Worst character pitches

What were the worst character pitches you've witnessed? Why, in your opinion, those were the worst? Were those characters accepted and how did it affect the game? Did it spawn any Conflicts in PbP and was the pitch made Before or After the player was accepted?

Edit:I didn't mention it initially, because I thought that much was obvious, but please don't mention any character names or usernames. While the pitch itself and your experience with it can certainly teach everyone something, naming and shaming isn't nice, so edit the names out, please.

I don't know about worst as that is not for me to judge, but I have witnessed character concepts that were the opposite of what the game pitch asked for.

Example I ran a D&D 5e spelljammer kind of game, where I asked for spellcasters, as they were a central key to the plot. A player pitched a barbarian.

Another example that comes to mind is the first of @adam Hellrider games. He, as the GM had to stop us during the character creation as several players had made too weak connections to the city (took a job vs took an oath), which was the centre of the plot.

These are two examples where the suggested characters did not match the game premise.

Let's not call out users on this site please.

a "bad" character played well, is better than a "good" character played poorly

I sorta get people posting concepts that don't fit the game - when the games for certain systems/settings are scarce, you might as well post your concept, even if doesn't fit. Who knows, maybe you'll squeeze in.

Two other things came to mind, but I wouldn't call either "worst" per se. Just.. off.

I've received some concepts for my other, non-GP VtM game, which featured characters colloquially referred to as "Fishmalks" in the WoD circles. Some "Vampions" as well.

The other example that came to mind was from a live playthrough of a V5 chronicle on youtube. One of the characters had designated a revenge pr*n site as his main source of income. It was very.. unwholesome. Just icky, if not outright nasty. I mean, why? Why revenge pr*n of all the things? It was just creepy. I quit very soon after this character's introduction, so I'm not sure how the other players felt about it. I assume similarly, just didn't voice it, cause the show must go on and all that. Sigh.

This to me feels like 'throw at a wall and see what will stick' or having a game for the sake of a game rather than actually joining a game because you like the pitch. It just seems disingenuous to the DM who's put effort in designing a pitch and concept, and you aren't building for it.

Maybe if you acknowledge it and be like 'Can we work with this concept to better fit the game' is alright, as long as you are willing to accept if the DM says no and build a different concept.

I’ve had experiences where yeah I proposed a game and people just pitch a concept without taking the setting/set up etc into account - I once ran an Iron Gods game (Technology based AP for pathfinder) and none of the players played with tech which felt a little disheartening. Though we did get an android.

So yeah that would be my main answer - where a player hasn't read the concept/taken it into account. I am very tired and my mind is blanking on more direct examples right now -I've been lucky in that regard it seems!

Every character I ever pitched. They lack nuance, and sophistication. Intentionally, because I have to live that nonsense IRL. Which is exactly why, even though they seldom fit the framework, they add to the story.

They never need special concessions like plot hooks or character ties. The call to adventure and promise of violence is enough a reason for them to exist. They are the worst because the playstyle doesn't work with anyone who wants to be in control. Because I am a control freak myself.

It is a mix of character acting and method acting that makes for amazing fiction. They are the best. Fail forward or die. Just like real life.

For me it hasn't come up much in PbP, but in meatspace games I've had a lot of people show up with character ideas that tell me they'd rather be playing something else, and yeah... I have zero patience for that anymore.

On three separate occasions, with three separate groups, in three separate geographic regions, I've had three separate people show up to superhero games I was trying to run with characters whose entire premise was "guy who rejects all comic-book tropes and superhero genre conventions, but not in, like, a fun way, he just thinks it's all stupid and refuses to engage because he's too cool for it."

So what are your character's powers? Does he fly? Shoot lasers? See through time?
He doesn't really have any, I just kind of took all of the basic stats that every character has and made them higher than normal.
Oh, okay. Well, that works, that's basically Captain America's deal. Does he have a signature weapon like Cap does?
No, he just punches stuff.
Alright, sure, if that's what you're into. What's his costume look like?
I don't know, regular clothes I guess? Jeans and a T-shirt?
Like... like a particular T-shirt with a specific logo or insignia on it, or maybe topped off with a leather jacket or other iconic garment?
No, just whatever he happens to be wearing.
Sigh. Okay... what's his origin story? How did he get his powers?
He's, um... he just has them. A mutant?
And dare I ask why he decided to use those powers to fight crime?
He... wait, he's on a team, right? So like, whoever pays for their lair or whatever hired him.
Not what I asked, but fine. What's his superhero codename?
Uhh... Adam?

Seriously -- not an exaggeration. All three of them, completely independent of one another and having never even met, not only all came up with the same non-idea for a character... they also all gave the character the same boring everyday-person name. It's like, I told you what the game was about and that clearly didn't resonate with you, so why are you even here?

I’ve pitched some pretty crappy character ideas. lol

A friend of mine just wants to play videogame characters. I ran two games with him. Both times he made Link from Legend of Zelda. I found it a bit lazy, but at the time I was desperate to play and let it slide.

The characters were made after I had picked who I wanted to play and nothing really happened beyond maybe an internal eyeroll.

