I’m writing a kind of overview of some role playing situations that your characters are likely to encounter based on your race, alignment, and class.
So...Earthmoon.
First off, the dnosaur is probably not going to be accpeted except in the most "anything goes" parts of large cities (places where they might sell animals like dinosaurs). Everywhere else in a city, the animal is likely to be confiscated by the authorities. The dinosaur's recption in rural areas is likely to be more violent. Farmers will probably not appreciate the presence of a large carnivorous and poisonous lizard near their livestock. Needless to say, walking around with such a lizard marks you for suspicion.
On the other hand, you are exalted, you golow with goodness. You are a holy paragon of righteousness whose mere presence makes evil uncomfortable and whose touch causes a physical reaction to evil. Some people will turn to you as a prophet of divinity beyond a priest or church. They may seek your absolution. Celestials, devas, and archons will think of you as an ally. You are marked with goodness beyond the simple confines of virtue but manifest it, instead, as a quintessential force. Most evil people will avoid you, or deal with you through intermediaries. Your presence anywhere near agencies that they control will cause them to become either cautious or downright aggressive. Earthly authority will see the authority that you wield as a threat.
Showing posts with label character conception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character conception. Show all posts
Friday, December 28, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
What Would Neri Do?
The real question here is what constitutes success in a role playing game. Is it killing a monster? Finding a trap? Making your Search roll? In some senses, yes. But that’s all quite mechanical.
I want you all to think in terms of a different kind of success: a success that is based around playing your character the way that character aught to be played, reacting to situations in a manner that you feel is appropriate for your character, and in general playing your character rather than playing the game. What does that mean?
Well, the truth of the matter is when you play your character, you may actually be doing things which are not solving the crisis. You may, in fact, be causing the crisis. By playing your character correctly, you may be making things complicated, you may be getting in the way, you may be doing things that you’re not supposed to do, or which, in the grand scheme of things, people don’t want you to do. When you’re playing the game, you’re every consideration about your character’s actions revolves around the health and success of the party, the ending of the adventure, and the gaining of treasure. In essence, you put who the character is on the backburner so as to consider these other factors. But this is a role playing game. Playing the character correctly in order to make him or her come alive is not only a hell of a lot more important, it’s also a lot more fun.
So, how is it done? Well, it's actually a lot less complicated than its made out to be. It involves asking the question that titles this bit of writing: what would your character do? Of every situation the character is in, ask yourself that: what would your character do? You’ve met a group of humanoid monsters that want to lay down the sword and join the human empire, what would your character do? How would your character feel about such a prospect? You’ve met up with a group of Halflings traveling through a war-torn land with children. What would your character do? The Halflings believe in casually thievery and taking people in confidence schemes. How does your character react to this? You find a town completely abandoned or you see people by the side of a battlefield looting fallen soldiers. These are not simply moments for you to listen to the story. This is not scenery. These are moments for you to add to the story line by playing your character.
In the end, Dungeons and Dragons isn’t really a story told by the D.M. to his or her players. There is a story, but when it is good, it is as much created by the players as it is by the Dungeon Master.
And that means you need to be prepared for your character to disagree with the other characters. That means that you need to be prepared to make your character do things that aren’t in the story line or to do hold on to information that they don’t think everyone in the party needs to know (or that they know will cause some members of the party to do the wrong thing). This goes for good characters and not so good characters. If it’s something that the cleric would do, then the cleric should spend the rest of the week attending to the sick, and if the Barbarian wants to move on, well, that’s just too bad. Same thing in reverse. Everybody wants to go to bed, but the thief wants to go robbing houses.
Now, I am not saying that you need to create nonstop tension in your party. Characters may be convinced to do something besides what it is there first inclination to do. The cleric might, for instance, be convinced that there are pressing matters at hand, but then that too is a place for you to play your character. What sorts of arguments will convince the cleric. What sorts of things has the cleric heard before.
Ultimately, you’re not playing the game to find the simplest path to some undisclosed finale. You’re playing the game to play your character.
Now, brass tacks. A lot of what you can use to determine what your character does revolves around your alignment, your class, and your character conception. Gringulia is a mercenary. She’s based her character on Jane from Firefly. Okay, good. Now, whenever she gets in a situation, she need only picture what it is that Jane would do and do that. She isn’t likely to stop to help people unless there’s a monetary reward. She isn’t likely to do things out of the kindness of her heart—that’s not her character conception.
As far as alignment goes, if you’re chaotic, then you don’t like rules that dictate yours or anyone else’s behavior. You don’t work well with people telling you what to do. This goes doubly for big structures. The chaotic neutral character isn’t necessarily an outlaw, but they don’t see the law as something that inherently should be allowed to rule people’s lives.
