I want to play a character like Izaya Orihara, Light Yagami or Shogo Makishima...

How super smart can you be and still go to Cambridge?

Ok, I can work with that.

While away from the party, checking out some cool shadows near your camp you hear a surprized snort and then an enraged roar. You are accosted by a dire brown bear! He's standing between you and the only clearing leading to your camp!
Roll for ana- Roll for initiative!

You fool! It was all a part of his plan and the bear's just played straight into it!

>Magnificent Bastard-kun slouches over his sofa, drinking tea
>"Bear-san... now is the time for you to show your true nature..."
>extreme close up of bear-san's snout, he gulps
>extreme close up of Magnificent Bastard-kun's chin, he grins
>Bear-san: "I am the existence known as a bear. That is my raison d'être."
Magnificent Bastard-kun: "You are honest, bear-san. This is why you amuse me so much."
>grins again

I thiink backstory wise he was a regular student with regular int level before getting supered up and crafted an asston of spydrones which he sent to spy on a random seemingly-peaceful city on a diametrically opposite point of the planet and kept cambridge as a a cover.

Oh and after that got rejected, his next character idea was an anarchist bomber. The only explanation for wtf is he doing amongst the HEROES was "He's Chaotic Neutral!"

Rolled 1 (1d20)

The bear is unfazed by your monologue! The bear uses Enrage! The bear swings!
Roll d20 over to dodge its attack.

god damn you, bear

>It was merely an illusion/robot, manipulator san is in another castle

There are bears in all the castles and they all start mauling you. The whole world is bears. You are breathing tiny bears that start shredding your lungs. This game is called Bears and Assmasters.

>HAHA! You let your anger control you and now the entire party is dead! The game you worked so hard to think up is ruined! You've played right into my hands, GM!

...huh. That's actually sort of clever.

The party is over at the High King's Keep, in the Blowjob Dimension. They're having fun.

Meanwhile in the Blowjob Dimension:

The Vacuum Dragoness has been satisfied and will leave our men unmolested! We are again free to worship the Beauty Goddess in peace. How can our people ever rapey you, kind adventurers?
>My lady, just knowing we could help is reward enough.
Oh, a noble knight? You're getting your reward twice.

You deserve your shitty player.

>Izaya
>the antagonist
kek'd

Doesn't that show has like fifty protagonists, and they're all shitheads?

>all shitheads
Not Anri.

>I use my diplomacy skill to completely manipulate everyone in the room
>um, ok. What do you actually say?
>I don't know let me just roll the dice!

Yup, don't tell anyone you're in constant danger of being possessed by an evil sword and turned into a serial killer. Especially not the guys you hang out with most and who would thus both care the most, be the most likely to be able to help and be in the most danger should it happen. And it's totally cool to go around turning random individuals into your zombie army just so you can spy on your crush and/or engage in vigilante justice/attempt to enforce your vision of what is right on Ikebukuro with literal mind control knives.

Not a shithead at all.

had me a kek

Most of her actions were entirely justifiable. I think you are mixing up characters. Anri never really turns anyone into a zombie army, that's the other Saika users later in the show.

>How can our people ever rapey you,
>rapey

Best typo

I see you haven't watched the second series. The animation kind of took a downturn for a while there, but it's quite good.

The only person who is remotely not a shithead is Celty.

And even she's kind of got her moments.

>implying I haven't watched the entire series
Time to get off your high horse bub.
I have. I've watched all of the seasons. I don't know why you would think I didn't.

The only reason those"mastermind" characters ever succeed in their ridiculously convoluted scheme is because the idiots who write them are the same idiots who write the ridiculous stories they're in. If a player wants to manipulate their way to any goal, they'll bettet have a really good, flexible and reality-proof plan, and luck to spare.

my friends talked up deathnote and i thought i would get some Sherlock holmes logic game/thriller.

what i got was:
> im so smart no one can catch me
> i caught u
> nuh uh! i was only pretending to be caught!
> well i was only pretending to catch you to reveal you were pretending, and now i actually catch you
> nuh uh! im wearing boots of escaping! HAHAHA IM SO SMART
> nuh uh, i tied your laces together
> well i shoot you
> bullet proof armor
> bullet proof armor proof bullets!
> my dad could beat up your dad

Sorry, but there's no GM out there that would support that kind of playstyle.

Shogo had a near supernatural power that gave him an advantage because those going after him didn't know anything about it (And their superiors were withholding information). He plays the manipulation game but it only works with a couple characters.
Light has actual supernatural powers and has the advantage of knowing how they work while his opponents don't. Most of his plans hinge on exploiting his supernatural powers in ways his opponents don't even realize he can.
Izaya is probably the worst example since everyone continues to make the mistake of trusting him. Everyone in Durarara is trying to play the manipulation game and mostly failing at it though.

>reality proof

No such thing. What you do is not plan, but have an every shortening funnel. You recognize events will not move how you want them all the time, and try and steer towards the end of your funnel. As time moves on you should be able to narrow down possible events until you reach the eventual end goal. However depending on how things unfold you may have to change your end goal and reevaluate the plan.

I played a character who was fighting a secret war against dopplegangers that had infiltrated the society. I made sure no one, even close allies, knew my character's real face, and actually wrote something like 10 pages by the end of it on policy of how the organization kept information secret. It was done by having no one know enough information to compromise and orders only being giving through sending, and thus relatively untraceable. My character has his identity eschewed so he couldn't easily been find, and so were his top lieutenants that he trusted to give orders.

Really paranoia was what made the entire plan possible, that and relative cheapness of mercenaries. Honestly the mercenaries were the hardest bit because you need to make sure they don't leave you for a higher bidder, finding ones that won't break contract is next to impossible.

Fact: only smart people can write smart characters.

