A slightly different 31 day character challenge

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A slightly different 31 day character challenge

Postby salamanca » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:05 am

Sam sort of inspired this but i wanted to wait and not steal his thunder. But I don't want to spend time building new character i will never get around to playing. And i never cared much for stats.

So I am going to attempt to post 31 characters I have played, what made them interesting and why the GM should have loved and hated them.

The rest of you are very welcome to post your own favorites. But you absolutely CANNOT post stats, just short backstory, descriptions and a MANDATORY why the GM should have liked and hated them.

So why is 31 characters so hard? I am mostly the GM. I rarely get to play and it's even rareer to find someone who would run a game that was not D&D. So I do consider editions to be different games.

So, here we go.
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Dungeons and Dragons Basic Moldvay Edition

Postby salamanca » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:17 am

We are starting with the first (and my favorite version)

Argon
Argon was a dwarf. He owned a Battleaxe and some chainmail. He got nicknamed "Openshield" because he got hit a lot. Argon was a dwarves dwarf. He liked ale and hitting stuff. He hated elves, mead (a sissy elf drink), magic, and goblins.

Argon was in a party with another dwarf named Gromm. Gromm was even more against all that stuff.

why the gm loved him it was a 2 player game. Gromm's player and i took turns running and we both had an active character. Jimmy only owned one adventure...Against the Giants. So 1st level Argon charged in against hill giants with is best pal. And he never flinched.

why the gm should have hated him Argon and Gromm charged in refusing to consider asking for help or using potions, magic items or pretty much anything that might ensure survival. We died early and often. (And then we would try a do over)

I still have the character sheet from 1980 on crumbling yellow legal pad.
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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:36 pm

I didn't put the edition because, of course, at the time there WERE NO editions. There was only the One Game to rule us all.

Well, I'm willing to play along, though I don't know how many characters I've played that I can remember. Of course, everyone remembers their first time, and mine was Lyst (pronounced like "list" not "lie-st") Human Ranger who was an unabashed ripoff of Stryder (not Aragorn, I didn't want to be king, just wanted to do cool Ranger stuff). This was WAY before Drizzt, so no dual wielding, just a bastard sword (heh, heh, heh, I still remember thinking it was cool I could say "bastard" without getting in trouble) and longbow.

Now I know this is the second post on this part of the thread but I am already going to break the rules. Rather than tell you why my GM should have loved/hated this character, I am going to tell you why Lyst loved/hated the GM

Lyst loved the GM (my childhood best friend Larry) because, like me, Larry didn't really understand the rules, he just wanted to play (real bad childhood for Larry, AD&D was his escape to a world he could control) so this was less a dungeon crawl progression to powerful characters, and more a drag race through randomly designed dungeons where we were fighting demogorgon within a few hours. (truly the term "Monty Haul" fails to adequately express how over the top rewards were in this game)

Lyst hated the GM because, of course, we quite quickly became the de-facto gods of Larry's world and after Lyst got married to some other godly powerful NPC (I'll spare you her description) Larry stuck Lyst with some weird rock-like creatures who were obsessed with, um, watching... (Oh boy, writing that out is physically painful and embarrassing, and unfortunately, it's all true.)
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Re: A slightly different 31 day character challenge

Postby salamanca » Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:52 pm

Mark, we are both doing better than my pal Steve. His group thought you rolled a d4 by tossing it, picking it up and ADDING the numbers on the bottom for your result. (Giving the average dagger 6-9 damage before bonuses)
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Champions 2nd ed.

Postby salamanca » Sat Jan 02, 2021 9:40 am

Feedback

Feedback is an 80's British hero with a spikey crew cut top mullet. (Because, 1988) I still have no idea how he worked mechanically because my roommate was a Champions mechanics savant.

So, his powers centered around a very bad day on the rugby pitch where he took a pummeling in the scrum followed by being in the area of a science lab explosion, getting hit by a car and his "girlfriend's" actual boyfriend having a discussion with him. All while wearing a very uncomfortable pair of underwear.

Yeah, yeah...get on with it.

So Feedback woke up from that coma with the ability to absorb damage. Physical beatings, projectiles, energy, elemental...you name it, Feedback could take it...and send it back with a little bit extra.

So what has that to do with tight undies?

Psychosomatic side effect, Feedback got the power to subconciously adjust his clothing. It started with underwear that didn't ride up and soon became generating his costume and then developed into generating temporary body armor when he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. But he couldn't shut it off. So the British flag on his uniform ripples like it was in a breeze. Sometimes his street clothes shift when he doesn't want them to do so. He often loses pockets and what was in them.

why the gm should have loved him
He is goody but earnest and his power to send energy back was linked to the last type of damage he took. A smart GM or villain could easily just ignore him or zap him hard and follow up with a weak slap. He was also a team organizer, creating lettering on his uniform back to silently plan strategy with teammates.

why the gm hated him

That absorb damage coupled with body armor made it impossible to hurt the guy...at all. Plus he was a Giffen era Justice League type on a team of wolverines in a game the GM wanted to be Avengers.
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– AD&D 1st Ed. –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Sat Jan 02, 2021 11:19 am

(NOTE: I am foregoing the "different game system each time" because I, quite frankly, don't have near enough played characters to even get close).

