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Orzel
2010-08-12, 06:04 PM
In what ways to your own characteristics leak into your characters?

I like eating. Therefore all my characters end up with a food issue. Most of time it's not even on purpose. Many of them are food snobs (or beer snobs) and hate the local cooking. Others ones eats dang near anything edible. A few of them were always hungry and worked for yummy food. Good one overtip the waiters and chefs, evil ones eat the waiters and chefs.

TooManyBadgers
2010-08-12, 06:05 PM
I just noticed that 90% of my characters are kind of *****.

Huh.

Aroka
2010-08-12, 06:28 PM
I have a really hard time not being a logical empiricist in-character, unless I'm just playing an outright dumb character, or one who just hits things instead of thinking about them.

World Eater
2010-08-12, 06:33 PM
All my characters are pretty much just different modified chunks of my persona.

Chaelos
2010-08-12, 06:35 PM
Mine characteristically pun.

fryplink
2010-08-12, 06:37 PM
Mine are always analyzers, in that they always are (over)thinking on problem... Knowing this I always play a wizard or factotum.

NowhereMan583
2010-08-12, 07:25 PM
Mine are always arrogant, usually cantankerous, and always have an unusual take on the morality of our/the villain's actions. And if they have strong religious views, they often fail to make sense within the setting. (A monotheistic cleric in a PHB-pantheon D&D setting, a missionary in a setting where religion and nationality always correlate, etc.)

The latter two are probably because I'm a philosophy major and like to look at ethics and religion from different angles.

The former two are almost certainly because I'm an arrogant, cantankerous *******.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-12, 07:40 PM
Most of my characters tend to be anti-authoritarian jerks-with-hearts of gold in some manner. I tend to play Chaotic neutral in style, even when alignment is not in play. They tend to be charismatic, but poor at politics and manipulation.

Even my deliberately different characters have something of me in. My disfigured, fanatically devout religious crusader type still had my distaste for scheming.

Fax Celestis
2010-08-12, 07:41 PM
I literally have never rolled a character with an Intelligence below 12 until my latest character (who has a 10). I just can't act it. I can pretend to be smart really easily, but pretending to be dumb just hurts in my soul.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-12, 07:43 PM
I literally have never rolled a character with an Intelligence below 12 until my latest character (who has a 10). I just can't act it. I can pretend to be smart really easily, but pretending to be dumb just hurts in my soul.

I just drink a bit, speak before I think, and never do take backs. Planning is a no-no. Makes for a rash, non contemplative character.

Gensh
2010-08-12, 09:24 PM
My characters are usually at least slightly smart-alack-y and tend to be chivalrous no matter what their alignment says. Sure he'd steal your soul and reanimate your corpse, but he wouldn't lay a hand on your wife or children.

Sir_Elderberry
2010-08-12, 09:30 PM
My characters tend to be smooth talkers, or at least reasonable. (My 4e characters are a Wizard who doesn't try anything too amazing socially but is amiable enough, a Bard who often lies his way through customs, and a Sorcerer who enjoys parties.) I don't like playing Int 8 characters, even if Int is something I could usually dump. I'm a fairly intelligent person, or so I tell myself, and I don't want to have to worry about metagaming myself too smart, so I stick with average or better.

Oddly, I like paladins and my wizard is extremely religious, despite me being very much not IRL.

Wonton
2010-08-12, 09:49 PM
All my characters have 18 Str and Cha, just like the real me. :smallcool:

Slightly more serious, a lot of my characters have been CG and NG (IRL, I fit somewhere between N, NG, and CG - most of the time).

A lot of them took have "Batman Syndrome" in that they try to prepare for every eventuality. My last Rogue had a Belt of Hidden Pouches full of various "What If" items, and my current Wizard bought scrolls of almost every 1st-level PHB spell. :smallannoyed:

valadil
2010-08-12, 10:32 PM
I literally have never rolled a character with an Intelligence below 12 until my latest character (who has a 10). I just can't act it. I can pretend to be smart really easily, but pretending to be dumb just hurts in my soul.

