Your Favorite RPG Characters?

[DeusExBrockina]

One of my favorite aspects of RPGs is how they classify and suggest types of characters in specific genres, the abilities they have, the ways they can act, etc. Character options in RPGs usually give me new ideas and act as inspiration for OC (original character) creation. I spend a lot of time reading character creation sections of games even when I don’t expect to be playing them any time soon (I have a number of OCs for games I’ve never actually played, in fact…). As someone who very rarely manages to find time or a group to play most of the games I want to play with, the majority of my time spent with RPGs involves me daydreaming about my characters like this. Obviously lots of other things end up mixing in for character inspiration as well-- videogames, movies, anime, books, music, history, and so on.

What are some of y’all’s favorite OCs that originated from RPGs you’ve read or played? What did you like in particular about them? For those who tend to always end up DMing, maybe an NPC you were particularly fond of?

One of mine was a character I did actually end up playing in a D&D 5e campaign, a viking-y warrior poet type named Gunnlaugr (mechanically speaking, he was a half-elf Valor Bard, with a build that ended up being a whole mess, but that’s besides the point… >_> ).

I wanted to make a character who didn’t have any sort of tragic past or mysterious secret he was keeping from the rest of the party (which was a dynamic I had seen very frequently in D&D groups, and was often guilty of myself)-- his childhood was totally fine, he wasn’t angsty about being a half-elf and “not belonging in either world” or any of that, his relationship with his parents was pretty healthy, neither of them had been murdered by marauding orcs or anything… He was basically just there because deep down he was just a big nerd for sagas and legends and all that jazz. He had grown up on sagas and legends in a culture that emphasized big heroics and going around and slaying dragons and whatnot, and was eager to go out and become the stuff of legends himself. It was fun to play a character who was as excited to be involved in fantasy adventures as I was as a player. The character was mostly very lighthearted, very loud and boisterous and easygoing, but there was a subtext going on that he was maybe there for the wrong reasons-- he wanted to adventure because he thought getting fame and glory and wealth through adventuring was what a good viking ought to do, rather than like, because he consciously wanted to help people…

[BlakeRyan]

Back in the day we played Everquest II, which have lizardfolk called Iksar. I enjoyed playing a Druid-Fury, exploring the lands, removing undead and cultists.

So when Pathfinder rolled around we decided to use Norrath/Everquest world as a setting but I insisted we need a hook for the group so reduce the murder-hobo factor. We decided we would all be Iksar and would be dealing with a range of threats to our nation. My character was a Druid called Ack-Ack (sounds like Mars Attacks).

Our characters frequently put themselves in harms way to protect their kin, and ended up scouting out a new homeland, and escorting our people there. Along the way I role played trying new foods with the people we traded with, and teaching Iksar youth about wilderness survival.

While I only played the character for 12 sessions, it was a good story arc and we accomplished alot.

[Adrianne1976]

Presently my Favorite Character is for a Game called “Gaslight” by Battlefield Press. She’s a Bear Beast man (Think island of Dr Monroe) investigator in the 1880s. She is always wearing a pink dress of some kind with a Pink parasol and Hang bag. She is rather dainty for a lady that is 7ft tall, and doesn’t like to raise her voice. When she does she feels very embarrassed about it and apologizes because typically if she yells…She roars!

[darren]

I had a very dumb and beautiful street fighter in a Veil 2020 game who fought with a sword sometimes. He ended up losing his arm because it got infected with an AI and he felt bad about it not having it’s own, autonomous body…

Omen was a good boy :’)

[Vincent_Eaton]

So many of my favorite characters come from Masks. I played a Beacon who was the twin brother of our super emo Nova (“He got the powers, I got the good looks”). Playing direct contrasts to other characters always appeals to me.

