Simple character concept. What's yours?

[RadSprack]

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

[simply Nathan]

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.

[Kalzazz]

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

[sir_pudding]

I had a player that once wanted to play "a gun". Not an intelligent weapon system but a dumb inanimate tool.

[RadSprack]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

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]

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.

[Dalillama]

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.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by RadSprack

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...

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by RadSprack

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.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by RadSprack

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.