[Sliver]

I'm not looking for critique on the stats of the character. Not only do I not want to type them up, but I'm happy with the way they are. I'm looking for ideas and critique on his motive, personality, etc.

This is my first awakened character, and I gave him the most ironic name I could think of: Gabriel. Gabe was approached by a toxic mentor spirit at a young age, and was cultivated to fit what he wanted in a mage. His name is Duress, and he believes that awakened characters were given the power over mundanes for a reason. He thinks they should rise up and put the mundanes in their place, aka slavery. All of Gabe's spells are about mental control, such as Influence, Mob Control, Manabolt, etc. He can also summon the toxic spirit Acid. He's a sadistic bastard, as he was raised that way. He calls all mundanes by various names, his favorite being "swine."

His mentor spirit forces him to make a Willpower+Charisma(3) test to be allowed to show remorse for or significantly help any mundane. However, he shows the up-most respect for any magical character or spirit, he even refuses to bind any spirit, and severely condemns anyone who does so. He sees them as equals, and forcing them into slavery like they are swine is pure evil.

He has a gun and uses Jazz if he really needs it, which Duress hates. He tolerates it, but will give him a lot of lip for doing so. I've made a limiting character when it comes to personality, and I can see a lot of undesired conflict between PC's. He won't be outwardly racist to any mundane character outright, he's not stupid. But he'll stab them in the back the second he can as long as it doesn't offer any severe detriment to his cause, mundane slavery. The ends justify the means, after all.

What do you guys think? I'd like critique, and definitely suggestions on what I should do, like character and personality improvement.

[baronspam]

This really strikes me as the equivelent of playing the chaotic evil neutral thief in the old dnd days.  You are playing a very villianous character and will likely consider most of the group to be beneath contempt and untimately fit for nothing other than slavery.  If I were the GM I would see that as a problem.  Your character is a ticking time bomb for total team breakdown.

Now a character with that background who has had a glimpse of humanity and is on a journy to reclaim his own soul, thats an interesting story.  Anti-heros work.  Complete a-holes don't.  Can you think of a single reason for the street sammi not to kill you in your sleep once he knows how you feel?  If not, he is going to do so, or you are going to have to beat him to it, and that kind of nonsense can wreck campaigns.

My advice is to try again.  If I was the GM I would insist that you try again.

[Glyph]

Yeah, not a good idea for a first awakened character.  You will need a lenient GM to play this character at all, since toxics are strictly NPCs.  And he wouldn't be a good fit for most games.  In a game of professionals who work as a team, he would likely be disruptive.  In an amoral, backstabbing game, he would be in danger of getting turned in to the Draco Foundation for the bounty if his secret ever got out.

[Gleeful]

And this character is meant to be a part of a team? Unless the team is entirely made up of awakened characters, (which in that case, awesome, more power to you guys), I cannot see this character as anything except an excuse to party kill, with the traditional excuse of 'but it is IC'.

I do not allow PK's in my game, so your char would be a pretty unhappy one, but I /am/ interested in hearing your reasoning for creating a char so clearly against teamwork?

Even if you meant this character, say, only for convention games where you 'temporarily' had to work with a set group and go your separate ways, it's still hugely confrontational.

[JoeNapalm]

Everything they said, plus -

Only a small percentage of Mr.Johnsons are Awakened. A very large percentage would put this guy down like a rabid dog...many of them simply would the moment they grokked he was a Toxic.

No team OR client would work with this guy...and one of my characters started with a 6 Notoriety. If I am saying this...Oi!...at least my Bad Rep guy had a professional Merc Creedo, so his team and client know he will do the job and not cross them.

-Jn-
City of Brass Expatriate

[Cass100199]

If you're going to do something like this you need to be a Toxic Mage masquerading as something else. And their needs to be an endgame. Eventually, your team will kill you or you'll kill them. So what's the point? Why are you there? Why are you joining a team despite your feelings towards mundanes?

[Charybdis]

As general advice, I'd steer away from any Toxic archetypes for a beginning PC. They're a challenge to play at the best of times, with the right group, right GM and right Player all willing to give it a shot.

However as a first awakened PC, I really don't recommend this. At all.

The option you're mentioning is the equivalent of an Aryan supremacist (Humanis to the core) joining a mixed race group. It's racism at it's worst (Awakenedism? Magicism? Mundanism?), and is a recipe for bad blood between players (not just PC's, Players).

