{.right} Halberds and Helmets Podcast Episode 2 just got too long so I recorded an extra good bye and an extra hello and fired up Audacity to split it into two. This time we’re talking about classes and the secret sex lives of elves and dwarves, and Judd’s questions.
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2011-04-06 Yoga is the new Wisdom
2007-07-28 More Roleplaying Game Podcasts
Hello this is Alex and this is the third part of the Halberds and Helmets podcast. Yay!
I’m firmly in the camp of race as class and that means there is no free combining of your species and your job. So there are no dwarven magic users, there are just dwarves, there are no thief elves, there are just elves and elves can fight and cast spells so they’re always basically multi-class fighters and magic users. The halflings are just halflings, they’re very small people and they fight like fighters and the dwarves are small people and they fight like fighters, they have a little bit of extra of this and that and they know a bit about stoneworks and they can sneak about in the wilderness and that’s fine and it’s simple to understand, simple to explain at the table and it works for me. So there’s no not really any need for more than that.
I also got rid of clerics because I felt that the Christian inspiration for the spells was a bit weird. I didn’t enjoy explaining to players the different magic systems. Two magic systems was already a bit much. Clerics need to know all their spells because they can always pick from all their spells so now you need to know as a first level character, as a player who’s coming to the table for the first time, you need to know about eight spells or seven spells instead of just one spell.
So all of these little things made me think that maybe I don’t like clerics and when I started playing, I was in the 80s, I was 12, my mom came and said, hey, I got this new game from Germany, the Schwarze Auge, the Dark Eye and it’s weird. You should read it and then run a game for us and I did. I ran the game for my mom and her friends and some older kids. I was the youngest but I guess my mom knew I was the nerd so I got to read the book and run the game and this game did not have clerics.
I was absolutely confused by clerics when I came upon clerics in D&D later. I thought, what the hell is this? Why is there religion in my game? I did not understand and so I guess I’m fine with removing clerics.
Actually I also removed thieves but then I had players who wanted to play as thieves and I figured, okay, if you really want to play thieves, I’ll put them back but they don’t have any special abilities. They have some skills. That’s fine. They don’t have great attack bonuses. They don’t have maneuvers. They don’t have anything and then I thought about something that I think is important. It’s important to me. I like playing fighters because fighters are simple. You don’t need to remember any spells. You don’t need to save your resources for the big fight that’s maybe later and you don’t have to play someone that’s smart. You can play someone that’s dumb and I realized this is cool. I want a game where casual players and more engaged players can sit at the same table and just pick different classes. I recently joined the D&D5 game and I wanted to play a fighter but then I ended up playing a wizard. The details are not important but I realized when I looked at the other people playing barbarians and fighters and all that, it was complicated. It was as complicated as playing a wizard and that’s weird because I like fighters because they’re simple. So in my game, fighters are really simple and now we get back to thieves. Thieves are basically bad fighters. They can just steal your stuff and they can’t fight. So what I started saying is that sure, you can play a thief and sometimes you might get a surprise bonus and on the certain circumstances you might get double-dimensional but basically if you’re playing a thief, you’re playing on difficulty level, *hurt me plenty*. It’s going to be extra hard.
And it works. Nobody complains about thieves being losers because they know that thieves are losers. If they pick a thief, they know that they have to put some extra effort in. They have to play smarter, they have to avoid fights, they have to just find other ways to do things and I love that.
And finally, there is something that I wanted to... I sort of want my players to think about that but it never actually caught on and so I guess I’ll have to remove it eventually but something that I wanted the readers of my rules to think about was what does it mean to play one of those classes and I saw some quotes by Judd Karlman and so now we’re coming back to Judd again and he had some quotes for each class for the players of said class to think about.
So he says, for example, if you play a fighter, ask yourselves what slaughter haunts your dreams? Who do you hope to meet again in hell? That’s just great. Who do you meet again in hell? All your enemies? All your friends? Your dad? Your mom? Or your teacher? I don’t know. You tell me. It’s great.
