30 Days of D&D Day 28: A Character You Will Never Play Again

A character I'll never play again? Well, pretty much everybody I've named here is a character I'll never play again. Maybe we'll go back to the game with Dolly in it, I dunno. Probably not. And that's kind of the way it is in my D&D circles (and my gaming circles in general).

30 Days of D&D Day 27: A character you want to play in the future

Oh boy, there's any number of characters I want to play in the future. Infinity characters.

More tieflngs, of course. I mean, they're right there in the core book! Why not, right? And also more fighters, of course. As I said, I haven't made one in 5th yet (though I did draw the fighter in the quickstart, but we only did 1 session of that? 2?)

30 Days of D&D Day 4: Favorite Gameworld

Favorite Gameworld is a tough one for me because a lot of play at my table, regardless of DM, has been what's referred to as "homebrew" worlds. Meaning, the games don't necessarily take place in a published Dungeons and Dragons setting. So, I'm going to have to have a couple of answers for this one, actually.

Favorite published gameworld is a split between two I've never really played in (a single game session or two each, not games that took off): Ravenloft, and Planescape.

30 Days of D&D Day 2: Favorite Playable Race

My favorite playable race, hands down, is the Tiefling.

They aren't straight up half demon or devil, just....a little off. Something wrong in the family woodshed, as it were. Or right, depending on your alignment.

One reason they're interesting is yeah, they can be evil. You could be evil willfully, or as the product of your environment, whatever. But. They can be good too (or chaotic neutral, frequently a fun one). But their appearance is an immediate count against them. Walk into a room or down the street as the one with horns, and there's going to be whispers and opinions immediately formed. And that can bring an interesting dynamic to the person you're playing. 

The Curse of Imagination

I spend a lot of time dwelling in my imagination.

It's where I go when a certain thing (word, phrase, scent, scene) catches my fancy. It's where I go before I fall asleep. It's where I go when I write. It's where I go when I sit down of an evening to roll dice with friends.

As a writer, and a role player, one strives to render the tactile mental. How do you describe the feel of the rain? The smell of dinner cooking? The washer banging on the spin cycle? How do you describe the tightening of your belly when you hear somebody scream outside, only to realize it's just a drunk college student, but now your scalp is tingling and your eyes see too much and you have to wait for the adrenaline to wear off before you can go back to bed?

When you get it right, when you're so immersed in your head-words that the reality before you fades at the edges and gets hazy with your imagining, it's magical. This immersion leaves you feeling dazed when it's time to be done, wake up, turn the computer off, put the dice back in the bag. It leaves you with imaginary scents, and colors. It leaves you looking at things that you don't recognize, but feel as though you ought.

The problem, though. Sometimes there are situations you hear about, in the news mostly, and reactions are of shock, visceral and wordless. You think "oh no" you think "I'm sorry" and so many people say "I just can't imagine...."

When you are a dreamer, you can imagine. It doesn't render the unspeakable any more understandable, it doesn't make you better. It certainly helps lend to the truth of your dreams, dimension to your song. It is an empathy that can't be taught, and indeed you might not even know you have it until you get that twist in your stomach one day when you hear of a tragedy that isn't yours, not really. Until you imagine somebody's last moments as though a dream, or vision, or well rendered film.