Characters you never got to play

[Strifeter]

I have a general question to send out to everyone here in the forum who have played any sort of RP game.

Have you ever fleshed out a character in your head and never got to use them? Do you have sets of characters in your head and you have never been able to get them to the game table?

Personally when I see pictures I always think of the personality which then leads to back story and so on and so forth.

Recently I saw a picture of a pirate with nothing but a back pack and a knife in his mouth and I then spent the next hour thinking about what kind of character he would be. Whats his back story, where is he from?

Anyone else have this issue? 

[Navarre]

I like to develop characters. Since I DM more than play, I find myself able to place them into my campaigns so they receive game time.

I care much more about the character's personality, perspective, and history than their stats. But, like you, I will sometimes become inspired by a single image that sparks an entire character.

[Beta Ray Bill Cosby]

Thousands.

Even Assuming that everyone I run games for ran a game that I was in that wouldn't even scratch the surface.

concept, stats, mechanical oddities, any little thing can expand into a character, that then retracts into obscurity.

[dantemarx]

I joined a group about 2 months ago. I came up with maybe 5 characters options for the game and each was cooler than the last. I eventually didn't use a one of them, and instead I used a character idea I had discarded from a game a year or two ago.

Just a brief summation of characters:
1: A human rogue, trained as a diplomat/spy, and a skilled fencer. Powers would all be those that allow counter attacks - one reason I didn't go for this is that there really aren't enough powers that work that way.
2: A halfling rogue MC cleric, who is a traveling friar. Upbeat personality and a wide skill repertoire.
3: A dwarf Avenger. Didn't get far before I decided I wasn't thrilled with this guy.
4: A half-giant warden, a focused athlete who adventured as a side job. Couldn't play him because the DM had some ideas about half-giants, specifically, that they were slow dolts, and he couldn't stop mocking the character.
5: A bugbear fighter, who has become a dour mercenary. Same problem as number 4, except that he kept thinking of the goblins from labyrinth.

Went With: A dragon-born sorcerer-barbarian Hybrid, with great charisma and strength. Loud, brash and potent in battle. Also, kind of a jerk to the common people. Great fun to play.

[Beren1]

I have a lot less time to draw on for numbers of unused characters. That said I often avoid making characters until I have a game, baring ideas that won't go away.TThat said I've had many a game that never really happened that I came up with a character for.
  However I usually come up with what makes this character interesting mechanically before I flesh them out to the game it is made for. As Rodrigo can tell you the mechanics make the character for me. Which doesn't mean the concept will be any less elaborate, just that it will most likely be able to do exactly what the character is for. Cause I hate making a character that can't do what it is supposed to do and do that well.

[Revenant Sorrow]

I have 3 that stand out in my mind.

Star Wars RPG

We were running a campaign set in the Old Republic time and i came up with an awesome back story so i could play an Ewok Jedi. In short Ewoks exist but their home world is unknown at the time at least that was my argument. I has stated that there was a huge underground ring of black market trades and deals and a single slaver had stumbled across the 4th moon of endor and was selling ewoks as a rare creature on the black market. My Charter naturally being force sensitive was sold to one of the last of the true sith but was discoverer and rescued by Jedi during a battle. Short and sweet had enough depth to work without making the game break right? yeah sadly this guy was shot down and i still have yet to get a chance to play him.

D&D 3.5

My first character i ever wanted to play was a dwarven rogue. For 2 reasons 1 i don't agree with min maxing because then it becomes all about stats and everyone will play the same characters from game to game and back story is irrelevant which is something i hate. 2 I thought it would be bad ass to have a bearded guy with very rough features that stands as short as a dwarf could possibly stand coming to sneak attack and kill you. I was never allowed to play this dwarf by any DM because the character was "stupid" so i stuck mostly to fighters and barbarians.

