Lunchtime Poll #2: Bizarro World asks the pertinent question:
What?s the strangest character you?ve ever played?
Well, the strangest character I've ever played is probably "Weird Thing." I created her as a unique monster somewhat ala the muppet "Gonzo" for an on-line Nightlife game. I remember that bananas were hostile to her, and that the GM was very amused.
On the other hand, "Weird Thing" didn't get a lot of play time, and she was designed to be strange, so I don't think it really fits the spirit of the question so much. I am not very into "out-there" characters, at least in the over-the-top sense. I used to be. I liked the half-solar, half-drow characters, the shapeshifting assassins, that sort of thing. I don't want to say that I grew up, necessarily, but I know my style of what I wanted to play changed.
Instead, let me offer you some things about Jelica. She was odd.
Jelica had been the surviving daughter of a royal family pledged to protect the region from various monsters. She was given extraordinary strength to accomplish this task. As the years went by, however, the mission statement got somewhat garbled. Jelica believed in a few truths of the universe which gave her a skewed viewpoint to everyone else:
- There were three types of people...thinker, fighter, and very unfortunate souls who mixed the two. She thought of herself as a fighter, but knew she had to learn to think, a conundrum which exacerbated her current difficulties [AKA 'plot'].
- The scale of individuals went something like: people--monsters--beasts. Demons were a very difficult concept as they should be people but they were definitely monsters. Dragons were harder: they should be beasts, but they could be people OR monsters. Um, as she learned after meeting a dragon girl.
- She could kill monsters, but not people. "Mooks" counted as monsters because she felt they were so easy to kill they couldn't possibly be human, right? There was some sort of minion race. Had to be.
Jelica was very good at convincing herself of things, but easy to sway to another conviction with flattery. It helped that we had another PC who was ingenious at such things, keeping Jelica on-track, as it were. (Much like steering a reluctant tank, perhaps.)