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JackMage666
2007-02-22, 11:30 PM
As a player, I want to know the stereotpes that people absolutely hate. Obviously, the first is the Drizzt clones, I know. We don't have to touch that here. But what about the other ones? Do people hate the gruff dwarven fighter? Or the elven archer? I want to know the details of why they're so annoying.

Another, completely and totally unrelated question is, hypothetically speaking, and by that I mean this has nothing to do with myself, if the NE character who is the son of Paladins stereotypical? Because my - I mean - the hypothetical character isn't doing it out of rebellion, but instead because he's slightly insane and believes the only way to destroy the evil his parents fought is to be more evil than it. Is that a stereotype, and if so, is it an annoying one?

Fhaolan
2007-02-23, 12:06 AM
I wouldn't call that stereotypical. Mainly because I hadn't heard that one before. :smallsmile:

I don't really mind stereotypes that much, I'm just bored by them. What irritates me is people who are so impressed by their stereotyped character concept, as if it's something incredibly creative, even though they *know* it is based on a character in a movie they've just seen or a book they've just read. There's nothing wrong with the stereotype as such, it's some of the people that play these stereotyped characters that bother me.

Okay, here's some stereotypes I run into on a regular basis. Again, nothing wrong with them as stereotypes, it's more the type of player who plays them that irritates me.

The big, dumb, violent barbarian. Afterall, if they weren't stupid, they wouldn't be barbarians, right?

The old, absentminded scholar-wizard. Being intelligent doesn't mean you can remember what spells you've got in your prepared list, of course. Randomly casting spells, in an effort to remember which one does what is just *so* much fun.

The overly enthusiastic priest of war. Because priests of war are always bloodthirsty maniacs.

The child pickpocket-thief. Nothing really wrong with this one, but why do they always talk like the Artful Dodger?

The scantily-clad female 'catburgler'
The scantily-clad female necromancer
The scantily-clad female... okay, theme here. The reason the scantily-clad female characters bother me is because it's either a 20-to-40-year-old male player who has never actually talked to a woman in a meaningful way, or it's the wife/girlfriend of one of the players desperately trying to find a way to get her husband/boyfriend to pay attention to her, even if it means debasing herself in front of the other players. I have dealt with many female players, including both my current D&D groups which are about 1/2 women. *NONE* of them have done the scantily-clad seductress character unless they fell into the girlfriend/wife scenario mentioned above.

There's probably more, but I'm drawing a blank on the rest.

BCOVertigo
2007-02-23, 12:15 AM
How about the hilariously quirky comic relief gnome wizard?
:smallfurious:
I'm glaring so hard I think the hate is starting to condensate on my monitor.

My campaign setting has no gnomes anymore, they were all wiped out by a legion of Angels of Decay. No one misses them.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-23, 12:20 AM
Hey, gnomes can be played to hilariously evil intent. Like a society where the only known gnomes are just lawn gnomes, until they one day find out that they're actually living gnomish operatives plotting the downfall of mankind. It's kind of creepy.

Miles Invictus
2007-02-23, 12:25 AM
"No one avenges a gnome, just like no one avenges a squirrel." Vertigo, you need to peruse the Zogonia archives someday.

averagejoe
2007-02-23, 12:33 AM
Dark heros. People who try to be moody by being silent are pretty hilarious, though, especially in large numbers, when the story never progresses because everyone is trying to be dark and silent.

Gnomes, however, are awsome, they just get a bad reputation becaue of novelists and people who read novels which involve gnomes. Hey, in either case, at least they're not kender. :smalltongue:

BCOVertigo
2007-02-23, 12:52 AM
"No one avenges a gnome, just like no one avenges a squirrel." Vertigo, you need to peruse the Zogonia archives someday.

I'll do that, and you should read lfgcomic.com. More amusing gnome-stomping.


Dark heros. People who try to be moody by being silent are pretty hilarious, though, especially in large numbers, when the story never progresses because everyone is trying to be dark and silent.

Gnomes, however, are awsome, they just get a bad reputation becaue of novelists and people who read novels which involve gnomes. Hey, in either case, at least they're not kender. :smalltongue:

Whatever ill feelings you have about kender and their compulsive theft, amplify it by a factor of 5 and then pretend your first DM used them as a god-npc who railroaded you to no end. Then pretend you had to play with that SAME CHARACTER for the next year of sessions as he attempted to drunkenly seduce everything of the opposite sex. THEN go play wow for a month and get repeatedly ganked by the SAME FREAKING GNOME UNTIL IT STOPS BEING FUNNY.

I respect your opinion, but they are not awesome. I would drop my paladin abilities to kill a gnome and refuse to atone faster than you can say 'Powerattack for full'.

JackMage666
2007-02-23, 12:56 AM
The first gnome I ever really dealt with was in a campaign I was DMing, because noone ever wanted to play one. I made him an Evil Bard/Wilder Gnome, who was basically a Messanger for the BBEG. He never really fought anyone, he just insulted the characters alot. They wanted to kill him, badly, but I always had an escape route planned. He was high enough level to kill him, as he was a flavour NPC they were going to fight later, when they leveled up, just like the BBEG. However, the campaign was ended before they did, so I never got to test him in combat.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-23, 12:59 AM
The scantily-clad female 'catburgler'
The scantily-clad female necromancer
The scantily-clad female... okay, theme here.

I present to you, Mara Too-Tall (http://www.thetangledweb.net/profiler/view.php?id=9230). The character I made specifically to oppose that stereotype.

Seatbelt
2007-02-23, 01:07 AM
The scantily-clad female 'catburgler'
The scantily-clad female necromancer
The scantily-clad female... okay, theme here. it's the wife/girlfriend of one of the players desperately trying to find a way to get her husband/boyfriend to pay attention to her, even if it means debasing herself in front of the other players. I have dealt with many female players, including both my current D&D groups which are about 1/2 women. *NONE* of them have done the scantily-clad seductress character unless they fell into the girlfriend/wife scenario mentioned above.



It might not be that "desperate cry for attention" scenario. It might be just a fun kind of roleplay for the couple. At least if the husband/boyfriend is persuing his significant other in-game. They probably have a little fun with it behind closed doors. On the other hand, some of it probably is the cry for attention.

axraelshelm
2007-02-23, 01:53 AM
The were-something grabbed for combat and nothing else and the character has the personality of a cardboard cut out.

JackMage666
2007-02-23, 02:08 AM
I've not dealt with too many stereotypes. I have a friend who constntly wan'ts to play an Elven Duskblade, so that one gets annoying, but I've not heard of that overwhelmingly.

I do have the weapon specialist, though. I had a player who literally packed as a 1-man army. He had a Glaive, a few Javelins, a few Daggers, a Crossbow, and Longbow, a Battleaxe, a Handaxe, a Sap, a Hand Crossbow, a Rapier, a Greatsword, a Club, and a Quarterstaff, all in a bag of holding.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad, but the player was playing a Monk. A Monk doesn't need alot of weapons. A monk is a weapon. He'd snagged a few levels of Warrior (we played with 3 levels of NPC class for character background), so he was proficienct, but still!

Green Bean
2007-02-23, 02:16 AM
I admit, I thought I had alot of great ideas for new character concepts that didn't end up working out. Like that LG vampire idea I had :smallfrown:

The_Snark
2007-02-23, 02:24 AM
I've not dealt with too many stereotypes. I have a friend who constntly wan'ts to play an Elven Duskblade, so that one gets annoying, but I've not heard of that overwhelmingly.

I do have the weapon specialist, though. I had a player who literally packed as a 1-man army. He had a Glaive, a few Javelins, a few Daggers, a Crossbow, and Longbow, a Battleaxe, a Handaxe, a Sap, a Hand Crossbow, a Rapier, a Greatsword, a Club, and a Quarterstaff, all in a bag of holding.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad, but the player was playing a Monk. A Monk doesn't need alot of weapons. A monk is a weapon. He'd snagged a few levels of Warrior (we played with 3 levels of NPC class for character background), so he was proficienct, but still!

I dunno, I like it, actually. Strikes me as a paranoid type. And monk levels just mean you're paranoid enough that you've learned to fight with the one weapon that you can't lose.

The bag of holding ruins it, though. Better if the weapons are kept sheathed or slung all over the character.


scantily-clad female...

Yeah. Had this.

The ranger whose family or possibly entire village was killed by (insert monster) and now seeks to hunt (insert monster)s to avenge the loss of his parents. I blame the favored enemy class feature for this one. It's not always a bad thing, but it so easily leads to one-dimensional characters and/or brooding, dark heroes.

Tor the Fallen
2007-02-23, 02:36 AM
I present to you, Mara Too-Tall (http://www.thetangledweb.net/profiler/view.php?id=9230). The character I made specifically to oppose that stereotype.

Bears, I think your characters backstory would go better as: huge tits. Or just: "36C-24-36"

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-23, 02:40 AM
I cut you, muddafugga. I cut you so bad, you... you wish I no cut you so bad!

averagejoe
2007-02-23, 02:48 AM
I cut you, muddafugga. I cut you so bad, you... you wish I no cut you so bad!

Wow. Those are some bad Bears With Lasers. I blame the schools.

Actually, come to think of it, the whole character background process has become a bit cleche. The whole batman, "this one event from my childhood that defines my entire life," thing is featured in most characters I've encountered. I personally try to make characters with interesting quirks/personality (with varying degrees of sucess), and typically leave the background to general details and not this, "his parents got killed by kobolds/he once befriended a kobold/a kobold once pushed him down and ruined his ice cream cone, so now he has a phobia/hatred/like for kobolds, and this defines his entire existance." Don't get me wrong, characters like this aren't all bad, and I may (although I won't admit to it :smalltongue: ) or may not have been guilty of this on more than one occasion, but even so, I find it to be an unfortunate trend.

Khantalas
2007-02-23, 05:10 AM
First and most important thing: gnomes rock. They are the r0XX0r. Especially in my campaign setting, where they have fire resistance 5, tremorsense out to 30 ft, an Intelligence bonus and a charisma penalty.

Second thing, I got a group where one of the guys was forced to play a female. And there was this romance stuff with another player (who was always a guy). And the female character had a large tattoo on her chest.
She wasn't very scantily-clad.

Darrin
2007-02-23, 08:55 AM
Actually, come to think of it, the whole character background process has become a bit cleche. The whole batman, "this one event from my childhood that defines my entire life," thing is featured in most characters I've encountered.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss easy cliches... the reason something becomes a cliche is because it works, over and over again. They are dependable workhorses that deliver a functional personality archetypes, they can be easy to roleplay, work in a variety of mediums/genres, and are easily recognizable to other players.

Stereotypes get more interesting when you subvert them. Drizzt is a good example, because initially a "good drow" subverts the stereotype of drow as thoroughly evil. Gives you great fistfuls of internal conflict, angst, yearning for acceptance/understanding... get enough of clones, though, and you've got a new stereotype.

The real problem with cliched characters is not with the cliche, but how they're played... generally, a player makes two mistakes when he inflicts a poor cliche on the rest of the group:

1) Wish-fulfillment: The player denies or ignores any of the drawbacks or tradeoffs of the stereotype, refusing to roleplay or acknowledge them. He's essentially playing a "Mary Sue" type fantasy where everything he attempts should automatically succeed, that the character is too cool to fail or be penalized. They don't realize or accept that most iconic characters have to suffer to earn their coolness or badass-edness.

2) Self-absorbed: They're so enamored with their own character that they ignore or refuse to interact with the other characters in the party. A good roleplayer will involve the other players in advancing their own character development. A bad one either demands all of the spotlight all of the time, or is so cut-off from what's going on around him that no one even bothers to interact with him.

Pulling familiar stereotypes or cliches from popular media isn't really a bad thing if done right. Most players pull their ideas from popular media like pulp comics, action movies, or fantasy novels because RPGs spend a lot of time in the same neighborhoods. You can keep those tired old over-used cliches fresh and interesting by making better use of stereotypes:

1) Play up your weaknesses. We sympathize with characters who make bad decisions and suffer for it. The victory toast tastes a lot better after you've had your share of sour grapes.

2) Don't play in a vacuum. Share the spotlight, and get involved with the other characters. Good stereotypes should feed off one another, so that you're giving opportunities for your fellow players to shine and they're doing the same for you.

Tormsskull
2007-02-23, 09:06 AM
1) Wish-fulfillment

2) Self-absorbed:

1) Play up your weaknesses.

2) Don't play in a vacuum.


I 100% agree with you. I often see this when players model their character off a character from an RPG or MMORPG. When something happens that they don't agree with they say things like "That would never happen. My character would have totally seen that coming" or something alike to that.

I always tell my players to make believable characters. If your character isn't afraid of anything and/or isn't effected by pain and he's a race that normally has those qualities, he isn't believable.

rollfrenzy
2007-02-23, 09:19 AM
I just have a couple stereotypes that we hit with my group.

One player plays an elf caster/fighter (like a warlock, or bladesinger) with always one level of rogue who's village was destroyed by (insert name of BBEG).

Another Player always tries to make his character as wierd as possible. So much so that the weirdness has become cliche. He had one character in PS who was blue. Spring came along and he shaved his head. (the Blue-man group jokes flowed...another pc did the intel sound everytime he drew his sword).

The last isn't really cliche, but has been tried in my group a few times by the same character and is annoying enough to list.

A mute character. Really extra obnoxious because the player refused to speak too. except for absolutely neccessary.

Scorpina
2007-02-23, 09:34 AM
I've never been all that bothered by stereotypes, to be honest. Gruff dwarven fighters can be fun and, after all, if they weren't around perpetuating the notion that all dwarves look like shorter versions of Brian Blessed and have impenetrable Scotish accents, then what would make my cliché-defying Dwarven Sorceress all that remarkable?

On the other hand, I do find 'Half-[Anything but Elf or Orc]" to be quite irritating, character wise, since (in the groups I've played with, at least), since (even more than half-elves and half-orcs) they seem to go down to route of hating either their humanoid side or their other side intensely and (quite often) that being their one and only personality trait. That and it bugs me how (in some games) half-dragons and half-fiends can just waltz into the tavern and nobody will bat an eyelid.

Also:

The reason the scantily-clad female characters bother me is because it's either a 20-to-40-year-old male player who has never actually talked to a woman in a meaningful way, or it's the wife/girlfriend of one of the players desperately trying to find a way to get her husband/boyfriend to pay attention to her, even if it means debasing herself in front of the other players. I have dealt with many female players, including both my current D&D groups which are about 1/2 women. *NONE* of them have done the scantily-clad seductress character unless they fell into the girlfriend/wife scenario mentioned above.

I've played scantily clad seductress types. Also, women who don't wear armour and dress in skimpy clothes simply because it makes men do what you want (although not all the men all of the time, of course). I've also played the aforementioned 'gruff dwarven fighter', of course, and I'm currently playing a Gnome Ranger who doesn't bathe... I like to think I have a good range.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-23, 10:11 AM
The halfling/kender/gnome rogue that has to steal everything that isn't nailed down. I understand wanting to build your characters personality. I understand wanting to put those max skill ranks in sleight of hand to use. But can we encounter any sentient creature without the rogue trying to steal from it? Why can't anyone play the more intelligent rogue, the one who realizes that pickpocketing random people isn't going to make you rich? Why can't there be the halfling rogue who has been waiting and planning his whole life to make that one big heist? Why can't we have the thief that refuses to steal gems that aren't bigger than his fist? (The smaller ones aren't worth his time). Why do we have to live with the petty kleptomaniac that spends all his time grabbing a handful of coppers?

Foxer
2007-02-23, 10:38 AM
I'm not too bothered by most stock-fantasy stereotypes, myself. Except for Emo-Drow, obviously.

What gets me is when the players keep cloning their characters in new campaigns. You know the sort of thing - the guy who always wants to play an elf (we've got one of those). Or the one who always wants to play the samurai/ninja type.

GolemsVoice
2007-02-23, 10:59 AM
Hmm, I think there are some stereotypes that do not focus on the class, but rather on the place from where the characters is.
Everyone knows that the whole frozen north is packed tight with blond haired barbarians, 2 meter tall and build like a lighthouse.
Everyone knows that the arabian places are full of sons of the dessert, with long, bended daggers and black beards.
Everyone knows that in Waterdeep or Luskan, every man is a scoundrel, and you can't trust anyone. Not only the regular tavern folk, but everyone from the poorest beggar to the richest nobleman.

Darrin
2007-02-23, 11:09 AM
Or the one who always wants to play the samurai/ninja type.

With the motorcycle, of course. Standard ninja equipment, can't play without it.

The_Werebear
2007-02-23, 11:10 AM
The oddity factor bugs me a lot, and can really destroy the feeling of the game if the don't do it right.

For example, in my current RL game.

We have
A dwarf Wizard
A dwarf Barbarian (Brother and sister team, by the way
A human Cleric
A Human Beguiler
A Halfling Bard

And then, a Feral templated-Duskling Totemist. A freaky blue skined wild fae along with the rest of the party. It would be horribly distracting if he wasn't such a good roleplayer.

Fhaolan
2007-02-23, 11:11 AM
It might not be that "desperate cry for attention" scenario. It might be just a fun kind of roleplay for the couple. At least if the husband/boyfriend is persuing his significant other in-game. They probably have a little fun with it behind closed doors. On the other hand, some of it probably is the cry for attention.

