Do you have a character in your head that won't go away? Maybe you started a game with them, they took root and you knew this character was going to be the one you remembered? Maybe they just grew and developed over time. Maybe it's just this idea in the back of your head. An idea that frustrates you, at least a little, because for whatever reason you doubt you'll ever get to give this character it's due?
In the near thirty years I've been gaming I only have one character like that, but I have several that I wish I could return to but can't. The ones I want to return to were good characters, perhaps even great, but they were also products of who I was at the time. They grew and developed, and as they did they changed me. Ultimately, because of them - and some other characters, plus just life, I'm not the person who made them and I doubt I could play them 'properly' if I were to try. I'm sure it would be a great tribute, but a tribute isn't as good as what it pays homage to, and I think that would bug me.
The character that won't leave me alone though was one I made for a Star Wars game a friend was running before life meant he had to drop the game and move even further away. I don't blame the GM, nor do I hold any ill for him. He made the right choice. But I regret how it left the character.
The character was a Chiss force sensitive named Cecilia. At creation she was made to match up with another player's character - an attempt to help make sure that character was pulled into the game and always had someone to bring her into the fun. Said player decided she wanted to do "Punk Princess Jedi" and so we did.
Cecilia was built very similarly to a paladin from D&D (she literally fought with a shield and training saber when she could :) ), and had a similar mindset. Just in the Star Wars universe where her existence was illegal. She had a unique perspective, was always trying to help people around her, and had a way of making the direct approach seem to somehow come from an unexpected angle. She was smart enough to take advantage of blowing out the lights to use her dark vision - meaning my Paladin pulled off a more Batman-esque encounter than any rogue I've ever built in any system - and social enough to make friends. She made "bad decisions" all the time, with the quotes because sometimes they were just very gutsy, and sometimes they were...very stupid. Like, going home one drunken night with an Imperial Officer stupid.
She was great, a lot of fun, and I've never found a place for her since the game ended. What's worse is that so much of who she was and how she worked came about not only because of Star Wars as a setting and parts of that built into her, but also that game in specific. Maybe someday I'll get to be in another Star Wars game and Cecilia will be the right choice, but I doubt it.
Still, I can dream. Right? How about you?
For me it's Willa, a teenage motorcycle racer/shadowrunner that really probably can only work in Shadowrun. She also needs to be in a game that allows for a hopeful persona in a dark situation.
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