Post by zeraser on Aug 3, 2014 15:49:04 GMT -6
So I've been playing in this 5e campaign for about a month or so and having a blast. However, an early, impulsive character decision has led to some interesting and at times frustrating situations.
When the campaign began, I wanted to play a human fighter - like I usually do - in this new system. However, unable to leave well enough alone, I decided that my character would begin the game with a chemical dependency to a particular alchemically produced behavioral medication. "That'll be a fun angle," I thought. "I'll be like a nihilistic, detached Brett Easton Ellis character, but with a sword." How wrong can you go?
Pretty wrong, as it turns out. My DM has been insisting on "addiction checks", "relapse checks", and "withdrawal checks" to remind me - usually several times a session - of this crippling disease. It irritates me most, I think, because it invites the DM to violate what I've always considered a sovereign rule of DMing, one I'd never break: the player has sole control over her character's thoughts and desires. It also concretely impedes my ability to kill monsters and collect treasure, which I consider a cardinal goal of the game.
The weird thing is that the rest of the players really love my character's drug problem because it creates interesting role-playing situations. They're not wrong: it does! However, those situations emerge at the expense of my control over my character and my ability to play the game the way I want to. It's also quite frustrating to defeat an owlbear and taste the sweet victory turn to ash as my DM insists that I roll to avoid a moment of weakness. (Also, I've never suffered from a chemical addiction, but I imagine that this phenomenon - the monkey on one's back tainting every triumph - is probably a tiny, trivial taste of what those poor souls have to deal with on the daily. That's a much sadder thought than I care to entertain while rolling the bones and collecting my pieces of imaginary gold.)
I'm going to hang tight through the campaign, but this experience has taught me that (depending on whether the DM and players have TSR-era bloodthirst or post-White Wolf narrative inclinations) a snap "flavor" decision at character creation can have major and inconvenient ramifications in the long term. Next time, it'll be a teetotaling dwarf paladin.
tl;dr: Some people want to tell a story. Others want to win a prize. This dialectical tension is not easily resolved at the gaming table.
When the campaign began, I wanted to play a human fighter - like I usually do - in this new system. However, unable to leave well enough alone, I decided that my character would begin the game with a chemical dependency to a particular alchemically produced behavioral medication. "That'll be a fun angle," I thought. "I'll be like a nihilistic, detached Brett Easton Ellis character, but with a sword." How wrong can you go?
Pretty wrong, as it turns out. My DM has been insisting on "addiction checks", "relapse checks", and "withdrawal checks" to remind me - usually several times a session - of this crippling disease. It irritates me most, I think, because it invites the DM to violate what I've always considered a sovereign rule of DMing, one I'd never break: the player has sole control over her character's thoughts and desires. It also concretely impedes my ability to kill monsters and collect treasure, which I consider a cardinal goal of the game.
The weird thing is that the rest of the players really love my character's drug problem because it creates interesting role-playing situations. They're not wrong: it does! However, those situations emerge at the expense of my control over my character and my ability to play the game the way I want to. It's also quite frustrating to defeat an owlbear and taste the sweet victory turn to ash as my DM insists that I roll to avoid a moment of weakness. (Also, I've never suffered from a chemical addiction, but I imagine that this phenomenon - the monkey on one's back tainting every triumph - is probably a tiny, trivial taste of what those poor souls have to deal with on the daily. That's a much sadder thought than I care to entertain while rolling the bones and collecting my pieces of imaginary gold.)
I'm going to hang tight through the campaign, but this experience has taught me that (depending on whether the DM and players have TSR-era bloodthirst or post-White Wolf narrative inclinations) a snap "flavor" decision at character creation can have major and inconvenient ramifications in the long term. Next time, it'll be a teetotaling dwarf paladin.
tl;dr: Some people want to tell a story. Others want to win a prize. This dialectical tension is not easily resolved at the gaming table.