How to Play the Edgy Loner WITHOUT Making Your Party Want to Kill You

I just wanna play a edgy loner but in a comical way, in a way where it makes themselves look the stupidest and is unfortunately unintentionally the comic relief thanks to his completely shitty social skills

A good master will explore your character past himself, you don't need to focus on it all the time.

I’ve always been curious of trying to play one of these characters and wanted to base him a lot off of people like Denji and especially Guts- one of my favorite aspects about them is the fact that despite everything.. they wanna keep going. They do see that things can get better, and for my character I really want him to at least be hopeful.
I’ve done a really terrible job selling him to the DM but it’s also mostly because she hasn’t really read Berserk or Chainsaw Man (honestly probably for the best, she really wouldn’t like the gore or freaky creatures)
But I think having him- like you stated- be a “loner” but still be really interested in the other players and safety of them would be fantastic! Especially since his past was all about the fact that someone would harm those he’d get close to every time- and so the first time he finds people he can genuinely trust and open up to he wants to guard and do everything he can FOR them!
I’m use to playing mostly jokey characters (once a horny and drunken Changeling Monk who had a heart of gold, and later a greedy pirate goblin who had a boomerang as a weapon) so I’m definitely excited to bring some peace and humanity to this guy :)

Nerd

Just don't give them stupid harem and your characters will fine

I have been wanting to play an edgy character for a little while. But my table is used to hearing about the horror stories. I wanna make a fun one. I like the idea of Senri from +Anima. He was quiet, collected flowers, protected people, and for some reason drank blood from people's wounds but it's because he cared and wanted to make them feel better

I played an edgy loner type character in 5E named "Kevan". He had black hair, brown eyes, clean-shaven beard, fingerless gloves, facial scar, violent disposition. He was an adept martial artist with a mean right hook, and used his superior strength to extort and bully others. He also had a drug addiction, which made him even more aggressive and violent. Most of the time, he would be seen with headphones on his head, blasting music while brooding on a cold and lonely night.

Nine times out of ten, the music was Barbie Girl by Aqua. You would have an edgy brawler running around wearing pink socks and blasting Run the World (Girls) by Beyonce while engaging in firefights with wizards. Suddenly, he's not so scary.

A few of my character sometimes border on the edge of the "edgy loner" character most notable being my half elf bard Northana who's less of loner per say but definitely more self serving in that when it comes to it she's likely do whatever will leave her in the best position and then think about helping those she's close to second except maybe if it came to the wellbeing of her younger (half) sister Zaylia (my tiefling warlock/bard who's and absolute sweetheart) and maybe she'd gain another soft spot when she gets to know her older half sister Nerilin (a high elf rogue played by my brother) better

Another edgelord is Leveari my tiefling Warlock (pack of the fiend) who's definitely the edgiest of my characters but again it's just an "I'll tell my twin (Lavenir, my brother's aasimar life cleric) the answer to the word puzzle and then misty step over it out of spite" and an "Eldritch blast or fireball will solve my problem if my words end up failing" attitude meanwhile their twin gave a lot of tired parent friend energy

And finally Xillora (name subject to change) my half elven gloom stalker ranger/rogue (only one level at the moment) who's by far the most quiet and loner-esque of my characters but she's still tied to the rest of the adventuring party through her much more outgoing older brother Pine (the Half elf fighter played by my brother) she tends to be more reserved, cautious and mistrustful but will gladly help strategise and reminds the party to move stealthily she's also often scouts ahead and while she can talk to people well she'd still much prefer to avoid it if possible (that was mostly me wanting a break from playing the party face without playing a character who couldn't act as the face if necessary because the group mostly plays one shots and there's never any guarantee that anyone's going to play a face character) she's a little prickly but she'll warm to people eventually (like in a oneshot she warmed up to the druid because they reminded her of her older sister (the eldest of the three siblings) and the young wood elf npc because she related to growing up in the forest without adults

My DM and I once had a thing going where we make it work.

