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PrGo
2009-02-24, 07:56 AM
Hi, all. I'm planning to try a Voidmind-Orc Psion who'll have a -4 penalty on charisma. So I was wondering, what would a highly-intelligent, averagely-wise and (probably) with-1-point-of-charisma character act like?

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to make some overpowered/broken character, this is mostly for roleplaying fluff. I'm not going to abuse the Body Fuel/Voidmind combo much.

Thanks in advance :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Forgot to mention that for a psion, he'll have insane strength, so that might influence his attitude a bit.

Neithan
2009-02-24, 08:00 AM
I guess he'd probably be a sissy. Very bright and smart, but quite cowardly and socially akward. Maybe he knows a lot of thing, but does not know when to keep his mouth shut and constantly pisses off other people with that.
Or also, he could also always say "yessir" and completely lacks any spine.

Or he's a realy awful nerd. :smallbiggrin:

PrGo
2009-02-24, 08:05 AM
Ah man! That sucks :smallyuk:
But it'll probably be fun to try that once in a while, to differ from the rest of the cool-guy-in-the-shadows characters of the group. I don't know much about cowardly, cuz it would be more logical that wisdom defines that, but I may be wrong.

potatocubed
2009-02-24, 08:08 AM
Perhaps he has no brain-mouth filter and says exactly what he's thinking, all the time. The way our group played this with the Cha 4 dwarf was to assume that all the OOC snark coming from the player was actually being spoken in character. Since we were supposed to be soldiers, this didn't go over very well with the senior ranks.

Oh, and the dwarf never bathed.

Saph
2009-02-24, 08:09 AM
1 Cha is the lowest you can possibly get while still being a conscious being. By contrast, a cat has a Cha of 7. A wolf has a Cha of 6. A monstrous centipede has a Cha of 2. 1 Cha is the level of a Zombie, Black Pudding, or Gelatinous Cube. It's rock bottom.

Having a Cha of 1 is well below being a nerd. It means that you're only barely able to distinguish between yourself and the rest of the world. Not only do you have no strength of personality, you barely have a personality.

- Saph

PrGo
2009-02-24, 08:12 AM
That sounds logical, so it might be interesting to play him that way. We have a player in our group that says insulting stuff all the time OOC and when the DM asks him: "So you really said that?" with a serious face, he takes it back immediately. As an opposite of him, I'll say "Yup" if I say something like that OOC. Thanks a lot for that one :smallbiggrin:


Oh, and the dwarf never bathed.

That one figures for a low-charisma brute :smalltongue:


Not only do you have no strength of personality, you barely have a personality.

Oh :smalleek:... In that case I might up it a little, to about 6 or 7.

Tengu_temp
2009-02-24, 08:18 AM
Very bright and smart, but quite cowardly and socially akward.

The rest of your post makes sense, but there is no connection between charisma and courage.

Saph
2009-02-24, 08:19 AM
Oh :smalleek:... In that case I might up it a little, to about 6 or 7.

Well, you have to remember that 3 is the human minimum. And a Cha 1 character is below even that.

So imagine the most unattractive, uncharismatic, unpersuasive guy in the entire world. Done that?

A Cha 1 character is worse. That's how bad it is. :P

- Saph

PrGo
2009-02-24, 08:25 AM
So imagine the most unattractive, uncharismatic, unpersuasive guy in the entire world. Done that?

A Cha 1 character is worse.

Lol I cracked up on that one!

Your arguments strike true. From now on (after this character of course) charisma is no longer a dump stat for me :smalltongue:
Off to playing absent-minded assassins that miss their target when it walks right in front of them or kobolds so weak that they barely hold their own weight.
Or I might just balance it all :smallbiggrin:

Thanks for the input, all of you, it was very helpful.

