D&D 5E Odd character creations

[El Mahdi]

I have to say I disagree that Odo and Quark is a good example. Quark is absolutely NOT evil when compared to his culture, he is a veritable paragon at times and most often shows compassion and kindness.

He's most certainly non-lawful. However, he doesn't act Chaotically - he's consistently self-serving. He will follow the law when it's beneficial to him - or the risk is too great - and eschew it as soon as he thinks he can get away with it. That's a pretty good definition of Neutral.

As to kindness and compassion, anyone can display that, especially when it's in their own best interest; such as it's better to have Odo and the others on the station as his friends, rather than enemies. (Which is a good example of how to play an evil character in a good-aligned game group.)

And never forget, Quark placed very little value on Rom's life - his own brother - purposely and casually putting Rom in jeopardy in order to advance his own schemes, and did so more than once. That's pretty Evil.

However, as with real-people, Quark is not always consistent with a narrow categorization like Alignment. Yes, he's shown kindness and compassion. He has also shown undeniable Evilness.

So, if one had to try and quantify Quark by alignment, I'd say Neutral Evil - or True Neutral at best.

As for Odo, we agree on Lawful, but I think he's also Good. He has an unwavering respect for Life and Fairness - for that which is Just and Right - though he has to repress this while surviving in the literal and morally gray world of Cardassian Rule, and it carries over into his initial dealings with the Federation until he realizes it's safe to openly espouse it.

But of course, our disagreement highlights the fools errand that is trying to categorize fictional characters by alignment (let alone trying to categorize real people that way).

Which is why I said in my post:

...at least as far as fictional characters can be categorized by alignment - an usually tricky and ambiguous endeavor...

This discussion also highlights that Alignment is not a rigid categorization meant to absolutely define a character or confine a character to a certain range of behavior. It is merely a tool to help each player envision their own character, and not to be used by other players to judge other's adherence to alignment. The components of Alignment are too subjective from person to person to be a true and universal definition. For instance, you use Quark's culture as a reference point, but to other cultures his behavior is Evil. Varying based on point of view proves its subjectiveness.

That also means that being a neutral evil assassin isn't necessarily "one step removed from a mass murderer." That is one potential possibility within neutral evil, but by no means the only one.

Cheers.

 

[El Mahdi]

Anyone like the halfling stone foot battlerager idea? Or possibly another idea or two ? I'm just looking for something different and fun.

That sounds like it could be fun.

Maybe also a Gnome Ranger...

Or a Dwarf Rogue...

Or a Half-Orc Wizard...

 

[Sunseeker]

The slant of the game is, and has pretty much always been, for a group of trained and powerful individuals to go places they are not welcome, kill those living there and take their stuff to enrich themselves and enhance their skills in order to go to still further places they are not welcome and kill the residents there to take their stuff... ultimately to build a fortress with a standing army or even ascend to godhood.

Countless classic standard D&D adventures are built on the premise of either being a conquistador or a mercenary, and when they are not often the "call to action" to be a hero consists of proactively acting in one's own self-interest (the bad guys attempt to harm the character before the character gets involved) or if something noble is to be done, it is done with the specific offer of a reward involved.

Look at the standard adventure hooks....
You are in a tavern and someone gathers people offering to hire people for a task....
The bad guys have captured you and have you in prison, you must escape.
Your place of residence or a place you have business or connections in is under attack.

Honestly, a character that is particularly eager to commit violence upon others is WAY more necessary than whether the character is "heroic" or by any stretch of the imagination "good". You come to the table with a character unwilling or unable to use violence against others and you are just taking up space, getting in the way and failing to pull your weight during large sections of the game session. You come to the table with a character who is out to screw over every NPC they come across for the benefit and enrichment of the party, and they will be doing their job. People have come to this realization and jokingly call adventurers "murder hobos" because that's really what they are.

Now... as for the appeal of playing an evil character? There are a number of reasons.

