Character Tropes

God I fucking love this trope
>One of the bad guys isn't really bad, just wants that one last great fucking fight to the death
>Does some dickish things, but they're really just so he can get powerful people to hate him
>He and hero come to an understanding when he's finally defeated, and he's not angry about his death at all.

>The automaton/robot/droid is an asshole
>Saves his party at every turn, no matter what he says
Gonna be playing a K2-unit in an upcoming Age of Rebellion game

>Silver-tongued devil with a secret heart of gold

Is that a trope?

>Bad Guy with understandable motives, but still too evil to sympathize with

It's pretty frequent. Marving the paranoid android, chopper and R2 from stah wahs off the top of my head.

RD-D2 was probably a bit of a dick to C3PO.
Also was a giant asshole for deactivating for 20 years for no goddamn reason in TFA.

I really, REALLY like anything where the demons are actually the good guys - Lucifer in World of Darkness comes to mind.

>You're a loose cannon Hopps, you're off the case!

Is it strange that I'm starting to loop back round to enjoying villains with no sympathetic motives in favour of those who simply enjoy being a horrible cunt?

>the pessimistic autist who everyone hates but is always right

>the scrawny little fuck who thinks he can fight the world and win.

>the grizzled badass veteran who dies 5mins in

Not really. We're tired of tragic and understandable villains, because they usually go along with miserable grey stories with no real heroes to them. It starts to get grating after a while and you just want to see a proper black-and-white story with clear heroes and villains.

>group mom
>group pet
>Superbly Sexable Rogue with a heart of gold.

Those are my top 3

I'M A FUCKING SUPERFAN

You know you fucked up when the literal robot has the most personality of your ensemble cast

That's why I loved Dio so much when I first read Jojo.

>literal robot
>figurative robot
>literally figuratively robot

A man of superior tastes.

I'm a sucker for old grizzled men dragged out of retirement to deal with something they thought they killed a long time ago.

100% is a massive overstatement, he has sympathetic aspects to him but the fact that he killed his father and instantly arrives to wreck jojo's little life isn't so much.

Speedweed outside of SHOUTING EXPOSITION pretty much exists to make it clear that dio isn't a sympathetic dude with a bad start and is just an asshole.

While it is Black an White good/evil, Dio is 100% a sympathetic villain (even though he quickly became a giant asshole). He grew up dirt poor and abused by his alcoholic Dad, and he hates Jonathan, who was born wealthy on easy street.
Also, posting an unsympathetic (at first) villain. Spoilered for obvious reasons. correctly this time I hope

.....Yo those digits nigga

The jackass with a heart of gold.

Correction, I meant that Dio is a sympathetic villain TO START (and that sympathy fades quickly). I doubt Dio would have been such an asshole if his father wasn't such as abusive drunk, combined with the horrible poverty.

I always imagine R2 as this grizzled old war vet with the mouth of a sailor. And not just him, I think that all astromech droids are assholes out of the box.

>I doubt Dio would have been such an asshole if his father wasn't such as abusive drunk, combined with the horrible poverty.

Nah, it takes a bit more than that to grow into such a complete shithead. Speedwagon theorized about that.

He's still a bit sympathetic at first, though.

That makes the WAAAAOOOOOHH when he got blasted by Vader in A New Hope kind of funny.

>The villain is committing crimes against humanity in order to prevent a reality shattering monstrosity from awakening.

>Elf rangers

>The elf and the dwarf hate each other, but won't tolerate anyone else making fun of the other one.

>Evil undead wizard that makes skeleton puns.

>Elemental wizards making elemental puns. "Chill out" after using Ray of Frost, "What a shocking development" after using Lightning Bolt, etc.

>The main man and woman aren't actually tsundere for each other, they really are just a couple of insufferable cunts.

The 3s are pure user

The gray area is also a big trap. I prefer my tragic backstory villains like Mr Freeze from Batman; understandable motives, but he still kills people in a pretty shit-ugly away and actively antagonizes anyone trying to help him.

Are his reasons just? Yes. Then you get to the method and it's FUCK

The villains who lead extremely ordinary lives when they're not being villainous.

I love the shit out of grey villains actually.

>Protagonists (And by extension readers/players) who believe what they're doing is the right thing
>Midway through the story it turns out all they've been doing is ruining everything.

