How to Play: Tropes/Habits/Misconceptions
H2P (How to Play)
Player Tropes, Bad Habits, and Misconceptions.
I subscribe to a lot of social media platforms about Dungeons and Dragons. I see a lot of questions and talk with a lot of people online. Here are some of the more common issues I see pop up that I think need to be clarified for anyone that is wanting to play in Taeris.
ALIGNMENTS: Not how you MUST act, it is how your character WANTS to act.
Note: I covered alignments in the Basics section, but I think it is worth covering them again.
Alignments are how your character feels about how the world should operate. When it comes to laws, do you think orderly societies are the way people should live (lawful), Do you believe in personal freedoms over everything else (chaotic), Do you think too much of either those is a problem, and maybe a balance, or somewhere in between is best (neutral)? Do you go out of your way to help people, and are mortified at the thought of hurting someone for no good reason? (good) Do you consider others just creatures to use or ignore as you wish, hurting them is nothing…and sometimes even funny? (evil), or Do you believe in not going out of your way to help people, but not really wanting to hurt then either? (neutral).
Your alignment is your character's outlook. It is NOT a mystical force that makes you do certain things. People make hard moral choices all the time, yet their alignment does not automatically change.
A lawful good person that is starving and near death might steal a pie out of a villager’s window. They would feel awful about it and may even do what they can to compensate the victim, but they would still be lawful good. However, if this person just decides, on a whim, for no reason to steal a pie, gets away with it, then thinks “Hmmm…I like this” and begins doing it on a regular basis, then maybe they (and/or the DM) should think about an alignment change.
A chaotic evil person comes into town. They loathe all these high class rich smug city folk. They envy all their possessions (even the poor have stuff). They cannot stand how weak they are as individuals, relying on the protection of the guards. They know they can just rampantly steal and kill on a whim but the guards will defend the townsfolk. They may get arrested, banished, or even executed, so the character does not act of these urges, instead, they follow the laws and go about their business. This person would loathe this, perhaps gritting their teeth, dealing with these weaklings, yet their alignment would not change.
Alignment as a mystical driving force really got traction when the original Paladin class was introduced. At that time, a paladin character had to be Lawful Good. If you did not hold up to the paladin code, you were stripped of your powers and became a fighter. However, the way this stringent mold was interpreted caused the problem. Deities chose characters to become paladins because they were lawful good. Being lawful good did make you a paladin. Deities wanted lawful people (to follow the tenants of the religion) and good (to ensure the safety of other members, and to encourage the popularity of the religion). Deities did NOT want a “champion” that never listened, and used deity granted powers to kill other followers on a whim. When paladins acted against their lawful good standards, the DEITY stripped the paladins’ powers away not the ALIGNMENT. Many people confused this and thought, “Dang I am not lawful good anymore, so I cannot be a paladin anymore!”, when in fact they should have thought, “Dang I am not acting like my deity wants me to, so my deity is going to strip my powers away”. This might seem like a subtle difference, but it is a very important one. People started thinking that the ALIGNMENT was forcing the paladins to act a certain way, when in fact it was their deity.
In summary, Alignment is how you want to act, but it is NOT a force that causes you to act in a certain way. Your character may have many motivations, and alignment may certainly be one. All motivations should be considered when deciding alignment issues. Additionally, doing something in extreme cases, and doing something on a regular basis are factors in alignment decisions. Habitually ignoring your alignment conscience and going against your stated standards means you your stated standards probably are not your true standards.
MURDER HOBO: Great for video games, not so much D&D.
Closely tied to the alignment discussion is the Murder Hobo trope. A Murderhobo is someone that kills npcs and monsters without prejudice to a point where it disrupts the game. They kill important NPCs and don't care about the storyline. Murder hobos generally like being chaotic neutral (or chaotic evil) and simply wander around killing whoever and whatever they want, without good reason. Or they may just kill anyone that annoys them or does something they don't like. I've seen people post about this being a viable play style, but it is not a play style, it is the opposite of a play style.
This trope makes no sense for several reasons.
- Point in time. Your character has been in the world (presumably) since birth. They (most likely) grew up somewhere, and (almost certainly) interacted with others at some point. As child or early-teen in a more primitive society (let us say medieval) with murder hobo tendencies would mostly like have not made it to their mid-teens. Someone, or something would have ended a vicious creature such as this. Were they able to make it through their weaker years and into late-teens/early-adulthood and then manifested their murderhobo-ness, the locals will NOT want to interface with the offenders at all!
