What's the Most Asinine Character Idea/Concept You've Dealt With?

[Warrior Poet]

the weird thing about this story is that I find it easy to imagine a very cool and useful Freight Train Willie in a CoC game. Sounds more like bad implementation than a bad concept.

I was gonna say the same thing.

Maybe it all starts with the hobo. In a dark alley one night, shaking off a day-long drunk, the hobo witnesses something . . . otherworldly. It drives him to the bottle, and raving. Another night, outside of a diner, an author overhears the hobo's ramblings, and decides the guy would make a helluva character in a story, so he approaches to hear more and learn what he can. The hobo tells the author Terrible Things. The author writes it down, and is bothered by it, so he approaches his friend, the professor, who is well aquainted with a couple of archaeologists and an antiquarian. The professor relays information to these experts who recognize that Something Awful is afoot. They recruit another professor who knows geography and Where Strange Things Are Rumored To Dwell, and a plucky up-and-coming student tags along as part of a research project. The author, sensing a blockbuster in the making, accompanies the group, and happens to mention it in passing to the hobo, for whom he bought a meal to say thanks for the great ideas. The hobo, still haunted by what he saw, insists on coming along, in order to exorcise from his mind the Nightmarish Vision of that Fateful Night, and so the whole gang'ss Off To See The Dark Unholy God Who Dwells In Blasphemy! Fun for the whole family.

So, yeah, sounds like execution of the character, as opposed to concept, to me.

Warrior Poet

 

[DonTadow]

More asanine characters from my past. Ironically a majority of the craziest characters I've come in counter with have been the DM's pet NPC whom is always super-powered and can run the adventure by himself.

Eleron- The Wizard whom was 8th level but had a ring that allowed him access to every spell in the phb as many times a day as he chooses. The DM chalked it up to a magical accident while creating the ring.

Kane- A large human fighter whom could fly, shoot lasers out of his eyeballs and speak every language in the book.

Bleu- A blink dog PC a player once tried to sneak past me.

 

[rowport]

It was hack and slash game meant for learning 3.5 when it came out so it was meant to be a "special" character. Meat Grinder, a "masked pit fighter" with spiked chain that the player modeled after professional wrestling. He would actually spend actions to pose and make his soliloquy about how they "are goin' doowwnnnn!"

Heh! I actually think this is a pretty cool idea, honestly!

Edit: wasting combat actions straight-up is pretty silly in D&D, but I could see him using Intimidate to demoralize opponents like that...

Edit #2: Several of these ideas sound really fun and entertaining to me, and I find it amusing to hear the "groans" about how bad they are. Minmaxed characters in a normal party are always disruptive, of course, so I understand that objection. But just plain oddball concepts could be cool IMO. (I like the brain-in-a-jar idea, for instance.) Admittedly, the really weird ones might not fit a traditional campaign, but why not try Gonzo D&D sometimes? One of our campaigns is basically built around weirdo characters from Arcana Unearthed, Savage Species, etc. and it is Supercool.

 

[billd91]

I haven't seen too many really asinine characters, but a few quirky ones now and then...

a halfling thief with a chip on his shoulder about all of us "smallists" constantly looking down on him because he's small

a saurial cleric called Firm in Faith (or just Firm for short) who couldn't speak. The player carried around a mini chalk board to communicate with us like the PC

a hengeyokai wu jen/ninja with good tailoring skills in OA, his martial arts moves as he practiced routines were based on sewing moves

in Cyberpunk 2020, a cop campaign, a female player had a gay male helicopter pilot named Jacques. A year later, interestingly enough, the player came out as a lesbian.

in Champions, a celebrity superhero who also hosted talk shows about human sexuality called Phallus, he wore a rubber suit and his powers of growth were a bit, um, unreliable, especially around pretty women

 

[Tinner]

A halfling psion rumoured to be the Messiah for halflings

So he was the Psion Scion?

I forgot about another on in our games. Although to be far, this was for an Over the Edge game, so the concept of asinine and over the top kind of goes out the window.

A sentient, telepathic brine shrimp (aka Sea Monkey) with a little tiny Wave Motion Gun (like on the Yamato in Starblazers.
He lived inside the ear of a normal human and constantly "whispered" telepathic thoughts into his head. Everyone thought the human was the character, and that his power was to fire a devestating energy blast from his ear.

