Nerds! Assistance please…

I've been invited to play a new campaign this weekend and the setting is a bit unconventional. I've been told I can play either a cleric, a bard, or a rogue, but I want something unusual. For reference, one of the paladins in the party knows it's a fantasy rpg and so will be worshipping the DM as his deity. 
I like playing rogues, and I'm hesitant to try the bard thing because this group will likely be super heavy on the "act that E36 M3 out" side of the game. 
So help me come up with a character. I'm thinking with two paladins that covers religion, so I'm leaning more rogue than bard. But like a thief who insists on paying for things (steal some silver but leave a squirrel on a leash...) or something like that. Ready, GO!

Something contradictory. A pacifist assassin. Something like that. 
Looking for something for laughs without too many dick jokes. I'm sure there will be plenty without me adding more. 

Agreed on the paladins covering the religion angle.  Though I once played with a guy playing a paladin or cleric who included "Have you ever considered worshipping Poseidon?" somewhere in literally every interaction outside the party.  That was pretty funny.

What about playing a thief and basing him on the Dread Pirate Roberts?

A dwarf or hobbit with a serious Napoleon complex?

I have no expertise to add, but the Thief working on the grounds of exchange sounds like it cause extra bits of chaos and be fun! 

Can you be a mute bard?

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

Or a muted bard! Missed the wrong persuasion check and had his tongue removed. Sings in hellen Keller. 

In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :

Serious jazz hands vibes

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

one of the paladins in the party knows it's a fantasy rpg and so will be worshipping the DM as his deity

Given this, make the other details whatever you want but your character should be an atheist who insists that the DM doesn't exist and the concept that you're playing a game is the dumbest thing anyone could possibly believe.

How about a heavy metal bard?

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

How about a heavy metal bard?

 

There is a high gain guitar amp on set and I can bring a detuned guitar and just do pig squeals. 
 

Or the atheist thing, which might be pleasantly awkward as I haven't met anyone but the dm. Arguing with strangers is a good time. 

Maybe a speed/deathmetal Bard that steals and leaves squirrels in pockets?

I created a monk based on Chirrut Îmwe from Rogue One but haven't had a chance to play him yet.

I had a lot of fun with my Chaotic Neutral elven thief back in college D&D days.   Somehow I ended up with a Vorpal sword so basically everything I struck died up to and including dragons. Having an 18 intelligence & strength plus a 19 dexterity didn't hurt. Its all a dice roll though for character development.

Chaotic Neutral is a great alignment.  You can do almost anything short of torturing puppies or drive by shootings and not violate your alignment.   It was fun because that alignment is the total opposite of me.

Hmm. I'm leaning hard towards muted bard. 
Hows this for a bit of back story:

Born blind, I turned my efforts to music and found not only some talent, but a bit of magic too. In studying and traveling in search of fortune (and love) I ended up seducing the wife of some local lord who killed her in a jealous rage and had my tongue removed in an effort to take what influence I had and leave me alive, knowing I'd lost what little I had. His mistake though, was killing the woman (who I truly loved) and I'm so doing gave me a drive and focus like never before. Armed with this tragedy, my powers only grew. The music in my heart truly blossomed. Unfortunately for anyone listening though, without a tongue....

I feel this is a part I can truly bring to life. And totally in character, I'll have to mime all my actions... should be entertaining. 

One thing to consider if you decide to play a mute is how you will prevent it from getting annoying to other players. If you aren't careful, I could see not speaking and miming possibly getting old for some other players really quick. I'd recommend running it past the DM and other players to make sure they are ok with it and spend a bit of time thinking through how you would role play this. 

I say this having played with two people playing Kenku characters (kenku can't speak on their own only mimic) in seperate campaigns. One person did a great job role playing it and it was a great character. The other did a terrible job and it got annoying really quickly.

As far as characters ideas, my personal favorite characters to play have been characters with contradictions or major weaknesses (like a really low intelligence or another stat).

In reply to 93EXCivic :

Good thoughts. I'll run it by the dm first. 

Well he ok'd the hellen Keller bard. But I need to read up on that class. He also like the idea of a granny assassin, newly widowed and off to finally see the world and try new things. And there's plenty of folks she just doesn't have patience for anymore... "I don't have enough time left to waste any on folks who get in my way. Besides, if I get caught, I'm one foot in the grave already."

Gonna necro this one. That last campaign fizzled after just one session. Now I'm back to running a home brew because if you want something done you usually have to do it yourself. 

