Your Bad Habits

I know. That's how I wanted to do it. Bad habit, remember?

Anyway, I've got a much better way this time. Dumber villains. Not stupid, dumb. Incapable of comprehending anything other than their chosen course of action. Most of them are a combination of a Freehold-wide My Greatest Failure and vengeance-based Gone Horribly Right. Combine those two and you've got something that can't be bought, nor bargained with, nor reasoned with. Nor, for the most part, fought.

edited 21st Jan '11 3:22:57 PM by Somfin

Just realised: I only appear to do 3 character personalities, all of which are facets of my own.

1. Anxious. These characters are generally fairly cerebral, often wizard-types or mental-primary (though I have an L 5 R bushi like this, too). They're normally quite young, unsure of their abilities, but likely to have some sort of driving goal or Berserk Button that means getting in the way of them or threatening their friends will get you in deep trouble. Likely to be rather pacifist. Examples: Shiba Matsoku (L 5 R Shiba Bushi and wannabe philosopher, may die in a duel against a Kakita shortly), Garan Fane (self-inserty Defiler Caste Infernal Exalt).

2. Arrogant. Generally rather like Javert- stern, uncompromising, and very confident of their own abilities. Often either wizardly or a finesse fighter. None actually in play at the moment, though my Lunar Exalt, Whispering Breeze, is a mix of this and 3.

3. Boisterous. (Bruiser or otherwise.) These characters love life, and face it with a grin and a snarky comment. They often come out with a protective thing, and frequently (though not absolutely always) enjoy fighting. Cheerful, great at parties, charismatic, and usually either a social-type or a front-line fighter (or both). May show signs of Type 1 when things puncture their mood, but doing so takes quite a lot of work. Examples: Bjarn Stormtooth (my Dawn Caste- badass warrior and incredible general), Lady Eleanor Brightfire (D&D/Pathfinder Knight/Cavalier, child of a knightly family, six feet of pretty blonde steel-clad warmachine. Will challenge you at the drop of a hat if you make any reference to anything being "too dangerous for a woman" or say something cliched like "I like a girl with spirit.").

Thing is, I never seem to make anything else...

Being versatile. I tried to put together a convincing skillset for my werewolf soldier, ended up with a Master of None. What's funny, my Fragile Speedster vampire car thief fared much better.

I play a 4E Teifling Rouge. I am no stranger to Table Top games but I have little serious experience. I have a lot to learn.

• Our group in genral, dissapoint our DM when it comes to searching.
• I want to take advantage of my class more. I am rouge, I should be more sneaky. Yet, I still find too many battles to be me just hitting something again and again.
• My not-dying skills are poor. I rarely use a healing surge in a fight. I don't know when to quit. I've almost killed our fighter once because I wanted him to stay in battle for a stratagey that prolly wasn't even possible.

It kind of fits his backstory though. He could barely survive on his own, societey dosen't want him; the only way he could make a living is to get in party of strong heroes to gaurd him. I think there's plenty of room for Character Development, no place to go but up right?

edited 10th Feb '11 4:55:34 PM by DrStarky

4e:

I love my NP Cs and monsters too much. Since the players can kill anything I throw at them in the book with one or two Encounter powers, I wanted to create stronger and more difficult to defeat enemies, even to the point where I added acid blood to one that burned the P Cs that attacked it in melee.

Actually, I just converted a Xenomorph into an Elite mob. I realized that, I geared it to indefinitely kill my team rather than be able to survive stupidly powerful attacks, to the point where an opportunity attack burned away 12+ of their HP (since the acid damage was 2d4s per melee attack that hits), and multi-hitters end up getting bloodied with one use of their power. Not only that, they left puddles of acid blood in the square they step in, which lead to 20-30 squares of acid burning up the P Cs.

They were really worried that they would die just walking away from the Xenomorphs, rather than get their skull gouged by them.

Eventually I lied about their current HP and enlisted the Chunky Salsa Rule to allow them to be killed easier.

Because I put the queen into the battle as well soon after, who knocked the P Cs prone just by stepping on them.

I really liked my creatures I made, but I forget the game was about them playing the story, not me trying to create a one-sided murderfest with my creations.

