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While browsing some fiction it got me thinking how many people nowaday's make the character they want to be or at least a part of that as opposed to one they want to try e.g the wacky build or the minmaxed gave up the ability to rhyme on purpose for a +1 to attack.
For this question you go to a game with a new DM. It's going to be a standard fare campaign you start off as slaves, ship is sunk and you wash up on a continent where you need to survive eventually going on to save a signifcant part of the continent. You know this going in and that its a Mwangi/African style continent. Other than that any race/class/book option is on the table as long as its from Paizo (no 3rd party stuff).
The Dm then reveals themselves to be an amoral god using humans for entertainment and it turns the party into their characters. You have their body, their powers, the memories to do anything they knew how to do you didn't but on the downside that does come with the changes to your abilities if the character was less intelligent you become less intelligent, if they were a 200 year old Tiefling feeling like Bilbo Baggins stretched thin you become a 200 year old tiefling and feel stretched thin, if they're iliterate you lose the ability to read. You remember you could read and obviously you know who you used to be but now as Korag its all just squiggly lines. For the world its all real, to return home you must complete the campaign, fail and you stay in a world where events move forward as they would in that situation and if you die you die for real.
Now laying aside the obvious if I knew I was going to become my character I'd have made X or the I turn around and run away from the campaign that could kill me. Just thinking about the kind of character you normally make nowaday's would you regret the choices you'd made in character creation or do they contain enough of what you'd like to be that you'd be able to handle turning into one even if you don't particularly like it?
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I think I may have been unclear its not character X with your memories its you with character X's skills, abilities and body. For example you are now a 7'9" Half orc who dumped int. You remember your life, your family, your friends who all remember you as a half-orc child of two human parents and are fine with it. Sure you may not be able to read and have a lot more difficulty with complex thoughts than you used to (6 int, 23 STR) but in exchange you do know how to skin a deer and prepare it for lunch or track someone through the woods. However your still YOU. You look at that cute girl and your first reaction is presumably going to be "How do I get her to look past my being a half orc" (or maybe how me make girl see me as person too) and not "Korag want, Korag take."
You only lose things if your character states you lose them e.g. barbarians being illiterate will take away your ability to read but nothing on the character sheet say's you can't operate a computer (technic league rules are not on your character sheet) so you don't lose that.
Overall, I don't think I would regret it. I can't think of a character I've made recently for pathfinder that I would regret being. I do make a wide variety of characters and many of them never see session 0. But in this case we're talking about a character that made it to session 0. In that case I've already chosen something that I would enjoy playing for the duration of a campaign. I might be a little bit disappointed if I chose something for this campaign that wasn't one of my standbys. But when it comes to new DMs I'm more likely to make a character type I've played 100 times then something completely unfamiliar. Since I don't know the DM's style and it's easier to adapt if I'm playing a class I'm extremely familiar with.
If a substantial number of my characters are X then obviously there is something about that type of character I like. So, the idea of being trapped as that type of character would probably be the one enjoyable aspect of the situation.
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What makes an interesting character and what makes a stable, well-adjusted person with a decent shot at happiness are vastly different things.
None of my characters are people I'd want to be, ever. They're either damaged, in dangerous situations or both.
In fantasy games like Pathfinder, I always feel the need to point out the difference between the typical "adventurers" and "regular folk" to my players. Someone who willingly puts themselves in harms way, again and again in exchange for a bunch of wealth...that they then exchange for devices that help them tackle even more dangerous situations is probably not someone I'd like to have a beer with.
Now, if the characters are more heroes-by-necessity, "Lord of the Rings" style, that's a bit different.
But it's still a wicked hard life. Aragon regularly goes multiple days without food or sleep. I've done that a total of three times, and I didn't also have to run/ride super long distances or fight crazy battles afterward. Pass.
So I guess I wouldn't regret my choices for the specific character so much as I'd regret being any character at all.