Unfortunately, I've never seen a situation where it's just cute roleplaying on behalf of the couple. In one case, the boyfriend was completely oblivious to the point of being irritated at the girlfriend for not optimizing her character more. In another, the husband was the DM, and was forcing his wife to play this character because he thought it would be 'seductive' to the other players to the point that the game would devolve into a RL orgy that he could watch.

Yes, I've ended up in games with some seriously mental people. It's an unfortunate side-effect of moving every two years to follow the job market (originally for my father, and now for me), and trying to find new gaming groups in each town. Originally, I thought going to local conventions would be a good way to meet fellow gamers in the new communities. I have stories from those 'encounters' that would get me kicked off this forum if I told them. :smalleek:

averagejoe
2007-02-23, 11:14 AM
What gets me is when the players keep cloning their characters in new campaigns. You know the sort of thing - the guy who always wants to play an elf (we've got one of those). Or the one who always wants to play the samurai/ninja type.

See, that's never really bothered me. I mean, if they found something they like doing, let them do it. A lot of the other things listed above (especially the kleptomaniac thing) are annoying because they're bad on a group level. You know, like how everyone throws heavy objects at the kleptomaniac, or how a group full of dark brooding personalities brings the game to a halt when all of them refuse to do anything but brood silently (has this happened to anyone else, by the way? Just curious.) I don't really see the problem of a player playing essentially the same character over and over, though, unless the character was problematic to begin with.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-23, 11:16 AM
Really? I play with a duo that's boyfriend/girlfriend, and both really look forward to our weekly sessions. The girlfriend plays a catgirl prostitute (no, seriously). She loves it. She's even drawn her character, her familiar, and all her gear several times over in the interims between games. She's not much of one for optimization, but she thoroughly enjoys roleplaying like that without flirting with her own boyfriend.

Fax Celestis
2007-02-23, 11:25 AM
Angsty McAngst-Angst, the Angst-Ridden.

There's a stereotype I'd like buried, consecrated, and then sealed.

Person_Man
2007-02-23, 11:34 AM
My two least favorite stereotypes:

1) The Loner: "Dark" PC who is a jerk to NPCs and other PC, and skulks off on their own ignoring all the various plot options "because I'm a loner." When asked what in their backstory made them this way, they usually directly rip off the history of an anti-hero comic book character.

2) The Blind PC who Isn't Blind: He was born blind, but through convoluted and often retarded build choices, he has some sort of blindsight, blindsense, true seeing, etc. Variants: The guy with one arm who's the best unarmed combatant in the world, the small guy who wields a huge sword, Reforged Warforged, etc. If you want to roleplay someone with a huge flaw, try roleplaying that person with a huge flaw, instead of roleplaying a person who says they have a huge flaw but really its totally negated by other mechanic.

3) Lawful Stupid and Stupid Evil: Alignment is not an excuse for you to be an idiot, decide what other PC's should do because of your alignment restrictions, or torture puppies because its what someone of your alignment might allow.

Neek
2007-02-23, 11:39 AM
I tend to strive for unique characters as much as possible, sometimes to the point of being obnoxiousness. One character was a mad cleric who used to be a high level Wizard (no one knows if this is true or not), but was level drained down to a 0 level character. Another character is a virtually backgroundless Gnomish Barbarian/Sorcerer, who goes off the handle, gets drunks, and charges without provocation--which brings me to the next cliché.

The Chaotic Neutral Loose Cannon. Simply because you're playing a character with no tendancies towards Good or Evil, but rather embracing the chaotic nature of the universe, does not let you roleplay a lunatic.


2) The Blind PC who Isn't Blind: He was born blind, but through convoluted and often retarded build choices, he has some sort of blindsight, blindsense, true seeing, etc. Variants: The guy with one arm who's the best unarmed combatant in the world, the small guy who wields a huge sword, Reforged Warforged, etc. If you want to roleplay someone with a huge flaw, try roleplaying that person with a huge flaw, instead of roleplaying a person who says they have a huge flaw but really its totally negated by other mechanic.

Oh. For a second there, I thought you were going to say the Blind PC who was cured from his blindness, but never had the heart to tell anyone.

What about the mute Wizard who speaks sign language? (Does sign language count for somantic components?) or what about the one with the eyepatch (no, he doesn't get a penalty for his lack of depth perception, but his crappy dice-rolling makes up for it).

Foxer
2007-02-23, 11:49 AM
See, that's never really bothered me. I mean, if they found something they like doing, let them do it. *snip* I don't really see the problem of a player playing essentially the same character over and over, though, unless the character was problematic to begin with.

Seriously? Wow, you must be much more patient than I am!

The thing is, it gets really boring after a while. I mean, meeting player x's interpretation of race/class/alignment y for the first time is cool. Meeting the exact same character for the sixth or seventh time is dull.

And it's especially annoying if you've gone out of your way to create a new and interesting character - one perhaps you wouldn't normally play. I've been gaming with the same twelve or so people for six years plus now. They're great friends and I wouldn't change my players for the world. But if certain persons in that group don't start putting a little variety into their characters, I think I might start to cry.

Seriously, until last year I was involved in a really intensive MERP campaign. It only had three players, all good roleplayers IMHO, and we had a fantastic group dynamic going, and the game ran off-and-on for nearly three years.

Towards the end of that campaign, two of us joined a WFRP game with a different GM. And damned if I'm not playing alongside the exact same elf I've been hanging around with for the past three years.

Variety is the spice of life, y'know?

Fax Celestis
2007-02-23, 11:49 AM
2) The Blind PC who Isn't Blind: He was born blind, but through convoluted and often retarded build choices, he has some sort of blindsight, blindsense, true seeing, etc. Variants: The guy with one arm who's the best unarmed combatant in the world, the small guy who wields a huge sword, Reforged Warforged, etc. If you want to roleplay someone with a huge flaw, try roleplaying that person with a huge flaw, instead of roleplaying a person who says they have a huge flaw but really its totally negated by other mechanic.

In a V:tM LARP I used to play in, I played a blind Gangrel who was embraced as a child. So I walked around on my knees and wore a blindfold. It was a humbling (and strange and fun) experience, let me tell you.

Of course, my knees got all cut up from the pavement, but that's another thing entirely.

Iituem
2007-02-23, 11:52 AM
I have a fondness for taking the (arguably stereotypical) route of trying to counter stereotypes as much as possible.

To put this in context, consider the following 'racial analogies' in the campaign I'm working on (i.e. the culture is similar to that noted):

Orc: "Arabian."
Goblinoids: "Chinese."
Kobolds: "Japanese."
Trolls: "Egyptian."
Giants: "Roman."

I have fond memories of devising utterly psychotic gnomes in response to any world with 'cheerful prankster gnomes' who would think up new and excruciatingly interesting way of torturing people 'as a joke'.

The 'split personality' stereotype, where one side is good and one side is evil. -Always- good/evil. Never neutral/neutral. Never evil/evil. Always good/evil.

Low-level characters who think themselves invicible. I actually try to torture these characters until they learn some humility. That's not so bad. It's the ones who seem to refuse to learn it such that when they finally get to higher levels, rather than thinking "look how much I've improved" they think "Hah! I knew I was always this good!". *twitch*

Green Bean
2007-02-23, 11:53 AM
Variants: The guy with one arm who's the best unarmed combatant in the world

That player's character is just ridiculous. He'd need to lose another arm first! :smallbiggrin:

Fax Celestis
2007-02-23, 12:00 PM
I have fond memories of devising utterly psychotic gnomes in response to any world with 'cheerful prankster gnomes' who would think up new and excruciatingly interesting way of torturing people 'as a joke'.

Next time you do that, try this (not for the faint of heart):

First, put your intended victim in the stocks.
Second, take off their shoes.
Third, dehydrate a goat.
Fourth, drip water on the victim's feet.

The goat's rough tongue will shred the skin on the bottom of the victim's feet and the victim will bleed to death through the bottom of their feet.

Good times.

Thoughtbot360
2007-02-23, 12:14 PM
How about the hilariously quirky comic relief gnome wizard?
:smallfurious:
I'm glaring so hard I think the hate is starting to condensate on my monitor.

My campaign setting has no gnomes anymore, they were all wiped out by a legion of Angels of Decay. No one misses them.

Amen, brother! I mean, really I don't have experience with gnomes, but from what I understand their whole race is like a one big massive headache and you can never get them to stop. Read page 23 of 73 on this pdf (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp28rpg.pdf) and you will find a beatifully written article on making the smaller races troublesome foes for the player characters. The article on Halflings made me cry. The author presented them as just so...humane! Its best stated as such:


Those that escape the halflings’ influence still have not really escaped. Where the wanderers go, so go their stories. Any person who has
incurred the ire of a halfling can count on word of their deeds following them and tormenting the offending character going out of their way to inject some spice into their lives in order to relieve their boredom. Of course, should the
offending player or party realise what has caused their sudden streak of bad luck and apologise, everything will end as if it never started. Halflings are not particularly cruel, they just insist on being treated like everyone else.

Now, the gnomes were presented as, well, gnomes!


When a gnome fi nds someone in their field, it inspires them to initiate a rivalry. This is not only to drive the other person to achieve
but to inspire the gnome himself. Sadly gnomes tend to try and inspire one another through an intricate and escalating series of pranks and practical jokes. This can go on for years as each gnome attempts to one up the other, all the while continuing on their personal pursuit of mastery in their chosen fi eld. While this does tend to drive gnomes on, pushing them to perform, most
other races fi nd it irritating at best. Attempting to ignore the offending gnome is simply inviting a more complicated and grand prank as the gnome attempts to determine how the last one failed to have the proper effect. Of course, this can also lead to a different kind of no win situation. Most other races do not spend as much time playing pranks and require time to plan a truly masterful gag. If they take the time to actually focus on getting revenge on the gnome and succeed, it only inspires the gnome to try more impressive jokes. Worse yet, if the gnome realises that his chosen rival has
diverted his attention away from his own pursuit of wisdom, the gnome will simply redouble his efforts to ‘inspire’ him, and so the cycle
continues. The non-gnome will be completely unaware of why nothing he does will dissuade the maddening gnome prankster.

ARG! Did you hear that? If you pick up a gnomish rival, there is simply no way to stop the pranks from coming...short of killing the gnome, of course. And thats the thing. I actually imagine that even if a particular world was populated by celestials, they would have exterminated the gnomes in as firery a way as possible (holding back only when the situation screams "gnomish trap up ahead. You know what happened last time").

Iituem
2007-02-23, 12:23 PM
Disturbingly, I'm actually familiar with that technique, Fax. (Not personally, obviously.)

Wraithy
2007-02-23, 12:24 PM
my friends and i started up a game group a few months ago.
we've decided to start at level one again because of new members joining.
strangely enough 3/8 (including myself) are the sons of whores who never knew their fathers, that one is subtley popular in my opinion.

i'm DMing a game soon and at the request of players i have included cliché characters as enemies *cough*Drizzt*cough* etc.

as for clichés one of the players in my group embodies barbarian in day to day life: ugly, chaotic neutral(extremely), no table manners, dice stacker (then most horribly dice licker), destructive, stupid.....

as you can tell this person regularly breaks my personal belongings on a regular basis and attacks other people in the group......









..............he's also a Ginger

Fax Celestis
2007-02-23, 12:25 PM
Disturbingly, I'm actually familiar with that technique, Fax. (Not personally, obviously.)

Right, because you know, you'd be dead otherwise.

But it is a fun-albeit-disgusting way to extract information...or convert the Jews. Oh, Torquemada, what a creative genius you were...jerkwad.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 12:29 PM
The old, absentminded scholar-wizard. Being intelligent doesn't mean you can remember what spells you've got in your prepared list, of course. Randomly casting spells, in an effort to remember which one does what is just *so* much fun.I've never seen the absent-minded wizard done as a deliberate character concept. I've seen someone who was absent-minded in real-life play a wizard so the effect was similar but worse.


The child pickpocket-thief. Nothing really wrong with this one, but why do they always talk like the Artful Dodger?I don't think time I've ever seen anyone play a child-pickpocket. The closest I've ever seen was when I played a teenage pickpocket and he didn't talk like the Artful-Dodger at all. That may just be the groups I've played with though.

I've seen plenty of pickpockets, but they've always been adult halflings and didn't sound like the Artful-Dodger. And usually kleptomaniacs.

Now, I've seen lots and lots of big, dumb barbarians and blood-thirsty battle-priests. LOTS of them. I knew one guy who pretty much only played one or the other.

Kevka Palazzo
2007-02-23, 12:42 PM
What about the evil blast-happy sorcerer? Or at least the chaotic one. We've got one of those in our group. He likes to do really insane things just because he can (we're currently level 18, so of course he can do most everything he wants...like go kill an aboleth by himself.)

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 12:53 PM
One big cliche is the orphan-background. It's amazing how many characters are orphans with no surviving relatives or friends of any kind. At least it's an equal-opportunity stereotype. Someone already mentioned how rangers use it to get their favored enemy (usually taken in by a local ranger who has the same favored enemy). Druids get their village wiped out and get taken in by a kindly druid who trains them. Wizards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wizard somewhere. Paladins, Clerics and Monks get their village wiped out and end up being taken in by a temple or monastery of some kind and trained. Rogues get their village wiped out and end up in the city learning to steal to survive. Bards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wandering minstrel. Pretty much any class can make it work for them. I'm sure it's partially just players being too lazy to make up a bunch of background and partially trying to avoid giving the DM plot hooks, but it gets really old.

Then there's the "mysterious stranger" characters. These characters are a big mystery to everyone around them. Nobody knows anything about them and they'd know less if the player didn't keep dropping cryptic hints about how mysterious they are and all the secrets they have (but aren't telling). Some players like to combine this with the dark and brooding cliche previously mentioned, but it isn't manditory. If their secrets ever do come out, the player immediately loses interest and wants to retire the character and bring in a new mysterious stranger so they can go right back to being mysterious.

I'm also sick of all the alcoholic scottish dwarves out there. How about someone making a dwarven character who isn't an alcoholic, or who isn't scottish.

Another one would be the way so many people play druids as fanatics who would just as soon slay you as let you squash a mosquito.

Dark
2007-02-23, 12:59 PM
and partially trying to avoid giving the DM plot hooks
That never works.

Player writes: ... and then his whole village was wiped out by an orcish raid ...
DM thinks: ... so his family never got to tell him who his real parents are ...

Then when they get to the big city, the player gets to wonder why everyone calls him "my lord", and why a bunch of ruffians tries to hide him from the guards :smallbiggrin:

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 12:59 PM
What about the evil blast-happy sorcerer? Or at least the chaotic one. We've got one of those in our group. He likes to do really insane things just because he can (we're currently level 18, so of course he can do most everything he wants...like go kill an aboleth by himself.)In a way, that's a player type more than a character type. You get chaotic people who do stuff just because they can playing just about every class.

I'm reminded of a long list that dates back to at least the early 80s that described the differences between "Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Munchkins and Loonies".

Ah, here's one version: http://pw1.netcom.com/~shagbert/pages/munchkins.html

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-23, 01:01 PM
Hey, mysterious stranger can be played to great effect if the mysteries are actually supposed to get revealed and you plan on playing after that. As DM, I love including a few for the players to wonder about and discover the many layers of secrets they possess.

Person_Man
2007-02-23, 01:09 PM
In a V:tM LARP I used to play in, I played a blind Gangrel who was embraced as a child. So I walked around on my knees and wore a blindfold. It was a humbling (and strange and fun) experience, let me tell you.

Of course, my knees got all cut up from the pavement, but that's another thing entirely.

See, now that's just cool. I love it when PC's take a big meaningful flaw and actually stick with it. Just don't take a big meaningful flaw and totally negate it somehow.


One big cliche is the orphan-background. It's amazing how many characters are orphans with no surviving relatives or friends of any kind. At least it's an equal-opportunity stereotype. Someone already mentioned how rangers use it to get their favored enemy (usually taken in by a local ranger who has the same favored enemy). Druids get their village wiped out and get taken in by a kindly druid who trains them. Wizards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wizard somewhere. Paladins, Clerics and Monks get their village wiped out and end up being taken in by a temple or monastery of some kind and trained. Rogues get their village wiped out and end up in the city learning to steal to survive. Bards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wandering minstrel. Pretty much any class can make it work for them. I'm sure it's partially just players being too lazy to make up a bunch of background and partially trying to avoid giving the DM plot hooks, but it gets really old.

Yeah, I think my next PC is going to come from a well adjusted middle class family from a peaceful suburb that hasn't seen war in several generations. His childhood educational and generally uneventful. His parents, who recently died of old age, were kind and supportive. He left town for adventuring life when he realized how profitable it was and how easy it is to have Raise Dead cast on you if you die (as long as you have good friends and a 5,000gp diamond on hand). Now that would be original.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 01:11 PM
That never works.

Player writes: ... and then his whole village was wiped out by an orcish raid ...
DM thinks: ... so his family never got to tell him who his real parents are ...