Short version, my DM loved to get a little "knife twisty" when it comes to using backstory elements in the campaign, and mine was the type to feel as though they are "surrounded by people, yet completely alone" (depressing I know), with a major arc for said character literally being about overcoming that, but in my book relapsing a few times (he only truly overcoming it near the final battle) was an important part of his growth. After all, you cannot expect someone to change how they saw themselves and how they act overnight (since that's not development but a flat 180). It's not so much that he doesn't value the party as it is him not being used to having someone he can actually trust with his life.

Of course, he used to shine the best during downtime, and after a few good rolls it became a canonical running gag that loners are surprisingly good chefs. Hell, dining with a local lord somehow managed to WORSEN morale because according to the DM, "it's just not as good as (my character's) cooking".

I always find videos 'How to play this type of character and how to do it well' and I wonder...........isnt that just a video on 'How to be a better person?' Literaly and figuratively. Behave like this. Thats not playing thats being.

I have a character that could qualify as "edgy," but I like to have them subtly care about the other characters in the party, they are obsessed with a horrendous thing that happened, but not to the point that it takes away from other players.

I'm about to bookmark this link and send it to a few people I know. For...reasons. 😅

I actually like and enjoy this archetype and play it all the time, but I quickly realized I needed a reason to stay with the party. Mine was always the idea of "I might not like you but you're still my family, and I'll burn the world down to protect my family." Like sure I might brood, and be edgy loner guy, and only talk in grunts, or fight with the paladin because he's TOO shiny and good, but at the end of the day even behind the scenes, every step I'm taking is towards protecting the party. I've plotted things behind the party's back because I knew they wouldn't approve, but I always showed up with information they needed or whatever else.

Sometimes someone just needs to be the person to get stuff done, and when the party didn't want to get their hands dirty with something it was my broody edgy character that slinked off into the shadows to do it.

Hah, what an grand and intoxicating innocence, I play edgy characters for the expressed purpose of ruining your game

I once made an "edgy" character, but the gag was that he wasnt edgy at all, he was just socially awkward and mildly anemic.

Not so much the 'edgy loner', but a great way of playing a mysterious character is a character named Keiji Shinogi from Your Turn to Die (Warning: Mild spoilers for Keiji's backstory, and vague hints at plot points below):






- He introduces himself as a cop/detective. Often saying "Trust in your friendly policeman" and stuff like that.
- He doesn't introduce the fact that he can no longer hold a gun until it becomes relevant.
- He actually trusts in Sara (main character) a lot, and reassures her, sometimes coming from a place of... knowing how she feels, but you can't tell why.
- Sara regularly asks why he trusts her and he typically replies "Because you're cute" (maybe not the best line, especially in TTRPG's, but it's an example of playing it off and deflecting).
- When pressed for info on something personal, he agrees to share it. But only after they've dealt with the matter at hand first.
- Stays calm in most high pressure situations. Perhaps this isn't the first time he's had to keep a level head.
- He never really defends himself. When some info makes him looks bad, and people don't trust him... he accepts that he has to prove he can be trusted some other way.
- He's always suspicious of others, and considers if they're telling the truth, but doesn't accuse them of things without reason.
- He's a master of deflection. If he's not asked about something directly enough, he finds a way to comment on something else, or change the focus to someone else.
- He wants to contribute and help, but he's never really putting the focus on himself. Instead, encouraging and vouching for people who he thinks can be trusted.

my first character was designed to have this vibe but I quickly left it behind when I realized it wasn't fun for the reasons you mentioned. I've never really wanted to play this archetype again but watched this out of curiosity... and now I kind of want to! This is helpful advice!

The way I try to do it us be as subtle as possible. Make the character a genuinely good person at their core, they're a normal person. But they always hold back in a sense, they don't say as much as they should. They act friendly enough while keeping everyone at an arms length.

And when it comes to certain things they completely clam up and become unresponsive. This is mainly a back story thing, for one of my characters this was the smell of ash since he watched his home burn down and still had deep-rooted trauma from the experience.

