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Sociopathic Character Background Help

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
merrshaulk
May 18, 2009 8:32:03 Yeah, as the title says, I'm having a little trouble coming up with a background for an emotionless gnomish character of mine. I have a few ideas, but no more. Normally character backgrounds are easy, as you just need to think about the motivations and personality traits of the individual and think about how they would have come about... In this case, there are no such traits or motivations. He's not really a sociopath, per se. Just unable to connect with or identify his emotions, and mildly confused about others feelings. Think Sai from Naruto.

Anyway, here's everything you might need to know:
Race: Whisper Gnome
Setting: Khoikheum, the default Pathfinder setting.
Classes: Gestalt build. Fighter 2/Cleric 7//Barbarian 1/Swordsage3/Rogue 5. In-game, he's just a pwerful melee combatant with a few unbelieveable skills and the ability to heal allies.
Personality: Kind of otherworldly, in a way. Doesn't really connect with the world or its inhabitants and has difficulty engaging with others. He can tell right from wrong and does think about other people's safety and the like, so there's no real sociopathy. More Alexithymia.

I have a few ideas, as there are a few things that keep cropping up on the character sheet (He has at least five different red crystals with varying effects, for example), but nothing more. All I've really got is that he's a wanderer and has just been exploring for most of his adult life. Yeah, I really need help with this one.
#2
disciple_of_juiblex
May 18, 2009 9:15:11 Im not familiar with pathfinder, though if they have forums you might consider posting there. so ill just give you some general ideas i guess.

Perhaps he was raised by cruel undead becuse their master thought of him as a pet and eventually entered the gnome into an arena contest for sport (this might explain his meele and antisocial nature)

Or he might have been raised in or was brought to the far realm where he spent many years, returning recently to the material plane. his mind warped from the experence.

Also he could be possesed by a demon who grants him his powers but is slowly chipping away at his morality.

Hope that helps.
#3
umcorian
May 18, 2009 9:42:21 Try thinking about one particular thing you want the DM and other players to hone into about the character.

If it's a lack of emotions, think of how that came to pass... and reverse the first 3 ideas that pop into your head, as they are most likely overdone/cliche.

1. Family got killed when he was young (cliche)
2. Raised in captivity, disciplined whenever he showed joy (cliche)
3. Was simply born without the capacity for emotion (boring)

Reversing those, I'm left with is a gnome who has a large, wonderfully loving family. He was once a very happy child, who lives/lived in a care-free environment as a background.

How does someone go from this to emotionless almost overnight?

Here's some ideas:

1. A priest's blessing/wizard's spell/friend's technological invention backfired, striking him suddenly with an inability to feel or empathize, as though his soul were ripped from his body. While he does not care that this has happened now, he drives himself to try and find a way to regain his emotions - knowing that until he 'feels' once more, that he's incomplete.

2. One day while frolicking in a meadow, he encountered a cave he'd never seen before. Whatever he saw or witnessed in the cave, he has no memory of. His next memory was staggering out of it - three months later - a totally jaded person who can neither feel joy nor hate. He knows, one day, he must return to face what he saw, but cannot bring himself to do so. The only time he feels any emotions is when he considers returning - total dread.

I think the above two are not overdone or cliche, and also provide your character with a little depth, as well as short and long term goals.
#4
yellowdingo
May 18, 2009 10:37:29 A Psychological Synopsis
As a 'Sociopath' he has spent his life confused by pretty much every event of possible significance in his life. He doesnt understand why people conduct themselves in such a way that isnt to their benefit in the long run. He sees errors in their logic where emotions like greed, hate, jelousy, cause them to hurt others and act irrationally. He finds stability in the logic of Law, not in the emotion of it. It also confuses him when even the lawful dont see that a law that guarantees the obligation of every citizen to participate as equals is better than one confines power to a ruling class who 'know better than the rest'.

If and when he does feel emotion - He feels despare at the suffering of the weak or the vulnerable, but fury and anger at those who cause the suffering. He probably gets nose-bleeds and headaches after long periods of anger and rage and doesnt sleep for one or two days in the aftermath.
#5
prator_the_golden
May 18, 2009 11:04:10 One easy way to do this is to make it so that his sociopathy is more biological than pathological.

Imagine this: due to a "defect" in his brain that has been with him since birth, many of the parts of his endocrine system that govern the experience of emotion just don't work properly. He is capable of feeling anger or sadness, but does not experience any of the proper biological symptoms associated with these feelings.

