What I Made, What the GM Saw, What I Played

[Tetraplex]

http://imgur.com/lrYYU6a

Spoiler: Explanation

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My first 3.5 campaign, Ruins of Greyhawk. I built an halfling Eldritch Theurge, with the intent of playing him as a humorously psychotic little monster (and his blink dog Tugboat who he loved very much).
The DM looked at the sheet, saw halfling warlock as the base and immediately assumed he'd be played as some kind of easygoing rogue/spellcaster type who got gradually corrupted by the dark forces granting him power (to be fair, neither of us knew what the other players were making and the whole demon-centric subquest did become one of the high points of the campaign).
All of us being somewhat new and inexperienced, the table was shocked to discover that Hobb was, had I tried to, capable of soloing pretty much every planned encounter through his massive Intimidate checks, grab-bag of powers, and the fact that Warlocks really don't need any specific equipment in 3.5 so he was just carrying a ton of nifty magic items. To this day, that last image is pretty much how that DM sees warlocks in general.

[Terraoblivion]

I have one from a big L5R game I played last fall.

Spoiler: What I made

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Spoiler: What the GM saw

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Spoiler: What I played

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Spoiler: Explanation

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I was playing a nerdy Asako loremaster who looked too deep, lost faith in the empire and ended up joining the Kolat in a big, political court game. My plans were to be some kind mousy diplomatic aide hanging around the backgrounds and advancing the Kolat where I could without screwing the Phoenix over and ruining things for others if I were discovered. However, to the GMs a highly capable social character showed up so I was made the official ambassador for the clan.

In the end I was not only a highly successful and persuasive politician, I also ended up practically the ideological leader of the entire Kolat and set the plans for how to overthrow the empire, while also getting great personal power. It was so much that I refused to even consider clans she was closely tied to for the sequel to avoid ending up shilling my previous character.

[Mexikorn]

Background:
It's actually quite complicated. My character originally was supposed to be a pacificistic animal lover druid. Long story short, I didn't get to play the game the way i wanted to. So i chose to make my character become a neutral evil psychopath with racistic tendencies towards humans. (the reasons why got retroactively added to his backstory) Currently I'm trying to kill the Shane, the Leader of the Watch in Loremeadow because he much behaves like Hittler. Also I'm trying to aspire to local mafiaboss/warlord in Rockport, a nearby city. But my DM said I mustn't do that. Pathfinder isn't supposed to be a "Politics Simulator".

[toapat]

Pathfinder isn't supposed to be a "Politics Simulator".

Your DM is weak of mind

[Sith_Happens]

Your DM is weak of mind

Yes. You must show him the error of his ways.

[nedz]

Yes. You must show him the error of his ways.

Yes, take over the his world and become DM yourself.

[Mexikorn]

Yes. You must show him the error of his ways.

Actually it's both our first session. It's the first dnd game I played (and am still playing) and the first time he has ever DM'd a campaign. And considering me and my group of 5 PC's are killing or pissing off his NPC's all the time I can't really be angry with him. Also my party prefers actual adventures to game of thrones. Even though I already managed to persuade a friend to create our own "reek" in our next session. But if you got any good ideas or tips you can give to newbies, go ahead.

[toapat]

Game of thrones is a little too hard for DnD but a pure action game itself gets rather tedious as well. However, from what i understand about Golarion, if you are using it, is probably the worst setting for political intrigue there is.

If you have seen the show Vikings, that is about the proper ratio of Badass to Backstabbing for a DnD campaign.

note, average DnD, some people do prefer the Game of Thrones almost exclusively political game, while others prefer the purely combat game.

[9mm]

Game of thrones is a little too hard for DnD but a pure action game itself gets rather tedious as well. However, from what i understand about Golarion, if you are using it, is probably the worst setting for political intrigue there is.

The aptitude of political intrigue depends on where in Golarion you are and the type of intrigue you are after.

[toapat]

The aptitude of political intrigue depends on where in Golarion you are and the type of intrigue you are after.

Well, Greyhawk is built around it
Eberron has a continent based on it
Faerun has a ton of well developed lands
Ravenloft is as much about political intrigue as it is about horror
Dragonlance is pretty bad but has very well defined factions
Athas has a framework for doing a decent political campaign, although its moreso just grimdark
Golarion is basically built to be blown up though.
Planescape is about political intrigue between gods
Spelljammer is also probably really bad at political intrigue, but moreso just because the setting is sorta a hybrid between original Star Trek and Starwars

[Sontali]

Spoiler

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Spoiler: Explanation:

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This was my first D&D character ever. He was basically the Drizzt of Illithids, turned against the evil way of his people, yadda yadda yadda. Except he hadn't turned away from the manipulative side of the race (accidently optimised social aspect as well as being a telepath). So he was only meant to manipulate in the name of good.

