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KillianHawkeye
2016-01-17, 02:49 AM
So tell me, how many of you have had a similar experience where, due to the spontaneity that happens during roleplaying, you realize that your character has developed an interesting or unusual personality trait or quirk that you hadn't really been planning on giving them?

To be honest, I do enjoy getting immersed in a role, but I surprised myself with a recent character who has quite unintentionally become the guy who leaps to take extreme risks.

The character (a 3.5 edition Hexblade) in the last session taunted a chuull and ended up bearing the full brunt of its attacks (and nearly died) so that another PC could continue to attack it freely. Another time, earlier in the adventure, our party discovered a demonic statue that was driving the local wildlife insane and I decided to touch it and, after resisting the insanity, continued holding it for two more rounds just to try and gain a deeper understanding of what its effects were. The DM told me afterwards that I'd very nearly failed the save and would have been driven to attack the other PCs.

So, I have decided that apparently he is the sort of character willing to put everything on the line at the drop of a hat, at least if there's some purpose to it. I'm not saying he has a death wish exactly, but he also is lacking that aversion to danger which is common to the majority of living things, and that realization really took me off guard.

I remember in my earlier days of roleplaying when I used to plan out personality traits, likes and dislikes, etc., but now that I've started letting characters develop organically through improv, I'm starting to see some interesting results.


Anyway, I thought this seemed interesting enough to share, and I'll bet other folks around here have some similar stories to tell, so go ahead and share if you have 'em! Also feel free to discuss the relative pros and cons of planned vs improvised character personalities, if that's what you're into.

Chijinda
2016-01-17, 02:55 AM
Very much the case for my Dark Heresy character. As a Psyker, I originally set him up as an outcast from society, with a potentially lethal thirst for knowledge, that I honestly expected to one day be his undoing at the hands of some pact with Tzeentch. He was meant to be quiet, subdued, socially awkward and extremely serious.

He instead, developed quite rapidly into an incredibly pious deadpan snarker, who would sooner die fighting the hordes of Chaos than ever make a deal with them, no matter what he was offered. His thirst for knowledge has largely been put as a footnote with regards to him spending most of his leisure time during travel, studying ancient tomes, along with the occasional quip about wishing to dissect the various alien beings we've encountered.

LokiRagnarok
2016-01-17, 06:45 PM
In Shadowrun, I had a Dwarf Awakened.
Right in the first session, we entered a warehouse where there was a small dishevelled homeless girl by accident, close to two ghouls. My character took a liking to her and promised to get her out of there safely.

A few minutes later, the Russian mafia entered the warehouse, I was going to escort the girl out, the girl saw them, turned and ran - only to get a bullet in the back.

Since then, the character has been blaming himself for her death and has become protective of children.

Unfortunately, that game died due to unrelated reasons...

Feddlefew
2016-01-17, 07:11 PM
We're only one session in, but so far my bard character is the most paranoid, well prepared member of the group.

He was intended to be superhumanly kind and naive(under personality traits he has "TERRIBLE JUDGE OF CHARACTER" underlined twice), and he is the kindest party member by far, it's just that we have a part full of evil, monsters, and evil monsters, and everyone is under a lot of stress because we're missing 90% of our equipment.

Milodiah
2016-01-18, 01:24 PM
I've had so many it's hard to even keep track.

One of my first campaign games (i.e. not a one-shot) was Rifts, which I personally find to be a great game if and only if the GM keeps a good handle on it.

I was playing a freelance spy whom I originally thought would lean towards the stealth aspect, with a sniper rifle, infiltrator armor, etc. etc. However, before I knew it, he'd become a master of disguise, social engineering, and lying his ass off so hard it's amazing he didn't take megadamage from it. At one point I dressed myself as a Coalition military intelligence guy, dressed up our psi-stalker as a Coalition anti-psychic trooper, and talked right the hell into the Lone Star Complex (pretty much the Coalition's equivalent of Area 51). Then of course the lead guy catches a flaw in my cover story, locks us in an incineration room and starts the megalomaniac 'before-you-die' spiel, and I talk my way out of it again.