Lawful characters like order. They hold people to codes of behavior and decency and they don’t like it when things are amiss or out of the ordinary.
Neutral characters could care less really. They understand why there are laws but they also see why there are situations where people break them.
As for good and evil. Good people want the greatest good for the greatest number of people. They believe in the power of safety and what everyone to be healthy. Good characters are natural helpers.
Evil characters want power. So, good thinks of others. Evil thinks only of themselves, and neutral characters are willing to think of both.
The lawful good character wants to see the strongest parts of society rise up against tyranny and chaos to create peace and harmony. The neutral good character wants peace and harmony as well, but isn’t necessarily sure that it needs to be achieved by honoring arbitrary rules (though it might). A chaotic good character wants peace and harmony but feels that this can only be achieved if everyone is given their own ability to choose.
Which brings me finally, to class. If you’re a thief, you look at the world from a thief’s eyes. You want to steal stuff. You want to sneak around. You don’t want to be at the center of attention. If you’re a cleric of Moradin, then you pray to the god that sets the world to order. It stands to reason that you also must feel the need to bring order to the world. This isn’t a passive opinion that you share with others as you walk by scenes of human suffering and chaos; this is reason for you to get everyone else to stop. The Druid must be attuned to the balance of nature. If the Sentinel Plain has been swept by fey creatures from the positive material plain that have caused entire caravans to disappear, this is a good reason for an investigation by someone who seeks to maintain some kind of balance.
Lastly, the question has to come up: “Well, if we start playing our characters, wouldn’t we realistically just start heading off in random directions? Why would we even hang out together?” Good questions, but not yours to worry about. I will produce enough reasons to keep you working together as a team so as to keep you together even if you don’t always agree on the right course of action. But if it helps, let me forward this: you’re characters are returning from war to a world that is inherently alien (it’s human and you aren’t) and due to recent events quite corrupt. Your characters probably won’t know who to turn to except for each other. The way that the campaign is designed is that you will have to face off against disaster and, as you can’t trust others to do this for you, you will be forced to rely on one another to this purpose. This is something that you know as players, not something your characters necessarily know as of yet, but you will see it soon.
I want you all to think in terms of a different kind of success: a success that is based around playing your character the way that character aught to be played, reacting to situations in a manner that you feel is appropriate for your character, and in general playing your character rather than playing the game. What does that mean?
Well, the truth of the matter is when you play your character, you may actually be doing things which are not solving the crisis. You may, in fact, be causing the crisis. By playing your character correctly, you may be making things complicated, you may be getting in the way, you may be doing things that you’re not supposed to do, or which, in the grand scheme of things, people don’t want you to do. When you’re playing the game, you’re every consideration about your character’s actions revolves around the health and success of the party, the ending of the adventure, and the gaining of treasure. In essence, you put who the character is on the backburner so as to consider these other factors. But this is a role playing game. Playing the character correctly in order to make him or her come alive is not only a hell of a lot more important, it’s also a lot more fun.
So, how is it done? Well, it's actually a lot less complicated than its made out to be. It involves asking the question that titles this bit of writing: what would your character do? Of every situation the character is in, ask yourself that: what would your character do? You’ve met a group of humanoid monsters that want to lay down the sword and join the human empire, what would your character do? How would your character feel about such a prospect? You’ve met up with a group of Halflings traveling through a war-torn land with children. What would your character do? The Halflings believe in casually thievery and taking people in confidence schemes. How does your character react to this? You find a town completely abandoned or you see people by the side of a battlefield looting fallen soldiers. These are not simply moments for you to listen to the story. This is not scenery. These are moments for you to add to the story line by playing your character.
In the end, Dungeons and Dragons isn’t really a story told by the D.M. to his or her players. There is a story, but when it is good, it is as much created by the players as it is by the Dungeon Master.
And that means you need to be prepared for your character to disagree with the other characters. That means that you need to be prepared to make your character do things that aren’t in the story line or to do hold on to information that they don’t think everyone in the party needs to know (or that they know will cause some members of the party to do the wrong thing). This goes for good characters and not so good characters. If it’s something that the cleric would do, then the cleric should spend the rest of the week attending to the sick, and if the Barbarian wants to move on, well, that’s just too bad. Same thing in reverse. Everybody wants to go to bed, but the thief wants to go robbing houses.
Now, I am not saying that you need to create nonstop tension in your party. Characters may be convinced to do something besides what it is there first inclination to do. The cleric might, for instance, be convinced that there are pressing matters at hand, but then that too is a place for you to play your character. What sorts of arguments will convince the cleric. What sorts of things has the cleric heard before.
