Interesting character habits

[ZeroGear]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

The last two seem to be slightly creepy though 0-0

[ZeroGear]

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]

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]

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]

- 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.