Dwarves do, Elves do. But what about you, as a player? Is there a class or type of character you tend to play most often, or do you always try to make something different every time?

Are you a character actor? Or one of those "method" guys?

RPGPundit

In Traveller I almost always generate merchant characters.

That's the only game I can think of where I have a specific preference.

I like roguish types but any class can have that personality.  I like characters who are quick on their feet and quick witted.  My newest character is a human fighter with leather armor, a couple of dueling pistols and a bastard sword.

Quote from: RPGPundit;298684Are you a character actor? Or one of those "method" guys?

RPGPundit

Definitely a method guy.  When my fighter was eaten by a gelatinous cube I had the rest of my gaming group hold me down and smother me with as many wet sponges as we could find in order to really get into the whole immersive role-playing experiene.

Or did you mean something else?

More seriously I have noticed that there a few character types I fall back on from time to time.

I've played a bitter and cynical ex-soldier from a common or working class background with a chip on his shoulder when it comes to authority or his social superiors more than a few times.  (And as a variation of this when playing DnD I tend to play Half-Orcs quite often.)

I've played a schemining rogueish streetwise gambler character in quite a few systems as well.

And then there's the intellectual highly intellectual wizard type, or knowledge based character.  (Although I haven't done this for a while and it's probably played out.)

These a the kind of characters who I either create when I can't think of anything better or a kind of gravitate toward in play.

I play a lot of wizards and other knowledge based characters.

For fantasy I tend to gravitate toward roguish characters, and then when I try to play against type, it's either professional soldiers/warriors or intellectual wizards. I rarely play holy men, "good guy" knights, romanticized barbarians, or flash-bang wizards.

For SF I gravitate toward scientists although for practical reasons I'd prefer them to know which end is which on a firearm.

tl;dr: a character actor type

I tend to play the needed but not first pick roles. In other words I am The Gawddamn Cleric.

Seriously though I try and come up with a character that really brings out the stuff I find interesting or exemplify the setting or rules. And usually either a character that's hella fun to play or has a good character arc that the campaign can bring out.

I play primarily Wizards, or the closest equivalent for the setting (tech guys, psions, etc.). The next most often class for me to play is Paladin; I greatly enjoy destruction in the name of Truth and Justice.

I have no problem with playing other classes (probably Rogue next), but those are my favorites. No problem except perhaps with Fighters, whom I find mostly uninteresting conceptually.

My prefered class if you will is usually the least common classes/ archetypes or the Alternate.  If I am a fighter type, I am the martial artist or the archer, rather than the stand up fighter.  If I am the scholar, I am the computer guy or the exotic knowledge one (or if the game is filled with cryptologists and Forteans, I am the Geologist). If I am the rogue, I am the con man. If I am the Fixer, I am either the secret guy behind the vid screen OR the guy who knows everybody.  This way, I always have my nitch and my character feels/ operates different from the other fighters, scholars, rogues, or fixers in the group.

Quote from: The Worid;298708No problem except perhaps with Fighters, whom I find mostly uninteresting conceptually.

I guess I look at this as a challenge of sorts. Certainly, coming out of the D&D roots and going forward, these are the most vanilla. I like to see what I can do make them interesting, without falling back on either the "tank" stereotype, or even on fighter specializations such as "archer" or collections of flashy combat moves. Basically I reckon that in classic fantasy and adventure, the protagonist is a "fighter" close to a majority of the time (the only other archetype that comes close is "rogue")--so what is it outside of that vanilla definition that makes a character compelling?

I try not to play the same thing too much, which is why i spent a fair amount of time playing Rolemaster exclusively and why the WFRP career sytem appeals to me so much. At a push, i'd say that i prefer magic using classes in general which is another reason i gravitated towards RM. That system has shit loads of different magic using classes with different flavours.

Green knight (berserker w/ great regeneration), acrobatic warrior (martial artists and swashbucklers), and beastmaster (pet classes) are roles I tend to edge towards in any genre. I also like being the face.

For fantasy:  Either I'll go with a cleric or fighter (usually, this can vary some).

For modern/sci-fi: I'm the driver.  I drive things.  I shoot things with shotguns or gyrojet weaponry too.  And I like it.

I like to play fighter-types, vets, ambiguous characters, Paladins with moral conflicts, not-so-sane characters. I like alien-thinking and strategic masterminds as well for my wizards. Active characters rather than support characters. I like emotionally expressive characters: I like my characters to "blow up" at some point in the game.

Characters grow organically from the game, to me. I start with a concept and some sort of quirk/original component/contrast in there, and then start playing and see where this leads me within the game by reacting to it and other players around the table. That allows me to be part of the game rather than create something that doesn't fit.