#13: The Ten Best RPG Characters in Film, TV and Literature

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/building/building13.phtml

Summary:

Ten great characters, starting with Sturm Brightblade.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/building/building13.phtml) for more information.

[torbenm]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/building/building13.phtml

Summary:

Ten great characters, starting with Sturm Brightblade.


While the suggestions are good, there are a number of characters that I missed, perhaps foremost of all Gulliver Foyle from Alfred Besters "Tiger, Tiger" (also published as "The Stars My Destination").

Other suggestions would include Don Quixote, HAL 9000 (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Lord Gro (from "The Worm Ouroboros").

[gschneider]

Don Quixote would sure make a fun character in the right hands, I agree, although he might suffer a little bit from a need to hog the spotlight and thus the GMs time. Still, he is very worth consideration.

HAL, on the other hand, is really only fun as an NPC in my book, because he doesn't really develop or change until he is betraying the party and making for a good session but not a good member of the party.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll go look up Gulliver Foyle.

Greg

[Jack Holcomb]

I'm struck by the fact that a lot of these characters--esp. the ones near the top of your scale--have a poor record of working and playing well with others. No one wants a faceless character, and of course everyone should have hooks and play time and all of that, but you (the GM, the other players) also don't want to deal with a character who's constantly wandering off to make his own drama or betray the group. In most games, that's only fun in small doses. And a party full of that can be downright un-fun.

Much depends on the game and the maturity level of the players, of course. A group of lone wolves might work well in some Vampire games, for instance, or any game where teamwork is deemphasized. And these sorts of characters might work OK if the GM can extract a promise from the player to play the character's most obvious conflict, i.e. learning that he needs people. (That after all is what Jayne and Han Solo and the most interesting versions of Wolverine are really all about.)

Speaking as a GM who's dealt with Wolverine clones in multiple games and genres, they can be a major pain for exactly the above reasons. And the claws are a focus for player-GM squabbles, to the tune of "but I can cut through anything."

--Jack

[Michael S. Miller]

Was anyone else disappointed by the complete and total lack of female characters?

[smascrns]

Was anyone else disappointed by the complete and total lack of female characters?
Not me. As the columnist says, it's his personal list. It's faithful to his feelings, if it does not include females, patience.

My personal list would not include many of his choices, instead it would include characters like Ged from Earthsea (my favorite fantasy character), Mendes Pinto and other Picaros, d'Artagnan or Lagardere, and similar characters.

One thing I liked about Greg's list is the fact that it does not include Conanesque characters. I mean, the all powerful, superhuman kind that is so pervalent in second rate action or adventure fiction.

[Thornhammer]

Was anyone else disappointed by the complete and total lack of female characters?

Why not write your own list and correct this theoretical travesty of justice?

-Thornhammer

[gatharion]

Well overall I greatly enjoyed your list and was totally with you up until the very end.

Wolverine??? Horrible character to have in a party. Way too much the loner. He either hoggs all the action or doesn't interact with the rest of the party because he's got to be gruff and mysterious. *bleah*

As for Don Quxiote, great character and all, but I don't see him as a good rpg character. Everything would have to revolve around him and the trouble that he leads the group into. Plus he wouldn't actually have a lot of useful skills to help make up for his short-comings. Sancho Panza however would be pretty good. I guess that he goes right along with Sam Gamgee.

[daMoose_Neo]

Eh, gotta disagree, Wolvie, played right (such was the cavet of the article) would be a fun character and a good team player.
Way too many people identify him as the lone wolf, but for significant chuncks of his run with the X-Men he was as much a trooper as the next guy on the team.
- Mid 80's, esp. with the introduction of Kitty Pryde, closest to "lone wolf" we got there was the occasional scrap with the Hellfire Club, esp. that first block with Kitty where the rest of the team was captured. Otherwise, 110% team player.
- He got another bout just after Seige Perilous in Australia where he was heading up a rough & tumble assembly and we were introduced to Jubilee.
- Most of the X-Men material pre-Fatal Attractions, in the imediate lead-up to it. This was even at the height of his popularity where Wolverine was plastered on EVERYTHING.

Noteable "lone wolf" moments:
- Wolverine, the series of course
- post Fatal Attractions
- Age of Apocolypse, continuing the trend from FA, and post AoA

Otherwise, against the Brood, Wolverine was a prime example of what someone with a healing factor could do. Days of the Future Past, he was an excellent team player, hogging a bit of the drama but still working within the team for the benefit of the team.

