What's the hardest D&D type character style to roleplay?

jcc

I'd say high wisdom & evil, or maybe high wisdom, low intelligence.

I'm torn on whether or not there's any difference in human vs. non-human. On the one hand, playing as a non-human race requires preparation to do well, but I also think that because of that it requires less improvisation. Playing a generic human you don't have any background to draw from.

Higher intelligence than the player can also sometimes be tricky to roleplay, but not so much if the DM is willing to pass you notes to bridge the gap.

Some of my friends have a lot of trouble with lawful evil, but I find that if you just follow the Social Darwinism model you can usually make a decent showing.

What would you say is the hardest character style to roleplay?

kage_rod

Any sort of "good" person is apparently impossible for a good majority of my campaign group members. >>; One was LG, and he decided to pursue his own quest of finding - not even saving! - his own daughter, abandoning a village full of children. Better yet: he was a dwarven defender!

I have a hard time actually playing the types that most associate with D&D, to be honest. All of mine end up really cutesy and happy because D&D gives me a crazy high. ^_^; However, I almost always use good strategies and don't like wandering aimlessly, but I'm still not smart enough to know a lot of things that the character should know, like remembering battle plans or such.

J.Sharp

The D&D alignment system is pretty unwieldy for anything accept a very shallow view of morality. I'd recommend dropping it if it wasn't so integrated into the other game mechanics.

While D&D doesn't really encourage social manipulator characters, those are the type of RPG characters I personally have the most difficulty playing. In my day-to-day life I don't get much exercise navigating complete social webs or manipulating people into doing what I want them without having them realize it, and I really don't have much natural aptitude such things in the first place. I have real world experience to draw from when I need to play or narrate physical or intellectual contests and combats in a role playing game, but I don't have that same baseline with social conflict.

Apreche

In any RPG, the less familiar you are with the character, the harder it is to play. Plain and simple. I would probably have a hard time role playing as the queen of an ancient tribe in the rain forest. I would probably have an easy time role playing a technology dude in Shadowrun.

gomidog

the less familiar you are with the character, the harder it is to play

Last night we were talking about how all your characters are jerks to the party. Up, away from the sun!

HMTKSteve

Any character with Wis/Int score to far out of line from your own can be hard to play. It is even worse when the DM runs something where the players know more (or less) about the basic physics/knowledge involved.

I listened to an audio recording of a Call of Cthulhu game, run by Sandy Peterson, set in modern times where half of the PCs played soldiers. The sad part is that the Keeper did not provide adequate information to the players to properly play their characters (a single page of basic infantryman knowledge such as weapon ranges and danger zones for weapons would have been sufficient). The session sounded like a bunch of average Joes wearing camo and carrying big guns. At one point the keeper allowed one of the players to fire a grenade launcher at point blank range with no warning to the player at all. The players were not fighting a supernatural creature at the time, just some cultists.

I wrote to Sandy about this and rather address the fact that he did not provide the players with an adequate amount of information for the players to play their characters he went on some tangent about how some people get pissed when you set an adventure in modern times in a political hot spot (the adventure took place in Iraq).

You encounter a similar problem when you play a character with a very high Intelligence score. Just because the player is not that smart does not mean the character is not that smart. The opposite also holds true when a smart player plays a dumb character. Some players can do it very well while others can not.

kage_rod

queen of an ancient tribe in the rain forest

I would've thought you'd be awesome at being a queen. Huh. Silly me!

You encounter a similar problem when you play a character with a very high Intelligence score. Just because the player is not that smart does not mean the character is not that smart. The opposite also holds true when a smart player plays a dumb character. Some players can do it very well while others can not.

A little note on that: most people don't know how the ability scores relate to real life. For example, most of my group would say that a 8 in INT is average. I believe they set Stephen Hawkings at like, 18, and Einstein at 17. I'm sure others have different ideas in this forum, but that's what we agreed on, simply so we knew how to act. For example, yes, a 10 INT character wouldn't speak like a tribal boy (*grunt* "Me hungry!") nor attack things stupidly.

That Which Yoes

The hardest thing to play is a patient GM who has spent weeks developing a world, complex, interesting NPC's and epic battles with diverse monsters just to have the group of power-gamers blow everything away in the first round, kill every NPC and expect XP for it!

That's hard to play!

Wyatt

I'd say trying to be anything that you aren't is a hard character to play. If you can't imagine yourself as that character, you can't play that character. I always ask first time gamers to pick their favorite character from a book or movie and act like that. I think the more you RP the better you get at playing something new. Unless you're a specialist gamer and all you f*ing ever play is the same GOT DAMN Elven Archer!!!!!!! Try something new weirdie.

Also trying to play a character with unbalanced stats or sever character restrictions is always hard. Being a pally isn't suppose to be easy. Being a pally with a 8 INT, 16 WIS & 18 CHA. That's a nightmare. I suggest not being a min/max power gamer. If you have a reason for your character to be the way he is that's cool. (i.e. My pally was raised in a cloistered enclave. Their he was taught either out dated information or severely censored information. He learned a great deal about philosophy from the priests and has sort of a naive charm people find endearing. That's how I would explain that character.) If not you pay want to sacrifice a point or two of stats to round out your character.

Railith

If you want to be extremely annoying go true neutral and never go back.

kage_rod

Another suggestion, from my group o'course, is to make a background and a full-out profile.

Ah.. I've never had the chance to. I'm either subbin' someone else's character or the campaign hasn't been/won't be going on long enough...

Flare

If you want to be extremely annoying go true neutral and never go back.

I'd hardly consider that annoying. If anything, it makes you rather predictable, as you'll always be acting in your own self-interest. Grant, your personality may conflict with those of the party members, but all personalities do at one point. I wouldn't consider it extremely annoying.