Have you ever built the same character more than once?

[Christougher]

Have you ever finished building a character, only to notice how similar it is to one of your other characters? What did you do with them?

 

I'm running into this with my Big Book o' Villians, almost 500 of them, finding many that are too similar. Should I just nuke one, combine the two, differentiate them more, or some other suggestion?

[Cassandra]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

Actually, I find that a lot of my builds share the same characteristics and skills. I created a template that allows me to produce Martial Artist/Detective characters, and then I add individual skills and powers to set them apart.

 

I do have a few rules in creating characters. First most of mine are 250 Points [150+ Disadvantages]. Heroes tend to have a lot of skills, making them more wellrounded. Villains are attackers. Even a mastervillain will have a lot of Followers or Summonds to do his bidding. Their are a few 350 characters of my design. These are the founders of the superhero world, or the Archvillains who threaten to take over the world.

 

As with your characters, maybe retire some of your designs that are like others, and rewrite their background so they are related to others like them. As one villian is killed off or retired, then one like them can take their place. You keep your design, and add another story element.

[Peregrine]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I still am, actually, because I've never really had a chance to play the character. So I just keep building variations in the hope that, one day, I'll be able to play it.

[hfergus]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I've really never built a new character only to find it similar to another. However, Volt and Olorin have been rebuilt from 3rd to 4th to 5th to 6th edition. Also ramped down once in 5th edition when I got a new group. (What can I say? I like the characters.)

 

One person I knew had all his characters the same as possible, no matter what the game. Even the name and personality. Good ol' Grey Wolf. At least we knew what we were getting.

[Rapier]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I've done that. I've used them both. Sometimes you get one concept that is tweaked slightly differently and sometimes you just get two people with similar powers.

[RexMundi]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I'd have to say, in the Early days I tended to do the Xerox Commando thing, sometimes not even changing the name. After a few years of that I discovered I got a kick out of trying to Not repeat things I had done before. I think a lot of folks go through a Copy phase myself, and there isn't anything wrong with copying something that works, or that you have fun with. I've just gotten to the point of, what I have fun with, is building the stuff others don't, or won't, and things I haven't before.

 

Theme templates though I don't consider to be copying though. That's just effcient.

 

~Rex

[Tasha]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

Yeah it happens to me mostly in Heroic games. I really like to play the Strong, tough mechanic when the genre make sense for that type. I also like playing the charismatic talker types. So most of my characters tend to be one or the other. Yeah, I do try to write up others and I tend to not be as interested in them. I guess it's a phase.

 

Now another way of looking at the same basic question.

Once I make a character for a game, I will usually play it though a couple of combats and almost always rebuild the character. I tend to do this because I find that some schtick that I came up with doesn't work the way that I hoped it would or it is apparent that I bought stuff that just won't ever be useful in the GM's campaign. Sometimes I miss the campaign's powerlevel (either too tough or too wimpy) so I rewrite the character to fit better.

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

No, can't say I have but then I only have like six PCs I've played over 28 years. I make a point to make them as different as possible. One thing, however, always ends up the same . . . I'm always the damn leader, no matter if the PC is mousy lawyer type or Ghost Archer. Dynamics of personality, I guess.

[Gideon]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

As far as PCs go, while the answer is yes, it is with the caveat of "not in the same game". In Champions, I have made just over a dozen PCs, and I have made sure that none of them are very similar.

 

I have two bricks for example:

 

Mesa is 7'4" 1,000 lbs. He has no secret ID, and is married with kids. He went to college for cultural anthropology and linguistic studies before gaining his powers. He is basically a really big, white version of Power Man.

 

Titan has traditional growth powers (ala Giant Man and Colossal Boy) allowing him to be anywhere from 5'7" tall weighing 173 lbs to 68' tall weighing in at 177,152 lbs. He got his GED while in jail after being arrested for working as a Viper trooper. After gaining his powers, he turned his back on Viper, changed his name and joined a super hero team. They still don't know his origins.

 

Except for some standards: teamwork, power, resistant defense, leaping, power defense... the characters have almost nothing in common. And I did that very purposefully. But like most others have said, this works when you have a small group of PCs you are talking about.

 

I believe when it comes to characters (especially villains in comic books and super hero RPGs) you can end up with too many. So my comment would be to do a combination of all three. Part of this depends on how you run your game though.

 

If (like some) you run a living world type game where all those characters are supposed to exist together, and all the heroes in all the games you've run all operate on the same earth, then don't nuke. Kill some of them off perhaps, but don't simply nuke them out of existence unless your players have never seen or heard of them, they never did anything you think was significant, and there is someone else very similar you like better. However, if you have a character who has never seen play and is really close to one who has (or your campaigns have no continuity between them) just nuke him.

