Roleplay help

[JohnStone]

I am playing in a homebrew (Pathfinder) world where goblins are not only a playable race but are intigrated into society. the way i read it they seem to be a bit shrewd and cunning, also greedy. taking up positions like beurocracy, lawyers, bankers. maybe something like ferenghis from star trek (im not a treki if i mispelled it dont kill me). i thought they sounded like they would also be prime candidates for a mafia style crime boss, my DM agreed.

OK great, IM NOT THAT BOSS, I am his son a NG kid that ran away to join a group of mercanaries, im still a goblin, i was still raised in that "family" tradition.
any good ideas how to roleplay this kid?

i figure if i go michael corleone ill quickly slip into evil and thats bad. if i go AJ soprano well hes a puss.

[Mutazoia]

OK great, IM NOT THAT BOSS, I am his son a NG kid that ran away to join a group of mercanaries, im still a goblin, i was still raised in that "family" tradition.
any good ideas how to roleplay this kid?

i figure if i go michael corleone ill quickly slip into evil and thats bad. if i go AJ soprano well hes a puss.

Well if you don't want to slip into evil I would suggest Henry Hill from Goodfella's. If you DID want to slip into evil, then it's Tommy DeVito all the way.

[Deepbluediver]

Think of what sort of things your character might have seen growing up, and how that might have affected him currently. If he was groomed to be the heir to the mafia dynasty, maybe he still embodies certain aspects like authority, order, and respect, just with a different goal in mind.

Or maybe he was shielded from all the day-to-day "business" and rejected it outright when he finally learned of it, which pushes him to avoid anything even vaguely similar to the mafia.

[dascarletm]

Have you watched the anime "Soul Eater?" There is a character that appears in these internal struggle sequences with one of the main characters, "Soul." He looks kind of like the goblins from pathfinder. I always thought a character that was just cool calm and manipulative would be a cool gangster type.

[JohnStone]

oh also, we are all under 20 years old, and all small races.


embodies certain aspects like authority, order, and respect, just with a different goal in mind.
i was thinking that just by upbringing.

i figure ill treat the party like my new family, eventually.

i have already:

reached out to the other goblin in the group. racial pride, stick together.

started picking a fight with the other tough guy in the group. just a little

in our 1 round of combat so far i inadvertantly (but luckily maybe so) put myself between the badguys and the three female party members.

id say im off to a good start :)

(and i just realized my group doesnt know my backstory yet and i use the same name on every site hope they dont read gitp)

[buttcyst]

first question, did you pick your own alignment? if so (or not), can it be changed. I'm asking because of the limited backstory you gave. Being from a mob family, if you ended up with the authoritative presence, that means you were probably being groomed for a position within the upper rings of the family, and will most likely tend towards a lawful alignment. Now, if you ran away because you reject your families morals and methods of business, but you still see that what they do as a whole is of a greater benefit so you decide to come at it from a more peaceful or diplomatic, that would make you LG, and less likely NG. The opposite could be true as well, you could have run away because you reject the style completely and instead of changing the practices, you rebel against it completely, now you are chaotic.

For RP purposes, especially because players come to me with backstories like yours, I usually start everybody off at true neutral, unless required to be otherwise. This lets them depict what their alignment will be and it will become apparent in the way the PCs conduct themselves and how they talk to others.

You are in a neat position because no matter which way you go, whether taking over the world with your "new" mob family, or using it to rival your old family and take down their tyranny. you could move the entire group with you and they would likely follow if you appeal to them.

What I would do is, I would take the first few levels and toy around with the inner alignment struggle, which mostly means I would try the different personas and see which fits best for the flavor of the character. once I figure that out, work toward my end goal.

just keep this in mind if/when you try the evil side, don't try to be more evil than your hit points


just thought of this, could be fun, make your goblin a LN cleric, has the presence of authority, if you choose a good or N deity you should channel positive energy and therefore not have an evil aura, and when push comes to shove, your actions are acceptable, no matter how humane or brutal.

[Zubrowka74]

taking up positions like beurocracy, lawyers, bankers.

In French this word sounds like "Butterocracy".

[Mr. Zolrane]

I've found one way to make characters in conflicted situations more believable is to make them, at times, unreasonable.

I once had a player who was a half-elf Ranger whose longbow housed the soul of his evil younger brother (long story, only tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand). The brother was clearly warped and often acted as the Ranger's "bad conscience" in situations where the Ranger had a clear choice between right and wrong.

Despite all this, when the party protested his keeping the bow, the Ranger loudly and fiercely protested, against all reason. He was one of the most believable characters I've ever seen.

I say all that to say this: in real life, we often make excuses for the less savory aspects of those we love. Carrying this idea into a character will lend some welcome resonance.