Characters are too vanilla! Let's spice them up!

[ashockney]

I think paragon paths are part of the key here. And to a lesser extent, retraining. To the extent that Essentials downplays both (very bland and generic PPs as the default, and for many PCs fewer options to retrain into/out of) then it reduces the spice.

Paragon paths, and their prestige class predecessors are an interesting design element that allow for more character differentiation in the game, usually some specialized bells and whistles. They definitely add to the otherwise bland charcter roleplaying aspects. You were just a dwarven fighter. Now you are a dwarven defender, and the guardian at the gate to your underground city!

 

[ashockney]

You bring to mind my Jamaican-esque goblin alchemist that I used to run and got killed during gameplay. The best stuff comes from the roleplay side.

However, one thing that D&D has never* embraced is the idea of Hindrances/Faults. My go-to system of Savage Worlds uses them as part of the character building process. They system also rewards you playing your hindrance when it is not convenient for the group (example: someone with Loyal going back for a captured NPC that does not mean anything to the Plot).

I love it! Along with the rastafarian star-gazing dwarf, and the fertile shaman. All much more spicy, characters. AmerigoV is onto something here with the SW bene system. These make for a more interesting character, ones that you'll want to come back to. I'd argue, that in most of these instances these characters were interesting because of their RP and STORY aspects. The story you told about them between sessions, between battles, and certainly they were fun to roleplay.

How could you bring that same variety, spice, and interesting aspect INTO the game you play? While you're exploring the dungeon, or resuing the princess? I like the SW idea of bene's to bring your character ACROSS that line and into the combat in odd ways, telling a more interesting story and gaining benefits for yourself, for when you will need them.

 

[amerigoV]

How could you bring that same variety, spice, and interesting aspect INTO the game you play? While you're exploring the dungeon, or resuing the princess? I like the SW idea of bene's to bring your character ACROSS that line and into the combat in odd ways, telling a more interesting story and gaining benefits for yourself, for when you will need them.

One thing I came up with prior to discovering Savage Worlds are what I called Roleplaying Scenes. Here is a link to a writeup. The basic idea is to give a PCs 5 minutes of pure RP that has nothing to do with the current plot or in a threatening situation. Something that can be used for the player to develop the PC's views on the world and a chance for the DM to show off their world.

Another thing in Savage Worlds are Interludes. There is an older version that is much more involved, but the new one from the Savage Worlds Deluxe is cleaner - basically there are 4 events (victory, love, tradegy, and desire) that a PC gets to tell a short story about. Of course, you get a bennie for your story. I used the Interludes recently to great effect running a modern horror "movie" - much like in horror movies, there are quiet moments that the the character talk and you get to know more about them (then they get eaten by a zombie). Here is a link to their new version

On D&D - I have always perceived D&D to be "heroic", even if am running an anti-hero type. There seemed to be an unwritten and unvoiced opinion that you should try to "do the right thing" in the adventure. Make sure you have a decent PC build, select the right spells, kill the thief if he steals from the party, etc. For me, this always constrained roleplay. A scoundrel could be a scoundrel only to the point it did not "hurt" the party. The Hindrance/Bennie reward system, in my mind anyway, "gives the player permission" to do what the PC really would do. A sample of great Hindrances in the system that lead to very interesting RP:

• Big Mouth - The old Loose Lips Sinks Ships
• Curious - Great for Olde Skoole campaigns. Just create a pool of glowing water and you have an instant "ok, I'll touch it" PC
• Pacifist - one of the PreGens is a pacificist barbarian - he hates that rage the lies within (kinda Hulk-like - "you won't like me when I am angry...")
• Overconfident - "Yeah, I can do that!"
• Quirk - a nice catch all to give your PC something distinctive
• I do not recall the name, but it pops up in a couple of settings. Basically, you know you are awesome and you spend the first round of combat telling everyone that fact. You have to spend a Bennie if you want/have to do anything else in that first round.

