Roleplaying weaknesses
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@Deadlock:
Caden trips over all the time and runs away from spiders, it is awesome.
Yeah Cellina uses his falling for fortune telling if he is pointing mostly north when he lands, it means good luck. If mostly south it means bad luck. Where and why she started doing this is infathomable to me other than it is a whole lot of fun.
Otherwise I like to think my charecter has alot of weaknesses mostly self confidence. She does not realize how many strengths she really has. Though she is also very Naive. Just paid out 1000 coins to a grifter last night who was claiming he had information about a plot to kill Caden. Totally bogus by the end of it but was fun to play out and probably will be for a while still.
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Yeah when I play my character's weakness is usually that he is even more awesome than he realises.
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My character learned IC to tie shoe laces, it added a lot to server RP.
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Did he then grow to be a psychopathic murderer hanging people on their own shoe laces?
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@Deadlock:
Yeah when I play my character's weakness is usually that he is even more awesome than he realises.
hehe did not mean to make it sound like that. What i meant is that she rates herself well below where others rate her. How would you portray someone with self esteem issues. Cravings for power seem one natural outcome to me. :twisted:
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This was a good thread for some believable and often interesting to portray weaknesses, maybe its needs a sticky or movement to the player resources forum?
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I think there are a few people who play negative character flaws consistently. I always liked Hope- the stammering, lacking confidence 9th level cleric or something. It's one thing to play like that at 3rd level, but to have that a work in process over the long haul is commendable. It's not like she got hammer of the gods in her spellbook and became a, "phear me bitches!" sort of battle priest one day. She may stand up for her beliefs more now, but still not 'fixed'.
Even if I play a coward or someone who dodges trouble, by the time I'm 5th level I usually get tired of it and assume I'm badass enough to have gotten over my fears. Lazy.
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I think there are a few people who play negative character flaws consistently. I always liked Hope- the stammering, lacking confidence 9th level cleric or something. It's one thing to play like that at 3rd level, but to have that a work in process over the long haul is commendable. It's not like she got hammer of the gods in her spellbook and became a, "phear me bitches!" sort of battle priest one day. She may stand up for her beliefs more now, but still not 'fixed'.
Even if I play a coward or someone who dodges trouble, by the time I'm 5th level I usually get tired of it and assume I'm badass enough to have gotten over my fears. Lazy.
I think to get the fears and weak points to last you have to want to go somewhere with them. To keep it from getting stale ask your self how does your charecter react to the fact they have this weakness. What would they try to do to make up for it. Sometimes this means overcoming it others accepting it. Other cases can involve a bit of change or other things. So your deathly afraid of spiders. Well then seek the irradication of abnormaly large spiders. Hire Other adventurers to hunt then pay them bounties. Insecure in your own abilites. Surround yourself with friends and strong people. or maybe go power hungry.
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I think that weaknesses are interesting, and an important part of any character, but I always try to make them thematically relevant for the character in question, because I think that's important.
For Hope it's (at least this is what I was aiming for) her coddling, Ilmatari upbringing with all of its focus on keeping everyone free from harm and pain (except herself) makes her often poorly suited for an adventurer's lifestyle. She basically regards having to send others into the Orc lair, or whatever, as a horrid task that she does merely because it has to be done. And that each blow delivered, be it one against her allies or her enemies, is one delivered against her God. Also, her build is not particularly well suited for direct combat, and she doesn't really regard her pwntastic spell selection as "her" power. Therein lies the continued insecurity in her own abilities.
Her tendency to be timid on adventures generally shifted towards being afraid for the welfare of others more than her own, particularly as she grew in power. But it was always mostly about that, really. Every near death she's had has been from suffering a half dozen AoOs while trying to heal someone who was about to hit the ground in a giant mob of monsters. Also her awkwardness tends to be more social than anything else.
Hopefully some of that actually comes across.
Also I made her because I think too few good clerics are clerics of anything other than kicking the royal shit out of evil while screaming Torm's name, or whatever.
I also had a spellsword (Lvl 1 Ftr, Lvl 8 mage) waaaay back in the day who made a big show of being a dashing hero to the public, but those who truly knew him found out that he was more of a hopelessly nerdy and absent minded guy with a sensitive streak. Especially once he pulled out his reading glasses. In other words, a nerd in armor. I like to tie my character flaws into my class choices/character concepts.
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I think that weaknesses are interesting, and an important part of any character, but I always try to make them thematically relevant for the character in question, because I think that's important.
For Hope it's (at least this is what I was aiming for) her coddling, Ilmatari upbringing with all of its focus on keeping everyone free from harm and pain (except herself) makes her often poorly suited for an adventurer's lifestyle. She basically regards having to send others into the Orc lair, or whatever, as a horrid task that she does merely because it has to be done. And that each blow delivered, be it one against her allies or her enemies, is one delivered against her God. Also, her build is not particularly well suited for direct combat, and she doesn't really regard her pwntastic spell selection as "her" power. Therein lies the continued insecurity in her own abilities.
Her tendency to be timid on adventures generally shifted towards being afraid for the welfare of others more than her own, particularly as she grew in power. But it was always mostly about that, really. Every near death she's had has been from suffering a half dozen AoOs while trying to heal someone who was about to hit the ground in a giant mob of monsters. Also her awkwardness tends to be more social than anything else.
Hopefully some of that actually comes across.
Also I made her because I think too few good clerics are clerics of anything other than kicking the royal shit out of evil while screaming Torm's name, or whatever.
I once made a bard/cleric of Torm once who was delberatly not a arse kicking type of cleric becuse all the Tormite clerics I had seen where arse kickers. :wink:
So I focused on the protective/ anti-coruption side of Torms dogma by looking after my factions wellbeing.
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@Khamal:
There was one wizard PC who was afraid of mirrors. He believed his shadow or duplicate would pop out and strangle him if he saw his reflection. He often RPed this and would avoid any rooms with mirrors or have someone cover it up. I remember one quest with him where I would emote covering it with my cloak so he could pass. A very quirky, funny guy. I can't remember the player's name, or even the PC's name.
Sardo Noomsie played by capntomato. this fear came about when a doppleganger sprang from a mirror in nada's and attacked us thanks to strawman.
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So it was developed from IG actions? That is cool as hell.