I channeled my inner Michael Westin the entire campaign, and I'm sure he'd be proud.

Quertus
2016-01-18, 10:09 PM
So tell me, how many of you have had a similar experience where, due to the spontaneity that happens during roleplaying, you realize that your character has developed an interesting or unusual personality trait or quirk that you hadn't really been planning on giving them?
...
so go ahead and share if you have 'em! Also feel free to discuss the relative pros and cons of planned vs improvised character personalities, if that's what you're into.

I don't like playing a character without a decent understanding of their history, personality, motivations, etc. That having been said, they all* still develop and surprise me during actual play.

The one whose developments probably most deserves mention is one of my characters who, because of the games he's been in, is firmly convinced that no one can ever accomplish anything ever without the McGuffin of Fate (whatever that happens to be at the time). So he never bothers to try to do anything of any importance until he believes that he has the McGuffin in his possession. Sadly - and I didn't realize this until just now - that fits perfectly with the character's "fluff and crunch".

My signature character has so many quirks that developed during play that, much like naming the 7 dwarves, I will probably miss some in any given recounting. He loves seafood, bouncy balls, entertaining children (when nobody's looking), publishing books, conversing with dragons, and chess. He hates modern music, most chronomancers, drow, accidentally disrobing fellow party members, and being slapped. He has custom spells that have been dubbed, "protection from slaps" and "Quertus smells like cookies" by his party members. He has, depending on who you ask, treated 2 out of 3, or all 3, of the apprentices I can remember him having had, horribly. And he has never won a wizard's duel. Ever.**

Because of how much characters can develop during play, and how much more robust my established characters are, I much prefer playing an existing character to making a new character.

*Well, the ones that I play for any amount of time, at least. No such guarantee on one-shot characters.

**Not counting fighting copies of himself, against which he has never lost - and he's killed / defeated more copies of himself than the number of PCs I'd imagine 99% of characters ever adventure with in their lifetime.

Madbox
2016-01-18, 10:50 PM
My first character was a fighter who had almost no planned personality. First session, he became a sadist.

First, we got attacked by cultists, and wanted to keep one alive for interrogation. I kneecapped him with my crossbow. We go into their temple, and I threw a torch at another cultist who was just out of reach. Later in the same session, we had to fight a jackalwere. I had no magic or silver weapons, so I just attacked it with a lit torch. It seemed like I used unnecessarily cruel attacks all the time.

Jay R
2016-01-19, 10:58 AM
I had a 2E Thief/Wizard who was an orphan outcast and trusted nobody. I was going to make him as a secretive, distrustful loner. As far as he was concerned no person had ever cared about him or trusted him, and no law had ever protected him, and no Good or Lawful person had ever treated decently. He had utter contempt for all civilized structures

On the first adventure, he and three strangers (the other PCs) were falsely accused of a murder we had tried to prevent, and had to capture the killer to prove our innocence. This just furthered his contempt for all law.

But on the second adventure, on a ship, there was a storm. A Paladin he didn't know (another PC) risked her life saving his. Over the first three adventure, two other people also defended him. The four of them saved many of the people on the sinking ship

They eventually made it to the new world colony, and the duke congratulated them, treated them all well, and specifically showed that he trusted them all, including my PC.

My planned loner became fiercely loyal to, and protective of, the party and the duke.

Ettina
2016-01-19, 11:01 AM
My very first character was a tiefling rogue (4e). I didn't have much idea of her character beyond 'orphan, angsty and compulsive liar'. She turned into a clingy attention hog who was a terrible judge of character and extremely naive. (Her Sense Motive was awful, and everyone else in that campaign could easily Bluff her even with fairly obvious lies.) It turned out pretty good, actually - she was a blast to play and very believable for a messed-up orphan. She may have been a bit annoying for the other players, but no one complained and pretty much everyone else derailed the plot to put the spotlight on their PCs at least once. Not that there was much of a plot to begin with.

