PDA

View Full Version : Selfish Spotlight Stealer?



Neon Knight
2007-08-10, 12:11 AM
I was recently brainstorming, attempting to come up with some interesting character concepts. Something that went beyond the simple "Bob was a fighter, his father was a fighter, and his great grandfather was a fighter, and he's gonna be the best fighter in the whole wide world!"

I came up with two ideas.

First Concept

The first one involved a musical prodigy. The parents were a pair of traveling musicians who owned their own fair, moving from city to city performing to earn their living. Their daughter turned out to possess talent as a violinist, and as such they took some of their hard earned cash and got a little violin for her to play.

On one go between two cities, as the fair slogged through the swamp, the child wandered off into the swamp. Although they searched long and hard, she was not found. The proud parents despaired.

What happened was that the girl had plopped down on a tree stump and began to play. The sound attracted a nearby hag. Soul entranced by the music, the hag enspelled the girl and forced her to come live in her cottage and play music for her. Years passed with the girl sitting glassy eyed on a stool, playing endlessly for the hag.

The way the first concept would work was that the party I joined would find and slay the hag and thus free the character, who would come out of her enchantment horrifically confused. She had basically gone to sleep a 12 year old girl and woke up an 18 year old young woman. Please note that this does not mean she has the mind of a child.

As you can guess, the first concept would be a straight bard. Nothing complicated crunchwise.

The main objective or point behind the first concept would be, of course, to find her family. In the meantime, she could follow the intrepid adventurers and try to get used to her new life.

Second Concept

The second involved an ancient hobgoblin. Once he was great and feared. In his youth, he had been a commander and had lead his tribesmen to victory after bloody victory. He was famous for executing anyone who surrendered to him in battle by burning them at the stake. How many times had he sat before a shrieking flame enshrouded figure and laughed at the pain he caused! The fire, of course, was the means to an end. The old hobgoblin was a sadist at heart, enjoying the rendering of harm upon others.

The old soldier had finally reached the age were he could not contribute to the clan anymore; as is expected among hobgoblins, he choose to end his life in a way that would benefit the clan. He allowed himself to be a sacrifice for the adepts, the dark cultists of the tribe. Unfortunately, the adepts made a grave error in their ritual. Intending to open a communion with the Nine Hells, they accidentally opened a gate to the plane of fire. A burning dijinn lord stepped through. The creature, delighting in mayhem in chaos spread havoc before seizing the old hobgoblin and dragging him back into the plane.

As the adepts stood, singed on the material plane, the dijinn lord used his magic to reshape and reforge the old hobgoblin. As fire seared him and flames ate him, the dijinn used his magic to alter the hobgoblin. The ancient warrior emerged from the portal vastly changed. His youth had been restored, but that was not the only alteration the dijinn lord had performed. His skin was a ruddy red, his formerly gray hair black like charred wood, his eyes burning like fire. He had become a fire hobgoblin.

In addition to profound physical alterations, he had also had a massive change in personality. Where before he had been devoted to his clan and willing to do anything to further its glory, he now felt no such desire. He felt aimless and troubled, no longer devoted to the clan and no longer enjoying the infliction of pain upon others. (Alignment change from LE to CN.)

Unsure of what to do, the hobgoblins stuck to code; they made him stand watch that evening. As night fell, the sentries were given torches. When the old warrior forged anew received his, something happened. His eyes light up as he watched the dancing flames, as they had in the old days when his enemies screamed for mercy.

He set flame to the barracks, just to watch the fire get bigger, just to watch it burn. He laughed and he laughed as his tribesmen rushed about trying to put out the fire. For the first time in his life, he felt truly alive. His spirit soared with the rising flame. Taking his leave of the clan, he went abroad as a flame wielding mercenary.

The second concept would take levels of Fighter with the Wild talent Feat, eventually heading into Pyrokineticist and destroying things with fire.

The main point of the second concept is twofold: Is the alignment change forced or real? Does the hobgoblin, finally experiencing the burning pain of his victims, truly repent for his horrid life? Or is this change forced upon him by the dijinn? He'd also try to philosophize about fire and its meaning, which could be fun.

That was a long explanation of the concepts, but it was necessary, for I need to ask this question:

Do these concepts hog the spotlight too much?

You see, I submitted both to games on a PbP board I frequent, and both came back with a big REJECTED! sticker on them. The reason? Both Dms said that the concept was too far out, too implausible, and that it stole the spotlight. They feared that if I played these characters in their games, they would end up hogging all the screen time and none of the other PCs would get to do anything.

I kinda liked both of these concepts, and was wondering if this was true? are they really so overbearing as to be unplayable? Is there some way I could cut back on them?

Damionte
2007-08-10, 12:13 AM
Charcater concepts don't usualyl hog spot lights. The way individual players act will hog the spot light.

I could play the most uninteresting lack of back ground character ever designed and steal the spot light with them.

Ekeralos
2007-08-10, 12:17 AM
True, if my players came up with a backstory like one of these, I would be truly impressed. I'm guessing the first story (with the bard girl) would involve a more passive personality but both seem like sound and interesting concepts.:smallamused: I don't think either of these will "hog" the spotlight. Like Damionte said, it's the player not the character that leads to "spot-light hogging"

Quietus
2007-08-10, 01:48 AM
You just need to find a better PbP game. Those are both fantastic backstories!

de-trick
2007-08-10, 01:59 AM
I like both the storylines

Story lines make the adventure who they are and if they are better than bob the fighter it should make bob the fighter have a better story line next time

Tallis
2007-08-10, 02:09 AM
Yeah, I'm not seeing any problem with either of those. Unless every other description the DM got was unimaginative and uninteresting there should be no problem. These are interesting descriptions, not overbearing ones. If the DM thinks they'll hog the spotlight I can only assume that the DM lacks the imagination to make the rest of the game interesting.

