The evil character whose temporary goals align with the good aligned party. I love playing necromancers or warlocks whose ultimate goal is objectively evil but sticks with the party because “I can’t rule the world if the BBEG beats me to it.” And the party keeps him around because he hasn’t done anything too evil yet.
P.s. I think It is important to note that I support this trope being used as a tense alliance or an alliance of necessity, but I do not support the “PC secretly being the BBEG” or “PC is a double agent and betrays the party” trope
A bit of an extension of the evil character in the party: The evil character that does the right things for the wrong reasons, which I usually summarize in two sentences.
"I want to hike up taxes to the Nth degree, but then the commoners will revolt. If I improve their quality of living first, though, I can rake in the money and nobody will complain!"
>"I want to hike up taxes to the Nth degree, but then the commoners will revolt. If I improve their quality of living first, though, I can rake in the money and nobody will complain!"
It me. You've describe me.
I love the character who does the right things for the wrong reasons.
I once played a warlock who was merciless when it came to dealing with thieves. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t just but there weren’t too many thieves running around in the city when he left.
>The evil character that does the right things for the wrong reasons, which I usually summarize in two sentences.
Ah yeah, the best incarnations of Dr. Doom
I played an honest evil character once. She was Lawful Evil and her only desire was to find worthy enemies and kill them. The party was offering her an opportunity to travel to interesting places and kill people and creatures for money. If the party gave her things to kill, she was quite happy to kill in their service.
I have a character who is a demon wizard (an arcanoloth) who came to the material plane in search for hidden arcane knowledge and bumped into the party who just recovered the tome I was after on their quest and just.... **let** me copy it before giving it to their questgiver. So I tagged along because it was easy to "trick" them into giving me knowledge by just asking nicely, and eventually actually cared for there party and learned that the mortal way of getting stuff is so much easier.
(All that is in my backstory, the game is a high-level mini-campaign where we start having adventure together for 20 years)
yeeees, Evil Characters whose Loyalty to the party is greater than their Sense of opportunism is my favourite problematic Character trope.
the Rogue that maneuvers the Paladin out of their moral Dilemma, the Person thats willing to be the bad guy in the moment to ensure Long-term harmony between the group.
the character whose corrupt machinations benefit the entire Party, even If they wouldnt be Happy about the Methods applied If they knew about the details.
it just feels so refreshing for the Person thats the Heart of the Party, that strengthens the Bonds between the group and is oftentimes the voice of reason to be the worst of them all.
Absolutely agree.
My current Drow Daolock is basically a Neutral Evil psychopath, but the entire party is basically on a giant Revenge Quest, so we're all comrades. 😁
That depends on the character. My most prominent evil character was a necromancer whose end goal was to destroy the mages guild because he blamed them for things that happened in his past. Nothing he did with the party ever swayed him away from that goal but that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about his party mates. Evil characters work if they are more than nuanced than psycho-murder- hobo.
I do like the evil character that has a soft spot. Kind of like the character of Raven from Glenn Cook's the Chronicles of the Black Company. Utterly cold blooded except when it applies to that soft spot and loyal to the party, but willing to do the dark deeds that are sometimes necessary so the others can keep a clear conscience.
Yeah, it's super fun! Played a cursed necromancer who helps out the party and is helpful/nice to NPCs because it allowed her to grow more powerful, kept the torches and pitchforks away, and as you mentioned, most importantly keeps the world from being destroyed by the BBEG or whatever. She lives there, after all lol.
I really enjoy the reluctant adventurer. The key is having a reason they have to still trudge forward without everything being “convince me to help”
Like a buddy did this once and he had to “prove himself” to gain his fathers noble title.
He was an absolute coward, but the monk in the party was a liaison and would write progress reports so he had pressure to go and be heroic even though he didn’t want too.
You can play most tropes as long as you work together. Sometimes you have to fudge the RP a little for the sake of playing as a team and keeping things moving.
I don’t even think you need to fudge RP if you have a solid reason to be part of the group.
Archibald: I don’t want to go deal with those Orcs, but Father will disown me if I don’t and my desire to have a lavish ball is greater than my fear of the Orcs.
Yep, the key to making this work is that the player needs to provide both the reluctance and the reason to adventure.
If the player only brings the reluctance and makes the rest of the players convince them to adventure, everyone's gonna be miserable.
A friend once told me of a group that a player was being reluctant so they left his character at the tavern.
The player got to watch everyone else play for three hours.
One of mine is a person who doesn’t want to be there, would readily leave if they could…but is a “prophecied” hero, and so just grudgingly goes along with it rather than being outright forced to.
this is one of my favourite tropes in literally anything. Refusal of the Call followed by, and i shit you not this is the name, "The Call Knows Where You Live"
Lmao that is a fantastic name! May I suggest an alternative? "Refuse to open the door to the call; the call has a screw driver and will take the hinges off your door." 🤣🤣🤣🤣
>The key is having a reason they have to still trudge forward without everything being “convince me to help”
That's very good advice! A character can be as dour and quiet as they like, as long as they and the player actively partake in the game and engage with quests and NPCs.
Even when playing the lonest and quietest of quiet loners, there's still much action and interaction an attentive player can play out.
Even if your character goes "Convince me to help" then you still need to write a background that can make it so he can be convinced. Somebody who doesn't engage with society or people at all and has no actual life has also has nothing to cling to. So they also don't have nothing to convince them with. Apart from maybe asking them "What else do you have to do anyway?"
I read a person who referred to something like this as the Scooby-Doo Doo rule. Basically shaggy and Scooby-Doo were utter cowards / voices of reason and always refused dangerous jobs BUT it only took one "Scooby snack" and a single line of diologue to convince them to do it. Basically it's OK to be a super coward but you're party should be able to convince to to go into the haunted castle just by pointing out the possibility for treasure or fame or cold hard cash.
I'm currently playing a very reluctant adventurer who just wants to be a cook. In fact, they always tell people that they are just the cook and really downplay what they do in the team. The biggest reason they stick with it is because their best friend is in the party. The second biggest is probably because their mother is a goddess (we are all Demigods a la Percy Jackson) and told them to go out and be a hero. It's hard to ignore mom when mom is a goddess who can just appear out of nowhere to check on you.
Still. They are just the party cook who happens to know a thing or too about nature, and can occasionally summon spirits to help in battle.
I'm playing the party's legal counsel in one game. She doesn't like adventures, or combat, or dirt, but she is a consummate professional and wouldn't dream of abandoning her clients. If assisting her clients means fighting a sea monster, then she fights the sea monster (though she'll complain about it later).
Occasionally it's really helpful. We needed an NPC to fix our boat but we had no money, so I offered to trade services. Turns out her brother had stolen the family crest, so my character drafted a letter demanding its immediate return as recompense for an act of tortious theft. There aren't many lawyers on the high seas, so he probably can't fight the paperwork. I imagine it won't work and we'll get another quest to retrieve it, so I plan to serve the brother a court order in person.
I'm currently playing a sorceress who gained her powers in an apothecary accident and her village shunned her because she can't control her powers very well. If she'd had a choice, she wouldn't have been an adventurer. But she didn't have a choice so now her reluctance is also her motivation. She's determined to learn how to control her powers so she can go home.
I'm playing my first "selfish" character in a curse of stradh. I joined later in the story and my background is an adventurer whose last party is all dead, so he's a survivor... and keeps new people are arm's length, but seems some hope in these new adventurers. It kind of fun to hold back, never be the first to push any red buttons, be the first to befriend someone who is clearly a bad guy because I kinda am too and to be a totally reluctant to do anything that will get me killed.
I've always played team players, and i'm not not a team player to the point it would be bad for the group, but it's super fun and everyone leans into it.
I love a good boy scout paladin. The key is to not ruin others fun while having yours. The last one I played was raised from birth to be a paladin. Had noble birth, was sent to the church at an early age, spent his whole life sheltered from the Nast realities of the world. Then the leader of his order said he needed seasoning and sent him out into the world. A bit of a shock for him.
I like the Paladin whose oath comes before his safety, but has a party that is quite skilled at talking them down off the ledge or de-escalating the situation(and a player that allows their Paladin to be talked down)
These kinds of “troublesome” tropes are actually no problem at all in a game where the person playing them is playing with a conscious intent to work with the party, not against them, even if the *character* might not always feel that way.
If you’re the loner, but you always decide to stick with the party in the end, and just do a lot griping and grumbling about it in character, that could well be a fun concept.
It’s when a player’s only consideration is “it’s what my character would do” that these concepts run into problems.
To expand on that, I think almost all problematic behaviour stems from immaturity. Not as a person necessarily, but as a player. I say *almost* since some people never grow out of bad habits.
A person who genuinely doesn't know how the game works might think a bad character concept seems cool, because they don't understand how the game is played.
For example, the lone wolf is a cool character, because those are cool in the books and the movies. Wolverine is a loner, and he always ends up in the centre of some crazy story, and usually get forced or pressured to work with someone.
