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ZeroGear
2015-07-30, 08:59 PM
I was going over some literary material (read: manga) when I noticed that characters sometimes get weird habits.
This got me thinking: how would this influence the RP dynamics of tabletop games?

So here's the question:
What kinds of strange habits could characters reasonably have and how would that possibly play out in RP?

Here's one that would make people go "did you really just do that?":

Imagine the characters all sitting at a table discussing battle plans. One of them, a hardcore gun-loving merc, is fiddling around with one of his bullets. Eventually, he says "Hang on a sec", pulls out a pair of pliers, opens the bullet, pours the gunpowder in a line, and then SNORTS IT. After that he says "alright, continue".

I would imagine that would get some very strange looks.

Anyone else have strange habits that could color a character's personality? How did those play out in RP?

(BTW, it is historically believed that Blackbeard mixed black powder with his rum, so this idea isn't too far fetched)

The Fury
2015-08-01, 09:23 PM
None of my characters had a habit as interesting as the one you gave, when they do it's generally something pretty mundane like "they smoke a pipe" or "they drink tea."

When I waited for the bus there used to be the occasional person that would play with his pocketknife. Opening it, closing it, cleaning his nails, inspecting the edge and such. It always kind of creeped me out. When I had a character that I thought was a little creepy, I gave her the habit of playing with her knife in a similar way to give that impression.

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-01, 09:46 PM
One of my characters collects clothes. Hundreds of articles of clothing carefully stowed away, from beggars' shifts to blacksmith's aprons to sexy courtesan garments to priestly vestments to soldiers' armor and boots to clothes befitting the Princes of the Earth.

He's a disguise guy, though, so I guess that's not too unusual.

The Fury
2015-08-01, 10:53 PM
One of my characters collects clothes. Hundreds of articles of clothing carefully stowed away, from beggars' shifts to blacksmith's aprons to sexy courtesan garments to priestly vestments to soldiers' armor and boots to clothes befitting the Princes of the Earth.

He's a disguise guy, though, so I guess that's not too unusual.

I guess it isn't, though I think the point of giving characters these little quirks is to inform the character and give them some interesting business to do while discussing plans with the party or during downtime. If you had given a character a habit that was completely bizarre and out of left field it might actually detract from the character.

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-02, 10:48 AM
A barbarian PC played by a friend is fond of trophies. He killed some sharks, and now has their teeth on a necklace.

The ship's surgeon in my seafaring game used to be a practicing necrosurgeon (not a necromancer, but rather a person who stitches body parts together for a necromancer to animate); she thus tended to keep an eye out for interesting body parts.

ZeroGear
2015-08-02, 12:21 PM
I guess it isn't, though I think the point of giving characters these little quirks is to inform the character and give them some interesting business to do while discussing plans with the party or during downtime. If you had given a character a habit that was completely bizarre and out of left field it might actually detract from the character.

Isn't this why it's a good idea to give them a quirk that's in-line with their character? I was just interested how unique quirks interacted in RP sessions.
It's always interesting to see how a player will mimic his war veteran playing/polishing his glass eye, or his necromancer polishing bones for his next creation.
Quirks are something unique to each person, and often acquired form years habits stemming from their job. Surgeons might constantly polish their tools while casters may have a habit of petting their familiars when in thought.
I'm kinda wondering how that interacts with the rest of the group in terms of RP.

Also, the merc shorting gunpowder isn't that out of line with his career if you ask me. It's just something that's a little unusual in play, that's all.

Talyn
2015-08-02, 08:15 PM
My character is my D&D 5e game (Paladin/Bard) pulls out whatever stringed instrument he is carrying and during short and long rests will tune it by ear, and then improvise with it. He also loves riddles, and will challenge peaceful NPCs to riddle contests during downtime periods.

Dornith
2015-08-02, 10:44 PM
My character in our current campaign is a strict pacifist. He realizes that fighting is sometimes necessary, he will never deal lethal damage and will scold party members who kill unnecessarily. Also, he cremates the bodies of those who he can't reasonably save (this also applies to animals).
He has the merciful spell feat which he uses to deal non-lethal damage so that we rarely have to kill anyone.