Then when they get to the big city, the player gets to wonder why everyone calls him "my lord", and why a bunch of ruffians tries to hide him from the guards :smallbiggrin::smallsmile: Yeah, the DM can still find ways to mess with them when they do this. I think the primary goal here is to not give the DM people who can be used against the character. Basically, I think players often assume that any live "loved ones" (of whatever description) will be kidnapped, threatened with death and otherwise used to try to force them down a plotline and they're trying to cut that off right away. They've read enough comics to see the grief that various SOs cause heroes and dont' want any part of it. That's why they just preemptively wipe them all out.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-23, 01:16 PM
Hahaha, best idea for an orphan ever-

DM: So, you're an orphan?
Player: Yep, no family.
DM: Lemme guess, raid or some other crap?
Player: What? No, that's lame. I killed them.
DM: ...huh?
Player: They were a liability.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 01:24 PM
Hey, mysterious stranger can be played to great effect if the mysteries are actually supposed to get revealed and you plan on playing after that. As DM, I love including a few for the players to wonder about and discover the many layers of secrets they possess.Yeah, but a lot of players don't play it this way. They know what their secrets are right from the start and are just hiding them from the other players/characters. They basically just use the whole "mysterious stranger" bit as a way to try and get lots of attention and make the game about them. They dribble out just enough information to get people curious and trying to find out more and dribble out a bit more every once in a while to keep interest up but otherwise don't intend to reveal their secrets. They craft the secrets and the hints about them to set off warning bells to make the other players want to know more in case it's something that can affect them but never intend to deliver unless absolutely necessary. If they do get revealed, they want to retire the character so they can bring a new one with new mysteries and go right back to trying to keep the spotlight firmly on them.

Krellen
2007-02-23, 01:27 PM
The stereotype I personally hate is the stereotype breaker. Not those who break stereotypes because it fits an interesting character concept or story, but those who break them just to break them. I've got a player over on another forum I GM at that does it habitually. He's lucky we're online, because otherwise he'd have red cheeks and bruised shins.

Fax Celestis
2007-02-23, 01:33 PM
See, now that's just cool. I love it when PC's take a big meaningful flaw and actually stick with it. Just don't take a big meaningful flaw and totally negate it somehow.

I played that character for well over a year. Certainly helped me get over my fear of going blind.

Folie
2007-02-23, 01:34 PM
One big cliche is the orphan-background. It's amazing how many characters are orphans with no surviving relatives or friends of any kind. At least it's an equal-opportunity stereotype....Druids get their village wiped out and get taken in by a kindly druid who trains them. Wizards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wizard somewhere. Paladins, Clerics and Monks get their village wiped out and end up being taken in by a temple or monastery of some kind and trained....Bards get their village wiped out and end up apprenticed to a wandering minstrel.

This gives me an interesting idea for a background.

A powerful mage finds a diamond in the rough: a child, living out in the sticks, who possesses the innate potential to gain Real Ultimate Power. Of course, this potential must developed for years by a dedicated trainer: otherwise, she'll just live out her life, poor but content, in the filthy backwater hamlet she calls home.

He therefore approaches the child's family, offering to take her on as his apprentice and give her the training she needs. The young girl is not swayed by the mage's promises of fame and renown, and steadfastly refuses to leave with him, declaring her desire to never be parted from her family and friends. The mage, appearing to be disappointed yet understanding, leaves the family shack without a fuss, reminding her that she can always seek him out if she ever changes her mind.

The mage then puts his magic to diabolical ends, persuading a local tribe of savage humanoids to attack the girl's village: "Strike quickly," he tells them, "and leave none alive." He schedules the attack to occur while his would-be apprentice is alone on the meadow, far away from the action. Through his machinations, everyone else in the village is drawn to the town square, where the savage humanoids can easily surround and butcher them. When the girl comes back to find that everything and everyone she ever loved has been destroyed, the mage rides in to the rescue, mops up the savage humanoids in a splashy show of pyrotechnics, and hugs the sobbing child close as he promises her to give her the strength she needs to protect others....:sabine:

Tormsskull
2007-02-23, 01:43 PM
:sabine:

*coughFableforXboxcough*

Woot Spitum
2007-02-23, 01:46 PM
This gives me an interesting idea for a background.

A powerful mage finds a diamond in the rough: a child, living out in the sticks, who possesses the innate potential to gain Real Ultimate Power. Of course, this potential must developed for years by a dedicated trainer: otherwise, she'll just live out her life, poor but content, in the filthy backwater hamlet she calls home.

He therefore approaches the child's family, offering to take her on as his apprentice and give her the training she needs. The young girl is not swayed by the mage's promises of fame and renown, and steadfastly refuses to leave with him, declaring her desire to never be parted from her family and friends. The mage, appearing to be disappointed yet understanding, leaves the family shack without a fuss, reminding her that she can always seek him out if she ever changes her mind.

The mage then puts his magic to diabolical ends, persuading a local tribe of savage humanoids to attack the girl's village: "Strike quickly," he tells them, "and leave none alive." He schedules the attack to occur while his would-be apprentice is alone on the meadow, far away from the action. Through his machinations, everyone else in the village is drawn to the town square, where the savage humanoids can easily surround and butcher them. When the girl comes back to find that everything and everyone she ever loved has been destroyed, the mage rides in to the rescue, mops up the savage humanoids in a splashy show of pyrotechnics, and hugs the sobbing child close as he promises her to give her the strength she needs to protect others....:sabine:

Ilse Witch, first book in Terry Brooks' The Voyage of Jerle Shannara trilogy has a very similar beginning to this.

Neek
2007-02-23, 01:50 PM
Of course, it still hinges on the Destined Child Hero cliché, but works cleverly here. Can't say that I dislike it, though! It's great when you can set your character up as a tool.

Also, about having s/o's and family, &c.: the liability exists only if your players are aware that they might be a liability. If you never account for it until late into the campaign (rather than plow through the background for story hooks), they might not even see it coming.

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-02-23, 01:51 PM
Dark heros. People who try to be moody by being silent are pretty hilarious, though, especially in large numbers, when the story never progresses because everyone is trying to be dark and silent.
...snip...

I played in a long-running Cyberpunk LARP that had WAY too many of those - and they were always the first to complain "There's no plot!"

Yeah, there's no plot for people with no reputation who lurk silently in the corners. There's plenty of plot for people who get in everyone's face and socialise.

Folie
2007-02-23, 02:05 PM
*coughFableforXboxcough*

Ilse Witch, first book in Terry Brooks' The Voyage of Jerle Shannara trilogy has a very similar beginning to this.

And here I thought I was being original.:smallfrown:

EDIT: But at least I can comfort myself in the knowledge that it's more original than Eragon. (Apologies to any Eragon fans out there.)

Neek
2007-02-23, 02:11 PM
This then makes me want to make a Half-Elven bard who's the upper-class flunky of his class. He stands around brooding, and dropping hints, but it's all an act. He truly can't get over how good his past was to him.

rollfrenzy
2007-02-23, 02:12 PM
And here I thought I was being original.:smallfrown:

The more I read and play the more I realize that without being a zombie Death turtle with wings and a plaid scarf that wields a coat hanger as his primary weapon, You can't be original. Somebody somewhere has thougth of it or done it. The best you can do is original to you and your group.


"Simpsons Did it"

averagejoe
2007-02-23, 02:14 PM
See, that's my least favorite stereotype of all, the unintentional one. Like when you have this really good idea for this good drow ranger, and then you find out that some guy has written a bunch of novels about it already, and inspired a generation. Okay, that's never happened in that way to me, but you get the idea.

Neek
2007-02-23, 02:16 PM
WHAT? Frenzy, you stole my idea. :(

Well, time to play the cross-dressing half-orc Paladin.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-23, 02:19 PM
And here I thought I was being original.:smallfrown:

EDIT: But at least I can comfort myself in the knowledge that it's more original than Eragon. (Apologies to any Eragon fans out there.)

You aren't the first, and you certainly won't be the last. As long as your group hasn't heard of it though, it's cool.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 02:21 PM
Also, about having s/o's and family, &c.: the liability exists only if your players are aware that they might be a liability. If you never account for it until late into the campaign (rather than plow through the background for story hooks), they might not even see it coming.That's also true. I think most of the people who do the orphaned background to keep hooks from the DM are people who have been burned in the past, so to speak. I know a guy who started out with what sound like some absolutely awful groups and they've left him "scarred" to this day. He does a lot of things that aren't a reaction to anything he's ever experienced in our group, but which are a reaction to lessons learned playing in those awful groups in the past.

Who
2007-02-23, 02:22 PM
Like what?

Neek
2007-02-23, 02:30 PM
My brother was a bred power-character. Each unique and interesting character he made was ultimately killed off by sadistic GMs--mostly pissed off that he was a naturally lucky-rolling mofo. Ultimately, he resolved this by breaking the game. Every character build he has was made of coffin nails. He stopped playing because, well, it no longer posed a challenge. Either the GM didn't try to kill him off (because ultimately, it killed the party off), or he would destroy everything that was thrown at us; there'd be times when the GM did try to kill him off (i.e., a woman throws herself off the building, being a Paladin, he catches her. The impact of the fall breaks his back, &c.)

This isn't a gloat, this isn't a "Gee, my brother is so awesome" sort of post. But that's the kind of gamer that comes from giving negative feedback like that.

Other times, characters who have significant others are truly married or related to Mary Jane, and they're secretly playing Spiderman. No matter what they do, it always involves this person (and they become paranoid and take Devoted Defender as a prestige class). Honestly, I've never had a campaign where a family member or a loved one was captured. If I run one, I'll throw the family in only at a crucial part of the story... take command of the seige, or rescue family.

Morty
2007-02-23, 02:36 PM
Whoa, it turns out that my group who is just a trio of bastards trying to rob everyone from as much as they could(one is technically NG but he doesn't care) is actually original because they don't have any family/past issues. :smallwink:

Person_Man
2007-02-23, 02:40 PM
One big cliche is the orphan-background.

You know, now that I think about it, I'm not sure why Evil nations don't just create huge government run orphanages. They're bound to create a large number of beings with class levels, which can be recruited the local army/cult/ninja squad for whatever devious purposes they have in mind.

Neek
2007-02-23, 02:42 PM
Because, Person_Man, most orphanages are. The Evil realizes that they cannot convert all PCs to their cause, so they create PR stunts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Crusade) that turn into catastrophic nightmares that have a lower return rate of PCs than brainwashing.

Folie
2007-02-23, 02:58 PM
Interesting how people are talking about how people make their characters orphans in order to not provide plot hooks or background information. My character happens to be such an orphan (yes, I know I'm a horrible person), and that's where most of her plot hooks come from - she's hell-bent on getting revenge against the BBEG organization for the butchering of her extended family. This is partly the DM's fault for choosing to link the BBEGs with the family's murderers (I let him decide exactly who the villains were, so he didn't have to make the link), and it is partly my fault for letting my character get all worked up about it.

Plus, I feel bad that I can't always seem to come up with a family anecdote or homespun phrase ("As my Aunt Tilly used to say-") to supplement in game conversations.

Rabiesbunny
2007-02-23, 03:03 PM
Urgh. I hate CG Harpers of doom. CG in general, but if you're in Forgotten Realms, the "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! I'm good! I'm going to do whatever I want with good intentions!"

That rebel alliance terrorism kinda stuff just drives me up the wall. I like the Harpers like Joel Whatshisface, the Bard/Cleric of Finder Wyvernspur. He's one of those CG good guys that's fleshed out and well written.

*Smolders just THINKING about it*

Oh, right...and people who use rape as a huge backstory device. It happens, but when every other guy who plays a good aligned woman does it, it makes me ill.

Neek
2007-02-23, 03:08 PM
I never saw a rape-based background for a character, I'm afraid. I've played a prostitute at one point, and once an utter prude... and a few characters from in between those spectrums. But the thought of rape? Has never came in as a background.

Then again, out of all the players I've known and of all the groups I've been in, I'm the only male to have ever played a female.

Scorpina
2007-02-23, 03:10 PM
I've seen (and played) NPCs who have rape in their background, but the only PCs I've ever encountered with it in their past have been male.

Rabiesbunny
2007-02-23, 03:12 PM
I think THAT whole thing was far more of a Neverwinter Nights thing -- I started roleplaying there. You'd be amazed how often that was part of a backstory on online gaming...

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-23, 03:25 PM
Or just the game itself. I ended up feeling very sorry for every female that was kidnapped during the course of the main game. The plot hook invariably included rape.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-23, 03:39 PM
Like what?
Ultimately, the lesson he learned is that the DM IS out to screw you so you had better be extra-paranoid about everything in the game. Further, he learned that the other players are probably out to screw you too so you better be paranoid about them, too. You should do everything possible to minimize the chances of being screwed. That includes stuff like making sure your PC is an orphan with no connections so the DM can't use them against you. It also means things like elaborate and detailed trap/room/whatever-checking procedures to cover every possible way the DM could screw you. Ditto for elaborate precautions to prevent the party thief from stealing from you or slitting your throat in the night. It was important to be extremely detailed about everything you were doing even if it's common sense because the DM would pick on any little omission to screw you. That meant things like "well, you didn't say you were using gloves to get the ring out of the fire so I assumed you didn't". Finally, it was very, very important to make sure your character was as munchkined out as possible to be able to survive anything and everything. Stuff like that.

Attilargh
2007-02-23, 04:16 PM
You know, now that I think about it, I'm not sure why Evil nations don't just create huge government run orphanages. They're bound to create a large number of beings with class levels, which can be recruited the local army/cult/ninja squad for whatever devious purposes they have in mind.
From the Evil Overlord List (http://www.sff.net/paradise/overlord.html#bad_lead):

If I Ever Become the Evil Overlord...
69. Independent midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

One of my characters was an orphan. He was the son of a prostitute from Calimport and some traveler from north, who lived on the street and was adopted into a monastery after his mother died. In his first game he got royally pummeled by a smart troll in a dark, wet sewer and I kinda lost my will to play.

Ædit: Funny, you can't write "a person from Calimshan".

JackMage666
2007-02-23, 06:36 PM
Well, the character I'm making is actually an orphan.. Kinda. His parents were paladins who were killed by a devil, and after that the loal guards (more paladins), decided to send him to a orphanage (one across town... These paladins didn't want him). The unofficial name of the orphanage was the Lemure pit, and it was basically a rat-hole. When the males matured, they were sold off as farm slaves, and the females were sold as prostitutes. After recieving a number of beatings (my character is an Azurin in a Incarnum-rare game), he snapped, and stranged the orphanage worker in his sleep, then proceeded to slice the rest of the workers throats with a found dagger. Then he left, apprenteced a Necromancer, who, knowing about Incarnum, sent him to apprentice a Chaotic Incarnate, even though my character is Evil... For the learning, I didn't think Alignment would matter, so long as the Mentor wasn't good. So, he was teamed up with the Anarchist, until he was hunted down and arrested by the same paladins from the town his parents had originally lived in. Then he killed a number of deserving prisoners and a number of paladins to escape. He's deluded enough to think he's doing good, and will regularly kill any immoral creature he sees, as well as any moral creature who gets in his way of the first goal. He's a bit crazy, and carries a note that he hopes will justify his actions to his late father.

Stereotypical yet? This is a shortened version of what I gave to my DM.

wowy319
2007-02-23, 08:29 PM
The halfling/kender/gnome rogue that has to steal everything that isn't nailed down. I understand wanting to build your characters personality. I understand wanting to put those max skill ranks in sleight of hand to use. But can we encounter any sentient creature without the rogue trying to steal from it? Why can't anyone play the more intelligent rogue, the one who realizes that pickpocketing random people isn't going to make you rich? Why can't there be the halfling rogue who has been waiting and planning his whole life to make that one big heist? Why can't we have the thief that refuses to steal gems that aren't bigger than his fist? (The smaller ones aren't worth his time). Why do we have to live with the petty kleptomaniac that spends all his time grabbing a handful of coppers?

Dear... god. I've played alongside one of these before, and it's hell. nothing gets done, because I always seem to get drafted into the city guard before he steals, then I have to arrest him, which gets me yelled at by another player because I'm RPing the way I should.

Turcano
2007-02-23, 10:19 PM
And here I thought I was being original.:smallfrown:

EDIT: But at least I can comfort myself in the knowledge that it's more original than Eragon. (Apologies to any Eragon fans out there.)

The thing you need to keep in mind is that, contrary to the protestations of Paolini and his echo chamber, there are two kinds of originality. The first kind of originality is doing something that no one has ever done before. That kind of originality is extraordinarily hard to accomplish, since people tend to both think along the same lines and borrow ideas subconsciously; for those reasons, it's even harder to do well, as intentionally shunning the unoriginal (in this sense) will usually produce something unwieldy or implausible, and it will probably have been done by someone else anyway. The second, and more important, kind of originality is coming up with something on your own (or at least mainly on your own) as opposed to cribbing from others. That's probably the problem with cliches/stereotypes in general; many people simply copy something and don't add anything to the template, so it's unbelievably trite and yawn-inducing.

Dark
2007-02-24, 07:07 AM
About originality:

I think Paul Graham said it best, in his essay Taste for Makers (http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html). I'll quote some of the paragraphs to emphasize the part I mean, but the whole thing is worth reading for anyone who designs stuff. He's talking about art and engineering, but I think it'll apply to designing campaign settings and creating characters too.


