|
So I was thinking the other day about what makes an interesting character, and realized that the most interesting characters were all about the weird quirks that got rolled into their concept, with their crunch acting as support. Or at least, all mine were.
So I thought I'd start a thread with 2 points*:
1)How did you create some of your memorable characters? Did you throw random stuff together (crunch-wise) then add personality? Did you see a character in a movie, tweak it slightly, then find out how to make the rules match? (Many different things could happen here...)
2) Try making a character. Not a PC, a character. Just think of the kinds of things they should be able to do that would make them cool, and the personality to match. Do not put any crunch into it at all (put away the rule books, both physically and metaphorically). Then, once you think it's cool, try to figure out what it would take to make it work.
I'll go first.
On point one, my most interesting character was one I just sort-of threw together (crunch-wise) because people were starting a group and needed a rogue. As I built the character I decided it would be funny to have a character specialize in pub darts (treated as the "darts" weapon, but a couple sizes smaller so they did 1 damage). This character somehow ended up with some kind of weird omnipotence complex where they thought they were a Paladin/Rogue/Fighter/Bard/Cleric/Ranger/Wizard. They were actually a level 5 rogue when they died for flipping off Asmodeus when he refused to betray his party (double nat-20 saves versus fear.. as a halfling). They had a book in which they inscribed all of their "great deeds" (inevitably written with him having a bigger role than he did), which eventually ended up worming its way into other campaigns.
Part 2) A (dubiously sane) man who believes that fire is the ultimate cleansing force. He can heal, but when he does it has the appearance of flames "burning" the wound. In combat he'll either hit you with burning fists, or conjure blades of pure fire.
A city-born pyro, he originally set out adventuring because he accidentally burned down a friend's house (with them inside) and had to go into (self-imposed) exile to avoid execution. He has since run across several injustices in the world that would remind him of his mistake. The last straw was when he was asked to use his (at the time still limited) mastery over fire to quickly burn a pile of bodies put there by a necromancer's army so that the same man could not come back to make a new army out of them (or reanimate his former one).
Since this time he has wandered the world in an attempt to save people from the horrible fates that the world has in store for them, hoping to eventually save enough people to finally lift the weight from his own heart.
----
Part 2 - Rules) RAW, the only two things that would make the above character work are Druid and Oracle of Flames. The former doesn't really fit, though, and the latter's curse would be hard to work in. Possibly haunted by the spirit of his dead friend? Then again, only the Druid has the ability to make blades of fire. I could also have him take the oracle revelation that makes all weapons flaming.
He could, I suppose, do a Fire-based sorcerer bloodline, but that still misses out on the "swords of fire" point.
So I'm going to leave this one at "Oracle of Flames with the Haunted curse" with the possibilities of Elemental Fist, and definitely the Touch of Flame revelation. The benefits end of the haunted curse doesn't really help him (thematically), but I'll just have to deal with that for now.
Either way, this guy would need some decent strength, decent dex (I somehow imagine this one as a TWF type), decent con (melee-oriented) and decent cha (for the spells). More than a little MAD.
* I made this thread partly because I'm going to try to make my players do concept->crunch for the next campaign, which will be in an as-yet loosely defined setting that they can help define with these very concepts.
|
|
Nearly ALL of my characters follow a fluff>crunch line of thought. I usually come up with a fun idea, and try to fit it into the existing rules, making minor modifications to the idea as I work out the mechanics (sometimes game mechanics can give you GREAT fluff ideas).
My most memorable character was a Kobold Sorcerer back in the days of 3.5. My brother and I rolled twins, me a Sorcerer and he a Warlock. The kicker was that we were from a seperate dimension where kobolds reigned supreme and had gotten lost in this dimesion somehow. We spoke with great booming Russian accents and had at one point convinced an entire village's worth of children that they were more powerful than their parents because they were smaller. for the life of me, I can't remember the train of thought, but it was bloody flawless. We also had a donkey and cart that we essentially just poured our gold into and labeled "miscellaneous trap supplies." SO many traps were made in that game, and to great effect. This was also the first appearance of the infamous "Pants of Holding."
