Other Favorite type of characters to play?

[Nue]

I'm interested in hearing if there are any particular character archetypes people like playing best and why!

For me there's a few.

For some reason I really love playing airheaded characters, especially if they're actually smarter than people give credit, or have that *one* thing that they're actually really knowledgeable about/skilled about.

Characters who are kinda goofy and light-hearted in general are my faves to play actually, esp if the roleplay itself goes in a dark direction - it can be really interesting to see how that impacts them.

Also, because I'm a huge detective fan, it's always really satisfying to play perceptive characters where not much gets past them.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I think Hufflepuffs basically.

Hardworking, animal loving, and good natured people.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

Honestly not an archetype but a tactic. I will deliberately copy a GM or a very active player's character and just make my character reverse.
I found that people are flattered and adore when people pay any special attention to their character when you roleplay with a group there is a lot of people who basically just want to star in a story about themselves. By making a character that reflects and made to interact and conflict with a specific character, it promotes interesting group interactions and lets more people get that feeling they are in the center of things.

 

[SakuraBlossom28]

A 'popular girl' archetype or a 'princess-type'. Anyone who's supposed to be all high-and-mighty and above it all. It's a lot of fun to act like the queen or king for a day, and since it's an RP it's often encouraged to be more over-the-top in your portrayals, so I can always get a lot of fun out of that.

 

[Jannah]

I'll honestly play pretty much any sort of character. However, my favourites are the morally grey anti-hero types. Most of my characters also tend to be on the analytical side since I am xD.

 

[Shotagonist]

My kind of characters are incredibly wholesome and cute boys (some less wholesome but still cute) whom I use with zany and complicated superpowers, jjba style.

 

[It_Do_Be_Like_Dat]

I like playing the street-smart, book-dumb characters (as someone who's book-smart, it's fun to be able to be someone who doesn't learn/function the way I do). I especially love playing these characters as a best friend of a street-dumb, book-smart character, yin and yang friends are my favorite trope!

 

[peritwinkle]

I love playing characters who are intelligent and calculated, even to a point where that caution becomes obsessive. I feel like there’s so many directions a character like that can take, and I never get tired of it.

 

[Onmyoji]

I enjoy playing various types of characters but there are indeed some that I enjoy playing more than others.
Characters that are serious and aloof but the plot puts them into circumstances where they need to show their friendlier or even passionate side. A great deal of fun for me in the roleplays is to develop such characters and have them gradually open up to others.

At some point I used to enjoy playing villains and overall evil characters, but I think right now I strayed away from that path and most of my characters tend to be Neutral or Good alignment.

I usually do 1x1 though, so I'm not sure what I'd play in groups. But I doubt it would change much.

 

[KokichiLove]

I mostly play teenagers and children, some young adults. I like playing crazy characters, or really shy and timid characters that just need help breaking out of their shell. I love playing both genders

 

[Becker]

I quite enjoy playing mentor or fatherly-type characters. As a Uncle to five good boys, i've learnt alot about being a good role model, not only them but also to other volunteers that i've had the absolute pleasure to be working with. I come from a I.T background and so I often get a few people coming over with questions about e-mails, scams and other techy-bits and i've really enjoyed sitting down, doing one to one's with them in order to learn more about their issues and what-not.

I think it's passed onto my characters as they often have the same patience and willingness to listen as I do with others in the real world.

 

[AnimeGenork]

You know the type who's a bitch to everyone else but secretly just wants someone to care?

Yeah. That one. My favorite OC is that. XD

I've also found the over-the-top types to be really fun to play, especially if, say, they're in love with literally every girl that comes their way or are just flamboyant in the things they do.

I am a woman of simple tastes.

 

[KenKafka]

Complicated and contradictory characters are my favorite. The morally grey, usually antiheroes, sometimes villains who believe they are doing what is best.