At one point he came across the ruins of another town that had been burned down and basically shut himself off from the party. But this also led directly into the reveal of his backstory and him overcoming this.

And he really couldn't be a loner either. He was a great character for combat, and was very resourceful at times. But he lacked any sort of formal education and was horrible at talking to other people (he was way too blunt).

So he had to rely on the party quite a bit throughout the campaign. Genuinely more than they could rely on him.

Genuinely the best character I've ever played. I miss you, Leon!

My loaner character plays his mystery as not really mentioning how he knows how to do the things he does until it is relative to the stor. He is an eldritch knight that supports those on the front lines, hence being part of the team. When it comes to the loaner thing, he just doesn't know how to socialize and lacks a morale compass and is a true neutral but when it comes to how to solve this he makes contracts. what is stated in the contract is how he conducts himself. Without the contracts he usually goes neutral evil in his problem solving.

The cleric of the party has started teaching him right and wrong and now instead of starting fights he waits for her to authorize him to go on the offensive. Which is a big change and a step of character growth for this character

I remember playing the edgy bandit... It was a cover for a STUPIDLY rich benefactor for the party. They would sneak back to the village or the town the party helped or didn't help and sneak money or tickets for the convoy his family ran that would allow safe passage to the city.


He saved some key characters that the party liked from a goblin raid they thought the town could defend against. They couldn't... Some of those characters were mortally wounded. But he barely managed to defend the town. And when he came back to camp they noticed he was skulking about and they drew their weapons...

" Before you turn your back on me. Know that goblins are a son of a bitch to deal with..." He collapsed due to exhaustion (he was running on fumes. 2 hp and 2-> 3 levels of exhaustion by the time he made it back to camp. And he lived... The party had planned to double back and check on the town but we never got another game session.


Edgy people are fun. But give them a heart of gold and they strive to do good... Because they want to keep that edge and pain away from others... Have a healthy party connection and it'll work well

Imo, one of the best examples of the "edgy loner character with a tragic backstory" was every character in CriticalRole's 2nd campaign (except for happy-go-lucky Jester, who was a bit of an outlier). Every character there had a tragic backstory. Every character was a loner, edgy etc. But they still made it work, worked through their differences, the characters grew as personalities. I know CR gets a lot of crap for setting unrealistic expectations on how DnD works. But it's hardly their fault. And, again, 2nd campaign characters are an amazing example of an entire group of tragic characters working well together.

I played a wannabe edgelord. He kept saying he would never talk about how his restrictive father overtrained him at a young age to become an assassin. And for sure was never going to talk about how he got picked on for his scrawny stature, so he obsessed at getting better. He definitely would never tell them at every tavern that he wished he was a chef if only it was a different life.

Doesn't matter that your character think the rest of the party are insufferable bundle of joy, clueless or reckless fools or the paladin is a naive child who believe in justice by law. For whatever reason, fate has brought you guys together and there is sometimes more important that makes it so that the priority isn't personal satisfaction but strength in number, these people may be idiots but they are your idiots, your dysfunctional family. And if anyone tries to hurt them, and take them from you, you will hurt them bad. You'll make sure its the last thing they ever do. See you can be an edgy guy who relunctantly follows the party and is a brooding asshole but deep down you are getting attach to these morons. You may come to realize that you need them more than they need you. Character developpement is possible if one is given the opportunity to do so. But if the player only intention is to stray from the group or actually be the main protagonist of the game, then we have an asshole with a main character syndrome, which has nothing to do with playing an edgy character.

Your character being a loner doesn't mean that he actually gets to be alone in game. Not because his characters wants to be alone that he gets to be alone. Plus aren't there things happening that are important. The people that you are talking about are selfish and arguably stupid that's what they are. As well as anyone who thinks that what their character archetype would do trumps everything that the story or current motivation of their character or the stakes and or danger of their lack of action or their lack of co-operation.

