Playing Joke Characters Straight

People go all over the place for character inspiration, sometimes even drinking from places of dead water where bad ideas live and dwell.

Take the Drizzt Clone.
Everyone except new players knows this is a terrible idea, and the only time you might see it among a group of veterans is as a deliberate joke, with his name being Drizzle Dough'oven and with his twin spatulas Sprinkle and Icingdeath.
But, that raises the question of whether playing a Drow baker is really such a terrible idea. Is there room for a Drow male who escaped the daily toil of making Menzoberranzan mushroom pies in a serious party?
Probably not, but still, wouldn't be the worst character I've seen at a table.

Or the weaboo.
A person obsessed with far Kara-tur, wielding the exotic "katana" and its companion sword, the "small katana". With hundreds of miles between her and her spiritual homeland, the details of her code of honor may be fuzzy, but her passion is real, and her bastardization of a fighting style learned from forged scrolls somehow works despite her insistence on calling out each attack's name. Somewhere, perhaps, there might be a serious character struggling with their identity, and channeling natural talent in unconventional ways thanks to an open-hearted acceptance of the strange and foreign. Or not.

The kobold with a snake familiar and his aspirations to become a god. The warforged made out of recycled material but with a memory and affinity for his past life. The blatant ripoff of the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket but he's in 40k now. A party consisting entirely of /k/ommandos who are revolutionizing dungeon exploration with their insane operator tactics.

What terrible, awful characters ideas do you think might have a shot at not being just a bad joke?

The ideas aren't the problem, it's the type of players who show up with them in the first place.

How about instead of mining for ideas in jokes and fetishes, we exhaust all the good ideas first?

>we exhaust all the good ideas first?

You'd be shocked how fresh and original the virtuous farmboy whisked away into adventure still is.

Fetishy as it is I totally kinda want to play a badass male drow who, while definitely good aligned and having a full understanding of how fucked up his past society is, can't help but want a domme in his life.

Sure, he doesn't want a crazy bitch to feed him to spiders but sort of like playing the badass lady knight who still wants to be a loving wife some day I really love the idea of playing a drow death machine who can't help but want to conform to his society's traditional gender roles.

Because sometimes you've got a couple of giant kills under your belt but you're still kinda hoping the slightly bossy sorceress in your party wouldn't mind if you maybe called her mistress and went collar shopping together.

How overdone is the haughty Elf trope, anyway? I've never seen it done - at least, not done well - yet everyone acts like it's the standard.

I want to make an Elf Dad who views the party as idiot children he needs to dote on and protect from harm.

Subversions are so common that sincerely playing a trope straight is original.

I've seen it many times by people who just use it as an excuse to act like an arrogant asshole, but never by someone who was self-aware enough to realize that just acting like an ass isn't enough to make a character interesting.

From female elf characters, super common. Especially if they're playing casters.

I just wanted to play a character who might as well be from LotR or Warhammer Fantasy working alongside the children races.

I once played a Megumin stand-in for a campaign over Maptools using Spheres of Power to push all my spell points into one shot no matter the consequences and she actually turned out to be one of my most developed characters. And because I didn't know that the campaign would run so damn long.

Last session my character was knocked the fuck out by drow trying to take her alive and the party went through hell and high water to save her from being taken to an undefined BDSM spider rape dungeon because out of all the characters she was still nice to most of the party

The malk who has a carton of mouldy, off color malk always on his person is another one, nothing good comes of being wacky bo backy like that.

You're not allowed to have fun, stop that.

Mostly attempts to play joke characters "straight" is just playing a joke character but with added "OH LOOK AT ME I'M SO SELF-AWARE".

Conversely, an annoying trope played "jokingly" is the same trope, but with added "OH LOOK AT ME I'M SO SELF-AWARE". No you're not, billy. You playing half-naked catgirl "ironically" is still you playing a fucking half-naked catgirl.

