Gareth has been complaining that he didn't get to do much in yesterday's Golden Heroes session. Obsidian, Gareth's character, is, in a nutshell, a ninja with angst; he had hardly any sneaking around to do, and when combat finally started he got taken down almost immediately by two bad guys (that Peregrine, my character, promptly wiped the floor with). Gareth is a bit miffed, especially as his bad dice luck means he failed all three of the rolls that he had to do yesterday.
Now, Cleodhna has already replied in the comments to Gareth's entry, saying that she doesn't require to be active in a session to enjoy it. I'd like to make another suggestion. Being: make the character more versatile.
All characters have moments when there isn't much for them to do. I think Gareth's problem is that he doesn't have a back-up plan. If there isn't Obsidian-type stuff to do, Obsidian just fades out of view. (Not literally, though - see below.) When Peregrine doesn't have much to do in any given scene, you can nonetheless expect him to be aloof, superior and sarcastic. That reminds you that he's there. I've been developing this side of him recently precisely so there's something to do in the non-combat parts.
Obsidian needs quirks. He needs a character, and by that I mean being more than a broody goth angsty guy who just sits in a corner and doesn't say anything. Some possible angles:
- He's stealthy, and he now has gymnastics. He might just naturally blend into shadows, without thinking about it, possibly by hopping up into the rafters or hiding behind a sofa. Then he's speak, and his voice would come from somewhere you didn't expect. (Our ninja did this in Feng Shui and it was great fun. "Where's the ninja?" became a running joke.)
- He's good at spotting weaknesses in things, examining them carefully until he knows exactly how to destroy them with one carefully-aimed punch. What if that ability somehow bleeds into his everyday worldview? What if he always has Precision switched on, tuned to whatever he happens to be looking at, absent-mindedly thinking of ways he could destroy every single thing in a room, even fruit? I expect that would filter into his speech patterns as well; words like flaw, fault, weakness, structural and so on would be far more common that you'd expect.
- He was raised by a secretive, shadowy evil cult, trained as a ninja, sent to steal an ancient artefact, and then rebelled, turning to good. (Well, MI7, anyway, which is at least on the path towards good...) What if he has second thoughts? What if he gets flashbacks, or brief moments of turning evil, maybe with a different speech pattern or different mannerisms?
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