I'm sorry, your character idea is too awful.

[Hella_Tellah]

I had a player pitch a new character concept to me last night--unfortunately, it's pretty much the same as his last character concept. The guy always wants to play a character with multiple personalities. I just can't stomach another character with multiple personalities; it doesn't fit with the kind of tone I want to set in my game, so I'm going to ask him for something different.

I can tease out the reasons he likes this kind of character. It gives him a little bit of variety, so he can play more than one sort of person. It also gives him an excuse to have the character do strange things and avoid some of the consequences by having the "main" personality unaware of the weird things the other personalities do. He's the kind of player who has fun by throwing monkey wrenches in things and failing hilariously--which is sometimes a welcome addition to the game, don't get me wrong here.

I guess that, fundamentally, a character with multiple personalities is just too much cliché for me. I don't like it when it's Edward Norton doing it, I don't like it when it's Kevin Spacey, and I don't like it at the table.

If you DM, what kinds of characters have you had to say no to? As a player, has a DM crushed your dreams of having a strange character?

 

[Badwe]

As a DM, I keep my mind open and let the players police themselves. That kind of character would have to find resistance from the rest of the party.

As a PLAYER, I find it infuriating to work with apathetic anti-hero types. Previously true neutral, now merely unaligned (and damned violent about it!), they often have no detectable motive other than to suddenly be opposed to whatever it is the party has just decided to do, and is willing to walk off on their own to do something else.

 

[The Little Raven]

If you DM, what kinds of characters have you had to say no to?

Comic relief. I appreciate it in my movies and television, but comic relief in games usually just turns into one guy derailing it by acting like he's been snorting freeze dried coffee and recycling every joke written in the past century into game-related puns.

Also, kender, for the same reason as above.

And Malkavians. Any of them.

 

[Mallus]

Let's see, my most recent characters include...

... a Dragonborn paladin who marks his foes with his own semi-divine semen (Sir Yatagan Fracas).

... a ninja-like merchant/priest armed with a lethal pointed stick (Meritage Shiraz).

... a mystical martial artist and Communist apparatchik in the employ of the People's Revolutionary Army of Zu Mountain (Cloud Strike).

... and the 14-year old Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestling, from preset-day East L.A. (Joseirus).

So as you can see, DM's/GM's usually indulge me when it comes to playing strange characters. I'm lucky in that regard, and in return, I do my best to indulge my players when I'm running the show.

 

[rkwoodard]

back in the day

Let's see, my most recent characters include...

... a Dragonborn paladin who marks his foes with his own semi-divine semen (Sir Yatagan Fracas).

... a ninja-like merchant/priest armed with a lethal pointed stick (Meritage Shiraz).

... a mystical martial artist and Communist apparatchik in the employ of the People's Revolutionary Army of Zu Mountain (Cloud Strike).

... and the 14-year old Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestling, from preset-day East L.A. (Joseirus).

So as you can see, DM's/GM's usually indulge me when it comes to playing strange characters. I'm lucky in that regard, and in return, I do my best to indulge my players when I'm running the show.

In college (late 80s) I had a roommate ask if he could play robocop in my 2nd AD&D game. My answer NO. Of course now I could say lets look at warforged.

Also in college a co-workers was telling me about his AD&D characater. A two-headed Elven Vampire Wizard (See having two heads he could cast two spells a round). I just looked at him, to which he replied "Its not stupid". Based on that, I never invited him to my game.

RK

 

[Splurch]

Well I have a guy who always wants to play monster characters and it just don't fit in most of my games so I say no to them. Although my favorite Vampire Character was a Malkavian with multiple personalities (10 total) but I came up with 5 and the dm came up with 5 and he choose when I switched (mostly during stressful situations) and we randomly rolled a D10 to see who I became. It was the most fun I've had playing Vampire!

 

[Hella_Tellah]

... a mystical martial artist and Communist apparatchik in the employ of the People's Revolutionary Army of Zu Mountain (Cloud Strike).

... and the 14-year old Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestling, from preset-day East L.A. (Joseirus).

I demand that you come and play these awesome characters at my table. I'll expect you at 7:00 on Wednesday.

 

[Crothian]

Noth ing specific comes to mind, my players don't have out their concepts usually. Mostly concepts are refused when they don't fit the specific campaign restrictions. Like we are playing in a desert area and someone wants a fish person.

 

[Dragonbait]

I've had to say No to characters with multiple personalities. In my experience, the people asking to play multiple personalities wanted to play multiple characters who share the same physical attributes and hit points, but sometimes they are a wizard (with 18/00 strength, 16 Con, 18 Int! and over 100 hp!), sometimes they are a fighter. I just flat out say "No." Or "Hell No"
Bu that was all back in High School.

I now say no to the following:
- Characters with such caustic personalities that they can not work in groups

- Characters who are joke characters. Funny characters can be three-dimensional persoanlities (example: the characters of Firefly) but joke characters get old in the first game. "My character just says 'Blarn!' instead of speaking. Hurr hurr hurr." later, at game 3 "This character is boring. For some reason I can't seem to RP with him. Hmmm."

- Characters who nullify other character's powers. Some players have the finesse to work around this, but the one I see that does this most of the time has proved over and over again that he does not.

- Characters who duplicate most of another character's abilities. Some players have the finesse to work around this, but the one I see that does this most of the time has proved over and over again that he does not.

- Evil characters, because the people who ask to be evil in my particular groups want to either kill everyone in the group or just want to be able to say they wiled an unholy sword. There is no deeper reason.

- Characters who are inappropriate for the setting. No Warforged in the Realms, no monks in Middle-Earth, no elves in Ravenloft (I mean, elves are there, but its really a humano-centric setting).

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The only two things I would be inclined to outright ban are concepts that are munchkin in nature and designed to try to con me into allowing a more powerful character for "roleplaying" reasons, and concepts that don't fit in with the party as a whole, which would include "evil" characters(very disruptive in the hands of the immature players who usually request this), antisocial/annoying characters(I have one player who has a real problem with this), joke characters(I tend to run a serious game that doesn't accomodate this), and others.