Ultimately, you’re not playing the game to find the simplest path to some undisclosed finale. You’re playing the game to play your character.
Now, brass tacks. A lot of what you can use to determine what your character does revolves around your alignment, your class, and your character conception. Gringulia is a mercenary. She’s based her character on Jane from Firefly. Okay, good. Now, whenever she gets in a situation, she need only picture what it is that Jane would do and do that. She isn’t likely to stop to help people unless there’s a monetary reward. She isn’t likely to do things out of the kindness of her heart—that’s not her character conception.
As far as alignment goes, if you’re chaotic, then you don’t like rules that dictate yours or anyone else’s behavior. You don’t work well with people telling you what to do. This goes doubly for big structures. The chaotic neutral character isn’t necessarily an outlaw, but they don’t see the law as something that inherently should be allowed to rule people’s lives.
Lawful characters like order. They hold people to codes of behavior and decency and they don’t like it when things are amiss or out of the ordinary.
Neutral characters could care less really. They understand why there are laws but they also see why there are situations where people break them.
As for good and evil. Good people want the greatest good for the greatest number of people. They believe in the power of safety and what everyone to be healthy. Good characters are natural helpers.
Evil characters want power. So, good thinks of others. Evil thinks only of themselves, and neutral characters are willing to think of both.
The lawful good character wants to see the strongest parts of society rise up against tyranny and chaos to create peace and harmony. The neutral good character wants peace and harmony as well, but isn’t necessarily sure that it needs to be achieved by honoring arbitrary rules (though it might). A chaotic good character wants peace and harmony but feels that this can only be achieved if everyone is given their own ability to choose.
Which brings me finally, to class. If you’re a thief, you look at the world from a thief’s eyes. You want to steal stuff. You want to sneak around. You don’t want to be at the center of attention. If you’re a cleric of Moradin, then you pray to the god that sets the world to order. It stands to reason that you also must feel the need to bring order to the world. This isn’t a passive opinion that you share with others as you walk by scenes of human suffering and chaos; this is reason for you to get everyone else to stop. The Druid must be attuned to the balance of nature. If the Sentinel Plain has been swept by fey creatures from the positive material plain that have caused entire caravans to disappear, this is a good reason for an investigation by someone who seeks to maintain some kind of balance.
Lastly, the question has to come up: “Well, if we start playing our characters, wouldn’t we realistically just start heading off in random directions? Why would we even hang out together?” Good questions, but not yours to worry about. I will produce enough reasons to keep you working together as a team so as to keep you together even if you don’t always agree on the right course of action. But if it helps, let me forward this: you’re characters are returning from war to a world that is inherently alien (it’s human and you aren’t) and due to recent events quite corrupt. Your characters probably won’t know who to turn to except for each other. The way that the campaign is designed is that you will have to face off against disaster and, as you can’t trust others to do this for you, you will be forced to rely on one another to this purpose. This is something that you know as players, not something your characters necessarily know as of yet, but you will see it soon.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Getting a character conception
First off, you should know that you don't need a character conception-- a character conception flourishes over time. Through adventure and off hand comments, what begins as a catch phrase will turn into a full fledged alternate personality within the game world. If you'll indulge me for a minute, think of the characters on "Friends." After many seasons on TV, they have become memorable characters complete with personalities, prejudices, attitudes, histories, and personal places within an incredibly complex group dynamic, but what did the writers know about these characters when the show began? Chandler's funny, Phoebe streetwise, and Monica can cook. As the show progressed, these characters gained life. The same is true for you and your character. This then is less about making a full fledged conception and more about getting a beginning.
All of these methods work, to one degree or another, on playing with stereotypes. This is not to pigeon hole you. By seeing a type as something that can be played with, you can use these easy steps to imagine an original character.
Method 1, Art: There's a lot out there to just plain look at. Pictures of fantasy characters are great because they give you a visual presentation of the the kind of character you want to play. Well, why not simply go the whole nine and base your of your character on a picture you've seen. This will give you not only some idea of what you look like, but also what kind of circumstances you hope to find yourself in.
Method 2, Cool thing in the Game: A lot of conception start this way. A players says, "I want to be a total expert at potions," or "I want to play someone who trains war dogs." In other words, the character is an expert at some uncommon skill or has some interesting characteristic and they are conceptualized around this. This is a great way to begin feeling your character out because it generally involves a history of interest and also a guiding principal for the numbers on your character sheet.
Method 3, based on another character: Ever wonder what Angela Lansbury's character in "Murder She Wrote" would be like if she were an elf in a fantasy setting. Well, base your character on her. Take what you like, leave the rest. This is an especially useful tactic in picking the character's personality. You needn't by the way pick Bruce Willis's character from Die Hard. There's all kinds of quirky characters walking around the Dungeons and Dragons world. With this kind of conception, you get a pretty good idea of how your character generally acts.
