I was just sitting here thinking of a personal experience and wondering if others had shared the same experience. Let me explain...
We play in 2nd edition and our campaigns (both that I DM and play in) often last for years. Our characters gain levels very slowly and so players develop a great deal of depth and attachment to their characters. My wife has a druid character (now 16th level) she's been playing for over twenty years. So, anyway, it behooves a player to create the most suitable character possible (since you'll likely be "stuck" with this character for a looong time). After much forethought, I decided to play a paladin named Sir Marcus. I imagined him to be the perfect fantasy incarnation of myself with all the cool traits and buff abilities I'd love to have. He's good and noble and chivalrous and... well, boring. I've had my iconic character for about ten years now and I'm torn between trudging along with him and wishing he would just meet with some fateful accident and free me of this burden. At the same time I created Sir Marcus I created a ranger named Briar. He was sorta intended to be Sir Marcus's sidekick and was developed as such. Now the elven archer has stolen the spotlight from my brave knight. Briar strives toward goodness and integrity but sometimes bows to temptation {"My arrow hit him in the back after he dropped his weapon and fled - oops!"). I've found, much to my chagrin, that my ranger is a much more accurate depiction of me and a lot more fun to play.
My question is this ... Have you ever been really excited about playing an iconic character only to be disappointed (or disallusioned) after a relatively short period of time - instead finding enjoyment in a less likely character?
No. Never happened to me.
Now... as for praying for good Sir Marcus' death. We'll have no more of that. If nothing else, you'd have to consider changing your avatar name. Maybe toss him an interesting template or inject corruption into a church organization he might answer to. If he was falsely branded a criminal by the very people he strove to help, then every loyal party member will be on the run with, and because of him. That's grabbing the spotlight back, eh?
Look at me, I'm trying to talk a fictional character down from the ledge.
Never has happened to me either.
Oh, and BTW, where did you get this thread's title from? I know that I've heard that somewhere...
EDIT: Oh yeah, its from the Wizard of Oz!
Jade, thanks for the interesting ideas! He's still my number one guy, it's just somewhat of a rivalry is starting to grow between him and his one-time underling, the ranger. Hmmm, might be shades of Star Wars. Anyway, I do have sort of a love/hate relationship with my noble paladin, unfortunately he's just not the kind of guy that you want to get stuck in a corner with at a party. Still, he is admirable and a good fighter.
*backs slowly away from the edge...*
I've never had this happen to me, but it did happen to a friend of mine very recently in the game I'm running. He was a wizard, who's motivation in the party was service to the party's leader (a fighter). The group met many hardships in the underdark, and the fighter apologized to the mage for putting him in the way of more danger than he'd ever expected, and released him from his service if he wanted to. When they reached the surface, the wizard had no in game motivations to stay with the party at all, and he left. He rejoined as a slightly lower level character under different circumstances later.
Assuming nothing like that can happen, consider this. Almost all of my characters start out iconic, and very set in their ways. I only ever had one character that stayed that way (A Jedi in a star wars game, which was really fun to play), the rest all slowly changed over time. As they experienced the real world, and grew in levels, they changed their perspective over time, many times more closely matching my own, as it is my out of game perspective of things that dictates what they perceive, in a sense. I'm not talking about metagaming here, I'm talking about the unavoidable fact that our characters are influenced by the way we think. So slowly over time, my characters change and grow, and I always have fun with the result. And I think that's the pinnacle of role playing.
So let marcus change and grow with new experiences. Just because he's stalwart and set in his ways now doesn't mean he can't ever change.
A traumatic event in the character's personal life, written into the game by your helpful DM, might shake up his paladinhood and turn his life upside down.
He could then emerge, not by losing his paladin status, but emerge as a rougher, grittier paladin, or whatever "new" personality you want to ascribe to him to make this character more fun to play.
I have always loved the thought of magic, so when I started playing one of the first classes I jumped into was a wizard. After playing the game for awhile as this wizard (3ed) I stopped. I didn't like the way the game made wizards. So I switched to playing sorcerers. The way I see wizards in my mind is more like a sorcerer in the game. So now when I'm not playing thieves, I usually play a sorcerer, usually with a level or two in fighter for the weapons.
A bit from my Hoarde
Dragonlvr,
Finally, someone who understands the intent of my original post! (though I do appreciate the tips for Sir Marcus).
If you don't mind sharing ... what specifically became distasteful to you about wizards that is so much more appealing with sorcerors (just curious)?
I have lost interest in characters before - but usually because of the game not the character - I tend to give mine a lot of backstory.
Not to answer on anyone elses behalf - but I hate the idea of the dependency on a collection of books - especially if you enforce the number of pages per spell and cost per page rules. The time requirement to make at least one complete backup set of spells, the cost, the logistics of carting around and protecting your "library" this doesn't fit my image of a wizard - love of books, knowledge, secrets yes - but the requiremnt to reference them daily - PLUS the way spells are allocated - you memorize 1 spell twice if you want to use it twice. I realize that this is language developed to describe a game mechanic, and maybe it would'nt chafe it the word were load up, lock in, lock'n'load, store, prep, or some such - but the way sorcerers have a repertoire they draw on (to me) feels more right with the fantasy archtype I carry around in my twisted little head.
That said - I think wizards are the more potent class - so if I was powergaming (which I don't) I think that would be the way to go especailly because of the bonus feats and the ability to specialize.
I have to agree with Kyr. I have just never agreed with the mechanics system for wizards in D&D. I don't like the thought of having to reference so many different books (which means scribing them and carrying the around at ALL times) to be able to cast spells as a wizard. I like the way the sorcerer has the magic at his beck and call at all times. Granted I believe that a sorcerer has to work to be able to get his spells, I don't play that they just pop into his head and one day he can cast fireball. I make my sorcerers study each spell before they add it to their lists. I do the same thing with feats too (as I've said in another post). In essence, its the sorcerer's ability to use any spell at anytime on his list that really makes me want to play it. I've never been big on metamagic feats or item creation (which is about all a wizard really needs to be getting feat-wise) so that aspect of the wizard doesn't appeal to me, but I do agree that wizard's are generally more spell heavy and powerful.
A bit from my Hoarde
Dragonlvr,
Finally, someone who understands the intent of my original post! (though I do appreciate the tips for Sir Marcus).
If you don't mind sharing ... what specifically became distasteful to you about wizards that is so much more appealing with sorcerors (just curious)?
It sounds like you have a really great character here Sir Marcus, maybe you just need him to "side step" for awhile.
Fighter for a lvl?
Cleric for a lvl?
"Sidestepping" in this way can open a huge can of roleplaying opportunities for you. It may seem like you know what being a cleric of your diety is like, (after all you already cast spells) but think of the big difference in mindset for a strait cleric and a paladin.
Just my thoughts - Rath