Ok but there is a difference between playing an edgy character loner but and not wanting to interact with the other players. You could be a Paladin lawful good who is over happy and life is good and be a bad team player who will go against the party and split or go against the flow of the rest of the group or whatever.

Why exactly? I keep hearing people say people playing edgy character are not fun to play with but why is that exactly. Please provide some detail about how does a mood of a character makes it not fun for you to play your character or play with.

Im going to soon play a character that is a homebrew Elder Vampire with MC Rune Knights and Grave Cleric. He has one of those classic backgrounds where he once was a stronger vampire and was isolated in his castle, but got one day raided by righteous paladins that saw him as a monster (as probably most people do) They put a stake through his heart and locked him away in his coffin in some hidden crypt and has been there for a century or 2.

One day he was found by one of the other PC, who is a small female dragonborn wild sorcerer. Think Lulu from league of legends, but dragonborn, very whimsical and cute. She is very curious and adventurous in nature and when stumbled upon this vampire she gave him some blood, because well he looked thirsty. The old Vampire thanked this little dragonborn, and was so greatful for the help, that he decided to follow her on her adventures. He has been a powerful and isolated vampire for so long, locked away in his castle just to study, and during his time in the coffin (where he was still half concious during this whole time, he had a lot of time to think) he decided that although he did want to act revenge on those who took his castle, he wanted to go adventuring and see the world once again, see the colors and meet new people.

So although he will naturally seem VERY edgy, I will try to make him more Jolly and charasmatic, an old vampire just really enjoying the fresh air once again. I have tailored the race with my DM so its not too powerful, with unlockable feats he can gain by drinking the blood of other vampires, since his imprisonment has made him weak and have to sort of start over again. But he will be the healer and support of the group, hes going to have a greatsword flying around (from spiritual weapon) flying around and doing some damage while he stands in the middle of the battle and just casting healing spells and buffs and debuffs. I think he can become a very interesting support character for my party, as his story is not as important, but he has a lot of sidequest he can do along the way without it taking too much attention.

Reason I am here, is because I am worried he will become too edgy, so I am looking for advice to make him edgy in the good way. So thank you for this video and apologies for the long message :D

To you who are reading, if you have any feedback or ideas it is always welcome!

If you wanna play an edgy character with a messed up past, try making a list of specific things that set them off. For example, my own edgelord had an attempted enthrallment by his mother as a kid, so although he doesn't mind a ruler or mercenary leader he's under too much, he'll never be under direct order of someone, as in a personal guard or assistant, because it makes him feel he's losing control. Another classic example is the "whole family was slaughtered". Don't have your character be rude or totally shut off, but instead have them prefer to do things on their own, and make sure that they don't grow dependent on the party, so that they have that subconscious comfort knowing they could survive without them. Just a couple examples that may help, good brooding edgelords

My most recent character ive played since becoming the groups forever DM is a Ninja esque Rogue, the campaing starts out with everyone having no memories of who they are/were so my guy was the loner. I chose that as A) first sessions are always rough so i wanted to take a back seat and let the group figure their stuff out and B) since no memories my guy acted as a loner cuz he didnt know what was going on or who he was so he distanced himself. I plaayed him to steadily get closer to the party with using stealth to heal downed players with potions or stealth attacks mixed with fighting manuvers from feat to disarm or knock opponents down so the party has advantage. Recently he is more comfortable with who he is but is unsocial af so he stealths away from situations leaving the party to deal with humorous situations. A sort of batman thing where they look one way and he's gone when they turn back with the party going "HOW WAIT WHAT?" cuz i text the DM my stealth so we all laugh and have fun with the edgy guy

may i interest you guys in playing the awkward loner character that desperately tries to connect with people but has no social skill. it’s fun

"You see a lot of people talking about how they want to have an experience at their table like critical role or dimension 20. The fact of the matter is all those players are only interested in making sure all of their other players get time in the spotlight."

Yeeeahhh...
Except, uhm...

ahem

One of them.

