Hello!
This post is about using death as a tool for character development. Not the actual death of a character that affects others but imagining how a character would respond to a hypothetical death.
I've spent the last several months playing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. My character is a high elf fighter named "Hadari" who was literally raised by wolves (rolled for it on the Outlander background). It's taken this long to reach level 5 and I've planned out how I want his character development and mechanical advancement to progress. I hadn't thought about his potential death.
Unlike in video games, there is no guarantee of "game over - restart" in D&D. If your entire party is wiped out, that's it. A Dungeon Master could allow it for a penalty as a house-rule, of course, or arrange a situation for the party's revival, but the typical response is to roll-up a new character. There are no second chances. This was a new experience for me.
Recently, my party botched a mission and had to leave town in a hurry. The DM decided to call the session as we fled. We didn't know if anyone was pursuing us. If so, we didn't know how many or if they were on horseback. We had to leave most of our own horses behind in our hurry, so if the city guards were on horseback then they would overtake us. I spent much of the next day worried about our uncertain doom.
Then I remembered a line from a fellow author. Thaddeus White said in a blog interview, "Nothing completes a character like their demise " (You can read the whole thing here). (He's a fantastic novelist, by the way). That got me thinking how I would roleplay Hadari's death in such a situation.
Due to trauma in his backstory, he definitely wouldn't allow himself to be captured alive. He also misses his former wolf pack (the party being his replacement for them) and fears them to be dead. So I figured he would die fighting in a frenzy of panic and fear. His end would be that of a tragic hero.
This helped me to understand Hadari on a deeper level, which helped my role-playing for the next session. It also brought me peace of mind if the party got into such trouble.
A week later, we discovered that the city guards were more worried about putting out the fire our rogue started than chasing us so we got away clean.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback
This post is about using death as a tool for character development. Not the actual death of a character that affects others but imagining how a character would respond to a hypothetical death.
I've spent the last several months playing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. My character is a high elf fighter named "Hadari" who was literally raised by wolves (rolled for it on the Outlander background). It's taken this long to reach level 5 and I've planned out how I want his character development and mechanical advancement to progress. I hadn't thought about his potential death.
Unlike in video games, there is no guarantee of "game over - restart" in D&D. If your entire party is wiped out, that's it. A Dungeon Master could allow it for a penalty as a house-rule, of course, or arrange a situation for the party's revival, but the typical response is to roll-up a new character. There are no second chances. This was a new experience for me.
Recently, my party botched a mission and had to leave town in a hurry. The DM decided to call the session as we fled. We didn't know if anyone was pursuing us. If so, we didn't know how many or if they were on horseback. We had to leave most of our own horses behind in our hurry, so if the city guards were on horseback then they would overtake us. I spent much of the next day worried about our uncertain doom.
Then I remembered a line from a fellow author. Thaddeus White said in a blog interview, "Nothing completes a character like their demise " (You can read the whole thing here). (He's a fantastic novelist, by the way). That got me thinking how I would roleplay Hadari's death in such a situation.
Due to trauma in his backstory, he definitely wouldn't allow himself to be captured alive. He also misses his former wolf pack (the party being his replacement for them) and fears them to be dead. So I figured he would die fighting in a frenzy of panic and fear. His end would be that of a tragic hero.
This helped me to understand Hadari on a deeper level, which helped my role-playing for the next session. It also brought me peace of mind if the party got into such trouble.
A week later, we discovered that the city guards were more worried about putting out the fire our rogue started than chasing us so we got away clean.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback
No comments:
Post a Comment