I consistently enjoy related characters, whether siblings, parent/child, spouse, or multiverse copy or clone. As long as they don’t detract from the main plot, they can pull everyone else into more inter party role play

[DeusExBrockina]

“He got the powers, I got the good looks” is a great line XD

[inarvan]

I still enjoy my utterly clueless Doomed temporally unmoored cyborg character Overclock, whose time-warping powers caused no end of mayhem for his fellow teen heroes, even after his death. The campaign eventually involved another of my favorite characters, the Harbinger character Torrent, who was a future version of Overclock’s kid sister come back in time to stop an evil version of Overclock from invaded the present timeline. Playing with that dichotomy was great fun.

I also had a Changeling: The Lost Beast character called Humerus Pete, an anthropomorphic hyena who served as something of a den mother for his fellow motley members, and who, through the most wonderful of goblinish contracts, became the owner of the most righteous of semi-autonomous vans.

[LiamEvans210]

I’ve played the mysterious Professor Tanhauser, yes that’s how it’s spelled in the americanized version, in various Mforce games from he games which gets ran yearly at local conventions.

Professor Tanhauser is at archetypal super scientist, maybe a bit mad but determined to defend humanity from various cryptid menaces. There was an original, and years later other ones turned up, all known as professor Tanhauser.

[Nickwedig]

In our current Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish Granting Engine campaign, one PC is an iwana bozu, a creature taken directly from Japanese folklore. They’re literally just a trout that grew to enormous size, and now they dress as a Buddhist monk and walk the shores of Town giving gentle lectures on ecology and Buddhist morality to fishermen. They’re a great character, because they’re a little slow and dim, but kind and gentle. They don’t really understand human life, and often misunderstand what’s going on around them in entertaining ways while they try to help. (They are a literal “fish out of water”.) It fits the pleasant, laid back, comedic flavor of the game really well.

[alvajames]

Since, I am a Star Wars fan I remember these two characters that were my most favorite. One of the most iconic characters from the Star Wars RPG universe is Revan, a former Jedi who became a Sith Lord before ultimately returning to the light side of the Force. Revan story is a complex and compelling one, and fans love him for his moral ambiguity, his skill in combat, and his ability to overcome the darkness within himself.

Another beloved character is Ahsoka Tano, a Padawan who served under Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars. Ahsoka’s character development over the course of the series is one of the most compelling arcs in the entire Star Wars franchise, and fans love her for her courage, her loyalty, and her determination to do what’s right even when it’s difficult.

Finally, there’s Bastila Shan, a Jedi Knight who plays a central role in the game Knights of the Old Republic. Fans love Bastila for her strength, her intelligence, and her ability to hold her own in battle. Her relationship with the player character is also a highlight of the game, and many fans appreciate the depth and complexity of their interactions. She was the sexiest character

[codermike]

I have so many but the most memorable have come from play by post games (probably because of the extra time spent).

It all started with Shen, the Demon. She was a young hunter for a Kellid tribe when she had a tragic accident and died. Then a swarm of nanites, which had been looking for a way to interface with the world at the right level of abstractio, found her and “fixed” her. Returning to life with glowing constellation tattoos and no context for what was happening to her she returned home. Her tribe labelled her a demon and drove her off. Since then she has travelled the world. Initially timid, she has grown in confidence as every time she’s in trouble The Words come and save her.

Mechanically, Shen was a nanite-blooded sorceress. I remember reading that option and wondering what it would be like to have nanites in your bloodstream as a person unused to that level of technology. I had in my head this idea for a timid young woman who had occasional bursts of scary magic she didn’t understand and could not control.

It did not turn out that way.

From the very first time I sat down to write her she burst from the page with confidence and swagger. On the one hand, she was so easy to write. All I had to do was clear my mind and she would come to me. On the other hand, I felt barely in control of her. In her time she was a bounty hunter, an archaeologist, a demon slayer, and a pirate.

