What's your favorite character of all time?

[Christoffer Lernö]

Doesn't everyone have a favorite character among all they played? So the question:

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)

2. In what game?

3. Why?

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?


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My answers:

1. Rad Tronix, Freedom Fighter (I made up that name before I knew what the genre was)

2. Robotech, Invid Invation: Return of the Masters  

3. Probably the best long campaign I played in my young days. So I naturally grew attached to the poor albino guy who lost an eye battling Invid-made mutants, and who had one exceptional ability which was high running speed (totally useless thing in Robotech since you always run around in mechas) which actually saved him once. And as soon as he got something to play around with (ordinary vehicle or mecha) it got blown to bits the same adventure. Everyone else was playing tough in their mechas while I was running around with a body armour and nothing else.

4. Hiding from invids by climbing up a tree while the other poor suckers in mechas had to try to outrun the enemy.

[DP]

1. Khazar

2. RuneQuest (BRP) Harn setting

3. Because he grew diverse as an "adventurer" and grew as a person, the former because of some high-level roleplaying of his backstory.

4. After quashing his reservations about "civilized" religion, this big desert barbarian (SIZ 17) had started to worship Agrik, and in some cinematically stressful circumstances, made a divine intervention roll. Swept out of a cave on a carpet of fire, he was suddenly reduced to a POW of 1, making him a near-spiritually-dead shell of a man.

[taalyn]

1. Yuras, a Druid Ranger Werebear also known as Your-ass.

2. long campaign back when I was learning chinese at dli, played in a day room in the army barracks. Memories....

3. Because he became more than just the heal-em-up cleric, and because he taught me how to roleplay  - I can't tell you how many times I was doused with Dew because I wouldn't do the obvious OOC thing, but kept doing the IC thing, regardless of how stupid it was OOC.

4. He wanted to talk to his god. The GM said only if I rolled 01 twice in a row on %s. I did. On two separate occasions. It was great!! All the other guys were jealous that I got to talk to god and their PCs didn't.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Doesn't everyone have a favorite character among all they played? So the question:

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)
Dain, an outcast werewolf

2. In what game?
World of Darkness LARP and table-top LARP

3. Why?
'Cuz he was a complete badass. Cross Vinnie Vega from PULP FICTION with Chow Yun Fat from A BETTER TOMORROW and add a healthy dose of irony and regret.

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?
Going to Edmonton, AB (in real life, even) and nearly landing a position in the Camarilla. Hahaha, Ventrue my ass.

[The_Confessor]

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)
Skith Sk'vitc'ticus, aka The Confessor, A Slitheren Paladin of Corean

2. In what game?
Ressurections, a Scarred Lands game

3. Why?
Frankly, because people don't harp on me for playing this really intense character who is, honestly, a bit over the top. I enjoy delving into the subject of 'Everyone can be redeemed', which is a big theme of The Confessor's belief. Besides, I'm allowed to be gothy and brooding. That's always fun.


4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?
There is no one moment, but what stands out is the fact that the Confessor has not killed a living being in the entire campaign

[Paul Czege]

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)
No Appetite for Pain, aka Gene Cooper, my emotionally scarred superhero turned psychologist. He ran a nonprofit called the No Pain Coalition to counsel and render public relations support to superheroes in times of crisis, wore a black, western-style suit with the yellow rose of Texas embroidered on each forearm, and had a warehouse of western-themed super gadgets, invented through play, which came to include a pair of gloves that made his hands invulnerable, a whip that would come to him when he called it, and a Cadillac Eldorado with steer horns on the hood that could warp space and time.

2. In what game?
A Theatrix game run by my friend Tom (described http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=69">here and http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=748">here in Actual Play).

3. Why?
He saved the world from a mind-controlling villain who'd been masquerading as a hero for a dozen years, dying in the process, and reuniting with his long lost, much more scarred love interest Turned on Hurt.

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?
It all came together for him in epilogue, after he'd already been killed in the psychic blast that was produced when he put his lockblade into the preserved brain of the villain. His epilogue showed Turned on Hurt carrying his body from the spacewarping Cadillac, up a flight of steps to the base of an inscrutable Cuban supercomputer from the future which had gone dormant with the recent death of its megalomaniacal owner, and activating it. It was a great creative gaming moment for me to narrate that epilogue, as a player, drawing together unexplained factoids that had been strewn about the many sessions of play, demonstrating that Turned On Hurt's power to "turn on" mechanical objects had expanded so far as to include future tech electronics, and that she still cared about him, and hinting that maybe the computer could do something about the fact that I was dead, all in the vague kind of way that's most satisfying to me for some reason.

