It's time for a guest post! The player for Chantrix has graciously agreed to write for this week since it's an "off" week for the group. Take it away Chantrix...
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Full disclosure: It has been a long time since I last played D&D. And I’ve never played a persistent campaign.
Secondary full disclosure: I am super bad at naming characters. Chantrix Rumbleflop is named after the prescription drug commercial the SyFy app played 2,056 times while I was designing my character and two words that I think are funny mashed together. I have no excuse. And yet, I’m changing nothing.
In the lost days of my youth, I was unlucky enough to be surrounded by people who felt this kind of nerdery was for boys. Those people are stupid, and I have since moved away from them. Go me. As an adult, I’ve been the person your DM calls when they need a pinch hitter - someone for the party to meet for a session or two that’s a little too big/too variable of a character for the DM to pilot - but I’ve never fallen into a group where I fit and had time and were just starting a campaign/looking to add a character.
All of this to say, I’ve never built a character from scratch, and I’ve never built a character to last. Because my characters were designed to die/disappear after a session or two, it was fine for them to be exaggerated or even slightly annoying caricatures of a person; it was fine if they didn’t quite fit in with the group, and it was fine if I was really, really bad at playing them. In fact, sometimes it was even better that way.
Enter the DM and her new campaign. I had the time; she had the group, and her stories are always worth telling. So, with very little knowledge and a plethora of confidence, I went out to build my character.
First of all, I have to admit that I love characters that don’t make sense. If you can smoosh together two things that shouldn’t work and make them great, I will fall in love with you every time. Got a rogue goliath? Come sit by me. Playing a (Half) Orc bard with maxed out charisma? I have never been so fascinated in my life. Do you have a Chaotic neutral/evil Aasimar without a tortured past? Did I ever tell you you’re my heeeeerooooo?
That said, those mixed-up characters can be difficult to play and hork your stats like whoa. Since I have no experience in making this sort of character work for the long haul, I went with the entry level version: halfling barbarian.
Let’s take those two separately, shall we?
Halfling: I always like halflings. They’re happy. Life isn’t. I mean it sometimes is, but not always. Halflings are optimists who truly believe that the sun’ll come out tomorrow. I am a pessimist who spends her life suffused with joy because the world didn’t end yesterday, and she really thought it would. Halflings are fun in a way I am not. Can you think of a better reason to play one?
Also, despite the genuinely low stakes of D&D, I hate rolling ones. Yes, I know everyone hates rolling ones, but they make my “this game is stupid and not fun; I’m taking my dice and going home to sulk(cry)” instinct kick in. I don’t know why. It’s not the failure. Rolling a two is hilarious, and you’re no more likely to survive a two than a one. But somehow, ones freak me out.
Halflings are lucky bastards who very rarely roll ones. And when they do, they’re double ones, which loop back ‘round to funny. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps this campaign will explain it to me.
Barbarian: I’ve never actually played a barbarian before. I’m not gonna lie, the straightforward nature of the game mechanics drew me in. See thing; hate thing; hit thing. Barbarian. I love me the complexity of a good spell caster, but they’re a lot of work. More work than I’m willing to do while figuring out the character complexities of my first persistent campaign. If the DM asks me back for a second campaign, she should be expecting a caster, but that’s a long way off, and by then we’ll both be different people.
I looked pretty deeply at Monk, which had a lot to recommend it, but at the end of the day the opportunity to reconcile “halfling” and “barbarian” was too much to resist. Because here’s the thing: barbarian is relative. What my mother (a midwestern homecoming queen who genuinely considered herself engaged when her boyfriend gave her his fraternity pin) considers a barbarian is very different from what I, a born again Californian (those five years in Georgia were bad, y’all. They were bad) consider a barbarian. So what would halflings - those eternally optimistic, get-along guys - consider a barbarian? I want to look into that. I want to explore it further than the provisional backstory I’ve built. I want to know what happens when someone is good at studying (my intelligence stats are great), but wouldn’t know a street smart if it punched them in the face (whose wisdom modifier is -1? This guy!). And I want to beat the crap out of everybody who stands in my way while I do it. Is that too much to ask? No, no it is not, because that’s how barbarians roll.
Practically speaking, that halfling +2 to dexterity is a godsend where Unarmored Defense is concerned, and if you think this character isn’t entirely based on her ability to take everything life throws at her and keep on smiling (Constitution, motherfuckers! It’s a racial +1 and the stat into which I dumped everything) then the last 850ish words have been wasted on you. Go back and read them again. You’ll see it.
The biggest issue for me was alignment. Traditionally halflings are lawful good, but
I don’t think that makes sense for a barbarian
I think if my halfling were lawful good, she would have stayed home
I don’t want to play lawful good. Lawful good is the straight man, and I enjoy being him for 3 sessions max.