Jay R
2016-01-20, 09:07 AM
And there was my original D&D 1st level Paladin who ended the first session by murdering the entire Lawful (good) party.

I made a Paladin, with every intention of treating every moral issue as a complete black-or-white situation.

I was playing a first level paladin in original D&D with only the first supplement Greyhawk. The party ranged from 1st to 5th level, was entirely Lawful (which meant Good).

My paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After several encounters, a couple levels down in the dungeon, we were all down to 3 or fewer hit points. (Remember, in this game, 0 hit points is dead.) My paladin had a single hit point left.

The treasure we had just found included a sword, which the paladin asked for. He received the right to pick it up. Unfortunately, it was a high-ego chaotic sword, and the first thing that should happen when my paladin touched it is that he should have received 2d6 points of damage, which would have killed the character. The DM made a few rolls behind the screen, and then wrote and handed me a note.

"This Chaotic sword has changed your alignment. You are now chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword." Note that Chaotic meant Evil at that time. Note also that I specifically intended him to treat all moral issues as completely black or white.

I thought for a moment, and asked to speak to the DM privately. When we got into the other room, I told him, "I don't have any questions for you. I just want them to believe you gave me more information than the note had." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and then we walked back in.

My (ex-)paladin told the group, "This is a Holy Sword with a quest I have to take on alone. I need you to go back the way you came. It's important that you do as I ask. Go back single file, and no matter what you hear, DON'T LOOK BACK."

Of course the five characters trusted my paladin, and did as he asked. My chaotic ex-paladin came up and stabbed each one in the back. Several times the DM said, "You hear a stab behind you, and a body slumping." "We don't look back." After five times, he told them that they were all dead.

So in my first game of D&D, my paladin murdered an entire lawful party.

Not long afterwards, a party of adventurers was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Evil, but no other players knew it yet.)

This party had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

KillianHawkeye
2016-01-20, 03:49 PM
And there was my original D&D 1st level Paladin who ended the first session by murdering the entire Lawful (good) party.

I made a Paladin, with every intention of treating every moral issue as a complete black-or-white situation.

I was playing a first level paladin in original D&D with only the first supplement Greyhawk. The party ranged from 1st to 5th level, was entirely Lawful (which meant Good).

My paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After several encounters, a couple levels down in the dungeon, we were all down to 3 or fewer hit points. (Remember, in this game, 0 hit points is dead.) My paladin had a single hit point left.

The treasure we had just found included a sword, which the paladin asked for. He received the right to pick it up. Unfortunately, it was a high-ego chaotic sword, and the first thing that should happen when my paladin touched it is that he should have received 2d6 points of damage, which would have killed the character. The DM made a few rolls behind the screen, and then wrote and handed me a note.

"This Chaotic sword has changed your alignment. You are now chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword." Note that Chaotic meant Evil at that time. Note also that I specifically intended him to treat all moral issues as completely black or white.

I thought for a moment, and asked to speak to the DM privately. When we got into the other room, I told him, "I don't have any questions for you. I just want them to believe you gave me more information than the note had." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and then we walked back in.

My (ex-)paladin told the group, "This is a Holy Sword with a quest I have to take on alone. I need you to go back the way you came. It's important that you do as I ask. Go back single file, and no matter what you hear, DON'T LOOK BACK."

Of course the five characters trusted my paladin, and did as he asked. My chaotic ex-paladin came up and stabbed each one in the back. Several times the DM said, "You hear a stab behind you, and a body slumping." "We don't look back." After five times, he told them that they were all dead.

So in my first game of D&D, my paladin murdered an entire lawful party.

Not long afterwards, a party of adventurers was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Evil, but no other players knew it yet.)

