Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-01-2014, 04:32 PM   #1
RadSprack
 
RadSprack's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Default Simple character concept. What's yours?

I've got a player that is having a hard time coming up with a character concept for my upcoming game. He has been overloaded with overtime at work and hasn't had the relaxed mind to be able to focus on creating a concept. He has asked me to come to him with a few concepts to choose from. His only criterion for what he wants to play is that the character be simple.

The characters that he usually plays and his game world are all supremely complex and complicated. Always full of political intrigue and subterfuge. He wants to play something without all the hidden motivations and suspicious secrets.

I wanted to ask here because more than two heads are better than one.

I'm looking for what you might consider to be fun to play that doesn't require a huge amount of effort to keep your motivations in check. Think shonen style characters. You understand what makes them tick just from a short amount of time seeing them.

What you might want to know about the campaign:
Semi-cinematic to full on cinematic
Set in a sort of anime-ish world
It's kind of like the nineties. We have access to things like the internet and cell phones, but the world isn't all about instant informative gratification like we are today.
Innate Abilities
RadSprack is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 04:50 PM   #2
simply Nathan
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
 
simply Nathan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

A strong guy who is good at swinging an axe. He has high ST, Weapon Master for his axe, a decent skill level with his axe, and possibly Power Blow, Forced Entry, and other useful skills to apply his axe more effectively in certain situations.

Hard to be more simple for a cinematic game with combat in it than "I am strong and I have an axe." It's one of my favorite simple character concepts for any game system with even slightly cinematic combat rules and combat focus.
__________________
Ba-weep granah wheep minibon. Wubba lubba dub dub.
simply Nathan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 05:24 PM   #3
Kalzazz
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

Be a strong guy who can wear heavy armor, carry lots of armor, and dual wield BARs! Make sure to get the Quick Reload perk and Akimbo for reloading said BARs, or unlimited ammo should the DM allow it
Kalzazz is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 05:41 PM   #4
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

I had a player that once wanted to play "a gun". Not an intelligent weapon system but a dumb inanimate tool.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 05:58 PM   #5
RadSprack
 
RadSprack's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz View Post
Be a strong guy who can wear heavy armor, carry lots of armor, and dual wield BARs! Make sure to get the Quick Reload perk and Akimbo for reloading said BARs, or unlimited ammo should the DM allow it
I totally would if I didn't want them to focus more on innate abilities and muscle powered tools/weapons (should they want to go that route) than high powered guns and the sort.
RadSprack is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 06:04 PM   #6
RadSprack
 
RadSprack's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

And just so I'm not pulling completely from here. Here is an idea I came up with:

A pugilist that wants to prove that boxing is the best fighting style in the world through his own strength.
RadSprack is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 06:12 PM   #7
Dalillama
 
Dalillama's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

A happy-go-lucky wanderer who happens to have incredible martial arts skills. Popular additional traits include goofy personality, limited mental capacities (possibly excepting certain areas of expertise, usually unconventional ones), a distinctive build (either huge or skinny), and accompanying copious appetite.
Dalillama is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 07:07 PM   #8
robkelk
Untitled
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RadSprack View Post
And just so I'm not pulling completely from here. Here is an idea I came up with:

A pugilist that wants to prove that boxing is the best fighting style in the world through his own strength.
That isn't just "anime-ish", that's an actual anime: Ashita no Joe. May as well re-use that background for the character - everyone else has...
__________________
Rob Kelk
“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
– Bernard Baruch,
Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950
No longer reading these forums regularly.
robkelk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 09:35 PM   #9
Culture20
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RadSprack View Post
A pugilist that wants to prove that boxing is the best fighting style in the world through his own strength.
And if that's not complex enough for your player, the character could also be an English butler. Mastery of boxing and housekeeping. Throw in unfazable and your player won't have to role play excessively in a scenario unless he wants to.
Culture20 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2014, 07:03 PM   #10
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Simple character concept. What's yours?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RadSprack View Post
His only criterion for what he wants to play is that the character be simple.

The characters that he usually plays and his game world are all supremely complex and complicated. Always full of political intrigue and subterfuge. He wants to play something without all the hidden motivations and suspicious secrets.
"Simple" is a pretty broad target since there are a lot of different ways a character can be simple.

Here, I'd say you mostly want to avoid social advantages and disadvantages or stuff that makes the character a really integral part of the plot - so not Destiny or Serendipity or anything like that either.

A good motivation for characters like this is "this is my job". Some other character is paying me to be here, and that's really my only interest in the adventure goals and my only tie to the rest of the party.

If you want simple to *play*, again it's good to avoid social skills (and spells are out for sure) and concentrate on being really good at one thing. But you need to pick a thing that is going to come up regularly in the game or your role will be boring. The combat monster several people suggest is an example of that who works in a lot of settings, but others are certainly possible. A master craftsman of some sort can work as skill driven character who is still fairly simple - the Ship's Engineer or the Medic roles are examples here, and don't have to be particularly complex. Somebody with a single (or small handful of related) high cost power(s) can work in a game where powers are important. Again the guy with massive ST, DR and HP, and Brawling skill is the classic - the brick super - but others can work. Extra Move - the super speedster - is another classic though it doesn't play that great in GURPS without other abilities. You can keep pushing points into Telekinesis and still just have one fairly uncomplex power, and that works fairly well. Immune-guy, who may have lots of different powers, but they're all passive I can ignore stuff ones can be fairly easy too.
__________________
--
MA Lloyd

Last edited by malloyd; 10-01-2014 at 07:06 PM.
malloyd is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
character assistant, character concept, character creation, help me out here, new gm

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:45 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.