Players: Do your characters need to be kewl?

[Jedi_Solo]

I need to find the character interesting. So in that sense the character needs to be "cool" if not "kewl".

I've played the range of characters, depending on what the party needed and what I felt like. Rogues who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time to tattooed warriors who had already made a name for themselves by their first appearence in game.

It also depends if it's a new character or if I'm replacing a character at higher levels. 1st level characters tend to be everymen. New 8th level characters likley have had a few events that sets them apart. I highly doubt there is an "everyman" in existance that is 17th level or higher. If my current character gets blown away and has his ashes scattered through the multi-verse and I make a new character - I don't think I could create an everyman and justify 17th level.

However, I'm pretty sure the new character would be cool.

 

[Piratecat]

Not only do I play both types, I think there is a strong middle ground between the two.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I agree. If I start a Wizard with 17 Int, is she really an everyman even when the game began? Not everyone has that kind of arcane training, and few match or exceed her intellect. I could make her very drab and ordinary for a Wizard, and she would still look like the K3wl powrz character if all the other players created simple farm hands and blacksmith's apprentices drawn into a life of adventure.

 

[Tsillanabor]

I agree with Piratecat. My characters typically come from Everyman backgrounds but become kewl over time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree. If I start a Wizard with 17 Int, is she really an everyman even when the game began? Not everyone has that kind of arcane training, and few match or exceed her intellect. I could make her very drab and ordinary for a Wizard, and she would still look like the K3wl powrz character if all the other players created simple farm hands and blacksmith's apprentices drawn into a life of adventure.

Maybe. I have two low level wizards in my Midwood campaign. One of them is a bookkeeper for the town's bailiff, the other is the not-right-in-the-head son of the local apothecary. Both have access to (a few) kewl powrz, but for the most part, they're just ordinary folks in a very ordinary town. Now, they have a pretty big destiny before them, but I doubt the bookkeeper especially will ever be anything other than the annoying weasel that he was even before he could cast his first spell.

 

[Rystil Arden]

But somewhere in their background, these characters gained access to magical tomes and a tutor for arcane studies. Perhaps a better example is a sorcerer (or warlock, etc)--the sorcerer has innate powers within her that have surfaced. She is no longer an everyman, even if her background before the powers stated that she was one.

I think part of the issue is clear even from one of your own examples:

You have the Everyman. His name might be Bilbo Baggins or Wart or he might be a swineherd. Amazing things might happen to him, and he'll certainly evolve if he survives his adventures, but at the end of the day, he's still a regular guy (or girl).

Wart did begin as an everyman, but at the end of the day, he was not a regular guy. He was King Arthur. Wheel of Time's Rand al'Thor and his buddies had just about the most everyman possible start you can imagine. Now one of them is the destined Dragon Reborn, another is a general and married to an Empress, another is a Lord with wolf powers, another is the Queen of a dead country, and yet another is the leader of the main organisation of female spellcasters.

Most everyman characters do not stay everyman characters as they level. I would be surprised if the bookkeeper, once he has gained the power to Teleport across the world at will, shift onto other planes, bend minds to his every whim, and destroy those who anger him will still be the same. Even with all his power, Rand al'Thor wanted to try to stay the same, but he could not.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Not only can I not answer for my combined experience across multiple characters, I can't even easily answer for most of my (reasonable play-length) characters individually.

Galorin, barbarian (mostly) -- started very everyman, as a young tribesman who left home to see the world. Entered the storyline far from his homelands & eventually 'warped' to another world -- probably everyman from the sense you're after, though very much someone who stands out as a foreigner (& always has within campaign timelines, with the 'what strange customs you outlanders have' aspect figuring prominently in his play). Still, this is the one that I'd most easily vote 'everyman' for a forced choice poll.

T'lar, bard/rogue -- technically an everyman (farm boy heads out to the big city), but would object vehemently to the notion (&, in fact, this very objection frames his backstory & personality). Can't really vote on him; I don't even want to think of the rumors he could spread if I ticked him off!

Dranik, assassin -- to those who see him in a crowd, or even just observe him in combat, very much an everyman. To the few who know (part of) his backstory -- being raised by a hidden sect with mysterious motivations who also sheltered his insane mother & trained him to fight 'monsters' (aberrations, demons, whatever)... while telling him (perhaps even truthfully) that his own father was one -- yeah, not so very everyman there. Perhaps that makes him 'kewl' -- but since his situation is not his choice, & in fact the lack of choice figures into his story in ways very like it does for the everyman (forced by circumstances beyond his control to take on responsibilities he'd rather not have), I wouldn't be comfortable with that choice either.

 

[diaglo]

whatever 3d6 in order give me.

 

[Seeten]

In 1e D&D I got 9, 9, 10, 9, 10, 14 for my stats, DM insisted I keep. So I asked if I could play a Dryad, whose tree hadn't grown up yet, and was still an acorn. He agreed.

So, we modified lots of Dryad powers to dilute them, since I was young and my tree was pitiful, and then I went to town with my "kewl" character, who was a fighter with a 9 str, a 9 dex and a 10 con, had no intelligence, no wisdom, and was only passingly cute, with a 14 charisma.

So we got a 2h sword, and a huge helmet that kept falling into her eyes, and she was totally encumbered, could barely swing the sword and died at 3rd level to the axe of an orc, while protecting the forest.

Everyman? Kewl?

I have no idea. The stats were certainly pitiful. Worse than a commoner. The other Dryads made fun of her until she was dead, so she wasnt exactly respected. But she wasnt a "farm boy from Tattooine" so I guess she was Kewl.

You're poll confuses me.

 

[Drowbane]

At the time of my Vote

Everyman ~ 16
Kewlness ~ 16

I broke the tie in favor of Kewl.

I've played both types of characters. One of my favorite PCs of all times happens to have been an Everyman (Cyan Winters, Expert - built on 3d6 in Order... best stat: Dex 14), but for the most part I'd rather play the Kewl guy.