And just for the record, I don't think Mary Jane'ing is something people do "nowadays". I would bet that's been around for as long as the hobby has, and probably longer.
Considering the type of characters I tend to write up I would probably be ok with it. I rarely if ever dump INT and tend to play characters with a decent amount of skill. A lot of times my characters have skills I do not, so if I still retained my own skills and memories that make me very effective.
Personality wise I always incorporate some of my self in every character I make. Sure there are some differences because I did not actually grow up in a fantasy setting. Often I will take one aspect of my character and exaggerate and expand upon it, but the core of the personality is still me in some way.
When I am writing up a PC I tend to write up characters that I would like to be. I don’t write up villains because I prefer to play heroes. I don’t write up stupid characters because I see enough stupidity in the real world. Most of my characters have a wide variety of abilities because I like options. I may focus on few things and be very competent with them, but try to be functional at other things.
Yeah. Similarly most of my characters at least have a core aspect of my personality somewhere in them. They may be quite different in a myriad of other ways, but:some part of their core will be me. Rime, my halfling witch, has at her core a complete non tolerance of harm to children and despises ‘bullies’ in al forms. Harishan my Vanara Druid believes in honoring all of his commitments, in family and has a burning dislike of involuntary servitude. Elsa my halfling bard was probably closes to my actual personality. But all of them at least in part are people I could “work with” even if I didn’t agree on everything.
It is hit and miss... Some PC's I'd have no problem being because they are basically what I would consider beings with very good intentions, others I make tend to end-justifies-means or do their best to escape consequence.
ALL, however, excel in skills I envy to be able to do (whether focused on 2-3 or a just an overall skill-monkey.) I can't help myself but to enjoy skill builds.
While browsing some fiction it got me thinking how many people nowaday's make the character they want to be or at least a part of that as opposed to one they want to try e.g the wacky build or the minmaxed gave up the ability to rhyme on purpose for a +1 to attack.
For this question you go to a game with a new DM. It's going to be a standard fare campaign you start off as slaves, ship is sunk and you wash up on a continent where you need to survive eventually going on to save a signifcant part of the continent. You know this going in and that its a Mwangi/African style continent. Other than that any race/class/book option is on the table as long as its from Paizo (no 3rd party stuff).
The Dm then reveals themselves to be an amoral god using humans for entertainment and it turns the party into their characters. You have their body, their powers, the memories to do anything they knew how to do you didn't but on the downside that does come with the changes to your abilities if the character was less intelligent you become less intelligent, if they were a 200 year old Tiefling feeling like Bilbo Baggins stretched thin you become a 200 year old tiefling and feel stretched thin, if they're iliterate you lose the ability to read. You remember you could read and obviously you know who you used to be but now as Korag its all just squiggly lines.
So... just as a random question. If the Eldest known as Jeeyem the Screened pulls this player into the world, as you describe, in the form of this player's character with:
- The physical appearance of the character;
- The powers of the character;
- The memories and learned capabilities of the character (so that the player has the required instincts to operate as the character);
- The physical and mental capacities of the character;
- The emotions and personality of the character (eg, "feeling stretched thin");
Can we really say that this player actually exists in the form of the character anymore? At best, it sounds like the player is being soul-trapped in a form to be carried by the character, who is tasked with doing the Stuff in the Mwangi Expanse in order to free the player, and occasionally having weird glimpses of who the player is.
Which... may be a slightly different question.
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What makes an interesting character and what makes a stable, well-adjusted person with a decent shot at happiness are vastly different things.
None of my characters are people I'd want to be, ever. They're either damaged, in dangerous situations or both.
In fantasy games like Pathfinder, I always feel the need to point out the difference between the typical "adventurers" and "regular folk" to my players. Someone who willingly puts themselves in harms way, again and again in exchange for a bunch of wealth...that they then exchange for devices that help them tackle even more dangerous situations is probably not someone I'd like to have a beer with.Now, if the characters are more heroes-by-necessity, "Lord of the Rings" style, that's a bit different.