I've got a much more fluid and dynamic process than what you're describing. For me, I start with a role that needs filling. "I need an arcane utility type", and swirl through race/class combinations until something gels. As I start to pick feats, that implies some things about what the PC might be like. That reinforces further decisions, influencing skill choices, spell choices, equipment choices. As that resolves, it feeds back into revisiting earlier choices. I just cycle around and around, slowly refining the build and the person it represents.
|
|
I've got a much more fluid and dynamic process than what you're describing. For me, I start with a role that needs filling. "I need an arcane utility type", and swirl through race/class combinations until something gels. As I start to pick feats, that implies some things about what the PC might be like. That reinforces further decisions, influencing skill choices, spell choices, equipment choices. As that resolves, it feeds back into revisiting earlier choices. I just cycle around and around, slowly refining the build and the person it represents.
I'm all for saying "I need an X" and then describing what they do with fluff. I just figure the character will be more interesting if you don't pigeon-hole them from the start. Though the result is probably the same, anyway.
Really I'm just looking for ways that might help promote interesting (in a good way) characters. The way I posted I like because the it results in characters that aren't necessarily the class you would've first thought of, but still work. (Tthe previously-played example I gave I was pigeon-holed into rogue because of trapfinding, but all's well that ends well, I suppose.)
Fair enough. I'm not sure I'm understanding the game then really, but okay.
My most recently memorable character was a human barbarian. He died Saturday after two sessions of Runelords. His back-story was such that he was a member of a Tien household, youngest son. Very much trained in caligraphy and poetry and other arts. Long story short is that while contemplating a beautiful countryside he was stung by a bee. That's when they discovered he was allergic. He was nursed through this, but suffered mild brain damage as a result, and came out... changed. Had a temper, for one thing. Couldn't map names to faces for another. After a few assaults, he was banished from his home, and wandered around until meeting some folk who embroiled him in the ongoing PC-slaughterhouse that is Rise of the Runelords.
Basically all of my characters are characters. But the role remains first in the process. That his companions had to wear coloured armbands to mark them as friends... that came after the decision I was making a barbarian. So... am I getting this right? Or wrong?
|
I think it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong! There's no "right" way to create a character concept - whether you start with fluff, then move onto crunch, or the other way around. So long as you enjoy the game and the character!
Personally, i switch around.
Sometimes i'll come up with an awesome character personality, and then do the crunch, other times i come up with the crunch and build the personality around this.
|
|
+1 @ Mandreth
There is no real "right" or "wrong" as far as process, only as far as results. If you end up with a character that's really fun and quirky, but are playing a hack-n-slash game with no real role-play, you're probably doing it wrong. If you end up with a character that has no personality in a roleplay heavy campaign, you're probably doing it wrong. As long as your character somewhat matches the style of the campaign, it's all good.
As I noted at the end of my original post, the "concept->crunch" suggestion I made was to see how well it would work for people on the forums who tried it so I can see if it'll work well for a role-play heavy campaign. The first part was a question of "what worked best for you?"
The thing about "crunch" is that it's cold hard reality for the character. This has to be kept in mind when building any (sane, adult) PC. The things which game mechanics are abstractions for, are a part of every fantasy character's life since long before they're of adventuring age.
NPC classes, some fighters, rogues and barbarians and maybe low level rangers and monks can get away with only being based on real-world concepts, but the vast majority of PCs will be drawing upon fluff that has a crunchy implementation, and their natural desire to hone skills in-character is inextricably married to a mechanical build on paper. In a more freeform game, say World of Darkness, this isn't necessarily the case; but in members of the D&D family it's extremely hard to avoid.
Now, I don't think this hurts anything in the long run. My usual method of creating a character is to focus on one specific point of mechanics (not a whole build) and come up with a personality profile based on that, which then guides the rest of the mechanical build.
Some examples:
- Hemo Felyic, my favorite Living Grayhawk character, was built to show the younger folks in the local community that damage out and damage in are not the only things that make a character useful. He was a wizard with 2 hit points and no combat spells. (Closest thing was hypnosis.) Based on that premise, I decided he was the class clown at the academy: all his magic was prank-oriented. He loved adventure stories and struck out to make a name for himself (carrying pen, ink and a ream of parchment, and I took extensive notes during every session -- which actually came in handy a couple of times). Since he'd led a sheltered life, he terribly underestimated how dangerous the real thing was. He knew he was no bruiser, but he was still bold and brash and put his elven weapon proficiencies to regular use. And he went to negative HP almost every session, but survived each brush with death (just like a hero should!) with a little help from his friends. Meanwhile he solved all manner of traps and puzzles, stepped forward to speak for the party when everyone else was cowed by the dragon or the duke or the savage tribe of northmen, and charged in to melee to save a comrade more than once. Eventually he saw a friend die for real, and got a bit more cautious and picked up some damage spells; but he never lost his bravado.
