Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me. I was talking to my friend I play with and we were talking about are group and stuff and he said I am playing the same person just a different class and I really don’t mean to and don’t want to. The only difference he said was my first one was evil and my second wasn’t.
Character number 1
Haun lvl 15 rogue
Cocky, Evil, Greedy guy and he hates everything life sucked for him so life is going to have to suck for all the rich people that made his life bad.
Character number 2
Raistalin lvl 12 sorcerer
Cocky, Good, Power hungry 17 year old kid who just wants to be the best and help people.
I don’t think there the same but can you guys tell me maybe how to play them different or change there persona not so much but enough I don’t know what to do I have been playing for three years and I guess its just I found a habit that I cant get out of HELP!
Have you written up any background material on your character? I always get my players to write up a few paragraphs of background, including any interesting character traits (i.e., things they can use for roleplaying). I also find that giving them character development questions to think about after each game session keeps them thinking about their characters. One of my players has a rogue who grew up in an orphanage and was always getting beat on by the bigger kids. He plays his character as really jumpy--little things, like always checking behind him, always sitting with his back to a wall. These aren't huge things, but he's consistent about it, and it didn't take very long for everyone to get the idea about what this particular character is about.
If you've already done a background, try to pick out a couple of things in there and imagine what kind of person that background would create, and try to think of ways to work that into how you play the character.
If you haven't done a detailed background, I can post some of the questions I use to get my players started...let me know if that would help.
--Fang
No, that doesn't sound similar at all. They have one common factor (being cocky) in about three or four. They are completely different in statistical capabilities... so yes, you're playing the same character, but they're completely different. What?
Don't sweat it. Just have fun. While it can sometimes be fun to play someone who is completely antithetical to your true beliefs, typically there's at least a little bit of you that shines through in every character, making them somewhat similar.
Oh, and the more background story, the better. Two characters ago in a friend's campaign, I wrote up a five page description of my character's history, background, appearance, goals, affilliations, and plothooks that I wouldn't mind seeing the DM using. It was a gold mine for my DM, until that character kicked the bucket.
Thanks guys, and I would love to do your question list Fang.
Ok Haun's background story is easy in the world I play in Kinku are taking over the whole world and where Haun came from it is in constant war since he was a wee elf he is Japanese and the only way to make money and stay alive was to steal and kill anybody that posed a threat it wasn’t personal or evil it was life well he saved up enough money to buy him and his whole family a trip on a boat to Celtland where the war hasn’t been yet and everything is peaceful. Well sadly to say the boat crashed and everybody he loved and knew died in it. He lived though, and met the group that very morning since then everyone seems to think him evil, selfish, and greedy and when he wants to torture kinku (that they have been finding) it’s not ok, so yes he is evil but he has a good reason if ever there were one.
Raisalin is easy he is a quarter green dragon and a quarter succubus but looks completely like a human (he is getting powers that deal with his eyes shocking with lighting when he is mad, and him doing more lighting damage and so on) that green dragon and that scubas were sent to were he was born to live for eternity in Aroichs plane of prison which Raistlin left because he was constantly beat up by all the fighter-barbarian tribes he lived with and he was an outcast whose only friend was his familiar Tanis his Hawk and now he is on a journey with new people he just ran into.
That’s there stories and Thank you guys both for the feedback I really appreciate it and would love more from you g
Yeah, I guess torturing the critters would be evil. But just wanting to wipe them from the face of the earth wouldn't be. As for character development questions, I come at this from a writing background, and as a DM, one of the things I love is to see how my players develop their characters. I try to nudge them along by using the same kinds of questions I use to define my characters when I'm working on a novel. Here are a few to get you started:
--a page or so of background, including things that I (the DM) can use as adventure hooks, and also things that will affect how you roleplay your character (example--one of my favorite characters that I played was terrified of water--any water, wouldn't take a bath, had a ring of sustenance so he wouldn't even have to drink the nasty stuff...)
--what does your character look like? If I was out cruising the local dungeon and ran into him, what would I see?
--does your character have a personal possession that means a lot to him? What is it and why is it important?
--what is your character's earliest memory?
--what things in your character's life drove him to choose his class?
