Hey guys!
I have a friend who kinda has trouble separating the stereotypes of traditional fiction from the classes in pathfinder. To give an example, he was under the impression that paladins always have to be pious, here-to-help-the-weak priests in armor, and he believed that monks are one-note because they basically always have to be a zen-filled buddhist. To show him that absolutely any class can be anywhere on the rainbow spectrum of personalities, I started coming up with characters that have personalities you wouldn't expect. I'll share some below and I would love to hear crazy character concepts that you have all come up with to break the mold!
- A drunken Monk who is an 18 year old frat boy. When he kills people with kung-fu he basically just goes "YOOOOOO did anyone see that s%&$?! I AM THE BEST"
- A middle-aged half-orc Samurai who has vowed to not let people be dicks. If he makes an Honorable Stand against an enemy, it's because they're a dick, and he's not gonna let em keep being a dick.
- A middle-aged elven woman Brawler. She has never trained in combat and is not really interested in fighting, but she's easily startled and tends to punch when she gets spooked.
- A skinny, bookish human woman Barbarian. She tries to be diplomatic whenever possible, but she is easily frustrated by stupid/violent people. When diplomacy fails, she calmly dog-ears her book and takes off her reading glasses before pummeling them to death.
- A female dwarf Paladin who is an instrument of Cayden Cailean. She hasn't been to church in ages, has lost more than one holy symbol, and has studied linguistics just so she can curse in multiple languages. Despite all that, she always follows her conscience, and has risked life and limb multiple times when an innocent was in peril.
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Can't remember the poster but one of my favorites mentioned on the boards before was an unarmed focused barbarian who acted like a Zen monk his rage was an enlightened state (same mechanics) that focused his body on becoming a living weapon. So no running around frothing at the mouth just calm deadly silence.
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Sorcerer that's scared of magic and neither likes more understands it, carries a sword around and is hugely inept with it, when it fights often drops it and throws his hands up to cower, accidentally casting x in the process
Inqusitor of Shelyn who mostly just looks for rare art to marvel at and goes round boosting people's self esteem after using godly sense motive to detect low self esteem.
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Too lazy to list them all up...look up Avatar the last airbender wiki character specifically benders page: Apply all of them to Kineticists. Already a bunch of characters.
For Brawlers, Monks and sometime other martials(rarely) in general look up King of Fighters, Street Fighters and other fighting games.
For spellcasters of all kind, look up Fairy Tail, plenty of characters there with various quirks.
For slayers, look up all the main characters of the Assassin creed game series from the nonchalant Ezio to more stern and serious Altair etc...
For gunslingers...action movies, Westerns movies, etc...
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I find the best answer is to actually make a character, not a caricature.
While the stereotype example are caricatures, so are the non-stereotype counters, and both are equally unsatisfying to me.
Tropes can be used for on the fly roleplay, or as one part of more in depth roleplay. However, I think a player who doesn't go past the trope is missing out on an important part of the roleplaying experience. Both of the examples you cited - the paladin and the monk - are perfectly acceptable ways to play those characters. However neither of the descriptions are a personality - they are shallow, one sentance summaries.
I get that the five characters you present are trying to make the point that there are many ways to play a character, but some of them are pretty extreme and actually less appealing that the paladin and monk tropes. Going to the opposite end of the spectrum isn't the fix. As you describe things it sounds to me like the player is the problem, but there could be another side of it I am not aware of.
Maybe you can challenge this player to try playing a paladin or monk to see what he can do with it. A paladin can be a pious defender of the weak, but could also be a sarcastic germaphobe with a good sense of humor whose mouth moves when he reads and is socially awkward around elves. The monk who seeks enlightenment can enjoy cooking for others and be compelled to give ethic advice to children, yet does not hold back his opinion, snores when sleeping, and has a love of tattoos.
Class is a vehicle to the abilities one wants on their character.
Character is the driver of the vehicle.
There are trucks that are equipped for racing, and cars that are built like tanks for things like 'demolition derby'.
Every character should be different, and even 'stock' 'generic' characters should have a reasoning behind why they have their abilities (even if they'd rather not).
Example 1: I have a mooncursed barbarian. They earned it through misadventure when they were young, and have been spending the past thirty years in a library trying to figure out a cure to their curse. Gods help the person who hurts a book or anyone that they are partied with, because Angry Momma Bear is a thing.
Bonus Points: They are incredibly apologetic afterwards, they really *didn't* mean to fly off the handle like that.
Example 2: I have an attorney. They are skilled at finding the weak points in an opponent's defense, and exploiting them in the court of combat.
They are a rogue, but they never call themselves that professionally.
Subverting stereotypes can be a good starting point for a fleshed out character though. Just because my starting point for my occultist is "a neat freak, craves an orderly life they lack, disdains junk" (which subverts the expectation that the class loves gewgaws) doesn't mean I can't flesh out that character to be a realistic person with a history, a personality, and a set of values. You need to start somewhere after all.
I would advise against going whole hog with the caricature thing, though. The whole "person joins a monastic order for the wrong reasons (i.e. they want to learn to fight)" is practically a trope in some classic Kung Fu Films (Invincible Pole Fighter and the The 36th Chamber of Shaolin to name a couple that are worth your time) but in each case the character does actually become somewhat more enlightened in the process.
The two easy shortcuts I tend to rely on when nothing else presents itself is either a character who starts in the expected place but tends towards something different, or a character who starts in an expected place but tends towards their own version of what the class is expected to be like.
So that gives me the starting point of, say, a "barbarian" who actually grew up in an upper class cultured family but who left that lifestyle due to rage issues (possibly about societal injustice) or the person who grew up in a traditional "barbarian" culture who left to wander because of genuine intellectual curiosity about the world who is always looking to discover new experiences or ways of looking at things.
