Split Personality: The Early Days

In honor of the newly received preview copy of the PHB2, I could not resist the urge to try out one of the new classes.  No, I'm not pre-emptively reviewing one of the classes; today's tale is one of split personalities.

Two Personalities

Dante allowed any of us in the group to roll up a new PHB2-class character to be introduced into our Keep of the Shadowfell game.  My first character is an Eladrin Wizard; she's been fun so far, but I was really interested in trying out one of the new classes. So Saturday night, I'm sitting at the table with one new character and one old character, trying to divorce myself from Eaerenel, my wizard, so I could enjoy Rynna, my new character.  Then Dante gives us the good news: we can run one or both of the characters.  

One Player

So there I was, with two great characters and permission to enjoy them both.  And that's when things got interesting.  How do you manage two characters engaged in the same battle?

One of the easiest ways to keep my characters separate was something I determined during my second character creation.  My wizard is mostly ranged; Rynna is mostly melee.  This helps keep battle strategies for each character separate.

The second step was to move my wizard personality into the background.  I decided to make Rynna my primary personality, and I made it very clear to the rest of the group that my in-character actions would be from Rynna unless I stated otherwise.  This helped avoid a lot of confusion and didn't leave me trying to maintain two prominent personalities.

The third step, which really helped me maintain what sanity I have, was having notecards prepared with each character's powers with descriptions and bonuses already calculated.  The cards had different colored borders, so they were easy to keep separate.  Overall, these cards really helped me keep each character's abilities separate, and I didn't have to flip between books and pages checking on things.

Sanity Maintained

All in all, my first split-personality session went really well.  I'm looking forward to more adventures with my two characters.  I suspect it will be more difficult as they gain levels and additional powers, but I think these initial steps will help keep things from getting too crazy.

Behind the Screen: Roleplaying the process of training...

As a Dungeon Master, often it makes sense to handwave events that are deemed too dull, too boring, or happen too often to "waste" time on during the gaming session. Over the weekend, I had an "a-ha!" moment that made me realize why letting some events like class training, cleric prayers, or other character specific events have their moment in the sun is important.

Learning by Doing

For those of you that don't know, I am a somewhat experienced martial artist (as is Vanir). I have been training in Shotokan Karate for the last 18 years or so, and as a result I have had an opportunity to train with some very interesting people. After relocating to my current job, I was told of a sensei in our area that is one of the greats, so I sought him out to train with him.

Now, that in itself correlates heavily with most roleplaying games: the student seeks out a very skilled teacher to train him further in his chosen craft, but over the weekend I got the opportunity to participate in a few classes for their club's annual "spirit training". This involved an early morning training session with his entire school (around 30-40 people showed up) packed all in a tight little room to train intensely from the hours of 6 am to 7 am all week long. (I only participated in two days due to schedule conflicts.)

Stupid Ranger and I settled around 40 minutes away (during rush hour), so that meant I got the distinct pleasure of rising around 5 am to get ready and make the trip to the training session.

OK, that's great, but how does it affect being a Dungeon Master?

It's actually quite simple: if I was a player character and my DM simply just hand-waved my morning training rituals, the character development just wouldn't have been the same. The whole experience of training in that way, with that group of people vastly improved my outlook for those days. I was tired and sore, but upbeat and mentally energized at the same time. This would've looked somewhat odd from a player's perspective to just jump into that state with nothing more than a comment like: "Ok, ok, you get up and do your training in the morning, let's get back to the plot" from the DM.

Putting yourself in the shoes of your character in a real way by acting out their training regiment from time to time, or asking the DM if there are any heightened opportunities for class training with others or a seasoned instructor nearby can provide an opportunity for roleplay and fun. Dungeon Masters should be open to this type of interaction and seek it out, it makes a big difference in the quality of your character development.

Visiting the Archives: Proper Villainy, pt.1 -- Evil 101

One of the great series to grace the halls of this hallowed blog is Vanir's "Proper Villainy" series.  Vanir does a great job of dissecting villainy into little bits of evil, beginning with this first part, which originally appeared here September 2, 2007.  Enjoy it again!

Proper Villainy, pt. 1 -- Evil 101

As recently discussed on dungeonmastering.com, villains add a great element to a campaign: an opposing force that the players can invest themselves in fighting against.

But what makes a really good villain? Let's start with some basic concepts:

• What The Hell is "Evil", Anyway?
  
  I've never been real crazy about declaring alignment for characters. If you have a Lawful Good character and he's homeless and penniless and he steals some bread to survive, does that make him not Lawful Good anymore? What about a man who kills someone in a jealous rage but is otherwise good? Is he now "evil" or is he still a good guy who made a horrible mistake?
  
  People are more complicated than that. "Evil" people are still people -- it's just that the way they view the world is a bit more twisted than most everybody else.