Attitudes to copying often make a round trip. A novice imitates without knowing it; next he tries consciously to be original; finally, he decides it's more important to be right than original.
...
I think the greatest masters go on to achieve a kind of selflessness. They just want to get the right answer, and if part of the right answer has already been discovered by someone else, that's no reason not to use it. They're confident enough to take from anyone without feeling that their own vision will be lost in the process.
...
At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn't help painting like Michelangelo. The only style worth having is the one you can't help.


edit: I just found out that he also has an essay about the difference between wisdom and intelligence, Is It Worth Being Wise? (http://www.paulgraham.com/wisdom.html). Another gaming resource! :)

Matthew
2007-02-24, 12:35 PM
People often confuse alternative with original. Alternative is almost always as good as original, except when it gets so much use that it is no longer truly alternative. Drizzt clones are a good case in point.

NecroPaladin
2007-02-24, 03:11 PM
How about the hilariously quirky comic relief gnome wizard?
:smallfurious:


My highest level character is actually a gnome who started as such but no matter what he did, people didn't take him seriously. His anger built and built, no matter what he did or who he saved (the ninja and fighter got all the credit), until he became a purpose-not-god-based Lawful Evil cleric intent on the elimination of any conceptions of his weakness. Fond of murders that involve forcing the enemy to commit suicide with puppet-themed spells, just for the sheer feeling of ordering people around (His title was "Grand Puppeteer").

The stereotypes I dislike start in NPCs...the villain is either effeminate, or HIDEOUSLY UGLY. Hideously ugly in fantasy means by default either evil or misunderstood, as does effeminate-but-wearing-black-if-you-aren't-obviously-a-vigilante.

Not just Drizz't: I hate any "sole outcast of my race" kind of character. Look, man, you're not the ONLY one, and you're not really cool for being a TRAITOR. That's what Dante would send you to the bottom level of hell for. Get over yourself.

And, of course, the Mary Sue.

Green Bean
2007-02-24, 03:27 PM
A stereotype that drives me nuts is the 'must destroy the world to save it' kind. Alright, we get it. You think you're saving the world by turning it into a giant bloodbath from which only the strong will emerge. You'll turn the survivors into a 'higher race'. :smallannoyed:

Quietus
2007-02-24, 04:26 PM
I guess this is as good as any a place to post this :

I've got one character that's drawn up and ready to go once we're finished with an epic campaign we've been working on, who grew up on a farm. His parents, siblings, and other farmhands are all still alive. He's not really an adventurer, he's just a nice guy who is used to baling hay - lots of strength and stamina, and slightly above average charisma. He's got Skill Focus (Handle Animal), Animal Affinity, and Improved Unarmed Strike as feats, and no real gear - he just has an animal training kit, a hawk, and a dog. Oh, and three "rations" that are really just food he took from his parent's kitchen when he left. They wanted him to get rid of (AKA put down) his hawk, and he refused, and took off.

I don't THINK that this counts as a stereotype, since he's really not even got anything that makes him an adventurer - he's just an average guy with a couple pets, who used to roughhouse a bit. Is there anything out there I'm not aware of that makes this guy a stereotype?

Attilargh
2007-02-24, 04:45 PM
That's the Clueless Farm Boy Unaware Of His Destiny, I'm afraid. A bit like Belgarion, but with living, mortal relatives. Or rather, the looming "Mother! Father! Noooo! If I had been here..." "...You'd be dead too." -scenario with a mysterious old man.

See where I'm going? Pretty much all sane ideas have been used already. It's no longer a question of whether your idea is original or not, but instead of whether it's well executed or not.

And if you and your DM can avoid the Burning Farm feat. Anguish, Hasty Escape and Brooding, yours should be pretty good.

Quietus
2007-02-24, 05:16 PM
But he doesn't have destiny.... he's just a random guy! Then again, if he survives, I guess he has destiny.

But you also have to consider his whopping 11 AC and his 1d3+4 damage. Yay! Awesome fighter right there!

But yeah.... If the DM wants to bring in the parents as a plot hook, yay! Otherwise, the farm is just a place that some of his adventuring loots will end up.

PnP Fan
2007-02-24, 05:40 PM
Cute Animals. . . Not so much a player stereotype, but an npc (familiar/animal comp) stereotype. When the animals are upstaging the player (because the player is rp'ing the animals), it gets a little irritating. Of course, I'll also say that because I know one of my players enjoys this, I try to provide a taste of these characters periodically, because she enjoys it, and it's fun for her. I provide plenty of the other standard D&D stuff for the rest of my players.
non-human characters that behave like humans. Not so specific a type of character to really be a stereotype, but I've noticed that many folks who play non-humans don't really make any effort to make them y'know, non-human. They might be detailed characters, with a personality of their own, but often there's nothing in that personality that even hints at a different perspective.

Tobrian
2007-02-24, 07:41 PM
Characters (any class not just rangers) in a non-tropical "medieval" setting running around with a tame panther or tiger as their "beast companion". TELEPATHIC, shapeshifting tigers. With wings.
Basically any animé character these days. Gah.

Solaris
2007-02-24, 07:59 PM
The stereotype I personally hate is the stereotype breaker. Not those who break stereotypes because it fits an interesting character concept or story, but those who break them just to break them. I've got a player over on another forum I GM at that does it habitually. He's lucky we're online, because otherwise he'd have red cheeks and bruised shins.

Preach it, brother!
God, how I hate those characters. I hate them with an enduring passion, because not only are they denying they're a stereotype (like some stereotype players do), but they also insist that they're being original and creative!
Hint: It's not. Playing a character whose description can be summed up as "Subverting X stereotype" is no more original, creative, or brilliant than playing a character whose description can be summed up as "X stereotype". I really can't call any given stereotype bad, as some people can really pull them off quite admirably. (I am told I do a disturbingly good Gary Stu. I kid you not. I kid you not at all.)
Other people just can't. I saw someone who played a character rather like Bears With Lasers' Mara Too-Tall, but with an extensive background of rape and abuse thrown in to justify the character's mysandrony. The character started off with a Good alignment, but listening to the player talk made me think the character wasn't going to keep it for long. It was . . . unimpressive. To watch her play made me want to rule that the character had contracted some infernal disease and died a greusome death. This was one of the very, very few player characters that I was actually planning on killing.
This brings up my next point. A character with a background involving rape in one of my games is almost guaranteed to get a veto. (The only exception was half-elves on the Knorld, but half-breeds were fairly likely to get vetoed on account of their amazing rarity.) I hate those characters, too. I don't care which gender the player is, nor do I particularly care what background the player has with that. They're either trivializing it or dwelling on it by bringing it into the character's background.
Ah, right. I hate the stereotypical "I am different because of what I am, not who I am" characters, too. Because of them, I no longer allow anything not human or demihuman in my fantasy campaigns. The Monster Manual is not a resource for PC races. I write out all of the races they can use, and they are not going to be delving around tomes writ for the DM's use to come up with something else. PCs are meant to be extraordinary, not merely odd. Relying upon race to make the character different stinks of Drizzt Cloning. I've nothing against someone playing a monster (such as a drow) as a PC, but I do have something against someone playing a guy in a rubber suit with cool racial abilities as a PC. I don't trust my players to pull it off right - I don't trust myself to pull it off right - so it isn't an option.


Characters (any class not just rangers) in a non-tropical "medieval" setting running around with a tame panther or tiger as their "beast companion". TELEPATHIC, shapeshifting tigers. With wings.
Basically any animé character these days. Gah.

Mm. Had someone attempt that in one of my campaigns without knowing that I knew some basics on ecology, biology, and sociology.
Suffice to say that rangers in my games now only try to get horses, dogs, or hawks for their animal companions. Mundane horses, dogs, or hawks. They'll sometimes shoot for a wolf, but they always know that they are going to be coming into a city at one point.
At the top of my List of Deathwish Cliches is "Anime character". If it sounds like an anime character, I feed the sheet to the shredder and tell them to go back and try it again, only rub some neurons together this time around.

JackMage666
2007-02-24, 08:57 PM
I just learned that a friend of mine who is playing in the same campaign set up her character as -

Grey Elf Wizard... Parents, siblings, and herself we kidnapped by a tribe of Orcs, and sacrificed (except for her, as she escaped). Now, she studies wizardry to avenge them and kill all orcs (She's conivinced it's CN, but I'm relatively certain that, no-matter the race, genocide is evil. Unless you're killing kobolds of course, then it's population control.)

I was pissed at her, and berated her until she decided to change it.

Solaris
2007-02-24, 09:05 PM
If it's evil, Jack, it's Evil. The line is drawn at her character being willing to not kill a Good orc. Killing off an entire race of Evil creatures isn't any more evil than killing off an encounter of Evil creatures. It just gets you a lot more experience points, the ire of Gruumsh, and major brownie points with Pelor, Heironeous, and Correllon Larethian.

JackMage666
2007-02-24, 09:12 PM
She'll have a hard time killing off all Orcs with my character around, as my characters deluded ideals of good/evil will lead me to ropping of her arms and pulling out her tongue, then, politely handing her to the Orcs for the injustice she does their race.

Yes, I'm evil. Yes, I'm crazy. I'm also the greatest Alignment check the DM could ask for.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 12:25 AM
I have fond memories of devising utterly psychotic gnomes in response to any world with 'cheerful prankster gnomes' who would think up new and excruciatingly interesting way of torturing people 'as a joke'.


My campaign world has gnomes who weren't necessarily cheerful, nor did they all get along, but they were the stereotypically-skilled illusionists.
There's a big area of the campaign world where most everyone's at least a little insane, because the entire psychological concept of "Real versus Unreal" has been obliterated by decades of illusion-based warfare, with enough reality mixed in to make everyone paranoid to boot.

Iron_Mouse
2007-02-25, 07:01 AM
Female villians. Either they look like incredibly sexy and beautiful supermodels, with clothing that covers like 20% of their skin (at most). Or they are so horribly ugly that their ugliness can already be used as a special attack (like hags, etc.).

Sam K
2007-02-25, 10:49 AM
I think that, to some extent, the orphan stereotype makes sense. People who have no real estate (no farm or trade to inherrit) and no ties to an area are more likely to take up the adventuring lifestyle. It's not like they have much choice.

Also, I think alot of players would spend more time on developing a belivable family if it served a purpose. Technically, a large extended family could provide multiple advantages: credibility in several areas (people are more likely to trust you if there's someone there to introduce you), places to recover safely, a network of information, and multiple plothooks. Instead they become victims of whatever evil the DM wants you to fight now.

If I still DMed (I just play now, Im too moody to DM, too many falling rocks), I'd try to get around this by making sure families weren't so damn useless and squishy. They can progress as well, although nowhere near as fast (especially at higher levels). For example:

Joe the Fighter grew up with his family in a small town. His father is a blacksmith (lvl 2 expert), Joes older brother working as an apprentice(expert 1). His mother runs the household (commoner 1), and his 2 sisters are both too young to have any class levels yet. His uncle lives in another town, where he works as a bailif for the sheriff (lvl 1 warrior).

Joes first adventures involve a small horde of hobgoblins attacking his city. Joe and his friends assist the local militia and play a vital role in preventing any harm to the city- in the end (a couple of skirmishes and a final fight against the enemy leaders) this brings them to level 3. Because of this sudden attack, many of the young men in the city want to get weapons. And because Joe is now pretty famous, everyone wants the weapons HE uses. Joe Sr's smithy suddenly sees alot more traffic. After a month or so, this allows the smiths to gain a level as well (Joe Sr is now lvl 3, Joes older brother is level 2).

Joe and his party then join the local lords expedition to strike into the uncivilized area from where the hobgoblins came, making Joe an even bigger hero. All in all, Joe&Co spend about a year as part of this campaign (which has, by then, been reinforced by forces from several other local nobles). By the time the campaign is declared a success, the heroes are lvl 6.
Joes family has also had some good fortunes. Joe Sr, because of his sons popularity and his own successful bussines, was chosen to join the local ruling council (he's now a expert 3/aristocrat 1), while Joes mom has progressed to Commoner 1/aristocrat 1. Joes brother now runs the smithy (expert 3). One of his sisters is engaged to marry a successful merchant (who also sits on the city council- once they're married she'll count as a first level aristocrat), and his youngest sister has been sent of to a magical academy (joes father obviously realised having children with PC classes is paying off), and in a year or so she will get her first level of wizard. His uncle has been made head bailif (warrior 2).

All this gives Joe substantial advantages in his home area. His father and brother in law(to be) can find out what goes on in the town and surrounding area, and provide some extra options for employment. His mother and sister have no real power, but they may have access to some skills Joes party may find useful. Joes brother can provide them with discount equipment (if they still need mundane items), and his uncle provides gossip from the countryside as well as some minor sway with the law. His magically gifted sister, while too low level to join in on adventures, will be able to provide lower level spellcasting free of charge, and can be an excellent way to introduce the party to new adventures. All this obviously depends on if Joe stays in touch with his family even after he reaches a decent level. If he gets all high and mighty, they probably wont be willing to help him too much.

Wow, this turned into quite a rant, sorry for going off topic- can you tell I hate the 'family as a burden' stereotype?

Wraithy
2007-02-25, 12:02 PM
idea for an origional character:
awakened zeppelin sorceror

Solaris
2007-02-25, 01:26 PM
Certainly, the orphan makes a wee bit of sense - if the character can explain where he got his hundreds of dollars' worth of gear and training from. In my D&D campaign world, I rule that almost all of the PCs are the offspring of rather wealthy merchants or nobles. They get freedom of choice with their background, of course, but that's the default.
. . . Convincing the emo kid that all noblemen in a pseudo-Dark Ages setting aren't effeminate fops has proven difficult at best. I'm not even going to try convincing him that an Intelligence penalty and a bonus to Strength doesn't automatically make a race stupid and violent, just slow-witted and strong.
You'd think he of all people would realize that low intelligence doesn't automatically mean violent.
Orphans are actually far, far worse in more modern settings because people can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of an orphanage that isn't a torture center. This is assuming, of course, that they don't go "Zah?" when I point out to them that orphanages exist to begin with. Orphanages, foster homes, adoption agencies, the works. Just about nobody grows up homeless and on the streets anymore, and there's no way I'm letting a bunch of WASPs try playing someone who did. The butchery of the roleplaying . . . is too much. Far, far too much.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 02:24 PM
A stereotype that drives me nuts is the 'must destroy the world to save it' kind. Alright, we get it. You think you're saving the world by turning it into a giant bloodbath from which only the strong will emerge. You'll turn the survivors into a 'higher race'. :smallannoyed:

Unfortunately, that's sort of how the D&D world works-- if you throw 1st level people into a bloodbath, after ten or twenty years you emerge with a lot of corpses and a few survivors with powers and abilities that far, far surpass those of ordinary NPCs.
Spend all your life in quiet contemplation and joyful company of your fellow man, and you'll not be nearly as potent.
In D&D, conflict (bloody or not) is the only way to achieve the upper echelons of power. Or the middle eschelons, and chances are you do it faster than other routes, too.

kamikasei
2007-02-25, 02:25 PM
. . . Convincing the emo kid that all noblemen in a pseudo-Dark Ages setting aren't effeminate fops has proven difficult at best.

Show him some first-season Blackadder; point out that Brian Blessed is undeniably a nobleman.

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 02:53 PM
Certainly, the orphan makes a wee bit of sense - if the character can explain where he got his hundreds of dollars' worth of gear and training from.

He was sent to a monastery and trained there, either as a scribe and clerical monk or as an asian martial artist monk? Maybe he was apprenticed to someone, be it in a guild of craftsmen or a guild of pickpockets? He became a child soldier, or lied his way into becoming a squire to a knight despite not being of noble birth? Maybe he clawed his way up from simple bootblack or kitchen spitboy at a noble's court to chamberlain or member of the guard of same noble. Or he started out as a child sifting through trash in the streets, and made his way to become head of a crime ring of burglars and pickpockets?


In my D&D campaign world, I rule that almost all of the PCs are the offspring of rather wealthy merchants or nobles. They get freedom of choice with their background, of course, but that's the default.
(snip)

It's.... one background where adventurers can spring from, I give you that. But certainly not the only one.

Journeymen who couldn't find work would be a prime candidate for "adventuring" too. The Harnmaster RPG practically demanded that every character have some craft or profession skill to simulate a youth and life prior to becoming an "adventurer" (someone who often is, let's be frank, a roving homeless armed mercenary in the eyes of most burghers).


are actually far, far worse in more modern settings because people can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of an orphanage that isn't a torture center. This is assuming, of course, that they don't go "Zah?" when I point out to them that orphanages exist to begin with. Orphanages, foster homes, adoption agencies, the works. Just about nobody grows up homeless and on the streets anymore, (snip)

Depends. If the character is older than, say, 20 years and grew up in an orphanage somewhere in Eastern Europe prior to the fall of the Soviet Union... hell, look at the horrible quality of life for anyone but rich people in Russia today (or the working poor in America today, for that matter... there are street children even in "the West" :smalleek: ). If a character survived childhood and adolescence in an orphanage under the Nicolae Ceaucescu regime in Romania, he sure has a right to have mental and physical scars. In Africa, the founding of new orphanages by Western celebrities in recent years means poor families are now dropping off their babies at orphanages regularly in the hope that someone like Madonna or Bill Gates will adopt them. Or parents too poor to feed a child or teenager accuse them of being a witch (both male and female) and kick them out of the family. Sad, but true. Ethiopia has lots of street children. Rio de Janeiro became infamous during the 1990s for police hunting down and shooting homeless children.