Grey Paladin
2009-02-24, 08:25 AM
Tengu, I think he's referring to social ticks caused by fear, like your throat going dry whenever you attempt to speak, being afraid to raise your voice, fearing verbal confrontations, or being extremely passive/submissive and/or shy.

xPANCAKEx
2009-02-24, 08:25 AM
if he's high int/high wis, i'd probably play his as arrogant, gruff, and a abrasive - even to long time companions

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-24, 08:29 AM
I'd agree that him having no backbone or no social skills would work (for a friendly recurring Gnoll Barbarian/Fighter NPC in 1 game I was running, I had her as a braggart who saw all males as inferiour to females in order to get her Cha 6 over). Also, animals should have much higher Cha, as my sig picture suggests.:smalltongue:

kamikasei
2009-02-24, 08:29 AM
I played a warforged once with Cha 4. I played it as brain damage. He had been an all-round awesome guy with high stats in everything, but he was badly damaged and the repairs didn't quite take, so his Wis was reduced (harder time reading people, picking up on subtleties in his surroundings, etc.) and his Cha took a huge hit. He was pretty much lost and aimless all the time, very little sense of self, very easily led, always tending to defer to others, having almost no initiative of his own. He still had a high Int, so he could work out a plan and follow through on it perfectly well, but it was a struggle for him to think of doing so in the first place.

Ricky S
2009-02-24, 09:52 AM
He would be socially awkward, so as was said yes he would be either quiet or very talkative. Its like asperges. If you know anyone with it, they find it hard to understand social situations and may say really inappropriate things. Depending on how much charisma you give him will determine how socially inept he really is. If he is intelligient then he would be like V. Example when everyone is making fun of Roy being a girl and V ponders why he has a mop on his head. They just cant get social situations. If you are wanting to more in depth research try watching "The Big Bang Theory" which will show you how smart people with low charisma act.

Curmudgeon
2009-02-24, 10:16 AM
Mumble, use a monotone, and speak very quietly all the time. You'll be ignored a lot, which is the desired goal of having low CHA.

Shademan
2009-02-24, 02:55 PM
carries around a dead fish he talks with all the time?
and he insist on squeezing it on people so they can be approved by the fish!

Sergeantbrother
2009-02-24, 03:47 PM
carries around a dead fish he talks with all the time?
and he insist on squeezing it on people so they can be approved by the fish!

You've played Vampire : the Masquerade I assume?

Anyway, as for having a charisma of 1. Its basically as repugnant as one can get, so its hard to explain it in terms of people that you're met, because you've never met anybody with a Charisma of 1. It seems like a Charisma of 1 would basically exclude being able to actually communicate with other intelligent beings, not like being mute, because mutes can still interact with others in a variety of ways. But a true inability to connect with others on any level at all. Its hard to conceptualize such a without other associated mental defects that would involve a low Intelligence and/or Wisdom.

I suppose that some mental defect of the character causes him to deliberately make others dislike him, that he says the meanest things he can to hurt and offend others at every opportunity. That he will deliberately without information from others or be intentionally difficult in a conversation for the express purpose of frustrating or angering others. This kind of low character can't just be explained as shyness being too blunt, even people like that have a Charisma of 3+.

Really, I think to avoid having a ridiculous character you might try to get that Charisma up a little bit higher.

lsfreak
2009-02-24, 03:49 PM
Keep in mind charisma is also listed as being related to physical attractiveness. Things like scarring, a malformed body part, or body modifications outside of the context of ones normal culture could all count as something Cha-related as well. If your character has these, they're more likely to be socially reserved (possibly to the point of being antisocial or asocial). Alternatively, the person may be outgoing and almost oblivious to the way others see them, and therefore comes off far too strongly for most people's comfort.

Shademan
2009-02-24, 03:52 PM
You've played Vampire : the Masquerade I assume?



Nope ;D
but i read Pondus. and so should you! Jokke is definitely a low CHA character XD

Aron Times
2009-02-24, 03:55 PM
Nagato Yuki would be a good example of a low charisma, high intelligence character.

Nightson
2009-02-24, 03:57 PM
I'm thinking Cameron from the Sarah Connor Chronicles here for a drastically low CHA character.

Shademan
2009-02-24, 04:00 PM
to illustrate my point:
norwegian text, sorry.

http://www.saga-norway.com/pondus.JPG
http://sisoleisne.com/tegneserier/images/jokke.gif


as fer the fish thing, he only did that to NOT get a job.
it worked.

