What was your favorite Role-playing character?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by the “Stupid D&D” thread…

What is/was your favorite role-playing character?

Mine was a Villians & Vigilantes character, Captain Invulnerable! He was a character with a strong zero-radius force field, adaptability powers, etc. that made him virtually indestructable. Hit him, no damage. Drop him in the sun - spend a point of power to adapt and take no damage. Fun!

Unfortunately, he had no offensive powers and was rather physically uninspiring. His public identy was as Myron Spitwhistle, an Accountant with all the attendent negative stereotypical characteristics.

His only offense was to hit for a D6 of damage, usually resulting in his being knocked back through five or six walls, only to stand up, brush off the cinderblocks and walk back into battle. Truly annoying to the generic bad guy.

2

Heh. Reminds me somewhat of one of my favourite characters. He was an accountant as well, boring as hell and completely and totally clueless. He did have the power of being ludicrously lucky though - He could stand in crossfire and not get hit once (to be fair I think my GM was overplaying the power as described, but who am I to complain :)).

It was humorous playing him. Unfortunately the campaign didn’t last very long.

3

I’ve got to say my favourite character, nay, my favourite GROUP of characters was our D&D Dragonlance game. That party had some good adventures, thanks to an awesome DM (Rob, if you’re reading YOU RULE!!!). Let’s see, we had two minotaurs (one played by me), a mage/cleric, a merlane (transmutist for animals IIRC), a kender, and a super-dog of sorts, created by the merlane. We also had a cross-dressing chariot driver as our sidekick. That party got into some insane adventures, wish we could play again.

About my character, Zapati Ogres-Bane. By the end he was a level 6 minotaur fighter. 2nd ed rules here. 20 STR, 20 CON, 3 CHR, etc. Yeah, he was a combat monster but he was good at it! :slight_smile: Some of his tales include sailing under an attacking pirate ship and sawing underneath to get to their treasure. Another close call came when the other minotaur fell to a group of ogres. He was at -1, and losing health. I decided to go in there and get him. I waded in, grabbed him, then started to KILL OGRES!! Everyone else was yelling for me to get him out of there, but I was in a bloodlust of sorts. By the time I got out of there he was at -9 and was barely saved.

4

My very first D&D character, a mage named Kael, is still my favorite. I’ve had him, and played him off and on in various campaings, for nearly 20 years now. He’s a sneaky little git who dresses in battered leathers (clothing, not armor, although it often passes for armor). People mistake him for a down-at-the-heels thief, which is the whole point. I started him when I was 11, playing in my older brother’s campaign (my parents’ night out overlapped with his gaming night, and he got stuck with me). Kael horded his one measly little magic missile for a whole adventure, then popped the big, bad wizard (right, maybe 6th level) with it. To give my brother credit, he played it straight–the wizard discounted Kael as a threat after that, allowing him to slip around and stick a poisoned dagger in the old boy’s back. :slight_smile:

He’s an archmage now, and he still sneaks around like a thief. He favors chain lightning and…novel…uses of walls of iron instead of a dagger these days, though.

5

One of my Rifts characters was a Crazy named Mad (in explanation, a Crazy is somebody who’s had their brain chemistry tweaked so give them better reflexes, strength, minor psychic ability, etc… at the expense of driving the character more and more insane with every level). His favorite weapon was a monster chainsaw with a medium laser mounted beneath the blade.

Eventually this guy developed a cleanliness obsession, a fear of cats, a fear of ashes, and became convinced that his abilities were only available during the nighttime, to the consternation of everybody else in the group (“What? I can’t carry THAT!”) since he insisted on carrying a backpack-mounted vacuum/blower everywhere instead of something useful like a jetpack.

Hehe. But that didn’t stop him from carving his way into a Death’s Head transport’s cockpit in mid-flight and pitching the pilots out the window, no sir. [evil grin]

6

I’d have to say my favorite character was Adder, a superhero with snake-themed powers. His first version was pretty weak–spent more time unconscious in battle than not. I rewrote him as a sort of brick over the summer and he rocked from that point on. It was always a rush to transform into a garder snake, slip into a base and then turn into the Midgaard serpent in the middle of an enemy meeting and then chuckle at the ensuing chaos…

7

My fav is still my first AD&D character, a thief name Slick. Man, that guy went through my brother’s campaign with our two friends (also brothers) for years. He got up to level 16, if I recall. The rest of the party? Let’s see…a fighter…another fighter…and a fighter mage. Real variety. Do you know haw hard it is to go into big combat knowing you have no healing other than a few measly potions? Yeesh.

8

Not sure which is my favorite, but I’d like to use this thread to ask for a moment of silence for my Dhagthu, the 2nd-level goblin thief (3e D&D) who died by a horde of dire rats last night. It was an inglorious death, marked by much chomping of rat teeth.