Blackguard
After a while I grew bored with Larry’s world conquering plot (and the accompanying teenage-boy related subplots). So I thought we should do a different game. We both wanted to play so we just used the random dungeon creation rules in the old DMG and both played. One glorious day of pure destruction. I wrote up an Assassin (since they had that cool auto death chart, remember that?) after a few hours playing I had a Sword of Sharpness and +5 Leather Armor. What’s that? Tell you a little bit about the character and his motivations? Oh sure. He had a Sword of Sharpness and +5 Leather Armor.

Why the GM should have loved this character – I cannot think of even one reason why a GM should like this character other than the fact that there was literally no thinking involved on the GMs part. Just say “here’s where you begin” and make a bunch of rolls to create the dungeon and monsters. Voila!

Why the GM should have hated this character – Well not just Blackguard, the whole Assassin character class really. It just didn’t fit, and the auto death table was just crazy. But as for Blackguard in particular, he was barely a character at all, just a collection of stats and treasure. The ONLY thing he had going for him was I had fun playing him and still have fond memories of that time.
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- Marvel Super Heroes -

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Sun Jan 03, 2021 7:51 am

Because I am up early...

White Ninja
First attempt at doing a superhero game. Randomly rolled up this katana wielding superspeedster. I wanted to do the ninja thing but the super speed (which if I recall the system correctly was on par with The Flash as opposed to Quicksilver) kind of made the katana superfluous. So I did the logical thing and didn’t use the super speed.

Personality-wise, White Ninja was full of himself and his capabilities. Despite his supposed need to learn how to do things quietly, he never did that. EVER! He’d get right up to the bad guys and announce himself before trying to fight the whole group (often requiring the other players to come rescue him) On one particularly memorable occasion, after the other players had apparently had enough of my shenanigans, they left me to fight all of them and moved on with the adventure. And the GM went along with it. Rather than announce they’d beaten me or that I was triumphant and could now rejoin the group, I was stuck fighting all of them for the whole adventure. When they were all finished they happened back past where I was fighting and found all of us unconscious (and according to the GM, White Ninja had decided to become the middle spoon in the spoon drawer.) If they thought it would teach me a lesson, BOY were they mistaken! I gleefully did it again the very next adventure, all the while trying to select who would be my next “little spoon” The other players got the hint, realizing they weren’t rescuing me from them, but them from me. We all got along much better after that.

Why the GM should have loved this character – A superpower the player refuses to use, that’s kind of quirky, I’d enjoy the challenge of seeing if I could give them reason to embrace it.

Why the GM should have hated this character – Wow talk about an 80s cliché, he even rode a Ninja motorcycle (told you I refused to use the superspeed).
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Nightlife

Postby salamanca » Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:01 am

Nightlife showed up on shelves at the same time White Wolf broke out with Vampire. It was much more the 80's style thin paper cover RPG than the all flash slick 90's hardcover. It was also a game where you had the chance to play different horror monsters in the same game. AND more importantly to us, it was not an angsty emo game about feeling bad about being a vampire. It was a game about being a monster that formed a rock band playing local clubs.

Harry Murphy

Murph is a werewolf and bass player with The Skreemers. (Murph got outvoted but his band name idea was quarter beer nite) The band never was willing to play enough Pogues, Black 47 or Thin Lizzy for Murph's taste. They also refused to let him sing or contribute originals (which were teally Murph just picking out songs he liked and telling them "but we play it faster and change the lyrics to be about cheese and Guiness". He really was full of bad ideas. The test of the band were happy to let him be the group leader...everytime something went wrong.

We never built up a local fanbase because the Vampire and Demon in the band kept killing them and stealing their souls for lunch.

In the least ironic thing to ever happen in an RPG, the two players who were actually in college club bands played the sound guy and the roadie.

why the gm should have loved him
Murph was trying. He was fully invested in making the band work. Not to mention some Prima donna lead singers who kept missing shows. (The ghost will ghost you) He also never killed a plot device.

why the gm hated murph
Murph had terrible taste in music when creating his "originals". Plus the whole group found multiple occasions to talk about "Harry Murph" in front of people who had no idea he was running an RPG forcing awkward explanations.
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– Palladium (Fantasy) RPG –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:30 am

Doing chores, so since I am up once again...

It was just called Palladium when I played it, but it became their fantasy game. So here we are.

Areiele Starshine
Areiele was an Elven Ranger(still before Drizzt but seeing a pattern here?) who had a sword that was way more interesting than the character. Started Palladium when Larry grew bored with AD&D and picked this because it was “more detailed” and “the alignment system is much better!”

Honestly, this was the second RPG I ever tried, I knew how AD&D worked but I didn’t want to make any assumptions, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I guess that’s my defense for how little personality Areiele had. He had big plans, go be an adventurer, get famous, that kind of thing. But Areiele got a sword in his first adventure. The sword, Brightmourn could speak, it had ideas, and it hinted at a great destiny awaiting Areiele should he be brave enough to embrace it. It also had enemies, enemies from ages gone by who were trying to thwart it. Enemies who I had never heard of before, but who were now, by virtue of holding this sword, my own enemies. Areiele ran off to claim his great destiny, full of honor at having been chosen by this sword above all others, to participate. Areiele never did fight gods, but that’s only because the power curve to get there was even steeper than AD&D.

Why the GM should have loved this character – Honestly, any GM who said that they loved this character was probably really in love with their own writing. The sword was all Larry’s idea. I just kind of went where the sword lead me.

