Do you have bad experiences with a particular character archetype?

Necromancer

I gave him two rules as per the setting

T W O R U L E S
W
O

R
U
L
E
S

0) Be excellent to the party, play the game without trying to destroy everything for lulz
1) Do not perform necromancy on humans (knife-ears, orcs, dwarves, animals, etc. all okay)
2) Do not do it in good company and also don't talk about it in good company

He proceeded to break one of these rules every session.

I do not play with him anymore.

>playing with Veeky Forums: the post

Why did you have those two rules? You've got me curious now.

I'm going to guess that he was trying to emphasize societal expectations.

>Necromancy is the domain of evil wizards
>You probably don't want to be thought of as an explicitly evil wizard
>Humans, being the main race you will interact with, probably won't take kindly to evil magics being performed on their brethren, or hearing how you intend to twist the natural order into a vile mockery of life at a later date

What's wrong with being an anti-hero? This reeks of D&D...

Because shitguzzlers like you try to convince GMs like me you're playing an "antihero" and then proceed to just do the anti part.

I had a player like that back in college. Three years of playing D&D, and every single character that he played was a human knight errant who fought monsters for coin. He seemed to have a distaste for every nonhuman PC race that wasn't a dwarf, and we heard "do you REALLY need to be playing an elf?" at least once every time we sat down for character creation.

He never called characters "special snowflakes," but he loved to call character concepts "tryhard." Any halfling that wasn't a bard or a rogue was, in his opinion, a "tryhard" character that only exists to "show off that you can subvert tropes." All half-orcs were "tryhard Warcraft knockoff." Any hint of tragedy in a backstory was "tryhard edgy." He called any elf, regardless of their class, "tryhard legolas" instead of their name at least once a session.

You're basically spot on, just missing the racism in the setting (Humanity is at war with every race except dwarves and a dwarf corpse isn't actually a corpse due to some other setting aspects, so who cares)

Because breaking these rules gets the guards trying to arrest him and all of his accomplices, which royally derails everything.

And you know what bothered me, I explicitely put in non-human enemies EXPLICITELY for him to raise and made a point of telling him the races of everyone he's fighting so that he wasn't actually mechanically gimped.

God, those types suck the fun out of everything.

Our GM had a temporary ban on paladins for a reason.

Actually he later made a lawful good ban, you could be other types of good but not lawful good. Since ended in a few disasters since a particular player did it as stupid law abiding good person.

He was literally lawful good, as in he was too stupid to think the law might be wrong and too naive to not see the world in black and white, it was fun at first but...

>Ten is just one massive eye the size of the moon

>I want to play a horror movie child!
What even is that?

Different guy but: Creepy ghost child, immortal cursed child, vampire child. Any of those really in my opinion.

Frankly I hate that shit as well: Why would any half way neutral-good party bring a child along? Why would an evil character not see a child as an inconvenience? Why would a good character not straight up drop their ass back at an orphanage?

Good does not mean responsible.
Indeed, it often means the opposite.

This

Shithead lone wolf players who fuck up royally then blame me for fucking them.

Guess what, you saw goblins, lots of them, and your level 1 maybe you shouldnt go sneaking around by yourself. Forcing your allies to cut through extra goblins in order to save you...and you get mad because I don't give you XP for non participation.

Or better yet, at level 3 maybe those spiders you are trying to find already know your alone thanks to webs on the ground. And are preparing to grapple your asshole and drag you away for food...but fine. Go alone, fuck your party right? They can save you for the 10th 20th time no problem.

Elf PCs in my games seem to only ever belong to one of the two highly annoying extremes: "snarky lone wolf rogue/ranger" or "arrogant more-ancient-than-thou faggot with a gigantic stick up his ass" so I'm becoming kinda wary of the race in general

>What even is that?
user here. I mean the kind of freaky child villains you see in the horror genre. Like the little girl from the Ring.

You know, the sort who quietly sing children's songs during the trailer sequences for every horror movie ever. Or who suddenly appear in bloodstained clothing all over the place, usually accompanied by a flash effect and an orchestral shriek.

What even is the source of that pic.

Oblivion.

Oblivion.

Oblivion.

We had a person play a 12 year-old clone of a "Hero" from the "Earth" dimension. He actually said he shouldn't have to make will saves because he would likely fail, and that broke his immersion as the hero.