• Nobody Is Born Evil
  
  Bad guys act the way they do because they're EVIL, right? Well, sometimes. In a cartoon or a crappy movie, yeah. The bad guys are just bad and that's the way it is. But a good villain probably didn't start that way. Very few individuals would kill an entire litter of puppies and then go, "Man, that was great -- I sure do love being evil!". They had to start somewhere. And there's a lot of ways to get evil, including:
  
  
  
  • Temptation
    
    It's said that every man has his price. Somebody found this character's price. They might have been offered money, or power, or anything -- but whatever it was, the character wants it enough that he'll do morally questionable things to get it.
    
  
  
  • Fear and Anger
    
    You get enough fear and anger together, and you don't know what the hell you're doing anymore. And in your head, committing horrible acts upon whatever you're afraid of/angry with seems perfectly justified!
  
  
  • Sense of Duty
    
    This one may contain elements of the previous two. A character works for someone who asks him to do something reprehensible. He knows damn good and well it's not right. So he's "just following orders". Not to say that a mistake flips the switch and makes a character evil all of a sudden, but if this character continues to do this sort of thing and starts thinking of this as "normal" behavior.... who's to say?
  
  
  
  Note that in all three cases, the common theme of a desire and the willingness to do whatever is necessary to get it exists. It's in the continued willingness to do evil that lies the heart of a true villain.

Next time, I'll show you why it's easier than you might think for a villain to do bad things. Until next time......

Also appearing in the Proper Villainy series:

• Proper Villainy pt. 2: Time To Kill The Donuts
  
• Proper Villainy, pt. 3 -- Fear and Loathing in Lothlorien
  
• Proper Villainy pt. 4: Learn from the Master
  
• Proper Villainy, pt. 5 -- Let The PC's Win. (Wait, What?!!?)
  
• Proper Villainy Profiles: Beowulf
  
• Proper Villainy Profiles: The Joker
  

Connecting a Little Better to my Character

Getting lost in a character is one of the most exciting elements of roleplaying. I love to roleplay characters with whom I feel a deep connection. For that brief time when I am in-character, I want to escape reality, and this becomes much easier and more enjoyable when I am my character instead of myself. Here's are three quick, easy ways to connect:

1. A Little Self-Analysis - Review the information related to your class and race. Preview your career options. If you really were your character, you would know who you are and who you want to be. It's merely a matter of knowing yourself.

2. A Little Geography - Take a look at your campaign setting. I'm not recommending that you memorize the capitals or the location of every river in the continent. But, depending on your character, you would probably have a general idea of your surroundings. The broad strokes of the setting can help make it a little more real, and if your world is more real, your character will feel more real.

3. A Little Creative Writing - I love writing backstories for my characters. The creative process involved helps me connect on a very deep level with the character I've developed. A stray memory from childhood, a rite of passage, any little thing that helps make your character unique will help you connect to your character. On of my favorite techniques is to tell the story of how my character came into her profession; not only do you create an insight into how you came to be who you are (Level 1), you have a great reason to keep doing what you're doing (see #1).

Three little step to help me stay connected to my character, but each leaves a lot of room for personalization and adaptation to any character.

Proper Villainy Profiles: The Joker

I had the pleasure of seeing The Dark Knight over the weekend. I'd been looking forward to this one because I'd heard that Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was completely amazing, and he didn't disappoint. TDK's Joker was a standout example of what a real villain ought to be -- and you can take some of his complete batshit insanity (no pun intended) and use it with some of your villains. Let's take a look:

***** POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE DARK KNIGHT, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER!!! *****

Chaotic Evil With A Side Order Of Insanity

If ever you were wondering what the difference between Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil is, the Joker's your poster boy for Chaotic Evil. Whatever he does, it's to suit whatever plans he has. Granted, not all Chaotic Evil people have desires as sick and twisted as our purple-suited antagonist, but it does show that Chaotic Evil-aligned people don't so much care about how they accomplish their goals or who has to die.

Just being Chaotic Evil isn't what makes the Joker so frightening. Think about it for a second. Just because you're evil doesn't necessarily make you motivated. I'm sure most of us have known people over the years who really wanted to do some bad things to get their way, but they were too scared to. The Joker's got that motivation somehow. The scary part is what he's motivated to do. And most don't find out what that is until it's way too late.

Why So Serious?

Though the Joker has been portrayed in a variety of ways over the years, the main thing that separated him from most of the other Bat-villains (especially after the 80's, when they really started to turn up the homicidal cuckoo) is that he's not really after anything aside from chaos and mayhem. Yeah, he might rob a bank, but you can bet he's going to use all of that loot to fund some sort of scheme that will sow the seeds of terror in the streets of Gotham somehow. As Alfred says during the movie, "Some men just want to see the world burn."

