A disproportionate number of x alignment

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

it's exam week, so I'm fairly busy studying. however, being the ubernerd that I am, I spend my study breaks making characters (I've made..... 4 so far, I think)

and I'm noticing a pattern.

a disproportionate amount of my characters are Lawful Good...

(I feel that this may be because I consider myself as a person to be Lawful Good)


have you noticed that the majority of your characters tend to be something?
a specific alignment?
race?
class?


for me, it would seem that my MOST common character is a
Lawful Good
Human*
melee type character (i.e. fighter, barbarian, knight)


why?
Lawful Good - aside from the fact I consider myself Lawful Good as a real life individual, I haven't a clue... it would also seem that the majority of my 'character concepts' require LG as well. I don't know if the two are connected.

Human - very rarley do I get a fully fleshed out idea (i.e. including things such as personality and personal history) and (I think) I find that humans are the easiest to 'make up as you go' because humans come from ANY/ALL walks of life/alignments, etc. so I feel I can let them grow organically

melee type - sure, its not as effecient as say, wizard, but I enjoy hitting things with large metal objects, and protecting my friends. besides, being a big beefy person in real life, I find it INCREDIBLY hard to think like someone small, I've never been small (proportionally speaking, I've always been as big as I am now) so things like halfling and gnome, where THE WORLD is bigger than you is utterly alien to me...anyways, I've rambled quite a bit.

tl;dr - have you noticed any patterns in your character creation? be it race, alignment, or class/party role
*or dwarf, but human is still more prolific

[kyoryu]

I tend to go with "standard" fantasy races mostly - human, elf, dwarf.

Apart from that, there's a slight tendency towards melee but nothing too significant.

I generally don't play Evil characters, as usually they're just disruptive to the game.

One good way to break yourself out of habits like that is to randomly determine your alignment and class, and maybe even race (though I usually select from a few semi-appropriate races rather than just using a free-for-all). Then, stick with it. You may enjoy it, you may not, but it will at least break the pattern.

I'll even randomly determine basic personality and backstory elements, and then use those to try and tie together into a coherent character. Doesn't always make a character I *like* personally (in terms of personality), but it tends to make for more interesting roleplay.

[Salbazier]

Pattern? Yes,

They tend to be NG. perhaps CG. Most of them are casters. And except for one, ALL are human. Edit: eh not really, I got elves, Changeling, and a warforged. Plus a dragon soon.

Oh, I also like to make scholarly or high knowledge character, if i can afford it.

[Feliks878]

As a DM I intentionally try to go out of my way to vary what I present the players with, worried about falling into a trap of lethargic consistency.

As a player, I have some trends. I prefer non-extreme alignments, usually ending up on the Neutral axis in terms of Law/Chaos, with Neutral Good being my most common character choice, followed by Neutral. I prefer it because I find it's the easiest to role play while still having some flavor to it. In evil games I tend to choose Neutral Evil, though I have an idea for a lawful evil character bouncing around in the back of my mind right now, but that's off topic.

Racially I like Gnomes, of which I've had a few, followed closely by Dwarves, but have never actually played a Dwarf in a real non-PbP game, except one 4e one where I got killed off to become assistant DM a few session in. (By choice, of course, and it was a fairly awesome death.) I usually shy away from elves, having only played one once. Not really sure why. I've often played Human characters because of simplicity or because I've wanted to focus more on the class/concept then the race. It seems that when you choose a race, especially a fairly unique one, the race tends to get a lot of the focus from other players, rather then the character themselves.

In terms of class, I have no real preference. I've shied away from casters lately because I've been playing them a lot in recent games. I'd like to make some melee brutes soon, but I'm not sure when/if I'll get the chance.

[Show]

I think I tend towards CN/TN characters. Maybe that's who I am, or maybe I just find them to be more fun to play.
As for classes, I'm a big fan of skillmonkeys and arcane casters. I sometimes branch into divine casters, but I'm not a big fan of the buffing and whatnot.
Overall, I've seen plenty of people play what they are most comfortable with as well as play something completely different. Overall, I'd say that people play just like if they were in real life as them, just with class levels. It takes a more roleplay-oriented person to actually take on the role of someone else, here someone else's alignment.