Paul

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Doesn't everyone have a favorite character among all they played? So the question:

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)
Buglurz, the only lawful good bugbear in the entire Multiverse, and as slow as molasses.

2. In what game?
It was that weird transition time in between AD&D and D&D3E where I was cannibalizing everything about the new edition of D&D and using it, eventually creating with Peter Seckler The Nutcracker Prince. So, basically, D&D ripoff homebrew.

3. Why?
Buglurz literally was about half-retarded. With an Intelligence of 4, and a campaign emphasis on "immersion," I managed get myself in a state of mind each week where I got to talk in this big, dumb, goofy voice for four hours. He had this heart of gold, though, and would fall in love with anything or anyone - the female paladin in the party became this mother figure, and a robot woman that we met later and he had some tender love scenes.

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?
God, most of them were wonderful. The fact that he never wanted to hurt anyone was great, especially since he could with one slap. He'd warn his enemies about three times first:

"You better put that down, or I gotta hit you. No. Arg! You make my head hurt, 'cause I got to think about bashing you. Please don't make me hit you. Buglurz don't like hittin' nobody."

WHACK

(as he looks at the dead body on the floor) "Buglurz didn't want to hit you, bad man."

I also loved the adventure I GMed for the group, "Buglurz's Big Birthday Adventure," where he finally got the puppy they promised him for adventuring with them. It'd been at least 9 months in game time, and still, no puppy. I saw an article in Dragon about Dwarven tunnel dogs, and, well, hijinks ensued.

[Simon W]

He may not have been my favourite, but I well remember Cloonakool, my merchant character in Stormbringer. Unfortunately he went around with a bunch of Melnibonean and PanTangian Warrior/Priest/Noble/Sorceror/Assassin killing-and-do-everything machines.

He died horribly at the teeth of a pack of Dharzi Hunting Dogs hiding under a bush, thankfully smoking a pipeful of something soporific (although that was probably what helped them find him in the first place....).

Another favourite was Roland Batterbury, my concert-hall artist investigator in Call of Cthulhu. He had a 'Sunny Jim' rag-doll (you could get them by saving 'Force Wheat Flakes' breakfast cereal tokens).

When being hounded by hog-creatures (Ala William Hope Hodgsons Carnacki) he shouted to Sunny Jim "You go for help, whilst I fight them off!".

Of course, he was raving mad....

His great-great grandson Rupert blew his own head off in another game, based on the movie The Thing, but thats another story....

Gideon

[Shreyas Sampat]

1. Yamina, a mage and Muslim convert who felt just a little bad about using her tribal magics.  Eventually she got sent to Europe as an ambassador, of all things.  She had a totemstaff that we called Headstick; it was where her Avatar resided.
2. My friend Chrispy's Mage: The Sorcerers' Crusade game.

3. Because the character was relatively uncomplicated, and that was important to me at the time; we had all just gotten out of a bad experience with Shadowrun, severe railroading, and imagery that made us uncomfortable.  Headstick was just the right element of funny for a character that took herself quite seriously otherwise.

4. The spectacular chewing-out that she gave another character, a rather temperamental Verbena, when he sold some cursed wine (we had only recently stemmed the flow of wine at the source) to a town who didn't recieve his puppet play as well as the others.  This curse was particularly unpleasant, and some of us were especially upset to see that even children were drinking of it.  Later the Verbena poured some into one of the town's wells.

That game had some great moments, including one where the Avatar manifested itself as an angel with six burning wings to shout at Yamina for her idiocy, and another where the Verbena got into a theological argument with the Pope.

I well remember another character, a Solificato herbalist, who wasn't nearly so interesting but had great taste in robes.

[Jason Lee]

Clinton, I'm loving Buglurz and I've never seen him played!

My fav? depends on what for.

Comedy:  Elliot.
Demon possessed mad genetic scientist - 'cause I get cool dialoge like 'Elliot, what are you doing?', reply with creepy voice 'Peeling a squirrel'.

Serious:  Genevieve
Ya know that princess who the liche kidnaps and abuses, and the party is supposed to save?  I decided to play her once she was saved (if you want to call it that).  Most alive character I've ever had the pleasure of channeling.

Killing Things: Zel
Genevieve's mildly dim-witted, live in the now, possessive older brother.  It's just fun to chop things to pieces with a big frickin' sword immolated in dark flame sometimes.

All my current characters in our current game (ye ole dimension/time/plane shifting adventures).  The system is my own, and if my perfectionism every steps aside for a while I might even finish the game (ain't holding my breath).

[Matt Wilson]

Dang, that's a toughie.

