Describe and type D&D characters you have made

[eternaltriangle]

There are a proud, noble few of us that have spent wonderful hours playing dungeons and dragons in our parents basements (well I tended to play in my friend's basement). When creating a character - either in pen and paper RPG's, or in creating one for a computer game, what sort of character(s) do you tend to create? How would you type them? What are some amusing examples?

Most of my characters are probably somewhat INTJ-ish. They tend to be the evil wizard/scientist who dislikes other people, and who comes up with grand schemes for world domination (well or more modest aims). (tangent: Actually, the problem-solving aspect of RPG's is a lot of what interests me. For instance, our low-level party was once attacked by a fairly old red dragon. We made it go unconscious briefly with a one-time use magic item. I cast polymorph to turn into a planetar, and flew a few thousand feet into the air. I then dropped all of my items (and some rocks I had put into a bag of holding), which reached terminal velocity and did a lot of damage to the dragon, allowing us to kill it.) Another character in a space setting was loosely based on Dr. Zachary Smith from Lost in Space - an evil child psychiatrist. Another I recall was a Ghoul (in the Fallout world, ghouls are highly mutated survivors of nuclear war - Fallout is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland), for whom I wrote a manifesto. He would spread his manifesto across the land, in an attempt to take over. His aim was to find an active missile silo, and use that to threaten neighbouring cities into giving him tribute. Unfortunately he wasn't very personable and had a tendency to make enemies. Much of the plot followed an antagonism between himself and another party member - a super-intelligent monkey (an ENTP).

Sometimes I have deviated from that mould, however. In Shadowrun I played a Vietnam war veteran (it was a campaign set fairly early in the 2020) with multiple personality disorder brought on by trauma in combat (which tended to happen a lot). Sometimes he was a drugged out hippie (his normal state), other times he was his former self - a decorated and courageous soldier (he tended to shift from ISFP to ESTJ). Our dungeonmaster particularly hated our party because we had largely ignored the quest he set up for us in our quest to damage national monuments across Europe. (addendum: A memorable moment occurred when we stupidly attacked a dragon in a zoo. Angrily, the dragon picked up my hippie bus, and with it our entire party, flying upwards. Stupidly, one of the members of the party opened fire, and, with some tremendously lucky shooting, succeeded in making the dragon lose its grip on the bus, which fell a great distance. At that point, with relish, our DM rolled damage for the fall - we all survived, albeit with some injuries. He then added, oh yeah, and your bus explodes. To this I happily pointed out - HAHA, you forgot - my character is a hippie and bought an electric bus - it doesn't explode).

I have found that some people tend to create characters that are extensions of themselves, with perhaps a few flourishes (in some ways I might be an extension of my characters - dungeons and dragons was one of the first activities to bring me out of my shell). Others use a world of fantasy to try out what it would be like to be musclebound hero, or a comely female elf (assuming they are neither of those things in the first place).

[Rudy]

Well, I can't deny that I used to play D&D...

The first that comes to mind is a INFJ cleric or paladin.

An INTJ Wizard was the next most common.

The most defining trait of all of my characters, though, was that they were always "good." I refused to play even a neutral character.

[eternaltriangle]

The most defining trait of all of my characters, though, was that they were always "good." I refused to play even a neutral character.

I had a very strong preference for lawful evil characters. I liked having laws and rules to protect me, but I also liked working the system. I think in person I am closer to lawful neutral though.

Do you think adding types would make D&D more fun? Part of why I like systems other than D&D is because there is more room to add explicit traits which allow you to roleplay instead of metagame (eg. if my character is stupid, I try to act stupid).

[Doppelbock]

I liked playing a thief because I could be all secretive, stay in the background, and sneak around a lot. Probably I was always an INTJ because I was really just playing myself.

[ClydeB]

Chaotic good half elf magic user was my favorite. Used to enjoy being really really creative with magic and argue with the DM. Like have someone throw skins or flasks of oil over the massed enemy then hit it with a magic missile spell in mid flight. Nothing like some medieval napalm to get the job done. Or using tenser's floating disk as a personal conveyance and high ground for melees.

Good times, good times.

[eternaltriangle]

Sorry - magic missiles can only target living things. I think people got the wrong impression from that Dead Alewives sketch - you CAN'T attack the darkness with a magic missile!

