Character Concepts that got shot down

[mAc Chaos]

My favorite is one my friend made.

Robot Ronald Reagan. He even photoshopped a hilarious picture for it. But alas, I had to shoot it down because it just made no sense in D&D.

[ZeroGear]

My favorite is one my friend made.

Robot Ronald Reagan. He even photoshopped a hilarious picture for it. But alas, I had to shoot it down because it just made no sense in D&D.

Not even as a warforged?

[Anonymouswizard]

In All Flesh Must be Eaten, a Charismatic Anglican Vicar with a vow of nonviolence. No combat skills, low life points, and low essence compared to the physicals, but high Charisma and social skills for when we met up with the army, as well as a couple of powers (originally healing and visions, changed to visions and feat of strength when somebody else wanted to play our medic, I wanted a buff spell but couldn't find one). The idea was he had somehow managed to convince the world that, in a small area around him, God did give aid.

That was shot down because 1) the GM didn't want any magic in the world, despite later using zombies that generated petrol, teleported, and moved as fast as a bullet, and b) it was a combat game. I still have the character ready, including a demon-hunting version. Everyone else thinks he sounded like a great character, and I played his Catholic counterpart for a session (Father Caine smites the demons!)

[Zalphon]

Character Concept I:

Race: Half-Elf
Class: Rogue
Concept: An investigator who was on the run, because people thought he committed a crime with a friend. Neither of them did it.
Reason: ...DM didn't like the idea of a Lawful Good Rogue.

[DigoDragon]

Reason: ...DM didn't like the idea of a Lawful Good Rogue.

I think this sums up my reaction. Not a new concept (and I like it cause it makes the DM's job of coming up with antagonists easy), but just the reasoning is weird to me.

[Anonymouswizard]

Character Concept I:

Race: Half-Elf
Class: Rogue
Concept: An investigator who was on the run, because people thought he committed a crime with a friend. Neither of them did it.
Reason: ...DM didn't like the idea of a Lawful Good Rogue.

People just don't like lawful good. I've had funny looks when explaining how it isn't more restrictive than the other alignments, and seen it used as a reason to not play a paladin. The same player decided to play a chaotic stupid rogue and then whined when I denied him sneak attack because a) the guards had a half decent idea where his crossbow bolts where coming from and b) he was the only person who was attacking the guards (another player used the grapple rules to represent being over friendly, but he had low INT and wasn't trying to harm them, so they settled for just staying 25ft away from the dwarf). The guards were simply asking a group of people he did not know to go to their guild or inn and disarm (their papers showed that they had just arrived an hour ago).

Thanks to that and a player who liked 'assassins' (read fighters with some stealth) have actually turned me off the idea of rogues as lowlifes, and I prefer them as investigators (I'd just like a replacement for trapfinding). I'd love a character you described that in one of my games instead of the standard 'brute, brute, magician, chaotic stupid' array that I normally see.

[Friv]

Character Concept I:

Race: Half-Elf
Class: Rogue
Concept: An investigator who was on the run, because people thought he committed a crime with a friend. Neither of them did it.
Reason: ...DM didn't like the idea of a Lawful Good Rogue.

I'm reminded of an Exalted game I applied to. We were asked to create heroic Solar Exalts, so I put together a Night Caste who roamed the land, helping people from the shadows and destroying monsters, but never wanting to be recognized. His backstory was that he had been an ordinary farmer, trying to live a normal life, until a gang of Fair Folk invaded his town and started killing people. He tried to hide and ambush one of them in desperation, triggering his Exaltation, and then became involved in murderous hide-and-seek with them until they were all dead, at which point his fellow townsfolk sort of thanked him but also threw him out of town because he was a horrible demon-monster now (I mean, "threw him out" in the politest, most terrified way, but he wasn't going to stick around.).

I was told that the concept wasn't valid for the game, because "ordinary people don't Exalt, only people who are already legends do".

[Hawkstar]

I was told that the concept wasn't valid for the game, because "ordinary people don't Exalt, only people who are already legends do".

Wow... How is Batman not considered a legendary figure?

[JustSomeGuy]

Howabout Haft, an orc P.I. from the greensploitation era? Wore a turtleneck (actual turtle's neck, obvs) and had an uncanny knack for nearby minstrels to suddenly break into some direfunk. Oh, and their lutes somehow gained a wa-waauugh pedal.

Turned out he was terrible at bloodbowl, and players don't require a backstory either. And opponents love to injure players with a backstory too.

[Friv]

Wow... How is Batman not considered a legendary figure?

