Hey Guys!

I'm exploring different characters to play in games I join. It's been very fun to play characters who are sociable or characters who want to have some sort of "redeeming quality" on them. But this has always put me into a box of having to commit to characters that have to be socially appropriate.

I understand that D&D is a social game- but I believe variety is important to when it comes to having a cast.

So back to the question:

AS A PLAYER: How have you guys handled playing someone who has a difficult personality that might not get along well with your party members.

and as a DM: Have you guys been able to run a campaign where there were specific characters that did not particularly play a friendly social role with the other players but still made the campaign work?

I want to play this kind of obnoxious, selfish woman who an embodiment of Regina George (Mean Girls) but I'm just not sure how to go about it. This person would obviously only cater to what she wants and her strategies, will be impossible to communicate with unless it's to her benefit, etc. Some advice would be cool. xD

I think it has been said many times, but here I go. 

First of all it should be done with a consistent group of friends (by friends I mean people you've been playing joyfully for at least a month or two - or 4 to 8 sessions) this would help to understand that the attitude is just the character and not the player.

What most people don't understand is that their common excuse "is what my character would do" applies the same to the rest of the group when they pretty much decide to leave you behind, deny any kind of healing, etc. Even though it is easy to understand a heroic group to refrain from helping someone in need, that doesn't mean to carry an annoying person everywhere. So there's that. Use the same example of Regina George, would you say that here friends where actually considered by her? would you consider them smart? they weren't because someone smart and emotionally stable would've hang with her. As it just happened in the movie. 

I'm not against this kind of stuff but I'm skeptical that many players can pull it off

Just don’t be obnoxious and difficult ALL the time and just be aware of the real people you might be actually annoying or pissing off lol. Try doing it in a way that makes people laugh you are gaming with. Be obnoxious and difficult with the NPCs and tell the DM that is what your character is all about, cuz you could annoy them as well. I’m heavy into role playing but even I, the real person playing the characters, can get annoyed lol. Just try to make people laugh and try to enhance the gaming experience for everyone.

It only takes small doses to make your character seem obnoxious. Do it sparingly and do it when there is very little at stake and you may be ok.

Keep in mind that a selfish person can still see the benefit in being in a group that can do things that they can't do alone. Any characters whose "personality" is "I don't work with the team" is a dealbreaker for me. Working in a group is a base assumption for D&D to work - if you don't want to do that, you can go play Mass Effect or something and be obnoxious to characters that don't have real people behind them.

If you want to Regina George it up, I'd follow Matt Coville's advice on playing a lawful evil character: you may be selfish and manipulative, but you are selfish and manipulative in ways that benefit the party. Think of the party as your minions; they cannot serve *your* interests unless *their* interests are advanced. You need your minions on top form to be as effective as possible, and it's up to you to make sure that happens, and make sure they trust you so when you eventually start advancing your evil plans, they'll follow you. 

Getting back to Regina George, remember that she was the popular girl in the school, and that most of the people at that school actually liked her. True, they like her because she's fake and pretends to be people's friends while deeper down she really is a b*tch, but I would hesitate to say your problem is getting people to like a character like that. People should like her even though she's a mean girl, and a lot of your work in RP should be in trying to make people like you, since that's where your power over them comes from. 

Think of the most annoying and difficult people you have worked with or went to school with.  Did you hang around with them on breaks and lunches?  Outside of work?  And these are people you are forced to be with...  So if your character is going to be that difficult (or more) then you have to ask yourself would the other party members hang out with them if they didn't have to?  Or would they ditch them asap?  Or maybe just kill them, or let them be killed.  What reason would the other party members have to risk their lives for someone like that?

Basically the point is that the most annoying and difficult character exist in these worlds, but they generally don't find a group of companions who are willing to put up with them long term.  Yes, you can have annoying or difficult traits, but if they are the defining characteristic they may be more of a solo adventurer.

You character doesn't have to be all social, sunbeams, happiness and feeding squirrels...  But the balance between annoying and redeeming qualities cannot be so off kilter as to alienate everyone around them... Or they would alienate everyone and be ditched. Or left in a ditch.  This are cut throat times, after all...  In their are no city guards in a dragons lair to stop your fellow players from backstabbing ya. 

Quote from CozmoTheGrey >>

Be obnoxious and difficult with the NPCs and tell the DM that is what your character is all about, cuz you could annoy them as well.

 I agree with this, in that it should be directed more to NPCs than other PCs. But don't be surprised if the DM puts your character specifically in front of an important NPC that you can't afford to piss off, then calls you on the fact that you're breaking character. Be all in, don't pick and choose when to actually play the character. If your PC grows, and starts acting different on a regular basis, that's one thing, but be prepared to take the good and the bad from playing this type of character. 

This is a very hard one. I'll be honest -- I'm not sure I've ever seen it actually work.

In City of Heroes, I played one character who wasn't even obnoxious, just kind of prickly and stand-offish, and even then, I got other players annoyed at me, the player, and a few who couldn't deal with it. That's not the same as around the table with friends (in an MMO guild, you don't know everyone personally, if it's large), but it's not easy to pull off. And she wasn't overtly obnoxious, just a little snappish.

You definitely want to warn the DM and other players what you are doing but again, in all honesty, even when this is done, with good friends and good RPers, it is just hard to make work. The problem is that if you play a really obnoxious character, why would the other characters stick around with her?

I remember in Rolemaster, one of my good friends playing an obnoxious wizard character named Pillar. Now, he was always ragging on the other characters (not a huge RP stretch, as this particular player liked to rag on us in real life), but in particular he kept going after my character, whom he thought was a thief. She was actually a Nightblade (spell-casting assassin) and so he was playing with some serious fire and didn't even know it. I tried to have her endure it as long as I could but he just kept pushing. The final straw was when he used some spell to rip open her backpack, and all the potions fell out, and smashed on the floor (I lost invisibility, healing, etc.). That night, she assassinated him. Or tried to.. the Healer managed to save his life. But I mean... given her personality, there was no way she was going to let that go, especially since destroying things like potions of healing literally put her life in danger (you reach for a potion of healing in battle and it's not there, could be the end of you).

Again, I tried to find ways to have her not kill him, but she was not a forgiving sort, and she did not have a sense of humor about these things. And this was well established all along. I warned him OOC a couple of times that he was playing with fire, but "that's how Pillar is." And I don't think the player thought I'd *really* try to do an actual assassin strike on him (which can do a one-hit kill if you pull it off, regardless of hit points, in Rolemaster).

So the question is -- how are the other players going to justify their character sticking around with you? And is it fair to make the other players go through all kinds of contortions to avoid having their characters do the logical, IC thing and just boot you out of the party for being so unpleasant?