List of Stereotypes we'd Rather Avoid

[Solaris]

How about a GM stereotype: the GM who intimidates a new player by commanding him to write up an extended backstory, and that if he doesn't he's basically going to screw the new player over. And then, when players describe their actions, he twists their words and has them do something they didn't intend.

As to the player that basically plays the same character every single time, I'd say the problem in that case is that he never really got a chance to play his character all the way through. At the moment, I'm guilty of designing entirely too many aspiring "free traders" (read: Smugglers). I design entirely too many, because I'm hoping to actually play him beyond one adventure. :(

Run a real campaign, and you'll hopefully see the cookie-cutter character grow, to the point where when he finally dies (even if it is of old age long after the caracter was retired), your cookie-cutter player will finally design a new character.

Don't worry, I've never acted to screw my players over (I find entirely new and interesting ways to intimidate them - my laughter alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of some). As a matter of fact, I write out most of their bios after interviewing them and finding out what they're looking for. I then hand them a character bio that I'd pass with a minimum of polish put into it and sigh when they somehow figure out how to butcher it despite me having walked them through the process, checked with them, editted to suit their tastes, and checked again. I've long ago given up on trying to find more than one or two players who're willing and able to write out three paragraphs for backstory, though I cannot for the life of me see how twelve sentences is that hard.
This goes double for a game where the entirety of the character-generation process is writing up the bio and none of it is diceslinging. At some point, I have to draw the Line.

Aye, I can certainly sympathize with not getting to play the character all the way through. Pretty much all of my free-form forum RPGs have died before I finished the plotline. I get bored and they get lazy.

[Woot Spitum]

As for punishing players by twisting their words, I offer as an example, this scene from a classic computer game.

From "PoliceQuest" : player types fire pistol, game responds, "as you blow your right leg off you promise yourself that next time you will draw your pistol before firing it.

[Renrik]

Let's see...

Halflings that do nothing but steal stuff and pick pockets. And talk. A lot. And throw daggers.

Kenders. All of them.

Gnomes. Every single last one of them. I hate them all so much. I don;t allow them in my campain, and the player's don't mind.

Evil characters. Don't get me wrong. I like evil characters- if you know how to play them. If you react based on actual character concept instead of just doing whatever seems the most evil. If you accept that evil character's aren't always reactionists, and will pursue their own agenda, and you make an agenda and pursue it accordingly, as opposed to just going along with whatever a good character woulddo, with some peasant killing on the side. And why can;t they get it in their heads that simply doing crimes doesn't make someone evil? It just makes them chaotic. Why can;t they understand that an evil character doesn't just folllow his own agenda but actually goes out of his way to be cruel to people he doesn't like? Why does everyone suck at being evil?

Female characters that go to the physical extremes of attractiveness or unatractiveness. Can;t they just be kind of normal-looking? I see a lot of unremarkable women. I'd think some of them would be adventurers. And wy do female characters always seem to make their gender a HUGE deal? "Just because I'm a woman...", or "Who said a woman can't..." god, it's horrible!

One-dimensional gay characters. We get it. They're gay. We don't really care. Find some other character traits.

Characters with no major flaws. I hate them. Characters should have flaws. At least one flaw, if not several. They don;t need to be giant, they don't need to have storylines based on them. But they should exist.

Dwarves that have no character depth and speak in scottish accents. You never see a dwarf wearing a tartan. Why not? BECAUSE THEY AREN'T FROM SCOTLAND, THAT'S WHY!

Sneaky knife-fighters who are untouchable in combat. No character should be untouchable in combat.

Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!

Really, any asian-based character ends up being given outrageous abilities that don't make any sense.

Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths? Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Druids.

[Lo-Alrikowki]

Hey, some players do completely ridiculous Gnomes that don't fit the mold at all. In my current campaign, the main tank is Rektum Jamfalcon, gnomish barbarian (with monkey grip and a greatsword, no less). I will state that I hate all characters that turn out to be alcoholics for no apparent reason. Hate hate hate, to the point that I'll give temporary ability damage due to to alcohol poisoning (yes, even to Dwarves).

[Stevenson]

Ahem.