I'll give an example from a one-shot introducing SW to a group. The setup is the group is exploring a catacombs as one of the PCs thinks there is a necromancer looking to become a lich. At one point, the group hears something coming and hides. It is a skeleton that is shambling along and appears focused on where it is going. I threw in a bit of description about there being a gold necklace on the skeleton. The player running the Greedy thief starts to think about pick pocketing the skeleton. In 99% of D&D groups that I have played in (YMMV, of course), reason would have set in - everyone knows they will get to kill the skeleton later in the session and can retrieve the necklace then - thus no reason to give away their position. So I hold up a Bennie and the player, now with "permission" goes for it. I know there are people that would say "yeah, I would have done that in D&D", but the difference is no one in the group challenged the action from a metagaming perspective. They thought it was cool the player earned a bennie for the action.

Anyway. Lots of SW sidetracking. I would suggested adopting the Interludes/Roleplaying scenes. I found my players really look forward to them as it give them the spotlight without worrying about the dice trying to betray them.

 

[pemerton]

The story you told about them between sessions, between battles, and certainly they were fun to roleplay.

How could you bring that same variety, spice, and interesting aspect INTO the game you play?

Agreed that the spice should be part of play, not an adjunct to play.

While you're exploring the dungeon, or resuing the princess? I like the SW idea of bene's to bring your character ACROSS that line and into the combat in odd ways, telling a more interesting story and gaining benefits for yourself, for when you will need them.

I hold up a Bennie and the player, now with "permission" goes for it. I know there are people that would say "yeah, I would have done that in D&D", but the difference is no one in the group challenged the action from a metagaming perspective. They thought it was cool the player earned a bennie for the action.

I'm not sure about other versions of D&D, but in 4e this should be driven in part by Quest XP (including for player-defined Quests). Has anyone tried that way of handling it?

 

[amerigoV]

I'm not sure about other versions of D&D, but in 4e this should be driven in part by Quest XP (including for player-defined Quests). Has anyone tried that way of handling it?

XP, while nice, is a long-term reward. A potential "4e" equivalent would be giving out an action point, although I am not sure if that would throw off balance to the system (I am not a 4e guy other than playing a few times). The Bennie provides immediate "feedback" that can then be used in the session. That is why I think it is so powerful.

 

[technoextreme]

In my opinion, this is a bit of a secondary topic to the one I was targeting, which was this 4e character will largely "play" the same from 1st to 30th, and my choices don't seem to have that big of an effect in the game.

Honestly, I haven't found it that bit of an issue because as time goes on I'm realizing that a lot of the classes call upon specific archetypes and all I need to do is pick a specific one and be on my merry way. If I want further flavor I pick a character theme and background.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, the HERO Disadvantage mechanics gives you flavor tied to an immediate flavor boost: each Disad- Hunted, Secret ID, Code vs Killing, Vulnerability, etc.- gives you a certain amount of build points. The closest I've seen in D&D was the Flaws.

 

[Barastrondo]

I'm firmly in the "spice comes from roleplay" camp, though I suppose a better way of looking at it is "spice comes from context." From a mechanical standpoint, that comes less from having neat powers that make the same character play differently (which is kind of a continuity issue) and more from neat powers that can be applied in a variety of ways. For instance, I think one of the spiciest builds out there is the brawler fighter, but a successful 1-30 run with one would be best with a lot of variety in who and what he's grappling, where he can throw enemies for effect, what he's fighting for.

4e's remarkable strong point is synergy. A class handles differently depending on what the other classes in the group are: consider the rogue with the cleric or the rogue with the warlord, for instance. This is also true of encounter design. Encounter design could grant a lot of sense of progression in ways that the mechanics of the class don't -- or, honestly, they could showcase a subtle class change as you gain a new power, and make it clearly a Very Big Deal.

Piratecat said it best, and I paraphrase: "Once my players were able to cast regenerate, I did my best to cut off a limb." Having access to that new power is only a big thing if you have an opportunity to use it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Pow!

What puts some spice in your characters?

All sorts of things. I find a strong concept and a good background does the most. If you have a real feel for the characters personality, history, goals, insecurities, regrets, and aspirations, you have a character that will stand up to years of play, almost regardless of the system. (Almost - really badly-balanced system can make important concept choices non-viable, stomping all over a good character idea).

I APPLAUD what the designers did in 4e to make the players playable from 1 -30. Amazing! Groundbreaking.

Largely the same character through the levels, just a few new bells and whistles and playing the campaign is very slow growth.