[Bobert]

That was 25 years ago! How am I supposed to remember that I was a level 26 magician/thief with a +2 sword and all the cantrips at my disposal, and two sets of dice (colored myself), and homemade lead figures? :dork:

[charolastra]

I was a chaotic good gnome healer named Murfoodle Ollywocket. I stopped playing when I ceased to be the only girl- that killed all of my advantages. :P I very rarely knew what I was doing and the DM regularly had me step into a portal where I was teleported to safety. I'd say she was an INFP by default.

From there, the group continued their campaign without me and started to play Munchkins with me separately. I was an exquisite cheater so I won everything.

[ranwayslo]

The only campaign I played in was as a cleric. The cleric was stuck in world where his god did not exist. He also had very little charisma, but some how the die always landed right and he survived. Go figure.

[SShack]

My first character, back before there was hardcover 2nd edition (yes, that long ago) I was a gnome illusionist. I was drawn to him because technically you could do anything with their spells as long as you could get your target to believe in it. Very ENTP.

Much, much later on in college years I played a "wild mage" from the Forgotten Realms setting. Again, a very creative and somewhat unpredictable mage class. Had an intelligence of 19 and a wisdom of 6. Very INTP in this case. He was oblivious to the fact that two of his party members were reprehensibly evil.

After that I became the dungeon master for several years and ended up running things. Very ENTP indeed.

[WaeV]

I bought the books, run the games, and made characters for each of my four friends. If I had to give the characters a personality I would say gritty and pragmatic. They are all physical classes, though some with a few multiclassed arcane abilities.

Does anyone have any tips for running a game? I'm really the only one of the five of us who has played before, and it was verbally (without dice) at summer camp. how do i get the players to get into their characters / decide what to do themselves? The games have been rather linear so far.

[eternaltriangle]

Does anyone have any tips for running a game? I'm really the only one of the five of us who has played before, and it was verbally (without dice) at summer camp. how do i get the players to get into their characters / decide what to do themselves? The games have been rather linear so far.

I'm a long-time player, and have DM'ed myself, so I have some experience, but take it all with a grain of salt.

The best DM I ever had (my DM for the better part of 11 years) put a lot of effort into describing our surroundings, the monsters we went up against, the characters, and so on. He would also act out some of the more memorable attacks, with sound effects. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was awesome (this is easier with good friends). I found it really helped me imagine what was going on. When I DM'ed, I didn't describe things all that much (because I was always winging it - PS: if you wing it, you should read through the DMG and Monster manual in order to get some good ideas). I like doing voices, so I would have impersonations for all the NPC's. That helped to make up for my lack of description (although sometimes I got the voices mixed up). Draw maps too, and try to think of ways to reward characters for the kind of gameplay you want to promote. Did your players rope local nobles into financing a sporting event with gambling, and then rig the events to win a huge profit? You have to find a way to get the game beyond numbers and skill checks.

On that point, I think rules lawyers make terrible DM's for a number of reasons. Firstly, if the game is about constant skill checks, your characters will adapt to the situation and become power-gamers (those that don't will suffer). Secondly, in practice as your characters get more experienced, the likelihood that they will fail checks decreases to almost nothing (not to mention that they gain super-loot and far too powerful magic items). This removes a lot of the fun from the game. Instead of following a chart, it is a better idea to subjectively think of a number in your head that approximates the difficulty of a certain act. That makes you more flexible too because you can accomodate situations where players do things that are not explicitly in the book. You may want to generally raise your subjective number if your characters are always succeeding. Oh, and if they find some rule exploit and overuse it, use it against them and they'll learn their lesson.

Systems other than D&D often have traits/drawbacks/perks or whatever. What I hate about D&D is that almost any character of the same character class, race and level, will have more or less the same abilities. Other systems force characters to make certain characteristics explicit, and force them to roleplay (you can give out experience for good roleplaying). Like, you can take a drawback wherein your character is say, a massive racist, or blind, or has a powerful enemy (I tended to like making characters with delusions of grandeur - somehow that was something I could roleplay). How you order things matters - create a world, then get each player to develop a backstory with some personal quests, and then try to integrate those into the path they ultimately take.

Player choices should have consequences. If they make a dumb move, for instance, you need to be willing to kill them (I was generally too squeamish - but my characters were often near-death because I would hit them with powerful enemies... eg. 100 kobolds with slingshots). Demonstrate that your world allows moral complexity - try to corrupt them with some ill-gotten gains (surely crime CAN pay sometimes). One annoying tendency I find is that most people have a misconception of the middle ages, and see them as this world of ultra-religious ultra-moral people - rather than the reality of a lot of people driven mostly by survival motives prone to all the same vices as we have today. I think Steampunk or Cyberpunk settings bring out more interesting players because those are worlds we generally expect to exhibit moral complexity.