Difficult to speak for someone else, especially if I don't agree with them, but I would venture that, by this guy's logic, Batman Exalts when he returns to Gotham and faces his first villain, not when he has the inspiration to become a terror in the night in the first place. By then he's already done the world-traveller, master martial artist, ultimate dedication thing, so he's a guy with a lot of Attributes and Abilities at 5 turning his dedication to crimefighting.

[Anonymouswizard]

I was told that the concept wasn't valid for the game, because "ordinary people don't Exalt, only people who are already legends do".

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought it didn't matter who you were. I believe the only conditions were:

Solar: achieving the impossible (you exalt in the process)
Lunar: survive the impossible
Sidereal: blah blah blah fate blah blah blah destiny blah blah
Dragon blood: by chance, as long as your great grandad was one
Abyssal: die horribly and sign a contract with the death lords
Infernal: the lack of solar exaltations meant you were ignored
Alchemical: birthing vat

Where does fame come into any of those?

[Friv]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought it didn't matter who you were. I believe the only conditions were:

Solar: achieving the impossible (you exalt in the process)
Lunar: survive the impossible
Sidereal: blah blah blah fate blah blah blah destiny blah blah
Dragon blood: by chance, as long as your great grandad was one
Abyssal: die horribly and sign a contract with the death lords
Infernal: the lack of solar exaltations meant you were ignored
Alchemical: birthing vat

Where does fame come into any of those?

Not legend in the famous sense, legend in the powerful and skilled sense.

There was something of an ongoing fight in the Exalted playerbase for a long time about whether or not people should have to be exceptional in some way prior to their Exaltation. Some passages in the books suggested that only those destined for greatness, or who were already great, got the shot. It tended to boil back to what a "heroic mortal" was in-setting, as opposed to what it was out-of-setting.

Under that theory, a farmboy couldn't Exalt unless they were a farmboy with tremendous potential and skill, like "everyone in town knew about shadow-hands Bill, who once stole a farmer's entire stock of chickens and hid them in the Immaculate Temple - in the middle of a service!"

(I obviously did not hold to this theory. I always felt it substantially restricted character concepts, with no real benefit.)

[Inevitability]

I wanted to play as a warforged who had pretty much an entire brewery installed in his body. DM shot it down because warforged didn't fit his world.

[Anonymouswizard]

I wanted to play as a warforged who had pretty much an entire brewery installed in his body. DM shot it down because warforged didn't fit his world.

Makes more sense than:

GM: pick any god from the Greek, Roman, Norse, or Egyptian pantheons to be your character's parent.
Friend: I want to play a child of the god of wine.
GM: no alcohol in game!

This caused everyone in the game to plan to have our characters meet in a brewery (nixed), take Expertise: Brewing (allowed, but couldn't get materials), or spend equipment points on beer (also nixed). At this point nobody was actually interested.

He had also refused to give us an age range for our characters, so I can with a concept for a child of Loki born in the early Renaissance, who had spent most of his time wandering and picking up skills. He only had one attack that actually hit the PL caps, instead being a support character with illusions. That was denied because he was 'too old', as was a child of Lugh from being from a weird pantheon, as was an Egyptian character because 'nobody wants to play the child of an Egyptian god'.

{scrubbed}

[Kurald Galain]

I had a player who wanted a caped silver-age superhero in a gritty fantasy campaign; so I shot that one down. I don't recall a lot of shut-downs otherwise.

[Hawkstar]

Some passages in the books suggested that only those destined for greatness [...] got the shot.

This justifies any Exalt concept.

[Hunter Noventa]

Solar: achieving the impossible (you exalt in the process)

All I could think of when I read that was Do the impossible, see the invisible, row row fight the power!

I guess Spiral Power would be it's own kind of Exaltation huh?

[Honest Tiefling]

{scrubbed}

{scrubbed}

Another thing that got nixed (and me booted from the campaign again), was that the DM had the idea we could play various gods. I was interested in some party cohesion, so I suggested to the group to play gods with similar bents, so there would be a reason for all us to hang around and no one really wanted to play from the same pantheon.

"Okay, she can play Loki, you can take Coyote, and I'll play Ananzi."

YUP. Didn't even get to the first session there.

[Anonymouswizard]

{scrubbed}

[Friv]

All I could think of when I read that was Do the impossible, see the invisible, row row fight the power!

I guess Spiral Power would be it's own kind of Exaltation huh?

Kamina = Solar, Simon = Lunar, Rossiu = Sidereal.

(Okay, getting off-track. No more comments here from me except about specific characters.)

