Coming Full Circle With Characters

[Nohwear]

Has anyone else felt that unusual is starting to come full circle? That you want to try more standard ideas again?

[Balacertar]

I really do, I miss the feeling of the standard party, with the standard races, with the typical reliable powers and it's familiar flavour, when you can rely on what the others can do, and you focus on the content of the adventure and the personality and experiences of your player rather than on it's powers.

[TriOmegaZero]

Nope. Haven't worked through the unusual ones.

[Galnörag]

I am currently running The Dragon's Demand, and set very restrictive character creation rules (Core Rulebook + one Players Companion per player) So really 7 books max for the table. The intent was to try and get some classic sword and sorcery cliches and tropes complete with caravan guarding and meeting in a tavern.

[thejeff]

I never really got into the "I have to play the weird thing that no one else is playing, just like every one else" thing in the first place.

[Tormsskull]

My group played Core only for a long time. Then we opened it to anything available on the PRD. It was fun for a while, but I think the sheer number of options has overwhelmed some of the players.

We're moving to 5e for our next campaign, and I'm really digging the simplicity of the far more limited options at this point.

[Mikaze]

Not really. Some people have been complaining about other people playing unusual characters for decades. Their opinions have never factored into what kind of characters I want to play.

Some might be seen as unusual by one person and classic-tropish by another. Not playing primarily with gamers that worship the old Appendix N as gospel goes a long way towards becoming free of a lot of that expectations-baggage. Playing with gamers that understand that characters are much much more than their race/class/alignment combo wipes it away almost entirely.

Playing a CG half-orc barbarian and a LG tiefling paladin in two different campaigns right now and enjoying both immensely. The former is far from boring and stereotypical; the latter is far more than the combination of his parts.

[Mystic_Snowfang]

I've never had the desire to play a base core game and is one of the things that will turn me away from a group very quickly.

[Vincent Takeda]

In terms of races I'm with thejeff on this one. I've never really felt a draw to 'playing all the wierd things'... The rest of my table is pretty passionate about playing where the wild things are.

In terms of classes I'm pretty sure I've never really liked the 'core 4' or the 'hammer arm anvil' or the 'tank, healer, dps' or any of those tropes. For me it makes the party feel more like a business performing a job than a group of friends going on an adventure.

[Snorb]

I play a human* woman in Iron Gods. She beats people to death and can lift just over half a ton above her head. I think she's normal.

The rest of the party are a human barbarian who is EXTREMELY superstitious and hates magic to the point where he makes saves against everything [this is how we found out Haste has a Fortitude save to negate], a human skald who sings death metal [in Iron Age Finland?!], and an android sorcerer/cleric. I think this whole group is normal. =p

*Well, human with a cybernetic right arm thanks to a critical hit in The Enemy's favor.

[Haladir]

On the boards, I'm playing a Varisian Harrower in Shattered Star and a physician from Lepidstadt in Carrion Crown. IRL, I'm playing a gnome sorceress in Skull & Shackles. (The gnome is the fist non-human PC I've run since the 1990s.)

I view my characters holistically, and not as the class/race/alignment combination. I advance them as the plot of the story dictates. Sometimes that leads to non-optimal choices.

I tend to prefer human characters, mainly because I have an easier time role-playing them. I've never seen the appeal of playing way-out-there race options, but I know that's just me. And, honestly, I tend to stick with the Core classes, depending on the character concept I've come up with.

[Galnörag]

I think what is most important to me is not that the individual characters be of any particular flavour, but that the party functions together, and is appropriately flavoured for the campaign. Haladir and Snorb above both describe characters and parties that seem well flavoured for their campaigns.

We as a group usually pick together which AP will be run, but then the players go off on their own to make their characters. There is usually corroboration on what roles the characters will fill but not any planning on how the party will work together.

[Coridan]

Snorb wrote:

I play a human* woman in Iron Gods. She beats people to death and can lift just over half a ton above her head. I think she's normal.

The rest of the party are a human barbarian who is EXTREMELY superstitious and hates magic to the point where he makes saves against everything [this is how we found out Haste has a Fortitude save to negate], a human skald who sings death metal [in Iron Age Finland?!], and an android sorcerer/cleric. I think this whole group is normal. =p

*Well, human with a cybernetic right arm thanks to a critical hit in The Enemy's favor.

You forgot to put the asterisk next to woman also. She could squash a robot's head in her armpit.

[ngc7293]

Nope. Before Pathfinder's need to play 'half-celestial-darkelf with dragons breath' we were doing that in other games. So I got that all out of me. I tend to look at all that and say "meh" and move on.

[blood_kite]

I've never been particularly interested in playing normal people unless the campaign really called for it. But I also don't mind finding something fairly normal it the campaign calls for it.

One of the most oridnary characters I had was a recent 2nd edition game with a human fighter using the swashbuckler kit. He was greek and had a fez (before Matt Smith did).

[Landon Winkler]

We have a mix. Some of our newer players are just learning the ropes and playing very Core characters (like human rogues and half-orc fighters, nothing fancy). Other players are dipping their toes in some weirder stuff.

Each of our campaigns tends to last for a couple years, so people come around, either hitting a different role or something more normal/weirder.

Cheers!
Landon

[Orthos]

Nope. I've played myself out on core races and concepts years ago, and designed my homebrew setting specifically to allow far more esoteric options. It's been a great change of pace and highly positively received by all my players.

[Vincent Takeda]

I do particularly like being the only human in mos eisley though... Its nice to be assaulted... I mean appreciated for what you are instead of what you do for a change

[Snorb]

Coridan wrote:

Snorb wrote:

I play a human* woman in Iron Gods. She beats people to death and can lift just over half a ton above her head. I think she's normal.

The rest of the party are a human barbarian who is EXTREMELY superstitious and hates magic to the point where he makes saves against everything [this is how we found out Haste has a Fortitude save to negate], a human skald who sings death metal [in Iron Age Finland?!], and an android sorcerer/cleric. I think this whole group is normal. =p

*Well, human with a cybernetic right arm thanks to a critical hit in The Enemy's favor.

You forgot to put the asterisk next to woman also. She could squash a robot's head in her armpit.

THARJA'S A WOMAN@%$&&

[DM Under The Bridge]

Nohwear wrote:

Has anyone else felt that unusual is starting to come full circle? That you want to try more standard ideas again?

Eventually too many options or stacking so many abilities into one character seems like trying too hard.

PF is a system that is desperate to please though.

[RDM42]

It seems to say something that people seem to think that being human and have a normal class means you're just plain ordinary when personality and background can define a character as much as or more than the race and class combinations.

[Usual Suspect]

There's a normal? Wait, wait... What? There's a normal?