(Roleplaying) Annoying Character Traits

Naturally, what's annoying in a character depends on the audience, and everyone's opinions vary. I'm curious about others, but here's a discussion of some of my pet peeves.


This came about because someone insisted on watching House at work last night on the TV over the area I was working in doing software installs for the new phone system. I have to be perfectly honest here. I have never really given the show a chance because, based on what little I have seen, the character annoys the crap out of me.

I can envision House as an RPG character. There's so many points in the primary skills/abilities that he's a frickin' savant at what matters to the campaign - in this case, he can guess obscure medical conditions when everyone else's assumptions are wrong. And if people complain that he made too good a character, the player gestures at the disadvantage column, pointing out the use of a cane (which doesn't matter much in the particular campaign) and various social drawbacks. "Hey, he's not flawless and the points are legit!"

And this get into one of the problems I have with social drawbacks in a rules system, but now we have a character who's generally showing everyone up at the primary challenges of the campaign and is largely an arrogant, self-centered ass. If not for the PC-Factor, where more latitude is extended to a character simply because they're "in the party," probably none of the other PCs would want to deal with him. I sure don't, thus I don't watch the show.

And I've seen a lot of those social issues recently - particularly from the "newbie" in our offline gaming group. His first character was something like a half-ogre bruiser eager to get into fights and stomp anything. Well, that's nice to have on your side dealing with hostile orc tribes, but who wants to even be around that in town when they start fights in dockside bars just because? Then there's a slightly more recent pirate character of his who is (I guess) supposed to be charming. But he's always being snarky toward authority figures and generally making any social interaction the party does (in a campaign where the PCs are trying to enlist help against a demon-backed army, mind you) several times more lengthy, difficult, and painful. The player points at his traits of reckless and clown, finding this as validation to be annoying and endangering at every turn - and then he wonders why my character doesn't like him. Seriously, from the perspective of my semi-stereotypical elf, he's immature, rude, has no respect for others, and endangers those he's with needlessly. ... Why, oh why, do people make characters like this and expect them to be tolerated? Escapist "fun?"

There's very rarely good reason for a group of characters to stick together when they piss each other off all the time.

Naivete can be cute, but is rarely endearing for long in a campaign, as everyone else eyerolls at a character that just doesn't seem to "get it." That's especially true in life and death/save the world campaigns.

And lest anyone say I'm only ragging on others, yet another trait I find to be annoying in characters is a lack of motivation. That's a big problem with a number of mine. I've spoken before on how my character creation happens, and how much more hollow the characters end up if I make them without any real concepts or ties in mind. They could have neat quirks and be likable, but if they don't have goals, there's no drive to do anything. Every action is a little more empty and any big challenge begs the question "why is this character even bothering, again?" Ultimately, such characters aren't really contributing anything other than another set of dice to roll for the "good guys" every turn in combat, and that just sucks.