Character Theory What are some of your favorite character archetypes to roleplay with?

[welian]

I have a love/hate relationship with trickster type characters, I'm not very good at playing them and my characters tend to be prideful, which makes them easy pickings. If we're talking more tropes, I love playing bratty, snobby rich characters. I GM a lot, so it's nice to give my players a common enemy to take down a peg.

 

[Malphaestus]

I honestly don't know. The biggest archetype I'm even familiar with is the "my parents died when I was young" one, which as we all know is quite cliché. That being said, I tend to put a lot of work into making my characters not have a set archetype, and then end up botching it when I actually roleplay them making them end up everyone's enemy for some god-forsaken reason far beyond my know-how.

They do tend to be above-average brain-wise, I suppose. Though I guess not always.

Speaking old-fashioned is also another thing, but that's probably more to do with me than the character, to be honest.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I tend to play Hufflepuffs basically. I am sure there is another word for it but I’m a potter child so I call them Hufflepuffs.

Basically hardworkers with easy going personalities and love of nature/healing/people as the story demands.

Common faults are privelage, stubbornness, and complacency.

My favorite character to play against is overachievers. Folks who are a thousand percent about demolishing the competition in anything from business, studies, to who can make the best macaroni art.

I think they tend to make my more drab characters more lively. Plus they’re fun characters to interact with. Like Mary Sues but with self-awareness

 

[marshmarrow]

Most of my characters are zealots, if they're not downright martyrs. Played in both a positive and negative light: some of them are gallantly willing to die defending their loved ones, but there are also those who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance on their enemies, even at the cost of their loved ones' lives. Regardless of which direction I go with them, I also like to play them as arrogant - that the beliefs they hold are superior because it allows them to get what they want.

It makes for plenty of drama and there are a lot of possibilities for backstory-related arcs, both tragic and fortunate. Also, I admire those who have that kind of commitment in real life, although I accept that it can wind up disastrous in practice.

In contrast, I find vapid and apathetic personalities difficult to portray myself, but I love pairing them with my characters possessing the traits above. cx

 

[mon]

Oh gosh, I love writing with weak-willed or happy, bubbly characters. I usually play the trickster or dominant archetypes so forcing characters into submission is really fun. Bonus points if they're proud, haughty or seemingly put together, cause then it makes breaking them even better.

 

[Shuusuke]

It's kind of tricky to me, because I think it's very easy to go too far into an archetype and start ruining things, so I'll have to generalize quite a bit to make my list. Also, this comes mostly from murder mystery RP experiences, so I often have plot progression in mind.

I find that it's usually enjoyable to RP with: no-nonsense characters, characters that want to save everyone, characters that are antagonistic but that at times have to act cooperatively, goal-oriented characters, and brutish yet honorable characters...sometimes a mix of multiple of those too.

Those happen to be archetypes that I used to play more often as well. But I also like to play characters that have an alien set of values/morals, characters with significant inferiority complex, characters that want to understand how the mind of other people work, and characters that make others hate them but have good intentions behind their actions (especially if other characters only realise that after my character's death)...again, sometimes a mix of those, my favorite being when I RP characters with all of those traits.

 

[White Masquerade]

Funnily enough, I've never RP'd as the archetype I would enjoy playing. I mainly GM roleplays and making a character I'd thoroughly enjoy would keep me away from properly carrying out my GM duties.

Middleagegeek hit my favorite on the head. I love playing the arrogant person who actually has the skills to back up that arrogance. They constantly push other people to match their strides and are unabashed about showing the difference between them and others. I'd like them to make friends with the other characters, but I'm guessing they'll just end up a target of hate. Which I'm totally cool with! If you hate the person enough you'll work harder to outdo them. And at the end of the day, all they want is someone to beat them.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Funnily enough, I've never RP'd as the archetype I would enjoy playing. I mainly GM roleplays and making a character I'd thoroughly enjoy would keep me away from properly carrying out my GM duties.

Middleagegeek hit my favorite on the head. I love playing the arrogant person who actually has the skills to back up that arrogance. They constantly push other people to match their strides and are unabashed about showing the difference between them and others. I'd like them to make friends with the other characters, but I'm guessing they'll just end up a target of hate. Which I'm totally cool with! If you hate the person enough you'll work harder to outdo them. And at the end of the day, all they want is someone to beat them.

See I tend to pair them up with the kind of person that isn't bothered by competition. So they usually end up friendly but locked in a constant state of disagreement. Just because one side isn't really concerned with how they measure up against others and the other side is defined by it. So lots of "I mean we're friends but we can't talk about grades because I want to strangle you."

 

[White Masquerade]

See I tend to pair them up with the kind of person that isn't bothered by competition. So they usually end up friendly but locked in a constant state of disagreement. Just because one side isn't really concerned with how they measure up against others and the other side is defined by it. So lots of "I mean we're friends but we can't talk about grades because I want to strangle you."

