Just say "Timmy, God loves human fighters just as much as he loves Wyvern riding superclowns of doom. Yes He does, and I'm sure He would want you to know that you are a special person even if your character were...average. Now, of course we all know what a truly memorable and unique guy you are, and that you just want to play characters as incredible as you. Sure we do. And it must really be a challege to come up with something worthy of your stellar personality. But if you'd just play a generic human fighter for a while it would really reduce our desire to bash your head with a rock."
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The "Gimmick Character" Problem
- Thread starter Gort
- Start date
Lord Pendragon
First Post
What kind of campaign is this? Is it a heavily story-oriented campaign, where the PCs are creating all sorts of ties to the community, etc. etc.? Or is it mainly a dungeon crawl?
If it's a combat-oriented campaign, I don't see why the other player should be required to stick with a single character if he'd rather not. He has more fun creating new characters to try, and there's no downside to the rest of the players since he seems to roleplay each one of them (judging by his above-average background information.)
Where's the problem, exactly?
If it's a combat-oriented campaign, I don't see why the other player should be required to stick with a single character if he'd rather not. He has more fun creating new characters to try, and there's no downside to the rest of the players since he seems to roleplay each one of them (judging by his above-average background information.)
Where's the problem, exactly?
Keeper of Secrets
First Post
If you think the gimmick characters are going to be too much for you or your group to handle, talk to him and ask him to put his creative talenst into making a more interesting personality than a bunch of interesting combat abilities. I know this sounds cliche, but you are the GM, you know what is too much for your world.
That being said, some of those gimmick are AWFULLY clever . . .
That being said, some of those gimmick are AWFULLY clever . . .
Gort knows who uses this nick.....
I'm the player he speaks of.
Well, yes. I hadn't really realized I made gimmick characters til you pointed it out to me Gort. Thank you.
The spate of "gimmick" characters in the evil campaign were due to a rash of 9 character deaths. After the first 3 in very quick succession, I built characters I could have fun with for a single adventure and rarely got beyond showing more than just the "gimmick side" due to their quick demise or ineffectiveness.
My current character is a sorceress, been with the party for a while now and has her own traits and her character is coming through, as is her backgound. I find that having something about a character which I can focus on to begin with for a while helps me to later develop the character in different and interesting ways.
I'm not going to justify my characters, or what I choose to play. Perhaps it's the way I play and my fundamental belief that I choose my character I build it and so on. So what if the group needs a particular character. I haven't demanded your character act in a particular manner or be this, so if we need it (or you believe we need it) you can change your character; don't put pressure on me or other players. The, "we need a cleric....", "we are missing a rogue...", "your character isn't doing much....." scenario.
It's a case of what I want to play-similarly, you always play the charismatic leader of the group, with a rigid moral/religious/ethic code which has no tolerence for the actions of others and is always human.
The elemental druid hasn't been put to the GM, I was going to post it here and modify the class so it was balanced. I showed you a draft.
Oh, as a side note. The race of Dwarf was picked as a link to the earth-based around the wit'ch fire series of books.
The sharrash was due to the picture on the other page. I'd have been happy reducing it's abilities so that they worked-you never mentioned an option like that to me and I didn't really know the background (first time I'd read the book). Instead I changed to a druid because of what you said.
But you do remember my characters. It might be something about the books I read but almost all the heroes and villains have something which makes them special and that is something I enjoy about them.
I enjoy a game with balanced characters, cases where everyone has their chance to shine, you do tend to steal the lime-light. Roleplaying is another thing I enjoy, it's the mechanics that fit around the idea that is difficult and I do concentrate around that too much, to the detriment of the roleplaying. Apologies. But boy, do I hate not being able to contribute. I will never play a rogue as is.
However, the character you mention has had over 6 different incarnations. Some varying from ludicrously powerful to good. While the way you roleplay him hasn't really changed, the mechanics have.
How many of those character sheets do you have?
Each time you've had something new to play with; new abilities, different styles, magic; these things have given new life to the character each time. You went through until you got something that worked and survived until you did. Well done.
So far none of your characters have been anything less than optimized fighter-classes. This, I believe, is the reason for your love of point buy systems.
How would you like to resolve the situation?
I'm the player he speaks of.
Well, yes. I hadn't really realized I made gimmick characters til you pointed it out to me Gort. Thank you.
The spate of "gimmick" characters in the evil campaign were due to a rash of 9 character deaths. After the first 3 in very quick succession, I built characters I could have fun with for a single adventure and rarely got beyond showing more than just the "gimmick side" due to their quick demise or ineffectiveness.
My current character is a sorceress, been with the party for a while now and has her own traits and her character is coming through, as is her backgound. I find that having something about a character which I can focus on to begin with for a while helps me to later develop the character in different and interesting ways.
I'm not going to justify my characters, or what I choose to play. Perhaps it's the way I play and my fundamental belief that I choose my character I build it and so on. So what if the group needs a particular character. I haven't demanded your character act in a particular manner or be this, so if we need it (or you believe we need it) you can change your character; don't put pressure on me or other players. The, "we need a cleric....", "we are missing a rogue...", "your character isn't doing much....." scenario.
