Badass Larp Talk #18: The 4 Most Common Problem Character Types (And How to Make Them Work)

In all my years of gaming, I’ve come across a lot of different characters – and perhaps more importantly, character archetypes: the Rogue with a Heart of Gold, the Bookish Wise Man, the Femme Fatale and so on. Whether it’s a fantasy boffer larp or a horror parlor game, certain types of characters keep showing up over and over again. And most of the time that’s fine – archetypes are part of storytelling, so it’s no surprise that we find lovable crooks everywhere from drafty dungeons to cyberpunk clubs. However, there are some character types that aren’t so easily integrated, that in fact can do some real damage to the game and the enjoyment of the other players.

In this installment of BLT, we’re going to take a look at four problematic character types, what’s wrong with them, and most importantly offer solutions on how to turn them around and make them work in a way that makes most everybody happy. It’s not about calling people out to shame them; it’s about taking what are usually well-intentioned concepts that have gone a little astray and steer them into becoming awesome, well-developed characters in their own right.

Note: With this in mind, please don’t go running around your game putting labels on concepts that you think fit these roles or badgering other players about the perceived shortcomings of their characters. If you have a concern about the impact a character is having on the game, talk to a staff member about it. They might think the concept is just fine, and anyway, if it is serious enough to warrant talking to a player about changing their concept, it’s best that it be a staff member and not a fellow player who voices the concern. Wheaton’s Law, folks, always.

The Carbon Copy, aka The Cosplayer

Telling Quote: “What do you mean? My name Mel Reynolds, and I’m the captain of an old spaceship called Tranquility! It’s totally different!”
What’s Going On: Perhaps the easiest of problem characters to spot, the Carbon Copy is just that – an exact or nearly exact recreation of an existing character from some form of popular entertainment. The name is either exactly the same or a clever play on the source (Nathan Reynolds, Malcolm Fillion, etc.), the costuming is as close as they can make it within genre considerations – turning Mal’s signature browncoat into a brown cloak for a fantasy version of the character, for example – and the mannerisms and catchphrases are dead on. They probably have the props too, and drop references to their source material every chance they get. Now, in some specialized games this is perfectly fine, even encouraged – if we’re doing a Firefly larp and using the crew of the Serenity as characters, by all means, Mal and Jayne and Zoe to your hearts’ content. But for most other games? Playing a carbon copy of an existing character is something best avoided for a couple of reasons.

The Trouble Is: Setting Breaker
Say it again with me – there is absolutely nothing wrong with being inspired by a character from a book/movie/song/TV show/etc. Many gamers can trace the origins of each of their characters at least in part to inspiration drawn from other sources, and that’s OK. It’s more than OK, in fact – it’s a fantastic way for new players to explore the hobby, and for veteran players to draw on inspiration to make characters they identify with right off the bat. But when you try to faithfully recreate a character in their entirety rather than simply use them as a starting point, you’re missing the chance to make your own. When everyone else around you is making the effort to create something new and exciting, it can be frustrating to see someone else just playing a role other people have already traveled. Not to mention that your character can break immersion a bit as it reminds people of things that don’t necessarily exist in that world or setting – Sir Malcolm Reynolds of the Order of Serenity may tickle your fancy as you stride around in your long brown cloak, but at a fantasy game you’re basically a walking immersion breaker, because any kind of acknowledgment of the source of your character necessarily goes outside of the setting.

How to Make It Work: Spirit, Not the Letter.
Fortunately this one’s pretty easy. Sit down and write out the three or four things you like best about that inspirational character. I’m talking personality traits and mannerisms, not names and events. That’s what’s really important, and so you can focus on bringing those into your character. After all, what do most people really like about Malcolm Reynolds? His name isn’t important, nor is it the way he dresses. It’s more like his sense of honor, his sardonic humor, his loyalty, and his penchant for speaking his mind even if it gets him in trouble. If you bring those into your character, do you really need his name or his coat? Not so much.  By all means, take those characters you love and use them to inspire and structure your own creations if you like, but make sure you put your own spin on them too!