So far I'm just in my first campaign and chose the edgy loner rogue type. I played it sort of like batman I guess? They more want redemption but their past tends to tangle their friends into trouble 99.9% of the time. We got several sessions in and they are just now unraveling her character's past cuz now its driving the plot and if asked a direct question she is vague and changes subject to the other's issues/interests. But it's hilarious because the further we got the more it's revealed this edgy rogue is the better good guy while the heroic companions are underhanded and power hungry. As of right now her past is causing problems and she is silently panicking inside lol.

I think the greatest example of a edgy character willing to help the team is probably Tokoyama from my hero academia.

I once had a player who played a good loner. He was a Swashbuckler Rouge and excelled at sword fighting. He didn't flaunt it, but when he did some major damage on enemies, it caught players attention. Not only that, but he was willing to interact with the other players. Sure, he worked better alone, but he knew he couldn't complete his goal by himself. Finally, when people did get to know him, he was uncomfortable, sure, but also opened up after a while and said it felt good to get some stuff on his chest.

When that character unfortunately fell victim to a Night Hag, the party mourned his death. After his death, one character even made it his mission to complete the dead PC's goal of finding the character's family fortune.

My first character was the classical super edgy ‘you wouldn’t understand the deep darkness inside me’ type character. Eventually after playing him I realized that he was super lonely and secretly wanted closeness to people, but was just too hurt by events in his past to show it and was afraid to express it. He ended up growing and completely changing after he found those connections with the party and his future wife in the party. Going from an edge lord, to being just a kind and likable guy who would crack jokes, was fiercely and cares deeply for his friend. Not sure if this would go here, but just felt this connected to the vid.

Planning on playing a Horizon Walker Ranger who hails from the Astral Sea, but I’m trying to incorporate their distaste of those who hail from the Material Plane due to their lack of strength and training to defend themselves from larger threats. So This video really help, I really don’t wanna make my character an asshole while still having this mentality. Thank you!

I’m currently playing a barbarian shifter who’s family has been hunted down for the last 2 generations by another family. He believes he’s the last of his family alive, but he’s recently heard that the family hunting him has been nearly wiped out and so he’s started to come out of hiding and getting actual jobs.
Out of character I am dying to talk about it, but in character I am more then aware of the fact that it makes zero sense to tell a group strangers who are by in large untrustworthy for a myriad of reasons, so he acts anti-social and avoids talking with them, instead he focuses on fixing the boat, hunting, etc. The party views him as a himbo. Reality he’s convinced them he’s useful and stupid and couldn’t hide a secret if he tried while he hides in plain site and turns all their attention to the mysterious drow who is quite obviously withholding information from the party. The party in and out of character love him, and he is the most trusted party member, said Drow had planned on going off on a solo adventure for a while and using a backup character, but my character had attacked theirs and nearly killed them so my character felt they should pay them back and said he was going to go with the Drow. The entire party followed my characters lead in the decision. Funny thing is though the Drow has kinda unanimously been agreed as the party leader and kind of turned into the main character, think Dm plans to go through a couple session arc focused on them before turning to other characters or the main story again.

I worked around this by making my character the accidental dad of the group

I'm currently playing an extremely edgey rogue character, and I ended up getting past the more boring aspects of the loner character archetype through a couple methods. 1. He's a minotaur rogue, which already made him interesting and added a twinge of comedy to his existence, 2. I'm really thankful my dm pulled out the threads I left him in his backstory fairly early on, just after the group came to understand his brand of stoicism, he loses control and becomes very passionately violent, 3. I have worked with my dm to make him a very active player in the greater story, many of the conflicts that will come in the future will be a direct result of my characters meddling, which keeps him relevant, and most importantly, 4. He has a genuine connection with the rest of the group, he often tries to do things and instigate changes on his own, but he very much tries his best to get the best outcome for the group and works tirelessly towards their collective goals.