Once that biological reason is set, everything else is just a matter of figuring out how an "emotionless" character would interact with the world, and deciding his backstory from there. He could come from a happy, healthy, middle-class gnomish family, or he could have come up from the streets as "Heartless Harry," or he could have been raised by wolves in the forest. You choose whatever you like; just pick a setting, and try to envision how a character who does not feel would act in it.
#6
mellored
May 18, 2009 11:17:08 It's a cheap shot, but amnesia or other memory loss work great.

Had a happy child hood, doesn't remember 10 or so years of his life, is now a sociopath. Toss in some recurring dreams "it was the mask again, always the mask". Finding out what happened could be a quest.
#7
cheeseman
May 18, 2009 12:18:51 he could be a particularly troubled veteran of a nasty, brutal war
#8
arizonagoatee
May 18, 2009 13:51:45 To me, if you're asking for ideas on a character background, you actually want a story to tell. Having an malfunctioning endocrine system is not very dramatic. That being said, his condition could be the result of one or more traumatic events as a child. You've listed a few cliches you want to avoid, but there are a great many concepts to mine. Since D&D is played in a fantasy setting, you can really get creative here. Perhaps he was set under a severe curse, that anytime he found true love, that person would die a horrible death. After being widowed three times, he just doesn't care anymore. Or, perhaps when growing up, there was a malevolent spirit dwelling in the woods just outside of his village. The spirit spoke to him, and convinced him to do things, strange things, like dissect live frogs and cats. After committing enough of these bloody vivisections, and getting a huge rush (either from the spirit, or perhaps he's just slightly psychopathic), he finds it hard to become interested in mundane, day to day affairs. Finally, perhaps in his home culture, there was a religious sect of nihilist philosophers. Although he didn't join their faith, he got into enough discussions to see flaws in any belief system other than one of apathy and indifference. Hope these help.
#9
jacques_duloque
May 18, 2009 15:56:35 I actually have a character with a similar set up--roleplaying wise, if not mechanically. He's a sociopath in the sense of not really having emotions or defined identity; he's not a serial murderer or whatever.
#10
pluisjen
May 18, 2009 16:08:32 Usually these 'sociopaths' are simply people who have interested so wildly different from those of normal people that they look 'off'; the topic of their interest doesn't come up in normal conversation, they don't care about everything other people talk about, so they just say nothing and appear to have no feelings.

If I were you I'd give your guy some things that really, really interest him, but that don't come up a lot while talking to the king or the city guard, running around in forests or looting dungeons... but when it does come up, make him come alive, start telling stories and lose sense of his surroundings or assignments.

Maybe something like astronomy; it's not a daily thing or something you bring up randomly, but in fantasy it has meaning for those who know where to look.

Just have him idly scare at the sky in outdoor envirmonents; not paying attention to immediate surroundings and ambushes; stay up late to stare at the skies, try to stay close to windows when inside, be a bit shaky underground... but whenever a topic like 'the fates' comes up, have him start rambling stories about the stars, everyone's horoscope, and then drift off into far-off prophecies that have nothing to do with whatever the party was supposed to be doing.

That'll probably make him come off as sociopathic.
#11
jacques_duloque
May 18, 2009 17:11:45 Actually, not to be a DM-IV rules lawyer, but the way we've all been describing and discussing him suggest him to be more psychopathic than sociopathic. He views reality, obviously, in a far different manner than the rest of us, but he's no danger to others. (Sociopathy suggests malevolent behavior, physical and otherwise, towards others.)

Even though now they've replaced the term psycopathy with various, more specific, personality disorders.
#12
Mad_Jack
May 18, 2009 21:02:11 Mind Flayers.

Or Aboleths.

Something tried sucking out his brain or wiping his mind, and only got part of it. He's not actually missing any memories or reasoning ability, but he is missing most of the emotional connections associated with them, and doesn't always quite understand things like why abberations drive him into a homocidal rage, or why people think it's odd that he's followed so many wildly different paths (character classes) in his life.
His entire life since the attack has basically been an attempt to find his way back to being who he used to be - but not because of any deep emotional sense of loss. He's doing it simply because he believes it's something that a person in his situation should do, but doesn't quite know why.

Assuming the classes were taken in the order they were written...

Fighter - Originally trained as a warrior because he really didn't have any other ambitions in life after he was attacked. Or perhaps was attacked while defending his community from invaders. Eventually decided that mindless soldiering wasn't the way to find his way back to who he was.

Cleric - Found comfort in having something larger than himself to fill the hole within him. Then somehow lost his faith or came to the realization that he was just clutching at a false hope.

Barbarian - Having experienced a major setback with the (temporary?) loss of his faith, his inner turmoil bubbles to the surface, causing his rages.

Swordsage - Eventually learns to master his inner demons and confusion through meditation and training, regaining his faith in his god and in himself.

