Advice wanted - playing as the Chosen One

[Mastikator]

I'm planning on playing a character who is generally known as a hero of the people, with angelic features, supernatural powers and claims to be The Chosen One. This game is a one-shot so it's OK that it may be a bit gimmicky and one-sided.

Spoiler: the backstory of Arcadius the Chosen One

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The backstory is a bit short and sweet. A renegade astral deva (lower tier angel) mated with a human, she gave birth to a baby boy. When the baby boy came of age his father revealed the truth: that he was The Chosen One and he is prophesied to defeat evil.

He took this at face value and truly believes he is destined for greatness- that he will defeat evil. Now he walks the Earth looking for trouble, for people to save, for evil to vanquish. And he is always carrying his "petition against evil" for which he is asking people to sign.

What his angelic father did not tell him is that he's not working for the heavens but rather this is more of a "side gig", and he has fathered many children and told them the same story.

The catch is he isn't the chosen one. He does have all of the powers and telltale signs of being what he claims, but he's also an idiot.

I've come up with a few phrases that he's going to drop. Phrases designed to be slightly inspiring and/or annoying.

• We walk in the footsteps of destiny
• Our victory is foretold, my children
• (Whenever he succeeds at a difficult task) Good thing I am the Chosen One
• (When greeting someone) I am The Chosen One... oh my name is Arcadius and these are my warriors (gestures at the other PCs)
• With me as your leader victory is inevitable
• (When guessing anything correctly) As the prophesy fortold!
• Fate smiles at me today, well it smiles at me everyday.
• (when failing at any task) This must be a test!

I'm mostly looking for more phrases. Basically what would Zapp Brannigan say if he thought he was some kind of messiah?



(It's a chaotic good aasimar (protector) divine soul sorcerer from 5e, with the folk hero backstory, but I'm asking about roleplaying advice rather than any mechanical advice)

[FrogInATopHat]

Don't add any more sayings.

Just have him try to shoe-horn them into increasingly less relevant situations.

[Silly Name]

I'm mostly looking for more phrases. Basically what would Zapp Brannigan say if he thought he was some kind of messiah?

Isn't that just normal Zapp Brannigan?

Rather than specific sayings or figures of speech, I'd be inclined to figure out more of his attitude. How does he respond to people who refuse his petition? Does he think that people who oppose him directly are servants of the evil he's supposed to vanquish, or is he more cool-headed?

[Mastikator]

Don't add any more sayings.

Just have him try to shoe-horn them into increasingly less relevant situations.

That's hilarious! Good advice thanks

Isn't that just normal Zapp Brannigan?

Rather than specific sayings or figures of speech, I'd be inclined to figure out more of his attitude. How does he respond to people who refuse his petition? Does he think that people who oppose him directly are servants of the evil he's supposed to vanquish, or is he more cool-headed?

I actually have a bit prepared for the petition. If any of the players who knows orcish or goblin sees the petition they'll see that some of the rows have profanities in them. If anyone points it out to him he'll just go "wow that's an unfortunate name" because he's too stupid to insult. I figure he should be an eternal optimist and assumes that people who refuse probably have a valid reason. Anyone who attacks him though IS a servant of evil, definitely.

[MoiMagnus]

One important choice (well, not that much for a one-shot) is to determine whether he is:
(1) Truly good but absurdly naive. His moral compass is correct, but he is extremely delusional.
(2) Only good because of the prophecy, he has no real moral compass and only follows what he thinks is good (like correspond to goodness in legends) because that's why a chosen one would do, but is able to do pretty evil things to maintain his place as a chosen one, and a good reputation. So an extreme narcissistic (a gilderoy lockhart that doesn't really know that he is a fake).

In other words, if put in a situation where his vision of the world fall apart would your character
(1) Continue to act good as much as he can, while living in denial of the problems in his worldview up until falling into madness.
(2) Try at all cost to restore the situation in which everything was working "as destined", and justifying a posteriori those evil acts as part of his destiny (or fake a story and convince himself that the fake story is true)

[Clistenes]

I love it. I have always loathed the Chosen One trope... it's a lazy way to make a completely average or even unlikeable character special...

In your case, your character has the potential for greatness thanks to his powers, but believing hinself the Chosen One actually hinders him...

Whenever is possible, you should have him take the fast, heroic, glorious path to solve complex issues, ruining the efforts of relatively normal NPCs able to work hard, to use their brains, to plan for the long term and to follow these plans, to make sacrifices and to make harsh decisions... But don't take it too far... let him doubt himself after he messes up a couple times...

[Mastikator]

I love it. I have always loathed the Chosen One trope... it's a lazy way to make a completely average or even unlikeable character special...

In your case, your character has the potential for greatness thanks to his powers, but believing hinself the Chosen One actually hinders him...

Whenever is possible, you should have him take the fast, heroic, glorious path to solve complex issues, ruining the efforts of relatively normal NPCs able to work hard, to use their brains, to plan for the long term and to follow these plans, to make sacrifices and to make harsh decisions... But don't take it too far... let him doubt himself after he messes up a couple times...

Be wary of other team mates if you try this anti-trope yourself. I played this character over the Easter last weekend on a two day one-shot.
TL;DR is that out of 6 players only two were non-murderhobos (me and Kenku player). Two murderhobos were secretly working for the BBEG and two other were constantly pvping the other members, especially me, since they saw my character as the only good PC as an easy target. I designed the character to be primarily support/healer, whenever I buffed someone I also added a "we walk in the path of destiny" or "our victory is preordained" (or something else overly cheesy) and they decided this was douchy behavior. Apparently buffing your allies and saying cheesy lines is That Guy behavior but actually PVPing, ganging up on someone and constantly harassing other players isn't. (this was a explicitly non-pvp group btw)

Make sure the other players are not just in on the joke from the start but can follow up on the joke with something other than personal attacks and pvp.

[Clistenes]

Be wary of other team mates if you try this anti-trope yourself.

Hence why I said, "don't take it too far...". Do it one or two times and everybody laughs with you. But once the joke is old, you are just ruining everybody's fun...