I've always got a kick out of playing D&D, and especially the co-operative storytelling aspect of it. Specifically, it's co-operative storytelling about a bunch of characters who are insane and/or bad at what they do. It's weaponised incompetence, and so much fun.
Case in point: in a recent session, the party was in town and found out that a Big Bad was coming to get them. They needed to leave town immediately.
The initial plan was as follows:
- Walk out of town, past the guards and through the gate, like normal people.
Now, being D&D, that wasn't going to happen. The players immediately launched into a spirited, if futile, discussion of how we were going to do this. Everyone whose character had a special ability wanted to find a way to use that special ability in the course of the plan.
So, after lord knows how long, the final plan went something like this:
- Break into three groups.
- Group A:
- one character walked out through the main gate like a normal person
- one character struck up a conversation with the guards, oversharing to the point of making the guards suspicious
- one character tried to pickpocket the guards
- one character turned into a highly-conspicuous magical horse, then convinced another character to ride them out through the gate, making the guards suspicious
- Group B:
- two characters went to the dock to smuggle themselves out on a ship; one somehow drowned
- Group C:
- one character used their contacts with the thieves guild to get themselves smuggled out of the city through the sewers or something
I'm not 100% sure about the details, because no one was. But, while incurring only 1 in 8 fatalities, we made it out of the city. At this point, we we realised that no one had thought of how we should all meet up again. A bunch of stuff had to be retconned so the adventure could continue.
And that's the fun of adventures and storytelling: whatever you think is going to happen, won't happen, and everything is going to go to hell. But if you're all sitting around the table laughing like idiots and having a great time, who cares?
Also, I should introduce my own character, Father Hiram the halfling cleric. I used HeroForge to create his character in 3D, then bought a full-colour 3D-printed miniature of the little twerp. I was amazed at the quality of the end result. Awesome stuff.
Father Hiram, the cleric who thinks the gods are a bunch of jerks. |
In other news, the first draft of the new book is going great! I'm at 75000 words and counting, and just starting the buildup to what will be a wonderfully chaotic climax. The characters are really starting to shine, and I'm looking forward to introducing them to everyone.