The Loonie

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Cannot base characters off The Who's drummer Keith Moon. —Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG #1

The Loonie is the Tabletop RPG player who plays mostly for the fun of doing silly things within the game. He typically optimizes his character for comedy rather than combat, and is more likely to pick "goofy" character races purely for the novelty (such as awakened animals, Kender, Malkavians, and so forth). His abilities will be mainly based on their potential for wacky antics (so rogues and mages with a lot of illusion and enchantment spells are popular).

This player loves poking at the setting to provoke strange responses and going Off the Rails in outrageous ways. They'll use their tower shields as makeshift snowboards, and think shouting "Look Behind You!" then running away is enough to elude a hostile greater demon. They'll then try to talk the Game Master into letting them attempt a trip attack on aforementioned greater demon using a Banana Peel. They'll crack jokes and mock the NPCs at every opportunity, and futz with every magic item thrown their way.

The loonie can be a fun player to have around; a little comic relief can help to ease the tension of a long campaign. However, sometimes his constant jokes can wear thin, and he can quickly cross the line from amusing to annoying. He can be especially grating to extreme Roleplayers, Munchkins, and other people who take the game way too seriously. It probably doesn't help that their lack of humor only encourages the loonie to annoy them more. The Loonie's favourite Character Alignment is Chaotic Neutral (because it's the perfect excuse for doing anything), but to his detractors it will feel more like Chaotic Stupid. Basically, it all depends on how good a comedian they are.

Like the other archetypes, the Loonie comes in variations. Ones that know how to be eccentric and effective are Bunny Ears Lawyers of a sort, and when crossed with a Munchkin they'll actually act out all the weird flaws and quirks they took to get those plusses.

Suffice to say, the wise Game Master will be very careful about letting The Loonie get his hands on any sort of large explosive device. Hilarity will ensue (as well as a Total Party Kill, most of the time).

A Player Archetypes subtrope, along with The Real Man, The Roleplayer, and the Munchkin.

Not to be confused with the Canadian one dollar coin.

Examples of The Loonie include:

Anime

• Amelia Wil Tesla Selune from The Slayers.

Film

• Gary from Gamers: Dorkness Rising is this. The group is replaying an adventure they failed at in the past; this time, they've invited a girl to play with. Having done the adventure before, the rest of them are eager to begin the journey to the Big Bad before their characters are even supposed to know which way to go. When the girl takes a couple minutes to exchange pleasantries with a peasant, Gary's character, a mage, disintegrates the peasant with a fireball.

Luster: How many experience for the peasant?

