I've found that players are often fantastic writers and story crafters. They're passionate and creative artists. Yet they are seldom tasked with applying their skills. So here's your task: describe your all-time favorite character you have ever played. You can include an encounter, a situation, etc. - whatever it is that made this character awesome. Go to town adventure-friends!
Oh wow just one?
Way back in D&D 2nd edition there was Helmeir the Dwarven Locksmith. "I'm not a theif dammit!" Wasn't too much depth to the character but he was fun to play.
For Vampire the Masquerade I had a Nosferatu Anarch with the Large size merit. Toughest, biggest, meanest, ugliest SoB out there. Build like a brick s**!house with the Demeanor trait of Bully. Under it all his Nature was Caretaker though. ^_^ Basically he was all about tough love. If he liked you he'd be really hard on you to keep you safe. "Hey Dumb ***! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
In the mid 90s I had a good one for a WEG Star Wars campaign. He was a Twi'lek ex-pirate. He was always trying to be ruthlessly pragmatic but his twice damned conscience was always getting in his way and causing problems.
After he ran away from becoming the successor of a rich merchant house he hooked up with a pirate guild. The fleet commodore took a liking to him and he quickly rose to commanding his own capital ship. Everything was great until he was ordered to space a family of Twi'lek they had captured. At which point he was forced to kill the commodore and throw away his, money, power, position. All the things that matter to him. Just to save a bunch of commoners!!!
Playing the inner conflict between desire and morality was fun. Another cool thing in that game was even before play started he had half a planet and a major pirate guild wanting him dead. It was neat never knowing if of when the GM would use his backstory to come back and bite him. :p
One of my all time favorites was a Rocker for Cyberpunk 2020. There was just a lot of RP and everyday adventures in that game. The best sessions were when we were just hanging out around town rather then being sent out on missions. Like when we decided to hold an improvised street concert. Of course we needed refreshments for such an occasion. So naturally we decided to steal a beer truck. Fire fights and anarchy in sued. Stopping to grab a coffee, while driving my motorcycle through a Starbucks, after a truck I was chasing, while still in the middle of the car chase, was pretty fun. Style over substance baby. Style over substance. ;)
My all time favorite: I had a bard Ray’ismay’hon (yes, everyone called her Ray) that was the master marketer and public relations rep for our technomancy corp. A few things that made her awesome…
She had great nerd-herding powers. Even gnome tinker nerds. Just the fact that half the plane didn’t blow up between the uber epic layline-tapping mage tower, the mildly insane techmage running the place (or so he thought ;)), his completely insane mother (and no those two did not get along well) and the gaggles of gnomes running amuck with things a million times more dangerous than scissors makes her full of win. But she actually made it profitable. It was so much fun roleplaying damage control and taking the face role to the big leagues, and big screens.
She had really neat stuff. A prehensile wig that could do like 20 different useful things. A journal with a search engine. An intelligent cigarette holder that told dirty jokes. The ultimate multipurpose towel (think hitchhiker’s guide, but pimped out).
She was so into ‘the experience’ of life, she gave away the boots of comfort that were her share of loot (this was early on in the campaign, before we got a mage tower and all that) and would put all the warrior types to shame with her ‘bravery’.
Her long lost birth mother turned out to be a silver dragon. Shortly after this shocking discovery, she started developing dragon powers. Ahhh, a short range paralyzing breath weapon was fun to play around with. Throw on a disguise, schmooze schmooze, kiss kiss, hint of minty fresh breath aaaaannnddd I’ll be taking back that thingy you stole thank you.
She was extremely vain. Not snobby or anything, just vain. The RP was a lot of fun. She was more afraid of wrinkles than planet swallowing monsters (even at low levels). When her half dragoness first started manifesting, she didn’t know what was happening. She would get patches of weird scaly skin and completely freak out. We traveled to a demiplane or something that drained ‘your essence’ and caused an aging effect. Even after we found out it would reverse with time she was still depressed (and she was an elf, so it is not like anyone could tell a difference except for her). Finding a substance that would keep her pretty no matter what became an ongoing sidequest. (We eventually found it and it had other nice benefits too, to reward the rest of the group for humoring me.)
Bonus: The campaign we are playing in now is set in the far-far future of the world that game was set in. We have found a couple technomancy artifacts from those days (of course we can barely figure out how to use even a small portion of their functions) and one of the main plotlines is keeping the evil wizards who are excavating ruins from that era from getting to those shinies first. One of the side plots is keeping our wizard from blowing us up as he slowly figures them out. (Oh and he wears the towel on his head in true hitchhiker guide fashion. Hey, darkvision in the underdark.)
My all-time favorite character was decribed on an old post right here (wall of text follows, so be warned ;) )
After reading Wraith's story...all mine seem much less awesome.
All time greatest? It is hard to say since whatever group you talk to will be able to remember my character. They all do remember them however so that is a good sign :)
In HS (AD&D) it would be Bardeen, the blind monk.