Satyr
2009-02-24, 04:05 PM
I would play the character as completely callous and unable to relate to any other living being - not by choice but becauase he completely lacks anything resembling empathy. He doesn't understand that other beings also have feelings, emotions, etc. - he only understands intentions, but is completely unable to understand motivations - probably not even his own ones.
If this isn't enough, you could also make him as ugly as good ol' Dr. Phibes.

BTW:


By contrast, a cat has a Cha of 7. A wolf has a Cha of 6.

Yeah, that makes totally sense. Highly sociable beasts living in packs with a clear social order and the need to cooperate should really have a lower charisma as completely solitary creature.

Yukitsu
2009-02-24, 04:10 PM
Nagato Yuki would be a good example of a low charisma, high intelligence character.

That's what I'm doing for my charisma 4 character.

mcv
2009-02-24, 04:21 PM
Simon Tam from Firefly is a good example of a very high INT, below-average CHA character. Completely unsubtle in human interaction, and has a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He's not terrible, however. I don't think his CHA would be below 8.

To justify CHA 1, you'd have to make people seriously question whether you're alive at all. You're incapable of normal interaction. Nobody will pity you if you're bleeding in the street. You're a piece of crap. Most likely, you scare people.

Eldritch_Ent
2009-02-24, 04:22 PM
My suggestion would be to make him an incredibly persuasive, charming fellow- and just have the DM make EVERY NPC react incredibly poorly to him, whatever he says. The guy's just cursed or something. It would be hilarious.

Draz74
2009-02-24, 04:27 PM
Mumble, use a monotone, and speak very quietly all the time. You'll be ignored a lot, which is the desired goal of having low CHA.

I second this. A big lack of self-confidence is a great symptom of low-ish Charisma. (Not zombie-level though.)

Saph
2009-02-24, 04:32 PM
Yeah, that makes totally sense. Highly sociable beasts living in packs with a clear social order and the need to cooperate should really have a lower charisma as completely solitary creature.

Hey, people like cats. Why else do you think they're so popular?

- Saph

Belobog
2009-02-24, 04:33 PM
I would play the character as completely callous and unable to relate to any other living being - not by choice but becauase he completely lacks anything resembling empathy. He doesn't understand that other beings also have feelings, emotions, etc. - he only understands intentions, but is completely unable to understand motivations - probably not even his own ones.

I wouldn't say that, particularly because reading intention and empathy is the same skill, and is tied to Wisdom [Sense Motive]. Perhaps he understands others, even understands what he used to be, but knows now he no longer has those things. Perhaps he wants them back again. It'd be a nice character hook.

Playing a 1 Cha character, on the other hand, is something I'd be weary of doing...especially since 1 CHA is usually reserved for constructs like golems. Then again, your brain is literally a blob of psychic Jell-O, so I guess it's appropriate.

PrGo
2009-02-24, 04:52 PM
Nagato Yuki would be a good example of a low charisma, high intelligence character.

That gave me an idea. Can someone post some more people who have low charisma and high intelligence so maybe I find some that I know of to relate to. Preferrably from Naruto cuz thats the only manga I read :smalltongue:

AslanCross
2009-02-24, 05:27 PM
Yeah, that makes totally sense. Highly sociable beasts living in packs with a clear social order and the need to cooperate should really have a lower charisma as completely solitary creature.

Why do you think we have lolcats and not lolwolves? Despite being solitary creatures, cats have such a strong force of person that we subconsciously worship them on the Internet. :D

But yeah, I agree with Saph. 1 CHA is not just "I have a social impediment." It's more like "What is this "I" that you speak of?"

Besides, aren't voidmind creatures practically zombies?

quick_comment
2009-02-24, 05:36 PM
This character basically has severe, severe autism. He cant relate to other people. He cant even imagine what it is like to be someone else. The entire concept of empathy is alien to him.

Look up autism, and play that to the hilt.

theMycon
2009-02-24, 05:58 PM
Act exactly like my ex-boyfriend, but look like Rosanne Barr, dressed up as a flesh-eating zombie.

Swooper
2009-02-24, 06:22 PM
I'd say a charisma 1 character is basically autistic. Nearly unable to communicate at all.

