I have so many ridiculous character ideas that I'm not sure I can pick one, but a recent favorite comes to mind.
Moses Jensen-Zhang, producer for This American Life and NPR true believer.
This was during the No Soul Left Behind Playtest: Moses was planted at Brighter Futures Academy, doing a year-long story on charter schools. When the school was attacked by supervillains, he confused the Headless Headsman by trying to interview him mid-intro. And then he was given the ability to turn into anyone and implant false memories with a touch: he was the only person in the party who ended up with no combat abilities whatsoever. It was a recurring joke that Moses would insist he could do something because he was "kind of a badass." Nothing out of the ordinary so far, right?
Halfway through the second game, I came up with Moses' villainous persona: Garrison Killer, a Prairie Home Companion themed supervillain. His mask was a giant green papier mache head of Garrison Keillor, like some sort of weird ugly white dude Carnivale, and he made constant jokes about Lake Wobegon, Guy Noir, and a bunch of NPR deep cuts. His evil vehicle was the Donor Drive, a Toyota Prius modded to increase in speed based on the amount of money NPR had received during that year's pledge drive, and he brainwashed the entirely elderly populace by seeding the city's Golden Corrals with powdermilk biscuits, mind control biscuits that make people fanatically loyal to public radio when eaten.
He had a medical marijuana license for anxiety. He carried around a flask full of milk. He laundered money by donating to NPR. In the final session, he tried to bribe a bunch of people with gluten-free cake.
"And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the men are impossibly handsome, all the women are freakishly strong, and all the children are above your petty morality."