[gschneider]

I'm struck by the fact that a lot of these characters--esp. the ones near the top of your scale--have a poor record of working and playing well with others. No one wants a faceless character, and of course everyone should have hooks and play time and all of that, but you (the GM, the other players) also don't want to deal with a character who's constantly wandering off to make his own drama or betray the group. In most games, that's only fun in small doses. And a party full of that can be downright un-fun.

In fact, what I think makes a lot of the top characters truly great is that they have the personality and drama associated with loose cannons and "problem characters" without actually being problem characters and actually adding to the fun of the group as a whole. Han Solo always says s he is going to leave, but never actually does. In fact, he is always around when the party needs him the most. I think similar things can be said of all of the characters.

And a paladin who is overly righteous can be just as bad as a drama hogging rogue when it comes to disrupting players fun. Same with an arrogant swordsman, or cook that doesn't have any skills and only ever complains about not being useful instead of using what he has. We can't shy away from "bad" or "anti-social" character archetypes or we are left with cookie cutters - we have to be able to take the "fun" characters and make them work just as these literary characters do so well - we can strive to accomplish the feat of playing a the abrasive reluctant rogue in a manner that is fun for the party. That is what makes a character great and what we should stretch and strive for in expanding our role-playing ability.

Wew. Got on a soapbax there.

Greg

[gschneider]

Was anyone else disappointed by the complete and total lack of female characters?


What I find disapointing is that even after weeks of carefully collecting my candidates and selcting them, it took Michael to point out that I had only chosen male characters. There where a bunch of female characters on the list I pared down to 10 - Ripley from Aliens, George from Dead Like Me, Princess Leia, Eowyn, River, Kailie, etc. but in the end I picked all males. It might be that I am male and like to play male characters, I don't know. But every one of them I looked at, I was able to come up with reasons to not make the top ten.

(Although in retrospect I can still make a good argument for replacing Sam with Princess Leia, but I may have been trying to balance a LOTR with Star Wars already having Han. . .)

Anyway, thanks for the observation and I hope none of our female readers are upset at me. . .maybe one of them woudl be willing to make the top ten female characters of all time for me so that I can be suuitably informed of my oversights.

Greg

[Sayter]

Sorrym but one glaring omission here. Wesley Windham Pryce from Angel/Buffy. Of all the Whedonverse characters, I think he was the most fleshed out and interesting overall, and had a complete story from beginning, middle to bloody tear jerking end.

He played the hopeless nerd Watcher, hopeless romantic, nerd trying to be badass, then demon slayer, hardcore paranormal researcher, fell into unrequieted love, betrayed his friends, slept with the enemy, helped avert the apocalypse (twice), got the girl he wanted more than anything, tragically lost her, did his best to try and love the thing that took her place...and went down in a blaze of glory in a selfless act to save others.


Really, thats a hell of a lot of awesome for one guy. I love Wesley. His progression was both believable, well scripted and generally just amazing. There are many others that are amazing of course, but Wesley sticks out more than any other in my eyes.

[Stupendous Press]

Lots of good picks in there. I have to applaud the goal of selecting archetypes that are often troublesome and demonstrating interpretations that do the concept justice in a party-friendly manner.

I was a little struck by the persistence of the "dark background." Sam seems the lone "clean" hero of the lot, although Dwarf could as well. I'd love to see a Luke Skywalker or Parn (of Record of Lodoss War), the classic "young and reckless hero." They do worlds of good for parties as long as they aren't spotlight hogs, because they often inject tons of drama into encounters without devouring role-playing scenes.

Also, a distinct lack of wise characters - the Gandalfs of the literary world. Give me a Gandalf over a Wolverine any day.

Speaking of - someone mentioned no "Conanesque" characters? That's Wolverine in a nutshell. As a longtime hater of Wolverine and his clone army, I will give the author props for the well-written Wolverine of the Claremont/Byrne era circa Kitty Pride and the Dark Phoenix Saga. He worked because he was underpowered and ultimately needed the party. But ... unstoppable attack (claws) + unbeatable defense (regeneration) + antisocial personality + absurd numbers of skills (he's often portrayed as basically being better than everyone at everything) = bad roleplaying experience.

Once upon a time, maybe Wolverine worked. Nowadays I'd rather have one of his clones like Jayne fill the gruff antisocial role. Hmm... there's also a bit of overlap. Kinda bugged me to see so many scoundrels. Then again, the author may just really like scoundrels. It is a personal list after all. :)