Lucky
2007-08-10, 02:15 AM
I have no problem with the first one, but with her goal as finding her family and not a simple adventuring goal, some might turn it down, and I can see that. They might consider it distracting.

As for second, let's be completely honest here. The guys just loves to burn things! The final act in your story is him setting a camp ablaze just for the hell of it! I can see that being very spotlight hogging. How will the PCs feel when they have to sleep outside again because you burned a tavern down because you like the look of fire? I'm not saying you would do it, but your back story certainly points in that direction.

Foolosophy
2007-08-10, 04:19 AM
he's no fighter, he's fightest

nerulean
2007-08-10, 06:13 AM
It depends what sort of game you're applying to. My favourite type of PbP game focusses on ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and if I was going to run a game on that ethos then the second, and probably the first too, would be far too 'special snowflake' for what I'd be looking for.

Both of them have extraordinary, wondrous happenings in their pasts that mark them out as more special than everyone else. People who've played a lot of PbP games on boards where the average age of posters is relatively low would probably mark these concepts out as Mary-Sues and not want to take the risk of the sort of irritation such a Sue can bring to a game.

Yes, a mature player can easily play a character like this without bringing up the traumatic backstory at every given opportunity and expecting everyone else to offer sympathy or shock and awe, but some DMs just won't take the chance if they don't know you as a player beforehand.

Kizara
2007-08-10, 06:14 AM
Both make too many assumptions, but the first is fairly reasonable.

If she was entranced the entire time, did not learn or develop at all, there is exactly zero reason she would not have the exact same mentallity and 'mind' as a child she still is mentally.

As for the second, its way too out there for most games. I mean, you could come up with zannier stuff, but you are making serious alterations to a race, somehow allowing the age-timer to be turned back (basically impossible in DnD), and making a character way too destructive and overbearing to be suitable in most games.

Also, I'm pretty sure fire lords are effreti and air lords are djinni.

Overlard
2007-08-10, 06:23 AM
As said above, the first one is fine, but the second causes problems.

If your character is obsessed with fire to the extent that he burns down campsites just to watch, then there would have to be a very good reason for the other party members to put up with you when they can't trust you not to set fire to the building they're in as they sleep.

Spotlight-hogging-wise, the second one's still a problem. Going off to find things to burn, burning them and dealing with the repercussions of that will take up a lot of game time, and chances are you'll be doing all of that on your own.

Kaelaroth
2007-08-10, 06:38 AM
I think they are both quite wacky. As a DnDer it would worry me that you had the potential to Spotlight-Steal. For all I know you won't, but there is still a possibility you'll knock my little gnome ranger off the stage with one fell deep-immersion story.
I actually quite like the second one - it's the kind of thing I occasionally dabble in, though I can see roleplaying difficulties. As for the first, I would hold it under till the bubbles stopped coming up.

factotum
2007-08-10, 07:40 AM
somehow allowing the age-timer to be turned back (basically impossible in DnD)

You've never read the spell description for Reincarnation, then? :smallwink:

Citizen Joe
2007-08-10, 08:38 AM
Fundamentally, you have to be accepted by the party. If you were one of the initial group, typically there is some jockeying around to find your niche in the group. Rarely, you make a starting character that is so incompatible that you can't find a niche in a starting group, because nobody has a leg up on the 'trusted party member' status yet. However, those characters you suggested implied that the party needs to find and accept them. In the bard's case, she'd likely get turned in for a reward. In the case of the hobgoblin, I can't imagine any sane group of adventurers wanting a pyro with no redeeming features.

Neon Knight
2007-08-10, 10:30 AM
I should clarify something: The burns down a building thing was not meant to be a major character trait. It was meant to fulfill one of the requirements of the Pyrokineticist class.

I wasn't planning on being a chaotic stupid burn everything type guy. He's supposed to be much more zen about fire. The initial pyro thing was a bit of metagame to get into the class. The size of the fire does not matter to him; a candle thrills him as much as a bonfire. In actual play he'd mainly burn enemies, twigs, and incense.


If she was entranced the entire time, did not learn or develop at all, there is exactly zero reason she would not have the exact same mentallity and 'mind' as a child she still is mentally.

A wizard hag did it. Seriously, if this was the issue they'd raised, I would have upped her age to 16 or 18 or whatever was more reasonable.


somehow allowing the age-timer to be turned back

A wizard dijinni efreeti did it. I sort of imagined the reforging process being melting his flesh off and replacing it with some magicked into place fire flesh type stuff. Like melting down a old sword and turning it into a new sword, only with people. Hobgoblins. Whatever.


Also, I'm pretty sure fire lords are effreti and air lords are djinni.

I did, however, mix up efreeti and dijinni. D'oh!


I have no problem with the first one, but with her goal as finding her family and not a simple adventuring goal, some might turn it down, and I can see that. They might consider it distracting.

I'd considered this. The idea was that not only would the family turn out to be near impossible to find, but that bard girl would want to stick with the group because

a) Gratitude.

B) She needs help, both in adapting to her situation and in finding her family. The group is the first nice people she's met. Surely they can help her.


It depends what sort of game you're applying to. My favourite type of PbP game focusses on ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and if I was going to run a game on that ethos then the second, and probably the first too, would be far too 'special snowflake' for what I'd be looking for.

The games I submitted to were of the high fantasy type. No commoner type campaigns were they.