Why the GM should have hated this character – In retrospect, this character is much more appropriate for the Wield RPG. And geez Mark, did you add enough vowels into the name?!?!
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

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Die, Conservative, Die

Postby salamanca » Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:43 am

This was a very terrible and tiny indue RPG that somebody Printed on their Apple 2e and xeroxed before selling out of their bookbag.

But they also ran it at the local con back in the day in a time slot with few options so we played it several times.

The concept is you are extremely psychotic ultra liberals looking to rescue Jello Biafra from the clutches of the people that wanted to censor music in the late 80's. (It was terribly bad but option B was RPGA stuff)

Tom McGinty

Tom was an angry postal carrier with ptsd from late 60's protest sit ins. He armed himself with a mailbox (i was thinking rural classic box on a post. The GM kept describing a big blue city public drop box) and stormed out to bash whoever looked at him wrong. It was a series of mayhem slaughter with next to no roleplaying.

why the GM should have loved him

Tom had a character and goals. And a moral code despite his hair trigger temper.

why the gm hated him.
The GM actually took me aside after the second session and asked me to stop trying to interact with characters and just kill people. Roleplaying was not an acceptable goal at his table.


Naturally, I returned for another session and brought more roleplay friends.


Tom, by the way, was the most conservative character by a mile. The others were too offensive to post.
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Star Wars: whichever version was d20

Postby salamanca » Tue Jan 05, 2021 8:52 am

Reeda Noak

Reeda is a Trandoshan (like Greedo) pilot. He isn't a smuggler (at least not to his knowledge) and he isn't all that opposed to the Empire, he just wants to do his job, make enough to fix up the ship he has a stake in and not get killed in the process.

So what does Reeda do? He and his business partner own a small cargo freighter of a similar age and design as the Millenium Falcon. Their ship is registered under the name "Incontinent Weasel" by a previous owner. They try to down play that and would change it but the Empire has vast amounts of red tape.

Reeda's partner also has fewer qualms about smuggling. But they agree on fixing up the ship. The engines are nothing special but it's on the list. The manuvering is ok and on the list. Internal amenities are on the list too. So what has been upgraded? A very bright paint job, neon undercarriage light kits, a bounce kit on the landing gear so they can make it hop on the landing pad, AND a sound system loud enough to hear bass in the vacuum of space.

Reeda and his partner work as star ship parts delivery guys. Hauling hyperdrive parts and couplings across the galaxy to nerfherders who had their ship breakdown in some asteroid field full of mynocks. Lately, his partner has been also offering rideshares to some other guys. Reeda hates these guys because they keep drawing imperial attention.
He and his partner now regularly exit the ship at every port with their hands in the air shouting "Whoa, easy there! You got the wrong guys!"

why the gm loved Reeda
He was the only honest guy in a team of rogues and naive enough to not notice what was going on. All while hauling the troublemakers where they needed to go.

why the GM hated him
Reeda and his partner are total cowards and never spent a dime on a useful ship upgrade. We used to flip a coin to see who had to fly the hard parts of a job with the loser at the controls. Our catch phrase wasnto duck and shout "Oh, Jesus" when action happened.
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Re: A slightly different 31 day character challenge

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:16 am

Everything you wrote for reasons to hate Reeda, are reasons I love him.
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

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– Champions RPG (3rd Ed.) -

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:22 am

Anarchy
First time I ever played Champions and it was awesome. First year in College, joined the Campus Roleplaying Group. In addition to introducing me to Champions the GM (whose name I have forgotten but whose face will live forever in my mind because he looked a hell of a lot like Henry Rollins) also introduced me to the punk movement and took me to see a Fear/Black Flag double header at First Avenue in Minneapolis (where I also learned about mosh pits and what cracked ribs feel like). Anarchy came about because the GM was running a villains campaign (I had never considered being the bad guy before this).

Anarchy’s secret identity was a secret even to him. It might be better to call it an alter-ego. Melvin Smirtz was a lady’s shoe salesman. He wasn’t good at his job, his co-workers didn’t like him, his sales were abysmal. But if he got smacked around, his alter ego would come out to play. So, throughout in this campaign, the GM would come up with more and more ridiculous reasons for Melvin to be in the area when the shooting started. Oh yea, one more thing. At this point in Champions, damn near every hero had the “Berserk: when a normal is harmed” flaw. Anarchy delighted in flash frying a normal as his first action. The GM VERY quickly learned that giving the Heroes a Berserk that caused them to “attack the nearest thing regardless” meant I could get the heroes to start killing one another. And Anarchy would just sit back and watch the chaos.

Why the GM should have loved this character – GM actually did love this character, and not just because of the way I delighted in ruining everything and everyone. I singlehandedly forced him to do a lot more work designing heroes I couldn’t easily get to destroy themselves or one another.

Why the GM should have hated this character – I went a little overboard with the multipower. Along with his gamut of various levels of flaming death from a distance, he also had a one-shot, explosive, armor-piercing, hardened, extended range, area effect ranged killing attack which was akin to a small thermonuclear blast (the effects of which took up about 2/3 of that map that came with the game). Setting it off forced Anarchy back into his Melvin identity. I used it exactly twice. The first time was against the heroes we fought in our first battle (Anarchy swooped down into the middle of them, yelled, “Show’s over Folks!” and blew them all to kingdom come.). And the second was as a lark, killing the remaining members of my supervillain “group” (it was the end of the year and half our members wouldn’t be returning so a couple of them wanted to see if they could survive my blast, spoiler alert, they couldn’t). Plus, come on, “Anarchy?” You edgy much Mark? I also came up with a "tagline" that was just an earsplitting insane-sounding laugh, and I am quite certain everyone at the table hated when I did it.

