Default Character Thread

This guy. Fighter, average intelligence; gets shit done by actually making use of it. Negotiates when possible, cheats when it isn't.

I'm fond of Warrior-Philosophers if I don't know the system/setting.

Otherwise, no. I work very hard to avoid defaulting.

Although I do favor tank as a party role.

Helpful robot sidekick.

I tend to fall back on clerics/paladins. I'm irreligious IRL, but I find theology very interesting and tend to be drawn to religious characters.

I often gravitate towards a stoic alchemist swordsmaiden from an unusal race. Usually in the role of a merchant or a servant.
Never really impressive in the brawn department despite always playing melee, but that's nothing that a worryingly high dosage of the right performance enhancing pharmaceuticals can't fix.

I usually default to some kind of idealistic, optimistic, usually neutral good priest/cleric of light.

Follows his heart, does the best he can to follow the teachings of his god and church, treats everyone with compassion and kindness. and tries to right any wrongs, even ones perpetrated by his own church.

And a lot of times a bit of a womanizer. Tries to woo female NPCs with smooth talking and honeyed words, attempts to bed as many important NPCs as he can, noticeably treats female characters better than male ones...

I once had a cleric that swore a vow of chastity. If he broke that vow, he would lose his powers, and he still hit on chicks just for the thrill of it. Though at least in the end, he would end up backing out of sexual advances.

Probably comes from me having a religious background, being interested in religion and mythology in general, and being a hopeless pervert.

If I can't think of something I want to specifically do at that time I default to a human professional.

Depending on the setting and game it maybe a professional soldier, or a special forces guy, a mercenary, or maybe a professional wizard, computer specialist or one of those men-in-black types, but it's always someone who knows their job and takes pride in doing it well and having a no-nonsense attitude.

It works well both for good parties and for shitty parties, for good parties the progress from "this is a job" to "these people are my friends" makes for interesting character development and for shitty parties it helps curb the special snowflakes and helps move the story along when the party goes all broody or chaotic.

Usually a weirdo who is magic. Weirdo in the sense that they don't seem like they immediately belong with the group or have shit they do that isn't found anywhere nearby in the setting.

Are you me?

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>a basic character concept you tend to use as your base unless you have other specific ideas
Yup

Over the top, full of myself, generally want to be the lead, but comfortable in the second position, and it usually gives me something to play off of with everyone else.

It does not matter what I play, I always seem to gravitate towards being the accidental villain of the group.

Oh yeah, also bugs.

Add in a bit of a bleeding heart for children and innocents, the preference to avoid fighting wherever possible (which is usually where the negotiations and cheating come in), and a pretty strong amount of wanderlust, and this is usually the kind of character I find myself defaulting to.

Cowards, mischievous, sometimes even funny and light-hearted, but in the end they're cowards. I like to play a big-mouthed little shit who's full of hot air.

It's either that or the professional cheery fighter type. Your run of the mill Vietnam war joker.

Neutral evil, snarky arcanist (originally dark elf necromancer) with a love for sweets and pastries who can talk herself out of and into just about anything?

Pretty much a staple character of mine.

A person who feels like he doesn't belong in whatever class/group he's in and is tempted to go off the beaten path either out of sense adventure or desperation.

Religious dude who beats people

Magic warrior or fighting wizard.
I don't really care, as long as I can shank and zap motherfuckers.

Needless to say, I hate most RPG systems with their needless martials-and-mages-must-never-mix bullshit.

Overly serious, good-hearted, straight-laced, joyless, forever alone. I'm there to get shit done, smite evil, and save the world. Also tend to try and use the environment to my advantage, constantly looking for an outside of the box solution to a fight.

Its more for if I don't have a chance to learn about the world, but I tend to use an overly tall defensively oriented female warrior who thinks she's been chosen by god to rule the world.

Alternatively, usually if the group has a 'same gender' house rule, one of the local not!Romans who already served his term except he's a diehard republican and to him 'king' is a dirty word.

Middle-aged (normally 35-50) guard who decides that he hasn't seen enough adventure and sets off with a party of young and rowdy adventurers.

My personal favorite was Wilhelm the Honored Guardsmen
>43 years old roughly
>Neutral Good Fighter
>Carried pike, sword, and shield
>Inherited position as guardsman from his father, worked way up on the ladder until he commanded a force of nearly 500 men in the local militia (town of about 20,000)
>Had wife and 6 children, 4 sons and 2 daughters
>One son died at 6 months, other three went their separate ways and occasionally return to see their family
>One daughter married local aristocrat, other married a small-time farmer
>Lives calm life, the most excitement he sees in an average year is fighting some bandits attacking the local agriculture
>His beloved wife dies shortly before campaign begins
>Hurt by his loss, he begins going through a midlife crisis
>At a tavern getting drunk one night
>Meets the other members, a dwarven barbarian, an elvish cleric, and a human wizard
>They let him in on a lucrative contract to raid tombs for an archaeologist's expedition, to stop the undead from halting them
>He decides it's time to leave the monotony, and joins the adventurers
>Resigns as marshal, joins party's expedition the next day
>Basically the dad of the party, always trying to be the voice of reason
Fun campaign. I generally like making underpowered characters, and he worked out well, being strong enough from pure experience (Made him level 5 compared to the party's 2 but gave him -33% experience gains) with the debuff of age.

