Characters / One Piece: Grand Line 3.5

The Players

Luke (Luffy)

A gamer who lives by the Rule of Fun. Once he heard their new campaign setting had pirates in it, he promptly derailed his original character and came up with Luffy. Leaps before he looks, acts before he thinks, but can back up his craziness with surprisingly thorough knowledge of the game rules and mechanics.

• Alternative Character Interpretation: invoked Luffy's still Luffy, with all that implies; rather, this applies to how Luke played out his Backstory, particularly in regards in Makino.
• Berserk Button: Understandably enough, given how much he enjoys having a good time with his friends, he becomes enraged when it hits him that DM likely never intended to join their party in the first place, having designed Kurahadol in such a way that he wouldn't work well with them.
• Calling Your Attacks: Loves to do this. Even when playing a Naruto fighting game with Cory, he does this.
• Character Alignment: Luffy is Chaotic Good. invoked
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: His OOC speech bubbles use red outlines.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Both Luke and Luffy. Thanks to Luke writing his Backstory, Luffy also hails from Cloudcuckooland.
• Epic Fail: Intentionally invokes this with a special d20 he breaks out for all his social skill checks, where every side has a 1.
• Genius Ditz: Though he 'plays' an Idiot Hero extremely well, Luke also proves very knowledgeable in certain areas, such as confidently taking an entire arsenal's worth of bullets for Zoro because he knows period rifles used round ammo.
  • One notable point of this involves Luke's apparent deep understanding of the grappling rules, which even the GM states is too complex for him to bother looking up.
  • Within the game itself, Luffy's introductory character sheet shows him with 16 Wisdom.
• Lethal Joke Character: Luke apparently loves to make these, to the point of being a specialty, with Luffy being the latest example. Though it's more that he likes making a Joke Character, but is skilled enough to make them surprisingly effective.
• The Loonie: This is the man who plays Luffy. What else would you expect?
• Magnetic Hero: Played with in that Luke actively tries to make everyone's recruitment go easier, as well as help the newer players feel more welcome in the group.
• Mind Control: Due to some of the flaws Luke chose for him, Luffy is particularly vulnerable to this (usually translating into a significant penalty to Will saves). This has been exploited in-game by the likes of Miss Goldenweek.
• Morality Chain: Luffy serves as one for Zoro; due to the swordsman's Undying Loyalty flaw, he can't just ignore what Luffy wants, no matter what Cory would prefer. Especially when it's 'Captain's orders'.
• The Munchkin: Notably, Cory helped him design Luffy. He's very good at using those powers in ways that shock the GM, though, as well as knowing the rules well enough to justify his actions.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Done OOC.
  Luke: Hey, Cory, can I borrow your dice?
• Raised By Owls
• Rule of Fun: One of his core motivations for his playstyle, along with Rule of Funny.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Other than his canon inability to swim, Luffy took a weakness against inner tube, meaning that if one is placed around him, he can only break free on a natural 20. Thankfully hasn't come up much, although the GM has mentioned working on an "inner tube shooter".

Cory (Roronoa Zoro, formerly Coby)

Luke's best friend, whom he's been gaming with since high school. A dedicated power gamer, he's all about crafting characters capable of killing anything they come across, twinking them out with obscure third party supplements and flaws he figures won't ever come up.

Though he intended to use Zoro's design from the start, the GM disallowed it, sticking him with the predesigned Coby instead. Zoro didn't even have a name until he decided to swipe the one the GM was using for an NPC.

