Worst player character concepts

[Redhood101]

I want a list of the worst characters you have encountered while either running games or playing in them. I know I had a a player who decided that his character would have no backstory and his only action would be to gather let’s and romance every npc. It is really hard to give quests when he interrupts every other word to try and roll seduction. He also got mad because they fought a displaced beast and once he ,earned it looked like a cat he would only let it and would yell at the other players for you know. Fighting the monster.
Anyone else have weird stories?

[Quertus]

I want a list of the worst characters you have encountered while either running games or playing in them. I know I had a a player who decided that his character would have no backstory and his only action would be to gather let’s and romance every npc. It is really hard to give quests when he interrupts every other word to try and roll seduction. He also got mad because they fought a displaced beast and once he ,earned it looked like a cat he would only let it and would yell at the other players for you know. Fighting the monster.
Anyone else have weird stories?

What does "let" mean in this content?

I'm trying to decide how to draw the line here between "weird concept", "weird character", and "weird/disruptive player".

I mean, I once ran a sentient potted plant, so that's kinda weird by most standards...

[mucat]

I mean, I once ran a sentient potted plant, so that's kinda weird by most standards...

Oh no, not again.

[Quertus]

Oh no, not again.

C'mon, it's the right for us senile old people to ramble, and tell the same stories over and over again.

Something about an onion, because that was the fashion at the time...

[Kid Jake]

I had a girl sit in on a Mutants and Masterminds game once who was dragged there by a friend. She told me that her character was named Loser Face because she has such a loser face.

Joke's on her though because I still made her a contributing member of the party by building her a character that radiated an aura of depression that disabled anyone that looked directly at her.

[Kazuel]

Anyone who uses Chaotic Nuetral to try and bypass the “”No Evil Characters” stipulation

[SilverClawShift]

Anyone who uses an evil character as an excuse to turn your campaign into a roleplaying version of GTA instead of exploring what motivates their evil character to be a part of the story.

[ElFi]

I had a girl sit in on a Mutants and Masterminds game once who was dragged there by a friend. She told me that her character was named Loser Face because she has such a loser face.

Joke's on her though because I still made her a contributing member of the party by building her a character that radiated an aura of depression that disabled anyone that looked directly at her.

RIP Loser Face, you were gone too soon.

I have a whole laundry list of terrible concepts from the players at my table, most of which never made it to actual play. Might as well list them in no particular order.

- A vigilante who derives his superhuman speed from his half-alien heritage, in a setting where aliens aren't even rumored to exist. (Mutants and Masterminds)
- A sociopathic alchemist who was planned to spend downtime kidnapping random townsfolk and experimenting on them with poisons and torture techniques. Was later retconned (in an attempt to move the character from Chaotic Evil up to Chaotic "Neutral") to have a "motive" for doing so in the form of wanting to eventually translate these techniques into military use, even though the country the campaign took place in had no standing military to speak of. (Pathfinder)
- An amnesiac whose "superpower" was a mechanical knee stuffed to the brim with blades and other weapons. Originally inspired by the Bronze Kneecap of Fairly Oddparents fame. (M&M)
- A mood-swinging hobo with plant-controlling powers, who had a certain affection for his feminine-looking plant pets that's best avoided discussing here, and a constantly-shifting backstory involving an abusive mother and multiple car crashes which ranged from "wildly inconsistent in tone" to "completely nonsensical". (M&M)
- A barbarian with draconic blood that granted him an extremely powerful breath weapon, whose player non-hyperbolically described it as "super OP but only useable a certain amount of times per day". (PF)
- A "sloth god", that is to say, a deity who was cast out by his fellow gods and banished to the mortal realm... in the form of a sentient sloth. Who was also inexplicably a wizard with spellcasting, and apparently traveled around on the back of his yeti friend spreading good throughout the land, or something. (PF)

One of these characters made it to actual play, and at least three were fully kitted out with character sheets before the GM of that particular campaign (usually me) put the kibosh on them. No, I don't know what I was thinking letting it get that far at the time.

[Kid Jake]

Speaking of OP, I had a player in my tragically cut short Shadowrun campaign that wanted his minor, free contact to be capable of arranging a complete media blackout on the kidnapping of a celebrity (with numerous casualties) AND have him released from police custody with no questions asked. He couldn't understand or accept why that was ridiculous to expect fresh out of character creation.

