Uncool Characters

[Tiew]

Hey, has anybody else had the experience of unjoying playing purposefully 'uncool' characters more than 'cool' characters? Whenever I write up a character who I think could be played by Clint Eastwood or John Wayne it ends up feeling flat to me. (Maybe because I'm not Clint Eastwood or John Wayne.) My favorite character ever on the other hand was a druid who had fled to Sygil from his home world because of a horrible war. He was an old man who'd never been outside his country village and was scared to death of the big wide world. Very pathetic, but I had a lot of fun playing him.

Does this happen with anybody else, or is it just me? If there are people who are good at playing impressive characters do they have any tips for how to do it?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I enjoy playing uncools from time to time. One of my favorite characters was a stutteringly shy grey-bearded dwarf.

I think part of the joy comes from the transcendence aspect, from seeing a character that isn't The Hero do well. Heck even if they're a bumbler, their still not just Joe Commoner, spending their life raising cows and hopefully not ending up as Anhkeg-food.

 

[Presto2112]

I'm considering a sorcerer character with two distinct personalities, both manifesting at the same time - his main personality, and his alternate peronality which manifests by him talking to his hand. The hand will be an intelligent, arrogant type which thinks it has a breath weapon (it'll be the hand that his ray spells originate from). Does this count as "uncool"?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I played a fighter in a Victorian England game that was a fuddy-duddy-ish former English Army Major - He was a gullible, pompous fellow who held non-Brits in very low esteem (his biggest targets were the French, Indians - especially the Thugees - and Catholics - he was Anglican, of course). He was a bit of a jerk, and not very diplomatic. Lots of fun to play though, and the other players loved him. The best description of him I could come up with was that he was like on the false suspects in an Agatha Christie murder mystery - the guy who gets suspected of the murder because he's stupidly protecting someone else's honor - probably a woman, probably the actual murderer.

 

[Turjan]

My favorite character ever on the other hand was a druid who had fled to Sygil from his home world because of a horrible war. He was an old man who'd never been outside his country village and was scared to death of the big wide world. Very pathetic, but I had a lot of fun playing him.

That doesn't really sound that uncool, if you don't overdo it .

 

[Tiew]

"Uncool" is probably a bad word. Maybe "unimpressive" or non-heroic. It's just hard for me to think, "what would a noble charasmatic paladin say right now." But pretty easy for me to figure out what a "socially awkward and unimpressive druid who's afraid he's going to say the wrong thing" might say now. For instance, when our group was going to meet a powerful woman who was going to offer us a job I asked the rest of the group if "she was the Lady of Pain." They told me no, and to shut up. Then later when we were talking to the woman she said something about running the city. So I whispered to the person next to me, "I thought you said she wasn't the Lady of Pain." A pretty bad social blunder, but more fun to play than anything I could have thought of if I was trying to play my character as being cool.

I think I also agree with Jyrdan. If I build my character up as some kind of badass then whatever they do is kind of expected. If I play my character down as a person with lots of fears and insecurities then when they pull something off it seems a lot cooler.

 

[shilsen]

I'm considering a sorcerer character with two distinct personalities, both manifesting at the same time - his main personality, and his alternate peronality which manifests by him talking to his hand. The hand will be an intelligent, arrogant type which thinks it has a breath weapon (it'll be the hand that his ray spells originate from). Does this count as "uncool"?

Talk to the hand?

 

[Mycanid]

Of course ... in fact, one time my gaming group got together to play a superhero based genre (1e V&V) and we all had ridiculous names and almost no powers whatsover.

We had names like Inconspicuous Lad, Unimpressive Lad (that was my hero), Muffin Man, and on and on. Boy did we have our heads handed to us when we met a real bad guy....

But it was a LOT of fun.

 

[Tonguez]

My favourite character Orbril the Gnome* started life as a bumbling alchemist who had been politlely asked to leave the burrow because his experiments kept blowing things up. To begin with he was naieve, shy and very much afraid of the big wode world.

His first adventure had him stowing away in the luggage of a noblewoman (another PC) who was going to the next kingdom to be married - he was caught of course thus beginning his career.
Of course after capturing a herd of giant carniverous hamsters, fighting Yuan-ti zombies in a lost tomb, starting his own travelling circus, being tortured by bandits, riding a dragon, visiting a parralell dimension and saving the kingdom from alien invaders he is no longer naieve and uncool - but at the start he definitely was.

Another character was an Pious but angst-ridden Half-giant cleric who was having a crisis of faith. He would spend most of his day in prayer or singing hymns and when he sopoke tended to give sermons or talk about the glory of his diety and his sorrow in the failings of the Church to keep the true doctrine. Eventually he join the rebel sect during a Church schism (that was eventually defeated) and then had to go into hiding lest his association with the rebels be discovered.(thats when he was retired)

I also played a Half-Orc Vodoo priest (Cleric/Scorcerer) who was the Navigator of a Ship. That character was based on Woefully Fat (from Tim Powewrs On Stranger Tides). He wasn't really uncool but he was from an oppressed minority in the setting (most orcs were kept as slaves)

*Gnomes in this campaign were 15 inches tall

 

[Numion]

The issue of cool characters is a bit muddied in D&D. Or at least it will be after a few sessions.

Sooner or a later a decidedly 'cool' D&D character will throw a 1 and embarrass himself in a way Dirty Harry never would. He'll fall down a set of stairs in an uncool manner, fail a jump over measly 5' wide pit, shoot himself in the crotch (well maybe no that one ) or something else that will affect his coolguy image.