Morrowind

For me it's Archers. But it's not the archetype itself, it's the player behind them. I used to play alongside a guy who had three husbands, one was a Faerie. He worked in a Laundromat but told us he'd inherited a load of money from his family, but he didn't want the money to change him so he stayed at the Laundromat. Every single character he played was an Archer. And also an expert craftsman. One of those "I have an arrow for every situation" guys, which would be fine, if he didn't have the precise arrow for every precise situation. The lure in that archetype for me is that you know how to apply your trick arrows, a rope arrow isn't just a rope, you can trip people with it, tightrope walk on it, swing from it, all sorts of shit. But he had an arrow that left stuff he could tightrope walk on, and an arrow that sprayed little caltrops to impede advances and all sorts of shit.

Any interaction with him was always done inside his tent, because he was making more of these arrows but no character could ever see them, because they looked identical to the real arrows. And he had 3 of each and every turn in a combat was "Hmmmm I could use this or I could use this, but that'd be a better way to kill them but I think this is more thematic. Guys? What do you think?"

Fucking Archers.

Pretty sure that's the Oblivion class creation, and the screen linings look just like Oblivion. Haven't played Morrowind though.

I dunno I just like picking the option everyone else didn't. It is definitely oblivion because Morrowind was black background.

But playing with Green Arrow sounds cool.
In fact I have a new character in mind now.

I think user means that the characters weapon was the character.

Or that the character was one dimentional and really "in-your-face" about how Batman specific he had everything planned out. Like some twat who reads the adventure you're doing and is prepped for everything.

> Guys? What do you think?"

I think you should've decided on your turn before it was your fucking turn.

it's like Veeky Forums personified

Yup. You can create your own class with specialized skills and name it whatever.

Chaotic may be "irresponsible", I suppose... though I really don't like using alignments at all.

By the way,
>333
>1
>mfw

Then what happens if we turn that shit up to eleven?

I for one welcome our new Beholder overlords.

Paladins.

Not other players playing paladins. Me myself playing a paladin.

>first ever character was a paladin
>literally a manifestation of every possible wrong way to play a paladin
>lawful stupid as fuck
>ended up intentionally falling and retiring so as to not rain on the rest of the party's parade

One day I might try rolling one and doing it right but for now every time I go through possible classes at character creation I cringe when it gets to the paladin.

You and me both, brother

You really don't think fundamentally bad can work? I feel like even an evil person can have motives that align with the parties almost 100% of the time.

There's a type of player who can pull that off, and do it very well. Those players are a rare gift and should be encouraged.

They also don't sound like that.

>Greedy and heartless character that only looks out for themselves in the long run
>Knows that working with the party leads to money, fame, and power
>In their best interest to try and get along with the rest of the party
>Still willing to shoot a hostage if it means hitting the target too
>"That's why we have a cleric."

Would something like this work?

If he was evil he'd also notice the perfect times to kill the other PCs to take the reward for himself. Also known as betraying the party and PVP.

>violating long term profit for short term gain
Your evil is bad at math

In the case of a generic "save the world from evil BBEG" it works especially well.
>Evil PC and BBEG motives don't line up
>Evil PC lives in the same world as everyone else
>Doesn't want to die with everyone else
>Works with the party to stop BBEG
And with this there will probably be no backstabbing because that would lower the odds of survival

I once had a group where one of the characters was the LE exiled half-elven prince of an elven kingdom, who would have become king, but the nobles rejected him for being half human. His personal goal was to retake his throne, and rule the country, "in a manner similar to Maximilien Robespierre". Unfortunately the group fell apart before he ever got a chance to act on this plan.

He wasn't wrong about the elves though.

My second character was a Cleric. For some reason, both the other players and the GM of that game decided that constant and relentless bullying both in and out of character was the appropriate response to my choice of class. It's basically the same deal any time I play a divine caster, and nothing of the sort happens on my martial characters or arcane casters. I don't play Clerics anymore.

I basically won't play as a player anymore because of this, I only GM now. I got sick of taking about 20 seconds to take my turn and then have to wait literally 15 minutes for it to come back around the table.

I now make my players take -1 to all rolls for every minute that their turn takes due to their character hesitating or not feeling confident in their action.