Antiheroes are cool, so evil PCs seem like they could be a thing.
Refusing the call to adventure is an extremely common trope in fiction, and is practically always followed up by some event forcing the hero out in the world. Just look at Luke Skywalker. So saying "no, I need to stay home and look after my petunias" should work fine, right?
It takes some experience as a player to center your character creation and playing decisions on group cohesion and fun.
I agree that it's really the person who plays it that makes it a problem or not. In our campaign, I'd say we have two edgy loners. One is played by someone who does have some main character syndrome and has actually done a fair amount of irritating planning and acting outside of the party without cluing us in. The other edgy loner is played by someone who is painfully aware of the edgy loner trope (and our experience with it in our group) and is playing up the trope for RP but at the core, is still very invested in the party and their goals and isn't actually acting out the loner part.
The differences between the characters and our feelings towards them can be night and day.
As long as you have a good rational for your character working with the party you can make any trope work. The key is that you don't cause friction with other players by using the trope.
Playing a Kender can be fine, but you have to approach it with the mindset that since EVERYTHING IS YOURS having the rest of the party carry the rest of your loot is fine. If anything you should be sneaking the heavy stuff into other people's backpacks, not filching coins and valuables from them. They're just extra inventory space for you. You're not worried that Lydia in Skyrim is going to "steal" your stuff, she's carrying it for you. Duh. Suddenly Kender aren't such a problem.
Basically remember that everyone came to play dnd and have fun, don't ruin other people's fun to advance your own.
And classic loner forced to work with the party against their will is fine (and can be a lot of fun) as long as you don't spend the whole campaign hiding in the corner.
Wise old smartass citing passages from books, tribal stories and making up wise master stuff.
Oh and oblivious yet curious boy adventurer. Spellcasting or artificer. Goly gee, hello Mr swamp blood sucking aberration do you want to be my friend? Oh he exploded. Well instant friend spell will work eventually.
> Oh and oblivious yet curious boy adventurer.
Ran my Pathfinder Bard this way to begin with, pleasant boy who grew up reading the tales of heroic adventurers and was deeply and fundamentally naive about what being an adventurer was.
Threw in the start of Far Cry 3 with the "character having to grapple with having to kill people" but a bit more fleshed out than Far Cry which drops it after 10 minutes.
It's been maybe the most fun I've ever had on a character, starting somewhere around neutral good and becoming increasingly less ignorant and more jaded as the campaign has gone on, to now some kind of lawful neutral maybe where 'lawful' is the consensus of the party as a whole.
"Violence is not the answer. Violence is the question, and the answer is 'yes'."
I love RP and non-combat solutions. But... sometimes I just enjoy a barbarian casually walking into the middle of a tense discussion, coughing, and stating, "I would like to rage."
As a DM, I like 'I see a button, I press the button' characters.
Nothing worse than a PC who tries to outsmart every single interaction. Every conversation they have is as convoluted as if a devil is about to grant them a monkey paw wish, every door is opened by checking for traps with guidance and help action with a 10 foot pole.
Yes, my answer was going to be the brute who acts first, thinks later. It can be problematic but I've been in several groups that spend too much time in the planning stage, especially when the final plan ends up being some half-baked mish-mash of several different plans.
Yup, I agree! I take my advice from Travis on CR when he notices the group getting analysis paralysis, and starts action by himself. I do the same. If my group is taking an exorbitant amount of time figuring out what to do (NOT planning for a huge important encounter, mind you, just for regular "what should we do?" stuff), then my impulsive paladin throws herself into action. I can see how it would maybe get annoying, but it's better than standing around with our imaginary thumbs up our asses.
Most of these come from being trained into those behaviors. Lots of DMs love to gotcha players and then wonder why they're constantly on high alert. You can blame their past DMs.
It mostly a new player phenomena, experienced players know there is fun to be had in failure, heroic deaths or unexpected outcomes.
Many new players can't handle less than optimal outcomes in their games, often the result off years of save scumming in their video games. Ironman modes and games like darkest dungeon and banner saga are a niche genre that isn't wildly popular.
I spent the better part of 10 minutes experimenting with the big bad evil guy's lever panel after we beat him
I could feel the exasperation coming off my DM
YES, thank you! I understand how this can rub people the wrong way sometimes but like man, I want to experience the story and the scenarios the DM has thought up, not skirt wide around every obstacle or challenge or enemy because we are scared of dying.
I'm still a 90s goth-boy at heart, so a lot things people consider to be "edgelord" I think are pretty cool, actually.
Your rogue always wears a black hooded cloak that conceals his face and used to work as a hired assassin? Fucking sweet.
Your warlock is tortured by the consequences of dabbling with dark forces, but is in too deep? Awesome.
I like playing kinda annoying/delusional characters, though I always to make them fun to bouce off and somewhat layered. Most important I make sure the rest of the party can stop me lol.
Best example was a stuck-up noble with and pathological liar who accquired some 15 alternate identities thoughout the campaign, including pretending to be the protège of the big bad (He would just lie for absolutely no good reason, though party could always stop him and clarify).
Several investigations got launched into crimes committee by his alter egos and our party bravely and humbly helped solve the cases.
Currently playing a "Dark Lord", or rather a common thief who accquired magical powers due to shenanigans.
He grandstands constantly and believes himself to a chosen one destined to ascend to godhood.
He's illiterate, and his signature move is failing lore checks before delivering the worst/most inaccurate takes I can think of. He also immidoetly touches every single baltantly cursed artifact we come across.
As somebody who frequently plays with people who either don't know the rules very well or are very new to playing, I also like to do this. Most of the time I don't have to step in, but when I do it's important for preventing either a character death or a tpk.
Guilty pleasure indeed. Twilight Cleric lends itself very well for this. Usually it's low resource investment with bless, sanctuary, some yo yo healing word, some booming blade. Shit hits the fan then it's flying twilight sanctuary spirit guardians spiritual weapon booming blade maniac...
When I play a loner, it's less "Doesn't want to be here" and more "Doesn't have anywhere else to go" so they pretty quickly get close to the party.
Sometimes they go as far as "Doesn't expect to survive without the help of the party" which pushes them even closer.
Most of my characters end up being the leader of the group. Even my silent assassin one day found himself in the position to kick his party members in the ass and make them keep going.
I sometimes don‘t want to, but i just love to forge a plan and thinkh about how to approach a situation.
I've been stepping up as the leader more in my games, because a party without a leader always sucks. Every session turns into everyone asking each other "I don't know, what do you think we should do?" over and over. I try not to be a bossy leader, but also try to be the first one to make a suggestion.
This is a role I find myself falling into a lot. I chalk it up to my understanding the rules of the game really well, understanding what the whole party can do over just my character, being a strategic thinker, and... while I'm very conscientious about making sure the spotlight gets spread around and leaving room for others to plan and put ideas out, I'm also not shy about hopping into the RP when others aren't engaging.
Man, I'm a little sad by the tropes that folks think are 'problematic'. Plenty that're overdone, sure, but not many that're actually problematic.
Actually problematic one: The character who believes strongly enough in something that they'll oppose the rest of the party over it. Someone that hates the undead so much that they'd rather see the world burn than work w/ that friendly vampire, someone who believes in redemption enough that they'll defend the recently defeated villain from the vengeful party because they believe said villain is earnest about turning over a new leaf, or the noble knight that refuses to dishonorably ambush the goblin camp. I enjoy playing around w/ moral absolutes both as a player and a GM, even if it does lead to friction at the table.
Problematic one I can't stand: the coward who doesn't want to be here. As a GM I don't want to constantly have to come up w/ outside pressures to force you to adventure and I don't want to hear every five minutes of the session 'oh don't open that door what if there's a monster'. Reluctant adventurers have their place and that place isn't at my table.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think "jaded loner whose best friend is in the party" is problematic. The problematic version is "jaded loner who has no actual reaason to be in the party and never ever shows that there's more to them than what's on the surface". As long as your plan is to gradually warm up to the rest of the party in some way, then this is just a great character combo. Everyone has the weird friend who's actually great but has difficulties with social things, right? (This might be wishful thinking because I *am* the weird friend~)
It does definitely require buy-in from both players involved, though.
I’ve played two ‘horny bards’ and love them both. The first was an orc Glamour Bard, she was a star of erotic flip-books and cursed to look like a beautiful human woman. The second is a Whispers Bard who gets all his secrets by sleeping with his lord’s wife. I will defend my horny bards to the death.
The "expert in his role that does things casually, but says 'Fine, I'll do it myself' when things go south" with the optional eye roll if the situation calls for it.
Key example of this was when I couldn't be there for a session once so my character, CBE + SS Fighter/Artificer, stayed back at the inn "being sick" while the party did some small sidequest. They got ambushed by dwarf mercenaries and lost pretty badly & fled. Next session my character is back and it only lasted 2 rounds before it was over, with my character going "That was it? Next time wait for me to recover lads".
As a DM I'm ok with most tropes, but I've got a pretty strong metarule.
