Unusual Character Ideas

[fbdaury]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

I was in a game whee everyone but one player had characters like this- mine was Dr. Zeus, mildly disturbed lighning wielder who later discovered he was actually the lastest in a long line of Zeus' illegitimate children, and the only one of them to get the lightning! Then there was the Spirit of '76- I know what you're thinking, patriotic character, right? Wrong- he was the livinh embodiment of the 70's- think a cross between the Shadow, Batman, and Black Belt Jones- he did have a styling ride and a pimp-cane though. And last but not least, Che- a super strong brick that at one point beats the death god Hades in an arm-wrestling match. But here's the fun part- he was the reincarnation of Che Gueverra empowered with great abilities by the loas of voodoo fame and was the national hero of Cuba.

[OddHat]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

I was in a game whee everyone but one player had characters like this- mine was Dr. Zeus' date=' mildly disturbed lighning wielder who later discovered he was actually the lastest in a long line of Zeus' illegitimate children, and the only one of them to get the lightning! Then there was the Spirit of '76- I know what you're thinking, patriotic character, right? Wrong- he was the livinh embodiment of the 70's- think a cross between the Shadow, Batman, and Black Belt Jones- he did have a styling ride and a pimp-cane though. And last but not least, Che- a super strong brick that at one point beats the death god Hades in an arm-wrestling match. But here's the fun part- he was the reincarnation of Che Gueverra empowered with great abilities by the loas of voodoo fame and was the national hero of Cuba.[/quote']

 

I like the Spirit of '76 and Che!

 

The Decades: 10 heroes, who together embody the greatness of the 20th Century!

 

Turner!

Mister 17!

The Betty!

The Escapist!

GI Bob!

The Man!

Rainbow Revolution!

Spirit of 76!

Big Eighties!

Net Surfer!

 

Ten heroes out of time, and out for justice!

 

OK, I'll stop now.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

A while back we had this same discussion or something similar and I said I always wanted to play a growing character who flew because the visual seemed so strange and cool to me. So I wrote one up and I liked how he turned out.

His name is Gargantuan, and he is the Earth's Champion Monster Fighter. So he attracts giant monsters to challenge him. He got his powers from a magic belt buckle he found encased in the trunk of a tree. The buckle had an inscription that told him to shout "Go Go Gargantuan" but he didn't believe until his house was attacked by a giant lizard monster. He can throw the buckle like Cap's Shield and deflect things. It's also really shiny and he can blind people with reflected light. He flies, of course, and grows. And the buckle's inscription changes and seems to communicate with him, so he wonders if there's some sentient force controlling the buckle or if it's actually alive in some way.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

I was in a game whee everyone but one player had characters like this- mine was Dr. Zeus' date=' mildly disturbed lighning wielder who later discovered he was actually the lastest in a long line of Zeus' illegitimate children, and the only one of them to get the lightning! Then there was the Spirit of '76- I know what you're thinking, patriotic character, right? Wrong- he was the livinh embodiment of the 70's- think a cross between the Shadow, Batman, and Black Belt Jones- he did have a styling ride and a pimp-cane though. And last but not least, Che- a super strong brick that at one point beats the death god Hades in an arm-wrestling match. But here's the fun part- he was the reincarnation of Che Gueverra empowered with great abilities by the loas of voodoo fame and was the national hero of Cuba.[/quote']

 

So what was the NORMAL concept?

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

The Rook: telepathic martial artist with a suit of powered armor that gave only minor "real armor" benefits, but enough powers to take him to superhero status.

 

Dr. Marrow: Decipedial Supervillian a field archeologist who became a human paraplegic when his leg bones were absorbed by a demonic dinosaur(a dinosaur deamon, rather than one based on humanocentric deamons) which also heals by "eating" bones, fossilised or not. Together they became possibly the most dangerous villian ever faced on the planet which also hates itself more than the heroes hate him.

[Maelstrom]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

My brother -- (dive for cover) -- came up with A-list. A major-league celebrity, his powers were entirely based on what he could do in the movies.

 

Also, Ricochet -- a Dark Champions type gunslinger. Except that he's an extra-dimensional mage, and the guns aren't even a special effect -- they are completely meaningless -- take them away from him and you're as likely as not to find out that they're completely solid, or made from hollow chocolate, or similar. That and a leather-duster-of-many-things, and a 4-color attitude, and Dormammu's number on speed-dial . . .

 

I neer get concepts like this. My oddest concept was in an AD&D game, and the GM rolled it randomly. Ready?

 

Were-rat. Engineer. Pacifist. Coward. Bad personal habits and hygiene (almost goes without saying for a w-r). Brilliant. "Now, roll-play it, Mike." It was so fun I hung onto the character for over a decade.

[S7Michelle]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

Color Girl, who can fly and change the colors of things - that's it (this was in a different system, where "power stunts" were possible - amazing the stuff that this character pulled off with such a basic power)

 

Ok, now you have me curious. Can you give some examples please. While I can see some usefulness to being able to change the colors of things, hard to hide or change to your secret id if you are bright blue, I think a lot of villians wouldn't be intimidated by "Stop or I'll turn this wall green."

[Maelstrom]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

"Stop or I'll turn your aqueous humor opaque black."

