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What was the last character you made who was intentionally 'pathetic'? What rule system did you use, and how did you royally screw him over? Why did you create the character? Were you looking for a tactical challenge? How did the character play out?
I ask this because, honestly, I've never really tried this. I also really haven't seen this much either. I am playing a 3.5 wizard right now who took evocation and necromancy as his banned schools. I created the character because we were all playing elves and I figured who cares about the mechanics, I'm assuming elves might be better enchanters and of all the schools they probably would feel evocation and necromancy would be the most dangerous (I'm playing him as a bit of a pacifist hippy). We've only been playing for like 4th months and he's only level 2, but he's still alive. Sleep for the win!
In the games I've ran, the most pathetic character I ever saw was a basic vanilla 3.5 fighter. The player chose to wield a shortsword and light armor because he'd just seen the movie Troy. Needless to say he didn't survive long.
Not any particularly pathetic, but I'm playing a character in a Song of Ice and Fire RPG game that has taken the 1-armed flaw. Flaws come with a benefit, but there are definitely some flaws greater than others. The character is basically all about intrigue, and would be quickly beaten in any physical confrontation. Similarly, in our Serenity game, my doctor was pretty pathetic outside of his specialty.
In general though, it's been in games where combat is a small enough factor that you can be a non-combat specialist.
I did have one character in a 3.5 game though that, stat was, was Mr. Mediocre, with generally 14's in most of his stats. A Bard that was literally "Jack of all trades master of none" considering his bad stats. However, between a cool magic item and the Chameleon paragon path, he was still pretty awesome actually. Even on a few occaisions when he didn't get a chance to set his 'classes' he was able to use his whip to trip some pretty big monsters.
So I haven't really had apparent losers so much as people that were extremely specialized leaving gaping flaws elsewhere.
I think the "expert at this, terrible at that" kind of characters are great fun!
One of my favorite characters was a 2E Paladin, Teun, that took weapon specialization and clumsiness (we used custom-made benefits and hindrances, our houseruled, simplified version of the class kits and Skills & Powers). He was not pathetic, and quite a good warrior. But whenever Teun performed some stunt, or whenever my DM felt like it, Teun had to make a Dex check to avoid tripping, falling, bumping into something, etc. He would be tripping and falling during important battles, religious ceremonies, etc. It was exciting and hilarious all the time (and it felt like a big victory whenever Teun would NOT fall ^_^)
My son made a whole set of PCs (3e) once - 4 characters, rolled while I was at work... every PC had at least one 18, not a single stat was below 12. Riiiiight. So I pulled out my characters (1e) from when I was that age, and showed him how good my stats were, and pointed out that I cheated like mad, and so had he.
So I told him you could role play any set of stats, and that when he DMed, I'd take the set I rolled RIGHT NOW. And dropped the following dice on the table: 5, 7, 7, 9, 13, 16. THat character was a lot of fun. Wizard, weak, clumsy, sickly, loved to read adventure stories as a kid (since he was sick in bed so much...) and every adventure hook was met with "this is so cool! I read about this once; we're supposed to figure out who's raiding the caravans and defeat them!" And when we actually hiked out to the adventure site, he'd say "gosh I'm tired! Why don't we come back tomorrow when we're rested..."
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It is all in the presentation and the question; what is pathetic about the character? You then key on that trait and bring attention to it, you then use descriptive dialog in your role-playing.
Examples:
The "clumsy fighter" - he is a skilled fighter, he has the levels, he kickes ass but is know as a joke. Joxter the Mighty comes to mind.
In the game the player and DM work together to come up with something. The player says that he will drop, trip or knock over something and describe it X times in a session, the DM rewards him for those descriptions, if he involves other players he gets even more rewards.
The DM then deals with the rules, say the player will "fumble" every time the dice roll has a 2, 3, or 4 showing (2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14) but then can use a reward point to turn it into a special hit. The player just has to decribe it.
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Balazaar the (Dwarven) Wizard from The World's Largest Dungeon - a lying, prideful, sometimes crazed character of variable behaviour and definitely not combat-optimised (I received complaints) - mind you in the end he was the only character to go through it without dying.