The Lone Wolf That Rides Alone, Wolfishly

Telling Quote: “…” <walks off alone, but only after carefully making sure everyone sees just how alone and uncaring they are>
What’s Going On: You all know the type. The moody loner character who actively pulls away from social contact, usually with a hard stare or a cryptic muttered comment about not playing well with others. They’re like a compass lodestone – whatever way the rest of the game is going, the loner is always heading in the other direction.  They absolutely refuse to be grouped in with others, and will fight fiercely to retain their independence and autonomy even when it doesn’t always make sense to do so. In my experience, there are actually two types of Lone Wolves, the True Loners and the Needy Loners. True Loners are players who are genuinely content to go their own way, even if it costs them some entertainment value now and then, and rarely complain about their lot because they’re playing the way that gives them the most enjoyment. Needy Loners, by contrast, are players who make characters that claim to want nothing to do with anyone else, but who really desperately need people to pay attention to just how cool and aloof and alone they are, and tend to complain loudly about how they don’t get enough plot or how they are excluded from certain content even though they do their best to stay apart from others, turn down plot hooks and otherwise push away from the game as a whole. As you can imagine, I’m talking about Needy Loners more here.

The Trouble Is: So Lonely
Larp is a social activity. When you create a character whose entire existence is predicated around actively avoiding social contact, grouping up and otherwise forming connections, you’re locking yourself out of a lot of the fun. Even if you’re OK with that – and as I said, True Loners generally are – be aware that by doing so you surrender a certain amount of involvement in the story everyone else is being told, as well as some ability to complain about not having enough to do or not being included in plots. At a lot of larger games, the staff is hard pressed to keep up with the demands of a sizable player population, and simply doesn’t have the resources to spare to babysit a single loner character off doing their own thing. Even in smaller games it can be difficult to justify tailoring plots for a single character, especially when it’s because they stubbornly refuse to go along with everyone else. So I’m not saying you can’t play that loner character concept, but if you stick with it, be prepared to make your own fun as a result, as well as accept what it might cost you in story terms.

How to Make Them Work: The Happy Few
You remember all those great loner characters from your favorite movies, books and TV shows? Remember what happened to pretty much all of them over time? Yeah. They developed connections to at least one or two other characters, even if only grudgingly, and those connections drew them into the larger action and also made them more interesting.  After all, being a loner only really sinks in when contrasted against regular social contact, so as much as you might want to be an absolute island beholden to no one, I recommend developing at least one or two connections with your fellow characters, even if only as business partners or some other formal arrangement. Doing so will allow you to stay involved in certain storylines or give you a reason to throw in for larger causes when necessary, while still letting you go your loner way a lot of the time as well. Because you know what’s just as common as those great “lone wolf” characters? The part where they get drawn into working with others, grumbling all the while maybe, but drawn in nonetheless. Even Logan eventually saw the value of joining the X-Men – if only to hit on Jean – and that tells you something about interesting loners.

The Snowflake, aka The Odd One Out

Telling Quote: “Every good Werewolf game needs at least one vampire.”
What’s Going On: Like a lot of problem concepts, the Snowflake doesn’t usually set out to cause trouble, but often winds up causing a lot of headaches. The simplest way to sum up this concept is that whatever everyone else is playing, they aren’t. They’re the Imperial spy in the middle of a Rebel Alliance cell, the vampire in a werewolf sept, the obvious heretic in a Dark Heresy game, you name it. Anything that is normally rare, despised, ill-advised or otherwise off-limits in the setting is like catnip to these players, who immediately decide that they must play this concept even though it goes against everyone else’s character type. Some of them do it for the sheer challenge of trying to survive in a setting hostile to their concept, others enjoy the fish out of water roleplaying, and many enjoy having different powers or even different rules than the rest of the game. And some just do it because they like standing out in the crowd, being the one character or concept that immediately jumps out as special or different. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of these things, by the way, but when the concept is so far outside what the rest of the game is going with, it can be a problem in a number of ways worth discussing. 

The Trouble Is: Writer’s Burden
Even when created with the best of intentions, the Snowflake is an extra drain on the storytelling staff, who have to go to extra lengths to tailor plots and events to make sure that the Snowflake can somehow participate despite so much of the setting material saying otherwise. There are also a lot of potential problems with power balance, as the Snowflake is often resistant to things that are mortally dangerous to other characters (or vice versa), meaning that their mere presence can make some difficult challenges seem trivial. What’s more, in many game settings there are long-established reasons that different nations/races/species/factions/etc. don’t work together, and so the Snowflake presents a unique difficulty when writing storylines, as the staff is either forced to ignore a major setting element or enforce it and risk making the Snowflake feel frustrated as they are persecuted at every turn.