Laurellien
2015-08-03, 09:57 AM
My current character (a LN cleric of Pathfinder's nature deity - Gozreh) makes a point of stabilising all sentient enemies who are not intrinsically evil and then bringing them back to consciousness if he can. He has respect for humanoid life. On the other hand, he always takes time to tell people how much better things were under the rule of Queen Ileosa.

Tsa'Bakr
2015-08-03, 10:11 AM
I have a character that believes he has a loyal pet wolfhound named Mutt that follows him everywhere. However, the dog is actually an hallucination that no one else can see. If someone alludes to this fact or happens to call or imply my character is crazy, he becomes quite hostile. It's made for some fun RP with me randomly talking to an imaginary dog. My character's companions play along, but we have gotten into a fight with NPCs because they called my character crazy.

HuskyBoi
2015-08-03, 10:25 AM
Borri Ankleshanker, the dwarf barbarian that I ran in my last campaign, would bow every time he met someone- always with the phrase "I bow until my beard touches the floor". Little touches like that which every player round the table knows to expect (it got to the point where we'd meet a new NPC and other players would say the line before I had a chance) are a great way to have your character stick out in people's mind.

In our current campaign, my character insists on duelling every monster she hears about. Even though we're early days, this line is also becoming recognised by other players.

NPC: "Ah, noble adventurers! Don't go into the mountains... there's a terrible shaman, a beast, who crushes all who try to venture in there..."
Half the party: "Asanna's going to duel it"

Our last campaign also featured a halfling who routinely ate the hearts of those he slew. I'm still not entirely sure why, but that definitely stuck out in my mind!

Winter_Wolf
2015-08-03, 10:34 AM
I had a half dragon cleric of Kord that would cut out the hearts of his slain enemies and eat them to gain their strength. Except goblinoids, "because they're filthy; I don't eat junk food." Not sure how weird that is for a half dragon, but I got some looks from the other players for cutting out hearts.

DigoDragon
2015-08-03, 10:51 AM
There was the FBI field agent who kept using nicknames for his teammates in a modern RPG. We were known as Jail-bait, Racecar, and Padre. Actually took him conscious effort to use our real names on official reports.

Dunsparce
2015-08-03, 10:55 AM
Oh boy where to begin.

My level 14 human Mystic Ranger, Eliwood Smith, is an odd fellow. He's chaotic neutral, but not because he's disruptive or crazy, he just has a bunch of oddities about him.

-His patron deity is imaginary. He worships Bowbosa, God of Bows and Arrows, who resides on the plane of infinite arrows and blesses those who use longbows and shortbows and not for prissy crossbows. He seriously believes his talent as an archer is literally divine in nature.

-His trademark favorite food is lizard jerky. He once killed a hostile lizard and made it into jerky and since then it is is favorite food. He even went out of a way to pay a wizard to make him everlasting lizard jerky that works like the everlasting trail rations.

-He gets more fixated on minor items than the actual important treasure. His biggest hauls in his own opinion were a sweet driftwood coffee table and a treasure chest made of living, pulsating flesh that held the actual treasure.

-Not really a habbits but His best friend is a templated awakened dog and one time he wasted a wish asking for directions to the nearest bathroom

comicshorse
2015-08-03, 12:19 PM
I was going over some literary material (read: manga) when I noticed that characters sometimes get weird habits.
This got me thinking: how would this influence the RP dynamics of tabletop games?

So here's the question:
What kinds of strange habits could characters reasonably have and how would that possibly play out in RP?

Here's one that would make people go "did you really just do that?":

Imagine the characters all sitting at a table discussing battle plans. One of them, a hardcore gun-loving merc, is fiddling around with one of his bullets. Eventually, he says "Hang on a sec", pulls out a pair of pliers, opens the bullet, pours the gunpowder in a line, and then SNORTS IT. After that he says "alright, continue".

I would imagine that would get some very strange looks.

Anyone else have strange habits that could color a character's personality? How did those play out in RP?

