I'm not talking about edgelords who just make themselves for a power fantasy, I mean making a character that has your outlook and beliefs and such.
I find myself putting huge portions of myself into my characters. It helps in some ways, since I'm able to roll with situations and just do what I would do, and it makes for easy fluid roleplaying that I can be confident in and there isn't a lot of guesswork or pondering.
It's detrimental in that I sometimes find myself playing similar characters with other groups or in the next campaign, since there is a general personality and belief framework that Im' going to have, regardless of race/class/gender/level/setting/etc.
It's also detrimental in that I am sometimes afraid of failure for my characters, because I want them to succeed because there is a large part of me in them. But that's also helpful, because I care about my characters and I will make decisions and play the game with investment.
So with all these pros and cons, what do you think on the subject?
Elijah Ramirez
Pretty much all your characters will reflect your outlook on life.
That's just how creation works.
Brody Gray
Well, I have intentionally broken my trend, and played characters who were mean or such, and it was a good exercise in playing the game and developing as a player, but I had to distance myself from the character since I didn't like them as a person.
But I think making characters you don't like is a good exercise in itself, if it's on occasional.
Ryder Lewis
Well yeah, those mean characters act according to your definition of mean.
Robert Nelson
...
Luke Nguyen
>That guy plays a pure evil necromancer who outdoes our GMs capacity to make the villains seem evil by comparison and only survives by being both our only caster and levels ahead of all of us plus we're too fragmented as a party too team up against him >literally creates new kinds of body horror we never imagined and almost destroys the world in his experiments with eldritch beings The worst part is I know it's a reflection of him. The only other characters he play are greedy backstabbers and one man warcrimes.
Hudson Harris
Aren't all characters one man warcrimes?
I started down that road when we started play things other than d&d and discovered the wonders of explosives.
Jayden Martinez
I tend to self insert just enough to keep my character relatable to me but not so much that it hinders how well written the character is. Pretty much every character I've created has one or two aspects of my personality, it's not that I can't or won't play as a character who has nothing to do with me, but I find it easier to act as the character if there are some similarities between me and it. It's good because it helps me to cope with being an aspie.
Camden Collins
I try to limit it and force myself to act outside my irl character by having different prts of me each time (ex: I'm playing a character that has terrible memory and trusts in her companions to remember things for her, I have a memory so bad I trust my friends to remember the important things)
Ayden Hernandez
You just need a overly optimistic, and cheerfully annoying cleric that tries to convert the evil necromancer, and show him the evil of his ways.
Jaxon Gutierrez
Yeah, edgelords are lame.
Noah Martinez
Because my outlooks and beliefs have not formed in a vacuum, and have in fact been shaped by contemporary elements in society, it doesn't make sense for me to extrapolate them into a setting on a 1:1 basis, especially if its your typical feudal high fantasy setting. I like to bring elements of my worldview into characterization, not in a way that represents me directly, but in a way that challenges me to role play in a way that reflects my characters' experiences, based on how I as a person might imagine those characteristics manifesting in relation to that PC's environment before and during their adventuring career.
Nicholas Stewart
It helps me roleplay my character consistently, but because of how I think, I tend to project a lot of my (self-judged) worst characteristics on the character. >tfw my fear of needing a handler for my 'tism manifests in my characters
Charles Gomez
You're never going to escape some amount of self-insertion. You shouldn't even really be worried about it, because it's a non-problem. Your character is going to always reflect you in some way, even if you're intentionally playing a character you perceive as diametrically opposed to you.
For instance, I'm playing a tiefling warlock whose personality I designed to be as repulsive to myself as possible. I made her a powerful caster with a horrid victim complex, an extreme arrogance, and serious abandonment issues. (Her pact keeper is an Erinyes who likes to play at being motherly, and she is an orphan.) But I ended up realizing that I drew upon my own traumatic experiences to convincingly RP the character, and I have grown very attached to her. I see her as a kindred soul, in a way, and I want to help her reach happiness in our campaign.
I operate very similarly to you. I would perhaps suggest exploring parts of yourself you're not entirely comfortable, and try incorporating *those* into a character. You might enjoy the result!
Pic related: char art for my tiefling warlock
Leo Hill
Subtlety is key. Making the character blatantly or explicitly you is just stupid.
Aaron Flores
I think "a lot" is a fine answer. You don't need to create an interesting, full, complete character at the very start of the game; it's more interesting if your character is a pretty loose concept, and they slowly grow into whatever they're going to be as you play. Even if the character is always fairly close to you, the circumstances of the campaign will still grow them away from you.
Don't arrange a character at the start of the game, let your character be mostly defined by what they do, and the choices you end up making as you play.
Jose Turner
Pretty much what you described. It is better to play a stereotypical or self-insert character good, instead of playing a complicated character bad. They easiest thing is to start with something simple, and then make them individual in the details.
For example, my first character was when I first played him horribly overloaded. He was a swordsman, and a noble, and mage, but would only use illusion magic, and was planned as a rogue like, but was too the brains of the party. And he was arrogant and a racist and had arachnophopia and was a author and also a sharlatan mage who also could spite fire (the circus sense, not magic). I tried to basicly be Roger from American Dad fused with Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter. And I was bad at it, firstly because I am not very good at making convoluted plans to manipulate people, second because I never really played him as a asshole. When the new edition of the game got out, and we imported our characters from the beta version, I changed a lot of them, and made him a bit more simpler, and I got way better at playing him to.
TL;DR OP is not a faggot, he actually has a fair point and you should make a character that you are comfortable with. Not that, I want to say, that you shoudn't make Experiements, I for once found out, that I have a heart for clerics, despite thinking before, that they were really boring to play.
Alexander Rogers
I am the last person to self insert.
I play the quiet little girl who will kill you in your sleep if you betray the party or attempt to harm the group.
Grayson Jones
It depends on your ability to roleplay. I have a hard time making female voices. But it also depends on what is fun to you
Jacob Lee
Bit similar to these. As a core element I often take some fragment of myself that helps me relate and then add other stuff to flesh it out.
I find "what would I do here?"-mentality a bit of a cheap and game-y copout. Much rather would see players just bring the standards on which they judge an action and then use that in the context of the setting etc.
I'm no expert on RP, my group is mostly dungeon crawling powergamers. Feels bad man.
Asher Rodriguez
I rarely if ever play evil characters.
My favorite consistent class/role has been the Kingdoms of Kalamar Merciful Fate Cleric. Despite D6hp, no medium armor or heavy shield Prof and not allowed to use pierce or slashing weapons, I have a lot of fun with it because I am a beam-spamming Jesus, especially in E6 games. >ALL Conjuration (healing) spells can be cast one level lower. >>MFW Cure Light Wounds is a cantrip. >Mercy Domain: add WIS modifier to CL for cure spells >Bonus Feat: Add CHA Mod to healing magic >Metamagic Divine Channeling. >Class alternate for Turn Undead: Everyone gets my CHA Mod as a bonus to Skill checks and all Saves for 10 + My level minutes.
