Time Travel: alas poor Ari...

[jchrisobrien]

Sunday was another day of rest and relaxation, of leisurely doing laundry and moving the gaming table back to the attic. The intent was to visit a friend and drop off some Buffy tapes, maybe watch an episode or two, then head over to my DND game. But alas, time stole away from me. Off to the game then, another session of searching for the missing King's son, which was cut abruptly short by my character's demise.
I haven't had a character killed in a game in ages, and it was a little sad. I've only played Ari for a few games, but I already had the personality down, and foresaw great and interesting things for the character. Now her looted body is zombie food. As per our group's pact, I rolled up a cleric for the party (which we sorely needed) but I have yet to get into the character. I was getting very tired as the game was winding down, but also a little surly. Clerics are, more often than not, not as much a character but a walking source of healing. They don't get to do much else. Perhaps I'll scrap the character, or try to make it a little more interesting. Or start expecting a little more religion from the players if they want to get healed. See the light, heathen!

Comments

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

J. tends to have the same problem with her cleric in the occasional (practically bimonthly) D&D game I run (you'll perhaps be happy to know that John the Fighter is still around as "that NPC guy that shoots arrows and sometimes hits but otherwise does little"). As a cleric of the halfling god of death (in an appropriately "eat, drink, and be merry" sort of way), though, the ale-swilling little guy has some leverage he could apply if need be. They're crawling through catacombs lousy with the undead (so her character gets a little extra respect for making skeletons cower left and right), and the cleric has so far bit back most criticism of the attendant grave-robbing his pals have been engaging in so long as they get to clear out the unnatural abominations that have cheated death. But he could always hold back a healing spell in exchange for a promise not to disturb the burials of the true dead, I suppose. And it wouldn't be too much of a leap to let a mortally injured character die naturally. (I also doubt that the cleric would cheerfully go along with a Resurrection attempt...)

On the other hand, this is largely straight old-school hack-n-slash dungeon crawling, and by mutual agreement actual character development hasn't entered much into it. We're regressing to middle school.

Re:

[silas7.livejournal.com]

That about sums John up to a T.

He's also very mediocre statwise. Most of the rest of the party is running around with 18's here and there, and the best I can muster is a 14 wisdom.

Now I'm the first to argue that having an interesting background and personality is the best thing about role-playing, but just like in mirror life, it's easier to get things done when you have high stats. :)

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

Well, at least John is coming up on third level, so his THACO will improve soon and he'll perhaps be able to hit things better. (It would have been fourth, but the party ran into a wraith, and as "red shirt security guy" he got to serve as an object lesson to the rest of them to show them how much trouble they were in.)

Also, I've been running him and often forget to give him a turn when I'm also doing all the monsters. J. has suggested I have his character sheet float around to whichever player isn't so busy at a given moment, which is what I'll do next game.

(The other main NPC, Marie the Cavalier, has been transmogrified into a player character in the hands of Mr. Hsieh. Oh, and Woody the Wood Elf betrayed everyone and has gone missing. He'll probably be back as a villain at some point.)

E.