 

[National Acrobat]

When I say no penalties...

no penalties? Drow already have light sensitivity. Albinos have light sensitivity and burn like crazy. Albino-drow = completely sun blind, and making heat exahstion type rolls starting after an hour outdoors. If he still wanted it then, why not?

When I say no penalties, I should clarify.

Because they came up with a the Drow Albino concept, the player figured being albino would

a)prevent them from being a social outcast
b)allow them to walk in the light like a normal elf
c)would allow them to eliminate the +2 ECL for being a drow

The whole concept of the Albino part was to be a drow, yet be immune to all negatives that go with being one. They figured being pale would eliminate all of the inherent negatives that drow have, while retaining the benefits.

 

[Nomad4life]

We have a player who is notorious for coming up with REALLY BAD Mutants & Masterminds characters. Usually here’s how this works:

Him: Ok, I want to play as <insert insane/goofy/stupid character concept here>.

Us: Ummm… That’s a really bad idea. I mean, not only would that character not be any fun to interact with, but he/she/it would be useless dead-weight to drag around in the adventure.

Him: No! You just don’t understand, because you’re not as creative as I am! Etc, etc…

Us: Can’t you just try to play as something “normal” this time? You’re just going to get bored with this idea in the first ten minutes. You think you’re being “creative” or “interesting” but these ideas are always more disruptive than anything else.

Him: No! I can make it work! Just watch!

So, we let him play. Inevitably, his character turns out to be useless dead-weight, or his idea loses novelty in the first ten minutes of the game. He then spends the rest of the adventure helping other players solve puzzles or coming up with plans out-of-character.
This happens every time.

Some of his more infamous abominations (remember, this is supposed to be a super-hero genre game. All the other players have “standard fare” X-men type characters.):

-An insane taxi cab driver that never, ever, ever, leaves his cab. Ever.

-The Mad Hatter. Right out of Alice In Wonderland, except that he talks constantly to an imaginary Cheshire cat.

-A kabuki warrior spirit.

-A super-genius potted plant. Which cannot speak. Or do much of anything else. On wheels.

-A flying cow. Not with wings, but with cybernetic rocket jets instead of hooves.

-A possessed rubber duck… With Satanic powers of mind-control.

-A pizza delivery guy with (inexplicably) more high-tech nifty gadgets than Batman. (This character’s primary goal was delivering pizzas; so he was very little aid in the actual adventure.)

-An intelligent Tyrannosaurus Rex… Very high-brow, educated, and mild-mannered. (And, yet again, completely useless.)

-An intergalactic robot barber and hairstylist... That constantly told bad jokes like some insane clown.

I could go on and on and on. By now, you see the pattern: Characters that are just too difficult to interact with, or take seriously, or work into the game. Looking back over them, they look like character ideas a six-year-old might think was “kewl” for about 12 seconds, then forget about. This guy has been legally drinking for a few years now, folks.

And yet... He gets so friggin exited about these lame character ideas. Like each time he honestly believes that “this one will work, guys! Trust me!” It's amazing.

Oddly, this same guy makes decent D&D characters, and fantastic, realistic Call Of Cthulhu characters. But when it comes to Mutants & Masterminds… His brain just short circuits or something?







-

 

[Mallus]

Nomad... I take it you're using that hip, newfangled street slang in which "REALLY BAD" means "F***ing Awesome", right?

I haven't laughed --at work, mind you, in the budget office of a major American city-- so hard in a long, long time.

There's always a place for comic relief...

 

[vrock]

In my current game there is a Half-Orc barbarian that can't speak common, and a Gnomish fighter with a annoyingly high voice. Sounds simple enough right? WRONG! Apparently both of these characters are Gnomish actors who are sort of playing a Penn and Teller act. The Half-orc is actually a Gnome in a mechanical suit of Half-orc skin, and the Gnomish fighter is just an actor playing the part of the annoying loud-mouthed sidekick. They usually travel the lands putting on shows but somehow the Gnome in the suit was magically bound to it by a wizard at one of their shows. The other Gnome isn't smart enough to figure this out, so he thinks that the show is still going on. Don't ask me how the actual game mechanics work, I'm just ignoring it and hopfully it will go away.

I made the mistake of trying to start a game quickly without learning too much about their characters besides glancing at their character sheets. It wasn't until later when they let me know why they were traveling together. I just sighed and shook my head, but hey, at least they are having fun...

 

[rowport]

I just sighed and shook my head, but hey, at least they are having fun...

Good call, vrock! See, you get it!