--what are your character's goals in life?
--what is your character most afraid of? (this doesn't have to be a "phobia" it can be something like, looking stupid in front of others or someone finding out some secret about him.)
--what, if anything, would your character be willing to die for?
--what, if anything, does your character like best about himself?
--what is your character's attitude towards money?
--if your character suddenly hit the mother of all dragon hoards, what would he do with his newfound wealth?
--what sort of moral compass guides your character? who were his role models? is there anything he will not do under any circumstances?
I usually ask my players to try to do at least a paragraph for each one (and I'm often surprised when I get 2-3 page answers--for a bunch of guys who say they hate to write, they sure do have a lot to say!) (of course, the fact that I give them bonus xp for doing it probably doesn't hurt!).
Hope this helps!
--Fang
As a DM I always had my players write a background for their characters. It's not just a nice idea; it really is as vital as rolling out stats. There was a random NPC personality generator in the 2nd Edition DM book that I still use for new players to give them ideas for the range of emotions, traits, and other characteristics.
Currently I'm playing a elven neutral paladin whose left handed, a vegetarian, hates injustice, a little vain, loyal, et cetera with a whole background on why she is the way she is. This not only makes the character more fun to play but gives my DM loads of ammunition to make better more relevant campaigns.
Thanks you guys i will use all your wonderful ideas to help get to know my to guys more thanks really!
Its funny how we unintentionally fall back into certain characters..
character I played in Star wars..
Scoundrel 2/Soldier 2/Jedi Consoler 3..
likes to live life dangerously, fond of using grenades and blasters instead of his lightsaber, relies on luck a lot over strategy, likes to be party diplomat with high diplomacy/bluff/intimidate and charisma
character I played in D&D homebrew:
CG Cleric 2/Bard 2 of olidama..
total rake likes to gamble and visit brothels, overly reliant on luck, likes unconvnetional tactics, prefers to talk his way out of problems, modeled on the A-Team's face man..
Character I played in neverwinter nights..
NG fighter 4/rogue 16..
character I played in baldurs gate 2
CG Fighter 7/thief 20...
God forbid someone asks me to play a wizened old mage or horror, a LG monk...ugh..don't think I could pull it off...
It's funny how we end up with favorite characters. I have about four "Archetypes" that I tend to play and they recur regularly. I found that when I broke out of that mold, I ended up creating two of my all-time favorite characters.
Regulars -
1 - Heroic, but depressed Paladin who lost his love prior to the campaign. Somewhere in the background is a hope for "vengeance/justice" but he's not powerful at first to be able to take on the villain (usually an evil ex-lord).
2 - Young, brave but foolish Fighter/Rogue whose father is a Knight and wants him to follow in his footsteps. Since the young man grew up in his father's shadow, there's nothing he'd like more than to escape that stricture of Knighthood...
3 - Charismatic, overconfident duelist/swashbuckling Rogue with a scar. Womanizer, playboy and all-around bon-vivant with a dark streak. The anti-hero of the bunch.
4 - Illythirii (proto-Drow) barbarian sword dancer.
The new characters, made when I started playing NWN online regularly -
1 - Warrior Cleric female Shrine Guardian (Shugenja aren't possible on NWN) of "The Way" from Kara-Tur (no Rokugan for THIS old-timer). Took Exotic Weapon Prof. (Katana), gave her a heavy shield and skimpy armor and off she went. The combination of self-boosting and offensive ranged spells was disgustingly powerful.
2 - Female "Knight of Mercy" (ie. warrior) Cleric of Ilmater - again with the self-boosting, though donations from other PCs made for huge donations to the various temples and safe-houses of Ilmater in the region. Eventually, due to a bizarre twist of fate, fell in love with a sorceress Elf who then left her for another Elf, causing her to fall into a dark spiral which led her to follow Shar. My first Evil character that made sense.
I never liked to play Clerics except as NPCs until I played them online. Now, they're my favorite class! It's amazing what you can do when you change up the personality a bit...
Syrinx
I usually end up playing clerics all the time, because no one in our gaming group wants to. My last cleric is a 3rd level cleric/4th level sorcerer/2nd level mystic theurge now, however.