One of the other PCs was a wolf shaman that despite being a native of Seattle didn't know what a 'phone' or 'car' was.

It was the only time I ever used Roll20's LFG feature and bummed me out because I really had a lot planned for that plot line and I ended up just shuffling through it to see it finished.

[Quertus]

- A vigilante who derives his superhuman speed from his half-alien heritage, in a setting where aliens aren't even rumored to exist. (Mutants and Masterminds)

I mean, if you're gonna run a secret alien invasion, "aren't even rumored to exist" is the correct world to do it in.

[awa]

i played in a game where another player had a wildly sub-optimal character, his mechanics were fine but he deliberately ran ahead of the rogue making noise when he tried to sneak and was a pacifist for instance attempting to prevent players from killing rust monsters and kytons (book of vile darkness version). He also acted incredibly recklessly thus forcing the party to blow all their healing items on him. He just seemed to take what ever action was possible to make our job harder.

[Arbane]

i played in a game where another player had a wildly sub-optimal character, his mechanics were fine but he deliberately ran ahead of the rogue making noise when he tried to sneak and was a pacifist for instance attempting to prevent players from killing rust monsters and kytons (book of vile darkness version). He also acted incredibly recklessly thus forcing the party to blow all their healing items on him. He just seemed to take what ever action was possible to make our job harder.

That's not a worst PC concept, that's a worst PLAYER concept. Some people are just griefers.

[awa]

none of it felt out of character a kind of dumb good Natured farm boy, he had other characters that did different stuff that the other players found funny. I was unfourtanetly the odd man out in that group.

[PastorofMuppets]

I played the Black Spiral Dancer (werewolf 20th ed) version of Doctor Krieger. I’m the reason that storyteller has banned understanding the powers to make spirits into things and the Craft skills from being on the same character.

It was a fun game and I think we only got away with much of what we did because of the story concept; too many ppl wanted to play so we did a small Team Awesomeness (antagonists) one week and had Team Losers(protagonists) the other. We helped build up the challenges for the good wolves to run into and helped the ST a lot by creating the good guys’ game.

My doctor Krieger helped make so many wonderful things, hand grenades with legs and tick spirits in them to be perimeter guards, Fomorians (living thing possessed by evil spirit) guards to supplement the various warring street gangs out of their dogs and some gang members. We got worried about the good people coming from the ocean to flank our dockside warehouse so I made Fomorian (basically demonic) sharks to patrol the beaches.

Never got farther than a spider mine equivalent in robotics work although I did inspire a mage to try to kill the moon.

[Marywn]

This may not be a weird character concept, But I once spent an entire 30 minutes of a session eating a refridgated, rock hard loft of bread, also there was an egg taped to the top of the fridge because the team ate alot of eggs and someone wanted to hide it.

[Max_Killjoy]

HERO system / Champions -- superhero campaign.

Pickup game in university classrooms during weekly RPG club night.

So mixed company, not all close friends (group included a 17-year-old girl).

One player, exactly the player you'd expect from bad gamer stereotypes, showed up to session zero with "Hentai Man".

Yeah.

[Concrete]

A barbarian that changed into a raging psychotic when enraged. In a campaign where the PC's were a City Guard Taskforce. And when questioned, the player just said "But that's just what the character is like. She can't help it!"

[PastorofMuppets]

Not sure if this counts since it was not used, GM said no to the idea quickly. An awakened Squirrel, Mr. Crackers, our for revenge. He was the familiar of a wonderful young wizard that got into trouble his party couldn’t handle and was left to die in a Kobold filled old copper mine. Mr. Crackers tried to help his master but was too weak to save him and despite that the kind master’s final order was not to sacrifice himself but to escape and survive.

He escaped the mines solely by being small enough to crawl through the rubble left in place after the kobolds collapsed the exits, though he was badly injured. He found a friendly Druid that took pity on him and after patching him up and hearing his story chose to Awaken Crackers the Squirrel and help him recover the wizard’s body for a proper burial.

Even with his kind friend saved from Kobold stews and the responsible kobolds slain, Mr. Crackers felt hollow. Seeing the kobolds die felt good for a time but it faded and he realized it was because not everyone responsible was gone. Mr. Crackers knew he needed to complete his revenge, to hunt down and finish off those terrible people that claimed to be his master’s friends but abandoned him to die alone in the darkness.