- Local shop keeps and merchants are not going to want to get anywhere near a crazy murderer(s). They are not going to sell them goods or services. They are going to avoid them at all costs. Intimidation and persuasion are not an option, as the merchant knows that at any point, on a whim, the murder hobo might start doing murder hobo stuff. What good is gold to you if you are dead? If the merchants cannot avoid the threat, they will leave the area. In any case it comes down to the murderhobos not being able to get ANY goods and/or services. In a video game setting this might not be an issue. In reality, this could (and mostly likely would) be devastating to the murderobos. Also…
- Any local person in charge of a societal area is NOT going to stand for a crazy person (or persons) running around and looting, murdering, and raping the common folk. If the murderhobos are too powerful for the local protectors, then they will call in their liege lord (or whatever) to help them. This will constantly keep escalating until there are no more good guys, or no more murderhobos.
In summary, Murderhobos obviously make no sense in a semi-realistic setting. If you run your games with a modicum of logic, murderhobos will not be a problem, someone likely would have taken them "hunting" and they wouldn't have returned (at an early age) or the local authorities would have incarcerated or executed them. Let the players know this up front. In Tearis, most civilized areas will not stand murder hobos, and will respond and/or escalate as required.
Note: There are a couple of areas where they could exist. One is if, say, the player was of noble and/or privileged lineage, where their abhorrent behaviors would have been overlooked as they grew up. Rule #2 above would certainly still occur in this case, but it would be much more subtle on the merchant’s part. Prices for goods and services could be astronomically high. They could live or be from a less civilized area where murderhoboing is "acceptable (and somehow survived childhood in said area...which is unlikely). In this case, the moment they start murderhoboing in a civilized area someone is going to respond.
Also, note that one-shot can cause issues. Started at level 10, and having the player commit to being a murderhobo can be problematic. They are extremely powerful and have already passed the point in time that their issues would have been dealt with.
BARDS: Why so horny.
I am not sure exactly when bards turned into total horndogs trying to persuade everything to do both normal and stuff we cannot discuss in mixed company.
- Bards are not all wandering floozies/horndogs. There are many types of bards (skalds, poets, minstrels, balladeers, jongleurs, troubadours, harpers, actors, etc etc etc). The wandering floozy/horndog is just ONE way to play a bard. You are certainly welcome to play a bard as such, but please don’t think this is the “way bards are”. Also, be prepared for the consequences if you chose to seduce a powerful person's mate or offspring for less than honorable reasons.
- Persuasion does NOT make someone do something they inherently would not or could not be do. You cannot persuade a monarch to give up their kingdom with with a quick discussion. If a monarch was so easily influenced, someone would have done it LONG ago! A bard cannot make a person give up their whole life and livelihood for a quick roll in the hay by a few minutes of charming words. The pretty barmaid/boy has seen thousands of travelers, and if they can fall for the bards advances, they would have already fell for hundreds or thousands of them. As with the monarch example, were they so easily duped, it would be happening constantly. If there are extenuating circumstances and/or the target was already slightly inclined (or at least not totally against it), it may be possible, but normally this would take a lot of work for the bard to achieve this. Speaking of skill checks…
SKILL CHECKS: The Monk that jumped over the moon.
Again, this is covered in the Basics, but I also wanted to touch on it in more detail here. Skill checks are a randomized roll against numerical value applied to something your character can do. Notice the “your character can do” part. In no case (short of DM whimsy) will a skill check allow your character to do something they simply can not do. I have noticed arguments about skill checks usually fall into one of two categories.
- Arguments about what (or how hard) a certain task is. One person says I want to roll athletics to give myself a boost and shoot an extra arrow this round in a heroic effort to slay the ogre. DM says no, you cannot do that. Person says, well I am part of a medieval reenactment groups and we do archery and I know a guy that can shoot 72 arrows in six seconds, so I think I should be able to do it. These types of discussions will come up and they are difficult to resolve sometimes. DMs should listen to players and consider their side. Players should try to understand where the DM is coming from. A DM should respect the players input, in the end the DM decides what happens, as a player, please respect the ruling. DO NOT make a big fuss during the game session about it, and never disrespect or blatantly dismiss the other person’s opinion.
- The characters are super humans in a magical world and thus should be able to do outlandish things that defy normal laws of physics. Tearis is played with (relatively) normal physics in mind. No, the monk cannot jump over the moon.
- In summary, make sure you understand that anything you want to do is in the realm of possibility. The DM will always try to accommodate all reasonable requests from the player.
CHARACTER POWER CREEP: Superheroes? Not quite yet.
There is a lot of discussion online about what role the characters play within the world. On one hand, you have the people that think characters start out as “superheroes”. They believe the characters are much more powerful than their NPC counterparts, and that the characters already have great renown and respect amongst the commoners when they start at level one. The other camp believes that the characters are not really that special and have little to no renown until they earn it.
