You, or your PC?

[DusterBoy]

Something GloryFox said on the "Peeves" thread got me thinking. When creating characters, how much of yourself do you put in or do you enjoy playing PCs who are completely different from you?

Most of the characters I have come up with are pretty much like me, at least psychologically.

Physically, on the other hand . . .

[Certified]

Something GloryFox said on the "Peeves" thread got me thinking. When creating characters, how much of yourself do you put in or do you enjoy playing PCs who are completely different from you?

Most of the characters I have come up with are pretty much like me, at least psychologically.

Physically, on the other hand . . .

See I tend to go the other route, modeling the Physical characteristics around myself, you know Strength 50 Dex 30 etc and working on vastly diffrent mindsets for more of a challenge.

Okay, real answer...

I think the default when making a character is if something is unstated or "unimportant" when if comes to philosophy or mindset then they do tend to follow the players ideals. Off the top of my head there are really two times when this differs. One, when the player decides to to go with something diffrent as a role playing exercise or just for fun and two when we stop to explore the character and really think about what their personal beliefs might be based on their experience not ours do they begin to differ. Although you amy say these are the same thing, the former relies less on motivation and more on player goals while the later is more of thought experiment.

I'm sure there other other reasons or instances when these differ but I think that captures the main ideas. Most of the gamers I play with have told me at some point that their character's personality is just a mirror of their own or what that would want to be.

[lemming]

I'll borrow elements from my personality, but many of my characters have different ideals and ways of doing things. Likes & Dislikes are another thing.

For instance, the smoking thing. I dislike smoking, but a few of my characters did. It just fit in with what their personality would be like.

Of my characters, there's only a few I'd actually want to hang out with.

[steamteck]

I rarely get to play anymore but when I did I would often have very different personality in my characters. I'd try extremely different approaches just for fun, I could never sustain out and out evil though. As GM entirely different thing going on though.

My wife though plays cynical hardboiled characters, naive and idealistic characters, vain characters, characters that don't care about their appearence and eat pain like candy. Everything under the sun.

[Lord Mhoram]

When I design characters certain aspects of my core morality/philosphy are alway present: respect for life, protective of innocence (or anger when it is abused), supporting the weaker, respect for divine powers, and some others. I tend to play for immersion, so when I play characters with a core morality too far from my own, I have a really hard time identifying with them. That does mean that certain patterns run through my characters, but they all have very distinct personalities.
In champions I tend towards martial artists, VPPs, and oddball characters that are effective in most circumstances. In fantasy games I tend towards mages, cleric/paladins and monks.

[boomer]

Some of my characters have traits of me (funny thing you ask this, we did a game once where we wrote ourselves up in Hero terms and the GM actually ran a game with us as us in a "what if you were attacked by werewolves right now" situation. Good thing we were at the Fumbler's house as he had a rack of swords and a .357 in a case.....weapons were handy in game terms) but most of my characters are designed by what I'm creating them to be. I usually go with a concept when creating a new character.

For example: My Namesake Boomer.....he's no where near me. He's 6' 4", solidily built, very Aryan looking (Nordic background..Erik "Boomer" Johanssen) and he's a Confederation Marine as well as a Noviatiate Clansmen (our version of Jedi) in Clan Nogano. He's also a Programmer and Hacker Extraordanaire as well as being very intelligent. Me, I'm 5 5, Sicillian, a bit overweight, in my 40's, and don't have much hair left....I have a college education, but I'm no where as brillant as Boomer is. Why a Hacker Marine??? The Squad needed a guy that could bypass security systems and update scanner programs to better help the team. Granite is a Body Builder and a roid head......see description of the real me for comparison. T'Lac my Ranger character in our Fantasy Hero game has aspects of Aragorn and Faramir (actually a screen shot of Faramir from the movies is his character pic as he resembles that actor in appearance) but I've also made him the deeply tragic hero (he was head of Ducal Security and Skaven under the command of a Demoness overran the Dukes dining hall, knocking the character unconcious and killing everyone). Me, I'm no tragic hero.....I work in a billing department......to me the whole fun of character creation is to create another person/being (I love playing Felines in our Fantasy Hero world and I've played a Drill Seargent Dwarf and a Draconian....no Elves though as I've played plenty of those in D&D...oh and I played an Ogier once (similar to Jordan's; actually the Fantasy Hero world we play in takes alot from Jordan) that our GM truly hated killing, but it was the situation I put him in....). I know most of us read Fantasy and Sci Fi, and I find it a challenge to create similar characters but not exact copies. Okay I did write up Clancy's John Clark once, but the conditions of character creation for that game screamed Rainbow Six Himself.

