History Main / TheRoleplayer

-->'''A Self Called 'Nowhere':''' WHM tends to get emotionally attached to a well-made character. To him they're the means of exploring a story, and a good story is something he thinks the very foundations of modern society are based on. He doesn't mind a 'bad end' so long as it's legitimate. Botched a roll at a bad time? Shit happens. Bad choice, in character? Meant to be. Simply screwed by circumstance? Them's the shakes. 'LOL you're dead because you actually disagreed with my [[AuthorAvatar self-insert fetish-fuel character]] with [[DualWielding two]] {{katanas|AreJustBetter}}!'? I actually had to stop him from choking the {{fat bastard}}.\\

-->'''A Self Called 'Nowhere':''' WHM tends to get emotionally attached to a well-made character. To him they're the means of exploring a story, and a good story is something he thinks the very foundations of modern society are based on. He doesn't mind a 'bad end' so long as it's legitimate. Botched a roll at a bad time? Shit happens. Bad choice, in character? Meant to be. Simply screwed by circumstance? Them's the shakes. 'LOL you're dead because you actually disagreed with my [[AuthorAvatar self-insert]] [[FetishFuel fetish-fuel]] character with [[DualWielding two]] {{katanas|AreJustBetter}}!'? I actually had to stop him from choking the {{fat bastard}}.\\

* Or pretty much any system where a highly experienced character can be killed in one round by a basic weapon, in other words, ''not'' D20.

* Waffle House Millionaire, the creator and player of the legendary Fanfic/OldManHenderson, is stated to be this by fellow [[Website/FourChan fa/tg/uy]] and the primary teller of Henderson's tale A Self Called 'Nowhere'. WHM deliberately created Henderson to be [[OffTheRails game-ruining bullshit given human form]] out of revenge because the KillerGameMaster kept killing off his previous character in a completely unfair and nonsensical manner, just because WHM slighted him.

* Godfree from ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'', who plays up his knight persona and speaks in YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe. [[DisproportionateRetribution Kuradeel kills him over the latter trait.]]

* One-Tricker: The player whose roleplaying abilities seem to be fine... except for the fact that they play [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome the same character]]... over, and over, and over again. When Tim the Ninja gets killed, he'll be immediately replaced with his twin brother Tom the Ninja. And after that, their triplet Jim the Ninja shows up. And so on, and so forth. Not even a GenreShift will stop this guy; he doesn't care if there's no ninjas in ''[[Franchise/StarTrek']]' or no ''[[Franchise/StarWars Jedi]]'' in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms''. As such, other roleplayers hate this guy for breaking their immersion by insisting on playing characters that don't fit into the setting (not to mention the DM who's forced to shoehorn things into the setting to accommodate the one-tricker). This player may also be a Real Man who's not used to playing things outside his comfort zone, a Loonie whose schtick is growing old, or a Munchkin attached to a certain GameBreaker build.

* One-Tricker: The player whose roleplaying abilities seem to be fine... except for the fact that they play [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome the same character]]... over, and over, and over again. When Tim the Ninja gets killed, he'll be immediately replaced with his twin brother Tom the Ninja. And after that, their triplet Jim the Ninja shows up. And so on, and so forth. Not even a GenreShift will stop this guy; he doesn't care if there's no ninjas in ''LiveActionTV/StarTrek'' or no [[Franchise/StarWars Jedi'' in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms''. As such, other roleplayers hate this guy for breaking their immersion by insisting on playing characters that don't fit into the setting (not to mention the DM who's forced to shoehorn things into the setting to accommodate the one-tricker). This player may also be a Real Man who's not used to playing things outside his comfort zone, a Loonie whose schtick is growing old, or a Munchkin attached to a certain GameBreaker build.

---> '''Gimli:''' Let me see if I follow this: I am either alive or dead, based on the state of a die which we cannot observe without altering. Do I now exist in both states at once? [[SchrodingersCat Am I both living]] ''[[SchrodingersCat and]]'' [[SchrodingersCat dead?]] Have I become some sort of '''Uncertainty Lich?'''\\

* Gabe from ''PennyArcade'' is a borderline Anti-Munchkin:

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* Vilbert von Vampire from ''[[WebComic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]''.

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* Arthéon from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'', showing it mostly via interest in the game's background and refusal to de-activate the "taking distance between avatars into account" option on the microphones unless it's essential to the success of the quest. Heimdäl and Ystos show elements of it also in the novel and later seasons of the webseries. In the movie, Battos insists on getting important news via someone else handing him paper messages in-game, despite the existence of the in-game forums.

* GM-less storytelling RPG's tend to be this--like ''[[{{TabletopGame/Forsooth}} Forsooth!]]'', ''TabletopGame/{{Microscope}}'', and ''TabletopGame/{{Fiasco}}''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' the game´s intended audience is people who like to play an adventure type story while playing a Victorian character. The very simple rules do not leave much room for min-maxing or munchkining. A munchkin player with a repeating rifle and a good marksmanship skill could kill the technologically inferior enemies easily, but once the enemy is in range there is very little that will protect him from enemy musketballs and arrows (no dodge skill, no camouflage, no bullet stopping armor unless we are talking about close combat). On the other hand, the detailed background put much emphasis on understanding Victorian society and mindset.

