Sarah Darkmagic

Recently I got in trouble because I suggested to someone that they play boldly. The person in question took it to mean that I was asking him to change his personality type, that he should act like an extrovert. While I can see how he came to this opinion, that's not what I meant at all. Heck, I'm an introvert.

For me, playing boldly means a few things. Most importantly, it means coming outside your play style comfort zone and having your character do interesting things. It's really scary, I know. D&D doesn't have save points and there is always an underlying risk of character death. But the truth is, I'm not some heartless computer adjudicating the rules exactly as written. And the players aren't some sort of kill bots looking to rack up the most damage possible against the big bad guys. (Well maybe they are, but that's a different story.) Doing the same thing week after week, using the same powers in the same way, over and over again, makes for a boring game. I can try my best to shake things up by adding different challenges, but if the players approach them the same way, then I've accomplished nothing.

Besides, it's these moments of vulnerability, of epic wins and epic failures, that make for great gaming stories. We all hate to fail, the sting is great and it lasts for quite some time. When I was a kid, I played softball and always was quite scared of striking out. Instead of doing the rational thing and realizing that even the heroes of the game fail 7 times out of 10, I would put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to just make it on base. As the strike count increased, I would try to make the strike zone smaller and smaller. I had a great on base percentage but nobody was patting me no the back over it and I don't have that many great softball stories. This same scenario translates to the gaming table. Jump off a cliff onto the back of a giant spider, and you are probably going to love every moment of it. Do the safe thing and spend two turns climbing down a rope, and nobody's going to get that excited, including you.

If you're introverted, like I am, doing this will take some work. First, you need to decide that you trust the rest of the table. This is a huge issue, I know, and incredibly scary. But until you show that you trust them, your fellow players are never going to trust you. So you'll still be thinking of those cool ideas in your head (and I know you are) but no one is ever going to know how awesome you can be and they aren't going to help you get there. The truth is, they are often just as nervous and scared as you are. Sometimes it helps if you invent a persona for yourself. Base it on the true you but just tweak a few things that hold you back from fully participating. If you are still full of that inner monologue of failure, read Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton. Totally changed my life. True story.

So, how this different from asking a player to be an extrovert. For one, I'm not asking players to do these things in front of a large crowd or even in front of complete strangers. I'm also not asking them to play act or even get into precise detail. A player totally can act boldly while keeping things in terms of game mechanics. Sure, everyone might not get the cool factor as easily, but the player sure will, and that's what's important here. The best gaming moments often don't sound that way at the time, but later, when everyone is doing a recap, they will sound legendary.

It's true, coming up with truly bold, brilliant ideas all the time is near impossible, but doing it just a small percentage of the time is likely to enliven your table and make your experience a better one. It can be scary and nerve-wracking for sure, but remember that your DM is a person and he/she probably has a small idea of what you are going through. And by deciding to give your character, well, character, you might become more engaged with the game world and you might just find that your DM really isn't out to get you after all. Unless your DM is Chris Perkins. At that point, all I would have to say on the matter is "Don't split the Party" and "Aeofel Lives!"

Sometimes D&D sessions aren't going to go the way you like. Even if you run a published module that's been extensively play tested, there are going to be off nights. Wednesday was one of those nights. Part of it was we were feeling a bit of the tension from the week before. In addition, some of us were feeling the stress of work. Another part was all of us, including me, were having a hard time getting into "character." So we got off to a rather slow start.

Eventually we all settled down into the tale of a haunted ship. The Captain Torend was quite beside himself due to the strange happenings on his ship. Being relatively new to the boat and the command, he had no idea what was causing the wind to leave the sails on a windy day or the strange noises in the galley in the early hours of morning. He offered the PCs free passage to Andernach, if they would help him with his problem.

With this information, the PCs decided to spend the night in the galley. They soon were awakened by four ghosts. Over time, the ghosts told their story. The former captain, Capt. Malloc, had made them walk the plank. Their captain claimed it was due to the liberal rations of ale the group availed themselves to, but the ghosts say it was because they knew his secret. Malloc was smuggling priceless artifacts out of Andernach. All they wanted was for someone to retrieve their bodies and give them a proper burial.

When the PCs agreed to do this, the ghosts made sure that the wind always blew in the needed direction and the PCs made sure the rudder was pointed in that direction as well. Once they arrived, the PCs went to work figuring out how to get the bodies out of the water. A few of them swam beneath and immediately saw that the bodies had been turned to stone. One of the adventurers went right up to the stone "statue" and tried to move it with her hands. She was instantly shocked by the Petrifying Coral and became a bit dazed as a result. Some of her friends saw this as well and worried about her health.

This is the point of the game where things started to really break down. The players had rushed into this a bit. Part of the problem was in running this like a combat encounter even though the only "combat" was disabling the hazard and freeing the statues. A number of the players admitted afterward that being in initiative order made them less likely to work together as a team. Because they didn't go down, assess the situation and then come back up to plan, a number of the party had a few rounds where there wasn't a whole lot they could do. Another issue was that I had made it a bit too easy to work around the coral. This was our first underwater encounter so I was a little afraid of making it too hard for them. In addition, I was really hoping to avoid normal combat. But, if I had to do it again, I would have added a natural creature whose only ability is being able push the PCs around, and potentially into the coral.

While I can't say it was the most fun we ever had at the table, I'm glad I decided to experiment with my group (not on them). They learned a few things about how to approach different sorts of challenges and working together as a team. For me, I am now able to more clearly explain why I don't like running role-playing and/or skill challenges in anything resembling initiative order and why skill challenges are a great framework for running certain non-combat encounters. Not sure if I'm going to do it right away, but soon I'll experiment with them on ways to create a great teamwork experience at the table while still dealing with environments where rounds matter.