Moose Fisher
2009-02-24, 06:26 PM
Very one-dimensional. They would likely act as a subservient bio-computer.

sebsmith
2009-02-24, 06:51 PM
I'm thirding autism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism). Your character will basically have no force in their personality. Oddly, it appears from the wikipedia article, that if he has an above average strength, then he might have realized, when he was young, he could solve problems with force and never stopped.

holywhippet
2009-02-24, 07:49 PM
Charisma is generally seen as a combination of looks, speaking skills and presence.

For a charisma of 1 you'd have to bottom out on all three. You wouldn't be ugly - that would attract attention, instead you would be plain. Very plain. So ordinary and average that people just wouldn't give you a second glance.

Your speaking skills would be very rudimentary - you'd have trouble putting your thoughts into words and most people would give up on listening because of the delay. Or possibly you are wordy but speak about things so unintersting that people are bored within seconds after you start speaking. For example, if someone asked about recent orc raids you might start recounting the entire history of the orc race from the start of time until today before talking about the recent raids.

Your presence would be next to nothing. People would only notice you when there was noone else in the room. Or they would just tune you out of their mind because you bore them so much.

Mando Knight
2009-02-24, 08:20 PM
Charisma is generally seen as a combination of looks, speaking skills and presence.

For a charisma of 1 you'd have to bottom out on all three. You wouldn't be ugly - that would attract attention, instead you would be plain. Very plain. So ordinary and average that people just wouldn't give you a second glance.

Your speaking skills would be very rudimentary - you'd have trouble putting your thoughts into words and most people would give up on listening because of the delay. Or possibly you are wordy but speak about things so unintersting that people are bored within seconds after you start speaking. For example, if someone asked about recent orc raids you might start recounting the entire history of the orc race from the start of time until today before talking about the recent raids.

Your presence would be next to nothing. People would only notice you when there was noone else in the room. Or they would just tune you out of their mind because you bore them so much.

Oh, you could be ugly. 3.5 zombies all have exactly 1 Charisma. And are pretty much by definition ugly. You'd have a bit of presence, too. Everyone would notice that you're nigh-impossible to like, and you probably smell bad.

Take everything that an attractive/charismatic person has, and flip it on its head.

Instead of being able to lead armies, absolutely no-one will follow you, and probably go out of their way to avoid associating with you.

Instead of speaking in rhetoric that may befuddle, intimidate, or convince people, all you can say are words that make people want to shut you up. Even if you're right or have a valid point.

Instead of having an attractive appearance, you're repulsive, possibly overweight (and not in the "I'm the jovial fat guy" way), possibly unwashed, possibly smell bad even if you took a deeply cleansing shower, and you probably have a facial and body appearance/structure that marks you out as instantly unlikeable. Not Hollywood Homely, but rather "I'd rather scream at the top of my lungs, drench myself in combustible liquids, light myself on fire, and then run through a glass window than look at you" ugly.

Instead of being the person that everyone looks at in the room, you're the person that everyone wishes they could block out of their minds, throw in a pit of lava, and then scrub their brains with alcohol and sodium hypochlorite.

Hawriel
2009-02-24, 08:51 PM
Even though Cha is assosiated with being pritty it in no way needs to be interpretid in that way. Think of a phisicly attractive person that was born with a silver spoon in their mouths. They have no idea how to behave with any considaretion for others. Only their desires matter and how they veiw themselves as being better than others. Very low cha.

As for a high INT low CHA combo. I say idiot savant. Sence I live in a chollege town I have met alot of peaple who could be a templat for RPing this stat combo.

Dixieboy
2009-02-24, 09:16 PM
Hey, people like cats. Why else do you think they're so popular?

- SaphHigh Dex and Int score (For an animal)

vrellum
2009-02-24, 10:32 PM
I wouldn't make him ugly. That give the character too much, ermm... character. Many hideous creatures have high cha because being scary gives you social power over others. A cha of one means there is nothing socially intersting or powerful about the guy. He'd be a follower through and through. It would be nigh impossible for him to interact with others. Maybe he only talks to one person in the party and only if spoken to. Maybe he has a dog. He interacts witht the dog much more than the people and is constantly trying to win approval from the dog.

