How Fantastic Roleplayers kill my Roleplaying Games

By T.R.S. Burns

I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1998 or so and once we got past the teenage hack and slash that our particular group didn’t enjoy and waded into the political webs that would be our later life gaming we encountered the issue I’m writing about today.

I’ve had the privilege over the years to game with some truly phenomenal roleplayers and it saddens me that at the time of my life I’m writing my most intricate plots and stories the people who could truly benefit from them are no longer available to play for one reason or another. However, straying back to the point at hand, each and every one of these people brought to the table deep, rich and nuanced characters.

The distinction here  between my roleplayers and the rest of our groups is that each time they came to the table they brought a _new_ character, not a re-badged or rebuilt version of their previous character and this made them terribly unpredictable. I will go into some examples in a moment.

In my current game one of the players decided that the Eberron setting would lend itself well to playing a Wizard/Academic working out of Morgrave University, the rest of the group had settled on an expedition to Xen’Drick motif so his character fitted fine. As is his penchant he intentionally wrote a character who was less useful in combat than he was out of it and yet, the more sessions we play the more the plot and the other players linchpin on his decisions and now three sessions in _his_ goals have become _their_ goals because his compelling and skilful portrayal of his character has convinced the players and thus their characters that he is right and just in his goals.

Which he is not. His character is a bastard whose only real goal is finding something in Xen’Drick which will get him either a position with the university or a transfer to another university with a better reputation. He has absolutely no care for the other characters goals and needs and is willing and able to walk away at the first sign of trouble. But the other players have no idea, why?, because he is hiding it all behind fantastic roleplay.

Will it kill the game when it comes out? Will the interest in his goals fade? Is it just a phase at this early stage in the campaign?

I don’t know. I honestly believe it is possible to play your character too well.

Rick Barry stands 5’11” and weighs 230lbs and is 42 years old. He has thick dark brown hair that reaches down to his shoulders. His hair is in complete disarray with various parts braided and matted together using beads and other inexpensive jewellery. What hair is not braided or matted is dreadlocked or clumped together by a combination of wax, blood and dirt.

Rick Barry is short in comparison to the average Half-Orc and hence has a very wide frame with broad shoulders, a wide neck and thick arms and legs. He is of a thick muscular build, which is a result of repeated heavy strain on his body. His eyes are a deep and muddy brown. His jaw line is long and wide, he has a wide and thick brimmed nose and coarse eyebrows. His ears are slightly mangled in comparison to human ears. This is a result of two factors: the method by which he makes his living, gladiatorial combat and mercenary work, and his Orc lineage.

Rick Barry’s armour is an immaculately crafted suit of Gorgon Hide Armour. It in essence is various parts of Gorgon Hide stitched and strapped together so that they fit around Rick’s body like a long-sleeved shirt would. On his lower half he wears a pair of loose but thick black cotton pants. Rick wears a pair of steel thigh guards. Below the thigh guards he wears a pair of knee high brown leather boots. On top of it all he wears a brown leather coat that reaches down to just above his knees.

Thrown over his back is the most extraordinary hammer. The hilt is silver in colour and is adorned with various etchings in numerous languages and markings illustrating various creatures and tales.  These etchings and markings are a combination of crimson and gold. The head of the hammer itself is modelled as a jack-in-the-box. A jester making various poses in crimson and gold attire is inscribed into the sides of the head of the hammer. The top and bottom of the head of the hammer contain the same pattern. This pattern is a crimson circle followed by a gold circle, each one engulfing the last one until there is no more space.

Standing at attention, Haptash Ka-Nala looks somewhat taller than he is. While on his identity papers it reads 5′8″, many would place him as being more, perhaps not six feet tall, but you just get the feeling that there’s… more… of him than 5′8″. His hair is partly to blame. It is untidy, though not unkempt, and several of the dark brown spikes seem determined to point upwards, no matter the treatment given to them. Another factor is his boots. Large, heavy and durable, they protect his rather small feet from the rigours of his job. Tucked into these boots are Haptash’s pants; dark green and not too tight as to be impractical but tight enough not to get in the way. They, much like most of his clothing, are practical.

A tough leather belt is wrapped around his waist, with various pouches and canisters attached. Each of these is filled with different substances and tiny, seemingly useless items. A tan coloured, short-sleeved shirt covers his body while over that he wears a brown sleeveless coat which hangs down almost to his feet, though it never touches the ground unless he is stooping or sitting. Hanging loosely around Haptash’s neck is a pair of thick-lens goggles with an adjustable leather strap. His hands are protected from the elements, as well as the more dangerous of his alchemic tools, by a pair of large gloves, covering most of his forearms. These are well-worn at the fingers, as if he wears them almost constantly.