 

[Wandering Seraph]

Actually, speaking of playing a Hogwarts house, I love nothing more than playing Slytherin characters. Not needlessly edgy fake psychopaths, but what Slytherin characters would be if J.K. Rowling wasn't a black and white moral ethicist and biased against her own creation.

So characters who are ambitious, charming, cunning go-getters. It's so much more fun to play someone with initiative.

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

For some godforsaken reason I just love playing characters who are crafty, conniving little weasels, who are mostly looking out for their own self-interests.

There's a surprising amount of depth you can explore into how they became the way they are and how they justify themselves to other people.

They're flexible and can change alliances on a dime. Plus, you can play them straight or you can play them as comic relief. Or they can be the heel, if the group needs some stress relief.

And when they decide to do something not based on self-interest, it becomes very powerful.

The very first one I played was named Weasel Guts because I'm very subtle, lol.

 

[Idea]

So, a lot of stuff came to mind when it comes to this question, and I decided to split it into parts. Hope you enjoy the read

My Absolute Favorites:
There's no lack of me talking about the fact that child characters are my favorite character type to play. I'm referring to in this case pre-teen aged characters, whether physically or mentally, often a range of 4-10 years old. What I like about this type of character is unique, fascinating and fun perspective and dynamics it generates. On the side of the perspective, these kinds of characters are more often than not naive, they lack knowledge and are just far more innocent than most. It's an amazing filter to work with, and it also gives me reason to do things that would be unreasonable for other characters, such as putting trust in some obviously menacing character. That brings me to the dynamics side, where you might see a soft spot in that other otherwise menacing character, because child characters can bring out sides of other characters that you wouldn't normally get to see. How does a given character fare with children, what's their response to their presence? How do they deal with the potential burden this child character poses, or do they see them as one more potential ally even if a more limited one? Do they protect, encourage, break or exploit their naivety? All questions the others get to work with when I play a child character. Even when the character isn't really a child and mostly just has the body of one, which isn't that common but on occasion I do like the contrast, there's still a bit of that dynamic to explore.
One last advantage is that it's generally a very unique kind of character. I'm really a non-competitive person, I hate having to compete for my spot or role in the group with others, because if I fail I am relegated to a subpar position and if I succeed then I feel like I did something horrible to someone else. So a character type that not many play is really a great thing for me.

Following that, another one of my favorites is the redeeming monster. Note that I say "redeeming" not "redeemed", because the entire point is that the character isn't or at least doesn't feel like they've been redeemed and with reason. If I can get away with making them seem and be treated like monsters without actually being, then that's all the better (not that metagame would often allow that, but I can work with the character nonetheless). The reason I love this type of character is also the reason why I sometimes have trouble writing backstories for them, those backstories resonate so much with me. It's a character that explores feelings of guilt and regret, two emotions that due to my own personal history I know all too well. To me the absolute rule of this type of character is that whatever crime or monstrosity they committed was their fault. For whatever flaw of their being, they were directly and uniquivically responsible for what they did and what happened as a result. The point is precisely that despite the horrible things they did in the past, they now try to make up for them, still flawed, and still carrying the weight of their own mistakes. It's a story kind that really resonates with me, and can be a real gutpunch to my feels if there is any sort of self-sacrifice on their part at some point.

I'm usually more on the comedic than the dramatic preference though. In that vein, many of my characters have traits that are directly tailored for their own kind of comedy. One of the most major examples of this, one I found to be extremely useful in my RPing career as a detailed RPer, is characters who are extremely clumsy, nervous and/or easily embarassed. Watching them fumble around and fail at menial aspects can bring a smile to my face even as I type. Among those, the very paranoid kind of nervous is perhaps my favorite one of those favorites, as I truly love to have my characters start reading too much into things and overanalyzing until they've distorted the meaning of what's happening around them or being said to them so much that who knows what's even going to happen.