So, do I shift over to chaotic good? It’s the logical side step. She wants the world to be good, but she questions whether the halfling adherence to etiquette will get us there. In fact, she questions if anyone’s adherence to anything will get us there.
What about neutral good? I feel that the halfling authority system is basically benevolent - the only times she was harassed by the halfling police, she totally deserved it. It’s a logical alignment. But. If this character is Neutral Good, how does she get to barbarian? I can get her cleric with ease, and warlock at a stretch (ask me sometime about my thoughts on lawful evil halflings. They are the worst, and I won’t play one, but I could get a PhD on my theories surrounding them. They are the *best* Germans).
Chaotic Neutral? There’s a lot to recommend this one. Is the greatest good really found in shaking off the rules and doing what makes us happy? In the end, won’t doing good bring us the greatest pleasure and so we should measure our goodness by our happiness? If a halfling has moved far away enough from halfling society that they are considered a barbarian and are forced to go adventuring, might this not be their outlook? Beyond the shackles of order lies the purest joy. What bold adventurers will seek it with me?
In the end, I opted for chaotic good. It’s the only decision where I’m still not at peace, and the only one where I may end up writing an overly-long, overly-emotional note to the DM later in the campaign. It came down to this: I think this character still believes in the concept of “good” as a socially defined, knowable thing, and I think she is working to bring that about. She may question the “good” of any given society, but she thinks it’s a thing that can be discovered, known, and achieved. If that changes; if she decides that “good” is a personal thing, and we all have to find our own, then the DM is getting a letter, and Chantrix is easing on down the road to chaotic neutral. In which case, god help us all.
I’d like to believe that everything I’ve created for Chantrix will survive contact with the campaign, but we’re three sessions in and already I have questions. I think, in the long term, it’s going to be a combination of internal and external factors. What are other members of the party exploring better than I ever could? What are they saying that I want to react to? What are they saying that I want to react to as somebody else? And what aspect of a (my?) personality might I want to explore without ever bringing it into contact with reality? Because why else would you design a whole other person and play a game where you can’t control the story; only your reaction to it? I’m excited to see where this goes, and I think I’ve designed someone who can carry me though. And if she can’t, I’m pretty sure the DM will allow her to evolve. And really, isn’t that all any of us can ask in any world: real or imagined?
Full disclosure: It has been a long time since I last played D&D. And I’ve never played a persistent campaign.
Secondary full disclosure: I am super bad at naming characters. Chantrix Rumbleflop is named after the prescription drug commercial the SyFy app played 2,056 times while I was designing my character and two words that I think are funny mashed together. I have no excuse. And yet, I’m changing nothing.
In the lost days of my youth, I was unlucky enough to be surrounded by people who felt this kind of nerdery was for boys. Those people are stupid, and I have since moved away from them. Go me. As an adult, I’ve been the person your DM calls when they need a pinch hitter - someone for the party to meet for a session or two that’s a little too big/too variable of a character for the DM to pilot - but I’ve never fallen into a group where I fit and had time and were just starting a campaign/looking to add a character.
All of this to say, I’ve never built a character from scratch, and I’ve never built a character to last. Because my characters were designed to die/disappear after a session or two, it was fine for them to be exaggerated or even slightly annoying caricatures of a person; it was fine if they didn’t quite fit in with the group, and it was fine if I was really, really bad at playing them. In fact, sometimes it was even better that way.
Enter the DM and her new campaign. I had the time; she had the group, and her stories are always worth telling. So, with very little knowledge and a plethora of confidence, I went out to build my character.
First of all, I have to admit that I love characters that don’t make sense. If you can smoosh together two things that shouldn’t work and make them great, I will fall in love with you every time. Got a rogue goliath? Come sit by me. Playing a (Half) Orc bard with maxed out charisma? I have never been so fascinated in my life. Do you have a Chaotic neutral/evil Aasimar without a tortured past? Did I ever tell you you’re my heeeeerooooo?
That said, those mixed-up characters can be difficult to play and hork your stats like whoa. Since I have no experience in making this sort of character work for the long haul, I went with the entry level version: halfling barbarian.
Let’s take those two separately, shall we?
Halfling: I always like halflings. They’re happy. Life isn’t. I mean it sometimes is, but not always. Halflings are optimists who truly believe that the sun’ll come out tomorrow. I am a pessimist who spends her life suffused with joy because the world didn’t end yesterday, and she really thought it would. Halflings are fun in a way I am not. Can you think of a better reason to play one?
