What is the best Schtick you've ever...

[Desdichado]

My groups almost never play without schticks. Some of the most memorable schticks I've seen in games that I played for DMed:

1) A hobgoblin rogue who desperately wanted to get his hands on his very own pirate ship by hook or crook. As DM, I had no intention whatsoever of actually giving him one (to keep, anyway) but his single-minded obsession over the issue became a long-running joke.

2) That same character had a "partner" who was a sleazy womanizer who was instantly obsessed with any even kinda sorta female NPC we came across, played by another player in the group. In fact, they gradually worked it up so that the hobgoblin always screwed up the womanizer's attempts to score, and the womanizer always screwed up the hobgoblin con-man's attempts to pull off one of his schemes, thus explaining their constant failure at achieving their obssessive compulsive desires. He always got all of them into trouble, though--most notably when he offered their "service" to a demon-princess, and got the party involved as agents in some demonic intrigue. He later got killed by that same demon-princess for his cheek, but she liked him enough she brought him back and stuck him in the nearest convenient body around--that of Fast Times era Phoebe Cates (complete with removable bikini). Seeing the character's raging womanizer schtick converted to being a raging womanizing man in the body of a hot chick was fun for a while. When it wasn't anymore, he found a way to change back.

3) Had an extremely tall, lanky fellow who couldn't grow a decent beard, but who for whatever reason decided that he identified with the dwarves. Convinced that he was a dwarf mistakenly born into Ichabod Crane's body, he was also a sorcerer who charged into combat with an urgosh.

4) A half-orc barbarian gal with a charisma of maybe 5 who had a girly desire to be attractive and sexy, but absolutely no idea how to do it. She was in the same group as 1 and 2, and kept trying to hit on 2. She never did get it why he seemed to chase after every skirt we crossed, but she never got lucky. Eventually, she did find an NPC who fell head over heels in love with her. Of course, he was one of the party's villains, and she was supposed to be "distracting" him while the rest of the party snuck around his manor house. At first he was horrified by being hit on very aggressively by a half-orc barbarian, but suddenly it all clicked for him and he was head-over-heels the rest of the way. They later recovered the villains papers and notes--instead of clues about all his plots, it was full of bad poetry written to the half-orc.

5) That same half-orc gal had, as part of her back-story, that she realized her potential as a barbarian when her village was attacked by a patrol of hobgoblins. Picking up her father's sword, she jumped into the fray, and nearly split her first hobgoblin completely open. So, the next character concept I got from another player was a hobgoblin who had left the military... after being seriously injured on a raid on a half-orc village! After realizing that this girl was the same one, he made a point of always trying to keep his massive scar hidden. Finally, he decided he needed to come clean and tell her... so he decided that the best way to do so was to seduce her and then blurt it out... while en flagrante delicto. I can't remember exactly how that ended, but I think that scene is the one that had the PCs all get involved in a massive pie fight. He also fell hard for the NPC who looked like Phoebe Cates... who was killed after the party's ineptitude was unable to save her, only to have the womanizer get reincarnated in her body. Come to think of it, that particular campaign probably had the best ensemble cast of PCs I've ever seen in my entire gaming career. Holy moley, that was a fun campaign.

6) In a party full of scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells of roughly an average alignment of chaotic neutral, one guy shocked even everyone else with his callous evilness. After killing a creature that had stolen the eyes from some poor NPC in an inn, instead of giving her back her eyes (a remove blindness spell along with the stolen eyes would return their eyesight and then some) he took them himself and replaced his own eyes with hers. Although I think he may have allowed her to keep his old eyes at least. Later, when they found an oracle who did her best work through anthropomancy, the rest of the party naturally pulled back and said, "No. No way." This PC snuck off in the dead of night, though, went to the slave market and bought the cheapest, weediest halfling he could find, and went and got their fortunes read, picking up a bunch of clues for moving the campaign forward.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Another buddy of mine played a PC who would kill foes instead of releasing them if certain other PCs told him to "show _____ the door" in order to conceal the killings from a LG PC in the party.

Were the other party members evil and trying to hide their true intentions from the LG PC or unaligned and just like to kill things?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The LG in question was extremely merciful. The other party members were more variations along the spectrum of rightful vengeance/hold a grudge/vendetta/"Remember when I said I'd kill you last...I lied." types.

 

[Cor Azer]

I can't really think of any long term character of mine that didn't develop some sort of shtick, even if not originally envisioned with one.

Aubrey and Alstan - played by myself and a friend, tired of both the gallant knight and the rigid righteous paladin stereotypes, ran these two paladins; fairly wholesome fellows, except Aubrey was a drunk and Alstan a womanizer.

Jeremiah Pope - A V:tM Malkavian, killed on Good Friday, rose as a vampire on Easter, put most of his points in True Faith; thought he was the reincarnation of someone...

Ioan Culainn - a swashbuckling assassin; had a habit of smoking cigars, particularly lighting his wooden matches off defeated enemies.

Willow - fatalist fighter NPC for a one-on-one game to bring a player back into a longer campaign after moving away; recited sappy poetry and a bit of an exhibitionist too, she was used to build up the player's emotional attachment to the game until she died... of a congenital heart defect. He couldn't save her.