You may have this great personal vision but at the end of the day you need to know your gamers. If they are powergamers that want to crush monsters give them that. If they want a zanier game, you can give them that too (I had my players navigate the imperial bureaucracy for most of one gaming session). Are your characters boring? Try to insert some drama - you can often turn your characters against each other. I had one of mine pursue a secret agenda, following the promise of ultimate power from a talking ring he acquired. Obviously something like that wouldn't work for just anybody. I think the best model for how to have well-scripted quests but allow non-linear playing is given by Fallout I. You have a quest (find a water chip) that is explicit, do-able, and high-stakes (at least for your crappy vault). How you do it though, is up to you.

[NoStoneUnturned]

From what i experience, people usually make their first character much like themselves.

then make their second character what they wish they were, often an overcompensation version.

for example, my first character (made when i was much younger) was a bowandarrow ranger, mostly ISTP/INTJ. He got up to level 19ish? 8-10 levels or so were from ranger, the rest were from the prestige class dragon's disciple. by the end of the game, he was JUST starting to grow dragon wings. I think my need for the wings marks my inner need to be free.

while my second character was a 7'5 half-orge with the strength of like 28 by level 2. his class was barbaric/fighter. I made him an INTP that was reared by idiots so i could get out of having to act like an idiot the entire time.

all of my other characters are pretty much the same after that: favored soul (pretty much just a sorcerer version of a cleric plus they get wings) or a paladin. they often have a tranquil nature, much akin to water; free flowing most of the time, but unforgiving and crushing when roused. thus not really typeable.

[MrDoom]

I've played mostly wizards (INTJ/INTP/ENTJ) and ranger/rogues (INTJ/ISTP). Almost universally chaotic neutral, because that's what I'm closest to in real life.

[web]

Wizard -- Human INTJ maybe INFJ or INFP. Usually w/e neutral.
Thief -- Halfling ENFdunno. w/e neutral.

oh lord, that were quite a few moments!

[NoStoneUnturned]

I was really hoping more people would post on this thread. DnD is such a good game and even more, DnD is an intuitive game

[Homini Lupus]

I tend to play damned people, whose strength is both a blessing and a curse: a human raised by elves (and thus obsessed by the brevity of his life), a gladiator who chose his profession in order to find a spectacular death to end a pointless life, an anarchistic idealist halfbreed tainted by demonic blood and such. their personality tend almost always to the introverted, sometimes bordering schizophrenic. My actual D&D character is an ISTJ halfbreed serving the local church as a sword bearer. My favoured classes tend to be those who require an intuitive use of the skills rather than a through knowledge of the manual and its rules. Warriors and rogues tend to be my favourites, but I like to try new possibilities when I get a chance.

[eternaltriangle]

I also like characters with fatal flaws alongside great talents, or inherent contradictions. Probably my favourite D&D character of that sort was Philosophorc, the world's smartest orc. He was a cleric who wanted very much to be a man of learning, despite his outsiderness, and the unwillingness of most people to take him seriously as a scholar.

In Arcanum I liked how you could play as an idiot savant character - with high intelligence, but none of the associated social skills (I was also an orc in that, and was so unlikeable that I was usually one conversation away from being lynched by the town). Unfortunately, I find D&D doesn't allow the kind of trade-offs that other systems do, and forces pretty balanced characters on the players.

[Philodept]

I have been wanting to play DnD for the longest time! I only have the 4e books (some of the 3.5 ones), but if I were to make anything it would be a Cleric (or one of the other healers) or a Wizard.

I have DM'd a game and it didn't go so well. None of us knew what we were doing. haha

My character would probably be an INFP, like myself.

[eternaltriangle]

Shows how out of the loop I am - there's a 4th edition now? What major changes did they make? As much as I am nostalgic for 2nd edition (which seems like it was created by an ISTJ on crack), 3rd edition struck me as a very good, simple, intuitive and modular system that could easily be adapted to a lot of different settings (although I think the class system is crap). What did they change in 4th edition?





eternaltriangle added to this post, 83 minutes and 0 seconds later...

Rudy, good use of stats, but you are assuming that D&D characters are representative of the population as a whole - which may not be true. I would also be more comfortable if we used standard deviations.