Do you know how long it takes to defrag a hard drive that's been running for nearly 60 straight years?

But an always evil villain doesn't need to come with a boring all-good hero user
Moral grayness vs petty, despicable evil is my favorite.

>Two female leads, clearly set up to be the token lesbians.
>Turns out they actually hate each other to death.

Not a trope, I know, but it needs to be. I'm sick of the need to shove obvious yurifag bait into everything ever.

My current party ruins everything anyway

Theres a pantheon of lovecraftian outer gods and most of them are either indifferent or evil but one or two are actually pretty nice and care about humanity.

hatesex is great

>The Hero gets stronger through intensive training
>Big guy small girl couples
>Space Pirates that are actually some what pirate themed

>The Hero gets stronger through intensive training
So, every shonen ever?

Yeah, as a Veeky Forumsizen I'm a sucker for that. It's a good workout motivator

> Implying stories with clear heroes to them aren't shit, and were always a bad way to tell stories.

To each their own.

>One of the weaker characters uses a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to fight the villain to a stand still.
>The Big Guy fights the BBEG, not because he's as "strong" as him, but because he's the only one durable enough to even fight him despite being "weaker" [see: Major Armstrong, Android 16, etc]
>Characters from traditionalist/medieval societies travels through modern society and interprets it through that lens [Samurai Jack, most versions of Thor, etc]
>That one character whose powers work differently from everyone elses in the show/game/etc

Pic related is a favorite trope for me. I love the really fucking hammy, larger than life figures who are boisterous, cocky, and spirited but still good people.

B&B Aquaman was the fucking BEST

>Lawful Good Paladin hooks up with Chaotic Neutral Rogue

This was basically the story of my NWN character. Lawful Good paladin of Kelemvor, but he took a couple levels in rogue and was really snarky when he got the opportunity. I didn't sacrifice a bit of Good for it either - he was an all-loving lug with a sharp tongue and while he became a paladin after his hometown got wrecked, he spent his childhood as a total brat, and it showed.

In a sense, an antihero. But without any kind of edge at all. Very spiderman.

Also, hot tiefling sex. Lots and lots and lots of hot tiefling sex, because he never was really a proper paladin with vows.

>extremely grizzled warrior from a thousand battles, who has fought the darkest demons and slain the wickedest monsters, who has seen the universe's humbling capacity for evil and misfortune be demonstrated time and time again to the point where their very soul is hanging by a thread

>but they haven't lost that spark, and although they don't show it much, they still smile at children in the street and they still feel warmth when a butterfly lands on their fingers

>Weakish character fights enemy they know they can't beat in order to stall them, possibly at the cost of their own life.

The wildcard that just acts like an aspie.

The Deadly Butler/Maid/Personal assistant is always one of my favorites.

Had all three of these in our current campaign.

>Timid or nonviolent character gets serious after someone they care about gets hurt/dies.

>Magnificent Bastard bad guys

>Characters selflessly sacrificing themselves to save everyone.
Bonus points if two characters are arguing over who is going to sacrifice themselves.
Double points if they are doing it to redeem themselves.
Triple points if they survive/come back weeks later with little explanation and even more tears flow.

>An NPC is inexplicably a total badass and ends up being a surprise miniboss

Had that happen once, guy was just some guard but he started rolling almost nothing but 20's and 19's for about five straight rounds of combat against five seasoned adventurers.

It was to the point where the party didn't even actually kill him. They let him go because of his badassery. Of course, her returned to the BBEG, who offered him a promotion, and now he actually IS a miniboss.

Godspeed, Joe the Unslain. Godspeed.

> Villains that become villains over a self-fulfilling prophecy
> Villains that ALMOST curbstomp the heroes and indeed the entire coflict of their sotires but got rekt by a fundamental misunderstanding
> Villain personality flaws are unglamorous, like being petty, obstinate or cowardly
> Any kind of prophecy fuckery, bonus points for doing something creative with "The Chosen One"
> Whenever the comic relief character turns out to kick a ton of ass

Pic related for villainy. Being good or evil is secondary to being a fuckup.

Let me tell you about Altusholt, the best character I ever played from the worst campaign I've ever been in. This guy permanently altered the way I roleplay, for the better.

Altusholt was a Tiefling heavy metal skald who rode around on a motorbike and wielded a fire-spewing Urgrosh that doubled as his guitar. In a campaign set in fantasy medieval Japan.

