Forcing Myself to Write- Day 9

Too many to count.

I have played many characters, many of which I have forgotten. But I will forever have a part of my brain that comes up with more I'd like to play. Hell, I have been invited to play with another group recently, and I am excited about playing a Drow noble entrusted with guarding the world from a demon bound in his sword, Toreador Malkovian.

But Toreador is just the one that is up next. I have a dozen superheros waiting to be played, some shadow runners, a fewer sci-fi characters... the list just goes on.

So, I guess my final answer to "favorite PC I'd like to play" is "the next one."

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 8

I will get this question wrong unless I go about it objectively.

I have played many characters, and have a tendency of playing drastically differing roles each time I play. And this is just characters I remember playing! So, I will elect my favorite via most sessions played:

• Fox (first character I remember playing, half-elf ranger) 5? (actually, assume a question mark following all numbers except 1)
• Myself (seriously, just stating myself up as I was at the time and running like that) 36
• Fitz the Fighter (no description needed) 3
• Short Shank (halfling rogue) 2
• Taylor Jannorson (half-elf pirate rogue) 20
• Evelazaira Dua'Clarys (elf illusionist) 4
• Reno Sanchez (elf gun bunny) 2
• David Colden/Winter Waif (werewolf college student in Nome) 3
• Daniel Aether (mage, mercenary seer) 12
• Tesla, Priest of Science (human rogue) 8
• Bergerac (drow bard) 8
• Keith (just... Keith) 15
• Dr. Sigmund Kavorkian Cid (alchemist) 5
• Talon Rose (aerosmith) 3
• "Jaq" Jaquilyn Lindquist (mecha buster/assassin) 1
• Dorian the Pornomancer (drow enchanter) 1
• Sgt Robert Williams (SWAT vampire hunter) 1
• Dorugar (dwarf rogue) 3
• Azael (half-elf rogue/ranger/monk) 1
• Squishy (slime assassin) 1
• The Mokoto Brothers (a samurai and a wizard) 6
• The Fearsome Dave (engineer) 1

So it looks like just from the sheer sessions played, I am my own favorite PC.

I don't have too much of a problem with this. I am not to special, but part of the fun of games for me is creative solutions to problems, and if I can not do this with my skill set and my tools, what good am I?

I think part of the problem with "escapism fantasy" is that because people want to play someone better than themselves, they forget to improve themselves in the process. They stop learning, stop trying, and stop having their own adventures until "adventure" is just a game term to them.

Look outside! Look at the news! Look at science! The real world is fucked up and awesome. We have monsters, political intrigue, strange afflictions, explorable landscapes, weird facts of reality, and treasure everywhere. You could, right after reading this blog, go maybe five miles and pass by so many adventure hooks that if you were made conscious of each one your head would explode.

Maybe yourself sucks. That is a common complaint I hear from people who stat themselves up honestly. I used to game with a guy who had mostly 8s in all his stats except Int and Wis, which were 11 and 10. My answer is so what? Is that any worse than the thief with 5 Str who knows he could never win in a honest fight? It just forces you to think! If you, as a person, have a bunch of 8s and 7s for stats and still want to try it, you're already part bad-ass. You graduate to full bad-ass once you survive one adventure with your sucky, neck-beardy stats. And maybe that success in a game will show you your potential outside it.

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 7

Yes (except 4)

I refuse to play any game "straight" more than once. I started in D&D 3, learned about AD&D and played some of that, tried 4 and hated it straight, and from what I played of 5 I liked it enough. And the conclusion I have drawn is that all the editions need help. 4 is beyond help for me to enjoy it, but I like D&D 3 with AD&D encounters, initiative and henchmen, and a lot of the things I change looked like the things that happened in 5 anyway. Never got a copy of 2 (same with Halo) so I have nothing to say on that, nor have I even seen a copy OD&D. But you can bet I would steal crap from those if I could.

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 6

Brigid, hands down.

I have a personal vestment in this. I am a pagan, so this is not so much a gaming question as a religious for me. Thus I have a patron goddess, and she is Brigid, a goddess of healing, smithing, creativity and poetry. A goddess so robust that she has survived virtually unchanged across three religions that I am aware of.