[Doomed Prophet]

Some of my characters are aspects of myself amplified, but most of my characters are very different than me... Although most are characters with abilities/skills I wish I could possess...
As a player, though, I've never played a character that would do something that I would never do (i.e. kill an innocent, sell drugs, rape)... I just can't bring myself to act that way (even in our criminal campaigns)...
As a storyteller, all bets are off...

[Bloodstone]

Most of the concepts I enjoy playing have traits I see in myself, only magnified through the lens of heroics. I guess you could say many of my characters have elements of their personality that I aspire to. But it's only ever bits and pieces. I would find playing a character too similar to myself to be boring. Where's the skill and challenge in playing a character that thinks just like me?

Of course, that makes things frustrating sometimes when I'm playing a character that doesn't have my experience or knowledge about a certain field. It's painful having to bite my lip or say "Well, I know this... but my character doesn't...".

There are also things that crop up in my characters frequently. I tend to prefer graceful, acrobatic high dex characters, even in systems where speed and agility are not favored by the mechanics. I also enjoy martial arts and traditional weapons so much in real life that I have to go out of my way not to play martial artist/weapon master types in games.

This is obviously something I need to work on still though. The last four characters I played extensively have all had martial arts of some kind (psychic swordsman, boxing/wrestling brick, animal hybrid Capoerista and alchemical archer).

A lot of times my concepts are pretty flexible though. "What does the team need?" is usually the first question I ask when I sit down to make a character for a new game. It's how my first demonic brick ended up being a skittish, paranormal detective in his human form. We needed muscle and we needed a skill monger, so I decided to be both and the personalities just sorta fell into place from there.

[BNakagawa]

several editions ago, there were a lot of games run around here that were called 'mutant runs' where you would just play yourself plus mutant abilities.

Then we grew out of it and I haven't seen any for a long time.

I guess the wish fulfillment aspect just got old and we started playing different kinds of characters. At least some of us, anyway.

Personally, I like playing characters that are significantly different from myself. I've had years of being me. I want to be something/someone else when I game.

[Hermit]

It is almost impossible not to eventually have -some- bleedover to my own PCs, NPCs are easier to keep entirely separate. That said, I have had (and maintained) some PCs that were very different in a lot of ways.

And, of course, most of my characters are much better looking/richer/cooler than their player Wish fulfillment is part of the game, after all.

[teh bunneh]

My characters are totally seperate. Why, if any of my characters were half as smart, cool, sexy, and powerful as I am, the other players wouldn't have anything to do!

[CrosshairCollie]

Small things are different, but major things aren't. There are some aspects of people that I simply lack the ability to wrap my head around, and so never play characters that display those elements because, well, I don't get it and can't play it.

There are viewpoints in the world that you may not agree with, but still get why people believe it, and then there are the thoughts that you're just 'WTF' about, I guess is what I'm getting at. The latter, I just can't do.

On the other paw, I know that my IC actions are just that and, no matter how much of myself I put into a character, I never take an IC response to my actions personally. All my characters tend to be smartasses and wiseguys; I simply have no interest in playing a grim and humorless character. So, if Sarcasto Lad draws some PC ire, it's just in-character.

[BoloOfEarth]

My characters are totally seperate. Why, if any of my characters were half as smart, cool, sexy, and powerful as I am, the other players wouldn't have anything to do!

Yeah, that's like me. I remember that time I was walking through the mall, and two women were admiring my waistline and rear end.

The one woman said, "What a waste!"
And the other said, "Yeah, what an ass."

[DusterBoy]

It is almost impossible not to eventually have -some- bleedover to my own PCs, NPCs are easier to keep entirely separate. That said, I have had (and maintained) some PCs that were very different in a lot of ways.

And, of course, most of my characters are much better looking/richer/cooler than their player Wish fulfillment is part of the game, after all.

Oh, absolutely. I see all my characters as being hypercompetent and really smart and/or intelligent, even if they're not unfeasibly good-looking. They also have comfortable levels of wealth and exude Samuel L Jackson levels of cool - 'cos Samuel l Jackson is the coolest guy on the planet, He doesn't even have to try - he just is - y'know?

[Amused]

I usually end up with character that take one of my personality traits and magnify it a couple times. (I don't even intend to with I start, that's just where the end up).

Gwendolyn - She doesn't understand why people can be cruel or mean. She knows that some people are, she questions why.

Vera - Extremely quiet, with a strong sarcastic streak to protect herself. I was nervous in the group, afraid of speaking so obviously the character didn't speak much. She lived inside of her head. I am planning on starting her up again, and it should be interesting trying to fill that role again.

Lauren - There is no black and white in her world. Vamps aren't evil by birth, but forced to by enviroment. The "good guys" deserve as much watching as the bad guys. She is slowly learning to trust the group she is with, but it's still going to be a while.