D&D 5E Literary Clones

[Jester David]

The perpetual debate on Drizzt and Dizzt clones got me thinking on players and character that are rip-offs of existing characters. Everyone seemed to despise Drizzt clones, but what about other characters that are copies of characters from fiction or film, be it Legolas or Oberon Mantell?
While I've never made a carbon copy of Drizzt I've made my fair share of half-elven fighter/rangers that are similar to Tanis Half-Elven.

How about you? Have you *really* never made a copy of a beloved character??

--edit--
Sorry for the hidden poll. Must have hit something by accident.
Currently it's 42% have, 54% have not, 4% accident.

 

[Shiroiken]

While I may have recieved inspiration from literary characters (even non-fantasy), each character I make is unique in personality, background, motivation, goals, etc. Even if I come from a similar starting point, I allow the character to grow based on his/her adventures, so they never come out the same.

Unless you're talking mechanics. If you're talking mechanics I've made dozens of elven wizards over the years that were similar mechanically, so could be considered clones of each other.

 

[Azurewraith]

I do my best to avoid making clones of characters from elsewhere i take inspiration from them from other sources (but who wouldn't). Personaly for me part of the fun of creating a character is creating something unique.

 

[MechaPilot]

I have made cloned characters before. However, I usually twist them when I do, meaning that they are usually not pure clones. Sometimes it's a twist to fit my personal style. If the character already does that, then it's probably a twist toward something that fits the campaign better.

Probably the best example of this comes not from a D&D character of mine, but from a BtVS character. She was, essentially, Willow. However, she was older, she was a watcher, and I replaced Willow's magic addiction with nightmares (the character saw her parents killed in a suicide bombing, and sometimes she had nightmares reliving the experience).

That particular clone was twisted to fit the campaign better: all the other characters were younger, so I made mine older and more responsible to provide some means of grounding the group.

 

[MechaPilot]

I do my best to avoid making clones of characters from elsewhere i take inspiration from them from other sources (but who wouldn't). Personaly for me part of the fun of creating a character is creating something unique.

I agree with what you said, but at the same time it often does seem like the old adage "there's nothing new under the sun" is true. Sometimes there's very little difference between a character inspired by another character and a character that is a clone with a slight twist.

 

[pukunui]

I've drawn inspiration for characters from elsewhere but I don't think I've ever made a straight-up clone of a character. Take my current 5e character, for instance. Personality-wise, she's based on Phryne Fisher from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but Phryne is a 1920s Australian "lady detective", whereas my character is a pseudo-medieval European Oath of the Ancients paladin (and a half-elf to boot).

 

[Minigiant]

Book Characters, no.
Player character, no.

But the demon princes and archdevil in my setting as straight up Street Fighter character wannabees as I can just give them their special moves and supers. Lord Bison is a archdevil. Gill and Urien are archdevils. Seth wants to be an archdevil. Vega (claw) is a cambion and Balrog (boxer) is a warlock. Guile and Charlie are paladin/monks. Akuma turned demonic and is just going from layer to layer on the Abyss "ending scrubs".

 

[Azurewraith]

I agree with what you said, but at the same time it often does seem like the old adage "there's nothing new under the sun" is true. Sometimes there's very little difference between a character inspired by another character and a character that is a clone with a slight twist.

This true but i try not to think like that as well then the world becomes a very drab place

 

[Hriston]

My current 5e character is a high elf wizard skilled in investigation that I try to play as much like Sherlock Holmes from the BBC series as possible. Not really a clone, but definitely a source of inspiration for role playing.

 

[Redthistle]

I'm almost OCD when it comes to creating new characters, making 3 - 5 PCs every week using ideas gleaned from writing courses and workshops. A technique such as picking three photos or quotes at random and tying them together to weave a backstory has produced some interesting characters.

I also like the challenge of taking a character from another genre, such as superhero comics, and seeing how well I can make it translate into a DnD PC.

Sometimes it works well. A retired gladiator mul in Dark Sun inspired by Captain America was one of my favorites.

Sometimes it doesn't work; I've never been able to tweak a PC into something close enough to Spiderman to satisfy my inner critic.

A comment on another forum has me pondering a multi-class Paladin/Rogue, with a good Intelligence (Investigation) score, as a way to emulate Batman.