Why would you want to play *that*??

[Tsillanabor]

My wife is playing a half-dragon kobold in our current game. The weakness of the kobold combined with the LA is making her weaker in many ways than the rest of the party, but she's having a lot of fun with it.

 

[Bront]

I'm generaly a blend.

I love having a fun new character concept, and sometimes something outlandish presents itself as interesting and entertaining. However, I also find that it must be in some way mechanicaly appealing, because having a significantly subpar mechanical character can be very disapointing to play.

Example - I've wanted to draw up a warrior who used a sword and a shield, but used the shield as a second weapon as well. However, the requirements of doing so involve having many high stats (15 Dex, 13 Int, and a high enough strength to carry everything), Many feats (I think you need at least 4), and the net benifit is disapointing at best compared to other feats out there (Two weapon defense, Improved Buckler Defense), that I haven't found a game I'm willing to play it in. And that's a fairly standard character realy (Fighter with a sword and a shield) with just a different spin.

So, generaly I tend to avoid anything with a LA, which brings me back to the core races most of the time, and I tend to have them aiming for something overall.

For me, a good balance of RP and Mechanics is what makes a character. A character that is disapointing mechanicly can be just as hard to play as one who has a back story I just can't get into.

 

[prosfilaes]

I HAVE to believe that people who play these things have no desire to come at them from a role-playing perspective. When I see something that is the cross between an earth elemental and a mortal, the roleplayer in me dies a little bit. "How would I even approach something like that as a role-playing concept?" "What is the motivation of such an individual?"

I don't even role-play elves very often because they seem so foreign to my mindset. When I play halflings or gnomes, I try hard to not make them stereotypical. I rarely play dwarves because I think it would be too difficult not to play them at least somewhat stereotypical.

So you can't wrap your mind around an alien mind; why does that mean that no role-player can? You're virtually saying that anyone who wants to play a non-human isn't a good roleplayer.

Frankly, I see a gensai as easier to roleplay than a gnome; they grew up in human society, and have clear psychogical variations.

But I have to believe that people who play such mind-boggingly bizarre character concepts ONLY approach them as a collection of statistics. For example, do people who play Warlocks choose them because they would make an interesting role-playing challenge, or do people play Warlocks because they have a lot of phat k3wl special abilities?

Why can't you both like cool unique abilities and the roleplaying of an interesting character? A goliath scout is not exactly a mind-boggingly bizarre character concept; why is it so hard for you to get your mind around a character even slightly different from your own?

 

[WayneLigon]

I HAVE to believe that people who play these things have no desire to come at them from a role-playing perspective.

You'd be wrong, then, simple as that. It's rare that I can point to someone and say 'what you beleive is wrong' but this is one of the cases.

 

[Chimera]

You might be causing your own problems. If I was a new player and you showed unfounded prejudice to what I was doing and made bad assumptions of my motives I doubt I'd stick around long enough for you to realize that I'm one of these exceptions you've never met.

Since I've been a player in 9 of those 11, it seems unlikely. Especially since I've only met a few of those kind of people and the GMs in every group have disallowed such characters.

But given my experience with those few people, I'd say that my prejudices are well founded and my assumptions quite good. You being the exception doesn't change my previous experience. At best it would make me realize that, "Hey, here's ONE guy who can pull it off!"

Of course, you throwing around those terms and stomping off in anger probably aren't going to lead to any sort of positive outcome of the situation.

They never do when people have a negative outlook on a certain subset of people.

 

[Andor]

Another "Bad Fun" post.

It boggles my mind that a group of people playing a game viewed by the general public as at best a pursuit of unwashed geeks clustered under a 40 watt bulb in a basement, and at worst as a cover for satanists seeking to lure little Jimmy into killing the neigbors cat, nonetheless feel the need to point fingers at other members of their hobby and sneer proclaiming "They do it wrong! All true gamers know that my way is best. I fear and revile what I do not understand, and I do not understand You!"

Bravo Sir, Bravo.

 

[Seeten]

Another "Bad Fun" post.

It boggles my mind that a group of people playing a game viewed by the general public as at best a pursuit of unwashed geeks clustered under a 40 watt bulb in a basement, and at worst as a cover for satanists seeking to lure little Jimmy into killing the neigbors cat, nonetheless feel the need to point fingers at other members of their hobby and sneer proclaiming "They do it wrong! All true gamers know that my way is best. I fear and revile what I do not understand, and I do not understand You!"

Bravo Sir, Bravo.

ROFL.

Well said, Andor, well said.

 

[Remathilis]

Because after 12 + years of gaming, there is more than just elf necromacners, dwarf clerics, halfling rogues, and human male fighters with greatswords.

Sometimes it fun to cut loose with a tiefling swashbucker, a half-dragon sorcerer, or a goliath favored soul. It adds fresh air to a game that for years was dominated by 6-7 races and 6-11 classes...

 

[Crothian]

But given my experience with those few people, I'd say that my prejudices are well founded and my assumptions quite good. You being the exception doesn't change my previous experience. At best it would make me realize that, "Hey, here's ONE guy who can pull it off!"

See, just because you've known players that act that way in the past has zero bearing on how a new player will act in the future. I perfer to give a new player a chance to prove to me he's an abuser and rules monger instead of handicapping him from the get go because of past bad experiences.

 

[Seeten]

I'd like to point out, as a vicious munchkin, and a proponent of terrible min-maxing and bad fun, myself, I tend towards humans, because they don't have an LA, they get an extra feat and extra skill points, and basically are as powerful as an LA +1 race for free. They also get full spell caster levels, and full level 20 progression.

If humans werent so brutally overpowered, (imo) I'd spend more time exploring wacky half-dragon combos. Half-Dragon is a cool idea. I'd like to play a full Dragon, as interestingly, a half-fiend, a succubus, other various demons and devils. Perhaps even other cool stuff. But sadly, Humans are SO broken, I cant do it. I must play them. Simply, they are too powerful.

So for those claiming the munchkins are playing the half-dragons, I say if so, they are awful at math munchkins. The math shows Humans are amazing.