In 19th century England, orphans were "apprenticed" to craftsmen, which usually meant they were used basically as unpaid (slave) labour, had to work long hours in all the horrible jobs an adult wouldnt or couldn't do, for room and board, because they were expendable, and nimble... for example, orphan children had to crawl into narrow house chimneys and sweep in there (some suffocated), or were used in the weaving mills where they had to crawl into the mechanical looms while the machinery was moving and pick up the loose wool dust bunnies from under and inside the machinery (several of them, it is documented, lost fingers or hands, one boy was killed when his head was crushed between two moving parts of the loom). Satanic mills indeed.

On the other hand in 18th century England the industrialist Wedgewood -who invented the famous porcelain- regularly picked orphans from orphanages and poor houses if they showed talent for fine manual work or numbers and gave them a good apprenticeship in his manufactures or training as bookkeepers and the offer of a well-paid job for life as adults if they succeeded. He even founded and paid for his own orphanages, because he believed that a lot of talent was wasted if the poor were cast aside like trash, and had houses build for his workers and their families near the manufactures.

As long as a society is internally stable enough and believes that it has enough resources to spare for orphans, and sets up oversights against abuse and mismanagement, things should be ok. If that changes... well...

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 03:00 PM
Unfortunately, that's sort of how the D&D world works-- if you throw 1st level people into a bloodbath, after ten or twenty years you emerge with a lot of corpses and a few survivors with powers and abilities that far, far surpass those of ordinary NPCs.
Spend all your life in quiet contemplation and joyful company of your fellow man, and you'll not be nearly as potent.
In D&D, conflict (bloody or not) is the only way to achieve the upper echelons of power. Or the middle eschelons, and chances are you do it faster than other routes, too.

Yeah that's one thing that bugs me. Training under a maser swordsman, or spending years at a university of wizards to get a higher education will net you zero XP (if you go by the core rules), nada, nothing. Whereas wandering around aimlessly in dank dungeons and bashing goblins magically improves your swordfighting technique, martial art and or depth or magical learning. I's a remnant of the Gygaxian era. That'S as if I went to college and studied for a Master's Degree, and after several years I'd still be level 1. Huh?
The Apprentice/Mentor system in DMG2 is a cool idea, but you still have to get your XP from some other source, unless I missed something.

But I guess that's a topic for another thread...

Matthew
2007-02-25, 03:05 PM
Not quite true. The core offers some variants for handing out Experience Points, including completing story goals (at least it does in my 3.0 DMG). So for instanxe, if being tutored by a Grand Master of the Sword is a Story Goal, a character would get Experience Points for doing it.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 03:10 PM
Not quite true. The core offers some variants for handing out Experience Points, including completing story goals (at least it does in my 3.0 DMG). So for instanxe, if being tutored by a Grand Master of the Sword is a Story Goal, a character would get Experience Points for doing it.

Problem one there is that it's a variant (although a good idea). The second issue is time-- you could spend months being tutored by a master swordsman, or go lop off three or four heads in the span of an afternoon.

Matthew
2007-02-25, 03:12 PM
It's a variant, but it's in the core rulebook, so it's a Variant Core Rule, as opposed to a Default Core Rule, if you see what I mean. If the Dungeon Master is using that variant, you probably won't get any Experience Points for lopping off heads.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 03:22 PM
It's a variant, but it's in the core rulebook, so it's a Variant Core Rule, as opposed to a Default Core Rule, if you see what I mean. If the Dungeon Master is using that variant, you probably won't get any Experience Points for lopping off heads.

You might run into the flipside, then-- if you get experience for training under the Master Swordsman, but none for lopping his head off in combat.
"Look, I've been slaughtering high-level monsters for three months, are you telling me I didn't learn anything in the process?"

Some mix, surely, works best.

Matthew
2007-02-25, 03:28 PM
Heh. Not quite what I meant. It would all be relative in terms of Story Goals. You couldn't kill a few Goblins and be as good as somebody who had trained for twenty years with a Master is all. Maybe killing a few Goblins is as good as training with a Master for a week, maybe it's not. All down to the DM and what he considers appropriate. The point is that using this variant a Character can gain levels as much by training as by adventure, but at rates appropriate to the story.

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 04:02 PM
Not quite true. The core offers some variants for handing out Experience Points, including completing story goals (at least it does in my 3.0 DMG). So for instanxe, if being tutored by a Grand Master of the Sword is a Story Goal, a character would get Experience Points for doing it.

When I GM, I always give out XP for completing story goals and roleplaying (which isn't the same). (As I said before I come from a GURPS background, where you can get XP for learning something even if you "lost" a fight or just for participating.) But the point is, unless the GM defines all sorts of in-story interactions with NPCs or crafting a very difficult item for the King as "overcoming challenges" in the same way that killing or sneaking past a bunch of goblins guards is defined as a "challenge", you mainly get XP for confrontational stuff. Completing a story goal is usually part of a quest, like "go into the dungeon and find the artifact to drive back the demon hordes".

If that quest is finding and persuading a sword master to teach you, then yes, it's a story goal. Simply roleplaying through something usually only gets you 50XP per level according to the core rules, while monsters can easily give you several times that much just for a random encounter.

But I think this is moving off-topic.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 04:04 PM
Heh. Not quite what I meant. It would all be relative in terms of Story Goals. You couldn't kill a few Goblins and be as good as somebody who had trained for twenty years with a Master is all. Maybe killing a few Goblins is as good as training with a Master for a week, maybe it's not. All down to the DM and what he considers appropriate. The point is that using this variant a Character can gain levels as much by training as by adventure, but at rates appropriate to the story.

There is that. Then again, training sessions are terrible gameplay, even if finding a trainer is a good adventure seed. So the system rewards the interesting, exciting games...and we're back to struggle in one form or another.

Solaris
2007-02-25, 04:09 PM
He was sent to a monastery and trained there, either as a scribe and clerical monk or as an asian martial artist monk? Maybe he was apprenticed to someone, be it in a guild of craftsmen or a guild of pickpockets? He became a child soldier, or lied his way into becoming a squire to a knight despite not being of noble birth? Maybe he clawed his way up from simple bootblack or kitchen spitboy at a noble's court to chamberlain or member of the guard of same noble. Or he started out as a child sifting through trash in the streets, and made his way to become head of a crime ring of burglars and pickpockets?

In my campaign world? The clergyman would work. The Monk base class doesn't exist in my campaign world, nor does just about anything Asian-flavored. Apprenticed to a guild of pickpockets still doesn't account for all that wealth he has (albeit not liquid) to begin with; if it did, most all pickpockets would be retired by now. There is simply no way someone could lie into becoming a squire in this campaign world. None. Period. There is a system involving demands of tracing lineage, getting respected people to vouch for the lineage, getting a sponsor or three (depending on the order), and the system works. In a world almost devoid of arcane magic, it's pretty easy to have a ranking cleric use a divination to ascertain the authenticity of all that proof. The 'clawed his way up' bit works. Kinda. Heading a crime ring of burglars and pickpockets begs the question of what he's doing adventuring. Quick and easy answer is "The guards got 'em".
It's the default, not the only one available.


It's.... one background where adventurers can spring from, I give you that. But certainly not the only one.

Journeymen who couldn't find work would be a prime candidate for "adventuring" too. The Harnmaster RPG practically demanded that every character have some craft or profession skill to simulate a youth and life prior to becoming an "adventurer" (someone who often is, let's be frank, a roving homeless armed mercenary in the eyes of most burghers).

Again, not in my campaign world. Not really, anyhow. There is no middle class on the Knorld, save for the adventurers themselves. A journeyman who couldn't find work wouldn't be able to pay for a couple hundred golds' worth of equipment. More, if we consider a daily silver being enough to keep a man and his family alive. This wasn't meant to be the SCA's version of the Middle Ages, but rather the Darker Ages.
You're spot-on with the peasantry's and aristocracy's view of the adventurers, though.


Depends. If the character is older than, say, 20 years and grew up in an orphanage somewhere in Eastern Europe prior to the fall of the Soviet Union... hell, look at the horrible quality of life for anyone but rich people in Russia today (or the working poor in America today, for that matter... there are street children even in "the West" :smalleek: ). If a character survived childhood and adolescence in an orphanage under the Nicolae Ceaucescu regime in Romania, he sure has a right to have mental and physical scars. In Africa, the founding of new orphanages by Western celebrities in recent years means poor families are now dropping off their babies at orphanages regularly in the hope that someone like Madonna or Bill Gates will adopt them. Or parents too poor to feed a child or teenager accuse them of being a witch (both male and female) and kick them out of the family. Sad, but true. Ethiopia has lots of street children. Rio de Janeiro became infamous during the 1990s for police hunting down and shooting homeless children.

In 19th century England, orphans were "apprenticed" to craftsmen, which usually meant they were used basically as unpaid (slave) labour, had to work long hours in all the horrible jobs an adult wouldnt or couldn't do, for room and board, because they were expendable, and nimble... for example, orphan children had to crawl into narrow house chimneys and sweep in there (some suffocated), or were used in the weaving mills where they had to crawl into the mechanical looms while the machinery was moving and pick up the loose wool dust bunnies from under and inside the machinery (several of them, it is documented, lost fingers or hands, one boy was killed when his head was crushed between two moving parts of the loom). Satanic mills indeed.

On the other hand in 18th century England the industrialist Wedgewood -who invented the famous porcelain- regularly picked orphans from orphanages and poor houses if they showed talent for fine manual work or numbers and gave them a good apprenticeship in his manufactures or training as bookkeepers and the offer of a well-paid job for life as adults if they succeeded. He even founded and paid for his own orphanages, because he believed that a lot of talent was wasted if the poor were cast aside like trash, and had houses build for his workers and their families near the manufactures.

As long as a society is internally stable enough and believes that it has enough resources to spare for orphans, and sets up oversights against abuse and mismanagement, things should be ok. If that changes... well...

I don't care if it's politically correct or not - I don't consider any of those places to be modern (except, naturally, modern-day America). Our society really is stable enough that the vast majority of orphans aren't cast off to the street, which is where I find irritation in people constantly playing orphans who grew up on the mean streets of (insert city's name here). There's also the factor of me finding it annoying that they do it apparently simply to avoid writing up anything at all on the parents or family.
You clipped out the portion where I mention that I dislike people who've little to no idea what it's like to grow up in that setting (myself included) to run a character with that sort of background.
Street children, interestingly enough, don't very often grow up to have hundreds of thousands of dollars, a requisite for beginning play in a handful of the games I've run. Giant robots don't come cheap (Okay, so maybe not that modern). I dislike people using the excuse of "He's a PC" for any background they devise. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't play.

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 05:36 PM
I've seen (and played) NPCs who have rape in their background, but the only PCs I've ever encountered with it in their past have been male.

Male? That's unusual. Was the player male or female? I can't imagine a male player who'd willingly write a backstory for a male character that includes rape by other men. Or by a woman. Or... tentacled thing. (Hentai usually only features schoolgirls.)


I think THAT whole thing was far more of a Neverwinter Nights thing -- I started roleplaying there. You'd be amazed how often that was part of a backstory on online gaming...

I blame the 1980s' Fantasy literature and movies. The "tough-as-nail swordwoman" is the female equivalent to the male barbarian hero.

You know the drill: Young boy, orphaned when an evil warlord/wizard slaughters all the people in his tribe/village, lone survivor, is taken as a slave, thrown into a fighting pit or chained to a mill wheel, and 10-15 years later he's become this HUGE young man in a loincloth with bulging muscles like oiled coconuts and a giant phallus symbol sword. He breaks free and becomes a barbarian warrior to take revenge on the villain.

Textbook examples: the Conan novels and Conan movies (http://imdb.com/title/tt0082198/plotsummary) (1982, 1984), or the movie "The Barbarians" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0092615/plotsummary) (aka The Barbarian Brothers) (1987).

Aaaand... the coolest D&D movie ever made: The Scorpion King (http://imdb.com/title/tt0277296/) (2002)! :smallsmile:

The plot summary for Conan the Barbarian (1982) sums it up better than I could:
The epic tale of child sold into slavery who grows into a man who seeks revenge against the warlord who massacred his tribe. :smallbiggrin:

The "tough swordwoman in a leather bustier" genre got going with movies like Red Sonja (http://imdb.com/title/tt0089893/) (1985) and of course culminated with TV series Xena. From there it spilled over into a lot of lame cookie-cutter fantasy TV series that featured warrior heroines in short skirts, leather bustiers and with bare navels. Sometimes they come disguised as a female sorcerer-beastmaster, or as an archer maiden, as in the groanworthy King Arthur (http://imdb.com/title/tt0349683/) movie (2004).

Look at this impractical little outfit: picture (http://imdb.com/gallery/ss/0349683/Ss/0349683/10_KAC-C474-029AR-B.jpg.html?path=gallery&path_key=0349683)
Looks like standard fantasy artwork in 3rd edition D&D. *snerk*:smallamused:

From the summary of Red Sonja:

The tyrant Gedren seeks the total power in a world of barbarism. She raids the city Hablac and kills the keeper of a talisman that gives her great power. Red Sonja, sister of the keeper, sets out with her magic sword to overthrow Gedren. The talisman's master Kalidor follows to protect her. Of course they fall in love - however Red Sonja's power bases on the oath to never give herself to any man

Of course, the whole idea of a warrior maiden untouchable by any man goes back a long way, it can be found in mythology:

Athena, goddess of wisdom and military victory, sprang fully-armored from the head of her father Zeus.
The Valkyries, armed warrior maiden of the god Odin, from the nordic saga cycle the Edda.
The queen Brunhilde from the Ring of Nibelungen saga cycle, who was stronger than any man, and would only marry the man who could best her in a series of fights. Siegfried the dragonslayer is the only one who can overcome her. In older sagas like the Völsunga saga, and the Sigurd song in the Edda, Brunhild (in various spelling variants) is either a valkyrie who was cursed by Odin to sleep a magical sleep behind a ring of fire, or possibly a ring wall of enchanted shields, until Siegfried managed to get inside and... well... free her, or alternatively she's a mortal shield maiden who fell in love with Siegfried/Sigurd, but was married off to some other guy by her father against her will. She conspires against Siegfried because she can't see him in the arms of another woman, but after he is murdered by a rival, Brunhild kills herself with a sword to be united with him in the underworld.


But I blame author Marion Zimmer Bradley and her Darkover series so popular during the 1980s for the whole "girls gets raped by guy who murdered her parents, she's left for dead, vows to never again allow any man to touch her, becomes a tough swordwoman to get revenge, joins guild of warrior women with vaguely lesbian undertones" thing.

It became something of a cliché in the Sword & Sorcery anthologies by Marion Zimmer Bradley (editor) and her group of female fantasy authors. Hey, it was the 80s, female fantasy authors were lauded as a great achievement for feminism - considering that Gor was also a bestseller during that time, is it a wonder that the idea of men raping women to conquer them became a theme? And those anthologies contained a lot of cool wellwritten stories. Only the "was raped as a girl, grew up to become a swordwoman" standard background in some of those stories started to get a bit old, when it was used for an extra helping of angst. And I say this as a woman.

But the sad thing is, rape is something that happens to a lot of women during wartime, or basically any time when you have roving bands of bandits and mercenaries. So while it may have become a cliché, it's one grounded in history.

Look at the 30-Years War (1618-1648)... maybe you could be happy if you were only raped and left for dead. The horrible things plundering mercenaries did to the menfolk because they were bored and wanted a good laugh... no-one should die that way. :smalleek:

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 05:49 PM
(snip) which is where I find irritation in people constantly playing orphans who grew up on the mean streets of (insert city's name here). There's also the factor of me finding it annoying that they do it apparently simply to avoid writing up anything at all on the parents or family.
You clipped out the portion where I mention that I dislike people who've little to no idea what it's like to grow up in that setting (myself included) to run a character with that sort of background.

Agreed. *)

<devil's advocate> On the other hand, reading Charles Dickens could be counted as sufficient "background research into the life of starving street children". I mean, we don't really know what it's like to be a wizard or an ork and we're still allowed to play one. :smallwink: Depends on how "gritty" you want your world to be.

*) I myself have one player who drives my crazy with this, he flat-out refuses to come up with a background for his gnome sorc; the character started out with a background as an alchemist's apprentice, but he switched and rewrote the character after the first few sessions, because alchemy apparently wasn't cool enough, and now he suddenly wants to have a half-dragon for a mentor :smallmad: ). When I gave him background info on the city he grew up in (one that plays a recurring role in the campaign) and asked him about his gnome's parents, he simply said, "They died." How? "Um... an accident." Well, I can't force him.

Matthew
2007-02-25, 06:08 PM
The Scorpian King (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277296/) (2002)? Aw man, that was yet another awful film in a long list of bad fantasy films: Hawk the Slayer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080846/) (1980), Dragon Slayer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082288/) (1981), The Sword and the Sorcerer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084749/) (1982), Krull (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085811/) (1983), Conan the Destroyer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087078/) (1984), Red Sonja (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089893/) (1985), Willow (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096446/) (1988), Dragon Heart (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116136/) (1996), and Kull the Conqueror (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119484/) (1997), Dragon Heart: A New Beginning (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214641/) (2000) and our very own Dungeons & Dragons (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190374/) (2000), followed by a break for the less awful The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2003-2005).