Elves. Elves bug the hell out of me. Mainly because every last one of them tries to be blasted Legolas. About the same acting skills as Orlando Bloom, too, which adds to the horrid.

Barbarians, because apparently it automatically makes them Tonto.

Stereotypes? Okay, fine. The stereotype of the gamer as that of what gamers know as twinks or powergamers or whatnot. We don't all talk like that, and we don't all have encyclopedias of the rules in our heads.

Lastly.

"I cast magic missle at the darkness." it was funny. The first few times. And also when used unexpectedly and sparingly. Every statement during a dungeon crawl? Should not be that statement.

[Sardia]

I will state that I hate all characters that turn out to be alcoholics for no apparent reason.

Well, if you spent the main part of your career seeing ungodly monstrosities, violations of the laws of physics, occasionally coming back from the dead, being attacked by creatures natural and unnatural, chased by things a hundred times your size, etc, etc...I'd see the need for some stress release.

[Woot Spitum]

Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!

I didn't know Kenshin-style samurai were even possible in D&D. In fact D&D samurai are pretty close to what you say they should be like. Except for the fact that a cleric can beat the tar out of them. If they had at least some of Kenshin's amazing abilities, they might be more viable characters.

[EvilElitest]

That's the Clueless Farm Boy Unaware Of His Destiny, I'm afraid. A bit like Belgarion, but with living, mortal relatives. Or rather, the looming "Mother! Father! Noooo! If I had been here..." "...You'd be dead too." -scenario with a mysterious old man.

See where I'm going? Pretty much all sane ideas have been used already. It's no longer a question of whether your idea is original or not, but instead of whether it's well executed or not.

And if you and your DM can avoid the Burning Farm feat. Anguish, Hasty Escape and Brooding, yours should be pretty good.

Belgarion is a satire. Eddings often makes his plots very typical because he does not focus on them.

Eragon on the other hand, drives me nuts.

The stereotype i hate the most is the often used Manga or video games.

The young boy who is strangly enough a great fighter, and is yet a complete moron. Dispite his lack of intellect and socail graces, he seems to be well liked. And also, he seems to have an amazing set of morals taht are in fact the morals of the story. Their are also naive and honest, but are admired for that. They are also very good people, dispite being fools. (Sora and naurto).

A story stereotype is the world where the main charater's morals are the correct ones, and that things work out in a pretty easilly, like Eragon.
We never have a cynical, cold, ruthless world were all of teh character's naive actions simple cause more trouble, and his simplistic solution uses to stop the evil bad guy cause more damage. Or how about villians who are wiling to die for eachother and not join the good guys. or how about main character who can't cut though massive amounts of bad guys. Or how about a main character who has an emotianal break down.

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.
from,
EE

[Tobrian]

Well, if you spent the main part of your career seeing ungodly monstrosities, violations of the laws of physics, occasionally coming back from the dead, being attacked by creatures natural and unnatural, chased by things a hundred times your size, etc, etc...I'd see the need for some stress release.

Can I use that quote for my sig, please?

[Tobrian]

I've long ago given up on trying to find more than one or two players who're willing and able to write out three paragraphs for backstory, though I cannot for the life of me see how twelve sentences is that hard.

I admit I once wrote something like 12 pages of background for my Shadowrun combat mage. I... I don't know, it just happened. His story just unfolded in my head. I'd already played him a bit at that point, but most of that stuff was about stuff that had happened prior to him becoming a shadowrunner. And it all fit together so beautifully. *sniff*

The new GM refused to read it.
I can understand. 12 pages is a bit much.

Come on, I wrote two pages backstory for a main NPC! I'm hopeless.
I once wrote a romance for an NPC mercenary and a goblin woman who appeared in the campaign for maybe, what, one scene. Stupid players, only interested in their own PCs. *mutter mutter*

Sometimes, though, I have to create some character and just can't come up with anything and it drives me crazy. And at other times, I think about his or her name or some other detail, and in a flash I know exactly who this character is and what makes him tick.

