A-Z Action: C is for Crutch (Is Writing Good Speeches for Stupid Characters Cheating?)

I'm a bad roleplayer. I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons, without significant gaps, for around 17 years. I built my first race about 12 hours after I first touched a PhB. By the time I finished high school six or so years later, I'd written two massive, sprawling campaign worlds, something like 30 races, a like number of classes, untold monsters, and so, so many pages of adventure plots.

I've probably played 200 different characters, spread out over all the Rpgs I've enjoyed. Many of them, I've loved. Many of them, other folks have loved. Occasionally (though less often than you might think) characters fall into both groups. I've played men, women, faeries, robots, elementals, bad ideas, and mythical figures. I've been the hero, the heel, the lover, and the speechless. I've had characters who've grown to dominate games, and characters who've grown to dominate DMs; to the point where they've built games to give the characters a home. I've made characters so vile, so domineering, or so weird that they've more or less broken games, sometimes before they even started.

I know the rules...for pretty much anything. I've spent hours pouring over rulebooks and builds and suggestions for games that I have never played, or played once, or don't even want to play (but love to read). It's pretty fair to say that my life is, barring the occasional John Cusackian romantic folly, dedicated to gaming.

And yet, I am a terrible roleplayer.