Ever realize your characters were just... you?

[kirinke]

i agree. the current character i'm playing is an elf ranger. she's cautious, is developing tactics that will keep her (and her group) alive.
Now, when she has to, she will fight and kick butt (i hope). But on the off side, the reason why she's cautious is they're escorting a princess back to her family and going through orc territory with a vip non-combatant in tow is a bad, bad idea.

Now, to give you an idea, this girl is the one who suggested they disguis the princess as a peasant. when the dm said she was too pretty and important looking even then, she decided a cloak would be in order and the monk thought that a hair-cut would help too. Also, she suggested instead of going straight through the orc territory (a place where major raids were occuring), she suggested that they head that way until out of sight of town, then skirt west around the orc territory. This way, they avoid the worst of the orcs and also flummox any spies that might be within the town they're currently in.
Is this good tactics?

Now, this is what i normally am. Cautious, and non-violent....

 

[Steverooo]

Problem? WHAT problem?!?

Yes, all my characters are me, cloaked in other (usually Elven) flesh. In 1e, they were almost always LG Male Human Rangers. 2e I tried, felt they had messed up the Ranger too badly, and never played again until after 3e came out... In the last few years, they have all been Elven Rangers.

No great mystery (to me), here! I have played a F/MU/T, a Monk, a Bard, a Druid. I once got "stuck" with the Mage in a Tournament module, and though I was the only PC to survive and remain conscious (saving two unconscious ones), I hated it!

Nope, I wanna be a Ranger. I can multiclass if the party needs a Cleric (like I did in that 2e game after 3e came out), but I'm only happy with a stealthy, perceptive survivalist woodsman. Even in a Sci-Fi game.

That's just me. This is an aspect of my personality, and I make no excuses for it... I sit here, in front of a box of gear I just ordered, containing six knives, a medium sized camoflaged ALICE pack, six six-color desert camoflaged pack covers, 10 ALICE clips, and 100' of 550 paracord... Atop my desk, I see a cyalume lightstick, and a lightstick holder. Nearby is another box full of neck knives, a new Zippo-brand lighter (with morse code on the cover), whistles, etc. On the desk, itself, are a new canteen and canteen cup stand, another whistle, a snare, a fishing/snare kit, and Volume IX of the Ranger's Digest. Stacked behind me are many, many boxes, labeled "SG-", followed by a number... SG = Survival Gear, of course.

Shuck! I wonder WHY I aint happy playin' anything but a Ranger?

 

[Zappo]

It doesn't really happen with me. Maybe it's because I am used to DMing, so I keep playing a multitude of characters which have to be different and unique.
In d20, I've played:
an ultra-charismatic chaotic good bard, which shared with me my humour and nothing else;
a chaotic good bladesinger, which is probably the closest to me simply because he's very vanilla;
a true neutral rogue/fighter/spy, a practical and slightly cynical merchant, none of which are traits I share;
a lawful good sorcerer, slightly arrogant (which I'm definitely not) and extremely self-confident and self-reliant (which I am, but not even close to that degree);
a (Star Wars) wookie warrior, strong as an enraged bull and more than happy to let someone else do the thinking, which is just about the opposite of me.

 

[babomb]

It took me three years to make a character who wasn't "me". I played paladins, rangers, and monks, all of whom were NG/LG, quiet, and distant. Sure their backgrounds were different, but they ended being more or less the same person. So when one of my characters died, I made a wizard. I finally found myself creating a character that came to life on his own. I did a lot of work on him, setting up his history and his spelllbook selections based on his personality, rather than min/maxing. It seemed more like I was writing about a real person than making one up. Then the gaming group fell apart and I never played him. C'est la vie.

Most of the players in that group played some exaggeration of themselves. We had one guy who was always a loner rogue or bard. Another was a chaotic kleptomaniacal rogue. One guy was always a vanilla fighter. Another was arrogant mage/psion.

 

[Michael Tree]

1: Make a list of your Real Life (TM) character flaws and strengths.

2: Make a list of your In Game (TM) character's personality flaws and strengths.

3: Have atleast %50 difference between the lists.

4: Every session try to play up atleast one strength and flaw of the characters that is not your's in RL. This may be ackward for a while, but should eventually become second nature.

Excellent advice here. While I have never done this formally, I run through a similar mental process when creating characters.

All my characters are reflections of me, but distorted ones. I take aspects of myself that I'm interested in playing or exploring, and exaggerate them, while downplaying other aspects or removing them entirely. I have tried to create characters that were different from myself in fundemental ways, but it was too uncomfortable to play.

For example, almost all my characters are basically 'good' people; I have found it very difficult to play despicable characters. However, they way they were 'good' came out in very different ways. Some were noble and honorable, others were bitter and detached (similar to Wesley in Angel season 3-4), and others would do anything to protect that which they loved, including torture and sacrificing innocents.

 

[jgbrowning]

We just had this talk last night---weird. We agreed with you and we are starting a new campaign and I am going to choose someone who is less like me.
I hope .

Holy Crap! Your character's going to have pants?

Repent, for the end is nigh.....

joe b.

 

[Nifft]

Possession: pants?

This is just too good a plot hook to ignore. Pantsergeist!

-- N

 

[Hypersmurf]

I've always found it spooky and eerie when one of my own characters does something that surprises me.

But even worse is when you try to explain that to a non-roleplayer

-Hyp.

 

[fusangite]

Every character one plays can only be a subset of the self. The question is: which parts of your self do you invest in the character and which do you leave behind? We are all sufficiently complex people that I'm pretty confident that all the characters we will ever need or want to play exist within us.

What it means to stretch as a player is to refrain from using obvious parts of ourselves in favour of showing off aspects of ourselves that we display less frequently. My longest-term gaming associate did this in a campaign recently and I enjoyed it immensely.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Wow, what a great thread!

I've been struggling with this recently as well.

While I usually DM, when I play I have really felt this as well.

1) Recently playing a Rogue/Cleric of Brandobaris (which I have come back to a couple of times in one shots), I've had a very very difficult time in reigning my caution in and just going in with the attitude -- "lose or win, doesn't matter, as long as the result is a good story!" as befits a worshiper of Brandobaris. I did have one good moment a couple of games ago in which he won initiative in a major encounter and his first action was to run up to the bad guy (who was turned around kneeling at an altar) and give him a swift kick to the seat of the pants.

2) Another character is not the most verbal person in the world. While he is an intelligent wizard, he has trouble verbalizing his thoughts. As a verbal person myself, its been hard for me to hold myself back and play a character who really doesn't like to talk much due to self-awareness of his own social difficulty.