In college (champs) it would be Waterson, a dwarven hermit and wizard, and his pet rock Imartsamilk *ahem* Sam is a familiar.
At the local FLGS (3.0) it would be Singray. A bard with 'eel's grace', 'shark-skin' and 'orca's endurance' spells. His spiked chain was sonic/electrical so I got to sing "Thunderbolts and Lightning (very very frightening) every time I attacked.
They may also remember Poatee, human barbarian for which I sang a maouri huka whilst he raged. (very scary the first time & staff came back to game table to find the out what the yelling and screaming was about :)
My last group will remember Zux Xuk the kobold artificer (with no con :)
My current group talk about my palidan(s), for which I wrote an 11 page backstory. In the first campaign, first dungeon, first combat she rolled a 1. The giant spider however rolled a 20--and a 12 on damage. bye bye pali. I recreated the pali later. In the second campaign, second area, second encounter the razor hawks rolled a 20. This did not kill her, but forced a reflex save. My natural 1 meant she fell off the rope bridge to the cliff below. bye bye pali. The third campaign (PF) s/he has only had two encounters... bye bye pali?
My favorite, is probably Waterson. His 3.5 version was renamed Anhob and his familiar Calv. To be honest a large part of the fun was based on BW's characters (if you missed the reference reread: Calv & Anhob :)
Dot. WIll post tomorrow.
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my favorite was Dr. Dimitri Molotov.
he was a male russian scientist who augmented his own body with so many cyborg super parts he was barely human anymore. and he was a paranoid spellcaster that planned for every scenario. his AC wasn't anything to write home about, but by 18th level, he had (with fractional bab house rules) 3 attacks, 9th level spells, 7d6 sneak attack, decent saves, and a boatload of skills. he fired 3 acid bullets a round for 9d6 acid damage +7d6 sneak attack apiece as a supernatural ability. and he could actually survive multiple rounds of combat against a pouncing lion totem charger.
his daughter, familiar, apprentice and opposite sex clone were the same person, Freya Molotov, whom he created in a labratory modeled after the academy sweetheart he lost, the same woman who drove him into having an insane superiority complex that makes even the most arrogant of Deities wretch in disgust.
i don't remember his exact build, because it used a lot of underpriced 3rd party nonstandard equipment many years ago. and he literally used more than 25 splatbooks. at least 10 of which were 3rd party.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Incidentally, my local Pathfinder Society Venture-Captain posts character profiles in an email newsletter, and recently asked me to write one about one of my characters. Here it is, as submitted to my VC:
For Cledwyn, being a Pathfinder is a little bit of both.
Born and raised in Andoran, the human Cledwyn knew from an early age that he was good at two things: fighting and baking. Growing up in the midst of freedom fighters and a nationwide sense of urgency to liberate all the peoples of Golarion, however, forced him to let his baking take a back seat to his combat expertise. As he strove to fight the good fight, Cledwyn eventually moved to Absalom to join the Pathfinder Society as so many other Andorans had done before him. Although moving to the city at the center of the world was a big change, and despite his efforts feeling a bit hollow among the thousands of other freedom fighters representing Andoran interests in the Society, Cledwyn took some measure of comfort in his baking, which he used to cover his living expenses in his new home.
Time passed. Cledwyn's missions for the Society introduced him to the frozen dangers of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, seafaring perils aboard the Throaty Mermaid, the treacherous jungles around Azlant Ridge, and countless other new places, experiences, and people. Gradually, Cledwyn felt that his sense of loyalty to Andoran aims was diminishing. Simultaneously, he found that his efforts for the Society were improving his skills as a fighter, as a baker, and even as a linguist as he strove to become the best and most useful Pathfinder he could be.
Eventually, Cledwyn came to a decision. He was just a drop in the bucket to the Andorans, while it seemed that the Pathfinder Society had given him everything he now holds dear. Therefore, he decided that he would give back. Although Cledwyn will always respect his Andoran roots, his vision is now focused on serving the Society – with his strength and cunning while on a mission, and with his breads and pastries when he's not.
At present, Cledwyn is spending his downtime walking the streets of Absalom, looking for a prime location to set up a brand new bakery. He aims to situate it as near the Grand Lodge as possible, the better to serve other hard-working Pathfinders. Cledwyn's mission in life is now this: to protect his fellow Pathfinders in the field, and to feed them when they come home.
And if he could get into the Pathfinder Chronicles? Well, that would just be icing on the cake.
Well, there is my oldest character, from the West End Games Star Wars d6 game: Tormai Dagon. Yes, a Jedi, who would do everything in his power to not have to use the force. He had a long storied life that has stretched from before the Clone Wars/Dark Times into the Yuzhon Vong Era. He even had his own stint on the Darkside, which if anyone can recall or is familiar with d6 Star Wars, wasn't all that hard to fall to the darkside.