 

The option I find better most of the time is to simply combine characters. This can be as simple as saying: "well, you see Heroes Inc. never captured Freeze-man so I didn't feel it necessary to announce it to people that Iceberg was the same person when Super-Squad fought against him. None of the PCs were the same, so they never would have known."

 

At this point you can go as simple as Nuking "Freeze-man" and retro-continuity fixing things so that "it was always Iceberg the whole time." You can even take parts of the nuked character and "give" them to the other character. Or if you want you can go the more complicated route and make a new third character that combines what you like from the other two, and once he's finished scrap both of the originals.

 

Characters you don't feel you can do this to (or you really just like too much to nuke this way), make different. It shouldn't be hard. Different skills, minor power differences (elemental fire VS radioactive fire VS super-heated plasma fire). If you get stuck, you can always ask for advice. I'm sure people here will be willing to help.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I'll play almost anything, but I find my PC Heroes tend to gravitate to certain things. I really like acrobatics, often seasoned with some sort of martial arts training. I like high movement rates, so even if a character isn't able to Fly, Super Jump or Teleport he probably can still run at least as fast as an Olympic sprinter. Frequently my characters have very high physical attributes combined with a high INT. I often play scientists or inventors, but sometimes I just like to be street smart. Overall, I dislike playing characters that are stupid or unable to take advantage of a creative situation.

 

My collection of NPC villains is another matter entirely. Lots of idiotic brutes, one trick ponies or "how far can I take this goofy idea?" type experiments.

[Arkham]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

With PCs, no. Even if I had two characters with similar power sets ( not yet ), they would have different enough backgrounds, personalities, details and play styles to keep them well seperated.

 

With NPCs/Villains, I accept redundancy and even embrace it. With at least 5,000 superpowered NPCs in the world, there is bound to be a great deal of overlap. ( Assuming the prototypical 1 in 1,000,000 distribution ) It allows rivalries and teamups between villains of similar builds. A group of the world's 'living flame' types could make for an interesting encounter. Though in all honesty, when just sitting down to fill out the NPCs of my world, I start with figuring out things that I am missing and going from there. But sometimes a name pops out at me demanding a certain concept/power set which is already represented.

[Beetle]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I have created the same character more than once, but not unintentionally. Black Arrow (my original Champions character) has gone through about 4 different versions.

 

In the Shadowrun game I'm in, I played back-to-back trolls with the exact same physical stats, but they were very different characters. One was a gang-banging muscle-head, the second wanted to be Hawk from the Spenser novels.

[Christougher]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

With NPCs/Villains' date=' I accept redundancy and even embrace it. With at least 5,000 superpowered NPCs in the world, there is bound to be a great deal of overlap. ( Assuming the prototypical 1 in 1,000,000 distribution ) It allows rivalries and teamups between villains of similar builds. A group of the world's 'living flame' types could make for an interesting encounter. Though in all honesty, when just sitting down to fill out the NPCs of my world, I start with figuring out things that I am missing and going from there. But sometimes a name pops out at me demanding a certain concept/power set which is already represented.[/quote']

 

This is *exactly* the situation I'm in, and wondering if I have to do anything about it. Heck, with some of them, I could just use the same writeup twice with different names. So... your advice is just go with the flow and not worry about it?

[Egyptoid]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I thought I had this great idea for an earth-based dude.

turns out all I did was make an Irish version of Sandman

 

better version HERE

[Arkham]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

This is *exactly* the situation I'm in' date=' and wondering if I have to do anything about it. Heck, with some of them, I could just use the same writeup twice with different names. So... your advice is just go with the flow and not worry about it?[/quote']

 

Pretty much, yeah. If you want to differentiate them, tweak each one a little. Have one be in a team, and the other be a loner. Or give one about 25 more xp and call them the more experienced villain of the two.

[Gideon]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

This is *exactly* the situation I'm in' date=' and wondering if I have to do anything about it. Heck, with some of them, I could just use the same writeup twice with different names. So... your advice is just go with the flow and not worry about it?[/quote']

 

Its not a matter of needing to do anything about it. Its your game. If you don't think things are broken, don't try fixing them. If you do think things are broken, people have given some suggestions on fixes.

 

I say, look at what you have and unless you don't like something keep it.

[Prestige]

Re: Have you ever built the same character more than once?

 

I have rebuilt the same character but usualy it is for a different game system.

 

You could also look at the simlarities and see if you can link them together story wise. Like two cold projectors who hate each other because they both think they are the MASTER OF COLD!!!

Or hunt each other to see if they unlock each others power it could be added to their own..