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YES! Yes, Klogg knows what thou dost seek!   'Twould take a daft person not to, and Klogg can assure you that he is many things, but Klogg is not daft!   Though Klogg's Master would flail him for sure if He knew that Klogg let thee in here, Klogg is excited about coming in here with all the stories; even if Klogg must have someone read them to him.   Seek thee what thy will, but hurry... Klogg hear noises in the passageway, and Klogg must get back to cleaning before the Master finds out Klogg is in here with thee.   That sound!   Is that my Master?   O, the terror... look the at the table of contents below and seek what thou wilst, Fair Adventurer.   Klogg must away before my Master catches him here again...

Thou hast come on a most memorable day! Mine own Master hath consented to tell the a tale of wise instruction on the subject of ROLLING NEW CHARACTERS for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons! Keep thee quiet, and listen to His wisdom; mayhap thine own rolls will seem much sweeter when thou dost look at it under His divine light! Read on, Dear Traveller...

Lesson the First: Rolling New Characters.

When rolling new characters, nothing bothers me more as a Dungeon Master (DM) than when a player rolls a 10 or 11 and I hear him/her say: "AW, MAN! Look at that CRAPPY roll!"   Why do so many players think that in order to enjoy the game they must have über-characters?   This first lesson will (hopefully) dissuade some of you from using your knowledge of statistics to determine how long your character will survive, and to look more positively at the potential fun to be had with a so-called weaker character!

Let us begin with Corymm Bottom-Shire, my very first Halfling character (whom I still have somewhere wedged between stacks of notes on his life-story, the Second-Edition Players Handbook and Deities and Demigods, but that's another story).   Now Corymm is a thief (Chaotic Good), but Corymm isn't your typical Halfling... let's look at his statistics:

These are actual Method I rolls, with absolutely NO cheating involved.   I can almost hear the cries of "YEAH... but that guy MUST be dead by now!"   HAH!   That's what I have to say to you!   You only wish he was dead at second or third level!   My friends, Corymm is alive, well and at level 10, with his own Guild of Thieves (which has been very prosperous in the past, even donating some of its excess Gold to local charities [  besides the local milita  ] and events).

"But how can such an obviously weak character survive in the wilderness and dungeons of a mythical world in which you play AD&D?"   EASY... well, not exactly "easy", but it can be done with some creative role-playing, a good party of friends, and a few darn good dice rolls.   I have to admit though; at level 8 Corymm did part from the world for a brief period of time due to an unfortunate understanding with an Ogre Mage.   He used to have an 8 Constitution.   Having travelling companions who have gold socked away and a high-level cleric in the main town or city you frequent also helps.

First of all, you have to think to yourself: "Why am I playing this wonderful game?"   If the first thing that came to your mind was gold, magic items, or conquests-a-plenty, then I doubt if this web site is the one you want to be looking at, because I have neither the time, inclination or patience to deal with anyone who is into the "Hack-N-Slash" style of role-playing (or should I say "roll-playing"???)!!   I doubt if I will ever understand that rationale when it comes to role-playing.   A Fantasy Role Playing Game (FRPG) such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is NOT a game about winning.   It's about being creative, it's about using your mind to express yourself and it's about taking on a role.

If you think about it, playing any FRPG is like acting... you have a character, that character has a personality all it's own, and it is up to you to make that character grow in the game.   GAME; as in "fantasy", or "pretend" (for any of you hardcore anti-FRPG fools who may be reading this)!!   Do you think that any decent actor/actress just reads a script one time and out comes the character and their Oscar?   NO, NO, NO... an actor takes weeks, months, and in some cases years developing a character.   To really see what FRPG's are about, you should be no less active about your own character(s) development.

I don't mean quit your job, leave school, and do nothing but play FRPG's all day long!   That's not it at all...what I am saying is that the best games and the best players come from the heart, not the Staff of Wizardry, Bracers of Defense AC2 and Power Word: Kill.   Just as an actor doesn't read the script once and jump onstage or in front of the camera, don't roll a character and go blindly in and out of dungeons hoping to get that +5 Flaming Bastard Sword of level draining.   Take a few minutes after creating the character and give him/her a history.   Give him/her a weakness or two.   Make that character more believable; more challenging.   I can guarantee you will have more fun if your character has to actually work for their share of the treasure.

As an example, let me give you a short background about Corymm.   As you can see from his Constitution, Corymm is not the most healthy of Halflings.   I use that weakness a lot when playing.   Corymm is generally a happy fellow, but he's almost always sniffling, coughing, or itching something.   Not that he's a complainer... absolutely not... but he does seek the sympathy of others to help comfort him when he is ill.   He has used this ruse as a source of enjoyment for not only me, but others whom I have played with over the past 6 years since I first rolled his stats.