• Alternative Character Interpretation: invoked Cory fully intended for his character to be The Unfettered, a Half-Human Hybrid with insane strength who answers to no one and is only out for his own self-interest. Zoro's loyalty to Luffy stems entirely from a Flaw he took going horribly wrong (in HIS eyes, anyway).
• Bad Bad Roleplying: Just see what happens when Cory is asked to roleplay something out.
  • Character Development shows him slowly grow out of this. While he's still mostly interested in combat, he does start showing a bit more respect for the roleplay aspect, and shows he can actually be pretty good at it at times, especially when he's given the lesson that roleplaying does not equal speaking in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
• Blood Knight
• Butt-Monkey: The GM just loves punishing Cory.
  • Iron Butt Monkey: Good thing Zoro's able to take it.
• Character Alignment: Designed Zoro as Chaotic Neutral, which also suits himself pretty well. invoked
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Uses green for his OOC speech bubbles (long before seeing Zoro, in fact).
• Cursed with Awesome: One of his flaws is waking up when something out of the ordinary is nearby.
  Natalie: That's a flaw?
• Even EXP Hounds Have Standards: Complains about the GM's abuse of puppy-punting to establish enemies as evil, and when the Usopp Pirates first confront them, seems upset at the thought they might have to kill the kids.
• Half-Human Hybrids: Created Zoro as 1/16th Fishman, 1/16th Giant.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath
• Hidden Depths: During the Logue Town arc, it's revealed that Cory is actually a fairly good piano player (apparently his parents insisted on him learning to play a musical instrument, and he chose piano thinking they would give up with such a large instrument; he was wrong). While seemingly somewhat embarrassed about it when asked to play, it turns out that he brings a keyboard around in his car.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Brought plenty of third-party books along to justify how much he twinked out Zoro. The GM now uses those books to design his own Mooks and villains.
  • Gave Zoro tons of Flaws he expected would never actually come into play. Unfortunately for him, the GM loves to hit those as much as possible.
• The Munchkin: Gamebusting Min-Maxer with plenty of Psychopath thrown in. Notably, he's also responsible for Luffy and Medaka's minmaxing, the latter of which was actually done without Rika's knowledge.
• NPC: Roronoa Zoro was supposed to be one, but Cory took advantage of the GM's Exact Words about getting to play his overpowered design if he gave him a name and backstory to take over.
• Plot Armor: The GM put this on Coby against Cory's will, since Cory wanted to kill him off quickly and roll up a different character.
• Railroading: Part of the deal he hammered out with GM when he hijacked Zoro is that Cory will have to comply with certain plot hooks he's got planned.
• The Real Man: The player who most wants to get into fights and skip the roleplay, and is slightly embarrassed when less manly talents of his are brought up (see Hidden Depths).
• Undying Loyalty: Took the 'Loyalty' flaw figuring it'd never come up since Zoro answers to no one. At least, not until he agreed to join Luffy's crew.
  • He later upgrades it to actual Undying Loyalty, essentially meaning Luke could make his character commit suicide if her wanted. But he trusts Luke enough to put his character's life in his hands.
• Unreliable Expositor: The "Island of Rare Animals" arc is presented as Cory retelling the events of that session to somebody else. This means he doesn't necessarily recall things that didn't interest him at the time, such as Phil explaining why they should let him draw their flag.
• You Killed My Father: Alluded to; Zoro took the Blood Vengeance flaw seven times. (The GM bargained it down from 36.)

Natalie (Nami of Cocoyashi village (Swedish Nationality))

A new addition to their gaming group, Natalie is a dedicated roleplayer who put a lot of thought into her character and her background. A whole lot of thought. As in "That's not a character sheet, that's a novel!" amount of thought. Provides plenty of self-narration.

• All First Person Narrators Talk Like Novelists: Her self-narration can get very wordy. She's also fond of the word 'graceful'.
• Badass Normal: Nami was created for a normal campaign. Not one with overpowered, min-maxed Mooks. Luke specifically recognizes her as this.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing/Devil in Plain Sight: Designed Nami with this in mind; as a result, she started out with no ranks in Hide.
• Character Alignment: Like Zoro, Nami is Chaotic Neutral. invoked
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Orange is used to indicate when she's speaking out of character.
• Crazy-Prepared: Nami's already-lengthy backstory includes a full description of Cocoyashi, right down to its healthcare system.
• Dark And Troubled Gaming History: Describes her old gaming group as 'a table of DMs'. A Flashback later shows how they drove away her friend Gordon when he tried joining the group by being a bunch of close-minded Jerkasses. Another few show them mocking her for her dedication to roleplaying.
• Phantom Thief
• Min-Maxing: While not to Cory's degree by any measure, Natalie ensured that Nami would have the best possible bonuses in her areas of expertise.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: One side effect of this was her failure to take any ranks in Hide.
• Ninja Looter
• The Role Player: Complete with dramatic, graceful narration.
• Rule of Drama: Gave Nami her hatred of pirates despite knowing the others would be playing them specifically to create dramatic tension. This also drives her actions nearly as much as Luke's fueled by the Rule of Fun.

Rika (Going Merry, formerly Medaka & Kaya)

Cory's cousin. First heard from when she calls during the Orange Town arc. Since Luke and Cory go way back and she visits fairly frequently, she's on good terms with Luke, too. Has been considering applying to the same college, so she's been asking Cory for more information about it. Joins the group to play Medaka in the Devil's Tower arc, then creates Kaya for the Syrup Town arc. After deciding that she wasn't satisfied with Kaya, she started playing as the Going Merry itself, as the ship's Klaubatterman spirit.

