The "Gimmick Character" Problem

[Dagger75]

Now a word from the other players at the table....

I have been reading this post for a day not really knowing if I wanted to reply (but I guess I did).

As a fellow player I am getting tired of your "gimmik" character. There are 3 other people here. We got a nice backround going on how we met and we think of our character as friends. You keep changing your character and it always feels forced when you join out party. I don't really care if your a combat machine but why did you have to change your character when the DM found a nifty little counter to your little trick.
Then you got into your roleplaying stage. The gnome with the funny voice and quirky personality was fun the first few games. Sure he sucked at combat but sometimes the wizard doesn't do so hot either sometimes. Its the fact that you do nothing useful. Nice you made him a grandmaster knitter and bookbinder with 12 pages of backround but if D&D where real life my character would not have approached you during that party and asked you join us. I mean the whole reason your gnome is is adventuring was to try and remove that curse on your family was pretty cool. Hey even the DM thought it was neat and it sounded like a nifty advenuter BUT you changed characters a month later.

Granted I have fun more often than not and I really like playing with all you guys but come on, stick to one guy. Your basically a special guest star in our group, we would rather you made a member.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

I have known players like this in various incarnations for many years. The problem is, they will never become what you would like them to be, to be a little more cohesive to the group. I've known players who want to be the gimmick-guy. Thankfully, they grew out of it.

One person I knew always wanted to be 'unique'. It didn't matter what game, what setting, or who was running the game. If he didn't have a unique character, then he wasn't interested in playing. Most times, the DMs would capituate and give him what he wanted. But that was the end of it, he'd fade into the background and didn't do much with his character, and didn't captialize on his uniqueness.
Also, I remember that this player took offense to the fact that his character was systematically singled out for 'special treatment' because he was the unique one. Went into a town, the locals wouldn't let him into the town. "We don't want no ogres here! I don't care if he's tame! -- Tame, good, what's the difference? He's still an orgre. How do you know he's good? How long have you known him? -- A week? Your a fool too! All of you, move on, we don't want your fool kind around here!"

Another player didn't always go for the outwardly unique character. His characters were dominated by the fact that they had to be the 'outsider', the rebel, the misfit. If his character wasn't being treated as an outsider, then he wasn't interested in playing it. Also, if his character was starting to become accepted in the group, he would ultimately do something to put himself on the outside again. Leave the group, betray the group. Whatever. It didn't matter.

Also, I find that these players tend not to make very good GMs. Because everything in their game has to be cool, and gimmicky. Sure, you could try and give them a new setting, or new game to run, such as Castle Falkenstein, or Changeling, or whatever, where everyone and everything is unique. But this just bores them.

Ultimately, the key to your solution lies in what are the modivations for playing such characters. Why does he always want to play the front-loaded unique uber-character? Ask him. Does he find anything appealing in starting a character out as normal, and then developing him to become unique? I suspect that's the sort of thing that you like. That it is all about the journey and not the destination.

Some players grow out of it, and see the other players and the party before they see themselves and their own character. Some don't.

"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some players you just can't teach, so you get what we had here last week. Which is the way he wants it, so...he gets it. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you players."

 

[apsuman]

No, talking about me!

I made a dwarf paladin that rode a moutain goat, specialized in ramming his opponents.

I made a dagger throwing halfling paladin with quick draw that rode an ostrich that wore a toe ring of flying.

And,

A gnome paladin that rode in the pouch of his kangaroo mount.

 

[der_kluge]

This sounds like the sorcerer from my last campaign.

He was all about [Force]. Force this, Force that. I allow a house rule to take Spell Focus [descriptor], so he took spell focus [force]. Then proceeded to argue that a WHOLE bunch of spells should really be [Force] but weren't, so he could apply the bonus. He also had spell focus [Evocation], and an uber Charisma, so his saves against such spells were riduculously high.

He even argued (unsuccessfully) at one point to modify disentigrate from transmutation to evocation AND to make it a [Force] spell. I told him he was crazy.

Needless to say, I am totally sick of the Wall of Force, and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere spells now.

 

[Pandion]

hehe I have a gimmick player in my group as well. One of his chars was a big, hulking farmer who thought he was much nimbler than he actually was. For the stats his strength score was around 18 while his dex was around 6. The other chars kept telling him to be a fighter but apparently his father on his deathbed told this guy to be a rogue. He didn't last long but at least the player roleplayed him well.

Sometimes the gimmicky chars can be fun.

 

[Pbartender]

Yeah, yeah... We've all done it. We've all played with people who've done it. And we all know that denial is not just a river in Africa. Alright. Good. Great. Now, let's move on to a few solutions, eh?

Our group has a significant number of chronic character creators. While they are all necessarily gimmicky, a lot of us get scads of interestingly neat ideas for characters, and we want to play them all. Consequently, it's a struggle for us to not change characters every other week.

Here's what we do*...

Every now and again, have one of the players step in as a 'guest DM' and run a single-shot adventure for a few sessions. The players can create some of those odd characters they've been itching to try out, the DM can put his gimmicks into the adventure's NPCs, and by the time anyone gets bored with their gimmick, the adventure is over and it's time to go back to the regular game. For us, at least, it's enough to get the itch out of the blood and we're more than ready to get back to our usual heroes in the regular game.

*Granted, we play more often than once a month. If you can find extra time for your group to try this out on occassion, it helps immensely.

 

[Gort]

Ach. Doppelpost!

 

[Gort]

As a fellow player I am getting tired of your "gimmik" character.

Just out of interest, who is this post addressed to?

I agree with the sentiments though.

 

[Dagger75]

Just out of interest, who is this post addressed to?

I agree with the sentiments though.

I am NOT directing this towards you or anyone in you group. Its a friend of mine. He doesn't post on this board or any other boards. He knows who he is

 

[Chimera]

My take on this as a GM or Player would be that the constant rotation of new members through my group and their subsequent rapid deaths would cause no end of problems to our reputations.

We kill off newcomers.
We don't pay to raise them.
We have no loyalty to each other.
We don't watch each other's backs.

So WHY OH WHY would new people join our group? Why would the average adventurer even look twice at our group and ever say "Hey, I want to sign up with those guys!"