Why the other players should have hated this character - Anarchy didn't work and play well with others, and was just as likely to ruin their plans as the supers. (yup truly a dick character). Unbeknownst to me, the other players almost quit en-masse until the GM suggested they speak to me to see if I could see how I was ruining their fun. I did, and we came up with a solution (essentially every plan they had, had two versions. The first was the actual plan that they'd be doing (to get whatever money/equipment/gizmo they planned on working on) and the second was the plan they'd tell Anarchy they were doing I agreed to deal with that plan and that plan only (so I could "mess it up" but that would end up helping them). Plus that "fight on a lark" I mentioned above? In retrospect I wonder if it wasn't their attempt to finally get some revenge on me by killing my character.

Yea, all in all a failed attempt at a PC on my part (although a good Villain NPC when I need a "Joker with superpowers" type).
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

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Re: A slightly different 31 day character challenge

Postby cpugs » Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:37 pm

This topic is a little emotional for me, but here goes.

First, some background. In 1975 I met my best friend at Origins, John Corradin. He was big into role playing and from Delaware. I signed up for 3 of his events and was sold 10 minutes into his first event. He was a master role player and GM and it was like my eyes were opened for the first time. It will be tough for this group to understand, but in 1975 I was afraid of my own shadow, and role playing was an exercise of the mind on how to figure out the situation and put my team in the best situation to "win". Thus the problem, I was engineering the situation rather than playing a role. John invited me down to their January get togethers for role playing weekends. I still remember the first weekend event where I was a hobbit politician. I kept asking to roll the dice rather than role playing the event. John told me a needed to "find my voice". I was too shy and retiring to pull it off for a while, till this role playing weekend.

The character: Groo the Wanderer. I read the comics and loved the character because he reacted to situations without thinking, so for a weekend I did just that. I immersed myself in Groo from Friday night till Sunday afternoon.

Why the GM hated my character: John and his friend wrote a role playing system that we ran over these weekends. By Sunday, he pulled me aside and said how could I attempt these things that we couldn't do in the system.

Why the GM loved my character: I told John, "Groo didn't know the system, he just reacted how he would." John shook his head, hugged me, and said, "Chuck, you found your voice. I love you."

The problem after that was that I never learned to shut up, but that is another story.

John passed Memorial day weekend two years ago. Still miss him. Occasionally dream about him and the talks we would have...
Last edited by cpugs on Thu Jan 07, 2021 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A slightly different 31 day character challenge

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Wed Jan 06, 2021 12:00 am

Wonderful story Charlie. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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D&D rules cyclopedia (the hateful '83 basic set)

Postby salamanca » Wed Jan 06, 2021 9:06 am

Elrid Eclin

Elrid ended up special from "birth" I rolled 16 for each of his stats on 3d6. Any gamer of that era would have said Elf and been done with it. But the GM was pretty against elves and I was still respecting Jimmy's anti elf stance too. (Even if i had moved and Jimmy would never hear of it) So i took the worst route possible and tslked the GM into figuring a way to drag the dual class rules from the Advanced game. And a fighter/mage becane a thing.

He was the serious voice of responsible reason in the group. (That's right, i played the responsible character) Elrid had goals and plans...so many plans. He wanted to solve problems. We had a full time magic user so Elrid focused on passive spells, stuff that would protect the party, translate, gather information and not explode. It becane an issue with the group that i never cast a spell in a combat. The sword worked quite fine for that.

why the GM SHOULD have loved him
The GM hated him. He should have loved having a character that wanted a campaign beyond killing things and taking stuff. He used to gush about his big brother's campaign with all this beyond the dungeon stuff to do. But the younger brother was not up for creating all that.*

why the GM hated him
Elrid did not care about crawling in caves to kill the next level appropriate monster tribe. He didn't see a pile of gold and magic weapons as treasure. Elrid was a character looking for a long running campaign plot stuck in a weekly tactical sweep.

*In college, I got to play a campaign with the older brother. He was also a really lousy GM. I learned a lot about what not to do from him. He had a campaign and a story in mind and you were expected to play along and complete it HIS way with no free will.

In the decades since Elrid, i have seen characters with identical straight stats (usually 18's) but i have never seen one that was rolled at the table with witnesses.
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– AD&D (2nd Ed.) –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Wed Jan 06, 2021 11:02 am

Devone Stormchaser
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Half Elven Ranger, bastard sword, bow. The aforementioned “Henry Rollins” clone played with his roommate and a few friends in their own home game in addition to running stuff for the Campus RP Group. His roommate was the GM, so I got to be one of the cool kids and hang out with them for a couple of weeks. Then my grades started slipping (because they would run these marathon 24-36 hour gaming sessions every weekend) and “Henry” and his roommate had a falling out and the whole thing gloriously imploded. But boy what a rush.

