Another lame gamer rant: Character Creation

The BBQ Pit
1

I am lucky to have found a small circle of friends to game with. I am privileged to game with some intelligent, talented people who are just plain good folks. But, as many gamers know, gamers are few and far between, so one cannot afford to be picky–particularly when players come in units: friends, roommates, couples, etc. And, even the World’s Most Perfect Gamer would probably piss me off eventually.

So, in order to avoid offending anyone I actually game with, and to blow off steam that really needs blowing off, and because I know there are some gamers around who will appreciate it:

Clues

–You cannot win the game.

You did not design a character which is head and shoulders more powerful than the rest of the PCs. You got exactly the same number of points at character creation as everyone else.

So do not tell me that your character could kick my character’s ass. For one thing, that sort of talk is dreadfully boring. Beating up the other PCs is not the point of the game, and the GM can at any time chose to introduce an arbitarily powerful NPC, up to and including the Lord your God, to mash your pitiful PC into paste, so no matter how cool you think your character is, you’re not that cool. For another thing, you’re wrong. But, see, I don’t feel like I have to tell you that every other week.

–A quirk does not constitute a personality.

Emphasizing a single unusual trait or choosing an extremist viewpoint to make your character distinct is annoying, if understandable, in a one-shot. In a campaign, it’s unbelievably lame.

–Constantly reminding everyone of your character’s quirk does not constitute role-playing.

Most characters have complex motivations. Most of them don’t react to every situation based on just one issue. And most players can roleplay without explaining their incredibly simplistic motivations to everybody every five minutes.

–You character is more than the words on your character sheet.

If I hear, “Well, I’m a [character class / profession / hobby enthusiast], so this is how I react to this situation that’s completely unrelated to my [character class / profession / hobby].” one more time, I’m going to strangle someone. Your character is supposed to be a human being (or other sentient entity), not a list of traits. And even if you do make a decision based on something on your character sheet, you don’t have to announce it to everyone, just so they can be impressed with your brilliant interpretation of your character.

–Have you ever played a character who didn’t think (s)he was the shit?

You only play two characters: yourself as the baddest-ass fighy-type in the universe, or yourself as the baddest-ass magic-type in the universe. Doesn’t that get boring after a few years?

I’ve never seen you play a character that wasn’t a conceited dickhead. Now, I know that you yourself are a conceited dickhead, but, hell, this is fantasy. Surely you can fake it. You’ve read books about people who aren’t assholes, haven’t you? Maybe even met a few IRL?

–We haven’t let you run a game in four years.

We don’t want to have to interact with a universe full of you.

Stop asking.

2

I feel your pain, Pod.

Munchkins know no age.

3

I want to be a vampyre golem mermaid coal-mining drag-racer with a super hadoken-shoryuken chi fireball attack! But it’s okay because I have low charisma.

4

Of course I rolled four natural twenties!

5

Excellent rant! I give it an 8.8, but only a 6.2 to non-gamers.

There’s one guy I game with, good player, nice person, really good GM. Except that all he ever plays are unusually tall male fighters. Seriously, only once has he ever played a character who was less than six feet tall, when the GM made him play a dwarf. A five foot six inch dwarf. And he has never, EVER played a wizard/thief/cleric/whatever or a woman. The personalities are usually distinct, and he really plays 'em to the hilt, with accents and everything. But they all boil down to big guys with swords. It’s a minor thing, not even really annoying, just…weird.

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Personally, I love playing the “flaws” in a character. For instance, I had a fighter with an 18 strength and a 3 in intelligence (on the standard 3d6 rolls). I didn’t emphasize how STRONG he was, I emphasized how dumb he was. The DM and I got together and decided just how I’d play him. While he was very friendly, he wasn’t completely housebroken, and had difficulty in understanding just why it was all right for everyone to grab shiny things during adventures, but it wasn’t all right for him to grab whatever he wanted at any time…like in town. In a shop. This was the source of much role-playing hilarity. Not just for the DM and me, but for EVERYONE in the group.

What I, personally, cannot stand is the person who insists on having a solo adventure while the rest of the group is twiddling its collective thumbs. If you want to go off adventuring by yourself, set it up with the DM, or go play a computer game. Some of us have time constraints, and in any case, it’s rude to ask everyone else to sit around for half an hour to an hour while you get everything sorted out.

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A work of beauty, Poddy…may I add to it?