That's scary stuff. That means that you can't reason with a person like this. You can't make them go away by giving them what they want. If you give them what they want, horrible things happen to you and your loved ones and their loved ones and your dog and their dogs and probably their dogs' friends and everyone's neighbors. People like this love to see others suffer, and probably the single scariest thing about TDK's Joker is that he lives to see people corrupted and to make themselves and their loved ones suffer. It's like he can make a Diplomacy check gone horribly, horribly wrong, and if he succeeds then you've crossed the line where you're not sure if you're a good person anymore.

This maniac was born to tear places and people down, and he's frighteningly good at it. Somehow he's charismatic (or frightening enough) enough to have a bunch of minions following him. He makes unbelievably effective plans to accomplish his insane goals, probably due in part to the fact that he doesn't need to have an exit strategy most of the time. Nobody's quite sure if he even cares if he lives or dies so long as the chaos continues to spread. As he put it himself in TDK, "It's like I'm a dog chasing cars. I don't even know what I'd do if I caught one."

Bringing Mr. J to Your Campaign

I've just detailed a lot of things that make the Joker a frightening and unique villain. You can use a lot of the things he does in TDK and weave them into your adventures in D&D.

Suppose you have a mad wizard laying waste everywhere he goes. Nobody knows why he's doing this. Guess what happens if the PC's try to talk him out of it! (Hint: it ends in "ireball".) Or worse, their conversation points out to the arcane psycho another abomination that needs to be.... corrected. At the root. In the PC's hometown.

Or, how about a fallen villain from earlier in your campaign who wants nothing more than to see the heroic party shamed before all who hold them up as a shining example to their people? This villain could set up a trap with a seeming no-win situation in which the PC's would have to look bad one way or the other. Or he could just plain try to tempt or goad them into doing something morally questionable and let the stone continue to roll down the hill of evil.

I could go on quite a bit more, but you get the idea. The Joker is, in my mind, the epitome of a Proper Villain. Use characters like him as a resource, and your own characters will get a lot more colorful and believable. And if any of your PC's hunt you down because your villain was just too damn evil to stop, then I apologize in advance for giving you just a little push in the right (wrong?) direction.

Sharing some "Getting Started" Advice

Over the past couple of weeks, the D&D Nerd has posted some great articles on D&D for Beginners. Regardless of whether you are introducing new players to 3.5 or waiting for 4E, these are some great articles to help explain the fundamentals and get new players into the game.

I encourage you to check out these articles if you are new to the game, or share them with someone who is.

D&D for Beginnings - Roleplaying 101

D&D for Beginners - Understanding Dice Notation

D&D for Beginners - Player vs. Character Knowledge

Beginner's Guide to Creating a D&D Character

Enjoy!

Another Post About Nothing

This comic about Seinfeld characters playing D&D (mirror here, it's getting Dugg) reminded me very much of this post on Seinfeldian magic items I did awhile back.

Seinfeld was never my favorite show in the universe, but I did watch it now and then and it did get me thinking a little this morning -- rarely a character shows up on that show that isn't put under a microscope and all their weird little idiosyncrasies examined in detail (and usually poked with a cattle prod, causing hilarity to ensue). I like it when D&D characters enjoy that same kind of character development. I frequently like it much more than I do the main plot of the story, which I'm sure is the source of at least six or seven aneurysms in Dante and the other DMs I've played with.

To wit: my favorite sessions are usually the first two or three, when the crap hasn't hit the fan yet and we're getting to know everyone, followed closely by the "break" sessions in the story where we usually follow one character's personal story (which may or may not be woven into the main story). But barring those weird times when we're all arguing about which direction to go because we can't figure out the clues laid before us, those sessions where we're not doing anything particularly "useful" per se are what I really look forward to, especially with a new character to play.

Making a character that has some strange personal idiosyncrasies, in addition to making everyday roleplay with your character more interesting, may have an impact on everyone's lives (good or bad!) in much the same way that the folks on Seinfeld frequently have misadventures because they're really freaking neurotic. I mean, they devoted half an episode to Kramer trying to defend himself from deadly birthday wishes. And I was enraptured.

I'm a believer in that the small stuff can be every bit as interesting as the epic. Characters should be more than a bunch of combat stat blocks! The difficulty, of course, is that as you get higher in level, the monsters you fight are optimized to be a challenge to people who are prepared to fight them. On several occasions (but especially with Bat Loaf), I've picked spells and items that weren't particularly combat-friendly and it cost me. It's just a fact of life that the vast, vast majority of D&D campaigns revolve around stuff killing other stuff and you need to keep that in mind before you go too overboard. If you don't, you'll quickly find yourself frustrated week after week.