Then there's dog-like characters. Not much to say here, I just love dogs and getting my character to embody some traits from them is something I have done quite a bit (less so recently, but oh well)

Still on the vein of comedy, I've really grown a taste for genderbend characters anime/manga style. I want to adress the elephant in the room and make a brief and pertinent distinction between this and transgender characters- Transgender characters exist in direct conflict with societal gender roles, while genderbend characters exist in simultaneous embracing and conflict with those. The comedy from a genderbend character comes precisely from that dichotomy, they don't feel rejected or apart from the gender roles but rather they feel pulled by both kinds simultaneously. A part of them wants to embrace and return to manhood, whereas another part wants to embrace the womanhood they've obtained. Well, that's an oversimplication of the whole thing of course, and in terms I really hate using, but I think in this case it helps adress one of the major present concerns I've encountered while also helping to convey what I like about this type of character, I love the comedy especially but also the drama that can be created by this mutual pull.

Last but not least curious characters. "Curious" is my most used character trait, and by design. It is an extremely useful trait because it lets the character have an inherent reason to want to look into stuff without having to be pushed into it by other characters. I do believe that it's in the end of the day the GM's job in group RPs to make sure each character is involved, and that passes through giving characters reasons to care to explore a place that needs to be explored or about the action or exposition in general. On the other hand though, I also know that most GMs either don't realize or aren't actually capable of that, they may not think it is their task to get player's characters motivated or filter the character submissions for those that would actually have stakes in the plot, or maybe they just have some on how many characters they can really juggle getting involved in the plot and they went in over their heads. Players are often also less than helpful, as it seems every other player has a character that is persistantly against everything until they relunctantly give in cause the plot demands it. With all of this, a trait that lets your character take the innitiative is a rather crucial thing to have, I found. It also gives me a reason to take a genuine interest in other player's characters and get them more involved by talking to them and asking them stuff others might not, or getting the plot roling by not resisting the urge to pull that lever and see what happens.

Love it, But...:
There are a few characters types that I love, but that I don't actually get to play in a way that I love, often because of the metagame inherent to or surrounding their implications. The first of these types would those really intelligent, genius or knowledgeable types. I love playing the scientist, the researcher, and even more so that one super skilled or super wise character, but this comes with a problem and that problem is called metagaming. Not on my part, mind you, but the conscious or subconscious (not everyone seems to be aware of when they do it, in fact I would argue the vast majority isn't aware) usage of OOC information in a contrived or downright impossible manner by the IC character, on the part of others. It's not very hard to spot when a character is getting incredibly specific or convenient information by the interfierence of random and strangely helpful gut feelings and hunches or conveniently have the exact thought process required to figure it out, barred how they ever got through to that thought process or why they thought half the alternatives less likely. The issue with an intelligent character is that rare is the player who will actually let you persistently outwit them unless you have the GM on your side or are an actual genius IRL. Both of these are unreliable at best, and I definitely don't fit either one most of the time. You need cooperation and planning for this kind of thing, and you rarely actually get a proper dose of that.
So I may want to play these really wise and intelligent characters, but even the ones playing unintelligent ones seem to always be on par with those, so what's the point?
My typical solution to this, is that I don't really play intelligent characters. If I feel like playing a character of that type, I will either make them intelligent in a field where I generally have more expertize than what I expect the others to have, philosophy, or more commonly I just have them being not so much intelligent as extremely analytical and maybe having a knack for invention. Oh, and if I'm running the roleplay, then I'll generally make my character very knowledgeable on the world so that they can serve as a bit of an exposition machine at times.