It doesn't stop there, of course, as we well know, since we can now add Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406728/) and Eragon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/) (2006).

Anyone got any suggestions for 1986-1987, 1989-1995, 1998-1999 or 2001? I'm sure there were some contenders...

[Edit 1] Oh, how could I forget the Beast Master franchise?

Beast Master (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083630/) (1982)
Beast Master: Through the Porta of Time (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101412/) (1991)
Beast Master: The Eye of Braxus (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112469/) (1996)

[Edit 2] Ah yes, Legend (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/) (1985) and Earthsea (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407384/) (2005)

Solaris
2007-02-25, 06:16 PM
Oh, I know rape was common during wartime. That isn't so much a "It doesn't happen" type thing as it is a "Please don't use it in the bio because I read it and want to hurt you very badly" type thing. Like I said. They trivialize it a lot and use it as an excuse for their character to be a misandronistic witch. Having it show up once, maybe twice every thirty characters is okay. I much prefer to have it happen during play (OFF-CAMERA! OFF-CAMERA! By GOD it should happen OFF-CAMERA! and certainly not to a PC) and have the characters roleplay their reactions to it (obviously, I would only do this with a group that I am very, very certain would not have a member that has some bad memories involving this sort of thing).
This likely stems from my like of having the bulk of the character development happen during play, too. Crazy idea, I know . . . *muttermutterstupidplayersmuttermutterkillthemallm uttermutterjihadmuttermutter*

If I'm getting someone willing to do that much research and actually read a non-fantasy book, they've probably already written up the character's backstory and included parents (generally mentioned in passing, which is perfectly okay). Problem is, most of the folks who're writing orphan-based backstories really are just trying to skip out on the parental units. They don't seem to realize that it's just as fine to only mention the parents in passing once or twice, particularly if the kid was rather free-spirited or not a dwarf.

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 06:34 PM
Hey, don't bash Scorpion King and Dragonslayer!! Dragonslayer is a classic! And Scorpion King is cheesy enough to be a perfect heroic fantasy D&D scenario... but it is good cheese. Not the lame kind. It's fast-paced, has good effect, beautiful scenery, the actors fit perfectly in their roles. And the plot, while standard fare, is at least logical. Plus, the male heroes are handsome :smallbiggrin: (if men watch movies for Lara Croft and her bazongas, I can oggle that evil king, can I?) Something I can't say for Conan and Hawk the Slayer. Bleh.

I grant you the rest.

Tarvok
2007-02-25, 06:48 PM
How about a GM stereotype: the GM who intimidates a new player by commanding him to write up an extended backstory, and that if he doesn't he's basically going to screw the new player over. And then, when players describe their actions, he twists their words and has them do something they didn't intend.

As to the player that basically plays the same character every single time, I'd say the problem in that case is that he never really got a chance to play his character all the way through. At the moment, I'm guilty of designing entirely too many aspiring "free traders" (read: Smugglers). I design entirely too many, because I'm hoping to actually play him beyond one adventure. :(

Run a real campaign, and you'll hopefully see the cookie-cutter character grow, to the point where when he finally dies (even if it is of old age long after the caracter was retired), your cookie-cutter player will finally design a new character.

Matthew
2007-02-25, 06:51 PM
Hey, don't bash Scorpion King and Dragonslayer!! Dragonslayer is a classic! And Scorpion King is cheesy enough to be a perfect heroic fantasy D&D scenario... but it is good cheese. Not the lame kind. It's fast-paced, has good effect, beautiful scenery, the actors fit perfectly in their roles. And the plot, while standard fare, is at least logical. Plus, the male heroes are handsome :smallbiggrin: (if men watch movies for Lara Croft and her bazongas, I can oggle that evil king, can I?) Something I can't say for Conan and Hawk the Slayer. Bleh.

I grant you the rest.

*Laughs*
Hey, I like all of those films to one degree or another, but they all belong in the same lame 'Fantasy' category. For the record, I thought the Lara Croft films / games also sucked...

JadedDM
2007-02-25, 06:58 PM
And then, when players describe their actions, he twists their words and has them do something they didn't intend.

DM: You see a door ahead of you.
PLAYER: I walk through it.
DM: Okay, you smash into the door and take 2 damage.
PLAYER: What?!
DM: You never said you opened it.

Solaris
2007-02-25, 07:06 PM
How about a GM stereotype: the GM who intimidates a new player by commanding him to write up an extended backstory, and that if he doesn't he's basically going to screw the new player over. And then, when players describe their actions, he twists their words and has them do something they didn't intend.

As to the player that basically plays the same character every single time, I'd say the problem in that case is that he never really got a chance to play his character all the way through. At the moment, I'm guilty of designing entirely too many aspiring "free traders" (read: Smugglers). I design entirely too many, because I'm hoping to actually play him beyond one adventure. :(

Run a real campaign, and you'll hopefully see the cookie-cutter character grow, to the point where when he finally dies (even if it is of old age long after the caracter was retired), your cookie-cutter player will finally design a new character.

Don't worry, I've never acted to screw my players over (I find entirely new and interesting ways to intimidate them - my laughter alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of some). As a matter of fact, I write out most of their bios after interviewing them and finding out what they're looking for. I then hand them a character bio that I'd pass with a minimum of polish put into it and sigh when they somehow figure out how to butcher it despite me having walked them through the process, checked with them, editted to suit their tastes, and checked again. I've long ago given up on trying to find more than one or two players who're willing and able to write out three paragraphs for backstory, though I cannot for the life of me see how twelve sentences is that hard.
This goes double for a game where the entirety of the character-generation process is writing up the bio and none of it is diceslinging. At some point, I have to draw the Line.

Aye, I can certainly sympathize with not getting to play the character all the way through. Pretty much all of my free-form forum RPGs have died before I finished the plotline. I get bored and they get lazy.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-25, 07:44 PM
As for punishing players by twisting their words, I offer as an example, this scene from a classic computer game.

From "PoliceQuest" : player types fire pistol, game responds, "as you blow your right leg off you promise yourself that next time you will draw your pistol before firing it.

Renrik
2007-02-25, 09:00 PM
Let's see...

Halflings that do nothing but steal stuff and pick pockets. And talk. A lot. And throw daggers.

Kenders. All of them.

Gnomes. Every single last one of them. I hate them all so much. I don;t allow them in my campain, and the player's don't mind.

Evil characters. Don't get me wrong. I like evil characters- if you know how to play them. If you react based on actual character concept instead of just doing whatever seems the most evil. If you accept that evil character's aren't always reactionists, and will pursue their own agenda, and you make an agenda and pursue it accordingly, as opposed to just going along with whatever a good character woulddo, with some peasant killing on the side. And why can;t they get it in their heads that simply doing crimes doesn't make someone evil? It just makes them chaotic. Why can;t they understand that an evil character doesn't just folllow his own agenda but actually goes out of his way to be cruel to people he doesn't like? Why does everyone suck at being evil?

Female characters that go to the physical extremes of attractiveness or unatractiveness. Can;t they just be kind of normal-looking? I see a lot of unremarkable women. I'd think some of them would be adventurers. And wy do female characters always seem to make their gender a HUGE deal? "Just because I'm a woman...", or "Who said a woman can't..." god, it's horrible!

One-dimensional gay characters. We get it. They're gay. We don't really care. Find some other character traits.

Characters with no major flaws. I hate them. Characters should have flaws. At least one flaw, if not several. They don;t need to be giant, they don't need to have storylines based on them. But they should exist.

Dwarves that have no character depth and speak in scottish accents. You never see a dwarf wearing a tartan. Why not? BECAUSE THEY AREN'T FROM SCOTLAND, THAT'S WHY!

Sneaky knife-fighters who are untouchable in combat. No character should be untouchable in combat.

Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!

Really, any asian-based character ends up being given outrageous abilities that don't make any sense.

Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths? Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Druids.

Lo-Alrikowki
2007-02-25, 09:06 PM
Hey, some players do completely ridiculous Gnomes that don't fit the mold at all. In my current campaign, the main tank is Rektum Jamfalcon, gnomish barbarian (with monkey grip and a greatsword, no less). I will state that I hate all characters that turn out to be alcoholics for no apparent reason. Hate hate hate, to the point that I'll give temporary ability damage due to to alcohol poisoning (yes, even to Dwarves).

Stevenson
2007-02-25, 10:13 PM
Ahem.

Elves. Elves bug the hell out of me. Mainly because every last one of them tries to be blasted Legolas. About the same acting skills as Orlando Bloom, too, which adds to the horrid.

Barbarians, because apparently it automatically makes them Tonto.

Stereotypes? Okay, fine. The stereotype of the gamer as that of what gamers know as twinks or powergamers or whatnot. We don't all talk like that, and we don't all have encyclopedias of the rules in our heads.

Lastly.

"I cast magic missle at the darkness." it was funny. The first few times. And also when used unexpectedly and sparingly. Every statement during a dungeon crawl? Should not be that statement.

Sardia
2007-02-25, 10:19 PM
I will state that I hate all characters that turn out to be alcoholics for no apparent reason.

Well, if you spent the main part of your career seeing ungodly monstrosities, violations of the laws of physics, occasionally coming back from the dead, being attacked by creatures natural and unnatural, chased by things a hundred times your size, etc, etc...I'd see the need for some stress release.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-25, 10:25 PM
Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!


I didn't know Kenshin-style samurai were even possible in D&D. In fact D&D samurai are pretty close to what you say they should be like. Except for the fact that a cleric can beat the tar out of them. If they had at least some of Kenshin's amazing abilities, they might be more viable characters.

EvilElitest
2007-02-25, 10:33 PM
That's the Clueless Farm Boy Unaware Of His Destiny, I'm afraid. A bit like Belgarion, but with living, mortal relatives. Or rather, the looming "Mother! Father! Noooo! If I had been here..." "...You'd be dead too." -scenario with a mysterious old man.

See where I'm going? Pretty much all sane ideas have been used already. It's no longer a question of whether your idea is original or not, but instead of whether it's well executed or not.

And if you and your DM can avoid the Burning Farm feat. Anguish, Hasty Escape and Brooding, yours should be pretty good.

Belgarion is a satire. Eddings often makes his plots very typical because he does not focus on them.

Eragon on the other hand, drives me nuts.

The stereotype i hate the most is the often used Manga or video games.

The young boy who is strangly enough a great fighter, and is yet a complete moron. Dispite his lack of intellect and socail graces, he seems to be well liked. And also, he seems to have an amazing set of morals taht are in fact the morals of the story. Their are also naive and honest, but are admired for that. They are also very good people, dispite being fools. (Sora and naurto).

A story stereotype is the world where the main charater's morals are the correct ones, and that things work out in a pretty easilly, like Eragon.
We never have a cynical, cold, ruthless world were all of teh character's naive actions simple cause more trouble, and his simplistic solution uses to stop the evil bad guy cause more damage. Or how about villians who are wiling to die for eachother and not join the good guys. or how about main character who can't cut though massive amounts of bad guys. Or how about a main character who has an emotianal break down.

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.
from,
EE

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 10:54 PM
Well, if you spent the main part of your career seeing ungodly monstrosities, violations of the laws of physics, occasionally coming back from the dead, being attacked by creatures natural and unnatural, chased by things a hundred times your size, etc, etc...I'd see the need for some stress release.

:smallbiggrin: Can I use that quote for my sig, please?

Tobrian
2007-02-25, 11:05 PM
I've long ago given up on trying to find more than one or two players who're willing and able to write out three paragraphs for backstory, though I cannot for the life of me see how twelve sentences is that hard.

I admit I once wrote something like 12 pages of background for my Shadowrun combat mage. I... I don't know, it just happened. His story just unfolded in my head. I'd already played him a bit at that point, but most of that stuff was about stuff that had happened prior to him becoming a shadowrunner. And it all fit together so beautifully. *sniff*

The new GM refused to read it.
I can understand. 12 pages is a bit much. :smalleek:

Come on, I wrote two pages backstory for a main NPC! I'm hopeless.
I once wrote a romance for an NPC mercenary and a goblin woman who appeared in the campaign for maybe, what, one scene. Stupid players, only interested in their own PCs. *mutter mutter* :smallwink:

Sometimes, though, I have to create some character and just can't come up with anything and it drives me crazy. And at other times, I think about his or her name or some other detail, and in a flash I know exactly who this character is and what makes him tick.

EvilElitest
2007-02-25, 11:29 PM
Hey, don't bash Scorpion King and Dragonslayer!! Dragonslayer is a classic! And Scorpion King is cheesy enough to be a perfect heroic fantasy D&D scenario... but it is good cheese. Not the lame kind. It's fast-paced, has good effect, beautiful scenery, the actors fit perfectly in their roles. And the plot, while standard fare, is at least logical. Plus, the male heroes are handsome :smallbiggrin: (if men watch movies for Lara Croft and her bazongas, I can oggle that evil king, can I?) Something I can't say for Conan and Hawk the Slayer. Bleh.

I grant you the rest.

I'll give you dragon slayer, but Scorpion king was only slightly better than Eragon
from,
EE

Sardia
2007-02-26, 12:11 AM
:smallbiggrin: Can I use that quote for my sig, please?

Feel free.

JackMage666
2007-02-26, 01:03 AM
Well, not so much a stereotype, I guess, but bugs me to no end.

The elf who loves everybody. I've always thought that elves considered themselves slightly superior to the other races, and for some decent reasons (most of which is that they take a long time to die of old age). So, for some reason, I can't stand when an elf decides that everyone else is equal to him, and doesn't care the slightest about the other races. This is especially bad with the Grey elf or the Drow, who are even more biased.

Right now, we a party with a Grey elf and a Drow. The Drow (despite never knowing the Grey elf), doesn't care the slightest that she's an elf, and the Grey elf doesn't care the slightest that her teamate is a drow. Now, I'm not one to follow the books to the T, but shouldn't there be at least the slightest hatred towards each other there? Particularly on the Drow's end?

HealthKit
2007-02-26, 01:08 AM
Well these characters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2078194&postcount=36) are pretty stereotypical and I'd rather avoid them. That is, I wish people would stop playing them.

Solaris
2007-02-26, 01:39 AM
Let's see...Female characters that go to the physical extremes of attractiveness or unatractiveness. Can;t they just be kind of normal-looking? I see a lot of unremarkable women. I'd think some of them would be adventurers. And wy do female characters always seem to make their gender a HUGE deal? "Just because I'm a woman...", or "Who said a woman can't..." god, it's horrible!

Aye. I think the only one I've seen who plays a normal-looking female character is my girlfriend. (Those two facts might be a bit related.) The worst I've seen was some Queen Bee who joined our group for all of ten minutes. She tried pulling flirty stuff with me (GM and running a character as an allied NPC) and my brother (running two PCs) 'in-character'. It worked about as well as a lead boat with a perforated bottom.
Her (as the half-elven druid): "I sit on the guy's lap to try convincing him to give us more money."
My brother (as the bastard paladin): "Your character's too fully-clothed for that to work." We, naturally, saw the jokes for prostitution, but he knows how I like to smite stupid.
Me (as the NPC): "Yes. And you're not stripping. Go chase something shiny and let the big boys talk. We'll call you when some animals need chatting up or some such."
Her: " . . . "
Second worst was the other Queen Bee. She joined our (very short-lived) forum game and declared her character was (I kid you not) "a HOT warrioress!"
Race between me trying to carry out Darwin's Code, my girlfriend trying to kill her (character, honest) on general principle, the emo kid trying to bed her, and the powergamer trying to defend her ended in a draw, as I managed to chase her off with some well-placed mention that I was going to be criticising the character bio she'd put together. (For those of you who don't know, I'm infamous for feeding bios through a woodchipper in a forum game.) I still count that one as a point for me.


Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths? Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Either I'm lucky or you're not, but I've never seen any paladin other than the Hinjo-type played. The worst I had was a guy who angsted to himself in his journal about the heathens he was traveling with. Out loud, usually, and in earshot of the party.
It was actually usually pretty funny, too. The player would mimic writing things down as the other characters engaged in 'less than uptight' behavior just to mess with the paladin. He (the character) left the group when someone said "Instead of killing these goblins, we should be trying to show them the error of their ways" in the middle of a goblin-hunting party. Rumor had it he was ruling a goblin village in the wildlands and showing them the error of their ways through judicious use of smiting.
Party got letters every now and again. Letters complaining of the short, green-skinned heathens. Letters that sometimes compared the green-skinned heathens favorably to the party. I forget who the character's replacement was.
. . .
Okay, so my brother's bastard paladin wasn't very paladin-ish, but at least he didn't goose-step. He was more of a Roy-type than anything. To be fair, we were all still rather new at the game, but his crimes were more of being evil-tolerant than getting smite-happy.


. . . and we don't all have encyclopedias of the rules in our heads.

What mean 'we', pale-face?