Haptash’s eyes are bright green and they shine like emeralds amidst the strangely pale-skinned face, making him look younger than he is. His delicate features are sharp and well defined, including his sly half-smile, which comes upon him whenever he isn’t deeply concerned about things. Haptash wears only one piece of jewellery, a single golden stud in his left ear.

A second belt hangs about his hips, but attached to this are his tools of war. A crossbow, a small knife and various vials all neatly tucked in and placed where they can be most easily accessed.

So this past weekend I got together with my long standing gaming group and we wrote characters for a new campaign set in the world of Eberron. I wanted to try and capture the dark noire feel that the author of that setting intended as well as the pulp flavour of our usual games (which he also intended) what I got is not exactly what I was after, but close.

Over the rest of this post I’ll detail the characters that were created and there tie-ins to the setting. This will require some Eberron knowledge on your part. I’ll also touch on the method we used to ge there.

I had the players each take a scrap of paper and write down five interesting things about their character, anything at all they felt was relevant was fine and then they handed those scraps back to me and I read them over and handed them back. I had them flip their scraps over and write four interesting things that happened in their character’s past and hand them back to me.

I took those four things and factored in the original five and used those events to tie the characters together. You know bill because you were a mercenary during the war and bill was a forward scout whose platoon you were assigned to type stuff.

The characters we got are;

Charles Banks – Geologist, Botanist, Wizard

Charles Banks is a rising star of House Vadalis, having been sent to Sharn to study at Morgrave University he return with high accolades in both Botany which was immediately useful to his house and Geology which would only prove it’s worth in the years that followed when he invented the Sonicprobe.

Harnessing his magical ability to make sonic blasts into a technology he could use to detect caves and pockets of air below the surface of the ground. Armed with his prototype he made a lengthy and dangerous geological and botanical survey of the Eldeen Reaches and began to compile a system to chronicle botanical samples by family and strain. It was on this survey that he uncovered Naan.

Naan – Warforged, Cast-Off, Druid

Naan was a relic of the last war a fiercely loyal and trusting Warforged and a perfect example of House Cannith engineering and so when she was ordered to Guard a forward camp in the Eldeen Reaches late in the last war she did and when her unit did not return she stayed in place, unmoving, un-breathing for more than a decade, lonely but loyal.

It was here she was found by the Gatekeepers a circle of Druid’s dating back to ancient times who saw more in the Warforged’s mossy rusted form than a weapon and trained the highly intelligent living constructed in the ways of their circle. Naan became the defender of the grove she had been set to guard and stayed there until she encountered Charles Banks on his survey and agreed to accompany him on his survey of the Reaches, when the survey concluded Naan continued on as Bank’s Assistant.

Perrin d’Thuranni – Thief, Would be Assassin, Dragonblooded Heir

Perrin is the half-blooded son of the offshoot house of Thuranni and operated out of their secret holding in the Lhazaar Principalities where he served as a guard at one of the houses fronts topside. He is as he knows highly expendable to his pure blooded house and works hard to make himself an asset to the family.

He recently capitalised on seemingly unrelated events when he thwarted the framing of a travelling artificer who murder attempt had gone awry and left the Principalities with that Artificer. Having overheard the previous night artificer’s intentions to visit the lost continent of Xen’Drick Perrin saw the opportunity to make a name for himself in the house and a small personal fortune besides.

Haptash Ka-Nala – Kalashtar, Dreamer, Artificer

Haptash was born a Kalashtar in the nation of Adar. Beset on all sides by the Riedran forces led by the Inspired intend on blotting out all of the Kalashtar Bloodlines. He fled the monastery forts of Adar as soon as he was old enough to understand the threat posed by so many Kalashtar close together and carefully made his way out of Sarlona. In Khorvaire he discovered his gift for Artifice and became a well respected Artificer serving a short time with the House Cannith Tinker’s Guild before the agents of the Inspired made an attempt on his life and he fled to the Lhazaar Principalities.

Haptash had been working in Lhazaar as a general purpose tinker for almost two years before they found him again and uncovered his secret nature as a Kalashtar. A battle was fought that that spilled bloody and terrible into the street with his magic beset by Inspired steel resulting in the death of his opponent. Haptash was taken into custody by the dark cloaked authority and was set for a short dirty trial and hanging as a troublemaking outsider when a local captain spoke in his defence. The same captain was charged with escorting him out of the principalities and continued on with him afterwards.