Zombies have a cha of 1 because they are mindless undead creatures with about as much in common with a rock as they have with a living person.

Dienekes
2009-02-24, 10:42 PM
I always assumed a low charisma character as one who is ugly, but as vrellum states unremarkable so. Everything about them is forgettable, they don't catch the eye they don't seem to stand out at all. Another portion of this is social ineptitude. You don't exactly have to be an extremist to just not be good with people. Always have the character say the wrong thing, have a habit of alienating yourself unintentionally. Be rude without knowing it, or a tendency to disregard social customs negatively.

I have a friend who is exactly this person. Remember though, just because you have a low Cha (even incredibly low) does not mean everyone won't like you. Just most people.

Actually I'd suggest watching Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, as someone else has stated. He really fits the bill of being really unable to correspond to people.

Zaq
2009-02-24, 11:28 PM
The thing to remember is that Charisma isn't "force of personality." It's being able to control your force of personality. Let's have two examples here.

First, we have someone really, really cripplingly shy. That's probably what a lot of people think of when they think "Charisma penalty." They wouldn't be good at getting people to listen to them or at speaking with conviction, and most people wouldn't listen to them a lot of the time.

Now, take someone really loudmouthed, no brain/mouth filter, says whatever's on their minds, damn the consequences. They have a pretty strong force of personality... but they'd be terrible at Bluffing (because they say whatever they think without thought to how it fits the bluff), bad at Disguising themselves (they couldn't "stay in character," so to speak), bad at Gathering Information (as they'd just ramble on about whatever they were thinking, rather than actually focusing on the task at hand), and so on. They have a really powerful force of personality, but they've still got a low Charisma because they can't control it to fit the situation. (This, in my mind, is why Orcs have a CHA penalty. They're not soft-spoken and reserved... rather, they have no way of controlling their personalities.)

Either of these archetypes represents a low Charisma score. It's not your force of personality, it's how well you can control it. Can you bring it forth when you need people to listen to you in fear and awe? Can you bite your tongue and offer what looks to be the better deal when in a diplomatic situation? Can you act like whomever you're disguised as, be they loudmouthed or quiet or whatever? Can you subdue your own thoughts and intentions and make people believe a lie? That's what Charisma is. High Charisma doesn't necessarily mean overbearing and boistrous. Low Charisma can, but does not have to, mean the opposite.

Now, since either option represents low Charisma, you should choose. Do you want to be little more than a rock, almost incapable of communicating? Or do you want to be the most uncontrollable, obnoxious jerk you've ever met, who's completely incapable of acting appropriately in different situations? Either of those is a low charisma score. I shudder to think about what a Charisma of 1 would imply, but the point is, Charisma isn't just force of personality; it's how you CONTROL your personality.

vrellum
2009-02-25, 01:43 AM
The thing to remember is that Charisma isn't "force of personality." It's being able to control your force of personality. Let's have two examples here.

First, we have someone really, really cripplingly shy. That's probably what a lot of people think of when they think "Charisma penalty." They wouldn't be good at getting people to listen to them or at speaking with conviction, and most people wouldn't listen to them a lot of the time.

Now, take someone really loudmouthed, no brain/mouth filter, says whatever's on their minds, damn the consequences. They have a pretty strong force of personality... but they'd be terrible at Bluffing (because they say whatever they think without thought to how it fits the bluff), bad at Disguising themselves (they couldn't "stay in character," so to speak), bad at Gathering Information (as they'd just ramble on about whatever they were thinking, rather than actually focusing on the task at hand), and so on. They have a really powerful force of personality, but they've still got a low Charisma because they can't control it to fit the situation. (This, in my mind, is why Orcs have a CHA penalty. They're not soft-spoken and reserved... rather, they have no way of controlling their personalities.)

Either of these archetypes represents a low Charisma score. It's not your force of personality, it's how well you can control it. Can you bring it forth when you need people to listen to you in fear and awe? Can you bite your tongue and offer what looks to be the better deal when in a diplomatic situation? Can you act like whomever you're disguised as, be they loudmouthed or quiet or whatever? Can you subdue your own thoughts and intentions and make people believe a lie? That's what Charisma is. High Charisma doesn't necessarily mean overbearing and boistrous. Low Charisma can, but does not have to, mean the opposite.