In hindsight, the fact that the GM approved the concept and let me do this with no strings attached should have been the first warning sign of the shit show that was to come.

This was a 4E game, and the one that convinced me that there was actually something worthwhile in the combat engine. It's also the game that made me swear off 4E forever, because combat was the ONLY thing the DM knew how to do well.

We spent most of the campaign escorting the DM's pet NPC on a plot that was barely explained to us, leaving us no real reason to care. I didn't want to leave the game and knew that I'd have to find my fun somewhere else, so I threw myself into this character. Over the course of the campaign, he went from being a personality-free joke to the group's conscience, voice of reason, and face man. He'd powerslide through a demon's legs and impale it crotch-first on his guitar, then go tend to the wounded and make sure the village was in good shape before moving on. He'd literally melt faces with a solo, then go play with the children and make sure they weren't traumatized by the attack on their town.

As he leveled up, I decided that he wasn't just a musician, he was becoming the very embodiment of the concept of heavy metal. And not only did that allow him to be a healer, it actually required it. The logic was that, as dark and violent and aggressive as metal can be, it exists because it makes people happy. It's an outpouring of passion and energy and cathartic release that brings people together to share in an experience and have an awesome time.

Alt's legacy lives on in pretty much every character I've played since then. I've made a bit of a habit of coming to the table with totally off-the-wall characters that, to new GMs who don't know how I operate, make me look like I'm trying to be the next Henderson or Mr. Welch. And then I roleplay the living shit out of that character, trying to find the humanity in them and really think about how they'd change and grow over the course of the story, how they'd deal with the events of the campaign and the problems they keep running into. I've been a reality-warping steampunk Don Quixote who rode around on a flying carpet with gatling guns on it. I've been a pro wrestler in a giant robot who ended up leading a revolution. I've been a barbarian college professor, a Klingon medic, and a navigator that's basically Gaston in the 41st millennium. And with every single one of them, I've tried to find ways to grow them beyond the joke into a memorable, multidimensional, and genuinely compelling character that people want to have at the table with them.

So here's to the bard. May he shred eternal in the elemental plane of metal.

Except Neeshka is not available as a romance option because the game came out too soon.

Nobody fucking gives a shit, you won't be screencapped and become the next sir bearington or that fucking wrestler dude, so kindly fuck off with your snowflake character and stop namefagging. Insufferable cunt. I give your story 10% chance of being true and I only read the first four sentences.

> Post your favourite character tropes/concepts and any related stories.

...

I don't know if you've watched the My Hero Academia anime yet, but you probably should. It's one of the few I would recommend you watch dubbed, if only for All-Might.

The whole thing is like Japan's take on the Golden Age of DC comics mixed in with the X-Men.

>Tough guy with excessively girly hobbies

Honestly, even without the explicit "YOU ARE NOW IN A ROMANCE" flag your relationship with Neeshka in that game came off as way more potentially romantic than Elanee. Especially the "I need you!" bit in the final climax. Damn shame they didn't add anything in for her in the expansion.

Young giants.

I usually have a few normal characters to play in a group before I attempt it. Usually, it ends in hilarity.

>Character is a juvenile forest giant ranger
>At that age category, he's Medium size
>He basically looks like an elf that spent the last hundred years lifting weights and juicing, with something like twenty-three Strength at level eight
>Everything he knows about being a ranger, he learned from the medieval equivalent of a Boy Scout guidebook
>"That's a traveler's palm! You can get water out of the leaves! And that's King's Crown! You can use it to cure snake venom! And that's a bandit!"

>Altusholt was a Tiefling heavy metal skald who rode around on a motorbike and wielded a fire-spewing Urgrosh that doubled as his guitar.
Okay
>In a campaign set in fantasy medieval Japan.
What the fuck is wrong with you

>Superbly Sexable Rogue with a heart of gold.
I used that archetype as the PCs' fixer until they fucked up and got her fake identity doxxed and her apartment bombed. She's in the wind now, not sure if I should have re turn with less than gold in her heart.

Doesn't help that I now actively read the news, so I really need my entertainment to just have a clear bad guy that the good guy can punch.

In fact, one of the only things I liked out of Marvel's Civil War run was when The Thing said something similar about France.

>In fact, one of the only things I liked out of Marvel's Civil War run was when The Thing said something similar about France.