As for races, I like humans, but I also like to play a wide range. Sometimes I decide based on stats, sometimes to add character flavor. I'd say I have to real pattern there.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I tend to play characters on the 'middle' axis, i.e. NG, N, and NE, with a tendency towards N. I like wizard-y characters. Oddly, I've never played a druid in a full campaign. True neutral seems to be the most natural adventuring alignment to me. If mister Cleric of Pelor is so good and awesome, he needs an extra reason for him to go heal up grave robbers instead of curing the sick in his hometown. Badguy McEvilpants needs additional justification not to stab his friends in the back, and the friends need that justification to trust him.

With neutral characters, on the other hand, it's easier for me to give them simple motivations like "I want treasure, fame, and glory" without those motivations being dominated by other pressing good deeds, and without them becoming a hindrance to party cooperation and the advancement of the story.

Obviously these issues are solvable, but it requires some effort.

[Gamerlord]

I tend to play either:
CG so I can still play a good guy and not have to deal with the law, CN for freedom of choice.
Tend to play either human or goblinoid.
Tend to play rogues,spellthieves, or clerics.

[Lateral]

My PCs are always, ALWAYS Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral.

Except for the rare occasions when I play a druid (which I always have as TN), or when I play a Lawful Goodie.

As for races/classes, I vary more on those. I tend to play psionics a lot, but mostly because I like both the mechanics and the flavoring of it. I don't play paladins. EVER. My LGs are always Tash-monks, clerics, or fighters. I like whisper gnomes, humans, dragonborn, living constructs, and xeph, but I go with other things often.

[Apophis]

For me, my characters are pretty much always NE, NG, or TN.
I usually go with Human Elf, or Tiefling for races.
Classes are usually melee, fighters, rogues, rangers, and once a duskblade.

[Remmirath]

The majority of my characters are (in order) chaotic neutral, chaotic good, or chaotic evil. After that come neutral evil and neutral good, and lawful alignments come in last. I have trouble playing lawful characters. I'm better at it than I used to be - but the mindset is a bit alien to me still.

Species-wise, I've got the most elves by a fair bit. After that it's half-elves, dragons of various sorts (all from the same campaign, but still), Githyanki, and some humans. Other species are pretty rare, although I do play them occasionally.

Class-wise I've got by far the most fighters, then sorcerers, then thieves, then clerics. Paladins and anti-paladins show up every now and again, as do rangers. I don't have a single druid or bard, and I have only one or two wizards.

About half my characters are male and about half are female, so that's even. In personality they differ drastically, and I'm not coming up with any very common threads there.

Therefore, my average character should in theory be a chaotic neutral elven fighter, and honestly that sounds about right.

[Half-orc Bard]

I play CN people and I always tend to be good.

[Vortling]

I'm usually sitting in the NG or CG boat. Other than that I'm all over the board with the rest of the character generation.

[Lateral]

I play CN people and I always tend to be good.
What. .

[DragonOfUndeath]

CN or LN
Rogue
anything really

[Assassin89]

A majority of character I play tend to be NG, two clerics and a bard. I have done two CG characters, a rogue and a cleric. I have also done two LN characters, a cleric and a warmage.

Species wise, every character except one I played in 3.5 and Pathfinder was either human or half-elf, with the exception of a dwarf cleric for a run in Tomb of Horrors.

Class-wise, I play mostly clerics, and my preference is more towards support than domination of the battle.

I have only played two female characters, only one of which was intentional.

[Galileo]

The majority of my characters are NG.
I love having high skillpoints, so I usually play high-Int characters, especially Factotums. Factotums are the best class ever.
I also quite like playing Illumians.

[Magic Myrmidon]

I generally spend more points than I should on intelligence, because I love skills, and I hate playing a character who isn't smart... usually.

I definitely lean towards more dextrous, quick characters rather than burly ones, but that applies to everything from DnD to videogames to which movie characters I like.

I usually make elves, but I've also made humans and a halfling.