It's a case of what I want to play-similarly, you always play the charismatic leader of the group, with a rigid moral/religious/ethic code which has no tolerence for the actions of others and is always human.
The elemental druid hasn't been put to the GM, I was going to post it here and modify the class so it was balanced. I showed you a draft.
Oh, as a side note. The race of Dwarf was picked as a link to the earth-based around the wit'ch fire series of books.
The sharrash was due to the picture on the other page. I'd have been happy reducing it's abilities so that they worked-you never mentioned an option like that to me and I didn't really know the background (first time I'd read the book). Instead I changed to a druid because of what you said.
But you do remember my characters. It might be something about the books I read but almost all the heroes and villains have something which makes them special and that is something I enjoy about them.
I enjoy a game with balanced characters, cases where everyone has their chance to shine, you do tend to steal the lime-light. Roleplaying is another thing I enjoy, it's the mechanics that fit around the idea that is difficult and I do concentrate around that too much, to the detriment of the roleplaying. Apologies. But boy, do I hate not being able to contribute. I will never play a rogue as is.
However, the character you mention has had over 6 different incarnations. Some varying from ludicrously powerful to good. While the way you roleplay him hasn't really changed, the mechanics have.
How many of those character sheets do you have?
Each time you've had something new to play with; new abilities, different styles, magic; these things have given new life to the character each time. You went through until you got something that worked and survived until you did. Well done.
So far none of your characters have been anything less than optimized fighter-classes. This, I believe, is the reason for your love of point buy systems.
How would you like to resolve the situation?
Gort
Explorer
BAW said:
Eh? I don't think I've ever made someone play a certain character class. I guess if I'd done that, we wouldn't have (up til very recently) had a party that consisted entirely of fighter-types and one cleric.
BAW said:
Gort has no codes of behaviour that I've noticed. Except maybe an inclination to confront his enemies face to face. And as for Leon (a previous character, human paladin) well, that was Leon. And it's a bit much to say "you always play humans!" based on two characters. (unless we're counting characters only played for short periods of time, in which case I can point to Osco Tealeaf, halfling sorceror extraordinaire!
)BAW said:
My problem with it was that it was a druid (arguable the most powerful class) with a better animal companion, AND it had a whole bunch of arcane spells. If you could get arcane spells easily (especially rocking ones like fireball and lightning bolt) as a druid, nobody would play a wizard, cause they flat out suck ass except for their spells. And what you said about energy substitution feats instead of the more useless druid abilities just sounds like more blaster power for this raging whirlwind of destruction. The fact that druid blasting power is usually fire based is one of their very few weaknesses.
BAW said:
Yeah, but, "Yeah, that guy who did 150 points of damage a hit" - is that really what you want to be remembered for?
BAW said:
Play a rogue? We have a rogue. What's all this rogue stuff? Anyway, I think the main reason Gort "steals the limelight" is that I'm one of the few players who's willing to speak in character with any regularity. Komiyan, Casper and Mink are basically just the personalities of the players.
BAW said:
All of 'em, probably. The character has been rewritten, mainly due to problems with the mechanics (various stuff was deemed broken) but the focus and theme of the character has remained static - a fighter with a demonic connection. And the mechanics haven't really changed either - ooh, this version has a strength 2 higher - this one has 2 more natural armour. It's tiny details. And even if it is 6 times - I dunno if it's that many - that's still six months between rewrites, hardly short periods of time, seeing as we play weekly.
BAW said:
Gort's always worked fine. I can't remember a time when we didn't need someone tough to take the hits.
BAW said:
Optimised? Yeah, cause the charismatic fighter sure is an optimal way to go. I like point buy systems because it means that someone who got lucky during character creation doesn't get a character far better than someone who's unlucky. Exactly my reasoning behind not rolling hitpoints.
And quit making sweeping generalisations based on two characters, please.
Min/Maxers, Roleplayers and every other flavor of gamers in between will always bump up against one another on game night. It is neither rare nor unusual.
Is it really so bizzarre to find a circle of gamers who all like the same style at the same time? Back in my 1st edition days I had a 'homogenous' group like that and it was fantastic. After playing with a new 3rd edition group and surfing these boards once in a while, it seems that a group of like minded gamers is an endangered species or something!
Is it really so bizzarre to find a circle of gamers who all like the same style at the same time? Back in my 1st edition days I had a 'homogenous' group like that and it was fantastic. After playing with a new 3rd edition group and surfing these boards once in a while, it seems that a group of like minded gamers is an endangered species or something!
Hey, it's horses for courses. Quicken is +2 spell levels IMC, so you can still lay the smackdown, you just burn through your spells faster. Although that might be changing since my players seem to think it's broken.Piratecat said:No wonder you've removed most spells because they're overpowered.
Celyn
First Post
Yeah, I was wondering why my hits just tripled.. The heady heights of 100 in one day, evenGort said:
As BAW just said, the sorceress isn't gimmicky. And in the campaign in question, it feels like you have to do something very special with a character in order to actually stand out- It's a great campaign, and I love it to pieces, but it takes more work than anything else I've ever played in, hence why I just had to entirely rewrite Komiyan so he's no longer the bitch of the party.
I think I had a point there. You might be able to pick it out somewhere.
More importantly, look at my comic
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