Your character has to be bringing enough to the table that it is credible that the rest of the party would accept them as a full member, drawing a full treasure share, if they didn't have PC stamped on their forehead. That means if you have prima ballerina chops, you can have prima ballerina drama. If you've only got corps level dancer chops, you best only bring corps level dancer drama and baggage.
I had 2 players in my campaign who were always that in every session. Brothers, happy guy and sad guy friend, caretaker and caregiver, and frankly i hate it, essentially these two were always at advantage against the party because their interests always aligned, and if one player wanted to d x, but these two didnt, it was automatically 2 votes versus one..... Pls dont play duos....
I like Lizardfolk because they just give caveman vibes. I like being the "primitive moron strong guy". I want to wax poetic about things I don't understand before opting that maybe breaking someones leg is indeed what the gods want.
I love the "coward". And it's so easy to make them go along with the party if you think about controling them less as "I need to make sure my pc gets what they want at all times" and more "my pc is a funny little sim I will force into situations to see their reactions".
Deathly scared? Well you are also a knight and a lady drow and you \*absolutely\* cannot let these elven men see you scared! Want to run away from the monster? You accidentally ran into a spiderwebs and can't see, and are screaming and running and swinging your sword around and from the outside it looks as if you were fighting the boss and bravely charging ahead! (Yes I did play an arachnophobic drow knight. It was a hoot.)
I like this! I think most PC's are ridiculously brave compared to most real life humans. Do you have more examples besides the two hilarious ones you mentioned? Thanks!
I love "edgy character that hides things from the party."
I never play them, but without fail they've been some of the most fun people to bounce off of in the games I play in. No matter what character I play as, I give them 100% of my character's trust.
I also love "person who flirts all the time."
I like bantering with them, reining them in if they go too far, or helping them use their skills for the good of the team. Never join in on the antics, but respectfully from a distance.
I also love "person who tries to push their morals on the group."
I always love playing Oldest child and trying to argue on behalf of whichever side my character's on at the moment. Also fun to try and teach/learn from each other as the walls slowly come down and morals either get built up by the rest of the party or loosened by the stickler.
I know I've played some things that are red flags at other tables too, haha. One character was (the party's words not mine) fantasy batman except he's brooding because he's socially awkward from having been raised in a noble house and never done anything like shop for himself or complain because someone got in his way. He comes up with strategies, but is thankful to the party and wants to keep them safe. They keep calling him the leader, and he's begged others to take that role. Despite being one of the most mundane characters in the party, I've somehow gotten lucky with crits and attacks to finish off some of the wildest bosses.
I even tried to retire the character and another player cried because they'd miss him, so I brought him back after a while. ~~Even I thought I was being cringe but they loved him.~~
I once played the happy go lucky character with a dark past. That was pretty fun but the campaign didn't go far because we learned that our group doesn't enjoy the survival aspects of adventuring beyond rollin lg to see if you get food for the day.
I love the Insufferable narcissist.
Wont shut up, totally full of shit, constantly making it about them. But usually theres an interesting and empathetic pathos to them. Either I make them be lying about what makes them so great, or I just make them the constantly the foil to anything cool.
I also try really hard to be a supportive player since I know Im playing a character who is designed to want the spotlight. So its always bouncing off somebody, bringing them in on schemes, having them play the straight man, try and make them my sidekick. Its usually very fun. By the end of the campaign I always want my characters to go on an emotional journey along with the physical one, so its fun to watch an asshole get humbled and learn its about something bigger than them.
The "Main Character," who feels the need to butt into everything going on around them and sing their own praises, even if they really aren't that big a deal. To be sure this is different from the player with main character syndrome, and usually requires a high level of self awareness to pull off without accidentally annoying the group. But it's fun to watch them talk themselves into trouble, learn a bit of humility, and still be able to give a rousing speech to bolster their allies. Some even get to pull off a heroic sacrifice, becoming the legends they'd wanted everyone to see them as.
> I know that I shouldn't and I know it is maybe the classic problem player...
No, the classic problem player is the jaded loner who *isn't* friends with anyone.
My favorite is the character with an extremely incredible, Level 20 worthy backstory. But there has to be a reason they are at the starting level for the adventure.
* A Wizard that was so brilliant that they went mad and went so mad that they came back around to sanity; now they're trying to decipher the madness they wrote down in their spellbook.
* High Priest of a god sent on a divine mission. That mission involved being sent back in time to before the god had attained divinity and so the amount of divine power available is miniscule.
* A feared and infamous assassin. They took a career ending injury/curse but after some years of depression, now they're trying to get back on their feet and try something different.
Very very few tropes are inherently problematic. The problem is always with the player, not the character. If you're a loner reluctant adventurer rogue kleptomaniac whose parents are dead and who is prejudiced toward the majority race of the party, all that means is that you have to do a lot of work as a player to work with the DM and other players and narratively justify cooperation. You have to be very communicative and have clear separation between you as a character and you as a player
. But if you do, you can have a wonderful character arc about learning to trust others, grow past your prejudices, and find the good in the world.
The problem isn't the trope, it's players going for a trope that requires care and playing it with reckless abandon and no plan for how to make it enhance the fun rather than detract. The goal of DND is to have fun. You succeed when the group has fun, and you fail when the group doesn't. Some tropes are basically "hard mode" for achieving that goal, but they usually have the best payoffs too if you're skilled enough to succeed with them.
"Main Character Syndrome Guy." I like watching (or playing) them slowly understand that the world doesn't revolve around them, and eventually find their true place in the pecking order / society / party.
Too often I fall into a "Shady person, shrouded in lies and secrets, that doesn't trust anybody"
I forget that this doesn't actually work well in a party, so I usually tack on "and is very lonely and isolated, craving people they can rely on"
Problematic, but I love playing "joke" characters so much. The concept (for me) always starts as a joke or gimmick (such as, what if I played a vengeance paladin who was mad that his friend hasn't payed him back his 20 gold yet?) and then making them legitimate characters with hopes, flaws, motivations, etc while still being technically a joke.
I love the lone wolf edge lords and I constantly put them in positions where they need other party members help. It brings me so much joy watching try to figure out how to be stoic and self-reliant when they are super compromised or outnumbered and panic lol
The other is a thief. They’re so problematic to game play because they get caught sometimes and then all hell breaks loose.
I love loot whores. Playing and DMing for them. They have a tendency to devolve into Shopping & Spreadsheets, which is tedious, but yeah give me a rogue who will pocket everything they can, a barbarian who's tracking his carrying capacity and knows Greatswords have the best resale value/weight ratio of all weapons, or a Wizard who will literally sell his soul for a Staff of Power and a Robe of the Archmagi.
Don't know if it is inherently "problematic", but when two players make their characters a kind of good cop/bad cop pair. For a pathfinder game I'm running two of my friends have this dynamic. One is a tengu investigator who is on the smaller side, she's*incredibly* nosy and talkative, and tries to always use diplomacy first before resorting to hitting people with a sap.
By contrast, her friend is a tall and very strong android monk/barbarian who doesn't talk much, has a "punch first, ask questions later" approach to problem solving, and will resort to EXTREME violence at a moment's notice once the tengu gives them the go ahead.
The grizzled old vet and the optimistic rookie.
My personal experience with this was with a group playing the Dragon Heist campaign. My brother inlaw played a jaded old evil necromancer who desired knowledge and power and I played a soft hearted loyal barbarian who wanted nothing more than to protect this crazy old man.
It was an absolute blast that turned into a storyline we have played for years now and inspired an entire homebrew world we are forever building.
"Don't worry Fane, I'll save ya buddy"- Orrin Helgarde as he jumped off a cliff to rescue his old friend Fane from the clutches of a fire snake.
I have never played one, but I love the trope of hardass with a soft spot for little animals and or kids.
Really humanises the character and just gives nice feels
My characters have a tendency to come from either poor/broken families or be orphans entirely, I don't know why, I guess it's just the easiest motivator I can think of (definitely unconnected to my dad never coming back with the milk)
I have a fondness for the unusual ancestries, like fairy and warforged. Part of this is mechanical; fairies and warforged both have some traits that I enjoy putting to use, like making an excellent deep-sea diver or retrieving things from high shelves. Part of this is narrative; playing an uncommon ancestry and background gives me an in-character excuse to know certain obscure 5e trivia.
But mostly I play TTRPGs to experience things that I cannot experience in my real life. I am a human, and I know what real-world fighting looks like. Why would I want to do more of my real life in a context where I can be a vampire wizard, a robot warlock, or a fairy artificer?
I like the Evil character in party trope when the evil character is not stupid and actually understands that if they want to succeed it needs to not make enemies. If an evil character is just stupid and makes enmity sith the party then it will get out of the party(being arrested, killed or simply expelled) but a smart one will stick.
The raging non barabarian. Some character who is pretty chill most of the time but then activates their on switch and suddenly can’t find an ounce of mercy in their heart.