[Kardwill]

- A sociopathic alchemist who was planned to spend downtime kidnapping random townsfolk and experimenting on them with poisons and torture techniques. Was later retconned (in an attempt to move the character from Chaotic Evil up to Chaotic "Neutral") to have a "motive" for doing so in the form of wanting to eventually translate these techniques into military use, even though the country the campaign took place in had no standing military to speak of. (Pathfinder)

I had the same guy in a Mass Effect game, a military scientist doing dubious experiments that lost his lab and got reaffected as shipboard medic. Of course, as soon as a prisoner was on board he immediately turned into a sadistic torture master because it was THAT KIND of player.

Healthiest cruiser crew in the whole navy. Even after a firefight or during a plague, nobody ever asked for medical treatment when he was on the clock (which was pretty much all the time, since he did illegal experiments with bioweapons of mass destruction in the infirmary and pretty much slept there)

Some players mysteriously become deaf when the GM says "today, we're playing good guys", I think.

[Kardwill]

A barbarian that changed into a raging psychotic when enraged. In a campaign where the PC's were a City Guard Taskforce. And when questioned, the player just said "But that's just what the character is like. She can't help it!"

Yeah, nowadays, hearing a player say "But it's just what my character would do" will get me in "paranoïd" mode. Most of the times, it's just used as an excuse to be a douchebag and get away with it.

[hotflungwok]

Yeah, nowadays, hearing a player say "But it's just what my character would do" will get me in "paranoïd" mode. Most of the times, it's just used as an excuse to be a douchebag and get away with it.

My Guy Syndrome

[Kurald Galain]

In 4E, the "striker" character type is primarily (or only) about dealing lots of damage to your enemies. So I had this one player who was proud of having made a non-damaging striker. Wait what? So this character basically did very little, either in or out of combat.

[Zaharra]

In our evil party where we do evil things like taking things without asking and occasionally being a bit rude to others, someone joined in with a good aligned paladin of redemption murder machine. I'm playing chaotic evil and I don't hold a candle to the atrocities committed by the paladin. He once sacrificed our allies and burned down where we were staying just to get a magic shield.

[Guran]

Ok, where to start.

The hardly clothed female lesbian barbarian: Now I don't have anything against people playing a character of the opposite gender. I have done this on many occassions. In my very first campaign ever, someone planted a big red flag though when it comes to female barbarians whose biggest defining features were her breast size and desire to sexually assault fellow party members. It was in one of the first sessions that this barbarian got into an argument with the bard, decided this was pretty ... stimulating and started groping said bard. The bard retalliated with violence and appearently this only increased the barbarians ... Ok, I am stopping this part right here.

The Lone wolf: Some characters are just so awesome, they don't need a party. They just do epic things like: hanging around bars, (accidently) spouting information to random NPC's that could get the party in trouble and eventually they get little done. Someone I've played with for some years always made either these types of characters or chosen one characters. This player also excelled into making his lone wolf character(s) in such a way that their backgrounds and motivations did not fall in line with the points and themes we agreed on in our session zero. For example: we played a star wars campaign. The plan was that we would be doing our own outlawish things for the first part of the campaign and would roll into the rebel alliance for the next arc. We all agreed on this. But when the time came to join up with the rebels he was like: No, never planned on actually doing that.

A trend I noticed with this player and characters from other players that fall into this category, is that they are mostly at the table for their own enjoyment. At the expanse of anyone else in the group. They don't share information or loot. Expect to be helped when in trouble, while hardly ever helping their fellow characters out.

The embodiment of rage and selfdestruction: In one of the campaigns i ran as a DM, there was this character that had basically one trait: He was angry. All the time. He attacked everything. All the time. And no, he wasn't playing a barbarian. He was a wild magic sorcerer. Eventually this character died when the party was captured by an aztec-like lizardfolk tribe. He managed to hide his implement. He teleported out of his cage, murdered the high priest of the tribe and was left alone against all the tribal warriors. All this while the rest of the party were trying to negotiate with their captors.

