As a Player, What is Your Favorite Archetype?

[Voadam]

I keep off and on playing my eponymous viking wizard character in different campaigns and in different incarnations. A clever guy who strives to advance himself but can't help but get involved and is a good guy at heart. I really like warriors and magic and interacting with stuff, both roleplay and player skill and getting involved in plots and thinking things through with a lot of lore. Started off as an AD&D human fighter switch class to wizard. Various incarnations in 3e, 3.5, Pathfinder 1e, 4e, and 5e have also involved ranger, monk, rogue, swordmage, bard, and paladin classes, sometimes multiclassing, sometimes straight. Incarnations have included being an aasimar and genasi in the D&D/Pathfinder systems, as well as goblinization into a troll mage in Shadowrun. He has even shown up as an NPC in two campaigns I played in, once as a hunter mage we desperately avoided in a Vampire the Masquerade game.

I play a lot of other character concepts as well but I like playing my viking wizard and it is easy to jump into roleplaying a favorite recurring character right away even in different contexts with a slightly different incarnation.

 

[innerdude]

In my earliest days of the hobby, when my friends and I played the red-box Basic rules, I really enjoyed playing the Elf class. (Yes, "elf" was a character class back then.) Elf was the only class that let me cast spells like a Magic-User and use weapons/armor like a Fighter.

That hasn't changed in the almost-forty years since: the "sword-wizard" is still my favorite character archetype. I gravitate toward classes that blend spellcasting and swordplay: the Hexblade warlock is my favorite, but I also love the Oath of Ancients paladin and the Bladesinger wizard. I need that level of versatility.

I totally feel this, and basically gave up on D&D ever getting it right at the very end of the 3.5 run.

Savage Worlds made it easy to do and it always felt right, and was always balanced, because Savage Worlds has a sneaky elegant way of forcing you to make certain character trade offs if you want to have a magic focus.

 

[jdrakeh]

Archetype? Aging, retired, hero begrudgingly called back into action. This is part of why Agone (the Multisim RPG) is one of my favorite tabletop RPGs of all time.

 

[Tonguez]

small, eccentric madcap poltroon who runs from combat (often a gnome alchemist bomber)
stealthy, acrobat-thief/assassins (rogue, monk, spy - my favourite rogue was a poetry spouting Alladin-type thief-acrobat in a Al-Qadim type setting)
tall, stoic, technician (ranging from a Goliath Cleric singing battle hymns to a Human Engineer in Traveller)

 

[Scribe]

The righteous holy warrior, in a world of depravity and sin. I'm here to protect the innocent, and punish the wicked.

Its why I lean towards settings on that grimdark side of the scale, because it provides a target rich environment.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

In theory I like playing loutish tough guys who are smarter than they let on to outsiders, but probably not as smart as they think they are. If there's a way to mechanically build something like a D& 4e Warlord or 13th Age Commander those are really my jam, but they do need a PC partner or two to work with to really be fun and those aren't always available. Perfectly happy playing a lout with someone else as a bossy type, too. I enjoy playing as part of a tactical pairing in pretty much any genre.

In practice, I wind up stuck as a spellcaster in fantasy games way more often than I want to because no one else wants to do the job. Even my screen handle here was an Erudite wizard from a short-lived Everquest TTRPG, of all the unlikely games to draw from. Still better than being a heal-bot for me, but not by much. If you want to avoid this sad fate, my advice is to never admit to understanding the magic system...or psionics, or hacking, or whatever reality-breaking god-mode nonsense the game includes.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Archetype? Aging, retired, hero begrudgingly called back into action. This is part of why Agone (the Multisim RPG) is one of my favorite tabletop RPGs of all time.

I enjoyed those more when the "aging" part was still roleplaying for me.

Still kind of dig it in superhero games, though.

 

[Skayaq]

my favorite archetype is the beastmaster, sadly this is an archetype most games (both ttrpgs annd crpgs) does extremely poorly if at all but when it is available it's the first character i try.

 

[Lanefan]

To play: either the tank-with-extras (in D&D e.g. a heavily-armoured 1e-style Ranger) or the high intelligence low-wisdom caster for whom "comsequences" is a four-letter word.

To play alongside: the gonzo pure-chaos type who never follows a plan and is contantly causing havoc either within the party or around it.

Archetype? Aging, retired, hero begrudgingly called back into action.

I like writing songs and poems about this archetype but have never really got into playing it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Dashing scoundrel.

Sometimes it's an illusionist, sometimes it's a swashbuckler rogue, sometimes it's a bard, but it's always someone whose mouth is their go-to weapon.