Corymm also has no parents (they died when he was an infant in an Ogre raid), but he does have an Aunt with whom he lived for most of his life.   You could say that he got his expressiveness of his "ailments" from her, because she always caters to his every need (even now, when he visits her; which he does faithfully every year around Yule... hmmm... coincidence?) and want.   Corymms' Aunt Begrinah has also played an intregal part of his development as a character, especially when she was kidnapped by his Guild's competitors and they demanded a ransom for her (100,000 Gold Pieces!) and relinquishment of his guild.   That debacle took place over 6 gaming sessions to resolve, and we learned that Begrinah was quite the archer as a young lass!   Having a creative DM also helps when fleshing out a character.

Don't let the stereotypes of traditional fantasy characters and races hold you down, either.   Sure, your human barbarian with 18/65 Strength can wield a mighty axe, hate mages and get in drunken brawls over bar wenches; but give him a unique twist: make him afraid of spiders, cows or something!   Make him cower at the site of water or make him narcoleptic, but do something different.   Be creative... let everyone know about your weakness during the run of the game.   The look on your companions faces as you declare his fainting at the sight of the Water Elemental will be worth at least a thousand gold pieces!   For fun once I had Ranger who had a nervous tick.   I actually asked the DM to make a "nervousness" check on me when confronted with difficult monsters or decisions and give me a -1 or -2 penalty on all my rolls and saves if I failed.   "Why on Earth would you do that..." you say?   BECAUSE I ENJOY ROLE-PLAYING!!   No character is going to be fun to play for very long if you never lose, always get the best treasure and have no foe who can conquer you.   Hey, if you just want to kill things and get treasure, play Quake!   Show some creativity, have some fun and do things that you wouldn't normally do.   Your characters won't always survive, but that's the beauty of FRPG's... you can roll up a new character and try something different!!

This article has just rounded the tip of the iceberg when it comes to character creation.   Hopefully, though, it will give you some ideas on your characters.   You don't need to have all of your characters stat's to all be above 15 to have a good time.   Sometimes a bit of a challenge will actually increase your enjoyment of the game.   So the next time you roll an 8 or a 9, think about how you can use that to your advantage, not how you can trick your DM in looking the other way and roll an extra dice!

Well, that's it for this go around of role-playing lessons and tips.   Please e-mail we with any comments, questions, or suggestions for future articles about role-playing games.   I will try to get a new article out every two to four weeks, but please check out the rest of the site, because I have some really interesting ideas on new areas for the site (maybe even an interview section if there is any interest in that)!

Keep thee still...   The Master is sleeping now, and if thou dost wake him; well, I wouldst most definitely not want to be in thy boots!   The article which thou dost seek is ready... and 'tis why my Master is now asleep.   He works ever-hard on the articles of which thou dost seek, and like the most powerful magycks, 'tis a wearisome task!   If thou dost want to read the first lesson, get thee to the Guild Hall of Adventurers and seek thee the scrolls of wisdom.   Watch thee out for Klogg, though.   He be the one who cleans the passageways around the Guild, and he be nothing but a poor, sodden pest sometimes.   Why the Master keeps that fool around, I shall never know!

Lesson the Second: Alignment Interaction Between Characters.

Who knows why role-playing games have "Alignments"?   Can anyone tell me...?   YES... you in the chainmail in the back, the one holding the glaive-guisarme.
*Listens attentively*
Uh-huh (he says sarcastically)... "Because otherwise the wheels would not be straight"... hmmm... I think you are looking for the "Car Wars" website; and that is on the other side of the 'net.   How about letting me take a crack at it?   Hmmm...!?   Well; I would say, because there is always an element of good and evil in any role-playing game, and the characters who live in the role-playing world must fall somewhere in there in the grand scheme of things.   Maybe it is not completely correct, maybe it is not as eloquent as it could be; but the general idea is there: Player Characters are going to base their decisions, actions and behavior on whether or not the are Lawful or Chaotic; Good or Evil (and maybe they just might be Neutral on many issues as well).   Sure, a good character can commit an evil act just as well as an evil character can do some good, but there will always be a general attitude &/or philosophy that the character will adhere to, and that is his or her alignment.   In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons there are nine possible alignment paths for any given character, NPC, or creature.   Looking at the chart you may or may not have seen for the Alignments, it can be pretty confusing.   Some alignment combinations may coincide (at least in part) with others.   Here is an example:

Sure, it's not pretty, but I didn't want to scan it and have TSR angry at me.   I DO want to work there someday...