Most of my characters are good in one way or another. I almost never go on the lawful axis, because I hate lawful stupid.

[Keinnicht]

Chaotic Neutral - Not out of a desire for an "easy" alignment, just because this is probably closer to my IRL alignment.

Spellcaster of some sort, usually arcane. Been getting into divine lately, though. Psion if available.

Combat-nuke oriented.

[WinceRind]

I generally come up with all sorts of characters in sense of class and play mechanics, and generally look towards a cool concept with an interesting play mechanic.

When it comes to races, I don't really know too much about overly exotic ones so I generally end up with either human, halfling, gnome, dwarf or Mongrelfolk. But generally there's little preference. I really like the Mongrelfolk though... And the dwarf, too. Really, they're all fine, and the Illithid are the best.

Alignment is usually ranging between Neutral good and Chaotic Evil. Really, just about anything with the exception of Lawful Good. Not a big fan of the entire alignment system.

Mechanics-wise, I generally like playing characters that have more then one single thing they can do and at the same time do not require you to run a freaking ledger. Being a wizard really annoys me, even though I'm currently playing one.

So Rogue, ToB classes, Bard, and all that kind of thing, I adore. Wizards, not too much but they're okay too. Druids, I like the animal companion.

I usually just end up creating a cool character concept and then going from there. Generally I don't get to play it out too much, my groups have been rather silly lately, with different kind of roleplaying in mind. Aw well.

[John Doe]

My characters tend to LE humans who are fighters, sorcerers or both.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I usually tend to make characters who are neutral on at least one axis of the alignment system, mostly lawful neutral cause I consider myself as such in RL and someone has to be the only sane man on my party (which usually are characters from all spectrum of the align ment that in play are actualii something stupid :smallsigh:)

Still I enjoy those characters as I am methodical and somewhat ordered on RL (except for managing time I suck at that).

I also usually play the sneaky archetype, for some reason I am in love with that (a friend says that being sneaky is a subconscious wish as I am somewhat clumsy and big 1 80 cm when the average is 165 cm).

I also have noticed that all my characters tend to have good dex, I value skill over power too much I think XD.

As for races... anything really I tend to stick to more humanoid races, but I will play mostly anything (though I have been on a Hobgoblin kick this days... Kobolds are also usually on my potential races selection)

[Mastikator]

I tend to play humans who are either the mercenary warrior type, or the assassin/thief rogue type or the mad wizard type.

Though lately I've been trying a good druid type. It's a bit of a challange honestly.

[Strawberries]

I usually play good characters. Chaotic good most of the time - I only have one lawful good character, and even he has troubles staying lawful. :smalleek:

As for race, my default is human. Characters that aren't humans have a very specific reason not to be (my dryad, for instance). It's probaby because I find it difficult to roleplay non-humans as truly "something else" instead of humans with other tags attached. I hope to improve in that area.

I am pretty open when it comes to class, but I tend to play high intelligence charisma characters. Instead, I usually have low strenght (my paladin only has +1...:smalltongue:)

[Lord.Sorasen]

I definitely tend towards lawful good. I guess that makes sense, I've always been more Kant than Mill. I haven't played enough characters to have any patterns in that department, but if I had a choice I'd play a lot more aasimar I think.

[Dubious Pie]

I usually play LE Wizards, myself. Which is odd, because I am CG in real life.

[Valameer]

Let's see, the alignment of my last 9 characters, in order of most recent to oldest: LG, NG, CG, LN, TN, CN, CG, LG, LN.

Nope, no real pattern there. I always do character concept first, then pick an alignment after.

As for class: Cleric, wizard, barbarian, ranger, scout, bard, artificer, wizard, rogue.

Nothing stands out there, either.

And race: Human, changeling, human, human, human, human, elf, human, human.

Ah, there it is.