3d6 can have 216 possible unique combinations. Lets imagine an outcome where we rolled 3d6 216 times and got one of each outcome. We can use that to get the standard deviation of a hypothetical infinite rolls (with infinite rolls we would get outcomes that exactly corresponded to the probability of each outcome happening).

The variance would come out to 8.75, meaning that the standard deviation would be 2.96.

So lets look at INT 16. What proportion should have an INT of 16 if intelligence is normally distributed?

(16-10.5)/2.96 = 1.86 standard deviations above average. That would put one in the smartest 3.14% (rounding may account for the differences between my numbers and Rudy's actually, not that I think about it). So it looks like a little above 16 is approximately the cutoff for Mensa membership. But anyway, I think standard deviations are a bit more useful because they let us easily convert everything into percentiles - for all stats, not just intelligence.

Not to complicate things with rule variants, but our above analysis may not work. The problem is that D&D applies bonuses and penalties for age. That will throw off the means we are working with. Unearthed Arcana also has some useful distinctions - it divides each stat into two subabilities.

Strength - (Muscle, Stamina)
Dexterity - (Aim, Agility)
Constitution - (Health, Fitness)
Intelligence -(Reason, Knowledge)
Wisdom - (Intuition, Willpower)
Charisma - (Leadership, Appearance)

So lets do Obama vs. McCain

Obama
alignment: lawful good
Class: bard
Race: elf
STR 12
-Stamina 14
-Muscle 10
DEX 10
- aim 6 (based on his bowling skills, lack of firearm experience)
- agility 14 (he is good at basketball)
CON 11
- health 8 (Obama smokes, and his mom died very young)
-fitness 14 (he works out every day)
INT 14
-reason 16 (former lecturer, went to law school)
-knowledge 12 (has never really become an expert in anything)
WIS 9
-intuition 10 (doesn't appear to be above average in this regard)
-willpower 8 (can't stick to a job, smoker)
Charisma 18
-appearance 14 (a reasonably good-looking guy, especially for his age)
-leadership 22 (able to command rapt audiences moreso than any political leader in the US since at least Reagan)

McCain
alignment: neutral good
class: fighter
race: dwarf
STR 10
-Stamina 12 (goes on hikes and stuff)
-Muscle 8 (old)
DEX 8
- aim 12 (former soldier - knows how to use a gun)
- agility 4 (injured badly by torture, old)
CON 8
- health 6 (melanoma, old, despite good genes)
-fitness 10 (fairly active despite age)
INT 12
-reason 10 (not a great student, not that quick-witted)
-knowledge 14 (is a policy wonk, reads a lot)
WIS 17
-intuition 14 (hunches have often served him well)
-willpower 20 (has lived through torture, very tenacious)
Charisma 10
-appearance 8 (old and scarred)
-leadership 12 (bad speaker, but has the whole war hero thing going for him)

Hillary
alignment: lawful neutral
class: fighter ("I'm fighting for you")
race: human
STR 8
-Stamina 8 (is a pretty average woman for her age)
-Muscle 8 (is a pretty average woman for her age)
DEX 8
- aim 6 (a worse bowler than Obama)
- agility 10 (about average for her age)
CON 11
- health 12 (doesn't appear to have any health problems)
-fitness 10 (in pretty average shape)
INT 16
-reason 14 (former law student)
-knowledge 18 (is a hardcore policy wonk, good at memorization)
WIS 12
-intuition 10 (doesn't appear more or less average in this regard)
-willpower 14 (very tenacious)
Charisma 10
-appearance 10 (not terrible for her age)
-leadership 10 (not a great public speaker, but then, neither is the average person)





eternaltriangle added to this post, 990 minutes and 30 seconds later...

(this was meant to be in the character sheet thread... dammit)

[Esban]

It has been years since I have played. I had several characters. I started playing when 2nd edition was in use. I was a DM through 2nd and 3rd editions. I have read about 4th edition and understand the changes but I have not played. Here are some of my top characters from the past.

Esban Silvermoon - Neutral Good (INFP) - Elf - Cerebralmancer (Wizard/Psion)

Corbin Silvermoon - Chaotic Good (ISTP) - Elf - Bladesinger (Fighter/Wizard)

Rezpen - Neutral Evil (INTJ) - Drow - Assassin (Ranger/Rouge)

Sethel Daybringer - Lawful Good (ENFP) - Human - Paladin

Kendal Lancejumper - Neutral Good (INTJ) - Gnome - Bard

Sojern Ironheart - Neutral Good (INFJ) - Human - Cleric

As you can see most of my characters were good. I have always admired the hero. While Respen the assassin was dangerous in a fight when he had the other mercenaries with him (Goliath Barbarian, Half-drow Arcane Knight and a dwarven warpriest), causing other people to suffer for personal gain has always been distasteful to me.

