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SilentP
2009-02-16, 09:46 AM
Lovely first topic to start off with. Anyways, onwards!

I've had a few occasions where I've just become disillusioned with characters I've come up with. My first example was a Dwarf Warlord('read lady') for a 4th Edition D&D game we played. There was something about the character that just didn't 'click' as I was playing her. The supporting/leader role is usually one I'm fairly good, and it lent itself fairly well with NPC interaction, which is also something I enjoy, but it just didn't seem to be working so well.

Well, fortunately in this case, me and the GM were able to figure out a way to eliminate the character without it feeling too contrived (in this case, the Dragonborn Paladin that was slowly being turned insane by an evil magic ring would kill the Dwarf while on a rampage unseen by the rest of the party in a burning tavern), and was soon replaced by a Human 'Ranger' (stylistically based of 'Skarin' out of Viking: Battle for Asgard) that came from a tribe friendly with one of the other character's tribes.

The second one is perhaps a more straight cut case. It was our first attempt at a Star Wars RP, with a first-time GM, and it didn't generally go well for some of the players who were after something more than *wiping out a room of grunts then return to boss for next room* 'action'.

I was playing a Droid, who started with a level in Scout, then took a level in Scoundrel when I found out some funky feats with starship and tech design available to them with one of the expansion books, then took a level in independant droid when I found out about them in another book. Fairly soon after some of us decided to sabotage the campaign to ensure it would die (we seemed to be wrapping it up), I decided to activate the droid's self destruct bomb to take out a mob boss.

So has anyone had the feeling that there were just not happy with their characters they created after a while playing as? Maybe you felt that they just didn't seem enjoyable to play anymore, or perhaps they started multi-classing and felt that there character was going all over the place from it, and seemingly becoming schizophrenic in the in process?

And perhaps more importantly how do you deal with such occurences? :smallfrown:

KillianHawkeye
2009-02-16, 10:14 AM
Well I think that this sort of thing happens to everyone once in a while, and it's perfectly normal to get bored or to have a character that doesn't end up being as cool or as fun as you expected it to be. Or sometimes you just get a new character idea that you're really excited about and just have to try.

Of course, there are some other ways to handle a situation like this other than killing the character off. You can work with your GM to find some other reason to change characters. Or you can see if your GM will let you rebuild the character from the ground up to recapture the invisioned feel you had in the beginning. Not that there's anything wrong with character death, either. It's all about whatever makes you happy.

Satyr
2009-02-16, 10:23 AM
It happens. In the best cases, this enstrangement is a result from "growing out" of a simplistic and limiting character concept, and in the cases I left a character behind was almost always because I found the character had no potential for development anymore. In those cases, I kill them off, mostly in a disturbing and violent way, to make up for all the harmony junkies who think that their characters should retire in My Little Pony Land or something like that and suddenly become immortal or similar kitsch stories.

The other version which is acceptable is the character whose story is told, and who therefore has no place in the narrative anymore, so that it is acceptable to wreck it.

If you want to create characters with potential, make them flawed, multidimensional and as life-like as possible. The more interesting the character is in itself, the less it depends on input from outside to be interesting.

Hal
2009-02-16, 11:06 AM
I actually have this problem in a 4e game right now, too.

Part of it stems from the very minimal amount of planning that went into the character. I joined the game at the last minute. That is, everybody showed up to the first session with completed characters, while I showed up and said, "What's the party make-up and can someone show me a PHB?"

I was drafted into playing a healbot Cleric. While I'm very good at keeping the party alive (a very necessary role, given the recklessness of the players and the ruthlessness of our DM), I find the character boring. He has almost no personality, and my attempts to roleplay something into him fall flat. Plus, it'd be nice to contribute something to the game besides healing, but I'm redundant in all other aspects (skills, "face" moments, etc.).

Another really tricky problem is that the character just doesn't mesh with the rest of the party. The rest of the party is, with an alarming frequency, willing to execute the various thieves and assassins who surrender to us after combat. While I'm not playing a lawful stupid character, I can't pretend that the guy is okay with executing unarmed men who surrender during combat.

At this point, it seems like its going to be easier to figure out a way to breathe life into the guy rather than "retire" him in favor of something more exciting. Still, I feel your pain.

Totally Guy
2009-02-16, 12:39 PM
I had a player ask to retire his character at the start of a new plot line.

I thought I handled it well. Sort of.

The character entered a portal to the minor baddie's castle in the next town setting I'd planned a couple of hours before the rest of the party managed to follow.

Then 2 sessions went by without me even mentioning the character. This was my plan all along, to make them think I'd forgotten.

Then I surprised them all by having the minor baddie use this character as a gift to appease another town ruler. From then on I had essentially given the character a happy ever after working in a new town. But I didn't get to that point until the very end of the story arch. The existing PCs including that player's new characters ensured the retired character's happiness by saving the day.