Well, there are reasons why games like Grand Theft Auto are super popular. An open world where you can just randomly play out your darkest impulses and fantasies can be a spiritual cleanser.

But those cases are likely rare. The far more common reason is that it expands the number of options available to you. All too often there are cases where a puzzle or situation the DM comes up may have an economical, rational, direct workable, easy solution that would require minimal effort and comes with minimal risk.... with the problem being that it would require doing something evil in order solve it in such a way and you don't want to throw such creative solutions away simply because it is an immoral answer...

Or, alternatively, there might be times when your character's power can be increased, and thus their ability to have an effect on the game world, but it requires either doing or allying with evil to do so. The easy example is releasing a demon in exchange for a boon.

The "evil" character always has the option of making whichever path is most economical and rewarding. A "good" character is forced to walk the selfless, degrading, difficult and time consuming path that likely isn't going to pan out to be particularly rewarding (and if it is and the PC knows it is, then is it really good or is it just acting selfishly in order to get the larger reward?)

Allying with evil, practicing evil and generally being evil results in evil outcomes.

EX: in my campaign, there is an incredibly powerful ancient spirit, with literally the power to grant you incredible power (he can grant 5 power points (it's a custom thing in this game), he can grant 5 levels, he can create castles out of nothing, etc...). The players have not encountered him, but he asks little in return, only the retrieval of various artifacts which will set him free from his imprisonment. His goal is of course, domination of all life on the world, including the players and if he finds them too difficult to dominate, he will destroy them. He doesn't draw power from life, so he doesn't need you and he's well beyond the power of the players, especially if you give him all his artifacts and a new body.

[MENTION=6801202]pdegan2814[/MENTION] is correct, most fantasy revolves around accomplishing heroic deeds. There is very little fantasy about a bunch of mercenaries out for personal power and glory. You don't read Darth Vader's story, you read Anakin's story, and then Obi-Won's story and Luke's story. You don't read Emperor Palpatine, Ursula or Jafar's stories. And you don't accomplish heroic deeds by making deals with demons, or taking evil shortcuts; at least not on a regular basis.

EX: the King's son is dying, he needs a new heart (for whatever reason). The King's Wizard tells you that he boy can be saved with the Amulet of the Heart. As you leave for the quest, you are approached by one of the King's Advisors, who tells you that you need to go on a long dangerous quest, but only need to bring the Advisor a healthy child and he will save the King's son. Now, clearly the easy solution here is to kidnap a child or potentially buy a slave, give him to the Advisor who we can take a guess as probably going to do something nasty to the new kid in order to save the King's son. We have no idea what effects either one of these things will have on the son, but being the genre-savvy folks that we are, we can probably guess that unless our DM is a jerk who's trying to screw us, the wizard who sends us on a quest for an amulet is likely the good option and the advisor is the evil option.

[MENTION=6777454]TheHobgoblin[/MENTION] Evil is generally easier in the short term, you're right. But that's what you're missing: that it is only easier and more effective in the short term. All the stories about people who used evil means to achieve power and get what they wanted? That's the story of Jafar, of Sauron, of Palpatine, of every villain in every story you've ever read. It tends to work out poorly for them in the end while the guys who did the good things, who followed the righteous path, who stayed true to their convictions get the girl, get the real victory and are regarded as heroes and champions for ages.

The best you could possibly achieve through evil means is to essentially be the bad-guy of the next story.

 

[MechaPilot]

All the stories about people who used evil means to achieve power and get what they wanted? That's the story of Jafar, of Sauron, of Palpatine, of every villain in every story you've ever read. It tends to work out poorly for them in the end while the guys who did the good things, who followed the righteous path, who stayed true to their convictions get the girl, get the real victory and are regarded as heroes and champions for ages.

The best you could possibly achieve through evil means is to essentially be the bad-guy of the next story.