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Conan knockoff

Friendly, naive warrior inches away from ruining his life with his obsession?

>Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.'

>I agree with the second part.

I like bandaid clerics because I love to help people get a second chance if they mess up.

less on the obsession, but yeah.
its fun because playing a lawful good warrior/ paladin in a group where everyone else is a chaotic stupid edgelord and the dm is sick of it means fun times.
the naivity plus the dms anger means you get to foil evil schemes by "accident".

I tend to go for a paladin for fantasy settings, and a hacker/engineer for cyberpunk and sci-fi settings. I like my paladins kind of Superman-ish in terms of personality, my deckers and engineers the wisecracking brainy types.

But really, I try not to have just one character for everything. It starts to get uncomfortable, because some people get really obsessive about one character and insert them into just about every game they play in. It can be fun, but it can also get creepy, especially when for all the times I have played a paladin over and over, I enjoy a little variety and can't understand wanting to retcon and play the same character over and over instead of having a good story.

I agree, and I always try to come up with a unique character for each game, but then usually find myself in the role of party leader for OOC reasons. At one point it just struck me that I was the party face as a dead-inside 6 charisma death-seeker missing half his face.

>Incredibly reckless fighter-archetype who's basically a stereotypical wrestler persona in his personality
or
>Ultra-Commando
>GET THOSE ASSES MOVING

Both defaults always team up with one party member and usually pull bullshit stunts that somehow work out.
Also vaguely possible Rube Goldberg style plans that also somehow work out.

Grizzle former military turned mercenary. Hopes to do some good before he inevitably dies to to the adventuring life.

Garbage nobles. While they sometimes need to be adapted to the setting a bit I tend to make characters that while being born into a relatively high class of society are still at the bottom rung of high class.

>Medieval Settings: Third or fourth born child to the Baron of some small town on the edges of the empire. He is the only son. The society he lives in is matriarchal and noble families have been around long enough that at the bottom rung benefits of being noble amount to "minimal food is provided for you and you have a house made of stone as opposed to wood.
I usually have them set-out as an adventurer to renew the family glory and live a life that will actually get them remembered by history. I also tend to start them out having no skill with their weapon (usually an old family heirloom which was collecting dust).

>Space/Future Settings: A grifter who likes to sneak into high-society events to steal and schmooze in equal measure. Has studied enough about etiquette to pass for the most part. Hopes to one day really be one of the elite or at least have the material wealth of one.

Haven't really played in any other type of setting but I am eager to see just how much my concept can be twisted and reused.

coward

I usually end up playing the advisor/mastermind/comptroller as well. Not often by choice though.

If given the chance I always go eccentric leader that works as the glue that holds our band together. I generally go for more suportive roles, like celric centered around healing and buffs, or a wizard that does battle field control and debuffs. But no matter what, I always end up being the face through decent RP and desire to further the plot.

Anachronistic cowboy.

I've realised I tend to create weak characters. Typically, a small girl with no real real experience in fighting. She's generally addicted to some substance and nervous/aggressive/depressive, trying to balance her lack of grip on her own life with the best tech she can get (which is still far from the best the setting has to offer).

I tend to be the most talkative member of the band, so it makes for a pretty funny view to have this angry gal talking shit to the baddies with her gang of brutes. Also quite nice for putting everything that happens in the perspective of a simple commoner.

forgot pic

Scholar who is motivated by gaining knowledge. Not in a Mengele way, more in a "curiosity killed the cat" kind of way. Usually human

If you're the only one that really cares, you're the only one that ends up in charge.

Rogue. Whoring, impulsive as fuck, selfish and overly materialistic rogue with addiction problems.

Class-wise, if classes exist, not necessarily a rogue however. My main example of such a character was a warrior.

Happy-go-lucky idiots. If I'm not sure what I want to play, I tend to default towards "somebody who makes a good sidekick".

I get your point, but Solaire's self-destructive obsession is integral to his character.

The reason for his popularity can all be traced to the fact that in order to save him, you must ~break~ him.

This is what makes him special, makes him stand out above all the cookiecutter paladin NPC's that you help in every goddamn RPG on the planet.

Consider that if given the possibility, make your character fall for his party members. They do something bad, your character, being the naive friendly guy all about cooperation decides to go with it - because they are his friends.

Become a blackguard of friendship.

>o-oh y-you guys are just going to gank that red phantom?
>i-i guess i'll just have to cooperate th-then even if this isn't very nice

If magic is available, it's gonna be a non-combat mage who thinks they are better than everyone else, and also slightly autistic("That couldn't be my fault when you fell down after I caused an earthquake! I wasn't even close!").

If magic is unavailable, I'm gonna min-max myself a melee powerhouse who is actually really friendly and always keeps their word. Like a gentle giant, minus the size.

I usually try to put myself in the situation as much as possible, so most of my characters just end up being me adapted to the setting. Typically ex-military human males. If it's a setting with guns, I try to lean towards explosives and medical skills because that's what I train the most on in real life.

It limits me a lot, and makes me the butt of a few jokes, but it really helps me with immersing myself in the story.

Dumb muscle or combat autists.

The guy who will flip a table and hold three opponents against a wall, one or two shot the baddest dude in the encounter with a hammer or axe, suicide bomb a witch coven's summoning ritual and survive, proceed to slap the summoned daemon around solo, but will hold up the party becuase they have to cross a flooded half a meter deep ditch and he's scared of water.