The Gaming Den

When you play a game, and you have to make a character up, who do you play?


Someone like yourself?
-Average guy? Average guy?

Someone unlike yourself?
-Short and cute? Play a tall monster?

Someone who you would want to be?
-A [proffession]?

Someone that you know?
-Indiana Jones?

etc. etc.

I find that while I try to make my character's different. They tend to all act the same or that certain characters act under a similar paradigm.

Myself, well, here's a few themes that run through at least 2 or 3 of my characters. I try to reuse characters as often as I can.

Some are, fairly non-violent, preferring to not get into the thick of combat, but being willing to do so if attacked or defending others. Avoiding killing enemies, and giving even fallen enemies respect. Most of my spell casters tend to act like this.

Others are me experimenting on how someone who I am not would be. Like, a spider; what do they see, and think about? Do they have philosophy like Charlotte? or are they ravenous predators like Shelob?

Others are brash, loud, have no problem getting into a melee, but are't going to be the type to just start one outside of a fighting area. Characters that have any melee ability are usually this. Exceptions being a spell caster that does something to allow them to be a fighter. Those people still tend to act like spell casters.

Usually, I play characters who have been doing their job for a while, because I've seriously been playing D&D longer than some people have been alive, who are teenagers. I started when I was in grade 4, some time in the late 80's. I feel like I've seen so much; and that's rubbed off on my characters. I find it really annoying to have to play a fresh faced naive young person over and over. I'm not that person, and I never really was that person.

When I do play I try to make characters that come to my mind. I start off with a central idea and expand the story from there, filling in the whos, whats, and whys. What that central idea is varies and is come up with only when I'm likely to play a game. Most DMs and people I've played with under never get to know these things because I haven't found a DM that lets me express these things or the groups I've been in metagames so much that the game becomes more about combat then the story actually is (main reason I don't like being a player). My "player" experiences actually have heavily tarnished the thought of playing instead of DMing for me.

Depends on the game and what I am wanting to play. There isn't really an "I want to be this character" moment for me, just the character that I am in the mood to try this time.

When I create a PC, I generally do one of three things.

1: Take myself, and change my beliefs and background until I have a mental construct I would find very interesting to roleplay.

2: Come up with a character in terms of what abilities I want, then build something interesting to explain them.

3: Throw out one of the character concepts I've played / thought about enough to roleplay with almost no preparation. I am very fond of playing characters that acquired magical power in exchange for a significant sacrifice of some kind. Also, I like characters who are insane or obsessed with something, but also are at least somewhat reasonable about it. This makes for some interesting internal conflicts, some of which are visible to other PCs.

In D&D, I have noted a habit of running characters who are sadistic/psychotic, but only do something nasty to someone else if they can justify it to themselves. Since these PCs also have moral codes they consciously adhere to and these codes include vague stipulations like "Don't be an unreasonable jerk.", they are sometimes frustrated with the lack of acceptable targets in the world and complain to their trusted friends.

shadzar wrote:Depends on the game and what I am wanting to play. There isn't really an "I want to be this character" moment for me, just the character that I am in the mood to try this time.

Are there any things that many of your characters are like?

Are they violent, or non-violent; are they kind, or brutal; etc, or etc? Do you tend to associate certain types of powers into different types of games, or characters?

Frank's section of AWoD on "character motivations" seemed to be very handy. I've seen some of those things that he mentioned, and with that list, it helps me understand both how I play, but also a little about how others play.

No, my character can range form anything literally depending on my mood at the time, and the game itself. I have played everything from the most evil to the most good.

sometimes I want to play the dumb fighter and just bash things, and other times the cleric with all the ancient religious knowledge to by Mr Smarty Pant of the party. It really depends on many contributing factors, the most of which is my mood, followed by the setting, group, etc.