Method 4, fandom: Some people like to totally recreate another character in a fantasy setting. You needn't pick a fantasy character for this necessarily. Instead, just try to think of fantasy analogs to whatever elements already exist in that characters world. You like the idea of Buck Rogers? Okay, instead of being a guy from the past thrown into the future to fight Ming the merciless, how about you're from another dimension and you're trying to stop an evil tyrannical wizard.
Method 5, get a gimmick: The Thing from The Fantastic Four began as a guy made of rock who said, "it's clobbering time." It really doesn't take much to make your character memorable and to begin the process of gaining definition. Consider the power of phrases like, "I'm not allowed in a lot of towns anymore," or, "that dragon circling overhead may be looking for me," or even, "who's up for a drinking contest?" One you know the situations your character is likely to get in, or what kinds of things set your character apart from the rest, a conception will begin to reveal itself. You can't hunt a man with six fingers for long before someone asks why.
Method 6, Start answering questions: Still working it out? Try these...
All of these methods work, to one degree or another, on playing with stereotypes. This is not to pigeon hole you. By seeing a type as something that can be played with, you can use these easy steps to imagine an original character.
Method 1, Art: There's a lot out there to just plain look at. Pictures of fantasy characters are great because they give you a visual presentation of the the kind of character you want to play. Well, why not simply go the whole nine and base your of your character on a picture you've seen. This will give you not only some idea of what you look like, but also what kind of circumstances you hope to find yourself in.
Method 2, Cool thing in the Game: A lot of conception start this way. A players says, "I want to be a total expert at potions," or "I want to play someone who trains war dogs." In other words, the character is an expert at some uncommon skill or has some interesting characteristic and they are conceptualized around this. This is a great way to begin feeling your character out because it generally involves a history of interest and also a guiding principal for the numbers on your character sheet.
Method 3, based on another character: Ever wonder what Angela Lansbury's character in "Murder She Wrote" would be like if she were an elf in a fantasy setting. Well, base your character on her. Take what you like, leave the rest. This is an especially useful tactic in picking the character's personality. You needn't by the way pick Bruce Willis's character from Die Hard. There's all kinds of quirky characters walking around the Dungeons and Dragons world. With this kind of conception, you get a pretty good idea of how your character generally acts.
Method 4, fandom: Some people like to totally recreate another character in a fantasy setting. You needn't pick a fantasy character for this necessarily. Instead, just try to think of fantasy analogs to whatever elements already exist in that characters world. You like the idea of Buck Rogers? Okay, instead of being a guy from the past thrown into the future to fight Ming the merciless, how about you're from another dimension and you're trying to stop an evil tyrannical wizard.
Method 5, get a gimmick: The Thing from The Fantastic Four began as a guy made of rock who said, "it's clobbering time." It really doesn't take much to make your character memorable and to begin the process of gaining definition. Consider the power of phrases like, "I'm not allowed in a lot of towns anymore," or, "that dragon circling overhead may be looking for me," or even, "who's up for a drinking contest?" One you know the situations your character is likely to get in, or what kinds of things set your character apart from the rest, a conception will begin to reveal itself. You can't hunt a man with six fingers for long before someone asks why.
Method 6, Start answering questions: Still working it out? Try these...
Where are you from?
What makes you a good character for a fantasy novel?
Why is it that you willingly explore tombs of of monsters whose names are
unpronounceable?
Fight dragons or ride them?
Ever seen a demon?
Do you have a home?
What do people outside your adventuring buddies think of you?
If your in the capital city for a few days R and R, how do you spend the
fortune you've just liberated from the goblin king?
Is anybody likely to be hunting you?
Is there something out there that might come to your defense in case of
really bad trouble?
Any "strange" relatives?
Are you on a quest?"
Which of the characters do you fell closest to? Who furthest?
Ancient and forgotten temple of Elder god: "wonder what's in there"
or "wonder how we're going to kill it?"
Likely travelling companion: Elvin archer, Iron Golem, or Githyankian
Alienist from the infinite dooms of Limbo?
Excalibur, Tolkien, Conan, The Never Ending Story, Labyrinth, or M.C. Escher (or H.R. Geiger for that matter)?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Character Conception
Your characters right now are made, but they are never really set in stone. I think it's good to tinker with the character as you get a better feel for who they are, what they do, their background, and their attitudes. As you get some idea of what you want, I encourage tinkering. Don't worry about the continuity of the story. We'll just assume that the character was like that all along.
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