Do you consider that the classic fantasy tropes are there for a reason and play them? Is this satisfying?
Do you try to be different, and give your character a personality trait(s) against race/class stereotypes?
Do you start with set ideas for your characters' personalities, or do you let it grow over time with your experience of playing them?
Do you even want your characters to be remembered for their personalities?
Give examples of your characters if you like.
Personally I think I've got better at individualising my characters the more I've made (what a surprise!), but I'll put more effort in if I think I'm in danger of making a stereotype race/class combo. If I am the only character of a particular build around, then I'll happily play to the stereotype, at least initially, while I 'grow into' the character. Others I'll have a set quirk/feature/idea for to play from the start.
For example, my halfling sorcerer, whom we'll call 'N' in order to protect his anonymity, has a rather unfortunate inability to control the arcane power that flows through him, with the result that if he takes someone down to 0HP, he is incapable of doing non-lethal damage. As you can imagine, this has got him into trouble on several occasions (I believe he's wanted in at least one city for murder), but he grew up on the mean streets of Luskan and is incredibly good at getting out of sticky situations by trickery, hiding or outright lying.
He's certainly memorable, although sometimes in a bad way (there are a couple of characters who would like to wring his neck if they meet him again...)
(Disclaimer: I generally only play this character amongst the local group who are aware of this quirk. At a con where playing this trait to its fullest extent might result in failing the mod, I'd pick a different character, so as not to spoil everyone else's mod. It's only actually been an insurmountable issue once, and we'd already lost the mod by the time it was).
suffice to say though after a few level ups he became a 'bit better' :D
I even had the character refer to herself as a witch rather than a swarm druid.
So yeah, I was enjoying the witch of the wilds.
And then Dragon age released, introducing Morrigan a character that is forced on you and plays an optionally important role in the game. And she's been called a "Witch of the wilds" a few time in that game.
In a home game, playing the same PC with the same players all the time, I'd do it differently.
But in the setting I play in now, where it's rarely the same character or players twice in a row and the game only lasts 4 hours, the over-played quirk doesn't usually get a chance to be annoying.
For the inevitable character introductions portion of a con slot, I have this for my warforged barbarian. In as personality-less a voice as possible.
This unit is designated SM1T3. The great craftmanship of the ever wise dwarven people who understand that they are wise, and not strong, so they do not want their precious sons and daughters to rush into battle. Therefore, they created this unit and others like it to smash their enemies.
I play this rageblood barbarian with a very anti-barbarian personality - more of a bolo with the personality sanded off to bare battle reflex mode, if anything. Another quirk is that he has canned "all praise to the wisdom of the dwarves" and "anti-Gondian-cultist" speeches which he will desist on.... if instructed to by a dwarven PC. Normal dwarven enemies are a real problem...
Isn't the stark beauty of the night sky wondrous? Can't you feel it singing in your blood, for I feel it in mine...
Hava is another personality from another class grafted into a contrasting class character. He is a Dragonborn cosmic sorcerer, lost in the wonder of the cosmos.... Think, if you will, of a Dragonborn hippie Cthulu cultist. The personality is half-hippie, half-barbarian Dragonborn, and really rather fun.
That character is the one for which I dropped 75 gold during MINI1-1 on a roleplaying decision... In character, the riding horse made a lovely feast and then got dried into jerky, and the character's straight-faced explanation to the waitress of "Horses. Eyes on the side of the head. Prey animals..." left the judge trying to get her brain back together for several minutes.
The predatory nature of this character does make him potentially troublesome at tables where I don't know the other PLAYERS well, so easing into just how alien his perspective on things will be on non Embers tables with the known group will be an important part of playing him - he's more of a home campaign sort of personality, but the group I'm playing Embers with is able to deal with him so far, and I am willing to adjust personality (i'm an organic-growth sort of player rather than a planned-personality player, usually... SM1T3 being an important exception to that rule) to make the character work in a shared campaign.
Cheshire Cat- changeling assassin - randomly gives out pulp culture reference in his actions. Whether or not it actually exists in the FR, it kinda unknown. For example he will transform into a big green goliath and start smash.. err.. attempting to smash stuff. Or he will do a bit of acrobatics and say something like "In the name of the Moon, I will punish you". He switches though quickly to the trained killer perpective from his more jester like one.
Valdmire Triskavanski - Has a habbit of cutting off victems heads and using them as puppets. Might be because he is a Reverent Vestige Warlock, and a bit crazy. Abosolutly hates undead creatures. Also hates being told that the enemy is going to kill him. "Errr... I'm already dead." he will chime in. He also is a 3 or 4 foot tall gnoll looking creature.