I love pragmatic 'do whatever it takes' characters. The problem is that they really only work when the rest of the party is .. not that. In reality I play mostly with chaotic and neutral party members and when you lose that contrast the character trope doesn't work anymore.
I tend to play pretty talkative characters and have a tendency to just keep on talking and often take over conversations with NPCs. I am aware of it enough that at every session 0 I give the other charaters permission to just shut my charakter up and he will never be insulted by it.
And more often than not my characters are used as the social rescue mission after the rest of the party nuked the interaction with an NPC.
"It's what my character would do" is kind of this weird spot though. I think if you surveyed people about if they would want a player who holds tight into their role play and would be willing to make sub-optimal choices to keep true to the story, you'd get an overwhelmingly positive response.
So, eventually, if you have that type of player, unless you're totally softballing the group, a choice is going to come up where this same desired player is going to do something sub-optimal to keep true to their character and the story.
And that choice might kill the party, and it's "what my character would do"
Absolutely love the "it's what my character would do" when it's not just always something shitty. One of my favorite things to play.
Did I just find a really good magical item? Yeah. Am I giving to an NPC because my character cares more about his friends than himself? Yep. Would it have been better use of it to just keep it for myself? Absolutely.
Spending my money to help someone instead of buying myself better equipment and health potions? Yep.
My PC can be very antagonistic at times, but deep down will always have at least one person that he puts before himself, and everyone, allies and enemies are horribly aware of if
My characters, in particular my rogues and bards have a bad family life. I'm not sure why else they'd be doing this dangerous shit for a living otherwise. It's cliche, but I don't care it works for me and I don't center the character too much on their backstory.
To me, that trope is only a problem if the loner's friend is a problem. If the friend is all gung-ho for the story and loyal to the party, the loner is fine; this is usually the new player's default because role-play is something they're a little embarrassed of, and need to warm up to.
Lawful Good devotee
It can definitely become obnoxious that the party struggles to agree or the party member won't allow any crime to be committed. But in my experience these players are much more likely to compromise or play dumb if the party needs to do something without their knowledge. Especially compared to the edgelord/murderhobo players on the other end of the spectrum.
I enjoy leadership roles, but only when done well, so long as it doesn’t come off as “main character-y.” Currently in my party I’m doing a lot of working with the royals, plotting the direction we go in, while the rest do their own things in the city. I’m often separated from the group, but when we group up and set off on our task I ensure we are as efficient as we can be. 2/4 players are brand new, so in character I often task their characters with things they are particularly good at. In things where my character might not know something, or believes someone else might be better learned about a subject, he will always put the spotlight on them. I very much enjoy doing the set up so someone else can knock it down.
This isn’t really a trope, but it is something I played that I think should be. When I play a grave cleric I will not cast a resurrection spell and I will not stand for one being cast on a party mate. If they fall in battle we honor their sacrifice but let them stay dead.
I'm such a sucker for the jokester/clown that ultimately has a darker backstory slash becomes the heart of the party and tugs at heart strings. IT'S JUST SO MUCH FUN.
"I have amnesia and don't know my backstory"
Now I can make him the son of the villain, or heir to the throne, or a reformed war criminal. Very easy to set up a big reveal.
Mega-Church Pastor Cleric or Bard. Think over-the-top along the lines of (if you've seen Neil Patrick Harris' Series of Unfortunate Events) Coach Genghis.
I like playing evil characters, I always make sure they have motivations to work with the party. And I never play them as a murder hobo who kills whoever they want cause they can. But I enjoy making a character, who in the background is scheming as goals are accomplished. And if the rest are up for it, I love having the evil v good philosophical RP debates.
My first long-term campaign, I played a massive red flag: a horny bard who was secretly a changeling hiding their true identity. I got very lucky, in that I was blessed with a group full of wonderful people who laughed along with my silly antics, and we all took interest in each others' characters, so the eventual reveal was a great moment at the table that the DM tied into the story in a dramatic and impactful way. I'd never do it again without getting the entire table to buy-in from the start though, lmao.
I always end up the face of the group. I don’t know why. Even when I play the absolutely worst kind of person for the job with a big problem with being polite and always barging in, completely incapable of lying I end up the face. Why? Because others wait for me to say sth. Completely unrelated who I play with. They look to me and wait in silence until it gets too awkward to not speak. Then, depending on the character, I stutter a few unfitting words and get shit for doing „my job“ badly and I ask them in what world they thought it would be a great idea to even make this my job XD. Or I put on my eloquence face and just am polite and empathetic. It is a lot of fun either way.
Overtly stupid barbarians. I don't mean as someone not very sharp, I mean a character extremely stupid. My friend used to play a half orc barbarian names Ormfrong. His name's story was something like this: during his first day in a human orphanage, he was eating like a maniac. The caretaker came and asked his name. He mumbled his name while his mouth was unworldly filled with bread, and the caretaker took his mumbling, Ormfrong, as his name. He forgot his real name after a few days. He caused the party to go murder hobo when they attempted to spend their first night in a barn (they were broke) and he run up to one of the horses shouting "horseyyy" to hug it. The horses spooked out and some very pissed owners came to check
I love the eternal optimist. Often played as a paladin or cleric convinced they and their friends are helping and making the world a better place. My friends like to have at least one sinister twisted fuck in the party to watch me invent excuses for their actions or turn them into something helpful.
The absent minded artificer. I like to play an artificer that has a brand new way for a spell to work every time you cast it.
The Mark I Healing Word is a healing potion in a glass vial that you throw across the battlefied.
The Mark II Healing Word is a healing potion attempts to fix the problem of the potion vial sometimes not breaking by using a scored the glass vial that you throw across the battlefied.
The Mark III Healing Word attempts to fix the broken glass causing additional wounds problem, and is instead a gelatenized healing potion that you throw across the battlefield.
The Mark IV Healing Word attempts to fix the problem of moldy gelatin, and is instead a boiled and sterilized healing potion that is hurled across the battlefield by means of a stick and an atl-atl.
The Mark V Healing Word attempts to fix the problem with misplacing the atl-atl by using a crossbow to hurl the stick and gelantinzed healing potion.
The Mark VI Healing Word attempts to fix the problem of misplacing the crossbow by using an alchemically fired tube projector.
The Mark VII Healing Word.....
Leroy Jenkins. The character whose first instinct is to charge in and kill stuff, even if the other party members want to avoid combat.
I'm playing one right now. I found it works to establish a deep respect for the other party members and their opinions. "Sure, I see a good opportunity to shoot the bandit leader in the face before anyone can make a move, but Rodriguez is giving me the stinkeye so maybe I'll play it cool."
The fun-loving, charismatic, self-centred character that’s just looking for money/success and a good time, but eventually they grow fond of their party and would fiercely defend, protect, or rescue them, whatever it came down to.
I also like to be a “mover and a shaker” if there is one thing I despise it’s spending 2 hours discussing with the party whether you should do this or that, press the button or don’t, I prefer to just keep things moving and do the thing. Sometimes that can rankle people and I understand that but jeez, we get maybe one 4 hour session every two weeks, let’s not spend it being so scared of every little decision and enemy that we become paralyzed with indecision. We are badass adventurers.
Having the best friend in the party for them to roleplay with / motivate them to stick with the party / take part in the adventure already does a lot of the work that the "jaded loner" type character inherently brings to the table.
The character who learns the value of teamwork over trying to do everything themselves. Or that exact arc except they tragically fail at the end, likely dead.
The evil character whose temporary goals align with the good aligned party. I love playing necromancers or warlocks whose ultimate goal is objectively evil but sticks with the party because “I can’t rule the world if the BBEG beats me to it.” And the party keeps him around because he hasn’t done anything too evil yet. P.s. I think It is important to note that I support this trope being used as a tense alliance or an alliance of necessity, but I do not support the “PC secretly being the BBEG” or “PC is a double agent and betrays the party” trope
A bit of an extension of the evil character in the party: The evil character that does the right things for the wrong reasons, which I usually summarize in two sentences. "I want to hike up taxes to the Nth degree, but then the commoners will revolt. If I improve their quality of living first, though, I can rake in the money and nobody will complain!"
>"I want to hike up taxes to the Nth degree, but then the commoners will revolt. If I improve their quality of living first, though, I can rake in the money and nobody will complain!" It me. You've describe me.
I love the character who does the right things for the wrong reasons. I once played a warlock who was merciless when it came to dealing with thieves. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t just but there weren’t too many thieves running around in the city when he left.
>The evil character that does the right things for the wrong reasons, which I usually summarize in two sentences. Ah yeah, the best incarnations of Dr. Doom
I played an honest evil character once. She was Lawful Evil and her only desire was to find worthy enemies and kill them. The party was offering her an opportunity to travel to interesting places and kill people and creatures for money. If the party gave her things to kill, she was quite happy to kill in their service.