Rick Barry – Mixed Blood, Wrestler, Barbarian

Rick is a half-orc born into a human family who prized martial accomplishment and spent his youth as a prominent star in the greco-roman wrestling community. His family took his mixed heritage in their stride taking into account his lack of a particularly orcish appearance and his feats of strength and cunning which brought honour to the family. When he was old enough Rick marched off to fight in the Last War and fell in with the House Deneith Blademark’s Guild.

Serving as a Mercenary in their employ Rick fought for more than a quarter of the last war and served under the banners of all five nations. He was left suddenly jobless and destitute when the war ended and found himself wandering back to the Blademarks hoping that there would be more work for mercenaries in the broken kingdoms that were recovering from the war. He was in luck, JackBox Maul in hand he set out for House Vadalis to protect the travelling son Charles Banks as he undertook his research.

So there you have it, these are my players and soon I will reveal their story. I will post up an appendix to this post which includes their original notes from the character creation session and their descriptions and Biographies as I get them but for now I leave you to ponder.

So its coming up on GenCon time again and this years convention looks to be just as awesome as last year.

The dates for the convention have moved to September 18-20 to better align with the global convention scene and the Australian calender but it all sounds very promising. As last year I have been added to the throng of volunteers though unlike last year I hope to be added to the smaller  throng of senior volunteers.

Games I hope to catch this year are Quincunx, Pheonix (4th Edition Shadowrun) and Homecoming (2nd Edition Exalted) if I can fit them in to the Volunteering Schedual. You may note with some surprise that I wont be looking to play any D&D this year and the reasoning on that is? I play enough D&D at home!

I thought I might take a moment to reflect on last year’s GenConOz experience for those of you who did not make it to the Convention;

We flew up the day before the convention, Wednesday, and met up with Tom who I’d been talking to on the GenCon Forums and he showed us around brisbane a bit, it was somewhat ironic being shown around an Australian city by an American tourist. We got the train from the airport into south bank which is where the convention and our accommodation were.

I’d had a shop around leading up to the convention and decided on Brisbane Backpackers Resort, a lot of people stay at Hotels during a convention but I don’t really see the point, all I used the room for was sleeping and I was going down at midnight and getting up at six in the morning anyway. We booked a six bed dorm for the six of us so we didn’t even end up sharing with strangers and locked our valuable valuables into steel security lockers down stairs for the five days we were in QLD.

BBR does not pretend to be anything other than what it is, a Backpackers Hostel. The beds in the room were bunks with foam mattresses and one somewhat thin blanket, but again I didn’t really mind as I was only in it six hours. What it does feature is a bar and kitchen downstairs with reasonably priced counter meals and cheap drinks where we spent many a night with happy hour pitchers of Strongbow.The hostel was situated about a ten minute walk from the Convention Centre and there were a number of places to get breakfast situated between the two.

I reported bright and early on the first day for my volunteering stint and took up my position as an informant and sentry guarding the entrance to the trade hall until it was time to open it and allow the throng to rush in for their purchasing frenzy. I also got to know the retailers a bit and recognise the people I was supposed to let by me.

That became my morning routine and my afternoons and evenings were dotted with the games I could manage to fit in;

I got a chance to play in three Role Playing Gamers Association Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (RPGA D&D 4E) events and this was the month after the game was released and featured a lot of play test content. Because of the way I’d booked the events I got to play at a table entirely comprised of my friends from home which really made the game shine.

I also got to play the 4th Edition Revision of Shadowrun again with my friends from home and it was a most interesting game. The Game Master acting as an agent for Catalyst Game Labs who are the current liscencees for the Shadowrun Franchise had created a deep and rich story set in central Australia including such characters as a Frill Neck Lizard Shaman and a Maori Troll.

The Seminars I attended in no particular order were Anatomy of a Duel, which was an intimate demonstration of Japanese swordplay by an Iaido master, Writing in Someone Else’s Sandbox, about writing in an established setting and a round table discussion including Ian Irvine and Kylie Chan on creating worlds and characters.

I will be returning to GenConOz this year for another round of amazing memories, anyone thinking about making the journey from interstate, inter nation or even locals I will be staying at the same hostel and would be more than happy to roll you in to our little group.

Below I’ve included a few photographs I took during the convention in 2008;

[View with PicLens]

I was recently a guest on the Here Be Gamers Podcast who are friends of the blog. They had me on to talk about 4th Edition D&D and to discuss the diferences if any to the previous editions. For those of you intrigued that podcast can be found here.