I don’t game as much any more, but in my heyday:

–Regardless of your characters alignment, class, religion or personality quirks, you are not your character, so please. Bathe. (note, the vast majority of gamers DO have good personal grooming. Those few who don’t really, really don’t)

–**If it’s exotic and not on your character sheet: YOU DON’T HAVE IT. **And no, I’m not being hypocritical to say that his character DOES have a pin even though it’s not written down, but your character doesn’t have a +5 sword of Dragon Slaying when it’s not written down.

–When I’m GM, I follow the rules. If my NPCs can’t shoot Fireballs around a corner, neither can yours.

–And furthermore, the table rule is: The words on the page win. If there’s a dispute, we go to the rule book. If the situation’s in doubt, we vote. Whining won’t help, and only takes up table time.

–And even further, just because it doesn’t say that you CAN’T do it doesn’t mean you CAN. Everything not forbidden is not necessarily permitted.

–**Female gamers are uncommon, sadly. If you hit on one of the ones that show up again, I will hit on you. With the rule books. ** The females here are universally not here to be your “hot momma” (he really said that!)

–And in the same vein, snotty sexual comments from “your character” to “<her> character” will get your character anally raped multiple times by big hairy orcs in tutus. And I will make your character roll a D20 and on a 1-7, he’ll be shocked to find he ENJOYED it and wants more. And you’ll roll each time it happens. Now leave the ladies alone.

–Last one. Stop being a drama queen. I will not tailor every adventure around your character. You are not the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral…though I’m tempted from time to time. This adventure is not: YOU** [sub]and your band of helpers[/sub]. Try to steal the show one more time and…well remember those tutu wearing Orcs? They’ll have friends next time.**

Fenris

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But my old gm used to let me. Besides if you look at the ruling on page 642, heading2, paragraph 3, sentence 5 and apply it to the picure of the guy eating dinner in the double revised 124th edition players manual page 98 * I’m sure they meant to allow * me to use my persuade skills on the twig so that it will jump up and fly into the dragon’s brain. :wink:

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(Cracks knuckles, nods in assent to his aforementioned compatriates)

Player information may not, NOT, be utilized as character information. Dude, no, you DON’T happen to be carrying your fellow Gamer’s greatest physical weakness on your person ‘just in case’ of emergencies. You don’t KNOW him you’ve never MET him, and what the hell would you be carrying a canister of Zyklon-B around for at a museum opening anyway?!?!

TRY to take a few steps on your OWN to advance the plot. When I leave the next step up to your character, please refrain from having him/her a.) eating b.) using the toilet c.) reading a book d.) watching TV e.) sleeping, or otherwise performing activities that leave the rest of the gamers throwing me glances smacking of incredulous horror. NOTE: this applies unless I drop a hint that you are led to a certain disposition for accomplishing one of the mundane tasks–in which case:

If I drop a piece of information, DO SOMETHING WITH IT. GM’s worth their salt don’t just arbitrarily throw in useless information–If I lead you to believe you’re tired, try to work with me. There’s probably a reason I mentioned it. If I mention, “You know, you haven’t eaten in 35 hours, and the smell from the [INSERT ZORK ASTERISKS HERE] ITALIAN CAFE is making your mouth water,” don’t tell me you “don’t feel like Italian food.” The fact that it’s Italian doesn’t matter–it’s the CAFE where the next plot device will unfold. Fine, it’s a seafood shanty. It’s Bert’s Taco Palace. I don’t care, just GO.

Don’t get angry if you do somthing stupid and pay the price. Like was mentioned before, you wanna play tough guy? Be prepared to get your teeth kicked in if you’re messing with total strangers. And if this happens, don’t throw a tantrum–take your beating like the tough guy you are. Angrily picking up a magazine and pretending to be disinterested after you screw up only reveals your grade school desire to get attention, one way or another.

I agree with Lynn–my favorite players are those who go to great lengths to play their obstacles just as powerfully as their objectives. The greatest characters are those with great flaws–and the most interesting to interact with.

I’ve played hundreds of characters since 1985–and am still going.

Click Here.

I have several characters over there (as well as co-hosting the board)–and a core group of folks who feel the same way about the roleplaying.

Cool thread, Podkayne

10

It is SO hard to find a good gaming group. I always seem to fall in with either uncontrollable power-gamers or people who think role-playing means being a poseur with a stupid accent for 3 hours straight.

11

Now, now, while this can be very annoying and immature if taken too seriously, it can also lead to some friendly competition. Maybe you should call his bluff and challenge his character to a duel. He’ll think a bit more carefully when he’s got a matching pair of pretty scars adorning his cheeks.