(BTW, it is historically believed that Blackbeard mixed black powder with his rum, so this idea isn't too far fetched)

Not, maybe, the only use of gunpowder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-brown

I had a Shifter P.C. who collected the right ears of defeated opponents but only those who had impressed him with their courage and skill

In a Shadowrun game one of the P.C.s was an english noble lady who insisted on turning up fashionably late to every meeting tot he annoyance of the rest of the group (until they figured out to tell her the meetings started 10 minutes later than they actually did)

NRSASD
2015-08-03, 12:20 PM
These are quite good! They really help add that extra touch to the game and make it that much more fun.
My current Numenera character firmly believes he's a clone of a 4th world soldier from long ago, and thus has some rather strange mannerisms. More specifically, he feels threatened when standing upright in the open, so he has a trenching shovel with him at all times that he uses to dig foxholes to hide in. The rest of the party has just come to accept that if we're going to be in an area for longer than 10 minutes, my character is going to erect earthworks around them.

The Fury
2015-08-03, 08:55 PM
Also, the merc shorting gunpowder isn't that out of line with his career if you ask me. It's just something that's a little unusual in play, that's all.

Of course, absolutely. I did not intend to imply otherwise, if I did I'm sorry. I only meant to say my own characters' habits, while they make sense with who they are and what they do, are comparatively bland. Though it's a good idea to only give these quirks to inform the character, the ones that the other players remember are the really weird ones. You'd remember the guy that did a line of gunpowder, y'know?

When I replied to the remark that a disguise guy collects disguises isn't a very surprising habit, I meant to say that it's a habit that makes sense with the character. Not that a mercenary that likes to snort gunpowder is too weird or crazy to make sense.


There was the FBI field agent who kept using nicknames for his teammates in a modern RPG. We were known as Jail-bait, Racecar, and Padre. Actually took him conscious effort to use our real names on official reports.

Heheh. I do this too. There have been a couple characters that I've played that give nicknames, I found who they nickname and what ended up saying a lot about how they feel about those characters. There was one character that nicknamed every character another player made. Though that was largely because he never bothered to give his characters real names.

JAL_1138
2015-08-03, 10:05 PM
My bard has a mild obsession with extravagant hats, and a tendency to overdress, usually in particularly-garish clothes common to very-minor nobility or wealthy bourgeoisie. The reason ostensibly being that a) he needs to look upper-class to be an effective face when dealing with the upper class, and b) people will pay attention to the hat and the clothes rather than remembering his face, thus allowing him to "disappear" more effectively with a quick-change into something nondescript.

Giving the character Expertise in Stealth has resulted in jokes that he's a staggeringly better sneak than the party's rogue even though the rogue has a higher Dex bonus, since the rogue wears sensible dark clothes and leather armor when attempting to be stealthy, whereas my bard can sneak around almost as well (or better depending on the die roll) in full ridiculous Landsknecht-like attire, complete with a gigantic wide-brimmed hat with a two-foot-long peacock-feather on it. There's also a running joke by the other party members that whenever he fails a perception check it's because his hat got in the way.

ZeroGear
2015-08-03, 10:50 PM
Of course, absolutely. I did not intend to imply otherwise, if I did I'm sorry. I only meant to say my own characters' habits, while they make sense with who they are and what they do, are comparatively bland. Though it's a good idea to only give these quirks to inform the character, the ones that the other players remember are the really weird ones. You'd remember the guy that did a line of gunpowder, y'know?

When I replied to the remark that a disguise guy collects disguises isn't a very surprising habit, I meant to say that it's a habit that makes sense with the character. Not that a mercenary that likes to snort gunpowder is too weird or crazy to make sense.


True, true, no offense taken. And sometimes the simplest habits can give some flavor to the conversations and experiences.
In the Shadowrun game I'm in, the groups mage has a habit of playing video games (specifically Pokemon Orichalum) to gain inspiration for the spirits she summons. Granted, my character (a mystic adept) has a tendency to annoy our adept by pulling pranks all the time (mostly because the elf is computer illiterate and it's fun watching him glare each time his phone has it's ringtone changed to something like 'crazy frog'). It doesn't help that my character has the trickster as his patron spirit.

