Hey so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or advice on which personality types are the most fun to play. I was thinking of playing a psychotic human who had been cursed to live thousands of years as a goat, and when he emerged from this spell, he had become a firbolg druid. I would make his new purpose to find the author a journal that he actually wrote, and because time means very little to him, this is an important mission to him as would be helping a snail cross a bridge. I would also want that when he finds out the author, he would have flashbacks and maybe even dual personality disorder, reverting back to his old self now in the new body. Would it make more sense to just create a crazy character in the first place, it seems like D&D groups favor crazy zany personalities, and the righteous lawful good characters are almost forgotten.
In my experience, the crazy wouldn't play well with the groups I've played with. Good, neutral, lawful - they can all be fun to play. I personally find Lawful Neutral to be really fun because it's about having a code and adhering to it.
Personally, I'd view your backstory negatively as both a player and a DM, but I'm not you, nor playing with you, nor your DM, so...
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Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
I have always loved the idea of the Chaotic evil character that had amnesia and thought he was lawful good, but the CE just kept working its way out through RP.
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I agree with Mel. Any personality that lends itself to sudden outbursts would grate on me as a fellow player. It may be fun to play, but it’s hard to play off of. I think a too-curious-for-your-own-good type would be fun to play. The kind who might go setting off traps or exploring tunnels without checking in with the group just because they had to know what was in the box or at the end of the tunnel. The other party members would default to treating you like a kid. “Someone keep an eye on Bob. We don’t want a repeat of that Golden Chest Incident.”
A one-upper would be fun, too. “I once had a sword like that, but once you’ve used one of these...” “You’ve never had a sword like that, Bob.” “Shut up, Carl. You weren’t there.”
If you were wanting to go pathological, I’d keep it in the realm of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock as a guideline. (High functioning sociopath) No empathy, lots of snark, tends to use people just because they’re predictable and that makes it efficient.
You have to balance playing a character in game and playing a character in your mind. Your mind wants to say, why would my character do this or that. But in reality the best thing you can do is work with your party. The best moments have come from the group RP out moments of their character personality. Not arguing or running solo or stealing from the party.
In my humble opinion, the goat thing is hilarious. Maybe have him act like a goat at times (ya know, over 1000 years is a long time). Maybe he'd eat random garbage he finds, his social skills are probably pretty rusty, headbutting? Stuff like that could lead to some interesting situations.
There's just a lot of room to make him a total crazy person without any dual personality stuff or other difficult to deal with features. It would also contrast the serious tone of his personal quest. Goat-man Bob and his quest for the Tome of Forgotten Knowledge
It's up to you though. Maybe a deranged goat-man isn't really what you're going for :p
Depends on what the other party members want to do
The goal is good, and the lack of a big time constraint on it is also good, but I could see the personality being something that would grate with your party members. Check with them first IMO.
Hey so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or advice on which personality types are the most fun to play. I was thinking of playing a psychotic human who had been cursed to live thousands of years as a goat, and when he emerged from this spell, he had become a firbolg druid.
That's about four things too many for my taste as a DM. It's too muddled to make a good character hook. I would probably ask for it to be reimagined a little. You don't have to have that kind of zany back story to roleplay a personality.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Simple folk are always fun to play, the sort that have their minds blown when they come into their first small city and really rocked once they go to a capital. The kind whose immediate instinct on opening a door to see a terrifying monster on the other side isn't to fight but to just shut and lock the door. They may not know a lot about the world but they can have their own charm and you have a lot of freedom when it comes to building their small town: regional customs, NPCs, sayings, dress, etc.
Book one of the Wheel of Time series is a big inspiration for me when I play these sorts of characters :^)
"Psychotic" and "zany" are two very different states of mind. I think there's potential there for an interesting character, but it's really going to come down to how skillfully you can RP the character as part of an adventuring group. You might want to consider using a solid Support class so the party has a reason to keep the character around. "Oh, Bobby McGoatbeard? Yeah, he's a bit of a nutter. Talks a lot of mess about some journal and he's prone to eating stuff he shouldn't. But he's saved my backside a few times with a well-timed healing spell." That kind of thing.
I'm playing a Displaced Human bard in one of my campaigns and, let me tell you, treading that line between good-crazy and bad/annoying-crazy can be difficult. Fortunately, I have a great group to play with who don't mind me indulging my love of RP every now and again. In recognition of that, I make an effort to keep my RP on that thin good/bad line, and I stay aware of how the rest of the table is reacting to these antics. And I think that's probably the secret to making a character like this work for everyone at the table: Don't put your all your effort into the crazy. Even 10% crazy effort is going to be plenty of crazy for most groups. That leaves 90% of your effort to work out how your mentally damaged character should function in an adventuring party and to maintaining that during play. Keep in mind that a character like this would likely be the weakest link in the party, so he's going have to "maintain" for a majority of his time. Otherwise, the rest of the party will have a compelling reason to get up early and leave him asleep at the inn while they skedaddle out of town. And leave him with the bill.