To be fair, we are talking about a biased perspective in those next stories. I mean, how many writers typically portray their own values, and those of their audience, as the values of the side that is going to come out of the story as the losers. They say that "history is written by the victors," but when it comes to fiction the story is typically written so that the writer and the audience identify with the winner and not the loser, the hero and not the villain.

It's also worth noting that Sauron and Palpatine are both rather flat villains in that they are basically the stereotypical moustache-twirling entirely evil with no redemptive character type of characters. In reality, good and evil are both not so flat and shallow. Heroes have faults that they must overcome that make them more engaging, and that let us imperfect people identify with them. Villains have humanity that, typically, along with their faults acts as a reflection of the heroes.

A well-played evil character should be the same: it should have humanity, it should have motivations and desires that are very human, even if those desires are twisted.

Take, for example, one of my favorite D&D characters. Her name is Cyllinth. She is of fiendish blood, neutral evil, a cleric of her own divinity (in this case, profanity might be more appropriate), and she eventually amassed a cult of followers. Her worship of herself, and the desire to be worshiped by others, relates to a very human motivation: the desire to be loved. In her case, that desire was twisted into desiring worship and adoration (adoration is itself a synonym for love). She did a lot of evil things, and she took pleasure in corrupting others to do evil things in her name, but always present was the funhouse reflection of human desires and motives, the jealous need to bask in the adoration/love of others.

 

[GreenTengu]

[MENTION=6777454]TheHobgoblin[/MENTION] Evil is generally easier in the short term, you're right. But that's what you're missing: that it is only easier and more effective in the short term. All the stories about people who used evil means to achieve power and get what they wanted? That's the story of Jafar, of Sauron, of Palpatine, of every villain in every story you've ever read. It tends to work out poorly for them in the end while the guys who did the good things, who followed the righteous path, who stayed true to their convictions get the girl, get the real victory and are regarded as heroes and champions for ages.

You think every story where people use evil can't result in anything good.
China was once not a single country, but several countries divided against one another in nearly constant warfare. Only the most ruthless, savage and sadistic of people rose to the top of the empire and through craven acts of greed for power, through betrayal and carnage they... united the nations and peoples spreading civilization bringing peace and order while raising the standard of living for everyone who survived those wars.

The Greeks and Romans were the first seeds of real civilization in Europe after the collapse or stagnation of the Egyptian, Sumerian and Persian empires. For reasons no other than greed and to prove themselves and increase their rank and power, they spread their borders and slaughtered and subjegated all they came across. The result was putting an end to tribal warfare, the spreading of peace and the creation of the seeds of many of the major cities that exist today and the creation of trade routes between them.

The Europeans who came to the Americas spread disease (sometimes intentionally), slaughtered, enslaved, tortured and robbed the people they came across on the two continents. They quite gleefully did some of the most horrific and things one group of humans has ever done to another, engaging in likely the largest genocide in all of human history. They then sailed to another continent to capture and purchase other humans to bring back and put to work building their new nations. The result as a land of countries that stood as beacons of freedom and refuges for immigrants from around the globe, a land of opportunity that inspired the freedoms that all the first world nations enjoy today. And make no mistake about it-- all those freedoms that were advanced were done almost exclusively for the selfish interests of those that were advancing them.
And those people who were imported as slaves? Bad as they may feel they have it, they are considerably better off than those who stayed in Africa.

In Japan during a time of turmoil and chaos with warlords forcing everyone to war against one another for their own selfish ends, it was a guy so wicked and monstrous that to this day he is known as "the demon king" who ultimately did almost all the work to unite it into a single nation once again. And ultimately he was killed by a traitor who was killed by a loyal officer to him whose family was slaughtered to the last person by the person who ultimately took the reigns of the nation and... his dynasty went on to bring to the land a long age of peace and prosperity for nearly everyone, an age that is still looked upon fondly and romantically today and was brought to an end not by internal insurrection but by foreigners sailing into port with ships vastly more technologically advanced than anything they had.

