My In-laws were visiting for a couple of days and they asked me about Gen Con. I had to remind myself that even after being part of the family for over 30 years, there are still parts of me that they might not understand. I took some time to explain role playing games to them. I realized that while I get role playing games, I’ve been playing them for over 40 years, there are those who have no clue about them.
Think of a role playing game as a “choose your own adventure” story. They are collaborative games in which everyone works together to beat the game. In a role playing game, you are part of a party of characters who try to meet a goal. You are playing a character in a story, the story changes as you, and your group make choices. Your success is determined by a simple dice roll.
Your character has attributes and has a job (class) which gives you skills to help the group win. You battle bad guys and sometimes good guys (if you think they are bad guys). As you move through the story, you learn and get better. In the end you might die or you might go on to another adventure. Role playing games give people like me the chance to be someone the complete opposite of who I am. The grandfather of role playing games is Dungeons and Dragons- it’s been through highs and lows. It’s been considered the work of the devil by some 
but really gave nerdy kids a chance to let their imaginations go.
Let’s Get Personal
At Gen Con this year they celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. I started playing it in middle school and had no idea what I was doing, for the most part I still don’t have a clue.
My first character was an assassin, Lawful Evil, noble by birth, Count Iblis. Most people’s first character gets a name from a book or other reference, my friend’s character was “Elrond” and yes, he was an elf. The count soon became my alter ego. He could hide in the shadows, like I kind of did in real life, but he could also move gracefully and with dexterity- something I still can’t do. He had a bendable code and ended up collecting some amazing things. He became a Marquis and by the time I was in knee deep into high school he had been put on my shelf & at some point after that lost in the ancient dusts of time.
I went to college and played a slightly different character using the MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing) system. The GM had a rule in which we were playing “heroes,” therefore we couldn’t be evil. This was before the rise of the concept of anti-hero. Funny thing, I still follow that rule when making a character. “Greyff” (A purposeful misspelling of the German word for Griffin) looked like a scruffy nerf herder of a rogue, but could sling spells at you before you realized it. Something that made you not judge this book by his cover. So my personal history with role playing ran hot and cold over the decades. Usually if I had a group that wanted a player, I could be there. GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System), Pathfinder, Starfinder… I could figure out or bluff my way through most systems. Life was easy as long as I could do mental math and knew what I needed to add or subtract from my roll.
When I came back to Dungeons and Dragons it was like having never read a Marvel or DC comic book and trying to figure things out. There were so many different realities- and therefore things that might lure in or keep away new players. There were those who missed whatever world they had started playing in, like the multiverse, each world had some changes and added classes, species, and things that make that world unique. I tend to play species and classes from the Player’s Handbook. I’ve branched away once, but really saw the other players almost discomfort because an Intoximancer, while cool, was a hard concept in normal gameplay, I’ve shelved that character.
I remember starting a game with some new players so I stuck to my standard character type. l picked something straight from the Player’s Handbook. I even commented to the DM that I find it hard on new players when some crazy class or species shows up as a player because the new players can’t just look things up in the book they have to learn about who they are playing with. You expect to have a party of elves, halflings (hobbits), and humans – our common knowledge base for fantasy comes from Lord of the Rings. In this instance someone showed up late to the game and was playing a robot, a robot cleric?!?
What’s Old is New Again
A few weeks ago Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast the current makers of the 800 pound gorilla of RPGs released the latest edition of the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook. Things like this cause an uproar in the community with shouting and cursing about how people’s lives have been ruined. I don’t see it. First, I am no expert. As far as I can tell this is mostly just rules clarifications and changes in layout. The company has even said it’s supposed to be backwards compatible. Therefore it isn’t a new edition. When it was first talked about (in muted whispers, in the darkened hallways of the interwebs) they were going to change “races” to “species.” This way they could avoid any issues with race, a topic we humans seem to struggle over. It seems they have clarified some of the rules, and made character classes a bit more level. I won’t really know until I actually play, but on paper it seems that way.
Here Are My Biggest Takeaways:
- They’ve gotten rid of half elves and half orcs. Doesn’t mean your old characters no longer exist, but they no longer have separate listings in the Player’s Handbook. Just Elves and Orcs. Orcs being a new addition. Your DM may continue allowing them, or not.
- Along with Orcs, they’ve added the Aasimir and Goliath species. Not that these weren’t playable before, but they are now part of the Player’s Handbook so you don’t need some other book to play one. Then again- what are they? Aasimir are the just other side of Tieflings, right? Oh, sorry- Tieflings descended from Demons, Devils, etc. Aasimir descended from Angels. So you now can play either. Goliaths on the other hand are descended from giants. Like Dragonborn (another species) have some dragon abilities, Goliaths have abilities from giants. If you’ve played you know there are a bunch of kinds of dragons and almost as many kinds of giants. I look at Goliaths as the Incredible Hulk… could be smart Hulk could be that other guy.
- They made the layout easier to understand. In the old version if you wanted to play a spell caster your list of spells was in the back of the book lumped in with all the other spell casters. Now you turn the page in the class description and there they are… a nice list. You still need your head to the back to read details, but that makes sense since some spells are used by multiple classes.
