Player Types

The Chatter
This Player comes to the game to chat with other folks rather than play the game. Just about everyone has a bit of the chatter in them; few people come to role-playing games just to stay in character all the time, and in order to build an in-game team you need to chat out of character sometimes. The Chatter, taken to extremes, is the sort of person who spends all their time talking about something out-of-character, often continuously disrupting other Players immersion in their role-playing.

The Combat Monster
This (often young and male) Player wants his character to fight, fight, fight. This doesn’t mean that the campaign must consist of only combat, but if every single episode doesn’t have some sort of battle, or if the character is prevented from participating in these conflicts, the Players will not be happy. Fortunately the urge to fight directed is towards NPCs, goons, and other GM-generated creatures rather than other PCs, otherwise he becomes a Player-Killer (aka “The Terrorist”)

The Copier
This Player like to run the game-world equivalent of characters he’s seen elsewhere – in movies, books, TV, or the comics. In most cases they are trying to duplicate characters taken from the universe that the game is based on. This can be a very interesting experiment and provide for wonderful role-playing. The problem is, he also expects the hero to be as effective or as universally respected as the original hero. There is a strong risk of disappointment when their character doesn’t get to duplicate the originals amazing success. The GM has to work hard to understand the Copier’s goals for his character; if the GM feel these goal can’t be met, he needs to tell the Player as soon as possible.
A sub-variety of Copier is the Clone Artist : the Player who creates one character and runs the same character – or variant forms of him – in every campaign in which he plays, no matter how illogical or strained the fit might be.

The Drama Queen
This Player is a variation on The Showoff. They don’t necessarily need to be the centre of attention, but everything they do tends to be overdramatized and emotionally extreme. They can be relied upon to regularly undergo – and emote noisily about – some profound tragedy, even if its based on the flimsiest excuses.

The Impersonator
This Player wants to run game-world versions of characters that someone else created. In most cases they are trying to duplicate characters taken from the universe that the game is based on or historical figures. This can be a very interesting experiment and provide for wonderful role-playing, unless, of course, the Player becomes a Copier, which is the much more common version of this type of Player.