Ending the Nazi march across Europe and the Japanese conquering of the Asian/Pacific area involved napalming neighborhoods of common, innocent civilizations, burning down everything they had to their names and roasting hundreds of thousands alive in their homes for no reason but the nation they happened to belong to. It also involved testing a weapon so nightmarish that it has never been used beyond these two tests upon civilians in two cities... the disturbing results of which is pretty much why it has never again been used against anyone despite making ones that were a thousand fold more powerful.

These were evils on a grand scale and they all resulted in far more good than they did evil and the people who committed them were rewarded greatly, and many are held up as heroes to this day. There is even a major national holiday in the U.S. to celebrate the craven pirate who first sailed to America and enslaved the locals, forcing them to mine gold for him and chopping off their limbs if they refused.

So don't tell me there are no stories of people who do great evil being heroes or that evil acts never result in good in the long term. History is almost nothing but page after page after page of people being evil and yet it ultimately resulting in good and beneficial results, particularly for those who committed the acts. To such an extent that it is pretty certain that all of our existences as we know them are only possible because of evil being done and any good we ever do in life has been enabled only by the evil acts of countless who came before us.

Now, you may go to great lengths to make your game world some childish G-rated affair with simple morals and simple answers and clear solutions to everything. You have probably never required your players to make a hard decision.
Yours probably isn't the game where after brutalizing every Goblin in their way as they opportunistically sack this "dungeon" they came across, they open a door and find the nursery filled with small children and babies and realize they are now in the position where they either need to choose to kill them all here and now, leave them to starve to death as you have taken the life of nearly every adult in the tribe and scattered the rest or undertake the arduous task of somehow transporting them somewhere safe to be raised knowing that they will probably just be killed off as vermin or abused if you deliver them to your own peoples.
You probably never presented the opportunity to your players the opportunity to stop the Orcs by preemptively attacking their homes, slaughtering their farmers and burning their farms and food supplies down thus starving their entire tribes, including the noncombatants and peaceful ones.
Likely you never had that hook where there was going to be an assassination on a king which would certainly lead to chaos and war and your players caught a Drow who knew when, how and where it was going to happen and thus could likely only find out by brutalizing, torturing and mutilating her beyond what even a Drow would expect in order to get her to give up the information before the attack happens and have a chance to stop it (or at least use psychic powers and magic to mentally violate her into giving up the info).
Or maybe just the case where you have beaten a group of enemies and they have surrendered and you have the opportunity to execute them now... well knowing that the last three times you spared anyone, they came back later and did far more harm to you and you can be pretty certain these ones will do harm to you and maybe even kill one of your party if allowed to live and regroup and rearm themselves and set up an ambush or if you drag them along and they get free of their chains while you are asleep.... not that you even really have a place to bring them even if you chained them and took them with you.

Or if these sorts of situations came up, you probably hand-waved it and decided it wasn't evil so long as you were doing it to your current enemies-- especially if they were "monsters". Which is just cheating and displays some of the ugliest aspects of humanity.

And further twisting everything from its logical and rational conclusions in order to enforce your own morality onto the game rather than having various actions is just something not every DM would stoop to. Most DMs are quite willing to let actions result in the sort of things they would realistically result in without some outside moral force trying to punish people for doing things the "wrong way".


In fact, if you played with a DM who did enough "gotcha" moments to punish you for being good aligned where the obvious solution isn't going to work or doing the "right" thing is just not possible, I have to imagine that you would start wanting to play Neutral or Evil characters as well just to have that freedom of choice to do the wrong thing or do the right thing for the wrong reason and not worry about these sorts of "gotcha" tricks.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you want an unusual character concept, consider Dragonborn Monk (since Tiefling Paladin is out). You get to be Fun Sized Paarthurnax!

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm currently trying to come up with a character that's fun for me to play.