Anyway. We're starting a new campaign tonight after the current group got through an introductory adventure that took three evenings. They've graduated to level two and are essentially walking through a magic door as new characters in a new world. The setting is the docks at one of the large port cities on the continent, part of an original world I've been working on. 
 

Basically I'm after things to riff on. I have a large goal set that will essentially end the campaign but I'm pretty terrible at small adventures. Things I come up with usually end up being big and complicated.

So if anyone has scenarios or npc ideas or interesting items, I'm all ears. I'll also try to share ideas if anyone is interested. 

Dockside warehouses offer endless possibilities: workers on strike in a labor dispute; cargo smuggled in and then abandoned (and/or escaping); cargo currently in the process of being smuggled (in or out of the port); the equivalent (magical or not) to kilotons of ammonium nitrate stored in the same warehouse as fireworks (ref. Beirut in 2020).

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

How about a heavy metal bard?

A guy who is awesome at this (IRL) is Algal the Bard ("This is Bardcore" vol. 1 &2). 

Scooby Doo that E36 M3. Haunted theme park. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

My current campaign is set in the slums of 19th century Prague, so... may or may not fit your themes...

I'm lifting ideas from Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, then changing the setting. Establish a home base, then have a major power attack it. Leave it to the players to try to save their home and get attached to it. While you're at it, destroy their normal means of making money. Make them desperate.

Send them on heists that end up being really shady. Either what they're stealing is not what they thought it would be, or they're not the only ones who want to steal it. Or have them acting as couriers for stuff that is not what they expect it to be. (E.g. "wait... this isn't champagne, these are bottles of Nitro Glycerin!")

My players got connected with a Chinese drug kingpin who sent them to steal a new drug and the formula and equipment to make it from a guy's lab. Turned out it was being distilled from a sentient alchemical being whose existence in the material plane is constant torment. Oh yeah, and the scientist came back and basically said, "Hey, I can try to kill you, or you can work for me." Now the PC's have a dilemma of which shady patron to work for, or to do the 'right' thing, and release the soul of the alchemical man from the material plane, but gain no reward and piss TWO people off.

That's where we're at. They chose option 4, and are holding onto it in hopes of leveraging its value to get in good with an even MORE powerful patron, or use it to set themselves up as premiere drug manufacturers. (The whole thing is dark Victorian pulp, like 'Penny Dreadful', so... being the "good" guys is very relative.)

Still mid game here. It's a guild city. They started in a derelict ship from a magic door, and immediately decided to seek out the first authority they could learn of. In this case that means the dock keepers guild presidents. And the tiefling bard hatches a plan to essentially pitch a sales idea to them, Dragons den style. The plan: a ship impound yard, complete with abandoned vehicle auctions. and he has a backup plan to "revolutionize" the tourism guild. Apparently they're taking over the unions. 

So I think I'll use this thread as an idea post and as a campaign tracker. Y'all are welcome to riff on anything I post, btw. Maybe along the way any would-be DMs get an idea of how games can be run or how worlds and ideas come together. Or at least how I do it. 

My group is 5 players. Four of whom have little to no experience playing at all, so to get them into it as easily as possible I made the introductory adventure a simple goal progression and I made their all human characters classes to fit their personalities. Basically, the quiet new guy was a rogue, the flamboyant gay is a bard, the quiet new girl is a monk, wife is a barbarian(!) and the experienced player is a druid with some knowledge of world settings and magic. Basically themselves but slightly altered, armed, to see how well they could work together and if they wanted to keep playing. The adventure started with an irl toast (beverage of choice) and jump right in with "you've been poisoned, best get out and find a cure" and stepping through the door took them into a world of magic... then a fun magic door quest, find the key to get back, only the key takes you to a different setting until you've found them all...

Well the last session saw them somehow survive splitting the party and not get killed by the green dragon, and get the last key which allowed them to decide if they would continue with the party, and in stepping into another world they got to choose to alter their characters at will, starting at level two. They were allowed to keep what they had managed to collect, including a few generous items (a bag of holding, a cursed gem, a magic key[open any door, but can only be used once]) and a clue. None of which has been identified yet. 
I fully expected the rogue-now-fighter to show off his bag of dragon loot, leading them to find someone who could translate the scribed tablet in the bag he managed to steal from the dragon (perfect roll, otherwise we'd have had a thoroughly toasted rogue) and start them on an epic quest... but he kept his secret, so instead they decided to seek out authority and the bard successfully found a way to get an audience with some upper management(political sway) to pitch his sales idea, exploring the city along the way. We stopped when they managed to open a door into one of the lighthouses. But not without stopping at a tailor and ordering some custom duds first. 
 

These kind of shenanigans are why I play this game.