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I've heard many times that creating characters based off fictional people is often at least frowned upon. But are there any problems basing a character off real life historical figures?- for instance basing your character off of the information we know about Napoleon.

Alex Dawson
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    This is incredibly broad. At the very least you'd need to narrow this down to a specific system as the fiction in the system will inform a lot of whether or not that is a problem. But much more importantly, it probably matters a lot more to your specific campaign rather than anything related to the fiction or the system, so this is probably a significantly better question for your GM to answer rather than a group of random strangers on the internets. – wax eagle Sep 16 '14 at 13:15
  • the closest approximation to the game id be playing in is (i think) shadowrun. – Alex Dawson Sep 16 '14 at 13:22
  • Also, the assumption of this question seems weak. Where has anyone said that basing characters on fictional people is frowned on? In my experience, "I want to play someone like some fictional character," is a very common starting point for concepts. – gomad Sep 16 '14 at 14:49
  • I'd got that impression from a simple Google search. On many sites it was almost as bad as creating a Mary Sue and mainly for the reasons that Adriano mentioned. (although these sites never mention ways of fixing it just a don't do it) – Alex Dawson Sep 16 '14 at 14:53
  • You can also see this with character naming. "Why is your D&D half-orc barbarian called 'Obi-wan'?" – Adriano Varoli Piazza Sep 16 '14 at 15:49
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    The question isn't inconsistent. It clearly says "I know A, but what about B?" If using a fictional character for inspiration is wrong, though, then I'm doing it very, very wrong. That's usually where I get my names and appearances for characters ^_^ OP, unless your group has a problem with it for some reason, feel free to draw inspiration from anywhere you like. – gatherer818 Sep 16 '14 at 16:46

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The problems appear, in my experience, for a couple of reasons:

  • players want the mechanical or roleplaying advantages the real person would have, but the system or ruleset doesn't allow them. E.g. you want to play Napoleon but the system doesn't actually let you buy the stats that would model him, at least at starting level.
  • players want to have the good parts of the historical character (usually the mechanical advantages) but don't take seriously into account the drawbacks. E.g. Napoleon's ulcers, any psychological problems he might have had...
  • players want to roleplay a character that doesn't fit with the setting. Say, what is Napoleon doing in Icewind Dale?
  • players write a backstory that is more important than what you will actually play. So, you've conquered half of Europe and command the Grande Armée. Tell me again why do you want to bother attacking Bognor Regis in person?

All these problems are solvable, and many times, they don't get to be problems if you don't insist on literally playing Napoleon, but rather are inspired by some of his traits. I based one character in Mage: the Awakening on Bill Murray's character Dr. Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters. I just used the flair, the lecherousness, and adapted it to the Mage setting. The first problem I'd have had if I wanted to play him exactly is that he's not a mage.

I should add, these aren't problems exclusive to historical characters. It's just that with historical characters, players have a very detailed model.

Adriano Varoli Piazza
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