Alaster Crowely- Pacifist Cleric. Always enters into fights with, "Please, lets not fight. Join us instead. Can't we all just get along? IF you continue this hostile action, you will be determind to be standing in the way of peace and my companions here don't like people who stand in the way of peace."
Basically, while he talks about wanting peace and stuff, small words here and there slip, showing a darker nature to him. But he will never kill a living thing.. and that makes him pure.
Spinning off from the 'what race/class combos are over-represented', I was wondering what RP ideas, techniques, quirks, mannerisms etc. people use to make their characters stand out from the crowd, if any?
I generally put something in the backstory of a character that I can use to
a) explain why she travels and
b) set her part from other characters in play
Things I have used:
- the girl with a crush on a major NPC (Valencia)
- the woman fleeing her overbearing mother, as wella s an arranged marriage (Tesh)
- the formerly evil character who is trying to redeem herself (Samantha)
- the person who always seeks the greatest risks (Araen)
Do you consider that the classic fantasy tropes are there for a reason and play them? Is this satisfying?
Thay can be, as long as they have a story that I can use to motivate them.
Do you try to be different, and give your character a personality trait(s) against race/class stereotypes?
While I try to make my characters different, I don't think they go against stereotypes. Samantha, as a fallen succubus, is pretty much a sterotype. Tesh, as a Tempus pladin, is tough as nails and only interested in armed conflict. Valencia, the wizard, always seeks out new lore.
They do have traits that sofdten the stereotype. Tesh actually likes children (even though she tries to deny it). Valencia was trained by a druid and is used to tough work on a farm. Samantha lies and cheats, but she can be quite brave, and isn't afraid to enter melee and kick behind if needed.
But in general it is mthe background that sets them apart.
Do you start with set ideas for your characters' personalities, or do you let it grow over time with your experience of playing them?
I generally have an idea, which develops in play. I,.e. most of Sam's past gets developed in play. Valencia's kind demeanor got a difefrent dimension when she wa dealing with people who harmed what she considered important.
Do you even want your characters to be remembered for their personalities?
I want them to be remembered as fun characters to be around. I think I generally succeed.
Thats aid, Smantha's complex beckground (and her 'redemtion list') are known by many players and DMs in the area, and that is fun as she can occasionally be introduced in a story in a unique way, or people end up helping her with her redemption (i.e. by telling her she is doing stuff she shouldn't be doing).
So yes, that can be fun.
Gomez
I'm not a huge fan of playing the stereotypes - everyone does them. Raise your hand if you've met a person playing a dwarf who (in character, of course) drinks incessantly, spends most of their time belittling the elf, are clad in plate and carry the biggest axe they can find? I'll wager most of your have raised your hands.
Back in LG, my highest level character was a refutation of everything that stereotype entailed. He was a dwarf who wore leather, wielded a rapier, wouldn't touch alcohol, and walked around clean-shaven. As a result, most people wanted to know his story.
That's the interesting thing to me right there - what's the story behind your stats? OK, fine, your elf archer can shoot the wings off a fly from two hundred paces. Why did he leave the forest in the first place? Wasn't he happy there? Why is he heading to Waterdeep this week, Calimshan the next, and stopping off in the Shadowfell sometime next month?
My 4E characters have been equally unusual. My first character was a human feylock who lost his family due to Amnian raiders. He called out to Chauntea to grant him the power to get revenge upon those who killed his family. What answered back was something far older than a god. He's slowly losing touch with his humanity, becoming something far greater...and losing touch with his sanity all the time.
My next was a halfling paladin (built because I liked the pre-gen from Escape from Sembia). He's slowly morphed over time to be a mighty dragonslayer, and prepared to do whatever needs to be done to triumph in the end (gotta love Unaligned paladins!). He's retained some hobbity features - he loves nothing more than a cup of tea and a good porkpie, but at the first hint of danger, he'll be the first into the fray.
I've also recently built a warforged invoker of Gond - Piety. He spends a great deal of his time finding ways to improve existing structures, automating them if possible. He's very mechanically inclined (given his race and his ideology). He has a natural inquisitiveness that is only tempered by his lack of knowledge on the natural world. He's been programmed with lots of data, but little practical experience for what it means. He's a Gondsman, in both name and form.
I've seen quite a few imaginative characters around here as well. How many halfling wild magic sorcerers have you seen - again, raise your hands. OK, now, how many of them have claimed to be Halaster? The guy playing him has not said whether his character is Halaster reborn or not (I believe even he isn't sure), but he plays him to the hilt, cackling about his current experiments, and gloating about his past successes (the recent developments with increased kobold sizes in Tymanther were apparently his doing).