Rogue - Hmm, not entirely sure. One could explain it as simply a skill set or combat style, possibly an extension of his swordsage training if he's been training Shadow Hand, Desert Wind, or Setting Sun maneuvers...
#13
Enlightened1
May 19, 2009 1:48:43 He could be a magical experiment gone wrong, something that was not a gnome at all - or even sentient - but is now in his present form as a result of a polymorph ritual gone awry. So he's got the body and intelligence of a regular adult gnome, but the experience and basic personality of a bug or a log, or a lizard (or even a lump of unformed clay). This whole sentience and culture thing is just all so foreign and new.
#14
roninfrosty
May 19, 2009 22:36:05 More functioning sociopaths are able to recognize their sociopathy, and tend to try to "guess" how they're supposed to react emotionally to some situations.

For instance, a guy I know who I always call a sociopath is probably closer to borderline...I think he does have emotions and whatnot, but isn't sure how to react to them, so he watches others, and reacts as they do.
#15
gregt_314
May 20, 2009 1:59:30 I'm interested in this character in an abstract way - the title character for Dexter, for example, is a great idea of a sympathetic sociopath in literature.

But it sounds like a terrible idea for a character in an RPG, unless you're the only player.

Acknowledging Wikipedia isn't the highest possible academic source, I still quote (and I quote not as definitive proof but just to confirm we're talking about the same thing):

Psychopathy (IPA: /saɪˈkɒpəθi/) is a psychological construct that describes chronic immoral and antisocial behavior. The term is often used interchangeably with sociopathy. In the ICD-10 diagnosis criteria, the terms antisocial/dissocial personality disorder are used.
...
The psychopath is defined by a psychological gratification in criminal, sexual, or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes. Individuals with this disorder gain satisfaction through their antisocial behavior and lack remorse for their actions.

Diagnostic criteria (antisocial personality disorder):
Three or more of the following are required:

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

Diagnostic Criteria (dissocial personality disorder):

1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy.
2. Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations.
3. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.
4. Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
5. Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
6. Marked proneness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.
7. Persistent irritability.

It's really hard to see how a sociopath could provide any lasting positive contribution to a campaign in which they'll be required to interact with other player characters. It's also difficult to see how they could acquire long term goals, plan to pursue them, and then execute those plans.