But it's still a wicked hard life. Aragon regularly goes multiple days without food or sleep. I've done that a total of three times, and I didn't also have to run/ride super long distances or fight crazy battles afterward. Pass.So I guess I wouldn't regret my choices for the specific character so much as I'd regret being any character at all.
And just for the record, I don't think Mary Jane'ing is something people do "nowadays". I would bet that's been around for as long as the hobby has, and probably longer.
I'm sure it has but at least in my experience there seems to be a stronger push to "Make optimized character" over "make fun character even if you know the choice is sub-optimal" these day's. That is rather than some of the party making mary sues, munchkins, etc now there's a subtle pressure to make the most powerful choice you can or you're not pulling your weight. I blame online games and the "Look who did the most DPS" contest that goes on.
While browsing some fiction it got me thinking how many people nowaday's make the character they want to be or at least a part of that as opposed to one they want to try e.g the wacky build or the minmaxed gave up the ability to rhyme on purpose for a +1 to attack.
For this question you go to a game with a new DM. It's going to be a standard fare campaign you start off as slaves, ship is sunk and you wash up on a continent where you need to survive eventually going on to save a signifcant part of the continent. You know this going in and that its a Mwangi/African style continent. Other than that any race/class/book option is on the table as long as its from Paizo (no 3rd party stuff).
The Dm then reveals themselves to be an amoral god using humans for entertainment and it turns the party into their characters. You have their body, their powers, the memories to do anything they knew how to do you didn't but on the downside that does come with the changes to your abilities if the character was less intelligent you become less intelligent, if they were a 200 year old Tiefling feeling like Bilbo Baggins stretched thin you become a 200 year old tiefling and feel stretched thin, if they're iliterate you lose the ability to read. You remember you could read and obviously you know who you used to be but now as Korag its all just squiggly lines.
So... just as a random question. If the Eldest known as Jeeyem the Screened pulls this player into the world, as you describe, in the form of this player's character with:
- The physical appearance of the character;
- The powers of the character;
- The memories and learned capabilities of the character (so that the player has the required instincts to operate as the character);
- The physical and mental capacities of the character;
- The emotions and personality of the character (eg, "feeling stretched thin");Can we really say that this player actually exists in the form of the character...
Scratch that last one. You're getting their physical apperance, powers, skills, mental and physical capabilities. You are not getting their emotions or personality. The stretched thin was from a podcast I was listening to where Tieflings never die of old age but do grow weary ala Bilbo Baggins when they outlive the normal lifespan of their race. Think of it as the equivalent of feeling old rather than ache's and pains of the body you feel stretched thin. You don't suddenly have an urge to aquire more power that you didn't before. You may become a different person because things that you had trouble understanding before are suddenly easy (superhuman intelligence) or because you're now physically intimidating (7' half orc) but that'll be in the same course of changing in response to life not a sudden wham you're suddenly a talking animal and aren't bothered by it because your character was always a talking animal.
All I know how to play is depressed elves. I'm already depressed as a human, and being an elf would be... cool, but I'd have to watch everyone I know die. So, I wouldn't regret my choices as much as my very existence.
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Character you make to play this game. So you don't know you will become this character but its one you make for that game not a random one you've made over the years. Trying to see if people are still making characters they either want to be or reflect them or if they've shifted to making oen trick or minmaxed characters they like to play but wouldn't want to be.
Any Paizo rulebooks allowed but as I said you are making a character for a game not a character to become if you see the distinction?
Essentially you'd have a PC running around with enough meta game knowledge that whatever character you start as is a moot point.
Some retraining and a few levels under your belt and the world is your oyster.
A little time and patience and wish is your friend.
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I don't generally make characters I don't want to 'be' for at least a few hours at a time, and whom I'm not comfortable stepping into the boots of.