My current character is quite edgy by definition - dead parents, quiet, lived alone most of his life.
It worked out bc he needed the party at first. He's a half elf who lost his parents to angry anti-elf villagers and had to live alone in the woods, but decided to leave once he became an adult since he's very curious. The thing is, tho, that if you spend so much time isolated, you have no idea how to function in a city, nor how to form relationships. So he arrives at this major city and is homeless for a while, until he gets drunk at a tavern with the party and that gives him visions that get the adventure started. Either he goes out with this party of humans he doesn't trust at all, or he'll be helpless again. And it's not like he doesn't want to talk to them, he just doesn't quite know how. It's been wonderful to play him getting to trust people again and forming bonds with the party (currently on a drawback tho since the only elf of the party died and that impacted him a lot).

my bard will try to sleep with every edgy loner she comes across. she never learns😞

Metanarratively, the loner’s arc is to ultimately not be a loner anymore. Start as a loner because of your backstory, but then gradually become not a loner. Character growth.

Recently I joined a game my best friend started GM-ing. It's all home-made system, but I'll try my best to describe it in D&D terms to make it easier for everybody else to read.
So, we were a party of 4 but we actually have ways to separate from each other at any time, that's always an option. We first met in a tavern. The party members are: a clockwork sorcerer vampire, a knowledge domain cleric tiefling, a hexblade warlock and me as a human barbarian/paladin, who has become a werewolf against their will in their backstory and refuses to use that to hia advantage, but also can't use his paladin powers 'cause he lost his inner connection to the deity he swore the oath to.
The main problems started at session 2 that was run just yesterday. The sorcerer could not show up to the game, so there were 3 of us.
The GM toned down an encounter we had to have in the beginning of this session and there were just 2 monsters against 3 of us + a merchant NPC. Initiative is rolled.
In the first round our hexblade (with a nice magical chakram) chooses to wait her turn (all the way down the initiative), the cleric draws a crossbow he won in a card game last night and misses. Then the monsters make their move. Essentially, those were undead that can shoot blasts of necrotic energy, but it works only against organics, so my character has no problem blocking that, but the other characters who had not a single piece of real armor were in danger. I even had to spend 1 or 2 of my GM inspirations to let them reroll some saves, but that's fine with me. So, one of the monsters takes his shots. One miss and one block. The second one jumps at me and stabs me with his bone right in the shoulder. Then the merchant npc ran to the stables, 'cause he became too afraid of those creatures. Our hexblade uses her reaction to... Kill him with a throw of her weapon. Nat 20. He' s dead.
My turn. Rage and an unarmed attack. Crit. I punch its head off its neck. But it turns out that thing was still alive. On the next turn I used my reaction to save our edgy "super sexy" hexblade from an all-in barage of enemy blasts, but those were not necrotic this time. So they made some nice damage to me after what hexblade just... Ran inside the tavern, spending her action to dash.
In the end of the battle, both monsters were killed exclusively by my character, even though they were resistant to non-magocal physical damage. The only action done by those two was... When the cleric threw his crossbow to me 'cause I had better accuracy. The hexblade did only one attack, killing the merchant. That's it. After battle I was the one to persuade others to travel together. And just two in-game days later we come to a town where we find another group of 3 npc adventurers. A female human fighter, an illusionist wizard and a thief rogue. We sat in a tavern together, had some nice time together, until the GM threw this into play...
The thief rogue went out for a few minutes, and then comes back with a map. Local ruler's house blueprints as we understood a moment after. He was up to going inside and stealing those, burning the barracks to ashes for cover and run away. The two tieflings got pretty interested, but my character and the rogue's teammates were against that. 3:3. Tieflings offer to do that together or to not do it at all. And they offered to deside that by playing another card game. Right after I and cleric won two books from wizard and fighter. Everyone refused. Then the rogue said "You know what... I didn't know how to deliver that but... I'm sick of you guys. I don't want to be in your party any longer" and moves to another table, inviting the two tieflings. And they took the bait, while I stayed with the fighter and wizard. We decided to move from that town the next day. After the game I discussed everything with our GM. He reminded me of cleric's and warlock's bad habits and said that he wanted to give them a chance to separate from me for their own doom. He only gave them the chance. No persuasion, no deception, he even showed them through the npcs that the rogue will abandon them the moment they get in his way or even if he just gets bored. A handful of times. And even explained a bounty mechanic he wrote that made the criminals a target for relentless bounty hunters. But the players were too obsessed with themselves to see how painful it will get.
So, I'll be leaving the town soon with a new party, tieflings stay to plan the heist and the sorcerer will wake up in an empty tavern in the middle of nowhere with the nearest town in 2 days of travel by horse. And he has no transport.
So I turned out to be the player with the least annoying and most interesting character. And that bothers me. I just sit here and wait for session 3 to kick in.