Btw, the sample merc. snorts straight gunpowder, not brown-brown. The idea is that he's so used to the smell of gunpowder that he can't go for more than an hour without getting twitchy.

One idea that I would love to play with is a BBEG who has the habit of snorting the ashes of the dead. This being so monstrous, of course, that he sends his pyromancer squad to burn down entire villages and haul the ashes back to his keep for him to consume.
Can't wait to see the look on players faces when they face him and he yells: "Your ashes will be MOST stimulating!"

I'm also highly tempted to create a masocistic villain with a high pain tolerance who keeps yelling things like "YES! AGAIN! HARDER!" each time he's hit.

goto124
2015-08-03, 11:14 PM
The last two seem to be slightly creepy though 0-0

ZeroGear
2015-08-03, 11:59 PM
And that is exactly what there supposed to be.
I want players to cringe at the very notion of getting shoved up some guy's nose after death (which seems to prevent resurrection quite well I would guess).
And who wouldn't cringe from the guy that enjoys getting hacked to pieces?
Memorable villains I'd say.

The Fury
2015-08-04, 02:53 PM
As a player I have a habit of parsing a personality trait out of the character's starting attributes. A commonly used one is "High Strength+High Constitution= Big Eater." My reasoning being that someone that's very strong and has a lot of endurance probably does strenuous activities for long periods of time and probably needs a lot of calories to keep going.

Because of this, I had a character that loved food. She'd eat just about anything that technically qualified as edible, though she wasn't overly fond of trail rations and would try to get a hot meal at the earliest convenience. If there were some hint that there might be food around she'd take a big whiff of the aroma and try to find the source. If food was left unattended long enough, or it didn't clearly belong to someone that wanted it, she'd just eat it.

Bulhakov
2015-08-04, 06:02 PM
A few examples from my chars and my players' chars:

- chopping heads from all dead bodies (due to childhood trauma surviving a city destroyed by a zombie plague)
- enthusiastically trying all types of drugs and poisons (due to a supernatural innate immunity to poisons)
- spending every free moment practicing/studying spells/sparring
- writing songs about the party's adventures (done by a typical min-maxed fighter)
- knitting (after outfitting all party members and friendly npcs, donating caps/gloves/scarfs to local temples or orphanages)
- flirting with anything that talks

The Fury
2015-08-04, 07:59 PM
- knitting (after outfitting all party members and friendly npcs, donating caps/gloves/scarfs to local temples or orphanages)


Heheh. I like that, I may have to steal that idea if I ever get the chance.

Vercingex
2015-08-04, 11:51 PM
Hmmm, let me think.

We had a character in a Star Wars game who collected hats- particularly, Imperial officer hats.

In a pirate game (Skull and Shackles, specifically), our captain would eulogize dead PCs, and always end with "And he/she was the best pirate I ever knew".

I had a Binder (class that allows itself to be possessed to gain abilities) that used his abilities recreationally, because having a being possess you was quite the experience.

We had another character who would cremate his foes, and then go through the ashes looking for magical body parts. He never found the Eye of Vecna.

ZeroGear
2015-08-06, 03:20 PM
For modern games, here's one that I'm sure everyone has done at least once IRL:

Give the character a sugar addiction (always has a lollipop in their mouth) or the tendency to snort pixy sticks.

The Fury
2015-08-06, 10:14 PM
For modern games, here's one that I'm sure everyone has done at least once IRL:

Give the character a sugar addiction (always has a lollipop in their mouth) or the tendency to snort pixy sticks.

You seem to have a thing for making characters stick things up their noses... I like you.

ZeroGear
2015-08-07, 09:29 AM
Thank you. It is always nice when you are liked.

Anyway, habits need not always be actions. One quirk I gave my Beastbrood Tiefling Gunslinger, Chevar D' La Lynx, was that he tended to draw out his R's in a type of purr. Was very interesting speaking like that with a faux French accent.

FlumphPaladin
2015-08-07, 11:18 AM
I played a scientist in a steampunk campaign that would always inspect or adjust his pocketwatch (actually an ancient knowledge artifact, the source of his knowledge and skill).

Sure wish that campaign lasted longer than one session... Poor Dr. Fogg never even got to figure out why Dr. Hayes (it was also my first stab at themed naming) wanted him dead.