This party had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

Classic. I am quite certain that I've heard this story before! :smallamused:

Inevitability
2016-01-20, 04:46 PM
I'm playing a half-elf swashbuckler rogue, who I initially saw as a bit of a 'free spirit' with poor impulse control and a tendency to just bluff his way past everything.

The other players, however, played such trigger-happy, stabby characters that my CN rogue ended up being the groups moral compass. He's now more of a laid-back hedonist looking for challenges.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of my characters end up being the group's moral compass. What does that say about the people I game with?

LadyFoxfire
2016-01-20, 06:11 PM
Well, it happened because of a bad stat roll, not roleplaying, but I had an outlaw in Texarcana named Crazy Jenny. I'm not sure if sanity is supposed to be a stat in Texarcana, or if my DM imported it from Call of Cthulu, but I rolled hilariously badly on her sanity, so she became a paranoid schizophrenic outlaw who frequently shot people on suspicion of them being chupacabras.

Genth
2016-01-20, 09:56 PM
I'm playing a half-elf swashbuckler rogue, who I initially saw as a bit of a 'free spirit' with poor impulse control and a tendency to just bluff his way past everything.

The other players, however, played such trigger-happy, stabby characters that my CN rogue ended up being the groups moral compass. He's now more of a laid-back hedonist looking for challenges.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of my characters end up being the group's moral compass. What does that say about the people I game with?

I had a similar thing happen with my Halfling Bloodrager. Originally, was intended as a pure CN gloryhound, really only interested in finding the biggest and nastiest things to fight, appropriate for a war campaign. But the other characters had already been playing and some were so disenchanted because of the stuff they had done that they were in danger of just becoming horrible people. The halfling ended up being one of the nicest (and had the most attempts to do 'good' stuff) in the setting. He's still loud, shouty and tries to force people to do stuff with intimidation, but what he's trying to force them to do is have a drink with eachother and patch up old differences.

ImSAMazing
2016-01-21, 02:23 AM
I'm playing a half-elf swashbuckler rogue, who I initially saw as a bit of a 'free spirit' with poor impulse control and a tendency to just bluff his way past everything.

The other players, however, played such trigger-happy, stabby characters that my CN rogue ended up being the groups moral compass. He's now more of a laid-back hedonist looking for challenges.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of my characters end up being the group's moral compass. What does that say about the people I game with?
It means that they are awesome. Especially the Dagger Thrower.

Drokrath
2016-01-22, 03:19 PM
I find it easier to give my character a relatively open personality, and expand upon it through RP. Imho it give the character more life if they're developed naturally, rather than planning and trying to stick to a strict role.

Ravens_cry
2016-01-22, 04:07 PM
I had an Aasimar paladin in a rather silly game that was originally meant as an exemplar compassionate paladinship with a Roman centenarian twist.
He quickly turned into a comical buffoon who implicitly trusted his (rather unsavoury, though not evil as such) companions, thinking of them as fellow heroes. When they fought a genie in a three piece pinstriped suit, and he tried to smite it, and it failed, he proclaimed loudly that some evil magic must be afoot protecting the vile evil doer from his wrath. This was all OK though, as it was a silly, not really serious game, where one of our NPC companions was a crotchety spice and sauce merchant (who, mechanically, was an Alchemist).
The game died, sadly, as many players had to drop out due to work and other issues, but it was silly fun while it lasted.

GrayGriffin
2016-01-22, 06:29 PM
Coriander Bliss, the only daughter of the Bliss family, and heir to the Bliss Family Bakery. She started out as a very cheerful, friendly girl, always eager to share her bakery's magical food with her companions and try to patch up arguments between them. All of her moves were support-based, and she was even willing to try and save their enemies.

That lasted until one of our player characters got killed and had his body possessed by Arceus. That player's replacement character came in, tried to threaten her into revealing their secrets, and ended up calling her "mom" by mistake apparently. Even after he tried to pass it off as a joke, she started pretty much treating him like her son. He also had very low defenses, so she ended up being very protective of him. And pretty much ended up being ready to rip apart anyone and anything who threatened him. Her love interest also nearly died in that session, so that probably contributed to her developing violent side as well. She became significantly more willing to fight, and even started picking up some offensive moves. She's also started swearing.

