The number of the questions shall be three…
2008 May 1
Today we’re going to try something new. You’ve all seen those blog quizzes that ask you a few questions and you can copy and paste your results into your own blog and feel happy about it.
Today, I’m going to ask some questions and everyone is free to either blog your answers and tag someone else on your own blog (a link back would be nice) or you can do it via a comment below.
- Have you ever selected a character class purely for the fun of it?
- Have you ever picked a weapon or spell for the fun of it instead of the amount of damage it did?
- Does your character have any special, non-magical mementos? If so, what are they and how did they get them? If not, why not?
With answers come insight, so feel free to explain your answers as fully as you want. Hopefully as people pile on their answers you might find one or two neat ideas to incorporate into your character or your campaign, depending upon which side of the screen you are on!
1. I have picked up a Fell Caller for an IK PBP RPG. Fell calling is like shouting at people…with magic. A hoot, and it does serve a purpose in the group.
2. I don’t necessarily pick spells just for the damage they do, but their utility and trump ability. Does turning someones soup blue with prestidigitation count?
3. A pocket watch in another Iron Kingdom’s game. I had it engraved with gold filigree and everything. It even had a minute hand! Absolutely awesome! And someone in the group could say “Synchronize your watches” in a fantasy game. Priceless.
1) When I first started playing D&D, I did pick classes largely for fun. Now, I look at what roles are missing from the party and pick a class progression that fills that role best. However, for non-D&D games — Shadowrun and Mage, mostly — I still just pick an archetype for fun, because D&D’s our group’s crunchy, optimal-choices game.
For example, in my current D&D game I’m playing an enchanter wizard, with three or four prestige classes, because mind control and general wizardry is incredibly powerful. In my last Shadowrun game, I played an eagle shaman, because calling up elementals sounded awesome
2) Spells and weapons largely follow the same thing as above: For our D&D game, it’s all about the most effective items and choices. (The word “damage” is a bit misleading, Dante – my wizard dropped the evocation school, preferring control spells, precisely because straight-up hit point damage isn’t the fastest way to win battles in D&D.) For other games, especially games where style is more important than numbers, the opposite holds true.
3) I’ve only ever had one character that had a memento like this: The aforementioned eagle shaman, who had a few Native American items and who always wore fairly traditional-looking garb. Nothing as cool as the_gun_nut’s watch, but it was nice and flavorful.
1. I have to think the class is going to be fun or I just can’t get into the game, so I suppose the short answer is ‘yes’. 🙂
That being said one I did pick because I just _had_ to was a Harrowed in Deadlands. That was _so_ much fun….
2. For the fun of it? Not sure, unless you count ‘required by the character concept’ 🙂
3. The Harrowed’s guns (long backstory), though they acquired relic status by HoE. One AD&D character had a pet chicken just because she liked chickens….it travelled with them and survived some pretty hairy stuff 😀
OMG, that reminds me of the time I played an insane half-orc barbarian who trained attack chickens.
COOL!
chickens are totally under-rated 😀
hmmmm…..my character was half-elf….I wonder if it’s something in the human half? 😉
The only one I can say yes to is 3 – My minotaur fighter was captured (along with the rest of the party) by an overwhelming force of kobolds. The shame was so great that after he was freed, he still wore the shackle and chain on his right hand to signify his desire for vengeance. It also made a nifty little improvised weapon for those tight situations, and strangled quite a few unwary guards etc in its time. Lucky he never came up against a Kyton, though.
1. I have picked prestige classes just for the fun of it. Specifically, I picked the Seeker of the Song prestige class just because it sounded like fun.
2. Well, I picked the Elven Thinblade just because it was different and because it worked pretty cool with my chosen prestige class.
3. I got a trinket from a local county fair that whenever I said “necklace” would relocate me. Now, according to the Detect Magic spell, it was not magical. It’s just kinda cool, a momento from the early days of the campaign.
Wow, these are some really great responses, thanks everyone! I might single out a few of these as topics for discussion soon!
I’ll reply individually as I have time to digest them.
My first character was a wizard and the first session he knocked out a bunch of orcs and a swarm of bats with Color Spray. I thought that was so fun I changed his name to Chroma, got him a many-colored robe and learned every color-based spell from Hypnotic Pattern to Glitterdust. Then I got a familiar — no touch attacks to deliver, I just wanted a familiar that was a chameleon. I named him Skittles.
Skittles — that’s great! LOL!
#3– My character is a fighter/cleric of kord, and any enemy he slays, he takes out dental pliers and pulls a tooth from them to later add to his necklace of hundreds of teeth.
1. This wasn’t in D&D, but in Changeling: the Dreaming (a WoD system). There is a class/race that has two defining racial features: they play pranks, and they have to lie. Seriously; every statement that isn’t a question has to mislead. It was sooo much fun to roleplay!
2. One word: prestedigitation. I swear, no one spell has led to more fun RP than that.
3. I just finished a campaign a month ago where my character – Bale – was a half-dragon. One of the ways that I decided to have his dragon side manifest was to collect things. So he came back from every city/exotic location we visited (capitals, water/earth plane, fields of elesium, etc.) with a souvenir, which he would admire by the campfire at nights. He also collected (and read) schlocky romance novels. Oh, and he too collected “trophies” from the bodies of powerful enemies that he’d defeated (dragon claws, vampire fangs, etc.) and put them on a necklace.