(no subject)

[polychromatic]

Well, here we are.

I love Dungeons and Dragons.

If you'd asked me five years ago whether I would ever see Dungeons and Dragons as the highlight of my week, I would have laughed. I have never really fallen under the thrall of "high fantasy", turn-based battles always seemed to lack any kind of urgency to me, and dice are my natural enemy in any game I've ever played. I was convinced that there was absolutely no way the combination of all three together was going to do anything but bore me to tears. But - as is so often the case - I didn't want to miss out on spending time with my friends, especially as our work commitments and adult responsibilities often made it difficult to find time to see each other. So I begrudgingly agreed to throw together a character for our first attempt at a D&D game. I approached the character creation itself with some enthusiasm, putting together a druid gnome mostly so I could turn into animals on a whim and cast spells because that sounded more fun than just fighting.

And thus, Ninove Loopmotin Cottontail etc etc was born. (I had read that gnomes were given something like five names so I made an effort to be "authentic". I cannot for the life of me remember the rest.)

I don't remember much of her backstory, she possibly didn't really have one. Our friend had volunteered to be our DM and followed the story laid out in the official book. A lack of preparation and his propensity for showing up 30 minutes to an hour late severely dampened my little spark of enthusiasm for the game. It was a slog to get through each session, and we accomplished very little in the 4 hours it would take to play. We did little to no roleplaying and fights took an excruciatingly long time to finish with very little tension. I often sat there at the table, committed but also bitterly wishing we were playing a board game instead, which would at least guarantee some kind of fun. Suffice it to say, I was trying to get my character shipped off to study with some other old druid or - a more permanent solution - have her killed in battle. I could never quite manage either.

The game fizzled out eventually, and I was honestly a little relieved. We went back to whatever our regular meet-ups were and I assumed that was the last of it.

Not so!

One of our friends who had joined in our previous campaign (he had one character he promptly killed and replaced with another character not too dissimilar from the first) volunteered to run a game. He'd had experience playing before and had invested a bit of time into world-building, placing us in a scenario where druids were outlawed and non-humans were looked upon with mistrust. Naturally, we had to make lives a little hard on ourselves!

Joining once again mostly because I didn't want to miss out on time with friends, I decided to stick with the druid class because I couldn't be bothered to learn a whole new system. Since I hadn't been that attached to my previous character, I decided to go with human male this time, reasoning that I didn't really have to know a whole lot to play a human character. 

And thus Darwin Brightwood IV was born.

I put a little more effort into the character creation this time. I crafted a backstory about Darwin coming from a family that lost its fortune and suddenly had a whole bunch of mouths to feed with no discernible skills to do so. Darwin was so far down the line that his name was an afterthought, sharing it with his father and his eldest brother. When the opportunity came to pawn him off on a traveling druid who was grateful for their begrudging hospitality, the family did so in a flash, and suddenly this hermit druid was saddled with a new charge who was none too bright nor studious. I decided that he was trapped on this island that was so hostile to druids because he had spilled soup all over a very important Arch Druid at some sort of druid gathering and had been cursed with a fear of water, and his mentor had run off with vague platitudes about Darwin having all the skills he needed.

It started off promising enough. We had a core set of players that were all game to have a good time. But while our DM this time was significantly better prepared and crafted an overarching storyline and a few recurring NPCs, he was impatient with us and handed out great boons and harsh punishments with little reason, like killing off a character's missing mother within the first few games because of our out-of-character indecision. We had some fun moments and he introduced some interesting mechanics (Jenga towers as a skill check was one), but overall I fell back into the same resigned feeling that I could probably be having more fun than those four hours tended to provide.

Eventually that game fizzled out too, with none of us really seeming too upset. I liked Darwin, but I never really had the chance to develop him beyond clumsy and good-natured, and there was nothing too compelling about his backstory to keep me invested. I didn't necessarily want him to die, but I wasn't going to be too torn up if it happened. When we quietly stopped scheduling games, I thought that surely this was the end of it. We'd given it two decent attempts, and maybe Dungeons and Dragons just wasn't for me.

To her credit, our friend Jessie was not going to give up that easily.

From my understanding, Jessie had had several very positive experiences with various D&D games and was convinced it was something that we could really enjoy together as a group. Having been part of campaign with friends from work under the guidance of a professional DM, she felt that we were owed a more "typical" experience with D&D than the ones we had been afforded so far. Seeing it as a kind of "last shot", she cajoled us into trying a one-shot game with the same DM and a few of her friends. I agreed, but was wholly unconvinced that it would be something I would want to continue. When it came to characters, we were given the option to create our own or pick from some profiles that the DM could randomly generate. Not really wanting to go back to my previous two characters and also not wanting to invest any time into the character creation process again, I opted for the latter. One week before our one-shot game, Jessie forwarded us the character profiles. I asked "Siri" to pick a number between 1 and 12 to help me choose a character.

And thus, Praxana Copperlark was born.

Or adopted.  Whatever.