And later on, it was revealed that our dead party member was being possessed by Missingno, not Arceus, after all. This heavily shattered her ability to trust, and although as of now it really hasn't shown up, she's probably going to end up with severe trust issues after all this is over. And much more of an itchy trigger finger.

Ralanr
2016-01-23, 05:20 PM
A lot of my characters actually develop personality traits that I never planned for. A barbarian of mine actually started to screw around with one of his employers (he's not normally the trollish type) as a form of entertainment (which I guess was needed when you live in pseudo hell for three years).

Sometimes I find it easier to just let them develop as the story progresses, which sucks when I have to describe the personality to a DM before the campaign starts.

cucchulainnn
2016-01-23, 08:46 PM
that's the story for almost every character i've ever played. which is why at this point i've given up on playing in games where the DM requires a back story. i have have several characters that i was very dissatisfied with and though where gonna suck but ended up being favorites.

the last two games i played in. one was a AD&D game where i played a half elf M/T. he had some really bad rolls. high intelligence but really low wisdom and a few other lows stats, plus really low starting money. i could only afford thieves tools and a tunic. not even sandals. i rolled for my starting spells and while i don't remember what they where it was nothing useful. i was not looking forward to playing this character and intended to suicide, not overtly but by playing carelessly. by the end of the first adventure he ended up with a sock fetish. our first adventure was in sewer and i spend the enter time complaining about walking in dirty water and stuff squishing between my toes. the parties single class magic used died and i got his book. plus some scrolls. by the end of this adventure i had i think 7-8 useful spells. his personality manifested itself as a conman that believed what the cons. think kind of like murdoc from the a team. he also started a cult based on a magic trout that spoke to him. that is not entire true. he started preaching like a mega church preacher to get the party of trouble in a village and was then contacted by the deity via a trout. i'm in negotiations with my dm to multi class into cleric or possibly illusionist.

my other character was in a call of cthulhu game. the game is set during the 1960-70's and our group is a band. before long my character developed into meatloaf but with out talent and not knowing this. he is stupid forget full and very vain and obese.

i have no idea what the personality of any of my characters are going to be like until i play them. in fact i often don't even know that alignment the character will have until played.

Sajiri
2016-01-23, 09:46 PM
I have plenty of situations like that. For our main campaign, my character has become known for her moodswings and short temper, not something I planned. It's become a bit of an ongoing joke where NPCs are often on edge about setting her off, and the DM likes springing situations on me where we both know she's going to get mad (then sends me a youtube link of some anime character blowing up in anger).

In a side campaign where I play an android woman with a human ghost, the intention was to have her be a bit morally grey, a badass, etc, but somehow she ended up being childlike and naive, and a bit of a scaredy cat. Still looks at things in black and white/good vs bad, and always tries to take the good side. Basically pretty much everything about her personality ended up the opposite of what I originally intended.

Winter_Wolf
2016-01-23, 10:07 PM
I'm disappointed if my characters don't develop an unplanned personality trait or quirks. I feel like it's necessary for me to be really vested in the character. Lacking that unforeseen growth makes characters feel kind of flat for me. Flat characters tend to die faster; after all, it's not like I really care if they live or die. I really like when a throwaway npc suddenly develops an unexpected quirk.

The Bandicoot
2016-01-24, 02:57 AM
I had a human fighter that was originally going to be a bit cliche, big gruff guy with a past he was running from. First session a lucky crit ended his life and the party druid reincarnated him. The race roll came up as kobold.....right as we were going to enter a dwarf city for an extended stay. Long story short he survived by acting like an indentured servant/prisoner of war and by the time the party left the city he acted a lot more twitchy and cowardly, a side effect of having to dodge dwarvish boots trying to stomp on his tail constantly.