Really? While the '4e treadmill,' keeps you hitting (and being hit) about 50/50 vs same-level threats from 1-30, that's the only thing that does kinda coast along. Your character rapidly gains powers through Heroic, then takes on additional aspects, features, and (yet more) powers from his PP and ED, while cycling out low-level class powers, as well. That's a lot of change and expansion of ability.

The pace of level advancement is also rather brisk. 13 standard encounters for a level. If you play weekly ~3 encounters (or maybe 2 overleveled), that's about a level a month, maybe quicker if you go more like 4 encounters, more towards overleveled encounters, or include a lot of additional (generally quicker to resolve) non-combat challenges.

Advancement has generally gotten quicker. I ran AD&D for 10 years (through two editions), and the party covered about 1-14. I gamed the full run of 3.x with a group that ran two campaigns in parrallel, that each covered 14 levels, while also giving equal time to a third non-D&D campaign. The same group covered heroic 1-11 in about a year and a half (again, with time split between 3 campaigns, so, really, in about 6 months (24 sessions) or so) in 4e, and another group I'm in now has just hit 11th after a year of gaming twice a month, at most.

 

[mneme]

Actually, hitting the OP directly, I don't think you have to have a character play the same way from 1st to 30th level -- in fact, you can have radically different builds through the tiers (particularly if you loosen up on retraining rules, as LFR does).

Lets take my Deva Avenger -- Isa Sunrise. From first level, she was a pretty typical martyr crit-venger -- weapon prof at first level, RRoT at 2nd, charging around the place and absorbing OAs with Righteous Charge, and relying on her excellent defenses and my prevalence to not get her -too- far away from the group to get her from the day. Her first big shift was around 7th level, as that was around when I had her multiclass into Shaman and take the Avenger power that teleports enemies within 2 of the enemy you hit your Int. Now, instead of running around constantly to try to get her oath on, she had a bit of skill monkey (between the Shaman encounter->daily power speak to spirits and the Deva Memories of a thousand lifetime, she could treat nearly any skill as if it were trained 1/day), a bit of controller (with two attacks that teleported enemies around, she could bunch them up, try to teleport them up to hand out damage and get them prone, etc, not to mention a spirit who could block squares), a bit of healing-leader (as the spirit would hand out some free healing on an OA and she also had a per-encounter heal from the second level multiclass shaman feat), and a lot of striker; she was also deliberately drawing OAs a lot less than she used to as far too many minions handed out grabs, immobolize, or the like on OAs. When she hit paragon levels, I decided I was bored with the old routine of "Oath, Tempus, Charge", saw the changes to Melee Training on the horizon, and I didn't see a good paragon option for an Avenger (Shaman) [there is one, mind. But I didn't see it, and I did see an option I really liked].

So instead I rebuilt her, deciding that she'd focused on some memories of a past life where she was a delver into arcane secrets rather than an initiate into the ways of nature. She changed her alliegence to Ogham (frankly, she'd already lost of lot of the rage that made Tempus a good choice), multiclassing into Artificer, switched her Avenger feature over to Unity [not something you can usually do, but this is LFR, plus when she was built Unity didn't even exist], took a power swap feat to exchange the Avenger lackluster U10 choices for the excellent Artificer Slick Concoction, and took Battle Engineer as her paragon path. Suddenly, she's a very strikery Avenger with a -serious- side of leader, who hands out huge bonuses to hit and damage to most of the party, provides a solid damage boost whenever she's next to her oath target (not to mention a goad to focusing fire), moves her people around to get them into position and teleports out to drag enemies into the party's formation (sometimes multiple times in an encounter, between Crimson Stride, Overwhelming Strike as a basic, the full Unity version of Fury's Advance, and a brooch that lets me recharge Crimson Stride), and in a pinch, can even heal, plus solid nova abilities between the Battle Engineer utility power and action point powers, Painful Oath, the ability to optimize the hell out of the Unity damage feature by moving allies around, and minor action attacks from Fury's Advance and at 17th level, Soulforge Hammering [which also provides a nice damage boost during a nova round].

At 21st level, I expect she'll change again, as I'm going to take the excellent Soul of the World ED, which will force me to decide which races and classes I'm going to poach stuff from; probably gain a bit more control and a few new racial tricks.