Those nine different combinations have created more havoc between player and DM than just about anything else I have ever known.   Some people want to be the noblest knight in the land, vanquishing evil from the country side and saving the "damsel in distress".   Others want to play the flip side: a dashing villian whose devilish charm could melt the most rigid of sensibilities, relieving any unwary noble of their purse of gold coins.   As a long time DM, I have seen it all... groups of players who want to be the most pious of Paladins and players who want to be nothing more that "Denzar: Eater of Souls and Destroyer of Worlds".   But as we will learn, playing a good (or evil) character is much more difficult than just saying "I am a Neutral Good Mage, may I heal you?" or "I am a Chaotic Evil Fighter, give me your gold before I cut you like a fish".

In the campaign I am a player in now, I am using a 3rd level Paladin named Aeryck Iron-Nail (named after my first character on Ultima Online); your basic, run of the mill Paladin... or is he?   I have always thought that a Paladin is one of the hardest classes to properly play, because of the VERY strict alignment regulations that one must adhere to when playing this type of character.   Sure, it's relatively easy to tithe most of your earnings to your Church/King/Belief/etc; and keeping a limit on the magical items is painless also.   But keeping on the straight and narrow in the Lawful Good alignment is the tough part.   How will you act in certain situations... especially when you must adhere to the strictest of moral codes, no matter what the consequences for your character.   And remember, being Lawful doesn't always equate to being nice.   The same goes for being evil.   An evil character can be sweet as pie, but will still take any given opportunity to get ahead, even if it means leaving his/her party to deal with the dracolich they just ran into.

Our DM (a great guy I work with) put us into a situation where we were kidnapped and taken to the regions most notorious thieves guild.   Sure, I killed the lead rogue who attacked us, but who knew he was good friends with the Big Man On Campus (BMOC) of the thieves guild?   Anyhoo... we were told (at sword point, of course) that we were to break into the Kings castle, steal a book of demon summoning from the Kings Sage, and bring the book to the head of the thieves guild.   Yeah, right... like Aeryck was going to go along with that!   My character was ready to die a slow, painful death so as not to compromise his morals and beliefs.   In our party, there is a Druid named Gallagher (no relation to the comedian) who got into a morality debate with me (in and out of the game) on why I should go ahead and help the thieves guild so that I may live and do more good in the world as opposed to dying fruitlessly.   Well, to make an extremely long story short (we still debate about this at work every now and then) we were able to get out of that situation only to find out that the leader of the guild is the Kings main diplomatic aide with the neighboring kingdoms.   Talk about confusing!   In reality, I figured... "Hey, I can always roll up a new character, but my character cannot do something that he would find morally reprehensible".   In the game, my cahracter gave no quarter.   That is just how it is for him, and it didn't matter to him if nobody else agreed or understood.

Having characters of different (and especially with diametrically opposed) alignments in a party is difficult at best, but one of the best things I have ever come up with as a DM (IMHO) is my rule of never allowing the characters in the group to know the alignment or class of the other players.   I can almost hear the resounding "What?" from many of you.   That's right; I DO NOT let the other players know what the alignment or class of the other characters are.   That is something for them to figure out on their own.   Think about it this way... do you know what the alignment is of your teacher?   Your doctor?   Your mechanic (OK, most mechanics are probably Chaotic Neutral, but that is another story!)?   No, you don't... but you can make reasonable guesses about that person by looking at their actions and the way they interact with you.   The same goes for other characters in any role-playing game.   You may know the person who is playing the character, but that person is not that character and vice versa.   The look on a Paladins face after he/she finds out that they have been working with a Chaotic Neutral Mage will be a classic, especially when the Paladin must explain how he/she worked with the Mage without knowing he/she was chaotic.   IF the Paladin finds out, that is... you just never know.   A really well played evil &/or chaotic character would never reveal him/herself unless absolutely necessary.   That's where not letting the other characters know the classes of the party can come in handy too.   A Chaotic Neutral Thief can pass himself off as a Lawful Good Fighter if need be, enhancing that characters chance of possibly swindling everyone else in the party later.   A Lawful Neutral Cleric could pass himself of as a Chaotic Good Fighter as well, perhaps taking on the guise of a guard in the citadel of an enemy to spy on them.   Alignments are tools for the player to use with his/her character, and not a strict rule to be adhered to in the most stoic fashion.   They should be used to enhance the fun of the game, and not be used to stifle it.

This brings my second article to a close.   I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.   I know that this article will cause a lot of comments, and keeping in line with the greatest of 'Net traditions, I am actively seeking comments on this article, and suggestions for future articles.   Please do not flood me with requests for creating your campaigns for you.   I have neither the time nor inclination.   IF, however, you need some help with a specific part of your campaign that you are having trouble with, please do not hesitate to e-mail me.

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