Another one is the weirdo scavenger type. This interest of mine began with my first non-fandom OC, Kneckt, whose legacy in my content would eventually come to sow the seeds for my creation of Euphorium, by most developed world by far. Kneckt was a weird noble who'd collect body parts from monster corpses and make do with whatever makeshift weaponry he could make out of it. He was later captured and turned into this insect-thingie, losing his memories, and would eventually come to be a merchant who pawns and collects all kinds of stuff (most still from tearing apart the bodies of fantastical creatures) and selling items and potions made from that. What I call the weirdo scavenger is the kind of character who makes use of everything they can get their hands on. A lot of my characters share the trait that they ove to see the silver lining or appreciate the value of things around them. I love that trait too, but the scavenger takes it one step further and ruthlessly takes, tinkers and remakes.
The issues is the lack of knowledge though. Most of the time, I don't know enough about the world, or it is the kind of setting where such a thing would be too hard. Another issue is that, if those two are not barred, even if I'm the first one it'll spark immitators soon enough who will not have a process but will still say they got marginally or incredibly better results.

Finally there's curse-transformed characters. Now despite the name I'm giving them, neither is a precise requirement. The character who has a non-human form may just have been born that way or gotten that way in an accident. Likewise, sometimes this archetype may involve a curse that isn't transformative, but for all intends and purposes still incurs in the same kind of dynamic with the character, for instance having become some sort of ghost or one's limbs no longer working at some points... I love exploring curses and transformations, but they are limiting on what I can get the character to do. If the character is a dog, for instance, getting them to hold stuff is probably not going to work. If you try to pull this type of character of, you have to think of how you're going to fit in with the rest of the group and not become the equivalent of carrying a boulder around for no reason. Because of this, GMs are often wary of these characters, and with good reason. That said, I do feel like there is a lot of untapped potential for these kinds of characters. They don't fit into every roleplay, but those that they do I want to try sometime.

Very Common:
I'm referring to stuff that I like doing, and often do, but it really takes the right partners to make it feel properly fun. Of course, when it works it's wonderful, but when it doesn't it's meh to good meh at best. The most significant of these in my characters is the overprotective type. This often steems from some fatherly or motherly side of the character, two traits I like exploring because of my own desire to one day become a parent. In a way their desire to protect and care resonates with my own. There's also another reason for overprotection though, and that is duty. A character that sticks to my mind in that regard was from back when I participated in a wolfpack RP and made one of the leaders, Lawneck. He was a proud and very organizational wolf, hellbent on creating the best laws he could and then enforcing them without exception. This didn't go well for him in the end. Few to none really cooperated at all, and only one actually seemed to treat lawneck as the leader. While there's a lot to be said in retrospect, the main point I want to emphasize with that example is what fails to me about the archetype: I, player, don't actually have the power to enforce anything. That I could live with if the efforts were appreciated- or lacking that, I would need to at least let the character go through the tyrant's arc. But I can't do either if the other characters have little more than animosity at my character while also not giving me the leeway to get the character to do anything towards advancing their motive to protect through force.
Lacking all that, it just feels like I'm putting in effort for nothing.

Current Curiosity:
I do like to experiment on occasion, and though because of time constraints I don't get to do it that often (I will generally prioritize the kinds of content I know I will like most over being experimental nowadays, at least as far as the baseline goes. I'm more willing to explore and experiment with the story line of course, and what I like does change somewhat from time to time). Right now the experiment I'm most curious to try is one that I got a little taste of in a certain soul eater RP but never really got far with, and that is a mute character. Well, I say mute, but other similarly disabilities might work too, that one is my main aim though.


And that's where I'll end it. Looking back, maybe I put a few unecessary ones into the list...but eh, I don't wanna take it out after writing all that, so it'll do.

 

[FoolsErin]

I’m in between favorites right now. I used to like playing lovable geeky nerds who like video games and pop culture, but I’ve recently kind of realized they’re in-direct self inserts of myself, and trust me when I say I’m probably one of the least interesting people in my life. Now I guess I’m leaning towards more “mature” characters who have seen quite a lot?

 

[crumbelivable]

I don't know why, but I think I have a knack for playing characters that will somehow go against the grain of what the RP is necessarily about. Usually someone for everyone else to hate on, or to cause tension between me and the other players. I puts me in a nice little place writing-wise, and it helps build up the plot and keep me and everyone else coming back to reply.