[EvilElitest]

Hey, don't bash Scorpion King and Dragonslayer!! Dragonslayer is a classic! And Scorpion King is cheesy enough to be a perfect heroic fantasy D&D scenario... but it is good cheese. Not the lame kind. It's fast-paced, has good effect, beautiful scenery, the actors fit perfectly in their roles. And the plot, while standard fare, is at least logical. Plus, the male heroes are handsome (if men watch movies for Lara Croft and her bazongas, I can oggle that evil king, can I?) Something I can't say for Conan and Hawk the Slayer. Bleh.

I grant you the rest.

I'll give you dragon slayer, but Scorpion king was only slightly better than Eragon
from,
EE

[Sardia]

Can I use that quote for my sig, please?

Feel free.

[JackMage666]

Well, not so much a stereotype, I guess, but bugs me to no end.

The elf who loves everybody. I've always thought that elves considered themselves slightly superior to the other races, and for some decent reasons (most of which is that they take a long time to die of old age). So, for some reason, I can't stand when an elf decides that everyone else is equal to him, and doesn't care the slightest about the other races. This is especially bad with the Grey elf or the Drow, who are even more biased.

Right now, we a party with a Grey elf and a Drow. The Drow (despite never knowing the Grey elf), doesn't care the slightest that she's an elf, and the Grey elf doesn't care the slightest that her teamate is a drow. Now, I'm not one to follow the books to the T, but shouldn't there be at least the slightest hatred towards each other there? Particularly on the Drow's end?

[HealthKit]

Well these characters are pretty stereotypical and I'd rather avoid them. That is, I wish people would stop playing them.

[Solaris]

Let's see...Female characters that go to the physical extremes of attractiveness or unatractiveness. Can;t they just be kind of normal-looking? I see a lot of unremarkable women. I'd think some of them would be adventurers. And wy do female characters always seem to make their gender a HUGE deal? "Just because I'm a woman...", or "Who said a woman can't..." god, it's horrible!

Aye. I think the only one I've seen who plays a normal-looking female character is my girlfriend. (Those two facts might be a bit related.) The worst I've seen was some Queen Bee who joined our group for all of ten minutes. She tried pulling flirty stuff with me (GM and running a character as an allied NPC) and my brother (running two PCs) 'in-character'. It worked about as well as a lead boat with a perforated bottom.
Her (as the half-elven druid): "I sit on the guy's lap to try convincing him to give us more money."
My brother (as the bastard paladin): "Your character's too fully-clothed for that to work." We, naturally, saw the jokes for prostitution, but he knows how I like to smite stupid.
Me (as the NPC): "Yes. And you're not stripping. Go chase something shiny and let the big boys talk. We'll call you when some animals need chatting up or some such."
Her: " . . . "
Second worst was the other Queen Bee. She joined our (very short-lived) forum game and declared her character was (I kid you not) "a HOT warrioress!"
Race between me trying to carry out Darwin's Code, my girlfriend trying to kill her (character, honest) on general principle, the emo kid trying to bed her, and the powergamer trying to defend her ended in a draw, as I managed to chase her off with some well-placed mention that I was going to be criticising the character bio she'd put together. (For those of you who don't know, I'm infamous for feeding bios through a woodchipper in a forum game.) I still count that one as a point for me.

Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths? Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Either I'm lucky or you're not, but I've never seen any paladin other than the Hinjo-type played. The worst I had was a guy who angsted to himself in his journal about the heathens he was traveling with. Out loud, usually, and in earshot of the party.
It was actually usually pretty funny, too. The player would mimic writing things down as the other characters engaged in 'less than uptight' behavior just to mess with the paladin. He (the character) left the group when someone said "Instead of killing these goblins, we should be trying to show them the error of their ways" in the middle of a goblin-hunting party. Rumor had it he was ruling a goblin village in the wildlands and showing them the error of their ways through judicious use of smiting.
Party got letters every now and again. Letters complaining of the short, green-skinned heathens. Letters that sometimes compared the green-skinned heathens favorably to the party. I forget who the character's replacement was.
. . .
Okay, so my brother's bastard paladin wasn't very paladin-ish, but at least he didn't goose-step. He was more of a Roy-type than anything. To be fair, we were all still rather new at the game, but his crimes were more of being evil-tolerant than getting smite-happy.