- Tik-chk, a thri-kreen ninja. That was it, the whole character concept: thri-kreen ninja. Five natural attacks, and +20 to jump? Never has there been better race-class synergy! Now, how do I roleplay a thri-kreen? Hmm. Awkwardly, because I'm not an insect. And by inverting that, I wound up with an anthropomorphic grasshopper wearing a frilly blue dress (complete with sun hat) because she was female, and she had researched mammalian culture: this was traditional female garb. She practiced smiling a lot, because smiling indicates congeniality; the mandibles made it difficult, but she wasn't going to give up.
- Mandon Cooper, one of my earliest 3.0 characters, and by far the one who has seen the most incarnations in various settings (including a few computer games). The new arcane failure rules had an exception for spells without somatic components. Awesome! I want to play a mage in plate! I made note of Still Spell, and browsed the spell list for non-somatic spells. Some good selections at low level, drying up after 3rd; mostly utility magic. But there was this new spell called true strike, could be a great "panic button" for a fighter... and the personality snapped into place: he doesn't use magic when common means will get the job done. It's just the principle of the thing! He was raised in a working man's trade (cooper = barrel maker); heavy labor build character and too much convenience leads to sloth. His father put him through wizard school with sweat and sore muscles, and damned if he'd sully that legacy by getting soft! Magic is another tool, a powerful one with many applications, but not always the best one for a job.
|
|
Yeah, part of my deal was that since this was for a new campaign setting some "allowances" could be made to mitigate the effect of the character concept "giving in" to the rules. I still expect it to happen somewhat (there's still balance, after all), but I'm a bit more lenient when it comes to thematic changes than many DMs. (Want to reflavor wild shape as spirit animals and be ever-so-slightly translucent silver things? Sure! Just don't expect gameplay effect from it!)
I also allow spending of feats to gain different features that normally require a specific class or type of class, but I usually make them a tad on the too expensive side (feat-wise) so that it's only done for cool factor. I have an unwritten rule that strong characters get hit first, and hard, so no-one is too concerned about trying to be the best person in the party ;)
For example, I allow a feat to boost BAB by 1/2 (takes 2 to get effect). I also allow a feat to increase you caster level by 1* for all purposes (including spells per day and spells known), but don't expect to get any class-specific benefits with it! (No bloodlines, school abilities, etc). I do this because it *really* helps some concepts that are just a hair off of being possible work. None of these types of feats allow you to exceed "equal to character level" ratings, though. So no 1st level character that casts 2nd level spells or weird cheese like that. Sure, a fighter might get some okay casting using it, but how much do they *really* want to invest in a casting stat? It does allow a first level caster to get to +1 BAB and get some okay martial feats as well. So there're two ways of going "first level gish" in my games.
* This is in a home-brew system where you're spells known AND spells per day are determined by casting attribute, and everyone casts as spontaneous (it's a spell point system). It also introduces fatigue drawbacks, and a small spell pool makes it easier to fatigue yourself via casting. This means that even if you do use these feats, making a gish is still hard.
I usually begin with an all-fluff concept, which I then try to make as good as it can be done with crunch. The core concept will stay the same throughout the process, but minor bits and pieces might be changed.
You may want to look at this:
It's got a character creation system that can work as an 'over-layer' for any other RPG character creation system.
1) Start by defining five life changing events.
2) Hand sheet to player on your left. They pick skills you needed to have.
3) That person hands sheet to player on their left. They pick special abilities.
You then go and assign skill ranks, people who like and dislike you, goals, and whether you want both special abilities (and a GM defined drawback) or if you give one of them up.
DISCLAIMER: I'm the author of Minimus. It's donation-ware. If you find it useful, please pay for it at the PayPal address on the footer of the page.