What kinds of characters could you use as examples to new players of bad TRPG characters, not because they're not good characters, but because they are so disruptive to group gameplay?
The first two that always come to mind are Wolverine (edgy loner that refuses to play by anyone's rules) and Deadpool (luLr4ndum attention whore).
Starscream, unless we're in the sort of game that calls for a Starscream.
>edgy loner that refuses to play by anyone's rules
Sounds like your group needed a Cyclops. A non nonsense serious leader, who may be a stick in the mud but got the skills to make everyone fall in line. You get one of those then the wolverine dynamic will be legendary.
The problem is when someone makes a character that's such a die hard loner that the game must revolve around them just due to the effort put into getting them to go with the group. It's a backhanded way of trying to be the main character.
Yeah but Wolverine isn't such a character.
How about Poison Ivy? Trying to make everything all seductive and erotic, which is just awkward for everyone else at the table.
WHen you get the call to adventure in the game, take it, don't spend the entirety of the campaign agonizing about how you don't want to be a hero and forcing the world to push you into heroics.
Also, don't rape the nice peasant girl who has been nothing but helpful.
If they look like Ivy it's okay though
Deadpool players are why I don't play on roll20. Loners I can deal with, but lelsorandumb characters are just a lazy excuse to invite "but my character would totally do that" player mentality into a game. Turns out the only things more cancerous than deadpool are his fans.
Someone bought me that book and the only reason I haven't burned it yet is because I don't want to make them feel bad. TC is the worst protagonist I think I've ever seen in fiction, bar none.
I feel kind of guilty because I prefer playing non-cooperative characters. Probably because my neutral/evil PCs have all been effective in the campaign and all my good/friendly PCs have been completely useless.
Add Han Solo and Jack Sparrow to the mix. The Joker too. Maybe even Batman
Another one is the dovahkiin. The character himself isn't cancer but I've had way too many first time players come to the table thinking they were this super special chosen one and everyone would bend over backwards and suck their dick no matter what. FUCK. SKYRIM.
The lawful stupid types who played LG/LN like they had to arrest/kill anyone who didn't act lawful.
Have you ever read x men?
He constantly fucks off to have solo adventures "because slim can go fuck himself".
Plus, for a while he had like, 6 comics where he was a major character. It was so bad everyone was convinced at least half of them must be skrulls .
Neutral!="uncooperative"
I had a DM once decide that the weakest party member was "the chosen one". Tons of vague prophecies about him, and the campaign centered on him. It was actually kind of fun because we were constantly saving him and he was kindof a chump. He hit hard, but a slight tap would knock him out.
Rolemaster, custom setting.
I played an ex-soldier/mercenary "high human" (think numenoreans) raised by elves, with a specialty in siege engineering. Boastful badass braggert, who didn't care if he was the hero, he just wanted to get rich and seduce the barmaids.
That was a Hella fun campaign.
Mostly just:
>"the lone wolf"
>"the backstabber"
>"the contrarian" (which can be a LG paladin as much as it can be a CE serial killer, depends on the rest of the group)
However you can easily bypass all three during chargen.
Have each player make a bond to at least 3/4 of the other players where they're connected in their pasts before the adventure and care about eachother.
If necessary, also have them also come up with a backstory event that will give them a shared motivation in a certain outcome.
Unless cooperation isn't what you're going for. Then have them be strangers or preexisting rivals, with some shared motivations, and secret motivations/objectives (with reason to keep them secret) that will pit them against eachother later.
>Have you ever read x men?
Have you?
Armor is the best one
A red flag for this one is when they begin describing their character by saying:
>"Okay, he's an insane..."
Aiden Pearce from Watch_Dogs is probably one of the worst ways to do an antihero. He's an iconic "I have a sad backstory so all my actions are justified" player. Losing his niece to a mob hit (bear in mind that he was already a criminal) apparently allows him to rampage through Chicago, spy on random people, and generally be a Grand Theft Auto protagonist with a magic smartphone.
He is T E R R O R W A V E as fuck though. I wonder what Veeky Forums would think of him.
Can anyone identify the black girl and the middle girl on the ground? I feel stupid for not knowing...
Thor and Captain America
ALL NEW
ALL DIVERSE
I thought the black girl was Iron Man?
Pretty sure is new Spider-man
le edgy long range "one shot one kill" cod tier snipers
You see, that actually sounds fun. What's not fun is when this level 2 character thinks he can boss around the town guards, that he can threaten the king of a major city, that they should get rooms/food/ equipment for free and when they don't they break shit, that everyone (npc) should listen to them and think they're the best thing in the world, and that every npc should be this fountain of knowledge that advances their quest
This. Having the player playing the loner character be self-aware of their character's antisocial behabior, and giving the character one specific other individual in the group to be familiar with, so they can distrust and distance themselves from the other characters, pissibly warming up to them over time through bonding in hardship, does wonders for a loner character and allows it to be played well, without causing the game to break down.