Why did I create the character? Because I find highly competent, heroicly statted characters functionally uninteresting and indistinguishable from many others. I like challenges that are not just related to level escalation.
The problem I've tended to find these days is that in some games if I do that, then the rest of the group believe I'm letting the team down by not having optimal characters. Such is the way.
What was the last character you made who was intentionally 'pathetic'? What rule system did you use, and how did you royally screw him over? Why did you create the character? Were you looking for a tactical challenge? How did the character play out?
I would say my most pathetic character ever was Bugr (Booger), my gully dwarf. Created in the AD&D system. Bugr was pretty typical of his race - stupid. I played him as a role-playing challenge. I found that I have trouble playing stupid characters.
Now, if we're talking stats-wise, one of my most pathetic was a human fighter. In d20 terms, he would have been fine, but in AD&D, his only remarkable stat was a 15 Con, giving him a +1 to HP. Pretty average, overall. Turned out to be one of my best role-playing characters ever. The story was that good. It goes to show that the stats don't make the character.
Why would you risk your life adventuring with someone who was a liability?
Because they are fun to play, they are a challenge to play, and mostly they create the memories in a game. Role-playing vs Roll-playing. Look to the "reality shows", people in them are pick to cause conflict with each other, but yet they are losers among them and many of them end up the winners.
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I've tried playing losers quite a few times and it never really works. I don't think I've ever had much fun with them and I've been criticised by the other players for not being involved enough in the game. Quite often my loser PC ends up being bullied by the other PCs, which I don't enjoy. Hopefully at some point I'll learn my lesson.
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I think Pickles meant: Why would other members of the party risk their lives adventuring with someone who was a liability?
I think that it is difficult to justify actively bad characters, as no one would actually travel with them on dangerous missions. On the other hand, characters with flaws can be interesting. Sure, the fighter might be a bit clumsy, and not the strongest person around, but he's the one that's willing to go with you, and you need someone with his training.
I think the apparent loser works better in some systems than in others. It also makes a difference what you mean by apparent loser.
I created a grey elf wizard in 3.5 who started with a 20 int. His only other positive stat was a 12 con (my rule in 3.5 for RPGA characters was to always put 6 points into Con, then worry about where the rest of my stats should go), and his str was a 6. His father was a warrior/mage, and he grew up getting teased for his weak body, and always wanted to be a mighty warrior, but his body betrayed him. This didn't stop him from going into melee at the drop of a hat. At level 1, he went in with his dagger to help the rogue flank (and ended up killing the orc at 1d4-2 points of damage a round). At level 4, he jumped over a 10' pit trap set at the top of some stairs and took falling damage as he jumped off the stairs so that he could help the rogue flank an annis hag. In a later fight, the party paladin on his warhorse bull rushed him to get him away from the thick of the fighting.
I also played him as being an incorrigible librophile. He would read books while walking, while riding, while eating, etc. If he ran into books of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know (happened twice), he would read them. He once was in a battle in a library, and refused to use any spells that might harm the books. He routinely kept Scholar's Touch (instantly read a book) and Amanuensis (make copies of pages of text) prepared. Of course, he did his best to run away anytime he saw shadows (one of the few things he really feared).
Why would you risk your life adventuring with someone who was a liability?
Do you pick your friends based on their skillsets? Yes, I know you aren't an adventurer, but do remember that the typical D&D adventuring party has each other, and that's it. No other friends, nobody else to be with.
Not all adventure stories are about a group of folks who choose their companions for their skills. Not everyone wants to explore the "best of the best of the best".
Best fictional reference I can think of - Peter Beagle's "The Last Unicorn". Schmendrick the Magician is a complete loser, and no party who needed a magician they could really count on would ever have him. But somehow, the Unicorn and Molly Grue and he stick together, depend on each other, and get through to the end.
Sometimes, mutual need and caring for each other has a lot more to do with sticking together than exactly how skillful you are or aren't.