What do you guys think? I'd like critique, and definitely suggestions on what I should do, like character and personality improvement.

A) What do I think?    
- Don't do it. I don't know why you think this PC will be fun. It's a poisonous (even Toxic) addition to the group. Don't be this guy.

B) Critique?                
- I think you're getting wrapped up in the fun of evil (which I admit, can be cool), but this PC is neither the time nor the place. Unless it's a fully evil campaign and group, there's no way I'd allow this PC at the table.

C) What should you do for Character and Personality improvement?   
- Choose a non-Toxic mentor
- Don't set out from the start of a campaign to stab your fellow PC's in the back

Summary: Don't do it.

[Operator]

B) Critique?                
- I think you're getting wrapped up in the fun of evil (which I admit, can be cool), but this PC is neither the time nor the place. Unless it's a fully evil campaign and group, there's no way I'd allow this PC at the table.

I agree. Bad blood in the group aside, an 'evil' character requires a non-trivial amount of forethought and planning to function coherently.

[Sliver]

Yes, you all had a lot of fine points that I had not considered. I was planning on playing the character with an amount of subtlety. He would not have been outwardly evil, but the evil would have dictated his actions. It would be like playing a drug-addict who hid it to the best of his ability.

Besides, it's not the worst character in the group. On of my friends actually is planning on framing my character for money after the first run. Yes, I am actually annoyed by this. It will take a lot to prove my innocence, and it might end up killing my character (It will look like I'm double-crossing someone that I really don't want to), so yeah. Fun.

Anyhow, I dropped it for a different reason. It would have gotten old quickly, so I decided to go with a different type of magician. Similar spell-list, just a different mentor spirit, tradition, and personality.

[baronspam]

Besides, it's not the worst character in the group. On of my friends actually is planning on framing my character for money after the first run. Yes, I am actually annoyed by this. It will take a lot to prove my innocence, and it might end up killing my character (It will look like I'm double-crossing someone that I really don't want to), so yeah. Fun.
 

You know, if this sort of thing was talked about at the start of the campaign and everyone agreed that this was the type of game that you wanted to play, its your game have at it. 

If this was not the case, someone needs to wack your friend in the crotch with a hockey stick.  This kind of thing derails stories, breaks up groups, stresses friendships, and generally causes chaos and misery.  Again, if everyone signed off on the idea of a pvp campaign from the start thats one thing, you knew what you were getting into and it sounded like something you wanted to try.  But my hard experience with many years of gaming is that almost always if somone starts backstabbing and double dealing it causes resentment and problems.  One of the basic social contracts of most games is that the group is all on the same side and the characters can trust one another.  Again, if everyone signed off on the fact that this particular game is not this way and is ok with this (and hatching their own plans) thats fine.  But one guy choosing be be a schmuck will just ruin the story the other players try to tell.

[Sliver]

the group I play in has four people, three of which GM. Each of us have a character for each world, and we trade-off GM'ing. It works fine with us, and I have two characters because of it.

One character is the one i mention, I'm getting framed simply because he wanted to play someone solely out for personal gain, and he feels it will make the story interesting. I feel that it will kill my character. The other is being double-crossed. My partner got into a situation in which his only way out was to work for the enemy, and be a double-agent.

So, all of my characters are getting fucked over. Awesome.

[JoeNapalm]

I've played in, and run, "Evil" campaigns. I've also played in campaigns that allowed, or were even based on, PvP.

Not to dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I've had campaigns that have literally lasted decades in real-time. Those were NOT campaigns that incorporated either of those elements. They may have had evil individual characters, but those tended to die - most games are intended to revolve around HEROES (or even anti-heroes) and "Evil" tends to get what it is due.

Games that allow in-fighting, even when stated and agreed upon ahead of time, tend to implode. Either the players are invested in the well-being of their characters (in which case they tend to resent people doing bad things to them) or they see them as pieces on a chess board and don't really care about them. Neither is going to result in a long-lasting campaign.

It's fine for scenario-based gaming, but I've never seen it work for anything more.

My advice? Group consensus in your team to deal with people who backstab with zero tolerance. Kill them until they die from it. Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. (If they burn Edge, your GM may want to take them over as a recurring villain...the disruptive player can make a new guy...maybe a gnome.)

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist