Playing Apparent Losers

[takasi]

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.

 

[WalterKovacs]

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.

 

[White Tornado]

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 ^_^)

 

[Storminator]

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..."

PS

 

[Hand of Evil]

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.​

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

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.

 

[Dragonhelm]

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.

 

[Pickles JG]

Why would you risk your life adventuring with someone who was a liability?

 

[Hand of Evil]

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.

 

[Doug McCrae]

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.

That doesn't answer the question. Pickles JG is asking why the *other* PCs adventure with this person. Why don't they just kick him out the party?