Anyway…

It’s always been my opinion that people who roleplay should take acting classes. Several of them. Just find your local community college and sign up for a couple of semesters. You’ll find it extremely helpful both in creating a character and playing a character.

Or take a directing class… GM (or DM, depending on what you play) experience.

12

Another note:

Roleplaying is exactly like improv (ever watch Who’s Line Is It Anyway?). Other people provide you with material, and you go with it.

The aforementioned scenario with the restaurant is what is called “blocking” in improv… where someone gives you something to work with and you push it away. Perhaps you can institute a “no-blocking” rule… whoever consistently fails to act on a piece of given information loses experience, or something.

13

It could be worse. During the obligatory meet-the-other-PCs-at-the-inn phase in a recent game, I was moved to comment:

“<player’s name deleted>, do all your characters dress as though they’re auditioning for a strip show in Vegas?”

(Answer: no, Steve, only all the ones you’ve met…)

(The party consisted of two supernatural, exotic beauties, and me playing a human ranger with a 7 Charisma. Effectively, his name was “…oh yeah, now you mention it, there was some bloke with them…”)

14

Excellent gamer rants!

I’m currently GMing the following games, Vampire, Shadowrun, Alternity, and Warhammer roleplay. It is quite interesting to see how my players’ different characters behave from one game to another. My stronger role-players have characters that differ greatly while other players have characters that simply have different names from one campaign to the next. In the few games where I actually am allowed to play, I follow Lynn’s ideas to character creation. Playing flawed imperfect characters is a lot more fun. It’s really fun in a campaign where you can slowly bring the flaws out over time.

In one Alternity campaign I played a mechalus (think cyborg race) who was always the calm one in the group, always advocating for peaceful solutions to problems. So the group freaked out quite nicely when he suddenly tried to kill two mechalus that had been following the group. It turns out that he had been a programmed killer for government forces and now the government wants him mind wiped because they fear he’ll revert back to his old programming. His sudden personality change in dealing with this issue caused the party to became paranoid on several fronts providing some great role playing opportunities.

When I GM, I am reality and reality doesn’t care about what rule books say or what you have to say or how something at the time doesn’t seem logical. It was necssary to take such a stance early on to weed out the rules lawyers.

“Here on page 35, paragraph 2, section 403 it describes how a character can use this spell to breath in any environment!”

“Yes, but having fallen into a lava pit, your body has been turned to ash.”

“But I’m still breathing so I’m still alive!”

And the over analyzers

“A steel door drops down and seals off the hallway!”

“Steel? But this area isn’t native to any large ore deposits!”

“And yet, there it is.”

“They would have had to import the door over two hundred miles away from Thule, drag it down here, use pulleys to set it into place and all for the purpose of trapping us in this room? It doesn’t make sense.”

“The door is unmoved by your logic.”

The only way to succeed by being an all powerful GM though is to be consistently fair. It’s gotten to the point now where if an event happens that the players don’t like, they trust in me as the GM that there’s a reason for it and the reason will result in a fun evening, which really is the point of it all isn’t it?

15

I’ll add too, if I may…

Not everyone dresses like a tank. How many NPCs do you see walking around in full plate/class 7 kevlar? Not too damn many. They also don’t bristle with weapons, or cary 70 pounds of gear. So, when I decline armor for my character because he wouldn’t have any as a smugler who is posing as a merchant, don’t give me a hard time. When he doesn’t have any visible weapons, that does not mean that he’s unarmed, so let it go. When he keeps his luggage pared down to 15-20 pounds, so that he can move quickly if he needs to, do not complain because I don’t happen to have that chunk of moon rock/piece of slag that your character handed mine as a joke three game months ago.

sigh My present group is great, even about this…but I wish that more people wanted to play. We’ve only got one guy and three girls, and I’m worried that poor Andre is going to start to feel overwhelmed. :frowning:

16

Great gamer thread. Here’s a couple more for ya:

You know, I appreciate the fact that you want everything to be fair. But hunting up an obscure rule every five minutes slows gameplay down, and when that happens, everyone else gets fucking bored. If the GM wants to improvise a minor rule (“Well, the target is in shadows, so I think I’ll give you a -2 to hit.” “No way! Shadows only give a -1! Here, let me dig through the rule book for 15 minutes, and I’ll find the table that proves it!”)

