What Kind of Characters Do You Play?

So, I know I’m new around here, but here’s a potential topic I always find interesting. As a bit of a precursor to this conversation, I’m a psychologist IRL, and I always find it interesting how certain parts of our personality seep into characters we play. I, for example, tend to always end up with a character who is a tad on the insecure side, but covers that up in one way or another, whether that’s with being abrasive, overly bombastic, or just plain rude. It’s actually helped me connect and work through some of my own baggage, which has been very meaningful.

So now the topic: I’m curious if you find yourself playing certain kinds of characters, or what you’ve learned about yourself through your characters. I know not everyone approaches the hobby this way, but I also know that some do, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

I've realized I like being the responsible one! I almost always play either some kind of support, or a tank. I don't usually like the limelight and fame of the big damage numbers, but I love the feeling of "good job, kid. I kept you alive so you could finish the job." I've since spun that into realizing I'd be really happy as a trainer in my career, rather than on the frontlines. It's way more satisfying to see someone do well after you've given them the tools succeed. Or I guess in this case, to see the rogue land a backstab after you held the dragon down for a few rounds.

I try and play a huge variety of characters. Now maybe they all end up being variations on the same sly rogue I want to be, but I set out to try all sorts of different types of personalities.

The one I have the most trouble with are fast talkers. I love the idea, and that goes great for a few posts, but then is quickly abandoned if only because I'm inherently lazy.

I don't have specific personality types I play, but I do usually tend toward tanks, always have. I'm either a control freak or a masochist, I guess.

I found a webpage with 16 personality types and realized that I tend to play some more than others
Analyst: logician - often mages of some sort
Diplomates: Protagonist - is another one I fall back on.

I saved this link to the 16 personality types to try and play something else. I want to play more of the Exploreres: and I have a character that I'm trying to play as Exploreres:Entertainer, but the game is just started.

I play female leader types.

Another user on this site who had the opportunity to observe me in a few different games described my characters as "adorable." I tend to play supportive types, both mechanically and personality-wise, characters who try build bonds with and between other characters and try to deescalate conflict.

My characters also have a tendency to be talkative, but I think that has more to do with my strengths and preferences as a writer than my own personality (I am a pretty quiet person IRL).

Aw, that is adorable! My favorite type of character. I love it when I can have a character bond with another. Battle Buddies and Battle Couples are some of my favorite tropes. (And things like "small destructive person and big gentle tank is my lifeblood)

I've used characters as "testing ground" for new behaviors all my life.

I was a very reserved kid. As a teenager, I started playing a series of extroverted charismatic characters (bards, sorcerers and the such). They were talkative, confident, always which a joke or a story to share. I discover trough them that I do enjoy that trait in my life (within a reasonable dosage of course :P) and i've since incorporated that behavior in my "real life" when the right opportunity arise.

I did a simiilar process with a string of character with deep unwavering convictions. Other you were totally unapologetic of their choices and behaviors, some that were living through a set of personal rules outside of societal norms.

By now it feels like if every new character represent a new trait that looks to emerge :P Sometime, especially in the pbp format, I end up crafting the character without even needing to actually play it and I still get some benefit for imagining how that character would think, act and what he would stand for.

Overall, I'd say my character type is someone looking to thrive as himself in an harsh world.

This would have probably fit better in the pen and paper section, especially seeing that there is a very similar thread about what D&D class people play there, but what is done is done, and keleth can always move the thread if he feels like it...

As to answer the question, I play a little bit of everything, but I've noticed that my joker and prankster and overall lack of seriousness part of my personality often resurfaces through many of my characters. Kalajel (my namesake) Sebulba, Snarl the minotaur, Milo... and many, many more... Not always though, but often enough for it to be a definite trend... In fact you can ask TheVagrant above about my character "Le Voyageux" in a friend's RL D&D game... :P

I play all types of characters from every walk of life and gender. I have played females, males, and non-gendered characters. I've played straight characters, gay characters, bisexual characters, and asexual characters. I've played characters that have been polymorphed into a different species. I've played extroverts and introverts, leaders and followers. I've portrayed both verbose and laconic characters. I've played ectomorphs, endomorphs, and mesomorphs. I've even played a character with cinematic MPS with five different personalities. I've played child, teen, adult, and elderly characters. One of the my favorite roles was that of a little girl (about 8 years old) in a World of Darkness campaign.