Devone was, in retrospect, closer to Aragorn than my previous attempts. He kept his elven heritage quiet, kept his hair long (covering his ears) so he looked much like a human who was incredibly long lived. He also differed from my other versions in that he was a true ranger. He didn’t need to be the center of attention, nor was he trying to lead anyone anywhere. In fact, the loud party members (including “Henry’s” obnoxious dwarf fighter) made the perfect setup for Devone to lay in ambush for their enemies. On more than one occasion Devone simply killed the baddie wandering up to the group’s campfire before anyone knew what had happened. Devone’s long silences also made him/me the spiritual center of the group. The other members of the party (who were apparently dealing with their own real life issues) took Devone’s/my silences to mean we would listen to them about their problems. And we did. In fact, in this campaign (for the little time it ran) I got more private slips of paper than the GM did…

Why the GM should have loved this character – Well there were really two campaigns running simultaneously during this game. The first was being run by the GM who had a plan for our party to go into the mountains and fight a hidden evil lurking there (honestly, I think this was the first campaign I ever joined where there WAS actually a plot we were supposed to solve as opposed to an excuse to kill monsters and steal their shit). And the other had no GM, just the players who were having real life issues. The GM loved Devone because he was the one to listen to the GM and keep the story going. The players loved Devone because he kept the personality clashes being experienced by them from breaking out into open warfare. (in retrospect, I believe I was sitting at a table with at least one borderline, possibly two, and a couple of other personality disorders. Had I been any closer, or not had a “home” to go to, this would have been FAR worse for me. I think that’s why the GM and I got along so well).

Why the GM should have hated this character – I am not sure if having Devone/me there gave the GM (who was really more akin to me in personality than the whole rest of “Henry’s” group of friends) the will to get out of this situation (i.e. that he saw how off-the-rails his personal life was going), or if having a character who was looking for adventure (rather than free therapy) being there kept him from taking off when he probably should have.
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– Rifts RPG –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:01 pm

“Runner”
After Palladium’s Fantasy game, they started putting out Rifts (a game that had a great idea if they could have just changed literally every single mechanic for the game. I’m sure you’re all familiar with it but Larry was in love with Simbedia’s (is that how you spell it) art. Plus his being a huge X-Men fan, he dug on the Coalition States’ analogy to Days of Future Past storyline. Initially Larry’s plan was for me to dust off Areiele Starshine (this was years later, I’d left Oregon for Minnesota, finished high school and my first year of college then returned to Oregon). In any case, his plan was for Areiele to step through a rift and carry on in this new world (Larry had even kept the character). HOWEVER, just one look at the new mechanics and that idiotic MEGADAMAGE (yes it has to be in all caps) and we realized the only way Areiele would survive would be to have magic (which he didn’t really) or to have Brightmourn be capable of dealing MEGADAMAGE (and through some miracle have Areiele NEVER once get hit by MEGADAMAGE).

So in walked “Runner” (heh, I made a funny.) Runner had been experimented on by the Coalition so much that he couldn’t remember anything about his past. And his name was not some clever play on words or anything like that. It’s just that, in his earliest memories (which occurred maybe an hour before the first scene) he was moving at a high rate of speed and a passerby said, “Boy, he sure is a runner!” so he just figured that was his name.

Runner met up with Larry’s little brother’s character a rogue Glitter Boy Pilot (for those who’ve mercifully never played Rifts, Glitter Boys are shiny chrome covered Moble Suit Gundam mechs without the ability to fly, and with rail guns so powerful that in order to fire them, the feet fire spikes into the ground some 10’+ deep.)

We quickly discovered that Juicers could wipe out a Glitter Boy with little difficulty as it takes several actions for the Glitter Boys to get their railguns ready to fire. And by that time, the Juicer is standing atop the mech and punching big dents into the head (yes, for reasons Juicers can do MEGADAMAGE).

The downside to Juicers is, all those performance enhancing drugs take a toll on the body, so Juicers have a very short lifespan (think 4 years max). And Juicer suffered right along with them. His reign was cruelly cut short when, after our 4th game we were finally convinced the game was horribly unbalanced to the point of unplayablity. Larry continued buying all the books and reading them, but we never played again.

For the sake of completeness, the adventure had been for the Glitter Boy and I to sneak back into Coalition territory to see if we could learn who I was and where I’d come from (perhaps even see if I had family) and for the Glitter Boy to get revenge on the Coalition forces who’d killed his family (in retrospect we should have spray-painted the Punisher logo on the Glitter Boy.)

So, to clarify. A steroid jacked up dude with all manner of pipes and wires sticking out of him who can run at around 70mph and a 25’ tall shiny silver mech (of a type which are no longer made because they are too badass and which everyone wants so they can try and copy it), WITH a huge-ass railgun built into one arm* are SNEAKING into this world’s version of Nazi Germany to wreck some shit.

Why the GM should have loved this character – I mean come on, we’ve all seen Blade Runner, I even put the title in my character name. Runner is quite literally Roy Batty with a memory problem. It’s all a great setup for him to discover his humanity before he dies tragically, like tears in the rain…

Why the GM should have hated this character – in a word, MEGADAMAGE. This is an enhanced human that can punch out Optimus Prime. Much as I set up a situation where a story could be told, the simple fact was I COULD DISH OUT MEGADAMAGE! Who in their right mind isn’t gonna see how much stuff you can destroy before you go down swinging, am I right?

