Create a Personality Gimmick 2

[AnonymousSpeed]

This thread is inspired by an older thread, but posted in Far from the Forest because it's the sort of thing that might as well go on forever. I'm an unproductive amateur writer. I have three or four personality gimmick ideas every six months, as an average. Regular necroposting restrictions just aren't gonna cut it for me.

There are more than a few ideas I actually quite like from that thread, but I've carried over just a few of the highlights, some with commentary.

Spoiler

On 4/10/2018 at 4:03 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think a really good follow up to Arthur would be a super villain

Just an Arthur who isn't a super hero but a SUPER VILLAIN. He spends all supports loudly practicing his evil laugh or plotting schemes he thinks are the ultimate evil but in reality are just regular rule breaking or petty crimes, and when it gets more serious the villain proceeds to fail miserably. The rest of the army tolerates this behavior either because they assume he's just pretending or because they figured out he's mostly harmless because of his incompetence. 

On 4/11/2018 at 11:04 AM, Lightchao42 said:

One of my ideas is a guy whom everyone thinks is a famous hero but he really isn't. Said character (let's call him Ziegfried) is a below average swordsman, but because he has a similar name, appearance, and fighting style to the legendary swordsman Siegfried, everyone in the army thinks that he is Siegfried. Unlike Samuel and Shannam, though, Ziegfried's impersonation is purely accidental. He's very insistent that he isn't Siegfried, but everyone else ignores this because they think he's just being humble about his talent and accomplishments. The other characters treat him with reverence/fear or view him as a rival, despite Ziegfried's protests that he is not Siegfried.

At some point in a paralouge, the player's army runs into the real Siegfried. Siegfried has heard that he has an impersonator running around and decided to investigate, but everyone now believes that the real Siegfried is the impersonator (despite him being far more statically imposing than Ziegfried). After the battle, Siegfried privately meets with Ziegfried and officially names him his successor so he can peacefully retire from heroism (since everyone already believes that Ziegfried is Siegfried anyway). Ziegfried is baffled the entire time, but Siegfried gives him his sword, a formidable personal weapon, as a gift for his trouble.

On 4/11/2018 at 11:04 AM, Lightchao42 said:

There's also the obligatory fanservice character who, instead of being in love with them, absolutely hates the protagonist for no apparent reason. In her ending it's revealed that she hates the lord for an extraordinarily petty reason, like they forgot to return a toy ten years ago or something. She still ends up being the most popular character in the game.

Kronya is popular with one chapter of screentime and functionally zero development. This is entirely accurate.

On 4/11/2018 at 11:04 AM, Lightchao42 said:

Finally, there's a mage who sought the secret to immortality but ended up making himself a skeleton instead. He has his own "Skeleton" class which has pathetic stats, but has a random chance of taking no damage when attacked by an enemy (and permadeath doesn't apply to him, so he can be used in the next chapter even if he "dies"). He probably also takes off his arm to bludgeon the enemy with or something, and most of his dialogue consists of bone related puns.

Another prophetic prediction, this time of @Shaky Jones.

On 5/30/2018 at 10:30 PM, Scoot said:

A refresher-type character, but instead of being a bard or dancer they're a stand-up comic.

"Now you all know my policy on Hitler. Never liked the guy. Lotta yelling. But I'm just saying, may be this uh whole, you know, ~genocide thing~ ...maybe that's uh not so bad."

[After a smattering of claps and boos] "Not for people, of course. No, no. I'd genocide other stuff."

"Now I'm not a scientist, but uh I don't really see we really need to keep around malaria."

 His death quote is about how everyone's gonna remember him as a loser for losing to the enemy, because the last thing he ever did was lose.

Now for my "contribution" to start us off:

On 4/10/2018 at 10:17 PM, X-Naut said:

An axe fighter with great talent and passion for cooking. They joined the conflict because it was killing their business, their lines talk about the finer details of five-star culinary preparation, and they trash-talk their enemies as if they were going to cook and serve them to creep them out. Can be either gender.

On 6/18/2018 at 12:57 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

This is another idea I really like, but I kept it separate because I wanted to mention a character gimmick that would match it perfectly: a chef.

Now, I don't mean one of those namby Frenchmen with their stupid hats and culinary school experience. I mean a real, home-cooked-meal-making Southern-style chef.

"A pound of butter? That ain't nearly enough for a pound cake!"

I think these two ideas could be reasonably combined. The best personality gimmicks are marginally above one note. One and a half note. They're stereotypes, but they're not cardboard.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

Some personality gimmicks I've made are...