How to Make Them Work: Realistic Expectations
Assuming this concept is approved in the first place, it’s time to take the player aside and have a frank discussion about what their expectations are for their character, as well as what they might expect from NPCs or even their fellow PCs regarding their outsider status. Generally speaking, they should be ready to accept a certain amount of (justified IC) prejudice and poor treatment, as well as being socially excluded from certain groups and storylines. It’s also a good idea to get the player to recognize and accept that their character might have a short lifespan in the game before meeting death, imprisonment or other forms of retirement. (Remember, even if their character is sweetness and light, outsiders make great scapegoats for all kinds of wickedness.) They also should recognize that if 30 players are portraying vampires, and 1 person is playing a wizard, the staff’s obligation is to entertain those 30 players first, and so they may not have the same level of staff attention as the rest of the game. In short, the player should understand that playing a character that radically differs from the other characters means they should expect that their play experience will also be very different, and possibly a lot shorter, than those of other characters. If they can handle that, great! If not, well, a standout character like this might not be best for them.

The Diner Hero, aka The Walking Gag

Telling Quote: “Hail and well met! I’m Sir Prize! Bet you didn’t see that coming! Ha HA!” <gallops away using coconuts to make hoofbeat noises>
What’s Going On: Oof. Yeah. Sooner or later we all see these characters – a funny idea from a late night at the diner or at 3 AM of some marathon gaming session, which unfortunately someone turned into an actual character and now wants to play.  Some of them share characteristics with Carbon Copies and dress like famous characters or imitate their important characteristics, but the important difference is that while a Carbon Copy is usually trying to play a sincere character in the game world (if one adapted from some other source), the Diner Hero has no such intentions. They’re just there because they think it’s funny to play a gag character and see how long they can get away with it. At best it’s like watching a Saturday Night Live sketch drag on too long, funny for a few minutes but increasingly painful as it stretches out; at worst these players are actively trolling the game, breaking the world and mocking their fellow players until they’re thrown out.

The Trouble Is: Funny the First Time, But …
I’m going to assume that we’re talking about a player who maybe doesn’t realize exactly what they’re doing, as opposed to someone who’s deliberately trolling. (Troll solution: Throw them out fast, retcon any damage they did to the game before they left, and ban them from returning.) If you confront these more innocent jokers about what they’re doing, they usually respond with something like “It’s just a game” or something along those lines. What players of gag characters often don’t realize is that even the funniest gag character is a drain on the other players around them; they’re quite literally having their fun at the expense of others. Because larp takes a certain amount of serious concentration even from veterans – you have to imagine that you really are your character, that the players around you are actually their characters and not your friends in funny outfits, that the location is actually your game world and not a rented campground/friend’s apartment/hotel ballroom, etc. (Not to mention potentially adding fantastic elements like supernatural powers, differently colored moons in the sky overhead and so on.) That’s a lot to ask of an imagination! And it gets harder when you have someone whose very presence breaks the game, let alone whose behavior is constantly pushing the boundaries of IC/OOC humor and taste.

How to Make It Work: Seeing Past the Punchline
This one can be tough, but if the player isn’t trolling on purpose it can often be done. Take the player and explain to them while you appreciate the fact that they’re enjoying the game, there’s a difference between IC and OOC jokes, and right now their concept feels too OOC to work in the environment. If they can see that, talk about what needs to be changed to make the character feel less like a gag; sometimes it’s as simple as a new name and a few different costume pieces, while other times it’s a more extensive overhaul. If the player’s onboard with what needs to be changed, great! If not, well, it might be time for a new character. Hopefully that’s a last resort, to say the least, but if it seems harsh, remember that larp is a group activity – one person’s fun should not take precedence over the fun of the troupe as a whole, especially if it’s not for strong IC reasons.

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Badass LARP Talk is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Talk tag on this entry to find others in the series, follow me on Twitter @WriterPete, or subscribe to the blog for future updates!