[FelixG]

most of my characters tend toward LE, even if i try to play them good they still end up LE :smalleek:

And i gravitate toward non alive characters, if its undead or machine in some way it has instant preference over a meatbag...er...mortal character :smallbiggrin:

[Grendus]

Always preferred neutral good. Lawful good gets all tied up in that moral axis thing (look, we know the guy's evil, he registered to detect evil and tried to friggin kill us, plus he's not under any kind of mental compulsion. Let's just kill him and get it over with). I've played some lawful neutral and even a few neutral evil, but always prefer neutral good.

[kyoryu]

And race: Human, changeling, human, human, human, human, elf, human, human.

Ah, there it is.

Don't feel bad. Most people end up playing human, human with funny ears, human with horns, human with wings, human that kinda looks like a bull, short human, short stout human...

[Strawberries]

Don't feel bad. Most people end up playing human, human with funny ears, human with horns, human with wings, human that kinda looks like a bull, short human, short stout human...

That's why I prefer playing humans, too. I'm afraid I'd be uncapable of avoiding this. :smallfrown:

[Tvtyrant]

What. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat)

It took me an hour to escape your trap! Curses!

Always a Cleric, and almost always Dwarven. Usually I take two levels of Paladin for the axe; not at all a good tactic, but he's cooler that way.

[FelixG]

What. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat)

Say what again! SAY WHAT AGAIN!

[Efil]

I personally prefer int-based classes with spontaneous abilities like the beguiler and factotum for the greatest amount of crazy-preparedness with the least amount of preliminary planning. I also have a tendency towards Lawful Evil, maybe because I like characters who are virtuous in a twisted way.

[Yora]

I always play CG or CN elves and half-elves, usually rangers and sorcerers.

Pattern? :smallbiggrin:

[Foryn Gilnith]

I often play humans. I usually play melee types. I usually have a neutral component in alignment. I always have characters that (directly or not) reflect my mindset at the time I made them.

"Often", "usually", and "always" use the same percentages listed for the words in the Alignment section of the Monster Manual.

[Heksefatter]

My characters tend to have a strong selfish streak, but be good at heart. They are often vain, snotty and greedy, but while they may be tempted to hurt others for personal gain, they rarely do so and never badly. They are often willing to go out of their way to help others. Such a character is CG IMO. Or TN if you regard them as a nice person with no real values or ideals.

For some of my characters the negative traits are dominant, though I would not play such a character in a game where he would be disruptive. The best of these characters are CN, willing to lie, cheat and manipulate, but stopping short of doing anything really, really nasty, such as maiming or murder. The worst are completely selfish people, in principle willing to do almost everything to advance themselves. However, they are always highly rational people and would never sink to random hurting of others or meaningless sadism. They have no love of conflict, seeing it only as a means to an end. IMO this is NE.

I almost never play LN or LE people. I only recall one LN in all my time as a role-player and no LE. There is something that doesn't ring for me with that approach to order. I have had LN and LE antagonists, though.

I do LG and NG. The LGs are generally chivalrous - currently trying to do someone who is genuinely kind, generous and honourable and it is quite hard at times. They are rarely above a snarky remark when they are annoyed by irregularity and stupidity, however.

[Sir Swindle89]

I always play dark elves and i tend towards ones that challenge societal norms and play anything that can effectivly DW scimitars!

I always play awsome characters. basically i'll play any thing class/race wise as long as it makes me lol or makes some one else say "gad damn it swindle". anthro-whale Paladin, Warforged pistelaro, Ogre Warhulk, Bear Fighter(note the formatting), Ghost Master of the Unseen Hand, Human Fighter(ha ha the old curve ball)

I personally identify myself as a LE person that plays a CG person in real life. So i tend to go towards those 2. If i start from neutral i tend to drift evil, unless i am activly aligned on the L/C axis, basically if i'm not doing any thing alignment wise i'm gonna be evil for lack of direction. I also tend to beable to distance my self so i can get into LN a lot better than some of the others.

[Duke of URL]

I find myself drawing up a disproportionate number of CN characters as of late, despite thinking of myself personally as more like LN (with good tendencies). But a lot depends on the game and character in question.

[DisgruntledDM]

Most fighters I make use a bastard sword. I enjoy creating "Master Swordsman" types.