What the others saw: They didn't actually know I was an Illithid, but they sorta clued on that I wasn't an really burnt half elf quite quickly, and that combined with the nearly gimp style clothing that covered every inch of his skin led them to believe I was some sort of creepy rapist.

What I played: First combat (which took quite a while since we started on a boat in which cannibals were picking off everyone but us slowly (got lots of brains from the half eaten corpses btw) I was like screw this, "You want to go for a swim." the cannibal proceeds to jump off the boat into the hurricane force storm going around us. The rest of my combat experience was me figuring out clever ways of wording the attraction and suggestions powers to take them out in one turn.

What the GM saw: What happened EVERY time what we were fighting had less than 3 INT. Ever.

[BWR]

Well, Greyhawk is built around it
Eberron has a continent based on it
Faerun has a ton of well developed lands
Ravenloft is as much about political intrigue as it is about horror
Dragonlance is pretty bad but has very well defined factions
Athas has a framework for doing a decent political campaign, although its moreso just grimdark
Golarion is basically built to be blown up though.
Planescape is about political intrigue between gods
Spelljammer is also probably really bad at political intrigue, but moreso just because the setting is sorta a hybrid between original Star Trek and Starwars

Mystara has tons of politics.

[endoperez]

Spoiler

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Spoiler: Explanation:

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This was my first D&D character ever. He was basically the Drizzt of Illithids, turned against the evil way of his people, yadda yadda yadda. Except he hadn't turned away from the manipulative side of the race (accidently optimised social aspect as well as being a telepath). So he was only meant to manipulate in the name of good.

What the others saw: They didn't actually know I was an Illithid, but they sorta clued on that I wasn't an really burnt half elf quite quickly, and that combined with the nearly gimp style clothing that covered every inch of his skin led them to believe I was some sort of creepy rapist.

What I played: First combat (which took quite a while since we started on a boat in which cannibals were picking off everyone but us slowly (got lots of brains from the half eaten corpses btw) I was like screw this, "You want to go for a swim." the cannibal proceeds to jump off the boat into the hurricane force storm going around us. The rest of my combat experience was me figuring out clever ways of wording the attraction and suggestions powers to take them out in one turn.

What the GM saw: What happened EVERY time what we were fighting had less than 3 INT. Ever.

The Wordpress account where the image is hosted is marked as Private, and the image isn't accessible to me. I don't see it at all.

[Jeff the Green]

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I'm playing a cloistered cleric who was supposed to be going in to Crusader and then RKV, but that's gotten derailed a bit. Her backstory is that her family, fiance, and friends were trapped in a burning house just before her wedding. Then she became a cleric of Kelemvor and worked at a library. Which was also burned to the ground, possibly by the same assassin. Over the course of the game she's lost one of the only remaining people tying her to her pre-cloister life, ended up trying to murder a cleric of Loviatar in a burning barn she couldn't get out of without dooming her allies, and learned about binding (and she had to try to kill her teacher of such because the vestiges ended up controlling him completely).

And then the assassin sent her a note saying "Soon" and a couple weeks early, a present. The head of a gravekeeper she'd helped to stop a zombie infestation before coming to the city our sandbox is centered on. So she ended up puking, crying in a corner in hysterics, and only able to contact anyone because she had Malphas bound and was able to send the raven to another party member. And now she can't function (as in, has a panic attack and goes to hysterics) if she's not with a particular PC. And that PC (not the PC's player) isn't terribly happy because she has nefarious deeds of her own to plot (I'm not privy to them).

So yeah, she's going to be retired soon, hopefully after killing the sonofabitch and going into an insane asylum or something, though death would probably be welcome too.

[Xzeno]

3 characters, same campaign.

Spoiler: Character 1

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Spoiler: Character 2

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Spoiler: Character 3

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[dramatic flare]

Spoiler: What I made

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Spoiler: What the DM saw.

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Spoiler: What I actually played

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For reference, it was a (pathfinder) magus intended to be a bit of a beefcake and a hilariously terrible highwayman. Just no intimidation whatsoever.
Magus are....... evil against mini-BBEGs.
And then I got dimension door and discovered my race (fetchling) could utilize it as a spell-like ability.