Tropes can be used for on the fly roleplay, or as one part of more in depth roleplay. However, I think a player who doesn't go past the trope is missing out on an important part of the roleplaying experience. Both of the examples you cited - the paladin and the monk - are perfectly acceptable ways to play those characters. However neither of the descriptions are a personality - they are shallow, one sentance summaries.
I get that the five characters you present are trying to make the point that there are many ways to play a character, but some of them are pretty extreme and actually less appealing that the paladin and monk tropes. Going to the opposite end of the spectrum isn't the fix. As you describe things it sounds to me like the player is the problem, but there could be another side of it I am not aware of.
Maybe you can challenge this player to try playing a paladin or monk to see what he can do with it. A paladin can be a pious defender of the weak, but could also be a sarcastic germaphobe with a good sense of humor whose mouth moves when he reads and is socially awkward around elves. The monk who seeks enlightenment can enjoy cooking for others and be compelled to give ethic advice to children, yet does not hold back his opinion, snores when sleeping, and has a love of tattoos.
As far as the "shallow one sentence summaries" comment goes, I chose to simply provide key details rather than life stories, I think that's acceptable. And the entire point of this post is just a creative exercise to demonstrate that classes can still function when the character concept doesn't fit class stereotypes. And as for the appeal of the concepts, that is ENTIRELY subjective. I love all these ideas a whole bunch.
The player in question isn't really a "problem" to be honest. People on here seem to think that players are either perfect or "problem players" who need to be handled. This is honestly just a friend of mine who is more logical than creative, and he just struggles with seeing past stereotypes of classes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and the list of characters I provided were brainstorm ideas to show him that the classes can still function and be interesting outside of their traditional RPG narratives.
The things you described are all quirks and yes, every character can have them. But this post is mainly just a demonstration that even when you go to the COMPLETE opposite end of the spectrum (aka a 30 year old mom being a brawler) that the class can still fit the character.
Essentially, my friend see the class as a definitive shape that requires a matching character personality. The characters I listed here are simply a demonstration that any type of character personality can fit into any type of class architecture.
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A Bard as drill sergeant.
A Bard as drill sergeant.
@paizo please hire this person.
I apologize if my post came off as overly critical or harsh. I know that players are rarely perfect or problem - most are in the middle. That's why I was careful to mention that I was basing things off of what you wrote and that there could be more to it. I didn't mean that the player is the problem, but that not seeing past the tropes is a problem. I think he needs to challenge himself.
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A Bard as drill sergeant.
I've got one of those. He's a half-orc, and at one point was the only person that could see in darkness, so he spent his turns just barking orders at the others so they could at least swing their weapons in the right places.
Other shake ups:
Kid grows up in a Church of Iomedae, left on the doorstep as an infant. He's kinda weak and spindly, but sees knights of Iomedae going around in bright shiny armor, with big swords at their hips and wants to be just like them. So he spends a lot of time working out, getting involved in martial arts for exercise. Grows up but finds that full plate is too heavy and restrictive, so he buys a lighter, more flexible style from down the street, which mostly just offers protection from the elements. Similarly, long swords are a bit too clumsy so he gets a slight variant from the local blacksmith.
Mechanically, UMonk with Mock Armor and a Temple Sword. Bonus points for Unhindering Shield and a horse.
I like the necromancer santa and the pirate theurge
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Some of my actual Pathfinder Society PCs who play "against type":
Zoë Saugin - Cute teenage girl who introduces herself as an arcane specialist, has a "cute widdle bunny wabbit" as a familiar, specializes in buffs and healing, but also has some debuffs. She's actually a witch, but refuses to call herself that (she grew up near the border of Irrisen and thinks all witches are evil winter witches).
Erevel Heldanlissil - Very arrogant elven archer. He's actually a wizard, but I use the elven longbow proficiency and dex bonus, and took Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot as his first two feats, to do archery at low levels. By level 4 or 5, he'll be too busy casting to bother with the bow any more, but the feats will still help hit with ray spells.
Varg Shelynson - Ugliest human on Golarion. Big, strong, somewhat deformed, and talks with a slight slur, as if he's retarded. Picture the big guy from the Goonies. He's a warpriest of the goddess of beauty, art, and love (Shelyn). He's also a pacifist. He found religion in jail, and wants to offer all enemies the chance to do the same, so he refuses to do lethal damage to sentient enemies. Specializes in tripping people with his goddess's favored weapon, which has reach.
Green Beard the Pirate, because what else would you call a half orc pirate? You might expect a swashbuckler or something, but he's actually a cleric to the pirate queen, Besmara. Doesn't actually carry a rapier, despite it being her favored weapon. He's a front line "bad touch" debuffing cleric. Channels negative energy for the spontaneous inflict spells, so not much of a healer.
Qassir - Very serious, honorable, scimitar wielding, Sarenrae worshiping dervish swordsman from Qadira. Not what anyone expects from a halfling with more rogue levels than other classes (also one level of Dawnflower Dervish bard and two levels of the Halfling Opportunist prestige class).
A Bard as drill sergeant.
I once did a bard up in the style of the D&D4 Warlord. Damn I loved that class ...
Did an Exalted LG Necromancer/cleric mystic theurge once. There were like six easily avoidable 'Evil' spells in the Necro school, I just didn't cast those. (For the curious, the character's deity was Anubis.)
A friend of mine played a Drow cleric of 'the goddess of the singing waters'. He was extremely foppish and specialized in non-violent solutions to problems whether via diplomacy or non-lethal magics.