Five People to Avoid in a Tavern

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to discuss character building. Its one of the most important parts of building your game experience, after all. Before we get into what you should do, I want to touch on what you should not do. In any creative endeavor there is always the hazard of cliche. Here are five character cliches to avoid:

The Vengeful Crusader
"My brother was mildly inconvenienced by a goblin once. I have sworn to KILL THEM ALL!"
Who is it? Something happened in this character's past. Something really, really bad. And there was one race/religion/ideology at the center of it. Now this character has sworn to eliminate it. And HE. WILL. NOT. REST. Until it is done. An alternate version of this cliche is when the character is the champion of an ideal, such as nature, and flies into a rage whenever that ideal is threatened.

Who is at Risk? Avengers and Paladins tend to fall into the first kind (occupational hazard) although it could happen to anyone. Primal characters are much more likely to take up the second.

How to Avoid it? The concept isn't necessarily bad, but you have to flesh it out. It is extremely difficult for your character to learn and grow if they just try to murder everything that bothers them (just like real people!). If your character has a bias against a certain race or religion, any good DM is going to force you to confront it. Those interactions will create a dynamic character.

The Compulsive Troublemaker
"I'm going to stab this guard in broad daylight. What? I'm unaligned, remember?"
Who is it? This character saw the "unaligned" alignment and thought it was Christmas. They are the most obnoxious kind of chaotic neutral: dicks who do ridiculous things without rhyme or reason. They will stab anyone who looks at them wrong (or looks at them period) and attempt to steal anything that isn't nailed down. The very worst of them may even attack party members.

Who is at Risk? Rogues are especially prone to wanton stabbing and theft, but this cliche arises more as a result of the player than any element of the character itself.

How to Avoid it? Don't do it. Take your game seriously enough to enjoy it without going on a game-disrupting rampage. As long as you've got some grasp on what your character would do, you'll understand why your character wouldn't do any of the particularly obnoxious shenanigans.

The Stupid Warrior
"Me Smackwithaxe. Me no know grammar."
Who is it? This character is the strongest person ever. They can climb or smash or swim his way through any obstical. Sticky pickle jars are never a problem. When it comes to thinking problem however, they just can't. At all. And character always speak with badly broken sentences.

Who's at Risk? Any race with a bonus to strength and any class with strength as a primary stat.

How to Avoid it? If you're dead set on playing this, play a Barbarian. I'm reasonably sure 20 strength/8 intelligence is required for that class. Otherwise, find ways for your character to be smart. An excellent way to accomplish this is to take a look at your wisdom score. A character may have nothing in his head, but have excellent instincts. They can have phenomenal combat sense, but have no idea what to do in social situations. That's interesting in a way Big-Sword, Tiny-Brain never is.

The Dark Hero (With a Troubled Past)
"I can never forget... my terrible secret..."
Who is it? Something bad happened in this characters past. Something so bad that it scarred them forever. Now they live a life of shadows, forever staying just this side of good. They may make new friends and learn to live a moral life, but the darkness will always be inside... brooding...

Who's at Risk? Assassins and Rogues are the most obvious classes. For races, there's Drow, Tieflings, Drow, Humans, Drow, and Drow, though any race could fall into it.

How to Avoid it? The easiest way is to not use this kind of character development. Dark secretes are okay, but don't become some sort of wannabe anti-hero over them. Also, if you want to play a Drow, do so with care and originality. I understand that they come from a dark and oppressive world, but I'm done listening to them whine about it.

Amnesia
"I once new this place, but I took a tumble and now I can't remember. Who are you?"
Who is it? This isn't a character, its a character element. Still, I'm sick of it. This character's memory is gone for some entirely arbitrary reason. In the best cases, the block is magical or otherwise supernatural in nature. In the worse cases, it comes from (sigh) head trauma.

Who's at Risk? I forget

How to Avoid it? Just say no to Amnesia. You want to have lost memories? Awesome! Those are great tidbits for a DM to throw at you as the story unfolds. There's no reason for entire spans of time to be missing, though. Creating a past is fundamental to building a character. Take that past away and you'll have a very bland, uninteresting fellow. Also, HEAD TRAUMA DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!