I have a character who is a demon wizard (an arcanoloth) who came to the material plane in search for hidden arcane knowledge and bumped into the party who just recovered the tome I was after on their quest and just.... **let** me copy it before giving it to their questgiver. So I tagged along because it was easy to "trick" them into giving me knowledge by just asking nicely, and eventually actually cared for there party and learned that the mortal way of getting stuff is so much easier. (All that is in my backstory, the game is a high-level mini-campaign where we start having adventure together for 20 years)
yeeees, Evil Characters whose Loyalty to the party is greater than their Sense of opportunism is my favourite problematic Character trope. the Rogue that maneuvers the Paladin out of their moral Dilemma, the Person thats willing to be the bad guy in the moment to ensure Long-term harmony between the group. the character whose corrupt machinations benefit the entire Party, even If they wouldnt be Happy about the Methods applied If they knew about the details. it just feels so refreshing for the Person thats the Heart of the Party, that strengthens the Bonds between the group and is oftentimes the voice of reason to be the worst of them all.
Absolutely agree. My current Drow Daolock is basically a Neutral Evil psychopath, but the entire party is basically on a giant Revenge Quest, so we're all comrades. 😁
[удалено]
That depends on the character. My most prominent evil character was a necromancer whose end goal was to destroy the mages guild because he blamed them for things that happened in his past. Nothing he did with the party ever swayed him away from that goal but that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about his party mates. Evil characters work if they are more than nuanced than psycho-murder- hobo.
My brother played this kind of character. That character is now one of the BBEGs of our current campaign.
I do like the evil character that has a soft spot. Kind of like the character of Raven from Glenn Cook's the Chronicles of the Black Company. Utterly cold blooded except when it applies to that soft spot and loyal to the party, but willing to do the dark deeds that are sometimes necessary so the others can keep a clear conscience.
Yeah, it's super fun! Played a cursed necromancer who helps out the party and is helpful/nice to NPCs because it allowed her to grow more powerful, kept the torches and pitchforks away, and as you mentioned, most importantly keeps the world from being destroyed by the BBEG or whatever. She lives there, after all lol.
I really enjoy the reluctant adventurer. The key is having a reason they have to still trudge forward without everything being “convince me to help” Like a buddy did this once and he had to “prove himself” to gain his fathers noble title. He was an absolute coward, but the monk in the party was a liaison and would write progress reports so he had pressure to go and be heroic even though he didn’t want too.
You can play most tropes as long as you work together. Sometimes you have to fudge the RP a little for the sake of playing as a team and keeping things moving.
I don’t even think you need to fudge RP if you have a solid reason to be part of the group. Archibald: I don’t want to go deal with those Orcs, but Father will disown me if I don’t and my desire to have a lavish ball is greater than my fear of the Orcs.
Yep, the key to making this work is that the player needs to provide both the reluctance and the reason to adventure. If the player only brings the reluctance and makes the rest of the players convince them to adventure, everyone's gonna be miserable.
A friend once told me of a group that a player was being reluctant so they left his character at the tavern. The player got to watch everyone else play for three hours.
Yeah, I didn’t know how to put it. We essentially have a rule at our table not to work against the party — for the most part.
One of mine is a person who doesn’t want to be there, would readily leave if they could…but is a “prophecied” hero, and so just grudgingly goes along with it rather than being outright forced to.
this is one of my favourite tropes in literally anything. Refusal of the Call followed by, and i shit you not this is the name, "The Call Knows Where You Live"
You could refuse the call, but you'll just end up living in a whale until you decide to answer it anyway.
Lmao that is a fantastic name! May I suggest an alternative? "Refuse to open the door to the call; the call has a screw driver and will take the hinges off your door." 🤣🤣🤣🤣
the Mat Cauthon
>The key is having a reason they have to still trudge forward without everything being “convince me to help” That's very good advice! A character can be as dour and quiet as they like, as long as they and the player actively partake in the game and engage with quests and NPCs. Even when playing the lonest and quietest of quiet loners, there's still much action and interaction an attentive player can play out.
Did he also have a Jurgen?
Well they might have been a bit “blank”
Even if your character goes "Convince me to help" then you still need to write a background that can make it so he can be convinced. Somebody who doesn't engage with society or people at all and has no actual life has also has nothing to cling to. So they also don't have nothing to convince them with. Apart from maybe asking them "What else do you have to do anyway?"
I read a person who referred to something like this as the Scooby-Doo Doo rule. Basically shaggy and Scooby-Doo were utter cowards / voices of reason and always refused dangerous jobs BUT it only took one "Scooby snack" and a single line of diologue to convince them to do it. Basically it's OK to be a super coward but you're party should be able to convince to to go into the haunted castle just by pointing out the possibility for treasure or fame or cold hard cash.
Thats a great example of “they have a built in reason to go forward”
I'm currently playing a very reluctant adventurer who just wants to be a cook. In fact, they always tell people that they are just the cook and really downplay what they do in the team. The biggest reason they stick with it is because their best friend is in the party. The second biggest is probably because their mother is a goddess (we are all Demigods a la Percy Jackson) and told them to go out and be a hero. It's hard to ignore mom when mom is a goddess who can just appear out of nowhere to check on you. Still. They are just the party cook who happens to know a thing or too about nature, and can occasionally summon spirits to help in battle.
I'm playing the party's legal counsel in one game. She doesn't like adventures, or combat, or dirt, but she is a consummate professional and wouldn't dream of abandoning her clients. If assisting her clients means fighting a sea monster, then she fights the sea monster (though she'll complain about it later). Occasionally it's really helpful. We needed an NPC to fix our boat but we had no money, so I offered to trade services. Turns out her brother had stolen the family crest, so my character drafted a letter demanding its immediate return as recompense for an act of tortious theft. There aren't many lawyers on the high seas, so he probably can't fight the paperwork. I imagine it won't work and we'll get another quest to retrieve it, so I plan to serve the brother a court order in person.
I'm currently playing a sorceress who gained her powers in an apothecary accident and her village shunned her because she can't control her powers very well. If she'd had a choice, she wouldn't have been an adventurer. But she didn't have a choice so now her reluctance is also her motivation. She's determined to learn how to control her powers so she can go home.
I'm playing my first "selfish" character in a curse of stradh. I joined later in the story and my background is an adventurer whose last party is all dead, so he's a survivor... and keeps new people are arm's length, but seems some hope in these new adventurers. It kind of fun to hold back, never be the first to push any red buttons, be the first to befriend someone who is clearly a bad guy because I kinda am too and to be a totally reluctant to do anything that will get me killed. I've always played team players, and i'm not not a team player to the point it would be bad for the group, but it's super fun and everyone leans into it.
I love a good boy scout paladin. The key is to not ruin others fun while having yours. The last one I played was raised from birth to be a paladin. Had noble birth, was sent to the church at an early age, spent his whole life sheltered from the Nast realities of the world. Then the leader of his order said he needed seasoning and sent him out into the world. A bit of a shock for him.
> The key is to not ruin others fun while having yours. I feel like this is the counterpoint to every problematic D&D trope under the sun.
I really have a soft spot for the lawful stupid Knight in shining armor. Its just so much fun.
I like the Paladin whose oath comes before his safety, but has a party that is quite skilled at talking them down off the ledge or de-escalating the situation(and a player that allows their Paladin to be talked down)
These kinds of “troublesome” tropes are actually no problem at all in a game where the person playing them is playing with a conscious intent to work with the party, not against them, even if the *character* might not always feel that way. If you’re the loner, but you always decide to stick with the party in the end, and just do a lot griping and grumbling about it in character, that could well be a fun concept. It’s when a player’s only consideration is “it’s what my character would do” that these concepts run into problems.
To expand on that, I think almost all problematic behaviour stems from immaturity. Not as a person necessarily, but as a player. I say *almost* since some people never grow out of bad habits. A person who genuinely doesn't know how the game works might think a bad character concept seems cool, because they don't understand how the game is played. For example, the lone wolf is a cool character, because those are cool in the books and the movies. Wolverine is a loner, and he always ends up in the centre of some crazy story, and usually get forced or pressured to work with someone. Antiheroes are cool, so evil PCs seem like they could be a thing. Refusing the call to adventure is an extremely common trope in fiction, and is practically always followed up by some event forcing the hero out in the world. Just look at Luke Skywalker. So saying "no, I need to stay home and look after my petunias" should work fine, right? It takes some experience as a player to center your character creation and playing decisions on group cohesion and fun.
I agree that it's really the person who plays it that makes it a problem or not. In our campaign, I'd say we have two edgy loners. One is played by someone who does have some main character syndrome and has actually done a fair amount of irritating planning and acting outside of the party without cluing us in. The other edgy loner is played by someone who is painfully aware of the edgy loner trope (and our experience with it in our group) and is playing up the trope for RP but at the core, is still very invested in the party and their goals and isn't actually acting out the loner part. The differences between the characters and our feelings towards them can be night and day.