Now odds are when I play a certain class, I get caught in a trap after a while of playing them the same. Fighters become a bit brawly, etc. But I try to curb my own personal stereotype play down when it happens and try to focus on this one character. So sometimes they are frail faighters that are just a bit lippy, others they are more like Vikings.

I usually play the straight man to my fellow party members' nutjobs / incompetents / backstabbers, which oddly enough mirrors our group's real life dynamic...

It's been a while since I had a group with whom I could let the RP beast out of the closet, so I tend to play myself. *sigh*

Sadly I have had only a handful of characters in long running campaigns.

But in general I tend to gravitate towards tactician/strategist positions within the PC party. I'm usually not the leader, but I'm usually the guy everyone will listen to when they want to win.

Notable takes on this theme were

• Enalias Galanodel, the elven wine-snob - the diviner and eyes of the group in the paranoid all-wizard party who attempted RttToEE. Managed to waste at least one entire session mapping a dungeon before we even sent the first Summon in while playing him.
• Silkworm Tao - my Champions character in the Silver City Six game. She had an adjustment power VPP based on insect chemical communications and did a bunch of crazy crazy buffs that let the whole team keep going and going. She also had trouble reconciling her abilities with her desire to stay human and have a normal life in the light of the setting's heavy transhumanism. She also had issues being the science character in the game where the overarching conspiracy ended up being mystical in nature - although the avatar of Khepri story arc settled most of that. (As an aside, my powergamer triumph in that game was convincing the GM that KS: Molerats and other Hive Mammals was totally applicable to the structure of the vampire catacombs)
• Jaren of Bogen Vale, a trickster cleric in the Crucible Adventurers Society D&D game. Basically a cleric archer without the archery himself, but that was okay because the PC party had two other archers plus the refugee from D20 modern with dual Colt .45s to soak up all those sweet sweet buff spells. In game, they actually called me the team "mechanic", as it was my job to keep all the damage engines running.
• "Hellstinger" - my first D&D 4e character in the Home Guard game. She was a laser cleric of Correleon. I learned that archer clerics weren't quite so good anymore. I also learned that the 4e skills went off the RNG pretty low level due to her min/maxed perception. The rotating DMs made the game a bit inconsistent and too short termed for her to develop a full personality beyond "misses elven homeland; detests the halfling", but due to being the primary healer and the only one who could win pre-errata skill challenges, she was usually the group leader.
• Thaqib the Firm - my current 4e character, in the 99 Problems Campaign, a psuedo-arabic, pseudo-oldskool D&D game. He's a righteous brand cleric, who was sent back by the Minister of Talheed to aid Umar the Watcher (the PC party Paladin) in retrieving the stolen Sauhagin temple offerings from the corpses of the first PC party, only to find that the first PC party had miraculously survived the Sauhagin counter-ambush. Between being the heavy armor guy in the all-thievery party and being a true believer amongst a group of mercenaries he really doesn't fit in. Yet between The Satin Rat's surprisingly effective (if highly unconventional) leadership and the realization that at least these thieves pray to Allah while the oncoming Sauhagin army are infidels who serve merely dark angels and unclean things that lie dreaming beneath the waves, he's performed admirably in keeping the party safe enough so that their crazy long-shot plan to gain allies in the war against the undead may yet work.
• Director Clarion - my character in the Forefront Champions flashback mystery men subplot game (aka the '58 game). While presumably a normal with a strong military background, he actually has superhuman skill levels in Tactics and Administration. This qualified him to be director of the Dead Letter Office. This is a mini-campaign, but the character design clearly shows my tendencies.

The big exceptions are

Tsai Cao - a character from a Feng Shui game many years ago. He was a conscious attempt to combine as many melodramatic hooks as possible into one character, and consequently ended up being the center of the campaign. The story was something like: in anger for his elders forbidding his courtship to a woman whom he did not know was a spy, he had uncovered the conspiracy of his family then killed his father in rage at the discovery that they weren't actually human, and wracked with remorse he fled his elder brother and the family enforcers, but not before they had poisoned him -- This is known as giving the GM plenty to work with. The game ended with him having "won" in that he had taken his father's place at the head of the conspiracy, but at the cost of having lost, slain or betrayed every family and friend he ever trusted.