[Iamyourking]

On the subject of Scion, and from the ST side, I vetoed a player who wanted to make a brawl-focused Scion of Zeus named Zeus-Fu, after a running joke we have about Zeus' fighting style in God of War II, on the grounds that the name was too silly (And because I already had pretty much that exact concept planned to be my BBEG). In addition, although it wasn't exactly vetoed, I did say that I would have my eye on any Scions of Agni, Indra, Hermes, Thoth, Hera, Isis, Athena, Izanagi, Susano-O, Amaterasu, and Guanyin. Although I did get an Athena and a Guanyin, the characters themselves were fine.

[BootStrapTommy]

D&D 5e Hermit Wizard. Discovery: the universe is just a game of D&D 5e. Trade in herbalism kit proficiency for a game set proficiency: 5e D&D.

Notes on discover? The MM and PHB.

[goto124]

A real wizard knows the rules of the universe, silly!

[Zalphon]

Character Concept II:

Race: Human
Class: Focused Transmuter (Wizard)
Concept: Somebody who was aware that it was all a game. That's all it was and because of that, he could change how it all worked.
Reason: While comedic and a comedic game, he wasn't overly fond of that level of silliness.

[TheThan]

Lets see, there was Zors Igothan- the far seer , he was a Half farspawn human psychic warrior.

So yeah, I could turn myself into a tentacle monster. Dunno why it got shot down.

I actually had a really cool background. He had been abducted as a child, taken to the far-realms and experimented on (to learn human’s weaknesses); he escaped and made it back to the prime material. Now he wonders the world delivering speeches about the end of the world (from street corners naturally) because he knew these legion of incomprehensible monsters from the far realms were planning on invading.

For a BESM game I made, Izumi Wantabe, who was a sassy, trigger happy, bubble gum chewing, pink jump suit wearing gun bunny who had a bazooka in her bra. Dunno why that one got shot down either.

[Zalphon]

Lets see, there was Zors Igothan- the far seer , he was a Half farspawn human psychic warrior.

So yeah, I could turn myself into a tentacle monster. Dunno why it got shot down.

I actually had a really cool background. He had been abducted as a child, taken to the far-realms and experimented on (to learn human’s weaknesses); he escaped and made it back to the prime material. Now he wonders the world delivering speeches about the end of the world (from street corners naturally) because he knew these legion of incomprehensible monsters from the far realms were planning on invading.

For a BESM game I made, Izumi Wantabe, who was a sassy, trigger happy, bubble gum chewing, pink jump suit wearing gun bunny who had a bazooka in her bra. Dunno why that one got shot down either.

...I would love to have that first character in a campaign. I wouldn't give any special perks to it or anything, but I would be greatly amused by it.

[BWR]

A variation on a character in another L5R game, this guy is the typical big Hida brute. Coarse in both appearance and manner, crude, rather brutal and vicious, twice the size of most of the rest of the men in the empire. For political reasons he was married into the Doji (the most refined and cultured, effete family in the Empire, possibly exceeded only by the Imperials). As a basically decent guy who keeps his word he has to try to play by the rules of his new family despite having no culture or etiquette that doesn't involve alcohol, killing monsters with metal sticks and trying not to be overcome by PTSD. Apart from being a social nightmare he has two attendants, semi-retired jesters who follow him to make sure he doesn't insult anyone too badly. Their names: Kakita Sutateru and Kakita Warudorufu. For obvious reasons, they just follow him and make snide comments about him (and everyone else).
And this was just the back-up character for the game. Shot down for not being serious enough.

[Ettina]

A Flesh Jelly playing Murder at Baldur's Gate. (Me as DM.) I said I'd be willing to run it if he roleplayed it accurately, but it would be more 'playing as Godzilla' than the intended plotline. Then he said he was joking, and built a more reasonable character.

[JAL_1138]

Anything with "gnome" in the Race section. I am no longer allowed to play gnomes. Nor may I use them in my campaign if I'm DM'ing. (They invariably act like Kryinnish tinker gnomes (Spelljammer variant), and I know far too many ways of making things explode.)

A halfling bard based entirely on country-music legend Little Jimmy Dickens.

[Talakeal]

I have always wanted to play a character inspired by Mystique from the X-men movies; a changeling monk with the vow of poverty feat and the war-shaper prestige class.

Unfortunately, despite the internet insisted that this would be a terminal underpowered character, every real life DM I encounter considers Monks, particularly monks with VoP, to be ridiculously broken and banned outright. Combine that with a weird race and prestige class that is being used in a non-traditional manner and I am lucky if they even let me pitch a different character before being shown the door.