Why would you want to play *that*??

[Raven Crowking]

Well, we pretty much agree. I don't think, in terms of a problem, that this one is all that difficult to handle.

The second part of the OP's OP, though....Why do players want to make these sorts of characters?....is actually interesting to talk about.

Oh, yeah, and flumphs. Any conversation where flumphs can be meaningfully introduced is a good conversation, in my book.

 

[Voadam]

Probably an animated one involving lots of japanese schoolgirls...

Tentacled aberration, japanese school girls, anime genre . . . Flumph-touched takes on a darker meaning.

 

[The Shaman]

The mainstream may be heading that way. But for God's sake, we're gamers; when has the mainstream of anything mattered to us?

I have to admit, the more gaming follows what's current, the more deliberately, self-consciously retro the games I run become. I'm drawing a lot more from H. Beam Piper and L. Sprague de Camp than I am Halo or Cowboy Bebop for my Traveller campaign...

 

[luke_twigger]

I'm just trying to figure out why, in a typical D&D campaign, someone would choose to play a bizarre, off-the-wall character concept like some of the ones I see people talking about on here.

Assuming that what you mean by "typical" is a pseudo-European-feudalism type world - PC "adventurers" (of any class/race) are by definition bizarre and strange compared to the peasant farmers who make up the vast majority of the population. In which case it does make some kind of sense that the exotic, weird, rare half-breed characters are the ones who end up adventuring, because they have no way of fitting normally into society due to their atypical personality and heritage.

 

[fusangite]

I have to admit, the more gaming follows what's current, the more deliberately, self-consciously retro the games I run become. I'm drawing a lot more from H. Beam Piper and L. Sprague de Camp than I am Halo or Cowboy Bebop for my Traveller campaign...

Sounds fun. Glad to see you back here. Like you, I took a pretty long break from ENWorld.

 

[Seeten]

As did I. RL gets so overwhelming. Glad to be back.

 

[fusangite]

As did I. RL gets so overwhelming. Glad to be back.

It must be the anticipation of GenCon. That and the re-emergence of threads where I get to make all the points I always make every 45 days or so. Glad to see you back Seeten. I think we usually disagree... but it's been too long for me to remember properly.

 

[Seeten]

I dont think we disagreed so much as had style clashes. You were more into the recreation of certain periods, if memory serves, where as I've been more into creating an epic story, than simulating particular periods. At least, thats what I remember off the top. =)

 

[Agback]

Have people lost site of the fact that this is a ROLE-playing game?

There is no such fact. D&D can be played as a role-playing game. But it needn't be. Don't lose sight of the fact that RPGs developed within (and to a certain extent out of) D&D. D&D is older than role-playing, and there is and ancient strand withint D&D in which gaming matters and roles don't.

 

[Hairfoot]

D&D can be played as a role-playing game. But it needn't be. Don't lose sight of the fact that RPGs developed within (and to a certain extent out of) D&D. D&D is older than role-playing, and there is and ancient strand withint D&D in which gaming matters and roles don't.

You're gonna get savaged for that one.

I presume you meant to say that systemised roleplaying games began with D&D. When pre-schoolers jump onto playground equipment shouting "I'm Superman!", they're roleplaying. D&D is an extension of that, not the other way round.

I really enjoy the rules-based wargame aspect of D&D 3.X, but the ambrosia is a mix of the two. Otherwise, we'd all be better off as historical wargamers who dip into fiction writing and amateur theatre.