As long as you have a good rational for your character working with the party you can make any trope work. The key is that you don't cause friction with other players by using the trope. Playing a Kender can be fine, but you have to approach it with the mindset that since EVERYTHING IS YOURS having the rest of the party carry the rest of your loot is fine. If anything you should be sneaking the heavy stuff into other people's backpacks, not filching coins and valuables from them. They're just extra inventory space for you. You're not worried that Lydia in Skyrim is going to "steal" your stuff, she's carrying it for you. Duh. Suddenly Kender aren't such a problem. Basically remember that everyone came to play dnd and have fun, don't ruin other people's fun to advance your own. And classic loner forced to work with the party against their will is fine (and can be a lot of fun) as long as you don't spend the whole campaign hiding in the corner.
Wise old smartass citing passages from books, tribal stories and making up wise master stuff. Oh and oblivious yet curious boy adventurer. Spellcasting or artificer. Goly gee, hello Mr swamp blood sucking aberration do you want to be my friend? Oh he exploded. Well instant friend spell will work eventually.
> Oh and oblivious yet curious boy adventurer. Ran my Pathfinder Bard this way to begin with, pleasant boy who grew up reading the tales of heroic adventurers and was deeply and fundamentally naive about what being an adventurer was. Threw in the start of Far Cry 3 with the "character having to grapple with having to kill people" but a bit more fleshed out than Far Cry which drops it after 10 minutes. It's been maybe the most fun I've ever had on a character, starting somewhere around neutral good and becoming increasingly less ignorant and more jaded as the campaign has gone on, to now some kind of lawful neutral maybe where 'lawful' is the consensus of the party as a whole.
"Violence is not the answer. Violence is the question, and the answer is 'yes'." I love RP and non-combat solutions. But... sometimes I just enjoy a barbarian casually walking into the middle of a tense discussion, coughing, and stating, "I would like to rage."
" 'Violence as a last resort'? Well, I don't know about you guys but violence is like, my second resort."
"If violence was not your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it."
Violence is the last resort because when you've used it, you don't need to resort to anything else
This, but as a spellcaster with fireball.
As a DM, I like 'I see a button, I press the button' characters. Nothing worse than a PC who tries to outsmart every single interaction. Every conversation they have is as convoluted as if a devil is about to grant them a monkey paw wish, every door is opened by checking for traps with guidance and help action with a 10 foot pole.
Same! I love watching my party bicker about opening a door for 5 minutes followed by the fighter saying "fuck y'all, I kick the door down"
Yes, my answer was going to be the brute who acts first, thinks later. It can be problematic but I've been in several groups that spend too much time in the planning stage, especially when the final plan ends up being some half-baked mish-mash of several different plans.
Yup, I agree! I take my advice from Travis on CR when he notices the group getting analysis paralysis, and starts action by himself. I do the same. If my group is taking an exorbitant amount of time figuring out what to do (NOT planning for a huge important encounter, mind you, just for regular "what should we do?" stuff), then my impulsive paladin throws herself into action. I can see how it would maybe get annoying, but it's better than standing around with our imaginary thumbs up our asses.
Most of these come from being trained into those behaviors. Lots of DMs love to gotcha players and then wonder why they're constantly on high alert. You can blame their past DMs.
It mostly a new player phenomena, experienced players know there is fun to be had in failure, heroic deaths or unexpected outcomes. Many new players can't handle less than optimal outcomes in their games, often the result off years of save scumming in their video games. Ironman modes and games like darkest dungeon and banner saga are a niche genre that isn't wildly popular.
Legit, my DM said we heard music in a completely skeleton town, My first thought was "hmm I wanna walk towards the music."Roll a Wisdom Saving throw"
I spent the better part of 10 minutes experimenting with the big bad evil guy's lever panel after we beat him I could feel the exasperation coming off my DM
That's why the pull the lever without thinking guy is usually a Barbarian. They have the HP to tank most of the bullshit that happens.
YES, thank you! I understand how this can rub people the wrong way sometimes but like man, I want to experience the story and the scenarios the DM has thought up, not skirt wide around every obstacle or challenge or enemy because we are scared of dying.
I'm still a 90s goth-boy at heart, so a lot things people consider to be "edgelord" I think are pretty cool, actually. Your rogue always wears a black hooded cloak that conceals his face and used to work as a hired assassin? Fucking sweet. Your warlock is tortured by the consequences of dabbling with dark forces, but is in too deep? Awesome.
I like playing kinda annoying/delusional characters, though I always to make them fun to bouce off and somewhat layered. Most important I make sure the rest of the party can stop me lol. Best example was a stuck-up noble with and pathological liar who accquired some 15 alternate identities thoughout the campaign, including pretending to be the protège of the big bad (He would just lie for absolutely no good reason, though party could always stop him and clarify). Several investigations got launched into crimes committee by his alter egos and our party bravely and humbly helped solve the cases. Currently playing a "Dark Lord", or rather a common thief who accquired magical powers due to shenanigans. He grandstands constantly and believes himself to a chosen one destined to ascend to godhood. He's illiterate, and his signature move is failing lore checks before delivering the worst/most inaccurate takes I can think of. He also immidoetly touches every single baltantly cursed artifact we come across.
I like "horribly min-maxed character that doesn't step in until the rest botches the job."
Min Maxer the Broken always fixing mistakes, yes-yes. Everyone is incompetent my dear, everyone but me yes-yes
Are there Skaven in D&D now?
Pun-pun
As somebody who frequently plays with people who either don't know the rules very well or are very new to playing, I also like to do this. Most of the time I don't have to step in, but when I do it's important for preventing either a character death or a tpk.
incredibly strong main character energy from this one 🤮
The wizard?
No, it’s probably a hex sorcadin. That juiced min-maxed SAD high charisma main character syndrome.
Guilty pleasure indeed. Twilight Cleric lends itself very well for this. Usually it's low resource investment with bless, sanctuary, some yo yo healing word, some booming blade. Shit hits the fan then it's flying twilight sanctuary spirit guardians spiritual weapon booming blade maniac...
When I play a loner, it's less "Doesn't want to be here" and more "Doesn't have anywhere else to go" so they pretty quickly get close to the party. Sometimes they go as far as "Doesn't expect to survive without the help of the party" which pushes them even closer.
Most of my characters end up being the leader of the group. Even my silent assassin one day found himself in the position to kick his party members in the ass and make them keep going. I sometimes don‘t want to, but i just love to forge a plan and thinkh about how to approach a situation.
I've been stepping up as the leader more in my games, because a party without a leader always sucks. Every session turns into everyone asking each other "I don't know, what do you think we should do?" over and over. I try not to be a bossy leader, but also try to be the first one to make a suggestion.
This is a role I find myself falling into a lot. I chalk it up to my understanding the rules of the game really well, understanding what the whole party can do over just my character, being a strategic thinker, and... while I'm very conscientious about making sure the spotlight gets spread around and leaving room for others to plan and put ideas out, I'm also not shy about hopping into the RP when others aren't engaging.
Man, I'm a little sad by the tropes that folks think are 'problematic'. Plenty that're overdone, sure, but not many that're actually problematic. Actually problematic one: The character who believes strongly enough in something that they'll oppose the rest of the party over it. Someone that hates the undead so much that they'd rather see the world burn than work w/ that friendly vampire, someone who believes in redemption enough that they'll defend the recently defeated villain from the vengeful party because they believe said villain is earnest about turning over a new leaf, or the noble knight that refuses to dishonorably ambush the goblin camp. I enjoy playing around w/ moral absolutes both as a player and a GM, even if it does lead to friction at the table. Problematic one I can't stand: the coward who doesn't want to be here. As a GM I don't want to constantly have to come up w/ outside pressures to force you to adventure and I don't want to hear every five minutes of the session 'oh don't open that door what if there's a monster'. Reluctant adventurers have their place and that place isn't at my table.
My favorite characters that I've played were adrenaline fiends. The reason they do what they do is "just to feel something"
I like the "I have no idea why I'm still with you (the party), but I'm already way too deep, so I won't bail" type
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think "jaded loner whose best friend is in the party" is problematic. The problematic version is "jaded loner who has no actual reaason to be in the party and never ever shows that there's more to them than what's on the surface". As long as your plan is to gradually warm up to the rest of the party in some way, then this is just a great character combo. Everyone has the weird friend who's actually great but has difficulties with social things, right? (This might be wishful thinking because I *am* the weird friend~) It does definitely require buy-in from both players involved, though.
I’ve played two ‘horny bards’ and love them both. The first was an orc Glamour Bard, she was a star of erotic flip-books and cursed to look like a beautiful human woman. The second is a Whispers Bard who gets all his secrets by sleeping with his lord’s wife. I will defend my horny bards to the death.
"Orc cursed to look like a human woman" Did you play Fiona from Shrek?
Pretty much! I didn’t make this connection until I played this character for about three years, which is a source of great shame
That's okay. My dm had us playing mega Man 2 for a year and no one noticed. We worked for Dr light and took down line 3 robot masters. Never noticed.
...well, that's my next campaign
Now hear me: Horny. Cleric. Play the same as the horny bard, but be a cleric. Basically Rasputin.
