1st level if you can RP well enough. I played this once and misjudged my capacity a bit too early, got killed first session (ok, it's not a good idea to bullrush a stone golem, but I only missed by 10 and I rolled a 7), but before I got killed it was crazy fun. Crazy. Also, DMing does help. Just make sure when you DM that you don't focus on building characters, nothing is more frustrating than having every character the PCs face is super detailed and always escapes.