>You really don't think fundamentally bad can work?
It's kind of a paradox. The kind of person with the tact and respectfulness to theoretically pull it off is also the kind of person who would not try.

Every time I see this brought up, somebody says "well, it could work" (I used to be one of these people), but you rarely hear about it actually working. Sometimes I get somebody congratulating himself for pulling off that-guy tier behavior for a year and watching his whole group metagame and bend over backwards to not break the campaign over it, but that's not exactly what I would call a success. And then when I see it in actual games, it's always more that-guy shenanigans.

That kind of describes every female player in a lot of podcasts. Critical Role, the SeSo, that Geek movie or whatever.

As a GM running games for an average of five years now, I've only had one female player, not counting the times someone wanted to bring their significant other to the table. That female player created a rampaging murderhobo, whose tales of heroic sociopathy are famous in the group.

That character died in PVP, and she then created a rogue-type. . .so you may be onto something here.

It's not really that they're evil, I think. It's that their goals tend to be counter to the party, so they undermine the group mentality of the game by putting pressure on the players to conform to them.

I think it can be done, but I haven't seen it, honestly. I would like to attempt it, but none of my characters have died, and I'm not going to replace any of them to test my ability to RP. I don't think it's a character worth the potential cost as well. It's easier for everybody if the group has some level of conformation in alignments.

>this guy doesn't understand how to roleplay well
>let's just ban everything he does that'll make him do well or leave

Your DM is a fucking dumbass.

Because a child doesn't mean useless. Especially if the child wants to be along with the party and isn't just following because reasons. Think of how helpful it'd be to have a person with tiny hands who is willing to do the work of helping you and your party maintain their gear and loot.

In Critical Role, Ashley as Pike seems to pretty much steer clear of these. Yeah Scanlan is obsessed with Pike but I don't know if that speaks to her incredible beauty, and as far as magic goes, pretty standard cleric stuff.
Laura and Marisha are 100% the stereotype though

What is this autistic shit?

I guess he mentioned in the beginning that he was talking more about D&D, but characters are characters. Are there really people who can't think outside the confines of alignment to describe characters?

Almost all the PCS I've ever GM'd for had personalities that couldn't be neatly squared into an alignment. Most players take time to get into their character, and tend to default to the "standard self-interested PC" personality, but once they get going they've all been pretty distinct.

Remembered Pike after I already hit post, but yeah, a lot of girls just like being a sexy rogue and/or having cute animals I guess.

But it works if the whole group is evil. Intelligence officers within a lawful evil military organization sent to investigate potential rebels, chaotic evil marauders roaming the countryside in search of power, neutral evil thieves planning a heist together...

Why does anyone even care about these faggots and the way they play their game? How the fuck have we gotten to the point where people are so fucking sad that they watch some fake nerds play a scripted game for the sweet youtube money?

I've had people who don't know what LG means.

Or G. Or L. Or really anything.

By which I mean they killed another player's character for out-of-character conversation reasons and the DM's only response was to make him change alignment.

Yeah, Morgan Webb did that on Acquisitons Incorporated too, and she was more of a sociopath than any of the five male PCs. Elf Rogue sharpshooter.

yes, there are. They tell you that your alignment wouldn't do that. They say they're doing X because they are of Y alignment. Their characters don't have motivations. Just alignments. I have played with them. They are horrible. I avoid them where I can.

Let's Plays have been around for a long time, user.

>chaotic evil marauders roaming the countryside in search of power
>neutral evil thieves planning a heist together...

>How to implode your party due to betrayal in 2 sessions or less

>Are there really people who can't think outside the confines of alignment to describe characters?

If you bothered to watch (and we both know you didn't) you'd see that he even talks about situations where Evil characters can work, but concludes that Evil characters are simply not worth it because of the numerous issues they invite.

>How to implode your party due to betrayal in 2 sessions or less

"Hey guys, before we start the campaign can we all agree that nobody is gonna pull the betrayal card without the other players being cool with it?"

Done and done. If someone tries to break the agreement, call them out on it.

So exactly the solution proposed by the video.

Cool.

>>How to implode your party due to betrayal in 2 sessions or less

Nah, they just need some reason to work together, namely some manner of self-interest paired with the threat of some external force.