>One guy makes some elf assassin type character who has all these titles about past jobs he's done and his introduction is him boasting about how he's done all this stuff and how he's a big deal
>He's clearly worked this out with the DM because he's namedropping a few groups and people I know
>First encounter with him in the party goes fine, he offers to sneak up ahead
>Immediately gets spotted and knocked out in a 1v3 fight between himself and some fairly tough soldiers
>DM decides not to kill him on his first session with that character, instead all his gear is taken (we get most of it back) and his arm is cut off and fed to dogs
I find it absolutely hilarious. He shows up and acts like he's the shit and immediately gets the shit beat out of him and his arm cut off. Serious characters that turn into jokes are way better than characters intended to be jokes

>The malk who has a carton of mouldy, off color malk
Strangely appropriate.

>Drow Baker
>Limitless Mushroom Bread
YES

You. I like you.

I've back-pocketed a character based on Harry Turtledove's "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump."

In the setting we play in, Necromancy isn't considered evil, but it is dangerous. A lot can go wrong, starting with "never summon more than you can control" and "never give a corpse an instruction you wouldn't mind them repeating over and over again for several years."

And in that setting, I want to run a motherfuckin' necromantic OSHA inspector, complete with hard hat, clip-on safety tie, and an offset quarterstaff with "mandatory cut-off switch" engraved on it.

Good thing Malks aren't a clan anymore, and Malkavia is just a mysterious disease that infects populations.

literally was going to play the weeb in a campaign before i moved. fat fedora neckbeard had scrolls and texts imported from setting's japan and would just be a totally competent fighter despite spaghetti and tipping. make him absurdly embarrassing but skilled enough that nobody could actually dismiss him.

Always wanted to play a skeleton who was an adventurer in life and now just works as a mercenary or town guard.
Don't know how "jokey" it is but playing an undead in a party full of normal people always felt a bit out there to me.

"That? That's ol' Grim. John Grim in life. Hardest man I ever knew. Once fought one o' them land sharks with a cutting' board an' a spatula. Kept it in his shed after. Named 'er Ol' Bloodsnout. Finer trufflin' dog there never was. Amyway, Grim musta not felt like dyin' 'cause one day he jes showed up back 'ere, singed an' carryin' an armload a' knick-knacks an' gold. Ain't know what he done with it. Now 'e jest hangs around down by the well. Every so often he takes a shine ta somebody passin' through an' follows 'em. Dunno where he goes, or why, but that's jest ol' Grim for ya."

>Party visiting town with a church for the god I worship, they all expect me to hop right over and make introductions
>Uh, I've got... things... to do elsewhere, yeah. Busy stuff.
>Party instead brings church to me, as a surprise
>Church is normally very anti-undead, have had poor run-ins with other members in my backstory
>"There's the heretic mocking our faith!"
>Get my helmet knocked off before I can panic, party learns Alexander the shining knight was a skele the whole time
>RP my way out of the party assuming they found out beforehand and wanted to exterminate me by bringing a group of clerics to me
>Occasionally the party hears tales of an eccentric knight that saves people from stupid shit but never takes off their helmet
I miss playing that pile of bones.

You know that guy wouldn't have played Gangrel any better.

>and Malkavia is just a mysterious disease that infects populations.
Betting ten bucks it's ol' Malkav himself having ghostly fun.

In a Post-Apoc campaign, I play basically Rocket Raccoon as a Mongoose Scientist with crippling alcoholism. Swapped brains with the Mongoose via an accident. I use the Mongoose body to dick around, skittering inside of vents, digging holes, biting people, and generally being a piece of shit. He's played completely straight as a competent scientist, other than wearing a faded Bill Nye "Science Rules" T-Shirt.

>Implying specific clan founders are a thing anymore
It's really for the best.

DM recently challenge me to stack as many hurr durr character options together on the single character and not have him hated by the party.
Thus was born the dragon angel paladin with his ancestral katana with his ancestor's soul within it carved from a dragon fang who was a cross between Kenshin Himura from Rurouni Kenshin, Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear, and the historical Saladin, sent from his family's mountain stronghold the avenge the death of his wife and recover the family's sacred weapons lost by his predecessor.
It worked out ok, I think.

It's a direct ratio to how many puns you use.

You've gotta bone up on your skelepuns.

We tried an old west game.

Without any planning all the players showed up as old timey prospectors who liked to blow things up.

It was a fun but short lived campaign.

There is a novel in this idea.