I am bad at improvising dialogue. Like, really bad.

I also put my foot in my mouth a lot.

My bad habit is that I end up making silly characters for serious games and serious characters for silly games. It's not like I even set out to do so from the get-go, they just... End up that way. Even if I start with a silly or serious concept, during the process of character creation they just... End up the opposite. It's somewhat annoying, to be honest.

...The again, part of me wouldn't want it any other way.

Finally! The self Degradation that I so CRAVE.

As a GM, Jigsaw puzzle Plot, All the way. I have hints from four campaigns ago (About a year and a half RL time) that hint to what is going to happen now. I've got NPC's With abilities that the players don't even know about, That form the crux of the next stage of the plot, So it sounds like an ass pull, BUT REALLY I HAD IT PLANNED FROM THE BEGGINING GUYS! BELIEVE ME!!!

I've also got a group that is too large for what I want to do. A group of 8 Is way to big for me, I could handle 5, But This is ridiculous! Not to mention that I hate having to roll dice, I prefect Predefined abilities without a need to roll. Every chance I get, I have the NPC's just take 10 on their checks. I also get kind of annoyed at my inability to make things work as I have them planned out, Not the PC's Actions, Those I know intricately, I know their every option, even the ones they don't know they can do, but When I have to be that one NPC, all of a sudden the damned NPC wants to be SPECIAL! Characterization is a bitch.

As a player, I'm no longer able to view games as "Go here, kill this", It's all political now. I've never played in a V:tM game though, so I haven't had a chance to cut my teeth on it. It of course results with all my current d20 characters taking the Leadership feat, just so I can have them work on my other goals while I'm out adventuring! ARGH!!! Is it so bad that I want to control the town we operate out of? I just want a some what stable area so that I can exploit it later!

Also, I too suffer from Jack-of-all-trades-itus. I can't think of how not too! I need to be able to know how to do first aid, what if one of our Party members gets hurt? And I obviously need some bluff, how else am I gonna be able to lie to the towns guard? Can't forget the diplomacy so I can make some contacts in different parts of the town, Wait, I'll need steetwise to figure out where to find them, Whats that? you say I'm out of skill points? NO! I still have to grab my spot and listen so that Im not deaf and blind! And I can't forget Hide and move silently... Yeah, Of course I wanted to roll up a cleric, Why? Oh, You say I'm speccing up a rogue? But I can't heal very well as a Rogue. Ok, lets split it half way, Bard? Wait, We don't have dedicated healer now. FU-

It just goes on and on! And of course, After GM'ing shadowrun, no game is the same anymore. I have to find a way to have to situation work to all of our advantages. "Oh, you have a Use rope of 20?! We can use that to tie him down... OR we can use it to make a trip wire so that after player B intimidates the target down this hallway he gets knocked prone, then we can grapple him, tie him up and interrogate him."

So many plans, so little abilities to enact them!

And I prefer inter-party drama, And that always leads to conflict, which I despise. Its more interesting to me when you work together, encounter problems between you and another member of the party and then overcome them. Of course, the only people who make intricate enough characters to have conflicts with are the chaotic-stupid chuckle heads. *Sigh*

On a good note for the GM part though, I've figured out a few of the major players for the next part of my campaign, so It should run smoothly.

As a GM:

• I can't kill characters. I don't mean PCs (who tend to explicitly just have plot armor, usually with some kind of cost), but I tend to pull my punches even with NPCs. I can do bad things to them...but they all tend to live, so that they can get better. I know that this can kill a lot of the drama, but I get kind of attached...
• I have trouble running for players who aren't active and just want to be railroaded. I don't have any sort of track at all, and sometimes players can get lost.
• I honestly don't know what I would do if all my players decided they wanted to play Jerkass DesignatedHeroes. I kind of feel like I need to like the characters to be able to run for them...