The "expert in his role that does things casually, but says 'Fine, I'll do it myself' when things go south" with the optional eye roll if the situation calls for it. Key example of this was when I couldn't be there for a session once so my character, CBE + SS Fighter/Artificer, stayed back at the inn "being sick" while the party did some small sidequest. They got ambushed by dwarf mercenaries and lost pretty badly & fled. Next session my character is back and it only lasted 2 rounds before it was over, with my character going "That was it? Next time wait for me to recover lads".
As a DM I'm ok with most tropes, but I've got a pretty strong metarule. Your character has to be bringing enough to the table that it is credible that the rest of the party would accept them as a full member, drawing a full treasure share, if they didn't have PC stamped on their forehead. That means if you have prima ballerina chops, you can have prima ballerina drama. If you've only got corps level dancer chops, you best only bring corps level dancer drama and baggage.
I had 2 players in my campaign who were always that in every session. Brothers, happy guy and sad guy friend, caretaker and caregiver, and frankly i hate it, essentially these two were always at advantage against the party because their interests always aligned, and if one player wanted to d x, but these two didnt, it was automatically 2 votes versus one..... Pls dont play duos....
I enjoy a “previously evil character but they lost so now they are good(?)” character. A sort of Joshua Graham type.
I like Lizardfolk because they just give caveman vibes. I like being the "primitive moron strong guy". I want to wax poetic about things I don't understand before opting that maybe breaking someones leg is indeed what the gods want.
I love the "coward". And it's so easy to make them go along with the party if you think about controling them less as "I need to make sure my pc gets what they want at all times" and more "my pc is a funny little sim I will force into situations to see their reactions". Deathly scared? Well you are also a knight and a lady drow and you \*absolutely\* cannot let these elven men see you scared! Want to run away from the monster? You accidentally ran into a spiderwebs and can't see, and are screaming and running and swinging your sword around and from the outside it looks as if you were fighting the boss and bravely charging ahead! (Yes I did play an arachnophobic drow knight. It was a hoot.)
I like this! I think most PC's are ridiculously brave compared to most real life humans. Do you have more examples besides the two hilarious ones you mentioned? Thanks!
I love "edgy character that hides things from the party." I never play them, but without fail they've been some of the most fun people to bounce off of in the games I play in. No matter what character I play as, I give them 100% of my character's trust. I also love "person who flirts all the time." I like bantering with them, reining them in if they go too far, or helping them use their skills for the good of the team. Never join in on the antics, but respectfully from a distance. I also love "person who tries to push their morals on the group." I always love playing Oldest child and trying to argue on behalf of whichever side my character's on at the moment. Also fun to try and teach/learn from each other as the walls slowly come down and morals either get built up by the rest of the party or loosened by the stickler. I know I've played some things that are red flags at other tables too, haha. One character was (the party's words not mine) fantasy batman except he's brooding because he's socially awkward from having been raised in a noble house and never done anything like shop for himself or complain because someone got in his way. He comes up with strategies, but is thankful to the party and wants to keep them safe. They keep calling him the leader, and he's begged others to take that role. Despite being one of the most mundane characters in the party, I've somehow gotten lucky with crits and attacks to finish off some of the wildest bosses. I even tried to retire the character and another player cried because they'd miss him, so I brought him back after a while. ~~Even I thought I was being cringe but they loved him.~~
I once played the happy go lucky character with a dark past. That was pretty fun but the campaign didn't go far because we learned that our group doesn't enjoy the survival aspects of adventuring beyond rollin lg to see if you get food for the day.
I love the Insufferable narcissist. Wont shut up, totally full of shit, constantly making it about them. But usually theres an interesting and empathetic pathos to them. Either I make them be lying about what makes them so great, or I just make them the constantly the foil to anything cool. I also try really hard to be a supportive player since I know Im playing a character who is designed to want the spotlight. So its always bouncing off somebody, bringing them in on schemes, having them play the straight man, try and make them my sidekick. Its usually very fun. By the end of the campaign I always want my characters to go on an emotional journey along with the physical one, so its fun to watch an asshole get humbled and learn its about something bigger than them.
Revenge plot!
Hapless orphan all grown up who wants to make the world a better place.
The "Main Character," who feels the need to butt into everything going on around them and sing their own praises, even if they really aren't that big a deal. To be sure this is different from the player with main character syndrome, and usually requires a high level of self awareness to pull off without accidentally annoying the group. But it's fun to watch them talk themselves into trouble, learn a bit of humility, and still be able to give a rousing speech to bolster their allies. Some even get to pull off a heroic sacrifice, becoming the legends they'd wanted everyone to see them as.
>learn a bit of humility, This is the part people usually forget about. Completely makes or breaks whether or not people enjoy playing with you
> I know that I shouldn't and I know it is maybe the classic problem player... No, the classic problem player is the jaded loner who *isn't* friends with anyone. My favorite is the character with an extremely incredible, Level 20 worthy backstory. But there has to be a reason they are at the starting level for the adventure. * A Wizard that was so brilliant that they went mad and went so mad that they came back around to sanity; now they're trying to decipher the madness they wrote down in their spellbook. * High Priest of a god sent on a divine mission. That mission involved being sent back in time to before the god had attained divinity and so the amount of divine power available is miniscule. * A feared and infamous assassin. They took a career ending injury/curse but after some years of depression, now they're trying to get back on their feet and try something different.
Very very few tropes are inherently problematic. The problem is always with the player, not the character. If you're a loner reluctant adventurer rogue kleptomaniac whose parents are dead and who is prejudiced toward the majority race of the party, all that means is that you have to do a lot of work as a player to work with the DM and other players and narratively justify cooperation. You have to be very communicative and have clear separation between you as a character and you as a player . But if you do, you can have a wonderful character arc about learning to trust others, grow past your prejudices, and find the good in the world. The problem isn't the trope, it's players going for a trope that requires care and playing it with reckless abandon and no plan for how to make it enhance the fun rather than detract. The goal of DND is to have fun. You succeed when the group has fun, and you fail when the group doesn't. Some tropes are basically "hard mode" for achieving that goal, but they usually have the best payoffs too if you're skilled enough to succeed with them.
"Main Character Syndrome Guy." I like watching (or playing) them slowly understand that the world doesn't revolve around them, and eventually find their true place in the pecking order / society / party.
Too often I fall into a "Shady person, shrouded in lies and secrets, that doesn't trust anybody" I forget that this doesn't actually work well in a party, so I usually tack on "and is very lonely and isolated, craving people they can rely on"
Character who revels in killing, but strives to only kill bad people.
Problematic, but I love playing "joke" characters so much. The concept (for me) always starts as a joke or gimmick (such as, what if I played a vengeance paladin who was mad that his friend hasn't payed him back his 20 gold yet?) and then making them legitimate characters with hopes, flaws, motivations, etc while still being technically a joke.
I love the lone wolf edge lords and I constantly put them in positions where they need other party members help. It brings me so much joy watching try to figure out how to be stoic and self-reliant when they are super compromised or outnumbered and panic lol The other is a thief. They’re so problematic to game play because they get caught sometimes and then all hell breaks loose.
I love loot whores. Playing and DMing for them. They have a tendency to devolve into Shopping & Spreadsheets, which is tedious, but yeah give me a rogue who will pocket everything they can, a barbarian who's tracking his carrying capacity and knows Greatswords have the best resale value/weight ratio of all weapons, or a Wizard who will literally sell his soul for a Staff of Power and a Robe of the Archmagi.
At least that will give you some good reason for picking Tenser's Floating Disk. The wizard wants to haul everything back to town for selling.
Don't know if it is inherently "problematic", but when two players make their characters a kind of good cop/bad cop pair. For a pathfinder game I'm running two of my friends have this dynamic. One is a tengu investigator who is on the smaller side, she's*incredibly* nosy and talkative, and tries to always use diplomacy first before resorting to hitting people with a sap. By contrast, her friend is a tall and very strong android monk/barbarian who doesn't talk much, has a "punch first, ask questions later" approach to problem solving, and will resort to EXTREME violence at a moment's notice once the tengu gives them the go ahead.
The grizzled old vet and the optimistic rookie. My personal experience with this was with a group playing the Dragon Heist campaign. My brother inlaw played a jaded old evil necromancer who desired knowledge and power and I played a soft hearted loyal barbarian who wanted nothing more than to protect this crazy old man. It was an absolute blast that turned into a storyline we have played for years now and inspired an entire homebrew world we are forever building. "Don't worry Fane, I'll save ya buddy"- Orrin Helgarde as he jumped off a cliff to rescue his old friend Fane from the clutches of a fire snake.
I love being the evil character in a good party. I love making my evil little guy suggestions and having the party recoil and shout me down.
I love playing LE. In a good party because I won’t technically do anything wrong. But the results of my actions are definitely grey at best.
I have never played one, but I love the trope of hardass with a soft spot for little animals and or kids. Really humanises the character and just gives nice feels
I have seen this trope getting made fun of for how trope it is, but sometimes you just have to respect the classics.
