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For a more light hearted thread, I was curious who everyone’s favorite Venture-Captains or other Pathfinders were in Pathfinder Society? Either to interact with as PCs, or to run as GMs? Here are some of my own personal favorites.
Drandle Dreng: My personal favorite. Always a joy to interact and play the old man. One of the few VCs that actually seems to respect the PCs. Now if he would only get a bit more sleep…
Ospery: I always want to learn more about this guy. Definitely one of the more colorful characters in PFS. Other then the fact he seems to be a harbinger of doom given every mission he seems to send Pathfinders on goes horribly wrong. Especially the ones that seem simple.
Dennel Hamshanks: It always strikes me as funny how he always seems to be visibly disappointed to see the agents he is working with. At least when I portray him as GM I make him the biggest jerk out of any of the VCs. Though Aram Zey is right at his heels.
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A bit of an off-topic question, but do you have distinct ways to portray these venture-captains? Locally the VCs nearly always seem to be rather dull with little persona, mainly since you don't interact with them very much. I (or anyone over here) never read the textboxes aloud, except for rare cases, since I paraphrase them into Finnish. So if you have some short descs of VCs' personalities, I'd be happy.
Aram Zey is not a VC, but definitely had the most personality among all those who have given faction missions.
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In my local group we have gotten in the habit of portraying certain venture captains as such:
Drandle Dreng: absent-minded, slightly batty, squints a lot, sort of like a crazy professor. He also tends to dress horribly, usually in a maroon bathrobe or something similarly silly. I have also described him as offhandedly one-shotting enemies in a certain adventure.
Osprey: Batman. He swoops in, talks in that overly low grating voice, and intimidates poor hapless pathfinders into missions that always are terrible. I also occasionally describe him as hacking up an owl pellet and then glaring at the players, as if daring them to comment.
Sheila Heidmarch: Maybe because of the adventure she gave the mission for, but I definitely played her as a bit of a tease. She is a sorceress after all! She is clearly too well-bred and too professional to actually do anything, but she does like showing off her charisma!
Ambrus Valsin: I think it's the 'stache, but I like portraying him as Jaime Hyneman from Mythbusters. Depending on how silly I feel, I'll sometimes hold my hand up cthulu-tentacle style while portraying him.
Anyway, point is, none of the venture captains should be boring. There is no wrong way, just give them whatever personality youve got!
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Dreng is definitely my favourite venture captain to roleplay. I use a very doddering, wavery old man voice. My Dreng tends to get people's names wrong, meander from the point and lose his train of thought a lot. Every so often he'll assume the players are new recruits and ask them if they've considered joining the Pathfinder Society.
However, I also play him with moments of uncanny insight. For example (spoiler for First Steps Part 3)
Basically, I want my players to come away from every encounter with Dreng saying to themselves 'Is he *really* going senile..or is it all an act?'
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Similar to what Nani said...:
Drandle Dreng: Absent minded, eyes half closed, and speaks slowly. The point is to get across that he's slow, doesn't know anything, and not able-bodied... when in reality he's still pretty much all there, it's all an act, and he could probably sneak attack dead anyone lower than 7th or 8th level in one round.
Osprey: Yep, he's batman. Unlike the pellets and depending on the mood (and whether he's a bird at the time), I will add a slight "squawk" to his talking if there's a comedic moment. My favorite scenario for him is Hall of Drunken Heroes.
Eliza Petalungro: I depict her as all business, all about the Pathfinders and trying her hardest to make sure that she keeps her position. I put a little doubt into her voice to signify her new job as a VC.
Adril Hestram: A well meaning jock. Is pretty mean to the non-strength based characters, but not malicious. Might make fun of their "spellcasting" etc.
Aram Zey: A complete ass to anyone that doesn't have an Intelligence of at least 17. If they're a spellcaster he'll be nicer, but still believes wizardry (not druids, clerics, sorcerers or the like) to be the best of the arcane arts. Will probably also look oddly at the Magus type gish characters that try to mix might and magic.
These are the biggies that I can think of this morning.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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Drandle Dreng - I try my best Sean Connery voice, but a little more old and doddery. Sean Connery is pretty easy to imitate, just speak in a deep voice and replace all your S's with Zh's.
That's funny! Until the events of Season 1, I used my Sean Connery voice for Adril Hestram... for Drandle Dreng I used my Christopher LLoyd "Doc Brown" voice! And for Azram, I use a Morgan Freeman voice reminiscent of his "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" character.
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Easy, peasy: my favorite is Drendle Dreng. He's old and he's half-senile, does not finish sentences, and makes pointed comments about "kids today". "Vat's the problem!" He calls all the PCs "kids".
I play him with my impression of Billy Crystal as "Miracle Max" in The Princess Bride. So yes, there ARE Pathfinders with a Yiddish accent!
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Apparently Drandle Dreng is high on the list. This thread tells me how he's supposed to be played. Maybe I'll try reading Seekers of Secrets more thoroughly.