The joker: Some people just want to see the world burn. I've often seen this played by players who do not really want to be there or are looking for an entirely different kind of game. These characters make the worst decisions on purpose, clown around with childish humor and do everything in their power to not contribute to the roleplaying going on in the group. That is if they even bother to show up.

The cold blooded psychopath: A few year back I ran an open campaign in a local pub. It was a mercenary setup and every week I presented a different mission. Unlike the home campaigns I ran, these didn't have all that much depth and were very light hearted. It was more an introduction to D&D for new players. One evening this new guy sits down. Says he played D&D a long time ago. The session starts, the party is investigating dissapearances in an orphanage. New guy enters one of the play rooms, sees three kids and simply says: "I use my magic to burn them to crisps."
Now I already don't like chaotic stupid people who blatantly murder everything. But we were playing in a public area with a very good reputation we could use for free. Which is why I always state that evil characters are not allowed there. When I reminded him of that he actually argued that it was not evil, because his character hates children. He always played this way and it had never been a problem before.

I guess that's enough for now.

[Pex]

The PC who doesn't want to adventure, resenting everything he has to do for the plot.

Played with one a long time ago. Annoying as $@#!

[Kardwill]

The PC who doesn't want to adventure, resenting everything he has to do for the plot.

Played with one a long time ago. Annoying as $@#!

"GM : The prince wants you to go to a diplomatic mission in India. Where are your characters when they get the message?"
P1 : "I'm at our homebase's forge, working on my new blade"
P2 : "I"m at the dance club, socializing with other vampires from the court"
Me : "I'm in hiding, so I don't get the message. What? It's what my paranoïd asocial survivalist ninja character would do?"

Yeah, I was a "my guy" guy, especially when it meant I would miss the entire game and be miserable to be "true" to my character. I wonder why my Vampire GM was pissed at me?

[Tanarii]

C'mon, it's the right for us senile old people to ramble, and tell the same stories over and over again.

You played a potted plant and that Hitchhikers reference didnt come up during play? hahaha

[paddyfool]

... and now I realise that I too have been a tad guilty of being a "my guy" guy in the past.

[Max_Killjoy]

My handful of those moments came less because of "my guy" and more because I thought the rest of the PCs were doing something monumentally stupid.

[weet555]

I have run a few campaigns that practically beg for a 'worst' character to show up.

There was the m&m campaign were the PCs worked for the Nazis. (I don't remember how I was talked into it) Now the campaign grew to a sort of comedy, with the NPcs being straight men.

The PCs were a slasher movie villain only working for the Nazis because of magic seals and a number of priest.
A German scientist that turned into a Warhammer 40k dreadnought. Then finally Gaskammer the evil eldritch horror that modeld himself of the ideal nazi (think spring time of Hitler) and use gas based powers.

Needless to say that campaign ended with the PCs trying to (and succeeding at) killing each other.

Also on the list of campaigns begging for trouble was the 3.5e d&d tristalt overpowered. One of the players shows up with a warhalk/mythos/demi god class, goliath called wolfgare kordson Lord of battle who turned a horror module into a one punch man episode.

The other memorable PC from that campaign that I would never let in any remotely reasonable campaign was leo, a monster catcher/dragon rider/knight (?) that got drunk in the first inn and absorbed a chaos beast. He then spent the following sessions as an alcoholic eldritch horror.

Ok I have two more worked in the campaign they are from but shouldn't work anywhere else before I get into the real bad ones. So I convince the player of wolfgare kordson Lord of battle to run a solo overpowered session for me. I come with a concept/build that sets off all the red flags. An edgelord, failen paladin, bone knight, with infinite turn undead, divine meta magic, a lonewolf and is the opposite gender to me.

All things considered Shaira came out as a reasonably well fleshed out character all things consider. Anyway for some reason the GM brings in another player, they are told make a character that with not kill a death knight on sight. Enter the stoner, one of the greatest elven warriors (tristalt with full druid progression) but corrupted by the devil's lettuce (weed). That is the original of my favourite campaigns.

On really bad character ever in their own campaigns: we have a mental patient reality warper that for some reason doesn't believe in superheros in a world were they are well know (m&m). I have no idea how I let that in.

To add to the list of players not hearing "no evil" we have a knock off xenomorph queen trying to spend there children and eating homeless. When they are meant to be super heroes. Needless to say I put a stop to that.