Haha, I can see that would be VERY irritating to my favorite archetype. We should try it out some time. Maybe the relaxed character can get so bothered by the constant harassment they snap one day =P

 

[rae2nerdy]

Haha, I can see that would be VERY irritating to my favorite archetype. We should try it out some time. Maybe the relaxed character can get so bothered by the constant harassment they snap one day =P

Lol if by snap you mean passive aggressive digs than absolutely. Less rawr shouty capital letters and more - "Well if some people focused more on being good friends and less on grades. Than maybe some people might find their less stressed out." And when called on it go all innocent. "I said some people not you."

 

[White Masquerade]

Lol if by snap you mean passive aggressive digs than absolutely. Less rawr shouty capital letters and more - "Well if some people focused more on being good friends and less on grades. Than maybe some people might find their less stressed out." And when called on it go all innocent. "I said some people not you."

Oh, it would so be on if that happened! They'd both be in detention!

 

[welian]

Those are the best kinds of character interactions!

 

[Ronan]

My personal favourite character archetype to play is ‘the mentor’ , ‘the seeker’ or the ‘old soldier’. Old characters, wise characters, characters that can teach something to other characters. They don’t take the centre stage in the overall narrative, but they help support it by being knowledgeable about the world and guiding them towards an important plot point.

Because of that, my favourite archetype to play with is ‘the protagonist’, and that doesn’t mean one writer taking the entire spotlight in a role-play, but a group of protagonists that strive for a common goal — good or bad.

 

[White Masquerade]

My personal favourite character archetype to play is ‘the mentor’ , ‘the seeker’ or the ‘old soldier’. Old characters, wise characters, characters that can teach something to other characters. They don’t take the centre stage in the overall narrative, but they help support by being knowledgeable about the world and guiding them towards an important plot point.

Because of that, my favourite archetype to play with is ‘the protagonist’, and that doesn’t mean one writer taking the entire spotlight in a role-play, but a group of protagonists that strive for a common goal — good or bad.

Haha. I love calling the characters you play "grandpa/grandma" and then totally ignoring them because this is a new world and there's no space for old teachings. Bring on the young!!

 

[Borkus Lazorus]

Character who is full of determination and willing to sacrifice everything to achieve their goals.

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

Going with a trope: I love playing mad scientist characters.

They're eccentric, they're passionate and not afraid to show it...there's a strong possibility they're morally bankrupt. They're just loveable. Plus they can invent stuff for other characters to use or make a death ray or whatever you want.

My complete lack of knowledge when it comes to anything even vaguely scientific just makes it even better!

 

[welian]

My complete lack of knowledge when it comes to anything even vaguely scientific just makes it even better!

That's the spirit!!

 

[Damafaud]

I rarely use the same troupe for two characters but I'm a sucker for competent businesswomen lacking in emotional department

 

[ViAdvena]

In my early roleplaying careers, I often tried to make my character's background/personality as different as possible from the majority of the cast, to make the group dynamic more interesting. Somehow this always made me end up with a cheerful sheltered rich kid from a big happy family who has a lot of siblings. I wonder why.
Nowadays, many of my characters have at least one of those traits :p

Just like your love/hate with tricksters, I have the same feelings towards characters with blue-and-orange morality. Y'know, characters that might be doing good things, but their mindset, motivation, and morality standard are so alien that it makes people go 'whatthefuck'. They are really interesting to read, but I'm not sure I could play them right.

I like characters with a big contrast between appearance and personality. Like an angelic-looking character with tyrannical tendencies or a cold-looking character who is a secret dork yes I know it's borderline cliche but let me enjoy my cliche dammit. I also like to create characters with obsession towards particular subject, especially if it colors their interaction with other characters. Once I had a necromancer character who loves to collect the bodies of powerful individual for her undead army, and her interaction with people basically went like 'Hello nice to meet you here's my number, don't forget to contact me on your death bed so I can visit to collect your corpse '

And ehuehue, trickster and trolling characters. I don't play them often, but they sure are fun to write XD you know one of them, weli

 

[Archdemon]

Personally I like to play as bubbly characters or characters that look badass but are like a complete softy.

 

[Enmerkar]

I tend to do characters that are somewhat morally ambiguous, preferably without being too edgy. Other than that, I suppose they can vary quite a bit. On another note, pretty much all my characters for the past few years have been traps, so there's that, too.

 

[White Masquerade]

I tend to do characters that are somewhat morally ambiguous, preferably without being too edgy. Other than that, I suppose they can vary quite a bit. On another note, pretty much all my characters for the past few years have been traps, so there's that, too.

My lord. How does that go?