Say the marauders are smashing through local villages, temples and crypts to search for the lost bones of Ungarlik, the Saint of Wrath, so he might rise again and wreathe the world in fire once more. There are various orders of paladins and clerics out to stop them, and the marauders know that they have a better chance of succeeding if they work as a group.

The thieves are working an elaborate Ocean's Eleven-style plan that requires all of them to perform their actions at the right time if they are to get the loot. If one of them fails to do his job, nobody gets anything.

Being self-serving doesn't mean you're an idiot. Egoistical characters will often find reasons to work in a group, for the simple reason that a group can achieve things an individual cannot, which in turn creates greater potential profits for the individual.

>The marauders are all working towards a common goal
>The thieves are part of a gang, have known each other for years, and have pulled off lots of jobs together in the past

This is basic tribal psychology, no enlightened self-interest needed.

Well, yeah. All people realize that a group of people can do things an individual cannot. Wether this is due to an innate sense of tribalism or a calculated understanding of profits and rewards is irrelevant, the point still stands - there is absolutely no reason why an evil party cannot work together towards a common goal the same way a good party can. The motivations and methodology may be different, but the basic group dynamics remain the same.

Ladyknight.

I've given it a 'yes' three times, and three times I have been burned. I shut down the concept as soon as it is mentioned these days.

What was the issue? Storytime?

Yeah that's actually kind of a weird one to see someone have specific issue with since its one of the most standard archetypes for female characters that I tend to see at the table.

Wait, were the players were all guys? That sounds like it would be at least most of the problem.

>Wait, were the players were all guys? That sounds like it would be at least most of the problem.

Not him but I can confirm that the company only good ladyknights I've seen at the table were played by actual ladies.

'I have had bad experiences with an archetype, therefore all characters of that archetype are bad' is fundamentally irrational. It's easy to see why people would conclude that, but it's more logical to say that, based on the evidence presented to you, these archetypes are often chosen by bad players.

Based on that, a blanket ban isn't the best idea, but being careful with who you allow to play these concepts. Vet players first, see how they play more standard and safe characters before letting them do something more risky.

It basically comes down to the players constantly swanning about and going 'OH GOSH LOOK AT HOW GAY MY CHARACTER IS, PLEASE GIVE MY CHARACTER A PRINCESS TO FAWN OVER, I'M GOING TO SPEND TWO HOURS HITTING ON THIS THROWAWAY FEMALE NPC BECAUSE DID YOU KNOW THAT MY CHARACTER IS GAY?!'

Like, I don't really have an issue with the archetype, or lesbians as a whole, it's just that the players in question wouldn't have known subtle if it jumped up and bit their eyes out, which has led me to believe that it's more hassle than it's worth to 'wait and see' if the next example will be the one that doesn't fuck it up. Sticking my hand into the hole in the wall might allow me to retrieve a gem, but more likely I'll end up with a handful of shit.

Basically what this guy said.

I'll add though these races/archetypes:
>Halflings
So often played as kender in the childish shitmonger sense.
>Gnomes
Whoa haha, check it out, purple hair, fucking radical amirite? I build contraptions and I'm fucking whacky and zany as shit isn't that tubular haha? Haha, even though I said I was playing a very friendly and jovial character I'm still going to take the time to point out that every other race and culture is inferior to mine on the regular. Oh haha whoa, what do you mean my genius plan of splitting the party then not following the main attack plan like everyone said got me killed? Haha.
>Dwarves
Harr, beards. Harr harr my character is always drinking. Harr harr I am going to punch the noble in the face because I feel like a fight harr harr. Dwarves are strong harr harr I challenge your character to a drinking contest. Harr harr, guys don't you just fucking love dwarves? I sure do.

I've actually found from playing many evil campaigns, probably more than good campaigns actually that evil party's work towards goals better.

When players play evil characters in good games that's fucking retarded however.

I'm not joking. People expect a few scrapes here and there in evil parties and work around the conflicting ideas and plot and scheme around each other's plotting and scheming and actually tend to work better together and get a whole lot more shit done.

NECROMANCERS

On the topic of necromancers as it will probably come up lot.

I've never seen a bad necromancer (I mean as in played bad).

Necromancers for me have always been exclusively upstanding, very useful and real team players.

