Have you ever played an old character?

[jester47]

Well of you think about it it is a great way to get a few extra points of Wiz, Cha and Int.
Granted if you go the venerable route, you loose 6 in Str Dex and Con.
Still, if you use the method of char gen that I use in my campaigns you could use the aging rules to rescue a character that is top heavy on the physical side and could use some intelligence.

Aaron.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I've got a couple of characters that I've been playing for a really long time, both IRL and IC, that have gone from young whipper-snappers to crotchety old farts. There are a few other players I know that have likewike seen their characters grow old within a campaign.

One's a fighter, and he's semi-retired (that is, I only play him once a year, on special occassions) from adventuring and has become a librarian.

The other is a wizard, so he's not quite as disadvantaged as the fighter... But he's not particularly healthy, anymore, either.

Later
silver

 

[James Heard]

I've actually played a lot of old dudes, from starting out old to making it to old age to the immortal elf I played in a 2E campaign where occasionally we'd literally wait out the bad guys to die or for the world shaking cataclysm to be over. I dunno if I could actually play a really young character anymore; I might be inclined to do something realistic and silly like forego adventuring to chase girls and get drunk, attend wizard school, join an evil cult to get back at my parents, etc. Plus there's just something more heroic about the guy who sacrifices his entire life that he's held to that point to go do something unlikely and dangerous for the benefit of other people. And best of all, when the old guy NPCs come out of the woodwork and start off on the "when I was your age" crap you can shut them up with the "When I was YOUR age I didn't lecture to people who are just trying to help." It really makes the GM change gears, and I think that's ultimately good for the game in a lot of cases.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Both.

My favorites were in Call of Cthulhu - Christian Heartland (name was computer generated, but how could I not keep it?!) And the Dead River Kid, a gunfighter in the 1870s... too bad the game was in the 1920s! Stupidly high Dex and Pistols skill, stupidly low Con. High point was when he stood his ground against a mass of cultists, and sent 'em runnin'! A scary, scary old man.

The Auld Grump

 

[Uder]

I played a very very old druid... at first it was just powergaming (those INT/WIS/CHA bonuses far outway the physical penalties for a druid), but I really got into the role. He was chaotic neutral and a natural-born *terrible* leader.

He started as a 1st-level character. I just assumed he had once been fairly powerful (7th-9th level) but sort of lost it as time went on.

 

[Terwox]

I played an elf who was an old sage, but I forget if they were in the first or second age category. Didn't get to play very long, but I liked the character... walked with a limp in robes and carried a quarterstaff as a walking stick -- but in combat tumbled everywhere and used the staff w/ two-weapon fighting. Great fun. Huge Yoda ripoff, but hey, I enjoyed it. (wiz5/fighter1/eldritch knight1 at campaign dissolution.)

One guy in my group tends to play human characters who are eighty years old. It worked pretty well for the psionicist (3.0, shaper) he played in my game -- a very creepy old man who was basically crippled (4 str, 4 dex, 6 dex,) and spent all his time making a ring that made him uncrippled. Very neat character, very creepy old man.

The other character he's made in a game I'm a player in, he's a 78 year old ex-pirate turned dirt farmer turned unwitting planar adventurer. (I'm his adopted son.) It's quite fun, he's a crazy old man who spends most of his time pursuing the fountain of youth and related places -- and I'm right behind him... although the rest of the party thinks he's a little off! It's primarily misadventures at this point, but it's pretty fun, and it's good adventure motivation too. (He's also a fighter in this one... lemme tell ya, -6 str/dex/con is fun when you're the group's only fighter!) Hehe... that group gives me crap about character optimization though... so he played a super-optimized character to spite me. It's fun. (The DM likes it and runs with it too, it's not quite a screwoff character, just a weird idea.)

 

[ThoughtBubble]

No, but I wanted to. I was going to have Sir Kreeian, a long retired knight, and former adventurer who defeated an evil cult, rescued a damsel, and got married. He had to settle down to see to being a good father and husband. But now, the household is managed by his middle son, his eldest is following in his footsteps, and his youngest daughter just left to become a cleric of pelor (makes a father proud). So, he's able to take another ride out as he starts dealing with a mid-life crisis.

He was going to be dropped smack dab in the middle of a band of full on 'connectionless adventurer types'. And he would have been a ball, referencing things like 'back in the day' and trying to set up the humans to show up at social events, and in particular see if he couldn't introuduce the fighter/rogue to one of his nephews.

He'd discover that he wasn't as fast anymore, and his instincts weren't quite alright. But he'd bring expierience, tactics and co-operation that the younger folks didn't have. That, and more than two ranks in diplomacy. Oh, and some courtly manners (there was a political bend to the game that no character in the game was prepared for).

Shame he never got to see the light of day.

 

[Li Shenron]

Interesting, I didn't think that aged characters were after all played as much as the replies suggest. I guess I should keep this option in mind for future characters...