>Izaya
Got his ass beat, shot, and barely survives.

>Light
Gets caught and dies.

>Shogo
Never watched Psycho-Pass. If I wanted to watch Minority Report, I'd just read Minority Report.

I couldn't watch past the point where they introduce a girl that just really really wants light's dick for reasons

So an all dragon PC game of shadowrun?

So the best mastermind characters are played by good DMs? Sounds about right.

...Okay. How do you even start? What are your goals? How are you planning to 'manipulate' anyone? What is your leverage?

Oh, you're not getting involved in the adventure with the group? If you're not involved by the end of next session, I'm NPC-ing your character and you can roll another. There's no point in you being here, if you're not participating.

I think the idea of a super-smart student who fights through proxybots from the otherside of the world is still pretty cool, as long as he is either leaning in a good or evil direction.

I will admit my GM helped me out by making it possible for me to even find trustworthy mercenaries. I was relatively safe from being found out I was the mastermind, but a Doppleganger might have been able to trace it back to me.

All orders I gave were through sending to a person who we use Sequester Thoughts to destroy all knowledge she had of my actual identity. She did not know where I was or what I was doing, merely that money kept coming in and I kept sending her mercenaries, connections, and contacts. I was the one who negotiated, under a number of disguises. So as to hide the fact that my party was always in the city when these negotiations would occur I would, at later levels, purchase teleport to shepherd me back and forth and had to kill a few wizards to hide information on the fact these teleport were used, then later would just teleport myself.

The dopplegangers managed to catch me out a few times, but I didn't engage and simply ran, because engaging would have been too risky.

It was a long plan coming, took me from 5th to 16th level as a Imperious Bloodline Sorcerer.

Psycho-pass is p. good once you stop questioning how the setting came to be and realize how much it's borrowing from Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Its pretentious garbage.

but you said you've never watched it
user, you're not just listening to what other anons are telling you without reserving your own judgment for it, are you?

Pay attention to the IP count, or install an add-on that does that for you. That was somebody new, not the person you were originally responding to.

Italian here. What's wrong with Cambridge?

>54 posts
>28 unique IPs
>gosh user, why can't you see who's IP matches to which post?

>Gets caught and dies.

Saves the japanese olympic swimming team, you mean.

4chanX will mark posts that cause the IP count to increase, when it can actually determine it.

I saw the first season and half the second, pretentious garbage plagued with horrible expositions that try to add an air of intellectualism and borrow from ideas in the most shallow sense.

It was fun but pretentious nonetheless and the second season was all over the place and it seemed like they didnt know what to do with the story or the characters so they did something stupidly similar to the first season so I dropped it.

>An assassin kills you in your sleep
>Don't worry though, it was all part of your master plan that will continue for hundreds of years after your death
I then proceed play out the PCs post death plan as a recurring BBEG. I assure the play that his character's high intellect and charisma are forwarding his goals. He can go home and sit out until he's needed again.

He rolled really well and duped everyone. He won't be needed for a long while.
Or ever.

>Oh you don't want to rely on a bunch of bullshit rolls, that's cool, I don't want to manage bullshit rolls
>But your character sounds really janky, I probably wouldn't want him at the table
>I'd only really let him in if I was... manipulated somehow

second season was a mess, yeah

Haha that would show him! xD

Are you asking him for sexual favors? It sounds like you're asking him for sexual favors.

I've tried playing this type of character before, but I always find them to be pretty boring when you actually get into it. I mean, 90% of everything you do as this character is going to be just telling NPCs to do your work for you.

You know these wouldn't be nearly as bad if they could actually do it, but that's true of a lot of social based/smart characters. I hate that moment when your face can't Roleplay worth a damn and is pants on head retarded, and you, who are playing a brain dead beat stick, do his job better (or would if you weren't dependent on dice.)

Sure! I just need you to roll 3d6, six times first.
Hmm, okay, you've got two 15's, that's pretty good, and a 13, good, 12 good, that 8 is gonna hurt, but what can you do, and the 10 is neither here nor there. Okay, arrange them as you like it. You probably want a 15 in intelligence and a 15 in charisma, since those are your most superior stats... 8 wisdom? Sure, let's roll with it.

Now, your class: there's quite a lot to choose from. your stats are pretty good for a wizard or a bard.

Rogue? Sure. Put that 13 dexterity to work.

Now, Given that this is a medieval society and your character lives in a rural farming village, who do you feel like manipulating today?

Oh the King? Certainly. how would you like to do that?

Yes. I asked how would you like to manipulate the king. You live in a rural farming community in a passably medieval society under the generalized authority of a king whose domain exceeds

>authority of a king whose domain exceeds
the character limit?

Ok if you want to play that kind of character then you can find a group that'll allow it.

There's the door don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out.

I have seen magnificent bastard characters played correctly, and they're an absolute joy to behold. But it is so catastrophically easy to get it wrong. I could count the number of players I'd trust with it on about half of one hand.

That said, if one of those 2.5 people did approach me and say they wanted to play Makashima, I'd let it go in a heartbeat. Thought he was a pretty excellent villain.

>Izaya Orihara
Ok, go ahead, but the Hulk in a Japanese bartender's outfit hates your guts and will try to kill you if he sees you.

I'd allow someone to play a character based on Light Yagami. He's intelligent, nihilistic and has a wicked sense of humor.

>All these /a/utistic anime faggots.
This board has gone to shit.

>complaining about anime on Veeky Forums
You make me laugh.

>Letting children's cartoons define you.
Not as hard as you make me laugh I'm sure.

>implying I let anime define me
Nice projections there.

Quentin, when did you leave /v/?

If you aren't ready to suck a dick, you aren't ready to manipulate

That characters sounds sociopathic... like a fox.