Dhagthu fought bravely. Well actually he stood in the back much of the time, but he did occasionally throw a dagger and managed to not hit anyone engaged in melee combat with the enemy. He was excellent at hiding, so good that even his own comrades could not penetrate his veil of shadows. His short life was marked by cries of “Skeletons!” and “Rats!” as he ran furiously back towards the tall ones who then had to finish the trouble he inadvertantly started.

Let’s all bow our heads and think of this great, though admittedly small and somewhat ape-like hero.

9

My favorite character was one I played about 10 years ago, named Sir Brane of the Mist. The guy was a dumbass (very poor rolls on his stats, but worst of all on his intelligence and charisma).

Sir Brane did not know the meaning of fail. Or caution. Or, in fact, the meaning of many other words including cup, ball, and cat. I had so much fun playing a guy who had no manners, no brains, and no real skills to speak of. He was always the first to talk smack, first to wind up sleeding onthe floor, and the first to complain about EVERYTHING. And to top it all off, the guy thought he was a genius.

Poor Sir Brane met his gallant end following up on rumors of a large band of monsters in the character’s home area. The rumors were false, obviously so to anyone with an ounce of brains. None of the other PC’s, for instance, beleived a word of it.

He discovered thier emcampment, and from a distance decided that they had to be bad guys. His glorious death in battle was only outweighed by the legend of his attempt to kill the king, who was out and about on a hunting trip. His rotting skull still hangs by the castle gates as a warning to anyone contemplating treason.

10

Podkayne raises a glass in memory of Dhagthu What good is a character that grows old and fat, I ask you?

My favorite characters have always been Amber characters. (You have to love your character. It’s in the rules.) My favorite character of all time was a certain shapeshifting Rebman assassin. His motivations were very simple–protect Queen & country, family, and friends, in that order. Despite that, the GM complained that he could never figure out what my character was going to do in any given situation. I think that’s because most of the usual Amber priorities (honor, power, self-preservation) are largely absent from the list.

Unfortunately, he grew old and fat, albeit after many unsuccessful attempts to lay down his life for his Queen. (Deliberately tripping Caine really should be a death sentence for a seventy-five point PC, shouldn’t it?)

11

I play mostly White Wolf’s Worlf of Darkness.

Jamie the Lupine Slayer A Bruja with silver tipped arrows and Celerity 4. The bitch could kill a Gauru before he ever got into the Umbra! A little fenagling with a Ravno’s and she got Fortitude too!And don’t forget how handy those Thaumatergic rituals can be for mass production of Servants and Shafts.
Once I mistook a Bastet for a Gauru,(If it sidesteps, it dies) and before I knew it, the Bruja had a Kahn on tap for the latest Rant. Wooo! What a fuckin’ party!Needless to say, the player didn’t appriate his cat being put in such a compromising place for an entire session, and of course he was set free afterward.
She was so well loved in my circles that when Mad Mad Mad Malkavian and Plaidman made thier rules for Malkavians, one used a phrase stolen from her: Thou shall not beget get with yon hairy, fuzzy warmongering bastards.
Of couse it was only fitting that she go down at the claws of the very fuzzies she hunted. Being the good Individualist she was, she threw herself at a war party to save her companions.
A nod also goes to ** Giles Vandermere** Mummy and Advocate for Humans everywhere. (Where’s those damn Mosquitos? I need mosqitoes! If you think this plan is going off without this potion you are crazy!)
I miss Jamie, but unlike some players, when a character dies, I leave them dead and do not resurect them for other games of the same genre.(Love ya Botch, but how many times does Jerrad have to die before he *stays * that way)

[Hyjack] Amber is a great game, but my ST was not as experienced as she could have been. Doing away with the dice is one of the best way of improving RPGs. And the Character driveness of the system allows for a richness not experienced in other games. A life story I wrote gave me XP not claimed by those who are more action driven. [/End hyjack]

Josh will see you at BASH! The Scourage will NOT proceed.

12

Mimsy were the Borogroves…

Wow! What a dictionary this game system must have…

13

Pip Goodberry, three feet of attitude. He’s a halfling acrobat/thief, strong as hell and twice the attitude.

He’s the orphan son of a travelling circus couple. He doesn’t wear armor, doesn’t use weapons, doesn’t ride a horse. The only thing he does is juggle- usually rocks- and sneak around. Oh, and piss people off. He worked best in 2E D&D.

And oh my god did he work well. There are ALWAYS rocks lying around, so he never had to worry about weapons. The rate of fire for rocks is three, four if the GM’s feeling generous- so he could have four attacks per round. At level three he killed three level 5 fighters before they even had a chance to get to him.

