Too many character ideas at once!

[genderlich]

My campaign that I'm running is coming to a close soon, so our group's regular DM is going to step back behind the screen. I've been looking forward to this new campaign for a while because it's in our homebrew setting which had its history partially determined by our actions in two past campaigns. Since I've had so much time to think about it, I have three really well-developed character concepts in my head and I don't know which one to use. I often imagine characters just for fun that I know I'll never use, but I never make them as detailed as I have this time. I know specifics of their builds and even their names. (This is all Pathfinder, by the way.)

- A human wizard in his mid-60s. Hails from an isolated desert; he is traveling the world studying the other civilizations and races. Very much a scholar who loves knowledge, but is secretly planning on bringing his discoveries back to help his people conquer more land since they've run out of water.

- A gnoll fighter/rogue or ranger/rogue. When he was a young boy, his tribe was wiped out and he was captured and sold into slavery. He escaped several years ago and has had to survive on his own in a world that is hostile to his very existence. Gnolls in this setting are more like protectors of nature and are usually Chaotic Good.

- A human godless "cause" cleric or an oracle. A war 300 years ago (at the end of a previous campaign) resulted in the destruction of the human empire; humans now are second-class citizens in the land they once ruled. This character wants to return humanity to their rightful and glorious place.

I'm probably going to start with the first one, since it was what I thought of first and I've already made a pretty great character portrait. But I'm worried that I'm going to be tempted to kill him off purposefully to get to the others. I'll use them in future campaigns, but the group is dissolving at the end of next summer when I and one other player move away for college, and I don't know how many campaigns there will be before then.

So, what do you all think? Do you have problems with having too many character concepts at one time? How do you deal with it?

[Yora]

I think always the best thing to do is to get together with the other players and come up with a shared origin for the party. Something that has brought them together and provides a common goal other than being in a tavern on a day someone is looking for mercenaries.

[Jay R]

So, what do you all think? Do you have problems with having too many character concepts at one time? How do you deal with it?

They say that you should never fall in love with a house or a car until after you have bought it, because you may have to walk away from the deal.

Similarly, I recommend that you never fall in love with a character design until you actually get that character into a game.

[Grod_The_Giant]

See what other people in the group want to play and make a decision based on that?

[DigoDragon]

I always have this problem of "too many character ideas" since I'm usually the DM/GM for my group. In fact, having it now because my D&D campaign is coming to it's final confrontation and conclusion soon and then our secondary GM wants to run us on Shadowrun 4e.

I have yet to be a PC in Shadowrun 4e.

Generally my pattern of picking a character goes like this:

1. I come up with 2-3 good character concepts.
2. I see what the other players decide to build for their characters.
3. I pick one concept that requires the least modification to make it work well as a team with the rest of the party, offering a good skillset to compliment what the other players have.
4. I get kicked in the face when the GM edits the game world as we're playing so my concept gets largely ignored/copied by an NPC who does it better. Then the other players turn out to not be team players and eventually sell me out for their own agenda.
5. Despite the above, I hold on to the few nuggets of fun I had as a player.

Happens every time.

[Torvon]

My characters usually have 10 - 15 pages background. After you had an idea in your head for such a long time, and wrote down details and background in detail, you'll not want to kill him off. He's more than just an idea that can be summed up in 3 sentences now.