I might have to go with Commander Chuck Rockwell, a lantern-jawed, brill creme poster boy, captain of the Pax Americana.

The game was a made-up 1950s sort of space adventure game, with radio-controlled albino apes with freeze-ray guns, mutated giant scorpions, and an evil mastermind who kidnapped the planet Pluto.

I really enjoyed the over-the-top stylizing of 50's sci-fi TV. Chuck couldn't have been anyone other than who he was, which made him that much more fascinating to me. He was a caricature of himself, which let me get away with playing him as a comic character.

My favorite scene was where he had to race against time and fly up the rocket launch silo in his rocket pack in order to open the launch bay doors. I rolled really bad, so he was bouncing off the walls all the way up. Good thing he was wearing that bullet-shaped helmet.

[Jason L Blair]

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)

Arondolys (nee Aaron Dolice), an exiled torturer who rode a griffin and knew way too much about slow death.

2. In what game?

AD&D 2e

3. Why?

He was my only real classic hero-type character. His story was one of redemption and growth and personal excellence...*sigh*

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?

His entrance. A bustling market parts like a split skull as a huge griffin lowers itself in the middle of the crowd. Its rider, an imposing man in black blood-stained armor who is carrying a large broken mace in one hand and a shattered long sword in the other, slides off and makes a beeline toward the weaponsmith as the entire town watches in terrified silence.

[Fade Manley]

1) Kinch, the (mostly) Unseelie pooka who wanted to be a redcap

2) Changeling, but divorced from the WoD setting.

3) He had a traumatic background, but he wasn't angsty. He was definitely bad, but he was also friendly and helpful and cheerful, and wanted to make people happy. (Well, not counting the people he tortured and ate, or just beat up and robbed once he was 'reformed'.) He had a bit of an identity problem, but didn't notice it enough for it to bother him.

4) Probably when he went off and conspired with the Unseelie nocker in the group to find a way to get rid of the annoying high-ranking Sidhe noble (five years old) of the group. He was very much himself, not even considering that his beloved hero, the troll bodyguard for the Sidhe, might be upset with him for trying to do the kid in. Just wanted the attention back himself.

[Christopher Kubasik]

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)

Harrod Withersap.  Take the Black Adder, give him the intelligence of Tom Hannigan's character from The Godfather movies, and mix in Richard III's sheer delight in hiw own averice and you've got this terrificly unctious, manipulative and ambitious powerbroker who slides through the shadows, whispers the right words of advice/poison in people's ears and has absotulely no moral compass but his own shifting pleasure.

No powers.  Could fence.  But his ability to talk and observe were freaky.

2. In what game? )

A homebrew fantasy run by Mike Nystul (I believe we playtesting Whispering Vault mechanics).  It was kind of Elric meets Forgotten Realms.

3. Why?)

I love court intrigue and this guy was a magnate for it.  And, to get all Sim for a moment, I loved playing him.  Harrod was all the things I am at my best without the moral limitor on him.  It was just really cool to be setting up heads of state and bedding chambermaids left and right.

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?)

One of the other PCs, through no real desire of his own, had become head of state of a nation.  I can't remember the specifics, but I remember playing out a scene where the playing did this great job of not knowing what to say next during a conference.  I stood beside him (as Harrod stood beside the players PC) whispering soft strategies and words of threat and peace, puppetting the whole affair as the player repeated everything I said.  (This too, I suddenly realize, is an exageration of how I've behaved in the past: wanting to be in control, but never taking responsibility.)  It was just a great and funny scene.

Christopher

[Anonymous]

1. What's your favorite character (that you played) of all time (so far)

2. In what game?

3. Why?

4. That character's finest moment (or one of them anyway)?

1.Palaskar, Infernal Knight and Dragonian.

2.The online game RetroMUD.

3.Aside from having played very few characters (okay, like two), I got to play an evil character who was kinda heroic at the same time.

How evil? Slightly less than Scorpius (of Farscape fame) evil. Palaskar was obsessed with amassing enough power to secure his fellow Dragonian people (he was their king) a safe place from their foul human enemies. In the process, he sold his soul, became the second greatest swordsman in the world, and amassed enough fame that he is still known today in the gameworld, long after I retired.

Seriously. Check out the RetroMUD.org site. The language I invented for the Dragonians is still there.

4. Once I was confiding to my in-game pal Calactyte that I was afraid, and he went, "Afraid, Pal? YOU?" It was like the world had turned upside down for him -- I had to explain to him that I was speaking OOC.

And also, the time one of the administrators compared Pal to Draco of Dragonheart -- honorable, imposing, all that.