*I’d like to address this too. So as I mentioned, Glitter Boys are no longer built in the world of Rifts. There are only a few left, and they are considered the pinnacle of mech technology. And they do lots, I mean LOTS of MEGADAMAGE with those railguns (when it was just the first book, I believe Glitter Boys did the most damage of all the character classes). Now admittedly I am no expert when it comes to railgun technology. But correct me if I’m wrong, they can’t just, say, stick a minivan into the railgun and use that as the projectile, right? So they have to have some kind of shaped projectile, it just stands to reason. Now, again, I mention, Glitter Boys are no longer built. So WHERE are the Glitter Boy pilots getting the railgun ammo from? Is there some kind of aftermarket black market railgun ammo store of some kind?
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

kenderleech wrote:If the cows were not meant to be ridden, why would they be so close to the chase scenes?
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Rifts: since Mark brought it up.

Postby salamanca » Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:21 pm

I only played this twice. But the character created a legacy and ended a long running group.

Johnny Hargrave

Johnny was a juicer because I looked at the rest of the group and decided that a character pumped up on super drugs was the most normal option available and wanted to be low key. Well, let me rephrase that... less important in a group of younger players with a less experienced GM. It didn't work. For starters, the GM insisted I have a pretty hairtrigger drawback that would set me off and told me I would start swinging every time I was touched due to drug sensitivity.

You can all see where that is going to end... I did too. I even had a target in mind.

Johnny was the scout for the team because 7 teens wearing combat mechs can't do recon as well as a jittery junkie hooked on super soldier serum. So I led them into some questionable locations seeking out more juice.

It fell apart in session 2. The kid that felt Glitter Boys were not awesome enough insisted on dragging a Veritech over from the Robotech game Palladium also produced. AND talked the GM into letting him wear the transform into a motorcycle armor while piloting it. He thought he was invulnerable and was bullying the other players into his way or nothing since the campaign started. Then he bumped me.

Mark was not lying about juicers. Fight started. kid transforms into a jet and flies off and I hold on. grenade launchers get set off at point blank range. Veritech gets blown apart at 12,000 feet. Motorcycle armor gets blown apart on the way down because I am blowing up everything just for spite now. And I survive the landing.

Why the GM should have loved him
He was the only character that was not built to exploit the system's mechanics. I honestly could have made him much nastier. He was also the only character with a backstory, a goal, and a potential story ending.

Why the GM hated him
He played up the flaws the GM placed on him to the extreme.
I don't mind growing old... but I hate growing up.
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Re: Rifts: since Mark brought it up.

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Thu Jan 07, 2021 3:12 pm

salamanca wrote:Mark was not lying about juicers. Fight started. kid transforms into a jet and flies off and I hold on. grenade launchers get set off at point blank range. Veritech gets blown apart at 12,000 feet. Motorcycle armor gets blown apart on the way down because I am blowing up everything just for spite now. And I survive the landing.

I know, you're all saying, HOW could the Juicer survive terminal velocity? Because it's not (say it with me) MEGADAMAGE!

Oh and in case you're curious what MEGADAMAGE is vs. normal damage, If I recall correctly, while it didn't translate exactly, you could safely assume 1 pt of MEGADAMAGE was roughly equivalent to 1000 hit points of damage.
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

kenderleech wrote:If the cows were not meant to be ridden, why would they be so close to the chase scenes?
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Re: Rifts: since Mark brought it up.

Postby MacShidhe » Fri Jan 08, 2021 8:11 am

Black Jack Rackham wrote:I know, you're all saying, HOW could the Juicer survive terminal velocity? Because it's not (say it with me) MEGADAMAGE!

Oh and in case you're curious what MEGADAMAGE is vs. normal damage, If I recall correctly, while it didn't translate exactly, you could safely assume 1 pt of MEGADAMAGE was roughly equivalent to 1000 hit points of damage.


I've re-read the Robotech RPG Rules too many times. M.D.C. originated in the Robotech RPG and worked pretty well there because because human vs giant robot means human go squish.

1 Mega Damage Capacity (M.D.C.) = 100 Structural Damage (S.D.C.)/Hit Points

If M.D.C. was the only problem with Rifts, it would be playable with a halfway decent GM. As it is, I think it may be the only game where the game writers have managed to break their own system through damage inflation.
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Toon

Postby salamanca » Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:15 pm

Jerky Berky the Christmas Turkey

Berky is a very aptly named character. the turkey was slated for the holiday dinner table and could see the writing on the wall. For obvious reasons, Berky was not on board with the poultry plan and was doing everything in his power to redirect the menu to Petulant Pig who also lived on the farm.

Berky was sort of like Foghorn Leghorn if said character was in the Itchy and Scratchy universe. and a lot louder and more aggressive. He excelled at throwing pies usually pies with anvil filling. As good as Jerky Berky sounds, he lived up to the Jerky part. Berky threw everybody under the bus for his own benefit...all the time.

Why The GM loved him

Berky was funny. nothing ever was done just from a malicious angle... wait, not true. It was malicious but Berky always made sure it was also funny. Plus, every time another player fell down, that was 10 minutes they were not sharing Berky screen time. Less work for the GM

why the GM hated him
Berky made a lot of people fall down to the point it was often a solo game. No fun for anybody.
I don't mind growing old... but I hate growing up.
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– GURPs (2nd Ed.) –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:53 pm

Guthry
Human with a lot of combat skills and a few farming skills thrown in for flavor. Guthry came about because I got accepted at OSU (A note, this is the PROPER OSU, not that pretender to the throne you midwesterners serve. This is OREGON State University, home of the BEAVERS!) I joined a fraternity. Mike, a friend who’d also played in several of Larry’s old games had been playing RPGs with the guys from this frat. He went on and on about how much better GURPs was than anything he’d played up to now. Well, Larry’s game while nostalgic fun, was not the kind of game I wanted to be playing in anymore. Not knowing anything about GURPs I went with the most basic PC type I could possibly imagine. Even a quick look at the books revealed how much different GURPs was (It’s still among my top favorite generic RPGs to use when I am trying to emulate near-our-reality worlds). Played for almost a month before frat had its first party, at which actual women were present. Given the choice between gaming and dating, I chose the latter (Mike, alas, did not).