Even worse than rules lawyers: Rules rapists. You know the type. The ones who try to use a loophole in the rules to blatently cheat (Like building cars in Car Wars without engines), then whine when called on it. Look genius, Common Sense and fairplay don’t have to be written down on paper to be in effect. Quit bitching.
Finally:

And no, you can’t sleep in your fucking armor, asshole.
Lynn: As a former min/maxer, I can’t describe to you the revelation I had, once I started playing point systems, that character flaws are fun. You don’t have to be the avitar of your profession to have a blast.

17

Ohmygod. I play with the female version of that on a regular basis. She has quit games because ‘Everybody’s talking to her and paying attention to her character and no one’s listening to mine’. Not my fault I’m better at this than you are. Maybe if all your characters weren’t half dressed simpering females with doe-eyes who sighed softly all the time no matter what type of character you were playing people might actually listen to your PC. Which reminds me…

No, the purpose of the game is not to get your character laid just so you can dazzle us [sub]read: make us all physically ill[/sub] all with your Danielle Steele idea of a love scene! Okay, so this is more of a PBeM annoyance, so it’s really just me that’s sitting over here gagging. But when a player asks me if a friend of theirs can play in my game so “You won’t have to come up with a lover for my character” it pisses me off. I didn’t build my plot around that character getting a piece of ass.

**Just because another PC thinks your character is a raving idiot does not mean that the player thinks you are. ** Get over yourself. It’s called roleplaying for a reason. If you can’t do it, you don’t belong in the game and maybe you really are a raving idiot.

The GM is GOD in this little world. Do not question my rulings. I don’t give a shit what it says on page 154. If you had read the whole book as well as the Powers/Disciplines/Gifts section you would have seen the part where it says “For the GM these are just guidelines. Feel free to create your own version of The World of Darkness/Amber/Middle Earth/Whatever.”

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I realize it’s cool that you’re willing to play your characters as having only the information they’ve learned, but dude. If I stop the game to tell you GM-to-player that you just did something stupid, JOT IT DOWN!

Two games ago, 2nd level D&D characters: “You open the door. In the room you see three undead, of a kind you’ve never seen before. They look kind of like zombies, only a LOT NASTIER.” The party proceeds to rush into the room. Three attacks by ghouls, three paralyzed PC’s, no Cure Paralysis. Party almost dies.

Last game: “You open the door. In the room you see three Orcs torturing a prisoner. Only they look really, really tough–like the Austrian bodybuilders of Orcdom, and they’re wearing full plate.” The party rushes into the room…

Later that same game: A PC sees some ghouls wandering down a corridor. He tries to sneak up on them to trap them behind a door. He’s wearing full plate… do ya think they’ll hear him coming?

There is no one class. We’re not playing Zork, here. Every module TSR ever published said “the party should have a mix of characters.” Just because the dwarven Bard chooses to carry a big honkin’ axe for show does NOT mean he’s threatening your fighter’s manliness and now you have to switch to playing a wizard because there are too many fighters.

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I should pick a fight in game with the character, because of something the player said out of game?

Uh. No.

20

Understand that we have to take turns. I understand about social anxiety, I understand about feelings of inadequacy, and that you worry that we think you are deadweight. But that dosen’t mean you have to be all things to all people–sometimes it is best to just sit back and let other people do theire thing. we sit back and let you do yours. Furthermore, when my charecter doing her thing blows a roll and is trying to turn failure into something funny don’t try and roll too, on the off chance you’ll get a natural 20 and upstage me.

We play a softball campagign. As long as we continue to amuse the GM we are probably not gonna die on any sort of permanent basis. So quite worring about dieing and start worrying about being entertaining. In this context, the best roleplaying comes from bad roles.

Don’t get mad at me for roleplaying If I am playing a charecter who has “coward” written all over him in big, bold, letters, who has the offensive abilities of a gnat, who turned down a gun because it scared him, all because he spent all his points on knowledge (knowledge that has been really useful) I am going to run from big scary monsters. There is no way around this. It is not “screwing the party.” Furthermore, if I am charmed, it is not my job to find little loopholes that effectivly make the charm moot. It is my job to play the charm up for all it is worth.
Have fun I swear, sometimes I don’t even know why you come to these things, when you get so depressed if you are not “winning” and you are too self-concious to act out.

I personally think that every gaming groups needs to have a copy of Honknar’s Story as a reminder that the best times come out of good playing and bad roles, never the opposite.

Johnney Angel