I don't like, at all, 'min-maxing' a character to have a stat below 10, so I wouldn't have to worry about suddenly being clumsy or graceless or dumb, at least, even if the character is of a 'class' that doesn't fit my own personal 'physically sedentary, reasonably clever, utterly charmless' mold, and, given the robust physical health and age of most starting characters, I'd probably be *way* better off than my current post-cancer situation.
Until I get eated by a velociraptor, anyway. :)
(Assuming I as player had any idea what sort of game I was preparing to play, a Skull & Shackles or Dungeons of the Slave Lords type scenario where we start out without our best gear / access to civilization, I'd presumably pick a character like druid or monk that could function without a lot of 'stuff' or trainers or spellbooks, so I probably would do okay there.)
That said, I love to play Clerics, and, in a game where gods are real, and capricious, I think I'd hate to actually *be* one. I'd spend my entire life looking over my shoulder, waiting to be smited, in the worst ever case of Imposter Syndrome...
I think being a cleric in a world where the gods are definitively real but also care about mortals and have vested interests in helping their followers.
I'm sure it has but at least in my experience there seems to be a stronger push to "Make optimized character" over "make fun character even if you know the choice is sub-optimal" these day's. That is rather than some of the party making mary sues, munchkins, etc now there's a subtle pressure to make the most powerful choice you can or you're not pulling your weight. I blame online games and the "Look who did the most DPS" contest that goes on.
Hoo this kind of comment really gets under my skin, let me tell you. I find it deeply reductive and downright insulting to players who enjoy playing with mechanics.
If you just want to make the most optimal character and care about nothing else, there's like maybe two or three actual options in a given system. Since I rarely see an entire group of arcanists or broke nature oracles or whatever, I really don't believe this is actually happening. And frankly, if someone wants to play a tweaked arcanist or whatever, they're doing what's fun for them. You are not the arbiter of their game experience. It's on the group to sort out the actual dynamic between PCs.
For players who actually know the systems well enough for the question to matter, well I don't have genuine demographics anymore than you do, but in my experience, they start with a vision for a character they want to play, and they make that character the best they can. Sometimes that's trying to make a person who had a certain kind of life, or sometimes it's starting with a wholly mechanical goal or trying to achieve some fun little trick with action economy. I started one of my favourite characters by asking myself how big of a whirlwind attack radius I could get and how horrible could I make it to be inside that radius.
Players shouldn't have to deliberately cripple their characters to pass some kind of purity test. This isn't acting school, it's fantasy gaming with mechanics that you are allowed to take advantage of to within the constraints your group agrees upon.
We are all making Mary Sues; that's what character-focused tabletop games are. Don't try to knock people down for it. If you have toxic players, that's a separate issue.
Anyway, to answer the thread's question, isekai doesn't really work for me because I have responsibilities, but assuming that would be a nonfactor, my characters are all sweet and I would totally be one of them with a couple exceptions.
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I'm sure it has but at least in my experience there seems to be a stronger push to "Make optimized character" over "make fun character even if you know the choice is sub-optimal" these day's. That is rather than some of the party making mary sues, munchkins, etc now there's a subtle pressure to make the most powerful choice you can or you're not pulling your weight. I blame online games and the "Look who did the most DPS" contest that goes on.Hoo this kind of comment really gets under my skin, let me tell you. I find it deeply reductive and downright insulting to players who enjoy playing with mechanics.
If you just want to make the most optimal character and care about nothing else, there's like maybe two or three actual options in a given system. Since I rarely see an entire group of arcanists or broke nature oracles or whatever, I really don't believe this is actually happening. And frankly, if someone wants to play a tweaked arcanist or whatever, they're doing what's fun for them. You are not the arbiter of their game experience. It's on the group to sort out the actual dynamic between PCs.
For players who actually know the systems well enough for the question to matter, well I don't have genuine demographics anymore than you do, but in my experience, they start with a vision for a character they want to play, and they make that character the best they can. Sometimes that's trying to make a person who had a certain kind of life, or sometimes it's starting with a wholly mechanical goal or trying to achieve some fun little trick with action economy. I started one of my favourite characters by asking myself how big of a whirlwind attack radius I could get and how horrible could I make it to be inside that radius.