I'm sure I could have made do with whatever character I ended up with, but I was somewhat delighted at the idea of playing a bard.  In my attempts to understand the potential of D&D for our second go, I often had episodes of Critical Role playing in the background while I did chores, cooked, or did crafts. While Percy was probably my "favourite" in terms of characterization and overarching storyline, it was hard to deny that Scanlan was the scene-stealer of the show, and the episode where he single-handedly took down an entire household of enemies with ingenious play was probably the first time I had felt truly invested. I had no misconceptions that I would ever match the truly comedic, inspiring, and improv-heavy heights that Sam Riegel reached with this character and class, but I recognized the flexibility and freedom in a bard character. I was pretty sure - at the very least - that I could probably have some fun with this character.

The character sheets prepared for us gave us all we needed to play our one game. Praxana was a Mountain Dwarf Valor Bard who had a Lawful Good alignment. My weapons and spells were picked out for me. I walked in having decided only that her goal was to collect stories and that if the opportunity ever arose, she was going to be very bad at accents. The DM helped establish a few relationships between characters to give us more of a "bond" and had us roll for tokens; Praxana ended up with a "butt earring" that made her more attractive to the opposite sex. All the better for a bard, really.

That first game was a ride. We went to resolve a mysterious wailing well for an old elf who cut our rope and sent us tumbling down to our deaths - a very-near TPK in the first fifteen minutes of our game (Joan's monk survived by sheer luck and grit). We were revived by a very young dwarven girl and journeyed through the Underground, eventually making our way to confront a bad guy in cahoots with the elf. We managed - after various mishaps - to win our fight and escaped to the surface. The DM skillfully guided us through the game, keeping it moving at a brisk pace but never robbing us of our choices. He populated the game with a few interesting NPCs to keep us engaged and left us with enough of a resolution that we could happily end there, but also with the promise of more story.

I wouldn't say I was hooked, but I was intrigued. Although I was in the background more often than not, I had enough small moments that I could get a sense of what I would want this character to be and how she would interact with the other party members. I could see how this could lead to a really engaging experience and a fun thing to share with my friends. The DM was clearly comfortable and confident in his role and I'd had a thoroughly enjoyable time. When Jessie suggested we consider trying a series of six games, I was open to giving this thing one more go. Maybe third time would be the charm?

Jessie sent us a few more resources to help flesh out our characters and prepare for the campaign. I spent a rainy day "rolling" my way through Praxana's life-story thus far with the help of Xanathar's Guide to Everything, piecing together her family tree and her otherwise pretty mundane life given her 107 years. I made a few changes, opting for the more flexible "Lore Bard" and the more forgiving "Neutral Good" alignment. I finished with a clearer sense of her goals and personality and entered our "Session 0" planning night feeling pretty good about what I had. Jessie helped us "roll" for relationships as we had some new players/characters joining where others had departed, and Praxana ended up with an old friend and adventuring buddy in a Cleric Goliath named Thrunk. We sat down and gave each other a few bare-bones important details that we felt our characters would have shared, and away we went, committed to bi-weekly games for the next six weeks.

We are now 21 games in, and I am hooked.

Our "core" group happened to gel nicely and these games have been a bright spot while I worked through my grief and increasing anxiety after my grandmother's passing. They have remained a bright spot as our daily lives were turned upside down by a global pandemic. Sure, playing online through various websites and apps is not quite the same as playing in person, but I'm grateful we get to play at all. While the mechanics of battle are things I am still becoming accustomed to, many years of LiveJournal and Dreamwidth roleplay have made me comfortable with becoming "attuned" to the instincts and reactions of characters and personalities that are not like my own. I have become increasingly more comfortable with Praxana (a more confident, ambitious, and cheeky personality than I am, but also a bit more cowardly in battle than I'd hope to be) and as a result, I am more invested in her story. I have enjoyed her commitment to stardom and the Ampersand Company, her tight purse-strings except when it comes to children and orphans, and her bond with her buddy, Thrunk. I am mildly perplexed but mostly amused that Praxana enjoying trying to get a reaction out of an uptight elf who is the head of the guards has resulted in the majority of the party "shipping" them. I have enjoyed occasionally pulling out songs for spells (I do love musical theatre, after all) and am immensely grateful that the DM has recognized how terrible I am at insults and does not make me come up with them on the spot for my Vicious Mockeries if I don't want to. I was surprised at how emotional I felt when soldiers died in an ambush on a supply escort and I knew that Praxana would feel this loss keenly and want news of their untimely deaths to be sent back immediately, so their loved ones would not suffer the way she and her family had, never knowing the fate of their missing father. I am honestly giddy at how fun her interaction with her youngest brother was - something that was not discussed ahead of time with the DM at all - and I am excited at the prospect of having some resolution to her only big (if rather straightforward) storyline, which was something I hadn't really anticipated. Unlike my other two characters, if Praxana were to die, I would probably be devastated.

Now I write down any songs that come to mind that may be useful in the future. I make sure I know my spells and how to utilize them to what I hope is their greatest effect. Inspired by Jessie, I dress up for our games, experimenting with hair and make-up in a way that I've never been inclined to before. I look forward to the 4 hours every two weeks where I get to forget that our world is falling apart, and instead get to play as a plucky dwarven bard who is hopefully helping to do some good. It has become so important to me that I have asked my boss and colleagues to help me juggle my schedule so as to miss as few games a possible. 

I love Dungeons and Dragons.