For magic users, he says, who or what taught you sorcery? Why does it damn you? In my game, and we’re gonna talk about this some more later, having a teacher is very important. You don’t learn magic from books or scrolls, you learn it from other people. So this question about who was your teacher? I think that’s great. You can be from a school, tell me about your school, you can be an apprentice to a witch, tell me about your witch. You can be a hedge mage who learned it from the traveling folks around the fire. I don’t know, just think about it, tell me about it. I want to know. And who? And why does it damn you? This just gives you that extra bit of Satan and summoning and evil spirits and bindings. It just reminds you that magic can be darker, magic can be dangerous and powerful magic corrupts. And I love that.
For thieves, he said, what do you love about adventure? Who taught you your tricks? And again, it’s a question of teachers, probably of gangs, of hardship as a kid of growing up. I like that too. And why did you leave? Why are you on adventure? Did they run you down? Did they hunt you? Is there a price on your head? I’d like to know. And then as a referee, I can just add it to the game. I can have people looking for you. It doesn’t have to be the core plot of what we play. But every now and then, I can bring these things back. And I love that.
For elves, he said, what do you love and hate about humans? What inhuman thing will you do or refrain from doing them again and again? I think that’s important. Elves live long lives or they can or they should. But you are going on adventure with your elf. So that’s tricky, right? Why are you going to live a short life elf? And how do you relate to all the other humans? Are you a monster? Are you? You probably are, but you’re not showing. So what’s your secret? And having a secret that sets you apart from humanity, hopefully that influences the game and how you play your elf. Don’t just be Legolas who jumps onto wargs and serves down the stairs on his shield. Have something inhuman about you and bring it up. Don’t bring it up every 10 minutes. Don’t bring it up every single night. Bring it up once or twice so that we all realize how your perspective is different.
For example, I’ve had an elf say, why are we fighting? We should just wait until they all die of old age. That’s perfect. Of course, if you’re an elf, you just wait. They all all die. Orcs will die. Humans will die. The world will change. Then you’ll just come back and rebuild your city and regrow your forest. It’s okay. You have all the time in the world.
Then for dwarves, Judd asked, what feud curses your family? How come your parents wanted a child? That’s perfect. Dwarves, they’re greedy. They dig too deep. They care about the things they make. Why would they make a child? Some people say that in their game, in their campaign, parents make the children, for example, out of stone. That’s cool. It’s an interesting idea. I sort of like the question of why do you have kids in the first place? If you can choose, why do you? Especially if you play a dwarf and the focus of dwarves is not on family lives and love and all that.
Actually, in my campaigns, I play elves as you don’t know their gender and dwarves, the same thing. The elves are all androgynous, so you don’t know. They don’t tell. Dwarves all have beards and still they have children. Are there two sexes? Who knows? Let players think about this. I refrain from answering the question. I just put it out there and say, well, what is your gender? Just tell me. Don’t worry if your dwarf has a beard. All the dwarves have beards. That causes a little pause at the table. Then people move on and elves and dwarves are weirder than before. I like that. It allows me as a cis white male in a first world country with a stable income and all the privileges in the world to just think about these things as well and put that on the table. If you want to explore these themes, elves and dwarves can be your character with which to explore them.
And lastly, we have halflings and Judd said, why did your parents let you go? How do you get it over the lack of home and family? I think that is important. If you play a character whose main thing is that they like to smoke and sit at home and have birthday parties and second breakfast, then why are you on an adventure? I want to hear about your bull wrestling aunts and your cousins in the war and the sneaky hobbit army, halfling army, I’m sorry, Tolkien estate, don’t sue me. I said the wrong word.
Questions to help players who are curious about delving a tiny little bit deeper? But to be honest, it doesn’t come up that often in my games. I think the sex thing about elves and dwarves comes up more often than not because I enjoy this. And so all the NPC elves and dwarves will be sure to mention it if the players are interested in talking about gender in all that.
And all my magic users are probably somewhat corrupted and more corrupted if they are at higher levels.
And other than that, these questions are probably not all that important, but I would love them to be more important.
Anyway, I’m sure time is running out. So that’s my thoughts. And this was the second page of the book. And if you want to talk about ability scores, attributes, if you want, classes, races class, questions, leading questions for character generation, let me know, send me an email, send me a message, record a voice memo and send me a sound file. If it’s mp3, that’s fine. If it’s some other format, I’ll convert it. No problem. And I’ll put it up as well. It’ll be interesting to hear some replies. Cheers.
#Halberds and Helmets Podcast