Players shouldn't have to deliberately cripple their characters to pass some kind of purity test. This isn't acting school, it's fantasy gaming with mechanics that you are allowed to take advantage of to within the constraints your group agrees upon....
I'm not saying you need to cripple a character to be a good player, I was referring to the fact in the recent past when I've posted "I want to play X help me make it as viable as possible" rather than as your talking about getting "Well you'll want option Y" I've gotten "That class is bad play this one instead" when the whole point of the post is "I want to play this class."
You taking the optimized options doesn't mean your not a roleplayer. The strong pressure I've felt when asking for help to completely change the entire character concept because class X is bad however is why I'm getting the feeling there's a stronger push to play the absolute best option rather than making the best of the option you want. If you see what I mean?
It could also be due to different groups and different expectations. Or maybe I was just bad at conveying what I wanted to play hence this thread to see if it is just my impression or if people are still playing the choice they like.
My favorite character is balanced in and out of combat with not stat dumps, though I would likely adjust a few skill points for a profession more relevant to the real world.
oh yes! My current character would be an amazing life to lead! Gestalt homebrew campaign world; Sacred Fist Warpriest/Drunken Brute, Brutal Pugelist Barbarian, Martial Artist Monk (Basically a clerical Zangief) but with a farm boy's sense of morality and ethic. Travels around with his Shaggy Yak on a beater wagon, making "holy water" (read; moonshine) and supplying a dozen mountain communities with goods*, hard work, life lessons, "holy water" and news from his travels. Uses most of his money to buy trade goods to give out to the communities he travels thru. Kind-hearted, honest, believes in community, hard working and can hammer toss a mastadon a good twenty feet! He's like Santa and Hulk Hogan (without the racism!) Yeah, I'd happily be that!
*I imagine the rest of the characters in the group are getting tired of traveling by "goat herd pace" as he's constantly buying herds of animals to take to the more remote communities he visits.
Well I Will accept to stay in that god world only if he have a epic improvement. It will be boring if the god tell me that's the max lv is 20 like Pathfinder rules.
Anyway I will go for my azlanti arcanist the problem is in what time/place/level/manual option the god will put me
By amoral do you mean he doesn't care what alignment your character is?
So it's my consciousness in the body of someone who is
- potentially a different species, with all the adjustments to behaviour tht requires
- potentially a different gender, again requiring a whole lot of adjustment.
- living a life where suddon violence is common and expected
- likely to be away fron the comforts of civilisation for a long time
- having to spend most of their day with 3-4 mentally unstable egotists with delusions of grandeur and hair-trigger tempers
- lacking in any sort of social safety net if they get sick or injured (which is likely given their vocation).
- expected to kill other sentient beings for a living.
.. no thanks. It doesn't matter how wel balanced, humane and sensitive the character is, the idea of having to live as any of them really doesn't appeal.
I don't make characters I'd like to be. They typically differ in some fundamental philosophical way from me, though they are judged by my standards by necessity. There's a built in necessity for most characters to be okay with killing, and comfortable with death, and I'm neither of those things both naturally and deliberately.
That said, I do my best to make sure my characters are fun. If they don't interact with the world in a unique way, then I don't play them. I wouldn't trade my personal sense of decency for it, but there's quite a bit of power on offer with most of the characters I make. Even if it is often silly power, or the longest Pirates of Penzance reference ever.
The character I most recently made for a shipwrecked game is a halfling skald, bacchanal/wyrm singer. He's entirely too passive in his philosophy relying on personal power to make up for his lack of concern for his well being. On the flip side, he's entirely too careful with the welfare of others, and can get bogged down when assisting others becomes complicated. I've played characters who would be much worse to become.
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When I'm starting a new campaign, I listen to/read the intro/campaign guide, then think up some character that would fit into this story. At this point, I usually draw a picture of them too. Once I have the fluff, then I assemble rules to play them.
