Character Design Theory

[Vulcan]

Re: Character Design Theory

 

Our Champions DM has been running the same world for 15 years or so, so we know the campaign background pretty well...

 

Backstories in his games usually tie into events in past games. Quite often very small events that only one person remembers off the top of their heads, but still established campagin events.

 

Case in point: The Thor analogue in an early game was an avatar who had taken over the body of a freshly decceased paramedic. The dead paramedic had a wife and son, who made a brief appearance in game. A couple campaigns later, another player decided the son started weightlifting to become more like his 'dad,' and along the way discovered he was a mutant 'brick'...

 

Such things happen in our games with regualrity.

 

Another example: my wife joined the current game a few months after the campaign started. In this game, our players were 'non-sactioned' heroes in a world where heroes legally needed a government sanction or risk being hunted down. To enforce this, there are Federal, State, and Local superhero agencies - and in Chicago, it was the Paranormal Crime Division (PCD) that we were trying to avoid.

 

Well, one of our early missions went bad, and we were trying to escape from the villian's HQ in a borrowed tanker truck. One of the PCD, overzealously trying to prevent our escape, blasted the tanker truck with a flame-based power, setting it on fire... 2 Segments later (after most of us Dove for Cover off the truck) BOOOM! Many civilian fatalities ensued.

 

My wife decided to play the (now ex-PCD) character. Now THAT was some good roleplaying, trying to fit her into a group that generally hated her. She played up the whole repentant bit, though, so the group eventually forgave and accepted her.

 

(Ironically, it was my own character who was the hardest on her, but that was because my character had some very dark deeds in his past, and he was sure she was undercover trying to flush him out...)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Character Design Theory

 

Our Champions DM has been running the same world for 15 years or so, so we know the campaign background pretty well...

 

Backstories in his games usually tie into events in past games. Quite often very small events that only one person remembers off the top of their heads, but still established campagin events.

 

Case in point: The Thor analogue in an early game was an avatar who had taken over the body of a freshly decceased paramedic. The dead paramedic had a wife and son, who made a brief appearance in game. A couple campaigns later, another player decided the son started weightlifting to become more like his 'dad,' and along the way discovered he was a mutant 'brick'...

 

Such things happen in our games with regualrity.

 

Another example: my wife joined the current game a few months after the campaign started. In this game, our players were 'non-sactioned' heroes in a world where heroes legally needed a government sanction or risk being hunted down. To enforce this, there are Federal, State, and Local superhero agencies - and in Chicago, it was the Paranormal Crime Division (PCD) that we were trying to avoid.

 

Well, one of our early missions went bad, and we were trying to escape from the villian's HQ in a borrowed tanker truck. One of the PCD, overzealously trying to prevent our escape, blasted the tanker truck with a flame-based power, setting it on fire... 2 Segments later (after most of us Dove for Cover off the truck) BOOOM! Many civilian fatalities ensued.

 

My wife decided to play the (now ex-PCD) character. Now THAT was some good roleplaying, trying to fit her into a group that generally hated her. She played up the whole repentant bit, though, so the group eventually forgave and accepted her.

 

(Ironically, it was my own character who was the hardest on her, but that was because my character had some very dark deeds in his past, and he was sure she was undercover trying to flush him out...)

 

First off, nice necromancy.

 

This is what I appeared to be talking about, at least to a point: here we have a character who is already int he campaign, with certain obvious constraints on creation (flame powers, PCD background) that can be made to work in a group by a bit of effort and, well, a lot of role playing. Good job.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Character Design Theory

 

First off, nice necromancy.

 

Actually, that "Similar Threads" thing at the bottom of the page now seems to create a lot of necromancy. So, I blame it by default when I see a necrothread.