But don't abandon the fact that you have a character to play. DM's -- let them! And try not to dogpile in the end battle on the guy that picked Percussion to give a little atmosphere to his nightly trysts with the barmaids. Dante.

The Trivial Pursuit of Spell Selection

Over the weekend, Dante & I participated in a trivia contest for charity. On teams of eight, we answered questions (or attempted to, anyway) from 8 different categories. In our post-game discussions, it occurred to me that preparing for a trivia contest is a lot like selecting your spells.

Prepare for the Unknown

For trivia or for spells, there's usually two schools of thought that prevail. One, specialize. Two, jack of all trades. Specializing, you take as many spells of the same type; if you're a cleric, you might take several offensive spells, or you might take several healing/restoration spells. Option two, play the jack of all trades: take a little bit of every kind of spell and hope that the ones you pick are ones that will be useful.

The Power of a Team

When you have multiple trivia players, or multiple spell casters, you may have better opportunities to cover the requirements. Pretty obvious, huh? The more people you have, the more chances that someone will know that obscure bit of knowledge or the spell that will make the difference in that battle.

Harness the Team Mentality

If you're trying to conquer the trivia challenge or the Undead Lord, it helps to be coordinated with your other spell casters. Try to all follow the same preparation method; there is usually greater success if you are all specialists or all jacks of all trade. Try to coordinate your spells so they span the greatest range of possibilities. If you plan it right (and the other teams are not as smart as you), you might win that trophy!

The Whirling Blades of a Tempest

Continuing with our recent theme of prestige class discussions, I wanted to highlight a short, simple prestige class, the Tempest. I found this prestige class in Complete Adventurer, and it's one of my favorites because it's a simple, elegant and natural progression for a two-weapon fighter.

Here's What I Like About It

Two-weapon fighting doesn't happen by accident. If you've taken the effort to develop your fighter into a two-weapon fighter, you have put some thought into what weapons you wield. These weapons are your signature, they're part of your character.

The Tempest prestige class doesn't require a specific combination of weapons; you can use whatever two weapons you want. So this prestige class works as well for my elven thinblade/short sword combination as it would for an axe/dagger combination or a double-weapon. I like that I don't have to fit a stereotype to follow this prestige class; it's adaptable to my character.

Here's What I Love About It

The Tempest prestige class finally recognizes that your fighter is intelligent. The class features credit your character with the ability to become a more efficient fighter as you grow into proficiency with your two weapons. You gain AC bonuses, you reduce your two-weapon fighting penalties. And, my personal favorite, you gain the effects of certain feats for your secondary weapons; for example, if you have Weapon Focus for one of your weapons, you gain its abilities for your other weapon.

These class features (there are more, so read up if you're interested) demonstrate that your character is growing as a fighter throughout this process. I love that it's a natural progression of skills we might expect a two-weapon fighter to develop.

The Moral of Today's Story

Whether or not you ever take this prestige class, there is something important I want you to take from this discussion. Your prestige class should be a natural complement to your character, and any sacrifices (pre-req's) should be easily outweighed by the class benefits. Do your research and enjoy!

Is Your Home-Grown Prestige Class satisfying? Find out now!

Answer these simple questions to determine if your home-grown prestige class is satisfying to your target audience:

1. Question: Are the class abilities or features too simple or too complex?
   
   Correct answer: No. If your prestige class is too simple, chances are good that you will achieve the same results by simply rewarding the character with some magical item that will emulate the increased prowess that you desire (see the Weapons of Legend sourcebook for some great examples).
   
   If it is too complex, then you run the risk of overwhelming your player with too many decisions and even worse, you could introduce some wildly powerful combination of effects that could unbalance your game.
   
   
2. Question: Does the power level of this class make sense given the level, skill, and class prerequisite requirements?
   
   Correct Answer: Yes. Always be careful to balance the base character class requirements against common prestige classes of similar types. For example, the Duskblade is combination fighter/sorcerer. Notice that the class does neither area particularly well, and I am certain that is by design, so the fighter in you gets a taste of the magic, and the sorcerer in you gets to swing a sword around (and miss, at mid to higher levels). You shouldn't have a fighter capable of taking on the Tarrasque and a sorcerer that can curl Elminster's beard all in one package at the end, that would be what the common folk call unbalanced.
   
   Be sure to not overpower your prestige class just to add to the cool factor, or else you run the risk of having a single player character capable of "ruining the game" for everyone else with their superior skills.
   
   
3. Question: Does the player running your prestige class constantly ask you for an increase or adjustment?
   
   Correct Answer: No. If you have a certain player that is midway through your prestige class constantly asking for an adjustment of skills or prerequisites this can indicate that you got some permutation of your calculation incorrect. In addition to the "wow factor" of a prestige class, you should always aim for the "satisfying player experience" prerequisite that will make the cool class that you created fun to play.
   