[toastyghost]

My characters are pretty much always NG/LG male Dwarves. Not much preference on lass but they're usually Leaders and occaisonally Controllers.

[RufusCorvus]

Unless a class requires a specific alignment, I almost always go with True Neutral. I'm not into the alignment system and would prefer to interact with it as little as possible.

[Lateral]

It took me an hour to escape your trap! Curses!

Oh no, did I actually unleash a link to TvTropes upon this thread? It was an accident, I swears!

[Maho-Tsukai]

Most of my characters tend to be lawful evil or neutral evil, with more lawful evil ones then neutral evil ones. On occasion I have played chaotic evil characters as well but I honestly prefer lawful evil and neutral evil to chaotic evil because I am far more into cunning chess master types(and occasionally the manipulative bastard and magnificent bastard types when I play a high cha character like say a Dread Necromancer....) then raving mad "kill destroy kill!!!" blood knights types.

As for race I play almost exclusively humans. The only time I don't play as a human is when a build would require me to have a certain stat bonus and thus I am forced to take a race with said stat bonus. Other then for build's sake I almost always go human simply because I find humans the easiest and most rewarding to RP. The reason for that is humans are basicly a blank slate. They come from all walks of life and all kinds of cultures and thus when creating a personality and backstory for my character I find this "blank slate" allows more creative freedom. Not that other races can't be fun to RP, but unlike humans certain races come with a lot of" baggage" and unlike humans have cultures and histories and things tied to them that pigion hole them into being "sterotypes."

While that's not to say you can't make say a short, husky elf with no grace, no love for nature, no magical knowledge and levels in a melee brute class such a character would be quite odd, both among his people in-game and to players and DMs who are used to elves being tall, thin, graceful, nature loving and adapt at magic...and thus ALL attention is placed on his race. Because he is all those things and an elf at the same time, his elvin-ness automaticly becomes the focus of his character. Now if the same guy was a human people would instead focus more on who he himself is rather then focus on the fact he's all those things while being an elf.

So while, yeah you don't HAVE to follow the stereotypes that other races have, doing that will put EVEN MORE emphasis on your character's race then if you played the stereotype strait and when I RP I would rather have my character be the focus rather then his race. So human is my race about 90% of the time because it lets my character be known for who he is rather then from what race he comes.

As for classes, ALWAYS casters of some kind. The type varies, however. I have played everything from wizards to sorcerers to archivists to clerics to dread necromancers and some psions or shugenjas from time to time and even the rare warlock.(Also, it is interesting to note that my first ever D&D character was a caster. He was a sorcerer. A horribly under-optimized sorcerer.(He was a necro type who spammed save or dies like finger of death and went around blasting people with blasty spells that where under the effect of fell animate....yeah, hardly optimal but I was a beginer and I had lots of fun with him.)

About the only casters classes I don't play are druids and spirit shaman. Not for mechanics, though. My reasons are more RP based then anything else since I am not really into playing "savage/feral" characters and prefer to play people who have more civilized backgrounds. Not that those character types can't be fun....I just prefer characters who are not so tied to nature. However, out all the caster classes My favorites are the dread necromancer, archivist and D20 Rokugan Shugenja with lots of off element Maho spells or Maho as their element if I can house rule it.(and eventually levels in the Maho-Tsukai PrC...and yes, I play these shugenja in 3.5e because they ARE the 3.5e shugenja but with a better spell selection....I also am USUALLY able to get Maho house ruled as a Shugenja element though I am fine with just having Maho spells be off element too.)

Dread Necromancers and Maho Shugenja make awesome necromancers which is the main reason I love them and the archivist quite literally my IDEAL class. The reason for that is that I like the cleric spell list FAR more then the wizard/sorc one but like high int MUCH MUCH MUCH more then high wis for RP...and the archivist gives me both high int and the cleric spell list. So yeah, it's easy to see how the archivist class and I are a match made in the fiery pits of hell.(Heaven is overrated.)

[Talyn]

Humans, baby. Or, if I'm feeling crazy, a hobgoblin. Alignment-wise, I stay in the "top left corner," Lawful Good (most common), Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good.