Quirky Character Phobias

[Chosen of Mystra]

Well let me tell a story.

About 7 years ago when I was a young DM I played with a lot of my simliarly aged friends. One of them was my best friend. He was a 5'8" 230 lbs ball of muscle. Anyway he had a penchant for playing axe wielding fighters.

The funny thing was is they always seemed to turn out the same way. Low INT and WIS, really High STR, 14-17 in Dex and Cha.

So he was always the type of guy that no matter how hard he got hit he would always run right back into the fray, your tradtional tank. Except he didn't care if anyone backed him up if his arm was broke he just keep on running back.

One time there was this covered wagon with a princess inside it. And Mike jumped inside after he heard her scream. He got hit so hard by this monster he flew out of the wagon and smacked his back off of a stone cliffside. He got up shook what he could off and ran right back in only to have the same thing happen.

The rest of the party just stood there and watched as he kept running in and getting thrown out of this wagon.

More to my point, one time Mike heard a growl from inside a cave, and without warning tore off into it to kill whatever was growling. When he got into the cave it was pitch black. About five minutes later his party members found him curled up in the corner shaking.... they asked him what was wrong and he replied: "I'm afraid of the dark"

What are some of your PC's most outrageous and quirky phobias?

 

[Eye Tyrant]

My current PC, Brakus Shadowforge, a Dwarven Rogue/Sorcerer, has a typical Dwarven phobia... He hates water, the thing is though, he really likes boats. Our campaign right now consists of a lot of sailing. Brakus enjoys the voyages, it's the embarking and disembarking process that really gets him. Once aboard he feels pretty secure. That is except for this last session where we were out on the water and a storm started brewing, the only folks awake (it was night) was Brakus and Ahab (a PC Gnome), who was sailing the vessel. Ahab was intent on riding the storm out until Brakus nearly came to blows over the matter... He's the type that get's angry when something scares him...

 

[Moe Ronalds]

I once had a half-orc barbarian character (big, tall, strong, grew up with an abusive orc father and half-brother) with 20 strength who loved beating things to a pulp. However, as a baby, he had a bad experience with a snapping turtle and thus, he grew up with a phobia of turtles.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Fear of Heights is always a good one. If played right it can come into play and really make the characters get creative to solve problems when they are high up, or need to get up. Phobias in games are tricky. If you go too obscure it never comes into play, but a common phobia can get in the way of gaming as much as it can add to it. Personally I prefer playing minor social phobias. Fear of groups, fear of interation with the opposite sex or a specific race.