What about the idea which at first looks pretty cool but end-up at worst not bringing anything to the game at worst being boring to play ?
Any sort of character concept that depends on witholding information from the other players is extremely difficult to do in a satisfying way.
The other players can easily not care about your mystery at all, making your secret just you and the dm making eyebrows at each other. Or they’ll care more than you want, and any sort of long-term intrigue goes out the window as the party drills into your character. Or hell, maybe they’ll be annoyed that you’re being so coy about your character, maybe they’ll find it shifty or frustrating or any of a dozen other things. And even if there’s the perfect level of investment and buy-in from everyone else, it still runs the risk of being a spotlight hog of a character.
So generally it’ll either have absolutely no impact, or it’ll derail the party.
Oh, and all of this goes for double if your secret is that you’re working against the party.
I’ve found this trope works best when all players know the secret, but the characters don’t. If it’s a cool, interesting secret, everyone can play into it and enjoy the dramatic irony.
I had it work masterfully in a limited game (one shot turned into two sessions) where everyone had a secret agenda. I took inspiration from one of the unknown armies one shots, I think.
I think because everyone has their own secret, and didn’t know the other people had secrets, it worked out great. It easily could’ve failed though.
A few thoughts on my side.
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The sniper : At a shadowrun game, created a sniper with an interfaced gun, like never miss a target, it’s pretty cool, I stay at long range while providing cover to the PC. This turns out in The PC are having fun doing the mission, my character stays out as support, time to play tetris because for the next 2 hours I won’t do anything
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The Malkavian : If you take the VtM lore as written, it’s great you’re dangerous, wise, borderline frightening and could explode at any moment. Practically, it’s hard to play madness properly, especially on a frightening way, it’s even harder when you’re the clan without clear “combat discipline” meaning that other PC won’t really fear you, and without a GM giving you “secret informations to handle”. I tried a few time but never got a satisfying result
I got myself in character for playing a Malkavian by running the “Malkavian Bible” youtube series a good three or four times between sessions just to keep that strange-spooky-uncanny vibe to my character in the lunatic asylum for angels. The trick was to not deliberately shoot for menacing, frightening, or dangerous-- but to project a constant aura of Twin Peaks-flavor oddness. About as disturbing as a liminal space.
The longer you can keep this energy going, without breaking character, the more effective it gets until all you have to do is lob a smilingly-spoken non-sequitur out into the field to get everyone to stop and look around spooked; and a good Storyteller will work with you to facilitate these moments.
There is always that problem with the ranged character who is optimum at the edge of their range. But most maps don’t go that far and if they do you end up nowhere near the fun. The character also never gets hit or targeted so they are wasted hitpoints sitting in the back and bored. The tiny dungeon rooms from dungeon crawls mitigate this problem somewhat but its more fun to be right up in the action
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the loner. People want to channel Aragorn at the prancing pony but it’s just annoying. It’s a group game. Play with the group.
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the outsider. The one that doesn’t fit in. Like you’re playing a dungeon crawl so someone makes an accountant with no combat skills. You’re playing a game about vampire hunting in Louisiana and someone makes a character that doesn’t believe in vampires that’s from Spain.
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related to the above: the absolute newbie. You’re playing a game of vampire focused on intrigue and plots. Someone makes a character that was embraced yesterday. They don’t know anything about anything. A constant stream of “we need to drink blood?? You can turn invisible??”". It gets boring real fast. Or, you’re playing a sci-fi future game and someone wants to play a 20th century man who was just unfrozen, and doesn’t know anything about the 23rd century.
The theme I’m trying to nail down there are characters that don’t really engage with the game’s premise. They’re characters that could exist in the world, but are for this game don’t really belong.
I think people see Bilbo from the Hobbit and want to channel that “party boy out of his element” energy but it usually won’t work. Or fry from Futurama. You’re playing a game not writing a book. Don’t take extra spotlight. Don’t be incompetent.
People like to subvert tropes but don’t always understand those tropes and why the purpose they serve, so their subversions don’t necessarily serve a counterpurpose.
If you wanna see the newbie done well, watch LA By Night season 1. Erika Ishii’s character is brand newly embraced, while the other main characters are a fair bit more established.
I think people see Bilbo from the Hobbit and want to channel that “party boy out of his element” energy but it usually won’t work. Or fry from Futurama. You’re playing a game not writing a book. Don’t take extra spotlight. Don’t be incompetent.
This is done in movies and books to give the reader/watcher a chance to learn the setting without getting hamfisted about it, stuff is naturally explained to the character because they don’t know it either. That’s not necessary in TTRPGs, since the player can always ask out of character.
Also, it’s a way to get some character into the story the reader/watcher can identify with. This also is not necessary in TTRPGs, since there the players naturally identify with their character (at least in most games, some do that differently).
I dunno. Depends on the group. I played a babylon 5 where I was a doctor with unregistered psychic abilities and was trying my damnedest to be under the radar, low profile, and stay away from anything that might get the spotlight on me. Ended up being beaten and basically running off the station. The dms will find the ways.
It makes sense that people would be drawn to the fish-out-of-water archetype. It is the archetypal protagonist for the “hero’s journey” monomyth. The whole idea of the character who is just learning about the world works great for that sort of hero-centric story. But RPGs aren’t meant to center around one character, they center on a party. And the stories tend to work better when the characters feel like they are part of the world.
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barbarians in PF2e (at least early game) promise big numbers but that’s all they’ve got going for them. They even disable half of the useful combo fillers skills give you access to. They’re the only class I’ve hard bounced off of.
