How would one go about making a... 'Chosen' character?

[Ryu]

Being a newbie here, and to Dungeons and Dragons (Well, in a sense... I know the stuff, but it's all book-knowledge), and my friend suggested I asked here.

I know it would be hard, seeing as it's the DM's idea for what the storyline is, and what will happen, but I have been hoping to find a DM who would be willing to run your typical 'Chosen One' anime-style storyline, involving the whole Fushigi Yuugi/InuYasha styled 'Modern youth ends up in Feudal Japan, is supposedly some destined fighter come to save them during some time of need' or whatever, but I'm not sure how someone would go would go about it (And with no DM currently, I have no-one to discuss any ideas with)

 

[Evilhalfling]

I have always had problems with this concept in D&D
but I will share my experiances.
1. focus on 1 PC not good for party dynamics
2. If he dies, the campaign is shot.
I got burned on a master of elments game I ran - 4 pcs each to be chosen by an elemental lord based on actions in game.

Well 2 pc's died, and when 2 new players were added to the game it really broke the storyline - now there were six?


The best variation I have seen was in the videogame planescape torment
where the Main char has no memories and keeps waking up in the mortuary if killed. - It has a great story explaining it, which I refuse to spoil here.
but this doesn't get around the single focus rather than the group focus.

Also in a previous campign I had one PC who was prophiced to lead his people into a new life, but he refused to believe it, and died before getting confirmation. Of course his followers (not the PCs) went ahead and founded a church with out him, causing upheavels in the halfling society. The campaign didn't focus on him but it was great for occasional plot hooks - Everytime they came back from the wilderness there was some problem with his followers usually taking less than 5 min to resolve. A lot of his money went to housing and feeding them, but if he ever needed say 5-50 halflings to do something, they were ready.

 

[Ryu]

Thats the problem I'm facing, you see. I live in England, and in a very, very RP deprived area (most people think Dungeons and Dragons is an outdated over here, let alone know what the anacronym 'RP' entails) so I am restricted to D'n'D online. We once tried an Oriental Adventures campaign with me and a friend online, but she was on at such different times that we had to drop her because the DM had to play her for long periods, else we wouldn't get anywhere for a good few weeks.

And yes, I don't know what to do about the whole 'Death is the end' deal. Either it would end up with my character dying, and stopping the campaign there (unless the DM allowed some intervention - Some random Monks find him, and luckily caught him before death, and brung him back to health, or some divine intervention for this whole destiny ideal gave him another chance or such) or if some more laid-back approach was added to make death for one character easier to remedy, then it would most likely turn out like Final Fantasy X's last battle (After all the powering up your characters did, to stop yourself dying, you find all your characters have infinate Auto-Life - Whenever anyone died, they came back the same instant, even if the attack killed all the party and made it more of a matter of just having the patience to kill your Aeons)

However, it seems easier in some respects, as theres no worrying about others feeling left out, and such - Then in the case of Fushigi Yuugi, you had seven Chosen (The Seven Star Warriors, or something if I remember) which all had skills which were required (whcih could account for class diversity within a party).

 

[Crothian]

ACtually its is easier then you might think. First one player is the Choosen, that does not mean that it all has to focus on him. Involve the other PCs and give them equal light. Sure the NPCs might react differently if they know the person is the chosen one, but that doesn't mean you have to ignore the other players.

And if the chosen one dies, just continue the story. The campaign gets harder and darker but it doesn't have to stop.

 

[Ryu]

True enough. But if finding a DM is hard enough (I've not had much luck yet) then I don't see how much easier having to find a group of PC's to also join, which then again brings up the point that if it's online, to actually RP, everyone would have to be online at one time.

 

[Starman]

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Wheel of Time novels, but they could make a good basis for how to do a story with one "chosen one" but other equally important characters.

Starman

 

[dvvega]

Another option you have is to have a single player and a single DM concept.

Or 2 players and both are 'chosen' so they must both survive. Many a manga has been developed over 2 or 3 people who are important but just don't work well together until they have to come to terms with themselves.

One of the Story Hours was run with 2 characters in Freeport (sorry the name escapes me) and that was a great campaign as far as I read.

So its possible.

 

[Ryu]

-Nod- The one DM/One PC idea was kind of what I was looking for, seeing as it's all I've been able to do so far online.

Re: Starman - I'm not at all familier with the 'Wheel of Time' series. ^^' Sorreh.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

We had a 'buffy' style chosen in a game I played in. There is a chosen one. There is always a chosen one. If they died, then the 'chosen-ness' got passed on to somebody else.

In this case the 'chosen-ness' was a template that made you quicker, stronger and able to beat up vampires with your fists. Good stuff.

We never did find out what happened in the event of the chosen ones death - campaign wound up before then...

My method would have been to give the template to the longest lived character. Until they died, when it passed onto the next longest and so on. Kind of reward for lucky play. Stops the game dying with just 1 character death?

 

[Ryu]

Mm... Sounds quite good actually, in the form of of a template. I was thinking of looking up a Planetouched, Aasimar and figuring out something like that, seeing as I came across it during school once reading through my Oriental Adventures Handbook.

'Great heroes often carry the blood of celestial beings in their veins. Rishi, or 'holy ones,' are humans who carry an aura of godliness about them, and manifest holy power as a result. Rishi may be quite appropriate for player characters in certain Oriental Adventures campaigns. Their favoured class in Oriental Adventures is Samurai.' - OAHB, p.145