 

[Redshirt]

In my last 3.5 game I had a player with a wizard who was driven slightly insane by a Far Realm influence. He was the cook on one of the other pc's ship but insisted anything the color red was poison. When he found out the assistant cook served strawberries while the party was off the ship he tried to stab him with a knife.

He also while being locked in his room rolled a crit with his crossbow while hanging out the window on the albatross that was "following" the ship.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Slightly mad or insane characters are always fun to play IMO.

 

[Iron Sky]

In the first 4e campaign I ran, the half-orc barbarian and the half-elf bard were best friends and acted like frat boys. Every time one of them got a kill or did something cool they'd high-five or fist bump and shout "Half-and-Half" (in game and out).


In Exalted we had a character that played "Superman style." He pretended he was a regular mortal following the other players around, but when things got intense, he'd slip into a stable or something and summon his orichalicum full plate with full helm and daiklave, blasting charms and flaring his anima. When the fight was over, he'd slip off somewhere, unsummon his armor, and pretend to be some mortal that had just stumbled onto the scene or was cowering in terror somewhere the whole time.


My most interesting character was Gage Kale, a Star Wars gunfighter who actually used guns instead of blasters (at least until he invented gun|blaster hybrids).

He used grenades for everything but throwing.

He was fearless in a gunfight, but terrified as a little girl in a knife or fistfight or under torture or the threat of torture.

He couldn't turn down a bet, including betting the smuggler's ship on a Sabbac hand and everything he owned on a single dice roll (which he won).

I also had him walk/leap/talk his way into situations I had no plan for or any idea how I was going to get him out of it just for the challenge of figuring it out as I went.

 

[Swedish Chef]

We had a dwarf cleric and a dwarf fighter in one party. The fighter had a less than average intelligence, but was always bragging about how well he could drink. So the cleric challenged him to drinking contests in every bar. And successfully cast a spell to change his alcohol to water without the fighter noticing. Every single time.

Long ago, in 1E, another player and I decided to play barbarian brothers. Like the ones on Saturday Night Live. Our chant during every battle was "We're going to <swish> CARVE YOU UP!" Complete with cheesy Austrian accents.

Recently I played a female half-elven Ranger with a fairly high Charisma. Her main weapon was a long bow, but her back up was a Great Club. With the word UGLY carved on it. If anyone got into melee with her, she'd threaten to beat them ugly with the ugly stick! And if they were already ugly (orcs, goblins, etc), she'd threaten to beat them so ugly with the ugly stick that they'd turn beautiful.

 

[RangerWickett]

Stanely Deadtree, played by a friend of mine, was a simple farmer. Then his farm was raided by three brigands. Stanely tried to run, and in the panic the chickens got loose from their coop. By ridiculous chance, first one, then the second, then the third brigands stumbled and tripped over chickens, fell, and cracked their skulls on the pig-feeding trough, a barrel full of tar, and an ill-placed pitchfork.

Stanely became convinced he'd been saved by a chicken god - nay a three-headed chicken god! He heard news that a jeweled egg had been stolen from a nearby caravan, and he took it as a sign to become a hero. He freed his chickens from their bondage, took up his pitchfork, and set out for adventure!

He would offer his foes mercy if they submitted to 'baptism' -- a quick tarring and feathering.


Guthwulf, Minister of Pain was a member of the enemy empire's inquisitors, and the most skilled torturer in the land. He had spent months sending summoned devils after one particular group of rebels (the PCs), but the stupid infernal hellspawn kept getting defeated, and Guthwulf was blamed for it. His empress tried to have him executed as a traitor, but he fled and joined up with the same rebels he'd been trying to kill, since at least he knew these people were competent.

With defeated enemies, he'd politely suggest that he could torture them for information -- for the greater good, of course. Occasionally he'd offer to animate fallen foes to be ghoulish allies -- need all the help you can get in a war, after all. And he was great at motivating the party; whenever people got indecisive or started bickering over their next move, Guthwulf would calmly start unpacking his ritual summoning supplies and drawing a circle of binding. "You've got about ten minutes before I'm done," he'd say, patiently and subtly pointing out that the longer the 'heroes' spent planning, the more time the enemies had to summon gelugons and osyluths.

Oh, and there was the time he summoned a gelugon and an osyluth and had them compete to see which could kill the most enemies. Who says entities of pure evil don't need motivation too?

 

[David Howery]

the only 'schtick' PC I recall running was a cleric in 2E (as the 'old man' of the group, I volunteered to run the cleric. Everyone hated to run clerics). At the time, there were commercials on tv about a musician named Zamfir who played the Pan flute, and had CDs released with his playing. So, I named my PC cleric Zamfir, priest of some FR party goddess, and spent all his NWPs of things like music and dancing (including the Pan flute, naturally), so he didn't have many useful skills, but boy did he shine at parties. I used to joke that his healing spells were delivered with a slap on the face, and if I rolled low it was because 'they flinched.' Somewhere along the way, he picked up a semi-intelligent and semi-cowardly footman's flail that panicked and animated whenever Zamfir was reduced to a quarter of his HPs, flailing in a protective circle all around him, nailing friend and foe alike. So, a big question before charging into combat was 'Dave, how many hit points you got left?"