[Autumnleaf]

Dessi - Chaotic Good Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief

My friend said my character was kinda like me, a dick.

[Eridal]

I always favored an Elven Wizard of some type with my characters and occasionally played some form of a Fighter/Wizard, typically bladesinger.

I do miss the good ole days of sitting around the table with my friends playing D&D and finding new and interesting ways to burn down the DM's towns ruin his plans and take over the world, did this more than once :p

If the above didn't give it away I leaned towards the evil side a bit :p

[Fox]

I didn't like D&D it was too abstract for me it was the game everyone plays.

I often enjoyed idiots and complete weasels. Everyone else would pay a serious character. Made such a boring group dynamic. I play a loud mouth coward just to spice things up.

[Reddkatz]

Well, I can't deny that I used to play D&D...

The first that comes to mind is a INFJ cleric or paladin.

An INTJ Wizard was the next most common.

The most defining trait of all of my characters, though, was that they were always "good." I refused to play even a neutral character.

Yeah I'm quoting something old, but I have to say...amateur ;)

I usually play someone chaotic. I can play evil too, but most of the games I go to don't allow evil. So I usually stick to whatever alignment my character is. I make the character then pick the alignment. I always make characters I like having fun with. My last 3.5 character was a hippy druid that was converting into a sacred prostitute.

This new character I have for Pathfinder is a C/N Tiefling thief. In the world she is in, tieflings are seen as outcasts. People that are too ashamed to claim as their child/sister/etc so they get shipped off to this town and gets treated like crap. So the C/N fits her as she is out for herself. A pretty good thief alignment too if I say so.

[Cygnus]

The Crimson Shadow

High Elf - Magic User/Thief Level 6/7
Alignment - Neutral Good

+2 "living" long sword named Tail Biter (with special DM assigned attributes, namely it could magically fight independently of it's "owner" and could be thrown, as well as be a wise-cracking side-kick)

Adopted a menacing name and he seeded and promoted a certain intimating reputation, but was actually a decent and ethical soul. He was a member of the City of Greyhawk Guild of Thieves. He was very selective in the jobs he would take on. Coin would not buy him, to hire him one had to convince him of your intent and cause.

[Kisai]

I've made a bunch, but my favorite was Yurgh. Yurgh was created for a Ravenloft game. He was a 10th level fighter who was a Blood Axe Space Ork. It was easy to explain that he got sucked into a warp gate and got spat out into Ravenloft, where he wandered around and got lost. When he was found by the adventuring party, he was surrounded by dead monsters with his shoota in hand, clicking the trigger, out of ammo. He still wore the gun in his holster in the vain hope of finding more ammo for it.

It didn't make sense for Yurgh to wear anything heavier in armor than his flak jacket, so I told the GM to keep me at AC 5 if Yurgh could regenerate, which was his Ravenloft 'curse'. Yurgh also had a +3 battleaxe named 'Goosh', because that was the sound it would make. And Yurgh quite liked humans, as Blood Axes often do.

I had never played a stupid character before and Yurgh was a delight. He would eat and drink anything he could get his hands on and mount any vehicle or ride hoping to go really fast.

[Ghostwheel]

I had an Anti-Paladin once. The only time I ever attacked another player character. Shot in the back with Javelins of Lightening.

He had it coming, though!

[jgregulus]

I play a chaotic evil Paladin of Slaughter, Sebastian Bores.

[Vulture]

my last character i made was a monk/assasin.

he had HIGH bluff, and HIGH cooking skills, among others.

in the party i roleplayed him as the "cowardly cook." they never knew him as a monk or assassin. he was undercover in the group. i was so good at playing him that the 4 other players didn't know what he was, only the dm. he used "roasting spits" as weapons (sais.) i think by the end they thought i was some sort of weird bard with dualwielding feats...

i spent the whole time running from fights, and cooking food and telling jokes, and spying on my party. he only fought a couple times, when absolutely necessary. in those times i had to role bluff checks on my own party members to make it look like i "accidentally killed the giant/wight/elemental."

it was great fun! he's still out in my DM's world, burning to death from some elemental invaders.