Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Kick Off to a New Campaign and the Difference of Character Concept and Character Play and This Has Become My Longest Title Ever.

It started.  Last night around 6:30.  Fantasy Grounds did not crash and the only technical glitch was some echoing in Rob's mic. 

So there we lay in the virtual world, me as Rolondo the bard, Rob as Agnar the illusionist and Dwayne as Brother Dani (pronounced deny) the cleric started in the campaign face down in the dirt from a sleep spell.  Rusty as the chaotic evil GM made sure to describe that their were flies in our mouths.  A caravan was hit hard by bandits.  We were fortunate to be in the fringe when we went down and escaped the spear in the chest while you sleep maneuver. 

Before I go further this is where I discovered the concept of my character was not going to fit in with the others as well or still unsure how Rolondo would fit in.  Sure I can play my guy as planned, but it would take a lot longer to get things done.  The first few sessions in figuring out how these characters are going to mesh together.  Or even if they will.  I want to enjoy what the GM is developing and find a cooperative relationship with the other players, but still be an individual. 

Other people have different ways to play, but I prefer to have a cooperative group.  That's not to mean I don't like tricking or sticking it to another player once in a while.  But for the most part I want the party to be a team that works together. 

This is were when a character is first developed it can be a rough sketch or have a forty page background.  Either way its hard to know how to play your character until you see what the others developed.  In old AD&D terms, you can't be playing a paladin type if you have two others playing assassin and evil cleric type characters.  Either they change or you change or maybe the GM has developed a situation where the players will need to cooperative even though they are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Anyway, right now I think we are all figuring out our characters and how they fit in this new world.  Right now we only know how bad the road dirt tastes and the Village of Lessof.  Back to the game...

Brother Dani wanted to bury the dead, but we had no shovels, but that didn't stop him.  I wasn't about to ruin my mandolin playing hands by digging them into the hard dirt and stone, but I wasn't against the idea.  Plus during this conversation I found a little my quirk my character has, he corrects their word usage.  In a nice way.  They kept calling the animals who eat the bodies carrion.  It was corrected.  Anyway i volunteered to go to the village and get shovels.

The village was a run downwith some interesting NPCs.  Rusty had me cracking up a few times.  While exploring the village I found another quirk of Rolondo, he over thinks stuff.  He tried to correlate what was going on in the village to this old tale he knew from a child. 

The three plot lines we have going currently are:
1. A chicken stealing fox.  Agnar caught it and brought it back to the village and that's where we left off.
2. I decipher some ancient script on the alter in the church.
3. And of course the bandits that hit us. 

The point I made when we were tracking the bandits was what would we do if we found them?  We didn't fare so well the first time.  And there were a lot more of us then.  Mostly everyone else was killed. 

So that was our kickoff session.  With the fox caught and a celebration looming I'm thinking things are going to get hectic real quick. 

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like an intriguing start -- I like the character quirk of correcting other characters' word usage "in a nice way". That one's going to lead either to laughter or to tears, I suspect. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Based upon some wonkiness in our current Pathfinder game, I am going to demand that we all sit down next time and develop a group template the next time we play.

    Who are our characters? What's the glue that holds us together? What are we hoping to accomplish? How did we get together?

    I hope the activity helps us to have some cohesion, sense of purpose and harmony. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You missed a few commas in the last paragraph. And I think you mean "Almost everyone else was killed".

    ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sounds like a fun session. How do you like Fantasy Grounds overall?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm always glad when I see someone writing about understanding the importance of roleplaying as a group activity over the faithful play of an individual's character concept. Disrupting another player's fun for the sake of "good roleplaying" what your character would do regardless of consequences to the group is not good gaming, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bard > Well I was sitting here having a Indigo Montya moment from the Princess Bride. "This word you are using. I don't think it mean what you think it means."

    christian > I couldn't agree more. I would like that also.

    Greg > I only got one thing to say to you. Pooping Orcs.

    Paul > I like fantasy grounds a lot. We've been using in for several years. Once in a great while it gets ornery, but well worth the investment.

    Doc> Thanks. That part happened by accident. Just sorta came out.

    ReplyDelete