WHy would someone adventure with a loser? That is a good question, and must be answered before gameplay starts. The most obvious being that the loser character is friends or family. You aren't going to kick your brother out of the group no matter how much of a screw-up he is. Might even work that into the group dynamic - make the loser be the awesome warrior's brother.
It needs some kind of mechanical support. The Joxter example is a good one. Or he takes a power that lets him do cool stuff, but only on 'accident'. So he's really using a power, but the flavor text is that he trips over his own feet just in time to dodge Duke Evil's blow, getting his sword stuck in the wall.
Other systems are easier. I could see it in Call of Cthulhu, a character that takes no useful skills for investigating, but has a super-high POW. That's close to being good at one thing, but its really only good at being lucky and not going crazy. So it could come off as 'well, I know he's not good at well, anything, but he's got guts!'
And then there's Buffy, where having a PC with no useful skills or abilities is one of the tropes.
Generally, playing the loser means not having a character that's as fun in the 'game' portion, but is a hoot in the 'roleplay' portion.
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I agree that designing a D&D character that is unable to contribute to an adventuring party is a bad idea. There's simply no need for that. A PC can be unheroic, comedic, even various kinds of pathetic, and still perform a valuable game function.
Designing a completely useless character occupies that unpleasant territory between masochism and sadomasochism.
That said, the character I'm working on for a new Dragonstar campaign is unheroic, comedic, and various kinds of pathetic. He's a cross between Noam Chomsky and Bertie Wooster. As a diplomat. In space. Also, he's a bard.
(...and he probably drinks...)
But he'll still have a few useful abilities that he'll employ to help out his lethal and hyper-competent Jeeves.
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Journalism student for an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game. Almost everyone else had at least some toughness or survival ability going for them.
I had a camera, the Reckless trait/flaw, and a dangerous disconnect with the real world whenever I was behind the camera. Which was most of the game. I had zombies coming right at me, and I just stood in place while someone else took it out. I was in the backseat of a car filming when the priest in the driver's seat got shot to pieces and wound up crashing into his killer(and the killer's trailer). Not a scratch on me, and I got the whole thing on tape. He even managed to get most of the big battle with the demon that was causing the whole mess in the campaign on tape. Until someone went and got possessed and started shooting at him.
He was one of the few characters that never died or got so wounded that they had to be replaced, even after he managed to stab himself in the leg with a machete.
For a throwaway character he certainly had the devil's luck.
Last seen stranded away from the rest of the group as a sizable chunk of Texan landscape transmogrified into a fleshy hell on earth.
Pretty much any time I'm playing a horror-based RPG, I'm going to tend more towards Harry Mason than Chris Redfield.
And though I don't tend to build characters to be "losers", I have the nasty tendency to pile on the flaws whenever a system features them. Especially those that essentially dare the GM to mess with you, like "Grim Servant Of Death" and "Veteran Of The Weird West" in Deadlands. (I took both) Now those guys were a barrel of laughs...
Last edited by Mikaze; 2nd July 2009 at 04:53 PM..
I played a bard once whom I dropped all musical abilities from, and inserted some nature skills and lore abilities. He had all the knowledge skills I could get as high as I could get them, but was atrocious at combat and had no spells to speak of. His occupation was professor at a local college- and the adventuring group recruited me as a guide to help them explore Xen'Drik.
He was great- Every battle I'd start off by trying to throw a net at an opponent, which never actually hit. Then he'd spend the rest of the battle cowering and making knowledge checks to give the other PCs info. Hiding behind a tree, he'd squeak out something about being vulnerable to fire...
I also made him into a political activist championing monster rights (this was Eberron). Ironically scared to death of the monsters he was campaigning for- he'd drag the rest of the party into his zany schemes.
I have never intentionally made a "pathetic" character. Flawed characters can be great fun, but lousy ones - especially in a game as team-oriented as D&D has always been - are, well, lousy.
(One of the reasons I like 4e: it's very hard to make any more one-trick-pony characters that are good at one and only one thing, and suck at everything else. Now, you can still play your character as only being good at one thing - but then it's explicitly your own choice.)
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