That issue was wonderful.

>Nah, it takes a bit more than that to grow into such a complete shithead.
Case in point: His son, who went through the same shit and came out an anti-hero at least.

>the tough big stupid guy has a small and cute pet he talks to like it's a person

>Tech Elf
Screw magic, what we want are robots, cyborgs, assault rifles and more artillery than you can shake a stick at. All delivered with the stereotypical Elven accuracy.

>The Barbarian
Refers to themselves in the third person way too often, appears to have only one name, neither understands nor respects civilization and its social norms, drinks copious amounts of alcohol, distrusts magic, loves wenching or whatever the female equivalent of wenching is, is mostly interested in wealth, fame, and honour, has a distant family relationship to Conan the Barbarian.

I can imagine Cthulu having a tea party with a little girl for her birthday, bib and all

>Lieutenant of the final boss is far more competent, intelligent and probably powerful than their boss
>It would seem that they could betray them at any time
>They are actually the most loyal follower of the final boss

>the boss is perfectly aware of the competence of their lieutenant
>has resigned themselves to their inevitable coup
>never happens

>Character offers advice he thinks make's him appear wise and sagely, but in reality it's just common sense
>Younger and more naive characters believe his bullshit and idolise him

>the boss is a half-dead husk stuck in hibernation/cryostasis
>the lieutenant wants to bring him back

and you, friend

>kid with first world problems wants out so he becomes amorously infatuated with the dashing adventurer

Bogo is love

...

>The comic-relief side character with little to no importance to the plot who, through a mixture of willpower and sheer luck, manages to overcome the odds and win it all.

Shit gets me every time.

I thought the whole point was The Lady was doing everything she could to keep her husband dead?

>Characters who stay true to beliefs that may be mocked as childish ultimately pulling through on those ideals, dragging everybody around them up as well.
>Bonus points if they bring their best friend back over to their side.

Well, that's true but I was thinking about her second husband

I screencapped it just to prove you wrong you mega autist.

source????

>The party is a collection of barely-competent crooks, cowards, and crazies that have no goodwill towards one another but must live and work together

>They end up growing closer than any family

>Bonus points if they have to share a ship that's old and barely holding itself together

Sir Bearington was total shit anyway. The fact that Veeky Forums kept reposting that horrible story is eternal proof that Veeky Forums has terrible taste, and a lot of trouble telling reality from fiction.

Bearington most likely never happened. And if it did, it was practically a circlejerk, because none of that shit would fly in any way. "Rule of cool" handwaving since the beginning. I mean, bears aren't a fucking player race, are they? Which means the DM needs to be in on it. Which means every "clever" bit of comedy was just the DM saying "I guess this happens" with the manchildren laughing about how funny it is that it's actually a bear.

If I ever encounter anyone in real life who will try to pull a Bearington, I'll never play with them.

I played a game like that, once. They ended up not growing closer at all, with PKing being the leading cause of death for PC's. The only person of the cast to survive was my character, which is surprising, because half of his skills were in piloting, but he was such a psychopathic freak that the rest were afraid to mess with him.

In hindsight, it was a really cringeworthy game at times. But man, it was a lot of fun. The DM really knew how to sell his shitsack of a futuristic space world, and none of us felt any guilt about being completely irredeemable human beings. In fact, some weren't human at all.

But coming out as the scariest dude in a group with space marines, killer androids, a guy possessed by an alien intelligence, a murderous 15 year old etc. when your guy can barely fire a handgun is a kind of twisted badge of honour.

>that one character who's useless
>fights the villain anyways
>manages to actually land a solid blow on the villain
>villain points out that if the other heroes had one tenth of the useless guys grit then he'd have lost ages ago

Tell me about it. I somehow made choices that led to me me marrying the Red Wizard companion, and even though her storyline was cool and all (hell, the whole of Mask of the Betrayer was really awesome and epic (heh), especially if you chose the evil ending/playthrough with One-of-Many etc.), I didn't want to do that, especially considering you learn Neeshka is still alive.
It was doubly annoying because the exact same thing happens in Planescape: Torment and I pretty much played them back to back.
I just want muh tiefling rogue romance, fug.

That's so fricking close to being the game I'm in now, it's uncanny

Please tell me he describes how to fight the bandit according to the handbook too as he clubs them in the head.