• The man who is incredibly nurturing childhood friend who wants to be a father
• Sage Jagen
• Wyvern Rider Paarthurnax
• Tiki/Nowi but male

These next ones require a bit of explanation as they are meant to be the children of Three Houses students, so they follow the trend of children in other games of either being just like the main parent, the complete opposite of their main parent, or a unique character.

Black Eagles

• Edelgard's daughter: Edelgard 2.0, but would have "Ally" skills instead of "Solo" skills in Heroes
• Bernadetta's son: Gets along well socially but has two left feet
• Dorothea's son: Male Dorothea, but his singing voice wasn't that great, so he turned to dancing instead.

Blue Lions

• Dimitri's son: The wholesome classic Fire Emblem Lord Dimitri wishes he could have been, but still has hidden insane physical strength
• Mercedes's son *Spoilers* :
  Spoiler

  Anti-Death Knight. He's even named Emile after his uncle.

   

• Annette's daughter: Physical Annette

Golden Deer

• Claude's daughter: Female Sword Cavalier Claude
• Hilda's son: Works himself to sleep in unexpected places
• Marianne's daughter: Embraces her Crest
• Lysithea's son: Studious dark mage who seeks vengeance against Those Who Slither in the Dark for what they did to his mother.

Ashen Wolves

• Constance's daughter: Lives under a restored House Nuvelle
• Hapi's son: HR 999 Monster Hunter

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[Original Alear]

A character who you recruit only if you "kill" him in battle (like Shinon but w/out need to talk first). He has a high luck stat, and never actually dies, even if you're on classic mode and your other characters die (but he's not a lord or MU either). His supports revolve around being either being treated like he's expendable or just marveled at for being lucky, I'm not sure which. Or maybe both...

[Jotari]

An adulterer. Not a philanderer type of which we've seen plenty of, but an outright cheater. Cucking is one of the only fetishes they haven't thrown at the fanbase yet.

Edited July 10, 2022 by Jotari

[Original Alear]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

An adulterer. Not a philanderer type of which we've seen plenty of, but an outright cheater. Cucking is one of the only fetishes they haven't thrown at the fanbase yet.

Actually, there is Sigurd, Arvis and Deirdre. The intent isn't there on Deirdre's part, but...

I wonder if Arvis would have let Sigurd live if she hadn't been in the picture.

EDIT-I'm also convinced that Zelgius is Ike's dad.

Edited July 10, 2022 by Original Johan Liebert

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Original Johan Liebert said:

Actually, there is Sigurd, Arvis and Deirdre. The intent isn't there on Deirdre's part, but...

I wonder if Arvis would have let Sigurd live if she hadn't been in the picture.

EDIT-I'm also convinced that Zelgius is Ike's dad.

Oh dang. You're right. Sigurd got cucked hard (pun intended).

[AnonymousSpeed]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

An adulterer. Not a philanderer type of which we've seen plenty of, but an outright cheater. Cucking is one of the only fetishes they haven't thrown at the fanbase yet.

The child unit inherits random skills and emotional dysfunction.

9 hours ago, Original Johan Liebert said:

EDIT-I'm also convinced that Zelgius is Ike's dad.

I almost think I might be interested by that idea. Not quite sure.

[Shaky Jones]

On 7/9/2022 at 3:49 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

On 4/11/2018 at 8:04 AM, Lightchao42 said:

Finally, there's a mage who sought the secret to immortality but ended up making himself a skeleton instead. He has his own "Skeleton" class which has pathetic stats, but has a random chance of taking no damage when attacked by an enemy (and permadeath doesn't apply to him, so he can be used in the next chapter even if he "dies"). He probably also takes off his arm to bludgeon the enemy with or something, and most of his dialogue consists of bone related puns.

Another prophetic prediction, this time of @Shaky Jones.

You love to hear it. I've said it before. FE needs playable skeletons, and just more skeletons in general. My gimmick is that I'm a playable skeleton. That's it. Everyone feels obligated to use me at least once. Bonus points if I'm locked to a rout where my opponent is an S tier unit. I'm also famous among fans for my support conversations, in which I'm just Azama 2. I mock everyone while making awful bone puns, but they can't stop me because I can't even die right. Elitists hate me.