Guthry started life as a farmer, unassuming work but honest. But there simply wasn’t enough money in it, especially when the local lords used his lands (on more than one occasion) to stage their disagreements. Seeing no future in farming, but with a lifetime of heavy lifting/work making him quite the physical specimen, He joined a small (and unnamed) mercenary company which had done some work both for and against the local lord. Not being high in the company, he was a complete unknown, so when his company took their latest job against the lord (and summarily had their fannies handed to them) he was clamped in irons and thrown into one of the lord’s dungeons to rot. (Of course, this all came about because the other players had been thrown in jail and this was the easiest way for me to meet up with them.)

His first time in action, Guthry threw a monkey wrench in the GMs plans because they were apparently supposed to spend the first session chained to a wall and speaking to one another (to gain trust/learn about one another) or maybe they were supposed to connive the guards into letting them go. I was never really sure, but those were the kind of plans Guthry could never remember (they involved more than one step).

You see, Guthry was a strong farmboy and more than able to take a bit of physical discomfort, so he just swung around and treated his chain’s anchors like any of the stumps out in his fields. When his wrists started to bleed, he just kept pulling. And finally, his chains anchors could take no more and out they came from the wall, whereupon Guthry hit the ground like wet cement. Of course the guards came to check the sound and found him free. They ordered him down on the ground but instead, Guthry used the chains to beat them senseless. When he offered to free the other players, they readily agreed. So Guthry did the only logical thing he could think of, he grabbed one of the other characters by the feet and started pulling…

Yup, Guthry was not a real bright boy. But point him at something or someone and tell him how small you wanted the pieces to be, and he was your guy. One time the other players got the bright idea to turn Guthry’s massive damage capability into a ranged thing. So they gave him a crossbow (the best strength-based long range weapon in the game) designed specifically for his high strength. He shot himself. Twice. In the exact same spot. When the players still didn’t get the hint, he shot the mage in the ass, then proceeded to try and help remove the “pointy thingie,” by yanking the quarrel free. All this was without malice of course. Guthry didn’t want to hurt anyone in his company. They always made sure he had food and a soft bed. So they were his best friends, or rather his new best friends since the old ones had apparently abandoned him in the dungeon. It was just that Guthry couldn’t be trusted with complex machines. Or really anything more mentally taxing than “hit thing with other thing, hard.”

For the month I played, Guthry had a higher kill count of all the other players combined. And the other players loved him for it. When we would go into new towns the other players would take time out to get Guthry a new present or some such (Guthry didn’t understand the whole concept of gold more than what he needed to buy himself something to eat and a place to sleep, so the other players divvied up his share amongst them).

Why the GM should have loved this character – Guthry was a simple man with simple needs. He could be talked into any adventure no matter how ludicrous by simply telling him there would be food and a bed tonight if he did… [whatever the adventure called for]. He also sparked fierce loyalty among his compatriots. One night’s adventure had a conman steal all Guthry’s money (off screen, GM asked me to play along) and the players not only stopped what they were doing (in a time-sensitive adventure) to go find this guy, but their plan included leaving his corpse someplace public with a sign warning anyone about the punishment for tricking Guthry. (a total “murder-hobo” move in a group that was anything but.) In the end, Guthry himself had to save the poor conman from a grisly, grisly death (again, accidentally, of course).

Why the GM should have hated this character – Guthry went adventuring forever. I figured when I left the other players would just move on and have Guthry retire (after all, he’d gotten enough gold for them to buy him someplace nice and let him live out his days). But boy, oh boy, was I wrong. Guthry kept playing for at least two years after I did. GM kept adding new players who kept hearing tales of Guthry and they’d adopt him too. He even tried forcibly retiring Guthry, but nope. Players kept finding ways to bring him back in. Sheesh… (note all of this greatly amused me because after a time, I learned the GM was kind of a dick in real life, and I am quite certain he was not all that fond of me either)

*Later on that first session the players asked my why Guthry had attacked the guards and not the rest of them. So I pointed out that the Lord was Guthry’s enemy during his previous adventure. Since his other compatriots were gone, one had told him the Lord's men weren’t the enemy anymore. So when more of those uniforms showed up, they were still the bad guys (and his old company used to tell him who the bad guys were (and thus who he was supposed to hit). The only reason the PCs didn’t get smacked was because they weren’t wearing the uniforms. This was especially humorous because the thing that got the other players locked in the dungeon was impersonating the guards…
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

kenderleech wrote:If the cows were not meant to be ridden, why would they be so close to the chase scenes?
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Shadowrun the 2nd edition where players got choices

Postby salamanca » Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:04 am

Ok, this guy may have been 1st and certainly got rebuilt into 3rd but 1st ed Shadowrun was pretty much a play a pregen system. This is one of my favorites ever.