I had this problem. Then I decided to try stupid characters. I played 3 low int characters at the same time and let their mental deficiencies manifest in different ways. Tibor was dumb and happy about it. All the smart people had to stress over their responsibilities, but he just had to hit stuff. Murray was dumb and pissed off about it. He resented everyone who thought they were better than him. Occasionally he'd try to prove he wasn't dumb and it would backfire. Steve was dumb and didn't know it. He thought everyone else was so far below him that they were incapable of appreciating his genius.

Anyway, playing these characters and being somewhat analytical about their lack of intelligence made them interesting to me.

For my own personality, my characters often have a strange sense of humor. They say things they shouldn't, just to see if they can get away with it. This isn't something I ever mean to include in a character. It just slips out when I'm not thinking about it.

kyoryu
2010-08-12, 10:36 PM
I had this problem. Then I decided to try stupid characters. I played 3 low int characters at the same time and let their mental deficiencies manifest in different ways. Tibor was dumb and happy about it. All the smart people had to stress over their responsibilities, but he just had to hit stuff. Murray was dumb and pissed off about it. He resented everyone who thought they were better than him. Occasionally he'd try to prove he wasn't dumb and it would backfire. Steve was dumb and didn't know it. He thought everyone else was so far below him that they were incapable of appreciating his genius.

Anyway, playing these characters and being somewhat analytical about their lack of intelligence made them interesting to me.

For my own personality, my characters often have a strange sense of humor. They say things they shouldn't, just to see if they can get away with it. This isn't something I ever mean to include in a character. It just slips out when I'm not thinking about it.

Similarly, I played with a group (and adopted from them) that always used the 1st ed DMG random personality generator for characters. While you could get some realy psychos, you could usually find a way to tone that down and get some level of playability out of them, and have a scaffold of personality to start with to avoid imprinting too much of yourself on the character...

Tar Palantir
2010-08-12, 10:40 PM
My characters tend to carry exorbitantly large lists of mundane equipment for emergency situations. Any character with any sort of Int or skill points puts at least one rank in every Knowledge skill, so that I at least get to roll every time, and usually several more. Any character with neither skill points to spare nor Int ends up tallying kills in some way, from belt notches on good characters to necklaces of ears on evil ones.

RandomLunatic
2010-08-12, 10:42 PM
I tend to ruthlessly snark at the characters or even other players through my characters.

Wonton
2010-08-12, 10:58 PM
My characters tend to carry exorbitantly large lists of mundane equipment for emergency situations. Any character with any sort of Int or skill points puts at least one rank in every Knowledge skill, so that I at least get to roll every time, and usually several more. Any character with neither skill points to spare nor Int ends up tallying kills in some way, from belt notches on good characters to necklaces of ears on evil ones.

*high fives* I do all of that, too. :smallbiggrin:

Darius Rae
2010-08-13, 01:53 AM
I literally have never rolled a character with an Intelligence below 12 until my latest character (who has a 10). I just can't act it. I can pretend to be smart really easily, but pretending to be dumb just hurts in my soul.

I have that problem too. I am ok with negative modifiers in anything but INT. I would say that I am doing if for the skill points, but that would not be true.

I have a LN Cleric who acts EXACTLY like I would if in most situations, except for the whole blasting light from his hands and crushing people with DMM Persist and a great flail... He is fun to role play because I get to act on impulse about what I would do.

There is also a CG Elf Ranger for when I want something different.

panaikhan
2010-08-13, 02:05 AM
I do my best to play very different characters, but they all tend to have something 'wrong' about them. They're all slightly hatstand.

I take a small aspect of myself or my behaviour, and amplify it to become their 'main' characteristic - which tends to give them a skewed outlook on life.

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-08-13, 02:12 AM
A lot of my characters are fast-talkers - either figuratively or literally and tend to make leaps when it comes to "plans." In general, I personally like to engage in duals of wit, which I suppose is how that tends to manifest in character.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-13, 02:14 AM
My characters tend to dislike The Man. Never evil. Almost always lazy. They enjoy internal monologues (not as annoying in PbP as in normal games). In modern/futuristic settings, they tend to have nerdy interests.

CarpeGuitarrem
2010-08-13, 02:17 AM
My characters seem to always have this air of the dramatic/romantic (not in terms of amorous, but in the broader sense) about them, whether it be the Winter Changeling who laments the fallen state of the world, and its pain, or the noble rogue who's extremely protective of his little sister.

Yeah, I'm a ham.