   You don't always want to leave your audience (in this place your player) wanting more. Prestige classes should gain skill and renown commensurate with experience, and not be handicapped in some aspect so much that they cease to be fun.

Behind the Screen: Wrangling prestige classes at epic levels...

Tonight's topic may seem a bit tailored to a given rule set, but if you've hung around this long you understand that we are a predominantly D&D oriented crew around here. As previously mentioned, we are in the late stages of an epic level campaign and are learning many lessons from our course thus far, and today I would like to examine epic character development and the challenges that it poses to both player and Dungeon Master.

As always, my inspiration is my Lovely Assistant

Well, not assistant so much as wife, but still... earlier this week Stupid Ranger provided a look at motivation behind epic level character development that touched on many important aspects of planning an epic level character.

She did directly mention the need to keep your epic character exciting, and that is something that the DM may be able to help facilitate. The real quandary that I can see is what to do with a character that has worked very diligently down a specific "career path" but finds themselves at an end as they get up in levels. That character has attained all the ranks of a given prestige class, and having topped out those ranks they now are forced to look at other avenues to continue down.

An example from my own past

When I was a player, I had one such character that completed his prestige class. I had built the notion of this prestige class so deeply around my character that reverting back to standard class ranks was far too mundane and didn't even seem to make much sense given the progression of his personality. I decided to take another path: knowing that my DM was open to "out of the box" thinking I asked if I could forge an additional prestige class (of course, pending his approval) that would heighten my character's skills beyond the published prestige class.

After several revisions, the result was satisfactory and the character finished out the campaign on his own unique road which happened to mean a lot to both the character and to me as a player.

Don't be afraid of this stuff, but be careful all the same!

As DM's, I challenge you all to be open to working with your players to do their characters the most service. If you're worried about game balance, simply take a look at modifying an existing prestige class to suit your needs, adjusting skills/feats/spells/effects as necessary. If you are comfortable with crafting an entirely unique prestige class, allow your players that option. Be very careful to keep game balance in mind with either of these options, make sure you're not over- or under-powering your abilities as you look at further development.

As players, don't be afraid to ask your DM to work with you if you feel that it makes more sense to allow your character to continue going down the prestige path that they have forged.

The worst they can say is no! (Unless they decide to devour your character using vorpal rabbits, which is always an attractive option.)

Quick Start Characters

As I was watching TV this evening, I decided I need a little dungeon-crawl fix, so I brought out Neverwinter Nights. And it got me to thinking about how to develop a quick-start character for those times when you need to roll-up a character fast, especially for one-time events.

Don't Overthink It

For those one-time short campaigns, don't overthink your character. These campaigns are usually less about backstories and long-term career goals; they're more about generating a character quickly that will be fun to play. I prefer to stick to classes with which I am already familiar; familiarity with a class can reduce the amount of prep time, during both character creation and game time.

Now, I know some people like to play classes they haven't had the chance to play; they try out something new on the short campaigns to see if it's a class they might enjoy. Personally, every time I've tried this, I ended up frustrated at trying to learn new rules in a short amount of time. So if you're looking for something quick that you will enjoy without a lot of effort, don't overthink it; go with something you know.

Quick-Start Option #1

One of my favorite quick-start character options is a human fighter/cleric. Fighter L1 is a great L1 class to cherry-pick; combined with cleric levels, you will have a the fighting power and healing power to keep everyone alive early in the game. This is an easy option if you're not sure what you'll be facing or if the party is trying to fill the position of healer.

Quick-Start Option #2

Again, if you're not sure what you might be facing in a short campaign (or if you expect there might be dungeon-crawling involved), try a quick-start with L1 as a rogue. Rogues have all those great skill points to give you an early boost. You can put a couple of those skill points to use to give you a passing familiarity with locks and traps; you never know when that kind of skill might come in handy! Then, depending on your preference, you can combine your level of rogue with some spellcasting levels or some fighter-y levels.

These are just a couple of options; of course, you can just pick a class and go, without the multiclassing options. Either way you choose to go, have fun!

More Random Thoughts

I read an article on The DM's Blog earlier this week that talked about how one of his friend won't play 4E until they get rid of hitpoints. And since I was writing about random number generation about the same time, that got me thinking about why on Earth hitpoints should be random. I always hate rolling for them because I'm always scared I'm going to roll a 1 or a 2 every level for the life of the character and end up with this anemic dude who is afraid to walk in tall grass for fear it will whip him unconscious if the wind blows.

That got me wondering why we roll for stat points when we create our characters. And that got me thinking about how it'd be super keen if we could just have a pool of stat points to distribute however we wanted. Then I remembered that there were already point buy systems in D&D and I hated them.