• Chekhov's Gunman: Went from a brief mention during the Orange Town arc to a full-fledged player.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: A light purple/pink is used for her OOC speech bubbles.
• Damsel out of Distress: Kaya's clever applications of her clerical skills emphasize that despite circumstances, she's anything but helpless. Unfortunately, Rika still decides that Kaya's too weak for her liking, as she didn't want to play a 'heal-bot' and felt like, despite her accomplishments, she hadn't contributed enough.
• Genki Girl
• Guest-Star Party Member: A Foregone Conclusion with Medaka, who only appears in the Devil's Tower OVA. Her playing Kaya during the Syrup Island arc implies this is going to become a Running Gag.
• The Heart:
  • Tries to help smooth over things between DM's Kurahadol and the rest of the party, reminding them that they're all supposed to be on the same side. It doesn't work out.
  • Also functions as this OOC, such as pulling Natalie aside during the Baratie Arc after noticing she's having trouble getting into the game that session and asking what's wrong.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Medaka wears one, but keeps the visor open after the GM decides she must be hiding something with it.
• Motor Mouth: Often speakssoquickly that some of her words runtogetherlikeso. Getsworsethemoreexcitedshegets. Trying to be better about this.
• The Munchkin: Metagamer who appears to have memorized plenty of enemy statistics. Enough that just hearing the name of one leads to her rattling off their average stats. Also, Cory got ahold of her character sheet after she designed Medaka and added some Min-Maxing, apparently without her knowledge.
• Opt Out: Rather than create a new character for the Baratie arc, Rika opts to just sit back and watch because she couldn't come up with one in time.
• The Roleplayer: Different from Natalie in that she doesn't "inhabit" her characters so much, but makes sure that her characters act believably, such as when Usopp tried to warn Kaya about the plot against her life.
• You Killed My Father: Medaka has the Blood Vengeance flaw, and quotes The Princess Bride.

Phil (Usopp)

The GM's roommate, he also knows Luke and Cory in passing, but wasn't interested in joining any of their campaigns... until he met Natalie, Rika and DM. Rather than designing his own character, he took an NPC the GM had designed for Syrup Village. Completely unfamiliar with how the game works, for obvious reasons.

• Alternative Character Interpretation: invoked His initial lying when meeting the others actually stems from Phil honestly misreading his character sheet and thinking Usopp really does have thousands of followers. However, it seems the GM had intended for him to have a reptuation for lying from the start to justify his NPC being unable to rally any support for the player party in Syrup.
  • His tall tales uncannily predicting the future, meanwhile, appear to be the result of the GM accidentally mixing his notes in with Usopp's profile when he handed them over to Phil.
• Butt-Monkey: Unintentionally set himself up for this by mocking the others' gaming hobby before he met the girls.
• Character Alignment: Usopp is Neutral Good. invoked
• Character Development: In the middle of the Syrup Village Arc, after Kaya calls him out in-character on his actions, he begins to think more seriously about how Usopp would react and playing accordingly.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: His OOC bubbles have a goldenrod border.
  • Also played with: yellow's also the GM's signature color, Foreshadowing that he'd be the one who actually designed Usopp.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Or rather, lured in by the unexpected presence of girls at the gaming table.
• Foregone Conclusion: Phil is a newbie, and it's been implied he has mocked GM for his hobby in the past, and maybe the others as well. This can only get ugly when the Water Seven Arc comes around.
  • That, or based off a earlier (non-canon) Guest comic, Phil and the rest of the party have a spat about how useful his character is, leading to him and the rest replacing his character with sniper king, before swapping back to usopp because of emotional attachment. His duel with Luffy is him trying to demonstrate how weak he is even at maximum capacity.
  • Either way, DRAMA.
• Lethal Joke Character: Potentially. Luke believes Usopp's skillset could make him one if played the right way, and wants to help Phil learn how.
• Noob: Never played before.
  • To his credit, he does try.
• NPC: Usopp was originally designed as one, using his crippling cowardice and lying to keep him from assisting the players too much.
• The Roleplayer: Growing into this as part of his Character Development.
• The So-Called Coward: Despite being written as a coward (complete with a flaw that makes him panic on a failed will save), he's playing Usopp as loyal to his friends and his village, and will take extreme risks to protect others.
• Stealth Pun: As an NPC, Usopp was effectively The Storyteller's character.

