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Exceptional Characters - What to do?

(3 posts)
  • Started 17 years ago by Oliver
  • Latest reply from confluence

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  1. Oliver
    Member

    Hello folks!

    This thread has no actual background. I am right now not in a group which has to deal with an exceptional character.

    Explanation what my understanding of an exceptional character is:
    There are two kinds of exceptional characters:
    1. These characters are considered to be demanding to roleplay and stick out in more than one part. This could be a bad guy in a good D&D group or a ghoul in a SR group. So these characters are exceptional because of the way they are roleplayed.
    2. These characters are exceptional because of their powerlevel. It doesn't mean that these characters are very powerful all of the time. It could be also that they are extraordinary weak (like a kid in a group of warriors).

    According to my experience these characters can be quite a hazard. While it is obvious with minmaxed characters who make the rest of the group feel useless the other kinds are in no way better.
    A weak character in a group of powerful characters is more an obstacle to the group than a real help. Think of a farmer with high levels in skills which are useless for the campaign in a group of sorcerers and warriors.
    How much time will be wasted to rescue this character over and over again? And why is group travelling with this character.

    Those demanding characters like drakes in SR or bad guys in good groups can be a hazard as well because they attract a lot of troubles for the group like bounty hunters.
    Especially when it comes to characters which have an extreme bad reputation because of their race or their profession (Ghouls have a horrible reputation in SR as well as vampires. Whoever works with them will find out that his reputation will also become worse if it ever becomes public). Why do the characters travel with them?
    And how should they deal with the problem?

    But my question is who has to deal with these characters? Is it the GM who should just disallow them or is it the group who kicks the character out when his true nature becomes public? And in what a manner should they deal with these characters? I only gave two examples what could be done.
    Are these characters a problem at all to you?

    Posted 17 years ago #

  2. LadyAth
    Member

    I've been in a few games where there is always a player that has to be different from the rest. It tended to vary between playing an outcast race or an alignment that is in complete contradiction to the rest of the group. In all cases it has ended badly where the campaigns ended up being ripped apart because of character incompatibility.

    In my opinion, a DM/GM/ST should not allow 'wayward children' unless it is part of the overall plot and the player in question can roleplay intrigue. OOC knowledge is another potential problem between players.

    We all rp to have fun and all it takes is one player to spoil it for everyone else. Just my 2c

    Posted 17 years ago #

  3. confluence
    Administrator

    I think it all depends on what the players and DM intend for the campaign to be like, and what the player of the weird character intends for his/her character.

    Some character concepts are, at least on the face of it, unsuitable for certain campaigns because of their skill sets. If a campaign is heavily based on going to very formal tea parties and subtle political manipulation, a dedicated fighter character isn't going to fit in very well. If a campaign is going to be all fighting all the time with a side order of fighting and fighting for dessert, it's probably pointless making a non-combatant.

    But there are exceptions, and ways of making this kind of thing work. The fighter could be a young nobleman, who would really rather be on the battlefield than drinking tea with a bunch of politicians, but he has to learn how to handle himself in polite society, because his older brother has died, and he is now his father's heir. The non-combatant could be stuck travelling with a bunch of fighters for some reason (sticking with them for safety, or because one of them is a relative, or because they've made some kind of deal).

    The player would have to understand from the start that their character will be at a certain disadvantage, and be willing to play their character in such a way that doesn't nerf the game for everyone else (the fighter continually picking fights and insulting people, or the non-combatant continually doing suicidally stupid things in battle and having to be rescued).

    The DM can try to make things more fun for such characters by giving them the opportunity to do something cool within the framework of the campaign, by using the skills that they do have. For example, the fighter could impress people with his knowledge of military matters at a point where this is politically important, and the non-combatant could help the party to scale down a combat or avoid it entirely -- by fast-talking the enemy beforehand, sneaking up on sleeping foes and stealing their weapons, using magic to make them sick or sleepy, etc.

    There are also characters who are unsuitable for a particular campaign because who they are would make certain people within the setting react to them extremely badly -- playing members of groups with terrible reputations falls under this. There are also possible workarounds for this: the offending character could be disguised (magically or mundanely), or the campaign could be set in a place where such prejudices are not as absolute (like on a dangerous frontier, where you can't be too fussy about your companions, as long as they can fight). There is potential for all kinds of cool storylines to come out of something like this, but it's definitely something the DM needs to be willing to incorporate into the campaign. If it doesn't fit into the DM's vision at all, such characters should be disallowed.

    The exceptional character who has the most potential for party destruction is the character whose goals and motivations run completely contrary to the rest of the party (e.g. an evil character in a party of good people), and whom the player has no intention of reforming, ever. A campaign in which the players are (overtly or covertly) working against each other can easily become dysfunctional. I'm sure there are people who don't mind playing like this, but I haven't personally heard any success stories.

    I think that both the "bad skills" character and the "evil" character can be made to work well if the player intends from the start for the character to change during the course of the campaign, and eventually learn to fit in with the party and the campaign environment. Characters can change, and roleplaying their progress can be fun. This, however, is something the player needs to be willing to do, and to find fun. If a player wants to play a character whose motivations are static and unchanging, it should be a character who is a good fit for the game in the first place.

    Posted 17 years ago #

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