“Rock’sre better’n gold, 'cause rocks kin GIT ye gold!”

To date, he’s killed five campaigns. :slight_smile:

14

Ah, my most fun character was Ugruno (call him “Ug”) Balumo, a half-orc fighter (7th level by the time I retired him). He was a strange half-orc, the product of a romance between a human barbarian chief and the daughter of the neighboring orc tribe.

He played bongos and sang love songs and ballads badly. An unusually smart and wise orc (INT 14, WIS 16), he missed his calling as a cleric because of his love of things sharp, or alcoholic.

He belonged to a gang called the Ugly Boys, open only to characters with single-digit comeliness. His best pal was a half-ogre named Bahn Turkt, who was strong as an ox and almost as smart.

That was a fun campaign…

15

I always loved the medievalisms in Vampire – childe and childer for “child” and “children.” And caitiff, too.

My favourite character right now has never been played – I spent hours and hours working on a third-edition Elf druid – a combination I thought was long overdue – and I’m still waiting, after a year and a half, for the campaign to begin.

sigh

16

Anton, you priceless, priceless man.

Anton Misroi was a nightblade in a modified 2nd edition Rolemaster campaign. No “Standard System” for us, no sir! We loved our charts and tables. What’s that? You want to attack? No d20 compared to a thac0, not at all. Roll percentiles (rolling again in case of open-ended high or low, as appropriate), add offensive bonus, add other bonuses, subtract defensive bonus, subtract other penalities, cross-reference it with the armor type of the target on the chart specific to that weapon, find out the damage, and if a critical is done, roll percentiles for that and reference it on the specific type of critical table, making sure to read from the column indicated from the weapon chart.

Yeah, it took new players a while to get used to it, but after a few weeks, you could add two- and three-digit numbers with abandon. 87 for the roll, 152 offensive bonus, 30 for flank, 15 for point-blank, minus 100 for defensive bonus, 184, that’s 34 over the top, check the heavy crossbow table for armor type 18, see max damage for a top of 150, it repeats in increments of four, 34 / 4 is 8 and change, round that down to 8, the max damage was a 30E crit, so that’s 38 points of damage. Percentile again for the crit, check the puncture table, E column, and … yay! Twelve extra points of damage, bleeding at four a round for six rounds, neg ten to action …

It’s scary how naturally that came back to me, and how much it makes me miss those days.

Anton was a nightblade, a mage/assassin. His spells were movement/stealth/illusion/body enhancement oriented…

After four years of playing him on a weekly basis, I’ve got too many memories to pick out any specific ones.

17

My favorite character is probably the one I’m playing right now – Theolinn Stonearch, shield dwarven paladin, currently 10th level. He’s gruff, he has no social skills whatsoever, and he has a seriously low Charisma score for a paladin (12), but he’s got the proverbial heart of gold. He’s a walking keg of hit points, is as strong (and about half as smart) as a bull and he’s an absolute terror in combat. Love playing that guy.

But I gotta say that my favorite role-playing experience so far has been in one of our particular campaigns. We started this one as a way to blow off steam from our regular campaign – we went to the table with the express intention of making somewhat silly characters. And we ended up with what I like to call the SGC.

The Short Guy Campaign.

Thus named because only ONE of the characters was anything but a gnome, dwarf or halfling. One human ranger, one halfling necromancer (who ended up almost dying… y’see, he’d used his raven familiar for reconning an orcish fortress. The orcs on guard duty decided to take a shot at the familiar with a ballista, rolled a critical hit and turned the raven into a little cloud of black feathers), one halfling cleric of Avoreen, one dwarven fighter, and a gnomish barbarian. Musta looked like a third-grade field trip. I’ve never laughed so hard at the gaming table before or since.

18

Ino, I loved Rolemaster, too. Just couldn’t get others to hop on the bandwagon (the fact that a single combat too hours to resolve, and even creating characters was an all-night affair, didn’t help).

My favorite is hard to pick, as I’ve had many with many different personalities that I overplayed to the hilt. If I have to give one, it would be Tempus, my half-elf thief/mage. His spell selection was designed only to aid his thieving abilities (silence, grease, sleep, invisibility, charm, etc.) A typical session would go something like this.

Other PC: Can you go pick-pocket the keys from him?
Tempus: What do I look like, some common guttersnipe?! I’m a scout, dammit. I get into places, I get out of places, no one sees me. I don’t pick pockets.

or

Other PC: Our weapons are useless and the wizard is down. Don’t you have any magic to help.
Tempus: I carry a sword and a bow. Do I look like I have any offensive spells?
Other PC: Yeah, well you don’t use those either, so we were hoping.