On here I've been pretty fortunate. Maybe the medium and community tends to weed out the low effort members. If you suck to play with, doubt you'll find many games after a while.

I once had a guy come up to me and, no lie, we had the following conversation:

Me: "Tell me about your character."

Guy: "He's a human thief (we were playing 2e). He grew up on the streets of Greyhawk."

Me: "Okay, what else."

Guy: "His name is Gord of Greyhawk."

Me: "Mmmm-hmmm. I see."

Guy: "There's a lot more to his backstory, but..."[/b]

Me: "I know. I read the book."

Guy: "Book?"

Me: "Gary Gygax's book, Gord of Greyhawk. The one that you copied this character from. Nice try."

Guy: "No! He's an original character by me!"

Me: "Sorry. Not in my game."

Generally speaking, I'll allow almost anything that doesn't blatantly violate the rules or that simply doesn't fit the setting (drow in a setting that has no drow, for example), but plagiarism (and trying to pass it off as your own work) is where I draw the line.

I'm actually guilty of this myself. Some of the characters I have played over the years:

Numangato: A barbarian warrior from Chult who did not speak a lick of Common and was a wrestler. He insisted on wrestling every enemy he met. The party finally got across to him the idea that boats "go". When he learned that horses also go, he named his horse "Boat."

Kitashi Makahura: A blind samurai. When I played her, I blindfolded myself so I couldn't see my die rolls or the position of miniatures on the table. I was entirely dependent on my fellow players to tell me the layout of the battlefield.

Brandon Burrowarden: A halfling detective who wore a trenchcoat and fedora, carried a hand crossbow, and talked like a renegade from a Noir movie.

Arablius: An intelligent raccoon druid who gets humanoid companions instead of animal companions.

Charlotte Kingston: A human child in a WoD game alongside a mage, two vampires, and a werewolf.

I'm a little curious as to why this is a problem. Heck, might make another good topic.

If people want to base their character on existing material, or even pull someone entirely—and assuming they fit the genre and vibe—what's wrong with plagiarism in this manner? The story is going to be different, and some people really enjoy this.

Also, who didn't have a character named Aragorn when they were a kid? ;)

I might have let it pass had it been a character that was similar to Gord, or if he had simply asked me to play Gord, but he not only ripped off the character's story, he tried to pass it off as his own character. That annoyed me. I mean, I've seen my share of Drizzt clones over the years. Actually, I never named a character after a literary character or legend. The closest I ever came was my very first AD&D character, who was an elven fighter/magic-user/thief named Smog.

It's not some cardinal sin. I take inspiration from these things as well. Just want a bit of separation from the source I suppose. It's certainly a mild "worst" compared to others. Had to think a long time to even come up with that. Guess I've had mostly positive experience in this particular field.

There is nothing new under the sun. No matter how much we try to force it its all been done, seen, written, in one way or another.

What makes a character unique is how we incorporate our own mores, values, jugements, and yes prejudice into the archetype. Without these it will be nothing more than a hollow imitation.

Its not perfect, and probably not what everyone wants, but its the best we can hope to do.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. But plagiarism is not.

I clearly wasn’t a smart enough to have copied that… so much trouble picking name with the answers just there 🤦 but, if I understand correctly, I think the problem wasn’t the character per se, but the player’s attitude. Which I can see underlying some of the other examples as well.

I would put this question as: who has ever named a human warrior/fighter/ranger/rogue Aragorn from a old fallen noble line and insisted it was totally not related to LotR?

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have been trying to recreate the Witcher/Geralt of Rivia kind of character on several occasions, but I have always made my own twist on it

In my experience the worst pitches were of the low effort variety. I've seen plenty of those when I only started playing TTRPG, and back then my groups tended to be composed of teenagers, so their low effort and short attention spans were to be expected. However, later that behavior persisted in some, and players who were now over thirty still pitched 5-minute-and-barely-defined characters to the psychological thrillers I then played.

But I think the worst offender I've seen in the recent years was a pitch two sentences long, with poorly arranged words, written in a green font on a yellow background. The character itself was basically a collection of loosely matched abilities focused around the theme of… forced reproduction; while a dice roll was used for everything the dice roll was allowed to be used for. It was an accept-first-write-later game, the character was also accepted into the game, caused an OOC conflict, and the player never made a single IC post. I suppose, the only way to make it worse still was to also have an LLM generate the backstory, but we didn't have to endure that one at least.
The more the merrier.
Me! Me! I didn't. Although I did reference various media in character backgrounds, world-building, or through NPCs, but those were more of an Easter egg than an attempt to play a famous character.
I'm more of a belief that it doesn't hurt to throw in a suggestion that might enrich a game. But then the player should also expect the suggestion to be declined and have another milder concept in mind. What worries me more about that suggestion process is that for some reason a lot of people see those ideas as demands instead of giveaways. Maybe critical literacy in education has something to do with it or maybe people just had a lot of bad experiences with ask-tell-make escalations and don't realize that some people stop at ask.

I have a RL friend who played a character in our original AD&D campaign back when we were in our teens and has been attempting to play that same character in every campaign since (over 20 years now). And I don't mean similar. I mean the same exact character, backstory and all, regardless of genre.