I don't favor any one class or race over another. I pride myself on playing a variety of character types. I've played most race/class combos at least once in my playing career (since 1978). On runekyndig's list, I've played every one of these types at least once.

I tend to play characters based on perspectives or ideologies that I'm trying to understand in more depth, so they're almost always quite different to who I am as a person. It's a really good way to come to grips with other people's motivations and how they (and their worldview) can be shaped by their experiences. This helps me to relate to other people better, to "walk a mile in their shoes" so to speak.

I've played a bit of everything, but the archetype I've returned to the most over the years is the spiritual leader - a person of deep personal faith and conviction whose character development often comes as a result of some conflict between their moral ideals and reality.

I've played a huge variety of characters over the years. Though I definitely have a tendency to lean into themes of found family (parent-child relationships without any blood connection are my jam), and characters who keep their demons on the super downlow. Sometimes they hide it behind a happy face, or sometimes they're grumpy and sullen much of the time, but they're rarely good at asking for help. As for classes (though the characters I get to roleplay are usually in more freeform games -- I've mostly DMed for groups of friends, so don't have much experience on the player end of things), I tend to go for caster or ranged types. Occasionally those who combine magic with their swordplay too.

I tend to play a lot of clerics with the odd mouthy swordsman thrown in.
Unless I give myself a detriment to prevent it, I often end up being the face/mouth of the party.

I like to play the wise character. RN I am experimenting with new and inexperienced adventurers. I also like big burly characters, that's why I mostly play half orcs, Goliaths, Minotaur, etc.

Love me some randomly rolled up character options... a Mad Man vampire who's very perceptive, rookie cop *adjust glasses*, a surly mercantile templar dwarf, an arrogant doctor, an indifferent retired assassin, a plucky halfling who is a retired army scout, a depressing downer doctor with a long rifle and people skills, a Imma tell ya Momma Martial Arts Bounty Hunter, an intense bureaucratic planted rebel helping with coverups and gaining black mail info, a baby dragon, a transplant Montaigne Frenchman that's a lawyer from the new world with a wine gut, and the World's Sexiest Robot...

Looking forward to converting a Masks teenage Nova character to a Worlds of Peril game after a 5 year time skip, so add a Girlfriend, a 3 year old daughter, premed college, a checkered past in media as being labeled a monster and breaking away from his family due to a succession battle for the new clan head (Triad related) for this weekend.

Having played a whole variety of characters of different genres, I find I can best answer this question by describing the kinds of characters I've either not played or avoided playing. Thanks to D&D being a foundational game in my experience, I've avoided anything remotely CE. RPG escapism feels to me less engaging if I am trying to get into the mindset of an imagined 'evil' character (whatever the concept of evil means in my head - not meant to be a statement of my view on alignment or real world morality). I've avoided too-'solo' a character definition; it bores me very quickly if my character is a lone-wolf who doesn't talk to any other PC or NPC. I suspect that also comes from my notion of RPGs as a necessarily interactive activity.

Most recently I've favoured multiple or changing personalities in a single character, but I suspect that's my inner DM trying to to get out and have many 'chraracters' in one game.

I am extremely self-aware and extremely uncomplicated. I also know my own inspiration and role model as a genuine medical giant (thick/dense muscle variant, but I am 6'1" / 185 cm instead of tall and skinny and can lift more than most men) with an overdeveloped sense of honor and a personal code. I am also mildly autistic.

Add in my ginger temper... I got my second college degree in English Lit and Sociology combined to study modern media mythology in order to focus on Superman and his family instead of the messed up real people attempting to raise me. Thus, play some variant on DC Comics' Power Girl more or less exclusively. Strong, tall, and with an attitude matched by something like the behavioral code of the El Family of Krypton.

My only current character is a tall, strong, somewhat taciturn golden skinned warrior with a strict code of... you see where this is going...

I tend to try to design my characters' backstories and motivations to be at transformative points in their lives, when they have undergone extraordinary change, or when they are unsettled from their social or cultural assumptions. I try to create a character who is unable to settle on their status quo, in an attempt to prime them for adventure.

This often has the side effect of making them anxious and worrisome, and often self-conscious and uncertain of themselves, as they seek to recontextualize themselves in the scope of the adventure that they are hopefully about to go on.

I also tend to make gribbly monster characters, because I have some kind of deficiency that prevents me from really visualizing or recognizing individual human faces, making it hard to visualize human characters.

I like playing smart characters, because I hate the feeling where I know something but my character can't act on it because they aren't smart enough