As a Player:

• My pacifistic nature tends to cause some problems. I generally try to reason with the villains or monsters. Generally I'm fine with taking out the Big Bad, if he's really unlikable, but I just get a lot of protective feelings to Mooks, PunchClockVillains, NobleDemons, or anyone with a Freudian Excuse.
• I also tend to be The Determinator to the point where my GM has asked me if I can actually accept losing. I said basically, I can lose the battle but not the war (because isn't continuing to fight, even when all hope seems lost what a hero does?).
• I also tend to get really emotionally invested in games. Crying OOC Tender Tears over some NPC's plight, stressing for the whole week between sessions over whether I can save someone...
• Basically, I'm a huge Mama Bear / All-Loving Hero towards everyone who is even remotely sympathetic. And while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can be a problem for players who want to actually kill things, or GMs who want us to suffer a defeat.

edited 4th May '15 10:10:54 AM by VerityCandle

Might as well join in on the not-so-fun. I've only really played, so here goes.

Playing toward 'good.' For every campaign I've played, I keep doing paladin-like characters who try not to do wrong. I've done this in video-games with evil-neutral-good options as well. Just can't seem to shake the goody-two-shoes out of me.

Separating other players from their characters. This shouldn't be a thing, and I've been working on it, but I see the roleplaying, then I see the player's personality and sometimes they blend a little too much for me.

Finally, and probably a me problem, is staying awake for roleplaying. Multiple times for this SMT game I was in, we had to go from 7 PM to 1 or 2 in the morning. My roleplaying, while fairly good, divebombs past midnight. This has problems when the game is role-play heavy.

Huh. Feels good to read that.

This! My 3.5E group meets on Sunday afternoons, and I somehow always fail to remember that the time I need to get up for church is much closer to the time I have to get up for classes than the time I have to get up on Saturday, so I'm always running on 3-5 hours of sleep.

Also, if the action is too slow (IE, if we're in a long fight with our rather large group, or the DM and psion are arguing about rules again, or the Cleric forgot to level up again), I'm often guilty of grabbing whatever rulebook happens to be near me and reading it, partially to prevent #1.

And I seem to have trouble with playing neutral characters. If a character starts on with Neutral as the first part of their alignment, they'll always end up good. Oddly, evil characters don't have this problem, nor do neutral characters in non-dice-based rps. (my favorite freeform rp character is a True Neutral Sith)

My bad habits are Creating story games with too much free play and Picking the healer not of interest but because I know its gonna be needed.

I tend to trust nobody, even in games where some NP Cs and most/all P Cs are entirely trustworthy. S'what I get for playing EVE Online, I guess...

I have a tendency to, when in character, adopt an accent (normally Aussie or Brit). This tends to be an issue when it sticks (read: I forget to turn it off when speaking OOC). This causes... consternation, and at least 2 Fate Points so far.

Looking back, I've noticed it's easy to become quite callous over time, even without going full murderhobo. I realized it in retrospect, thinking of a choice my character was presented with.

Background: Baron Bob has wooed (and negotiated with^note Bob brings something Carol wants — such has the feat of arms that earned him his title —, and Bob gets to marry up) Countess Carol and they're about to marry. The guests come in over several days, but on the day before the wedding, an ex-girlfriend of Bob's waltzes in with a toddler, claiming he's the father (which as far as Bob knows, could be true). Bob and Carol of course have no intent to change their plans, so they immediately end the discussion with a counter-offer that is promptly accepted: they will raise the kid as one of theirs and give the mother a cushy job in the castle. Crisis averted, everyone directly involved is happy.

Fast-forward to the dinner, where crisis strikes the kitchen: Several servants, including the bastard's mother, show obvious signs of violent poisoning. They're dying, but one of this setting's few magical healers is among the wedding guests. Bad news is, the poison works fast and is in an advanced state, so in the time it will take him to save one person, the others will die. And my character has like, one round to decide who lives.

And looking back at this, I noticed that neither me nor my character cared about these NPCs' fates. What he did care about was that the mother dying of poison would raise suspicion on the couple and tarnish their reputation, which my character had no reason to want. There was nothing about human lives in this decision, only a thought of how "those I care about" would be affected. And I don't even have the excuse that "they were otherwise equal", since I hadn't taken the time to think about that. And I didn't notice how callously I had reacted until much later.

So... be careful how you play and think in RPGs, this can lead down a dark path.

edited 29th Jan '18 12:59:36 PM by Medinoc