D&D 4e

My post is the same as the character name Revenant Sorrow. This one i haven't gotten a chance to play because I'm the only 4e DM i know. A Tiefling Cleric with a slightly complex back story but erupted into pure awesome. He was once a human that was on the brink of death fighting to save a loved one. Barely hanging on he prayed the raven queen to give him strength to carry on. (he's a fan of White snake) At the time of his prayer he just happened to be in the kingdom of Bael Turath. The only merciful thing the raven queen though was fair for her servant was to merge his with a devil. In doing so he forgot everything he was and has no memories prior to waking up. The changes are unbeknown to him but he wakes up a Tiefling. With know knowledge of a name he servers the raven queen to a fault and has adopted the name Revenant Sorrow. I hope that one day i do get the chance to play this guy but he was so awesome (at least in my mind) that when one of my players was looking to play a healer i had to pass revenant off to him just so i could see what could have been.

[Strifeter]

Awesome. Sounds like you need a new DM though. No character is ever stupid.

[Alisha Mynx]

Star Wars RPG

We were running a campaign set in the Old Republic time and i came up with an awesome back story so i could play an Ewok Jedi. In short Ewoks exist but their home world is unknown at the time at least that was my argument. I has stated that there was a huge underground ring of black market trades and deals and a single slaver had stumbled across the 4th moon of endor and was selling ewoks as a rare creature on the black market. My Charter naturally being force sensitive was sold to one of the last of the true sith but was discoverer and rescued by Jedi during a battle. Short and sweet had enough depth to work without making the game break right? yeah sadly this guy was shot down and i still have yet to get a chance to play him.

That would have fit in well enough with the group my friends and I had started to play before I had to move.  The basic idea was that it was a little group of "odd" alien Jedi who had banded together to work as a unit.  I had a Farghul (a feline humanoid visually somewhere in between both species of Cathar) Jedi Padawan who had been rescued from slavery by her master (a Zeltron, played by my friend Shaylan).  She wasn't too strong in the Force in terms of being able to do things like telekinesis or mind tricks, but she was empathic (similar to how Zeltrons naturally sense emotions, hence her Master being a Zeltron to teach her control) and could augment her natural athletic ability slightly by the Force.  She was essentially the "rogue/thief" of the group since her skills leaned more towards those sort of skills rather than Force powers (Farghul were known to be sneaky, so I thought it fit well).  She rarely used her lightsaber (adorned with jewels she had won in rigged games of chance while still a slave in hopes to eventually buy her own freedom), instead using a collapsing staff that she had trained with since early youth.  She's been bouncing around my head ever since then (about 11 - 12 years) and I've always hoped to get a chance to use her somewhere. 

[Beren1]

In Star Wars I made a Toydarian noble I believe. I did play one maybe two sessions with the character before the GM decided to punish another players lack of explosives knowledge. The player wanted to destroy a ship we had boarded so he set some charges on the engine and set a timer. But he was concerned that someone might disarm it before it went off, so his idea to prevent that was to remove the timer display or something along those lines. The GM knowing a bit more about explosives than your average person decides that there is a 50-50 chance that the timer has an automatic detonation system if someone tries what he tried. So Kaboom and there goes a character I was enjoying and even talked with a watto like voice. The character had even conned another player into getting ridiculous interest off a small loan. Technically I played the character, just not for very long.

[Revenant Sorrow]

That would have fit in well enough with the group my friends and I had started to play before I had to move.  The basic idea was that it was a little group of "odd" alien Jedi who had banded together to work as a unit.  I had a Farghul (a feline humanoid visually somewhere in between both species of Cathar) Jedi Padawan who had been rescued from slavery by her master (a Zeltron, played by my friend Shaylan).  She wasn't too strong in the Force in terms of being able to do things like telekinesis or mind tricks, but she was empathic (similar to how Zeltrons naturally sense emotions, hence her Master being a Zeltron to teach her control) and could augment her natural athletic ability slightly by the Force.  She was essentially the "rogue/thief" of the group since her skills leaned more towards those sort of skills rather than Force powers (Farghul were known to be sneaky, so I thought it fit well).  She rarely used her lightsaber (adorned with jewels she had won in rigged games of chance while still a slave in hopes to eventually buy her own freedom), instead using a collapsing staff that she had trained with since early youth.  She's been bouncing around my head ever since then (about 11 - 12 years) and I've always hoped to get a chance to use her somewhere.  