I actually quite like the books. Yes, TC is a head case, but that's the point. But they would make for a terrible game, unless you did this weird one on one game about who you are as a person sort of thing, and even then it would be tough.
Skyrim was a DnD character's power fantasy.
> Chosen one, inherent king of everything
> I don't need anyone, except to carry the loot
> Showered with praise for being the chosen one
> Local nobility fall over themselves to suck dohvakiin dick once he's done a handful of minor quests
> Steal whatever, no consequences
> Murder guards, pay a fine, do some time, you're good.
> Chosen one of EVERY SINGLE ORGANISATION YOU CAN JOIN
> Can use weapons and armour and magic, all at the same time.
> Superpowers on top of that.
> Warrior skills keep up with mage skills due to perks
> Thief skills always useful no matter what.
> Exponential gain in all three up to insane levels and beyond.
> Can pay bards basically fuck all to sing your theme tune
> Two tunes after you slay the BBEG.
> Loot in abundance, absolute shower of currency
> Die? Save-scum.
> Random encounters everywhere, civilians sing your praises and suck your dick when you defeat them.
> Gain superpowers by slaying dragons
> Able to yell at dragons, interrupt their breath weapons, and force them to land so you can hit them with swords
> Can become the archmage without actually doing any magic beyond hitting things with a magic sword
Skyrim is Valhalla for adventurers.
Girls in the middle is Shadowcat. Don't know about the fro.
I want a mod for skyrim that forces you to complete at least two of the master magic quests and maybe 15-20 perk points into magic skills before you get into the last couple of quests.
>> Can become the archmage without actually doing any magic beyond hitting things with a magic sword
Can you skip the intro where one of the mages teaches you some ward spell and tells you to use it, then?
>anti-diversity noisemaker
>doesn't actually know what he's complaining about
It's more likely than you think!
When I read in FATE Core about how you must play proactive characters, I didn't really understand. Why not just play any character, so long as you are playing them faithfully and well? I've since learned that that's not enough. You've got to choose proactive, heroic characters to play as, otherwise there's hardly any way for a story to exist. It's way more important than I thought.
The girl with the afro is some minor charater from HOpe's mini-series that was terrible and everyone forgot. She has ice and fire powers.
Nigga doesn't know bout the best X-Men team ever.
>tfw all you wanna do is be a Good Dad to your estranged clone daughter and her adoptive sister but everyone keeps pigeonholing you as an asocial loner
The black girl is Idie. You're not missing much there but she's the reason Shism happened.
Middle girl is Kitty who's been a turbo cunt for the better part of two decades
>the joke
>your head
Shism?
Who's the girl on the far right?
Ichiki "Armor" Hisako.
Her mutant power is being a Sentinel from ME2.
Schism. Wolverine and Cyclops split the X-men into two teams based on how they feel the next gen of students should be raised. It's not a bad story hook but it came 10 years too late and wasn't handled very well.
That's Armor. She has the power to generate a suit of psionic armor. She was the designated girl side kick in the 2000s Astonishing run. She's cool.
I wish she got used more
>Her mutant power is being a Sentinel from ME2.
What? Explain this to someone who doesn't know who "Sentinel from ME2" is.
Oh that's pretty cool.
...
She generates a force field around herself that augments her strength. It seems to have limited shape shifting capabilities as she can generate Wolverine claws and when the writers remember shoot concussive blasts
Thanks anons.
I wish I remembered to read comics more often...
She can also turn Kaiju buster briefly but it'll knock her on her ass from the mental strain afterwards
sadly her whole generation of students basically got shafted hard. She still pops up occasionally but the big x-men effectively treat her whole class like babies that need to be coddled. (Despite the fact that 45 of them died in a terrorist attack, the survivors where dragged to literal hell and then they fought in the messiah war)
Nah they're not really worth reading all that often.
Schism/Generation Hope was a clear example.
I wish they'd stop writing themselves into corners they get out via complete asspulls and reboot shit completely more often.
Well the silver lining of her not having a huge amount of appearances is she's a pretty easy character to get into.
Just read the Whedon run of Astonishing X-men and keep goring through the Warren Ellis run and then pick up Wolverine and the X-men Alpha and Omega and Xenogenesis.
She was also a major part of the X-men anime which you don't need any homework for though her characterization there is a bit off from her comic one.
She's going to be part of an upcoming Cable book but we don't know if that's the mainline version or some crazy bad future version yet.
Oh, the mutant that no one gave a shit about even when she was written to be relevant. Always liked her as background, never at the forefront.
>muh Broo
Decent overall though.
Id say Gen Hope was the worst class but somehow Aaron and Bendis managed to be worse.
God I miss the NXM class
I can't even bring myself to care, the whole mages guild quest line is so incredibly dull and shitty.
>is wrong
>is corrected
>"That's the joke!"
Heard that one before. It wasn't funny the first time, either.
Academy x/nxm are the best x kids. No one should deny this. Especially if we count Dany with them
Yes, if you're sufficiently advanced in the main plotline. Faralda lets you in because "muh dragonborn"