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Hey so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or advice on which personality types are the most fun to play. I was thinking of playing a psychotic human who had been cursed to live thousands of years as a goat, and when he emerged from this spell, he had become a firbolg druid. I would make his new purpose to find the author a journal that he actually wrote, and because time means very little to him, this is an important mission to him as would be helping a snail cross a bridge. I would also want that when he finds out the author, he would have flashbacks and maybe even dual personality disorder, reverting back to his old self now in the new body. Would it make more sense to just create a crazy character in the first place, it seems like D&D groups favor crazy zany personalities, and the righteous lawful good characters are almost forgotten.
In my experience, the crazy wouldn't play well with the groups I've played with. Good, neutral, lawful - they can all be fun to play. I personally find Lawful Neutral to be really fun because it's about having a code and adhering to it.
Personally, I'd view your backstory negatively as both a player and a DM, but I'm not you, nor playing with you, nor your DM, so...
Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
I have always loved the idea of the Chaotic evil character that had amnesia and thought he was lawful good, but the CE just kept working its way out through RP.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I find that a lot of players want to play a crazy, solitary, or recluse character. It just never fits well with the party.
Find a character who compliments the group, as this will promote better RP and character progression than playing the one-off.
I agree with Mel. Any personality that lends itself to sudden outbursts would grate on me as a fellow player. It may be fun to play, but it’s hard to play off of. I think a too-curious-for-your-own-good type would be fun to play. The kind who might go setting off traps or exploring tunnels without checking in with the group just because they had to know what was in the box or at the end of the tunnel. The other party members would default to treating you like a kid. “Someone keep an eye on Bob. We don’t want a repeat of that Golden Chest Incident.”
A one-upper would be fun, too. “I once had a sword like that, but once you’ve used one of these...” “You’ve never had a sword like that, Bob.” “Shut up, Carl. You weren’t there.”
If you were wanting to go pathological, I’d keep it in the realm of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock as a guideline. (High functioning sociopath) No empathy, lots of snark, tends to use people just because they’re predictable and that makes it efficient.
You have to balance playing a character in game and playing a character in your mind. Your mind wants to say, why would my character do this or that. But in reality the best thing you can do is work with your party. The best moments have come from the group RP out moments of their character personality. Not arguing or running solo or stealing from the party.
In my humble opinion, the goat thing is hilarious. Maybe have him act like a goat at times (ya know, over 1000 years is a long time). Maybe he'd eat random garbage he finds, his social skills are probably pretty rusty, headbutting? Stuff like that could lead to some interesting situations.
There's just a lot of room to make him a total crazy person without any dual personality stuff or other difficult to deal with features. It would also contrast the serious tone of his personal quest. Goat-man Bob and his quest for the Tome of Forgotten Knowledge
It's up to you though. Maybe a deranged goat-man isn't really what you're going for :p
Depends on what the other party members want to do
The goal is good, and the lack of a big time constraint on it is also good, but I could see the personality being something that would grate with your party members. Check with them first IMO.
That's about four things too many for my taste as a DM. It's too muddled to make a good character hook. I would probably ask for it to be reimagined a little. You don't have to have that kind of zany back story to roleplay a personality.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
My character started CN but through the influence of a deity I was turned CE and now I'm slowly turning into a savage cannibal devouring the weak
Simple folk are always fun to play, the sort that have their minds blown when they come into their first small city and really rocked once they go to a capital. The kind whose immediate instinct on opening a door to see a terrifying monster on the other side isn't to fight but to just shut and lock the door. They may not know a lot about the world but they can have their own charm and you have a lot of freedom when it comes to building their small town: regional customs, NPCs, sayings, dress, etc.
Book one of the Wheel of Time series is a big inspiration for me when I play these sorts of characters :^)
"Psychotic" and "zany" are two very different states of mind. I think there's potential there for an interesting character, but it's really going to come down to how skillfully you can RP the character as part of an adventuring group. You might want to consider using a solid Support class so the party has a reason to keep the character around. "Oh, Bobby McGoatbeard? Yeah, he's a bit of a nutter. Talks a lot of mess about some journal and he's prone to eating stuff he shouldn't. But he's saved my backside a few times with a well-timed healing spell." That kind of thing.
I'm playing a Displaced Human bard in one of my campaigns and, let me tell you, treading that line between good-crazy and bad/annoying-crazy can be difficult. Fortunately, I have a great group to play with who don't mind me indulging my love of RP every now and again. In recognition of that, I make an effort to keep my RP on that thin good/bad line, and I stay aware of how the rest of the table is reacting to these antics. And I think that's probably the secret to making a character like this work for everyone at the table: Don't put your all your effort into the crazy. Even 10% crazy effort is going to be plenty of crazy for most groups. That leaves 90% of your effort to work out how your mentally damaged character should function in an adventuring party and to maintaining that during play. Keep in mind that a character like this would likely be the weakest link in the party, so he's going have to "maintain" for a majority of his time. Otherwise, the rest of the party will have a compelling reason to get up early and leave him asleep at the inn while they skedaddle out of town. And leave him with the bill.