[Maelstrom]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

"Stop or you'll be wearing white shoes after Labor Day, I so SWEAR IT!"

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

Ok' date=' now you have me curious. Can you give some examples please. While I can see some usefulness to being able to change the colors of things, hard to hide or change to your secret id if you are bright blue, I think a lot of villians wouldn't be intimidated by "Stop or I'll turn this wall green."[/quote']

 

"Stop or I'll turn your face including your cataracts persimmon.", there's just loads of fun with Transform Anything into Anything of a different color.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

Some other tricks you could do with Color Control:

 

-Camouflage effects ( matching background exactly )

 

-Limited disguises ( altered hair, skin, eye color )

 

-Illusions of various forms produced by altering the color pattern of, say, air

 

If the color control stretches to the non-visible range as well, there are all kinds of *EVIL* tricks you could do. Like changing the "color" of a column of air so that it no longer reflects the "color" of, say, high powered UV rays. . . with an opponent at the bottom of said column and the sun above the other end.

[fbdaury]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

So what was the NORMAL concept?

 

Well, it wsn't that normal but was colored by the player's perceptions of gaming and not by a desire or demand that she make an odd character- she was a powerful fey who had been the first Belle, diminutive sidekick to the SAS character Pan, and had later been a fey ambassador to Olympus, where, you guessed it: She has an affair with Zeus. The character was my character's mother and it made for a HIGHLY dysfunctional childhood raised in a giant treehouse in the middle of Central Park the bastard child of an unknown father. She was highly effective with her magic but quite physically frail- she was the party member I had to (choose to?) heal the most.

[wylodmayer]

Re: Unusual Character Ideas

 

Ok' date=' now you have me curious. Can you give some examples please. While I can see some usefulness to being able to change the colors of things, hard to hide or change to your secret id if you are bright blue, I think a lot of villians wouldn't be intimidated by "Stop or I'll turn this wall green."[/quote']

 

I'd be glad to provide some examples of Color Girl's more interesting tricks; she was always one of my favorite characters. Now, remember, this was in a system where "power stunts" were possible - you couldn't do this stuff in Hero, because a lot of these tricks have potent effects of their own, and would constitute separate powers. Further realize that as useful as some of these things were, she was still very much a junior member of the team, and by no means did anyone mistake her for a front line character. Nonetheless, it was fun to see how much could be done with such a "limited" power. That having been said, here were my favorites:

 

1) On several occasions, and this trick worked especially well indoors, she would turn herself, and the entire area surrounding an enemy, to the exact same color of grey, down to removing all contrast distinction from the area. One fellow ran off the edge of a building; obviously this totally eliminated any ability to identify separate objects or judge distances. It outright scared the hell outta some thugs, once.

2) A similar trick involved rapidly changing the brightness/contrast distinctions of everything around a character; although nothing was actually moving, the result was a horrible motion sickness, as the target's visual cues no longer matched what his equilibrium was telling him (i.e.: he could tell he was standing still, but his visual data denied that rather violently). One technicolor yawn, coming up (no pun intended).

3) She often turned herself "invisible" (transparent) this way. She sometimes did the same to allies (although this was disorienting for most people, as this is not a case of being invisible to everyone but yourself) and enemies' equipment.

4) When feeling particularly vicious, she would simply turn everything down to an enemy's internal organs transparent. If you recall, that outer layer of skin is there, at least in part, to keep ultraviolent radiation from cooking us. Albinos, people who merely lack pigment, can suffer painful burns if they go outside unprotected. Imagine what it would be like if you had no skin at all...

5) In a slightly similar vein, on sunny days during outdoor battles, she was known to occasionally turn any number of surfaces facing an enemy into perfect reflective surfaces. This sort of thing relied as much on good luck as anything else, but it was fun when it worked. She occasionally made herself 100% reflective, which might blind anyone looking at her if there was enough light in the area.

6) Eyelets, goggles, facemasks, helmet visors, etc could all be made perfectly opaque. This could get annoying to enemies. It caused at least two opponents to be forced to remove masks/helmets that provided some measure of protection and/or part of their powers.

7) Similarly, laser weapons don't work well (read: at all) if the lasing tube is clear; she usually just turned the whole gun transparent - it was easier.

8) Obviously, there's a whole cottage industry in turning things transparent when you have a Telekinetic on the team.

9) She made a nice side income doing printing jobs for people; her control was fine enough to form letters, pictures, etc, on paper. She also did auto detailing.

10) Once, while the team was stranded, she made a nice reflector for cooking.

11) You'd be surprised how many villains get distracted from what they were doing when various insults begin appearing on their costumes.

12) Likewise, although it wasn't often worth much of a bonus, she still made a habit of putting targets on the bad guys.

13) In a misty or dusty place, she might turn the mist or dust around someone's head into an impossibly bright color; although it would disperse immediately, it was basically a small Flash attack.

14) She boosted the power of a laser once by altering its color, thus shortening its wavelength.

 

As I said, while a lot of this stuff is neat, no one mistook her place on the team; she was a very junior member, basically a sidekick. Still, she managed to contribute some useful moments, and was great fun in roleplaying. Her background - former juvenile delinquent - gave her a few useful skills, and the team insisted, eventually, on outfitting her with a sonic stunner pistol. She was a fun character.