. . . and we don't all have encyclopedias of the rules in our heads.

What mean 'we', pale-face?

[Wehrkind]

Then there's the "mysterious stranger" characters. These characters are a big mystery to everyone around them. Nobody knows anything about them and they'd know less if the player didn't keep dropping cryptic hints about how mysterious they are and all the secrets they have (but aren't telling). Some players like to combine this with the dark and brooding cliche previously mentioned, but it isn't manditory. If their secrets ever do come out, the player immediately loses interest and wants to retire the character and bring in a new mysterious stranger so they can go right back to being mysterious.

You need to devise a scene where all these characters are in an inn, and a woman comes up and accuses them and other of trying to read her diary. "Gods, if you want to know all my secrets so baddly, I will just tell you! Everyone in this bar is so stupid, and they smell like orcs. Stupid orcs. And that bartender is obviously gay."

Then have her heart explode.

I love Upright Citizen's Brigade.

[Folie]

A story stereotype is the world where the main charater's morals are the correct ones, and that things work out in a pretty easilly, like Eragon.
We never have a cynical, cold, ruthless world were all of teh character's naive actions simple cause more trouble, and his simplistic solution uses to stop the evil bad guy cause more damage. Or how about villians who are wiling to die for eachother and not join the good guys. or how about main character who can't cut though massive amounts of bad guys. Or how about a main character who has an emotianal break down.

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.
from,
EE

Perhaps you will appreciate this comic:
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2310

[averagejoe]

See, but even the ruthless elietist protags have become a bit tiresome. That whole, "oooh, look, I'm cool because I'm being evil, mua ha ha," type stuff has gotten really annoying.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Certainly, the orphan makes a wee bit of sense - if the character can explain where he got his hundreds of dollars' worth of gear and training from. In my D&D campaign world, I rule that almost all of the PCs are the offspring of rather wealthy merchants or nobles. They get freedom of choice with their background, of course, but that's the default.
. . . Convincing the emo kid that all noblemen in a pseudo-Dark Ages setting aren't effeminate fops has proven difficult at best. I'm not even going to try convincing him that an Intelligence penalty and a bonus to Strength doesn't automatically make a race stupid and violent, just slow-witted and strong.
You'd think he of all people would realize that low intelligence doesn't automatically mean violent.
Orphans are actually far, far worse in more modern settings because people can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of an orphanage that isn't a torture center. This is assuming, of course, that they don't go "Zah?" when I point out to them that orphanages exist to begin with. Orphanages, foster homes, adoption agencies, the works. Just about nobody grows up homeless and on the streets anymore, and there's no way I'm letting a bunch of WASPs try playing someone who did. The butchery of the roleplaying . . . is too much. Far, far too much.

Emo + WASP + slow-witted = for teh win!

Nothing beats overprivileged white boys pretending to nurse a deep and incomprehensible understanding of sorrow and pain!

[Tengu]

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals, like light from Deathnote.

Actually, such "badass" antiheros are another annoying stereotypes. I prefer a legion of Narutos to them.

DMs who run a game set in a cynical world where good, but naive actions make things only worse are good... if your party consists mostly of chaotic neutral (at best) characters. For a party of good adventurers, a certain level of black-and-white in the world is needed - unless you want to teach them that "life is harsh and doing good rarely ends good for you" (aka, be a total jerk).

Samurai. Not the samurai that take heavy armor, follow the samurai code, serve a Daimyo, ride a horse, and do all the other samurai stuff. They're fine. I hate samurai that are speedy little twerps like the guy in Rouroni Kenshin. Samurai are not speedy.They wear what effectively amounts to platemail, and they weild masterwork bastard swords. Skilled? Yes. Strong? Yes. Can deliver fast strikes? Yes. So fast they can practically teleport when the move, and their attacks are unblockable? No!

Heh, one of my players practically embodies this stereotype (but the, we're playing an anime-style world, so it works better than in DND). To add insult to injury, his character is a pothead.

