Re: RTJ request RANT
In reply to OceanLake (msg # 43):
That depends entirely on the player. Some of my favorite characters have been some off-the-wall concepts (like a Chadra-Fan pilot with a borderline death wish, or a Troll monk...), but when I created those characters, part of the appeal was knowing they would not be accepted by society at large and possibly not even by the party members, initially. The fun of playing them was getting them to be competent enough at what they did to be accepted in spite of their 'otherness'. And I always, ALWAYS built in a backstory that made their presence plausible, even if it was highly unlikely.
That said, most of my current characters are very 'bread and butter' types, very typical of what would be widely expected in material of the genre/setting. I could have gone outlandish with the concepts...but it felt, to me, like the game needed 'typical' characters.
That said, I've seen a lot of out-there characters that had really implausible back stories...if they bothered with any kind of back story at all beyond "I want to play a monster that's become one of the good guys". I think a lot of people gravitate to the outrageous characters because they want a spotlight, of sorts...they're not sure they can make a 'regular' character noteworthy, so they latch onto some kind of highly unusual concept and ride it for all it's worth...
Except they don't anticipate that, being an highly irregular character, they're destined to be an outsider from the get-go, and the same...well, laziness, basically, that led many of them to pick a highly unusual character also leads them to give up quickly when they discover that their enemy-soldier-turned-double-agent isgoing to have to win over peoples' trust and won't necessarily be welcomed into the party with open arms. They like the one end of the stick...but they aren't willing to carry the other end, as well.
It can be done. It has been done. A lot. There's a character in one of the games I'm in who is a defector, from a branch of the ruling house of the alien race that is the primary enemy. His character spent his first two weeks of in-game time sitting in a brig and being threatened with execution multiple times a day. When he was finally let out and entrusted with a weapon, he spent another year (in-game) with people watching him closely and ready to gun him down at the first hint of betrayal...and they weren't subtle about their intentions. He played it to the hilt, it was an integral part of the character...he's now been in-game for close to five years (I think close to eight or nine years, in reality), is a Sergeant in the allied forces, and just got engaged to another character. Oddball concepts can work...but they require a LOT of work, some vague degree of plausibility (same game, we had a guy who wanted to be a child prodigy that could sling computer code in his sleep but was also a highly experienced fighter pilot...despite the fact that, for him to have as much fighter experience as he was claiming, he would have had to start flying fighters before he was even a teenager, and would have been too short to reach all the controls unless someone paid an insane amount of money to modify his trainer craft...several times, as he grew up. He pitched a fit when the GM told him that his character had to be several years older than he was saying...)
I'll admit, when I see unlikely character types enter a game, my first impulse is, "Wonder how long THIS one lasts." But 'unlikely' doesn't necessarily equate to 'unplayable' or even 'doomed to fail.' It just takes more thought, more work, and more patience.