Now, since either option represents low Charisma, you should choose. Do you want to be little more than a rock, almost incapable of communicating? Or do you want to be the most uncontrollable, obnoxious jerk you've ever met, who's completely incapable of acting appropriately in different situations? Either of those is a low charisma score. I shudder to think about what a Charisma of 1 would imply, but the point is, Charisma isn't just force of personality; it's how you CONTROL your personality.

According to the PHB charisma is actual strength of personality, not how you are perceived in a social setting. Your second example (the loudmouth) is an example of someone with no skill pts in the area and perhaps some quirks that give penalties to cha-based skills.

Zaq
2009-02-25, 02:03 AM
The PHB has its flaws, and its definition of Charisma is one of them. Are orcs shy and reserved, with less natural force of personality than most other races? All (or arguably most) of the Charisma-based skills are all about projecting the personality you want to project rather than your actual state of being strong-willed and outspoken. Even UMD is about projecting a false (or at least misleading) "aura," for lack of a better term, to fool the wand or scroll or whatever. (Skeptical? Look at the "emulate an alignment" use. If you're good at it, you can suppress your real alignment, or some part of it, and present yourself as having a totally different worldview strongly enough to fool a magic item.)

Now, of course, a high-Charisma character can present themselves as headstrong, outspoken, garrulous, all your run-of-the-mill "force of personality" traits. But they don't have to. They have enough control over that part of themselves to shelve it if need be... or to bring it forth in full glory (say for casting an innate spell, or unleashing a wild surge, or channeling the sheer force of goodness of their souls into Lay On Hands). Because that, you see, is the flip side of the coin... even if a high-Charisma character isn't naturally extroverted and talkative (or however you want to describe "has a strong force of personality"), they have enough control over it that they CAN be when they need to be.

Yes, the PHB says "force of personality" and nothing more... but the PHB is not infallible, especially when it comes to roleplaying suggestions. (Go ahead and try to get a satisfactory distillation of the PHB's comments on law and chaos sometime.) For me, control of personality makes a hell of a lot more sense than raw force of personality.

Khanderas
2009-02-25, 02:24 AM
I think there are two kinds of low charisma.
One is self-confidence. Low charisma of this type makes you shy, prone to trailing off into silence when talking to people and low self-esteem in yourself and your abilities. A character of this type either is ugly/deformed and take full confidence damage for it or just thinks of himself/herself as, at best, plain an unintresting.

The second one is... attitude. Basically comes off as a bit of a jerk, justified or not. People just plain dont like him much after spendning a few minutes with him.


Big, strong, wise and intelligent... with low charisma.
Doesnt strike me as the shy version. I would peg that guy as a combination of ugly, disfigured and obnoxious. Fits well with a powerful psion of orcish heritage.
Not only ugly but deeply scarred in the face from when the psionic abilities manifested violently, as they healed akwardly it looks like he is continually sneering and some muscle damage healed wrong disables him from smiling properly. ever.
Somewhat bitter about this, his personality shifted to always carry a bullying undertone to his talk, so people dont forget who is ontop intellectually. Mentioning now and then the awards he won, the intellectual titles he gained and how mighty his intellect is.

"- Easy job... for me, makes you wonder how you dandies would manage without my vast intellect..."

Avilan the Grey
2009-02-25, 02:30 AM
Hey, people like cats. Why else do you think they're so popular?

- Saph


Don't you mean "Cats dupe humans"?

PrGo
2009-02-25, 04:45 AM
Not only ugly but deeply scarred in the face from when the psionic abilities manifested violently, as they healed akwardly it looks like he is continually sneering and some muscle damage healed wrong disables him from smiling properly. ever.

Well, the four holes in his head caused by illithids that ate most of his brain and replaced it with psionic goo that sometimes ooze that same goo would work similarly to your example :smalltongue:

Anyways, as Khanderas and Zaq mentioned, of the two low-charisma personalities, the bully-like intellectual that can't keep his mouth shut is somehow better for this guy.