Socksy
2015-08-12, 11:01 AM
One of mine refers to her guns as her babies. They get cuddles and kisses and beds made out of old boxes and fancy outfits...
She's like one of those women who carries a dog in her handbag and dresses it up and sleeps with it, except instead of a dog, it is several pistols.

Taet
2015-08-12, 11:52 AM
Shadowrun sometimes the group meets their contact at a fancy restaurant.

P1 sighs over the waste and orders the cheapest food and takes the leftovers to friends in need.
P3 orders the most expensive natural food because someone else is paying and she enjoys that.
P4 points at something random and chews it because she cannot taste it without electronic help.
P5 orders the elven special and fusses about the details and eats it with her personal chopsticks.

I like it that you can look at the table when we are done and know who sat where.

Bard1cKnowledge
2015-08-12, 07:29 PM
I'm building a dwarven cleric of Thor, his habit will be to hold a sermon right before the BBEG

"I pray to Thor, Son of Odin, to deliver us te' strength the' crush our enemies beneath our boots"

Cluedrew
2015-08-12, 08:25 PM
My favourite (that I've played) was an artificer who always did wood carvings. Had a collection of miniatures representing the other members of the party.

I can remember a few others that particularly stand out in my mind, although they were not my characters. There was an old soldier who always fiddled with his lighter (didn't smoke). A sniper who wrote poetry while on duty, or while waiting for anything. A blind man who constantly pushed his blacked out glasses up. The mercenary who referred to his sword by name, in fact most people only realized he was talking about his sword when they asked when his partner would be arriving.

Jay R
2015-08-12, 08:50 PM
My most recent Flashing Blades character saves the swords of every person he has defeated. Not the people he's killed (their swords belong to their heirs), be every sword he has made people surrender to him. His plan was to hang them on the walls when he opened a fencing academy.

My current Ranger turns everything that occurs into an indictment of people who live in cities.
We find an Evil magic item? We invade the home of a vampire? It doesn't matter; he will find some way to comment on it, ending with, "I will never understand you city folk."

My most recent bard swears alliteratively:
Conan’s Copper Codpiece
Siegfried’s Screeching Solo
Snape’s Snarls and Snivels
Bilbo’s Busted Buttons!
Eowyn’s Excess of Earwax
Flitwick’s Floating Feather
Belkar’s Brazen Boxers
Hamlet’s Happy Homelife
Kimble’s Constant Quest
Lush Lurid Alliteration of Lee
McGonnagle’s Magical Madrigal
Pinocchio's Pinewood P____

ZeroGear
2015-08-13, 01:02 AM
I have a character I desperately want to play fully fleshed out in my head:

Thud, the half-giant barbarian (so named because that was the sound he made when dropped after birth).
He's a lovable oaf who is, for a lack of a better term, two bricks short of a mud house. What stands out are two habits of his:
-He's always smiling when people call him big, because he was "always the smallest growing up"
-He doesn't use manufactured weapons. Instead, he carries around a big rock that he has named "Reason", which he will use to solve a large variety of problems (he believes that 'diplomacy' simply means 'people doing what you want if you hurl a big enough rock at them'). 'Reason', by the way, is actually named...with the word horrendously misspelled due to illiteracy.

Lurkmoar
2015-08-13, 01:42 AM
Obessive gambling. A nice reason to be an adventurer as well: duck creditors until I hit the mother load!

Dwarf stroking his beard and wondering why people let their faces go bald is another easy one that isn't disruptive.

Milodiah
2015-08-13, 03:12 AM
I've determined that in my character's culture, the honorable way to handle an insult is to politely request they retract it, then strike them if they do not; repeat once more. The third time is the actual challenge to an armed duel, the logic being that if the other person cannot take two punches in support of their statement (it is considered proper for the person to simply take the blows, rather than dodge or block) then they aren't worth the duel.

So far I have dropped it on two other PCs, and politely reminded by a third not to pull this **** because they are in fact a werewolf and could soak ALL my damage before ripping me into travel-sized parcels.

goto124
2015-08-13, 05:15 AM
Dwarf stroking her* beard and wondering why people let their faces go bald is another easy one that isn't disruptive.