My character in the main Forefront champions game, who you'll have to guess from reading the game log thread. This one has been an attempt at a stretch for me, and it hasn't always worked. The pseudo-historical setting has allowed me a crazy level of detail (knowing the record of the high school football team, plausible meta-geneology) and the very character-driven nature of that game has allowed me to do neat things, like have the character's adolescent quest for meaning latch on to Buddhism as The Answer, only to later reject it as "too much navel gazing" and have both these events due to an in-character romance and break up.

I play someone like myself, all powerful and able to manipulate space/time at will. The DM.

Seriously though, I seem to always get stuck with the bumbling farmboy-turned hobo or the diabolical overlord (Most likely from dming...) I think it has something to do with personality traits and the position of the moons of venus, but I seem to get those two. All the time.

Such as:
Rysh Dragonmarked: A half-silver dragon warblade with some items of time control (If I can get them) thrown in. Also, naive as shit. He can be asked "wanna go sleep with me?" And think "But I'm not tired..."

-Or-

Darius Townes: A vampire that never gets his hands dirty, so to speak. He uses cults and straight up spawn to do his bidding, then laughs at good people as he flees the scene. And they get eaten. And there is much rejoicing.

Judging Eagle wrote:I find that while I try to make my character's different. They tend to all act the same or that certain characters act under a similar paradigm.

I make my characters different when it comes to abilities - monk, spellcaster, fighter, rogue, bard, psion, whatever - and I try to give them different backstories and skills, but there are a few overarching traits that I haven't been able to shake.

[*]They're all female. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in roleplaying a guy. Anyone who has a problem with that can kiss my ass.

[*]My characters are all strangers/foreigners. It doesn't matter if it's an <insert race/culture here> stuck in <insert different race/culture here> land, a complete amnesiac (that was cool game), an orphan left at a monastery, a societal outcast left to wander aimlessly, an eccetric world-renown chef... There's always this hint of "you don't belong here." Maybe it's a subconscious desire to be special. I have no clue.

[*]I usually end up taking a leadership role in the party. I don't know if this is just me or not (I'm certainly willing to accept that it is). From my perspective, in the games we play, the other players tend to avoid creating details about their characters that gives the DM any plot hooks, and when they have - thus becoming front and center in the plot - the players usually back down and ask the DM to take over more of the direction of the game. One group of newbies we've played with didn't have this problem and it was cool to sit back and go with their flow.

[*]My characters have hobbies that are things I enjoy doing: cooking, reading, making jewelry, drawing, dancing, singing, etc. I attribute this to knowledge level - I would do a horrible job playing a character who fixes cars as a hobby because all I know about cars was from my high school boyfriend and Top Gear.

[*]My characters talk first, then kill you... Most of the time. I have a hard time with straight up killing something unless it's a matter of self-defense. Even my evil characters.

[*]A mental stat is first and foremost - sometimes it's a fabulous intuition and wisdom, other times it's super intelligent - I have problems with thoughtless characters. I've tried playing a couple, but it was a disaster for the party.

According to my DMs:

[*]Precision is key, both in combat and in planning. There is an innate importance to doing what needs to be done, and no more or less.

[*]My characters are subtle. Sometimes to the detriment of the DM who doesn't see the grandness of the master plan until it's fully sprung.

[*]My characters are all optimists - they always believe there's a way out.

[*]My characters are all "big picture" and focus on the long run.

[*]My characters all have a theme and style.

I also tend to prefer mystery/exploration games to oh-noes-the-world-is-gonna-cease-to-exist games. I prefer the ability to ramp up power more slowly across the course of the game while still making actual progress. The world-is-ending kind of games either power you up too fast, or they have long periods of going nowhere that totally suck.