Wehrkind
2007-02-26, 02:09 AM
Then there's the "mysterious stranger" characters. These characters are a big mystery to everyone around them. Nobody knows anything about them and they'd know less if the player didn't keep dropping cryptic hints about how mysterious they are and all the secrets they have (but aren't telling). Some players like to combine this with the dark and brooding cliche previously mentioned, but it isn't manditory. If their secrets ever do come out, the player immediately loses interest and wants to retire the character and bring in a new mysterious stranger so they can go right back to being mysterious.

You need to devise a scene where all these characters are in an inn, and a woman comes up and accuses them and other of trying to read her diary. "Gods, if you want to know all my secrets so baddly, I will just tell you! Everyone in this bar is so stupid, and they smell like orcs. Stupid orcs. And that bartender is obviously gay."

Then have her heart explode.

I love Upright Citizen's Brigade.

Folie
2007-02-26, 03:31 PM
A story stereotype is the world where the main charater's morals are the correct ones, and that things work out in a pretty easilly, like Eragon.
We never have a cynical, cold, ruthless world were all of teh character's naive actions simple cause more trouble, and his simplistic solution uses to stop the evil bad guy cause more damage. Or how about villians who are wiling to die for eachother and not join the good guys. or how about main character who can't cut though massive amounts of bad guys. Or how about a main character who has an emotianal break down.

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.
from,
EE

Perhaps you will appreciate this comic:
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2310

averagejoe
2007-02-26, 03:34 PM
See, but even the ruthless elietist protags have become a bit tiresome. That whole, "oooh, look, I'm cool because I'm being evil, mua ha ha," type stuff has gotten really annoying.

LurkerInPlayground
2007-02-26, 03:39 PM
Certainly, the orphan makes a wee bit of sense - if the character can explain where he got his hundreds of dollars' worth of gear and training from. In my D&D campaign world, I rule that almost all of the PCs are the offspring of rather wealthy merchants or nobles. They get freedom of choice with their background, of course, but that's the default.
. . . Convincing the emo kid that all noblemen in a pseudo-Dark Ages setting aren't effeminate fops has proven difficult at best. I'm not even going to try convincing him that an Intelligence penalty and a bonus to Strength doesn't automatically make a race stupid and violent, just slow-witted and strong.
You'd think he of all people would realize that low intelligence doesn't automatically mean violent.
Orphans are actually far, far worse in more modern settings because people can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of an orphanage that isn't a torture center. This is assuming, of course, that they don't go "Zah?" when I point out to them that orphanages exist to begin with. Orphanages, foster homes, adoption agencies, the works. Just about nobody grows up homeless and on the streets anymore, and there's no way I'm letting a bunch of WASPs try playing someone who did. The butchery of the roleplaying . . . is too much. Far, far too much.

Emo + WASP + slow-witted = for teh win!

Nothing beats overprivileged white boys pretending to nurse a deep and incomprehensible understanding of sorrow and pain!

Tengu
2007-02-26, 03:51 PM
I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.

Actually, such "badass" antiheros are another annoying stereotypes. I prefer a legion of Narutos to them.

DMs who run a game set in a cynical world where good, but naive actions make things only worse are good... if your party consists mostly of chaotic neutral (at best) characters. For a party of good adventurers, a certain level of black-and-white in the world is needed - unless you want to teach them that "life is harsh and doing good rarely ends good for you" (aka, be a total jerk).


Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!


Heh, one of my players practically embodies this stereotype (but the, we're playing an anime-style world, so it works better than in DND). To add insult to injury, his character is a pothead.

MaxKaladin
2007-02-26, 04:04 PM
As to the player that basically plays the same character every single time, I'd say the problem in that case is that he never really got a chance to play his character all the way through. At the moment, I'm guilty of designing entirely too many aspiring "free traders" (read: Smugglers). I design entirely too many, because I'm hoping to actually play him beyond one adventure. :(

Run a real campaign, and you'll hopefully see the cookie-cutter character grow, to the point where when he finally dies (even if it is of old age long after the caracter was retired), your cookie-cutter player will finally design a new character.I agree. I have a few character concepts I really like but which I've never really gotten to sink my teeth into. Somehow the game always ends up dying for one reason or another and I only get to play the character a few sessions at most. Where I differ is I don't get a one-track mind about playing that character and only that character, but I do keep these unrealized concepts in the back of my mind and occasionally give them another time when the right game comes along and I think I might have a chance to finally play the character longer than a few sessions.

The_Ferg
2007-02-26, 05:10 PM
We used to stick gnome NPCs we found too cliche into barrels...

Wraithy
2007-02-26, 05:20 PM
damn, alot of people hate gnomes, just because they know how to have a laugh.
it's not the gnomes fault, it's the unorigional players.
try making a gnome who doesn't prank for once.


P.S: these rules do not apply to dark elves, the realy are annoying

Scorpina
2007-02-26, 05:22 PM
Gnomes are if anything less stereotypical than most other races, since nobody (especially the Spooky Wizards who live by the Coast) can ever make up their mind what exactly the stereotypical Gnome is. A bard? A wizard? Wielding a hooked hammer? Tinkering with technology? Living in harmony with nature? What?

Woot Spitum
2007-02-26, 06:45 PM
Gnomes are if anything less stereotypical than most other races, since nobody (especially the Spooky Wizards who live by the Coast) can ever make up their mind what exactly the stereotypical Gnome is. A bard? A wizard? Wielding a hooked hammer? Tinkering with technology? Living in harmony with nature? What?

Easy, they wear tall, red, cone-shaped hats. They spend a lot of time standing motionless on people's lawns. They also make funny commercials for travelocity. That is the stereotypical gnome.

EvilElitest
2007-02-26, 06:55 PM
See, but even the ruthless elietist protags have become a bit tiresome. That whole, "oooh, look, I'm cool because I'm being evil, mua ha ha," type stuff has gotten really annoying.

That is not being and Elitist. Roy Greenhilt is an elitist. Edward Elric is an Elitist. Rastalian (or however you spell it) is an Elitist. Elitist thinking is the view where only the greatest in a society deserve rights, and those who fail to live up the the standards of the society deserve nothing but punishment. A very ruthless system. Bad ass is like wanna be anti hero. I hate the bad ass stereotype with a massive passion. Why? Because they exist for the sole purpose to embody mindless violence and destruction. Like the govanor of California film's. Or if you like video games, try the mean character from Resident Evil 4. I hate them, because they just brutes. An good anti hero is like Clint Eastwood in the dollar's trilogy, because he is a smart character. A good Elitist protagonist is like Light from Death note, or the main character from "High Hopes and Cornets" (i think that is the title). Or the villain from Laura for that matter.
from,
EE

Tobrian
2007-02-26, 07:59 PM
Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths?

Amen. I hate the psycho-paladin with a passion. They're not LG, they're LN, or even LE... "My god demands I wipe out all evil creatures!" No, you're not supposed to "wipe them out", dammit. You should try to lead a life of good example, be a paragon of virtue. Protect those who can't protect themselves. Encourage others to follow your path, not demand it. Keep up hope against cynicism. Try to find the spark of good even in those filled with selfishness, and have mercy with those who have sinned for you might one day sin also. Be humble, and forgiving if forgiveness is asked. Know those who are beyond redemption from those who have the capacity to become better.

Unfortunately, too many players and too many D&D writers (Edit: see below) seem to think that killing everything that detects as evil automatically makes you good. (In that case, shouldn't a drow killing mindflayers become good? No, he shouldn't)

Many players playing a paladin live in the paranoid fear that showing compassion or making compromises for your companions will make you lose your paladinhood... I guess because many GMs seem hellbend on making the paladin fall for the slightest infraction; and they confuse unlawful acts with evil acts.

Even the PHB in the section about paladins goes on and on about "purity" and smiting and righteoussnes and honor, and in the alignment chapter is says: "(...) a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is lawful good." Or look at the Inquisitor PrC from Complete Warrior... if that's supposed to be LG worldview, I'm Barbarella.

On the other hand, the Book of Exalted Deeds goes to the other extreme, practically demanding that a paladin must try to catch alive and re-educate every evil NPC with psychobabble, lest he use his powers. Um, given that D&D regularly has villains like blackguards, monsters like mindflayers and evil deities that commit acts of utter depravity and are utterly dedicated to their path, a paladin can't, shouldn't be expected to be able to save them all from themselves. (Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote as a moral parabel that if he saw a man driving around running over people with his car for fun, and the only way to stop this man before he killed even more was to shoot him, he'd do that. And Bonhoeffer wasn't the kind of person to condone "the end justifies the means" excuses.)

So I guess that many players playing a paladin feel pushed into this role of religious selfrighteous fanatic for fear of giving the GM an excuse to screw them over.
Unless of course they're just jerks who like to use the LG alignment as excuse for playing a "my way or the highway" murderous bastard with no sense of mercy or humour. :smallfurious:

I've myself played two paladins over the years, albeit unfortunately only briefly: one was a one-shot char in a short adventure (a stealth paladin with Bluff skill working undercover in a Theocracy devoted to a LN god), the other was prematurely incinerated by an artifact soon after I'd started playing him. It is so very easy to just give in to the lure of using Detect Evil to govern all your reactions... I've seen it happen with other players, too. Meet an NPC, SNAP!, out comes the Detect Evil. No more complicated decisions. :smallsigh:

I've once seen a paladin being played with gentleness and good humour. The character was always ready to cheer up my gloomy wizard, and felt sadness instead of wrath when he had to witness an evil deed he hadn't been able to prevent; alas the player had to drop out of the group due to time constraints. :smallfrown: Other players slip into the stereotype strained "holier than thou" attitude and start to get on everyone's nerves, their own included. Once you've gone down that path, it seems it's only a matter of time until the paladin snaps completely, like Miko.

Hell, even if a paladin makes a horribly wrong decision... if he afterwards feels guilt and remorse, and tries to atone without prompting, I as GM wouldn't even make him fall from grace. What for? He's already punishing himself enough. Atonement quests should be for those paladins who really take too long to understand how much they screwed up, so the deity sends them on a quest during which they're supposed to learn something about themselves. A LG or NG deity should be eager to guide the paladin back to the path of goodness, not push him around like a ragdoll.

That's why I think a deity that's blind to its own brutality and rigidness of thinking and loves smiting heretics too much shouldn't have paladins, because the deity itself isn't really LG (if I had anything to say, Pholtus Of The Blinding Light, selfdeclared one true god of Oerth, and the whole Theocracy of the Pale (http://www.theocracyofthepale.com/background/o_blinding_light.html) would be LN teetering towards evil oppression in places).


Edit: Addendum: See below


Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Big Ears the goblin paladin from the Goblins comic is another example.
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060217.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060218.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060219.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060220.html

http://goblinscomic.com/d/20061223.html
"Why would anyone want to become a paladin?"
"So others don't have to."

Tobrian
2007-02-26, 08:10 PM
I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals,

*blink blink*
I guess I have a totally different definition of what "elitism" means. Or, should mean.

Tobrian
2007-02-26, 09:59 PM
Addendum to my posting above, re: Psychopath Paladins, in reply to Renrik.

I think I will move this to its own thread. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2102900#post2102900)
It's no longer in-topic.

Sardia
2007-02-26, 10:06 PM
So, for some reason, I can't stand when an elf decides that everyone else is equal to him, and doesn't care the slightest about the other races.

In its pure form, annoying. I can see that being a hell of a good mindset for a neutral evil or lawful evil character, though.
"La di dah, let's all get along, we're all friends here, everyone can live in harmony" until either the s*** hits the fan or there's a major disagreement, at which point they are so confused that everyone else doesn't do things the harmonious, ideal elven way.
And if they don't learn how to be peacefully harmonious with others, it's the elf's job to teach them. And eliminate any "recalcitrant" slow learners. For the good of all.
Think Victorian English gentry slumming it, and I think that'd sum it up.

EvilElitest
2007-02-27, 10:34 AM
*blink blink*
I guess I have a totally different definition of what "elitism" means. Or, should mean.

Sorry, i ment to say, ruthless elitist, OR a character who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
And not, in nether article am i promoteing the "Badass stereotype". I like well educated main characters. And so, it would be nice to have a much more cold ideal of morallity.
from,
EE

Attilargh
2007-02-27, 11:09 AM
Sorry, i ment to say, ruthless elitist, OR a character who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
Of the examples you presented, only Raistlin was truly ruthless, and he wasn't so always. Ed didn't transmute the Stone. Miko is still alive.


I like well educated main characters. And so, it would be nice to have a much more cold ideal of morallity.
I can't see a connection here.

EvilElitest
2007-02-27, 12:03 PM
Of the examples you presented, only Raistlin was truly ruthless, and he wasn't so always. Ed didn't transmute the Stone. Miko is still alive.


I can't see a connection here.

1. Ed may not have commited true evil, but he was certainly a ruthless person. In the animea he destroys an entire religion to obtain the stone (though it is a fake) and causes a civil war. He preforms fobbiden rituals.
One of my favorite scenes is where he kills the creature that looks like his mother without any hesitiation. He is quite ruthless. Not evil but ruthless (they are not the same thing). As for elitist, that he is certianlly. He hates incompatence, is very insulting, quite cold, devoted to his goal, and smart. A good character. he also has an inferority complex about his height.
Miko is not an elitist, becuase she acts on emotions, not logic. She is a nice charcter, but i would hate her personally.
Light I think is even more evil than Rastialin, who is at least honest about being an evil bastard.
Enough good main character is Black Adder in the second, third, and fourth season.

As for smart, i hate it when authors make their main character very dumb so they can ask plot central questions, but smart enough to survieve the story. Like Eragon. Or Cammon (Rastalin's brother, however you spell it).
Or Naurato.
Their are plenty of others who i don't want to bother to list but.

We rarely have a main character who is really smart. Roy is a good example of a smart main character. We also don't see enough cynical or cold main charcter.
As to how coldness relates to intellegence, most very intellegent people have to distence themselve from emotions to at least some extent to be able to understand a situation. If you act on emotions all the time, you become like Miko, who never applies logic to a situation and simple acts on whatever emtotions she currenly has.
from,
EE

Lilivati
2007-02-27, 01:26 PM
Other times, characters who have significant others are truly married or related to Mary Jane, and they're secretly playing Spiderman. No matter what they do, it always involves this person (and they become paranoid and take Devoted Defender as a prestige class). Honestly, I've never had a campaign where a family member or a loved one was captured. If I run one, I'll throw the family in only at a crucial part of the story... take command of the seige, or rescue family.

I made a character who was returning to her hometown after a nine-year absence (basically the starting premise of the campaign was a group of childhood friends returning to bury their mentor). Her parents and her sister still lived in the town. Of course a lot happens in nine years so I threw in that she was engaged just for kicks. In the first session, she meets her sister and discovers she's been unconsentingly impregnated by the former town bully, now grown up and ten times as nasty. This became a thing when they had to rescue said bully's brother, and she actually had her alignment dinged for saying she didn't care if he lived or died, she was only going to make sure her friends didn't get killed. The campaign ended with her fiance being kidnapped by cultists into a portal nobody knows how to open.

So, I didn't intend for this character to be all about her family, but that's how the DM steered it. We're waiting for chapter 2 of the campaign currently, and for better or worse, I now have a character who is completely preoccupied with her significant other. *shrug* It was actually a pretty fantastic game, and I don't regret the way it turned out, but I am struggling a bit to keep her from becoming one-dimensional.

Edit: Reading further in the thread I feel compelled to share that her charisma was 10, and she was perfectly unremarkable in appearance, other than being a little on the short side.

Kittenstomp
2007-02-27, 03:29 PM
Clerics who don't actually seem to care about their gods. This always drove me nuts in games. You're supposed to be the servant of a god. You should have holidays, oaths, weird religious prohibitions, etc.

I remember playing a Lawful Good Cleric of a fairly unsympathetic pro-humna god back when 3E first came out. Our party (all Good aligned characters) took out an evil assassin's cult. Eventually we fought our way into the cult's armory which had a number of "insta-kill" magic weapons that were specific to good alignments and particular species. So my cleric looks at these awful disgusting weapons and declares them abominations and begins preparing a large fire to burn them all in. The GM was shocked. "Aren't you going to sell them?" Absolutely not, I'm going to destroy them as a service to my god. No moral being should use such despicable weapons. The GM and players, all power gamers were amazed that I'd actually you know, stick to an alignment.

My favorite characters of all time that I ran as NPC's in one of my games was a family of halflings who worked like the Italian Mafia. On the surface they were wholesome, pleasant business owners that provided their town with inns, bars and restaurants. For the most part they were friendly, disarming fellows. If you didn't pay protection money however, they turned on you and in high pitched, friendly voices, explained how they'd kill you and everyone you loved if you didn't pay up soon. They were the terrors of the game, a whole clan of halfling assassins, poisoners and thieves who worshipped dark evil gods in a cheery, friendly manner.

