User:Mats/RPG character philosophy

This is my likes and dislikes when it comes to RPG characters.

Escapism

My primary motivation for playing roleplaying games, as compared to any other social activities, is to feed my need for escapism. I want to shake off the gray mantle of everyday life, and taste something more colourful and vivid.

I don't have high ambitions for the role-playing bit itself, as I don't have the necessary prerequisites for table-top theater; I don't have the ability to think up snappy retorts and or to deliver deep personality hints at my fingertips, nor do I have the ability to see that in others.

I'm not the one for gritty anti-heroes - some may see them as a roleplaying challenge; I just catch their depression.

Sense of Wonder

To me, it's very important that there is something to feed that need for escapism in my characters, something exotic, magic, exciting in them, some kind of seed for a Sense of Wonder to develop from. Something that is a symbol of having left the plain, normal world behind: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

This is of course easiest with High Fantasy, but one must not forget the implications of Clarke's Third Law.

This does not have to be some kind of world-shattering ultra-powerful property; just a "seed of wonder" is enough. In the Birthright campaign, I had a ranger who used his connection to the old earth god to transform into a wolf. While bashing our way into the lair of a green dragon, I used that ability to get enough speed to jump a wide chasm, coming to the aid of another character, stuck on the other side. Just making that jump, cinematic as I percieved it... I drew sustenance from it for three months, as concurrently with this I was playing in a Shadowrun campaign, where my character was forced to "sit in reserve" for thirteen straight weeks of playing... A sweet caramel indeed.

Some examples of past characters, and where I found that "seed of wonder" in them:

• Yeeh, a windling in a Earthdawn campaign. Just to have wings and be able to fly freely...
• Semus, ranger in the Birthright campaign. See the wolf-shape above.
• Narine Daran, soulmech wizard in Dragonstar d20. She was a soulmech with a robot familiar that was a 1:6 scale model of herself. That was almost exactly the same as being able to shrink yourself to that size.
• Tuft, elven catburglar in Dragonstar T3. She started with a piece of spellware that allowed her to walk through (a very limited number of) walls. I did not use that special trick very much, in fear for losing it through overuse, but just having it there was enough for me.
• Tamarine, circus artist in Space 1889. Not really found anything yet, but having high hopes for the shrinking drug.
• Faë, druid in Crown of Traldara d20. Wildshape - what an amazing property!

So, what might contain that seed? What feels excitingly magical? Best place to look is probably classical magic stories, and anime.

• Transformations:
  • Disguises
  • Powerups: See Sailor Moon
  • Incidental transformations: See Ranma 1/2
  • Weres
• Invisibility
• Flight:
  • Wings: Wings are great - not only do you get a good property, flight, but you also got an exotic appearance.
• Shrinking

Races

In my striving for exotism, what I'd really like for a character race is probably a step outside the normal races:

• Pixies
• Catpeople
• Merpeople
• Centaurs
• Fey

But as those usually are off-limits, my preferences tend to go to elves and halflings. I've always harbored a strong preference for the small, nimble hero over the big, strong hero. I preferred Gray Mouser over Fafhrd , and Kitty Pryde over Wolverine.

I suspect that also has to do with escapism; I feel big and clumsy everyday - thus I love a character that feels small, nimble and dextrous.

Magic

I'd like to divide RPG magic into three categories:

• Damage
• Buffs
• Enablers

Enablers are properties (spells, inherents, etc) that enables you to do things you would not be able to do otherwise. It thus changes the way you approach problems, and it changes your tactics. A typical enabler is "fly".

The border between buffs and enablers is a fuzzy one, though. +1 to Hit will probably not enable you to change your tactics, but +20 Move Silently probably will.

And keeping with the above, my preference is heavily slanted towards Enablers.

Of course, doing some hefty damage now and then is still quite nice.

Tech

I want to get as far away as possible from what I do everyday: Sitting and programming computers all day. Thus, characters that sits and tinkers with tech all day, such as Shadowrun riggers and deckers, are usually right out.

Much tech also falls from being too mundane for my tastes. There is nothing exotic with Shadowrun computers, except the VR bit, which is underused, and the Gibsonian ICE, which is just plain stupid. Same thing with Shadowrun drones: far more exotic stuff is worked on today. For exampel, the Phantom Sentinel , MAVs , or Smart Dust . (And why isn't the tech used to build cyberlimbs used to build drones?). This makes Clarke's third non-applicable.

Mobility

I love mobility: Being able to climb, swim, crawl, fly, etc well. I've had too many occasions in my early RPG:ing where I was stuck out of combat because my character could not scale a ledge, or even outside entire scenarios because my character was not one of those who could sneak.

This is one other reason for wanting a small touch of magic, as that can often work as a mobility enabler.

Speed is not necessarily the same as mobility - see for example drones in Shadowrun: They often have high speed values, but are far too easily stumped by various obstacles, such as closed doors.

It's often more fun to use mobility too; I feel a greater sense of accomplishment planning, executing, and suceeding with a humble Tumble move to flank an opponent, than I do in just having great DPS in combat.

Variation

I like a character whose tactics I can vary. If I'm stuck with just "move - execute attack sequence - move - execute attack sequence - move ..." or "standard buff 1 - standard buff 2 - standard buff 3 - oh, is the fight already over", I tend to get very frustrated. That frustration sometimes builds to the point where the only way out is to do something increadibly risky and stupid, just to get rid of that feeling. It doen't matter how good or optimal the DPS is.

I tend to get the same kind of frustration in a CoH team with too much control - leaving you with just executing the same optimal attack sequence over and over. That's a situation for a computer program or a keyboard macro, not a human being.

Illustrating

I love a character I find fun to illustrate and play "dress up" with.