Almost as a direct pendulum swing away from Shen was Kita, the Dancer. Kita was a young paladin who followed the goddess of love and beauty. She carried a sacred glaive (Light Touch) with which she was terribly effective but very restrained. She always gave villains a chance at redemption (Rose before Thorn) and spoke a kind word over each one when they had fallen (“You maintained your equipment well. I will remember you.”). She liked to paint and draw as a way of bringing beauty into the world. Each morning she practiced with her glaive by folding origami animals and then shifting them about with her weapon trying to minimize cuts to the paper. When she fought she moved like it was a dance, flowing around the battlefield to drums only she could hear.

Kita was riddled with self-doubt. As her story progressed she began to hate her weapon for the damage it caused. She started to numb herself to the violence she was doing. She engaged in self-harm (behind somewhat of a veil before I knew that term) and used Lay on Hands to feel some connection to her goddess. Things were very dark until one of her companions turned a tense and violent situation into a diplomatic conversation and eventually brokered a peace. For the first time, Kita truly saw the positive impact she was having on the world. In time, she came to understand that she had to carry Light Touch, not to be the hand that swings the blade, but to be the hand that holds it back as long as possible.

I have brought this character into several games. It has never quite gotten so dark (there is one nightmare scene that I wrote for the original game that I revisit from time to time) but she always has a positive impact on the game. Somehow, without being preachy about it, characters in games with Kita become less murderous and more merciful. She sets an example that inspires others and I love that.

I loved Kita so much that I commissioned artwork of her. I am planning to get a tattoo of the holy symbol of Shelyn (Kita’s deity) with the words “A Light Touch” and possibly “First with a Rose” to honor her story.

There’s a few others I have had an absolute blast playing:

• Moonbrook was a Warlock who was a little out of touch with reality (her patron was a great old one). She treated everyone like a character in a play and would lose herself in the roles she played. She spent the whole of Waterdeep: Heist asking if anyone had seen her brother (“he said he’d meet me here”) but immediately had no memory of asking anyone and denied having a brother. At the end of the game we got to add an epilogue and hers was turning up and telling everyone she had found him and asking them to help her rescue him.

• Animari “Skim” Rambert was a teleporting rogue with a love of adventure stories and a penchant for finding trouble. This one was for a game that ended too soon so Skim ended up showing up in other games. One of them was a Sliders-esque romp across dimensions so now it’s cannon if she shows up anywhere. She wears a hat which is actually a mimic named Nigel due to a weird roleplaying diversion.

• Whitescale was a young human woman who fell in love and got married, only to end up dying in a tragic circumstances and being resurrected as a Kobold whose crimes would appear as tattoos on her white scales. She was “heartbonded” to her husband still so she could feel his love wherever she was. Last I saw her she was headed back to him.

[LiamEvans210]

what’s your ringtone?
I’ve got iphone 14 pro max ringtone

[jessherbert]

My favorite RPG character is Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker is a central figure in the Star Wars saga and plays a crucial role in the fight against the Sith and the restoration of peace in the galaxy. He possesses a unique blend of courage, determination, and strong connection to the Force, which makes him a formidable character.
Luke’s lightsaber skills are showcased in various RPGs, including video games like the “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” series and the “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” series, as well as tabletop RPGs like “Star Wars Roleplaying Game” by Wizards of the Coast.
What makes Luke Skywalker and his lightsaber particularly intriguing is his journey from a young, naive farm boy to a skilled Jedi Knight. He undergoes extensive training under the guidance of Jedi Masters like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, learning the art of lightsaber combat and the ways of the Force.
Luke’s character is often associated with hope, redemption, and the struggle between good and evil. He embodies the hero’s journey, facing personal challenges and overcoming them to become a beacon of light and inspiration to others. His green lightsaber serves as a symbol of his commitment to the Jedi path and his role in protecting the galaxy from the forces of darkness.
Overall, Luke Skywalker’s character and his mastery of the lightsaber have captivated audiences for decades, making him a beloved RPG character for many fans.
He is my first crush too