* ''MagicTheGathering'' makes allowances for Roleplayers in the form of its own PlayerArchetypes; Vorthos, who is more interested in the story of the cards than the mechanics, and Johnny, who while being best known for [[GameBreaker wildly powerful combo decks]], is also the [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation player type who considers deckbuilding]] ''[[AlternateCharacterInterpretation itself]]'' [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation a form of self-expression]]. They would, for example, build "tribal" decks (that is, decks built around one or two creature types) before such decks were given dedicated tribe-specific support.

* Momonga along with the rest of guild in ''LightNovel/Overlord2012''.

Those above types are frequent punching bags of TheLoonie and {{Griefer}}s for being somewhat high-strung and humorless, especially in the {{MMORPG}} (of all places) where they occasionally show up. Some games, such as ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', even have RP-oriented servers where this style of play is theoretically encouraged (whether a given RP server ''succeeds'' is open to interpretation). ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' in technical terms is a largely static environment, and is far more heavily designed to cater to Munchkin[=/MinMaxer=] players, however; so while it is possible for players of this type to do what makes them happy, WoW will generally require that they work much harder at it, than they might need to in other games.

* The ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' DLC "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep" features Lilith as this, alongside Brick as TheRealMan and Mordecai who isn't really interested in playing at all. Notably, Lilith is willing to emulate the speech patterns of [[GratuitousSpanish Salvador]], [[{{Haiku}} Zer0]], or even [[TalkativeLoon Krieg]] to the best of her ability.
-->'''Lilith:''' I talk to her. In-character, of course. ''[ahem]''\\

* Gimli in ''Webcomic/DMOfTheRings'': "Who let the roleplayer into the group?". He later eased up and became more of TheSmartGuy, though he's still the only guy who pays attention to the story.

---> '''Gimli:''' Let me see if I follow this: I am either alive or dead, based on the state of a die which we cannot observe without altering. Do I now exist in both states at once? [[SchrodingersCat Am I both living ]]''[[SchrodingersCat and ]]''[[SchrodingersCat dead?]] Have I become some sort of '''Uncertainty Lich?'''\\

** Also arguably, ''Roy''. Note the incident with the Orcs in "The Origin of PC's".
*** Somewhat different in that Roy, while definitely a role player, is actually fairly optimized for his role, stats-wise - it's just that he's optimized as meat-shield and tactically talented party leader at the same time. It helps that he rolled really well on his stats when he was born- he's got all the physical stats necessary to be an effective fighter, plus a combination of mental stats that make his brain [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0031.html Tastier than V's]] (V being the party Wizard, a class that requires high mental stats).
*** This explains his father's disappointment with his career choices.
* Tavros from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' is an example of this. He picks a class that is rather ineffective in combat just because it matches his personality and interests. [[spoiler: It turns out badly for him. VERY badly]]

* Arthéon from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'', showing it mostly via interest in the game's background and refusal to de-activate the "taking distance between avatars into account" option on the microphones unless it's essential to the success of the quest. Heimdäl and Ystos show elements of it also in the novel and later seasons of the webseries. In the movie, Battos insists on getting important news via someone else handing him paper messages in-game, depite the existence of the in-game forums.

* Godfree from ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'', who plays up his knight persona and speaks in YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe.

* Joanna in ''Film/TheGamers: Dorkness Rising''. Somewhat subverted, in that she only comes off this way because of the crowd of (shockingly ineffective) munchkins she games with.

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* A very tongue-in-Cheek roleplayer made an appearance in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8-NNlE80A Gencon 2010 Celebrity D&D game.]] A paladin selected from the audience at attempted to convert every single enemy they met to the side of LawfulGood, including a pack of [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Skeletons.]] He even offers to give them skin.

* A very tongue-in-Cheek roleplayer made an appearance in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8-NNlE80A Gencon 2010 Celebrity D&D game.]] A paladin selected from the audience at attempted to convert every single enemy they met to the side of LawfulGood, including a pack of [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Skeletons.]] [[CrowningMomentOfFunny He even offers to give them skin.]]

* Ben playing Kenobi in ''Webocomic/DarthsAndDroids''. Annie playing Shmi and Anakin even more so.

* Ben playing Kenobi in ''DarthsAndDroids''. Annie playing Shmi and Anakin even more so.

* Gimli in ''DMOfTheRings'': "Who let the roleplayer into the group?". He later eased up and became more of TheSmartGuy, though he's still the only guy who pays attention to the story.

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* Arthéon from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'', showing it mostly via interest in the game's background and refusal to de-activate the "taking distance between avatars into account" option on the microphones unless it's essential to the success of the quest. Heimdäl and Ystos show elements of it also in the novel and later seasons of the webseries.