Fixed :smalltongue:

Millstone85
2015-08-13, 07:56 AM
I am not sure if that counts as a habit but...
My character has a spellscar and a familiar. The rules say a familiar is like a solid spirit and, when destroyed, will respawn on its master after a short rest. I decided that my character's familiar is in fact organic and can regrow from the spellscar. The familiar will also eat the remains of its previous self if possible. Yes, the familiar's name is Kyubey.

hymer
2015-08-13, 08:18 AM
Daily (when practical) yoga.

The production of woollen clothes, from the goats and sheep to the final product. This is a male dwarf who was once caught in a horrible blizzard and was saved by knitting. It's pretty important to him, despite the ridicule it invites.

Visiting graveyards the way others might admire architecture or the sunset, and having long, technical conversations with the tenders and makers of tombstones.

Pilfering a single carrot from a garden and leaving behind a silver piece in its place. On a regular basis, but preferably a new garden every time.

Counting. Coins, leaves, stars, anything.

Putting salt in his food. Waaay too much salt. And trying to convince others that they aren't getting enough salt.

Climbing. Trees, rocks or buildings, usually.

Keltest
2015-08-13, 09:39 AM
One of my players has a character appropriately named Giggles the Stone Giant who collects snot from our defeated enemies. Yes, snot. Especially when the monsters don't have noses and/or are giant walking puddles of snot.

No, I don't know why he does this, but it makes the game far more entertaining than it would otherwise be when theyre searching for loot.

Erth16
2015-08-13, 11:12 AM
3.P character, was a monk into barbarian into frenzied berserker. He challenged everyone they just met to a combat of champions, he being the champion for the party, and hopefully their strongest warrior fighting him. He did this to a china shop owner, a group of paladins, a city of gnomes (He fought their mayor), a pride of lions, a group of bandits, and the guards of a city (Who also sent their mayor). He won each duel very quickly, after which his party would all be airborne. Before each duel he would say "I could feel it in my bones when I first lay eyes on you. This wasn't a chance encounter, this was destiny, right here, right now, I was destined to kill you." he even said it to the lion.

One of my players characters eats every one of her kills, partly because this heals 1/4th of her hp, but even at full ho this happens. This has been shown to disturb their allies, but they deal with it because it is somewhat useful to them. The only time she failed to eat something, she left a buffet of 8 powerful opponents because her student had been nearly killed in the battle and she had to rush her to medical attention.

ZeroGear
2015-08-13, 01:28 PM
You just reminded me of one of my other backup characters for pathfinder:

Belfengar the Girthy, Dwarf Sin Eater.
Loud, boiserons, and haughty, he loved eating and drinking. He wielded a trident and a short sword into combat.
His habit?
Upon the start of battle, he stares at his opponents, draws his weapons, licks his lips, and yells "It's DINNER TIME!"

Milodiah
2015-08-13, 01:36 PM
I do also have an absolute twit of a nobleman, a grey elf wizard in 2e AD&D. Social rank listed on character sheet as "too high for his own good", he has a hired man (named Willikins, naturally) who essentially keeps him from getting killed by his own twittiness. In addition to being the fighter to my wizard, the guide to my explorer, and the butler to my lord, he's the man who reminds my character of things like "just because they offered us hospitality doesn't mean they won't try to kill us in our sleep". My character is the type of person who will, after interrogating a tied-up assassin, say "Very well, you're free to go", and then just wander off, while Willikins sighs and begins untying him.

It feels like I've got two PCs, and I really do love it. They complement each other so well, the absent-minded, overly nobleminded 5th-level wizard who tends to leave confusing messes where he goes in the classic PC way,, and the world-weary 0th-level fighter who was hired to look after him and clean up behind him.

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-13, 05:38 PM
Shichirou was a brawler character of mine. He had a number of quirks, but among other things, he wouldn't turn down a dare or challenge. Rip the head off a statue of a dictator, in the dictator's city? Done. Punch a behemoth? Done. "Race ya to the bottom" when navigating a difficult cliff face? Done! Enter the martial arts tournament of the god of duelling, even knowing that a bunch of folks who are out to kill you are in attendance? You see if I don't win.