In OP campaigns, I sometimes come in with a preconcieved idea on how this character will react in situations. Other times, I let events dictate what happens. In truth, it's probably a fairly even split - in a home campaign, I can write a background and the DM will do his best to utilize that information to personalize the story to my character. In LFR, for example, I can write all I want, but any story I write with my character will be ignored by the campaign at large. As a result, I tend not to invest heavily in a deep background for my characters.
That said, I'm now preparing to play the Embers series with a shadar-kai chain-fighting assassin, simply because I liked the miniature, and wanted to see how that would all play out. He's going to be sullen and withdrawn, coldly efficient. He will NOT come across as friendly. It'll be interesting to see how he develops.
In some cases, that means reason to travel. I.e. Tesh travels as a courier for her house, and her main motivation for joing adventures is to increase influence for her house through small deeds that gather favors from patrons and goodwill. She is limited to the Sea of Fallen Stars area though, to keep it logistically posisble.
In Samantha I managed to find an ideal reason to travel everywhere in the Realsm and even be at two places at the same time (should that ever be needed). Sam is gated to places all around the Realms by Sune, in order to do a good deed for every evil one of her own. These are almost always a startout for an adventure, and since Sune apparently wants Sam to participate, she does - grudgingly, at times. Consequently, Sam can join any party, anywhere, in the supposition that Sune forsaw that somewhere along the line, she will have the opportunity to pay her ' debt' .
Trying something similar with Aeran, who is a deva whose soul splintered after a traumatic death. As a consequence, there are three of her, travelling the Realms in various places until they are ready to rejoin again
Gomez
For instance, my male Firesoul Genasi Feypact Warlock has a slight "bravado" about himself. He'll do the "wink, pistol-finger" as an intimidate roll (for the guys) or as a Diplomacy (for the ladies....) He's just recently made it to level 11 and, because he's been "straying" from his Warlock powers (he's MC'd sorcerer and taken a couple of power swap feats), I'm giving him the Extra Manifestation - Voidsoul feat and he took the Scion of Absense PP. Basically, he feels like his fey patron has abandoned him (she hasn't) and will now start to slip into somber moods sometimes, when he makes use of Eldritch Blast or Eyebite, he'll make a half-hearted gesture for it, for instance.
My male Dragonborn Rogue (Artful Dodger) is very flamboyant and flippant, almost to the point of being non-heterosexual. But he's careful about making comments to other male characters, but every now and then, he slips up. At level 6, he MC'd into Assassin and is enjoying rubbing this into the faces of other Rogues he sometimes adventures with .. all in good fun, of course. (He just likes to hint that they are inferior to him now and he then tries to hide from them ... and fails, usually... sucky rolls.)
My female Watersoul Genasi Warlord is very tactically minded. She's only level 3, so I haven't played her much, but she's very serious and will argue tactics with another Warlord if one is in the party. So far, this hasn't happened yet. I think she's going to be almost like a drill sargeant (Knight's Move: "Hey! Move over there and get into position for a flank!" or Commander's Strike: "Since you like to swing that 'sword' around so much, why not swing it on this guy!")
My male Stormsoul Genasi Storm Sorcerer is also a serious minded character. He's very introspective, despite what you may or may not have heard about Genasi being lofty. He'll discuss philosophy till he's blue in the face.... oh, wait .... Stormsoul Genasi. Nevermind.
He does have a lighter side and will sometimes play small pranks, but only if there is a Gnome or Halfling around, so he can blame it on them. They usually accept the blame, though ... a good prank is a good prank and being known for a good prank is almost always topmost on a Gnome's mind ... sometimes same for a halfling...Which brings me to my newest character. My male Halfling Paladin of Garl Glittergold. He's in full plate with a scimitar and a heavy shield. He's *not* in the mood to take any crap about playing pranks. He'll wipe smiles off of faces *miles* aways from where he is. He's a very dark and brooding type. When asked why he worships Garl Glittergold but has the disposition of someone worshipping Lolth, he merely replied "No one suspects the Halfling worshipper of Garl to swing a Scimitar on them."
Just some of my characters. I have more but most of them haven't even been played yet.
My lawful good paladin of Amaunator / Purple Dragon Knight is Cormyrian nobility. He is brave and stalwart and speaks with an upper class 'British' accent "I say, old boy", that sort of thing. As a paladin of Amaunator he also utters prayers in battle - "You will suffer the Keeper's Wrath!"
For my orc warlord I use the 'Arnold Schwarzenegger' voice for his 'inspiring words' to the PC's - "Get up you veakling, the battle is not ofer!" or the ever popular "If it bleeds, we can kill it!"
My dwarf fighter ran away from the forge to join the circus and was later captured by pirates. He juggles throwing hammers (trained in acrobatics) and is prone to piratisms like "Avast me hardies" and "Shiver me timbers".
Cheers,
Carl.