Playing a "different" character...

[Djeta Thernadier]

In the next few weeks I will be joining a swashbuckling game (that is basically all I know about it at this point) and I want to play a human rogue.

I want to make this character very different from my other current character, who also happens to be a lot like I am in real life. I want to play someone very different from myself. However, I know I could just think "what would I (or Djeta) do? " and just do the opposite but I'm worried that might come across as , to be blunt, pretty obvious and/or cheesy. For example, I (and Djeta) love animals and have a great respect for nature. I want Lily (the new character) to care less about these things.

Has anyone ever played a character with very different "values" etc. from themselves/ other characters you've played? How hard is it?
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Sheri

 

[Voadam]

Do you have any real life phobias?

I have a fear of heights IRL but I've played an air mage who loves nothing more than to fly around.

RPGs present a safe arena to play something your not and an easy way to face some fears or play out things you can't do IRL.

For example, I consider myself a nice guy, but my VtM brujah vigilante vampire is a brutal guy who harshly puts the smack down on anybody he classifies as a "bad guy."

Other options are to take one role(dealmaker or scam artist for example) or one emotion (my vampire was based on expressing hate and anger) and base your roleplay on that.

 

[emergent]

I try (with widely varrying degrees of success) to find a "center" or "centers" for my character -- motivating forces, themes, things that drive him or her. Other behaviors follow from that. Typically, these themes are not widely different from things that I as a person am concerned with, but the empahsis varries, so the behavior can vary widely.

Example: I played a wizard who had once been a slave, so he was concered with freedom for himself and others. He resisted authority, actively opposed organized slavery, etc.

My advice is to find a center or centers for this new character and go from there. It should not be too hard to give him or her personality based on that and it should not be too hard to differentiate from your old characters if the center is different enough. In order to differentiate, you need not play the opposite of your old characters, just vary the empahsis. Your new character may not care so much about protecting animals, but need not go around kicking puppies, either.

Personally, I have never had success (or desire to) play characters that were radically different from my own moral center -- they usually end up expressing a certain strain of my own personality, but that was usually enough to make him different from me to an interesting degree.

Good luck!

 

[Belen]

I almost always play characters that are widely different from myself. I think the trick is to find an area where you have no experience and get the character into it.

For instance, I love playing religious characters, but I am in no way religious.

Dave

 

[Zogg]

Make Lily (which, if you want her to be less like you, you might want to come up with a less girly nature-loving name) be a pudgy halfling or dwarf that LOVES to eat. Food is always on her mind. In fact, she is a thief because she needs money to buy the best food in the land.

She also likes to eat with other people, drink, and be a crazy party girl. Give her a rank in Perform (yodeling) and have her yodel after several ales - even if it's to the detriment of those around her.

When it comes to animals, have her imagine what they would taste like....even the animals people don't normally eat. She views animals as nothing more than large hunks of meat destined to be cooked, fried, slathered in yummy sauces and ingested by her!

How's this work for ya?

 

[KidCthulhu]

My character in Sagiro's game possesses many of my qualities, but he has many personality traits that I don't. He's innocent, trusting, not at all sarcastic, very open. It's a challenge to bite my tongue and be nice, but it's also very rewarding.

You can play different in a couple of ways:
1) Pick a trait or two you wish you had. Foolish bravery. Love of thrills. Studiousness. Diplomacy. Devotion to a deity. Overwhelming attention to style. Doesn't matter what. And then build around those traits.

2) Play a character from fiction or media that you admire. How about modified Boromir? Brave, noble, and kindly but also clueless and doomed. Or try a Scully. Focused and driven, but lonely and suspicious.

3) Play someone you know. What would happen if your mother was a D&D character? Or your best friend from high school? Or your boss? Drawing on the character of someone you know well can give you a complete character to play, someone whose motivations and feelings you understand, but which are still different from your own.

Just some ideas. Good luck with the bucklin' of the swash. Arrrr and Sa'ha!

 

[root]

Sounds like you should play a CN character where your only motiviation is making sure the job gets done. You really don't care how, meaning if causaulities have to occur, then so be it whether this is the enemy, your own party, or some nearby animals who get toasted because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You won't really feel bad about it, they are just collateral damage at that point. That's quite the opposite from respecting life and nature. It would be a good alignment for a swashbuckler as well.

Let us know what you decide and how it goes, sounds interesting.

 

[Malicene]

I always think about characters by themselves, I mean, I never try to compare it to me or anyone else.
creating a character is quite long if you want to have a minimum detailed background.
once you've got a rough idea , like being a rogue, choose your alignment.... and the setting, swashbuckling game is quite short but many images comes, no ?
answer this "simple" question : How your character "almost" survive at 1rst level? what make is daily life !
then flesh out using his abilities ( his bad charisma makes him lonely, his bad wisdom make him get into every brawl.......)

since I get a clear image of character (all this things not so important your character do between two adventures ..), and he few minute to get the role and ... let's a good RP session !

 

[Tessarael]

Well, I try to play characters with personalities that are different from me. You'd have to ask my fellow roleplayers whether I succeed.

Here's some suggestions: put together a list of personality details for the character. Those don't have to be set in stone, they can develop as the character progresses. These can serve as a guide as you roleplay - hmmm I want to charge into battle, is my character cautious?

I don't recall where this came from originally, but we used it in our campaigns. Assign a number between 3 and 18 to the following:

Cautious
Courageous
Dogmatic
Energetic
Forgiving
Generous
Honest
Loyal
Modest
Peaceful
Reverent
Trusting

So for example, one of my characters started out fairly Cautious (14) or so, died due to running away and then coming back to help fight a dragon (Cautious goes up to 17 or so), and then party members turned the character into the authorities after some later misdeeds (Trusting decreases), and so forth.

It can be a useful guide.

 

[sabinerak]

Finding something that works could be something as simple as playing a character of a different gender or race. For example, if you are human and female in real life, it's quite possible that any character who is human and female will turn out very much the same as your real life self because it's the closest to what you're used to being in real life.

But if you make your character a dwarf, you may find yourself having to think more like a dwarf and perhaps even pick up the temperament of a dwarf. That sort of thing.

You don't have to make characters who are entirely different than you to have something different either. It could be just changing a few things is enough but you still have something left in the character that's familiar. Just don't let the familiar completely take over the entire character at the cost of the different.