(Mind, there's a difference between a "suicidal dare" and "I dare you to commit suicide." He wouldn't have done the latter, but no amount of danger would stop him from the former.)

Thisguy_
2015-08-13, 09:49 PM
Having worked it out with the DM before hand, I have a character who smokes some really powerful druid weed with some frequency. A bit daily at least, and he's grown tolerant of some of its effects, but it's funny to watch what happens to non-druids who think they can take it.

The Fury
2015-08-14, 10:23 AM
My most recent Flashing Blades character saves the swords of every person he has defeated. Not the people he's killed (their swords belong to their heirs), be every sword he has made people surrender to him. His plan was to hang them on the walls when he opened a fencing academy.

My current Ranger turns everything that occurs into an indictment of people who live in cities.
We find an Evil magic item? We invade the home of a vampire? It doesn't matter; he will find some way to comment on it, ending with, "I will never understand you city folk."

My most recent bard swears alliteratively:
Conan’s Copper Codpiece
Siegfried’s Screeching Solo
Snape’s Snarls and Snivels
Bilbo’s Busted Buttons!
Eowyn’s Excess of Earwax
Flitwick’s Floating Feather
Belkar’s Brazen Boxers
Hamlet’s Happy Homelife
Kimble’s Constant Quest
Lush Lurid Alliteration of Lee
McGonnagle’s Magical Madrigal
Pinocchio's Pinewood P____

I seem to recall that you also had a character say "[Someone's]* smelly smallclothes!" Is this the same character?

*(I don't actually remember the name that was used, though I gather that it must be an "S" name.)

Pale Sun
2015-08-15, 07:16 PM
I don't know if this counts as a habit (it's probably more like a trait) and if this is interesting or strange at all but I have a 25.000 years old vampire character who never accepted the idea of having feelings. Whenever he fell in love with someone during his extremely long lifespan he spent most of the time trying to restrain his feelings and occasionally protecting them from the shadows. However he has been married several times to gain political advantage whenever he needed it.

Fri
2015-08-16, 02:01 AM
I once played a ranger who work as a lord's game warden and have crafting topiary as hobby. He actually has "craft: topiary" skill points. He's a serious and competent and dependable ranger, but just like to cut bushes into shapes.

Before the party went to adventure one time I took time to craft some topiary on the lord's garden, rolled badly, and rationalize it IC that everyone just don't understand true art (of topiary crafting):smallbiggrin:

goto124
2015-08-16, 04:49 AM
If I messed up topiary, I too would claim that no one understands true art =D

ZeroGear
2015-08-16, 09:17 AM
You are the second character I've ever run across to actually have skill points in Craft (Topiary).

Believe it or not, that skill actually helped us expose an evil cult when it turned out one of their hedges was a magical construct.

Keltest
2015-08-16, 09:23 AM
You are the second character I've ever run across to actually have skill points in Craft (Topiary).

Believe it or not, that skill actually helped us expose an evil cult when it turned out one of their hedges was a magical construct.

Did they have a hedge wizard?


Ok, ill leave now.

Absol197
2015-08-16, 10:11 AM
Oh my gosh, my group has so many of these! Most of them are funny, but a lot have turned out to be useful. Let's see;

There's Mensharr, an anthropomorphic cat swashbuckler /rogue, who was from a functioning Communist culture that didn't use money. He didn't quite understand the whole money thing, nor why people were so obsessed with it, abs was also always confused about why people would be willing to sell magical items for coin. He also loved to drink (his culture had not invented fermentation) and gamble, and often sang in his native language (which sounds pretty much like you'd expect for a race of cat-people) when drunk. He was not a good singer.

Issac, a human psion, was our team know-it-all. Literally, he had maxed ranks in every knowledge skill, as well in a custom skill Knowledge (obscure). He also did woodcarving, which helped out a lot. The player kept track of what he had carved and the DC of the Craft check he made to carve it, and then would sometimes barter with his carvings instead of paying money. He sold one such carving for nearly 5,000 gold!

