High Functioning Sociopath PC

>>50969253
>Can you play a character as a higher functioning sociopath? Where character is completely devoted of any natural ability of empathy but is disciplined, principled and intelligent enough to put on the mask of humanity.
A startling number of real world ones are successful lawyers and businessmen, so I can't see why not.

>>50969253
>Can you play a character as a higher functioning sociopath? Where character is completely devoted of any natural ability of empathy but is disciplined, principled and intelligent enough to put on the mask of humanity.

This describes the average player character to a tee. Minus the 'intelligent' part, and 'devoted' instead of 'devoid'

Yes.

I was asked never to do so again.

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>>50969263
I'm guessing wary of anything could be interpreted as 'my character too smart for the petty morality of the rest of the steeple'

It might sound like a character trait on paper but it might come across as projected, we've all played with that sort.

It doesn't help he'll be wearing a fedora (1930s)

>50969276
>This describes the average player character to a tee. Minus the 'intelligent' part, and 'devoted' instead of 'devoid

Ha, yeah....

Important to put at least some humanity in the character, no matter what an emotionless inhuman the character is.

>>50969336
Rust is a good example. The guy is a complete asshole, but if you ask him to do something, he'll do it.

He might be fucking drunk as shit while doing it, he might complain to hell and back, but he'll do it.

>>50969253
As long as you've got something keeping you from murder-hobo'ing you're own party members.

>>50969253
Just roleplay as any autist you've observed on /tg/

>>50969598
This
Murdering your own partymembers just creates disinterest to play, most of the time atleast.

>>50969253
The correct term is Psychopath, not Sociopath.
You must be devoid of empathy, but a Psychopath can emulate empathy, AKA he can fake it so well, no one could tell he isn't a sane human being. But he seeks only to serve himself, towards a goal of his own, it could be petty goals, or extreme one. Mental problems and insecurities are abound in a psycho, but again, he is intelligent enough to hide it from others.

Watch the following;
American psycho, pay attention to his faults and narcissism

Criminal minds, lets you see how criminals and mentally disturbed killers are formed and how that plays into their abilities mental states, and ultimately their downfall
ALL the Hannibal movies, he is a cannibalistic psycho, not all psychos are that intelligent, not all psychos eat people. Psychos are not similar to socios as psychos are born broken, they can function in society, if they please, but they are not normal, they never will be, their brains are different

You do not feel emotion, you mimic it. You can not love, it's impossible. The only things you can feel are primal things like anger and to a lesser extent fear.
Socios are an entirely different beast, playing so hard off emotion most serial killers fall under this, formed in hellish circumstance.

What will the other players and/or GM see that shows the difference between the sociopath and a character who is really what the sociopath is pretending to be ?

If there is no difference to be seen, then I'd argue that there is no difference between them. Thus I'd call your attempt at playing the sociopath a failure because you ended up playing a regular PC.

If the difference is only your characters inner monologue, other players are likely to get annoyed at the constant monologue. Mainly because their characters can't react to it, because it's all in your PCs head.

If the difference only shows when the sociopath is alone, you're going to need a GM who gives you regular scenes where your PC is alone and a group who doesn't get annoyed at all the spotlight that those solo scenes give your PC.


Playing a sociopath who is trying, but not quite succeeding, at putting on a mask of humanity will work better. If you can pull it off.

>>50969598
There's an ability for that in GURPS called "Not being a faggot"

>>50969688
There isn't actually a distinction between psychopaths and sociopaths. Also it's been found that psychopaths can disable and enable their empathy. Criminal minds is a decent show but not too helpful for creating a psychopath character. American psycho is great and I recommend watching it, but he's fucking crazy, definitely not high functioning. It seems you're equating psychopaths to serial killers, most psychopaths never kill anyone.

>>50969925
Their is actually a pretty big difference between Psycho and Socio, The main thing being Socios tend to latch onto a person or ideal, in seven psychopaths the guys friend who continues to fuck everything up is actually a good example of a sociopath. Turn on and off is the mimicry of empathy, brain scans show the part of the brain that controls emotions relating to care and love do not light up like a normal human. I referenced Criminal minds as more of a guide to criminals and their thoughts rather than psychos in general. He is actually very high functioning until he has a mental break, which plays off of him being a serial killer, rather than psycho. He devolved into a spree killer for almost no reason, but other than that he's lived his life without thoughts for others, lacking empathy or care, and if it's to be believed he's been killing for a while, he's been murdering as well without such break downs. I focused on the serial killer aspect since OP used Dexter as the pic and I assumed he would go for a Psycho killer investigator type

>>50969253
Don't get immersed in the game and always remember that NPCs aren't real people.

>>50969253
I could but I won't. It's a bad sport to self-insert.