Make sure you have your DM and all other players on your side before pursuing this kind of character concept.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 merrshaulk May 18, 2009 8:32:03	Yeah, as the title says, I'm having a little trouble coming up with a background for an emotionless gnomish character of mine. I have a few ideas, but no more. Normally character backgrounds are easy, as you just need to think about the motivations and personality traits of the individual and think about how they would have come about... In this case, there are no such traits or motivations. He's not really a sociopath, per se. Just unable to connect with or identify his emotions, and mildly confused about others feelings. Think Sai from Naruto. Anyway, here's everything you might need to know: Race: Whisper Gnome Setting: Khoikheum, the default Pathfinder setting. Classes: Gestalt build. Fighter 2/Cleric 7//Barbarian 1/Swordsage3/Rogue 5. In-game, he's just a pwerful melee combatant with a few unbelieveable skills and the ability to heal allies. Personality: Kind of otherworldly, in a way. Doesn't really connect with the world or its inhabitants and has difficulty engaging with others. He can tell right from wrong and does think about other people's safety and the like, so there's no real sociopathy. More Alexithymia. I have a few ideas, as there are a few things that keep cropping up on the character sheet (He has at least five different red crystals with varying effects, for example), but nothing more. All I've really got is that he's a wanderer and has just been exploring for most of his adult life. Yeah, I really need help with this one.
#2 disciple_of_juiblex May 18, 2009 9:15:11	Im not familiar with pathfinder, though if they have forums you might consider posting there. so ill just give you some general ideas i guess. Perhaps he was raised by cruel undead becuse their master thought of him as a pet and eventually entered the gnome into an arena contest for sport (this might explain his meele and antisocial nature) Or he might have been raised in or was brought to the far realm where he spent many years, returning recently to the material plane. his mind warped from the experence. Also he could be possesed by a demon who grants him his powers but is slowly chipping away at his morality. Hope that helps.
#3 umcorian May 18, 2009 9:42:21	Try thinking about one particular thing you want the DM and other players to hone into about the character. If it's a lack of emotions, think of how that came to pass... and reverse the first 3 ideas that pop into your head, as they are most likely overdone/cliche. 1. Family got killed when he was young (cliche) 2. Raised in captivity, disciplined whenever he showed joy (cliche) 3. Was simply born without the capacity for emotion (boring) Reversing those, I'm left with is a gnome who has a large, wonderfully loving family. He was once a very happy child, who lives/lived in a care-free environment as a background. How does someone go from this to emotionless almost overnight? Here's some ideas: 1. A priest's blessing/wizard's spell/friend's technological invention backfired, striking him suddenly with an inability to feel or empathize, as though his soul were ripped from his body. While he does not care that this has happened now, he drives himself to try and find a way to regain his emotions - knowing that until he 'feels' once more, that he's incomplete. 2. One day while frolicking in a meadow, he encountered a cave he'd never seen before. Whatever he saw or witnessed in the cave, he has no memory of. His next memory was staggering out of it - three months later - a totally jaded person who can neither feel joy nor hate. He knows, one day, he must return to face what he saw, but cannot bring himself to do so. The only time he feels any emotions is when he considers returning - total dread. I think the above two are not overdone or cliche, and also provide your character with a little depth, as well as short and long term goals.
#4 yellowdingo May 18, 2009 10:37:29	A Psychological Synopsis As a 'Sociopath' he has spent his life confused by pretty much every event of possible significance in his life. He doesnt understand why people conduct themselves in such a way that isnt to their benefit in the long run. He sees errors in their logic where emotions like greed, hate, jelousy, cause them to hurt others and act irrationally. He finds stability in the logic of Law, not in the emotion of it. It also confuses him when even the lawful dont see that a law that guarantees the obligation of every citizen to participate as equals is better than one confines power to a ruling class who 'know better than the rest'. If and when he does feel emotion - He feels despare at the suffering of the weak or the vulnerable, but fury and anger at those who cause the suffering. He probably gets nose-bleeds and headaches after long periods of anger and rage and doesnt sleep for one or two days in the aftermath.
#5 prator_the_golden May 18, 2009 11:04:10	One easy way to do this is to make it so that his sociopathy is more biological than pathological. Imagine this: due to a "defect" in his brain that has been with him since birth, many of the parts of his endocrine system that govern the experience of emotion just don't work properly. He is capable of feeling anger or sadness, but does not experience any of the proper biological symptoms associated with these feelings. Once that biological reason is set, everything else is just a matter of figuring out how an "emotionless" character would interact with the world, and deciding his backstory from there. He could come from a happy, healthy, middle-class gnomish family, or he could have come up from the streets as "Heartless Harry," or he could have been raised by wolves in the forest. You choose whatever you like; just pick a setting, and try to envision how a character who does not feel would act in it.
#6 mellored May 18, 2009 11:17:08	It's a cheap shot, but amnesia or other memory loss work great. Had a happy child hood, doesn't remember 10 or so years of his life, is now a sociopath. Toss in some recurring dreams "it was the mask again, always the mask". Finding out what happened could be a quest.
#7 cheeseman May 18, 2009 12:18:51	he could be a particularly troubled veteran of a nasty, brutal war
#8 arizonagoatee May 18, 2009 13:51:45	To me, if you're asking for ideas on a character background, you actually want a story to tell. Having an malfunctioning endocrine system is not very dramatic. That being said, his condition could be the result of one or more traumatic events as a child. You've listed a few cliches you want to avoid, but there are a great many concepts to mine. Since D&D is played in a fantasy setting, you can really get creative here. Perhaps he was set under a severe curse, that anytime he found true love, that person would die a horrible death. After being widowed three times, he just doesn't care anymore. Or, perhaps when growing up, there was a malevolent spirit dwelling in the woods just outside of his village. The spirit spoke to him, and convinced him to do things, strange things, like dissect live frogs and cats. After committing enough of these bloody vivisections, and getting a huge rush (either from the spirit, or perhaps he's just slightly psychopathic), he finds it hard to become interested in mundane, day to day affairs. Finally, perhaps in his home culture, there was a religious sect of nihilist philosophers. Although he didn't join their faith, he got into enough discussions to see flaws in any belief system other than one of apathy and indifference. Hope these help.