Gordon (Sanji)

• Ascended Extra: Originally, Sanji didn't even have a name; he was created as Baratie Waiter #3. In the Arlong arc, he functions as a GMPC, which makes Cory uncomfortable.
• Badass Unintentional: Gordon's plan was for the Strawhats to bail out a nameless waiter when Fullbody tried attacking him. Then Fullbody rolled a natural 1, followed by the nameless waiter getting three 20s for an automatic win.
• Character Alignment: Sanji is Chaotic Good. invoked
• GMPC: By the Arlong arc, he's become this to Cory's chagrin.
• Meaningful Name: Goes from Baratie Waiter #3 to Sanji.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In One Piece's Whole Cake Island arc, we find out this sort of numerical theme naming is exactly why he was named Sanji in the actual comic.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Many of the players refer to him as Gordon Ramsay.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: In-universe, Sanji becomes a character due to getting 3 natural 20s against Fullbody and is promoted to a GMPC by the Arlong arc. This also is how his and Zoro's rivalry begins to develop as Cory does not fully trust him when the GM is also playing the bad guys.

Guest Characters

Dan (Johnny)

Robin (Yosaku)

Emily (Mihawk)

An old friend of Cory's. She introduced him to tabletop gaming and taught him everything he knows about making absurdly overpowered characters. Initially cameoing in the "Island of Rare Animals" before being introduced properly in the "Baratie" arc.

• Early-Bird Cameo: She appeared earlier in the Framing Device for the "Island of Rare Animals" arc as the person who Cory is telling the story to. She later tells said story to Dan and Robin in order to convince them to join their campaign.
• Friendly Rivalry: The duel between Zoro and Mihawk is a result of an OOC argument between their players over which of them made the superior swordsman.

Phoebe (Smoker)

Bonnie (Tashigi)

Marceline (Carmen)

The Game Master

Gordon

The guy in charge. One Piece: Grand Line 3.5 is actually his first attempt at serving as the gamemaster, but he's not inexperienced, just used to being on the other side of the screen. An expert Munchkin himself, he's running things with Luke and Cory's tendencies well in mind, ready to exploit their every weakness.

• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Where the player's speech bubbles are outlined in their trademark color, his have a yellow backdrop. When speaking normally or narrating, they're simple boxes; they're only shaped like typical speech bubbles when he's actually providing an NPC or enemy's voice.
• Crazy-Prepared: Planned for various scenarios, including Zoro joining Luffy's crew and activating his Extreme Loyalty flaw, Rika quitting Kaya's character, predicting DM's traps in another campaign, and when DM gives the others his notes, he sends them a text telling them to stop reading them and that they're decoys.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hinted at. A side conversation in the Baratie Arc reveals he used to be part of Natalie's Jerkass gaming group, and it was later confirmed that he's Gordon.
• Enforced Method Acting: Offered Rika bonus roleplaying EXP if she actually slapped Phil when her character struck Usopp. Doubles as Hypocritical Humor since earlier he'd unnecessarily warned Phil he didn't have to hit DM for real while striking Kurahadol.
• Evil Laugh
• Flaw Exploitation: If a character has a Flaw or other weakness in their design, you can bet the GM's going to hit that as many times as possible. In fairness, he does usually let the players do the same for his own min-maxed villains if they can come up with a good jusitification, though he's more hesitant in acting out Sanji's ChivalrousPervert flaw until called out on it.
• GMPC: Designed one to round out the group when only Luke and Cory were playing, but decided against using them. Their very existence is likely a Chekhov's Gun.
• Grappling with Grappling Rules: His problems understanding the grappling rules lead to him letting Luke slide without looking anything up. Later, he averts further issues by taking the time to study and understand them before their next session.
• Kick the Dog: Deliberately creates his villains to be as nasty as possible because "with you guys, I can't be too subtle."
• Killer Game Master: Focuses perhaps overmuch on 'beating' the Player Party as opposed to fleshing out the world at large. (Of course, it doesn't help that the efforts he has made at worldbuilding tend to be ignored...)
• Large Ham:
  Natalie: Did you really have to jump up on the table like that?
  GM: Yep.
• The Munchkin: When designing the enemy. Even the Mooks.
• No Name Given: For the first half-dozen or so story arcs. It was eventually revealed that he's Natalie's friend Gordon.
• Pet the Dog: During the Syrup Island arc, he decides to secretly fudge a roll in the players' favor, letting Usopp snipe Jango and save Kaya's life.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: His handwriting unintentionally causes this.
• Squee: Lets one out in the Baratie arc when Luke expresses actual interest in the restaurant's backstory.
• Through His Stomach: He's far more willing to let things slide when food enters the mix.
• Zerg Rush: A favorite tactic. Has used skittles to represent individual enemies, leading to:
  Cory: Hoooooly Crap. The GM just opened up three bags of skittles.