Tabletop Games

• The Dungeon Masters' Guide II for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 includes a section on player styles useful for the Game Master of any game, not just D&D. One of the styles it describes is The Outlier, which is basically this trope. "The D&D game assumes a high degree of group cohesion[...] Some players, though, get their emotional charge by subverting this dynamic. These players have the outlier trait. They revel in being different and playing by their own rules. In short, they love to play oddballs." The section goes on to explain that they often are more interested in clowning around and failing humorously than actually contributing to group success.
  • Pathfinder calls them "Antagonists", someone who plays a dwarf to pick on the elf, or an atheist to pick on the Cleric. But neither is actually an example of The Loonie, unless he "picks" on the elf by painting him purple and making bawdy songs about him for no reason, and tricks the cleric into saying "Goddamnit!" at every oppourtunity.
  • The 4.0 DMG refers to this player as "The Instigator", who loves to make random stuff happen.
• A large part of the appeal of many parody RPGs, including Paranoia (where the whole point is to find excuses to shoot the other party members) and Toon (which actually gives you experience points for making other people laugh).
  • HoL is another tabletop that encourages The Loonie.
  • Maid RPG also encourages loonies, especially if you choose 4 or 5 Maid Qualities or make gratuitous use of the Random Events charts.
• The Malkavian vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade are stereotyped as being the "loonie" Splat, never mind that there are ways to play Malkavians other than as "Fishmalks" with Funny Schizophrenia.
  • As some wise person on RPG.net once advised, "Think Hannibal Lecter, not Daffy Duck".
  • One can be both; think The Joker.
  • The Old World of Darkness had some bad luck with this. If it wasn't the Malks, it was the Ragabash auspice. If it wasn't the Ragabash, it was the Marauders. And if it wasn't the Marauders, it was the pooka. There was nothing inherently wacky about Wraith, though the Haunter's Guild could be slightly unhinged.
    • So pervasive is the tendecy of playing Malks as Fourth Wall Breaking Comic Relief, that further editions of the Old World of Darkness ALREADY attempted to make it more Grimdark before the inevitable reboot. From a metagaming standpoint, they were trying to shoo out the psychotic clowns for a long time ever since they released their first edition. I don't think White Wolf likes some of the silliness in their Crapsack World, since it doesn't jibe well with the rest of the universes Urban Horror Theme.
      • Actually, it wasn't long before the hilarious fourth wall breaking Loon was instead just a delusional fool being manipulated by their psychotic elders or ancestors. This didn't actually stop any players from playing as them, but they definitely wanted to make Malkavians more serious as puppets of a sleeping Mad demi-god instead of comic relief.
  • Exalted isn't immune, either. The Fair Folk are explicitly noted as being somewhat unfamiliar with the idea that actions can have consequences, since in the Wyld they can simply shape themselves back to life if killed by another raksha. As a result, it's totally in character for a raksha in Creation to stab an ally through the heart, then be surprised when he doesn't get back up.
• One optional flaw in Sen Zar means that you can not only be The Loonie, but you can get bonus character points for being The Loonie:

"TOTAL STUPIDITY: Please take it! The character is totally stupid, and is even too totally stupid to know it! He'll gladly taste unknown potions when offered them. He'll gladly charge into the midst of an onrushing horde of bad guys if properly persuaded ("Dey say what about Mom? Me am smash dem!"). He'll even volunteer to test pits and traps for your party! And sometimes not even a successful Karmic Save will shed the light of reason upon his dim, feeble mind! Note: This does not reflect upon that character's INT score, mind you. Even a total genius can act totally stupid at times. So take it, O ye mighty spellcasters! Blow up friend and foe alike, just because you're so totally stupid that the proper placement of your explosive spells is beyond the grasp of your perpetually befuddled mind! Note 2: Yeah, we know. But isn't there always someone like this in your party? And isn't it about time they got some points for it?"

• The FATE roleplaying system, used in games like Spirit of the Century, allows players to take "aspects". Aspects are character traits and catch phrases, both positive and negative. In SotC, a player character Coat, Hat, Mask may take the aspect "Can't Turn Down A Pretty Face", so when the Femme Fatale comes calling, the GM can give the player fate points in return for having the character do something stupid ("compelling an aspect") in order to advance the plot (or just because he can). The player can also simply point out his aspect and offer to play it to the hilt, partly because he will get a fate point for it but also because the consequences can be hilarious.
• The Xaositect faction in Planescape are people who celebrate the inherent absurdity of the universe. Naturally, many players take this as an invitation to play Xaositects as bleeding morons who taunt the enemy for fun and set off traps on purpose.
• Take the Show-off Drawback in All Flesh Must Be Eaten. It's two extra Character Points and the excuse to whatever you feel like at the time! Also fits well with The Real Man.

Video Games

• Mike from the Xbox Indie game Doom & Destiny. While his role-playing buddies Francis, Johnny and Nigel set themselves up as standard RPG classes (Francis is a Ninja, Johnny a Warrior, and Nigel a Magus), Mike chooses to be a Pirate...who can somehow cast healing magic...and sing. In-story, he's also the Cloudcuckoolander of the party.