But enough about a hypothetical playable of myself. We have Fire Emblem's spectacular avatars to let me fantasize myself in. Here's a not so unique gimmick character. Shannam Jeigan. Basically, you start the game with a completely incompetent Jeigan who only got to where they are through sheer luck. This is reflected upon by luck being their only good stat, completely capped at 30 from the beginning. As a prepromote, you'd probably want to give them good growths, so that they're not complete garbage, and I always liked the idea of Siegfried from TLP simultaneously being a lord, jeigan, and growth unit, sorta like Sigurd but better. How about I name this character Siegerd. Perhaps give them a personal skill that lets them dodge axe enemies easily to go completely on him only surviving in life out of luck, but not enough to make him an overpowered dodge tank. Never been a big fan of those. Like Shannam, their personality is to seem cool and unfazed at a glance. The lord highly respects them, and they are entrusted by all the knights to protect the protagonist, but Siegerd frequently mutters to himself about how screwed he is throughout the early game if he lets you die. He's constantly trying to recruit new units to take his place, possibly resorting to fake bribes, but all that does is make the lord respect their charisma more. Should you let this man die early on, your knights will realize that he was a failure all along, and he will be replaced with a proper jeigan with mostly decent stats. The main issue is that this jeigan is extremely generic with practically no personality whatsoever, but should you not want to deal with a joke unit in the early game, you have the choice.

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

You love to hear it. I've said it before. FE needs playable skeletons, and just more skeletons in general. My gimmick is that I'm a playable skeleton. That's it. Everyone feels obligated to use me at least once. Bonus points if I'm locked to a rout where my opponent is an S tier unit. I'm also famous among fans for my support conversations, in which I'm just Azama 2. I mock everyone while making awful bone puns, but they can't stop me because I can't even die right. Elitists hate me.

No joke, a unit that is immortal but with less than steller stats would actually make for an interesting unit for classic mode. Merlinus is already kind of that in FE6, only he has no combat potential at all, yet some LTCers, I think, still find him a useful pawn to sacrifice to protect other units and bait enemies. A unit that can actually attack and gain EXP and the like able to survive lethal blows could be a very useful niche.

6 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

But enough about a hypothetical playable of myself. We have Fire Emblem's spectacular avatars to let me fantasize myself in. Here's a not so unique gimmick character. Shannam Jeigan. Basically, you start the game with a completely incompetent Jeigan who only got to where they are through sheer luck. This is reflected upon by luck being their only good stat, completely capped at 30 from the beginning. As a prepromote, you'd probably want to give them good growths, so that they're not complete garbage, and I always liked the idea of Siegfried from TLP simultaneously being a lord, jeigan, and growth unit, sorta like Sigurd but better. How about I name this character Siegerd. Perhaps give them a personal skill that lets them dodge axe enemies easily to go completely on him only surviving in life out of luck, but not enough to make him an overpowered dodge tank. Never been a big fan of those. Like Shannam, their personality is to seem cool and unfazed at a glance. The lord highly respects them, and they are entrusted by all the knights to protect the protagonist, but Siegerd frequently mutters to himself about how screwed he is throughout the early game if he lets you die. He's constantly trying to recruit new units to take his place, possibly resorting to fake bribes, but all that does is make the lord respect their charisma more. Should you let this man die early on, your knights will realize that he was a failure all along, and he will be replaced with a proper jeigan with mostly decent stats. The main issue is that this jeigan is extremely generic with practically no personality whatsoever, but should you not want to deal with a joke unit in the early game, you have the choice.

Giving them a skill to dodge axes might make them a better dodge tank than just plain stats. Especially if you're giving them a good luck stat, which is a dodge dependent stat (though the key to a good Jeigan is low speed, which is also a dodge stat). Stats have to scale with the game as you get to later chapters, but skills, generally speaking, don't. +10 dodge is as good in early game as it is in late game, as the number of hits a unit is expected to take to survived is roughly the same (barring some niche cases like early FE6 and Awakening Lunatic+ where units are flimsy and dodging is way more powerful, but there it also always remains powerful). To add to that, the real benefit of skills is that you can stack them. Ferdinand doesn't have amazing dodge potential in Three Houses because of his material stats, it's because you can give him a bunch of avoid boosting skills that work in tandem to put him over 100 avoid. So a unit with some innate anti axe dodging skill is going to immediately be a good investment for piling on dodge skills, just like how Ferdinand (and Dimitri's) personal skill gives that extra edge that makes them immediately better at carrying such a build.

TL:DR, a skill isn't necessary to make them better at dodging if they already have a great luck stat and indeed is going to be the most meaningful thing in making them a too good dodge tank, even if it's against just one wepaon type.