19

I played in a GURPS Fantasy game in which the emissaries of various kingdoms (ie, the PCs) were to meet with the two kingdoms of Dwarves who were rumored to be heading towards war. They were to travel together and (supposedly) attempt to stave off the war, since most of the kingdoms lay between the two Dwarf lands. However, each of the emissaries was given secret orders. I played Guerhoth, a huge Orcish shaman from Thar. My orders (which the GM wrote out in monosyllables suitable for grunting) were to pick which Dwarven kingdom was most likely to win and offer Thar’s orcish hordes as mercenaries. In addition to gold, I was to ask for land, because Thar was frozen tundra barely suitable to sustain the orcs.
There were a lot of things I liked about Guerhoth. He kicked ass in combat, which is always nice. I bought up his intelligence, so he was quite smart, though he always played dumb, letting people underestimate him. His diplomacy skill was the best in the party. Also, his shamanic abilities were mostly geared towards making crops grow, and he had a great agronomy skill. That doesn’t sound very useful in a fantasy game, but he used it to great effect – Everywhere he’d go, he’d perform rituals in farmers fields, with impressive and visible results, so the people loved him despite him being a big smelly Orc.

In one instance, there was a town which had been taken over by an evil interloper, who used hired mercenaries to keep the populace in line. The other party members wanted to convince the farmers to rise up and fight, but Guerhoth said “No! No fight! When men fight, men die. Farmer fight, farmer die. No fight! We know boss have very little gold. We tell mercenaries their boss plan to cheat them. Tell them to ask for gold or they leave.” It worked; the mercenaries, being distrustful sorts, left in a huff. Guerhoth, out of the goodness of his heart (heh) offered to bring in orcish warriors to protect the town. The townsfolk were a little skeptical, but the orcs followed guerhoth’s instructions: The orcs kept to themselves, didn’t go into town, but townsfolk were always welcome to come to the orcish encampment, and take away as much grain as they needed. (There was, of course, an orcish shaman amongst the warriors, who had no trouble growing plenty of crops, since he was used to having to grow them in the icy tundra of Thar) As guerhoth had said, people may like those who protect them, but they love those that feed them. Eventually the town turned into a thriving orcish colony. In the course of the multi-year campaign, Guerhoth managed to convince a lot of places to allow orcs in, and once they were there they’d always make themselves useful to get a foothold, thus peopling the non-tundra lands with orcish tribes.

Sorry this is so long winded, but he was a lot of fun.

20

The summer after high school, my friend started a Rifts campaign that ran for close to five years. Rifts is this… well, imagine if the Fellowship of the Rings got into a fight with Great Cthulhu in the Mos Eisley cantina, and the whole thing was filmed as an anime. Add in the one of the most unwieldy and and leaden combat system this side of Rolemaster and enough rulebooks to fill the Library of Congress. I loved this game with an unbecoming passion.

Anyway, my character was Morvan D’Gant, an Ularian battlemage with aspirations of eventually being crowned Emperor of North America. Ularians were a race from some off-brand rulebook put out in an abortive attempt to open up the Palladium game liscence. They were about twelve feet tall, only partially bi-pedal, cover in thick fur, and had six-inch tusks. They looked, basically, like yetis on steroids. But they were also an intelligent, cultured, starfaring race.

Morvan played up the role of Big Stupid, despite the fact that he was the smartest character in the group by a country mile. He’d use the group’s psychic, who was human and fairly charismatic, as a front when dealing with NPCs. Eventually, he incorporated his adventuring party and set himself up as CEO. The rest of the group was cool with this, as it meant that they got paychecks from my character, so long as they did what he said. He later fired one of the other characters for gross incompetance. Pure roleplaying, of course. I checked with both the other player and the DM to make sure I wasn’t going to screw up the campaign. They were both all for it, but the campaign fell apart shortly there after for unrelated reasons. Morvan later showed up as an NPC in a few of my own games in that setting, handing out quests and such to the players.

Currently, my favorite character is from a D&D 3ed campaign with the same GM. Mazzir Daervum, the last prince of Kezek Ashaun. Mazzir is a dark elf, raised in a brutal, matriarchal society in the Abyss. He’s got certain… issues about women, although he worked through some of them by killing his entire family. Right now, he and his companions are conspiring to take over the criminal underground in Waterdeep. He’s starting small, cornering the narcotics market, and is looking to make inroads into slavery. Meanwhile, he’s started assassinating his superiors. Mazzir is easily the evilest character I’ve ever played, and he fits in so well with the rest of the party, which includes a half-orc Champion of Gruumsh, a necromancer, and a cleric/thief Priest of Mask. We consider a gaming session to be a failure if our characters don’t do something that totally creeps us out. Evil is fun.