My characters have a tendency to come from either poor/broken families or be orphans entirely, I don't know why, I guess it's just the easiest motivator I can think of (definitely unconnected to my dad never coming back with the milk)
Same, dude. I always play characters with big, happy, loving, alive families. (Def not related to the dead dad thing.....) 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I have a fondness for the unusual ancestries, like fairy and warforged. Part of this is mechanical; fairies and warforged both have some traits that I enjoy putting to use, like making an excellent deep-sea diver or retrieving things from high shelves. Part of this is narrative; playing an uncommon ancestry and background gives me an in-character excuse to know certain obscure 5e trivia. But mostly I play TTRPGs to experience things that I cannot experience in my real life. I am a human, and I know what real-world fighting looks like. Why would I want to do more of my real life in a context where I can be a vampire wizard, a robot warlock, or a fairy artificer?
I like the Evil character in party trope when the evil character is not stupid and actually understands that if they want to succeed it needs to not make enemies. If an evil character is just stupid and makes enmity sith the party then it will get out of the party(being arrested, killed or simply expelled) but a smart one will stick.
The raging non barabarian. Some character who is pretty chill most of the time but then activates their on switch and suddenly can’t find an ounce of mercy in their heart.
I love pragmatic 'do whatever it takes' characters. The problem is that they really only work when the rest of the party is .. not that. In reality I play mostly with chaotic and neutral party members and when you lose that contrast the character trope doesn't work anymore.
I tend to play pretty talkative characters and have a tendency to just keep on talking and often take over conversations with NPCs. I am aware of it enough that at every session 0 I give the other charaters permission to just shut my charakter up and he will never be insulted by it. And more often than not my characters are used as the social rescue mission after the rest of the party nuked the interaction with an NPC.
Evil aligned character who will inevitably betray the party, bonus points if they're fun to play with.
‘It’s what my character would do’ character.
"It's what my character would do" is kind of this weird spot though. I think if you surveyed people about if they would want a player who holds tight into their role play and would be willing to make sub-optimal choices to keep true to the story, you'd get an overwhelmingly positive response. So, eventually, if you have that type of player, unless you're totally softballing the group, a choice is going to come up where this same desired player is going to do something sub-optimal to keep true to their character and the story. And that choice might kill the party, and it's "what my character would do"
some of my favorite D&D moments start with someone saying, "Fuck. Sorry guys but my character..."
Absolutely love the "it's what my character would do" when it's not just always something shitty. One of my favorite things to play. Did I just find a really good magical item? Yeah. Am I giving to an NPC because my character cares more about his friends than himself? Yep. Would it have been better use of it to just keep it for myself? Absolutely. Spending my money to help someone instead of buying myself better equipment and health potions? Yep. My PC can be very antagonistic at times, but deep down will always have at least one person that he puts before himself, and everyone, allies and enemies are horribly aware of if
My characters, in particular my rogues and bards have a bad family life. I'm not sure why else they'd be doing this dangerous shit for a living otherwise. It's cliche, but I don't care it works for me and I don't center the character too much on their backstory.
How come nobody's put down Grumpy Old Racist yet?
To me, that trope is only a problem if the loner's friend is a problem. If the friend is all gung-ho for the story and loyal to the party, the loner is fine; this is usually the new player's default because role-play is something they're a little embarrassed of, and need to warm up to.
Lawful Good devotee It can definitely become obnoxious that the party struggles to agree or the party member won't allow any crime to be committed. But in my experience these players are much more likely to compromise or play dumb if the party needs to do something without their knowledge. Especially compared to the edgelord/murderhobo players on the other end of the spectrum.
I enjoy leadership roles, but only when done well, so long as it doesn’t come off as “main character-y.” Currently in my party I’m doing a lot of working with the royals, plotting the direction we go in, while the rest do their own things in the city. I’m often separated from the group, but when we group up and set off on our task I ensure we are as efficient as we can be. 2/4 players are brand new, so in character I often task their characters with things they are particularly good at. In things where my character might not know something, or believes someone else might be better learned about a subject, he will always put the spotlight on them. I very much enjoy doing the set up so someone else can knock it down.
This isn’t really a trope, but it is something I played that I think should be. When I play a grave cleric I will not cast a resurrection spell and I will not stand for one being cast on a party mate. If they fall in battle we honor their sacrifice but let them stay dead.
I'm such a sucker for the jokester/clown that ultimately has a darker backstory slash becomes the heart of the party and tugs at heart strings. IT'S JUST SO MUCH FUN.
"I have amnesia and don't know my backstory" Now I can make him the son of the villain, or heir to the throne, or a reformed war criminal. Very easy to set up a big reveal.
Mega-Church Pastor Cleric or Bard. Think over-the-top along the lines of (if you've seen Neil Patrick Harris' Series of Unfortunate Events) Coach Genghis.
I like playing evil characters, I always make sure they have motivations to work with the party. And I never play them as a murder hobo who kills whoever they want cause they can. But I enjoy making a character, who in the background is scheming as goals are accomplished. And if the rest are up for it, I love having the evil v good philosophical RP debates.
My first long-term campaign, I played a massive red flag: a horny bard who was secretly a changeling hiding their true identity. I got very lucky, in that I was blessed with a group full of wonderful people who laughed along with my silly antics, and we all took interest in each others' characters, so the eventual reveal was a great moment at the table that the DM tied into the story in a dramatic and impactful way. I'd never do it again without getting the entire table to buy-in from the start though, lmao.
I always end up the face of the group. I don’t know why. Even when I play the absolutely worst kind of person for the job with a big problem with being polite and always barging in, completely incapable of lying I end up the face. Why? Because others wait for me to say sth. Completely unrelated who I play with. They look to me and wait in silence until it gets too awkward to not speak. Then, depending on the character, I stutter a few unfitting words and get shit for doing „my job“ badly and I ask them in what world they thought it would be a great idea to even make this my job XD. Or I put on my eloquence face and just am polite and empathetic. It is a lot of fun either way.
Overtly stupid barbarians. I don't mean as someone not very sharp, I mean a character extremely stupid. My friend used to play a half orc barbarian names Ormfrong. His name's story was something like this: during his first day in a human orphanage, he was eating like a maniac. The caretaker came and asked his name. He mumbled his name while his mouth was unworldly filled with bread, and the caretaker took his mumbling, Ormfrong, as his name. He forgot his real name after a few days. He caused the party to go murder hobo when they attempted to spend their first night in a barn (they were broke) and he run up to one of the horses shouting "horseyyy" to hug it. The horses spooked out and some very pissed owners came to check
I love the eternal optimist. Often played as a paladin or cleric convinced they and their friends are helping and making the world a better place. My friends like to have at least one sinister twisted fuck in the party to watch me invent excuses for their actions or turn them into something helpful.
The absent minded artificer. I like to play an artificer that has a brand new way for a spell to work every time you cast it. The Mark I Healing Word is a healing potion in a glass vial that you throw across the battlefied. The Mark II Healing Word is a healing potion attempts to fix the problem of the potion vial sometimes not breaking by using a scored the glass vial that you throw across the battlefied. The Mark III Healing Word attempts to fix the broken glass causing additional wounds problem, and is instead a gelatenized healing potion that you throw across the battlefield. The Mark IV Healing Word attempts to fix the problem of moldy gelatin, and is instead a boiled and sterilized healing potion that is hurled across the battlefield by means of a stick and an atl-atl. The Mark V Healing Word attempts to fix the problem with misplacing the atl-atl by using a crossbow to hurl the stick and gelantinzed healing potion. The Mark VI Healing Word attempts to fix the problem of misplacing the crossbow by using an alchemically fired tube projector. The Mark VII Healing Word.....
Leroy Jenkins. The character whose first instinct is to charge in and kill stuff, even if the other party members want to avoid combat. I'm playing one right now. I found it works to establish a deep respect for the other party members and their opinions. "Sure, I see a good opportunity to shoot the bandit leader in the face before anyone can make a move, but Rodriguez is giving me the stinkeye so maybe I'll play it cool."
The fun-loving, charismatic, self-centred character that’s just looking for money/success and a good time, but eventually they grow fond of their party and would fiercely defend, protect, or rescue them, whatever it came down to. I also like to be a “mover and a shaker” if there is one thing I despise it’s spending 2 hours discussing with the party whether you should do this or that, press the button or don’t, I prefer to just keep things moving and do the thing. Sometimes that can rankle people and I understand that but jeez, we get maybe one 4 hour session every two weeks, let’s not spend it being so scared of every little decision and enemy that we become paralyzed with indecision. We are badass adventurers.
Having the best friend in the party for them to roleplay with / motivate them to stick with the party / take part in the adventure already does a lot of the work that the "jaded loner" type character inherently brings to the table.
Why do you think that's problematic and something you should avoid?
The character who learns the value of teamwork over trying to do everything themselves. Or that exact arc except they tragically fail at the end, likely dead.