Others

Delilah (DM)

The group's former dungeon master. She used to run campaigns for Luke, Cory and the GM, but was forced to give it up after becoming too busy to continue. First appears at the start of the Captain Kuro arc, where she plays Kurahadol herself. As of the Baratie arc, she's now serving as a secondary game master.

• Admiring the Abomination: Expresses genuine admiration and approval when the GM manages to negate her special maneuvers and take control of Kurahadol through the flaws she thought she had negated.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Her chat bubbles are in the same style as Gordon's, but are cyan blue instead of yellow and have rounded edges.
• Grappling with Grappling Rules: Her grasp of the grappling rules is great enough that she can mantain a fast-paced debate with Luke while their characters are fighting.
• Jerk Justifications: She justifies Kurahadol's insulting behavior by claiming she's just keeping him in-character, despite the problems that causes. During her tenure as a Killer Game Master, she may have used these for her villains, but the players never got far enough to find out.
• Killer Game Master: When Nat asks what sort of campaigns she used to run, Luke replies "You don't wanna know." Considering the Flashback to Ga-Rei -Zero- that follows...
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Luke and the GM talk about how horrific her characters were during her term as a Game Master, she acts most irritated by the accusation that she never bothered with backstories; it's not her fault they never survived long enough to learn them!
  • Likewise, she protests that there were plenty of signs of the characters she used to play falling to the dark side. The other party members just didn't do anything in time to stop her from turning and killing them all.
• The Munchkin: Yet another Min-Maxer. Later reveals herself to be a Psychopath as well.
• One Degree of Separation: Not only does she know Luke, Cory, and Gordon from their gaming days together, she's Rika's T.A.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Played with in that Luke, Cory and Gordon likely know her real name, but she's cut off before she can tell Rika or Natalie (or the audience) what it is. A later Q & A session reveals it to be Delilah. It's later said in-comic by one of the guest characters at the start of the Loguetown arc.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Her main argument for trying to get the Straw Hats to turn on Syrup Village is all about averting this for fun and profit.
• Shadow Archetype: Aspects of her character revealed during the Syrup Island arc create this contrast with the other players, particularly Natalie, Cory and Luke:
  • She's one to Natalie in how they play Kurahadol/Nami, respectively. Both willingly create dramatic tension within the group with their character concepts; however, whereas Natalie is flexible enough to work with the others despite Nami's hatred of pirates, Delilah has Kurahadol bait and insult Phil/Usopp and is completely unrepentant about the strife this causes, saying she's just being true to the character.
  • Her Motive Rant when she explains Kurahadol's secret to the others reveals a parallel with Cory, as she proclaims they can get tons of experience and loot by turning on the citizens of Syrup.
  • While Luke enjoys having fun with his friends, DM cares more about her personal enjoyment, and doesn't particularly care if her actions hurt anyone else's ability to enjoy the game. When she mashes Luke's Berserk Button as Kurahadol, she's shocked by his sudden rage and doesn't seem to get why he's pissed.
• Significant Monogram: Lampshaded in her introduction; before she can explain what DM stands for, Cory cuts her off.
• Split Personality: Captain Kuro is one for Kurahadol. They're both totally evil, though.
• This Cannot Be!: Her reaction when Luke successfully breaks through all of Kurahadol's feats.
• Token Evil Teammate: May have been her intention with Kurahadol; instead becomes a Deconstruction of the concept, as he's such a Jerkass he can't (or won't) fit into the party at all.
  • According to Cory, she was fond of this even before she started running her own games.
  • Later, it's revealed that she likely was planning this all along, and gave Kurahadol the Shakushi manuver, which doesn't discriminate between friend or foe.
• Unwitting Pawn: Jango reveals to Kaya that he originally hypnotized Kurahadol into believing he was Captain Kuro so he could take the fall for the real one. However, before they could put that plan into action, the real Captain Kuro abruptly died, and Kurahadol's belief that he was the real thing was so strong he picked up some of his skills.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Luffy gets Kurahadol on the ropes, DM abruptly starts cursing and complaining about how she can't believe her Grapple Escape manuever didn't work.
• We Can Rule Together: Her plan as Kurahadol is to use the loot and XP they gain from taking out the Black Cat pirates to start pillaging the neighboring islands like real pirates, and eventually take over the East Blue. She expects the others to go along with this, especially Cory, and is surprised when they refuse.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Kurahadol isn't actually the real Captain Kuro. Jango's hypnosis not only convinced him that he IS, but gave him several of the original's abilities.