Armistice

Armistice is a retired "Company Man". That is a person who worked for a corporation as security and eventually got trusted enough to do things like business espionage, very hostile takeovers and outright theft of prototypes. To help him do that, the Matsumura Corp. frequently sent him to their R&D to install cybernetics that would help him do the job.

Armistice as a shadowrunner was after he had retired from all that. He was out to pasture, relaxing at home and spending his days watching old hologran episodes of Matlock. His old Corp. was happy to pay his pension and that was that.

Except these young inexperienced runners kept hearing about this guy who could do things they needed done. And they started knocking on the door. And they had terribly suicidal half baked plans that were gonna get them killed. And dammit, why am I back in the game?

This particular game was full of "young" gamers. At least 4 years younger than the GM and I which seemed like a huge experience gap when we were 23. And they needed a veteran player to hold the reins on their "I am toting 42 guns in all concealed" attitudes. That was the plan behind me joining in. It worked, they learned. And we had fun on the way even if i was only part time on the game. (They were running 3 sessions a week amd i had commitments to other campaigns.

But i would get called at home on off nights to do things in sessions i would not be attending. The 42 gun nut wanted an arsenal planted in a church for his wedding. (It wasn't paranoia, the GM attacked the wedding) The guy interrupts me on a date to run through all his locations for these weapons. He puts the GM on who apologizes and I say, sure. I place all this for him. Now the GM is shocked I am playing along. So I drop the stinger...Kid, never asked me to load those guns. I hear it went well for the GM.

Armistice was cool, he knew people that were good to know and he never was worried about getting out alive. He also knew Bull who he will assure you is NOT "the best damn ork decker you never met".

why the GM loved him
He trained up the other players for a great GM. He never double crossed a job, he never asked for spotlight time. He just let mistakes happen and then fixed them.

why the GM hated him
He was part time in a great campaign but on a schedule. He had to be coerced into doing the job EVERY time. And his solutions were unorthodox.

We got pinned down on session...no way out. Then mouthy Mr. 42 guns started bragging about buying the "platinum doc wagon" package where they send in a fire team with the ambulance if needed. So I shot him in the chest and got the rest of the team out under cover fire from the medics.

Good times but the GM really needed us caught there for his story.
I don't mind growing old... but I hate growing up.
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– Call of Cthulhu 3rd Ed. –

Postby Black Jack Rackham » Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:49 pm

Dr. Mark V. Edwards, Ph.D.
Before I played this game, I never once thought I’d like it. No killing the monsters? Really? But a young woman I was sweet on (and who loved some dude named “Lovecraft”) convinced me to play a game she wanted to run. Before this I thought CoC was really for the theater crowd, not a “real” gamer like me (I’ll pause here while you all castigate me for my stupidity).

She had me write up a character with some version of my own abilities. And told me to just use my own name since, according to her, “You’ve never really played in an immersive game.” She said she didn’t want me breaking character. During the game, she pulled out ALL the stops (blackened room, candles, props, the works) and I was hooked (and not just because of how much I liked her). Dr. Edwards died that night, and I couldn’t wait to play more (and sadly it took almost a decade before I did ;( ) and if you’re curious, yes I still remember her name.

So what was Dr. Edwards like? Contemplative, skeptical, not quick to anger or judgment. He exercised caution in all our encounters. He refused to carry a gun or any other protective armaments because, “The only monsters we shall meet are those within a tortured soul’s own mind. There is nothing to fear that I cannot make sense of.” On one particularly memorable occasion he helped ease the growing madness out of one of his fellows and sent them back to fight the stuff of the mythos with a smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that this was nothing more than a simple case of mass hysteria, just like Dr. Edwards had said.

Once the weirdness started for real, he did a serviceable job of re-explaining all the weird phenomena using pseudo-psychological terms (I confess the moment I realized I could use phrenology to explain the weird growths on the deep one hybrids we’d found I nearly had a joygasm) When Dagon showed up Dr. Edwards handled it with all the stiff upper lip fortitude he could muster. Which is to say, he showed no symptoms until the very moment he went stark raving mad, picked up a nearby stick, and began stabbing his own eyes out. He reasoned that Dagon would kill him and he wanted to keep the creature’s image from being burned into his retinas (fearing someone would see his killer’s visage and go mad themselves). If I recall correctly it was I who volunteered to kill myself in so grisly a manner. I was actually only supposed to start harming myself. But remembering the old “killer in your eyes” thing I just had to go for it.

Why the GM should have loved this character – For never having played the game or even read Lovecraft at this point, I think I did a pretty darn good job striking the right tone (though I think all credit should go to our GM who realized having a psych major playing a psychologist would make for an excellent character design). I also think the “these are just sick people we can help.” attitude was both appropriate and lead well into not carrying a weapon. The good Doctor got along well with all the other players (and there were a lot, I think 10 people at the table) and was eager to get to the bottom of the situation (even if his understanding of the “situation” and the “bottom” were both wildly incorrect).

Why the GM should have hated this character – I think the good Doctor was destined to be a one-hit-wonder. His non-belief was crucial in making him think he was invulnerable (or that the peril was not really very perilous). Had he survived, he would likely have become a far different character after the first session and that would have changed the dynamic at the table.
smafdi wrote:STOP BEING SO DARN POPULAR GUYZ SRSLY I NEEDZ MEH GAMEZ TIHS YAER!!!

kenderleech wrote:If the cows were not meant to be ridden, why would they be so close to the chase scenes?
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