Which reminds me, I need to collect some notes on some Irish and Celtic gods and make a gameable pantheon.

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 5

Do I have favorite dice? What does the hell does that even mean? Are we talking a die type, or my favorite die to use, or what the hell?

(distracting dance)

I still have to write, huh?

....

fuck it.

Just about all my dice hate everyone and seem to determined to cause the most grief to the greatest number of individuals possible. Thus, they are ideal for the GMing trade,  but so unlikable that I have no favorites. My blue and silver moon d20 is the one I hate the least.

I like thirty siders. They are dorky cool and never used in any game ever. Thus, you buy them and immediately set up excuses in which they are to be used. Hell, I think they even have their own knightly order or some shit.

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 4

Favorite Game World?

I used to buy campaign settings. This was back when I was a terrible GM and need professionals to build good scenery for me. I have held on to exactly two- Kingdoms of Kalamar and Gaia: Beyond the Dreams. Gaia is the last setting I picked up, Kalamar was the first. I'm better at world building now, even if I still have yet to publish anything to verify this, but these two settings have influenced how I approach it.

Kalamar is a mediocre campaign setting as is, because it is a more politically and culturally diverse version of the Forgotten Realms type setting- long lists of canonized details of lands with mention of monsters and treasure and shit, but no encounter tables and a few new feats and items scattered about for players. But one thing it did right was the notable NPCs. After hundreds of pages of dry description and charts, collected in the back of the setting book is everyone mentioned in a table with what level and class they are, as well as where they are found. No stats in the text, no possessions or equipment that is lugged around for the day they go to adventure, just class, level, and the implication that you know your group better than they do.

But Gaia is where it is at. At first just painted in broad strokes in the Anima core book, Gaia is a world that actually adds to the game. Notables are just given a class and level in parenthesis after their name. Locations were given no more than a paragraph unless they related directly to an adventure. And at the end of each country was given some region-specific generic NPCs, some stat bonuses player from here could take as a trait, and a random starting equipment/social status table for PCs from the area, clearly designed to replace the generic one in the core book. Couple this with the adventure ideas and the plots that were designed to be aided or foiled by players, and you have an amazing setting for many campaigns. It also helps that the world is clearly breakable- Gaia assume the player begin about six months after an empire has shattered due to some world shaking artifact being used in the capitol. I got the impression that you could do anything from that point, be it stealing and traveling without a care, trying to reunify the empire, or hunt down and kill the child empress.

Forcing Myself to Write- Day 3

I like thieves and rogues.

It almost seems not worth justifying...

Oh well, I wanted to write anyway.

When you get down to it, I like smart and crazy characters. Deadpool, Batman, Joker, Rebecca Buck, Riddick, Seth Green, Porco Rosso... the list goes on. I associate having non-combat skills with the kind of intelligence I see in these characters, especially a wide variety in talents and skills. From the beginning of RPG, the Thief class was the one of the first that had skill sets beyond common men that were not fighting or magic related. Nowadays most games have some skill system that goes beyond combat, but in most cases it is still rogues that have the greatest variety in skills.

But one must remember that rogues are insane. They almost never fight as well as other classes, they never have spells, never have a god on their side, and most only use small blades and tool kits. But for some reason they still feel up to taking on things that would daunt one armed with magic or mighty arms. I can picture someone looking over a party of adventures and having the following conversation with the thief:
"You don't seem as well armed as the others. What can you do?"
"Hide, steal things and notice traps."
"Can you fight?"
"Kinda, if I get the guys back..."
"Can you cast spells?"
"Nope."
"Do the gods favor you?"
"I think a few hate me for stealing from temples. That count?"
"So what will you do?"
"I'm going into a big hole in the ground full of things that can use magic and/or fight better than me. Then I'm going to take their stuff."
"How?"
"By being smarter and luckier. I hope."
"... Very well then. Good luck to you, cra- I mean good sir."

But in the end, I like using my intelligence and more than a little luck to get through a challenge. If playing a rogue or watching others playing a rogue can be summarized, it would be as so:

“For a job like getting rid of the drug dealer next door, I’ll take a hardware store over a gun any day. Guns make you stupid; better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart.” 

-Michael Westen, Burn Notice