Well there are 9 races x 12 classes x 13 backgrounds = more than 1000 fun combinations, without counting subclasses/feats and all the options within a class including spells

Try anything, that you haven't played before. If you are still undecided... roll randomly!

 

[dewderino]

You think every story where people use evil can't result in anything good.
China was once not a single country, but several countries divided against one another in nearly constant warfare. Only the most ruthless, savage and sadistic of people rose to the top of the empire and through craven acts of greed for power, through betrayal and carnage they... united the nations and peoples spreading civilization bringing peace and order while raising the standard of living for everyone who survived those wars.

The Greeks and Romans were the first seeds of real civilization in Europe after the collapse or stagnation of the Egyptian, Sumerian and Persian empires. For reasons no other than greed and to prove themselves and increase their rank and power, they spread their borders and slaughtered and subjegated all they came across. The result was putting an end to tribal warfare, the spreading of peace and the creation of the seeds of many of the major cities that exist today and the creation of trade routes between them.

The Europeans who came to the Americas spread disease (sometimes intentionally), slaughtered, enslaved, tortured and robbed the people they came across on the two continents. They quite gleefully did some of the most horrific and things one group of humans has ever done to another, engaging in likely the largest genocide in all of human history. They then sailed to another continent to capture and purchase other humans to bring back and put to work building their new nations. The result as a land of countries that stood as beacons of freedom and refuges for immigrants from around the globe, a land of opportunity that inspired the freedoms that all the first world nations enjoy today. And make no mistake about it-- all those freedoms that were advanced were done almost exclusively for the selfish interests of those that were advancing them.
And those people who were imported as slaves? Bad as they may feel they have it, they are considerably better off than those who stayed in Africa.

In Japan during a time of turmoil and chaos with warlords forcing everyone to war against one another for their own selfish ends, it was a guy so wicked and monstrous that to this day he is known as "the demon king" who ultimately did almost all the work to unite it into a single nation once again. And ultimately he was killed by a traitor who was killed by a loyal officer to him whose family was slaughtered to the last person by the person who ultimately took the reigns of the nation and... his dynasty went on to bring to the land a long age of peace and prosperity for nearly everyone, an age that is still looked upon fondly and romantically today and was brought to an end not by internal insurrection but by foreigners sailing into port with ships vastly more technologically advanced than anything they had.

Ending the Nazi march across Europe and the Japanese conquering of the Asian/Pacific area involved napalming neighborhoods of common, innocent civilizations, burning down everything they had to their names and roasting hundreds of thousands alive in their homes for no reason but the nation they happened to belong to. It also involved testing a weapon so nightmarish that it has never been used beyond these two tests upon civilians in two cities... the disturbing results of which is pretty much why it has never again been used against anyone despite making ones that were a thousand fold more powerful.

These were evils on a grand scale and they all resulted in far more good than they did evil and the people who committed them were rewarded greatly, and many are held up as heroes to this day. There is even a major national holiday in the U.S. to celebrate the craven pirate who first sailed to America and enslaved the locals, forcing them to mine gold for him and chopping off their limbs if they refused.

So don't tell me there are no stories of people who do great evil being heroes or that evil acts never result in good in the long term. History is almost nothing but page after page after page of people being evil and yet it ultimately resulting in good and beneficial results, particularly for those who committed the acts. To such an extent that it is pretty certain that all of our existences as we know them are only possible because of evil being done and any good we ever do in life has been enabled only by the evil acts of countless who came before us.