Web Comics

• In Darths and Droids, Jar-Jar Binks is instead a character played by a young girl, and half the crazy things in the Star Wars Prequels are from her imagination. This has actually gotten Jar-Jar Rescued From the Scrappy Heap.
  • Jar-Jar's player Sally does this whenever she is given control of a character.
  • Funnily enough, as the commentary in this strip mentions, she's also one of the most sensible players in the group. Which says a lot about the rest of them.
  • Jim, who plays Qui-Gon (and later Amidala), athough he's more The Real Man, comes up with enough nonsensical plans to fit this trope as well.
• Legolas in DM of the Rings has a few shades of this.
• Leo from VG Cats. See this strip for one example of his looniness. Surprisingly, he manages to (narrowly) avoid crossing over into Chaotic Stupid territory and, in fact, is the most competent player in the session (though that isn't saying much). A rat-flail probably would be a more effective weapon than a plain stick, assuming the DM were willing to run with it.
• Even though there are no players in Order of the Stick, Elan still qualifies. Among many other feats, he once hit the self destruct rune of a castle the party was still inside, and persuaded an island of orcs to worship a hand puppet.
  • Or how about the time he decided that since heavy armor penalizes sneaking, conversely less clothing would increase the bonus. Which... leads to a few strips of Elan having Naked Time.
• Gabe from Penny Arcade overlaps with the thespian in trying to play an elderly mage... with Alzheimer's.
• Aubrey of Something Positive, as shown in the Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies strip.
• Igor of Dork Tower. His Crowning Moment of Awesome was, during a Lord of the Rings-based RP, immediately saying "I kill Gandalf".
  • He has also been known to attack mind flayers with wedgies and purple nurples.
• Abbie from Weregeek is a roleplayer, but she definitely has a good Loonie streak. In Vampire: The Masquerade she plays an anarchist, but not a "fish Malk", and speaking of explosives, look at her Shadowrun PC Twitch... Well, for her such things are quite "in character"...
• In an early Home On The Strange story, Tom is frustrated with how his wife Karla is indulging in "romantic" roleplaying with the DM's characters. So, he decides to have a little fun at their expense.
• Friendship Is Dragons's version of Pinkie Pie.
• In One Piece Grand Line 3 Point 5, Luke lives by the Rule of Fun and Rule of Funny, making a perfect fit with his Lethal Joke Character Monkey D. Luffy.

Web Original

• Many of the Freelance Astronauts' Lets Plays follow this play style, most notably their Oblivion LP in which they create a very ugly character with electric blue hair who throughout the playthrough casts "Frenzy" on an entire town, and messes around with console commands to change the sizes of various Npcs.
• Rob from Unforgotten Realms.
• Bob in this D&D parody. During the first mission, the rest of his party members visit the tavern all at once. He attempts to burn the tavern down. When it gets his turn to DM, he comes up with a rather... unorthodox final boss fight.
• Veronica Carter, and how. Two seconds after her introduction she blows a whistle to invite all of the nearby bloodthirsty demons to come over to the Resistance, much to the outrage of May. One time she got drunk and decided to lob beer bottles at Oblivion just for the hell of it. However, she's most infamous in the world of Shadowhunter Peril for completely overreacting to the most trivial of things.
  • And let us not forget the time the Resistance was supposed to initiate a stealth rescue mission on Alicante and she charged at the city with a tank screaming at the top of her lungs like a loon.

Real Life

• Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG gives a list of all the crazy stuff he is now forbidden from doing in these games. Live Journal has a list of the items he has listed.
  • 1 - 500, 501 - 1000, 1000 - 1500, 1500-2000.
• Related The Things Runs Like Hell Is No Longer Allowed to Do in the Garou Nation. For a werewolf game.
• And on that note, Things one is not allowed to do in Exalted.
• And the great grand daddy list of these: Skippys List
• And the list of things disallowed in Shadowrun games over on the Dumpshock Forums.
• The artist and author Ursula Vernon will happily regale anyone who reads her livejournal with the many times she and her buddies have made their DM cry, freak out, or be driven to drinking by sheer zany antics, or figuring out uses for their powers that evidently no one else had thought of before, or in the case of Rooster, Ursula's Paladin, just by being a clutz.