Well THAT got me thinking why I hated them. Sure, it's fair and you can construct your character however you choose. But I don't like to point buy because it encourages a lot of seriously bland, mediocre characters maximized for a purpose. If you roll your stats at random, you might wind up with some uberstats and some horrible ones, all uber, all crap, all mediocre -- you don't know what you're gonna get. You can base a character around their strong points and their flaws, and you could do that with the point buy too. But a lot of times, that's how an idea for a character pops into my head -- Lumbar came about when I had high STR and high WIS and a low CON. So I decided he was a powerful warrior who drank heavily but couldn't hold his liquor (or stay conscious in battle) due to inheriting his father's "delicate constitution". You can draw inspiration from LOTS of places -- this happens to be one of my favorites.

Life might not be random, per se, but it's certainly not constant and invariable -- sometimes you're never quite sure what you're going to get hit with next. Randomness gives us a little taste of that. I'm very very curious to see how 4E is going to handle such things, as they seem to be taking a much more hands-on approach to character development this time around, what with the new skill and ability trees.

Personally, I'm a little worried that they're going to blandify things. Dante is currently alternating between trying to ease my mind with reassuring words and silencing my nervous bleating with the Official DM Half-Nelson. Stupid carotid artery. Either way, one of these months I will awaken from being rendered unconscious and we will see how this "fourth edition" plays out.

So, Your PC Just Isn't Making Friends...

Daniel over at Aleph Gaming posted a great article on what to do when a player doesn't like their character. If you no longer enjoy playing your character, something should definitely change. Before making any drastic decisions, however, I recommend a little patience. Because I've been there, and I've survived with my character intact.

Gotta Wear Shades...

There have been times when I have conceptualized the best character ever! She's unique compared to other characters I've played, she has a great backstory, she's got a career path full of possibilities. I can't wait to send her out on an adventure.

Then, the reality of the game sets in, and I realize that my character just isn't going to work out.

It Can Be Lonely

Ari turned out to be one of those characters. I had figured out everything about her, then I discovered that nearly everyone else in the party was going to be worshipping Horus-Re, a sun god, whereas Ari would be worshipping Corellon. Hmmmm.....

Religion was only one of the differences between Ari and everyone else. The other noticeable difference is her personality; she isn't near as outgoing as everyone else. This has made for some rough times; even after 20 levels, there are still times when she just doesn't fit in. It's difficult to be the odd-man (or woman) out. But, Ari is awesome, and I just can't sacrifice her awesomeness for the sake of inclusion.

Surviving the Differences

By not giving up on Ari, I gave her a chance to grow beyond the differences. Ari has persevered and continues to try to save the world with her friends. Everyone in the party has learned to deal with our differences in religion and personality. I stuck it out long enough for everyone to find a place in the group, including Ari. She is one of the fighters, and considering the enemies we've collected, that's a very respectable position.

So, the Moral of My Story Is....

It can be tough when your character doesn't fit into the group. I know, trust me. But with a little determination and a little patience, you can try to stick it out long enough to find your place in the group.

Of course, if your character is detracting from your enjoyment of the game, consider some of the options Daniel outlined; these are some great ways to address a sticky situation.

On Juggling of Interests...

Thanks to a pretty crazy work and personal life schedule, I had lapsed in the task of reading my fellow D&D related blogs. I headed over to Musings of a Chatty DM after a brief conversation with Phil on Friday to find a wealth of very interesting posts outlining Magic: the Gathering and a few of his other pursuits, and it got me to thinking about the other nerdy pursuits that conflict with my D&D habit.

Dealing with Shared Pursuits

We are blessed to have a very close-knit D&D crew around here in StupidRanger-ville, so it should not surprise everyone that many of our non-D&D pursuits are similar.

Most of us are nerds first, and regularly descend into any of several nerdy pursuits: movies, computer/video games, programming, etc. Several group members (including Stupid Ranger herself) are literary and fantasy nerds, opting for the Dead Tree version of fantasy and adventure.

This interesting melting-pot of interests can often lead to distraction, however many times it leads our D&D sessions into some interesting new areas because of the different exposure. I have drawn inspiration from various video game sources, I know at least one of our group likes to draw elements from motion pictures to weave into his campaigns. It should seem rather obvious how the literary buffs in our group get their fix, and I believe that most D&D folks are at least in some part theater nerds.

Embrace it!

Our focus may not remain on adventuring 100% of the time. For me, motivation often wanders aimlessly from task to task and nothing really seems to stick. I often find with enough distraction, eventually a gong sounds in my head (I'm very auditory for some reason), the sky parts, and inspiration strikes. Then, the ideas just flow easily... sometimes it takes making the effort to explore your other interests to truly inspire you in a new and different way.

So this week I challenge you to identify an area of your own personal nerdiness and give it some extra attention. You might find some real value in the change of pace!

