Zaq
2017-03-29, 01:13 PM
I'm thinking about making a character who's not quite all there. There's a big extended joke about their personality that may or may not be entirely necessary to get into here, but they're going to be very, shall we say, flexible with how they view their relationship to the rest of the world. I'll probably be reasonably stable with the other PCs just so as to avoid group disharmony, but when it comes to enemies and similar folks, things will get a little slippery. I'll put some details in a spoiler, if you care.
I'm basically trying to spin an extended Phoenix Wright (OBJECTION!) joke into something a little more solid than a one-note gag, but this character is going to kind of view themselves as a one-person courtroom. Not necessarily "judge, jury, and executioner" so much as "prosecutor, defense, and bailiff." Depending on exactly what kinds of effects he's throwing around, he'd refer to his enemies as witnesses, clients, opposing attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, and so on, possibly even within the same round. Whatever makes for the appropriate gag at the moment, basically. He might focus attention on an enemy by "calling them to the stand" as a witness, but if they then attack one of his friends, he might berate them for badgering the witness, acting as though the same enemy were a wayward attorney. But if he then interrupts them from attacking his friends and redirects the attack elsewhere, he'll act like this same enemy is actually an unjustly accused defendant, and he's demonstrating their alibi on the spot by showing that they couldn't possibly have attacked his friend (who is now "the victim"). It'll be goofy, but my group likes that sort of thing. I'm thinking he'd have a familiar whom he views as either a client who's been framed for something terrible, or the ghost of a murdered victim, or the judge to whom he is making his case, or whatever else seems funny at the time. And yes, I'm not picking one of those things—the story would change more or less randomly, with the goal being comedy. The point is to take an idea that started as a single gag and then make it interesting for more than one or two encounters.
Also, full disclosure, this is for a 4e game (it's far easier to do interrupts and OBJECTION!s in 4e, after all), but since I'm looking for roleplaying and character ideas, the edition isn't actually important, and this forum is much livelier than the 4e one.
Anyway, one way in which I want to convey the fact that this character isn't all there is by making them a conspiracy theorist. This is going to be for a relatively generic setting (not specifically FR or Eberron or anything), for what that's worth. But I'd like your help thinking of what kinds of totally cuckoo conspiracy theories a character living in the D&D universe would come up with. I mean, we're talking about a universe in which magic is real, creatures like dragons and rakshasas and liches really can have ridiculously long-term plots (that might actually amount to something!), and there's enough going on that it's actually kind of hard to come up with something that's so far out there as to be an obvious sign of my character being a whackjob but that isn't so far out there that it just sounds stupid. (The essence of this kind of comedy is going just exactly far enough, after all; not enough and there's no kick, but too far and the humor is replaced with confusion.)
So, help me out. What kinds of goofy conspiracy theories might someone in a D&D fantasy world believe? Ideally I'd like them to be zippy enough that I can drop an offhanded reference to them without hogging the spotlight but meaty enough that I can spin them out if the moment is right. Silly enough to be obviously wrong but weird enough that the average Joe won't have direct physical proof to the contrary in their pocket.
I have some half-baked ideas to start, but I'm not really thrilled with any of them, so I'll wait for a little bit before posting them. I'm much more interested in hearing what you come up with than in discussing the bad stuff I came up with, at least to start. Still, the whole point of this is to be silly, so go ahead and lay it on me. Thanks for the help!
I'm basically trying to spin an extended Phoenix Wright (OBJECTION!) joke into something a little more solid than a one-note gag, but this character is going to kind of view themselves as a one-person courtroom. Not necessarily "judge, jury, and executioner" so much as "prosecutor, defense, and bailiff." Depending on exactly what kinds of effects he's throwing around, he'd refer to his enemies as witnesses, clients, opposing attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, and so on, possibly even within the same round. Whatever makes for the appropriate gag at the moment, basically. He might focus attention on an enemy by "calling them to the stand" as a witness, but if they then attack one of his friends, he might berate them for badgering the witness, acting as though the same enemy were a wayward attorney. But if he then interrupts them from attacking his friends and redirects the attack elsewhere, he'll act like this same enemy is actually an unjustly accused defendant, and he's demonstrating their alibi on the spot by showing that they couldn't possibly have attacked his friend (who is now "the victim"). It'll be goofy, but my group likes that sort of thing. I'm thinking he'd have a familiar whom he views as either a client who's been framed for something terrible, or the ghost of a murdered victim, or the judge to whom he is making his case, or whatever else seems funny at the time. And yes, I'm not picking one of those things—the story would change more or less randomly, with the goal being comedy. The point is to take an idea that started as a single gag and then make it interesting for more than one or two encounters.
Also, full disclosure, this is for a 4e game (it's far easier to do interrupts and OBJECTION!s in 4e, after all), but since I'm looking for roleplaying and character ideas, the edition isn't actually important, and this forum is much livelier than the 4e one.
Anyway, one way in which I want to convey the fact that this character isn't all there is by making them a conspiracy theorist. This is going to be for a relatively generic setting (not specifically FR or Eberron or anything), for what that's worth. But I'd like your help thinking of what kinds of totally cuckoo conspiracy theories a character living in the D&D universe would come up with. I mean, we're talking about a universe in which magic is real, creatures like dragons and rakshasas and liches really can have ridiculously long-term plots (that might actually amount to something!), and there's enough going on that it's actually kind of hard to come up with something that's so far out there as to be an obvious sign of my character being a whackjob but that isn't so far out there that it just sounds stupid. (The essence of this kind of comedy is going just exactly far enough, after all; not enough and there's no kick, but too far and the humor is replaced with confusion.)
So, help me out. What kinds of goofy conspiracy theories might someone in a D&D fantasy world believe? Ideally I'd like them to be zippy enough that I can drop an offhanded reference to them without hogging the spotlight but meaty enough that I can spin them out if the moment is right. Silly enough to be obviously wrong but weird enough that the average Joe won't have direct physical proof to the contrary in their pocket.
I have some half-baked ideas to start, but I'm not really thrilled with any of them, so I'll wait for a little bit before posting them. I'm much more interested in hearing what you come up with than in discussing the bad stuff I came up with, at least to start. Still, the whole point of this is to be silly, so go ahead and lay it on me. Thanks for the help!