[Sontali]

The Wordpress account where the image is hosted is marked as Private, and the image isn't accessible to me. I don't see it at all.

Sorry, new to wordpress. Should be fixed.

[Mono Vertigo]

M&M 3e. Our characters are all ordinary people who were abducted by aliens, obtained superpowers after being experimented on, and are trying to escape.

Spoiler: What I Made

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I'd made a character of Indian origins, who had gotten plant powers. During character creation though, I also gave her a staff and a defensive combat style, expecting I'd get involved a lot in direct melee fight.
I also was very new to M&M, and thought my character was reasonably defensively oriented. AhahahahahahahahAHAHAHah.
(The GM has accepted to let me rebuild my sheet once the current fight is over. So to speak, What I Actually Made was not Aang, but a D&D monk.)

Spoiler: What the GM saw

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Everybody else noticed the plant powers and kind of overlooked the staff-fighting part. The power to ensnare enemies got particularly noticed, being my actual decent mean of defense.

Spoiler: What I played

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The staff actually had an Array; it could deal Damage, or it could Heal.
Long story short, I never actually hit with it. I'm now more or less a healer with a flowery staff. There are two other PCs with healing powers, but I'm the best healer, and they're better fighters than I am, so...
(In that picture, ignore the part where the White Mage is a catgirl, please, it's entirely unrelated.)

[Gettles]

Spoiler: What I made

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Spoiler: What the DM saw

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Spoiler: What I played

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[IAmTehDave]

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Spoiler: Explanation

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Character in Old Republic era. Maxed out pilot skill, only non-force sensitive in the group, owner and operator of the Rusty Bucket, a Special™ Corellian freighter. (Think the Millenium Falcon with much more of a "Fixer Upper" vibe. Plenty of smuggling space, completely unnecessarily powerful weapon systems, but not a power supply big enough for the ship's needs. Gravity would turn off in Hyperspace, etc.) I got a hold of the Equipment guide, and especially the customization options for weapons. Had a weapon that could fire up to 1 KM with no range penalty, with a 16-20 crit range. Also had fun toys like a Stealth Suit, active Camouflage netting for myself and the ship, and oh yeah: the ship had a slave circuit and had a sniper's nest attached to the outside. Practical? No. Awesome? Yeah, kind of.

[Sith_Happens]

Spoiler

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Spoiler: Explanation

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Character in Old Republic era. Maxed out pilot skill, only non-force sensitive in the group, owner and operator of the Rusty Bucket, a Special™ Corellian freighter. (Think the Millenium Falcon with much more of a "Fixer Upper" vibe. Plenty of smuggling space, completely unnecessarily powerful weapon systems, but not a power supply big enough for the ship's needs. Gravity would turn off in Hyperspace, etc.) I got a hold of the Equipment guide, and especially the customization options for weapons. Had a weapon that could fire up to 1 KM with no range penalty, with a 16-20 crit range. Also had fun toys like a Stealth Suit, active Camouflage netting for myself and the ship, and oh yeah: the ship had a slave circuit and had a sniper's nest attached to the outside. Practical? No. Awesome? Yeah, kind of.

I know just the droid for a character like that:

[Hyena]

It hasn't been 90 days yet, right?

Okay, so I've made a paladin...

[Kid Jake]

My current M&M campaign:

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We've been discussing doing a more comedic, Neighborhood Watch themed campaign on the side, this is my prediction:

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[Totema]

From a 3.5 campaign a couple of years ago that I heavily reminisce upon...

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Spoiler: Explanation

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I started out the adventure with what appeared to be a no-frills, half-elf druid. I was the only divine caster in the entire group, and so pretty much all of the healing (in-combat and out) fell upon me. I also had a lot of fun playing up the slightly kooky personality of a de-socialized yet wizened old nature nut.

As the campaign drudged on, it became more and more clear that it was going to culminate with a great battle against a horde of undead, so I hatched a perfectly in-character (read: a little insane) plan to fight them off. Our "headquarters" and main defensive site was a fortress in the middle of the desert, so I gradually made small petitions to the nature goddess to bring more water and plantlife to the area. Eventually the place was like an oasis. When the time came to make actual preparations for the undead scourge, I took up the mighty position of "citadel gardener", and while all the other party members dismissed me to perform actual military logistics, I was using both my own magic as well as prayer to fill the environment with all kinds of nasty botanical impediments to hold off the undead. When the battle finally came it turned out my plants actually did a majority of the fighting, and I even resorted to the age-old tactic of using a large shambling mound as an APC for my party so we could cruise straight to the commanding lich lord and take him out. From that day forward, my group has never underestimated the power of plantlife.