Dressing for Success

Looks can be very important, and they can also be quite deceiving. In my opinion, one of the areas that most good characters often overlook and poorly execute most often is that of appearance.

All that glitters is not gold

What a character wears and how they present themselves can do a lot to craft a unique personality or entirely reinforce a stereotype. Many people wishing to portray a good character often overdoes it with extremely shiny, grandiose, or otherwise over-the-top accouterments. Others use their attire to send a message to their enemies.

In measured portions, neither of these approaches are bad. However, if overdone your good character becomes a boorish stereotype, and that really isn't something I wish on any of my characters. Just like people don't like being reduced to the lowest common denominator in real life, so too should you treat your characters.

So how do I keep it unique?

As we mentioned a few days ago, you want to resist the urge to overdo a given aspect of your character's persona, and this extends to their attire. Having gold armor is a cool thing, however once you add gold-dyed leather boots, a gold helm, and a gold cape and all of a sudden you don't have an inspiring knight... you've got a pimp. Sorry.

I would rather have a good character more concerned with their actions and presenting themselves in a good way than I would all the shiny silver helms and flowing greatcloaks that the lands can offer. Pick a few elements to define your character's style and let your actions fill in the rest of the blanks.

If you want your character to be a stereotypical looking knight or paladin, you have to temper that with a really deep and meaningful character personality because 90% of the commoners will treat the character just like they would a revered knight of the round. Dressing in this way also makes you a target for the agents of evil that wish to prove a point, so you can define your own destiny a bit through your attire.

Does it really matter that much?

When you're playing with me it does. Your appearance defines how the world looks at you as much as your words or actions in some cases. If you enter a town wearing skulls and saying you're a necromancer (or even if you just enter town proclaiming to be a necromancer) the people are going to treat you a certain way. If you come into town on a white horse in gleaming gold armor, they're going to treat you a certain way.

In the end it is your choice how you choose to be seen by the world, and I think it is an important and relevant one to the development of your characters.

Being Good, with your host, PC

The guys around here have created a lot of good buzz about being a "good" character. And who am I to stop a "good" thing?

Well, It's Not As Easy as Insanity

One of the important things to realize about playing a good character is that it's not always as simple as it seems it should be. It's easy to slip into the mindset of being a good person: you are a good person, so playing a good character shouldn't be that hard; you just make in-game decisions like you would make life decisions. Unfortunately, it's not always that easy because life doesn't always translate into game. Don't believe me? Consider this: most of us don't wield a sword or cast fireball everyday. Face it, you don't always have the necessary background as a player to fully relate to your character.

So, Is It Hopeless?

Of course not! Just avoid some of the pitfalls of being "too good" as Vanir and Dante have already shared... basically, don't go insane with goodness! Also, remember that your alignment is a guide to help you determine your actions; you might not be "good" every time, but your goods should outnumber your not-goods.

Always Remember This:

You know more about the situation than your character most times; when making morality decisions, you must avoid metagaming if you're going to be true to your character. You might know that the shadowy figure in the background is the long-lost heir to the throne, but your character doesn't; how, then does your character react to his proposal when he asks you to murder the king?

Making these moral decisions without metagaming can be somewhat easier if you have a backstory for your character: some history to which you can refer in times of crisis. Take a step back from the plot for a moment to re-orient yourself if your moral compass has been compromised.

Living and Dying Heroically...

Over the last week, we've explored various aspects of being a good, virtuous character. Today I'd like to focus on the alpha and the omega of being a hero: life and death situations.

Commitment

Most heroes live their life with a certain level of commitment to a cause. For some, its religion. For others, it is a philosophical ideal or some other altruistic pursuit that is very important to them. Usually it is something that has directly impacted their life prior, however there are some "grown heroes" that acquire a personal cause that has never come home to roost.

It is important for players to really consider the motivations of their characters as they progress them through their life. As previously mentioned, a "one-trick pony" type of character that flatly acts a certain way given a certain stimulus usually makes for a poor hero. The character's level of commitment may ebb and flow throughout their walk through the campaign, and having a player take special notice of this and really embrace roleplaying these changes can make for a very enthralling experience.

Dedication

I have an excellent example from our recent campaign. One of our players had a character that had a very strong bond with a certain religion and several other members of our adventuring party. She did an excellent job of roleplaying the ebb and flow of her beliefs, and really internalized the transitions that her character made throughout her life.

She had decided during one of our "in game" story breaks that she had become tired of the constant conflict and was ready for rest, so she made the decision at that time that she would go peacefully into the afterlife and be unwilling to return to this world should she die.

Unfortunately, her character fell in battle during this past week and the character remained true to her word and was unwilling to return from death. Her player had obviously thought this out long and hard, and I was taken aback by her level of dedication to the way her character felt about this matter.

