What Are Your Favorite Characters?

[JoeGKushner]

When you get ready to run a game, what are you favorite characters?

Do you prefer those with long character backstory?

Those that seek out details of the campaign background?

Those that a re willing to go where the campaign dictates as long as they don't they're getting screwed?

I like a little backstory but unless all of the players have already talked a bit and decided X is party story hog for the next several sessions, I'm not fond to TOO much background that needs immediate address in the current campaign.

I do enjoy players that try to engage the setting and learn some of the deeper things.

Note these are different than player attributes to me. For example, the player whose always there and ready to game? yeah, he's more useful to the life of the campaign to me than the guy with the awesome backstory who can draw but only shows up once every blue moon and spends most of that time drawing.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It depends on the game and campaign. I like characters where I can try out interesting rules combinations, choices, or background concepts. Some choices are good for a session or two; some are good for a lengthy campaign.

Occasionally for one shots I just optimize a character around a joke, such as Tem Ashlied, two-handed barbarian, or Badger, the dwarven druid with a badger animal companion.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Well, I don't like overly long backgrounds. Usually when it's a character I'm excited about, I'll write three or four paragraphs or even a page of back story.

My favorite classes I like to play though are Fighters, Sorcerers, and Psions. Fighters because I love to get up close and personal while dishing a lot of damage at the same time and destroying a small army. Sorcerers because I love spontaneous casting and the wild magic. Psions because I love their versatility and variations. I especially love the Shaper subclass because of it's ability to create items out of thin air. I've never played one of those and would love to play one some day. This is for 3.5e, mind you.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

For a long time, I liked playing the tank. As I've gotten older, I've started branching out into characters that are more fun to roleplay than building a character for combat. In the last decade or so, I've played:
An ogre bodyguard (GURPS)
a Dwarven cleric (3/3.5)
a human superhero who has an abundance of powers (GURPS)
a high-tech corporate spy (GURPS)
the same Dwarven cleric as an NPC (3.5)
a starship captain (Firefly-ish in GURPS)
a male exotic dancer-turned-smuggler (GURPS: he had Hemophilia as a disadvantage in a gun-heavy smuggling campaign)
a teleporting half-demon priest (GURPS)

I prefer only a little bit of backstory so I can add to it as I go, if the need arises.

 

[scourger]

I want heroic risk-taking characters that are part of the story. Misers who hoard their abilites or items as a big tactical and strategic gambit don't really appeal to me. I try to find ways to reward a little powergaming and some storytelling.

What I don't want is a player using his charcter or backstory to take narrative control of the game. That part of the play is the common story, so they really are playing in my sandbox. They choose what & how they want to play, but the world is mine to define and develop. Similarly, an overly tactical or strategic thinker is unsatisfying to me. Those parts of the game are important, but I like the characters to be about who they are and what they do not what they have or save.

I would love it if my players would bring painted miniatures to the game to represent their characters. They could even be prepainted, as long as the mini looks like the hero. I've been tempted to make it a requirement, but I've never done it. It just adds a lot to the game for me.

 

[Hussar]

I'm a huge believer in groups making group backgrounds. Instead of everyone going off by themselves and building a character, I want everyone to work together and build their characters as a semi-coherent group. That way you don't have one guy showing up with a drow and the next guy showing up with the guy that hates drow.

Not that you have to make everyone perfectly in lockstep. That's going too far. But, I insist that the group has a reason to be together before play starts. That is the group's backstory and that's more important to me than the individual ones.

 

[jedavis]

As a DM, I like to see:

• Brief, sketchy backstories which provide proper names and hooks, ideally also creating part of the world. "Banished from the Blood Eagle tribe for a high crime", "Worked in corporate security / espionage for Mjolnir corporation", and "Ex-Imperial marine driven out of the service by rival named Makkan" as examples (with Mjolnir Corp and the Blood Eagle having not existed previously).
• In play, lack of caution / creation of complications. Whenever a player decides to take an action and the rest of the table goes "No! Not the lever! / Shouldn't we do some chemical analysis on that before we try breathing it? / Don't charge the chaos beasts! / *facepalm*" I am rendered unable to restrain my glee. Granted, I tend to encourage such behavior by allowing things to work out better than expected, but the risk-takers are just fun. Kind of exemplified by Legolas here.
• I also like characters who are willing to go make a subplot. The guy who goes "Man, I'd really like to go take back my birthright as chieftain of the Blood Eagle" or "I'm going to seek out the forbidden lore of Ilfangor" without my prompting scores points in my book. I like to have multiple plots running simultaneously, with each character having one or more that focus on him; having someone choose their own makes my job easier because I don't have to come up with it, and guarantees that they'll be more invested in it than in something I come up with.

 

[Lanefan]

My favourite characters are those that are just a little bit over the top in whatever aspect the player decides; just a little bit gonzo and thus willing to dive in where wise ones fear to tread, and who have at least a vague consistency in what they do and why.

A backstory of any kind is mostly not required at all, if a need for such comes up during play (rare) we'll dream something up on the spot if need be. That said, if a player comes up with a reasonable backstory that's fine too.

I agree with scourger that over-planning gets boring in a hurry. Also, what the players often don't realize is that when they take more time to plan their attack it gives me more time to plan the defense...

Lan-"wisdom should be made the designated dump stat"-efan

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I like characters who live.

 

[wolfpunk]

My favorite characters are the ones that are the most fun to play. Something about them sets them apart in my memory because of their adventures, however long or short they lasted. If you can smile after a session of good role-playing, or get your friends to refer back to a character you had from years ago, I think that is a good indicator that that was a character worth playing and worthy of the "favorite" label.