[MaxKaladin]

As to the player that basically plays the same character every single time, I'd say the problem in that case is that he never really got a chance to play his character all the way through. At the moment, I'm guilty of designing entirely too many aspiring "free traders" (read: Smugglers). I design entirely too many, because I'm hoping to actually play him beyond one adventure. :(

Run a real campaign, and you'll hopefully see the cookie-cutter character grow, to the point where when he finally dies (even if it is of old age long after the caracter was retired), your cookie-cutter player will finally design a new character.

I agree. I have a few character concepts I really like but which I've never really gotten to sink my teeth into. Somehow the game always ends up dying for one reason or another and I only get to play the character a few sessions at most. Where I differ is I don't get a one-track mind about playing that character and only that character, but I do keep these unrealized concepts in the back of my mind and occasionally give them another time when the right game comes along and I think I might have a chance to finally play the character longer than a few sessions.

[The_Ferg]

We used to stick gnome NPCs we found too cliche into barrels...

[Wraithy]

damn, alot of people hate gnomes, just because they know how to have a laugh.
it's not the gnomes fault, it's the unorigional players.
try making a gnome who doesn't prank for once.


P.S: these rules do not apply to dark elves, the realy are annoying

[Scorpina]

Gnomes are if anything less stereotypical than most other races, since nobody (especially the Spooky Wizards who live by the Coast) can ever make up their mind what exactly the stereotypical Gnome is. A bard? A wizard? Wielding a hooked hammer? Tinkering with technology? Living in harmony with nature? What?

[Woot Spitum]

Gnomes are if anything less stereotypical than most other races, since nobody (especially the Spooky Wizards who live by the Coast) can ever make up their mind what exactly the stereotypical Gnome is. A bard? A wizard? Wielding a hooked hammer? Tinkering with technology? Living in harmony with nature? What?

Easy, they wear tall, red, cone-shaped hats. They spend a lot of time standing motionless on people's lawns. They also make funny commercials for travelocity. That is the stereotypical gnome.

[EvilElitest]

See, but even the ruthless elietist protags have become a bit tiresome. That whole, "oooh, look, I'm cool because I'm being evil, mua ha ha," type stuff has gotten really annoying.

That is not being and Elitist. Roy Greenhilt is an elitist. Edward Elric is an Elitist. Rastalian (or however you spell it) is an Elitist. Elitist thinking is the view where only the greatest in a society deserve rights, and those who fail to live up the the standards of the society deserve nothing but punishment. A very ruthless system. Bad ass is like wanna be anti hero. I hate the bad ass stereotype with a massive passion. Why? Because they exist for the sole purpose to embody mindless violence and destruction. Like the govanor of California film's. Or if you like video games, try the mean character from Resident Evil 4. I hate them, because they just brutes. An good anti hero is like Clint Eastwood in the dollar's trilogy, because he is a smart character. A good Elitist protagonist is like Light from Death note, or the main character from "High Hopes and Cornets" (i think that is the title). Or the villain from Laura for that matter.
from,
EE

[Tobrian]

Paladins. Why can't people play them right? They're always played as high-and-mighty, imperious law-bringers with no real sense of mercy and an outrageous taste for "righteous" violence, or they end up being "sneaky" paladins that have a grey area in their code of honor, and do whatever it takes to hunt down evil. Why can't they just be humble, protective knights that are devout servants of their faiths?

Amen. I hate the psycho-paladin with a passion. They're not LG, they're LN, or even LE... "My god demands I wipe out all evil creatures!" No, you're not supposed to "wipe them out", dammit. You should try to lead a life of good example, be a paragon of virtue. Protect those who can't protect themselves. Encourage others to follow your path, not demand it. Keep up hope against cynicism. Try to find the spark of good even in those filled with selfishness, and have mercy with those who have sinned for you might one day sin also. Be humble, and forgiving if forgiveness is asked. Know those who are beyond redemption from those who have the capacity to become better.

Unfortunately, too many players and too many D&D writers (Edit: see below) seem to think that killing everything that detects as evil automatically makes you good. (In that case, shouldn't a drow killing mindflayers become good? No, he shouldn't)

Many players playing a paladin live in the paranoid fear that showing compassion or making compromises for your companions will make you lose your paladinhood... I guess because many GMs seem hellbend on making the paladin fall for the slightest infraction; and they confuse unlawful acts with evil acts.

