A Life Full of Adventure

A character’s first adventure can really shape the path they take for their whole career. If the characters take the job cleaning rats out of the tavern’s basement, then the town may think of them as monster hunters. After a few monster hunter jobs, the characters may think of themselves as monster hunters. Alternatively, clearing the basement may just have been one job of an errand-boy type career. Perhaps it’s clear out the basement one day, and deliver a message to a town a couple dozen miles away the next day. The errand-boy job may be less interesting, but is it profitable? Speaking of profitable, was the character’s first job for a merchant? Are they then set up favorably in the merchant guild? A guild may have a wider variety of more interesting jobs. But they characters in the party would still be thought of as errand-boys.  Perhaps the first job the party took was a task for the church. Will the church outfit the party, provide blessings, and maybe even provide healing? Th...

A new character is a blank slate. You don’t want to fill that slate before even setting out on your first adventure. You want to keep room on that slate to write as much as possible about what happens. What your character experiences through play. What your character learns. What your character does.  But a goal or two does help. Even if the goal is to accumulate gold. Then many players ask themselves why? Why does this character want all this gold? That’s how you start filling the blank slate before your adventures even happen. Maybe the why is better left until later. Until you get to know the character. Until the adventure fills in some blanks. Is your goal to be the party protector? Do you need to know why? Or will you find out why during the adventure? Perhaps you find out why when that other character you protected does some great deed in the future.  Play to find out. Play to flesh out. Play to explain those short, one-liner goals. Each play is likely to bring different...

Here’s how it usually starts for me: “I’m tired of playing the magic user. Next time I want to be the brainless fighter.”  I don’t mean that I always play a magic user, but it’s an example of how I often decide what type of character I want to play in the next new game/campaign/adventure. After a while I just get sick of always having my head in books, looking for the best spell to cast in a specific situation. After playing so many magic users in a row or after playing so many rogues…I just want a change.  Clerics. Clerics, too, keep me busy a lot. It’s no wonder I wanted to be the fighter when we started rolling characters for a recent game. It’s really too bad that game didn’t take off; we had quite the group of halflings ready to take on the big world.  I know others will say we should just roll in order and play whatever character the dice decide. That’s not usually the way it works for our table. We get together, mete out the roles, and roll up some characters....

I play a lot of clerics. I know that may not be a popular position…I read a lot of blogs as well. Each deity has strictures that are just different enough to capture my attention. And they make the characters different enough so the class never quite gets old to me. Sure I take breaks, but I’m always ready to roll up a new cleric or go back to an old favorite. What the running of clerics gets me also are holidays. There are certain days of the year that are holy to the cleric or to the church. Some could even be considered a New Years Day.  These holy days, besides possibly some specific clothes and proscribed festivities, should come with an opportunity for the cleric to do some introspection. Is the cleric following the strictures of their deity? Is their focus wandering? What sort of goals should the cleric set for themselves in the coming month/season/year to get closer to their deity? Does the cleric need to renew some oaths? Those are all questions that could be asked through...