What do you try and achieve with your character?

[Wombat]

I try to craft characters specifically to fit a specific campaign; sometimes this means playing the "tried & true" and sometimes this means "outside of the blues".

The importance here is to fit the character to the particular game, to be part of the larger world, rather that deciding what my character is going to be ahead of time.

 

[Sadrik]

My kid has shown me the light as far as out of the box characters.

He once made a GURPS Buck Rogers character that was a mutant plant and had an epic level skill in gardening. When we crossed paths with an alien giant super genius plant it came in real handy.

His favorite RPGA character is his first 4e one, a Dragonborn Wizard that thinks he is an elf and has earned the honor of the elves to be recognized as one. His wizard has a skull familiar that communicates through the eight ball fortune teller devices in his eye sockets.

You sir have a creative son. The skull familiar is a really cool idea, it reminds me of the dresden files...

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Of the two options I guess outside the box fits best. I still want an effective character, but I'm willing to take risks in making a character with an interesting mechanical concept over the choices deemed best by the powergamers in my group. I also like to reflavor classes and/or come up with odd quirks for my character.

My last 3E character was a Living Kalamar character that was attempting to go Barbarian/Sorcerer/Holy Liberator. He was a charismatic upper middle class city boy who exhibited odd abilities when he bore witness to his sister being kidnapped by slavers. His barbarian class abilities and his spells manifested as part of an unknown draconic bloodline.

My only 4E character to date (I mainly DM) is a Kenku Blade Sorcerer who tried to infiltrate one of the houses in Sharn. He was caught and beat almost to death. The repeated beatings to his head caused total memory loss. He couldn't even remember what his own voice sounded like and can only speak in the mimicked voice of other people.

 

[Chainsaw]

Neither of the kinds you list, specifically.

I build a character to explore themes I haven't touched on, to generate interesting interactions with other PCs and NPCs, and to fill "holes" in the party's skill profiles, among other things.

Just being "in-type" or "against-type" is not a design goal for me.

Same way here.

The most important thing to me is a background that provides me with entertaining roleplaying opportunities and layers onto my race/class/mini combination. Creating that background usually doesn't require an in-type/against-type decision.

If I'm playing a fighter, then I'm thinking more about how to make him memorable - sword and hook hand, statted up as TWF? cook with a butcher knife and frying pan shield, statted up as sword and board? That's what I work on. One guy in our group played a "country halfing" whose weapon as a ham leg with barbed wire around it (brutal scoundrel). It was awesome.

 

[BlightCrawler]

Not my intent, mechanical or personality.

Okay, that clears it up then.

I almost always play mechanically tried and true. Largely because that's what the game is instructing me to play. Although that's generally only a point of conflict in D&D. Almost all the other games I play, it's impossible to play a character that's mechanically inefficient.

Otherwise, I definitely favor out of the box. In fact, I favor it so much that when I play a more ordinary character it feels out of the box. Like a Don't Rest Your Head game where I played a married woman who worked in an office.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I play what my inner Muse tells me to play.

Sometimes, I'm the Cleric-as-medic; sometimes I'm the Sorcerer who wears Scalemail, swings a Maul and breathes lightning.

Sometimes I'm the regular guy who just figured out that magic exists; sometimes I'm the private dick who became a vampire, went crazy, and now thinks he's a superhero.

Sometimes, I'm a battle-hardened space marine; sometimes I'm the 6' tall bisexual redheaded engineer wunderkind and part-time (very bad) mech pilot.

IOW, it depends upon a variety of circumstances, like if I join a group and they need me to fill a specific role, or if the campaign is wide open.

Sometimes it depends upon the specific game being played. In 30+ years of gaming, I've explored most of the "traditional" PC concepts in D&D.

 

[Bluenose]

I always work on my idea of what I'd like the character to be capable of doing (and what their personality is like) before I start working out the mechanics of that character. If the system is class-based I'll then pick the class that gives simplest way to achieve the abilities I need. If it's not, I'll see what I need to create the concept or a character that can aim at the concept. I've never quite understood why some people want to write a particular class on their character sheets and then try to twist the abilities around to make a character that plays against type mechanically, when there are classes that do most of what they want available.

 

[Sadrik]

This is interesting, it appears it is outside the box ftw.

This probably delves deeply into the role player's psyche...

 

[diaglo]

a character i haven't played before.
in can be in type or out.

 

[Nifft]

Both inside and outside the box, for different values of "box".

No vote, -- N