Now, you may go to great lengths to make your game world some childish G-rated affair with simple morals and simple answers and clear solutions to everything. You have probably never required your players to make a hard decision.
Yours probably isn't the game where after brutalizing every Goblin in their way as they opportunistically sack this "dungeon" they came across, they open a door and find the nursery filled with small children and babies and realize they are now in the position where they either need to choose to kill them all here and now, leave them to starve to death as you have taken the life of nearly every adult in the tribe and scattered the rest or undertake the arduous task of somehow transporting them somewhere safe to be raised knowing that they will probably just be killed off as vermin or abused if you deliver them to your own peoples.
You probably never presented the opportunity to your players the opportunity to stop the Orcs by preemptively attacking their homes, slaughtering their farmers and burning their farms and food supplies down thus starving their entire tribes, including the noncombatants and peaceful ones.
Likely you never had that hook where there was going to be an assassination on a king which would certainly lead to chaos and war and your players caught a Drow who knew when, how and where it was going to happen and thus could likely only find out by brutalizing, torturing and mutilating her beyond what even a Drow would expect in order to get her to give up the information before the attack happens and have a chance to stop it (or at least use psychic powers and magic to mentally violate her into giving up the info).
Or maybe just the case where you have beaten a group of enemies and they have surrendered and you have the opportunity to execute them now... well knowing that the last three times you spared anyone, they came back later and did far more harm to you and you can be pretty certain these ones will do harm to you and maybe even kill one of your party if allowed to live and regroup and rearm themselves and set up an ambush or if you drag them along and they get free of their chains while you are asleep.... not that you even really have a place to bring them even if you chained them and took them with you.

Or if these sorts of situations came up, you probably hand-waved it and decided it wasn't evil so long as you were doing it to your current enemies-- especially if they were "monsters". Which is just cheating and displays some of the ugliest aspects of humanity.

And further twisting everything from its logical and rational conclusions in order to enforce your own morality onto the game rather than having various actions is just something not every DM would stoop to. Most DMs are quite willing to let actions result in the sort of things they would realistically result in without some outside moral force trying to punish people for doing things the "wrong way".


In fact, if you played with a DM who did enough "gotcha" moments to punish you for being good aligned where the obvious solution isn't going to work or doing the "right" thing is just not possible, I have to imagine that you would start wanting to play Neutral or Evil characters as well just to have that freedom of choice to do the wrong thing or do the right thing for the wrong reason and not worry about these sorts of "gotcha" tricks.

There were plenty of slaves from different countries. The greatest genocide is something most believe was a famine and wasn't. But we're not here to discuss this. I simply was looking for ideas for abstract characters.

 

[dmnqwk]

The first thing you don't want to do is let your race or class define who you are.

Often we stereotype Elves Dwarves and the other Ilk as being X or Y (I mean, how many times do we see Scottish Dwarves!) but before you do that, think to yourself
"What do I want to do?" Did you see a new star wars movie and wish to create a character from it? Maybe you thought it'd be hilarious to play an accountant in game and try to build a character around that instead. Your race and class should come in only after you've got a concept.

So, let's try to build something silly - I know, let's try to make Spongebob Squarepants in DnD!
Now, what do we know about Spongebob? He's absorbent and porous and yellow, but do we know anything else? Well he's always trying to be his very best, striving for perfection but ultimately things beyond his control go wrong. To me, that lets me create a Wild Mage Sorcerer! But what race? I don't think Sponge is allowed, so we need to pick a ran who can have fun!

Oh but wait... every race can be fun, right? Well I guess we should choose whatever we fancy then, so I'm going to make Spongebob a Halfling Wild Mage! Then we need a background, because unfortunately Crabby Pattie Burger Flipper isn't listed, but how about Folk Hero? Everybody in his pineapple under the sea home loves him so why not!

And you build from there, you choose some stats (I'd go 12/16/13/8/10/16 probably), pick some spells and there you go, You're now a Lightfoot Halfling Wild Mage named Spongebob, have fun playing an odd character!

But the important thing to realise is the odd-ness is not related to his class, or his race, or his background... it's related to the idea notion or thought behind why you are creating a character.

Oh as for Patrick, he's a Dwarven Barbarian in my mind.

 

[Ahrimon]

Fighter 1/Blade-lock (Fiend re-skinned and an Angel) X who's patron is an angel of Wrath. You can have your paladin-like feel without any of the mechanical or social stigma's of actually being a Paladin.