#9 jacques_duloque May 18, 2009 15:56:35	I actually have a character with a similar set up--roleplaying wise, if not mechanically. He's a sociopath in the sense of not really having emotions or defined identity; he's not a serial murderer or whatever.
#10 pluisjen May 18, 2009 16:08:32	Usually these 'sociopaths' are simply people who have interested so wildly different from those of normal people that they look 'off'; the topic of their interest doesn't come up in normal conversation, they don't care about everything other people talk about, so they just say nothing and appear to have no feelings. If I were you I'd give your guy some things that really, really interest him, but that don't come up a lot while talking to the king or the city guard, running around in forests or looting dungeons... but when it does come up, make him come alive, start telling stories and lose sense of his surroundings or assignments. Maybe something like astronomy; it's not a daily thing or something you bring up randomly, but in fantasy it has meaning for those who know where to look. Just have him idly scare at the sky in outdoor envirmonents; not paying attention to immediate surroundings and ambushes; stay up late to stare at the skies, try to stay close to windows when inside, be a bit shaky underground... but whenever a topic like 'the fates' comes up, have him start rambling stories about the stars, everyone's horoscope, and then drift off into far-off prophecies that have nothing to do with whatever the party was supposed to be doing. That'll probably make him come off as sociopathic.
#11 jacques_duloque May 18, 2009 17:11:45	Actually, not to be a DM-IV rules lawyer, but the way we've all been describing and discussing him suggest him to be more psychopathic than sociopathic. He views reality, obviously, in a far different manner than the rest of us, but he's no danger to others. (Sociopathy suggests malevolent behavior, physical and otherwise, towards others.) Even though now they've replaced the term psycopathy with various, more specific, personality disorders.
#12 Mad_Jack May 18, 2009 21:02:11	Mind Flayers. Or Aboleths. Something tried sucking out his brain or wiping his mind, and only got part of it. He's not actually missing any memories or reasoning ability, but he is missing most of the emotional connections associated with them, and doesn't always quite understand things like why abberations drive him into a homocidal rage, or why people think it's odd that he's followed so many wildly different paths (character classes) in his life. His entire life since the attack has basically been an attempt to find his way back to being who he used to be - but not because of any deep emotional sense of loss. He's doing it simply because he believes it's something that a person in his situation should do, but doesn't quite know why. Assuming the classes were taken in the order they were written... Fighter - Originally trained as a warrior because he really didn't have any other ambitions in life after he was attacked. Or perhaps was attacked while defending his community from invaders. Eventually decided that mindless soldiering wasn't the way to find his way back to who he was. Cleric - Found comfort in having something larger than himself to fill the hole within him. Then somehow lost his faith or came to the realization that he was just clutching at a false hope. Barbarian - Having experienced a major setback with the (temporary?) loss of his faith, his inner turmoil bubbles to the surface, causing his rages. Swordsage - Eventually learns to master his inner demons and confusion through meditation and training, regaining his faith in his god and in himself. Rogue - Hmm, not entirely sure. One could explain it as simply a skill set or combat style, possibly an extension of his swordsage training if he's been training Shadow Hand, Desert Wind, or Setting Sun maneuvers...
#13 Enlightened1 May 19, 2009 1:48:43	He could be a magical experiment gone wrong, something that was not a gnome at all - or even sentient - but is now in his present form as a result of a polymorph ritual gone awry. So he's got the body and intelligence of a regular adult gnome, but the experience and basic personality of a bug or a log, or a lizard (or even a lump of unformed clay). This whole sentience and culture thing is just all so foreign and new.
#14 roninfrosty May 19, 2009 22:36:05	More functioning sociopaths are able to recognize their sociopathy, and tend to try to "guess" how they're supposed to react emotionally to some situations. For instance, a guy I know who I always call a sociopath is probably closer to borderline...I think he does have emotions and whatnot, but isn't sure how to react to them, so he watches others, and reacts as they do.
#15 gregt_314 May 20, 2009 1:59:30	I'm interested in this character in an abstract way - the title character for Dexter, for example, is a great idea of a sympathetic sociopath in literature. But it sounds like a terrible idea for a character in an RPG, unless you're the only player. Acknowledging Wikipedia isn't the highest possible academic source, I still quote (and I quote not as definitive proof but just to confirm we're talking about the same thing): Psychopathy (IPA: /saɪˈkɒpəθi/) is a psychological construct that describes chronic immoral and antisocial behavior. The term is often used interchangeably with sociopathy. In the ICD-10 diagnosis criteria, the terms antisocial/dissocial personality disorder are used. ... The psychopath is defined by a psychological gratification in criminal, sexual, or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes. Individuals with this disorder gain satisfaction through their antisocial behavior and lack remorse for their actions. Diagnostic criteria (antisocial personality disorder): Three or more of the following are required: 1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest; 2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure; 3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead; 4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults; 5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others; 6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations; 7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. Diagnostic Criteria (dissocial personality disorder): 1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy. 2. Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations. 3. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships. 4. Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence. 5. Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment. 6. Marked proneness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict. 7. Persistent irritability. It's really hard to see how a sociopath could provide any lasting positive contribution to a campaign in which they'll be required to interact with other player characters. It's also difficult to see how they could acquire long term goals, plan to pursue them, and then execute those plans. Make sure you have your DM and all other players on your side before pursuing this kind of character concept.