Aside from all that...



I will play just about any race. I'll play any class (though in D&D I distinctly prefer Rogue). I'll play any culture. I'll play any alignment. Usually my character is based around something I thought was cool in a book or movie or somewhere.

I hate the gamer status quo so my natural impulse is to find out what EVERYONE ELSE is playing and take a non-disruptive 180-degree approach. I like taking on the tasks that your typical gamer isn't interested in; healing, diplomacy, what have you.

The Vonnegut quote of "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be" rings true for me. Unless I'm DMing, I derive no pleasure in playing sadistic or psychotic characters for extended periods of time.

My PCs are fashionable. Unless I decide that they aren't.

I usually wind up playing Wizards and Rogues. I don't think I've played a Cleric for any meaningful length of time since 2nd edition.

Like Maj and J_E, I have a couple of traits that I stick to.

• My PCs are male. When I GM though, the NPCs have a pretty even gender distribution. I consciously alternate the genders of major NPCs. i.e. "Okay, the most recent recurring NPC is female, the next one that crops up will probably be male unless that makes absolutely no sense."
• My characters are usually locals, and tend to be common races from the locale. This is because I'm most interested in the things my character will do and not what I am or where I'm from. Plus, we're all likely to be foreigners soon enough anyway.
• I may or may not be the recognized "party leader," but I'm almost always the cat-herder that tries to keep things thrusting in the general direction of progress. I am generally NOT the plot hook originator of lost siblings, gambling debts, or rival clans.
• My characters trend towards the magnificent bastard/swaggering braggart end of the spectrum. They're usually practical and often "ends justify the means" type people. My characters don't usually operate under a laundry list of arbitrary restrictions, though I rarely play strong good or strong evil.
• I frequently end up talking and negotiating, or leaping over the table and slaughtering people, in the opposite order expected by the DM. Not in a desire to muck things up, but in a legitimate decision as the best couse of action. I'll refuse quests and enthusiastically latch onto minor diversions for the same reason.
• I prefer to set out on an adventure to being thrust into one. That's just because one type lets me plan and try different approaches, where the other one can tend to be on fairly durable rails.

It varies for me. It largely depends on if I'm playing one-on-one or in a group, and what I've recently played.

One-on-one, I like to try something quite different each time, with no real limit on my choices. I like to make sure the character has an interesting backstory; one interesting enough to write all the plots needed (hopefully making the DM's life easier). If I'm playing in a group, I try to make sure the PC will fit in well (fill in any gaps, be on a similar power level, get along personality/alignment wise).

So, I don't have much limit on the classes that I'll play. As for personality, I find I tend toward lawful alignments more. Most evil PCs I run are in one-on-one games, not group games. Alignment aside, all of my PCs tend to have the same sense of humor as me. I have to really go out of my way to craft a different personality for me to really stick to it.

If it's my first time with a system, or I can't decide, I'll generally go with a ranged character type. Gunner, Archer, w/e.

If I know the system well enough I'll choose a type with a lot of skills. I tend to follow into a generalist while the rest of the party gets specialized into their ways.

If I'm being odd, I'll make a very ... quirky ... character. My favorite was a possessed, flying, bastard sword with severe depression. He (It?) was also obsessed with finding out who forged him.

I like to play what I feel! Though oftentimes I'm the odd one out of the group because I like to fiddle with unusual concepts of race, background and class combinations. The general rule of thumb for me is go by the Rule of Cool, and I sometimes have an unusual sense of cool. Then again so does everybody else here.

Nice thread rez. Might as well join in myself.



I'm pretty terrible at real acting. I can greatly amplify any one or two aspects of my own personality, but I can't significantly reduce or remove anything. Most of my characters end up being what I myself would like to be if I could get away with it.