My PCs are always mechanically very strong and often perform exceptionally well, being designed to fit the campaign and all. I see no reason good roleplaying and powerful characters can't go hand in hand.
While playing an unstoppable super hero is fun, I'd never want to be any of my characters, but that is 100% because of the horrible traumatic #%@! they go through in any given adventure.
I do both. Sometimes I make characters to just be characters. Some characters I like to think are just me whose willing to do more to carry out my morals or lack thereof.
Nah I would be fine. My characters all pass mark the check boxes of things I like, so overall, Im not concerned, while for sure I can say it wouldnt be 100% perfect and exactly what I would have picked in such scenario, all of them atleast wouldnt be a terrible pick either.
Wouldnt have to worry about age, since pretty much all PCs are young due to usually games starting lvl 1 and to me, that means they just out of bootcamp.
Wouldnt have to worry about your usual anime scenario where the MC ends up a girl. All my PCs are dudes.
Wouldnt have to worry about being crap, since always atleast keep a decent level of optimization.
Wouldnt have to worry about being alone either, since I always have a companion even if it is just a familiar. So hey, some moral support for this s#*!ty situation.
Ofc, being a PF player means I would be expecting a horrible death, since in my experience as you gain levels the likelihood of terrible demise increases greatly and this is with a GM often atleast trying to narrative that doesnt include you walk right into the CR 20 dragon cause you turned the wrong corner. So probably I would invest in more defense whatever build I had picked than I would if it was just a game.
I was referring to the fact in the recent past when I've posted "I want to play X help me make it as viable as possible" rather than as your talking about getting "Well you'll want option Y" I've gotten "That class is bad play this one instead" when the whole point of the post is "I want to play this class."
Are you saying that in the message boards of a roleplaying game, people should not presume that you have any interest in roleplaying a character?
Because "I want to play this class." is like the opposite of roleplaying. You're focussing on the one aspect of the character that doesn't even appear in game! If you're are dead set on picking that one specific class you are the one concentrating on something that actually prevents you from best roleplaying your character idea, while the other posters are the ones who tell you how to fulfill the underlying concept of your character best.
To put it shortly, there's a difference between what people want to play, and what they think they have to play.
If you want to play a backstab style character, people telling you to pick Slayer or Investigator instead of Rogue is not invalidating your wishes, it's actively helping you make them a reality, because 99% of the time, people pick Rogue based on a misconception. Some people think a Rogue is needed for a functional group, some people think the class is the best at skills, some people think that the class is best at sneaking, some people think that the class is best at such a backstype style, and some people think that because they had fun with a Rogue in a previous game, it's the class and not the campaign or group that did that. None of that is true. Bursting those bubbles is indeed helping the person in question have more fun in the game. Because if you wanted to play a sneaky loner backstabber, and all sneaking is done by the Alchemist with an extract of Invisibility and all your "Sneak Attack" is triggered by teamwork, you won't have much fun (not as much as youcould have, anyway). If you had heeded the suggestion to play an Investigator, you'd be the best at sneaking, and you'd have an actual "carefully pick the spots where my attack hurt the most" ability.
There are people who deliberately pick something weak to see if they can make something good out of it. That's the missing 1%. But unless you say that crystal clear up front, people will presume you belong to the 99%, and you can't fault them for that.
You mention "making the best of the option you want", but unless you literally care more about what's written in the class section on your character sheet than how the character behaves in the game, a specific class is not what you actually want.
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In this case if I wanted a social, flashy swashbuckler charater e.g. flynn ryder or the 3 muskateers. I think a slayer was amongst the classes suggested for that. Anyway lets just agree to disagree, if you want to continue the discussion PM me or make a new thread please as its not really applicable to this one. As it only applied in giving me the motivation for making it but doesn't actually contribute anything to the main thrust would you be comfortable in the situation in the first post, you are obviously a yes.