The absolute fucking worst archetype though is definitely the aforementioned against the grain character.

Next time you see one ask them "Why are you playing a character that the party has no reason not to kill/banish and vice versa." then laugh at their garbage halfassed answers.

You probably shouldn't play with that group anymore instead, they sound like a bunch of assholes.

BARDS.
Let me tell you, I HATE bards with a passion. Those pathetic prancing pansies are always trying to mess with other players in the game; stealing rewards for quests, blaming party members when they are caught by guards when they are obviously breaking the law, and then have the audacity to complain when the healer that they had been antagonizing for the last 3 sessions refuses to heal him. I've played with many bards, and they were all the same. Now, whenever there is a bard in a campaign, all I can feel is HATE.

I watched the whole thing. His descriptions of why Evil characters aren't worth it are the reason I made my post.

He's saying his players have to be at least "Han Solo" good, and describes this as "when it comes down to it, you're good", which is stupid. Players shouldn't be forced to make decisions based on "alignment" but more on what their character's motivations are.

I imagine he'd agree with that statement, because in the video he says most people play evil characters just to be assholes, using their alignment as an excuse for GTA-style mayhem as opposed to having a character with motivations and goals (and crazy is not a good motivation).

And the way he talks about trust issues with evil characters, like there's some big label over your head spelling "EVIL" is silly as well. This makes sense in D&D, where that's true out of character, but trying to put a label on morality and ethics to encompass all types of people? Not making sense to this GM.

I just enjoy it. Even if it's scripted I still enjoy the story it has to tell.

Speaking of Beholders, are there people who have legitimately completed "The Apocalypse Stone"?
Or was Spoony's story a load of shit?

>People should only like what I like!
>My views are completely and objectively correct!
>I'm a whinging little cunt!
Different strokes for different folks, asshole.

Lone wolves are fine if you're running a solo adventure where being a lone wolf isn't an issue. Running a campaign for a group and having one guy who won't cooperate and be a proper part of the group makes shit difficult. Role-playing with a group of people is a team sport.

Literally every fucking player I end up with always wants to be a "I'm a criminal, fuck the police"-type who does "sooo much drugs" and "is a super sneaky thief who only cares abput himself." I'm not complaining since every game ends up being like a Guy Ritchie movie in outlandish sci-fi/fantasy setting, and it's super easy to make them hate the BBEG (spoiler: he's always a cop), but I'd love to play a game of Only War where all the players just played regular dudes, or D&D where they just were average adventuring party and not a bunch of chaotic evil shits.

>Immortal ghost/cursed/vampire
>somehow irresponsible to bring them along because they look like children
They probably have a better chance than the rest of the party

Evil usually is

I think the Druid and Paladin are both bad choices for new players, for the same reasons as demihuman/exotic races. There's too much information about general behavior built into the archetype, and people tend to just play that to the extreme, instead of creating their own character. Pathfinder is especially bad about encouraging this kind of shit, with classes like the Witch having assumptions about the character's demeanor baked into the ability names and descriptions.

Agree on elves, for the reasons above. I never like to point the "self-insert" finger at people, though, because any good/well-roleplayed character is going to have shades of their player in them. It's only a problem if the player lacks self-awareness.

Evil is not necessarily ambitious, even.
A ruler so dedicated to his people that he will do the unthinkable to make them prosper can be evil.

A servant so loyal to a good master willing to covertly do all kinds of evil shit for the benefit of his master from behind the scene (the master being unaware) but not to his own benefit.

>Why would any half way neutral-good party bring a child along? Why would an evil character not see a child as an inconvenience?
Maybe they're a prodigious cleric/wizard/etc. in a setting where those are hard to come by. It'd make sense if the rest of the party had reservations about it, but that's an RP hook, not a problem.

I can absolutely sympathize with not allowing it of a player you don't know really well, though. We are on Veeky Forums, after all.

You are probably not lurking anymore but still:
Did the awful people at least played the druid well?
What made them so awful?

>Paladins or any religious character

Every single game I have ever played that allowed a religious themed arch-type is was always abused y the biggest most putrid cunts.

They will always try and kill, steal from and abuse other playes because "lol my god allows it" to the pint in which I've banned certain people from ever playing a religious character in my games or some cases outright banned for being vitriolic twats.