 

[Idea]

It took me some time to really gather my thoughts on this one, but here it goes. Starting with my favorite character archetypes, there's quite a few archetypes I really like to use. In my mind, a trope is a strength not a weakness, and it only becomes a cliché if you fail to make it diverse in the details.

First of all, the archetype I never shut up about using, my favorite, child characters. I just really love this archetype for the innocence and unique perspective and interactions these characters can bring. They are a fun and surprisingly functional sort of character if just given the chance, plus they will bring out sides of other characters not normally seen. They are also excellent for the sort of misunderstandings and humor I like to add to my plots.

Another kind of bizzare kind of character I like to use is the animalistic type of character. This character will either be an actual animal with human intelligence or a human with strong animal-like behavior. The perspective and the kind of unnusual actions and paths these characters will follow, plus their ease of accessibility by other players makes them a good cog ina roleplay's machine, plus they are often adorable

Speaking of ease of accessibility though, I also tend to play characters that are very curious, often due to being oportunistic or greedy or just plain because they like learning. I know this isn't really an archetype per say, but I use it on pratically every character I make, mostly in an attempt to have an organic way to get my character into taking an interest with interacting with others, into doing certain actions that maybe would be illogical but fit for the plot etc... It helps me show interest and help get things moving without breaking character.

I like the "character that fell into a spiral of envy" or "the sinner trying to live with the regret of their crimes" types. Due to my experiences as an older brother, of feeling surpassed but simultaneously like I failed my duties as an older brother, the emotions of envy and regret are no strangers to me, and I find that a lot of those characters get those emotions in them. Now, don't get me wrong, those characters are not me, but I do often explore those themes in my characters. It makes for a compelling, human backstory and character conflict, plus it's a lot more subtle than "all my family died and I'm out for revenge". In my backstories, my character's aren't just victims. Most of the time they are the perpetrators. They suffer because they made mistakes and now they have to live with them.

On a lighter note, the last archetype I love playing is the "puts an over the top front" type. Basically characters who will act in a purposefully super exagerated or weird way in order to cover up for themselves and for others the real conflict beneath them. I find those just hilarious and at times good drama fodder as well.

I used to love playing super smart or wise old characters, but I don't do it much anymore. Mainly cause the only way for me make one would be to have sole access to the lore. "Hunches", I have found, are the bane of any liar or strategist, because characters with a plan will usually see that plan foiled by out of the blue plot shenanigans or by someone feeling that "something's wrong with this person I trusted fully up until 10 seconds ago". Plus every character seem to be a strategist anyway...


Now about characters I like to play against. For starters, as a big fan of anime tropes, I really love it when other people are "in" on it, you know like when the character is modeled to be a dere, when they are modeled after the clumsy teacher trope or really any sort of visibly anime trope. I can't help but grin.

Following this, I like characters who are very warm, understanding, kind...maybe even motherly. The "light in the darkness" or "that one kind person". Those types are really receptive, and when they try to comfort a suffering soul, ah it's such a fuzzy feeling inside that bittersweetness!

On a similar vein, I love that dumb, but cheerful and lovable, goes-along-with-anything type as well! Whether they be naive or just really plain dumb, it's hilarious to see how much they can stretch their "logic" to accepting others and keeping things cheerful, and it's even better when combined with the misunderstandings and mistakes I make my characters have/do, especially those over the top ones I mentioned earlier.

Lastly, I like teaser/prankster type characters...up to an extent. It's nice when they are breaking up a quiet moment or helping to further character arcs by their free-spirited ways of getting to the core of things and their inherent interest in understanding other characters more. But it's no so nice if it's taken as far as breaking major plot points, ruining the atmosphere and the like...

Overall, I'd say to me what matters most in the types or archetype I like to play against is that the person shows two things:
1. Decisiveness. Commit to the type of character you're making. I don't care if you end up making a plank board trope, it's better than wishy-washy mess that calls contradiction "complexity" and doesn't actually feel more unique than your average streetlight because it's less and individual and more a proxy.

2. Characters who take the innitative- it's hard having to constantly push for things myself, and it's really nice getting people who will come to you and take an interest in you every once in a while.

 

[Enmerkar]

My lord. How does that go?

It's fun, and as per the obsession with traps I've developed since 2013 or so, it means I'm more motivated in any given RP. If a trap character wouldn't work in a particular setting, then it probably means said RP isn't for me. I also tend to hoard appearance pics, so in certain cases, I've ended up with image galleries that can get a bit excessive, if there's enough good artwork of a particular character around.

 

[BackSet]

Not sure if this is an archetype but I have a weird affinity for characters who have this very set in stone personalities that when you think of them you think that personalities but there are situations that when they are in they become almost different people, displaying personality traits they'd never displayed before. And, of course, I put them in those situations because there's no point to that duality otherwise.

I also like upbeat go-getter superhero type characters a lot.