- They’ve embraced their past through the illustrations. Over the years Dungeons and Dragons has had many different realms in which the stories took place. The really nice illustrations harken back to each one – I didn’t see any mention of cannibal halflings or some of the more unique realms, but I haven’t looked at every caption. It seems that they have touched upon: Valor’s Call, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and even Eberron. Don’t feel bad, I had to look some of these up and I even have read Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons.
- Right now there are a few things that are listed as – Consult the Dungeon Master’s Guide the one I noticed was dealing with deities. If you play a cleric or paladin you need to worship a deity… after reading NPC’s by Drew Hayes, I wanted to see the updated list of deities as I was thinking of creating a character like one in that book. No list of deities- consult the DM Guide which the new edition hasn’t been released yet. Heck, the new edition of the Player’s Handbook doesn’t officially become available until September.
Looking for Group
The hardest part in gaming has nothing to do with the rules, or which edition you are using. The hardest part is finding the right people. I recall when I joined a group that I just felt lost in. The Star Trek Adventures game had just been released. I went to my local store when I heard they were putting together a game. I came thinking that in my group of friends I’m pretty much the token geek. I know Star Trek. I didn’t know the obscure Federation history these guys were bringing up. I was figuring something around the original series, or a little later. The game was going to be set right after the conclusion of the Dominion War in Cardassian space on a ship type I had never heard of… I decided to slowly back away…They were way too serious.
How about April 12, 2419?
Then comes the issue of scheduling, when the real world interferes with the fantasy world. Almost every group I’ve been in someone stops showing up due to whatever reason. Sometimes work gets in the way, or family vacations… I try not to do this, but I’ve done this too, so I’m also to blame. You don’t show up before the group attacks a dragon, people die, and it’s all your fault.
If you think of a D&D game like a novel – you turn to the next chapter and it’s blank. That’s what happens when the DM goes AWOL. Happened to more than once. You turn the page and one of the main characters in the story is no longer mentioned. Then reappears with no explanation three chapters later… Life does get in the way sometimes, but I know I try to make it or at least give everyone enough of a heads up.
Life’s a Game… Don’t be a Murder Hobo
When creating an alter-ego for the game some people take a lot of time. Some times a DM will ask for a well thought out backstory so they can spring something on you. Other groups are just “Murder Hobos”. See the monster, kill the monster, loot the body. See the poor innocent guard just doing his job, kill the poor innocent guard just doing his job, loot the body. See the small child with a lollipop… you get the idea.
I played a Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel at Gen Con and still think it is an awesome way to create cool characters. Instead of you sitting alone rolling dice to figure out what your character did before adventuring… you get to start with a few characters who are at that tipping point. Will they die or will they become heroes? You have nothing invested in them until after they survive the funnel. The funnel becomes the how and why they went adventuring. My my characters case, they were kidnapped by cultists and escaped, they are either trying to get back to their village or have realized the entire village was killed and they are the only survivors… Now they have a grudge against these guys and a reason to hunt them down and stop their evil plans.
As I said in my recap of Gen Con, I think I prefer the more dice roll based role playing games than the ones where you gain advantage by conning the DM into accepting what you want to do- it’s the concrete, Lawful side of my personality.
My standard character is a bard – so they can fight and cast spells. I tend to describe their singing style as similar to William Shatner, so they play music and tell stories. I used to always play a rogue, but decided that a bard forces me to not be an introvert. The ones I’ve played in the past are: Lennon McCartney, Peter Paulenmary, Simon Garnetfunkel, and recently Arlo, just Arlo. I’ve also played a dwarf barbarian named Oogachucka, and a gnome sorcerer named Antyr Rhynum (A play off of the latin name for the snap dragon). The names are meant to illustrate that I don’t always take the game seriously, so expect me to open the door while everyone is deciding if we should open the door. When the robot cleric first came through the door Arlo yelled out “Klaatu birrada nicto!” and then asked if he had the pizza I had ordered. Through out the game Arlo called the guy “Gort.” I also had modern songs either ukulele covers or those done in a classic style set on my phone so I would just start playing a song when we took too much time discussing things. I became the Final Jeopardy timer for the group. `Most of the time the campaign has just withered away, so I have these not intro level characters therefore I really can’t do anything with them. Some are lost in Ravenloft, others have some cool home-brew magic item that no other DM is going to allow.
Arlo’s Backstory (an example): Arlo had come from a family of brewers and not being the eldest was going to be left nothing. His older brother got everything, Arlo was expected to work for his brother (who had bullied him growing up) and be happy. Not Arlo’s style, he just wanted to play the ukulele, and tell stories. He convinced his older brother to brew a very special beer “Zombie Dust” and nice IPA, that unfortunately turned people into the undead for a short period of time. It was a hit! During which Arlo grabbed his ukulele and ran for the hills, leaving his family fending off a village full of Octoberfest zombies. His family now is hunting him down for revenge and the recipes and cash he also took. Arlo’s a nice guy, helps people, especially those that the system have left to the wayside for no fault of their own.
Final Suggestion
When you decide to create a character the one thing I can recommend is dark-vision. Humans are nice, but they are blind in the dark and that is where the monsters are. Pick a species or some way so you don’t need torches- they give away your position and once they are snuffed out, so is your life.