The rest sort of fall short when compared to that one. Only one came close, Duncan McWolf, Male Human Fighter CN Level 9. A character that was created for a homebrew campaign run by a guy who was studying History. Also, the only Fighter in 2E with which I scored exceptional Strength - 18/00. GM worked it was belileved to be that he had some divine blood in him. Long story short, I didn't know it at the time, the character was very much akin to William Wallace fighting to free his land and people from the yoke of tyranny of an invading people. He died accomplishing his goal, with the quirk of never have lost any fight or battle where he decided to stand and fight. I couldn't figure out why the GM loved the character so much. After Braveheart came out 2 years after that campaign ended, I found out.
Ah, that would be Shimanori ao Sansorei, an elven warrior, using a pretty extensive/complicated, small german system, based on a d30.
Initially i picked an elf to play a more positive character, this went down-hill-by-bike-to-the-underdark pretty quickly. After the initial sandbox-adventures the group headed into the Underdark, where they encountered a Pseudodragon, which effectivley fried the elf, exspecially more than half of his face, who wore a silver half-mask from then on. We stayed quite some time in the Underdark and infiltrated Menzoberanzzan.
By the time we emerged the elven warrior was as hard-bitten as the bounty-hunter i played in Athas, or the killer-druid from Ravenloft.
The group proceded through the Undermountain and freed Helester, got a nice villa "Hammersmith" outside from Waterdeep, where Helester installed a planar-gate ( He wanted no debts between us, just in case we ran into each other again). Sigil, Planescape and the Labyrinth of madness followed, where he got a nice tombstone out of cooled lava...
or, damn, i forgot "Thunderbird", a Cyperpunk: navajo nomad-warrior driver, sniper and knife-fighter. GM threw in the Nephilim-System and set us against demons, cultist and the devil himself.
Once even found a cave-system with flying chtuhllu-brains. Where´s your nuclear-strike-capability, when you need it?
Eon. This was a name he took on after being cursed by the agent of a god to see the very second he was going to die through a magic mark on his hand, and had the side effect of completely deleting his name from the universe itself. He called himself this because he was going to live forever, and that was the longest unit of time he knew.
He went on to continually risk his life in straight up stupid feats of strength, somehow survive all of them through good planning or good fortune, and he became a god via the test of the starstone (which he somehow got through) before going on to find the god's emissary and punch him in the face.
This marked the third time he punched a god's messenger in the face for being a jerk.
That would also be my very first character, the LE AD&D Monk Arminas tar Valantil. My DM was running in Greyhawk, but it was a Greyhawk with changes. The Pale was run by Hextor, for one. Well, just reading a bit of the Greyhawk stuff, and I wanted to be a Suel, and since it was the Theocracy of the Pale, I thought 'that has to be Suel land'. Since we are pale of skin and all.
Hahahaha.
Well, Steve, adapted to it, and made the Pale Suel/Oerdarian instead of Flan/Oeridarian. Since the Pale served Hextor, I decided to be a LE monk of Hextor. Steve also had me use the Best of Dragon monk, so it was a bit better than the PHB one.
Anyway, the rest of the group were mostly worshippers of Heironious and St. Cuthbert, and included a paladin, a cavalier, a thief, a cleric of Cuthbert, an illusionist, a wizard, and me. I had so much fun with that character, even though I didn't know squat. Since Steve only let the player see their character, each of us was a mystery to the others. Only the DM knew our actual level and stats. Well, I was rather full of myself and got some lucky rolls early in the game, and before long, half the party was convinced I was TOUGHER than they were! Scared the cleric of St. Cuthbert out of his mind one night when I couldn't sleep onboard a sea voyage and began doing a weapons kata directly over his bunk with a kusari-gama.
This was still when monks could speak with small animals, and the thief was always on my case. He even stole from me--I couldn't prove it, but I knew it. So, I made friends with the gulls and rats by talking to them and feeding them, and before long, they were harassing the thief to no end. Everytime he went up on deck, a gull would poop on him; when he went to bed, his sheets had been shredded by rats. They chewed his gear, and squeaked in his ears all night.
By the end of the voyage, the poor guy was a wreck, his check muscle twitching and his leather armor covered with guano stains.
We played that campaign for nearly three years, and I got Arminas all the way up to a sixteenth level character before we finally ended it. At one point, he wound up with the Eye of Vecna, and a powerful magical sword that bestowed proficiency on whoever picked it up. He wound up dying twice: once when our campaign was coming to an end, and Steve arranged for him to meet a coven of vampires who offered to 'gift' him with their blood. I refused, and was torn to pieces by all twenty. Luckily, one of my few friends (in-character) brought me back.
The other . . . well, that is a long story. But he eventually came back again. Then the campaign ended.
It was great, and it came to an end far too soon. I did play Arminas again later in 3.0 and 3.5, but mainly as a DM NPC for my games.