To me, that exemplifies a truly heroic character and a truly good player. The character was given enough depth to actually react to the changes that life had given her, and her player remained dedicated and didn't attempt to explain away that decision.

Dedication to a cause, both at a player and character level is what it's all about everyone. That's how you make a character truly heroic!

Variety and the Quintessential Good Character...

First off, sorry for the missed post yesterday. Stupid Ranger is sick with the flu, and the prep time on Remove Disease is so much longer in reality so I had to help her get better in the old fashioned way of taking her to the doctor... needless to say she's doing much better and should be back in the saddle on Thursday.

Today I would like to continue my look at good aligned characters and how they manifest their goodness for the rest of the world to see.

You don't always have to be a one-trick pony

I discussed players that prefer to run their good characters in a single, heavy-handed fashion on Monday. In reality, most "good" characters show their goodness in a variety of ways. I would submit some great television shows such as "House" and "Heroes" as great examples of how good characters can not only have shades of grey to them, but also do their good things in some very unexpected ways.

What this means to your character... first, shy away from being good in an overt and grandiose way. I tend to punish hubris (shameful pride) when I can identify it emanating from the characters in my campaign because self-serving goodness is rarely (if ever) a good thing.

Secondly, pick several ways to show your goodness and progress those activities throughout the course of your character's life span. Treat it like fertilizer: you have to sprinkle it around and need it into the ground for it to work. Taking a single dump in one spot just gets you a smelly garden.

Finally, be surprising. One of my favorite D&D moments came from my first campaign. My character was trying to rescue his love interest who got trapped in a dire situation where most hope was lost. I had stumbled upon a Ring of Three Wishes slightly earlier in the campaign, and it had one left. When there was no other hope of rescue, my chaotic good barbarian decided to use the final wish to trade places with his love interest, knowing full well that this would likely seal his fate. My DM actually asked me three times whether or not I was sure I wanted to make a sacrifice like that and I said that I did.

After the session he told me it was one of the most excellent displays of what being a good aligned character meant. The rest of the party never did get the opportunity to rescue my character, but it still makes me happy to have done that.

It is moments like that that I live and die for when roleplaying. There are a few good examples from our more recent campaigns that indicate similarly excellent examples of being an evil character, but those are best left for another time and place.

Progression and the Quintessential Good Character...

On Friday, Vanir triumphantly returned and started an interesting discussion on player character morality and how it often plays out within a campaign. This got me thinking about some morality related issues of my own... but this time focusing on the progression of a good character.

Please note: these are only one man's opinions and your mileage may vary. Be sure to tip your stewardess after the flight.

My character is good, and I mean all the way, see?

Oftentimes, overzealous players have this all consuming vision of their good aligned characters. They run the gamut from moral, peaceful folk to the insane Holy Avenger types but the tack is usually the same... people that play good aligned characters usually take one aspect of goodness that relates to their new character and turn the volume up to 11.

Now this is a very noble pursuit, usually born out of a Single Good Idea (heretoafter, SGI) that was developed during the creation of the characters backstory. For example, lets say a character decides to make an altruistic monk that believes in giving to the poor as a means of salvation with their deity. Lets say that this monk had someone help him out when he was in desperate need as a young man, which turned his Giving Knob up to 11.

This is a great thing, however how the player chooses to express this good trait can often become perplexing, annoying, or downright boring.

It's called PROGRESSION, people!

If Mr. Monk expresses his desire to give in a flat, overzealous way and gives all of his starting gear (of which he would logically have none of anyway) to some random downtrodden person and all his gold goes to the local temple, Mr. Monk is a very good person. He is also a BURDEN to the rest of the adventuring party that he is supposed to be cooperating with for the common good.

To my mind, it is much better practice to take your character on a journey. At Level 1, your monk is at the beginning of his path. Have him start by giving what little of his adventuring gains that he receives to the needy, but not at the sacrifice of his viability as an adventurer. As his renown grows, and he gets to see more of the world and the suffering that is going on, THEN make him start to give more of his personal belongings as he gains other skills that will allow him to continue adventuring and doing even more good.

In short, as Vanir mentioned it is an excellent idea to not just select one random aspect of goodness and immediately do the absolute maximum possible activity in that space. You have nowhere to progress to, and after 20+ levels of adventuring your continuing acts of singular good will be grating. Providing, of course, that you live that long wearing the robe you set out in.

There are many other ways to salvation

As previously mentioned... these are just my opinions on the matter. If you can find a unique, sustainable way to take a single aspect of a character's personality and crank it up by all means go right ahead.

I would love to hear some "in the trenches" stories of character building and progression to hear how others have realized the tricky task of roleplaying humanitarian goodness. Also, feel free to throw fruit if you don't agree with the proceedings!