Even the PHB in the section about paladins goes on and on about "purity" and smiting and righteoussnes and honor, and in the alignment chapter is says: "(...) a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is lawful good." Or look at the Inquisitor PrC from Complete Warrior... if that's supposed to be LG worldview, I'm Barbarella.

On the other hand, the Book of Exalted Deeds goes to the other extreme, practically demanding that a paladin must try to catch alive and re-educate every evil NPC with psychobabble, lest he use his powers. Um, given that D&D regularly has villains like blackguards, monsters like mindflayers and evil deities that commit acts of utter depravity and are utterly dedicated to their path, a paladin can't, shouldn't be expected to be able to save them all from themselves. (Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote as a moral parabel that if he saw a man driving around running over people with his car for fun, and the only way to stop this man before he killed even more was to shoot him, he'd do that. And Bonhoeffer wasn't the kind of person to condone "the end justifies the means" excuses.)

So I guess that many players playing a paladin feel pushed into this role of religious selfrighteous fanatic for fear of giving the GM an excuse to screw them over.
Unless of course they're just jerks who like to use the LG alignment as excuse for playing a "my way or the highway" murderous bastard with no sense of mercy or humour.

I've myself played two paladins over the years, albeit unfortunately only briefly: one was a one-shot char in a short adventure (a stealth paladin with Bluff skill working undercover in a Theocracy devoted to a LN god), the other was prematurely incinerated by an artifact soon after I'd started playing him. It is so very easy to just give in to the lure of using Detect Evil to govern all your reactions... I've seen it happen with other players, too. Meet an NPC, SNAP!, out comes the Detect Evil. No more complicated decisions.

I've once seen a paladin being played with gentleness and good humour. The character was always ready to cheer up my gloomy wizard, and felt sadness instead of wrath when he had to witness an evil deed he hadn't been able to prevent; alas the player had to drop out of the group due to time constraints. Other players slip into the stereotype strained "holier than thou" attitude and start to get on everyone's nerves, their own included. Once you've gone down that path, it seems it's only a matter of time until the paladin snaps completely, like Miko.

Hell, even if a paladin makes a horribly wrong decision... if he afterwards feels guilt and remorse, and tries to atone without prompting, I as GM wouldn't even make him fall from grace. What for? He's already punishing himself enough. Atonement quests should be for those paladins who really take too long to understand how much they screwed up, so the deity sends them on a quest during which they're supposed to learn something about themselves. A LG or NG deity should be eager to guide the paladin back to the path of goodness, not push him around like a ragdoll.

That's why I think a deity that's blind to its own brutality and rigidness of thinking and loves smiting heretics too much shouldn't have paladins, because the deity itself isn't really LG (if I had anything to say, Pholtus Of The Blinding Light, selfdeclared one true god of Oerth, and the whole Theocracy of the Pale would be LN teetering towards evil oppression in places).


Edit: Addendum: See below

Hinjo is a good example of a real paladin.

Big Ears the goblin paladin from the Goblins comic is another example.
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060217.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060218.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060219.html
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20060220.html

http://goblinscomic.com/d/20061223.html
"Why would anyone want to become a paladin?"
"So others don't have to."

[Tobrian]

I want a main character who is a ruthless elitist, willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals,

*blink blink*
I guess I have a totally different definition of what "elitism" means. Or, should mean.

[Tobrian]

Addendum to my posting above, re: Psychopath Paladins, in reply to Renrik.

I think I will move this to its own thread. Here
It's no longer in-topic.

[Sardia]

So, for some reason, I can't stand when an elf decides that everyone else is equal to him, and doesn't care the slightest about the other races.

In its pure form, annoying. I can see that being a hell of a good mindset for a neutral evil or lawful evil character, though.
"La di dah, let's all get along, we're all friends here, everyone can live in harmony" until either the s*** hits the fan or there's a major disagreement, at which point they are so confused that everyone else doesn't do things the harmonious, ideal elven way.
And if they don't learn how to be peacefully harmonious with others, it's the elf's job to teach them. And eliminate any "recalcitrant" slow learners. For the good of all.
Think Victorian English gentry slumming it, and I think that'd sum it up.