Since I already have a lot of the mannerisms and history of a mad scientist (my job seriously involves designing and building giant robots), I can do a really good mad engineer/wizard. I can also pull off curious types (Tasselhoff the Kender, Indiana Jones) when I crank up the "what does this do?", and wise types (Obi-Wan, Fizban) if I make an effort to sound deep and meaningful. When I have a party that's good for RP, I can have a ton of fun with a wizard that's a bit neurotic/paranoid/delusional.

As for character builds, I make primary casters (Wizard, Archivist, Psion) whenever I can get away with it. When I can't get away with it, I go with the most tactically flexible thing I can find. In 3.5+splatbooks, for example, my favorite noncasters are pseudo-casters (warlock, swordsage) or SoD-effect-heavy melee combatants (trip attacks, stunlocks, grapple, fear, iaijutsu, etc).

I tend to play PbP more often than not nowadays, so most of my character ideas are just throwaways that may or may not have bits and pieces cobbled together from things I've read or seen.

*I have a habit of playing female characters, mainly from a milder form of Wesley Street's iconoclasm. I tend to find the concept that isn't done/fits the best with the game/balances out a 5 Man Band/4 Man Party. People don't normally play chicks were I come from, so I end up being the distaff counterpart.

*I like playing casters and characters with options. I try to sneak Tome material into whatever I can over playing straight 3.5 casters though.

*I tend to play in the background, offering comic relief and help for the other players. It helps keep the "munchkin" chants away.

*My characters tend to have some sort of connection to high-society or nobility in some form.

*My characters are always made kind of silly, but able to work well when things get tight.

*A lot of my character seeds come from shows I like, tweaked in ways that hide my sources somewhat. One of my favorite characters is/was a Human Conduit of the Lower Planes that ended up being a Cleric of Shar in an FR game. She was eternally chipper from having a bleak and wangsty childhood, above and beyond the call of good taste. However, she was Evil, so her good deeds were meant to spread despair and depression; as only from the depths of despair could man crawl out to true happiness. Marvel No-Prize from where I got the idea from.

Wesley Street wrote: The Vonnegut quote of "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be" rings true for me. Unless I'm DMing, I derive no pleasure in playing sadistic or psychotic characters for extended periods of time.

I ditto this. I played a quite evil char for some time and in the end was just waiting for him to get killed off.

I've always had a tendency to play damage dealing rogues. Until people pointed it out.

Wesley Street wrote:The Vonnegut quote of "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be" rings true for me. Unless I'm DMing, I derive no pleasure in playing sadistic or psychotic characters for extended periods of time.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "sadistic and psychotic" characters? Where do you draw the line when it comes to evil behavior as a PC?

I tend to play rakish rogues not of the rogue class but more of the mindset. they tend to be boisterous and often uncivilized with simple tastes and pleasures who more often than not will take the moral highroad and go out of their way to help others, for the self respect gained from such endeavors, and for the wonderful XP that comes from helping out. they also tend to be fairly indifferent where treasure and money are concerned, and they are almost always melee oriented non casters.

I tend to play powerful, idealistic forces for justice who have some sort of serious psychological or ethical quirk that prevents them from really being good at it.

I tend to play "monster characters" whenever I can. I also tend to play evil characters whenever I can. As in torturing people for information, starting race riots, stabbing angels in the face evil. But it's rare that "monster" and "evil" overlap on my characters, because that would be trite and cliched. I once played a Goblin Ranger that devoured opponents that had fallen in battle before him, but he wasn't running around the countryside eating peasants or anything like that.

I honestly love playing 'villain' characters. One of my favorite characters was a wizard/incantatrix that stayed polymorphed into a demon all day and had enlarge person up so that he could walk around huge size and claim to be a demon prince. Whenever anyone disagreed, he would just grapple rape them, Since nobody ever saw him in his natural form or saw him actually cast spells, the rest of the party stayed in character pretending that the character was an actual demon prince avatar leading them into battle.