Thanks :smallbiggrin:

Ovaltine Patrol
2009-02-25, 06:23 AM
Here are some ideas in no particular order:

1. The character stutters and stammers a lot.
2. The character is crude, slovenly, and/or unhygienic.
3. The character voices whatever comes to mind, regardless of circumstances or appropriateness.
4. The character is a really unconvincing cross-dresser.
5. The character always defers to others, even on matters that fall within their expertise.
6. The character comes across as "too intense."
7. The character doesn't speak, and hides behind the other PCs during noncombat situations.
8. The character has a distinctively unpleasant appearance.
9. The character has no strong opinions and is easily lead from one cause or idea to another.
10. The character lionizes inflexibly strong, but incredibly unpopular or taboo opinions.

Avilan the Grey
2009-02-25, 06:57 AM
The character is so un-remarkable that you keep forgetting he is in the room with you. Even within the actual Party. Of course this really needs the help from the rest of the group. "Rogue? What rogue? ...Oh that's right, we got Whatshisname..."


(I think Terry Pratchet had a character like this once. Although in that case it was Reality trying to push the character out (I think it was a princess, and she had to hire an official "Royal Reminder" that every day reminded people that she existed)).

Quincunx
2009-02-25, 07:45 AM
Drop certain concepts from your overclocked mind--ideas like "mine". Forget the possessive. Forget how one living thing relates to another living thing. The idea of property ownership is gone. The idea of family is gone. The idea that humans/beholders/dogs have different ways of organizing themselves is gone. The idea that people's speech comes from a separate source from your thoughts is gone. (If the passer-by says "I want to go to the pub", you go to the pub. When your party argues, count the voices to get a majority opinion on what you're going to do. It's the only logical way to resolve this.)

Since your party will be trying to forget you are a part of it, you are following them around since your thoughts get hard to hear when you're away from them. Have your DM make all the NPCs recoil when you do something to bring yourself to their attention. Know that you will be the pawn of the first person who notices you're there and figures out you have nearly no volition. (This also gives your party--at least one of them--a hook to interact with you. The autistic approach is a problem for your fellow players.)

Paramour Pink
2009-02-25, 07:54 AM
You're the know-it-all. If someone says something wrong, you must obnoxiousily point out that they're wrong, while also mentioning that maybe they just sit down and shut up when more intelligent minds are present. That intelligence of yours could be a source of egotastic fun. :smallbiggrin:

Eldan
2009-02-25, 08:18 AM
Once, in an online group, we played with scandinavia, ca year six- to sevenhundred as a setting, with magic almost completely absent. I wanted to play the group's druid, since the DM allowed me to play the only spellcaster, if I toned the magic down a lot.
I sat down and rolled stats. The result was, that I now had two eighteens, a sixteen, two fifteens and a four. Which resulted in a character that was incredibly wise and intelligent, resilient as an oak tree, strong as an ox and had the force of personality of a pot of brick, to exaggerate a little.
Now, I liked a challenge and decided to play this character. Since all the other characters came from the same village, my druid lived in a forest nearby, in the same cave as his animal companion bear. The villagers had seen him in the forest from time to time, and called him the bearman, since he was wearing hide armour and hadn't shaved or bathed in decades. He was mute, communicating mostly in growls and facial expressions, even though he knew pretty much every plant and animal in the forest and, for some weird reason was able to read and write four languages, latin among them, if he wanted to, which in a village of illiterates was quite exceptional.
At the start of the campaign, he just walked into the village (it was under attack by raiders at the time) and broke an enemy fighter's back with his bare hands. After the fighting, the villagers debated if they should give him food to send him away (he frightened the children) or burn him (the adults just thought he was dangerous and disgusting).
Later, he decided to follow the group, and while he did almost everything they told him to do, he always seemed angry and aggressive, except when, for some reason, he decided to sit under the next tree and stare at the ground, or the sky, sometimes for hours.
Oh, and he had absolutely no manners. Sniffing at people to see if he liked them? Check. Walking into another man's house and eat his food while he was debating with the group? Check. Horrible smell? One hell of a check.