I think my problem is that I need to translate everything on the scenario into Finnish, so the personality is likely lost in translation, heh.
I collected these tags for Drandle Dreng: absent-minded, senile, light-hearted, old...
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Easy, peasy: my favorite is Drendle Dreng. He's old and he's half-senile, does not finish sentences, and makes pointed comments about "kids today". "Vat's the problem!" He calls all the PCs "kids".
I play him with my impression of Billy Crystal as "Miracle Max" in The Princess Bride. So yes, there ARE Pathfinders with a Yiddish accent!
That is my Drendle as well. One of my favorites to RP.
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Dreng is definitely my favourite venture captain to roleplay. I use a very doddering, wavery old man voice. My Dreng tends to get people's names wrong, meander from the point and lose his train of thought a lot. Every so often he'll assume the players are new recruits and ask them if they've considered joining the Pathfinder Society.
However, I also play him with moments of uncanny insight. For example (spoiler for First Steps Part 3)** spoiler omitted **
Basically, I want my players to come away from every encounter with Dreng saying to themselves 'Is he *really* going senile..or is it all an act?'
This is full of win. I am so using this.
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And (with respect to all of other Venture-Captains, who are all great folks) Doug Miles, who drove thru the Ontario Snow Belt 2 weekends in a row in February to run games at conventions.
Aye, Conspicuous Gallantry While Under Fire for his generous attendances at both Spellstorm and Gryphcon last year.
In fact, it says right here if I am reading these Harrow Cards right that there is a podcast interview in his near future!
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Drendle's a wuss. He was captured, cloned, and on his death bed. Even with all the resources the society has, he's still an old bean. He needs to wake you up in the middle of the night and have his weasly snide aid tell you to head up north to the frozen wastelands of the Witch Queen.
I like that hot red head. I think there's two of them but one of them can't spell her name right. Although, even the old biscuit himself Drang spelled his name in SoS one way and in modules another. But it seems that not knowing one's name or title is a Society thing (Master of Blades / Master of Swords).
My favorite Real Venture-Captain is Mark Garringer because that's the name I always use when I get in trouble. There's this French-Canadian-Coloradan Venture-Captain with just initials and he is my least favorite (he tried to kill Goldfrapp with beetle swarms). The Shackelton Venture-Captain is confusing. There's the VC, the writer and (as he told me) "The Other One." I don't like Eric Brittian the VC from San Diego because his character tossed a naked (is there any other kind) Goldfrapp into the Absalom Bay.
I like Robyn the Venture-Captain from LA, because one of her characters and a naked Goldfrapp saved some indigents from the Steel Wyverns in the sewers of Andoran. Plus she does GameX and I go to that. Azzmyth from SF is way cool. And if you have those pictures of us, it's not us. I swear. I've met many of the VC's at GenCon and NeonCon last year. We all have some serious love for the game and in all, we're better than those VC's in the books.
Go Team TALDOR!
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The Shackelton Venture-Captain is confusing. There's the VC, the writer and (as he told me) "The Other One."The hive-mind of the Shacklefolk are pleased that you cannot discern our nature and intent.
You all come or live in The Shackles and wear shackles as some tradition. Your secret has been discovered. Submit!
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My favorite VC is Skeldon Miregrold, after he was raised from the dead. You'll know what I mean if you read the scenario.
1) The PCs left his body in the lab (as if he didn't have enough money for a paltry Raise Dead!)
2) The PCs took all his research papers (without asking)
3) The PCs took the aureolyte (which he risked his life for)
4)They broke his machine (by mistake)
Needless to say he sent them on a suicide mission with a smile. :) The players had a good time with it also. That's roleplaying.
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Drandle Dreng - I try my best Sean Connery voice, but a little more old and doddery. Sean Connery is pretty easy to imitate, just speak in a deep voice and replace all your S's with Zh's.That's funny! Until the events of Season 1, I used my Sean Connery voice for Adril Hestram... for Drandle Dreng I used my Christopher LLoyd "Doc Brown" voice! And for Azram, I use a Morgan Freeman voice reminiscent of his "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" character.
Some great ideas here. I'm thinking Sean Connery/Celebrity Jeopardy for Dreng:
"The game is afoot!"
"We meet again"
"Well, you were wrong, you mountebank. I pose a conundrum to ya, I riddle if you will"
"I've spent five years of my life trying to invent Mcguffin X, failing to do so is my greatest regret".
"The day is mine!"
Anything for The Hunt For Red October would also work well...
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Has Osprey ever been confirmed as a Venture-Captain? In the two scenarios I played where he was the one giving orders, he was never specifically called a venture-captain. It was more like, "you met this guy in a bar, he works for the Pathfinder Society, his name is Osprey." I'm paraphrasing, of course.
He has never been specifically stated to be a Venture-Captain, no. His exact status within the Society has been left purposely vague near as I can tell. He seems to at least indicate that he is working directly for the Decemvirate. But that is just about all we know about the guy.