Also, despite the genuinely low stakes of D&D, I hate rolling ones. Yes, I know everyone hates rolling ones, but they make my “this game is stupid and not fun; I’m taking my dice and going home to sulk(cry)” instinct kick in. I don’t know why. It’s not the failure. Rolling a two is hilarious, and you’re no more likely to survive a two than a one. But somehow, ones freak me out.
Halflings are lucky bastards who very rarely roll ones. And when they do, they’re double ones, which loop back ‘round to funny. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps this campaign will explain it to me.
Barbarian: I’ve never actually played a barbarian before. I’m not gonna lie, the straightforward nature of the game mechanics drew me in. See thing; hate thing; hit thing. Barbarian. I love me the complexity of a good spell caster, but they’re a lot of work. More work than I’m willing to do while figuring out the character complexities of my first persistent campaign. If the DM asks me back for a second campaign, she should be expecting a caster, but that’s a long way off, and by then we’ll both be different people.
I looked pretty deeply at Monk, which had a lot to recommend it, but at the end of the day the opportunity to reconcile “halfling” and “barbarian” was too much to resist. Because here’s the thing: barbarian is relative. What my mother (a midwestern homecoming queen who genuinely considered herself engaged when her boyfriend gave her his fraternity pin) considers a barbarian is very different from what I, a born again Californian (those five years in Georgia were bad, y’all. They were bad) consider a barbarian. So what would halflings - those eternally optimistic, get-along guys - consider a barbarian? I want to look into that. I want to explore it further than the provisional backstory I’ve built. I want to know what happens when someone is good at studying (my intelligence stats are great), but wouldn’t know a street smart if it punched them in the face (whose wisdom modifier is -1? This guy!). And I want to beat the crap out of everybody who stands in my way while I do it. Is that too much to ask? No, no it is not, because that’s how barbarians roll.
Practically speaking, that halfling +2 to dexterity is a godsend where Unarmored Defense is concerned, and if you think this character isn’t entirely based on her ability to take everything life throws at her and keep on smiling (Constitution, motherfuckers! It’s a racial +1 and the stat into which I dumped everything) then the last 850ish words have been wasted on you. Go back and read them again. You’ll see it.
The biggest issue for me was alignment. Traditionally halflings are lawful good, but
I don’t think that makes sense for a barbarian
I think if my halfling were lawful good, she would have stayed home
I don’t want to play lawful good. Lawful good is the straight man, and I enjoy being him for 3 sessions max.
So, do I shift over to chaotic good? It’s the logical side step. She wants the world to be good, but she questions whether the halfling adherence to etiquette will get us there. In fact, she questions if anyone’s adherence to anything will get us there.
What about neutral good? I feel that the halfling authority system is basically benevolent - the only times she was harassed by the halfling police, she totally deserved it. It’s a logical alignment. But. If this character is Neutral Good, how does she get to barbarian? I can get her cleric with ease, and warlock at a stretch (ask me sometime about my thoughts on lawful evil halflings. They are the worst, and I won’t play one, but I could get a PhD on my theories surrounding them. They are the *best* Germans).
Chaotic Neutral? There’s a lot to recommend this one. Is the greatest good really found in shaking off the rules and doing what makes us happy? In the end, won’t doing good bring us the greatest pleasure and so we should measure our goodness by our happiness? If a halfling has moved far away enough from halfling society that they are considered a barbarian and are forced to go adventuring, might this not be their outlook? Beyond the shackles of order lies the purest joy. What bold adventurers will seek it with me?
In the end, I opted for chaotic good. It’s the only decision where I’m still not at peace, and the only one where I may end up writing an overly-long, overly-emotional note to the DM later in the campaign. It came down to this: I think this character still believes in the concept of “good” as a socially defined, knowable thing, and I think she is working to bring that about. She may question the “good” of any given society, but she thinks it’s a thing that can be discovered, known, and achieved. If that changes; if she decides that “good” is a personal thing, and we all have to find our own, then the DM is getting a letter, and Chantrix is easing on down the road to chaotic neutral. In which case, god help us all.
I’d like to believe that everything I’ve created for Chantrix will survive contact with the campaign, but we’re three sessions in and already I have questions. I think, in the long term, it’s going to be a combination of internal and external factors. What are other members of the party exploring better than I ever could? What are they saying that I want to react to? What are they saying that I want to react to as somebody else? And what aspect of a (my?) personality might I want to explore without ever bringing it into contact with reality? Because why else would you design a whole other person and play a game where you can’t control the story; only your reaction to it? I’m excited to see where this goes, and I think I’ve designed someone who can carry me though. And if she can’t, I’m pretty sure the DM will allow her to evolve. And really, isn’t that all any of us can ask in any world: real or imagined?
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