Solaris
2007-02-27, 03:55 PM
That is not being and Elitist. Roy Greenhilt is an elitist. Edward Elric is an Elitist. Rastalian (or however you spell it) is an Elitist. Elitist thinking is the view where only the greatest in a society deserve rights, and those who fail to live up the the standards of the society deserve nothing but punishment. A very ruthless system. Bad ass is like wanna be anti hero. I hate the bad ass stereotype with a massive passion. Why? Because they exist for the sole purpose to embody mindless violence and destruction. Like the govanor of California film's. Or if you like video games, try the mean character from Resident Evil 4. I hate them, because they just brutes. An good anti hero is like Clint Eastwood in the dollar's trilogy, because he is a smart character. A good Elitist protagonist is like Light from Death note, or the main character from "High Hopes and Cornets" (i think that is the title). Or the villain from Laura for that matter.
from,
EE

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
F'rinstance, I try to process the connection of "Roy Greenhilt" and "Elitist" and get nothing but "Does not compute." 'Cause if elitist means "Wants someone to not act like Miko" then . . . heck, I think most everybody in America would qualify as elitist.
For the record, an elitist really doesn't have anything to do with society's standards. It's more personal standards, which only usually align with society's because that person was raised in that society. I happen to fall into the mild end of elitism: I don't really bother all that much with people who fail to meet my standards of excellence. If Roy, f'rinstance, were like that, he'd've killed Belkar and Elan long, long ago - or at least quit adventuring with them. He's Lawful Good, so I'm pretty sure it's the "Quit Adventuring" scenario. If he were evil and ruthless, he'd've killed them. He's put up with them through a whole lot of tough times, so I really, exceedingly doubt he's elitist. The more extreme elitists seek out the extinction of those who fail to meet their standards or force them to meet them.Just because someone's ruthless doesn't mean they're elitist - or even not Good. I can't even see you calling Roy ruthless after how many times he's not killed Nale.
Raistlin wasn't particularly elitist. Look at how he treated Bupu. I'm fair sure his dislike of everybody was a little more personal and a lot less "I hate everything weaker than me."
Edward Elric . . . in the anime, so very, very not elitist. Not very ruthless, either. As it appears from my friend's report, he's not elitist in the manga, either. I mean, he actually works to help the people whose religion is kinda bent upon destroying his way of life and all those like him. Really, I'd call him short-sighted.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-27, 04:20 PM
I remember playing a Lawful Good Cleric of a fairly unsympathetic pro-humna god back when 3E first came out. Our party (all Good aligned characters) took out an evil assassin's cult. Eventually we fought our way into the cult's armory which had a number of "insta-kill" magic weapons that were specific to good alignments and particular species. So my cleric looks at these awful disgusting weapons and declares them abominations and begins preparing a large fire to burn them all in. The GM was shocked. "Aren't you going to sell them?" Absolutely not, I'm going to destroy them as a service to my god. No moral being should use such despicable weapons. The GM and players, all power gamers were amazed that I'd actually you know, stick to an alignment.


I don't think you can destroy magic swords just by dumping them in a bonfire. There are special rules for disenchanting powerful magic items, and usually nothing weaker than Mordekainen's Disjunction works. Destroying these items can often become a quest within itself.

On the subject of gully dwarves, aren't they like kryptonite for elitists?

JadedDM
2007-02-27, 04:57 PM
Clerics who don't actually seem to care about their gods. This always drove me nuts in games. You're supposed to be the servant of a god. You should have holidays, oaths, weird religious prohibitions, etc.

I remember playing a Lawful Good Cleric of a fairly unsympathetic pro-humna god back when 3E first came out. Our party (all Good aligned characters) took out an evil assassin's cult. Eventually we fought our way into the cult's armory which had a number of "insta-kill" magic weapons that were specific to good alignments and particular species. So my cleric looks at these awful disgusting weapons and declares them abominations and begins preparing a large fire to burn them all in. The GM was shocked. "Aren't you going to sell them?" Absolutely not, I'm going to destroy them as a service to my god. No moral being should use such despicable weapons. The GM and players, all power gamers were amazed that I'd actually you know, stick to an alignment.

Kind of reminds me of this time I played an LG cleric of Athena in a Planescape game. The rest of the party was largely Neutral (and the DM seemed to support this, as he always gave me a hard time).

After completing a quest and earning about several hundred gold pieces each, we returned to Sigil and the others went on a shopping spree. My character searched the entire city for a temple to Athena (eventually finding one). He then bought two cows and sacrificed them to his goddess (which the DM allowed but pointed out was 'a pointless waste of good cows') and then I donated nearly all of my money to the temple. This really shocked the DM, who thought I was being crazy. A priest donating money to a temple?! Who'd have thought?!

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-27, 05:03 PM
In a game like D&D, where money is basically a way to get magic items to make sure your character scales in power with the rest of the group and with challenges?

Yeah. Yeah, that is surprising.

Dark
2007-02-27, 05:22 PM
But the DM can easily roll with it.

Priest donates tons of money to local temple.
Local temple assigns quest to priest and issues magical gear to help accomplish quest. For great justice!

JadedDM
2007-02-27, 05:28 PM
In a game like D&D, where money is basically a way to get magic items to make sure your character scales in power with the rest of the group and with challenges?

Yeah. Yeah, that is surprising.

Actually, no. This was a 2E game. That means magical items weren't for sale.


Priest donates tons of money to local temple.
Local temple assigns quest to priest and issues magical gear to help accomplish quest. For great justice!

That would have been great. All I got out of it was a couple of vials of holy water, though. Even if the priest had given my character some jobs, the others would have probably refused if there was no huge monetary reward (again, the hazard of being the only good character in the group).

Helgraf
2007-02-28, 02:17 AM
The better than anyone in the party NPC who doesn't play a main part in the story but is still there often enough to get irritated the hell at.

Dark
2007-02-28, 05:40 AM
The better than anyone in the party NPC who doesn't play a main part in the story but is still there often enough to get irritated the hell at.
I accidentally made one of those once. The party had hired an NPC fighter to help them clear out the Temple of Elemental Evil. Unfortunately, the fighter always survived and the PCs died a lot. Since we started new characters at lower level than the party average, the NPC fighter ended up being the most powerful character in the group simply by elimination.

rollfrenzy
2007-02-28, 10:56 AM
We have a Dm who uses that stereotype all the time. He'll put us against somehting way over our level and send in Ultra-powerful NPC to save the day and tell us how cool he is.

Another stereotye for Dm's I hate is running into past PC's as aplot device.

He actaully combined these two one time we were being sent on a mission by a former epic PC and when the party met his servan,t the first words out of his mouth were "Master doesn't like to brag or flaunt his wealth." as we are being led through solid mithril gates into a mansion, while being told about every cool magical or expensive detail.

What's sad is this wasn't supposed to be ironic.

EvilElitest
2007-02-28, 03:05 PM
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
F'rinstance, I try to process the connection of "Roy Greenhilt" and "Elitist" and get nothing but "Does not compute." 'Cause if elitist means "Wants someone to not act like Miko" then . . . heck, I think most everybody in America would qualify as elitist.
For the record, an elitist really doesn't have anything to do with society's standards. It's more personal standards, which only usually align with society's because that person was raised in that society. I happen to fall into the mild end of elitism: I don't really bother all that much with people who fail to meet my standards of excellence. If Roy, f'rinstance, were like that, he'd've killed Belkar and Elan long, long ago - or at least quit adventuring with them. He's Lawful Good, so I'm pretty sure it's the "Quit Adventuring" scenario. If he were evil and ruthless, he'd've killed them. He's put up with them through a whole lot of tough times, so I really, exceedingly doubt he's elitist. The more extreme elitists seek out the extinction of those who fail to meet their standards or force them to meet them.Just because someone's ruthless doesn't mean they're elitist - or even not Good. I can't even see you calling Roy ruthless after how many times he's not killed Nale.
Raistlin wasn't particularly elitist. Look at how he treated Bupu. I'm fair sure his dislike of everybody was a little more personal and a lot less "I hate everything weaker than me."
Edward Elric . . . in the anime, so very, very not elitist. Not very ruthless, either. As it appears from my friend's report, he's not elitist in the manga, either. I mean, he actually works to help the people whose religion is kinda bent upon destroying his way of life and all those like him. Really, I'd call him short-sighted.

How the hell is roy not an elitist. He is very smart and respect those who are not so smart. He thinks very logically and does not like those who don't. He is insulting and rude to those who don't fit his standards, but he does not do anything evil to them. he is also a very sceptical and cynical person and tends to be jaded and sarcastic. He also looks more at the big picture than any other character. Elitist does not mean evil. I am an exception, but i like the name EE. Roy is a not an evil person but he is an elitist. Miko is not an Elitist because, while she make view herself better than others, she does not base her options upon intellgence but on emotions. She also has not big picture view at all.
Raistilin is an elitist. He is Very smart, and does not tolerate anyone who meets his standards. Look at how he treats his own brother. I don't remember her name, but the cleric of Palintine who he works with is not an elitist, because she does not look at the life in a logical. perspestive, but judges all of her actions upon faith. As for Buba, Raistilin does not deny her flaws. But he knows that it would be pointless to point them out her her, becuase they are part of her culture. While she make not be as smart as he is by any means, she is great by the standards of her culture. Also he feels sorry for her. He does not treat her as an equal, but she has done nothing that justify the way she is treated, and her flaws are what to be expected from one of her race.
As for mr. Elric, he is one of my favorite elitiest character (where do you see the anime by the way, it was taken off youtube). But he is certainly and elitist. A good person, but an elitist none the less. He has
1. Demstrated an intense cynical perspective towards things that relay on faith, following only a logical path such as science.
2. He is very insulting of others flaws but understand them.
3. He trully understand what he is fighting for and thinks about the whole situation and the moral decisions involed.
4. he has a very logical manner of thinking.
5. He is ready to distence himself from his emotions to achive what he thinks is right like in the anime killing Sloth (i will not say detail for spoiler reason).
6. He has a firm moral code that makes sense. Heck it is greatly shown in the movie.

In both the anime and the manga he is a much more intellegent, insulting, elitist, logical, funny, and well written character than most anime character. A welcome relife from character like Nauroto or Luffy. Or even the main guy from bleach for that matter. As for a really good anime/manga elitist, light from deathnote who i mentioned before.
I would say other sterotypies right now, but i need to go skiing. maybe tommorrow.
from,
EE

Solaris
2007-02-28, 03:07 PM
Ugh. I have done an NPC like that exactly once, and it was entirely on accident. In my defense, I was still new at Dungeon Mastering and wasn't nearly as good at separating OOC from ICK as I thought I was (even if the grey elf had an Intelligence of 20 and a Wisdom of 17 or so, there's "Yeah, he'd figure that out" and then there's "Yeah, he'd figure that out but that pretty much just limits the players to squishing things and no thinking"). I looked at what'd happened at the end of the session and said "Okay. This guy, he's going away. He has something else to do."
The players agreed it was a good idea to boot the pointy-ear. Fortunately, over the years I've gotten better about that. Now I only lead the party by the nose if they're insisting upon making me wing it.
I'm horrible at winging it. I mean, it's only fun for them for a few minutes to watch me get frustrated by the sheer "Okay, we now have nothing to do because you idiots refused the adventure hook" factor. When I take half an hour to extrapolate what would happen if they didn't take the hook, and then another fifteen minutes giggling before I kill them all, they tend to not want to do that again.
Or much of anything else, for that matter . . . I tell ya, dumping ranks in Craft (alibi) was a lot more useful than you'd think.
Now, if I could just get some more ranks in Search so I could find new players . . .

Matthew
2007-02-28, 04:25 PM
Probably because Elitist is a relative term, not an absolute, so you will get disagreement about it.

Zincorium
2007-02-28, 05:37 PM
How the hell is roy not an elitist. He is very smart and respect those who are not so smart. He thinks very logically and does not like those who don't. He is insulting and rude to those who don't fit his standards, but he does not do anything evil to them. he is also a very sceptical and cynical person and tends to be jaded and sarcastic. He also looks more at the big picture than any other character. Elitist does not mean evil. I am an exception, but i like the name EE. Roy is a not an evil person but he is an elitist. Miko is not an Elitist because, while she make view herself better than others, she does not base her options upon intellgence but on emotions. She also has not big picture view at all.
Raistilin is an elitist. He is Very smart, and does not tolerate anyone who meets his standards. Look at how he treats his own brother. I don't remember her name, but the cleric of Palintine who he works with is not an elitist, because she does not look at the life in a logical. perspestive, but judges all of her actions upon faith. As for Buba, Raistilin does not deny her flaws. But he knows that it would be pointless to point them out her her, becuase they are part of her culture. While she make not be as smart as he is by any means, she is great by the standards of her culture. Also he feels sorry for her. He does not treat her as an equal, but she has done nothing that justify the way she is treated, and her flaws are what to be expected from one of her race.
As for mr. Elric, he is one of my favorite elitiest character (where do you see the anime by the way, it was taken off youtube). But he is certainly and elitist. A good person, but an elitist none the less. He has
1. Demstrated an intense cynical perspective towards things that relay on faith, following only a logical path such as science.
2. He is very insulting of others flaws but understand them.
3. He trully understand what he is fighting for and thinks about the whole situation and the moral decisions involed.
4. he has a very logical manner of thinking.
5. He is ready to distence himself from his emotions to achive what he thinks is right like in the anime killing Sloth (i will not say detail for spoiler reason).
6. He has a firm moral code that makes sense. Heck it is greatly shown in the movie.

In both the anime and the manga he is a much more intellegent, insulting, elitist, logical, funny, and well written character than most anime character. A welcome relife from character like Nauroto or Luffy. Or even the main guy from bleach for that matter. As for a really good anime/manga elitist, light from deathnote who i mentioned before.
I would say other sterotypies right now, but i need to go skiing. maybe tommorrow.
from,
EE

Strictly denotation, since there's a lot of disagreement on connotation, an elitist is someone who believes three things completely: there is an elite, people who are better in most or every way than everyone else. That they are themselves a member of the elite. And finally that the only people they will associate with are fellow members of the elite. 'Elite' generally means that you are better than other people, however, an elitist is not neccessarily one of the elite, they simply think they are and act accordingly.

Roy does not seem to think of anyone as the elite, nor does he consider himself a member of such from what the comics has shown us. He freely, willingly, and happily associates with all sorts of people, regardless of class (occupation or social), past behavior, or even attempts to kill him.

My problem with what you seem to think of an elitist is that you associate 'good' things with being an elitist, such as logical thinking, moral behavior, and empathy, when those things have nothing to do with it, not trying to contradict you, but they're completely seperate traits. They don't come into the discussion on whether you are an elitist, although they might if we are discussing whether someone is one of the elite by a particular standard.

Woot Spitum
2007-02-28, 07:58 PM
If Roy were an elitist, he would have become a wizard, a member of the intelligensia.

The_Werebear
2007-02-28, 08:50 PM
If Roy were an elitist, he would have become a wizard, a member of the intelligensia.


His father, on the other hand, is an elitist from a magical perspective, simply because he views magic as infinately more useful.

Also, someone who considers themself an might interact with those he considers inferior, but he will generally treat them like inferiors.

Siegfried262
2007-07-16, 10:49 AM
Bleak or "sad" backgrounds. "My parents were killed and I was Orphaned", "I couldnt stand the ""injustices"" of the town watch", "The nobles werent doing anything to help the bottom rung", "My whole village was destroyed".

Would it kill P.C's to have a character with a happy upbringing. In the current campaign I'm in, theres always friction between one of the other characters and I. But that will happen with a Chaotic Good character (He plays it like he's a budding Communist), and a Lawful Neutral character.

Zim
2007-07-16, 12:48 PM
I think it's better for a character to have a cliche background or personality than none at all. It's tough to get a CN character with no personality, family, friends, or background interested in an adventure to save the missing orphans if there's no mountains of gold involved. Forces the DM to find less than altruistic methods to motivate them.

EG. In a campaign I'm running, I actually had 3/5 characters refuse to escort a plot-magnet NPC on a side trek because there was not enough money involved! Thinking quickly, I had him casually mention that the trouble that they had caused in town had gotten them the unwanted attention of the local magistrate. The NPC is the magistrate's brother, and actually likes the PC's (although I can't figure out why), and he suggested that getting out of town with him now might be a good way to avoid an untimely crucifixion. That made those CN empty shells move!

Back to the stereotype discussion. I find that the Iconic characters from PHB to be pretty stereotypical. Half-orc savage? Check! Dwarf fighter? Check! Halfling sneaky type? Check! There's nothing wrong with these character types. They're a great starting point, but they're just not much of a challenge to RP after a while. Throw in a few twists and turns to make them intrigueing characters, and you'll have a truly memorable PC.

My current PC is an example of a fairly detailed character background that gives a pretty straightforward character some interesting motivations. My half-orc druid's parents were both half orcs; warrior slaves (FR Thay) who bought their freedom and retired to a nearby kingdom (FR Wizard's Reach) to become farmers (twist on typical half orc parents). He actually had a pretty happy childhood -poor but loved (twist on typical half-orc upbringing).

The tragedy that motivated the character to become an adventurer happened only a year ago when his family was murdered by their own neighbours as part of a growing anti-Thayan movement (started by a PC in a previous campaign). He only survived because he was out helping another neighbour birth a calf. Character returns to home in morning and discovers the horror of racially/culturally motivated hatred. Character vows to seek justice against the murderers and their leader. Enter Wounded Hero. Since this is a replacement character, I determined that he's gotten said justice (sufficient XP to get to his current level) and is now looking for a new direction in life. The character, buildwise, is pretty straightforward, but his background will affect his decisions and actions in the campaign. Hopefully that will make him interesting to play and play with.

Roland St. Jude
2007-07-16, 05:06 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Please don't...


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