Besides, it wasn't all bad. After they retrieved the bodies and started sailing north once again, I regained control and teased the next part of the adventure. Somehow I found enough courage to change the tone of my voice slightly to that of a story teller. From there I was able to set the ground work, spinning a tale about mist covered islands in the center of the lake which appear only to those who are in need and a tower, built by Lilith, the protector of the powerless. As the boat approached the center of the lake, the mists did part and the islands appeared. I left the group there and ended the session.

[Edit: The petrifying coral is a based on the elite hazard Gorgon Mud DDI]

I've always had a soft-spot in my heart for story tellers. I grew up on stories. My parents are quite imaginative people and they shared that ability with my brother and I. Many a summer weekend was spent camping, fishing and hiking. We would build "bows" out of sticks and yarn, "boats" from bark, twigs and seaweed, and forts from couches, chairs and blankets. Everything was possible. Sure, sometimes it might seem pretty silly to an outside observer, but to us, these things became real.

With these tools, my brother and I would tell epic stories. Our swing set often became the sole means of crossing a fast moving river or a stream of magma. Other times, it became a military training ground. A rope tied to the top of the slide let us "climb" when we were too young just to run up it. The double-seated swing became a space ship that we could make move faster by our ability to move it faster. A few packs full of supplies and some water guns made us into soldiers. Many a war was fought in our backyard. We created our own games and just had a ton of fun.

While we always were readers, as we got older, our appetites became insatiable. The town library became our favorite destination of choice. By this time, my brother had discovered D&D. Some of his friends had the books. He read them and then did his best to invent his own version of the game. So many of our excursions involved looking through books of ancient and medieval weaponry for interesting ideas to add to his game. My time was spent on a variety of subjects, everything from Native American culture to the geography of Africa to Greco-Roman myth to how to dress well. I still haven't figured out that last one. However, I spent less and less time writing stories during this time, even though I wrote a lot. I just didn't think I was as creative as my brother and so much pressure was on me to do well in school so I could get into a good college. It was bit of a difficult trade-off to make but I did succeed in getting into a wonderful school, Dartmouth College.

As for many geeks, college was a magical experience for me. One my favorite random experiences occurred relatively early in my college career in the basement of a fraternity. I've romanticized it a bit by this point, but a stranger appeared one weekend. I could tell that he was not used to chatting up random strangers, particularly girls, but we somehow hit it off. Pretty soon he was telling me all sorts of fantastic stories. Instantly, I was smitten. I spent most of the night listening to whatever stories he was willing to share until sleep's sweet lullaby wore down my will. Unfortunately, this was in the time before Facebook and I quickly lost touch with the stranger in the tavern. It was a while before I was able to surround myself with my own band of storytellers, but eventually I joined a coed fraternity and met a wonderful bard who became my husband.

While I gained this vast reservoir of other people's stories, I never felt comfortable with my own. Part of it is that every time I write, I put a bit of my soul into it whether it's the story line or word choice. Even today, sharing what I write is a bit of an intimate act, a baring of my soul. This anxiety was further amplified by the feeling that I could never organize a story the way the professionals do. I lacked a framework for my stories, something I never needed as a child when things were just about having fun and something that is hard to understand with a blank sheet of paper in front of you. This is where starting to play D&D comes in. Sharing my experiences, good and bad, serious and silly, have given me a bit of my confidence back. But beyond that, being able to study and interact with a ton of great people has increased my knowledge both of writing and game design and has helped me get a feel for this strange land I find myself in.

Often I hear that people are afraid to take the leap, just as I was. I think this sort of leap is something that seems to be much simpler to do as a child, where play is an acceptable activity and there is so much less to lose. But the truth is that all of us need some play time and we automatically lose when we bottle away those parts of us. So, please, don't let fear hold you back. Find a group of close friends, get some good food and beverages, and go for it! You have nothing to lose except your fear.

Figuring out character names is really hard for me. The problem is entirely within my own head too, which makes it even more difficult. Somehow, when I was a child, I got this idea that the name needs to mean something. Not the sound of the name or how it rolls off the tongue, but the names themselves. When I would try to write fiction as a teenager, I would sit there with baby book in hand and..still come up with nothing. First, I would page through the book, trying to find a name with a meaning the conveyed some extra understanding of the character, a bit like an artist who puts little hints about their work in the background. I would then try to randomly pick a name, but I was never really happy with the outcome. Eventually, I would just give up on the act of writing itself, frustrated that I couldn't even do something as easy as name a character.

Even then, this importance I attached to names seemed silly, but I was stuck. Fast forward about 20 years and the problem remains. Not only that, but now I get to name even more characters. So, I've come up with some coping mechanisms.

• Do the rest of the planning first. Sometimes as you plan, the name will come to you. This is how I came up with C.C. Clementine and her brother Darius.
• Steal names from other places. The ruling noble, Sirius Darkmagic, was named for Sirius Black. He is a great-great uncle of my first character, Sarah.
• Name them for what they do. I was having a hard time thinking of a name for Sirius' wife. Then I decided she had the old blood of Arcadia in her veins and often sang songs of the fabled land. It may be silly, but naming her Melody helped reinforce that connection. Similarly, two Dragonborn blacksmiths became Hammar and Anvil.
• Be random. Not every name needs to mean something.

While it's not a perfect fix, these guidelines help me a lot. Sure, sometimes I'll pick a really stupid name and break the suspension at the table. But most of the time, my players are more than happy to just roll with it.