SilentP
2009-02-16, 04:22 PM
If you want to create characters with potential, make them flawed, multidimensional and as life-like as possible. The more interesting the character is in itself, the less it depends on input from outside to be interesting.

I guess this was probably the major stumbling block with at least the Dwarf Warlord character, since I chose it more for an image of what the character's style would be, rather than an actual history for the character's people and the characters itself. The 'ranger' that came after had a much tighter background and motivations, I even ended up coming up with a 'tribe' of sorts, from which I could take characters from of different styles that would fit within their culture.

Prometheus
2009-02-16, 05:53 PM
To me the biggest downer is when you start a character for what you think will be a long-lived campaign and it ends up dying. You don't really want to play that character again, because you feel like you are repeating yourself, but you also really want to hang on to the player for a while.

I had a character who I made kind of crazy. Turns out that wasn't as fun to play as a I thought, because he was kind of creepy and was also hard to RP. So I made an agreement with the DM that he would be overcome with evil magic and turn on the party at a pivotal moment (no one else knew that this was going to happen) and my new PC happened to be available to join the party when it happened.

Halaster
2009-02-17, 07:24 AM
Actually, for me that's a recurring problem. I tend to be something of a concept player, meaning that coming up with original characters is more fun than actually playing them. Which is part of why I make a decent GM, I guess, my NPCs don't get boring quickly. But as a player it sometimes turns frustrating, when I come up with a really cool character, then play him a few sessions, and find that I have a new concept just surging up in my mind. The old character is still fun to play, but I'd so much love to play the new one.
In my early days of playing that led to many character switches. But I've learned to deal with the problem somewhat, by making internal changes to the character. That's not always easy and works best when the GM plays along and brings in things of his own. For example I created a very Christian knight for a Pendragon campaign, who lived to be the compassionate, humble, helpful ideal Christian. It was real fun, and just when my first doubts began to stir, the GM came up with a love interest for him (without realizing how I felt), and I latched on to that. Now he's married and a father and his family is taking up another large part of his life. This will keep the character interesting for a lot longer, not because it's better, but because it's new.
So, if you feel that your concept is falling through, try to add something new to it. Come up with another aspect in your background story, retcon it in, if you need to, and with any luck the new idea will spice up the character. Eventually it may replace the original concept altogether. Happened to my old WFRP character like five times in half as many years of gaming. Again, the development of the campaign invited those changes.
Therefore the worst thing that can happen to such characters is that everyone assumes that what you've got right now is the real thing and plays to your character in ways that reinforce the concept. If that happens, talk to your GM. Perhaps he would like to take the campaign in a slightly different direction and give you a chance to introduce a "new" personality for your old character.

CU,
Halaster

Drascin
2009-02-17, 09:36 AM
This is a very common problem. That's why I tend to not drop the actual plotline of my campaigns until about the fifth session - that way, in the first games, the players can see whether their characters work like they wanted or not, and if not, substitute them without screwing the story much.

valadil
2009-02-17, 10:23 AM
I experience unsatisfying characters fairly often. Sometimes it's my fault, sometimes it's the game's fault.

Characters that are too close to my own personality bore me. What's the point of roleplaying myself? Likewise, I have a hard time relating to my characters who are too different from myself. As such I aim to place my characters at arms length. They'll retain one or two aspects of my personality but also grab onto traits I don't have.

Other times my character is great, but doesn't get played out in the game. This is more disappointing to me. Lately I've been recycling these characters with other groups or turning them into NPCs in my own games.

Rave7215
2009-02-17, 10:46 AM
I have this problem often. And at the worst times. Normally I have this problem when I take up a class to fill a role left open, because all other players are stubborn and refuse to play a leader/defender. usually makes for boring characters that I just cant get into.

On the flipside, Everytime that I end up making a character I absolutely LOVE, the campaign usually ends quickly, due to drop outs or lack of interest. Or straight out dying. Ill never forget the one time, We were playing our first session of a new campaign, and i created A ranger with a long, long winded backstory. It was the most work I put into a backstory, and it all just flowed. It was my favorite character to date. And he died in the first session, because the DM overpowered all his monsters. In truth, the entire party should have died, but he figured one death was enough. *sigh* Yep. Good times.

SilentP
2009-02-17, 11:04 AM
Characters that are too close to my own personality bore me. What's the point of roleplaying myself? Likewise, I have a hard time relating to my characters who are too different from myself. As such I aim to place my characters at arms length. They'll retain one or two aspects of my personality but also grab onto traits I don't have.

I'll admit, I think I've had to spot fairly early on that playing characters to similar to my own personality was a bit of a deadon, for fairly similar reasons to you valadil. So far though, I haven't tried playing anything very different to myself yet, so I've yet to see if that would work out well for me.