Chatacter Names - Some Thoughts

A few weeks ago a read an article on Big Ball of No Fun about PC naming. It was about why a player get to choose his character name if they, themselves, could not choose their own names. No one gets to choose his own name, why should the player's choose their character names? Although this does make a lot of sense, the characters are their creation, and as creators, they choose the creature's name.

But let's think about it a little more. Actors play characters in ways that they are creators themselves and they do not get to pick their character's names. They create a unique way the character act, talk and express themselves but are still stuck with the name someone else gave them. Does that make their experience less valuable? I do not think so.

Why am I saying this, you ask. Am I against the the player's choosing their character's names? Well, yes and no. Let me explain what I mean with this.

Getting Out of the Dungeon

I love Dungeons & Dragons. It is definitely my favorite RPG (both in terms of mechanics and settings). But I still like to play other games, other RPGs.

Last Saturday I went to a RPG event here in my city called "Sai da Masmorra" (which could be translated as Get Out of the Dungeon). The goal of the encounter is to promote games that are not well known, or at least, games that people don't play anymore as often as they used to. Basically, as far as I understood, anything other than D&D 4e, D&D 3.X and basically anything using the d20 system badge (although there many d20 games largely unknown). Even though I think some people there don't know D&D 4th, which makes it a unknown game to them, I have no problems with that, I have my ongoing D&D group and I went there to play other stuff anyway.

Campaign Report - The Price of Freedom - 03

After chasing two slavers into the ancient temple, the adventures found out that it still had some working traps. They managed to avoid them but the shaman's spirit companion wasn't so lucky.

The group was still hearing sounds of people talking loudly ahead and decided to go forward instead of checking the door on the right side of the room they were in. The corridor ahead was in total darkness so the battlemind and the shaman picked up a torch each and started moving.

They soon reached a small room with four pillars in the center and saw what seemed to be a corpse on the far side of the room behind a pillar. The battlemind decided to look a little closer and saw that the man behind the pillar was still alive, but paralyzed, his eyes still moving and looking at them with terror. At this moment giant scorpions plunged at the group. The battle was fierce, the scorpions had a venom that could immobilize and deal ongoing poison damage, and once bloodied they would deal acid damage to every creature adjacent to them. It was a fun combat. One of the largest scorpions ran away into a passage to the right when his companion and all of his hatchlings were killed.

Custom Made Character Sheets for my Dark Sun Campaign

Ok, this is more of a "show off" post than an actual helpful or insightful post. But you can probably take something good out of this, like how is it nice to invest some time into making good things to give to your players to make them more interested in your game and wanting to come back for more.

And that's not everything. On our first two sessions we were using the usual character builder sheets, and although it's complete and have everything they need to play, it's like five freaking pages long. So the player's (who are not all veteran 4th edition players) had to turn pages all around to search for things they needed to see, and the sheets had a lot of information they did not need or did not need at their level. So I decided to make one that would be smaller (just one sheet printed on both sides) with everything they needed. I made it look good too and have a Athasian feel but still look clean. They LOVED IT.

I Have a Confession - I Killed a PC

It happened on our last session. The party was facing a boss, a defiler who had just finished a ritual to transform him in some kind of demon draconish sorcerer, and they were winning by just a little (two of six were down and making death saves).

The boss was with just 30 hit points when he decided to make the run. He managed to escape through the door and run through a corridor leading further in the dungeon. When he ran out, the party didn't chase him, they choose to stay together and heal the dying and the poor child used in the ritual (they had to pass through a skill challenge to save the child's life). I should have said the majority of the party, the barbarian decided to run after him and end this once and for all.

The defiler seeing the barbarian chasing him, alone, turned back and fired his necrotic bolts at him. The barbarian dropped and the boss ran away. At that point the group was in the middle of the skill challenge to save the child's life, trying to remove all the necrotic and demonic energy around the kid. They did heard the cry of the barbarian when he was hit and fell, but they had to choose, they would either run to save their companion or the child. They trusted the barbarian would not fail 3 death saves too quick and would be able to save him after the kid, but they were unlucky.

The child was saved (although it cost the infection of a demonic force inside one of the characters), but the barbarian died, he failed 3 saves in a row, he was dead. I killed a character, and it wasn't that difficult as people say it is in 4th edition.

At that time I felt like I had won something, I was kinda in the villain mode, so I was excited he managed to escape and take someone out. But a few minutes later I was worried, I just killed one of my player's character. Is he upset? Will he be willing to make another one? Or will he be hating this game now?