Tag: character

March 10, 2010

Destined sample character: Drilla the Rat

Here’s a sample starting character for Destined and my first draft at a very simple character sheet. Drilla is a bit of a hard character to pigeonhole. She has a bit of magic, but with her low Spellcasting (and noting ameliorating that), she isn’t going to be very reliable in using it. She’s competent (but not outstanding) in combat. She...

May 14, 2009

Its Just A Game, Part II: Emotional Insulation and Player Characters

This is something of a follow-up to my last post. There have been times, in the past, when I’ve become too emotionally wound up with a character I’ve been playing. This happened more often when I was involved in LARPing where the immediacy and direct correlation between a player and PC was particularly strong. My playing style involves a degree...

March 25, 2009

The 4e Avenger

Someone brought a copy of the 4e PHBII to game the other night. I immediately turned to check out the Avenger. Why? One of the PCs I’ve most enjoyed playing is Tarbold – a priest of Tritherion in a heavily-houseruled 2nd edition game with very generous multiclassing. In 3.5 terms, he would have been something like a gestalt cleric/rogue. Unfortunately,...

January 2, 2009

Let me tell you about my characters… now

It has been a year and a half since I’ve done this. I think that’s reasonable. 1) The only character I’m still actively playing on that list is Bart. Back then, I wrote: Sunday, Angela’s D&D Game: Bart Fliegenbart, Dwarven Chef (Rogue 2/Ranger 2) Bart has become the de facto group leader… of a group of misfits. I enjoy playing...

November 24, 2008

Beyond Alignment: Adding Moral Complexity to your Game (Reprint)

Reposted from 9/4/07 This article first appeared in the Silven Trumpeter (Vol. 4, Issue 2, June 2006). Many people play roleplaying games in order to escape from the moral ambiguity of real life. They want to sit down, roll some dice, kill some goblins, take their stuff, and feel good about it. Perhaps the only personal growth that they are...

November 22, 2008

Naming Characters

I have a lot of trouble deciding on PC names. I often turn to Kate Monk’s Onomastikon for help. If you aren’t familiar with it, check it out. I also look at baby naming websites. Many of these have name-meanings attached, which is often a plus. Today, via Lifehacker, I found What A Lovely Name, which allows you to start...

September 8, 2008

Romantic entanglements

On Saturday, we played our temporally-displaced Exalted game. It was a good session in which I got to explore my character a bit more than usual. One thing that I sometimes have trouble with is figuring out how characters feel about things. Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes, though, people have unpredictable desires… and PCs should be no exception. So, yeah....

September 4, 2008

100 experience points and a bit over a year later…

Then. Now: Strangely, he’s not too much better in combat (I should fix that), but he is a lot better at most of the things he does… More importantly, I am still having fun playing him.

September 2, 2008

Deal-breaker: random character generation

Last week, in reaction to our Wednesday-night game-planning meet up, Jeff mentioned that random character generation is a deal-breaker for me. Yes, I grew up on it, but I grew up doing a lot of stuff that I no longer enjoy. This weekend, though, I got to thinking about why – specifically – I don’t want to play games with...

July 9, 2008

4e: Rethinking the Dragonborn

The Dragonborn are a new PC race in 4e D&D. There was a quasi-race called the Dragonborn in 3.5 (introduced in Races of the Dragon). These were members of other races who were called upon by Bahamut and answered his call, becoming transformed into draconic creatures who hunted evil dragons. The 4e Dragonborn aren’t like this. Instead, the new Dragonborn...