One of our several sea-faring campaigns was entirely made up of...characters. It was our poor DM'a first session, too...
My character was Seela, a human sorceress who got her powers from a demon lord because of a bargain her grandmother made. The demon lord was hunting her, and anytime she used magic, demons would show up in a few hours or days looking for her, so she was always restless and wanting to move. She was also not totally in control of her power, and had to make a Charisma check to cast a spell, or else we rolled on a custom wild magic table to determine what happened. Ooh, and her familiar (a fiendish shark) was trying to corrupt her to evil, and convinced her that if he died, she would die, so she was constantly followed by an evil being whom she hated but would fight to the death to save.

Ixialthak (we called him Ix) was a half-merrow, our ship's quartermaster, and would eat anything he killed, as long as it wasn't part human or part ogre (as that would be cannibalism).

Our ship'a captain and first mate were part of an ape-like race called the hadozee, and neither of them could swim and were deathly afraid of the water.

Our druid had an Int of 8, and had a horribly bad memory, due to having been struck by lightning when he was younger. He thought his animal companion talked to him (without the need for magic), and that this ability had been granted him by the god of storms when he was struck. He was constantly trying to get struck by (natural) lightning again to gain more "special powers."

Our male paladin (played by the druid'a players' girlfriend) was an outrageous flirt, hitting on anything with breasts.

And our ranger was a whale-folk called the darfellan who hated sharks and would kill them on sight. Which caused some conflict with my character, what with having an evil shark following her around that she wouldn't allow to be killed.

Yes, we did all of that to a first-time GM. We are horrible people...

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-16, 11:55 AM
Being unable to swim actually wasn't all that uncommon for sailors, honestly.

Absol197
2015-08-16, 04:04 PM
Being unable to swim actually wasn't all that uncommon for sailors, honestly.

True, but this was a D&D game with swashbuckling action, which is a setting where going overboard is far more common than in real life (medic spells push you over, monsters grab you and drag you down, etc.).

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-17, 06:57 AM
True, but this was a D&D game with swashbuckling action, which is a setting where going overboard is far more common than in real life (medic spells push you over, monsters grab you and drag you down, etc.).I'll admit I haven't seen many swashbuckling movies, but I don't remember any that featured going overboard. :smallconfused:

JeenLeen
2015-08-17, 09:18 AM
A barbarian PC played by a friend is fond of trophies. He killed some sharks, and now has their teeth on a necklace.


Reminds me of a Mage: The Ascension game char. He was a Virtual Adept who believed the world was a video game, so he liked to loot after combat, picking up at least one item from fallen foes even if it was useless junk or burdensome to carry. He decorated his room at the chantry with them as reminders of his kills, happy about the experience points he was sure he gained. At first it was just a funny quirk, but later on it took a still-funny-but-a-little-creepy 'serial killer collecting trophies' vibe, especially when getting parts of Tcimizce (sp) fleshcrafted monsters.

Eldan
2015-08-17, 09:42 AM
One that I wanted to play for a long while, but never quite got around to was the superstitious character. Because in a High Fantasy game, one almost never sees genuine superstition, it always seems like every odd tradition actually has a purpose. So the character would throw salt over his shoulder to get rid of evil spirits, only walk on the left side of crossroads, put silver coins under his pillow on a full moon to ward off lycanthropes, knock on wood when entering a new house, etc. Nothing disruptive, because I rather dislike disruptively "quirky" characters, just small things that add a bit of flavour.

ZeroGear
2015-08-19, 11:41 AM
Now that we've established interesting character traits (and feel free to add more), it would be interesting to hear how they interact in RP at the table.
Do you mime out the actions your PC makes? Do you add "while he does that, my character ..." when describing what he does? What were the other character's reactions to that?

From my own:
I had a halfling skirnir (shield magus) named Jody Johnes. He was a bit of a hillbilly with an appropriate accent and a penchant for telling stories. Funny thing was, he spoke more languages than the rest of the group combined, but no one could understand him when he talked due to his accent. Admittedly, it got a little irritating when the players kept poking fun at that to no end, even in situations where his translation skills were useful.