[Vknight]

I really need too find good images too go with this.

Spoiler: What I Made

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So it is Shadowrun.
I make a elf-changeling who was trained by an anti-corp group. Powerful adept with an incredibly high social die pools can even make people shoot themselves. So trained killer/assassin for this group and realizes one she dislikes anarchy and two she hates killing others especially innocents(despite being good at it).

Spoiler: What the Gm Saw

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Gm see's Pacifist and other things and see's a dainty corp-exec wannabe, who wants out of the Shadowrunner lifestyle too avoid hurting people

Spoiler: What I Played

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Grumpy angry spy who can't stand half the group, and still prefers non-lethal too lethal options but when actively harmed goes whelp I'm killing you now

[...]

I cannot see half of these pictures...
I hate my computer sometimes.

[Terraoblivion]

I have one from the Legends of the Wulin game set in a modern high school setting that I've been in for the last year and a half.

What I Made

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What the GM Saw

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And

What I Played

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Explanation

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The character is the daughter of anachronistic Prussian nobility who hold an ancestral style of saber-fencing, but wasn't in line for the style. In bitterness over being told to do stuff she objectively sucked at, such as proper academics and upper class propriety, while watching her older sister struggle with learning the style, she came to hate her parents greatly. This was only increased after her sister was grievously injured in a training accident because her mother was pushing her too hard. She also went to Japan shortly after this while fantasizing about taking revenge.

However, the thing that was immediately obvious and was central early on was her punk leanings, general delinquency and the fact that her unbalanced qi gave her a number of lupine features.

In the end, she has become a rather rule abiding "delinquent" who is close to the local law enforcement, doesn't really break any major rules and have pretty much set herself up to protect people from the darkness lurking in the city the game is set in. Along with superpowers to the point of being one of the strongest students in her year despite barely any training prior to arriving it becomes a pretty strong similarity. They also both have embarrassing tastes in a lot of things.

Spoiler: A Certain Scientific Railgun spoilers

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And like Misaka she takes people hurting her sister exceedingly serious.

She doesn't have any lightning powers, though.

[Starcofski]

From a currently ongoing campaign in which I am having possibly the most fun I've ever experienced in an RPG:

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Spoiler: Explanation

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For a Mutants and Masterminds game, I designed a character composed of a tyrannosaurus, with a symbiotic mind-controlling alien life form. He combines the dino's raw power with the symbiote's telepathy and mental skills, including a strong grasp of science and technology. He was originally designed to be the party scientist, without being fragile. However, he has become the frontline bruiser due to the setting, and the alien often has a dialogue (that only he can understand) with his host.

My DM however, instantly jumped to the Evangelion-style setup. And as a result, we're jokingly discussing adding tech upgrades to make him more formidable.

[Townopolis]

Four mages, one GURPS campaign

At the beginning of the campaign, I rolled a simple ritual caster.

Spoiler: He was a socially awkward fellow

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Eventually, I told the GM I wasn't enjoying the character and rerolled.

Spoiler: He was a compulsive liar, but that ended up being beside the point

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Tried a regular mage. While ritual mages technically know all the spells in the book, regular mages must study and learn each spell individually.

Spoiler: And I spent his entire career trying to replace it

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Back to ritual magery.

Spoiler: Regrettably, the GM and I did get into a fight about the middle panel.

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If you're familiar with GURPS magic, that one panel is a reference to a specific spell.

[RPGuru1331]

Four mages, one GURPS campaign

At the beginning of the campaign, I rolled a simple ritual caster.

Spoiler: He was a socially awkward fellow

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Eventually, I told the GM I wasn't enjoying the character and rerolled.

Spoiler: He was a compulsive liar, but that ended up being beside the point

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Tried a regular mage. While ritual mages technically know all the spells in the book, regular mages must study and learn each spell individually.

Spoiler: And I spent his entire career trying to replace it

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Back to ritual magery.

Spoiler: Regrettably, the GM and I did get into a fight about the middle panel.

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If you're familiar with GURPS magic, that one panel is a reference to a specific spell.

My god, man, this demands further explanation! I'm especially curious how and why you ended up with what seems to be an inventory full of rocks. A lot of these posts are truly fantastic, by the way.