One of my buddies ALWAYS makes himself an edgy viking/nordic/Scandinavian warrior, there hasn't been a single, I repeat, a SINGLE rpg game, Tabletop, roll20 or actual PC game, where he wasn't an edgy viking

The worst part? He always picks the evil alignment and NEVER FUCKING ACTS EVIL UNLESS IT'S AGAINST ENEMY FODDER. Like, ffs. Atleast play the character, the most evil thing he's done that could havw had any impact in our latest RPG was calling me ugly for no reason (And I was like; bitch, you can't even see my face. I'm covered in 100 pounds of armor imported from bloody China or something)

God... atleast everyone else tries to make some different characters every once in a while, such as; the smallest elf the world has ever seen, and he was also swole as fuck so everyone thought he was a dwarf. The smug merc who is afraid of the undead in a country where undead roam around almost constantly, the archer who wanted to be edgy but was actually very caring and ended up acting like the group's mother so we didn't mess up everything. And along many others

I just want to stop seeing these goddamn vikings with scars and edgy names every time

Another thing I see but people who try to play this don't understand loner characters do not want the spot light. Loner characters are never the main character. The reason people love this type is because of the mystery behind them. The mystery comes from not being in the spotlight so when we do get those little glimpse about them. It something rare and has value.

So in my opinion the best way to play this type is to pick your moments and have very few of them and to give small vague hints to your backstory.

the video had me at dabi and dobby picture 😂😂

I've had people in the past say how they want to play a loner character. They'd follow it up with "someone like Batman or Wolverine" and I have to remind them that Batman still works with the Justice League and Wolverine still works with the Xmen. Like you can do it and have it work because they have to know how to work with a group and have a reason why they work with a group. The issue comes when people forget that bit.

My edgy character was a Hired Gun. (or hired sword & bow in this case) He dressed in black leather armor with a plague doctor mask. However that was merely to hide his face as he didn't want anyone knowing his true identity as he has distanced himself from that identity due to past trauma. He does not separate from the group and stays with everyone to help out. The character (Jack Vincent is his name) is very compassionate and logical in the sense that he helps those in need but punishes the guilty. He's sort of a Vigilante Assassin / Freelance Mercenary. He's not completely alone as he has a companion named EVE. (An enchanted Dwarven Cube Artifact which contains the soul of his dead best friend. It is capable of speech as well as locomotion. This cube and Jack have a very good relationship with one another.)

My character is edgy and dark, yes, but is he dark for the sake of being dark? No. He's just a flawed man doing his best to survive and bring good upon the world, despite being chaotic in nature.

I really like this analysis. I've always said that the best part of a loner character is that fraction of a second that they aren't one. If you spend several sessions establishing the mystery, competence, and slow-to-trust nature of a character, then all it takes is a moment of vulnerability to get everyone else at the table excited to have them around. A big part of it is that mindset that a character who starts as a loner SHOULD grow over a campaign. That's the point. Being a loner in a collaborative game is a weakness (character flaw) that must be overcome, much like pride or recklessness or naivete. They might remain slow-to-trust because theyve been burned before, but they should probably figure out how to at least trust the party then.