Halae
2010-08-13, 02:26 AM
In general my characters end up acting like facets of my own personality - A neutral good person, affected by circumstances to view things a different way than his (or, rarely, her) counterparts would. My last character, a warforged named Blademark, was just a bit lost in his new freedom in eberron, and so took freedom a little too far - ending up on a boat that crashed off the shore of thrane. thus began his adventures. He was constantly trying to be more free despite his lawful alignment, and it clashed with his structured mind. wonderful stuff.

Coplantor
2010-08-13, 08:38 AM
The character that was the most like me was freaking crazy.

JeenLeen
2010-08-13, 08:46 AM
Mine tend to like accumulating lore and knowledge if it's not stuff I already know ooc. I really love the mythos of a setting and enjoy learning about the why and how of what is going on.

In D&D, this manifested through high Knowledge: History (to get the hidden backstory the DM made for his setting; my char was an elf historian wizard, who lived and had long enough to research stuff almost no one knew) and the various Knowledges to identify almost any monster we ran up against.

In WoD Mage, it manifests as always trying to get as much information about any supernatural we run into and accumulating a lot of Lore abilities. (The DM has forbidden us to read any sourcebooks besides the core Mage books and our Tradition book.)

Psyx
2010-08-13, 08:48 AM
A few of my characters have a thing for really spicy food.

Generally my characters are smart, reasonable, and very cunning, perhaps a little cautious, but always the one with the plan. I do try to break character every so often; but at least 75% of my characters have these 'leak-overs'.

Terraoblivion
2010-08-13, 09:08 AM
Pretty much all of my characters are introverted and have a hard time expressing themselves freely. Sometimes they can be charming and charismatic, but that is pretty much always a facade with their actual feelings locked up inside...Yeah, i guess i have issues.

Like many others i also share the tendency towards not playing stupid characters, though i have eased somewhat up on that lately.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-13, 09:50 AM
My characters always inherit my impulsiveness and anti-authoritarian tendancies.

strider24seven
2010-08-13, 10:23 AM
Mine are always analyzers, in that they always are (over)thinking on problem... Knowing this I always play a wizard or factotum.

Same here. Mine are also almost always Chaotic Neutral in alignment, and always have some convoluted plan to destabilize/take over the world. And they are paranoid (or are they? Someone is usually out to get them...).

For instance,
My latest character always makes Search, Spot, and Listen checks for every round and square. When opening a chest, he makes Search, Spot, and Listen checks, disarms the trap and springs the lock with his Longspoon's Tools from 10' away, and uses his 11' pole to leverage the chest open in case he failed his Search check or there is a secondary trap. He does all of this, of course, behind the BSF's tower shield, using it for cover when he can.

Umael
2010-08-13, 10:33 AM
I literally have never rolled a character with an Intelligence below 12 until my latest character (who has a 10). I just can't act it. I can pretend to be smart really easily, but pretending to be dumb just hurts in my soul.

Might I suggest a tactic I used once?

GM: Umael, why are you reading a book in the middle of game?
Me: Because my character has a Charisma of 7, an Intelligence of 9, and a Wisdom of 10, and I don't! So I'm intentionally distracting myself so I'm not tempted to over-play my character.
GM: Um... okay.

Worked pretty well too. I followed the thread of the story, but not the various details.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-08-13, 11:06 AM
On the rare occasion I get to play, I almost always play a high-Int character because (A) like JeenLeen, I prefer to know a lot about the setting and history, and I like to have a reason to make use of OOC knowledge (being a DM most of the time, it's sometimes hard to ignore what I know about monsters and such, so Knowlege helps) and (B) I really really really cannot resist lots of IC and OOC puns and wordplay, so high Int gives me more opportunities for IC banter.

Other than that, I try to avoid making my characters either overly like me or myself reversed; my wizards range from benevolent and trying to create a utopia and diabolical and trying to destroy everything in sight, my factotums range from brilliant to idiot savants to purely lucky, and so forth.

Ajadea
2010-08-13, 11:11 AM
My characters tend to have at least 14 Int, non-negative Charisma, and a certain predisposition to being snarky and headstrong. I like having smart characters. Or at least ones that are smart/wise enough to figure out when plans are going to fail miserably.

Everything else is highly variable.