[/quote]

And i thought i put a lot of effort into my back story. This sounds like an awesome character. Hopefully someday you'll get a chance to use her. I like the idea of a jedi that is "lacking" some force abilities. My DM just told me he's looking to start a star wars D6 game so hopefully i can convince him to let me play my ewok this time.

[Revenant Sorrow]

In Star Wars I made a Toydarian noble I believe. I did play one maybe two sessions with the character before the GM decided to punish another players lack of explosives knowledge. The player wanted to destroy a ship we had boarded so he set some charges on the engine and set a timer. But he was concerned that someone might disarm it before it went off, so his idea to prevent that was to remove the timer display or something along those lines. The GM knowing a bit more about explosives than your average person decides that there is a 50-50 chance that the timer has an automatic detonation system if someone tries what he tried. So Kaboom and there goes a character I was enjoying and even talked with a watto like voice. The character had even conned another player into getting ridiculous interest off a small loan. Technically I played the character, just not for very long.

I always did hate the hidden DM/GM's knowledge working against the party. Then it starts to become a game of players vs the DM/GM which can be distracting from the story. I alternatively have had a situation like this work out in my favor. I was chasing a sith up several floors in a building and about 3/4 of the way up i found a fork that only had one clear path because the other hall had collapsed. Well curiosity being what it is i wanted to check out the collapsed hall i managed to move enough rubble to see what was on the other side to discover 4 turrets. I used the force to plant a Thermal Detonator equal distance to them all and managed to destroy all 4 turrets in one shot. This was meant to be an "non passable" room on the way back down. Little things like that make me enjoy the game that much more when I can out think my DM/GM.

[Alisha Mynx]

I like the idea of a jedi that is "lacking" some force abilities.

I actually use that sort of character quite often.  My old DM used to joke that I was the polar opposite of someone who tried to make an overpowered character because mine were ridiculously underpowered, but they were usually balanced out by the inclusion of practical physical skills (such as lock picking or being a decent mechanic or programmer).

[Revenant Sorrow]

I actually use that sort of character quite often.  My old DM used to joke that I was the polar opposite of someone who tried to make an overpowered character because mine were ridiculously underpowered, but they were usually balanced out by the inclusion of practical physical skills (such as lock picking or being a decent mechanic or programmer).

I don't always go for the most powerful option either. I'm well known for playing a race that doesn't in any way complement my class. I think it's fun to play the the polar opposite of what you would normally see. If for no other reason then I had to come up with a better story than "I'm doing what my daddy did and his daddy before him and his daddy before him." Not to say that there is anything wrong with that. I just like to create more depth and regardless of how well the character's stats are i tend to luck into some pretty awesome rolls. At the very least I have a kick ass back story.

[GeorgeDubya]

I had one character that I invested a lot of time and effort into the backstory and design for. I had rolled ridiculously well for my stats, so I designed an intelligent and very fast fighter who could actually use his strength as his main stat, but not have any real dump stats. He was the upper limit of the middle age category in 3.5, and I was planning on having his development represent him retraining his body to do the things he had done as a youth (rather than actually developing the skills).

One of the other players and I had even worked out a way for our characters to be connected, and his young character was acting as my older character's protege. We were both pumped for the game, but when things started our hopes were quickly dashed. It was the DM's first game, and he made every combat far more difficult than it should have been. In the second session, we were attacked by a veritable horde of Orcs and Goblins. My character and his protege ended up falling to the horde as they stalled to give the party time to evacuate others.

We made it through four sessions of the game, every session had at least two deaths (I went through three characters that campaign), and there are still jokes in my group about the campaign.

[StellarLeader]

Dozens, maybe hundreds!

It's almost like a curse, every thing I watch or read, I imagine how would characters from there fit anywhere else. So I have imagined, and sometimes even actually created, d&d characters that work like: pokémon masters, professional wrestlers, superheroes, WoW characters, Transformers, card captors, etc.

I have even written short stories about some of these characters... yes, I'm THAT much of a geek