Taeris is designed to be the later. Characters are not that special at first level, in actuality, they aren’t much better than the top end town guard (depending on the town size). Most officials believe the adventurers are unreliable and unproven and are one kobold ambush away from disappearing into distant memory. To gain renown and honor (or infamy) the characters must prove themselves to the masses. Level 1-4 you are just another bright-eyed optimistic (cocky?) adventurer. Levels 5-8 you are well known amongst the common folk and catching the attention of the powers that be. 9-12 you are known throughout the kingdom and big players are starting to watch (maybe even court) your allegiance. 13-16 you are actively being sought out by the upper echelon leaders to form alliances with them. 17-20 you are the big dogs now. You either in charge of people/lands or rubbing elbows with those that are. Your opinion matters on a kingdom-wide, if not world scale.
Your items, abilities, companions, and wealth follow a similar path. You likely start out with nothing amazing in your inventory and gradually gain increasingly powerful objects, and friends as you go.
But beware, your enemies hear of your renown just like the village commoners…
In summary, Taeris is designed for you to gain as you go. Typically, you will not be “given” any items or pets or whatever when you start. Earning these items is definitely a possibility (by design) and you are strongly encouraged to go out and take what you want. Want to be stronger? there are rumors of gauntlets that make you as strong as an ogre. Want to ride a Riddari Cat into battle? They train them for the gladiatorial contests up in The Pit, or so they say. Taeris is about the journey AND the destination, enjoy it!
VIDEO GAME: D&D (at least in Tearis) is NOT a video game.
Play your character like you want to play it. Do not fall into the common video game characterizations and tropes. Wizards can fight (just not as well as Fighters!). There are often multiple ways around enemies, look for them. Tactics count, use them. You do not need a Tank/Healer/Ute/DPS) group to play D&D (p.s. pet peeve alert, D&D does not really have Tanks.). A good DM will adjust encounters to your group as they see fit. Think of what your characters would do in a given situation, not what a video character would do. D&D is infinite! You can do nearly anything in it!
HIT POINTS
Hit Points are an aggregate of physical toughness, mental fortitude, luck, skill and etc. HPs DO NOT translate directly to a physical wounds (3 hps of damage does not always "look" the same). If you absolutely need a way to visualize this, think of your character having, say, 3 hp plus your constitution modifier of actual physical health. The rest of your hps are your skills and luck at soaking up damage, your training, your developed ability to shake off pain, your physical development to take damage, your determination to "stay in the fight" and many other factors. All other damage is subtracted first and those last few physical HPs are the lasts ones to go, downing you and sending you to make "Death Saves".
ATTACK ROLL
Perhaps the most misconceived and deceptively named thing in D&D is the "Attack Roll". During a round. Most people think an attack roll represents one physical hit on an opponent, and a successful attack roll is one hit that does a certain amount of damage. This is the wrong way to view it. During a round (six seconds of furious combat) you may strike an opponent physically one OR MULTIPLE times, you may force them back and cause them to twist and ankle, you may demoralize them with your combat prowess, you may punch, kick, and/or strike them with your shield. A lot is going on in combat. You are moving, changing your "facing" direction, aiming, jumping, swinging feinting, etc, etc etc. ALL of the actions you perform in a round can (if you "Hit") damage an opponent physically or mentally to take them out of the fight (i.e. reduce their HPs). Likewise, if you miss, all of this activity may not affect their will to fight (do no damage). Note, extra attacks to not simply mean you hit x times with one (or multiple) thing(s). It simply means you are more adept at eliminating their will to fight. For instance, if you can attack twice during your round using a longsword and a short sword. You miss with the longsword but "hit" with the dagger. This could mean you are fighting and never actually hit with your dagger, but because you were using a dagger, it allowed you to open up the opponents defense and nick them with your longsword. In short, it is not a move up, attack once per swing, then move back scenario.
ARMR CLASS
If you have read the previous two paragraphs, I am sure you can see where this paragraph is headed. AC is a numerical representation of your ability to avoid, soak up, and mentally ignore damage. It may be using your dexterity to completely avoid an enemy's strike, it may be using your shield to intervene and prevent a blow from hitting you, it may be your armor absorbing a blow from a rock, it may be gritting your teeth and shrugging off a terrible blow, it may be your extra mental fortitude of knowing you are wearing solid mental and believing you won't be hurt by an attack. All of these factors go into your AC. Per peeve warning; shields must be used in an active manner to defend yourself. You cannot consistently use a shield as an offensive weapon and a defensive too at the same time.