His domains are trickery and knowledge. Combined with a circlet of persuasion, he has a bluff of +19 and he prepares invisibility and disguise self as part of his domain spells whenever he's in town.
However, one recurrent trait of my PCs has popped back up again--the reluctant adventurer. Several of my characters have the trait about "b+!*%ing" about dungeondelving, having to sleep in the outdoors, not getting warm food, not getting a bath, etc. "I'm only going to do this one more adventure and then I'll have enough money to do what I really want to do in life" type stuff.
I've had PCs up and leave the party altogether when the party couldn't convince the PC that there was enough reason for staying. I just turn those PCs over to the DM to use as NPCs if he wants to. I think that's what's going to happen to my current PC as well, because our main quest from the "Pool of Radiance" 3.0 module was just accomplished, and the party has definite evil tendencies, so I don't see much reason for him to stick around anymore.
What deity was your mystic theurge of, F2K?
I tried playing a combo like that about a year ago. He was a Clr/Sor of Wee Jas (I'm not sure what it is about her, but I just love deities with that realm of kind of shadowy power of mysticism and such). I had quite a story for him: he was the scion of a major noble family, a powerhouse of nefarious and criminal activities. However, the family was brought down, and all the members faced execution. While on the gallows, just moments away from death, a cleric of Wee Jas entered the scene and bargain for his salvation. The cleric more or less "bought" him, in a non-monetary sense, and returned to his monastery with the young man. There, over the course of years, he was indoctrinated in the ways of Wee Jas and came to be a loyal follower and potent wielder of her magic.
I had all sorts of mundane things about him linked to story- for example, he got his material components from outsiders. He would have prefered to deal with celestials, but they didn't approve of him, considering he and his sect too close to evil to endorse with their aid. Inevitables and formians really didn't seem the type to barter with a mortal, which left the only realistic option: Every material component he got, he bartered with Baatezu for them. Deffinately a darker side to the character.
That wasn't the part that freaked the party out, however. He wore his holy symbol as a large red face mask. Everywhere he went, he was this mysterious figure, claoked in red and black robes with a headpiece appearing like a red skull all aflame. That really wierded a lot of people out, but I liked it.
Being a user of negative energy, he also had the occaisional skeleton or zombie following him around. The rest of the party was NG and CG, so he was deffinately out of place with his dark-sided LN alignment. The roleplaying was excellent too; no one in the party trusted him, but he consistently went out of his way to save their asses, sometimes expecting return favors, and other times not. The party realized he was valuable when, at 6th level or so, he did single combat against a group of three mummies and destroyed them all (REALLY lucky rolls on spells and rebuking attempts!).
However, his lack of spontaneous healing dismayed a lot of the rest of the party, and despite my attempts to work in character advancement, the other players seemed to miss the entire theme of what I was doing and refused to change and accept him, so he eventually left the party on a mission for his church. I wish I had kept him, though, as he remains one of my favorite characters that I've ever played. Perhaps I'll recreate him someday....
Sorry for rambling on about my own character, but I do love it so, and this seemed like an appropriate place. Plenty of ideas for other people to salvage here!
Saern, if I remember, F2K's aforementioned mystic theurge is a worshipper of Cyric (Forgotten Realms), Daedalus Long.
Thanks, Lilith!!
Yes, Saern--Cyric...played in my friend's FR campaign that we play for the second half of our biweekly gaming day. I run my GH game for the first six hours, then he takes over.
We all play semi-evil characters...it's a nice change of pace from the epic do gooders of my GH game.
My character was allowed to have the knowledge domain instead of the normal Cyric selection because of his studious background. His eventual goal is to return to Waterdeep and start a criminal organization/cult of Cyric based on deceit, trickery and shadowy deals.
Saern, your character sounds like he was a lot of fun to play.
|
Of course, there's nothing particularly wrong with playing the same or similar characters, especially if that's what you enjoy.
For my part, no matter how hard I try (hint: not very hard), I can't keep my own biting sarcasm out of my character's mouths.
Since the group I play with tends to play wacky and quirky characters, it probably helps that I tend to play the too-straight-laced character that they can drive nuts.